This is the key question. I have yet to see anything from Denise that makes Jesus necessary. It's nice to be delivered from ignorance etc., but if at some point I'm going to go to Heaven anyhow, then even decades of ignorance etc. here are unfortunate but, in the grand scheme of things, no big deal. If all Jesus does is to deliver us from ignorance etc., then it's nice to have Him around, but we could get by without Him. And that's not acceptable.

So I would really like an answer to this question.

Which question would you really like an answer to, Obi? There are two questions there:

(1) in your view, what did Jesus' work of Redemption accomplish?

(2) What would have been of us had he not offered himself up for us?

The first question is a perfectly fine question to ask, but I am reluctant to attempt to answer it, as I don’t think I have enough theological knowledge to do it justice, or enough time. I’m sure many books have been written on the subject. It looks like a question you might see on a Religious Knowledge examination paper.

Jesus said that the Great commandment is

”Thou shalt love thy Lord, thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind", and “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

So I don’t think any adequate answer to jack3’s first question could fail to include what Jesus taught us about love.

It’s our ignorance of how to love which is the problem. If we don’t begin to learn to love here on earth, and continue to learn to love in the next world whatever kind of world that may be (“purgatory”), then we can’t expect God to just suddenly work magic on us and we suddenly become loving beings in an instant as we enter Heaven. No, that’s because love is real, not a theory.

Obi, no Christian universalist has ever said that we don’t need Jesus, that we go to heaven without any need for Jesus ever to have done anything, so I don’t understand what you are trying to say. Universalists quote 1 Timothy 2:3-6
”This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. For, There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus. He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone.“

So of course Jesus is necessary, for “everyone to be saved”. I don’t know what part of that you don’t understand, Obi.

If you, Obi or jack3’s, have a simple answer to the first question, which isn’t too simplistic, then tell me what it is, and then I can tell you whether or not I agree, and if not, I’ll tell you why not.

As for the second question: “What would have been of us had he not offered himself up for us?” That’s asking me to speculate on something which is entirely hypothetical. So I could go off in all kinds of different directions if I started to speculate. I’d rather not speculate on something which is not a reality. What would be the point? Again, maybe you have a simple answer, and if so, tell me what it is, and I can tell you whether or not I agree.

I have no problem with question 1. Jesus saved us from Hell.

You are quite wrong about this. Some of them acknowledged this as a conclusion of their theories, and others, when challenged by those who disagree, were unable to answer. And as long as you tap-dance around the question of, "From what did Jesus save us?", you do nothing to make me think that you aren't in the same place as the second group.

How can those Christian universalists, who said there was no need for Jesus, call themselves 'Christian'?

In regard to question 1, I have no problem saying and believing that Jesus saves us from hell.

The only difference between your answer and my answer is that I believe Jesus saves all of us from hell, at the right time, whereas you believe He cannot save all of us from hell; and I believe that the hell Jesus saves us from is not a place that Jesus cannot get us out of, not a place where we eternally suffer with no possibility of escaping the suffering. We are free to go to hell if we choose, but once there, we have the possibility of returning to God, by God's grace which is always available - whereas, Obi, you believe that God's grace ceases to be available as soon as a person dies.

All actions take place with an towards an end. Creation ex nihlo is no exception. What was the end - the telos - of the Creation epic?

Was it that a few of those who were created would achieve divinization (theosis) and enjoy union in love with the Trinity while the rest were in torment forever? If so, and if eternal punishment is true, then if eternal punishment is true, then God has indeed carried out exactly the plan which He intended from the very beginning - which plan is completely opposed to what John said of God: "God is love." Love does not do that. I'm sorry you don't understand that concept.

Or was the plan that God would be "all in all" (1 Corinthians 15:28) and in that, all who would ever be created would eventually find the true telos of Creation - that as Paul said

2Co 5:14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

2Co 5:15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

Col 1:20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

that ALL would eventually be restored. That the telos - the very purpose of God from the beginnig of all things - would in no way be disrupted or come to failure because of the failure of one man.

So what was the purpose of God in creation? What was the end to which He created all things? You cannot avoid this argument. Either God, in complete foreknowledge, created some unto destruction and torment (as the heretical Calvinists aver) with knowing and full intent that they would suffer unspeakably forever, or He created all that is with the foreknowledge of the Fall, yet having a plan that all would eventually be restored from the Fall, some here on earth to great glory in eternity, and some through the purging fires of His love and to a lesser glory in eternity.

Thus the purpose of the Cross is that men be healed of their sin. Christ assumed human nature in order to heal it, and by entering into Christ through baptism, we enter into that process of healing. Without the Cross, without the obedience unto death of Christ, without Him assuming our nature, we would never be healed, either now or in the next life.

As for the quotes you have posted above, I can respond with an equal number of quotes from both the Bible and Early Fathers which show the hope of Universal Restoration. Therefore, someone is in error. And since the Sacred Scriptures state that God is love, and knowingly creating beings with the sole and distinct telos of tormenting them forever is not in any sense of the word an act of love, then the error is on the side of those who have read the Scriptures and only see those verses which speak of judgment and implied eternal damnation.

Honestly, does it at all bother you to really stop and meditate on a concept of God which makes Him a Creator who would create sentient beings for the sole purpose of their suffering? Does not that idea of God not in some sense absolutely terrify you? And what of those who you care for on earth who see pleasure as more important than God, who feel, for some reason, no need for Him, or who have never even heard the Truth? Do you weep over lost relatives? If so, does God, who is pure love, love them less than you do, being willing to let them merrily dance their way into an eternity of torment with no possibility of rescuing them? Does He not care, or is He impotent to bring them to repentance?

I am unconvinced that love does this, I am unconvinced that God is so impotent that He cannot save to the uttermost, I am unconvinced that hell is anything other than the divine operating room in which the Great Physician heals the sickest of souls and brings them to the teleological end for which He created all things ex nihlo, and I am unconvinced that in His immense wisdom and knowledge that He does not have a plan to restore all things to their former glory, a plan which we cannot begin to understand because of our limited knowledge and darkened understandings.

Names
Please

I'm just recalling what Father has already said: God created the world to manifest his glory, and good glory is manifested both in his justice and in his mercy.

No, because man's NATURE would have remained unchanged. You can punish all you want, but until the nature is changed, the soul is unfit for union with the Trinity.

Where do you get such thoughts anyway????

Oh, I know. You are still bound by that fantasy called "forensic (penal) substitution" in which salvation treats sin as a crime to be punished rather than an illness to be cured. Try seeing man not as a criminal, but as a sick child of God (some of them very VERY sick) and in need not of a beating, but healing.

As for Universalists who admit that Jesus isn't a necessary part of the picture, I can point you in the direction of the UUs. You might well claim that they are no longer Christians in any recognizable sense, and I would agree, but they descended from Christian stock.

You would not enjoy reading it, perhaps, but The Devil's Redemption is a very scholarly overview of the sources of universalism and its changes over the centuries. It has been fascinating (I'm not trying to be catty here) to watch Denise bring out so many of the themes that appear in the book; I don't know if she's coming up with them on her own or if she's read of them somewhere. In particular, while I was (and still am) working on a list of names for you, her version of salvation seems very close to that proposed by Andrew Michael Ramsey around 1750.

FTFY.

When I say that He saves us from Hell, I believe that He saves us from going there in the first place. This is not the same as your version of saving us from Hell, and it's significantly different.

Hell-as-purgatory is another common theme in the books (it's a two-volume work) that I mentioned to LotE, for whatever that may be worth.

Ed, can I ask what Christ's sacrifice does according to your view? I have heard enough from you over the years to know there's much more place for it in your approach than I've seen in DD's, but I'm still curious. It will help my blood pressure if you can avoid comparing it to other views ; I'm looking for a positive statement of your beliefs.

I'm not parroting anyone. It's mainly me thinking things out for myself but in the last few months I have read quite a lot of articles on the Internet, some of which may contain some of the ideas of "Andrew Michael Ramsey" that are familiar to you. I think it works both ways, sometimes I think things out for myself (possibly based on ideas I have previously read and absorbed) and then find something by googling which shows that my thinking is the same as someone else's, and sometimes I read something which adds to my thinking and I adopt it into my thinking.

I've pointed out that I'm not knowledgeable enough about "what Christ's sacrifice does" to answer that question adequately. I wouldn't want to give a simplistic answer.

That makes sense. Thank you for explaining. Ramsey was very influential in English-speaking universalism, so you may have picked up thoughts that came from him originally.

Insanity is a cheap cop-out. I'm not insane, but you and I are subject to certain passions that are strong enough to make us willfully blind and causes us to see only the apparent "goods" of things that are objectively evil. That's precisely what concupiscence is(e.g. your defense of homosexual behavior on the other thread."



That says more about you than it suggests anything about me.

All I do is beg God to grant me the daily and hourly graces for my daily and hourly needs and the chips will fall where they may.



That's exactly what the doctrine of universalism says. "You can do whatever you want because there are no consequences." Universalism says that there is no such thing as forgiveness, and therefore no such thing as Redemption, because there there's no such thing a sin, only innocent mistakes.

Your conception of a "God of love" is a God that's blind. A "God" who says that "you're fine just as you are." It a God of pop psychology, a God of purely human invention.

It's certainly not the God and Father of Jesus Christ.


Universalism says that Hitler and Germany can slaughter millions.....no matter, they're heaven-bound.

Stalin and the Soviets, Mao's revolutionaries, etc. can slaughter millions more....it was just based on an innocent mistake, they're heaven-bound.(And I'd love you try and attempt the foolish argument that an entire country was collectively, temporarily insane, and didn't know that slaughtering millions of people, or raping, torturing, or starving people to death, and that they didn't know that what they were doing was horribly evil, and didn't know on some level that it merited for them hell.)

If not everyone, at least the vast majority of people, have been in situations where they were dominated by one or more passions and committed some act that when later when sober knew that of itself it was sufficient enough to condemn them to hell. If you haven't, then you're either both lying to others and yourself.


This is why Universalism is as ridiculous a theory in regards to salvation as subjectivism is a ridiculous theory in regards to truth.

It's a "nice" theory to contemplate; no one wants people to suffer in eternal torment.

But I know enough about evil and malevolence to know that what is barely indistinguishable from an indifferentism disguised as sentimentalism and uncritical empathy are foolish substitutes for Christian faith and repentance. They don't challenge you to grow any further beyond your own desires, and they give just enough of a sham facade of moral virtue to make it appear credible.

I simply cannot buy it as a credible theory of anything.

And then what happens when through sloth and moral laziness/cowardice one utterly refuses to accept that Redemption?




There's nothing that says that sin is BOTH a crime to be punished AND a disease to be cured. Lung cancer is a disease, but you chose to commit the crime against your body of smoking for 30 years which caused the disease to manifest.

You're making the exact same error as Denise is in making it as if there's no connection at all between sin and hell. Almost as if sin isn't really sin at all, it's just a mistake, and hell just some arbitrary misfortune, and not the final begetting of that thing which was for you a consummatory union with than sin you loved more than anything.

Hell isn't something that just "happens", it's something that you actually participated in creating because you were blinded by some passion you allowed yourself succumb to.

Your post is a complete and total misrepresentation of what Universalism teaches. Hitler, Mao, and a number of other lesser vile tyrants are probably still in hell right now.

Honestly, I don't think you have applied yourself to a studious examination of the many writers who are writing on the subject. And I am not just talking about David Bentley Hart.

"still in hell" ?

Both sickness and crime.
I get my thoughts from the Church.

I do not hold to penal substitution: the punishment for mortal sin is not crucifixion. Let us desist from polemic labelling. The only forensic things I hold onto are my textbooks and equipment.