The Evangelical Universalist Forum

JRP on the Final Chapters of John's Revelation

Evangelical Universalism Arguments for Evangelical Universalism
#21

To be fair (and as I noted), it needn’t necessarily have been inserted to try to underplay (or deny) the evangelism and repentance in the final chapters of RevJohn. After all, if anyone inserted it late, it was the Greek Orthodox, and they’re historically pretty favorable to universalism (though not dogmatically so.) And after all, it isn’t like anyone claims that those who are NOT saved enter the New Jerusalem. (RevJohn itself is very emphatic otherwise, including just shortly afterward.)

More likely a scribe inserted it as a stylistic riff, to make the overall clause sound more similar to something a couple of verses later. That was one of several relatively common reasons for scribal alteration.

As I noted, dispute over this phrase is only important to people who think its inclusion weighs anything against evangelism, repentance and salvation at the end of RevJohn. (Or, at a more technical level, to people hugely gung-ho in favor of the Textus Receptus, especially that it somehow is in fact the “Received Text”.) The rest of us would have exactly no problem with its originality to the text, except insofar as the actual copy evidence strongly indicates it isn’t original. :wink:

#22

Evangelism doesn’t make sense if you believe in one final judgment for mankind that takes place in Rev 20:11-15. ( which I believe Rev 20:11-15 is final judgment)

Jason, Do you believe that the bible teaches one judgment for mankind that will be final? If not, why not? :wink:

#23

But the Spirit has revealed universalism to me infallibly, so there’s no more to discuss really. Will you agree with me and God, Aaron, or will you reject the truth?

:nerd:
Tom

#24

Yea, but you’re a fallible interpreter of whether you’re infallible! :astonished:

#25

Roofus: You’re a fallible interpreter of whether you’re infallible!

Tom: You’re not teachable!

Tom :sunglasses:

#26

Yea, but you’re not reachable :mrgreen:

#27

Tom,
I’m ROFLOL here. My kids are saying, “What’s so funny? C’mon, Mom! Tell us!” :laughing:

Sonia

#28

Tom: That’s what all the unenlightened who are under the sway of heresy say. But the Spirit cannot reveal contradictory things. And since you contradict me, you’re not infallible, because the Spirit has revealed universalism to me infallibly.

You could realize you’re wrong, of course. I pray that you see the error of your ways and repent while there is still time. Otherwise you’re in for a big ‘U-oh’ followed by a huge ‘Duh’ when you’re judged.

Tom :ugeek:

#29

Which, aside from ignoring the actual textual evidence spread for the phrase, could be flipped around just as easily: a static and hopelessly “final” (in that sense) judgment for mankind doesn’t make sense if there is ongoing, hopeful evangelism (much moreso, evidently successful evangelism!) after the (start of the) lake of fire judgment.

(I say “after the start of”, because only an annihilationist would say that that judgment hopelessly finishes–namely with the irrecoverable annihilation of the persons, as persons, being thus judged. God’s judgment of them must otherwise be ongoing, one way or another; and especially if God Himself is continuing to act to keep them in that state of existence. Which He must be doing if supernaturalism is true.)

Rather than trying to make a position fit into the text, I prefer to read a position out of it insofar as possible though also keeping in mind, pro or con, that it has to be compared with other canonical texts for fitting. So I do understand that sometimes it pays to read points into the text developed from elsewhere. But doctrinal interpreters have long understood the hazard for error is greater that way than by reading out from the text (even if both are necessary in some fashion for responsible interpretation).

Anyway, that’s why I created that other discussion thread. :wink: I’ll be getting back to that this weekend (hopefully) as my schedule clears up.

I do, although not in the sense you mean. I believe in an ongoing final “crisis” (which is the underlying basis for the word translated as “judgment” from the Greek) for impenitent sinners. So far as that goes, I’m on the same page as any advocate for hopelessly never-ending conscious torment (vs. annihilationism). But I believe God’s goals for the “crisising” are crucially different than hopeless for the sinner as a person. (And crucially different than hopelessness for many of the saved in regard to people they love!)

As to why I believe that way, and not in a hopelessly final static judgement for mankind: that would take a very long time to completely discuss. And you have proven time and time again that you have neither the patience nor the skill for detailed explanations. (Otherwise you would have been working on critiquing my analysis of RevJohn, instead of just mockingly dismissing it. :wink: )

Meanwhile, are you going to keep insisting that a phrase which has no evidential existence prior to the 1500s, is in fact original to the text? Or, alternately, are you going to present some textual history for the phrase in copies of RevJohn before the 16th century?

Not that it’s a big deal in the least to me whether the phrase is original to the text–I don’t believe in the slightest that its presence would hurt my case, and I equally don’t believe its absence hurts your case in the slightest. The only reason I’m pressing the point is because it’s, so far, another example of your general refusal to learn from new information. Why bother to have discussions at all if you’re going to just squint shut your eyes and stop up your ears, even on a point as minor as this?

#30

"Other canonical texts’ is being much too kind. It’s the typical REV tap dance. Fun to watch, but going nowhere and, certainly, not to the music of the Gospel. TheRev is marginal stuff as the real thing goes. The West has not had the wisdom to set it off to the side. Yet.

#31

Nope, just speaking from the standpoint of how things worked out historically. Also from the standpoint of someone who accepts the canonical status of RevJohn, which happens to be pretty much everyone else here, too, including the universalists.

Maybe instead of making hostile raw assertions along this line (plus demonstrably incorrect claims about the content, as you’ve occasionally done in other threads recently), you should bother to create a thread yourself to discuss things in detail?

Nor has the East, obviously, since the EOx not only accept it as canonical but have even authorized late alterations to its text (one of which rather famously threw off poor A37, as you might have noticed, who thanks to the NKJV and its underlying reliance on the Textus Receptus was just sure it must have been an original phrase).

In fact, the only groups who have “thrown off” TheRev (and/or never accepted it in the first place) are pretty danged marginal themselves. Not that I hold this against them. But still, this has been pointed out to you before. Trying to make acceptors of it look like the poor benighted minority, isn’t going to wash.

If you don’t want to deal with RevJohn, then stop participating in threads that deal with RevJohn. Or at least make more of an effort to be accurate in your data and logic when doing so.

#32

Jason, you said: "He is appealing to God’s omniscience, not to God’s omnipotence, in knowing ahead of time (as it were) who He will save and who He will give up on saving (or perhaps be unable to save due to some power, or due to some love He has for those He refuses to continue trying to save.)
What do you mean that God refuses to try to save (in the Arm mind) “due to some love”? Is this a reference to the idea of love respecting the freedom of the other?

#33

That was the particular example I have in mind, and it seems to be the typical explanation when Arm theologians (my teacher Lewis among them) try to keep God’s essential love in the account including to and for the hopelessly damned. I have a lot of sympathy for that explanation–I employ it myself when acknowledging the technical possibility of a never-ending persistent stalemate which would still count as universalism from God’s side of the account–but I have at least one huge technical problem with it, too: it seems self-refuting (at best) to try to explain the final and irrevocable loss of the freedom of the person to choose (i.e. a permanent inability to repent of sin afterward) as being a result of God’s insistence on respecting the freedom of the person to choose.

Given a choice between God acting to prevent the result of a person’s freedom to choose where that result would be the loss of a person’s freedom to choose, and God acting to protect the person’s freedom to choose a total loss of the person’s freedom to choose; it seems obvious to me that if the question comes down to God’s love in respecting and protecting the person’s freedom to choose, then God, in love, is going to choose what protects the person’s freedom to choose. For love’s sake, God will make sure the person doesn’t destroy their own freedom to choose, even if the person chooses to do something that would (apart from God’s grace) result in just such an irrevocable loss of freedom.

There’s a big point in my SttH metaphysical argument on this, too: any sin I do would, apart from God’s grace, instantly lead to my self-annihilation out of existence–incidentally destroying my ability to repent of my sin, too, along the way. But God graciously keeps me in existence, even though I sin against the very ground of my own existence. God ensures that despite my sin, I still can choose to repent of my unrighteousness and choose righteousness instead.

However, since it may be possible that an Arm theologian has some other idea of the hopeless damnation of the sinner somehow being the continuing fulfillment of the love of God toward and for the sinner, and since it wasn’t my purpose to discuss that particular appeal to God’s love in this paper, I just gave it a general description (allowing for advocates of an alternative position along that line) without critique and moved along without critique (so far as I recall).