Do Universalist suscribe to any particular atonement model?
I’m looking into Universalism but I’m only familiar with Fundamental N. American type doctrine, so my question comes from that platform.
Who would be the ‘sin bearer’ for a repentant post mortem individual?
Think of it this way: Rams and bulls couldn’t suffice. A son of Adam (human) sinned. So a son of Adam died (human) That’s why even a giant tuna fish can’t be of any help to me. My sin bearer had to be Man/slash/God.
Satan(if unis acknowledge satan) is doomed because he has no sin bearer. There is no Satan/slash/God to perform atonement. Still with me?
A post mortem individual is ‘superhuman’. Wherther a disjointed soul(and I’m sure Unis wouldn’t go so far as saying Jesus’ soul died) (ps I would as an annihilationist)
Or a recombined ‘glorified body’ and soul; A post mortem individual is different.
Now; within the atonement models I know, there is no room for a part God/slash/ whatever-he-is-now to die in his stead, so as to perform atonement.
Agian, I come from a thick penal substitution platform, so if Universalists don’t recognize p.s. then maybe the whole question is moot.
I know several Christian universalists who subscribe primarily to a penal sub atonement model. They tend to be (what we often call around here, meaning no disrespect) ultra-universalists, who don’t expect any post-mortem or spiritual punishment from God for any sinner, in that they think all God’s wrath was expended on punishing Christ. Sometimes they go farther and expect no punishment from God at all (and sometimes beyond that, that God never punished anyone for sin other than Christ the sinless); other times they acknowledge God can and does still punish before death, but not in the resurrection or otherwise after death. Sometimes they think God did punish spiritually after death, but that Christ has since emptied hades and so that doesn’t happen anymore.
They can also believe that the process of healing after death and/or in the resurrection may be inconvenient even to pain or an equivalent, but they don’t regard that as punishment. They can believe in disciplinary training with painful inconvenience, too, just not as punishment per se.
So there are a lot of ways the math might work out even within the limitations of hewing solely or primarily to the popular version of penal sub. I have occasionally said if I believed or came to believe in standard penal sub atonement, I would be even more of a universalist than I already am! – but I would be necessarily less of a trinitarian. (My problems with standard penal sub are primarily trinitarian, and then generally soteriological, not so much a question of universal salvation or not.)
Where universalists (as ultra-u’s or not) accept standard penal sub atonement, they may or may not regard rebel angels and any other non-human sinners as covered by Christ’s substitutionary punishment. If not, they may regard rebel angels as poetic fictions, or like (apparently) St. Ireneas they may only believe in human universal salvation and some kind of hopeless punishment for non-human sinners (whether annihilation like apparently Ireneas did, or ECT like a new member around here apparently does).
Beyond that, Christian universalists may accept any or all of various atonement theories (independently of being ultra-u or being purgatorial universalists acknowledging post-mortem punishment as most of us around here currently do, myself included). That includes a covenantal model of penal sub atonement, of a more explicitly trinitarian sort, based on fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant. On that theory the Son substitutes for Abraham (as the descendant of Abraham eventually in the Incarnation) in making the covenant with the Father, but voluntarily dies not as a substitute target for the wrath of God but in solidarity with both victims and perpetrators of injustice: the Son inflicts punishment for sin on impenitent sinners, but also shares it with the sinners. There is no schism between the intention of the Persons of God on this model; rather the Son goes to the cross to ensure the covenant He makes with the Father is kept despite sinners breaking it. By incarnating He also demonstrates that all His creatures are included within the Abrahamic covenant of the promise to bring all Abraham’s descendants (which via the Incarnate Son are all rational creatures) to righteousness.
I’m a main proponent on this forum of this penal solidarity model, or covenantal substitution model, to give it a distinct name from penal sub. I can point you to some more detailed discussions of it if you want.
But I also accept several other atonement models: purposes and methods of God’s reconciliation of sinners to Himself. You may see other replies here, too; and threads if you look around.
Still Christ, whether on standard penal sub or cov sub, and actually bearing the sin independently of the repentance of the individual. Whether the repentance happens before or after death is irrelevant: death itself cannot properly or sufficiently pay for the sin either way, so post-mortem penitents aren’t paying for their own sin, but accepting Christ as paying for our sin through the blood of His cross. (One does not need to be a universalist to accept post-mortem salvation through the blood of the cross, by the way. Calvinists or Arminians, or their Catholic predecessors, could theoretically accept it and still not accept universal salvation.)
We have different beliefs among us on this. As a trinitarian theist, I don’t believe Jesus’ soul died, if by soul you mean His spirit (whether human or divine) and not His natural life. His natural life definitely died, but I wouldn’t say it was annihilated – that would probably be the Christological heresy attributed, perhaps wrongly, to Nestorius, splitting the human and divine natures of Jesus too far.
Since I’m an orthodox trinitarian theist, who works hard to watch his theological consistency about that (whether rightly or wrongly), I don’t believe Jesus’ soul was annihilated as a trinitarian Christian universalist either.
I will note however that on standard penal sub atonement theories, combined with annihilation, whomever Christ was annihilated for (all sinners or only an elect), would surely be saved.
I will also note that anyone who believes Christ was annihilated in death, basically affirms that even annihilation doesn’t have to be a hopeless punishment. God can bring back those whom He annihilates out of existence.
If a standard penal sub proponent can believe (and some do) that Christ’s death as a human would suffice for aliens, too, then it would suffice for any rational creature. One could argue similarly that by descending to the level of the least of rational creatures, God atones all greater rational creatures, too.
This is aside from scriptural arguments in favor of Satan and rebel angels being included in the reconciliation of the blood of the cross – there are at least two I can think of offhand, one of which I’ve summarized already.
If any of that can apply to any sinner not exactly of human biological species (and that seems a very weird limit to a spiritual salvation from sin!), it can apply to resurrected superhumans, too – even if the wicked are resurrected to transformed eonian-life bodies, though philosophy and scriptural evidence tells me otherwise (I think): they come back in mortal bodies basically the same as what they died in, but unable to die completely anymore by the grace of God. Their transformation into eonian life would be afterward similar to faithful persons being raptured in most rapture theories (we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed).
Jason’s given you a great answer, with which I completely agree. Regarding atonement models, Uni’s (or Kaths as Jason likes to call us and I wish it would just catch on ) hold to quite a varied lot of them. The covenant model makes sense to me. God put Abraham to sleep when He cut the covenant and passed through the halves Himself and Himself alone, so becoming responsible not only for His side of the agreement, but also for Abraham’s obedience. Thus, if God broke the covenant, God died, and if Abraham broke the covenant, God died. Demonstrably God did not break the covenant, but Abraham did (or his seeds, at any rate, and by extension – all those to whom his SEED would become a blessing); therefore God, keeping Abraham’s side of the covenant, died.
Christ annihilated? Eh, no – I don’t see that as possible unless (as Jason mentions) one is Nestorian, or of course, a Unitarian (as some of us here are) or some other kind of non-Trinitarian. How does one annihilate an infinite being? It’s a contradiction in terms. Infinity by definition cannot be annihilated.
I believe that atonement is such a multifaceted concept that it cannot be adequately painted by any one story and that we need ALL the stories (or all the true ones) to explain to us what happened that awful and awesome day in which our God died for us. In addition, the EOx believe Jesus’ entire incarnation is included in the atonement, and I think they’re right about that. While God’s communication to us is adequate for our needs, we can’t possibly in this life, limited by these brains and hearts, completely understand it in its fullness. Maybe we will always and always be approaching that understanding though we can never arrive at a complete knowledge of it – yet discovering more and more forever. It is a vast landscape to explore; not a mere legal construct to set down in limited human language. At any rate, the end of it is that conscious beings be reconciled to God. God doesn’t need to be reconciled to us – it is we who have the relationship problem, not Him.
We read in Hebrews that ‘without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.’ I’m not a Greek scholar, but to me, in those terms, I might construct the parallel sentence: “Without the help of medical therapy of some sort, there is no remission of cancer.” The atonement is not about pacifying God’s wrath. When we stop sinning and start loving, God’s wrath is pacified. Like any good father, He wants His children to love Him, and to play nicely with one another and help and love one another. We needed to be set free from sin. In some way, Jesus work as a man and in His death, did that for us. To me that’s what the atonement is all about.
That’s one of the reasons I asked the little question, on another thread: who died, when Christ died? Are we talking about the man, Jesus the Christ?
I did not get an answer on that thread, maybe ya’ll can help me out here?
Thanks Jason and Cindy. I thought I was joining a largely European forum, but you guys probably know my type well. My thick ‘turn or burn’ accent isn’t meant to offend. It’s a trace of ‘home’.
A minor point first: I didn’t say that “christ was annihilated” I said that “Jesus’ soul died”. As a Monist I believe Jesus died ‘completely’ in body and soul until resurrected. It’s odd that I get painted a Nestorian by protestants ( not you guys) who affirm the basic creeds like the Belgic Confession which says that to separate Christ’s nature is heresy.
Jason, it seems Unis are of many different strains. You seem to hint that Unis are dispensational. Shoudn’t they more closely resemble post-mills?
Cindy; tell me more of the covenant model. Remember that you are explaining to a kindergardener.
I’ll have to look up ‘Monist’ - but I was getting at something like that with my question about who died - it was not a trick question. There’s that two-natures thing that has to be explained, and whether death was real for ‘both’, whether consciousness ceased for both, or did the Logos just adopt the body of the man Jesus and then leave it before death came?
We’re not going to settle this question, any more than the question of the Trinity, but maybe it’s worth talking about. Maybe not.
It is true that Jesus was fully divine in his pre-incarnate state. But from the moment he was conceived (by whatever supernatural means), He became fully human. He divested Himself of His divine attributes. The only thing that was retained of His previous existence was His identity.
This divine self-emptying meant that only humanity remained. Jesus could do no miracles of Himself, but the Father performed the miracles through Him.
I am a Monist also, Guy. I believe that Jesus in His entirety died. How could His death save us, if only a body died, and some immaterial “soul” or “spirit” didn’t die? Just as we as human beings, when we die, we’re dead, and will stay dead until Jesus raises us from the dead, so did Jesus truly die, and remained dead until the Father raised Him on the third day.
I actually agree with that Monist position - the two-natures concept makes no sense to me. And reading the Athanasian creed makes me want to staple a dead skunk to my forehead.
But as you put it in another thread, Paidion, there are much more important things than nailing each particular dogma. So much more.
Yes. And that poses a problem to Universalism and ECT both. Because both camps have people doing something post mortem that seals thier fate. ECTers have people continue their defiance toward God ( a la DA Carson) ( Mac Arthur) therefor heaping more guilt and punishment upon themselves and Unis have people coming to their senses therefor repenting and getting moved to a better location. It’s also odd that both camps deny free will, but both have people affecting thier own destinies even post mortem. It’s their similarities that makes them so far apart.
Hi there
My background is Pentecostal but am now hopeful universalist. You’ve asked quite a lot of questions about what categories would fit in with universalism. I’ve discovered that on this forum you would find universalists of ALL other persuasions. Some are preterist, some historicist some dispensationalist, some believe soul sleep others not, some Christus Victor others p.s.a. , Trinitarian, Unitarian, the list goes on. Obviously with regards to extent of salvation then I would regard Calv, Arm, or Uni as exclusive and so I have only come across one person who might (for a time) have described himself as Calvinist Universalist but I really regard this as a misnomer. Hope nthat is of some assistance.
Which thread was that, Dave? I tend to lose track of what’s happening where, even with the active topic list.
One of the reasons why the Oriental Orthodox, the Central Orthodox, and the Church of the East (the Nestorians), split on the interpretation of Christ’s two natures (which they all affirmed, and all affirmed trinitarian theism), was they couldn’t figure out how to account for the death of the divine nature of Christ. I don’t recall offhand whether the OOrth (the Coptic and Armenian and Ethiopian Orthodox nowadays mostly, with some Syrian branches) affirmed Christ’s divine nature died, though possibly not; the Church of the East definitely didn’t, and if I recall correctly the central Orthodox (later the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox branches) didn’t/don’t either.
If Christ’s divine nature didn’t die, then that schisms the two natures pretty hard; but it partly depends on what one means when one is talking about death: the divine nature per se could not suffer bodily death, for example. But if the divine nature cannot at least voluntarily enact some kind of death, then it cannot even voluntarily suffer in solidarity with the human nature.
On my metaphysical account of trinitarian theism (following leads from several authors at least back as far as Athanasius), the 2nd Person of the single Deity constantly enacts a submission to the 1st Person instead of rebelling or otherwise trying to operate apart from the 1st Person, and so the active interpersonal communion of the self-existence of God continues on as the ground of all existence including God’s own existence.
Technically this is known as positive aseity: God is dependent upon God for God’s existence, God self-begetting and God self-begotten. (God self-giving, as the 3rd Person, wouldn’t be God’s primary action of self-existence and so wouldn’t be the Person of God self-begetting nor the Person of God self-begotten. So for aseity purposes I tend not to talk about the 3rd Person, though He’s in the theological account later.)
Most Christian theologians throughout history, though, have followed the main lights of Greek philosophy (which is understandable under the circumstances) and so have insisted on God existing not even dependent upon God for God’s existence. That’s called privative aseity. This ultimately static existence also would mean that intentional action may be something God does but cannot be something God is; which I think on further examination of the idea would also mean that God never intentionally acts, any such apparent behavior only being an illusion – and so we’re actually back at atheism of some sort!
Anyway, my point is that if positive (not privative) aseity is true, the Incarnation, and even the creation of any not-God reality at all, are transpositions of the same fundamental action of God in the 2nd Person, except in a different ‘ontological direction’ for want of a better term. As Lewis used to say in regard to the Incarnation, everything the Son does in regard to Nature is a variant mode of what the Son does at the level of God’s own ultimate self-existence. Put another way, God’s own primary action actively submits to God. But in the creation of any not-God system, the action of God so far as that system is concerned (not at the level of God’s own self-existence) involves reducing in submission down so far that not-God reality results. And yet that reality still remains in total communion with God and with God’s action at all points of its existence (whether we’re talking spatial or temporal existence) despite being distinctively not-God thanks to God’s action to generate not-God reality.
The Lamb is not only slain, but voluntarily dies, in other words, not only from but as the foundation of the world, without ceasing to exist as God in the unity of the deity.
On this theory, the Incarnation and then the Passion are further active expressions of this divine action of the 2nd Person in particular circumstances, yet still in fully active communion with the 1st Person of the self-begetting God. And, also in fully active communion with the self-given 3rd Person of God: God self-begetting and God self-begotten not only give Themselves to each other but give the first possible gift of God which is not Themselves to each other, a 3rd Person of God fully God. But the 3rd Person actively gives the 1st and 2nd Persons to each other along with Himself, so there are no further distinctly interpersonal expressions of God (in other words no infinite expansion of what is called the 3rd Person into 4th and 5th and Nth Persons. If a 4th Person exists, or further Persons beyond that, I don’t know what they would be, and the scriptures don’t seem to talk about them, though it may give rare hints perhaps. But they aren’t included in doxologies for example, nor are we baptized into the single Name of any such Persons beyond the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So I tend to agree with other trinitarian theologians that there aren’t any further Persons of God.)
That was an overly quick and dirty summary, but I had to go into at least that much depth to explain why I answer why I believe and affirm that both the human and the divine natures of Jesus, in one person, died on the cross. (I would probably also say “with one will”, but that depends on what is meant by “will”, which is why there were very subtle but crucial disagreements between central orthodoxy and a group of trinitarians known as monotheletes, both trying to reconcile the complaints of the Alexandrian party on one side and the Antiochian party on the other. The dispute with monotheletism comes down to whether it’s proper to talk about one will of two natures, or two wills of different natures.)
This has several direct connections to Christian universalism (as the early trinitarian and proto-trinitarian Christian universalists realized), but the most pertinent one to the topic of “who died on the cross” may be this: the divine nature suffered in solidarity with the created nature as far as possible for the sinless to suffer with the unjust, “reckoned with” (not instead of) “the transgressors” as Paul puts it early in 1 Corinthians. And in that solidarity, Jesus died as far as possible for anyone to die. Consequently, not even the worst sinner can die farther than Jesus died.
This is a specifically trinitarian way of coming at the idea, which non-trinitarians can also apply, that if Jesus paid any penalty for sin at all, then He must have died so far as it is possible for any sinner to die. Otherwise He didn’t fully pay the penalty at all.
And that has a ton of implications for even “thick” versions of penal sub atonement.
(I say “specifically trinitarian” even though I’m not including the 3rd Person in this account; but I’m trying to keep the topic as focused as possible on Dave’s question to trinitarian theologians of who died on the cross. I fully admit that any unitarian account, from high Arianism on down through other varieties, must be a simpler answer since only a creature must be involved even if the creature is the greatest possible superangel. This was one main reason why Arianism continued to be a serious theological option well after the Arians lost Imperial and military power, at least within the Empire. Once Rome fell, the feudal replacements and their armies tended at first to be Arian or neo-Arian again if they were Christian at all, though by then the bishops were mainly orthodox. I don’t mean that as a detractive comparison, by the way, i.e. the barbarians were Arian Christians therefore Arianism sux! )
When that idea is married (so to speak) with a full two-natures-of-Christ doctrine, fully man and fully God, the soteriological result is to lock in the certainty of the salvation of sinners even more strongly by virtue of the voluntary solidarity of the divine with the creature. Christ shows how far, because God exists and acts in regard to sinners, any sinner can die, and what because God exists and acts in regard to sinners the final result of any sinner’s death is going to be.
Actually, many universalists, myself included, have a robust belief in creaturely free will bring granted and fostered by God; thus we also believe God doesn’t remove the freedom to repent and become righteous. Nor in becoming finally righteous does the creature lose the freedom to sin, even though the creature chooses ever after to keep doing righteousness. The Patristic universalists, until fairly late, were staunch proponents of the free will of creatures, and directly fought the Gnostics and other alt/non-Christians on this point.
Whereas, annihilation certainly ceases all will of the creature, by ceasing the creature!
So if protecting and fostering free will is an important doctrinal point to you (as it is to me), I don’t recommend going with annihilation.
What Christian universalism does necessarily involve, is the idea that man is not free to destroy our free will, sinking it into a locked impenitent evil or non-existence. But that hardly disrespects or denies free will.
Otherwise the limits to free will are the same limits any other supernaturalistic theism involves: we aren’t God, we aren’t free to be free from God, etc.
Thanks Jason! You are very generous with your learning and explanations and I really appreciate that.
I won’t push the issue (two natures, death) any further in this thread, but I am glad to have heard the case set forth from that perspective.
If you read very far you’ll see there’s a range of ideas about free will on the forum (there are many more than two!), what it is, whether we have it, etc. You can also read my own ideas on the subject there, but in short form, I am not a determinist and neither do I believe our free will is unlimited, any more than your four-year-old’s free will is unlimited – or even ought to be.
So . . . covenantal atonement.
This strange passage depicts the blood covenant ceremony which was (I’m told) common in the middle east. Typically made between a powerful and a powerless man and typically forced. The powerful man forced the powerless man to pledge fealty and loyalty to him and in practice didn’t give much in return, although the whole idea of the blood covenant was that the two become one with regard to possessions, family, etc. (even wives, apparently ). In this case God shows that He’s not like that. Instead of making Abraham pass through the animals (saying in effect, “So let it be done to me and mine if I fail to uphold this covenant”) God Himself passes through the sundered animals, walking the path of blood and pledging that He will uphold the covenant not only for Himself, but for Abraham as well. The sign of the covenant is circumcision (pointed out later in Gen 17). This is the Abrahamic covenant and the sign is the removal of the flesh, and God Himself will uphold it – both sides of it. If Abraham and his offspring fail to keep the covenant, God will pay. What a difference from a human overlord!
God says in effect, “I will make this relationship work, no matter what it costs Me.” This is our King. The suffering servant and the loving Father and the dear Holy Spirit to teach and guide us into all holiness. Jesus’ sacrifice was (I believe) to US and not to God. He died to set us free from sin. Lots of people tell us that Jesus died to save us from hell, and that’s definitely true. We’d never make it out of hell without Jesus’ sacrifice to free us. Some say that Jesus took a bullet for us, but if that’s true, it certainly wasn’t His Father who pulled the trigger. We did that. He allowed us to even go so far as to kill Him because that’s what He promised. He took the worst of the consequences of our sins upon Himself.
I say that Jesus died to set us free from the sinful flesh, from slavery to the thing that brings death: sin. He died to set us on the path toward holiness and righteousness: that is to say, the path toward love. He died so that we could be set free to be formed into His image by the Father through the ministrations of the HS. Without His, as the representative human (the Son of Man), breaking that bondage in His death and resurrection, we could never get through. He is the covenant keeper and the prison breaker. He is the moral example and He is Christ victorious. He is the husband/rescuer/redeemer of His rebellious and captive bride (type: Hosea). All these and more, I believe, are true of Jesus’ work in His incarnation – to set us free.
As to the monist/trinitarian debate – I don’t ever dive into this one. I don’t care if someone is a Monist; it doesn’t seem to hurt them, and so long as they’re doing okay with their relationship with Father, I leave that one up to Him. If He wants them Trinitarian, then Trinitarian they will eventually become. He’s a very good persuader. I am Trinitarian, and for now I don’t believe in soul sleep. I’m only telling you this so you’ll know where I’m coming from – not so you can persuade me I’m wrong or because I want to persuade you that you’re wrong. I just don’t think it’s an essential doctrine. Just since this has come up in the conversation.
The first conditional statement seems to presuppose that Christ had a divine nature while He was on earth. But as I mentioned earlier in this thread, Paul wrote that He divested Himself of His divine attributes (and thus His divine nature) when He EMPTIED Himself and became fully human.
Thus if there were no divine nature to die (or survive) the question becomes moot. The question asked should be, “If Jesus was fully human while on earth, as the NT writers seem to teach, did He die as other people die? That is, did He REALLY die? Would He have remained dead if the Father hadn’t raised Him from the dead?”
There was only one nature to die—the human nature, that is the whole person.
It is true that He BECAME a life-giving spirit. When did He BECOME a life-giving spirit? Was it not after His resurrection?
Of course if one thinks he IS a spirit or soul who inhabits his body while on earth and flies away somewhere at death (derived from Greek philosophical thought) then he will look at this whole matter quite differently.
Jason: In my short time here i’ve already noticed a few things. 1) You like putting words in my mouth. I didn’t say I was defending free will; in fact I’m fine with the supralapsarianism of de Bèze to Pink. ( I mean, I get that we start from different platforms. You assume that God would have to remove man’s ability to repent; I say repentence is granted by God) We are never gonna have productive conversations if go well beyond what I actually say. The main thrust of the post was about post mortem/ pre resurrection consciousness. ‘Continuance’ to quote Irenaeus.
I never denied a belief in a Triune God. Don’t muddy the water. I said I suscribe to a Monist anthropology. I only hinted at a Dualist anthropology, but never mention Trichotomism at all. Even if I had, I don’t see the connection.
Just say what you gotta say, man. Don’t be all Tevye with the ‘on the other hand’ type circles. If you believe curtailing someones free will doesn’t amount to curtailing someones free will, just say so. And c’mon, that ‘metaphysical account of trinitarian theism’ paragraph. Even you know that’s jabberwockey. As Alice pointed out to Mr. Dumpty, you just can’t make words mean whatever you like. We’re talking past each other.
Oh, one more. Patristic universalists? You can’t be Patristic anything apart from orthodox church recognition.
(My problems with standard penal sub are primarily trinitarian, and then generally soteriological, not so much a question of universal salvation or not.)
As a trinitarian theist, I don’t believe Jesus’ soul died, if by soul you mean His spirit (whether human or divine) and not His natural life. His natural life definitely died, but I wouldn’t say it was annihilated – that would probably be the Christological heresy attributed, perhaps wrongly, to Nestorius, splitting the human and divine natures of Jesus too far.
