Into the Wardrobe

I disagree, Fealosse. There is certainly a strong urge of human nature to serve "self", but there is also an urge of human nature to connect with others, and even to do good to others. And I think there is a strong urge to connect with the infinite.

Perhaps there is a strong urge to serve others, but is it truly out of selflessness or desire for gratification? If you do good to others, they'll do good to you. And of course there's nothing wrong with that, but I think there's a reason why Jesus told us not to invite our friends to our wedding banquets... (Not that I would take that literally!) You should not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. (Or was it the other way around? ) I don't know too many people who have strong desires to serve others anonymously. And even if one truly is seeking for someone else's good above their own, one has to be sure that one is doing it out of devotion to God and not devotion to that person.

And perhaps there is an urge to connect with the Infinite, but none of us like the idea that the Infinite cannot be tamed... That He is in control, that He has chosen us, that we are powerless. Apart from Christ, I can do nothing. Yet humanity seeks to worship a God of our own design, one that we can fit into our beliefs, one that feels comfortable. But that is not my God. My beliefs of God are what He has revealed to me, not what I wish to believe about Him. And that is why I am not a universalist.

Hehe, I left for a few weeks and the discussion died.

Anyways, as for the anonymous thing, I say that because I know it's something that I struggle with myself. When I feel the urge to serve someone, it is often because I want to be recognised or I want their love. That kind of service is conditional and human. But the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve - He became sin for all humanity, although He knew that many would reject His love. That is unconditional and divine.

Besides, I've hardly ever received anything anonymously either. Maybe I'm just hanging out with the wrong kind of people.

I think the Universalist question does indeed come down to control. When God has revealed to humanity His plan of salvation and grace and we distort it, that is nothing but an attempt to make God whom we want Him to be. But God will not be moved. The path to destruction is wide, and there are many who will turn from faith. This is weaved all throughout Scripture. So maybe the question of Universalism is really a question of Inspiration - one or two (misread!) parts of the Bible decide theology, and the rest are rejected because they don't fit in with what people want of God. And I struggle with the same things - I would very much like to believe that everyone I know will come to know God even in the veiled way that I do, as well as I would like to believe that I'm really a good person overall. But neither of those are in harmony with what God has revealed to us about ourselves. We are depraved, capable only of evil apart from Him. There is no one who does good, no one who seeks God.

And again, maybe the Universalist question comes down to what we find more important: what we want, or what the Bible says. Perhaps there are many Christians who would like to believe that everything in the Word is warm and fuzzy and the only aspect of God is that He is love, when the reality is that spirituality should make us realise the blackness in ourselves and that God is just, and powerful, and holy... To say that God will accept those who do not accept Him is to say that He will deny Himself. He is holy, and if we are not we cannot stand in His presence. We cannot make ourselves holy, only He can do that, but He will not do it if we don't have faith in Him. That is the ultimate test, and that is what the Bible says. I don't like it either, but I accept it because of that faith. At the end of all things, perhaps I will begin to understand God's reasonings for ordering the universe that way, and until then, I'm satisfied that I don't.

Not my will, but His be done.

The word for fire is purus in Latin. Puros in Greek. Pure. As in refining fire.

The word for brimstone, theion, also means divinity.

So the lake of fire and brimstone is the lake of purity and divinity. Far from Hell being the absense of God, a dreadful place where God leaves people alone, it is actually his purifying presence.

1Tim 4:9 This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance (and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.

God saves all men. Especially those who believe.

One of the interesting implications of human depravity is that we force God into our own image: ie. into someone who tortures his enemies. But God is not a primate. He has no need to establish territory, to defend his position as alpha male, to attract females. So much of our theology is the theology of an ape.

In The Great Divorce, Lewis puts the idea forward that all who truly wish to know God will be capable of salvation. Christian teaching states that Jesus died to pay for our sins, and also to defeat death and hell. This suggests to me that all who truly desire God may accept Jesus as Saviour, and Lewis put foward the idea that this could happen after death. However it is not by any means certain that all will, even after death: i) wish to know God, and ii) accept Jesus's sacrifice. The potential lack of desire on our part to know God and accept Jesus is what stops me holding a full-bore universalist point of view; we could all still 'stuff up' our eternal life and reject both God and Jesus's sacrifice, and if that happens there is no more God can do for us, as He will not, I believe, compel us to seek or love Him (or Jesus).

"What is then the scope of St. Paul's argument? That the nature of evil shall one day be wholly exterminated, and divine, immortal goodness embrace within itself all intelligent natures; so that of all who were made by God, not one shall be exiled from his kingdom; when all the mixtures of evil that like a corrupt matter is mingled in things, shall be dissolved, and consumed in the furnace of purifying fire, and everything that had its origin from God shall be restored to its pristine state of purity.

"This is the end of our hope, that nothing shall be left contrary to the good, but that the divine life, penetrating all things, shall absolutely destroy death from existing things, sin having been previously destroyed,

"For it is evident that God will in truth be 'in all' when there shall be no evil in existence, when every created being is at harmony with itself, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; when every creature shall have been made one body. Now the body of Christ, as I have often said, is the whole of humanity."

"If sin be not cured here, its cure will be effected hereafter. God's threats are that through fear we may be trained to avoid evil; but by those who are more intelligent it (the judgment) is believed to be a medicine... The soul which is united to sin must be set in the fire, so that that which is unnatural and vile may be removed, consumed by the aionion fire."

St. Gregory of Nyssa (335-390)

okay, well, here goes.....i'm UU----it's one church an ex-catholic who worships hindu gods in sanskrit can go to.

has anybody here read Stealing Jesus, a 1997 book by Bruce Bawer?
It talks alot about the ways in which the fundamentalists in America have co-opted previously tolerant religions like, believe or not, the BAPTISTS, and turned being "christian" into a politically charged word that means one thing to religous conservatives and a whole other thing to liberals, to the point that people like myself, (or in the case of the book, an Episcopal minister), don't answer "yes" right away to the question "are you a christian?", not sure what the subtext behind the question will lead to.

It's a very eye-opening look into fundamentalism/vs. unitarianism, religions of law vs. religions of love (these are just general ways in which he lays out the terms of his discussion that i'm borrowing here). it was a suspenseful, enjoyable read, and i learned a lot of history of the American religious movements by reading it, not just fundamentalism, but different religous leaders, theologians, and historians.

Hi Jo,
I am a universalist, though maybe a partial/mostly type. Based upon What is it again? Dont have time to look it up... Romans 15? Heaven was made by God for all men and his angels, and Hell was made for the devil and his? Plus some common sense, (at least what seems to me to be common sense...) and of course the possibilty that reincarnation is used by God as a way to give People chances to make the right choice. (To choose Him and Heaven over hell.) I dont want to get into it nor get stoned to death, but email me Jo and I will tell you everything I think if you are curious, because you will only throw half eaten perogies at me and not stones. (messy, but never painful).