The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Purgatorial universalism and relief from fear of God

Evangelical Universalism Arguments against Evangelical Universalism
#1

Over in another thread recently, Matt “[tag]Jaxxen[/tag]” (whom I have tagged to help guide over to this forum for contribution and discussion), one of our Reformed/Calv members, argued that a prevalent concept of penal substitutionary atonement, if true, deals better in principle (and so potentially deals better in practice) with relief of fear of God and His wrath than purgatorial universalism in principle (and so potentially).

I’ve added a bit of contextual explanation [in brackets like this] and fixed the formatting a little.

Dick “[tag]Sobornost[/tag]” (whose forum nickname I always manage to misspell, sorry) posted some replies to this (I don’t think he wants to talk about hell anymore for a while, but I’m tagging him to let him know there’s activity related to something he did going on here in another thread), but since he later acknowledged he had misunderstood Jaxxen to be talking about final damnation instead of purgation, I don’t know how much of what he posted he would want to pick up and use again. I do think some of his answer still applies in principle, but maybe I can rephrase it later in a less heated fashion. (Rimshot! :mrgreen: )

Some other important things were talked about in the rest of the thread, but I couldn’t find anything else specifically from Jaxxen (or in reply to him) on this topic. (There was a brief restatement from Jaxxen to Sobernost, after which Dick realized he hadn’t understood what Jaxxen was originally commenting on, but I didn’t see any new material on the topic from Jaxxen there.)

Seeing as how I was invoked, and we get along pretty well without calling our various beliefs about God horrible names, and this is a relatively unusual topic, I’m hopeful we can have a worthy discussion of this challenge here.

So, Matt, first, is there anything you’d like to add to this? (I won’t regard it as a fully exhaustive statement either way; just giving you an opportunity to flesh it out further if you want, maybe by adding something I overlooked in porting the topic over here.)

Second, I recommend that if someone replies to you in a way you regard as insulting (myself included), just don’t answer whoever did that; with the option of referring to something worth mentioning they said in a reply of yours to someone else, as you wish. We all have limited time and energy, and you’re a newlywed, and I wouldn’t say there’s anything wrong with deciding that someone simply hasn’t earned a reply from you.

Third, as an initial observation, while purga-u is the prevalent belief by commenting members on this board (which I also have the impression of), there are some here who are ultra-u instead. You’re going to have some quite different problems with them, I know; but I know from past experience that they’d not only largely join you (and may rather vocally do so again!) in a complaint that purga-u doesn’t free people from fear of God’s wrath, they’d also largely agree with you on the PSA rationale! In fact, they’d probably say they’re more PSA than you are! :laughing: I myself have commented on occasion in the past that if I became convinced that PSA (of the sort you’re talking about) is true, I’d be even more convinced Christian universalism is true.

(Also, I would have to reject trinitarian theism as true. That’s probably a whole other discussion; but as someone who regards orthodox trinitarian theism as logically prior to soteriology, and as logically contradictory to the described type of PSA, I’d have to be disconvinced of ortho-trin first, or of its relation to soteriology, or of its logical incompatibility with PSA, before switching to that PSA. It might be important for me to mention that, even if we don’t discuss it, so I’ve mentioned it. :slight_smile: )

Anyway, since the ultra-u’s might show up to drub me and the purga-u’s on this topic, I thought I should alert you beforehand of some allies you might not be expecting. :smiley: Or maybe even wanting. :laughing:

EUs, Arminis & Calvs -- OH MY!!!
#2

[Note: mod-edited to remove entire previous post quoted in followup]

Hey Jason, sorry about the delay in acknowledging this topic-I agree it sounds like a worthy discussion. I’m pressed for time this weekend until at least Sunday or Monday-it’s Saturday morning as I write this. But in the meantime, do you think that you could define your view of purgatorial UR? I think that’d be a good place to start and would clarify any misconceptions I and others may have. It’s easy for us to think or just assume we know something, when in fact we don’t. Thanks for taking the time to start this thread! Hope you have a good weekend!

Matt

#3

Yes, I’ll get to that before Monday I hope.

(I trimmed out, from your comment, my whole post that you’d quoted for followup, since that simply dittoed the immediately preceding post. This is likely to be a long thread anyway, might as well save a bit on the length. :slight_smile: )

#4

Hi Jaxxen –

A little dicky bird told me that my name had been mentioned here so I just wanted to say – yes it was remiss of me to fault your logic and the morality of your analogy of gold being refined in fire and God stoking the flames. Now if ya’d made it here or on another thread I’d have been more precise in reply and perfectly friendly to you – because I can see you are a nice chap and a friendly and intelligent one. As for ‘poor and silly Gospel’ well that’s an old Quaker phrase – and not one specifically directed at TULIP Calvinists. Again I do apologise for coming over all ‘Quakerly’ on the thread on which we met the other day – it’s just my eccentric way of offering some protection (desperate times, desperate measures and all that). I only actually think your gospel is ‘poor’ in the sense of being strictly limited like the ‘L’ in ‘TULIP’.

So a warm welcome back to you. I really have too much that is emotionally exerting in my life at the moment to have much taste for argument – and there are plenty of others here who will have an informed and genial conversation about different Universalist responses to TULIP Calvinism.

My friend Johnny Thunder Guts :laughing: really likes you and I’ve enjoyed your debates together in the past – so I hope you two can kiss and be friends again (especially if my rudeness heated things up for you). Johnny makes no secret of how he feels about the TULIP picture of God – but then he never has done, even when you two last engaged in flowery combat. Yep you two are like Esau and Jacob; and if any of us see you as Esau – rest you merry that our view of Esau is a positive one; Jacob was chosen as first fruits to ultimately bring God’s reconciliation to Esau (that seems to be Jan Bonda’s Reformed Universalist view of the rival twins).

I hope you have good conversation here and wish you blessings for Lent and happiness in married love.

Dick :slight_smile:

Hi Jason –

You haven’t’ misspelled ‘Sobernost’ – I misspelled it by missing out the ‘e’ :unamused: :laughing: . Can we change our site name by one letter?

#5

So, having let some other things cool down a bit, back to this thread then. :slight_smile:

There is some dispute among purgatorial universalists over what exactly purgatory involves, but the basic idea is that God doesn’t punish anyone except those who impenitently hold to their sin(s).

As I understand it, this involves several things first:

1.) More exposure to the Holy Spirit, Whose function is (among other things) to bring truth to people immanently. A number of non-universalists, both Eastern and Western, recognize the immanent presence of the Holy Spirit as God the consuming fire, and so actually agree that Gehenna (during or after hades/sheol) will involve this, leading to ECT or anni. We would differ subtly but crucially on the purpose of the Holy Spirit, which is why I put the phraseology as “bring people to truth”, not merely convict people about sin (although that, too): bringing people to truth ultimately fails if they don’t eventually drink the truth and become thoroughly (if dependently and subordinately) true themselves. A conviction of sin which finally results in anything less than that, involves a failure or else no actual intention to bring people to truth. (In short, Arm or Calv soteriologies respectively.)

This is a corollary of my understanding of trinitarian theism, which involves the Persons of God acting foundationally to all reality in fulfilling fair-togetherness between persons (first and self-existently between the Persons of God, and then subsequently among created persons, with each other and with the Persons of God). In the economy of the Trinity, the Spirit is the first and ontologically primary gift given by God: the gift of the Person of God given by God to persons (first and foremost given by the Father to the Son and by the Son to the Father). If God (in all Three Persons) gives the Spirit in increasingly fuller fashions to created persons, He’s working in consistence with His own continuing eternal self-existence. To do anything less or other (allowing of course for variances in how God goes about doing it), would be to act inconsistently with His own self-existence, leading to the non-existence of God and of all other reality.

While not every theologian everywhere works that out, I don’t think this is especially controversial (e.g. God the independent self-existent ground of all reality must and shall keep on being God or all reality is screwed, or rather we wouldn’t be here discussing the theoretical possibility of God acting against His own self-existence if He ever did do that); but accounting for it makes a big difference in how I regard positive justice, thus also in how I regard punishment of sinners for sin: the goal of punishment cannot run contrary to the positive function of justice in God’s own self-existent foundational reality upon which all reality depends for existence at all. To propose otherwise about God would be to propose a schism in the functional intentions (and thus in the self-consistent eternal reality) of the Trinity; to propose otherwise about ourselves would be at best to run contrary to the intentions of God (if perhaps inadvertently).

Anyway, on this concept God the Holy Spirit (sent by the Father and the Son, and proceeding ontologically from both if the filioque is true) is already working to some degree in every person (which is why any person is even a person at all; which is also why any sin is an abuse of the grace of God and even at bottom a sin against the Holy Spirit) toward this goal of fulfilling fair-togetherness among persons. When we sin we act against that purpose, but our unfaithfulness does not void God’s faithfulness and intentions. Sooner or later God increases the immanent presence of the Holy Spirit in each of us. This doesn’t automatically make us not sin, but it leads to an increased clarity about what is and is not righteousness (fair-togetherness, dikaiosunê), leading to increasing uncomfort insofar as we persist in insisting on sinning anyway.

Again, I don’t think this is especially controversial even among Calvinists, who ought to recognize this as a description of how God goes about convicting, converting, regenerating and justifying (making fair, making just) those whom He intends to save from sin. We don’t earn God’s salvation of us by converting; we convert because God is in the process of saving us from our sins and so empowers us to respond to Him (while leaving us some leeway about how long we may choose to hold out against Him, which from His omniscient perspective He already knows our choices about, originally creating His designs of history in His authoritative allowance of our choices).

What Calvs would controvert about this mainly is the scope of God’s action: the Arminianistic scope of everyone, not merely a selection. (What Arminians would controvert about this is the original persistence by God: Kaths agree with Calvs that God doesn’t have to be convinced to keep at it until He succeeds, much less convinced to start doing it in the first place.)

2.) Any illness or similar condition hampering cognition of righteousness must be removed. Presumably this would be done during the general resurrection, but God accomplishes some of it now in this life (sometimes by direct healing miracle).

3.) Any intentional baneful influence must also be removed.

Once those conditions are met, sin becomes nothing other than direct rebellion against the fulfillment of fair-togetherness between persons, and God punishes appropriately: that which is past can be pardoned, that which was accidental will be excused, but that which the person refuses to come out of must be punished.

Even then, the punishment may be very light; I expect most people will only need what amounts to a stern lecture or demonstration of disapproval. But the only people who actually need to fear the wrath of God are the people who insist on continuing to do what they themselves perceive (by the grace of the Holy Spirit) to be unjust.

To be convinced that one is of the special elect, in a Calvinistic sense, would of course relieve fear of being hopelessly punished by God – although so does being convinced that (proper) Katholicism, universalism, is true, that no one will be hopelessly punished by God (and the special elect are elected to be the leaders in cooperating with God in bringing the gospel to other people: elected not for their own sake but for the sake of other people, to be a light to the world, though subordinate lights under the Light Who is enlightening every man who is coming into the world).

But unless the Calvinist dismisses or ignores the several scriptural testimonies to the effect that God (even after the sacrifice of Christ) punishes those whom He intends to inherit when they misbehave (for example the testimony of Hebrews 12), Calvinism doesn’t, or anyway shouldn’t, provide total relief from the fear of every possible wrath of God. Until a person is thoroughly regenerated, we still should fear being chastised by God, not with a hopeless fear, but with either an improper fear of having to give up our sin (which is the natural reaction to the discipline of righteousness), or with a proper numinous fear of gratitude against our sin in favor of God’s foundational righteousness.

As C. S. Lewis used to say, referring to 1 John, perfect love may cast out fear, but so do many other things improperly; therefore we should not be content (and God will not let us rest content) with fear of chastisement being cast out by anything less than perfect love.

The alternative is not uniquely Calvinistic, but is one Calv variant suggesting that penal sub atonement means God does no wrath at all to the elect; matched and exceeded, in principle, by one Kath variant suggesting, usually also thanks to PSA theory, that God does no wrath at all to anyone. If what we call ultra-universalism is true, instead of purgatorial universalism, then of course that would be even more relief from fear of God. But even the no-wrath-at-all-for-elect variant of Calvinism still leaves over much fear for other people that they may be of the non-elect, and an utterly hopeless fear at that.

(To which, dovetailing with another recent topical thread, some Calvs would logically reply that such fear of God’s wrath for the non-elect is at best misguided, and will be adjusted eventually to rejoicing over their fate (whether ECT or anni), thus having no fear or grief at all for their sake. The only way to be relieved from all fear of God’s wrath, if Calvinism is true, is to take the position of the proponent Alex posted the paper about in this thread,, along with a variant of penal sub atonement theory which argues thereby that God will never act in any wrath against people He intends to save from sin. But not even all PSA proponents hold that as a result.)

#6

Ummm…well…I guess that certainly clarifies things :confused:

Matt

#7

alot to chew on there, Jason :laughing:

see if i can summarise a wee bit if that’s ok

  1. God himself is the consuming fire. the PUR (purgatorial UR, obviously lol) believes that the flames of “hell” are God Himself. unbearable to the sinner, but ultimately for his or her good.
    this could cause fear of pain, fear of giving up sin, etc. it could hurt alot. it could involve facing the true reality of our sin (ie a gossip could see how characters are assassinated by this pernicious sin and relationships destroyed).
    seems reasonable to me. it’d be a good kind of hurt, i suppose…a bit like giving birth, in that the pain is not remembered in the same way as such joy is brought into being as a result.
    Scripture itself says all creation suffers like that, and it’s a strange metaphor to use with its promise of birth thereafter, if it was a reference to the hopeless torment some forms of doctrine would doom us too.

  2. pretty clear lol

  3. pretty clear as well i thought.

now, i am agnostic about purgation, but i would find any exercise of God to remove sin from me scary and unpleasant, but hopeful and leading to joy. there is comfort knowing that this present evil will not last, that after it i will be nothing but joy.

in contrast there is no comfort (or perhaps i should say there is false comfort) in PSA led reformism, which tells me i am saved IF i’m elect, but the proof that i am elect is basically that God persists in saving me. if He doesn’t, or my assumption that He HAS elected me leads me to believe that He doesn’t when He never did in the first place, then i am not elect, and i’ve gone from hopeful smugness to utter despair. it’s also pretty poor comfort for my friends and family who i have even less assurance about.
my personality type though would be to assume everyone else is elect except me, so i’d probably trust God with them and not myself…
so again, a poor comfort at best.

then again, we have Arminianism which tells me to trust in my own willpower, as inconstant as that is, and also my holding to certain doctrines (gnosticism) for my salvation.

Jesus tells us to be of good cheer, He sends the Comforter, who inspires John to write that perfect love casts out fear…
i shall take my comfort from that. that is my relief from fear of God…that any discipline i get will be followed by joy, and that is the same for everyone else.

#8

I’m a systematic theologian (whether metaphysical or exegetical): everything tends to connect organically with everything else.

Which only provides clarity when the whole setup is being grasped, unfortunately. :wink:

Which is a practical problem because any single position involves the systematic complexity one would expect from any set of ideas with dozens and dozens of concepts. Supernaturalistic theism by itself involves a large number of details; orthodox trinitarian theism even more so; even moreso again for incarnational ortho-trin; soteriology depends on all that and adds more details again.

(Good summary by the way, CL. “PUR” = awesome. :sunglasses: )

I can try to put the comparison more shortly:

Purga-Calv: God will certainly save those He intends to save from sin (although that isn’t all sinners), but will still chastise those He intends to save as far as He sees fit to lead them to be righteous. However, only those people among the elect who insist on consciously holding to what they themselves perceive to be sin will (still) be punished; what can be excused will be excused, what can be healed will be healed, what remains needs repentance, and punishment for impenitence, but the punishment need only be as strong as God sees fit within the range of His plans otherwise. God empowers those He chooses to save from sin to repent but leaves the choice of when they’ll do so somewhat up to them. The wrath of God remains, to some extent, for those whom God intends to save from sin, but is minimized insofar as God sees to be possible while treating His children like children instead of only puppets. The wrath of God is not minimized for anyone else, since God does not even intend to save them from their sins.

Purga-U: God will certainly save those He intends to save from sin (which is all sinners), but will still chastise those He intends to save as far as He sees fit to lead them to be righteous. However, only people who insist on consciously holding to what they themselves perceive to be sin will be punished; what can be excused will be excused, what can be healed will be healed, what remains needs repentance, and punishment for impenitence, but the punishment need only be as strong as God sees fit within the range of His plans otherwise. God empowers those He chooses to save from sin to repent but leaves the choice of when they’ll do so somewhat up to them. The wrath of God remains, to some extent, for those whom God intends to save from sin, but is minimized insofar as God sees to be possible while treating His children like children instead of only puppets. Since God intends to save all sinners from sin, the wrath of God is minimized for everyone.

Ultra-Calv: God will certainly save those He intends to save from sin (although that isn’t all sinners), and (for various reasons, such as one variant of penal sub atonement) will not chastise those He intends to save. People who insist on consciously holding to what they themselves perceive to be sin (assuming God even allows them to do so) will not be punished, if God intends to save them from their sins; what can be excused will be excused, what can be healed will be healed, what remains needs repentance, but God will lead to repentance those He intends to save without having to chastise them. God empowers those He chooses to save from sin to repent, and may or may not leave the choice of when they’ll do so somewhat up to them, but punishment isn’t one of His methods of leading them to repentance. The wrath of God is totally nulled for those whom God intends to save from sin. The wrath of God remains (probably without any minimization) for anyone else, since God does not even intend to save them from their sins.

Ultra-U: God will certainly save those He intends to save from sin (which is all sinners), and (for various reasons, such as one variant of penal sub atonement) will not chastise those He intends to save (i.e. anyone at all). No person who insists on consciously holding to what they themselves perceive to be sin (assuming God even allows them to do so) will be punished, since God intends to save everyone from their sins; what can be excused will be excused, what can be healed will be healed, what remains needs repentance, but God will lead to repentance those He intends to save (i.e. everyone) without having to chastise them. God empowers those He chooses to save from sin to repent, and may or may not leave the choice of when they’ll do so somewhat up to them, but punishment isn’t one of His methods of leading them to repentance. The wrath of God is totally nulled for everyone, since God intends to save everyone from their sins.

Purga-Calv: minimal (and not hopeless) wrath for elect, depending on situational response of individuals; full and hopeless wrath for non elect, who may outnumber elect.
Purga-U: minimal (and not hopeless) wrath for everyone, depending on situational response of individuals.
Ultra-Calv: no wrath for elect; full and hopeless wrath for non elect (and maybe for Jesus depending on no-wrath rationale), who may outnumber elect.
Ultra-U: no wrath for anyone (except maybe for Jesus depending on no-wrath rationale).

#9

cripes, how did you type that so fast?

i think my own views on this are not that far UU (defined that way at least). i think God does indeed in some cases need to get harsh with sin. i think showing a murderer what distress she has caused by perhaps making her live it out would be beneficial towards reconciling her with her victim(s) and their families. my own belief however is that an afterlife place of purgation need not be necessary…that alot can happen in the moment before death. God can do things with time, and also many see their lives flash back in moments of distress, so some form of built in mechanism may be implied. my leaning towards UU is not to minimise the need for discipline of deliberate sin, but more in line with the lack of support for any form of hell as traditionally believed in the Scriptures. i believe, as does Jason, that any discipline/punishment/healing/etc would be for the good of those that undergo it. afterall, as Hebrews says, God only punishes/chastises/prunes those He loves. therefore any act of vengeance on His part against an evildoer MUST be linked to His love for that person and desire to stop their destructive/self-destructive acts. whether or not there needs to be an accomodation with the so-called hell texts is definitely worth thought. i don’t think so…i think the actions of God to bring truth for the purpose of freeing us (from guilt, pain, etc) and to bring us together in the spirit of unity (He is SO keen on that in Scripture) are clear enough without resorting to literal fire and brimstone in a literal realm. but that realm could exist, for precisely the issues you and i have described above, Jason.

also Jason, i wasn’t criticising…it was merely because Jaxxen seemed a bit overwhelmed :laughing:

#10

I know; you posted before I finished composing that (which is why it looked like I typed it so quickly), and I just added a favorable nod to your summary. :slight_smile: Everything else was to help shorten things a bit for Jaxxen (and to explain why I have to write complex expositions: I’m defending and promoting an extremely complex set of doctrines, and it’s important to make sure everything fits together so I’m not contradicting myself somewhere.)

Jaxxen also more-or-less acknowledged this factor, in the other current main thread (about “two people”) recently, and I think it’s relevant to include here in the question of relative relief from fear of God.

But apostates commonly report experiences to the effect of being feeling sure on various standard grounds that they were among the elect; some of Jesus’ warnings (if Calvinism is true) would certainly apply to such people, too. If they could feel or think, with a personal feeling of assurance (sometimes over a protracted time) that they are of the elect, and yet in principle turn out to be non-elect after all, that means there can be no ultimate assurance (pre-mortem anyway) someone actually is of the elect, as any rationale or experiential feeling may turn out to be some kind of delusion of the non-elect.

How does that provide a superior relief from fear of God, except by simply and utterly ignoring the inescapable possibility that oneself may be a deluded non-elect?!

This is of course a big selling point for Arminianistic branches of Christianity, who provide that missing reassurance: yes, God certainly loves you, too, and everyone you care about (and at least some of the people you don’t care about :wink: ) with saving love.

In reply to which, aside from the technical question of fact about whether that scope is true–which Calvs will quickly point out doesn’t typically include rebel angels in most Arminian soteriologies!–Calvs rightly complain that Arminians have switched out a reassurance for a harsh and theologically damaging non-assurance.

From a Kath perspective, it’s a duel of competing non-assurances and competing but different reassurances. We accept both assurances instead. Maybe we’re technically wrong to accept Arm assurance (as Calvs would argue), or Calv assurance (as Arms would argue), but the alternative is to reduce to a problematic non-assurance one way or the other.

In other words, if we’re wrong, we’re clearly wrong for preaching and teaching too much relief from fear of God compared to Calv or Arm alternatives.

#11

Allow me to add that, in my experience, this is why Calvs (I would say rightly) focus on the question of inconvenient truth rather than trying to compete with universalists on the ground of assurance. It makes (some) sense for Calvs and Arms to critique each other in regard to comparative assurance, as a sort of secondary issue connected to questions of superior truth (i.e. if this turns out to be true you can have the added benefit of this kind of assurance, if you happen to be troubled about lacking it); but either side is going to have a very uphill battle providing the same or better assurance than universalists: we have the same assurance of original persistence as Calvs with the assurance of scope that any Calvinism lacks; and we have the same assurance of scope as Arms with the assurance of original persistence that any Arminianism lacks.

An ultra-Calv assurance of no wrath for the elect only looks better than purga-U assurance of minimal wrath for everyone, if concern for other people than one’s self is discounted (and if the fatal dis-assurance of one’s own elected status is discounted!), and can’t compete (on the question of assurance) with ultra-U at all.

This is why, for sake of fairness to Calvs and Arms, I would rather appeal to questions of metaphysical logic and scriptural testimony, as to what the actual truth of the situation is, and allow them the privilege and even the courage of accepting inconveniently despairing truths (if one or the other is correct).