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Ironmaw to Fundamentalist
"If your goal is 'to grow in holiness with a correct heart' as you say,
then stop telling people that their loved ones who died while not being Christian are burning in hell or are going to be tortured for ever ... Stop spreading spiritual terror and start loving your enemies and praying that God will save all people."
1Timothy 2:1 and 4
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fundamentalist
You people make me laugh, sitting there at your computer, with stuffed bellys and criticizing the men who did their best, and gave their lives to get us these translations. It is absolutely sad.
How do you know what our circumstances are Fundy?
And what does physical hunger have to do with understanding truth?
First you say that legoman is "full of pride" simply because he is able to give reasons for the hope that is in him.
And now you make the blanket statement that we Universal Reconciliationists "sit at our computers with stuffed bellys."
Do you know what is "absolutely sad" to me?
That anyone can do as much laughing as Calvinist Fundamentalist does on his posts, or that they can even ever crack a smile for that matter, all the while believing that God created some of His creatures to sustain them alive in an inescapapble state of eternal suffering forever, presumably for the purpose of eternally demonstrating to everyone how "holy" He is.
Several Calvinists have told me that the fact that I can't believe that shows that I am not one of the elect and I therefore am going to have to suffer forever.
That was the kind of thinking that caused my twelve year breakdown 1966-78. I'm 70 years old now.
If I truly believed the Bible teaches that, I would choose to live out my life as an agnostic, hoping to find out after I die that God is not really like that.
Fortunately for me I learned there are people like Ray Prinzing (my hero and mentor), and Ray's friend J. Preston Eby, and another friend of both of them, Canadian, George Hawtin, who see an infinitely different God in the Bible. The writings of all three of these men can be Googled up on the internet.
If you want to believe that aionios means "pertaining to the ages" then obviously the arguments I have given so far have not been enough to convince you otherwise. But at some point when you actually do look into this matter (because it is obvious to me that you haven't looked as deeply as you need to) then you will understand it cannot mean "pertaining to the ages".
Paul
Where would we look "as deeply as we need to" trettep?
Who else believes like you do?
I still think the important thing is that the end result is the same.
I cannot see that God, or the life of the believer is "limited" in any way by our point of view.
Where would we look "as deeply as we need to" trettep? Who else believes like you do?
I still think the important thing is that the end result is the same.
I cannot see that God, or the life of the believer is "limited" in any way by our point of view.
Of course, each person will make up their own mind about it.
After all, that is what all this dialog is about.
I definitely enjoy this discussion infinitely better than a UR/ET debate.
Because even if it ends in a stalemate, neither of us loses regarding the end result, i.e. the eventual salvation of all fallen creatures because of what Christ accomplished by His death and resurrection, through the power in the blood of His cross.
You think God is a traffic light? I'm sure there are plenty of metaphor's one could use, just wondering what you are thinking here exactly.
Do you believe in God? Just trying to figure out what your traffic light means.
Peace...
yes i do. he makes rules laws divine laws that govern the universe they are readily available by reading the scriptures for me its christian but some other place in the world they got a different but similar set of divine laws. unfortunately people believe none of this they think god is a human father that can be manipulated to give you what you want. or that he gets angry and unfairly singles you out for his rage. none of the above, yes its like a machine, its like math or music if you apply these principles it works great. like a traffic light yellow mean watch it, green means go red means stop. you know rules that govern the universe in a harmonious way.
"Pertaining to the Ages" is what many here want us to believe that aionios means.
Mar 10:30 But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.
Here is is interesting that the word "age" is translated as "world". So the "pertaining to the ages" can only mean "pertaining to the age" thus destroying the idea that it means "pertaining to the ageS".
"Pertaining to the Ages" is what many here want us to believe that aionios means.
Mar 10:30 But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.
Here is is interesting that the word "age" is translated as "world". So the "pertaining to the ages" can only mean "pertaining to the age" thus destroying the idea that it means "pertaining to the ageS".
Paul
Literally it reads "and in the coming eon, life eonian" CLT
Obviously it sometimes means pertaining to a single age.
I don't know of anyone here who thinks it doesn't.
That anyone can do as much laughing as Calvinist Fundamentalist does on his posts, or that they can even ever crack a smile for that matter, all the while believing that God created some of His creatures to sustain them alive in an inescapapble state of eternal suffering forever, presumably for the purpose of eternally demonstrating to everyone how "holy" He is.
Calvinists or anyone leaning that way must love hell or understand that they defile God for not honoring him for creating it and potentially sending them there.
They should not even want to avoid it, actually, because since God has every right to cast them there, it will be a wonderful place to be, after all, God is good, and anything God does is love, so if that's where they are going they shouldn't mind because they love and honor God sooooo much.
I believe some of the best proof of the fact that aionios did not mean everlasting in the minds of the the men who lived in the first few centuries AD is in the works of Philo and Josephus ...
Quote:
... The Pharisees, according to Josephus, regarded the penalty of sin as torment without end, and they stated the doctrine in unambiguous terms. They called it eirgmos aidios (eternal imprisonment) and timorion adialeipton (endless torment), while our Lord called the punishment of sin aionion kolasin (age-long chastisement).
And ...
Quote:
The language of Josephus is used by the profane Greeks, but is never found in the New Testament connected with punishment. Josephus, writing in Greek to Jews, frequently employs the word that our Lord used to define the duration of punishment (aionios), but he applies it to things that had ended or that will end. Can it be doubted that our Lord placed his ban on the doctrine that the Jews had derived from the heathen by never using their terms describing it, and that he taught a limited punishment by employing words to define it that only meant limited duration in contemporaneous literature? Josephus used the word aionos with its current meaning of limited duration. He applies it to the imprisonment of John the Tyrant; to Herod's reputation; to the glory acquired by soldiers; to the fame of an army as a "happy life and aionian glory." He used the words as do the Scriptures to denote limited duration, but when he would describe endless duration he uses different terms.
If Jesus had meant eternal torture, don't you think he would have used the same language used by learned men of his time and nationality? We know Christ condemned the teachings of the pharisees as being full of violence and extortion ... Can there be any doubt that this false doctrine of eternal torture was to a great extent what he was referring to in so many words? What could be more violent than Eternal Torture?
What about Philo ... ?
Quote:
Philo, who was contemporary with Christ, generally used aidion to denote endless, and aionian temporary duration. He uses the exact phraseology of Matt. xxv: 46, precisely as Christ used it: "It is better not to promise than not to give prompt assistance, for no blame follows in the former case, but in the latter there is dissatisfaction from the weaker class, and a deep hatred and æonian punishment (chastisement) from such as are more powerful." Here we have the precise terms employed by our Lord, which show that aionian did not mean endless but did mean limited duration in the time of Christ. Philo adopts athanaton,ateleuteton or aidion to denote endless, and aionian temporary duration. In one place occurs this sentence concerning the wicked: "to live always dying, and to undergo, as it were, an immortal and interminable death." Stephens, in his valuable "Thesaurus," quotes from a Jewish work: "These they called aionios, hearing that they had performed the sacred rites for three entire generations." This shows conclusively that the expression "three generations" was then one full equivalent of aionian. Now, these eminent scholars were Jews who wrote in Greek, and who certainly knew the meaning of the words they employed, and they give to the aeonian words the sense of indefinite duration, to be determined in any case by the scope of the subject. Had our Lord intended to inculcate the doctrine of the Pharisees, he would have used the terms by which they described it. But his word defining the duration of punishment was aionian, while their words are aidion, adialeipton, and athanaton. Instead of saying with Philo and Josephus, thanaton athanaton, deathless or immortal death; eirgmon aidion, eternal imprisonment; aidion timorion, eternal torment; and thanaton ateleuteton, interminable death, he used aionion kolasin, an adjective in universal use for limited duration, and a noun denoting suffering issuing in amendment. The word by which our Lord describes punishment is the word kolasin, which is thus defined: "Chastisement, punishment."
Now further evidence that the ancient world around the time of Christ and thereafter understood that aionios did not mean endless is found in the the words and actions of Justinian ...
Quote:
It is conceded that the half-heathen emperor held to the idea of endless misery, for he proceeds not only to defend, but to define the doctrine. He does not merely say, "We believe in aionion kolasin," for that was just what Origen himself taught. Nor does he say "the word aionion has been misunderstood; it denotes endless duration," as he would have said, had there been such a disagreement. But, writing in Greek, with all the words of that copious language from which to choose, he says: "The holy church of Christ teaches an endless aeonian (ateleutetos aionios) life to the righteous, and endless (ateleutetos) punishment to the wicked." If he supposed aionios denoted endless duration, he would not have added the stronger word to it. The fact that he qualified it by ateleutetos, demonstrated that as late as the sixth century the former word did not signify endless duration. Justinian need only to have consulted his contemporary, Olympiodorus, who wrote on this very subject, to vindicate his language. In his commentary on the Meteorologica of Aristotle, he says: "Do not suppose that the soul is punished for endless ages in Tartarus. Very properly the soul is not punished to gratify the revenge of the divinity, but for the sake of healing. But we say that the soul is punished for an aeonian period, calling its life, and its allotted period of punishment, its aeon." It will be noticed that he not only denies endless punishment, and denies that the doctrine can be expressed by aionios declares that punishment is temporary and results in the sinner's improvement. Justinian not only concedes that aionios requires a word denoting endlessness to give it the sense of limitless duration, but he insists that the council shall frame a canon containing a word that shall indisputably express the doctrine of endless woe, while it shall condemn those who advocate universal salvation. Now though the emperor exerted his great influence to foist his heathen doctrine into the Church canons, he failed; for nothing resembling it appears in the canons enacted by the synodical council.
The synod voted fifteen canons, not one of which condemns universal restoration.
These arguments are a small part of ...
Quote:
Universalism
The
Prevailing Doctrine
Of The
Christian Church
During Its First
Five Hundred Years (and showing the influence of Greek Mythology
and pagan philisophy on Christian Doctrine)
With Authorities and Extracts
By J.W. HANSON, D. D.
--I Corinthians xv. 28
Boston and Chicago
Universalist Publishing House
1899
Put into electronic format by Glade Swope in 1999 for the benefit of all mankind.
Last edited by Ironmaw1776; 10-05-2009 at 06:56 PM..
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Where would we look
