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<snip>The actual point is, pleroo, if you're wrong and the plain promises of the Bible was not somehow negated by promises of love, grace, and mercy for, not only God's people, but for all mankind, I will experience ETERNAL (something no one can fathom) punishment. All because you don't like the idea of punishment from a deity and decided to try to convince others of your uneasiness.<snip>
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pleroo
<snip> I am not sure what you are trying to say here, but I will guess that you are saying that if you believe that God loves all people and will not torture anyone for eternity, then God will torture you for eternity?
Why would God torture you for believing in Him, or for believing that His love is powerful enough to save all people?
[/indent]The problem for you, Twin is that the news you are proclaiming is NOT Good News . . . it is Bad News. So who is the anathema do you think?
Quote:
Originally Posted by chuckd83
What is so good about universalism? It's just news.
Matt. 1:21 "She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their...well...nothing. Actually, he won't save us from anything. Let's call his name Tipota, for he will do nothing."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pleroo
The word you're looking for there, chuck, is "SINS" .... "He will save his people from their SINS," not from eternal torture.
Thanks, Pleroo. The word sin simply means "missing the mark" and it was our entire species failure to "hit the mark" of agape love for one another that condemned our Spirits to eternal separation from God. The Good News is that Christ did NOT fail . . . and He taught and displayed it spectacularly by His Life and Death . . . "No greater love..."
Unfortunately, only one point of view is right in this case.
Fortunately, all THREE points are correct. You simply need to know the Real Truth, to understand what I just said.
Also, ultimately, (but not eternally) it will be given onto one according to one's beliefs. Beware what your faith is, as it will be given onto thie.
nobody knows what happens after u die. nobody came back to talk about it.
we cant proof that christ did bek there is no historical evidence that supports the gospels.
its all literature inc info about after death experience.
having said that islam and christianity both have good ideas about paradise.
please read the bible and the quran, i have.
When Mohammed says they have turned away from God, I think he meant that they did not follow him; so we should suppose that they were still Christians but refused to become muslims.
I do not know if the condemnation of universalism in the west in the 6th century affected other branches of Christianity as e.g. the Copts.
From the thesis you posted: "The first centuries AD witnessed a divergence of opinion among Christians concerning what exactly hell constituted and, more importantly, how long it would last. Only after the Second Council of Constantinople in AD 543 did the belief in hell as a real place in which unrepentant sinners will suffer forever become part of traditional theology."
That's still way before islam but we a re getting closer :P
What turning away from God in the quoted verse means in the muslim mind I don't know for sure.
It could mean they accuse Jews and Christians to have fallen away long before islam came. Or as you wrote didn't accept islam. Muslims see their book as the third, final and greatest testament/revelation of God.
From the thesis you posted: "The first centuries AD witnessed a divergence of opinion among Christians concerning what exactly hell constituted and, more importantly, how long it would last. Only after the Second Council of Constantinople in AD 543 did the belief in hell as a real place in which unrepentant sinners will suffer forever become part of traditional theology."
That's still way before islam but we a re getting closer :P
What turning away from God in the quoted verse means in the muslim mind I don't know for sure.
It could mean they accuse Jews and Christians to have fallen away long before islam came. Or as you wrote didn't accept islam. Muslims see their book as the third, final and greatest testament/revelation of God.
That universalism was officially condemned as late as 543 AD does not mean that eternal damnation was not taught earlier by individuals or churches, I think the Latin speaking church in Tunesia taught eternal damnation since the days of Tertullian, according to the German Wikipedia entry he critized the universalists and annihiliatonists of his day, which on the other hand means, that about 150 - 220 AD both universalism and annihilationism were prevalent; so the whole controversy existed already back then.
So Justinian's condemnation of universalism would not have bothered Oriental Orthodox Christians, such as Copts, Syrians or Ethiopics at all, but affected only what is now the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic Church and indirect Protestantism; I do not know which eschatoligical view the Orientals had though.
On the other hand, that the Jews and/or Christians of Mohammed's days believed in some sort of infernal punishment is evident as Mohammed adopted the word Gehenna do denote hell in the koran, but the endlessless of infernal punishments might be his own idea. I do not with which branches of Christianity Mohammed was in contact with.
Interestingly, I have read there was a debate among Muslims about the endlessness of hell, maybe in an earlier time when Muslims were possibly more learned and civil, there seems to be 2 words for eternity in Arabic, the one expresses God's eternity, the other is a plural of "generations" which also can denote eternity but is more ambigous, it is applied to the punishment in hell, there are verses in the koran that might suggest that the Muslim god will one day destroy everything he created, including paradise and hell. I think I have read this in a book from a French scholar, Georges Minois, I think it exists only in French and German, he wrote two books about the underworld, I do not know which one I read.
This is interesting in so far that the koran was influenced as I believe to a large degree from what Mohammed had heard from Jews and Christians of his days.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chuckd83
What is so good about universalism? It's just news.
Matt. 1:21 "She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their...well...nothing. Actually, he won't save us from anything. Let's call his name Tipota, for he will do nothing."
That universalism was officially condemned as late as 543 AD does not mean that eternal damnation was not taught earlier by individuals or churches, I think the Latin speaking church in Tunesia taught eternal damnation since the days of Tertullian, according to the German Wikipedia entry he critized the universalists and annihiliatonists of his day, which on the other hand means, that about 150 - 220 AD both universalism and annihilationism were prevalent; so the whole controversy existed already back then.
Speaking of Tertullian, here is a thrilling (for URs) poem by Matthew Arnold, keeping in mind the following fact. Universalism was The Prevailing Doctrine Of The Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years http://hellbusters.8m.com/updcontents.html
Students of the history of Christian doctrine know, among believers in eternal torment, Tertullian was one of the most extreme. That is why I think this poem is so powerful. It brings tears of joy to my eyes.
“He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save!”
So rang Tertullian’s sentence, on the side
Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried, --
“Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave
Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave!”
So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed,
The infant church, of love she felt the tide
Stream on her from her Lord’s yet recent grave, And then she smiled, and in the Catacombs,
With eye suffused, but heart inspired true,
On those walls subterranean, where she hid
Her head in ignominy, death and tombs,
She her Good Shepherd’s hasty image drew, And on His shoulders, not a lamb, a kid.
The word you're looking for there, chuck, is "SINS" .... "He will save his people from their SINS," not from eternal torture.
And what was the covenant of works given to Adam?
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and in the Catacombs,
