Hi all!

As I said other times here, I'm a theist agnostic about Christianity, with a sympathy for Christian universalism. I'm considering to become a Christian again but eschatology alongside other things in which I seem to have a view that goes against the 'orthodoxy' keep me outside of Christianity.

Regarding eschatology, I do accept that there was a significant prevalence of universalists in the first centuries, although I doubt that they were really the 'majority' as sometimes it is claimed. Also, I do accept that even later in the 'Church of the East' universalism was somewhat popular even in the Middle Ages (indeed, in the past I wrote some posts about this) but it was the classic 'exception that proves the rule', so to speak. So, I'm not saying that Christian universalism is a novel idea that modern people 'conjured up' from writings of some obscure heretical sects that were unfortunately rediscovered recently.

The problem is simply this: all evidence suggests that in most Christian traditions it seems that a 'consensus' of sorts was reached according to which the belief that all human beings shall be saved was simply off-limits. So, the bulk of the Christian traditions simply abandoned the idea and more often than not actively opposed it. The problem with saying that 'traditions' can be wrong for Christians is that, after all, even the Bible itself was the product of 'tradition' (in a broad sense): the very decision of, for instance, including some texts and not others in the Old and New Testaments was after all a decision that was made in the context of the 'tradition' (again, in a broad sense). Hence if, starting from at least from the sixth century universalism was seen as decisively wrong, it seems that 'tradition' in a broad sense was mostly wrong about a very important doctrine: the fate of human beings that are not saved and indeed that some or even many human beings will not be saved. It does not help that apparently most canonized saints (in both West and East) were supporters of ECT.

All of this despite the fact that, to be honest, I believe that the ethical teachings of Christianity actually favour the formation of a desire for the salvation of all human beings. I mean, if Christians are called to love oneself and others (including enemies), it seems that this love would motivate a desire for the salvation of both oneself and others (again, enemies included). Despite this, even a reticence to believe that some will be lost forever was seen with suspicion (and, to be honest, we see all of this even nowadays: many even look with suspicion hopeful universalism!). Rather, it seems that for most of Christian history Christians were taught and forced themselves to accept the idea that for some or even many human beings - including oneself and one's loved ones - the 'final condition' could be one in which for them it would be better to have never been born*.

This certainly wasn't an easy idea to accept and it seems that for most Christians this was an idea that one must accept.

So, all of this to ask: how can one trust, have enough faith in a religion if one also believes that in its history most of its adherents were simply wrong on such an important issue? Becoming part of a religion in some serious ways also implies to accept, for instance, to orient one's entire life in order to make such a religion the most important aspect of one's life (and indeed the first of the Two Great Commandments that are attributed to Jesus seems to say precisely this). It is not an easy thing to do in itself, let alone when you also have to either accept to believe that for some/many people the final state will be one without hope or that the bulk of the Christian tradition (in a broad sense) has been wrong. Given this, I can't help but think that past and present Christian universalists might have been or be missing something that most Christians do not.

*In Mark 14:21 and Matthew 26:24 Jesus is quoted as saying precisely this about Judas Iscariot. I know that universalists have come up with different ways to interpret these verses than a literal "for Judas it was better to have never come into existence" but I believe that the most common interpretation of those words in Christian history was precisely this.

P.S. Thanks in advance for those who will respond. Also, sorry if I will reply late or even not reply. This is also because I want to ponder seriously and calmly about this and I am currently busy with other matters.

I’m about 1/4 of the way through this book, and already I have enough praise for it to write this post. Admittedly, I have an AI tool open while I’m reading so that I can quickly look up definitions about 3-5 times per page, but it hasn’t taken away from the joy of the book. If anything, Hart’s use of colorful vocabulary is helping to expand my own.

One of the first observations I had while reading the book is how hilarious Hart is. There’s a section early on where he subtly makes a joke about how the commonly held view of eternal conscious torment includes for some a belief in immortal worms, and the way he words it is hilarious.

I have not yet been convinced of ultimate restoration, the doctrine that all will eventually be saved, primarily because of the number of scriptures warning against eternal destruction, but I believe something close to it. I certainly don’t believe in eternal conscious torment. For a long time now, I’ve believed that the wicked will be destroyed forever. That being said, I am more convinced now than ever before that God will go to great lengths, even beyond death in a corrective hell, to liberate the human will enough to choose to love and follow Him.

So far, the most profound and helpful part of the book has been Hart’s explanation of the rational will, that is, the will God created humans to have, and that a free will is a rational will, and a rational will is oriented towards the Good, who is, God Himself. Therefore, any decisions we make that distance us from intimacy with God come from a corrupted will, not a rational will. Therefore, it would be unjust for God to condemn a sinner to eternal torment because eternal torment is infinite while their sin is qualified by a corrupted will, and therefore the punishment doesn’t match the crime. That being said, that doesn’t mean all guilt is removed. After all, though every human has an unchosen corruption of their will, they still participate in and further that corruption, and for that reason, they are morally responsible. Furthermore, the human who is judged and condemned, whether temporarily in a corrective hell or permanently in annihilation, is condemned as the person they have become and for the sins that are their own, and the person they have become is damnable apart from redemption.

The question that remains is does God’s love compel Him to eventually restore every will in this life and through a corrective hell, if necessary, to the free state He intended for it and therefore do we need to figure out another way to understand the scriptures that warn of eternal destruction (which I interpret as annihilation), or do we take those warnings at face value and instead accept that His love does compel Him to liberate the will in this life and through a corrective hell, if necessary, but only to a certain point, a point at which a decision to reject Him is free enough to warrant eternal description?

That is the question I have at the point in the book I’ve gotten to so far. Perhaps Hart will help me find an answer to that question by the time I finish the book.

Ever since considering the evidence, thinking through my position, and landing on universalism, the walls have come down. I no longer hold back. My prayer life is brutal.

And it's more honest than it's ever been. Never has God gotten the full weight of everything I've been carrying with no regard for how it comes across. I've also started using she/her for God because I had an abusive mother and need that energy. I've used tarot as part of my prayer life, not as fortune telling but as reflections on things in my life (the themes of the cards are very thought provoking). I've quit going to church because I saw through the emotional manipulation and cannot stomach most of the modern theology. I've studied the bible more than ever before and am making connections and discoveries I never imagined.

If God truly wants a real relationship with us, as is crystal clear in the bible, how can she expect anyone to be honest with her if she holds eternal annihilation or conscious torment over our heads? Don't get me wrong, I believe in judgment and that there will be punishment for sins, that much is clear. But I believe that punishment is finite and meant for our benefit. So how can anyone seriously believe God is love, God will punish people forever, and their relationship with her is valid? It's Stockholm Syndrome at best. They're loving someone who will torture or kill them without a second thought if they stop loving them. That's not love. That's abuse.

Jesus never said the people who are rejected by God were told they never loved her. They were told they never knew her. Knowing someone has nothing to do with positivity. Hating God is knowing her. Screaming at God is knowing her. And if God truly is as relational as we believe, I think she'd rather hear a completely honest "I hate you" than a coerced "I love you."

If universalism isn't true, God doesn't love us and we can't truly love her. So I think the honesty is itself fruit of a real relationship. And I think some people really need to hate God for a while, to be openly hostile to her, in order to be able to love her. Any framework that threatens eternal punishment is telling us not to be honest and not to have a real relationship.

It's the middle of the night, but those are thoughts I've been having for a while. I hate God right now. I also love God. But right now, I need to hate her to love her. I know that doesn't make sense, but I'm lonely and right now, a divine punching bag I can scream and swear at is more valuable to me than someone I have to perform reverence for, and that's more intimate than performance anyway. The lack of fear has made it possible to get this close. I just wish everyone had this freedom.

I have yet to read All Shall Be Saved, but I did listen to a lecture by David Bentley Hart where he argues that a person is not a person in a vacuum, a person is defined by other persons in their life and if anything but universalism is true one cannot be complete in the afterlife. I have seen similar arguments here.

I think this is a weak argument.

First of all, we do not cease to exist if our friends and family disappear, and we can be happy again even in this life if that happens. Imagine a shipwreck and you are stuck on an island but you have everything to survive. Eventually you find enjoyment and move on. Or if your friends or family abandon you for whatever reason. People come and go from your life, you meet new people, you move on. You are not stuck with a specific group of people forever. If that were so, meeting new people would be just as horrifying as losing people.

Secondly, it requires a weird assumption that after resurrection there will be room for such feelings, as if God cannot heal us or make us understand that it was necessarily so. We have no clue what post resurrection is. Jesus was not sad after his resurrection.

I am not saying universalism has no case, but this argument is not good.

…they miss the message!

 Christian music and worship are full of lyrics with Universalist themes. The proclamation in Philippians 2 seems to be one of the most often penned containing the message:

> Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phillippians 2:9-11 KJV)

 Ricky Dillard & New G, Matthew West, Matt Papa, Chairo, Gateway Music (Michael Bethany), Hillsong, Dottie Peoples, J Brian Craig, and many other contemporary Christian recording artists have written songs featuring this message.

 Twila Paris recorded those lyrics 35 years ago, while a Steve Vest song containing the lyrics was published in 73 Hymnals beginning in the Spring of 1969. At the Name of Jesus is a hymn with lyrics written by Caroline Maria Noel which was first published in 1870. Some 9th-century Latin hymns reference Philippians 2 as well.

 But the most astounding tidbit I have found in researching this subject (so notable it should be the subject of the post rather than a bullet point) was that the oldest hymn containing the words of Philippians 2:10-11 dates to the mid-1st century (c. AD 50-60). Known by scholars as the Carmen Christi or Hymn to Christ, it appears Paul is quoting this early Christian hymn in his letter, making IT the oldest source to directly feature the passage and not the passage itself. That ought to cook your noodle!

 The artists wrote, recorded, and perform the lyrics. Congregations all over the world sing the songs translated into hundreds of languages and they still believe in everlasting conscious torture in a hell void of the presence of God.

 Comments?

 On the veil of darkness that seems to be draped over the eyes of Christianity?

On the sheer volume of songs written containing these words?

On the Carmen Christi, Hymn to Christ?

Help me work through this.

This occurred to me in my other post where the topic of identity depending on reality of other people is said to be necessary for meaningful concept of me.

If that is so, we need all past, present, and future souls to be saved in order to have completeness.

But "all future souls" come from infinite pool of existence. There is never an end to them, and if God makes a cut-off and all up to that point are saved, we run into the same problem frequently mentioned here, that is, someone dying is an arbitrary cutoff point for them to be saved. In the same fashion, someone not being born/conceived is an arbitrary cutoff point for them, pre-existence of souls must be implied here. So the end can never happen, otherwise those unrealized souls never got the chance to be saved.

If God can decide to bring about the judgment and salvation of all at some point, thereby cutting off those not conceived from existing, he can do the same with those who were born. In any case, someone is left out.

The alternative is that there is a pre-fixed number of souls and we are waiting for them to be realized, but that doesn't sound right to me metaphysically.

So I was on Amazon looking up books by David Bentley Hart and stumbled upon Love Wins by Rob Bell. I’ve heard of that book on this subreddit and someday would like to read it, though I’d prefer to read That All Shall Be Saved by Hart first.

Anyway, a book by Tony Watts popped up and its supposedly a response and rebuttal of Rob Bell’s book. Has anyone here read Tony’s book and maybe have a response to it? I know it may be odd to ask since I haven’t even read Rob’s book yet but I’m just curious. I wasn’t aware there was a whole book dedicated to arguing against Rob.

I did notice though that Tony’s book has much less reviews, only 3 (though it has a 4.5 star rating if I remember correctly) compared to Rob’s book, which has almost 3,000, most of which are positive, so maybe that means something?

Hi all. Zach here, im 24 from Illinois and I went to church and I felt a pull. I'm pagan, but lately ive felt myself faltering. I'd love some validation, maybe send a nice DM or two or something, but please help push me over the bump. Make me buy a cross pendant, or a shirt, something to announce my faith.

PS: I was raised Lutheran, make me come back to it. Teach me

My discord is Gatekeeper_Cerberus

>According to Calvin, the Creed does not speak of hell and eternal death because its author was nice enough to be willing to speak only of comfort. But Calvin, as if to restore things, reminds us that there is also hell, although the Creed does not mention it. I think that, here too, Calvin must be slightly corrected. It is not only out of kindness, out of good nature, that the Creed does not mention hell and eternal death. But the Creed discusses only the things which are the object of the faith. We do not have to believe in hell and in eternal death. I may only believe in the resurrection and the judgment of Christ, the judge and advocate, who has loved me and defended my cause.

>The Creed discusses the things to be believed. To believe. It is important to finish with faith. We believe in the Word of God and it is the word of our salvation. The kingdom, the glory, the resurrection, the life everlasting, each one is a work of rescue. Light pierces through the darkness, eternal life overcomes eternal death. We cannot "believe" in sin, in the devil, in our death sentence. We can only believe in the Christ who has overcome the devil, borne sin and removed eternal death. Devil, sin, and eternal death appear to us only when they are overcome.

>And let us not add: "Yes, but sin is a grevious thing"—as though hell and so many horrors were not on earth already! If one does really believe, one cannot say: "But!" this terrible and pitiful "but." I fear that much of the weakness of our Christian witness comes from this fact that we dare not frankly confess the grandeur of God, the victory of Christ, the superiority of the Spirit. Wretched as we are, we always relapse into contemplation of ourselves and of mankind, and, naturally, eternal death comes up no sooner than we have looked on it. The world without redemption becomes again a power and a threatening force, and our message of victory ceases to be believable. But as it is written: "The victory that triumphs over the world, this is our faith" (1 John 5:4)

~ Karl Barth, The Faith of the Church conclusion

I was watching a yt video just to relax after a chore I did and heard the host saying: oh my God, oh my gosh, holy sh*t, f*cking sh*t and remembered many say it's a sin as it takes the name of God in vain, and I don't have enough knowledge of it, then later I became bothered about it since most devout people I know are old people and one of them is my grandma where I picked up when I was young to exclaim "blessed Mary Joseph Jesus" whenever she was shocked, surprised, scared or angry so I can't reconcile it with sin. So my question is this: is God offended by it? Is it a sin to watch somebody saying it ?

For me I think my grandma exclaims that as a source of peace,clarity and strength whenever her emotions are tumultuous,