Our Lord said "Repent" and "Sin no more". Obviously we'll have to use proper communication, but helping people to move from darkness and towards light is necessary.

Well said!

Them = those needing help
We = those willing to help

Like in many situations in life, there is always a them and we. The person doing the helping perhaps doing a little better, but yet not perfect himself. Sometimes, the person helping himself might be doing worse, but still yet, he is willing to help.

I can agree with you when you say “those willing to help” should help “those needing help”.

I cannot agree with the original wording that “we should also tell them to stop sinning”.

Jesus also said “Take up your bed and walk” to a man “who had an infirmity thirty-eight years”. That doesn’t mean we should say the same to people who are infirm and unable to walk.

Jesus said “Repent” and “Sin no more” to sinners. Do you not think that we are in the equivalent position of the sinners to whom Jesus said “Repent” and “Sin no more” rather than in the equivalent position of Jesus?

Why?

That's what I'm wondering.

Especially since it could be said that the entirety of Scripture is essentially God's answer to Cain's question, "Am I my brother's keeper."

God's answer in Scripture is an emphatic "YES!"

For anyone still interested in David Bentley Hart and his book arguing for universalism, Michael Pakaluk shows how DBH misrepresents St. Basil

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusi ... ical-fraud

I have not found Hart reliable since the natural law dispute, in which he was not only wrong but also rejected correction when it was offered.

He is exceedingly arrogant. His book on universalism also do not contain a single footnote or reference. We're just supposed to take him at his word.

Because one sinner telling another sinner to "stop sinning" doesn't work and isn't helpful.

The sinner who tells another sinner to stop sinning puts herself in a 'holier-than-thou' position, and nobody wants to listen to 'holier-than-thou' people.

Denise, one of the seven spiritual works of mercy is to "admonish the sinner". Of course that doesn't mean it should be done with harshness. Correction needs to be given in loving concern for the person's salvation, and after having prayed for the grace to do so kindly. Sometimes the person is irritated, and sometimes the person accepts it. We can continue to pray for them. We can plant seeds.

Which is why I said:


When you say that one of the seven spiritual works of mercy is to "admonish the sinner", we must never forget that we are all sinners.

Yes, we must never forget that we are all sinners...and when I am admonished I need to take it in God's good grace.

The article is ridiculous. A third grade child could make better arguments. No wonder Hart expresses such contempt for some people!



Maybe. Maybe not. In my investigation of Apokatastasis, I have found severe translational erros in taking what the Greek Fathers said and bringing it over to the Latin. The fact is that both Jerome and Augustine stumbled in their translation of the Scriptures, especially in the issue of translation of aionios to aeterna. The critics of Hart seem either unaware of this or they simply do not care because they are lazy.

Here is an example:For instance, the first quote we are given is from The Epistle of Barnabas (70 - 130 AD).
“The way of darkness is crooked, and it is full of cursing. It is the way of eternal death, with punishment.”
In what language was this epistle written? With a simple Google search I found the original writing in Greek. By now, you should immediately realize there could be a problem with the translation of this epistle from Greek to Latin, and then to the English we read. The above quoted part is Verse 1 in Chapter 20.
Now let’s look at the Greek:
δὲ το μ λαος ὁδ ς ἐστιν σκολιὰ καὶ κατ ρας μεστ .ὁδὸς ἐστιν θάνατον αἰωνίου μετὰ τιμωρίας,
The Greek word here is aionios. Aionios, as the Greek linguist, Dr. Ilaria Ramelli, has noted, does not necessarily mean “eternal.” There is a specific word for eternal in Greek. The Greek word for eternal is “adidios.” But when you have been taught to translate aionios as “eternal,” then you follow what you have been taught as a good member of the Church.

So, do we have St. Basil's quotes in the original Greek, or the mistranslated English version in which aionios is translated as "eternal."



Unless, of course, St. Basil has been mistranslated from the very beginning. The mangling of words to fit an agenda is reprehensible. You cannot change the eytymology of a word to suit your tastes.
Example:

Let's take the Greek word “aion,” which is the root of “aionios,” and try to show how ridiculous it is to make it mean “eternal” or “eternity” by using that translation in other verses where it appears. I will put in bold the English translation of aion so you can see just how stupid some of this appears.
Matthew 13:22 “Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this eternal and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.”
Romans 12: 2 “And do not be conformed to this eternal, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
1 Corinthians 2:8 “Which none of the princes of this eternal knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
Galatians 1: 4 “Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil eternal, according to the will of God and our Father”
Matthew 13: 39 “ The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the eternal; and the reapers are the angels.”
Matthew 13: 40 “ As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this eternal.”

Aion means age. Period. There is no other possible translation for this word, therefore, any derivitive of it must have to do with an age - NOT eternity! But more than that, even the revered Septuagint supports the fact that aionios in no way means "eternal."



I'm starting to share Harts disdain for people who are too lazy to do their homework. If I, a simple layman with no college degree, can find these things through intensive research, why can't they? I also can't help but feeling that there is a certain self-serving satisfaction among those who are sure they are heaven's children when the look upon the massa damnata and feel they are better than them. You know, "I'm saved by God's grace, but them....them wicked folks. Oh, they are going to hell and THEY DESERVE IT!" The proper attitude, the attitude of God would be tears, weeping, and incessantly evangelizing with those tears. That would be love. The actions of most people in the Church makes me think they don't really believe in it either, or they simply don't care that most people are going there.

Finally, and the article doesn't go here at all - if Apokatastasis is heresy, then there are a whole bunch of saints in the Church who need to be anathematized at the next council called, the premier of them being St. Issac of Syria and St. Gregory Nyssa. But that would be pretty embarrasing, wouldn't it? After all, for the first 500 years, four schools taught Apokatastasis and there wasn't a wiff of the word "heresy" to be found anywhere. Must not have been a big deal until the thug emperor, Justinian, tried to make one out of it because it got his knickers in a knot (and caused massive politic problems in the empire he was trying to restore!).

I guess I should have let Dr. Hart speak for himself: He rips Pakaluk a well-deserved new one: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusi ... uk-of-lies

Kudos to CRISIS for being gentlemanly enough to print the rebuttal. If you are going to fight the Mike Tyson of philsophy, you better bring your lunch!

I thought you weren't going to argue about universalism any longer. ETA: This is not a taunt. I don't want to encourage you to do something that you don't want to do.

DBH is scarcely the Mike Tyson of philosophy.

The same word is used in reference to salvation and even to describe God Himself (Romans 16:26). Is salvation not eternal? Is God not eternal? You see where DBH's adventures in translation lead!

Aionios, the word commonly mistranslated as "eternal," is an adjective, and as such, its meaning is rendered from the noun that it describes. For instance, if I say "red," that can have a wide variety of meanings. But if I say "red fire engine," then I have limited the red to a specific kind of red. It is the same with aionios. Dr. Illaria Ramelli, a Greek scholar, has said of this:

“Apart from the Platonic philosophical vocabulary, which is specific to few authors, aiónios does not mean “eternal”; it acquires this meaning only when it refers to God, and only because the notion of eternity was included in the conception of God: for the rest, it has a wide range of meanings and its possible renderings are multiple, but it does not mean “eternal.” In particular when it is associated with life or punishment, in the Bible and in Christian authors who keep themselves close to the Biblical usage, it denotes their belonging to the world to come.”

But the issue goes much deeper than all that. I still have not heard one single rebuttal of Dr. Hart's first meditation in his book, which is "creatio ex nihlo." To put it in a thumbnail, eschatology is defined by protology, that is, a thing's end is what it is created for. This means that God created unto a specific end. What was that end? It was either the deification of all mankind, so that as St. Paul stated, God will be all in all (how is He all in all when not all are in Him in eternity?) or He created to the eschatological end that billions would be in eternal misery with a scant few being the subjects of His will to save. If the latter is true, then He is not love - He is monster. Such a creation to such an end would be appalling.

The question in the OP is actually right along Hart's line of thinking when he discusses creatio ex nihlo. To say that hell is the natural fate of man is to mean that God created with the teliological end that a certain number of mankind would be damned. In other words, the diabolic doctrines of Calvinism are correct.

My upcoming book, A LAYMAN INVESTIGATES UNIVERSAL SALVATION, goes into these details and a number of other reasons why Universal Salvation must be true. Part of that has been the horrendous mistranslations of the Greek by Western translators which have led people to believe in nonsense like the Rapture of the Church from Matthew chapter 24.

Tell me (since you want to go down this road), other than begging the argument, what makes aionios mean "eternal" with respect to the life in Matt 25:46, but not with respect to punishment in the very same sentence?

Either (1) Salvation isn't eternal either; some of Origen's followers asserted this, and it's a logical conclusion from his premises (although he doesn't seem to have held it), but I doubt that you hold it;
or (2) Jesus used the same word in two senses in the same sentence in a way that would be nearly certain to confuse His hearers;
or (3) St. Matthew rendered the saying into Greek, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, used the same Greek word to translate two Aramaic (probably words) in a way that would be nearly certain to confuse his readers/hearers;
or (4) Both salvation and punishment are eternal.

quote="Obi-Wan Kenobi]Tell me (since you want to go down this road), other than begging the argument, what makes aionios mean "eternal" with respect to the life in Matt 25:46, but not with respect to punishment in the very same sentence?

"But maaaaaaaaa.......he started it!!!"

Here, I think you missed this in my previous post. This is from Dr. Ilaria Ramelli, whose list of scholarly accomplishments and degrees is rather impressive.



Either (1) Salvation isn't eternal either; some of Origen's followers asserted this, and it's a logical conclusion from his premises (although he doesn't seem to have held it), but I doubt that you hold it;

Matthew 23-25 is not speaking about the end of the world. It is speaking about the end of the age which would take place when the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem. It is at the end of these events that Matthew 25: 31-45 takes place. We know this because that passage of Scripture begins thusly: Mat 25:31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, THEN shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

Now let's take it back to establish that this is indeed the time:



When? IMMEDIATELY!!!!! Not some 2,000 years later. Words mean things, Father, and this single word is a "time-indicator" by which Jesus tells us when we are to look for this to happen.



When? AND THEN!!! Not 2,000 years later. And then.

Matthew is the Jewish Gospel. It was not written to Christians 2,000 years later. It was Jesus first appearing as Messiah (the lineage narrative), then offering himself to Israel, being rejected, and finally, as prophet, foretelling and warning the Jews what was about to happen in AD 70. The problem is that one single word has been mistranslated in Matthew 24:3 and that has thrown the whole understanding off. The disciples as when will be the end of the world NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

THE END OF THE AGE!!!!!

That one mistranslation has made people think this chapter is about some fabulous Rapture of the Church or the Great Tribulation to take place in their time. It is utterly wrong. Aion does not mean world. Cosmos and oikoumene are translated world. NEVER aion!!!

or (2) Jesus used the same word in two senses in the same sentence in a way that would be nearly certain to confuse His hearers;

Nope. If Jesus is not speaking about the end of the world, then this puts a whole different thrust on the word aion in Matthew 25. If Jesus is speaking about the coming new age, the New Covenant, then the hearers would be expecting that He would speak of an age-long life and an age-long "kolasis aionion." (chastisement age-lasting). And furthermore, Jewish understanding was of ages upon ages (aion ton aion) to come. Modern Christians think in terms of life here and eternity. No ages upon ages. His language is consistent with a change of age.

But suppose you are correct. I can give you an example of a word used twice in one sentence with two different meanings. "A red truck rushed down the street, followed by a red fire truck." You see? The first truck is red, but it could be any kind of shade of red, couldn't it. But the second truck is one shade only. The adjective is defined by the noun it defines. Red fire truck can only be one kind of fire truck. And this is the same with "aionios." It has a variety of meanings, but when referring to God, it can only have the meaning of eternal. Since age-lasting life does not mean God, it is not of necessity translated eternal.

or (3) St. Matthew rendered the saying into Greek, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, used the same Greek word to translate two Aramaic (probably words) in a way that would be nearly certain to confuse his readers/hearers;

Greek was the common language of the Jews in Christ's time, so much so that the Septuagint was developed so that Greek speaking Jews could have the Scriptures in a language they understood. And guess what? When the Septuagint was translated, the translators changed the OT word "olam" to "aionios." Olam has the connotation of "unto the horizon" or "until you cannot see anymore." It connotes a long time, but not eternity. The Jews of Christ's day didn't have any concept of eternal fiery hell. That didn't arise until the second century with the Pharisees who crucified Christ. Not a good testimony for eternal hell that spiritually blind Jews would adopt a pagan belief and try to confer it upon God.

or (4) Both salvation and punishment are eternal.

Context. I have seen no one, not even you, Father, answer Hart's reasonable First Meditation in his book. What kind of God would create sentient beings for the purpose of tortuing them forever? God had no need to create. He lacked nothing. Yet He creates ex nihlo, and does so towards a telos. All actions are done towards an end. Every action taken, whether by God or man is done with an end in mind. Hart states that “It is not the way of the compassionate Maker to create rational beings in order to deliver them over mercilessly to unending affliction in punishment for things of which He knew even before they were fashioned, aware how they would turn out when He created them – and whom nonetheless He created.”

This is the point of David Bentley Harts second meditation in his wonderful book That All Shall Be Saved. Hart testifies that he learned from Fathers such as St. Isaac, Origen, Gregory and Maximus that “protology is eschatology.” What we understand about God as Creator informs our understanding of the world’s relation to God and his ultimate design for it. “The end of all things is their beginning.”

“The cosmos will have been truly created only when it reaches its consummation in ‘the union of all things with the first Good,’ and humanity will have truly been created only when all human beings, united in the living body of Christ, become at last that “Godlike thing” that is ‘humankind according to the image.’”

Only a sadist would create sentient beings with no plan to rescue them from a foreseen fall into sin, and with a plan that instead they be tormented forever. Our loving heavenly Father is not like the pagan gods, who are more like sinful men in their horrendous behavior, than a true God.

In the Eastern Church, in three weeks we will celebrate Pascha. During this time, we sing, over and over and over again a beautiful refrain which has come to mean so much to me as I understand the fullness of God's love - "Christ is risen from the dead, by death He conquered death, and to those in the tombs, He granted life." If God has decreed from the beginning that billions will go into an eternal state of death called hell, then you have God working against Himself. Death is not conquered and death wins! I do not accept this. When Christ died on the Cross, He went into Hades, and according to the Scriptures, preached to the spirits there "who were once disobedient." To what purpose? To mock them? To sneer at them and say "See what you missed by being disobedient?"

NO!!! To bring them the fullness of truth and bring them to Himself through the chastening of repentance! This is the glorious message of the victory of Christ over death and hades which we will rejoice in during Pascha. And it is why I reject hellist thinking.

Eternal hell thinking began with Augustine, got up a good head of steam with the thug emperor Justinian, and came into full bloom during the Papal Reformation as a way of bringing the unwashed, disobedient, and rebellious massses under control. See what Justinian had to say about Universalism: "“It will render men slothful, and discourage them from keeping the commandments of God. It will encourage them to depart from the narrow way, leading them by deception into ways that are wide and easy."

The whole issue went from chastisement to control in a few centuries. Justinian inherited an empire falling apart and wracked by riots, divisions, and violent deaths. His goal, which became the goal of the Church, was the restoration of the empire to its former glory. He had to have unity, and Origenists in Jerusalem were causing problems, thus he shut them down, including all that Origen taught, both heretical and otherwise.

There's so much more, Father. I am putting in literally hundreds of hours studying the history, the Greek, the schism, and all things which appear to have something to do with this. It is fascinating, but at the same time, very sad. What I see in the suppression of a doctrine which was widely taught in the first five hundred years of the Church is not theology but politics. Add to that bad translations from Greek to Latin and the natural blindness of man's heart (and baptism doesn't take that away or there would have never been an Arian heresy, for instance) and you have a receipe for changing the glorious Good News of God's all-encompassing love to a message of terror.