OH, OH... I wasn't paying attention: if Universalism is true. Sheesh. It'd be no wonder if the definition in Websters for "stupid" was "See Keith." Sometimes, I tell you!

Starkman

For my own thinking, as I went through this text a couple months ago, I interpreted the two ages to mean pre Kingdom-of-God and post Kingdom-of-God. Jesus main message throughout Matthew seems to be, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." This passage is in line with that. There is indeed a judgement coming, and you'll not be able to escape if you're not of the kingdom. God won't say, "Aww... that's okay. Come to the party anyway." No. All who are not rightly related with God will condemned to the second death, there will be no amnesty given. They SHALL die, utterly and completely, without chance of reprieve. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, probably both in regret and in continued defiance. But no one will be able to withstand or endure the burning away that is their unavoidable fate; no one will be forgiven or pardoned from this fate.

I've never intended to deny any of this. This is the gospel as I understand it... "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand."

However, I've not been able to rule out a speculation that after the sentance of second death has been executed (the blasphemer is truly gone), then perhaps God can/will resurrect the dead. Then, finally freed of their sinful nature, they will be given the chance to at last relate rightly with God, and in this new purged state, without a temptor around, with the benefit of hard-gained insight, their freewill embrace of God is inevitable.

Post Edited (Corey) : 6/28/2006 11:14:59 AM (GMT-5)

Corey: Tom, what do you think of my handling of this scripture in this case?

Tom: Well, as far as the comments by Boring from Brite Divinity School, I thought they were Boring and not too bright. Hardee har har.

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Boring: These sayings are not a separate statement on the "the unpardonable sin," but in their Matthean context they are a constituent element of Jesus' response to the Pharisees' charge that he performs exorcisms and healings by the power of Beelzebul.

Tom: Nobody doubts this!

Boring: In this case, the meaning of the text can be illuminated by a consideration of its trajectory from Jesus' original pronouncement through its various NT forms.

Tom: Original pronouncement? OK, let’s see…

Boring: The following sketch is, in the nature of the case, hypothetical but has substantial support…

Tom: Heavy on the ‘hypothetical’.

Boring: (1) Jesus' original saying was an absolute and universal pronouncement of divine forgiveness, "All things shall be forgiven to human beings, whatever they have blasphemed."

Tom: Now how in the world does he know that?

Boring: (2) This radical pronouncement was considered too revolutionary in early Christianity, so it was modified in a number of ways....

Tom: That’s a HUUUUUGE assumption. On what basis does he think it TOO revolutionary a belief, especially since universal salvation wasn’t unheard of among Jews. And which is authoritative for Boring now, the original saying of Jesus or the modified (less revolutionary) manufactured saying?

Boring: As elsewhere in Matthew, such procouncements against the Pharisees at the narrative level function as warnings to church members and especially to church leaders.

Tom: I don’t doubt that. So what? So because this story is intended to serve as a warning to Matthew’s readers it can’t be original as it stands in the text?

Boring: Their function here is not to provide a doctrinal category of "unforgivable sins" about which Christians should be anxious.

Tom: So if Boring thinks the less revolutionary story is told to serve as a warning, what would he suggest the warning to be? And don’t warnings necessarily create SOME anxiety (recognition of threat at least)?

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Corey: For my own thinking, as I went through this text a couple months ago, I interpreted the two ages to mean pre Kingdom-of-God and post Kingdom-of-God.

Tom: Paul describes Jesus’ handing over the Kingdom to the Father (1Cor. 15), which appears to follow the physical resurrection. So the post KOG age you’re thinking of (Jesus’ “age to come”) is what? The eternal state? It sounds kinda strange to say some sin won’t be forgiven in the eternal state (which is suppose to follow God’s having dealt with sin and restored all things). I’m confused!

Corey: Jesus main message throughout Matthew seems to be, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." This passage is in line with that. There is indeed a judgement coming, and you'll not be able to escape if you're not of the kingdom. God won't say, "Aww... that's okay. Come to the party anyway." No. All who are not rightly related with God will condemned to the second death, there will be no amnesty given.

Tom: But it looks like you're merging what seems to be unique about THIS sin and its consequences together with what we general believe will be the case (viz., that sinners will not escape the consequences for their actions). Facing judgment as the consequence of our unforgiven actions applies to ALL sin. But Jesus is saying something about THIS sin that's not the case about other sins--its unforgivability in both ages. I take unforgivable to mean, well, unforgivABLE.

Corey: They SHALL die, utterly and completely, without chance of reprieve. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, probably both in regret and in continued defiance. But no one will be able to withstand or endure the burning away that is their unavoidable fate; no one will be forgiven or pardoned from this fate.

Tom: But again, isn't this is true of all unbelievers? Sure, no one will be excused for having to face the consequences of their actions in the afterlife. And the apparently unique consequence of "blaspheming the Spirit" is that it will not be forgiven, not in this age nor in the age to come.

In other words, I take Jesus to be specifying a consequence for THIS sin which he not specified for any other sin. But all your comments lump both this and all other sins together.

Corey: However, I've not been able to rule out a speculation that after the sentance of second death has been executed (the blasphemer is truly gone), then perhaps God can/will resurrect the dead.

Tom: So is the sin of "blaspheming the Spirit" for which the blasphemer suffers ever actually forgiven? I think it has to be if he ends up saved. But it seems the text says it won’t be forgiven. Will the blasphemer enter some "age" beyond "this" and "the one to come" (a third "age") mentioned by Jesus during which time his blasphemy WILL be forgivable?

Tom

Tom: WHY in the world would ANY sin (even blasphemy of the Spirit) be unforgivable in ANY age? God will forgive this sin at some point in the future but either refuses to or can't in this or the next (millennial) age? Why?

Jeff: I would speculate that, in an absolute sense, it is always forgiveable due to the all-sufficiency of Christ's atonement. But God simply will not forgive it prior to Christ delivering up the kingdom to Him. This, to my mind, would imply that there are kingdom purposes which are incongruent with such a forgiveness prior to the "delivering."

If that's conceivable, I would think that God knows that anyone that commits that sin is already too hardened to repent, anyway, given the epistemic distance available to them. So it might not be as though God is refusing to honor a true heart repentance just because of a specific sin.

Even then, it may have something to do more specifically with Jews in torah covenant rather than some general truth for today. Much of what Christ said had such narrow contextual meaning. Like, for example, "these things ye ought to have done," speaking of tithing mint and cummin. We don't apply such an "ought" to ourselves.

Tom: What if the suffering that was his judgment was just his truly realizing what he had done, the existential angst he felt in response, and then his choice to commit suicide? So in THIS life the WHOLE thing played out. In THIS life it became true of Judas that it would be better that he had never been born. Judas concludes this himself, and so acts on it; he commits suicde. Done deal. No afterlife, no eternity, nuttin.

I'm not entirely satisfied by this. Dunno why. What do you think Jeff? Are you still hopeful?

Jeff: I think the Ecclesiates passage helps us see that the comparison is somehow hyperbolic, narrowly defined, or both. So I think what you're saying might well be true. And, yes, I still say that it's all consistent with something like annihilation. But it just seems plausible to me that when Christ talks of the "age to come" that he's meaning a finite age since "this" age is finite. So if Christ doesn't comment on eternity, I can at least allow for the possibility that HE was allowing for the possibility of a future forgiveness.

One thing that Meph has talked about that also resonates with my gut is: "why did God continue after the Fall--why not just start over?" Different people will answer that differently depending on how they understand the Fall. But since I take a stronger historical view of the Fall, it seems to me that the Fall occurred in a very improbable fashion and in a way unrelated to the purpose of the "test." I think the test was intended to be "taken" without the interference of the most powerful angel.

So if God is continuing this creation rather than starting a new one, there might have been some commitment to accomplishing the ends of this creation one way or another. It's not, in other words, just a choice. It may have been a prior commitment or promise (remember that Titus talks of God promising life before the age times). Or maybe when God purposes, it is automatically a commitment of a sort ("... who can resist His purpose...").

But this leaves open the possibility, to my mind, that God has had to work His grace consistently with whatever those purposes are. I tend to think of them as earthly kingdom purposes (think of "the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world). And this allows me to think of God's grace as being less constrained by such purposes once the kingdom is delivered up to Him. In other words, ends entail particular means--means that are "fitting."

So since we are born to die, and that's clearly not God's intent, maybe God actually looks forward to a time when, unconstrained by such means and ends, He can just let Christ's atonement have a full effect--free forgiveness with zero epistemic distance.

I think Meph's reasoning is somewhat analogous to this, but he views the Fall in different terms. So he explains the whys and wherefores in different terms. Whereas he will explain things in terms of God's "disposition towards the aesthetic beauty of loving sociality," I am more constrained by textual explanations, etc.

I hold to the former, too. I'm just not sure it buys us everything UR needs without also positing that creatures are the primary object of God's love in creation. And I still tend to think that somehow Christ's glory is the primary object of creation. This way, glory and love are correlative and need not be antagonistic at all.

Granted, I can't prove these things to myself conclusively (or to use Corey's words, plausibly enough to create certainty), but now that I have less slam dunk textual arguments against them, I am more hopeful.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 7/1/2006 7:39:16 PM (GMT-5)

One more thing about the Fall, Tom. If the Fall actually occurred with all the thematic elements that I think it did, then I have to wonder how it might have gone had Satan not fell. Imagine reproduction occurring as planned and the first person to fail the "test" was, say, four generations out. I can't help but wonder if that person would die without affecting the rest of the living.

In this way, the whole earth could have eventually been filled up and God's purpose could have possibly been attained--including, possibly, an incarnation. But if this is true, then it would seem that Christ's death would not have been necessitated. Consequently, there would have been souls lost with God still attaining His end for creation.

That's why I think understanding the Fall properly is what is necessary to clearly see the grounds for a necessary universalism as opposed to a conditional universalism. What I'm speculating is a conditional universalism. I don't know how to make a case for UNconditional universalism without ruling out the above scenario. And I don't know how to do that.

If Christ's death was not actually required for atonement, then it's much easier. Zach says there is a school of thought that says God can just forgive without sacrifice--including Christ's. But it seems like Paul's arguments about the relation of death and sin are pretty main-line OT thought, which would leave the Fall account as thematically accurate in terms of the sin-death relationship. And this makes Paul's argument about the necessity of atonement coherent.

But the necessity of atonement is precisely what makes an UNconditional universalism hard for me to get a handle on. For Paul seems to argue that  a sinning soul, without atonement, can't live eternally? And yet God made sin possible, PRE-Fall. So it seems like the risk of some sin was entailed in the PRE-Fall plan (what I call, plan A). And I have always assumed that plan A did not involve Christ's suffering or atonement.

But the death of some single individual in an unfallen world would not necessarily be an "enemy" in the same way "death" is in the current reality. For it would not preclude the original intent in the way the current reality does. Paul seems to mean "death" as mortality when he speaks of the enemy--i.e., that inevitable death which "entered" the world upon Adam's sin.

Anyway, that's why I have problems, like you, with just being all out certain of an inevitable UR.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 7/1/2006 4:47:49 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (sparknheart) : 7/2/2006 1:51:16 AM (GMT-5)

Jeff,

The word “ages” is used as figurertive speech to represent periods of time.  The Scripture that I quoted use the word “age’ without the “s”.   I fail to see how Matthew 12:33. could be construed as figurative language that represents periods of time.

"Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."

Post Edited (sparknheart) : 7/2/2006 9:40:25 AM (GMT-5)

Jeff: But doesn't "this age" necessarily refer to a finite period of time? I'm not sure what your saying, I think.

Jeff: If that's the case, would you think that only those doctrines that the Bible is unified on are relevant? If so, I guess that rules out my other thread about pacifism!! I'd much rather try to see which passages are most plausibly equivocal and reconcile those to the passages that seem less equivocal.