The Evangelical Universalist Forum

New Book on UR

Studies Books
#21

Dave,

I fail to see how it’s a horrific portrayal. I go along with those Reformers that hold to the wrath of God as simply His removal or withholding His blessings of grace from those in hell. He hands them over and lets them go their own way. His wrath isn’t directly burning against them. He gently permits them to do evil being separated from His grace forever. He does keep them out of the new creation and in this way He is protecting the bride of Christ. The glory of His justice shines forever as He demonstrates His tender love for His children.

#22

Cole - I know the Reformed position backwards and forwards. I don’t think there is a way to put lipstick on that pig, if you’ll pardon the somewhat crude metaphor. :smiley:
In any case, I’ve said what I wanted and will now let it be. Peace.

#23

You obviously don’t or you wouldn’t be calling God a pig.

#24

Cole, you know very well it was the doctrine I was referring to. Let’s play nice.

#25

You failed to show how what I said is a pig. Also, The Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox also believe in eternal punishment.

#26

Some, but not all.

I am Eastern Orthodox, and I have read over 1,700 pages of the Orthodox Church’s liturgy. The words of the liturgy are the words of the Church. Universalism is all over the place in those 1,700 pages. I would bet good money that I could pick any page at random, start reading, and come to an affirmation of universalism within 10 pages (at most). In fact, sometimes the affirmations occur several times on a page, and/or on several consecutive pages. The overall tone and tenor of the liturgy is universalistic. There isn’t much there to hang non-universalism on. There are some (comparatively few) harsh passages in the liturgies of the Great Fast, but none of them is a clear teaching of non-universalism. Universalism is baldly and bluntly stated in the liturgies so many times that it must be in there literally hundreds of times in those 1,700 pages.

I therefore conclude that the teaching of the Orthodox Church is universalism. This isn’t to deny that there are plenty of non-universalist Orthodox believers, both today and in the past. But none of them (even the very greatest of saints) is the Church. We are each merely sons of the Church, and therefore each of us is fallible. In any case, the Orthodox liturgies are the only “official” teaching of the Orthodox Church. Every other Orthodox writing is only the opinion of the author.

#27

Tell that to the priest at the Eastern Orthodox church I use to attend.

#28

Hi David,

I too am reading your book, via kindle unlimited. I appreciate your forthrightness. Thanks for writing it.

Blessings,
Sherman

#29

This priest is not the Church. He is merely a fallible son of the Church. Even the very highest hierarch in the Church (the Ecumenical Patriarch of New Rome) can be and has been mistaken. Most heresiarchs (i. e., leaders and originators of heresies) were clergymen. Besides, one would mire himself in contradictions if he took anyone to be infallible. For example,the Orthodox archpriest Sergius Bulgakov not only believed in universalism, but he held that it is ontologically necessary. In other words, that non-universalism isn’t even a theoretical possibility. That it is literally impossible for God to NOT save everyone and everything. So which priest is the arbiter of Orthodoxy? Bulgakov, or the priest you mentioned? The answer is neither.

Here is one of my favorite examples out of many:

St. Maximos the Confessor was captured by the soldiers of the emperor. At that time the Roman Empire was in the grip of the Monolethite heresy (which taught that Christ had only one will). St. Maximos’s persecutors basically told him, “Hey, why not reconcile yourself to all us Monothelites? After all, all the bishops, even the bishop of Rome, are in communion with the Monothelites. You are the last hold-out.”

St. Maximos responded, “I don’t care if the whole universe takes communion with the Monothelites. I will not.”

St. Maximos is one of the most glorious saints of the Church. He took his stand not merely against “the priest at the Eastern Orthodox church I used to attend”, but against all the priests, all the bishops, and the entire universe. The Church judges St. Maximos in the right, and everyone else in the wrong.

#30

Geoffrey,

I have an Orthodox Study Bible and here’s what it says in commentary to Revelation 20:4-6

Not universalist at all.

The Orthodox Study Bible’s commentary on Revelation 20:7-10

Again, this is light years from universalism.

From the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese

#31

Cole, all those sources you quote are the opinions of various Orthodox individuals. I of course can quote the universalist opinions of other Orthodox individuals. I submit that that would be fruitless.

Where is the one place you can hear the voice of the Church? Not someone’s opinion, but the Church’s own voice? What is the one thing that an Orthodox cannot say of, “Well, that’s very nice, but I don’t believe that”? The liturgy. Everything in the liturgy is the official teaching of the Orthodox Church. Through the millennia, God has taken the writings and arguments of innumerable Orthodox individuals, and He has separated the wheat from the chaff, thus creating the miracle of the liturgy.

We must remember that most Orthodox believers in history owned ZERO books. They got ALL of their Orthodox instruction through the liturgy. Obviously, then, anything that the Orthodox Church wanted to make sure that the faithful believed was put in the liturgy. The faithful didn’t have study Bibles, or books, or pamphlets, or tracts, or magazines, or websites, or scrolls, or anything else. All such things either didn’t even exist or were the purview of the wealthy alone.

But please don’t believe me. I, too, am merely a fallible Orthodox believer. Read the liturgies of the Church. Better yet, participate in them. (Keep in mind, of course, that homilies are merely the personal opinions of the priest. God alone knows what errors, absurdities, contradictions, and even heresies have been spouted in these homilies. In fact, the heresiarch Nestorios, bishop of Constantinople, spread his heresy in his homilies.) You will find universalism asserted over and over in the liturgy. You will read a long time before finding passages that could possibly be interpreted as teaching unending Hell. But such passages are outnumbered 20 to 1 by passages that in no uncertain terms teach universalism.

If one does not accept that the liturgy of the Orthodox Church is the official teaching of the Orthodox Church, then anything goes, really. One could then say that just about anything is the teaching of the Orthodox Church, for there have been countless “Orthodox” books teaching just about anything you care to imagine.

#32

Thanks! Seems a few people welcome a ‘hard-hitting’ approach to damnationism.

My reply to Cole is simply that eternal punishment means that ultimately justice is never done - God never wins. Is that how we see God - a loser in the long run?

David

#33

David,

Part of God’s justice is Him keeping the evil out of the new creation. If people stay evil forever then of course the punishment goes on forever. So, yes God wins with His eternal justice as He demonstrates His tender love to His children.

#34

The beatings will continue until morale improves!! :unamused:

#35

Dave,

The punishment fits the crime. God’s justice is never cruel and unusual. People stay evil forever and are punished forever as God protects His children. God is eternal and therefore His justice must be eternal. Moreover, this glory has been there since the beginning. All past, present, and future events are eternally “present” to God in His timeless eternal now. We see this in how the Bible says that Christ was slain before the foundation of the world.

#36

I do understand it differently, Cole, which is why I am a member of this Forum.
I believe that God our Father Almighty considers us all His children, and that, just as he saved youand me out of His love, not our goodness, He will do for all.

#37

The Bible contradicts you in many places Dave as it describes those outside of Christ as children of Satan. God may be the father in the sense that He created the world but since the fall (separation from God) some have Satan as their father and their will is to do what their father desires.

#38

:smiling_imp: :cry: :angry: :open_mouth: :astonished: :confused: :slight_smile: :sunglasses: :laughing:

Nah, I’m not gonna drink the Kool-aid, Cole. People much smarter than me have made the EU case, I’m not going try and re-invent the wheel.

#39

David - I hope you know that I used the term ‘hard-hitting’ with admiration, not censure!! These days, just saying the truth plainly is considered non-PC. I’m glad you spoke plainly and clearly.

#40

You will know them by their fruits. The fruit of the spirit is gentleness. Not that I have never messed up but to advocate and promote this is unchristian. That’s why I will never be a universalist.