J: I guarantee you we're all with you on that one, T!

Post Edited (Similtude) : 11/17/2009 10:43:04 PM (GMT-6)

True story.

(listening...)

On another note, there seems to be a significant amount of Church History, Tradition, and Testimony that doesn't rule out Universalism at all. If in this pendulum swing I stand with the likes of them, I guess I can't be mad at that.

Post Edited (One Love) : 11/18/2009 12:38:20 AM (GMT-6)

Although she lived in a time of turmoil, Julian's theology was optimistic, speaking of God's love in terms of joy and compassion as opposed to law and duty. For Julian, suffering was not a punishment that God inflicted, as was the common understanding. She believed that God loved and wanted to save everyone. Popular theology magnified by current events including the Black Death and a series of peasant revolts assumed that God was punishing the wicked. In response, Julian suggested a far more merciful theology, which some say leaned towards universal salvation. Because she believed that behind the reality of hell is yet a greater mystery of God's love, she has also been referred to in modern times as a proto-universalist, though she herself never actually claimed more than hope that all might be saved. Even though her views were not typical, local authorities did not challenge either her theology or her authority to make such religious claims because of her status as an anchoress.

As part of her differing view of God as compassionate and loving, she wrote of the Trinity in domestic terms and compares Jesus to a mother who is wise, loving, and merciful. (See Jesus as Mother by Carolyn Walker Bynum.) Similarly, she connects God with motherhood in terms of 1) "the foundation of our nature's creation, 2) "the taking of our nature, where the motherhood of grace begins" and 3) "the motherhood at work" and speaks metaphorically of Jesus in connection with conception, nursing, labor, and upbringing. She asserts God to have the attributes of Fatherhood, Motherhood and Lordship.

Her great saying, "…All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well", reflects this theology. It is also one of the most individually famous lines in all of Catholic theological writing, and certainly one of the most well-known phrases of the literature of her era.

Post Edited (One Love) : 11/18/2009 1:09:59 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (One Love) : 11/18/2009 1:15:18 AM (GMT-6)

"To take the stand that God is at fault for the presence of evil is implicitly to lose one's relation to God since one now becomes God's judge, which is the very position of evil.  Thus, to lose one's relationship to God is to lose one's self to evil; to remain agnostic where God and evil are concerned is to lose one's own soul by refusing to choose and implicitly to admit to having a love of God that can be qualified or negated by that which is not God--and thus to confess one neither loves or even knows God."   James Loder on Kierkegaard's "On the Edification Implied in the Fact that Before God We Are Always in the Wrong."

D: 1) Even with the metaphysical reasons, I think it may take way less time then we may think. Seriouisly.  In some sections of Judaism, the time in "hell" is only 12 months.  Period.  I can see it taking less time than that, honestly.

T: That’s the mistake though, i.e., of thinking how long it’ll last for any individual is set apart from the actual and unique circumstances of that individual and how they freely engage their pain.

D: 2) I think it's a motivational thing. Do we WANT for Hitler's time of purgation to be as short as it possibly can, regardless of what that time is? THAT's the question.

T: It’s important so far as we need to know what’s motivating our beliefs, and that’s important for us. Like you said, if we find ourselves thinking, “Burn baby, burn!” then we need to take inventory. But what we want is irrelevant to Hitler. Sure, we want it to be as short as it CAN be. So does God. Part of how long it’ll take WAS up to Hitler when he was alive and he blew off the opportunities and chose instead to harden himself in a monster. How long it’ll take to bring THAT around, how many layers of lies and false selfs there are to burn through, isn’t up to Hitler. So there’s something objective from this life that the wicked take with them. THEN once he gets some measure of clarity, he still has to choose. I think an immediately clear perception of truth and repentance in his case is metaphysically out of the question. Not that I wouldn’t be happy for him AND GOD (the sooner Hitler’s beauty contributes to the whole, the better!), but I can’t think of any rational reason to hope for it.

-----------------------

Selah: Anyway, guess I'm just not used to this argument-style communication. I'm used to people asking clarifying questions and talking back and forth - counselor style.

Tom: Huh? This is a great conversation with questions, clarifications, etc. You post, then we all gang up on you. Then you post again and we all gang up on you again. What’s the problem?

Selah: SO what have we learned? I shouldn't be on this board talking about controversial issues - especially if I'm holding the minority view.

Tom: Noooo!

Selah: It’s a given that I'll use the wrong word here and there and set off a stream of responses that miss the point I was trying to get at in the first place. I think I need people to ask clarifying questions if they're not sure what I'm trying to say…

Tom: Selah, dahhhling sister, I only want to know what YOU mean to say. We’ll get it right. Like you said, a ‘conversation’ takes time.

So, let me ask you, when you said that you’ve  what did you mean? If ‘justice’ isn’t the word there, fine. When you say you see how people “feel more loved when they get some form of justice after being the victims of crime,” let’s toss the word ‘justice’. Gone. What is it you’re aiming at? Is it the sense of ‘satisfaction’ and ‘closure’ that victims get from seeing their perpetrators suffer the consequences of their crime? Is that it?

Selah: [THAT was supposed to be MY point... Wow do I suck! Let me retry! THERE ARE NO LESS THAN LOVING ACTIONS COMING FROM GOD THEREFORE IF SEPARATION FROM GOD IS A REALITY - it MUST BE LOVING.]

Tom: Exactly. And by separation I take it you mean annihilation, right?

We’re not that far apart. I’ll say it again, you could be right—I don’t KNOW that annihilation cannot possibly be the most loving thing to do for the wicked. I’m just saying that poses more problems FOR ME, i.e., for MY understanding of love, than UR. In other words, if annihilation turns out to be true, my seeing it as true will require some adjustments in how I conceive of perfect love. Love will have to mean something a bit different than how I view it now, because right now Scripture, together with my intuitions about perfect love, together with how it works inside my head (affecting my vision of the world)…all add up to FAVORING UR, NOT clinching its truth absolutely with no possibility of doubt. I could be wrong. But that doesn’t mean I perceive the evidence as 50/50. I ‘favor’ UR. But as a “J” that means I can LIVE inside of UR as if it WAS true.

Selah: YES - but WE CANNOT UNDERSTAND THAT [Old Testament violence] AS LOVING JUST LIKE WE CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE NOTION OF ETERNAL SEPARATION AS LOVING - BECAUSE WE DONT KNOW EVERYTHING!! WE TRUST CHRIST!]

Tom: We have to admit we don’t get it all, right. But Selah, what it is we don’t understand about God’s role in OT violence isn’t anything that would change our confidence of God as love. The Old Testament questions are academic. CHRIST seals the love deal. Christ is what God is like.

Now, you might be right. Annihilation might be loving in the same way God’s destruction of Jericho (women, children, cattle, etc.) was the most loving option. I’m not claiming to “know” that this is impossible. I’m only saying that to MY mind there are enough differences that make that option pretty unlikely, and that’s all I need to enjoy UR on an existential level—to LIVE AS IF it were true. Get it?

Selah: RIGHT.. blow my head off right now! That's MY point exactly! [about Annanias and Saphria] HELL COULD BE LOVING FOR ALL WE KNOW!]

Tom: Yes, it could be. BUT that doesn’t require us view the evidence as 50/50. We CAN see it as 20/80, or 80/20, or 60/40. If you really do see the evidence (your intuitions about love, your take on the relevant passages, etc.) as favoring annihilation, you’ll adopt that as your default LIVED CONTEXT, the ASSUMED WORLDVIEW out of which you live. Again, these are only tendencies. IF pressed, you’re free to say, “Well, I don’t really know. UR could be true after all.” We’re capable of qualifying our assumptions humbly. But since UR appears on evidence to be MORE liiiiiikely (not absolutely proven), UR is  my default lived context, the assumed worldview out of which I live.

Better? ;o)

Selah: I'll dance...but I'm NOT playing THAT game until you hear me out completely...and read WORKS OF LOVE by SK.

Tom: I’m a good listener actually, as hard as it is to believe. Just ask Anita and my kids! I don’t need to read SK. He’s fallible and could be wrong, like you said. Ha! But when I need SK I just check with Corey and he sets me straight on that. Corey IS my SK.

Selah: But YOU AND I can’t know if that’s what WILL happen. And that's my point.

Tom: If by “know” you mean know absolutely without a shadow of doubt, KNOW KNOW KNOW…then I’ve NEEEEVER denied this. BUT…this doesn’t mean admitting the evidence is 50/50, that annihilation and UR are EQUALLY plausible. We’ll differ on where we think the evidence points most likely. And that’s important, because I don’t think we can avoid LIVING inside of what we think is MOST plausibly the case. If you think annihilation edges UR as being more likely, that WILL be your lived context. You’re have to ASSUME (not KNOW) that love is compatible with that view, i.e., that perfect love is MOST LIKELY the annihilating-the-wicked sort of love. And that’s OK. I’ll do the same with UR.

Selah: You say "I" can see this or that happening...and "I" can't see this or that at all. But that's the deal. It's not YOU who does the judging. It’s not me either. IT's God. The same God who does weird things WE DONT NORMALLY THINK OF AS LOVING in scripture. IF God says hell is loving... I guarantee you ITS loving.

Tom: Others commented on this. I don’t disagree. But admitting that our understanding is limited doesn’t mean suspending all judgment and having ZERO opinion. There are SOME explanations of God’s part in Old Testament violence which YOU ARE NOT PREPARED TO ACCEPT, like God just wiped out the Cananites because he enjoys seeing little babies cry, because that just gives him pleasure. You WOULD claim to KNOOOOOWWWW this, right? See? And you do that based on your intuitions about love AND your reading of the life and death of Jesus. Right. You’re prepared to tweak the Old Testament stories of violence in the sense that it will help you see how what you view as love is love in THAT situation—NOT in the sense that it will redefine what you think love fundamentally is. It’s THIS that makes eternal conscious torment an IMPOSSIBLE view for us, right? Or are you AS UP IN THE AIR about irrevocable eternal conscious torment as you are about annihilation and UR? See? Just like everybody else, you tend, or favor, this view over that. Some views are impossible. Some are unlikely. Some are more likely.

For me ECT is impossible.

UR is more likely (maybe even far more likely) than annihilation.

That's all.

For you ECT is ?

And you favor annihilation over UR I think. Or are you 50/50 on that?

I hope my view is clearer.

Tom

 

Post Edited (One Love) : 11/18/2009 2:16:21 AM (GMT-6)