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Evangelical Universalism Arguments against Evangelical Universalism
#85

@qaz - Well, qaz, the only issue is that stands as one’s personal, theo-philosophical issue to wrestle with (for or against ETC/annihilation/UR) and not purely or pertinently a theological/exegetical/etymological issue (as is being discussed/debated on this thread) unless of course we’re going to deal with theodicy, ya know?

  • Btw this is supposed to be in response to post 59 but I’m not so sure I replied to it like I thought I did. Kinda still figuring out the mechanics of the forum’s new interface. My bad, again.
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#86

It’s been a while since I’ve looked at this in particular, and a lot of my older notes are lost, but my understanding is that the older usage of aion as pertaining to “life” in particular (like its old, Homeric usage of “life force,” or “life-time”) had all but disappeared by the Hellenistic or Roman period.

Now, when it comes to the papyri – which is the main source where you’re going to find this discussion of gymnasiarchs, etc. – there can be all sorts of funky meanings for all sorts of different terms; especially when we get into stock titulature and idiomatic usage.

One thing I do want to point to, though, is this epithet aionobios that I think we find in some of the Greco-Egyptian papyri. This is used to mean “living forever”; and so clearly in instances like these, it’;s the bios component here which suggests life, and then aion its sense of continuity or perpetuity. (For an interesting if all-too-brief discussion of this and related issues, you can check out the 2nd volume of H. S. Versnel’s Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion, in the section that has the line “There are places where aiônios or aeternus cannot but refer to the actual life of king or emperor, although scholars have tried to contest it on the ground that this would imply an absurdity.” Some of it can be found on Google Books.)

There are other compound words where the first element here is aion. In fact, we have at least one usage of αἰωνογυμνασίαρχος, aionogymnasiarchos, itself! (You can see a couple of other similar words here.) But one of the other more insightful things here is the close parallels to the reigns of various officials being described aionios. We see synonymous usage of things like this, in the papyri and elsewhere, where their reigns are referred to as apaustos or athanatos or dianekes – words that also clearly suggest permanence (and having nothing to do with “life” in particular, in themselves).

And of course we could also mention that the exact same goes for other Jewish and Christian texts which use “aionios punishment” and “punishment” with the same other terms (apaustos, athanatos, dianekes etc.) synonymously.

In any case, back on topic, I know that at least one other text calls for the aionios diamone of the emperor. This may be particularly interesting if it suggests that the emperor continues to reign in perpetuity – as this would almost certainly suggest that aionios has a much more intense meaning here than the already intense διαμονή (the latter of which LSJ glosses as “continuance, permanence”).

#87

@koine_lingua,

If you will indulge me for a moment, I have a few questions.

  1. You clearly known Koine-Greek well, possibly many other languages. But, why do you remain anonymous? I respect it, totally. Just curious.

  2. What do you believe? Are you a theist, or a non-theist?

  3. What do you think of a) Robert M. Price and b) Bart D. Ehrman?

Please be assured, I am not trying to get an angle on anything. I am impressed with your posts on reddit a few years back, saw this thread and watched it unfortunately die until just a few days ago to my surprise.

#88

  1. Oh I’m not anonymous; I’m just, like, no one special, and there’s not a lot out there about me anyways. (I’m not an actual scholar or anything, just a super dedicated hobbyist. If I were an actual scholar, these are the sort of things I’d be publishing, etc.: https://memphis.academia.edu/StewartFelker .)

  2. I’m a non-theist.

  3. I think Robert Price is largely a hack. I think Ehrman has done some good academic work, though he’s more of a popularizer these days than anything. I think he can have a bad tendency to oversimplify things, and I kind of wish there was someone else who was the main popular “face” of academic Biblical studies. Some of my favorite Biblical scholars: John J. Collins, Dale Allison, Jon Levenson, Heikki Räisänen, Crispin Fletcher-Louis, Maurice Casey, James Barr, David Aune, Paula Fredriksen, M. David Litwa, Daniel Boyarin, James Dunn, George Nickelsburg, Fernando Bermejo-Rubio, Martin Hengel, Andrei Orlov, Guy Stroumsa, Jan Bremmer,

#90

I think Romans 11:26 suggests universal salvation of Jews. Less so Gentiles, though.

#93

Thoughts, my brothers? @koine_lingua @St_Michael @Origen @Paidion @qaz @JasonPratt

#94

So incompetent as to hardly be worthy of response, unfortunately.

My favorite line, though, was “Our word ‘eternity’ comes from Latin word ‘aeternam’ [sic] not the Greek word ‘aion’” (emphasizing the latter’s meaning of “age”). Ironically though, Latin aeternus derives from aevum, which is in fact often does suggest a finite age. Surprise, words evolve and have different meanings.

There’s a reason you always find people/apologists here stuck on books that were written in the 1870s. Imagine if this were any other field of study on the planet, and instead of using, you know, the latest scientific insights from the last couple of decades or whatever, people relied on research that was 150 years old.

#95

Not sure I agree with the above. Textual Criticism, Etymology, and Scholarship in general isn’t an exact science. Hence, so many scholars disagree with each other. This doesn’t happen so much in actual science were we can verify any number of things. You can’t do that with history, so you must weight probabilities. Some give more weight to certain arguments over others.

That said, I do agree with your main point overall, I think. Meaning we certainly have more works to choose from via archaeology and hence broaden our scope further. The problem is, though, if we reduce your logic far enough, then we might assume the generation after Christ was inferior in knowledge in regards to the works and life of Christ, and the terms of that age than the 1500s, which was inferior knowledge to the 1870s, which is inferior to today. I think you can see that is false, and not very logical. The closer to the source, generally speaking, the more accurate. But with 2,000 years in between where books are burned, discarded, withered away, anything is possible. You could, in theory, have a scenario where we did know more in the 1500’s about than the 1900’s. It all depends on what works existed when, where and whether they exist today in the same form.

That said, you are likely more right than wring in regards to 1870s to today. However, people of that age we’re far more learned than we are today. Meaning each person was brilliant in comparison. The Harvards and Yales of that time were demanding and required a wealth of knowledge. They were more generalists. To be fair, though, a lot of that is due to specialization. Without it, we can’t advance much further. But with specialization, especially in a debatable topic, you end up maybe not quite a clear picture. Let’s say I am a specialist in one area of computers, because being a generalist is too difficult now. If I am good friends with a specialist in the “enterprise storage”, I’d be likely to take his word over many other specialists that exist in that field. Hence, I have’t really made up my mind in regards to the broader picture, I merely have my field of expertise and I adopted a viewpoint of a colleague on another issue without really knowing that is right. For science, specialization is brilliant. In theory all your specialists (or most) all come to the same conclusion. This is definitely NOT the case with scholarship specialization. You will have more dissenters, because, once again you cannot verify or prove much in that realm.

Language is so complex… Even today we have phrases (figures of speech) that don’t really mean what they mean! I am sure, relatively sure, that this has always been the case. I use them every day in life and love to point them out to my kids.

#96

Wow, this forum is very unusable on my phone. Bummer. Excuse typos above and here.

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#97

Tell me about it dude smh lol wonky, low-quality ass androids are shitty conduits for typing here (and many other places).

#98

Good point about not all scholars agreeing. If they were debating this during the Ante-Nicene era, how much more are we supposed to be closer to the truth? Of course we’ve gotta consider that brother lingua is (presumably) a hard agnostic-athiest whereas you are a soft agnostic-theist. Nobody, even the Apostles were without there handful of issues. I really hate that there’s never been a single consensus on this.

Of course, as you said Gabe, vulgarly denigrating the work and research of scholars altogether simply because of their position is not conducive by any means (for us believers, at least). But I can respect lingua’s indiscriminate aim to be objective and stoically inclined (though not w/o his own biases); his source material and commentary certainly adds a moderate, sober humility for us believers (particularly UR’s) in this conversation. It’s been enough to make me reconsider whether I should be a hopeful [purgatorial] Christian universalist rather than a dogmatic one.

So what elements of the video (narrated by Michael Word from the Total Victory of Christ) did you independently agree with, and on what points do you concur with lingua’s criticism?

#100

Can you give references to 10 examples of those in the 5% or less category?

#101

There are various views on that, from all the uses of aionios are of finite duration in ancient Greek or Koine Greek or the New Testament to all the ancient uses of aionios are of infinite or eternal duration (except when used figuratively). Generally universalists are closer to the former position & traditional “hell” advocates lean more the other way.

Greek scholar Marvin Vincent wrote “The same is true of aionios in the Septuagint. Out of 150 instances in the Septuagint, four-fifths imply limited duration”.

"…“The word always carries the notion of time, and not of eternity. It always means a period of time. Otherwise it would be impossible to account for the plural, or for such qualifying expressions as this age, or the age to come. It does not mean something endless or everlasting.”

“…The adjective aionios in like manner carries the idea of time. Neither the noun nor the adjective, in themselves, carry the sense of endless or everlasting.”

“… Aionios means enduring through or pertaining to a period of time. Both the noun and the adjective are applied to limited periods.”

“…Words which are habitually applied to things temporal or material can not carry in themselves the sense of endlessness.”

“…There is a word for everlasting if that idea is demanded.”

https://books.google.ca/books?id=oDVxDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT1952&lpg=PT1952&dq=.There+is+a+word+for+everlasting+if+that+idea+is+demanded&source=bl&ots=kbcwXyQq-_&sig=iFJYNZt2o2GZkw3pr9EGNOB8Oa8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwikjoe3jqvVAhXow1QKHZXWA4wQ6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=.There%20is%20a%20word%20for%20everlasting%20if%20that%20idea%20is%20demanded&f=false

#102

I didn’t mention any conspiracy & it doesn’t require a human conspiracy for individuals to do what comes naturally to them, i.e. ignorance, greed, bias, love of filthy lucre (money), prejudice toward their own theological opinions, being men pleasers, seekers of position, fame & the praises of men, lovers of themselves more than lovers of God, etc.

You yourself said you were unaware of one of the aionios references i posted. If you had read the books re aionios on universalist sites like Tentmaker, that wouldn’t have been the case.

Even if pro hell lexicon authors were not ignorant of such references as i’ve listed in this topic, they may have excluded them for reasons i’ve mentioned above.

At least one of the two, the doctrine of endless conscious torments or universalism, is a doctrine of demons. There’s the source of the real conspiracy, assuming demons work together for the purpose of discrediting & dishonoring Love Omnipotent in any way they can. Portraying Him as an absolutely horrific monster beyond people’s wildest imaginations would seem to be an obvious choice.

During the dark & middle ages, & for most of church history, this gospel of the “good news” of endless tortures was proclaimed as truth & the church conspired by means of the sword, the rack & fear to rid the world of all that opposed this great “truth”. That included burning the “heretics” alive along with any writings that would support their views.

"I have further found in the last 5 years in Q & A with those who teach NT Greek at Wheaton, Fuller, and Regent (Vancouver) that all these non-universalist authorities agree that aioniois at least sometimes cannot bear a meaning like “everlasting,”… I know that the Constantinian Roman Church (I think influenced by pagan Greek concepts) institutionalized the idea of infinitely extending torment as the necessity for sins in finite time as a powerfully motivating way to direct people’s lives. It since has been embraced by evangelicals, who often tell me that challenging this traditional reading of aioniois would remove them from their scholarly livlihood. "Talbott on Matthew 25:41, 46?

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#103

Marvin Vincent’s Word Studies was published in 1887. Again, just imagine if this were biology, and that instead of using textbooks published in the past few years, students read things from 1887.

Most importantly, if Vincent hadn’t lived in what was tantamount to the dark ages of philology/lexicography – though really, even this isn’t an excuse – he would have realized that we can’t just focus on looking retrospectively at how aionios was employed, so as to say “four-fifths imply limited duration,” etc.

What I mean is that the way that authors used aionios was hardly ever to describe how long something did last, after the fact, but how long something was intended or expected to last – usually from the present onward (“before the fact,” as it were). Again, Diodorus Siculus 17.112.2 is a good example of the rare retrospective usage of aionios, clearly looking at a past event that had already concluded before the present. This is in contrast to most of the uses of it in the Septuagint; or certainly those where it approximates or translates adverbial “forever.”

You yourself said you were unaware of one of the aionios references i posted.

That was an extremely rare and late occurrence, from the Greek Magical Papyri. In fact, it’s so rare that if you search Google for the actual Greek here (“αἰώνιος καὶ ἐπαιώνιος”), there’s apparently only one result on the entire internet: my own post from this thread where I commented on this.

And I don’t have to rely on things like Tentmaker, because they’re extremely amateur-ish sites written by people who for the most part have no scholarly expertise at all, and who regularly misunderstand or misrepresent the data. It’s hard enough to get them to even spell aionios correctly, or to read/translate even the simplest of passages written in Greek script.

#104

koine_lingua,

Are you the author (Stewart James Felker) of the following page:

"Afterlife Punishment in the New Testament and the New Academic Apologetics
MARCH 9, 2016 BY STEWART JAMES FELKER"http://www.patheos.com/blogs/atheology/2016/03/afterlife-punishment-in-the-new-testament-and-the-new-academic-apologetics/?ref_widget=trending&ref_blog=friendlyatheist&ref_post=the-ark-encounter-theme-park-will-feature-an-animatronic-noah-great-i-have-lots-of-questions#sthash.X6MqhXjE.dpuf

Stewart Felker, on the page above, appears to refer to himself as the author of the following page which is authored by “u/koine_lingua”. Is the following page also your authorship:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/33yj14/αἰώνιος_aiōnios_in_jewish_and_christian/

Ditto with these pages Felker refers to as his own remarks which are full of comments by “u/koine_lingua”:https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/3vk94r/hell_a_biblical_staple_the_bible_never_even/cxuv34g/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/33yrj3/part_3_αἰώνιος_aiōnios_in_jewish_and_christian/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/33zyxs/part_5_αἰώνιος_aiōnios_in_jewish_and_christian/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/33ynq1/part_2_αἰώνιος_aiōnios_in_jewish_and_christian/crof5db/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/33yj14/αἰώνιος_aiōnios_in_jewish_and_christian/

Are all the comments on this page authored by “av0cadooo”, & which says “Posted by u/koine_lingua”, also authored by you:https://www.reddit.com/r/Theologia/comments/3pk2mg/test/cxu3q3f/

And likewise did you post these comments posted by “av0cadooo”:https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/3nsjpt/are_there_any_theological_conclusions_you_have/cvryfz6/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/3nsjpt/are_there_any_theological_conclusions_you_have/cvryfz6/

What is your formal training in ancient Greek & other ancient languages or areas of study? Or are you self taught?

#105

Modern Greek and Hebrew lexicons were written by experts in the Biblical languages. According to Gleason Archer The Hebrew and Greek words are synonymous. It’s meaning isn’t limited to but can be:

Age-long

lasting

long duration

See the KJV, NASB, NIV Strongest Strongs and the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament by Gleason Archer

#106

Yeah those are all me (though a lot of those are older and super messy, and some info needs to be updated).

Yeah I don’t have any pro credentials here to speak of, really. A bachelor’s degree in a related field, and a few papers at academic conferences, but that’s about it.

#107

A modern expert:

The LXX generally translates Olam by Aion which essentially has the same meaning. That neither the Hebrew or Greek word in itself contains the idea of endlessness is shown both by the fact that they sometimes refer to events or conditions that occurred at a definite point in the past, and also by the fact that it is thought desirable to repeat the word.

Harris, Archer, Waltke Theological Wordbook Of The Old Testament page 673.

#108

I don’t share the same viewpoint as you, but I’ll defend you in this. Credentials are not everything. Don’t sell yourself short. I bet you have a better understanding than some with PhD’s. That said, I do find it interesting you refer to some other professionals as ametuerish when they don’t meet the definition of what an ameteur really is. Also the term seems to carry a negative connotation, but it really shouldn’t. Am vs Pro is really just about getting paid and really doesn’t say much more than that.

In a way, it is just another class system, designed to denigrate the seemingly perceived lower class.

All this to say, there are those with more knowledge than you that a) agree with you, b) disagree with you and c) both agree and disagree with your various views.