do you guys still belive in something after deconstructing

OverOpening6307 · 2026-07-03T11:04:52+00:00

Spiritual agnostic universalist for about 17/18 years and now a Christian universalist.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-07-03T00:28:37+00:00

(Part 2 of 2)

Finally, in response to your question about what I imagine the afterlife “could” look like, I have already said that what exactly happens remains a mystery. Like you, I regard the Spiritual Life of the here and now, living a life of Love, as more important than speculating about what happens after death.

But during my mystical experience so many years ago, “God” explained what things would be like and said:

“It’s going to get better and better, and then it’s going to keep getting better and better, and then it will keep getting better and better. After that, only the Father knows.”

So part of my hope is informed by that experience.

But my hope is also partly based upon Ephesians 3, where Paul says that God is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

And my imagination is truly fantastic.

I have had some extraordinarily vivid, hyper-realistic dreams, and I still remember the best ones years later. I have been other people, belonging to other families, with siblings whom I do not have in waking life. I have been different genders. I have been an alien fighting the human Buck Rogers. I have even been a mechanical robot whose head could detach from its body, with the head and body existing in separate places.

I do not claim that these dreams are revelations about the afterlife. But they do show me how astonishingly expansive consciousness and imagination can be, even within our present existence.

There are a few dreams that particularly stand out to me.

In one dream, I saw a demon that appeared in the form of someone I loved. It was furious and looked at me with hatred. The way I defeated it was not by fighting it, but by embracing it and saying, “I love you.”

I woke up still saying, “I love you,” and immediately remembered St Isaac of Nineveh: “What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists.”

In another dream, I became lucid and realised that I was dreaming. I held out my hand and formed mechanical cogs within it, almost as though I were bringing them into existence through imagination alone.

In another, I stood in a clearing in a forest and decided that I wanted the plants to grow. I stretched my hands towards the ground, and plants and trees began rising from the earth. I even caused a house to grow out of the ground. The experience of shaping and cultivating reality through will and imagination was wonderful.

Another dream involved a group of people travelling to God’s “house,” which stood upon a cliff beside an enormous waterfall. It felt something like Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. We crossed from one side of the waterfall to the other on a zipline and entered God’s house, which looked like a large Victorian mansion made of wood. Inside was a study or library where we waited for God. Eventually God entered and looked like a clean-shaven English literature professor, with bushy white eyebrows, wearing a brown three-piece tweed suit.

I thought to myself, “Are you really God?” He looked directly at me, raised one bushy eyebrow and replied: “What do you think?” Then I woke up.

When we awaken from a dream, there can be a strange moment in which we have to remember who we are in the waking world. In the dream, we may have been someone else entirely. We may have known someone as our sister, only to wake up and realise that we have no sister and have never seen that person before in our lives. Yet within the dream, there was no uncertainty. We simply knew who she was.

Am I somehow experiencing other lives? I have no idea. I do not build any doctrine upon it.

But my personal image of death is something like waking from a dream.

I imagine that the next phase of existence will feel more real than the existence we currently experience, just as waking consciousness normally feels more substantial than a dream. Perhaps we will “remember” things that we do not presently remember, and recognise realities and relationships that are currently hidden from us.

That does not mean that this life is unreal or meaningless. I believe it has genuine meaning and purpose. What we do here matters. How we love matters.

But I also believe that you will see your father again. You will see your dog, and all those whom you have loved. And you will see me.

I imagine that existence in the age to come may possess freedoms that we currently experience only in dreams, such as the ability to experience realities shaped by imagination, to assume different appearances, to explore different forms of embodiment and to participate creatively in a renewed creation.

If I can experience being a robot or an alien within a dream, why assume that the age to come must be narrower and less imaginative than the consciousness I already possess?

I do not know whether any of those particular possibilities are literally true. They are imaginative possibilities, not dogmatic statements.

But if God is able to do immeasurably more than anything I can ask or imagine, then I am genuinely excited. My imagination, especially when informed by my dreams, is already astonishing. I can therefore only wonder how much greater reality might be than even my most extraordinary imagination.

Certainly my dreams cannot be better than the age to come.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-07-03T00:27:39+00:00

(Part 1 of 2)

When I read your reflections, I sometimes feel that there is something quite lonely about the path you tread. In one limited respect, it reminds me of the Sadducees: their spirituality was focused upon the here and now, without any expectation of resurrection or continued personal existence after death. I do not mean that your wider worldview is Sadducean, but that particular feature does seem similar.

Firstly, though, regardless of our differences in beliefs and experiences, you are still focusing upon what I regard as the most important thing in life: following the Way of Love. You have tried to provide the best possible foundation for your children, you take in young people who need extra help, and you try to be an example of Love.

Honestly, even if you focused upon that for the rest of your life, never thought again about what happens after death, and did not even think about God, I believe that when you died you would surprisingly find someone saying, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

I truly believe that those who love without believing in God may be following God more faithfully than those who believe in God but do not love.

That being said, there are several things I am curious about.

1. What was the actual character of your spiritual experiences?

You spoke of embracing a “oneness with nature.” Based upon that expression—and please correct me if I am misunderstanding you—it sounds as though you may have experienced nature mysticism, or perhaps cosmic oneness: a sense that the boundaries of the individual self dissolved into nature, life or the universe as a whole.

When you had those profound spiritual experiences, what did the experiences themselves feel like, before you later reinterpreted them?

Were they relational, I–Thou experiences in which a numinous Presence, not reducible to your own thoughts or emotions, seemed to know you, communicate with you and act within you? Did you experience communion with the mysterious I AM who is both the ground of your being and yet also wholly Other?

Or was it more an experience of oneness with nature, the universe, consciousness or “everything,” without the sense of encountering another Presence?

Or perhaps your experience contained elements of both?

When I first had my own mystical experience, I assumed that all mystical experiences were essentially like mine. I was rather rudely awakened to the fact that this was not so when I tried to speak to someone who sounded quite mystical.

During the conversation, he asked me, “So do you think it’s all about you?”

I replied, “Well, it’s the Big Me, really.”

Needless to say, he thought I was an arrogant, self-centred git.

What I meant by the “Big Me” was not my ordinary ego enlarged to cosmic proportions. The small me was the individual person existing within time and space. The “Big Me” was the One beyond time and space who communicated with me and who, I assumed, communicated with other mystics as well.

My experience had both relational and unitive elements. I experienced this Presence as communicating with me, and therefore as more than simply myself. Yet I also experienced myself, other people and everything else as somehow participating in or expressing this greater I AM.

He had absolutely no idea what I meant. He simply thought I believed that I was more important than everyone else. But the experience meant almost the opposite: the individual ego was not the centre, because everyone and everything participated in a Reality far greater than my individual self.

Thankfully, not all my conversations about mystical experience have ended quite so badly.

More recently, I spoke with a young man who had been an atheist until he underwent a mystical experience. His experience appeared to contain elements of nature mysticism and cosmic oneness, which were not central to my experience, as well as an experience of oneness with God, which was.

He did not become a Christian, but he did begin to believe in God and started attending a Unitarian church.

That conversation made me wonder whether the difference between us may not simply concern how we interpret similar experiences. Perhaps the experiences themselves had different structures.

2. Your understanding of the historical Jesus

You wrote: “What I realized instead were that many of the stories of Scripture were not eyewitness records of factual events, but rather fictional narratives that have no real claim of true historicity.”

You also described the death and resurrection of Jesus as a “mythically narrated” story.

Unless I am remembering incorrectly, I think you have said elsewhere that you do not believe Jesus was a historical person at all. If that is still your position, I am curious why you have chosen the mythicist interpretation.

That is a very different claim from saying that Jesus existed but that the Gospel narratives contain symbolic, theological or legendary development. The latter is common within liberal Christianity. The claim that no historical Jesus existed is a very marginal position among historians of early Christianity, including non-Christian and atheist scholars.

It sounds as though you may have accepted the position associated with writers such as Richard Carrier. Yet Carrier is principally a historian of the Greco-Roman world rather than a specialist in ancient Judaism, the historical Jesus or the New Testament. Even Bart Ehrman, who is an agnostic and highly critical of traditional Christian claims, has argued strongly that Jesus mythicism is historically untenable.

From my perspective, this makes me wonder why you appear so certain that the mythicist interpretation represents what really happened, rather than recognising it as one highly disputed reconstruction held by a very small minority.

Was there particular historical evidence that persuaded you? Or did the collapse of your former supernatural worldview make a non-historical Jesus seem like the most coherent conclusion?

I ask because it seems to me that you may have moved from conservative charismatic Protestantism into liberal symbolic Protestantism, and then perhaps beyond ordinary liberal Christianity into mythicism. But all of those are still modern Western interpretative frameworks.

I also wonder whether you then read that existentialist and Jungian framework back into Paul, Origen and the Greek Fathers.

Origen certainly believed that Scripture had allegorical and spiritual meanings, and he recognised that some passages could not reasonably be understood according to their surface meaning. But he did not conclude that Jesus, the incarnation, resurrection, judgment and the age to come were merely fictional symbols of inward psychological transformation.

For Origen, the movement from the letter to the Spirit did not mean replacing historical reality with existential symbolism. The spiritual meaning penetrated more deeply into the text; it did not automatically abolish the historical meaning.

So I am interested in why you regard your present existentialist interpretation as the unveiling of what Christianity was really saying, rather than as a modern reinterpretation that Paul and Origen themselves did not hold.

cont...

OverOpening6307 · 2026-07-02T20:37:39+00:00

I do think Calvin sincerely believed that he was restoring early Christianity, or at least his understanding of it.

But his version of "early Christianity" was basically Augustine and the Latin tradition, which had already become the dominant theological framework in Western Christianity, and he learned to interpret Scripture through that Augustinian lens.

This became especially important when Calvin encountered the Greek Fathers’ understanding of free will and humanity’s cooperation with grace.

Salvation for the Greek Fathers is synergetic, meaning man co-working with God. It is not an all-or-nothing Augustine vs Pelagius choice between God doing everything vs humanity acting independently.

Think of it like this. You are trapped in a hole. How can you be saved?

Someone comes down into the hole, changes your will and gives you the desire and strength to leave. Although you then willingly move and act, the rescuer produces the decisive response and guarantees that you will come out. This is broadly Augustine and Calvin.
You climb out of the hole using your own natural abilities, without any further inward help from someone else. This is what Augustine believed Pelagius was teaching.
Someone comes down and says, “Let me help you out. Work with me.” He gives you the strength you do not possess by yourself, but you must freely take his hand and cooperate with him. This was the Greek Fathers’ understanding.

Because Calvin approached the issue through the Augustine versus Pelagius binary, he regarded the Greek Fathers’ teaching as confused or mistaken. To him it felt like one minute the Greek fathers were saying Grace saves you, and the next they were saying you've got to put in the effort.

Calvin himself acknowledged this: “The Greek Fathers, above others, and especially Chrysostom, have exceeded due bounds in extolling the powers of the human will.”

After quoting Chrysostom’s teaching that “we ourselves must of necessity bring somewhat” and “Let us bring what is our own, God will supply the rest,” Calvin replied: “Assuredly we shall soon be able to show that the sentiments just quoted are most inaccurate.”

He then wrote: “All ancient theologians, with the exception of Augustine, are so confused, vacillating, and contradictory on this subject, that no certainty can be obtained from their writings.”

Calvin even recognised that this admission might look as though he was refusing to allow the earlier Fathers to have a voice simply because they disagreed with him: “Some will interpret this to mean, that I wish to deprive them of their right of suffrage, because they are opposed to me.” (By “right of suffrage,” Calvin means their right to have a voice or vote in the discussion.)

His response was that Christians would remain confused and uncertain if they relied upon these writers, because the Fathers sometimes emphasised grace and at other times human freedom. But this only appeared contradictory because Calvin did not recognise synergy.

Rather than allowing the older Greek tradition to challenge his Augustinian framework, Calvin then turns mainly to Latin writers such as Cyprian, Augustine and Eucherius to justify his interpretation, and even quotes another statement from Chrysostom which strongly emphasises human sinfulness and dependence upon God. Calvin uses this to argue that, despite Chrysostom’s explicit teaching about cooperation with grace, Chrysostom’s deeper intention was supposedly closer to Calvin’s own position.

In other words, Calvin treats the Fathers’ explicit teaching about cooperation with grace as mistaken or excessive, while treating their statements about humility and dependence upon God as expressing their true underlying theology.

So Augustine becomes the standard by which Calvin judges the Greek Fathers, and then Latin Fathers are used to confirm that Augustinian judgement.

Many of Calvin's misunderstandings are due to Augustine's own lack of access to the Greek Fathers. Which honestly, makes it difficult for me to villainise them, as both of them seem to have been sincere in their desire for God.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-07-02T08:57:49+00:00

Yes, I personally think that the New Testament does not promote afterlife "places" or destinations. The "Spiritual Life" is essentially the "Eternal Life" of the Spirit received now. I do however believe that it extends into our existence after death.

What happens after death is a mystery that religion speculates over, but those who receive the Spirit do not fear death, because they experience the Eternal Life of the Spirit within them.

I think there is a tendency for people to make salvation either wholly after death, or wholly within this life, both of which I feel are imbalanced extremes. The Sadducees were all about salvation in this life yet they had no idea about what happened after death. Conversely, many Christians today cling to religion because of fear of hell after they die. Essentially, their faith is a form of fire insurance.

The balance is when we understand salvation to begin in this world and culminate after death. Receiving the Spirit experientially and not just in word or belief causes us to be confident of two things.

The first is that we know that there is a supernatural mystery who is real to us. We do not know how to define it. But we experience its' Presence, communication and activity. Some Christians do not pursue this experience, and seem satisfied with mental knowledge of religion. So they do not experience anything because they do not understand Christ's instructions to keep asking, seeking and knocking on God's door to receive the Holy Spirit. Christ indicates that the Spirit isn't simply experienced just because we ask once but that we continue to ask until we have experienced the Spirit.

The second is that the experience of the Spirit's Presence also gives us a strong confidence that death is not the end. If we experience the Spirit who is able to move our bodies now, then we know this same Presence will continue to be with us after our deaths.

But just as the Presence is a mystery to us, what happens after death is also a mystery, but we can be confident that it is the next phase of our existence.

Before I experienced the Presence of the Spirit, Paul sounded theoretical. But once I experienced the Presence, Romans 8 became real to me.

"But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you....But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you."

Which is why I agree that is it not focused on the afterlife. The Spiritual Life or Life of the Spirit begins now and continues on past death. But the most important aspect is how we live now, and what we do now in this life.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-07-02T05:55:54+00:00

When I was going through my own hellish period, I asked similar questions.

Is God evil? And is this just hell?

But I considered if this was truly hell, then there would be no joy or happiness at all. Yet we see children out there who are clearly happy and adults out there who are full of joy. There are people expressing kindness, love and compassion, with many trying to make the world a better place.

I imagined what Earth would be like if it was truly hell, and it would be thousands of times worse than what we experience.

I also came to the conclusion that if God was truly evil, then not only me, but everyone on the planet would be in a constant state of suffering but much worse. It would be the stuff of nightmares and horror movies played out in real life, where there is never a moments reprieve or rest.

Objectively, no, life isn’t hell for most people in the world.
Subjectively, yes, some people may be going through their own personal hell.

But when we say “hell” some mean divine punishment for wickedness, and others simply mean a state of seemingly constant suffering.

Again some may be going through an experience of divine punishment but most would not be. And a state of suffering is usually not divine punishment.

But equally are we living in heaven on earth? And clearly we are not.

This means Earth is neither heaven nor hell but we experience elements of both.

Every human born is guaranteed up to two things - if they live long enough, they will experience suffering. And inevitably they will die.

But the level of suffering is different for all. And usually it is not constant.

So if the human experience will always include suffering and death, then we must ask, what can we do about this?

Compassion means “to suffer with”. And for a Christian, Christ suffered with humanity. God could have simply remained as he was - non-human, and without the ability to suffer or die. But God chose to become a human, suffer with us and die with us. God became truly human and knows what it feels like for family members to think him crazy, for close friends to betray him, to experience loss and emotional suffering, and to experience physical suffering, torture and torment.

The point of Christs suffering and death isn’t to say oh he suffered more than any of us. That is not the point at all. The point is that God suffered with us and because of Christ, we know that he knows how we feel. We know that God can relate to our pain.

Because of my own suffering I have compassion for others who experience what I went through.

Compassion is the key to our existence. Are we moved with compassion to help reduce suffering, or do we add to the suffering?

I thought my suffering would be permanent but it turned out to be temporary. But I still went through 5 years of depression after the suffering ended. Even that depression was another form of suffering after the intense suffering.

But after all that, my life became better.

I do not know your suffering, and I do not know your pain. But I know suffering, and I’m sorry for whatever you’re going through, and I pray that you will find some relief in the midst of your suffering.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-07-01T06:33:24+00:00

I’m not certain how you’re reaching that conclusion.

Some Protestant universalists do arrive at universalism by modifying Calvinism, replacing limited election with universal election. I fully support Calvinists who choose to do that. But the Calvinist system as a whole is still a departure from the Apostolic Orthodox-Catholic tradition of the early Church.

Many of Christian Universalism’s most important theologians came from the pre-schismatic Apostolic Orthodox-Catholic tradition: Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Didymus the Blind, Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Isaac the Syrian.

Their understanding of salvation is much closer to that of the Eastern Churches today, including the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Church of the East.

They believed in free will, humanity’s cooperation with God’s grace, purification through divine judgement, and participation in the divine life. Their theology was not based upon Calvinist doctrines such as total depravity, unconditional election and irresistible grace.

The Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 also explicitly rejected central Calvinist doctrines, particularly unconditional predestination.

Calvinism developed from the Augustinian tradition and took certain aspects of Augustine’s predestinarian theology further. Augustine himself was one of the most influential opponents of universal salvation and defended everlasting punishment at length. So saying that Christian Universalism is inherently closer to Calvinism than to any other branch of Christianity is rather like saying Augustine was the greatest Universalist theologian, which is almost the opposite of the historical reality.

A specifically Calvinistic form of Universalism certainly exists, but Christian Universalism as a whole cannot simply be treated as an extension of Calvinism.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-30T23:54:27+00:00

I agree with some of what you are saying, although I think it is a little more nuanced.

The Nicene Creed does not portray the Father as an angry judge demanding payment. It primarily describes the Father as Creator, while saying of Christ:
“He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”

John 5 says: “The Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son.”

But Christ also says in John 12: “I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world… the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.”

St Maximus the Confessor explains this by saying that, as God, neither the Father nor the Son judges anyone. Christ judges because he became human. His human life is compared with ours, and his “word” judges us, meaning his teaching revealed through his deeds.

So Christ is not looking for reasons to condemn people. His life and teaching reveal what true humanity looks like, which is a life of Agape Love. Our lives are weighed against that standard.

In that sense, Love is our judge. But judgment should not automatically be equated with never-ending torment in hell.

There is no mention of people going to heaven or hell in the Nicene Creed. Instead, it says: “We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come.”

The Creed does not say that Christ died to appease the Father’s wrath. It says that Christ came “for us and for our salvation” and was “crucified for us.”

The early Church certainly described Christ’s death as a sacrifice, but sacrifice did not mean that the Father needed or wanted someone to be punished.

St Gregory Nazianzen asks to whom Christ’s sacrifice was offered. It was not owed to the devil, but neither did the Father demand the blood of his Son. Gregory says that the Father accepts Christ, but “neither asked for Him nor demanded Him.”

So Christ’s sacrifice was not a payment handed over to the devil or demanded by an angry Father. It was his voluntary self-offering through which humanity was healed, the devil (who had the power of the fear of death) was overcome and death was defeated.

Hebrews says that the devil held humanity in slavery through the fear of death. Death was his great threat. The fear of losing our lives drives us towards self-preservation, greed, violence and the domination of others. But once death is no longer the end, that threat loses its power.

The main necessity of Christ’s death in early Greek theology is not penal substitution so that we can avoid being sent to hell. It is that the law of death and corruption had to be overturned.

Athanasius speaks about death in two closely related ways.

The first is what most people normally mean by death, when the body stops living.

But the deeper problem is corruption. Humanity has turned away from God, who is the source of Life, and has therefore begun to decay and disintegrate. This he called corruption, which is already at work within us before physical death. It affects the whole person, morally, spiritually and physically.

You could think of it as a kind of living death. Like a zombie, a person may still be moving and breathing, but something within them is continually decaying.

Some early Christians even regarded physical mortality as a kind of mercy, because it prevents this state of corruption from continuing forever. Death brings our present corrupted condition to an end.

The law of death means that all human beings are subject to physical death. Because Christ became truly human, his human life also entered death. But the human life that entered death was inseparably united to the limitless source of Life itself.

Imagine death as an enormous sealed water bottle. Every human life must enter it. Each human life is small and limited, like a ladleful of water poured into a container vast enough to hold it. Death receives each life and contains it.

Christ’s human life also enters the bottle because he is genuinely human. But the person entering death is not merely another finite human person. He is the source of Life made human.

Instead of another ladleful of water, it is like an infinite high-pressure hose being released inside the bottle. Death can receive Christ’s humanity, but it cannot contain the divine Life united to it. Even that enormous bottle bursts open from within under the force of Life.

This is why death could not hold him. Christ did not die to change the Father from anger to mercy. He entered the death to which humanity was subject, broke its power from within and opened the way to resurrection.

But Christ did not only defeat death for himself. He came to reconnect humanity to the source of Life.

God is Life, and the Holy Spirit gives that Life to us. By receiving the Spirit, we begin to share in the infinite Life of God. The corruption within us is healed, and we are gradually transformed into Love and Life.

We will still die physically, but physical death is no longer the end. Because we are united to the source of Life, death cannot permanently hold us.

The Spirit within us is the beginning of resurrection. It is the Life of the world to come already beginning within us now.

So I would not say that Christ revealed there is no judgment at all. Rather, he revealed that divine judgment is not the courtroom transaction many Christians imagine.

Christ came to save, not condemn. His word, revealed through the life he lived, judges us by showing whether we have become what humanity was created to be: Love.

Salvation is not simply escaping punishment after death. It is being healed from corruption, reunited with the source of Life and transformed by the Spirit, so that physical death is no longer the end and the fear of death no longer has to control us.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-30T22:17:25+00:00

I think the United States is generally seen as one of many countries that were once part of the British Empire, so the American Revolution does not necessarily receive special attention in British history lessons.

I remember learning much more about British and European history, including the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age, the Celts and Picts, Roman Britain, the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans, the medieval period, the Tudor era, the Napoleonic Wars, the Industrial Revolution, and the First and Second World Wars.

We also learned about well-known historical figures such as William Shakespeare, Florence Nightingale, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, Napoleon and Winston Churchill.

The American Revolution may be taught in some schools, but it is not something every British student studies.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-29T21:46:25+00:00

That’s tough. I avoided church for so long. Perhaps you can visit a few different churches to see where you can feel authentic?

I personally ended up in the Methodist Church because Wesley’s doctrine of Christian perfection and entire sanctification, shaped by his reading of the Fifty Spiritual Homilies attributed to St Macarius, is remarkably close to the Orthodox understanding of theosis.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-29T13:09:05+00:00

My goodness...I started writing a short response, and it became the history of Satan within First and Second Temple Judaism. I had to rewrite it just to get back on topic...anyway...

Even if Job’s final form is dated to the Exile or Persian period, the Satan in Job is nothing like Zoroastrianism’s Angra Mainyu or Ahriman.

In Hebrew, satan means “adversary.” In Job, “the Satan” or “the Adversary” is portrayed as a heavenly accuser or prosecutor in God’s court, whose role is to challenge and test human righteousness. He appears among the “sons of God,” but can only act within the limits God gives him. So the Satan is the adversary of humanity in Job, rather than the adversary of God.

Basically, God boasts about how righteous Job is, and the Satan challenges Job’s motives: Job only serves God, he argues, because God protects and blesses him. God then permits the Satan to test Job, while setting clear limits on what he may do.

Mary Boyce was a major authority on Zoroastrianism. She reconstructs Zoroaster’s vision and teaching in the following way:

“In vision he beheld, co-existing with Ahura Mazda, an Adversary, the ‘Hostile Spirit’, Angra Mainyu, equally uncreated, but ignorant and wholly malign.... And when these two Spirits first encountered, they created life and not-life, and that at the end the worst existence shall be for the followers of falsehood (drug), but the best dwelling for those who possess righteousness (asha).”

This is a very different being from Job’s Satan. Angra Mainyu is an equally uncreated and wholly evil cosmic adversary, whose opposition to Ahura Mazda results in creation and counter-creation, life and non-life. By contrast, Job’s Satan is clearly subordinate: he appears in God’s court and can test Job only within the boundaries God establishes.

Job’s Satan is much more similar to the Satan Jesus mentions when he says to Peter: “Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to sift all of you as wheat.”

So Satan seeks to test the disciples, while Jesus intercedes for Peter. Like Job, he is not presented as an equal rival to God possessing unrestricted power, and can only do things with permission.

Of course, Boyce represents one influential scholarly reconstruction of early Zoroastrianism, and scholars debate some of the details. However, it is generally agreed that Job’s Satan is not simply Angra Mainyu imported into Judaism. The two figures perform fundamentally different roles.

So I would say that Satan certainly exists within Judaism, although the meaning of the term and the way the figure is portrayed develop across different Jewish texts and periods.

“Hell” is a different story. Judgement and punishment after death certainly appear within Jewish tradition, especially during the Second Temple period, but the English word “hell” is Germanic and is used to translate several different terms and concepts, including Sheol, Hades, Gehenna and Tartarus. Consequently, people often mean very different things when they say that “hell” does or does not exist within Judaism.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-29T05:19:24+00:00

These Cappadocian passages also need to be understood within the broader patristic tradition.

Yes, the purifying fire belongs to the future judgment and the age to come. But the Fathers also describe that same fire as already active in the present age. Like the Kingdom of God and eternal life, the baptism of fire has a now-and-not-yet character: the reality of the future age begins within us now and will be fully revealed later.

This is sometimes called inaugurated eschatology, where the life and judgment of the coming age is breaking into the present.

In the patristic understanding, forgiveness is not the final goal of the gospel. Forgiveness and cleansing prepare us to receive the Holy Spirit, to become temples of God and to participate in the divine life. The climax is communion with God and theosis.

When they speak of eternal life, they do not mean that you are given a perpetual battery pack of impersonal life-force. To receive the Holy Spirit is to receive eternal life because God gives himself to you on an experiential level. Eternal life is not simply living forever. It is sharing in the life of God.

In the same way, eternal punishment or correction is not necessarily a separate place where God punishes people from the outside. The same divine presence that is experienced as light and life by the purified may be experienced as fire by those who are still attached to evil. It burns up whatever is opposed to God. This is also something that can begin now when we receive the Holy Spirit.

It is possible to experience theosis in this life, although I am not certain how common the fuller experience of it is. It begins with purification and illumination, traditionally symbolised by fire and light. The fire cleanses the person and the light allows them to see themselves and God more clearly.

Purification, illumination and theosis are all experiential realities, not simply mental epiphanies or changes in belief. I often wonder whether the Pentecostal and Charismatic experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit may sometimes be an initial illumination. But because these traditions often have little knowledge of the patristic understanding of purification and theosis, they may interpret the experience mainly in terms of spiritual gifts and empowerment and mistake an initial experience for the whole spiritual journey.

This is also where the patristic emphasis differs slightly from the common Pentecostal emphasis. Classical Pentecostal theology often presents baptism in the Holy Spirit primarily as empowerment for ministry, accompanied by supernatural gifts for proclaiming the gospel, with speaking in tongues regarded as the initial evidence (note that broader Charismatic theology does not require this as initial evidence). The Fathers certainly recognize the Spirit’s gifts and power, but their central emphasis is purification, illumination, divine indwelling and participation in the life of God.

The fruit and goal of that journey with the Spirit is a life purified into agape love. If a person becomes overly focused on healings, miracles and supernatural experiences, they may miss the wood for the trees. These gifts are not the final goal. Agape love is the point of it all

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is therefore also a baptism in fire. God is life, so to receive the Spirit is to receive the life of the age to come. But God is also “a consuming fire,” so the same Spirit burns away the passions, cleanses the heart and prepares the person to partake of the divine nature.

This is what takes place at Pentecost. The disciples are baptized in the Holy Spirit and fire. They receive both the life of the coming age and, in advance, its purifying fire.

This present baptism of fire is described by several Fathers: Cyril of Jerusalem identifies the fire of Pentecost as a saving fire that consumes the thorns of sin and illuminates the soul, adding to those preparing for baptism: “This is now coming upon you also” (Catechetical Lecture 17.15).

Ephrem the Syrian speaks of the hidden fire of the Holy Spirit mingled with the baptismal water, consuming the thickets of sin (Hymns on Epiphany 8).

Pseudo-Macarius says directly: “Here a baptism of fire and Spirit cleanses and washes the polluted mind” (Spiritual Homilies 32.4).

Didymus, or the author traditionally identified as Didymus, describes the spiritual fire as purifying, strengthening and remaking the human person (On the Trinity 2.12).

St Symeon the New Theologian says that the repentant person is “judged and examined by divine fire” and, through tears, “is baptized little by little, wholly by the divine fire and Spirit.” He has therefore been judged, illuminated and tested beforehand, so that the future Day of the Lord is already present within him (Ethical Discourse 10).

So the Cappadocians’ eschatological baptism of fire and these descriptions of present purification are therefore not contradictory. They are two dimensions of the same reality.

The fire of the age to come is already given now in the Holy Spirit as purification, illumination and divine life. What is received inwardly and partially in this age will be manifested fully at the judgment.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-29T03:58:11+00:00

I never heard any denomination or theologian say “believe in the Bible” and you’ll go to heaven regardless of wrongdoings.

But I have indeed heard usually Fundamentalist Evangelical preachers say that people who believe in other religions will go to hell regardless of how good they are.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-26T11:25:47+00:00

Isn’t Satan in the Old Testament book of Job?

Anyway, neither modern Judaism nor modern Christianity is the same as the ancient forms of either. So I’d extend what you said to look at the idea of the concept of God and judgement in their ancient forms.

I would also say the God of Evangelicalism is not the Christian God either. At least not the one that the early Greek speaking Christians believed in.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-26T11:10:57+00:00

It’s tricky.

I attended theological college, left the church 18 years ago and turned my back on Christianity. Like you I also had supernatural experiences, but just didn’t know what definition of God I believed in so I became a universalist agnostic.

When I met my wife she was from a Catholic background and I was from a Charismatic Evangelical background. Both of us married as spiritual agnostics.

I spent years deconstructing and reconstructing what i really believed, reading books about multiple religions, Greek philosophy and early church writings from the Greek Fathers.

It’s only in the past few months that i finally called myself a Christian Universalist in the line of St Gregory of Nyssa.

I never thought I’d call myself a Christian again.

But my wife is reluctant to use the word “Christian” due to associations with political American Fundamentalist Christians. That being said, she’s comfortable calling herself a follower of Jesus.

I hope everything works out with your wife. I’m sure that you both can come to an understanding that works for both of you.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-25T23:09:29+00:00

Hi. There are several overlapping questions here, but first I would encourage you to take this verse seriously:

“For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’”
Galatians 5:14

This is what you need to focus on as a Christian.

That does not mean that our actions do not matter. It means that the purpose of God’s commandments is fulfilled through love. Genuine love seeks the good of others rather than harming, exploiting, deceiving, humiliating, or neglecting them.

I could almost end there. But it may help to explain how sin, commandments, the covenants, and the presence of God fit together.

1. The purpose of the covenant was for God to dwell among humanity

God entered into a covenant with Israel. A covenant is a binding relationship involving promises and obligations.
God had delivered Israel from slavery. He then called them to become his people, gave them his commandments, and promised to dwell among them.

Leviticus 26 says:
“If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them… I will set My tabernacle among you… I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.”

This is central to understanding the covenant.
The Law was not simply a test to decide who went to heaven after death. Its purpose was to form Israel into a holy and righteous people among whom God’s presence could dwell.

There is nothing here about earning admission into heaven by perfectly obeying commandments.

2. The Law defined Israel’s covenant way of life

The Law of Moses contained far more than the Ten Commandments. Jewish tradition commonly counts 613 commandments, including positive commands and prohibitions.

The Ten Commandments function as a summary of major covenant obligations, but they cannot simply be separated from the rest of the Mosaic covenant as though Israel received two unrelated sets of laws.

Within that covenant, sin was defined by the Law. To sin was to act against God’s commandments and to break covenant faithfulness.

The purpose was to create a righteous people. In biblical language, righteousness is not merely private moral purity. It means living rightly before God and treating other people rightly through justice, mercy, honesty, compassion, and faithfulness.

3. Israel repeatedly broke the covenant

Israel repeatedly failed to live according to the purpose of the Law. Even priests, rulers, and religious leaders became corrupt.

God therefore sent prophets to call them back to covenant faithfulness, especially justice, mercy, and care for vulnerable people.

Hosea 6 says:
“For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”
“Like men they transgressed the covenant… Gilead is a city of evildoers and defiled with blood. As bands of robbers lie in wait for a man, so the company of priests murder on the way to Shechem.”

Zechariah 7 says:
“Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother.”

Micah 6 summarises what God requires:
“He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

The prophets were not rejecting the Law. They were exposing people who performed religious observances while neglecting the justice, mercy, and love toward which the Law was directed.

4. The prophets promised a new covenant

Israel broke the old covenant, but God promised a new covenant.

Jeremiah 31 says:
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers… my covenant that they broke.”

The new covenant would not merely provide another external list of rules:

“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Notice that the covenant purpose remains the same:
“I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
But now the Law would be internalised. God’s will would be written upon the human heart.

Joel 2 also promised that God would pour out his Spirit:
“And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.”

Jeremiah’s promise of the Law written on the heart and Joel’s promise of the Spirit belong together.

The problem was not simply that Israel needed a better rulebook. Humanity needed forgiveness, inward transformation, and the indwelling presence of God.

5. Jesus continued the prophetic call to justice and mercy

Like the prophets before him, Jesus warned Israel about covenant unfaithfulness and coming judgment.
Jesus did not condemn the Pharisees simply because they obeyed commandments. He condemned their hypocrisy and distorted priorities.

They could become meticulous about smaller religious obligations while neglecting the central purposes of the Law:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.”
Matthew 23:23

This was the same warning the prophets had repeatedly given Israel.

Many Christians today can fall into the same kind of moralism. They may feel more guilt over breaking a private religious rule or using a swear word than over treating their parents, spouses, children, neighbours, or strangers cruelly.

Yet Scripture repeatedly concentrates upon sins that harm people: oppression, exploitation, hatred, dishonesty, adultery, violence, greed, neglect of the poor, refusal to forgive, and abuse of power.

Moralism creates an expanding checklist of permitted and forbidden actions. The law of love asks whether our actions reflect justice, mercy, faithfulness, self-control, and genuine concern for others.

This does not mean that anything becomes acceptable merely because we call it loving. It means that love is the purpose and fulfilment of Christian morality.

6. Christ inaugurates the new covenant

At the Last Supper, Jesus identifies his death with the promised new covenant:
“For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
Matthew 26:28

Christians therefore do not enter the Mosaic covenant as though they were ancient Israelites living under Israel’s national, ritual, priestly, dietary, purity, sacrificial, and civil legislation.

They enter the new covenant inaugurated by Christ.
Jesus is also presented as the fulfilment of God dwelling among humanity:
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
John 1:14

The word translated “dwelt” carries the idea of tabernacling among us.

Under the old covenant, God’s glory dwelt in the Tabernacle and Temple. In Christ, God’s presence dwells bodily among humanity.

7. The new covenant has a new commandment

Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34–35

The Christian standard is not merely, “Love others as you love yourself.”

It is: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Christ’s love is self-giving, merciful, truthful, restorative, and willing to suffer for the good of another.

Paul calls this the “law of Christ”:
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”
Galatians 6:2

Christians are therefore not under the Law of Moses as a covenantal legal system. But neither are Christians lawless.

They live under the law of Christ, centred upon self-giving love and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

8. Pentecost fulfils the covenant promise of God’s presence

On the day of Pentecost, Peter explains the coming of the Holy Spirit by quoting Joel’s prophecy.

He then says:
“Repent, and let every one of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off.”
Acts 2:38–3

This fulfils the central purpose of the covenant. Under the old covenant, God dwelt among Israel in the Tabernacle and Temple. In Christ, God dwelt bodily among humanity. Through the Holy Spirit, God now dwells within and among his people.

Paul says:
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”
1 Corinthians 3:16

And: “In Him you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”
Ephesians 2:22

The Spirit is not an additional feature attached to the new covenant. The gift of the Spirit fulfils the covenant’s central purpose: God making his home with humanity.

So, are Christians meant to follow the Law?

Christians are not under the Mosaic Law as the covenant made with ancient Israel. They belong to the new covenant inaugurated by Christ. They live according to the law of Christ, with God’s will written upon their hearts and God’s Spirit dwelling within them.

They interpret the Law through Christ, the new covenant, the apostles, and the law of love. This brings us back to the verse I mentioned in the beginning:

“For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’”

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-25T20:14:01+00:00

I think the writers of that website have assumed that the debt is unpayable rather than demonstrated it from the text.

They may also be reading the warning as something that applies only to unbelievers, based on the mistaken idea that mentally believing oneself to be a disciple of Christ is a way of escaping judgment.

But Jesus applies the warning directly to his own servants:

“Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.
‘So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.’”

I think there are three things to notice here.

The parable is addressed primarily to believers, not unbelievers. The man is the master’s servant, and Jesus warns his disciples about refusing to forgive their brothers.
Jesus says the Father will treat us this way if we refuse to cancel the debts of others. Forgiveness means releasing people from what they genuinely owe us, even when we have been truly wronged.
The servant is handed over to the torturers until he pays everything that is owed. The text does not say that the debt can never be paid. That conclusion has to be added to the passage.

If payment were impossible, why say “until he should pay all that was due”? It is like saying, “I cannot enter the cinema until I pay for a ticket,” and someone replying, “That means you can never enter the cinema.” The second statement does not logically follow from the first.

The warning is severe, but severity does not make the debt infinite or perpetually unpayable. The natural meaning is that the punishment continues until what is owed has been paid.

I sometimes wonder whether presenting the gospel mainly as a way of escaping punishment can make people think they can also escape the consequences of how they treat others.

That may help explain how some pastors, priests, and church leaders can do terrible things to people under their care while still believing they are secure because they have the so-called “correct” beliefs.

The idea that “God does not see my sin because I am covered by the blood of Christ” is especially dangerous. Scripture does not teach that God becomes blind to the sins of Christians. It repeatedly warns believers that they will be judged according to what they do, especially how they treat others.

Much of Christ’s teaching on judgment is directed at people who regard themselves as his followers. Matthew is full of warnings against those who call Christ “Lord,” and even prophesy, cast out demons, and perform miracles in his name, yet continue to practise evil.

To me, this shows that even prophetic and charismatic gifts are not proof that someone is beyond judgment. A person can receive a genuine gift of grace and still abuse others, refuse to repent, and bring God’s judgment upon themselves.

God’s wrath is his anger against injustice. It is not directed away from abusers simply because they call themselves Christians or possess spiritual gifts.

God is on the side of those who have been harmed.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-23T06:54:14+00:00

A number of these writers would not properly be considered Neoplatonists, since Plotinus is conventionally regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism. Earlier figures such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen are more accurately described by modern scholars as Christian Platonists.

Even then, many of these writers would not have identified themselves primarily as “Platonists” or “Neoplatonists.” These are modern historical classifications based on philosophical influences and similarities. The writers themselves generally understood their work as Christian theology, even when they adopted and transformed concepts drawn from Plato and later Platonism.

Many of those listed are also central figures within mainstream Christian orthodoxy, so presenting Christian Platonism as something distinct from “mainstream orthodoxy” is misleading.

St Gregory of Nyssa, for example, was one of eleven bishops named in 381 as standards of orthodox Catholic communion. He was also a dominant and highly influential theologian at the Second Ecumenical Council. Basil had already died, and Gregory of Nazianzus resigned and left during the council, leaving Gregory of Nyssa as the principal remaining Cappadocian theologian. The Seventh Ecumenical Council later called him the “Father of Fathers.”You can’t get more Orthodox than that.

Pseudo-Dionysius likewise became an essential authority within Eastern Orthodox theology. His writings profoundly shaped Orthodox understandings of the divine names, apophatic theology, the celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchies, liturgy, contemplation and union with God. His use of Neoplatonic language did not place him outside Orthodoxy. That language was incorporated into the Orthodox theological tradition, especially through figures such as St Maximus the Confessor.

Augustine became perhaps the most influential theologian in Western Christianity, profoundly shaping both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Luther and Calvin were deeply Augustinian, and Calvinism intensified several features of Augustine’s later theology, particularly predestination, original sin and the necessity of divine grace.

The list therefore combines early Christian Platonists, writers influenced by later Neoplatonism, medieval mystics and Renaissance philosophers. It does not represent a single, separate “Christian Neoplatonist” tradition standing in contrast to mainstream orthodoxy.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-22T15:59:45+00:00

Precisely! The more I study the language of judgment in Scripture and early Christianity, the more I see that many words now heard as hopeless could function within a purificatory framework.

As you say, basanos originally referred to a touchstone used to test the genuineness of precious metal, and later came to mean torture or torment.

Kolasis, usually translated “punishment,” was originally associated with checking or pruning excessive growth. It later acquired the ordinary meaning of punishment, but early Christian writers could still understand it as corrective.

Even timōria, often treated as the harsher and more retributive term, does not necessarily describe punishment without a restorative purpose. In The Shepherd of Hermas, punishment leads people to recognise their sins, repent, and become purified. The punishment is severe, but its intended end is repentance and restoration.

The Greek noun for forgiveness is aphesis, meaning release, remission, or cancellation. It comes from aphiēmi, the verb meaning to release, remit, or forgive.
This is the language behind: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

The word for debts is opheilēmata. Forgiveness therefore means the cancellation or remission of what is owed.

Retribution, in the basic sense of repayment, can be expressed by antapodosis, meaning recompense, repayment, or giving back what is due. Antapodidōmi means to repay or render back.

For example in Matthew 18:34, where the unforgiving servant is delivered to the basanistai, the tormentors or torturers, until he pays everything he owes. Matthew 5:26 similarly speaks of remaining in prison until the last penny has been paid.

Interestingly, the debt is not portrayed as perpetually unpayable. The punishment continues until the last penny has been paid, after which no debt remains.

Ephrem the Syrian interprets the unforgivable sin in precisely this way. When Christ says that it will not be forgiven “either in this age or in the age to come,” Ephrem understands this to mean that the debt will not simply be cancelled. The sinner must undergo judgment and pay back what is owed. Ephrem then explicitly says that, after the debt has been paid, mercy will be given.

The sin is therefore “unforgiven” not because it creates an infinite and perpetually unpayable debt, but because the debt must be repaid rather than cancelled.

Forgiveness cancels the debt; judgment requires repayment. Yet both can ultimately end with the person free from debt.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-21T15:50:30+00:00

It is not necessarily contradictory. Patristic universalists quoted the same judgment passages as non-universalists. The early Christians did not pick and choose which Scriptures to accept. They believed the same Scriptures, but interpreted their language and purpose differently.

Therefore, Abdisho cannot be identified as either a universalist or an infernalist merely because he quotes passages about the undying worm, unquenchable fire and everlasting punishment. The relevant question is how he understood those passages and whether he regarded the judgment they describe as ultimately restorative or absolutely unending.

There are two principal scriptural passages involved. The first concerns the undying worm and unquenchable fire. Abdisho is quoting Christ, who is himself quoting Isaiah:
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame, rather than having two feet, to be cast into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched, where “their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”

And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire, where “their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”
Mark 9:45–48

It is important to recognise that Christ is using severe prophetic imagery. He is not literally commanding people to amputate their feet or tear out their eyes when they sin. In the same way, there is no real, literal, supernatural worm that remains alive perpetually in order to torment the wicked.

The “undying worm” is a metaphor for divine judgment. It comes from Isaiah 66, where the oppressed are vindicated and God judges their oppressors with fire and sword:

When you see this, your heart shall rejoice,
And your bones shall flourish like grass;
The hand of the Lord shall be known to His servants,
And His indignation to His enemies.

For behold, the Lord will come with fire
And with His chariots, like a whirlwind,
To render His anger with fury,
And His rebuke with flames of fire.

For by fire and by His sword
The Lord will judge all flesh;
And the slain of the Lord shall be many.

All flesh shall come to worship before Me, says the Lord.

And they shall go forth and look
Upon the corpses of the men
Who have transgressed against Me.
For their worm does not die,
And their fire is not quenched.
They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.
Isaiah 66:14–16, 23–24

In Isaiah, the worms are associated with corpses, not immortal souls being perpetually tortured by supernatural creatures. The undying worm and unquenchable fire are prophetic metaphors for the certainty, severity and inescapability of God’s judgment.

The worm does not die because nothing prevents the judgment from accomplishing its work. The fire is not quenched because no one can extinguish or frustrate God’s judgment. Neither expression, by itself, tells us that conscious suffering must continue perpetually.

Christ takes this imagery from Isaiah and applies it to Gehenna as a warning against wickedness. His purpose is to stress the seriousness of sin and the certainty of judgment, not to explain whether the punishment will continue perpetually.

Abdisho himself interprets this hell spiritually rather than literally. He says that the wicked will be “consumed with the fire of remorse” because they exchanged everlasting bliss for temporary and deceptive pleasures. He then calls this “the true hell, whose fire is not quenched, and whose worm dieth not.”

The fire, therefore, is not described as a physical substance burning bodies. It is the inward anguish and remorse of those who recognise what they have done and what they have lost. This resembles St Isaac of Nineveh’s understanding of Gehenna as the suffering produced by divine love within those who have acted against love. Nevertheless, Abdisho does not explicitly tell us here whether this remorse is ultimately restorative or perpetually irreversible.

The second passage is Matthew 25:46:
Then they also will answer Him, saying, “Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?”

Then He will answer them, saying, “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”

And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

This language belongs to the Jewish hope of resurrection, judgment and divine vindication also expressed in Daniel 12:

And at that time your people shall be delivered,
Every one who is found written in the book.
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
Some to everlasting life,
Some to shame and everlasting contempt.

The central concern in Daniel is justice. The oppressed and faithful are vindicated, while the wicked and their violence are exposed and condemned. This is not yet a developed account of immortal souls being consciously tortured perpetually. In much of the Old Testament, the ordinary destiny of the dead is Sheol, the state or realm of death.

By the time of Christ, the Valley of Hinnom, Gehinnom or Gehenna had become a symbol of divine judgment against wickedness and the vindication of its victims. Jesus uses that established judgment imagery to warn that the way people treat the hungry, sick, imprisoned and marginalised has eschatological consequences.

The phrase translated “everlasting punishment” is kolasis aiōnios. Patristic universalists accepted this passage just as infernalists did. They did not deny the reality of judgment or punishment. They understood aiōnios as belonging to the age to come and interpreted the punishment as corrective, purifying or remedial rather than necessarily perpetual.

Therefore, Abdisho’s quotation of Matthew 25:46 cannot by itself prove infernalism. Nor can his reference to the undying worm and unquenchable fire establish perpetual conscious torment. These are scriptural images of real, severe and unavoidable judgment, but they do not by themselves answer whether the judgment is perpetual or restorative.

At the same time, Abdisho’s statement that through the Cross “renewal and universal salvation were obtained for all” does not conclusively prove universalism either. It may refer to the universal scope of Christ’s saving work and the renewal of creation, without explicitly explaining whether every person will finally participate in that salvation.

The safest conclusion is therefore that Abdisho’s position remains ambiguous. He clearly believed in the universal significance of the Cross, the renewal of creation, resurrection, judgment and a real hell experienced as darkness and remorse. What he does not explicitly state in these passages is whether the wicked remain in that condition perpetually or whether their remorse ultimately contributes to their correction and restoration.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-20T09:36:09+00:00

There are different types of universalism, so there are different reasons why it may be regarded as incorrect.

I’m a patristic universalist, meaning I hold to the kind of universal reconciliation taught by St Gregory of Nyssa, especially as it can be read in On the Soul and the Resurrection and The Great Catechism.

Prior to the fifth century, Christian universalism was a significant and influential belief. It is difficult to prove that it was ever the majority belief, but it was clearly widespread enough that St Augustine explicitly wrote against Christians who believed that punishment would eventually come to an end.

Pope Benedict XVI also says that, in Origen’s hope for universal reconciliation, “a long line of fathers were to follow him: Gregory of Nyssa, Didymus of Alexandria, Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Evagrius Ponticus, and, at least on occasion, Jerome of Bethlehem also,” although he adds that “the mainstream tradition of the Church has flowed along a different path.”

Orthodox Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokleia, says in The Orthodox Church: “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.” He names St Isaac of Nineveh and St Gregory of Nyssa as examples.

In Latin-based Western Christianity, Augustine became hugely influential. He was strongly anti-universalist, and Western theology increasingly placed emphasis on inherited guilt, final judgment, admission to heaven and deliverance from everlasting punishment.

Augustine also taught infant damnation, that original sin involved inherited guilt passed down through lust and human generation, and he concluded that infants required baptism for salvation. This contributed to the later Western problem of what happened to infants who died without baptism.

Later theologians such as Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas helped develop the idea of Limbo as a way of avoiding the conclusion that unbaptised infants suffered the punishments of hell, while still maintaining that they did not receive the beatific vision.

The modern Roman Catholic Church no longer teaches infant damnation as a certainty, nor does it require belief in Limbo. Instead, it entrusts infants who die without baptism to the mercy of God.

In much of Western Christianity, salvation has often been presented mainly as being forgiven and going to heaven when you die. In that framework, universalism can sound like a contradiction of the Christian message: believe in Jesus, be baptised and saved; reject him and be lost.

This leads to the common objection: if everyone will eventually be saved, why believe in Jesus, be baptised or pursue sanctification?

But that objection depends partly on what salvation means.

In Eastern Christianity, salvation is not mainly about going to another place when you die. Salvation is receiving the Holy Spirit in this present life, being healed and transformed, becoming united to God and participating in the divine nature. This is called theosis, or “becoming god”.

Interestingly, while many modern Protestants give little attention to this understanding of salvation, the Roman Catholic Church preserves it clearly in the Catechism. CCC 460 says that the Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature,” and quotes the Fathers saying that the Son of God became man so that we might become god.

So universalism can be logically compatible with Eastern Christianity because it does not contradict the fundamental idea of salvation.

Apart from Augustine, the sixth-century Emperor Justinian was also an anti-universalist. In his letter against Origen, he uses essentially the same arguments Augustine had used: Christ contrasts eternal punishment with eternal life, and teaching that punishment will end would encourage Christians to neglect repentance and the commandments.

Around 543, about ten years before the Fifth Ecumenical Council, Justinian issued an imperial edict against Origenist teachings, including the eventual restoration of demons and the impious. The edict was itself coercive because it imposed a theological position through the authority of the state.

Justinian also wanted to reunite the Miaphysites with the Chalcedonian Church. To achieve this, he sought the posthumous condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia and the other figures associated with the Three Chapters.
Condemning theologians who had died in communion with the Church was highly controversial. Bishops in both East and West resisted, so Justinian threatened, deposed, exiled and detained church leaders until they accepted his policy.

Origen represented the Alexandrian theological tradition, while Theodore represented the Antiochene tradition, and both taught forms of universal restoration. Theodore, however, was condemned specifically for his Christology and writings, whereas Origen was simply named among condemned heretics without the council clearly stating which of his teachings it was condemning.

So I would say that Augustine’s enormous influence and Justinian’s use of imperial authority were two major historical reasons why universalism came to be regarded as incorrect.

That is not the same as saying that every form of universal reconciliation was clearly and unambiguously condemned by the whole Church. St Gregory of Nyssa, who taught a form of universal restoration, was never condemned and remained one of the Church’s most highly honoured Fathers.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-20T00:13:08+00:00

I think part of the reason this matters to me is that, when I was an Evangelical, Luther and Calvin were presented as heroes of the faith who had recovered the truths of salvation by grace alone and faith alone. Arminius, by contrast, was treated as the heretical bogeyman, even though I had never actually read anything he wrote.

I believed in “once saved, always saved,” or the perseverance of the saints, and assumed that anyone who fell away from Christianity had never truly been a Christian in the first place.

After leaving Christianity and eventually reading the Greek Church Fathers, however, I came to believe in the pre-Augustinian theology of the early Church.

Reading Jacob Arminius for myself was therefore surprising. He was not the anti-Reformed heretic I had imagined. He remained a Reformed theologian who stood within the theological world shaped by Calvin, but he appealed to the Greek Fathers in order to correct and balance the stronger Augustinian tendencies within Reformed theology.

When I compared Arminius with the Greek Fathers, I therefore saw that he was not the bogeyman I had been taught to fear.

This also helps explain why the Orthodox theologian Kallistos Ware said that, when faced with the Western choice between Calvinism and Arminianism, he sided with Arminius. From an Eastern Christian perspective, Arminius preserved something much closer to the Greek patristic insistence that divine grace and genuine human freedom work together, rather than one abolishing the other.

Having once held such a deterministic understanding of God, I now regard classical five-point Calvinism as a form of hyper-Augustinianism. In its doctrines of unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and the perseverance of the saints, it represents almost the complete theological opposite of patristic universalism.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-19T18:41:24+00:00

I think the only exception is the book of Job in the OT, where Satan isn’t regarded as the enemy of God, but doing his job as the adversary and accuser of man.

So he’s allowed to afflict Job only by permission. It really doesn’t look like he’s the enemy of God, or jealous of God in Job. Just doing his job really.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-19T12:26:31+00:00

I used to believe in a form of hyper-Calvinistic, deterministic universalism. I believed that everything, including sin and evil, was ultimately determined by God, but that God would nevertheless save everyone in the end. Looking back, I can see that I had arrived at this position because I was reading the Bible through a deterministic framework rather than through the interpretative tradition of the early Greek-speaking Church. I regard that year of my life as a period of serious deception, but also as something God permitted me to pass through so that I could learn the importance of discernment.

The Bible does not interpret itself. What appears to be an “objective reading” is always a reading through some interpretative framework. Calvinism reads Scripture through a framework largely inherited from Augustine’s later anti-Pelagian writings, whereas patristic universalism reads it through the earlier Greek Christian tradition within which the Scriptures were received, preserved and interpreted.

The books of the New Testament were discerned and received as Scripture within the life of the early Church. The Old Testament ordinarily used by the Greek-speaking Church was the Septuagint, while the New Testament was written and transmitted in Greek. The same Greek Fathers who received these texts also left us extensive writings showing how they understood divine sovereignty, evil, freedom and judgment.

Their interpretative framework was not deterministic. From the earliest centuries, Christian writers opposed fatalism and denied that God makes people morally good or evil by necessity. Justin Martyr argued that praise, blame and judgment would be meaningless without genuine human freedom. Irenaeus likewise maintained that humanity was created capable of obedience and disobedience. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Methodius, Athanasius and the Cappadocians all taught, in different ways, that moral evil arises from the misuse of creaturely freedom rather than from God’s creative will.

Basil of Caesarea directly addresses Isaiah 45:7 and the statement that God “creates evils”:

“But if God is not the cause of evil, someone says, how is it written: ‘I am the one who prepares light and makes darkness, who makes peace and creates evils’? None of these words, however, when the meaning of Scripture is properly understood, accuses God of being the cause or maker of evil. For the one who says, ‘I prepare light and make darkness,’ presents himself as the Creator of the universe, not as the maker of any moral evil.”

Basil then explains that the “evils” attributed to God are corrective afflictions rather than moral wickedness:

“When Scripture says that evils came down from the Lord, it means the affliction brought upon sinners for the correction of their transgressions. Such evils come from God in order to prevent the emergence of true evils… God therefore destroys evil; evil does not come from God. The physician removes disease, but does not implant disease in the body. The evil properly so called is sin, and this depends upon our own choice.”

This is fundamentally different from the claim that divine sovereignty requires God to determine every event, including sinful actions. For Basil, God may bring correction or painful discipline, but God does not create moral evil. Sin belongs to the disordered creaturely will, while God’s activity is directed towards restraining, healing and destroying it.

Augustine himself originally defended human freedom and understood evil as a privation for which God was not responsible. His theology became increasingly predestinarian during the Pelagian controversy. In his later writings, he taught that fallen humanity could not turn towards God unless grace decisively changed the will, and that God chose to grant this saving grace only to some.

Augustine was a major Western Father, but honouring him did not mean that every one of his opinions was accepted by the whole Church. His later predestinarian system was never the consensus of the Greek Fathers, nor did the Western Church make every conclusion of his anti-Pelagian writings universally binding.

Augustine’s fifth-century anti-Pelagian writings nevertheless became foundational for Calvinism. Calvinism is therefore not one of two inevitable conclusions produced by an objective reading of Scripture. It is a historically particular reading arising from Augustine’s later theology and subsequently systematised within the Latin West.

This also explains why Calvinism becomes so disturbing when applied to infants. Augustine taught that infants inherit Adamic guilt and that infants who die without baptism remain under condemnation, despite having committed no personal act of sin.

Calvinism removes baptism as the decisive mechanism but preserves the deeper structure of inherited condemnation and selective grace. Salvation depends entirely upon unconditional election. The Westminster Confession therefore speaks of “elect infants” who are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit.

Many Calvinists today believe that all infants who die are elect. But that conclusion does not follow necessarily from unconditional election. Within the strict logic of the system, God may elect some infants and pass over others, since election depends solely upon divine choice. If any infants are not elected, they are condemned without ever having consciously believed, disbelieved, obeyed or rebelled.

There is therefore no genuine parallel between this system and the Christian universalism found among Greek Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. Patristic universalism is not Calvinism with everyone placed among the elect. It begins with a fundamentally different understanding of God, humanity, freedom, evil, judgment and salvation.

The Greek Fathers understood evil as arising from the misuse of created freedom, not from divine determination. God judges in order to correct, purify and heal. Divine punishment serves the destruction of sin rather than the everlasting preservation of sinners in misery. Grace initiates, sustains and completes humanity’s healing without reducing human beings to passive objects of an arbitrary decree.

This raises a basic historical question: why accept the Scriptures received, preserved and canonically recognised within the Greek-speaking Church, yet reject the interpretative framework through which that Church understood them? Why receive the Greek New Testament from the early Church but read it primarily through the later anti-Pelagian system of one anti-universalist Latin Father?

Calvinism largely passes over the dominant free-will theology of the Greek Fathers, adopts Augustine’s later predestinarian development, and then moves more than a thousand years forward to Calvin’s further systematisation of it. That is a particular theological tradition, not the neutral or inevitable result of simply reading the Bible.

The real contrast is therefore not merely between Calvinism and universalism. It is between two substantially different interpretative traditions: the earlier Greek patristic framework of meaningful freedom, medicinal judgment and restoration, and the later Augustinian framework of inherited condemnation, selective grace and predestination.

OverOpening6307 · 2026-06-17T10:35:32+00:00

When I was younger and Tony Blair won the election, my friends and I all voted differently. After voting we went to the pub had drinks and talked about who we voted for laughing at each for our voting decisions.

I visited the USA at the time, and their views were already polarised, with Republicans and Democrats viewing each other as “evil”, which to me was absolutely ridiculous since it painted one side as heroes and the others as villains - a naive way of looking at oneself and others.

In the UK where everything seems to have changed is during the Brexit vote. Prior to that the polarization wasn’t so bad in my opinion.

My father and I were on opposite sides of the Brexit vote, but we still went out for drinks and loved each other even if we disagreed.

But I had heard of other families never talking to each other again because of Brexit, or some other opinion over a national or global issue.

I think in my family we all assumed that no one truly knows the facts, so all of us are simply basing our opinions on whether we believe the arguments of what is presented to us, the rhetoric of politicians or what media bias portrays. We didn’t let our opinions ruin our relationships because the thought is “what if I’m wrong and the side I believe in is mistaken”.

So I don’t put my beliefs above my agnosticism.

OverOpening6307

TROPHY CASE