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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > Rob Bell a Universalist? | Forum Quick Jump
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 4/1/2011 9:19 AM (GMT -6) |   | D: If God doesn't give up on anyone, then WE can't either.
C: Yep!!! THIS is the fruit of the tree, so to speak. THIS is how it comes about that in EVERY relationship I have on this planet, I want to live in such a way that we can look back on it together someday and hear, "Well done good and faithful servant". There's something very important about the implication in universalism that each specific sinful instance in this life will be overcome. The exact, specific rapist and rape victim will truly ultimately come to the point of complete forgiveness and reconciliation. But, in the other models, this won't ever fully happen if one is in hell forever.
The payoff of universalism for me, as a single individual, is that I just mimic what I see the father doing; he hasn't given up, and so I don't either.
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BBBCanada
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| Posted 4/1/2011 10:38 AM (GMT -6) | | Hmmm...when the Prodigal left home did the father say, "I love you son. I wish it didn't have to be this way. You are always welcome back. My door is always open. I bid you farewell?" I do happen to think that Piper did NOT mean it in this spirit. The very fact that it was tweeted is abuse of the platform he has been given. But I'm not to sure there is never a time we don't give up on people and relationships with brokeness in our hearts. Not in an ultimate sense but in the sense that we give up for the other person's betterment as well as our own.
Brandon
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.
To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa
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One Love
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| Posted 4/1/2011 8:33 PM (GMT -6) | | Brandon:
But I'm not to sure there is never a time we don't give up on people and relationships with brokeness in our hearts. Not in an ultimate sense but in the sense that we give up for the other person's betterment as well as our own.
Perhaps this is like Romans 1 when God "gives up" people to their own devices in longsuffering for the purpose of giving continual opportunities for turning back to God.
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I think Rob could have done a better job here...
That's a really good question. Any Christian universalist would have to have a good, biblically defensible answer for this.
Is it immaterial/irrevelant how one responds to Christ now in this life with respect to determining one's eternal life? Does it have bearing or no bearing?
I would have say this at this point:
"It is absolutely relevant and material. Scripturally, eternal life is intimate loving knowledge of God in and through Jesus. The sooner that a person establishes an intimate love relationship with God through the risen Jesus, the sooner they experience eternal life in God's life and Presence. In other words, by God's exaltation, Jesus Christ is the One with whom all of us will have to reconcile....now and post-mortem. And God unceasingly offers us that opportunity for eternal life, even as negative consequences for it's willed refusal do exist.. So, if you want eternal life sooner, personally and communally relate to the love of God and his exalted Jesus sooner rather than later."
So, it's absolutely relevant and material.
Interestingly enough, only the ONE-STOREY VIEW of "eternal life" is what will work. Conceptualizing the question in TWO-STOREY terms doesn't help anything. I think some of the evangelical disdain for universalism is based upon their TWO-STOREY conception of heaven and hell...and "eternal life." To know about the ONE-STORIED nature of things, the ideas of separation from God's Presence that the two-storied conceptions of heaven and hell are largely based upon kinda go away.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/1/2011 9:01:14 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 4/1/2011 9:04 PM (GMT -6) | | Wait a second. I just had a thought.
I'm thinking that THEODICY can promote the TWO-STORIED worldview! Generally, people don't WANT to believe that God's complete personal active presence is fully present at a place where gross evil, suffering, or sin is. People would rather believe that God was absolutely ABSENT from a brutal child rape or disempowered in some way than to believe that God was sustaining absolutely all elements of the environment itself. We be in that "God's eyes cannot behold evil" mess...and then take that way to the left. That's how you can have some sincere Christians saying that God was in NO WAY INVOLVED in some certain world calamity. They have some TWO-STORIED view that allows for divine "absence"...for the sake of "exonerating" God in some way.
Y'all feelin' me?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/1/2011 9:08:07 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 4/1/2011 9:19 PM (GMT -6) | | Bell: Is it immaterial/irrelevant how one responds to Christ now in this life with respect to determining one's eternal life? Does it have bearing or no bearing?
D: I would have say this at this point: “The sooner that a person establishes an intimate love relationship with God through the risen Jesus, the sooner they experience eternal life in God’s life and Presence. In other words, by God’s exaltation, Jesus Christ is the One with whom all of us will have to reconcile, now and post-mortem. And God unceasingly offers us that opportunity…. So, if you want eternal life sooner, personally and communally relate to the love of God and his exalted Jesus sooner rather than later. So, it’s absolutely relevant and material.”
Tom: I can't figure out whether I'm responding to you or Bell. Which one is speaking?
Anyhow, everything you (or Bell) just said is a reason for believing that it’s NOT relevant or material to one’s eternal destiny whether or not one responds to Christ in this life. Did you misunderstand the question? It’s about the relevance that responding to Christ in this life has for one’s eternal destiny IF it’s true that all eventually fulfill their destiny by either choosing now or later? In other words, choosing now in this life isn’t the ONLY opportunity one has to choose Christ. One can (and universalists think all will) choose eventually. So it’s irrelevant to their eternal destiny whether or not they choose now.
Tom
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One Love
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| Posted 4/1/2011 9:28 PM (GMT -6) | | 1) That was me.
2) Oh, I see. I spoke of eternal LIFE rather than eternal DESTINY. For that, then, I'd just say focusing on the eternal destiny aspect doesn't help us to see the irreplacably unique opportunities before us RIGHT NOW that will be eternally lost based on what we choose to do with respect to God's love right now. When we look back on how WE shaped Creation during our earthly tenure...when we look at the eternal, unchangable record of what we did in this life...we will see just how relevant whether or not we choose sooner than later really is. "Today is the day of salvation!"
In other words, there are eternal ramifications for what we do. If "eternal ramifications" constitutes an aspect of our "eternal destiny" then, there is significance.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/1/2011 9:34:31 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 4/1/2011 10:32 PM (GMT -6) | | D,
Though I said, "So what if last week the opportunity I had to do some good was missed or squandered IF in the end my logos and the logoi of everybody connected to what might have been are fulfilled?" this has always bothered me. In other words, I still FEEL like there ought to be SOME sort of abiding consequence to (at the very least) not turning to Christ until after hell. But what could the consequence be? Permanent loss of beauty? Or perhaps a decreased capacity to reflect beauty? So the longer we spend in hell the smaller we become, so that though our logoi are divine and uncreated, the created capacities to express it become more and more limited. We can't burn down to zero capacity for beautiful reflection and creative expression, but we can seriously narrow the scope of possible creative expression. Kinda like the difference between two children who have identical natural abilities, but only one really pursues that gift (that logos) with intense devotion while the other slacks off (missing opportunities) and decides late in life to THEN devote himself to it. There's just no way the late comer can achieve the same perfection of natural capacities. He can't become as DIVERSE and ACCOMPLISHED a player as once he could have become.
One could say, "Yeah, but if we have forever, then the late commer CAN achieve just as high a capacity for creative expression as ever was possible." But I don't think that follows. I'm not sure it makes sense to say finite creatures can forever increase their capacities for creative expression (since creative expression is natural expression and our natures remain created and by definition finite). There's a ceiling for the capacity for diverse creative expression. If THIS life is to be truly consequential, perhaps one consequence is that it is about unlocking those capacities and developing them now for future partnership with the divine. One can be saved in the afterlife and one will always have a minimum/base-line capacity for creative expression, but that doesn't mean there can't be SOME permanent loss of capacity.
That might do it.
Tom
KIXYTΘEMTAPost Edited (Tom) : 4/1/2011 10:39:21 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 4/2/2011 8:48 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
One could say, "Yeah, but if we have forever, then the late commer CAN achieve just as high a capacity for creative expression as ever was possible." But I don't think that follows. I'm not sure it makes sense to say finite creatures can forever increase their capacities for creative expression (since creative expression is natural expression and our natures remain created and by definition finite). There's a ceiling for the capacity for diverse creative expression. If THIS life is to be truly consequential, perhaps one consequence is that it is about unlocking those capacities and developing them now for future partnership with the divine. One can be saved in the afterlife and one will always have a minimum/base-line capacity for creative expression, but that doesn't mean there can't be SOME permanent loss of capacity.
Here's the problem with that. There are many people in situations now that are not of their own willing or creation where their talents and capacities are far underutilized, if not totally squelched. Many people live and die before they are really "born", as it were. Part of the aspect of eschatological restoration, it could be said, is that eventual RELEASE and FLOURISH of those talents and capacities in an environment where they can finally thrive. In other words, if there is some gifted kid in Bangladesh who's lived all their life in squallor and pain...and died in the same as a late teenager, we have the hope that in the future, this person's giftings will be released to be given to God in the eschaton. He shouldn't be penalized for circumstances beyond his control that stunted his development and growth.
Ideally, if this gifted kid were to have a resurrected body in the Eschaton filled with God's glory where all is of Love, it would seem hard to agree that, given infinity forward, that this late-coming kid could truly "achieve just as high a capacity for creative expression as ever was possible." Same way with physically challenged people in this life. They will be able to use the giftings that they were not previously.
I'm thinking, EUR speaking, the only "abiding consequence" that exists is eternal "Record" of Creation: the unvarnished truth of what we did or did not do during our earthly sojourn will STAND post-judgement, regardless of how much better things get in the infinite future forward. How much regret with which we look back on our time on earth before God...is up to us. It's almost like the "Integrity Vs Despair" stage in Erik Erikson's human development thought.
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
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This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.
I think this should be sufficient. The concept is totally biblical and it's an "abiding consequence" that will eternally exist irrespective of EUR. Some people will have heard "Well done, my good and faithful servant!" declaration from the Lord for their time in this life...while others won't. And THAT difference is an eternal one, even if all are eventually redeemed by God's Love.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/2/2011 10:41:50 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 4/2/2011 9:41 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 4/2/2011 10:51 AM (GMT -6) | | Hmmm...so that should just about sew up all loose ends, right? I think the question "Is it immaterial/irrevelant how one responds to Christ now in this life with respect to determining one's eternal destiny?" has been answered fairly well.
We've got a philosophically sound, biblically defensible, existentially livable, and morally consistent version of trinitarian (Christocentric) Eventual Universal Reconcilation.
Sooo...now what? I guess we gotta preach it, huh? 
Tom, seriously. You had a lot of exposure to different missionaries. How many or what percentage of missionaries do you think would stop doing what they are doing if they really began to believe that EUR was true?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/2/2011 11:01:28 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 4/2/2011 11:10 AM (GMT -6) | | "Hell is not so much a place where God imprisons humans, as a place where humans, by misusing their free will, choose to imprison themselves. And even in hell, the wicked are not deprived of the love of God, but by their own choice they experience as suffering what the saints experience as joy. 'The love of God will be an intolerable torment for those who have not acquired it within themselves.'
Hell exists as a final possibility, but several of the Fathers have none the less believed that in the end all will be reconciled to God. It is heretical to say that all must be saved, for this is to deny free will; but it is legitimate to hope that all may be saved. Until the Last Day comes, we must not despair of anyone’s salvation, but must long and pray for the reconciliation of all without exception. No one must be excluded from our loving intercession. ‘What is a merciful heart?’ asked Isaac the Syrian. ‘It is a heart that burns with love for the whole of creation, for men, for the birds, for the beasts, for the demons, for all creatures.’Gregory of Nyssa said that Christians may legitimately hope even for the redemption of the Devil."
Kallistos Ware, "The Orthodox Church", Page 262
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Repost...remix...
Universal Reconcilation is a "REASONABLE HOPE" for God's success in his "just war" to convince/convict all of his image-bearers that God is INDEED the loving ground of their being as a "self"...and their highest good. EUR people believe that it's because of the "overwhelmingly improbable" possibility of "eternal suffering" that God would RISK Creation with self-referencing, self-determining created persons at all. This "minute" possibility was the ACCEPTABLE RISK of an all-loving God who didn't need Creation at all. Would any theodicy person fault God for that acceptable risk? I don't think so. It's the BEST THAT GOD COULD DO to give us the libertarian free will we need to be his "people" (not just absorbed into Divine Presence) while assuring that as many images as possible end up perceiving and enjoying God forever...which is the BEST POSSIBLE END for any image-bearer!
I believe in God's ULTIMATE VICTORY in this. An intelligent, sensible, rational person can have the "reasonable hope" that God will convince everyone...even Satan. He'll work as long as it takes...and Satan always has an opportunity to "perceive and enjoy" God. It's just a matter of time...and patience. And the eternal, uncreated God is infinitely patient. :)
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/2/2011 11:22:40 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 4/2/2011 3:08 PM (GMT -6) | | Lord help me, bro. I ain't gonna be punked by institutions of Christendom, evangelical or otherwise, dawg. I can't do it.
I WON'T do it.
Lord help me...what will become of me and ministry?
Oh, that's right. There's the ECC...
This just needs to be preached straight out. Basically, taking Greg's sermons to the next level. From the sermon page...
God’s love is like a fire that purifies all that is consistent with love character and burns up all that is not. To the saved God is a purifying fire of love, to the rebellious God is a consuming fire. Everything and every one will be subjected to this metaphorical fire. God’s hope and desire is that his fire would purge all and destroy none. But God will not turn people into robots and the Bible warns rebels over and over against about the threat of being consumed by fire of God’s judgment.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/2/2011 3:33:11 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 4/2/2011 3:30 PM (GMT -6) | | I want to say this:
The "eternal fire" of Hell is God's Presence perceived with a creaturely misrelating self-dispositional stance towards that Presence. It is an excruciating experience to "sinners" alienated from God, but is the crown of intimacy and the very life energy of the "saints."
I really like the analogy of the Sun, Daisies on a Kitchen Windowsill, and Cockroaches. The one phenomena of the Sun will be just be doing it's thing, and have different responses to the Sun based on their disposition, whether of light (Daisies) or darkness (Cockroaches). Daisies are attracted to light sources and will get life from it. The cockroaches prefer the darkness and will not come out that much in a kitchen filled with sunlight. It's kinda like that with "heaven" and "hell". Heaven is basically seeing Creation and God as they truly ARE, by the power of the Spirit of God. Seeing everything as "Burning Bush" filled with the Energies of God. All is seen in God's love and God's Love is seen in all. As I see it, Hell is basically degrees of NOT seeing that and living in the full truth of that. From that perspective, our world is largely in "hell" already.
We prefer darkness over light...for fear that the light will annihilate us (rather, our false selves)...rather than complete us (energizing our true selves).
Said another way, the false self has a LOT TO FEAR from God. The true self, on the other hand, has absolutely NO REASON TO FEAR God.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/2/2011 3:34:09 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 4/2/2011 3:43 PM (GMT -6) | | | Something interesting just hit me. Came to me just now.
My deceased grandfather from Texas, Bro. Isaiah Harvey, was a deeply prayerful man. Inside and outside of church. And one thing that I can still hear his older voice say is a prayer that I heard him say innumerable times.. I can really still hear it...
"When it's all done and over with, and when my life is closed out, Lord Jesus, I just want to hear You say "Well done, thy good and faithful servant."
He actively sought that for as long I can remember him praying. He really did want that. And anyone who knew him would tell you that he lived that out. And in so desiring and living out, he did something eternally significant with his life.
Wow.
Lord, have mercy...help me follow in his footsteps. Have mercy upon me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 4/2/2011 3:58 PM (GMT -6) | | | Oh. Something else, y'all. And I really think we should keep highlighting something to Greg: what we are proposing truly IS essentially the combination of annihilationism and universal reconciliation that he's been looking for. Insofars as all sinners have "true" and "false" selves, then it works as a very process view of the "self" before God. Very Kierkegaardian indeed. Talking from a T&P idea, the "false mode" of the self-disposing self will feel the pain of it's unhealthy misrelation to it's ground...whereas the "true mode" of the self-disposing self will feel the joy of it's healthy, natural relation to it's ground. But the subjective aims of God (which ARE God working as the ground of the self-disposing self's being) form the irreducible core of that self. Because of the way self-disposing beings are absolutely grounded by Grace (Divine Presence working as ground of Creation), it can never be the case that existent self-referencing, self-disposing creatures can dispose themselves into 1) extinguishing the core of themselves OR 2) eliminating all possibility for a future love relationship with God. Theoretically, self-disposing creatures can unceasingly chooses to misrelated to God as their supreme good unto "eternal suffering." But there's a "reasonable hope" for God's success at universal reconciliation.
There will be a day when there are no more despairing "false selves" in existence...and when all "true selves" will be universally liberated into authentic being through perception and enjoyment of the Beautiful God.
And it's right under his friggin nose in his own PROCESS, KIERKEGARDIAN based Phd work.
Too funny.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/2/2011 4:07:53 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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BBBCanada
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| Posted 4/3/2011 2:58 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Truth be told? There was a time when I remember being filled with envy and jealousy concerning other Christians and in particular materially wealthy ones. Here’s how my thinking went. Three scenarios.
1. God blesses a person with material wealth. Said person makes a last minute confession of faith. Person dies and spends eternity in heavenly bliss. Not only was this person blessed in this life but he is blessed in the life to come.
2. You have a materially poor strongly committed Christian who struggles in this life, then dies but lives in heavenly bliss in the life to come. They aren’t “blessed in this life” but they are in the life to come.
3. You have a nominal Christian who is materially wealthy. They make a confession of faith before they die. They spend eternity in heavenly bliss. They were blessed in both this life and the life to come.
So I would ask myself who has had the fair outcome here? This is similar to the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard in Matt 20. But as you have shown the really important thing is where our treasure really is. Not heaven with “streets of gold” or “mansions” or “crowns” but rather WHO is the “apple of YOUR eye?” Its like Dwayne said in one of the other threads. Would you serve God if none of the blessings attended to such service? And I REALLY liked the way that Asher put it. You are left with only YOU and God in which all the pretenses fade away. Why? Because the “Truth will set you free.”
Also, I really like the analogy of the Sun, Daisies on a Kitchen Windowsill, and Cockroaches. For me, this is where universalism has implications for politics. Those daises are in need of a particular environment. And D hits on it when he says,
“Here's the problem with that. There are many people in situations now that are not of their own willing or creation where their talents and capacities are far underutilized, if not totally squelched. Many people live and die before they are really "born", as it were. Part of the aspect of eschatological restoration, it could be said, is that eventual RELEASE and FLOURISH of those talents and capacities **in an environment** where they can finally thrive.
Universalism will see politics as more than merely incidental, or primarily evil but can do some good some of the time. No. If heaven starts now, then we need not wait until the eschatological restoration but rather start the process of “right relating” (albeit however imperfectly) now as well.
Brandon
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.
To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa
Post Edited (BBBCanada) : 4/3/2011 3:04:47 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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BBBCanada
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| Posted 4/3/2011 3:07 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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