Barclay was convinced (UR)

[Colin]

I think you would find "aionios" associated with God or the kingdom of God seems to mean "eternal"in the NT but if "aionios" is associated with non immortal things, like the unsaved or temporal time periods, you would find it to mean "age-lasting."

But that's the question, isn't it? How do we determine what is immortal/everlasting/forever? Is God's mercy eternal? Is God's judgement/punishment/correction eternal? They both come from God (hence the posessive form) and are therefore "associated" with God, they are both being applied to people, and so are "associated" with non immortals, so how do you decide which is eternal and which is temporal, especially when the same word is used in the same context in the same setting? It's not fair to just be arbitrary and say one use is temporal and another is eternal because that makes it mean what I want it to.

[Ralph]

Some more general thoughts about ET and UR:

Considering the portions of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ that are documented in the four gospel accounts, I see cleansing of the temple as being the most physically-correcting thing that Jesus ever did in dealing with people on earth. I don’t see Him ever torturing anyone, or ever even advocating that anyone be tortured by anyone else on earth. Rather, I see Him prescribing mercy. I see Him doing much verbal informing of people and correcting of people‘s ideas (which made some people become sometimes uncomfortable and sometimes angry and sometimes even violent).

Never-ending torture of any kind (as we understand torture on earth) after death seems to me to be incompatible with the nature of Christ, as revealed in His documented deeds while He walked among us humans here on earth.

I believe that Jesus may do considerable verbal informing and verbal correcting after death, because that is what Jesus and the apostles did in dealing with people on earth, and that is what we, as His followers, do on earth.

Neither you nor I, as followers of Jesus Christ, would purposely torture anyone nearby us. We might rather die than torture another human being. However, through conscious, willful neglect of the needs of the world's peoples, we may allow many other people on earth to suffer and be tortured via hunger and disease and oppression.

Perhaps a part of a person’s correction after death may be to let that person experience and thereby come to understand what others were forced to experience on earth, because of that person’s conscious, willful neglect of others on earth (Jesus’ story about the rich man and Lazarus).

If I have the means to reduce or eliminate the suffering and torture of other people (perhaps a few or hundreds or thousands or even millions of other people) on earth and if I don’t use that means for that purpose, then I am guilty like the rich man in the story that Jesus told. This is very sobering, because the results from my conscious, willful neglect (my misuse of my available means) may be extremely far-reaching.

Let us constantly pray for the needy peoples of the world and then use our means as He directs us to use them.

[steve7150]

I think you would find "aionios" associated with God or the kingdom of God seems to mean "eternal"in the NT but if "aionios" is associated with non immortal things, like the unsaved or temporal time periods, you would find it to mean "age-lasting."



But that's the question, isn't it? How do we determine what is immortal/everlasting/forever? Is God's mercy eternal? Is God's judgement/punishment/correction eternal? They both come from God (hence the posessive form) and are therefore "associated" with God, they are both being applied to people, and so are "associated" with non immortals, so how do you decide which is eternal and which is temporal, especially when the same word is used in the same cove read them.ntext in the same setting? It's not fair to just be arbitrary and say one use is temporal and another is eternal because that makes it mean what I want it to.






It seems to me when "aionios" is associated with an immortal object it means "eternal" and things like God's judgment/punishment/correction take place in the lake of fire which Paul tells us is destroyed in 1st Cor 15 , when death the last enemy is destroyed (LOF is second death). So when "aionios" is associated with non-immortality it seems to mean age-lasting. If i have time i'll list verses but i have read them.

[jriccitelli]

I think age lasting is acceptable. I think from 'any' perspective, from the ancient Greeks to our present century, time eternal cannot be ‘known’.
I think part of this debate would have to consider that the concept of ‘eternal’ really has to suggest an ‘unknown’ amount of time into the future, that really is in the hands of God (Did the ancient Greeks perceive that their gods, could know the absolute eternal future, and thus ascribe certainty to the word aionios?)
In some schools of thought God ‘sees’ or has ‘been to’ the eternal future (Which for me, neither view makes sense. That’s why I hold to the idea that God ‘brings about’ the future, rather than seeing something of the future)
Only God can make a statement, based on His Omniscience etc., that conclusively affirms that something will still continue into 10 to the Quadrillion years, and 10 to a Centillion years (But what about after that?) So for great thinkers of the ancient Greek perspective, from whose words we are trying to define, to our current scientific knowledge of time, we still have to conclude that ‘the idea’ of eternal, no matter what word we come up with, ‘the idea’ will always hold an inclusiveness about it.
I really cannot fathom God can ‘know’ the eternal future (Although I will not argue with him over it!) but I do know He can bring it to pass and nothing is impossible for Him.
I don’t want to start assuming to break down Platos theology here (And since Platos concept of God is not necessarily the God we know) but I will note Barclays website notes on Plato:
In The Laws he speaks of the soul and the body being indestructible, but not eternal (904a). There is a difference between simple existence for ever and eternity, for eternity is the possession of gods, not of men.

The essence of the word aionios is that it is the word of the eternal order as contrasted with the order of this world; it is the word of deity as contrasted with humanity; essentially it is the word which can be properly applied to no one other than God. Aionios is the word which describes nothing less and nothing other than the life of God.

So I think it is more a statement of ‘contrast’ in scripture (Parallelism) than an actual measure of un-measurable time.
So age lasting, maybe in the sense that it is unknowable, but forever in the sense of being in Gods hands.
Indefinite time is indefinable.

[Homer]

Hi Steve,

You wrote:

Your post on kolasis did not require refutation. It made no point that has not been made by Paidion or other evangelical universalists. Perhaps you did not notice, but the scholars you cited listed "chastisement" as a principal meaning of kolasis in classical and koine Greek. This agrees with what universalists say. "Chastisement" is, by definition, "corrective."

I must have misunderstood you. The information I posted showed that the word kolasis in koine Greek commonly meant punishment. I thought you were saying that it always had the meaning of "correction". If that is what it means then Matthew 25:46 eliminates both eternal punishment and CI; annihilation could not be correction. Perhaps some of my confusion is due to your evolving toward the universalist view. Last I heard you were unsure but leaning CI, but perhaps you no longer are unsure.

You indicated recently that there were only a few texts that made you hesitant to being a universalist. Are they the four you listed earlier as being my proof texts?

Regarding chastisement always meaning corrective, I did not know that. My Webster' says chastise means:

1. to inflict punishment on (as by whipping)
2. to censure severely
synonym: see punish

Punish may be retribution. So I did not know chastise always meant to correct.

Anyway, enough logomachy for now!

God bless, Homer

[steve]

Hi Homer,

I apologize for my impatience.

I am not fully convinced of any one view of hell. I have become very impressed with the massive biblical evidence for universal reconciliation, but not to the point where the evidence for conditional immortality ceases to command respect. Clearly, my own studies have convinced me that no compelling case can be made from scripture in favor of eternal torment. All of the arguments for eternal torment seem to be overlooking some important feature of the wording or context of the few passages that are brought up in its favor—and the concept as a whole is entirely contrary to everything God says about Himself and has exhibited in Christ.

While I take the chance of being mistaken, whatever view of hell I might adopt, I find no reason to fear standing for judgment before God, having hoped in a message for which more than 70 clear passages stand in support, and having rejected a view for which four (or six) very ambiguous verses comprise the whole case in its favor. If God has indeed ordained eternal torment for the lost, and will hold it against me for having thought better of Him than that, then He is indeed a very different God than the one I believe I know and find in scripture.

I was drawn into this discussion by the fact that arguments against universal reconciliation were being presented again which were not only exegetically irresponsible but also had been decisively refuted a dozen times in other threads. To say that I am not fully persuaded of universal reconciliation is not to say that I know of any valid reasons to reject it. It is like the fact that I am not fully persuaded of the existence of extraterrestrial life, but know of no compelling arguments against it. There are some things that we have not been told clearly. However, the things we have been told clearly incline toward a hope that God may be as good as can be, and that the Gospel is the best possible news.

The message of God's universal redemption is obviously better news than a message that has people that God loves and that we love being lost forever. This does not make UR necessarily true. However, it would be strange if there could be a false Gospel that made God out to be better than the true Gospel presents Him to be. I think the very best news that can be derived from fair exegesis of scripture has a credible claim to being the true Gospel.

[Colin]

I don’t see Him ever torturing anyone, or ever even advocating that anyone be tortured by anyone else on earth.

The God of the NT is the same God as the OT, he doesn't change, right? The same yesterday, today and forever. What about the plagues he set upon Egypt? I would think at least some of those could be looked at as a form of torture (not eternal, of course, but torture nonetheless). To say that God has never used any force greater than turning over a table ignores things like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which God clearly takes credit for. God has intentionally used very violent acts against people at times (the flood, killing all but a handful of the entire population). Even in the NT, there are acts described in Revelations of destruction authorized by God.

A God of 100% mercy and love and no violent judgement, even amounting to torture, doesn't seem consistent with the God presented in the Bible. You can certainly debate whether his mercy is available forever, or whether he would be willing to punish someone forever, but to say God is incapable of causing any physical harm seems inconsistent with the scripture.

[steve]

I think the Universalists' and the Conditionalists' way of seeing the matter of divine judgments differs from the Traditionalists' perspective in the important matter of whether God is such a Being as would gratuitously inflict pain and torment on His creatures with no positive object in view. Nobody forced God to design hell according to any blueprint other than that which pleased Him, so the Traditionalist believes that God deliberately invented a hell of eternal torment when He might as easily have invented a hell that involved annihilation or endless opportunities to repent.

Hell is exactly what it pleased God that it should be.

The elimination of unchangeably wicked people from the face of the earth can easily be seen to have at least potentially beneficial results for humanity as a whole, and for the prosperity of the kingdom of God. The ultimate annihilation of the incorrigible in hell could also be evaluated through this lens. Hell as a penitentiary (that is, intended to bring about penitence) would be better still—and more consistent with the love of God for all His creatures.

However, eternal torment, which, by definition, does not include the possibility of any relief to anyone, any benefit to anyone, or any object in view, other than the ventilation of perpetual vindictiveness, does not find any parallel in any known acts of God—nor in any but the worst of men.

[Todd]

The elimination of unchangeably wicked people from the face of the earth can easily be seen to have at least potentially beneficial results for humanity as a whole, and for the prosperity of the kingdom of God. The ultimate annihilation of the incorrigible in hell could also be evaluated through this lens.

Steve,

I know this comment was not intended as a response to my objection to CI posted on Nov. 27th, but it does somewhat answer one of the questions. But it still doesn't quite answer all of the questions. If God deems someone incorrigible and sentences them to the death penalty (annihilation), why does He not leave them dead? Why resurrect them only to inflict pain and then destroy them again. This is not merciful. But we are told He is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.

Todd

[steve]

This is a good question, and difficult to answer. In fact, it may be impossible to provide an answer entirely acceptable and free of difficulties. It may be the most serious objection to the conditional immortality view—unless one take the view of those who say the wicked will not experience an interval of suffering, but will simply be annihilated after they have faced God. C.S. Lewis and his student, Harry Blamires, have both written something that might be seen as an answer to this objection. They believed in a more traditional view of hell, but made some points that could be seen as answering to your concerns. Here are some excerpts from the latter's book, Knowing the Truth About Heaven & Hell:


I first want to know exactly what mainstream Christian teaching about heaven and hell amounts to. And then I want to know how the traditional teaching about eternal punishment can be squared with the message of God’s love and mercy. We must not pretend that this is a simple and straightforward matter. (Harry Blamires, Knowing the Truth About Heaven & Hell, p.xi)

Are we wicked for feeling that they [the Nazis who escaped from justice or committed suicide to avoid punishment for their crimes] certainly ought to have paid a price? After all, this feeling does not necessarily have anything to do with the impulse to get revenge for injury that we have suffered personally. We need not have been directly harmed by the war. We need not have had relatives among those tortured and killed by the Gestapo to feel convinced that a price should be paid. (Ibid., p.4)

Is it vengeful to demand punishment of those who have harmed others and not ourselves? Is it not healthy to feel outraged when brutal savageries, such as the Holocaust, fail to bring punishment to the perpetrators? If such offenses were never to be punished, would they not cry out that there must be something untrustworthy, something indeed perverse, at the heart of creation? And by something perverse I mean something that is irreconcilable with justice, truth, and even love. (Ibid., pp.4f)

We tend to think that if a man has done injury to another, no good can be served by doing a legalized injury to the man himself. “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” it is said of retributory punishment. Indeed it is argued that there is no place for retribution in our prison system.
But that is nonsense. To pretend that prison sentences can be justified only as a means of rehabilitation and as a way of deterring crime is absurd. The only possible justification for depriving a sane man of his liberty is that he has committed an offense which must be punished. Retribution is the only moral justification for imprisonment. Deterrence, as a justification for imprisonment, is actually immoral.
To imprison a man because he has assaulted a policeman is fair enough. But to imprison a man because someone else in the future might or might not assault a policeman is both unjust and immoral. You can justly deprive people of their liberty only for offenses they have actually committed and not for offenses which other people might be tempted to commit. The fact that few of our contemporaries are capable of straight thinking on this matter of earthly punishment for civil offenses suggests that they are unlikely to think straight on the matter of divine or human punishment for moral offenses. (Ibid., p.5)

We are told to forgive those who have injured us. We are not told to forgive the hoodlums who brutally beat the widow next door in order to steal her savings. We are not in a position to forgive them. Only she and God can forgive them. Certainly we are to hope that the time will come when everyone can forgive them. But first things first.
If we have any love at all for our battered, bleeding neighbor, we shall insist that those who willfully struck her down should get to know and to feel exactly what they have done. That is, or ought to be, the nature of punishment. The suffering is a consequence or a by-product of learning what you have done, in short, of facing the truth. That is why we said that justice, love, and truth demand punishment.
It does not mean that justice, love, and truth recommend hitting a man where it hurts, locking him up, or otherwise tormenting him, as an end in itself. It means that justice, love, and truth demand that self-deception should be unmasked. The true character of the man and what he has done must be made plain to every wrongdoer.
The unmasking of self-deception is always an act of love. You would surely think it unfriendly if people conspired to keep the truth about your own behavior from you. There can be no rehabilitation without self-knowledge, and rehabilitation is certainly what love demands. Love wants what truth wants, and truth wants what justice wants. (Ibid., pp.5f)