Let's consider Proverbs 18:13 from what some call "The Good Book", "God's Word", aka the Bible.
[i]He that answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.[/i]
(Forget the patriarchal "he" and assume this also applies to the female of the species......😀)
What is the full depth of this little proverb, this pearl of wisdom? Many insist that the Bible has ALL the answers, that its full depth is virtually unplumbable. This being so, the key word in this Proverb would be "hear". What is it to truly [i][b]hear[/b][/i] a matter?
To hear what a Faith is saying, what life means - in fact, what [i]anything[/i] means, is, can be, will be. To truly [i]hear[/i] another human being - this before we judge them, put them into a category, dismiss them as of no consequence?
Someone once said that the only extension to the present is intensity. Depth. The present moment is the only moment and yet there is - as the zen master Dogen claimed - a "movement toward Buddha". An ever growing intimacy with the Reality around us.
It seems to me that many reach conclusions, even come to final conclusions. Yet what have they truly [i]heard[/i]? Movement has stopped.
Confucius said, “To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge"
That too is a deep saying. Profound. And if any here simply think "well, his words are not Biblical, therefore I will not reflect upon them" then my post here has been in vain.....😀
Well, no one who questions the Universalist position has chosen to respond. Some seem only to be able to jeer - this on other threads. One would have thought that if truth was on their side they would be able to offer more than jeers!
But to continue on with arguments. This from David Bentley Hart's book:-
[i]True, Jesus speaks of a final judgment, and uses many metaphors to describe the unhappy lot of the condemned. Many of these are metaphors of destruction, like the annihilation of chaff or brambles in ovens, or the final death of body and soul in the Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna). Others are metaphors of exclusion, like the sealed doors of wedding feasts. A few, a very few, are images of imprisonment and torture; but, even then, in the relevant verses, those punishments are depicted as having only a limited term (Matthew 5:26; 18:34; Luke 12:47–48, 59). Nowhere is there any description of a kingdom of perpetual cruelty presided over by Satan, as though he were a kind of chthonian god. On the other hand, however, there are a remarkable number of passages in the New Testament, several of them from Paul’s writings, that appear instead to promise a final salvation of all persons and all things, and in the most unqualified terms. I imagine some or most of these latter could be explained away as rhetorical exaggeration; but then, presumably, the same could be said of those verses that appear to presage an everlasting division between the redeemed and the reprobate. To me it is surpassingly strange that, down the centuries, most Christians have come to believe that one class of claims—all of which are allegorical, pictorial, vague, and metaphorical in form—must be regarded as providing the “literal” content of the New Testament’s teaching regarding the world to come, while another class—all of which are invariably straightforward doctrinal statements—must be regarded as mere hyperbole. It is one of the great mysteries of Christian history (or perhaps of a certain kind of religious psychopathology). And it is certainly curious also that so many Christians are able to recognize that the language of scripture is full of metaphor, on just about every page, and yet fail to notice that, when it comes to descriptions of the world to come, there are no non-metaphorical images at all.[/i]
Further:-
[i]We can see that the ovens are metaphors, and the wheat and the chaff, and the angelic harvest, and the barred doors, and the debtors’ prisons; so why do we not also recognize that the deathless worm and the inextinguishable fire and all other such images (none of which, again, means quite what the infernalist imagines) are themselves mere figural devices within the embrace of an extravagant apocalyptic imagery that, in itself, has no strictly literal elements? How did some images become mere images in the general Christian imagination while others became exact documentary portraits of some final reality? [/i] Mr Hart then says:-
[i]If one can be swayed simply by the brute force of arithmetic, it seems worth noting that, among the apparently most explicit statements on the last things, the universalist statements are by far the more numerous. I am thinking of such verses as, say: [/i]
At which point he quotes 23 (TWENTY THREE) verses and passages from the New Testament that state explicitly, or imply, that the Universal reconciliation of All Things is to be believed. If anyone doubts this then they only need to HEAR the matter by referring to the book itself, "That All Shall Be Saved". Sadly, some will merely quote from a parable of Jesus, which would obviously include metaphorical language, and the question is settled in their minds, simply because that is what they have always been taught, and thus have always thought, and would be far too afraid to raise questions within their own Churchy circle. Acceptance by their peers is of more value to them than Truth.
I would just add that it is often the word translated as "eternal" that becomes an issue. Once again, one only needs to refer to various Christian scholars and experts in the Greek language of the original NT to see how questionable such a translation is. More often it would be closer to the original to speak of "an age".
The sad thing is that the "Good News" for some is in fact the terrible news that Reality itself, our Cosmos, will [b][i]never[/i][/b] be free of suffering. Creation (if indeed it was the will of God that "all be saved" as per the New Testament) is a failure, God's will finally thwarted. So much for being "all powerful". So much for love!
For ever more there will be suffering, torment, pain, alienation - for millions, if not billions (according to the various theologies of the Protestant Reform Tradition, many of which contradict each other!)
The culmination of sanctification of the "saved" will be to enjoy eternal bliss and felicity while millions (or billions) "gnash their teeth" and suffer torment - perpetually! This when the saved are asked to love their neighbour as themselves! This will be their "perfection", to be in bliss while so many of their neighbours endure perpetual torment.
It is nonsense of course, and the belief is now becoming more and more restricted to the Protestant lunatic fringe.
