Full-Length Sections |
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above: What are the views? - My Views and My Feelings - The Character of God (asking WWJD?) and Conditional Immortality with a Death Penalty - WHAT - Accurate Understandings of 4 Views - Hopeful and Optimistic and below: Previous & Current Theologies - WHEN (after death) and HOW (maybe... with experiences to teach-and-heal, to achieve Divine Justice-with-Love) (Free Will and Semi-Universalism) - Hell-Verses (claimed as support for EM) and Biblical Support for UR & against UR and Why is the Bible ambiguous? also below: Effects on Relationships - Effects on Evangelism - Questions about Divine Justice Bible-Based Evidence
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a “big picture” view of Fire and Death and Baptism The Short Overview summarizes connections between these biblically-important concepts. Below are some highlights from a full-length version (where you'll find important details that help explain the ideas more thoroughly) with each "{.....}" showing where big chunks of text have been omitted, leaving only "some highlights." / IOU – Later I'll re-write these sections to make a detailed summary, instead of this longer detailed summary-in-highlight-quotes: Second Death in The Lake of Fire could be: total death (if Final Annihilation, FA); or (if purgatorial Universal Restoration, pUR) the death-of-sin that is symbolized by death-with-Christ during baptism, as in Romans 6; or (if Eternal Misery, EM) a living death. These would end the sinner's existence or sinful nature or quality of life, using fire that kills or purifies or torments. There are strong biblical reasons to reject EM so I'll focus on FA and pUR in this section, when looking at Fire and Death and Baptism, beginning with... Fire that Consumes: When we're comparing FA and pUR, we can imagine two ways for a divine consuming fire (in the lake of fire) to destroy, to annihilate. Throughout the Bible, fire often symbolizes the divine presence-and-power & action of God, often manifested in a consuming fire that... would be a person-damaging hurtful fire of God if He uses The Lake of Fire to consume a sinner, to annihilate the person; would be a person-improving helpful fire of God if He uses The Lake of Fire to consume sin within a person, to annihilate their sin, to purify the person, to restore them by correcting-and-healing them. {.....} (a reminder: this ..... means that "big chunks of text have been omitted") Death producing Life: How can death lead to life? In Romans 6:1-14, Paul connects our death-to-sin with the death-of-Jesus (in His crucifixion) and the death of our old life, and he connects our re-birth to a new life with the re-birth of Jesus (in His resurrection). Paul explains [using the symbolism of baptism] that "{.....} we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life." This is a way to describe the process of becoming a born-again Christian: a person's old sinful nature must die (analogous to the death of Christ) so they can be transformed by God (as in the resurrection of Christ) to "walk in newness of life." {.....} In pUR the Second Death of an unsaved person would be their unpleasant educational corrective-and-healing experience in Hell (with beneficial guiding & empowering by the Holy Spirit) that causes their spiritual death (of old) and rebirth (of new) so they can become totally sanctified (personally) and (interpersonally) totally reconciled with people & with God, by fully loving people & God. Baptism with Fire: In the typical biblical baptism, a person is immersed in water. When during Life a person is thrown into a lake of water their experience is immersion in water as in a baptism with water. By analogy, when during Afterlife a person is thrown into the lake of fire their experience might be immersion in fire as in a baptism with fire. {.....} If the lake of fire will be a baptism with fire by Jesus, He could {as John the Baptist tells us in Matthew 3} "burn up" a person's "chaff [the evil parts of their character]" so He can "gather His wheat [only the good parts of this person's character] into the barn." You can see relationships (between passages examined above and below) in this diagram: |
We see another biblical reason to believe Universal Restoration when we...
logically combine Theologies of Sovereignty, and conclude that
IF divine love plus divine power, THEN Universal Restoration.
Two popular systems of theology — with differing answers for the important question of “who does what?” (i.e. “how does God choose to use His divine sovereignty?”) in a process of salvation — claim strong Biblical support, are common among modern evangelical Christians, and are generally considered worthy of respectful theological discussion. The majority view is Arminian, but Calvinism is a significant minority.
When we accept two claims about God's fatherly love and sovereign power, in claims (each accepted by Arminians or by Calvinists) that...
IF God loves everyone He has created, so God wants to save everyone (this is accepted by Arminians, but rejected by Calvinists) and
IF God uses His power to sovereignly “get what He wants” in salvation (this is accepted by Calvinists, but rejected by Arminians),*
THEN — because God wants to save everyone, and God gets what God wants — our logical conclusion will be Universal Restoration.
Or, in a summary: IF divine love plus divine power, THEN Universal Restoration.
Here is a brief analysis of the logic: A person who wants to reject the conclusion – that God will produce UR – can do this by rejecting either of the IF-premises. The first IF can be (but doesn't have to be) rejected by Calvinists; if it's accepted by a Calvinist, “UR will happen” is their logical conclusion. The second IF is rejected by all Arminians (because if it's accepted they are Calvinist, not Arminian); but despite this, an Arminian can conclude “UR will happen” if they think God will persuade every person to freely “say yes” by using His knowledge-and-skill, analogous to a chess master using knowledge-and-skill to win a chess match even though the novice is freely choosing their own moves, is not being controlled by the master player.
* Here is a deeper analysis of the logic: The second IF proposes (as does Calvinism) that God uses His total power, i.e. He is all-powerful not just in principle, but also in practice whenever He decides “I want to get what I want, and I will get it.” So... will God use His total power to save everyone? Calvinists & Arminians can say “no” for different reasons. Calvinists can claim (disputing the first IF) that God doesn't want to save everyone, so He won't use His power to produce UR. Arminians do claim (disputing the second IF) that although God wants to save everyone, He also wants (even more strongly) to allow free will, so each person's own decision – although with some influencing by God that varies from one person to another – determines whether they are saved, and maybe some people will continue rejecting God, to prevent their own salvation and thus prevent UR. {examining the logic} {more about Arminian objections} {free will versus freed will}
But... God could save everyone (first IF) without using His total power (second IF) because "if God wants to save all people, He can do it... by being more persuasive than during Life... and by giving people... a freed will (freed from their slavery to sin) so they are able to make a wise decision and... they do repent. This will be similar to a chess match between a master and novice; the chess master WILL win, due to his superior knowledge & skill, even though the novice is freely choosing his moves, is not being controlled by the better player." {more about chess and CS Lewis}
Here is another way to describe the logic:
A. God wants to save every person.
B. God uses His power to get what He wants.
C. God will not save every person. (i.e. UR will not happen)
It's logically impossible to accept all three claims. Here is my summary of who accepts what: among Arminians, none accept B, most accept A, some accept C; among Calvinists, all accept B, some accept A, some accept C; among Universalists, none accept C, all accept A, and most accept B.
a brief analysis: ..... [to be continued later]
This IF-IF-THEN logical statement is similar to the difficult IF-IF-THEN logical questions challenging Judeo-Christian claims for a powerful-and-loving God:
1) IF God is all-powerful, and IF God is all-loving, THEN why does God allow finite suffering now during Life?
2) IF God is all-powerful, and IF God is all-loving, THEN why will God allow infinite suffering (or permanent death) later during Afterlife? *
Typically, #1 is answered by explaining that...
1A) God shared our suffering when He came to live with us, and die for us;
1B) the current suffering of people is temporary, it's only during Life, and eventually (after Life is over) God will use the suffering for our benefit. {this is “ends are justified by means” logic; God's means (allowing temporary suffering now) are justified by God's ends (giving us permanent benefits later); although we should not use means-and-ends logic to rationalize unethical human actions, I think we should use it to justify ethical divine actions, and eventually – after all things are known, and all things are considered – every person will agree that “God was wise and good.” }
When we apply these two explanations for Afterlife in #2, the love-in-action of Jesus (described in 1A) is equally true for 2A. But if God will cause Eternal Misery in Afterlife, the logic of 1B (with “ends justifying the means” because the suffering is temporary and it produces benefits) becomes illogical if it's used for 2B-and-EM (because for most people the suffering is permanent and it produces no benefits).
* Because we are Bible-believing Christians who believe that God is all-powerful, we should ask an even stronger question about suffering: why would God cause Eternal Misery in Afterlife? life depends on God and quality of life depends on God, so if there is eternal life (that depends on God) that is miserable life (that depends on God, because He could change it from misery to joy if He wanted this), it seems that God would be causing (not just allowing) the Eternal Misery. {why am I very confident that this won't happen?}
Here are some additional thoughts about “Arminian + Calvinist → Universalist” logic:
I cannot understand how a combination of Calvinism plus Eternal Misery* — by claiming that God does not want to save everyone (and by using His total sovereignty, He will not save everyone) AND He will cause Eternal Misery for those He chooses to not save — is consistent with the biblical God who loves people and wants justice. {* logically, Calvinistic claims about sovereignty should be separated from claims about Eternal Misery – even though historically these two claims are connected – because if we use Bible-based logic there is no reason for sovereignty to be linked with Eternal Misery; in fact, if “God gets what God wants” by using His sovereign power to actualize His sovereign will, He could get the universal salvation that He wants, and this is logical IF a Calvinist rejects Limited Atonement, which is the L of TULIP; it seems to me that requiring Eternal Misery (or Final Annihilation) is the only reason for including L in the TULIP-principles of Calvinism, and without this L we'll have Universal Restoration. }
Arminians can claim that even though God wants to save everyone, “God will get what He wants” even if He doesn't save everyone, if He forever (in the past, present, future) allows human free-will decisions that include deciding whether to accept or reject the grace He offers, and thus whether to be saved. Why? Because although God wants to save everyone, He also (even more than this) wants to allow human free will — and some humans will continue deciding to reject Him. {this Arminian claim is why I modified the condition to say "if God uses His total power" because Arminians don't reject God's sovereignty, they reject His total-using of His sovereignty} This argument for how “God will get what He wants, even though He won't save everyone” seems biblically-logical, although it's rejected by Calvinists (for reasons that are biblical & logical) and also by UR-Christians who claim that God will not allow a result of eternally lasting misery (or death) to be determined by foolish decisions made by people during Life when their “free will” isn't truly free because it's enslaved by sin, is spiritually insane; instead, UR proposes that God will transform unsaved sinners in UR-Hell so (instead of a will that is un-free, enslaved, insane, as in Life)* they eventually will have a freed will that no longer is enslaved to sin, so it's truly free and they can make a wise freed-will decision. {* in a TULIP-summary of Calvinism, the T is our Total Inability to decide “yes, I want to believe-and-repent” and thus be saved, because currently during Life the human will isn't spiritually-free, it isn't spiritually-sane, instead it's spiritually-insane, spiritually-unfree, is Totally Incapable of making a wise spiritual decision.}
MORE about this logic – including what is and isn't accepted by Arminians and who is to blame for a person's damnation and the double-predestinating (to heaven & hell) of Calvinism and why logical Calvinism (re: the total sovereignty of God) does not require historic traditional Calvinism (= logical Calvinism + Eternal Misery), so logical Calvinism and traditional Calvinism should be evaluated independently.
OT Jewish History: The OT never mentions Eternal Torment.*
NT Church History provides evidence against Eternal Misery and evidence for Conditional Immortality (i.e., for Final Annihilation or for Universal Restoration).
writers of the Bible: In what they spoke (as recorded in Acts of the Apostles) and wrote (in their letters), early major church leaders – Peter, John, James, Paul – described divine judgment, but not a divine causing of Eternal Misery.* In the Bible, these leaders never mentioned eternally lasting torment. It's very probable that this absence of EM – the number of times they mention EM is... zero – shows us that they did not believe EM. And it certainly shows that they didn't think “the final state of unbelievers” was an essential part of The Good News. {* two questionable verses}
readers of the Bible: After books of the New Testament were written, post-apostolic leaders of the early church were able to read these books in their native language of Greek, so their understandings were not hindered by translations that were biased to support EM. In the first five centuries of church history, extra-biblical writings of prominent “church fathers” show that all three views (Universal Restoration, Final Annihilation, Eternal Misery) were common, and all were respected as acceptable options, so major statements of belief – as in the Apostle's Creed and Nicene Creed – say nothing about UR or FA or EM. Therefore all of the views, then and now, can affirm these two classic creeds; and all views now can affirm the modern “fundamentals” of Christian faith. {more about Creeds & Fundamentals including the pseudo-council – with its authenticity doubted by historians – that condemned some “Origenist” views}
Nicene Creed: An official council wrote the Nicene Creed in 381 (it's the final creed that was-and-is accepted by all major Christian churches) and this creed does not mention damnation or hell. Some of the council's main leaders publicly declared their confidence-in-UR (not my weaker optimism-about-UR) but they were not considered “theologically suspicious,” and one of them (Gregory of Nyssa) wrote its UR-allowing conclusion, "We look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and to life in the world to come. Amen." This statement makes no claims about the number of people (will it be few, many, or all) who will receive this "life in the world to come" so it's compatible with EM, FA, or UR. Why? Because all three views were considered to be theologically orthodox and thus acceptable. In the early church, “what will happen in hell” was not one of their...
essential doctrines: In the major doctrinal statements of early Christians (Apostles' Creed & Nicene Creed) the focus was on essentials of Christian belief. How can we decide (then or now) if a doctrine about “what will happen in hell” is essential? We can evaluate its importance-and-certainty by asking whether it's theologically important {I think “no, it's not important enough to make this doctrine essential” even though it can have major effects on our thinking & actions} and whether it's taught with certainty in the Bible {I think “no”}. Evidently leaders of the early church councils also thought “no” and “no” so their creeds don't include a hell-doctrine.
the big changes: Later, EM became the dominant view, mainly for reasons that were linguistic (by producing-and-reading biased translations that were misleading by favoring EM, when the Bible was translated from Greek into Latin and this distorted the thinking of Augustine & of those who were influenced by him; most modern translations also are biased toward EM and against UR), philosophical (due to the influence of non-Biblical philosophies claiming intrinsic non-dependent unconditional immortality), and political (because some practical effects of EM helped a church/government control people with fear-based threats), plus the powerful inertia of tradition. / But the non-EM views, FA and UR, continued to be proposed by some Christians, and these views are again (as in the early church) becoming much more common in recent decades. {more}
What is my view?Based on carefully studying the Bible, I'm very confident that God will not cause Eternal Misery in Afterlife; instead He will give Conditional Immortality* that mercifully & graciously will prevent people from living forever in a state of sin, by using hell to either eliminate sinners {with Final Annihilation, FA, so they're not "living forever") or eliminate sin within sinners {with Universal Restoration, UR, so they're not "in a state of sin"} but NOT by forcing sinners to stay alive {with Eternal Misery, EM, because they would be "living forever in a state of sin"}. I'm hopeful and optimistic about Universal Restoration, am hoping it will happen, and although we have strong biblical reasons to be optimistic (roughly 90% for me) that it will happen, I cannot confidently claim “it will be UR, not FA,” so my view is UR-or-FA. I think UR would be wonderful - the best possible ending and FA would be fair yet sad. {more about my views: an overview & details}* conditional immortality: in the Bible, God has declared that He will give eternal life only to saved people (not to unsaved people) because He will use an if-then condition: IF a person is saved, then God will cause them to be immortal, He will give them eternal life with joy. But IF a person is not-saved, they will remain not-immortal and eventually they will die; God will not force them to have eternal life with misery {EM}, instead He will cause either eternal life with joy {UR} or permanent non-existence {FA}. What are my views? (explained with more detail)an option: You can first read a condensed version in the Long Overview.A. I'm very confident, but not certain, that Eternal Misery (EM) will not happen in Afterlife. Why? Two strong biblical reasons are because... • EM is not consistent with the Conditional Immortality (and closely related Death Penalty for Sin) that is clearly taught in the Bible, so EM would cause sin to exist forever, and B. The other views — Universal Restoration (UR) and Final Annihilation (FA) — have strong biblical support, and I think each is a possibility. Therefore, although I'm a confident Conditionalist (in claiming “UR or FA will happen, and EM won't happen”), I'm not highly confident in claiming that either “UR will happen” or “FA will happen, so UR won't happen.” But I strongly prefer UR because it would be a “happy ending” for more people, so... • I'm hoping that UR will happen, with God eventually causing every person to be transformed (as in Romans 12:2) so they will be restored into the person He wants them to be, and they can be reconciled with all other people and with Himself, and • I'm optimistic that UR will happen, so (combining my hope and optimism)... •• I'm a hopeful-and-optimistic Christian Universalist. I'm an extremely confident Christian Conditionalist who is confident due to the extremely strong biblical evidence for Conditional Immortality so I've concluded that UR or FA will happen, and EM won't happen. I'm very confident (90% ?) in thinking UR will happen, but not extremely confident in claiming “UR will happen.” * There is biblical supporting evidence for UR and also for FA.Personal History: Later, I explain why — due to my two-stage process of evaluation (resulting in A+B above, concluding "FA or UR will happen") plus biblical ambiguity — I'm confident about Conditional Immortality, and am optimistic about universal Universal Restoration. In my first stage – from 1987 to 2014, before I began learning more about UR – I quickly concluded (by the end of 1987) that EM was biblically implausible due to very strong evidence against EM. The more I learned, the stronger this evidence became. From 1995 to 2010, I wrote-and-revised two papers (long & 1-page) about EM-versus-FA, with FA the clear choice. After I began learning more about UR in 2014, within a year I was about 50-50 between UR and FA. Then the more I've learned, the more confident I've become about UR, and now my rough estimates are about 90% UR, 10% FA, and (rounded to the nearest %) 0% EM. Personal Feelings: I have mixed feelings about two related challenges for UR. First, for most listeners less fear will be produced by UR than by EM. But I think we should emphasize love (instead of fear) as our main motive for “saying yes to God,” and most people will be able to love God more fully (to obey His Greatest Commandment) if they believe He will heal everyone with UR, and they will find it more difficult to love God fully if they believe He will most people with EM. Second, I have mixed feelings about fellow Christians — I'm disappointed in them (because usually they “assume a conclusion” instead of carefully studying the Bible) and I'm sad (because I think they are saying false-and-horrible things about the character of God, about What Jesus Will Do although I think that in doing this they are trying to love-and-honor God) — and I have mixed feelings about sharing my views with them. Persuading Myself (becoming more optimistic & more hopeful): The more I'm learning about UR, the more optimistic I'm becoming, due to my increased understanding of the strong biblical support for UR when all things are considered. Also, I'm becoming more hopeful that UR will happen, because the results would be extremely good, so the actions of God would be extremely good; in pUR-Hell, God could do love-in-action by producing the good results of healing all people and all relationships; these results would give us strong reasons to praise God because of what He will do for people (not just to people) in purgatorial UR-Hell. Because the best results — the most loving, most good — would be produced in UR-Hell (not in FA-Hell or EM-Hell), and because the Bible tells us that God is loving-and-good, we have a strong biblically-logical reason to be more optimistic. Persuading Others (by using Bible-based logic): In many parts of this page, I defend the biblical credibility of UR, more strongly than I defend FA. Why? I'm very confident that God will not cause Eternal Misery in Afterlife, that instead He will do either purgatorial Universal Restoration (pUR, or just UR)* — by using Hell to purge unsaved people of their sins, to purify & restore them, to reconcile them with other people and with Himself — or Final Annihilation (FA). When we compare UR/pUR with FA, I think there is no clear winner but overall (when all things are considered) I think the biblical support is stronger for UR. (roughly 90%) And I'm strongly hoping that UR will happen, as explained above in Persuading Myself. And I'm hoping more Christians will join me in being hopeful-and-optimistic that God will cause Universal Restoration to happen. / But even more strongly, I want more Christians to reject the doctrine of Eternal Misery, beginning below with Two Bible-Based Reasons to reject Eternal Misery.
a clarification: I think a Bible-believing Christian Universalist should be a purgatorial Christian Universalist who proposes strong exclusivism (by claiming “only Jesus saves” so other roads do not lead to God and explicit belief in Jesus-as-savior is necessary for salvation) and believes people who were unsaved during Life will experience Hell (in The Lake of Fire) during Afterlife. |
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Two Bible-Based Reasons to reject Eternal Misery:
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| in early Afterlife, | Final State after Hell, | ||
| FA-Hell | (saved + UNSAVED) | → |
(saved + UNSAVED) |
| UR-Hell | (saved + UNSAVED) | → |
(saved + UNSAVED) |
| EM-Hell | (saved + UNSAVED) | → |
(saved + UNSAVED) |
* a logical definition: logically, Conditional Immortality (CI) should be defined as “FA or UR” because the if-then condition of conditional immortality would be satisfied with either FA or UR. Therefore we should not define CI as “only FA” even though, unfortunately, CI is commonly used in this illogical way whenever someone says “FA is CI”. {more about logically defining CI including two ways – biblical & unbiblical – to begin a logical process of concluding “UR will happen”}
Eternal Sin: God hates sin because its effects are extremely dishonoring (of God) and destructive (for people), so He wants to eliminate sin from His creation. Will this happen? will God achieve His goal? The Bible tells us “yes” but... with UNconditional immortality — if God causes most people to be eternally alive with Eternal Misery even though they haven't met His condition of being saved — sinners-and-sinning will exist forever, and His creation will never be freed from sin. A claim that God will cause immortalizing-of-sin (by causing EM) is wrong in biblically important ways, is not what the Bible teaches, is one of four related biblical reasons to reject Eternal Misery. By contrast, with conditional immortality — if God will cause either Annihilation or Restoration — all sin will be eliminated by God.
The Death Penalty for Sin, and
Penal Substitutionary Atonement
Due to the sin of Adam, God removed access to His death-preventing Tree of Life so The Penalty for Sin was Death. God's penalty for sin is always death, in our past-present-future, first in Genesis 3 and therefore now in Life and later in Afterlife. We see His divinely decreed penalty of death (not long-term suffering) throughout the Bible:
in the Old Testament, God's most severe judicial penalty for sin (especially after The Fall, but also in The Flood, Sodom & Gomorrah, The Levitical Law,...) was death, not long-term suffering; God prevented death in Abraham's test-of-faith, and in The Passover; God commanded an OT Sacrificial System that required the death of animals, not their long-term suffering.
and in the New Testament, God converted the OT Sacrificial System into a NT Sacrificial System that is better — is more effective for achieving God's purpose of saving us from the personal results of sin (our slavery to it and the damage this produces) and from the judicial results of sin (God's penalty of death) — by sacrificial penal substitutionary atonement when God (in the divine person of Jesus) died for us, and then shows us that God is living for us, because He has defeated death. {crucifixion-and-resurrection are “paired events” and both are necessary in God's plan for salvation}
On the cross, Jesus did have finite suffering with death (as proposed for FA-Hell) so He did pay the penalty of death that is proposed in FA & UR;* but He did not have the infinite suffering without death that is proposed in EM, so God's penalty-paying substitution would fail in two ways with EM, because the crucifixion wasn't infinite suffering, but was death. Although a divine paying-of-penalty doesn't work properly with EM, it does work with either FA or UR. {also, FA & UR eliminate sin but EM preserves sin}
* To clarify the essential similarities & differences between FA and UR, we ask two questions about death, and one question about timing:
• first, “WHAT is the penalty for sin?” — it's everlasting total death, in both FA and UR;
• then, “WHO will receive this penalty?” — it's some people (if FA), or no person (if UR),
or, “How many death penalties will God pay for?” — only some (if FA), or all (if UR),
or, “so the penalty of death would be actual with FA, and potential if UR.
and “WHEN can a person be saved?” — it's only in Life (if FA), but also in Afterlife (if UR).
Penal Substitutionary Atonement
These important sections have been moved to a new location.
Biblical Immortality: The biblical principle of Dependent Existence (examined below) is why I began this section about Conditional Immortality by stating that "instead of creating humans with immortality [that is intrinsic, is independent from God, that occurs without Him], God created humans for immortality [because although we are mortal, we have the potential for immortality] that He would provide [for body/soul, in a way symbolized by His "tree of life]." { If you hear someone claim that “humans are created in the image of God, who is immortal, so we are immortal,” you can ask “are we also, like God, omniexisting (at every “time” in the past & future, like God has been & will be), or omnipresent (being everywhere), omniscient (knowing everything), omnipotent (able to do everything), and omnibenevolent (totally loving in all ways)?” }
Death and Immortality
What is the relationship between The Death Penalty and Conditional Immortality? Death is God's Penalty for Sinners. Conditional Immortality is God's Gift for Sinners — for either some of us (with FA) or all of us (with UR) — and The Condition, decided by God, is being saved by God, who wants to save us from slavery to sin (now in Life) and (later in Afterlife) save us from everlasting Death.
a brief biblical summary: God's penalty of Death was decreed in Genesis 3:22, and God's gift of Conditional Immortality is promised in Revelation 2:7 & 22:14.
dependent immortality allows conditional immortality
How? Because if (as Bible-believers should believe) life depends on God, then (of course) God is able to make conditional decisions about life.
Do humans have intrinsically-immortal souls? No. When we carefully study the Bible, we see that it doesn't teach a universal intrinsic-and-Unconditional Soul Immortality independent from God, even though this often is assumed by those who propose the Unconditional Immortality of Soul/Body that would occur with Eternal Misery.* Instead the Bible does teach a Dependent Existence (for awhile or forever) that allows a divine control of life & death; this lets God make decisions about life & death — by contrast with an intrinsic immortality that automatically sustains life,* even if God says “no” — so He can produce a Conditional Immortality of Body-and-Soul. God's condition-based decisions (when He applies His if-then Condition to decide who lives) require Dependent Existence (because God must be able to decide who lives) but go beyond it, because although Dependent Existence is necessary for allowing divine decisions (about life-or-death), Dependent Existence is not sufficient for determining the decision-result. Instead, God will make a Condition-based decision about whether He will give immortality to an unsaved person; and God has told us that He will say “no” because (Genesis 3:22) an unsaved sinner "must not... live forever." / * Although people who are biblically literate will know that God is sovereign – so ultimately He decides what happens – but this knowledge seems to be distorted (or even ignored) by the culturally-pervasive belief in soul immortality.
* An unbiblical assumption of Intrinsic-and-Unconditional Immortality (imported into Christianity from Greek philosophy, especially Platonic) leads to this unbiblical reasoning: all humans will exist forever, either with salvation and Eternal Joy, or with damnation and Eternal Misery. / There is more about intrinsic immortality – including the cultural popularity of this view because so many people WANT to believe it for psychological reasons, instead of disbelieving it for biblical reasons – in my long page about FA-vs-EM (written-and-revised between 1995 and 2010) in Sections 7.1a & 7.1c and A1-A4.
logically defining two terms: To promote logical thinking & accurate communication, we should use two different terms — conditional immortality and dependent immortality — for two different claims, because each term answers different questions regarding God's decisions about life-or-death. The distinctions can be described using one-word questions about life: why? (God will give immortality that is conditional because He is merciful, so He wants to prevent people from living forever in a state of sin) and what? (God's decisions will be based on criteria that include His if-then Condition for Conditional Immortality, so if saved then immortal) and how? (God's actions will cause whatever happens, because humans have Dependent Immortality instead of Intrinsic Immortality, so God must actively cause any immortality that occurs, and this life-dependence gives God control over what happens). Also (as explained below), what? (God's penalty for sin is death, not permanent suffering) and who? (God will give death to some if He causes FA, or to none if He causes UR) and when? (only in Life with FA, but in Life or Afterlife with UR; or, saying the same thing in a different way, in Life with FA or UR, and also in Afterlife with UR). {MORE about Logically Defining a System-of-Terms} {the Bible tells us that in The Final State there will be no sin & no death; sin & death are absent in the Final State with Conditional Immortality (with either FA or UR) but both are present with EM, and this is a strong Bible-based reason to reject EM}
4 Biblical Reasons to reject Eternal Misery
Christians have many Bible-based reasons to reject a doctrine of Eternal Misery (EM) — and instead to believe that unsaved people eventually will be either Annihilated (with FA) or Reconciled (with UR) — including these four reasons:
1a. EM would violate the Conditional Immortality clearly taught in the Bible, because — even though the Bible teaches (in Genesis & Revelation) that unsaved people "must not... live forever" — with EM unsaved people would be forced to "live forever" in Eternal Misery. By contrast, only saved people (who satisfy The Condition decided by God) will live forever with FA or UR. / Due to EM's unbiblical violation of Conditional Immortality, EM would cause two permanently-unbiblical situations, in 1b and 1c:
1b. EM would cause sinners-and-sinning to exist forever, thus immortalizing sin, and God's creation would never be freed from sin even though the Bible declares that being freed from sin will happen. With UR or FA, God would ultimately "reconcile all things to Himself" (the Bible promises that this will happen) but this wouldn't happen with EM because God would be causing billions of still-sinful humans to live forever with Eternal Misery, sinfully hating Him and “gnashing their teeth” in anger against Him. Although defenders of EM often accuse FA & UR of “not taking sin seriously,” sin is totally eliminated with FA or UR, but sin is preserved with EM, and this violation of a key biblical principle is a very strong biblical reason to reject EM.
1c. EM would cause death to exist forever, thus immortalizing death, because with EM The Second Death must be redefined (in a strange way) to mean eternal conscious existence in misery (eternally living in death?) so The Second Death would continue forever, and God's creation would never be freed from death even though the Bible says "the last enemy that will be abolished is death."
2. EM would not produce a satisfactory substitution for substitutionary atonement, with Jesus (instead of us) paying the penalty for our sins.* Why would the substitution be unsatisfactory with EM? Because EM claims the penalty for sin is infinite suffering, without death. But... is this what Jesus, offering Himself as our substitute, experienced for us? No. Jesus had finite suffering, with death. As you can see, with EM the substitution of substitutionary atonement is a very poor match because of two major differences: Jesus had finite suffering (but EM would produce infinite suffering); and Jesus had physical death (but EM would require eternal physical existence without physical death, with The Second Death defined in a very strange way so it means eternally miserable living, without the relief of death). / By contrast, the substitution is much more satisfactory (is a much closer match) with FA or UR.
Each of these Four Biblical Reasons (1a-1b-1c, and 2) is a strong reason to reject Eternal Misery, but is compatible with either Annihilation or Reconciliation.
more than four: Christians also have other Bible-based reasons to reject Eternal Misery and to accept Universal Restoration (by believing biblical statements that God will save all people, and by logically combining two popular theologies) or accept Final Annihilation.
MORE - about these 4 Reasons to reject Eternal Misery, due to Conditional Immortality and to prevent perpetual Sinning with EM (so satisfactory justice is impossible?) & perpetual Second Death {what are the connections between spiritual death (described in Gen 3:6-13) and physical death (decreed & actualized in Gen 3:22-24)?} and because Substitutionary Atonement is a satisfactory substitution with FA (or UR) but not with EM and...
MORE - about Conditional Immortality and The Death Penalty for Sin - is in Part 2 (re: what the Bible teaches about Death & Salvation) and (re: logic versus tradition, and controversy when asking “how should we define Conditional Immortality?”) in Part 3 that is a deeper examination of my two questions about WHAT and WHO (+ When).
The Character of God — WWJD ?an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. Based on what we learn about God from the whole Bible, in a different kind of WWJD-Question (that is more important for billions of people) we should ask “What Will Jesus Do with Unsaved Sinners?” Will he decide to cause Eternal Misery (EM), or Final Annihilation (FA), or Universal Restoration (UR)? will He torment, or kill, or heal? {we really are asking “What Will God Do?” because in the tri-une God (Father, Son, HolySpirit), WWJD=WWFD=WWHD = WWGD; but Jesus does tell us (John 5:22) that "the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son" so the WWJD decisions of Jesus are WWGD, although all 3 persons of the triune God already are in total agreement about whether the ultimate result will be UR or FA or EM, or something else.} Here are two whole-Bible principles: God's justice is strongly emphasized throughout the Bible, and by Jesus; God sets high standards for us, for what we think-and-do, and He will hold each of us accountable for our thoughts-and-actions. Justice-and-Love: In the afterlife, will God forgive those who rejected Him during their lives? The Bible teaches us that God wants His actions to achieve justice and (with merciful forgiving and in other ways) be loving. Sometimes during our discussions of what would happen in hell (with EM, FA, UR) these two essential character traits are contrasted, so we're thinking about God's justice OR love. Instead, we should think about how God could do justice-AND-love, to achieve justice in ways that also are loving. (is it possible that God is, during Life-and-Afterlife, Always Totally Just AND Always Totally Loving? can we praise God for what He will do to people in hell?) {appropriate humility about the moral character of God} love-in-action produces good results: When our actions are loving, we do good for the people we are loving-with-actions, and God would do good for people in UR-Hell but not for people in FA-Hell or (especially) EM-Hell. human loving and divine loving: God wants us to be loving in our actions – "always try to do what is good [for every person,] for each other and for everyone else" – so we expect God to be loving in His actions. Does God love His enemies? Jesus says "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." Jesus tells us that we should love our enemies because God loves His enemies. But does God love everyone only until their death when His "compassions that fail not" do fail? When we carefully examine the whole Bible,* I think the biblically revealed character of God is consistent with either UR or FA, but it seems to me that God's character is best with UR, and worst with EM. {* When we study the whole Bible, another strong-and-clear principle is that death is the penalty for sin. } This page is being written for Christians but I'm supplementing it with a page for non-Christians. Why? My goal is "to show them that this [a belief that God will cause Eternal Misery for most people, so The Gospel is a combination of Very Good News plus Very Bad News] is not justified because the Bible does not teach Eternal Misery, so they will be able to have confidence that God loves every person — both now and in their future, in their Life and Afterlife — so they will be able to trust-and-love God, and say YES to God." more – about the character of God and thinking about the ethics of Stalin & Jesus by comparing WDSD & WWJD. |
an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. Earlier, I explain why — due to the biblically revealed Character of God and Conditional Immortality (with a Death Penalty for Sin) — I'm very confident that Eternal Misery will not happen in Afterlife, so of the three views only two seem plausible. Therefore my question is whether the afterlife-reality for unsaved sinners will be Universal Restoration (UR) or Final Annihilation (FA). {linkcheck} universal Universal Restoration — Hopeful and Optimisticour Hopeful Universalism: One of the two great commandments of Jesus is to "love your neighbor as you love yourself." Each of us wants Eternal Joy for ourself, so we also should want this for our neighbors. We should want everyone to have Eternal Joy, so we should hope for a universal Universal Restoration – with a restoring of all persons and reconciling of all relationships – that includes all of our neighbors. Every person, and especially every Christian, should be a Hopeful Universalist. {more} a personal perspective: My younger sister was a wonderful person (why did so many people love and respect her?) who got cancer and died too soon in 2010. During her life, she seems to have rejected the grace offered by God. { I can only say "seems" because we don't know what happened in her heart & mind privately, just between her and God. } Therefore I'm wondering “what will Jesus do with her?” and “will we ever see her again?” Due to her life experiences – different than my own, so “but for the grace of God” I also could be saying NO to God – she had rational reasons for saying NO. But I think her heart & mind were basically good (with less of our typical self-centered human sinfulness, compared with most other people) and with appropriate experiences after death, she would say YES to God. I love her, and hope God will give her (and all others who need it) an opportunity to reconsider — at a time during her afterlife when more evidence will be available, and she will have a different perspective — when God will give her educational correcting-and-healing experiences that will transform her into the fully-restored person that He always wanted her to be, and she will say YES. I hope-and-pray that ultimately my sister will be reconciled with God and with me (and all of our family, and her many friends) in the eternal heaven-kingdom of God. {also: a sacrificial gift of merciful death – to stop her eternal misery – that won't be necessary} my Optimistic Universalism: I think we have logical/theological Bible-based reasons to be optimistic, to think UR might happen. But my optimism isn't certainty. In this page I'm not trying to prove that universal Universal Restoration is taught with certainty in the Bible. Instead I just want to show that — in addition to hoping UR will happen — we also have logical Bible-based reasons for optimism, for thinking UR might happen. And I want to explain why I'm not highly confident when evaluating UR-versus-FA so I won't confidently claim that either “it will be UR” or “it will be FA.” But the more I'm learning about the biblical support for UR, the more optimistically confident I'm becoming. comments about terms: Unfortunately, hopeful universalism is now commonly used to mean having reasons to be optimistic (but not claiming extremely high confidence) about universalism, thinking that God might eventually save all people. Do you see the mis-match between being hopeful and having reasons for optimism? Instead of this mis-matching, logically the optimistic claim should be called optimistic universalism, and we should use hopeful universalism to describe being hopeful that all will be saved. |
Why is my optimism justified? Some reasons for optimistically thinking “not EM, and maybe UR” are explained above & below, above: What are the views? - My Views and My Feelings - The Character of God (asking WWJD?) and Conditional Immortality with a Death Penalty - WHAT - Accurate Understandings of 4 Views - Hopeful and Optimistic andbelow: Previous & Current Theologies - WHEN (after death) and HOW (maybe... with experiences to teach-and-heal, to achieve Divine Justice-with-Love) (Free Will and Semi-Universalism) - Hell-Verses (claimed as support for EM) and Biblical Support for UR & against UR and Why is the Bible ambiguous? also below: Effects on Relationships - Effects on Evangelism - Questions about Divine Justice |
note: Below are two versions of my large section about Universal Restoration (When, How, What, Why) that were written for the older Long Overview. timings – I first wrote the original "Long Overview Version" and then condensed it (to about 40% of the original size) and revised it (with new ideas) to make the "older Long Overview Version" that's in this light-blue box.UNIVERSAL RESTORATION – WHEN, HOW, WHAT, WHY?WHEN – if God will produce universal Universal Restoration, belief/repentance-and-salvation during Afterlife seems required; UR is possible (and plausible) IF God will save people during Afterlife. {will this happen? the Bible doesn't clearly say Yes or No} / Great is Thy Faithfulness? if God will cause eternal misery for most people after they die, can we still praise God because "as You have been, You forever will be" so "Your compassions they fail not" ? does God “love people unconditionally” only until they die, when – unless a person already has satisfied God's conditions for salvation, has earned their salvation based on the personal merit of their wise decision – He will kill them (with FA) or torment them forever (with EM)? or will He lovingly heal them (with UR)? WHO and HOW MANY – ultimately, will most people remain unsaved? Bible-based Christian purgatorial UR (pUR, aka UR) is non-pluralistic, is compatible with strong exclusivism (a claim that salvation requires explicit belief in Jesus) so questions about inclusion-vs-exclusion and the narrow gate on the narrow road (now being traveled by "few") are not significant for UR. But these questions are extremely important for FA and EM, which claim that most people will be lost forever, will be annihilated or eternally tormented. HOW – if God will cause UR, maybe... salvation with sanctification will occur in a process of educating-correcting-healing in purgatorial UR-Hell where God purges the sins of unsaved people with purifying divine fire (in Greek, pur is fire) in His lake of divine fire. This process would be educational {teaching a person so they repent and believe, using their capable freed will that won't be enslaved by sin} leading to salvation;* it would be corrective {with God skillfully using Holy Spirit surgery to remove all sin} and healing {so people will become healthy personally & interpersonally, will be thankful because they understand what God is doing for them, what He is helping them become}; it will produce sanctification when their feeling-thinking-doing has been corrected so they aren't sinful, when personally they have become a healthy person, and interpersonally they have healthy relationships with other persons and with God, so they have become totally restored, totally righteous, after being transformed into the person that God always wanted them to be. WHAT – salvation with sanctification: * In pUR-Hell, God will produce salvation-and-sanctification during a process of education-and-correction. Although the education and the correction (plus healing) are all related and all occur during the overall process of pUR-Hell, it can be useful to think of the education leading to salvation (when a person believes-and-repents during Afterlife, and God accepts it as genuine so He graciously gives salvation, just as He does for genuine belief-and-repentance during Life) and the correction producing sanctification (by God removing everything that prevents a person from fully loving Him and fully loving people). a summary: education → salvation, AND correction → sanctification, with a unified process (education-AND-correction) producing a unified result (salvation-AND-sanctification). {what is the main purpose of salvation?} WHAT and WHY – God wants to eliminate sin (and He will eliminate sin with FA or UR)* because He hates sin. God hates sin — because our sinning is caused by disobeying Him (beginning with Eve & Adam in The Garden) when we disobey God's commands (by not fully loving God & fully loving people and in other ways), and because sin harms persons & relationships — so God wants to eliminate sin from persons & relationships. When a person sins, it hurts them and it hurts others. We experience the harmful consequences of sin (for the sinner & others) now in Life, and also later in Afterlife. Jesus knows this, and although He is merciful & forgiving, He wants us to take sin seriously, because He does; He sets high standards for what He wants us to feel & think-and-do, because He completely understands the harmful consequences of sin. Jesus warns everyone (not just the unsaved) that "If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands [or "two feet" or "two eyes"], to go into hell [Gehenna], into the unquenchable fire. ... For everyone will be salted with fire." {in The Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan - a lion who represents Jesus - is not “safe” but is good, is terrifying yet comforting, severe yet tender} Our sins (of commission & omission, by what we do & don't do) produce consequences, first in Life and then in Afterlife because (as Paul tells us) "God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap" and God "will repay each person according to what they have done," because "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad," in God's Judgment when "they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done." The harmful consequences-of-sin come to each of us, first in Life and then in Afterlife, whether the Afterlife Reality will be UR, FA, or EM. Why? It's because God loves every person, so He won't take a “hands off, do nothing” approach and just let their sin remain. * God wants to eliminate sin and God would eliminate sin with FA (by eliminating sinners) or with UR (by eliminating sin-within-sinners) but not with EM (by eternally maintaining the afterlives of sinners who will continue sinning in their thoughts & actions). The Bible describes God's intensely powerful hating of sin and intensely powerful loving of people. EM is illogical in its thinking about these two essential attributes of God. Although defenders of EM claim it's “tough on sin” it's actually “easy on sin (that is hated by God)” and “tough on people (who are loved by God)” because EM would allow sin to continue forever, while tormenting people forever. {in other words, EM is a total failure in “resolving the tension” between these divine attributes – hating sin, loving people – but the tension is successfully resolved by an eliminating-of-sin with FA or UR.} WHAT and HOW – Universal Restoration claims that although SIN is very evil and is powerful, eventually sin will lose – and everything will be made righteous (made right, the way it should be) – because GOD is very good and is more powerful, and He decided to use His power (for our benefit) on the cross, where God paid the death penalty for our sins with His sacrificial substitutionary atonement. Regarding the problem and solution, we can ask “WHAT is the problem?” (although God is good, sin is evil) and “HOW will it be solved?” (although evil is strong, God is stronger); the problem is strong evil, the solution is stronger good. HOW – After all persons and all relationships have been restored by God, so every person is fully reconciled with every other person and with God, the people who are reconciled will not be (cannot be) the sinful creatures we are now. A common objection to UR is asking whether God will just tell evil people (e.g. Hitler) that “what you did wasn't good, but it wasn't bad enough to keep you out of my kingdom, so come in and make yourself at home” because God is unconditionally forgiving. No, this isn't the claim of UR. Instead, UR proposes that sinful people (like Hitler, you, and me) will be welcomed into God's kingdom after God has radically transformed us so we have sorrowfully repented and we are not being hindered (as we are now) by sinful feelings-thoughts-actions, so we have the capabilities that will let us be fruitful members of His kingdom. WHAT and HOW – God wants to remove sin from individuals and from relationships. How is He doing this now (in Life) and how will He do it later (in Afterlife)? In our Afterlives, how will God totally transform saved people so we become totally sanctified, without sin, become suitable for Eternal Joy in Heaven? will this process of sanctification occur instantly, or require time? will it be “done to us” or require our cooperation? Compared with the process for saved people, what will be the similarities & differences for unsaved people, if God will cause pUR? * WHAT – God will "totally transform" people "so we become totally sanctified, without sin," and this change will be a radical transformation, with radical defined as "going to the foundation or source, from the roots; fundamental, basic; pertaining to the basic or intrinsic nature, relating to the most important parts of someone; extreme, thorough, complete" because a radical change would be required for a total transformation that converts us into people who are totally sanctified, without sin. HOW – Although the Bible doesn't give us many details about the process of sanctifying, Jesus does tell us about one part of the process: "everything that is covered up will be revealed... what you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear." This doesn't happen in Life, so (logically) it will happen in Afterlife, maybe in Life-Review Videos that reveal the history of our feeling-and-thinking about people (ourselves & others) and about God, showing us the effects of our feelings-thoughts-actions. These effects on others, and ourselves, are primary (with us affecting people through our direct interactions with them) and secondary (when these people are changed by our interactions with them, and they continue interacting with others) in a wide-ranging interconnected web of interpersonal interactions. HOW – If life-review videos will be used, maybe... God will give each person multiple super-abilities — including improved empathy, compassion, and self-responsibility (leading to sorrowful shame & repentance), plus heightened physical senses of seeing, hearing,... — to make our re-experiencing of events more intense, to magnify our feelings of joy (for joy-giving things that happened to us, and good things we did) and sorrow (for sorrow-producing things that happened to us, and bad things we did, or good things we didn't do), with all emotional responses helping to produce beneficial personal & interpersonal transformations because God will be healing all persons & all relationships. HOW – During this process, God would provide divine guiding-and-empowering by Holy Spirit through intimate spiritual connections with each person, for the purpose of helping them learn more from their experiences. God would help them learn-and-improve by providing conviction (along with comforting) that leads to sorrowful repentance – so the person (now with a freed will) wants their own sinful nature to be eliminated – so they have an authentic desire to let God radically transform them, to fully cooperate with His purifying destruction of their sinful nature. They want to be radically transformed so they become totally sanctified (totally healthy as a whole person in their feeling-and-thinking & actions), so they become the righteous person that God always wanted them to be, and is now helping them to be. HOW – Jesus said "everything that is covered up will be revealed" to a “mixed crowd” that included people who did believe in Him, and didn't. * IF life-review videos will be intensely experienced by both kinds of persons – who at the end of their Life were saved believers, or were unsaved unbelievers – how will this part of their sanctifying process be similar, and different? They will have different relationships with Holy Spirit due to their experiences in Life, because saved believers had (in Life) a much better relationship with God, and if this continues into Afterlife it will make the process much better for them. If God wants Ultimate Reconciliation, and if He will use pUR-Hell to achieve His goal, probably... the process-of-sanctification will be more intensely unpleasant for people who were unsaved-in-Life, because the saved-in-Life will be “more forgiven and more comforted” by God, so their sorrowful emotional suffering will be less intense (when they re-experience the results of their many sins in life-review videos, and in other parts of the sanctifying process) compared with unsaved people. / Or maybe, despite the “mixed crowd” statement of Jesus, saved people will not participate in public Life-Review Videos. But an absence of saved people would reduce the powerful impact of all people seeing-hearing-feeling all videos that show the sorrowful repentant responses of all others — with these shared re-experiences producing mutual empathies & compassions, ultimately leading everyone to forgive everyone, in reconciliations that help all to be emotionally healed — so the scope of these reconciling-experiences would be reduced if "everyone" does not include saved people. The powerful impact also would be reduced if "everyone" does not include unsaved people as in Final Annihilation. Speculations about HOW — a review: if people will be educated and corrected-healed in purgatorial UR-Hell, how will this happen? maybe... • life-review videos for every person (with intense re-experiencing of events, viewed in detail from their own perspective and from the perspectives of others) ➞ responses of repentance with sorrowful emotional suffering (that may produce physically felt suffering), and repentance-plus-belief ➞ (as in Life) salvation thru Jesus?
maybe... God will do pUR-Hell in The Lake of Fire where He uses divine fire (pur in Greek) that purifies, where God does purgatorial process for each unsaved person, with divine purifying by HolySpirit surgery to remove the personal impurities — all kinds of sinfulness — that God doesn't want the person to have and to be, so they will become totally sanctified, will achieve sinless perfection. |
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ALL? — UR claims that in Afterlife the unsaved can repent, and all do repent. But if people have free will, how can we be certain (or even optimistic) that "ALL do repent"? Well, maybe God has told us, in the Bible, that He will save all people; if God wants to save all people, He can do it — because He knows all and can do all (He is omniscient and omnipotent) — by being more persuasive than during Life (by providing stronger evidence in stronger ways) and by giving people a better perspective because He will be radically transforming them, purifying them from sin until they have a freed will (freed from their slavery to sin) so they are able to make a wise decision and (at some point during their transformation) they do repent. This will be similar to a chess match between a master and novice; the chess master WILL win, due to his superior knowledge & skill, even though the novice is freely choosing his moves, is not being controlled by the better player. Or maybe, as proposed by Calvinists, God's choices (not human choices) determine who will be saved, and if God wants to save everyone, He will. Or maybe God will save some previously unsaved people, but not all, to produce semi-Universal Restoration (semi-UR) that is a “hybrid” combination of UR and FA. |
note: As explained earlier, this section (in the light-blue box) is the second version of Universal Restoration (When, How, What, Why) that was condensed-and-revised once for the older Long Overview and again for the newer Long Overview and Short Overview plus a super-condensed Mini-Overview. {so there are 5 versions in this page – plus the super-old First Version and another version with a different structure, but many of the same ideas, in my page for non-Christians – for a total of 7 versions – wow} But to simplify things for you,... I think the two best versions (most worth reading) are the new Short Version (that begins with a shorter Mini-Version) followed by the Long Version.
Universal Restoration – When and How? IF a person “says NO to God” during their Life, and IF God eventually will save them, when and how will they be saved?
WHEN — Salvation in Afterlife? an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. Why should we ask "Salvation in Afterlife"? Because if God eventually will save all people — as declared in many verses — to produce purgatorial Universal Restoration (pUR, or just UR),* He could allow previously-unsaved people (those He didn't save during Life) to believe-and-repent after death, during their Afterlife. If He wanted to save a person, God could skillfully persuade them in Afterlife (much more strongly than in Life) with more information and by giving them a different perspective, and educational-corrective-healing experiences that eventually produce in them a freeD will, so their will is freed from the slavery to sin (Romans 6) that hindered their hearts-and-minds during Life; their freed will allows them to freely make a wise decision, and they freely “say YES to God” with sincere belief-and-repentance. / * reconciliations-during-Afterlife could include all people (→ UR) or just some people (→ semi-UR). Will this happen in Afterlife? The Bible doesn't explicitly say “yes” or “no” about salvation in Afterlife. {but the “no” doesn't eliminate UR as a possibility – why isn't God more clear?} Is this question important? Yes, because if God will graciously allow salvation during Afterlife, most Bible-based objections to UR are weakened or eliminated. {more} Will it happen? When we ask “will God give salvation in afterlife?”, a deeper examination shows why we can say “maybe yes” based on evidence that is biblical {what does the Bible say? not much one way or the other,* so there is minimal support for both YES & NO} and theological {why does “the burden of proof” favor UR?} and logical {because after-death repentance seems required by “strong exclusivism + universal salvation” plus the observation that during Life, few people pass the “narrow road” test of strong exclusivism}. biblical evidence: Steve Gregg, a Bible expert, concludes (in his book about 3 Views of Hell) that "While there is no verse of Scripture affirming, in clear terms, the specific possibility of persons in hell receiving further opportunities for repentance, neither is there any passage denying this possibility." I agree, so when we ask “will this happen?” I think we cannot confidently answer “yes, it will” or “no, it will not.” / Hebrews 9:27 is not biblical evidence against Salvation in Afterlife, because Christians who propose Universal Restoration agree that "people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment." They only disagree when we ask “what will happen during God's judgment?” and “what are the final results of judgment?” biblical urgency: In the Bible, writers definitely urge people to believe-and-repent now. But why? The best reason – whether or not there will be opportunities to repent in Afterlife – is because a rational person should say Yes now, ASAP, so they can "be saved from the power of sin, and enjoy life-with-God now," so they are able to live in a way that "will bring glory to God, and will please Him." biblical logic: What is strong exclusivism? I think the Bible, especially in the New Testament, certainly teaches exclusivism (so the only source of salvation is Jesus, through His incarnation and substitutionary death) and probably also teaches a strong exclusivism (with salvation requiring explicit belief in Jesus, leading to repentance and living by faith) that seems to limit salvation-during-Life to only "a few" who are now (during Life) following the narrow road.* So if all are saved with UR (or even if more than "a few" are saved with semi-UR), this wider salvation seems to require some salvation-during-Afterlife. In other words, logic (re: UR + exclusivism + observations of unsaved people) leads to a conclusion of salvation during Afterlife, and this is allowed by the Bible because it does not explicitly say “yes” or “no”. {more about exclusivism & after-life salvation, from Keith DeRose} Actually, the question of inclusion-vs-exclusion is not very important for UR. It's much more important for FA and EM because these views reject the possibility of salvation in Afterlife, so if God excludes a person based on their thinking-and-actions during Life, there is no more hope for this person; they will be lost forever, they are damned to either Annihilation or Eternal Misery.* By contrast, with UR those who are excluded at the end of their life will have another chance during Afterlife,* so even if most people are being excluded now (because they are now traveling on the wide path to destruction) they can be included later. {* in The Great Divorce, a “theological novel” by C.S. Lewis, unsaved people are allowed to repent in afterlife; some do repent and they are saved.} * If strong exclusivism will be God's criterion for salvation, most Jews will be excluded from "the few" because (as planned by God) most Jews have rejected "explicit belief in Jesus," they have not accepted Him as their Messiah. So... will God really cause most of His chosen people to be annihilated, or (much worse) to experience the infinite misery of Eternal Misery? Keith DeRose explains (in Parts 5-6 of "Universalism and the Bible: The Really Good News") why he thinks after-death salvation with God offering "further chances" is logically implied in the Bible, even though the Bible does not explicitly teach it. Why? Because he thinks the Bible teaches both universalism and strong exclusivism — claiming not only (in exclusivism) that Jesus, through his incarnation and substitutionary death, is the only source of salvation, but also (in strong exclusivism) that salvation requires explicit belief in Jesus, with repentance) — and this combination (universalism + strong exclusivism) seems to require after-death salvation, because it seems that many people do not have "explicit belief in Jesus, with repentance" before their death. Keith says: exclusivism is "the doctrine that it’s only (exclusively) through the saving work of Christ that any can be saved. ... Christ’s saving work is necessary for the salvation of any person, so that were it not for Christ, none could be saved." strong exclusivism "adds to exclusivism the further claim that, in order to be a recipient of the salvation Christ makes possible, one must in some way explicitly accept Christ and/or the salvation he offers. (Different versions of strong exclusivism with differ as to the exact nature of this requirement of explicit acceptance.)" an argument-from-silence: Does this biblical ambiguity (by not explicitly "affirming" or "denying" afterlife-salvation) provide support for UR, or against it, or neither? In all arguments from silence, each view claims “the burden of proof” should be placed only on the opposing views. But I think the biblical ambiguity favors UR, because it's very important to avoid giving false hope so — if there will be no opportunities for after-death repentance — we would expect a "no opportunities" afterlife-reality (if that's what it will be) to be clearly described and strongly emphasized in the Bible, because a weakness in divine persuasion would be especially harmful (for those who aren't persuaded in Life) with FA or (MUCH more so) with EM, but... There is not a clear description or strong emphasis. Therefore, failing "the burden of proof" is a reason to think that UR (achieved by God graciously allowing opportunities for after-death repentance) is true, and EM is false, that UR will occur and EM won't occur. { For this question and others, why is the Bible ambiguous? } Another kind of argument from silence is the absence of strong divine persuasion for most people during Life, with the Bible stating that God "hides evidence" from some people. } Great is God's Faithfulness ? Regarding the character of God, we should ask WWGD? Consider the claim in this hymn: Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father, If you believe in Eternal Misery, is this claim — about divine faithfulness with compassions that "fail not" — limited by time? For most of the people created by God, with EM would His temporary loving-and-forgiving occur only during the person's life, so at the moment of death His attitude-and-actions change to permanent hating-and-unforgiving? {if “yes” this would be a powerful reason to fear death} {if God will cause EM, the Gospel is Good News + Bad News because when an unsaved person dies the divine love-for-them changes into hate-for-them; The Good News that “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your Life” becomes The Bad News that “God hates you and has a terrible plan for your Afterlife” – for example, what changed between pages 70 and 200?} {will God forgive a person if they believe-and-repent just before death at the end of their Life? but if they aren't good-and-smart so they don't choose wisely, will He never forgive them after death in their Afterlife?} WWJD?
HOW will God produce Reconciliation? Maybe... with radical transformation, by Educational Healing in Purgatorial UR-Hell? an option: I strongly recommend that you first read the condensed-and-revised versions of these sections in the Short Overview and Long Overview. IF God will produce Reconciliation-during-Afterlife, for people who were Unsaved/Unreconciled-during-Life, then maybe... God will use a process in UR-Hell that is analogous to whole-person edifying education in a school. It also might be analogous, in many ways but not all, to rehabilitative correction in a prison, or medical healing in a hospital, with sinfulness removed by spiritual surgery. So it could be useful to think of UR-Hell as educational corrective healing. During UR-Hell the process of education produces corrective healing, to achieve God's goal of doing justice for all victims-and-offenders. IF this occurs in UR-Hell, it will be a purgatorial process, as in divine fire (pur in Greek) that purifies, with divine purging by HolySpirit-surgery to remove things — like all kinds of sinfulness — that God doesn't want the person to have, to be. By contrast with a view that proposes Universal Restoration (UR) without any process of purging-in-Hell, my view of UR is purgatorial Universal Restoration (pUR). This name is more accurately descriptive because it distinguishes between Non-Purgatorial UR (NpUR) and Purgatorial UR (pUR), and its abbreviation, pUR, reminds us of the divine fire (pur in Greek) used by God to actively save-and-sanctify previously unsaved people in UR-Hell, when God uses His divine pur to purge/refine during the purgatorial process (P) that produces the result (UR) He wants; if God wants UR, He will use P to produce UR. {or He could use P to produce semi-UR} / This purgatorial process in UR-Hell is NOT the Purgatory of Roman Catholicism; although both contain "purg" they are very different. Therefore, Purgatorial UR-Hell should be evaluated for what it is, for what it actually proposes; it should not be criticized for what it isn't, for anything connected with Catholic Purgatory. IOU – Later, maybe in mid-2022, I'll develop these ideas & questions regarding the little that God has told us about His process-of-purifying: the suffering of people in purgatorial UR does not produce atonement-and-salvation, because atonement-and-salvation already was done by Jesus in His crucifixion and resurrection; as described above, we can view the function of UR-purgatory as educational & corrective & healing, and each of these would perform a particular function; education would persuade an unsaved person that they do believe and they do want to repent, leading to their justification; correction would purify a person, removing their sin (burning it out of them in The Lake of Fire) so they become fully sanctified, without sin; healing would also (as with correction) be sanctifying, but healing emphasizes that the person will be totally-ok in all ways (not just purified from sin, but also healed from all wounds) so they will totally restored to being the way God always wanted them to be, both internally (in their feeling-and-thinking-and-doing) and externally (with all relationships being healed) so all individuals and all relationships will be healed. a summary: God gives salvation when education produces justification, and correction produces sanctification; the overall result is a restoring (to God's original goal for the ideal states He always wanted) of all individuals & all relationships, when every person has been sanctified. Maybe... after unsaved people are resurrected and judged, God will give them educational experiences in hell that educate-and-correct/heal them, that lead them to believe & repent so they can be reconciled with Him. How? We can think about QUESTIONS and SPECULATIONS. QUESTIONS — we'll begin with questions about HOW:In any view (UR, FA, or EM), “how will saved people be radically transformed so we are not still sinful, so we are sanctified and are suitable for Afterlife in Heaven?” and... These two how-questions, considered individually and together, lead to other questions: compared with the process for saved people, in what ways might the process for unsaved people be similar, and different? will God change us (or them) instantly, or in a time-process? will we (or they) passively receive the changes, or be active participants? in what ways will the process be better for saved people? (we should expect the process-and-results to be much better for people who are saved during Life, but in what ways will it be better?) maybe... God will use every person's Afterlife to produce total sanctification (with radical changes that get rid of all sin) for everyone, and salvation for those who need it because they were unsaved at the end of their Life} {total sanctification, to achieve sinless perfection, is not possible during Life; instead God wants us to cooperate in a process of partial sanctification, "do not conform to the pattern of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind." Romans 12:2 – Is this a process that begins in Life for Christians, and will be completed in Afterlife for only them? or will God do this for everyone? and what about losing your life to gain it (Mark 8:35) for everyone? here, the word for losing is apollumi, often translated as being destroyed} / {iou - later, I'll describe how a process of being "radically transformed" might be described by everyone being salted with fire (Mark 9:49), and by fire-burning of works (1 Cor 3) that certainly will occur for all Christians, and probably for all people.} {J Preston Eby has useful ideas about experience-differences in The Lake of Fire} We also can ask, about the final Universal Restoration, “compared with the final outcomes for saved people, in what ways might the final outcomes for unsaved people be similar, and different?” The Ultimate Kingdom of God will include two kinds of people — those who earlier in His Story (at the end of their Life) were saved, or were unsaved — but at the end of His Story all people (both earlier-saved and earlier-unsaved) have been radically transformed so they are sinless, so they are suitable for living in His Kingdom. But (as discussed above) the Bible doesn't give us complete answers when we ask “HOW will people be radically transformed so we become sinless?” and “in what ways will this how-process be similar, and different, for earlier-saved people and for earlier-unsaved people?” These questions-about-process are not answered in detail, and neither are questions-about-outcomes — “WHAT will be the final outcome for the earlier-saved and earlier-unsaved?” and “will there be any differences in final results, with earlier-saved people receiving some benefits that earlier-unsaved people won't have?” But there are a few biblical references to apparent “permanent rewards” for earlier-saved people, plus parables about “temporary rewards” like the earlier-saved being invited to attend a celebration (a wedding banquet,...) that earlier-unsaved people will miss. {IOU - later, there will be “more” about these questions.}
in Afterlife, will saved people suffer? My overview for this question says “probably not.” But it ends by acknowledging that even though we have reasons to say No, we also have reasons to wonder; and it links to this section, where you'll see some reasons to wonder. Here we'll examine the biblical evidence a little more deeply, but not a lot more. This is only an introduction, and many questions remain. Here are three interesting passages. As described in the overview, Revelation 2:11 promises that "the one who overcomes [but does this include all believers or only those who, as we read in verse 10, are "tested" in "prison" and are "faithful until death"] will not be hurt by the second death" in The Lake of Fire where unsaved people will be purified if God will produce UR. In Mark 9:49 Jesus says "everyone will be salted with fire" in the context of 9:42-50 that seems to describe suffering in Afterlife. And in 1 Corinthians 3:15-20 Paul says "each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it... and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done" and some works will be "burned up" so a person "will suffer loss" yet "will be saved, but only as through fire." How should we interpret these passages? Two prominent commentaries say "the verse [Mark 9:49] presents considerable difficulties" due to "the very fact of its enigmatical peculiarity," regarding who "everyone" is, and what "salted with fire" means. Paul certainly is writing to Christians, but does "each one" include everyone? or only the ones who already have been saved? And when a person is "saved, but only as through fire," will they suffer in any way, physically and/or (more likely) psychologically? And will believers "not be hurt by the second death" because they won't have special learning-from-Life experiences (e.g. Videos) or because during Videos they will be protected by God so they won't be "hurt" when they sorrowfully repent? [[ iou – later I'll develop these ideas: branches (in John 15) that bear no fruit are thrown the fire -- degrees of suffering for "servants" (more beating for those who knew more, and the combination of "servants" and "beatings" is evidence that maybe Christians will suffer some in Afterlife? but... for this question there is counter-evidence to indicate no suffering) -- it seems that "branches" were in-the-vine (and thus saved?) and "servants" also are followers, so... do these passages indicate "punishment" & suffering for people who are saved? or maybe were saved but "lost their salvation" if OSAS isn't correct? ]] These are tough questions, and it seems to me that we have reasons for wondering. My overview of "sanctification for saved people & unsaved people asks "how will God radically transform saved people so we are not-sinful" and "compared with the transformations of saved people in Life and Afterlife, what will be the similarities & differences for unsaved people, if God will produce UR? The Bible tells that Afterlife will be much better for saved people, but... how? in what ways will it be better?" Most evangelical Protestants confidently declare “there will be no suffering for the saved,” meaning “there will be no suffering for us.” The common views amplify the "much better" difference between us-and-them, by proposing maximum pain for them (with the infinite suffering of Eternal Misery) but zero pain for us (with instant sanctification, without any process of painful spiritual surgery). Here are some questions about grace and justice: If a very wicked man (who has caused much suffering for others) believes-and-repents on his deathbed after a lifetime of rejecting God, will God forgive him and save him? Due to our belief in the generosity of divine grace, “yes” is the response of most Christians, including me. But we still can wonder about justice. Would justice always be achieved if, for every saved-during-Life person, there always is zero suffering? For example, let's think about two serial killers; Jeffrey Dahmer (with 17 victims) probably was justified-by-God a few months before his death; Ted Bundy (with at least 35 victims) possibly was justified-by-God shortly before his death. (although I say "probably" and "possibly" only God knows for certain if a person is truly justified-by-God, so they will be saved-by-God) Now let's imagine that some of their 52 victims were unsaved-in-Life, before their early deaths due to murder. With the most-common views of Afterlife, these unsaved victims will have infinite suffering, and their saved killers will have zero suffering because (with divine grace) their many evil sins have been forgiven-and-forgotten by God. Does this seem fair? For all of these people (killers & victims) and for others, what could God do to make Life-plus-Afterlife more fair? to make it most fair? Or, thinking about another super-villain, Would you be happy to see Hitler in Heaven? Would your thoughts-and-feelings about him be any different, if somehow you knew (for certain) that he believed & repented an hour before he died, and he was saved-during-Life by God?
iou – The ideas below will be developed later, maybe in late-February 2022. what and how? salvation = justification + sanctification? This title ends with " ? " because some readers will disagree with this definition, due to widespread disagreements about a cluster of related terms, about the meanings (of each term) and relationships (between terms). Below, first I'll complexify by describing some disagreements, and then I'll simplify by defining the terms (and meanings) I'll use in this page. The many questions include these: • Is salvation a “package deal” that includes justification AND sanctification? Or does salvation equal justification? (if yes, do both terms have the same meaning? if not, how do they differ, and can you have either without the other?) • Is salvation (whether it's only justification, or is justification plus sanctification) a one-time event, or a continuing process? Is a person instantly saved when they believe-and-repent? (and... can a person believe without repenting? if they do both, which comes first, and does either cause the other?) Can a person “lose” their salvation? (and if they lose it, did they every really have it?) These questions are hotly debated, often with fierce intensity by defenders of different views, with extreme confidence by all views, whether the claim is that a believer has eternal security (so “once saved, always saved”) or that a person can “lose their salvation” unless they continue deciding-to-persevere in their stated beliefs and in their thinking & actions. • Does salvation require good works, or produce good works, or...? (there are different ways to define good works – including salvation-or-damnation by merit due to a good heart & wise mind when making The Decision – and intense debates about “easy believism” versus "lordship salvation" regarding causes-and-effects and timings, the dangers of extreme grace & extreme legalism, and more) • If a person is saved in Life, during Afterlife they must change from being partially sanctified (at their death) to being totally sanctified (aka being glorified) when they have become not-sinful (in their feelings, thoughts, actions) so they are suitable for living in God's final heavenly kingdom with Eternal Joy. Will this change occur instantly, or over a period of time? Will they passively receive the changes, or be an active participant? (among evangelical Protestants, a common answer is instantly-and-passively) • Is salvation a “package deal” that includes justification (being forgiven) AND sanctification (being purified, having sinfulness removed). Or does salvation equal justification? • Is salvation a one-time event, or a continuing process? When a person believes & repents, are they instantly-and-permanently justified? • Does salvation require “good works” (however they're defined) or produce good works, or...? {is salvation-or-damnation “earned by merit” due to a good heart & wise mind when making The Decision?} / more: These two paragraphs • If a person is saved in Life, during Afterlife they must change from being partially sanctified (at their death) to being totally sanctified (aka being glorified) when they have become not-sinful (in their feelings, thoughts, actions) so they are suitable for living in God's final heavenly kingdom with Eternal Joy. Will this change occur instantly, or over a period of time? Will they passively receive the changes, or be an active participant? (among evangelical Protestants, a common answer is instantly-and-passively) my simplifications: In this page, I'm defining salvation as “justification + total sanctification” so with Conditional Immortality (if saved, then immortal) a person will not be given immortality until they are totally sanctified (are glorified, purified) and have no sin. When we ask “how will saved people be radically transformed so we become totally sanctified?” I make no claims. But IF God will produce UR, with unsaved-in-Life people being saved in Afterlife, I think they will be radically transformed in a process that requires a time period and their active participation.
I.O.U. – Below (in small green font) you'll see ideas that will be developed later, responding to the questions [above] about similarities & differences in edu-experiences for saved vs unsaved. [[ ==one factor in a response: IF life videos of each person will be viewed by all other persons, this requires participation by saved & unsaved, in unpleasant experience of seeing own sins during own life review (and own suffering when are victim during LR's of other people) / so what is the difference between experiences for saved & unsaved? here is one ueful perspective: Eastern Orthodox view of Heaven & Hell, proposes that same divine fire in Heaven & Hell (so these aren't different "locations") but the fire's source-and-effects are viewed differently, are seen/felt as good-helpful by saved Christians and as bad-hurtful by unsaved nonChristians / is a person saved or not? abiding in vine or not? knowing God or not? {e.g. Jesus "I never knew you"} born-again (with death of sin) or not? fully loving God (with heart-and-mind. feeling-and-thinking) or not? super-empathy, with knowing-understanding others leading to change of values-priorities for evaluation criteria, changing from win-lose (iWin-youLose) = victory for me, to win-lose (if zero sum) being neutral, with my gain = their loss, instead of my gain > their loss because I'm self-centered instead of "loving neighbor as myself" analysis of Total Restoration: it would require Personal Restorations (repairing of internal feelings + thinking-deciding-doing) sanctification of individual) plus Interpersonal Restorations (repairing of external relationships) RESTORATION -- first Sanctification and then Reconciliation: an authentic Total Reconciliation (of every person with every other person and with God) will require a foundation of total sanctification that transforms each person until they become righteous with total sanctification so they are not sinful, so they have been transformed and personally restored (in all ways) into finally becoming the person God always wanted them to be. / MERIT -- unless salvation is universal, it must be based on merit (good heart + wise mind " good-and-wise decision) to produce a merit-caused decision as in "born again" change-in-life / merit plus lucky draw in life (location, culture of family & society, etc) -- salvation must be based on HUMAN MERIT (with Arminius) or DIVINE FAVORITISM (with Calvin)
As explained earlier, I strongly recommend that you first read the overview of this section in the Table of Contents. The Consequences of Sins: The Bible says very little about an afterlife process of changing for the purpose of eliminating sin in the hearts & minds of saved people or unsaved people. But... sins have consequences — both now in Life, and later in Afterlife — as explained when Jesus warns "everyone" that "If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands [or "two feet" or "two eyes"], to go into hell,* into the unquenchable fire ... For everyone will be salted with fire." Our sins (of commission & omission, by what we do & don't do) produce consequences — Jesus "will judge [and repay] all people according to their deeds" because "God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap" and God "will repay each person [and maybe... one aspect of repaying will be a disclosing of their thoughts & actions in life-review videos that produce beneficially-transformative sorrows] according to what they have done" when in Afterlife "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad" — with the consequences-of-sin coming to us first during Life and then in Afterlife, whether the Afterlife Reality will be UR, FA, or EM. And fire "will test the quality of each man's work" to determine if they will "receive reward" or "suffer loss," although the person "will be saved, yet so as through fire." {* Jesus wants us to take sin seriously, because He does; and He sets high standards for what He wants us to think & do. } {more & more} {the verses quoted are from Mark 9, Matthew 16 & Revelation 22, Galatians 6, Romans 2, 2 Corinthians 5, 1 Corinthians 3} The Forgiving of Sins: In many places, the Bible also declares the total forgiving of sins by God. But...forgiving is not transforming: Although a divine forgiving of sins is merciful and wonderful, helping us feel thankful & joyful, by itself a divine forgiving of sins does not produce the radical transformation that is required for total sanctification, for the total cleansing-from-sin that will be required for everyone to live with total joy (mental, spiritual, relational, physical) in a heavenly Kingdom of God. Consequences + Forgiving: So... how does this combination (sins having consequences + sins being forgiven) fit together, in Life and Afterlife, for people who during Life were saved? or were unsaved?
two different-yet-common meanings of retribution: [[ iou – this section will be developed in late-February 2022, and will include these ideas:old: The Long Overview describes a cause-of-confusion: Some definitions are fairly neutral (regarding vengeance), describing retribution as "punishment administered in return for a wrong committed" or "that which is given in repayment or compensation; return suitable to the merits" or "a justly deserved penalty" or "the act of correcting for your wrongdoing" and in theology, the distribution of rewards and punishments in a future life." But in other definitions, vengeance is emphasized: "punishment inflicted in the spirit of... personal vengeance" or, theologically, "the act of taking revenge (harming someone in retaliation for something harmful that they have done) especially in the next life," so synonyms include "vengeance, retaliation" and also neutral "repayment, payment." The two meanings – "fairly neutral" or "vengeance is emphasized" – are very different, and both are very common. A judicial action is retributive if it's responding to a criminal act by punishing the criminal. Theologically, we can view sin as a criminal act, done by a criminal who deserves to be punished; and https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/163072.pdf These two-meaning terms can be mis-used by of two related terms – retributive (adjective) and retribution (noun) – the more I'm questioning the theological usefulness of labeling divine actions-in-Afterlife as retributive (to produce retribution) because these terms are imprecise. These terms have been corrupted, and they're often used as "word weapons" in arguments. Part of the confusion is an abuse of either-or thinking, by assuming an action either is retributive OR restorative, instead of acknowledging that an action can be retributive-AND-restorative. Therefore instead of asking whether an action is retributive, it seems more useful to consider whether an action is restorative or is non-restorative; divine actions ultimately produce restoration with UR, but not with FA or EM. [[ iou – I'll continue examining these ideas in late-February 2022, will revise these two paragraphs. ]] new: This section examines one cause of theological confusion. One definition of retribution (by Wiktionary) is "punishment inflicted in the spirit of moral outrage or personal vengeance." But what does the "or" mean? [[ two possibilities, x or y means x & y are synonyms; or they can be alternatives. here, I'll describe how each of these can influence (and be actualized in) our views of hell, and how we can think about all of this in productive ways. ]] SPECULATIONS — and we'll continue with speculations about HOW:Each of these speculations begins with "Maybe..." as a reminder that I don't claim to know the details of “what might happen” in UR-Hell, if there will be a UR-Hell.• Life-Review Videos of a Person, to produce Sorrowful Repentance: Maybe... one productive aspect of Afterlife Education-in-Hell will be Life-Review Videos that "disclose" to let a person re-experience, in a very intense way, their thoughts-and-actions during Life,* so they can observe their sins and the effects of their sins. During these personally meaningful experiences, God could give them super-abilities (intellectual, emotional, empathetic,...) that will help them to understand more completely-and-accurately, and to feel an intensely sorrowful repentance for all of their sins, including both sins of commission (the bad things they did in their thoughts-and-actions) and sins of omission (the good things they didn't do, but they could have done if they had fully used the abilities & life-opportunities that were given to them by God). • Life-Review Videos of a Person, with Super-Experiencing: Maybe... God will give super-experiences that will help a person more fully understand, and intensely experience, the total positive results of their beneficial thinking & actions (with feelings of super-joy) and the total negative results of their sinful harmful thinking & actions (with feelings of super-sorrow). Their joys and sorrows would be increased if God gives them: multiple super-senses (to see, hear, feel,...) so they will have an intensely powerful re-experiencing of what happened during their Life; * The effects of our actions get “paid forward” (in ways that can be positive or negative) due to an interconnected web of wide-ranging interpersonal interactions, when we affect a person who will affect others who affect others, and so on. {but usually those "closest to us in the web" are affected most strongly} Divine Empowering-and-Sanctifying: if God will use life-review videos in UR-Hell to educate-correct-heal people, probably... He will give each person super-abilities to enhance their experiencing of the videos; and certainly (not maybe) He will provide divine guiding-and-empowering by Holy Spirit to help each person learn more from their experiences during their purgative process of transformation-into-sanctification. These interactions with God would be an essential part of the person's intense re-experiencing of Life. / How? Maybe... during Life-Review Videos (plus other educating-and-healing experiences) God will produce intimate spiritual relationships with the person in a baptism of fire in The Lake of Fire. During these experiences, God will produce conviction (along with comforting) that leads to sorrowful repentance — so the person (with a truly freed will) truly wants to be purified from their sinful nature — so they have an authentic desire to let God beneficially transform them. The result will be a purifying destruction of their sinful nature, an educational corrective healing that transforms them so they become totally healthy (they become totally sanctified as a whole person in their feeling-and-thinking & actions), so they become the righteous person that God always wanted them to be, and is now helping them to be. more – {of course, divine knowledge-and-power would be required for the “time traveling” in life-review videos} {more about purgative Universal Restoration} / Earlier I describe a process of sanctification in afterlife, and ask "compared with the process for saved people, in what ways might the process for unsaved people be similar, and different?" Maybe... there will be a difference in the ratio of divine convicting-of-sin and divine comforting-of-person (as described by Jesus in John 16:7-8), with less convicting and more comforting for people who were saved during Life. Intrinsic Cause-and-Effect Justice: Maybe... all of these thoughts-and-feelings (while watching life-review videos) will cause a deep sadness, an intensely emotional sorrow, with the person suffering in ways that are personally customized for them, because the sorrows they receive in Afterlife will depend on the sorrows they caused in Life. Mutual Empathies produced by watching Life-Review Videos of Other People: Maybe... every person – both unsaved & saved – will be able to experience the life-review videos of other people, including their sorrowful repentance for their sins, to develop mutual empathies.*
Total Reconciliation? not with FA: One major problem with Final Annihilation (FA) is that with annihilation of most people (of all who remain unsaved because they were not traveling the narrow path during Life and God will not save them during Afterlife) a Total Reconciling could never occur, because — as described in my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life — "Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole." If any person "isn't around" because God has killed them during Afterlife, this will "leave an awful hole" and this will eliminate the deeply-heartfelt interpersonal reconciliation that occurs when this person forgives (as a victim) and (as an offender) is forgiven. Thus, with FA the complex web of personal interactions could not be totally healed. In fact, there could not be a Total Reconciling for any single person because each of us has interpersonal interactions (that have not been totally healed during Life) with many people who are saved-in-Life, and also with many people who were unsaved-in-Life so (with FA) they will be annihilated. Or... if God allows an Unsaved-in-Life person to remain alive in Afterlife until (in shared experiences that include saved-in-life people who will remain alive in The Final State) they have repented of their offenses, so all of their victim-and-offender interactions have been healed, but then — after this person has repented for all of their offending sins and has forgiven all who offended them, after they have moved further down the road to sanctification than most Christians have moved during their Life — if this person is annihilated, does that seem like divine justice-with-love? {Empathy in Relationships - for a Wonderful Life with Kindness & Golden Rule} * Maybe... our repenting will be verbal — if we can talk with each other, to remember and cry & laugh together, to hug and reconcile — plus a deep feeling-and-understanding (in other ways) of the repenting & forgiving & reconciling. Together, all of these experiences would combine to produce thoughts-and-feelings that are deeper and more meaningful, compared with the interpersonal communication we can achieve with just words. we are victims and offenders: In a wide variety of Life-situations, each of us is a victim (who needs to forgive) and/or an offender (who needs to be forgiven). Maybe these needs (to forgive and be forgiven) will be satisfied if some life-review videos* will be mutually viewed by all persons who were involved (as a victim and/or offender) in a particular Life-situation. In this way, all people will re-experience what did happen (in Life) and will experience what now is happening (in Afterlife), from their own perspective and from the perspectives of others. * I say “some videos” because IF God uses videos, almost certainly... He will be selective by showing only some life-events, and including only some people in mutual viewings. For a particular person, many personal-events are private, and God could exclude these from mutual viewing. Among this person's interpersonal-events, most are not very important; and for important interpersonal-events, most people are not very important, in fact they're not even involved. For events and people with less importance, maybe God will just give executive summaries to the person, to give them only what is important for them. God can individually customize the experiences (by using wise selectivity) to give each person only what they need so they can become fully restored, personally and interpersonally.
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Free Will and universal Universal Restoration (UR)
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Options for Mutual Viewing of Life-Review Videos: This table shows 8 possible options for using MV that could occur by combining 2 options for saved people (either God decides to “don't use MV” or “use MV”) and 4 options for unsaved people if God decides to cause UR (and to “don't use MV” or “use MV”) or to cause FA (and to “first use MV” before killing the unsaved, or “don't use MV”).
In the 8 “combination cells” the top line shows who will use MV (neither, only unsaved, only saved, or unsaved & saved). The bottom line is my evaluation of each combination: Regarding UR versus FA, the top four combinations would produce The Best Possible Ending with Eternal Joy for all persons (so I've labeled these all-JOY), and the bottom four would produce Eternal Joy for some persons (these are labeled semi-joy because I think each of these Final States would be fair yet sad). The persons who will be given Eternal Joy – all saved persons (with either UR or FA) and all unsaved persons if UR – are shown with purple font. Regarding the rationality and effectiveness of each combination, I think... • two options that will be most effective are if God uses MV for all people, so no important persons are “missing” from the re-experiencings. In both of these combination-cells, if saved people already are sanctified (by glorification at the instant of their resurrection), using MV will increase their maturity. In one cell, MV-using helps unsaved people become totally sanctified, and eventually God gives them Eternal Joy. But in the other cell, God is having unsaved people use MV only for the benefit of saved people, because even if MV-using helps unsaved people become more sanctified, later they will be killed by God, so I ask "does this seem like an effective way to produce maximum righteous justice and joy?" • two options would be less effective (thus relatively ineffective) for producing sanctification, because one group of people (either saved or unsaved) don't use MV so it won't help them; and the group that does use MV would be hindered by “missing persons” due to a Wonderful Life Principle. • two options don't use MV for anyone (either unsaved or saved) and I think this is less effective. But this is only in my human thinking, and I humbly recognize that God's omniscient divine thinking might show Him why "Videos are impossible... due to the characteristics of space-and-time" or why "Videos will not be an effective way to sanctify people." Therefore I label these "rational" ===== [to be continued] • [[ iou - two options are marked "irrational" because I think it wouldn't make sense to use these: if unsaved do MV's before they're killed with FA, these MV's would be only for the benefit of saved people, but the saved won't themselves be doing MV's so the unsaved-MV's won't be effective in helping the saved; or to have unsaved not doing MV's when they're being restored for UR and thus need MV's to become sanctified, but MV's are used by saved people even though they aren't essential for the already-saved people, so the saved (needing MV's) don't get them, but saved (for whom MV's are beneficial but not essential) aren't getting MV's. / these are the basic ideas but - iou - when this is written it will be shorter and more clearly explained. ]]
when? timings for immortality: Due to uncertainty in the timing of total sanctification for saved-in-Life people (with either UR or FA) and also for unsaved-in-Life people if UR, earlier I say that "in order to actualize Conditional Immortality (if saved, then immortal) with UR [or FA], after a person is justified-and-sanctified (is saved) God will make them immortal. [and then, "due to uncertainty in the timing...," I qualify this by saying] Or at least He will make them immortal only after they are justified and therefore they [eventually] will be sanctified(totally)-and-saved."
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Isolated Hell-Verses in the Biblean option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. the whole and its parts: Important whole-Bible principles — about The Character of God and Conditional Immortality & The Death Penalty — provide strong support against a doctrine of Eternal Misery. And many Bible verses, strengthened by their whole-Bible context, provide support for Final Annihilation and for Universal Restoration. By contrast, defenders of EM typically point to a few “hell verses” that are isolated (are not connected with whole-Bible themes) and they say “look at these.” {a list of verses with my responses} But when we do look at their verses carefully, we should not be impressed because... • a verse about suffering – as in "weeping and gnashing" – does not support EM because all views (EM, FA, UR) agree that unsaved people will suffer in hell. But the views disagree about time (will people suffer eternally with EM, or temporarily with FA or UR?), and timing (will God allow belief-and-repentance only in Life, or also in Afterlife as with UR or semi-UR?), and final result (will it be misery, non-existence, or reconciliation?). translations are not inerrant: All statements about biblical inerrancy claim that the Bible is without error only in the original language, due to the possibility that in another language a translation can be inaccurate (with error) due to human error or human bias. Here are some examples of extremely influential...Bias in Translating from Greek into English * How are translations biased to favor a doctrine of Eternal Misery? One example of misleading translation is the narrow road. Why? Because commonly used grammatically-incorrect translations tell us that “few will find the narrow gate leading to salvation” either now during Life (all views agree about this) or later during Afterlife (as claimed by FA & EM, but not UR). Instead, grammatically-correct translations tell us that “few are finding the narrow gate” now during Life. {more about The Narrow Road} Basically, a biased translation is a translation-plus-commentary, telling you not just its literal translation of the Greek word, but also (in its commentary) how the word should be theologically interpreted by the reader. Matthew 25:46 Another example of translation bias that is very influential (because it occurs in a verse that often is used to claim support for-EM and aginst-UR) is Matthew 25:46 when Jesus said "these [who ignored the poor-and-needy, the hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, in prison] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous [who helped the poor-and-needy] into eternal life." These arguments (for EM, against UR) appear to be much stronger than they actually are, due to theologically biased decisions about translating two Greek words {aionios & kolasin} into English words {eternal & punishment}: • The Greek word aionios (or aionian) can mean "eternal" or "everlasting" or — more literally because aion means age (like aeon or eon in English) — “occuring in a future age” or “associated with a future age” or “age-related” or “age-ish”. This certainly is a meaning that is true whether aionios is intended to mean an eternal or non-eternal period of time, and it's compatible with all views, with UR, FA, EM, because in each view the "punishment" does happen in the future age. But... the commonly-seen biased translations go beyond this definite meaning (to add their own theological interpretation) by declaring that the duration must be eternal, even though this is only a possible meaning. / When translators choose "eternal" it seems to provide support for EM or FA. (or, as explained below, maybe not) But this apparent support would vanish if they chose to translate aionios in one of the more-literal ways, so instead of "eternal punishment" we would be reading “punishment in a future age” (or “age-associated punishment” or...) that would occur with EM or FA, or UR. In terms of the question being answered, instead of “how long will it last?” we would see the answer to “when will it occur?” * / In my introductory summary of reasons for Bible-believers to reject Eternal Misery, I claim that hell-verses "often are mis-translated" in a way that is mis-leading. Why? Because in Matthew 25:46 (using this key “hell verse” as an example of mistranslation), aionios certainly means "occuring in a future age" (and this would happen with any of the views); by contrast, it might mean "eternal" but only if Hell will cause Eternal Torment or Final Annihilation, so it will not cause Universal Restoration; therefore it's a mis-translation (it's an inaccurate translation that misleads a reader into thinking the verse definitely is teaching a doctrine it might not be teaching) to choose a word that might be correct instead of a phrase that certainly is correct and is closer to the literal meaning of aionios. When a translation tells us "eternal" instead of "occurring in a future age" it is declaring that “EM (or FA) will happen” and this converts a weak ambiguous statement (that does not tell us which view correct, because hell will "occur in a future age" with EM or FA or UR) into a strong conclusive statement (it's unambigous because it declares that either EM or FA is correct, but UR is incorrect). { Here I'm using a correspondence definition of truth so a view is "correct" if it's true because it will happen, and a view is incorrect if it's untrue (is false) because it will not happen. } { I say "seems to" because although eternal seems to have the same meaning as eternally lasting or everlasting, maybe the meanings are different. } * the logic of parallels: If "eternal punishment" (for unbelievers) does not last eternally but is only temporary, is "eternal life" (for believers) also temporary? No. Why? Because even if aionios means “occurring in a future age” so it answers the question of “when?” instead of “how long?” in this verse, believers can be confident about receiving eternal life from God, due to God's promises in other parts of the Bible, with the resurrection of Christ and in other ways, including 1 Corinthians 15. Our confidence that God will give us eternal life does not depend on Matthew 25:46. {more - should Christians love our neighbors in the ways we love ourselves? does the "parallels" argument say "no, we should love ourselves more"?} {more - why we can be confident – for many reasons (biblical, logical, linguistic, ethical) – about everlasting life} bible-based logical reasoning: Believers can be confident that God will give us everlasting life, due to God's promises in other parts of the Bible, with the resurrection of Christ and in other ways. Our confidence that God will give us Eternal Joy does not depend on Matthew 25:46. / Also, the words that people usually read – "eternal punishment" and "eternal life" – are misleading, because they are a result of biased translating because with a more-literal translation we could be reading “corrective discipline [to transform a person, making them better] that happens in a future age” and “life that happens in a future age” so our typical conclusions (about the results of Hell) would be different, and “the tradition” would be different. With a more-literal translation of the aionios (it's an adjective) as “occurring in a future age” we would be thinking that it answers the question of “when?” instead of “how long?” in this verse. • The Greek word kolasin is usually translated as "punishment" that would be retributive (with EM, FA, UR) and (with UR) also would be corrective. If translators wanted to emphasize the corrective function, kolasin could be translated as “corrective pruning” (its meaning in Classical Greek, and probably here in New Testament Greek)* that would provide support for UR. Instead we see only punishment (a definite meaning, this would occur with EM, FA, UR) instead of corrective pruning (the probable meaning) to support UR. / * kolasin was a horticultural term (used for gardening) to mean pruning, a cutting-away that helps a plant be more healthy, that improves the plant. A meaning of "cutting away" is consistent with a corrective "burning away" of weeds or chaff (symbolizing a person's evil character) in the Lake of Fire that is pUR-Hell. } {the purpose of correction occurs in some lexicons: Thayer's (kolasis: correction, punishment, penalty), Strong's (kolasis: penal infliction - punishment, torment)} {a thorough-and-deep examination by salvationforall.org} two words that were not used: We can get evidence about intended meaning from a word that could have been used – that would have clarified the meaning, so there would be no doubt – but wasn't used. In Matthew 25:46 this happens twice, for each of the key words. • Instead of kolasin (usually meaning “corrective discipline”) the word timoria (clearly meaning “non-corrective punishment that is only retributive”) could have been used in the original Greek manuscripts, but timoria wasn't used. an obstacle to finding truth: The bias-in-translating is a huge disadvantage for readers who want to find truth, but can only read English. When they read "eternal punishment" (and maybe think “eternal punishing”) they think “of course I know what this means.” But if instead they were reading “correction that occurs in the future age” they might be reaching a different conclusion about the meaning. Their current thinking is being heavily influenced by the current bias-in-translating, and this won't change until they understand how (and why) the translations are biased. • We see a similarly biased translation, that obscures our understanding of what God will do to us and for us, in Revelation 14:10 and 20:10. In these verses the Greek word usually translated as being "tormented" (or even"tortured") — probably for the purpose of apparently supporting a doctrine of Eternal Misery-with-Torment — is basanizo whose primary meaning (quoting from BibleStudyTools.com) is "to test (metals) by the touchstone, which is a black siliceous stone used to test the purity of gold or silver by the colour of the streak produced on it by rubbing it with either metal." To provide further support for a divinely-intended meaning of “testing for purity”, the "basanizo" will be done by using "fire and sulfur" that (in the time of the New Testament) was a common method of chemically purifying gold, with "basanizo" using "fire and sulfur" (aka "fire and brimstone" in KJV) possibly symbolizing a divinely caused purifying-from-sin in God's lake of fire. The primary meaning of basanizo – to "test the purity" – is very different than the word "torment" chosen by translators who mislead us because they want us to believe that these verses do apparently support EM, even though (with a translation that is more literally accurate, is less biased) the verses don't actually support EM. {but most verses in BillMounce.com don't support this meaning of testing by touchstone} {more about Matthew 25:46, re: eternal and punishment} Or support for EM can seem justifiable due to misinterpretation. How? One example is when Jesus describes unquenchable fire, i.e. fire that cannot be quenched. Defenders of EM misinterpret this to mean the fire will continue forever so it requires “human fuel” (with humans being burned alive forever, to provide fuel that keeps the fire burning forever), but this conclusion is not logically justifiable. Instead the correct meaning is (as claimed by FA & UR) that the fire will continue doing what God wants it to do; His fire cannot be quenched (cannot be stopped by those who are being affected by His fire) until His goal is achieved. Another example is EM's overly rigid interpretation of punishment. Because ‘kolasin’ is a noun, it's translated as "punishment" (noun) instead of “punishing” (verb). Therefore we should challenge an implication that punishment (noun) means punishing (verb). This is important because with FA an eternally lasting punishment-result (eternally lasting non-existence) would not require — as implied in a misinterpretation by defenders of EM — an eternally lasting punishing-process with EM. Another similarity, for EM and FA, is that "eternal life" and "eternal punishment" can have a parallel contrast-of-meaning with either EM (with life forever, and a Process-of-Punishing that lasts forever) or FA (with a Result-of-Punishment that lasts forever, causing dead forever instead of alive forever) but also with UR because...if the punishment is retributive AND corrective, if it's "eternal [retributive-and-corrective] punishment" or (in a different translation of kolasin that is justified by the word's history, by its original use for gardening) is "eternal corrective pruning" there is a Result-of-CorrectivePruning that lasts forever, causing a person to be restored forever (with UR) instead of miserable forever (with EM) or dead forever (with FA); with UR the result-of-correction (of making a person correct, of making them the way God always wanted them to be) is an everlasting restoration of the person and their relationships. When we examine the effects of translating aionios, "although eternal [a choice that seems to eliminate the possibility of UR] seems to have the same meaning as eternally lasting or everlasting, maybe the meanings are different," because UR would produce an eternally lasting result of everlasting restoration. a summary: The 3 kinds of Hell (EM, FA, UR) would produce either an everlasting process-of-punishing (EM), or an everlasting result-of-punishment (FA, UR) with everlasting death (FA) or everlasting restoration (UR). Another example of EM-bias is 2 Thessalonians 1:9 where a Greek word that means “from” is translated as "away from" in the NASB & ESV, and "shut out from" in NIV, so it misleadingly seems to support EM. Instead of this it could be “coming from” that could support EM or FA or UR. In a translation that is more neutral, with a minimum of theological interpretation, we would be reading “from” (because it's more literally accurate); then a footnote could explain that the ambiguous from could mean either away from or coming from. But... instead of a neutral translation, we are reading translations that are biased so this verse seems to support a currently-popular version of EM, with the people who are suffering EM being made miserable due to being passively separated from God, instead of being actively tormented by God, so it's a “kinder and gentler” causing of Eternal Misery, although Infinite Misery is still the result of what is being caused by God. {more} {more – in Matthew 25 and elsewhere – illustrated with translating that is biased for-EM and against-UR for important words: eternal, punishment, torment, death} {more arguments against EM —— as in claims about Matthew 25:46 (eternal punishment) & 25:41 (eternal fire), Luke 16:19-31 (Lazarus & The Rich Man, who are not in Hell, they're in Hades that in the OT is a realm for all dead people even though 1/3 of the translations in biblegateway tell us he is in "hell" instead of "Hades") and [[ iou - later I'll revise this paragraph, and will find web-pages by scholars who explain how this passage is a variation on a common story in the culture of Jesus, with a reversal-of-fortunes that Jesus used for the purpose of teaching principles, not to teach the structure of Hades.]] Revelation 14:9-14 tells us smoke of their torment rises forever, using symbolism from Isaiah 34) and 20:10 (three possible tormentings, two maybe of humans, are "everlasting" in typical non-literal translations, but are "age-associated" or "happening in a future age" with more-literal translating) —— are in parts of pages I wrote between 1996 & 2010, with explanations that are brief and in detail} also, 2 Thessalonians 1:9 (above) {and... the emphasis on social justice (and sins of omission) in Matthew 25 & Luke 16} [[ iou – later I'll discuss two questionable references to Eternal Misery – the only one in OT (Daniel 12:2) and one, evidently by Paul, in NT (2 Thessalonians 1:9) ]]
A Biblical Evaluation of Annihilation versus Restoration Earlier I describe my near-100% confidence that EM won't happen, and my lower confidence in claiming that either UR or FA will happen. Why? I describe some reasons, but acknowledge that a current weakness of this page is its failure to provide stronger reasons, and I write this iou for making the page less weak: Why is there no clear winner? Because in the whole Bible and in specific verses, I see strong support for UR (but FA has strong counter-arguments) and also strong support for FA (but UR has strong counter-arguments). ..... For example, carefully examining a passage claiming support for UR {or FA} – by studying the arguments & counter-arguments – can lead to concluding that the verse doesn't provide 100%-support for UR {or FA} but there isn't a decrease to 0%-support, and this happens for ALL passages claiming to support UR {and FA}. Also, whole-Bible themes can be claimed as support for UR, but also for FA. Therefore when all things are considered — the conflicting whole-Bible themes, plus the many passages that provide support for UR or FA ranging from near-zero to near-100% (with different estimates from different evaluators) — the overall evidence seems ambiguous. iou – Currently a major limitation of my web-pages is their weakness in examining UR-vs-FA, regarding the pros & cons of each view. In the near future (late-November into early 2023) I want to explain, with more detail than in the current summaries,* why I'm 90% persuaded about UR. Why is my confidence this high (i.e. why is it 90% instead of 0% or 50%) and why is it lower than 100%? This page describes some evidence for UR (much more than for FA – yes, it's biased) and there is a beginning for deeper UR-vs-FA examinations [it links to this section] of strong evidence for UR from Paul and John, in UR-supporting passages that contain these verses — in Romans 5:18 and 11:32, and 14:11 combined with Philippians 2:11 and Colossians 1:20 and 1 Corinthians 15:24, plus John 1:29 & 12:47 and 1 John 2:2 & 4:14 — to illustrate the validity of arguments & counter-arguments, and my current conclusion that neither view can claim certainty. Gradually (continuing into early 2023) I'll expand the carefully-thorough logical analysis by describing each view's main claims & arguments, along with counter-arguments and counter-counter-arguments, and so on. {* Some biblical evidence for UR is summarized in three sets of sections in my overviews: Short - Long - Longer. } a detailed iou – This section is very rough-and-undeveloped now (November 21), but it will be a little better tonight, and after Nov 23-25. Then I'll continue working on it into early 2023. When we examine the biblical evidence, to compare Universal Restoration (UR) with Final Annihilation (FA), we find strong Bible-based arguments for UR & FA, but also strong counter-arguments from FA & UR. The evidence for UR comes from many biblical passages, including those containing Eventually, will everything (including everyone) be reconciled to God (as in a claim-for-UR based on Col 1)? Similarly, IF everyone will confess that Jesus is Lord {Phil 2 & Rom 14}, THEN will everyone be saved {Rom 10}? Is this conclusion logically justifiable? / I.O.U. – I'll write this more thoroughly-and-carefully later, using these basic ideas: Each purple-shaded Bible link takes you to the verse's passage, so you can see a wider context for the key verses: "every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God (acknowledge Him to His honor and to His praise)" (Romans 14:11) or "every knee will bow to me, and every tongue will give praise to God." (Philippians 2:11) "at the name of Jesus every knee will bow... [and] every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" or (Romans 11:32) "God has shut up all in disobedience [due to Adam] so that [through Christ] He may show mercy to all [including "all Israel"]" with His loving "mercy to all" God will (through Jesus Christ) "reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross" (Colossians 1:15-20) "as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22) inspiring (in Romans 11:33-36) our worship: "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! ... For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen." 27 translations (of 61) say "praise" for Romans 14:11 - but only 3 (of 61) says "praise" for Philippians 2:11 when "praise" might imply that every knee (i.e. every person) will be praising God, and thus imply UR. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+14%3A11&version=MOUNCE [with sincerity and loving admiration] Mounce NASB-Romans 14:11 "to Me every knee will bow, and every tongue will give praise to God.” -- MOUNCE-Romans 14:11 " NASB-Philippians "at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." -- MOUNCE-Phil
that because "as through one transgression [the sin of Adam] there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness [atonement by Jesus] there resulted justification of life to all men" (Romans 5:18) and The birth of Jesus was "good news of great joy which will be for all the people" (Luke 2:10) so we joyfully "have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe" (1 Timothy 4:10) because Jesus came "to save the world" (John 12:47) by becoming "the atoning sacrifice... for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2) so He "takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) and is "the Savior of the world" (1 John 4:14) in a process that will be actualized when (in Life or in Afterlife) God saves every person, because — like a good shepherd who loves all of his sheep and wants to find-and-save every sheep (or coin or son, as Jesus tells us in Luke 15 where the numbers remaining lost are 0-of-100, 0-of-10, 0-of-2) — God will "go after the one that is lost, until he finds it." (Luke 15:4) If you have not "settled matters" with other people, "you may be thrown into prison... [and] you will not get out until you have paid the last penny" (Matthew 5:26) but ultimately – when "until" has happened for every person – so {more} so and (Romans 10:9) "if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."
Eventually, will everything (including everyone) be reconciled to God (as in a claim-for-UR based on Col 1)? Similarly, IF everyone will confess that Jesus is Lord {Phil 2 & Rom 14}, THEN will everyone be saved {Rom 10}? Is this conclusion logically justifiable? / I.O.U. – I'll write this more thoroughly-and-carefully later, using these basic ideas: Currently all I have is some comments about Colossians 1:20. The iou is for "Romans 14:11 combined with Philippians 2:11 and Colossians 1:20" because Philippians 2:11 is much stronger-for-UR when it builds on the foundation of Romans 14:11, and then Colossians 1:20 — although vulnerable to anti-UR criticisms when it's evaluated by itself, isolated from a whole-Bible context — becomes much stronger when it's evaluated in the context of the foundations built from Romans 14 and Philippians 2. Phillipians 2:9-11 explains, by describing Jesus, why "God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." [[ iou – This will be developed more thoroughly November 21. ]]
These passages (in Romans + Philippians, Colossians) are important — because they're strong evidence against Eternal Misery (although this evidence can be rejected if a person really thinks the Bible tells us "God will cause Eternal Misery") — because they support a biblical claim that "God wants to eliminate sin" and EM wouldn't do this, as explained long version. • elimination of sin is unsatisfactory with EM: Throughout the Bible a central theme is that God hates sin (because it disrespects Him and harms people) so He wants to eliminate sin, and eventually God will achieve His goal. With FA or UR, sin will be eliminated so God will achieve His goal. By contrast, God would fail with EM, because EM would produce eternally lasting sin by causing sinners (and their sins) to remain alive forever. This is a strong biblical reason to reject EM. / The Bible tells us that God hates sin and loves people. Is each view-of-hell consistent with these essential attributes of God? (no, yes & yes) no: EM is weak on sin (by letting it exist forever, by actually causing evil sinfulness to exist forever)* but is tough on people (by tormenting them forever). yes & yes: FA & UR are tough on sin (eliminating it by eliminating sinners, or eliminating sin-within-sinners) but are loving for people (with the blessed relief of FA, or the blessed justification-and-sanctification of UR). {* with EM, God would cause evil to exist forever by forcing sinners to exist forever – with "forcing" necessary because humans are not intrinsically immortal – even though the sinners are not reconciled with God, are not loving God, are sinfully continuing their evil opposition to the goodness of God.}
Later I'll analyze Colossians 1:20 in more detail, but here is a beginning, with a "parallels" observation (in verses 16 & 20) , and strong anti-UR argument plus a strong pro-UR response: parallels: There are two related claims about ALL, with 1:16 describing the divine history of Jesus Christ (in His past, when "by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth"); and with 1:20 describing the Father's plan for the divine history of Jesus Christ (in His future, when the plan of God is "through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross." Logically these should be the same ALL, instead of being totally all (in 1:16) and then only partially all (in 1:20). Therefore, because we accept the claim (in 1:16) that all has been created by Jesus, logically we also should accept the claim (in 1:20) that all will be reconciled to Himself, as the ultimate result of a Universal Restoration. an anti-UR argument and pro-UR response: As the basis for one solid argument against a claim that these verses support UR, there is an "if" in Col 1:21-23, "although you were previously alienated and hostile in attitude, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His body of flesh through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach — if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you have heard." But these verses describe sanctification during Life, not salvation; and UR proposes that God will produce sanctification (to correct people, to make us righteous, to achieve justice) not only during Life, but also during Afterlife. For the unsaved-in-Life, in Afterlife the sanctification will be completed in pUR-Hell. Similarly, following the UR-supporting Philippians 2:11, 2:12-13 and 2:15 also describe a process of continuing sanctification during Life: "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to desire and to work for His good pleasure... so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach." / Also, if a critic of UR claims that in Colossians this "if" is for salvation, they also must claim that a person who has been saved (verses 21-22) can lose their salvation-in-Life (23) and they never will be saved. Maybe this claim is correct – I'm not certain whether “once saved, always saved” is correct or incorrect – but a non-UR "if" seems to require a verdict of incorrect. Here is a collection of 4 UR-supporting verses (3 plus 1) described above – when evaluating Colossians 1:20 – along with arguments against their support for UR, and counter-arguments in favor of UR: Romans 14 & Philippians 2 plus Romans 10 – and Colossians 1 Eventually, will everything (including everyone) be reconciled to God (as in a claim-for-UR based on Col 1)? Similarly, IF everyone will confess that Jesus is Lord {Phil 2 & Rom 14}, THEN will everyone be saved {Rom 10}? Is this conclusion logically justifiable? / I.O.U. – I'll write this more thoroughly-and-carefully later, using these basic ideas: My listing of UR-supporting Bible passages ends with 3 verses using "confess" with two (Phil 2:11, Rom 14:11) where the Greek word translated as confess (exomologeomai) means "to openly confess, admit, praise" while in the third (Rom 10:9) the closely-related Greek word for confess (homologeo that's related but not identical) means "to confess, acknowledge, agree, admit, declare; this can be a profession of allegiance, an admission of bad behavior, or an emphatic declaration of a truth," with italics (added by me) showing the meaning of confess in Rom 10:9. The logic of these verses is that everyone will confess, and if they confess they will be saved, therefore everyone will be saved. Or maybe (in a claim without much validity, I think) the unsaved will "confess" but without really meaning it, without the "praise" that is included in the meaning of exomologeomai ("to openly confess, admit, praise") even though this praising is its meaning elsewhere in the New Testament. Instead they will say it grudgingly, only because they are being coerced by the obvious existence of God, and their fear of God, as if God is saying "you must acknowledge my power" before He kills them (with FA) or (with EM) sends them into Eternal Torment. / Another anti-UR argument (that has some validity) is asking if the word translated "will" (in NASB, quoting Isaiah 45:23 where it's always "will" or "shall" in dozens of translation-versions) actually means "should" — there seems to be some validity because each meaning is used in about half of the translations of Philippians 2:11,* and scholars argue about it — so maybe this isn't a prediction, instead it's a command, is a statement of what all people should do. {* it's translated "should" in DLNT, and "may" in YLT, where "L" means "Literal", and is "will" in MOUNCE} But UR has a counter-argument because in Romans 14:11 no translations say "should" because Paul is quoting Isaiah 45:23 and is telling us that this response – "every knee will bow to Me, and every tongue will confess-out to God" – is what will happen when "each of us will give an account for himself to God" because "we will all stand before the judgment-seat of God" – but will it happen for all people, or only for the Christians who are Paul's focus in Romans 14? (this question about "all" is another reason for confusion & ambiguity) {Among those making this argument is Chris Date – a vigorous defender of FA who is intelligent and has plenty of biblical knowledge – who claims “it could mean either will or should” in Philippians 2:11.}
[[ and here are some current comments that later will be developed more fully: ]] Criticisms of UR's claims about Romans 5:18 (or 11:32, or 1 Corinthians 15:22,...) are very creative in finding ways to avoid acknowledging that "all" means all. By contrast, often critics are uncreative (intentionally?) by ignoring simple defenses that have been claimed by proponents of UR, when they ignore UR's arguments in what they say, and maybe even in their own thinking. Parallels in Matthew 25:46 – Logic of Translations and Ethics of Christians In a “parallels argument” against UR, either FA or EM can claim that if in Matthew 25:46 the “punishment in a future age” isn't everlasting punishment (with annihilation or torment), THEN “life in a future age” isn't everlasting life, so either both are permanent or both are temporary. But this argument is much weaker than it superficially seems, for reasons that are logical and ethical. bible-based logical reasoning: Believers can be confident that God will give us everlasting life, due to God's promises in other parts of the Bible, with the resurrection of Christ and in other ways, as in 1 Corinthians 15. Our confidence that God will give us Eternal Joy does not depend on Matthew 25:46. / Also, the word you usually read ("eternal" or "everlasting") is misleading; it's a result of biased translating because with a more-literal translation of aionios, instead of "eternal punishment" and "eternal life" we would be reading “punishment that happens in a future age” and “life that happens in a future age” so our typical conclusions (about the results of Hell) would be different, and “the tradition” would be different. With "eternal" we're asking “HOW LONG will it last?” but if a translator chooses “occurring in a future age” the question becomes “WHEN will it happen?” so “HOW LONG will it last?” isn't being asked-or-answered. All views (UR, FA, EM) answer “when will it happen?” by saying “it (punishment and life) will happen in a future age.” But because “how long?” isn't being asked, the punishment could be temporary (with UR) or permanent (with EM), while the life will be permanent with both UR and EM. also: Christians often assume that experiences in Hell must be either only-restorative (to correct a person, to make them right and improve them) or only-retributive (with no restoring). For experiences in Hell, thinking EITHER-OR is illogical. But we can change our thinking from illogically rigid (by assuming Hell is certainly EITHER-OR) to flexibly logical (by thinking it's possibly BOTH-AND) by recognizing the possibility that experiences in Hell could be BOTH, could be retributive-AND-restorative. / The translation of kolasin can imply “non-restorative punishment that is only-retributive” or “corrective discipline that is retributive-and-restorative so it transforms a person, to improve them.” bible-based ethical motivation: This logically-weak argument — claiming that in Matthew 25:46 the parallel phrase-structure means “how long?” and it must be the same for goats and sheep, even though logically it could be only “when?” and this is the same in all views of Hell — also makes an emotional appeal to Christians. The argument first illogically claims that “if you think this verse doesn't threaten some people (non-Christians?) with everlasting punishment, then other people (including you) won't get everlasting life,” and then adds an appeal-to-selfishness by asking “do you want to lose your everlasting life?” and implicitly answering “of course you don't.” In this way the argument appeals to our greedy self-interest, by implying that Christians should love ourselves more than we love others, that we should want to have our Eternal Joy, even if this means most people will have Eternal Misery. Is this assumption true for you? If you truly "love your neighbor as you love yourself" as we're commanded by Jesus, would you (if in Afterlife you are saved) be willing to give up your everlasting joy to prevent the everlasting misery of an unsaved person? I would make this trade for my sister because I love her. IF she was unsaved at death, and IF she therefore would have to endure the infinite horror of Eternal Misery in Hell, and IF God will give me Eternal Joy in heaven, I would gladly “make a deal with God” so I could say to her “this is my farewell gift for you,” then she says “thank you, brother,” we say farewell, cry, hug, and die together. Fortunately, this decision and self-sacrifice will never be necessary, because Jesus paid my sister's penalty for sin when He self-sacrificially died for her, and for every other person.* We have strong biblical reasons to believe that Eternal Misery won't happen and Universal Restoration will happen. Therefore, I have strong biblical reasons to believe that God will reconcile my sister with Him and with me, so ultimately she and I can say hello, cry & laugh, hug, and live together. This is the way it should be – with God producing the best possible ending – and the way all of us should hope it will be. This good ending would actualize both of the two songs chosen by Caryl for her memorial service, because God will make "I'll Be Seeing You" happen, will convert our hopes into reality. And her other song – "What a Wonderful World" – will be true in Afterlife with Universal Restoration, but not with Eternal Misery because this would be certainly not-wonderful for unsaved people, and also probably not-wonderful for saved people who love unsaved people. * But... imagine that “making the deal” is necessary, and is allowed. In this sad situation, would you be willing to give up your Eternal Joy if this would prevent Eternal Misery for another person? would you do it for someone you love? for a stranger? {Frederic Farrar, a scholar who wrote Life of Christ, says “yes, I would make the trade” for just one person, even for "my worst enemy."} Would you do it for a thousand strangers? {re: this 1000-person deal, think about “the greatest good for the greatest number” and use the Golden Rule by asking “what would I want another person to do for me – and for others in The Thousand, for us – if our situations were reversed?”} What if instead of 1000, it was every person who ever lived? would you do whatever was necessary to prevent Eternal Misery for all persons? Fortunately for us, God has said YES and He has the power needed to do it, and He has done it. How? God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) decided to save us, and The Son did save us with His graciously sacrificial death and powerfully victorious resurrection, showing us that He is stronger than death, that He can (and will) give us Eternal Life with Joy. Asking "would you [or God] do whatever was necessary to prevent Eternal Misery for all persons?" is a wrong question, due to its wrong time-framing, because God has clearly told us (in Genesis 3:22) that He already has made the decision that He will prevent Eternal Misery, that because He is merciful He will not let any person live forever in a state of sin (i.e. with eternal misery), that a sinner "must not... live forever." This divine decision was actualized when He prevented Eternal Sinful Life in Genesis 3, by removing His "tree of life" so sinners would not live forever. Later, with His self-sacrificing crucifixion and victorious resurrection, Jesus earned salvation – with Eternal Joy we can keep – for some of us (if FA) or (if UR) for all of us. {more} a bonus: Although this isn't relevant for examining “what will happen in hell,” here is an interesting (and strange) example of translating that isn't necessary, that produces... the strange absence of Yeshua: The actual name of Jesus was Yeshua, but... we usually call him Jesus because "Yeshua is the Hebrew name, and its English spelling is Joshua. Iesous is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name, and its English spelling is Jesus." But why isn't the English spelling of Yeshua simply Yeshua? (i.e. why should it be changed? there is no reason) And why don't we just speak His name as Yeshua? A simple non-translation that retains Yeshua would be more historically accurate – it was His actual name (e.g. if someone had shouted “hey, Jesus” He would not have responded) – and it has a better sound (it's more pleasantly mellow, I think), and it avoids the awkwardness of speaking too many s-sounds, so instead of “Jesus's disciples” (with three consecutive s-sounds) we can say “Yeshua's disciples” (with one s-sound). {note: in these two paragraphs, all italics are added by me} The web-page "Jesus, Jeshua, Joshua, Yeshua, Yehoshua" describes a profound symbolism we rarely see in Bibles that have been translated into English: "The Hebrew/Aramaic version of the name Jesus is Yeshua, and yeshuah is a Hebrew word that means salvation. Speaking in Hebrew, the angel made a wordplay on the name of the child, 'You shall call His name Yeshua, for He will save (yoshia) His people from their sins' (Matthew 1:21)." But the clever-and-meaningful symbolism of His name is lost when instead we read "Jesus" and "save" because our translations (for some strange reason) don't simply let Yeshua be Yeshua, and don't tell us that "save" is yoshia, an action-verb that produces yeshuah, so we don't see that Yeshua produces yeshuah.* / The page also explains variations of the name: "Yeshua and Joshua are actually the same name. When the Hebrew name Yehoshua (Joshua) appears in Aramaic, the Aramaic pronunciation truncates it into Yeshua (Jeshua). Yeshua is simply a short version of Yehoshua. To put it in English names and terms, the Hebrew for Jesus is a short version of the Hebrew name for Joshua. Our Master’s Aramaic name is Yeshua but His full Hebrew name is Yehoshua." {* We can see this meaningful symbolism in the Orthodox Jewish Bible. And the angel's message could be translated into an English sentence that retains the meaningful symbolism of yeshuah and Yeshua (the correct Hebrew name) yet still flows well in English. The name of our savior also would have a better “sound” if we were reading & speaking the more-beautiful Yeshua instead of the less-beautiful Jesus.}
an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview..Divine Fire Throughout the Bible, fire often symbolizes God's divine presence-and-power and actions. A few examples of divine fire are the burning bush (Exodus 3), pillar of fire (Exodus 13), burning of sacrifices (Leviticus 9, 1 Kings 18), river of fire (Daniel 7), refining furnace (Malachi 3-4), Jesus baptizing with fire (Matthew 3, Luke 3), "everyone will be salted with fire" (Mark 9), Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2), testing & destroying works (1 Corinthians 3), consuming fire (Hebrews 12, Deuteronomy 4), and "the lake of fire" (Revelation 20). The Lake of Fire that is The Second Death What will be done to an unbeliever (i.e. WWJD?) in "the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:11-15) that "is the second death" ? If this "fire" is divine presence-and-power in action, God could eliminate sin — why would He do this? because He hates sin and what it does to us — in two ways, either by using His divine power/fire to consume sinners (to kill them, producing Annihilation) or to consume sin within sinners (to purify them, producing Restoration). / Can fire be used to purify? Yes. Ancient metal-technologies used fire to purify precious metals, so the Greek word for fire (πῦρ, transliterated as pur or pyr) is used in derived words like purify, as when making pure by using fire. We see the purifying power of God's divine fire in Malachi 3:2-3: "Who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? He is like a refiner's fire, and like launderer's soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness." In each view, what is The Second Death? • in Final Annihilation (FA) it's a “total death” annihilation of body-and-soul that is permanent, with no possibility of resurrection in the future, or we can ask: in the Second Death, what is destroyed? • with FA it's the sinner's existence, so their sin is eliminated, If you want a quick preview or review of the main ideas,the sections above & below are summarized in the Short Overview.an option: I strongly encourage you to first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. a “big picture” view of Fire and Death and Baptism As explained above, Second Death in The Lake of Fire could be: total death (if Final Annihilation, FA); or (if purgatorial Universal Restoration, pUR) the death-of-sin that is symbolized by death-with-Christ during baptism, as in Romans 6; or (if Eternal Misery, EM) a living death. These would end the sinner's existence or sinful nature or quality of life, using fire that kills or purifies or torments. There are strong biblical reasons to reject EM so I'll focus on FA and pUR in this section, when looking at Fire and Death and Baptism, beginning with... When we're comparing FA and pUR, we can imagine two ways for a divine consuming fire (in the lake of fire) to destroy, to annihilate. Throughout the Bible, fire often symbolizes the divine presence-and-power & action of God, often manifested in a consuming fire that... would be a person-damaging hurtful fire of God if He uses The Lake of Fire to consume a sinner, to annihilate the person; would be a person-improving helpful fire of God if He uses The Lake of Fire to consume sin within a person, to annihilate their sin, to purify the person and produce repentance-and-restoration during their educating-correcting-healing process of purgatorial pUR-Hell that God does for them in The Lake of Fire. also: Jesus tells us (Mark 8:35) that "whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever will lose his life for the sake of Me and the good-news will save it." Here the Greek word for lose [apollymi] also can mean destroy (it's the most common word for destroy) so does salvation require a destroying – during Life and/or Afterlife – of all that is non-essential in the person's life, where essential means living for Christ, living to serve God? This kind of destruction is described by Paul (in 1 Corinthians 3:15-20) when he warns believers (and maybe also unbelievers?) that "each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done" and some of a person's works will be "burned up" so they "will suffer loss" although the person "will be saved, but only as through fire." And in Mark 9:49 Jesus tells us that "everyone will be salted with fire." {J Preston Eby, re: why Christians are not hurt by The Lake of Fire} {in some of the many web-resources I've found, videos from The Total Victory of Christ (by Michael Webber) describe how God could produce UR in a Baptism by Fire (and brimstone) to purify-from-sin in The Lake of Fire that is The Second Death.} {what are the biblical meanings of Greek-apollymi & English-destruction?} Romans 12:2 – Is "being transformed by the renewing of your mind" a process that begins in Life for Christians, and will be completed in Afterlife for only them? or will God do this for everyone? How can death lead to life? In Romans 6:1-14, Paul connects our death-to-sin with the death-of-Jesus (in His crucifixion) and the death of our old life, and he connects our re-birth to a new life with the re-birth of Jesus (in His resurrection). Paul explains that "all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death ..... our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for the one who has died is freed from sin" but "if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection ..... we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life." This is a way to describe the process of becoming a born-again Christian: a person's old sinful nature must die (analogous to the death of Christ)* so they can be transformed by God (as in the resurrection of Christ) to "walk in newness of life." When describing this process, Paul uses the symbolism of baptism. Although he doesn't split the baptismal process into immersion and un-immersion, it seems “symbolically logical” to think about the process in this way: a person's old life (enslaved by sin, living in sin) is washed away by immersion in water, so with un-immersion they can arise with a new life (with old sins forgiven, and with God supplying His spiritual power to help them overcome their human tendency to feel-think-behave in sinful ways). Using this symbolism,... For a born-again Christian, the new life begins during their Life — symbolized by their Baptism With Water that combines Death-of-Old and Birth-of-New, in a Baptismal Death (with immersion symbolizing their Death-to-Sin in their Death-with-Christ) followed by their Baptismal ReBirth (with un-immersion symbolizing their Victory-over-Sin in their new Life-with-Christ) — before their Biological Life ends in their First Death, in their Biological Death. But with purgatorial Universal Restoration (pUR) for a person who was unsaved-during-Life (i.e. unsaved before their First Death), their process of becoming born-again would begin during their Afterlife with a Second Death, with a Baptismal Death that (as explained below) is a Baptism With Fire. In pUR the Second Death of an unsaved person would be their unpleasant educational corrective-and-healing experience in Hell (with beneficial guiding and empowering by the Holy Spirit) that causes their spiritual death (of old) and rebirth (of new) so they can become totally sanctified (personally) and (interpersonally) totally reconciled with people & with God, by fully loving people & God. How can death lead to life? In Romans 6:1-14, Paul connects our death-to-sin with the death-of-Jesus (in His crucifixion) and the death of our old life, and he connects our re-birth to a new life with the re-birth of Jesus (in His resurrection). Paul explains [using the symbolism of baptism] that "{.....} we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life." This is a way to describe the process of becoming a born-again Christian: a person's old sinful nature must die (analogous to the death of Christ) so they can be transformed by God (as in the resurrection of Christ) to "walk in newness of life." {.....} In pUR the Second Death of an unsaved person would be their unpleasant educational corrective-and-healing experience in Hell (with beneficial guiding & empowering by the Holy Spirit) that causes their spiritual death (of old) and rebirth (of new) so they can become totally sanctified (personally) and (interpersonally) totally reconciled with people & with God, by fully loving people & God. * A similar claim, but without the symbolism of baptism, is Galatians 5:24, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires," analogous to His death by crucifixion. In the typical biblical baptism, a person is immersed in water. When during Life a person is thrown into a lake of water their experience is immersion in water as in a baptism with water. By analogy, when during Afterlife a person is thrown into the Lake of Fire their experience might be immersion in fire as in a baptism with fire. As explained above in "Death producing Life," a person's old life-of-sin can be washed away (symbolically) by immersion in water during Life, or burned away (actually) by immersion in fire during Afterlife. John the Baptist, in Matthew 3:11-12 (and Luke 3:16-17), prophesies that — by contrast with John himself, who baptized with only water — Jesus "will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." Maybe this divine baptism with fire will occur (for unbelievers) in The Lake of Fire, as claimed by pUR. This would produce a result — Jesus "will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" — that provides support for pUR because wheat and chaff are parts of the same plant, so they may symbolize parts of the same person. During a divine baptism with fire in The Lake of Fire, Jesus could "burn up" a person's chaff (the evil parts of their character) so He can "gather His wheat [only the good parts of this person's character] into the barn," as described above and below. You can see relationships (between passages examined above and below) in this diagram: |
My Views: Currently, "I'm very confident, but not certain, that the most common view — Eternal Misery (EM) — will not happen in Afterlife." But "the other views — Final Annihilation (FA) and Universal Restoration (UR) or semi-UR — have strong biblical support, and I think each is a possibility." My confident conclusion (about EM) and unconfident non-conclusion (about FA versus UR) are a result of... My Two-Stage Process of Evaluation: • first, beginning in 1987, I compared FA versus EM, and — as explained in my two papers (1-page and longer) comparing the biblical support for EM and FA — I found the support to be much stronger for FA. I also concluded that UR "is inconsistent with what the Bible teaches. ... the Bible tells us what God has decided, and it doesn’t seem to be universal salvation." { before Step 1 began in 1987, instead of asking questions and studying/thinking, mostly I just assumed EM. } {more about Reasons for Optimism-without-Certainty} {you can read my page, and also other authors - on the web & in books} |
In the second stage of my evaluation — when comparing FA with UR — why is there no clear winner? Below are two answers, responding to these two why-questions:
WHY is my process of evaluation-and-conclusion difficult and inconclusive?
WHY hasn't God made “the answer” clear in His Bible, so the process would be easy?
Why is my process of evaluation difficult, with ambiguous conclusion?
during my Stage 1: In evaluations of FA versus EM, whole-Bible principles (the character of God plus Conditional Immortality and the related Death Penalty for Sin) strongly support FA; and isolated hell-verses are not conclusive.during my Stage 2: In evaluations of FA versus UR, whole-Bible principles seem consistent with either FA or UR; and we can find different verses that provide support for FA or for UR. In the Bible as a whole and in its parts,
we see strong support for FA, but UR has strong counter-arguments, and
we see strong support for UR, but FA has strong counter-arguments.
For example, when we ask “will God allow unsaved people to believe-and-repent in their Afterlife?” — an extremely important question because a “yes” would weaken most biblical objections to UR — the Bible doesn't explicitly say “yes” or “no”.
Why has God allowed this ambiguity?
Certainly our uncertainty is allowed by God. And probably it's caused by God, maybe to avoid “proof” so – during our Education With Life – we can develop skills in living by faith, so during Life we can show God “what's in our hearts” because, with our responses to Jesus and what He commands us to do, "the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.* (Luke 2:35)"
I think this is the main reason. But maybe it's also...
to restrain humans from “running wild” during Life, because without fear-based motivation some people — if they expect UR instead of FA (or expect FA instead of EM) in Afterlife — might run wild;* or
to produce temporary psychological suffering in hell if for awhile people think their miserable hell-experience will end in a bad way (in death and non-existence with FA) or might not end (if they'll get EM), even if eventually it will end in a good way (with UR).
Or maybe the answer actually IS clear in the Bible, and we (including me) are just not seeing what should be clear.But this seems unlikely, because devout intelligent Bible-believing Christians – after carefully studying the questions – have reached differing conclusions about what the Bible teaches, so there are some advocates for each doctrine, for FA and UR plus semi-UR (the 3 doctrine-views I think are plausible), and even for biblically-implausible EM. So evidently most of us — all except those who are now advocating the doctrine that correctly describes what will happen, and probably this is a minority because the majority now believe EM but this probably won't happen — are missing the clarity. / Earlier I describe how "later" we'll have "clear understanding" but maybe there is a way to begin this understanding now? instead of claiming certainty about "our correct interpretation" we can try to humbly understand the Bible – trying to see its overall "big picture" themes, and its many important details – at overall themes) and
* The biblical ambiguity (about whether God will cause Annihilation or Restoration, or even Eternal Misery) is one reason for our overall uncertainty — due to an absence of strong divine persuasion for most people during Life — that seems to be intentionally caused by God, that is an “evangelistic responsibility” argument against EM and for UR.
*I.O.U. – Soon (maybe in mid-2022) I'll say more about the educational utility of ambiguity, with analogies to the human method of “inquiry learning” that is summarized earlier.
my optimism about Universal Restoration
Currently I'm optimistic that Universal Reconciliation will happen, about 90% confident. Why this high? Because overall, when everything is considered, I think UR can logically respond to claims of evidences-against-UR more effectively than FA or (especially) EM can logically respond to claims of evidences-for-UR. Why this low? (i.e. why not 100% ?) Because despite the effective logical responses by UR, I think there is...
ambiguity in UR-versus-FA: Based on my careful studying of what the Bible teaches about three views, I'm very confident that only two views of “what will happen in Hell” — purgatorial Universal Restoration (pUR, aka UR) and Final Annihilation (FA), but not Eternal Misery — are biblically justifiable possibilities. Why do I think it could be two views, instead of one view? It's because...
defenders of FA have “answers” (but are they satisfactory?) for pro-UR arguments that include pro-UR verses you see above plus other verses; and
defenders of UR have “answers” (but are they satisfactory?) for pro-FA arguments that include pro-FA verses like Second Death in The Lake of Fire and statements about two kinds of people (with one kind being burned with fire) and others.
Therefore we see biblical ambiguity due to biblical support for UR but also for FA. For example, the Bible doesn't clearly say “yes” or “no” when we ask two important questions: “can God (and will God) save a person in their Afterlife if this person is rejecting Christ at the end of their Life?” { I.O.U. – Later I'll more-thoroughly describe some of the Bible-based logical arguments and counter-arguments (and counter-counter-arguments,...) that can be used to defend UR, and to defend FA.}
One kind of strong Bible-based evidence is theological, because of what the Bible tells us about character of God, by telling us that He is loving, and He wants justice. It seems to me that the best way to achieve justice (= righteousness) is for God to heal all people and all relationships to lovingly produce The Best Possible Ending for His Story with Universal Restoration, by restoring every person so they will be what He always wanted them to be. When I think about how wonderful this would be, how just-and-loving God would be (with love-in-action producing righteousness that is justice) if He does this, if He has decided to end His story this way, it gives me a strong reason to enthusiastically praise God for everything He is and does (including what He will do for people in Hell, will do for their benefit by destroying their sinful nature) so it helps me more fully love God with my whole heart-and-mind.
Here is another factor to consider: Einstein once said that his Theory of General Relativity (with a wider scope than his Theory of Special Relativity that is a Theory of Invariance based on Principles of Constancy) was “too beautiful to not be true.” In a similar way, is Universal Restoration “too good to not be true” ? {of course, neither claim is based on formal logic, it's more intuitive logic – although "too good" IS based on what the Bible tells us about the character of our God who is totally good – but each claim is an idea to think about, is a factor to consider.}
But even though there is ambiguity and thus uncertainty, I'm noticing a trend in my views: the more I'm learning about UR, the more optimistic I'm becoming, due to my increased understanding of the strong biblical support for pUR (and the weak biblical support against pUR) when all things are considered. {summaries of biblical support for UR - very short & short & longer & medium-sized & longer}
Here is a history of my rough estimates: After 23 years of studying, in 2010 my rough estimates for each view were {98% FA, 1% EM, 1% UR}; but in 2014 when I began learning more about UR, this changed to about 50-50 between FA and UR; and now in mid-2021 it's roughly {90% UR, 10% FA, 0% EM}. It's just "roughly" because my current estimates for the reality-truth of UR can range from 70% to 98% (depending on how I'm weighting different aspects of the overall evidence) with a roughly estimated time-weighted average of 90%, about 9/10 confident.
an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. Effects on RelationshipsEven though the views are almost identical in other ways, their differences (in the final state of unsaved humans) can make a big difference in our relationships with God and people, as in... my relationships with unbelievers:I'm less eager to share The Gospel when I must argue against the common assumption that The Good News is a "mix" that includes both Good News (of God giving Eternal Joy) and Bad News (of God causing Eternal Misery). {more – evangelism with mixed news (good+bad) and mixed motivations (love+fear) and my mixed feelings about the tensions of conflicting responsibilities – and why does UR promote an us-and-us feeling instead of the us-and-them that tends to occur with FA & EM? A Reason for Action plus Reasons for CautionThe main reason for action is simple, but the many reasons for caution are complex. a reason for action: When fellow Christians say “God will cause Eternal Misery for most of the people He created” I think they are saying untrue-and-harmful things about the character of God. Unfortunately, for many people this idea about God makes it more difficult to fully trust God and fully love Him,* to say “YES !” and become a devoted disciple who wants to serve God (and their neighbors) because they are motivated by love for Him, not by a terrifying fear that He will cause them to suffer in Eternal Misery if they say NO. {although this "main reason" is simple, motivations due to love and fear can produce a variety of effects, and different people are affected in different ways} {* or makes it difficult to believe that He (a God who is truly loving) even exists} {more about reasons for actions} {in my “evangelistic” page for non-believers this reason for action is described – briefly and more deeply – as an ugly elephant in the room, an elephant in the mind, with thinking that continues to assume EM unless we openly discuss EM and challenge it} reasons for caution: These are too complex to briefly summarize. Instead this paragraph is an overview (with links) of why there are reasons for caution — to help you develop a framework for thinking about the current situation and options for responding — by listing the related sections that describe... why I'm disappointed-and-sad about claims for Eternal Misery (EM) by other believers; their responses to people (others & myself) who propose Final Annihilation (FA) or Universal Restoration (UR), and my own limited actions; external pressures (personal and professional) to conform by not opposing EM, and internal pressures (to avoid thinking “I was wrong” or “we were wrong”); two traditions (bad & better, that did & didn't happen) with many harmful effects caused by the inertia of tradition; my personal experiences, cautious attitude, limited actions; my reasons for caution are interpersonal (with concerns about myself and church communities & their leaders) and functional (re: evangelistic responsibilities and practical effects); conflicting factors & biblical ambiguity - action with caution & my feelings about caution. [[conflicting factors cause confusion (with conflicting feelings) for me; i.o.u. - I'll develop this section later, maybe in mid-2022, explaining the tensions between key ideas: respect among Christians (essentials, nonessentials, all things); others saying harmful-and-untrue things about God, but... if Christians are motivated by intending to honor God, is this enough? a God-honoring intention can produce either defenses of EM or criticisms of EM (this is possible due to valid IF-BECAUSE logic, with differing first-conclusions about "IF God will cause EM" being true-if-EM but false-if-CI) with "how?" explained here and here. / another iou - most ideas already are below (or above) but writing a condensed summary here will be useful for providing a "big picture" overview. ]] Here are two versions (revised & original, before its latest revision) of my section about... my relationships with believers: Why do I feel disappointed and sad? Because I think fellow Christians are saying untrue-and-harmful things about the character of God, and because within the community of believers there are strong pressures to conform, to avoid challenging culturally-accepted assumptions, to continuing believing that God will cause Eternal Misery for most of the people He has created. But... should we continue saying these things, and exerting pressures to accept the current cultural assumptions? or should we, like the noble Bereans, examine the biblical basis for doctrines-of-afterlife (that make claims about “what will happen in hell”) and openly discuss what we find? if yes, of course we should communicate respectfully with love; when we're doing this, useful principles are "in essentials unity, in non-essentials diversity, in all things charity." When we're deciding whether a doctrine about “what will happen in hell” is essential, we should look at its importance-and-certainty by asking if it's theologically important {I think “no, it's not important enough to make this doctrine essential” even though it can have major effects on our thinking & actions} and if it's taught with certainty in the Bible {I think “no”}.
my relationships with believers:How do I feel? I'm disappointed by the many Christians who (in the past) made Eternal Misery “the traditional belief” – despite its biblical weakness – and now (in the present) are continuing to support this choice, mainly because they are assuming instead of studying. And I'm sad because when fellow Christians say “God will cause Eternal Misery for most of the people He created” I think they are saying untrue-and-harmful things about the character of God, and this can have negative effects on our evangelism and (more important) our discipleship. I feel disappointed and sad about what they're doing, and this is frustrating. But I think Christians who believe the Bible and love God can intend to honor God by either defending EM-doctrine or criticizing EM-doctrine. And I recognize that for many Christians a “belief” in Eternal Misery is a loosely-held unexamined assumption they haven't thought much about, rather than a firm conclusion based on a careful study using biblical evidence and logic. How do they feel? This varies widely, and responses can occur on two levels, personal & professional. second-hand experiences: Based on what I've read, the responses by fellow Christians are sometimes moderately hostile personally (but can be very hostile professionally) toward a person proposing FA, and typically – based on stories I've heard from Alex Smith & George W Sarris & others – are often more hostile toward a person proposing UR, or even describing it as a biblically-plausible possibility. {iou - later, I'll write more about this.} Skillful Actions (in Writing & Conversation)When I'm deciding whether to do an action, one factor is deciding if this action (in writing or conversation) can be done with skill. Why? Because although I think most people would reject Eternal Misery if they fully understood all of the evidence (including everything in this page and beyond), developing a high level of understanding isn't easy. A person cannot “learn everything all at once as a whole,” instead they must learn ideas one at a time, and then organize their ideas into a coherent whole that “makes sense” for their mind & heart, logically & emotionally.In an effort to help people learn more efficiently & effectively, I'm trying to be more skillful in selecting the most important ideas, sequencing them (by deciding what to say first, and next,...), and explaining each idea clearly, doing all of this skillfully in a way that “makes sense” in a person's mind & heart, logically & emotionally. This isn't easy, for either writing or conversing. Strategies for teaching (by selecting, sequencing, explaining) are different when writing a web-page and during a conversation: Each of my web-pages (intended for Christians and for non-Christians) is what it is. A page is the same for everyone, although each person can self-customize it by choosing what to read, skim, or skip, and what links to click. I'll continue working on my pages, developing-and-revising them to improve all aspects of their selecting, sequencing, explaining. { The main changes will be making each page shorter so people who “don't want to read much” can get the most important ideas more quickly. Giving readers a more time-efficient way to learn was my goal for the Table of Contents; in its current form, I think parts work well for doing this, but other parts are “too much information” for the ToC, instead most of the info should be moved into the full-length sections, which should be thoroughly revised to combine ideas from the ToC and full sections, but eliminating most duplications. Writing well takes time, and I'm continuing to work on it while also doing other things in life. Also, I want to make the "extras page" (ur2.htm) shorter by selecting the most important "extras" to keep in the page, and putting the rest into another page, ur3.htm }
Pressures – External (personal & professional) and Internal External pressures to conform can be felt in different ways, at different levels:every person in a church (who is part of the community, with some being active in ministries, and a few leaders) can feel personal social pressures to conform, andevery person in a ministry (in a church, organization, or school) can feel professional institutional pressures to conform: What? The "pressures to conform" are pressures to accept EM, or (more commonly) to at least not speak against it. These external pressures can produce external conflicts that people usually want to avoid. And internal pressures can produce internal conflicts that people usually want to avoid. People often are motivated to reduce the internal conflict (the unpleasant cognitive dissonance) that occurs when they conclude that “I have been wrong” or “we have been wrong” or another person says “you have been wrong.” People can reduce their internal cognitive dissonance by finding ways to persuade themselves (by using biased motivated reasoning) that they have not been wrong in the past, and are not wrong now. Our human tendency to avoid conflict (both external & internal) is a non-biblical factor that affects our evaluations of claims about “what will happen in hell.” It's one of the reasons for Christians to have mixed feelings about hoping that God will not cause Eternal Misery or that He will cause Universal Restoration, even though all people (including all Christians) should hope for UR because it would be the best possible ending for the grand story of what God is doing in the world. two traditions: Why do traditions – one that did happen, another that didn't – often make it seem wise to avoid saying “God is more loving than is commonly believed, because He won't cause Eternal Misery” ? an unfortunate tradition: In some situations, our thoughts-and-actions are heavily influenced by the powerful inertia of tradition enforced by the powerful psychology-sociology of conformity, as in pressures (personal and/or professional) to affirm a “traditional” doctrine of Eternal Misery. I think this is unfortunate because it's pressuring Christians who love God to say untrue-and-harmful things about His character. {a tough question: can Christians have mixed feelings about hoping for all to be saved? } a better tradition: Imagine that instead of most people assuming EM, very few believe it. In this cultural context, it would be more difficult (compared with now) to claim “our loving Father will cause Eternal Misery.” And it would be easier to proclaim “our loving Father will not cause Eternal Misery” (because He either will Annihilate or Reconcile) and this freedom would be much better. We should be able to freely proclaim the goodness of God, by saying “He will cause good with love-in-action, instead of causing infinite harm with EM.” Ideally, we should not have to feel afraid that saying “God will not cause infinite harm” could endanger a church and its leaders. But currently we must feel afraid because of pressures to say “God will cause infinite misery for most of the people that He caused to exist in Life-and-Afterlife.” / accepting reality: Ideally, we shouldn't have to feel afraid, but... with the reality of our tradition and our current church-situations, often the wise-and-loving decision is to behave with cautious inaction, to avoid criticizing a claim that God will cause Eternal Misery. Why? My Reasons for CautionI'm confident about the Conditional Immortality (CI) that would occur with either purgatorial Universal Restoration (pUR) or Final Annihilation (FA), but not with Eternal Misery (EM). I'm hopeful-and-optimistic about pUR. In spite of the favorable responses I've personally received, when I'm wondering whether to share my views "I'm still being cautious, moving slowly" for two kinds of reasons, interpersonal and functional. Interpersonal Reasons {asking “how would it affect people in a church?”} • Reasons for Caution: I'm mainly concerned about how my actions might affect other people, but also how this might affect my relationships with them, because... I don't know how a church (its members & leaders) would be affected by discussing “what will happen in hell?”, especially if the discussion is favorable to CI so it challenges a “traditional” assuming-of-EM. • Reasons for Action: If there is no discussion, many people will continue to believe – usually by assuming, without carefully studying what the Bible actually teaches – that God will cause Eternal Misery. This makes me sad because when people say “God will cause Eternal Misery” I think they are saying untrue-and-harmful things about the character of God so I'm hoping they will stop saying these things. A productive discussion (with love & respect) could lead more people to ask “what will happen in hell?”, to search for truth by carefully studying the Bible, and hopefully find truth. {the main reason for action - so we don't continue ignoring the ugly elephant in the room}
Functional Reasons {evangelistic responsibilities and practical effects} Evangelistic Responsibilities: Christians should try to avoid giving False Hope and the Bad Surprise that would occur IF during Life a person expects pUR (purgatorial Universal Restoration) but in Afterlife they get FA (Final Annihilation) or EM (Eternal Misery), or IF they expect FA but get EM. We also should try to avoid causing False Fear IF we proclaim “EM” but FA or UR will happen, or IF we proclaim “FA” and UR will happen. Due to biblical ambiguity about The Final Results of Hell, these two conflicting responsibilities – to avoid causing False Hope or False Fear – produce a tough dilemma. Practical Effects: A person's beliefs about Hell will affect their motivations (fear-based & love-based) to repent and live by faith. A belief in EM-Hell will increase fear motives — due to fearing the infinite horror of Eternal Misery, instead of thinking {with FA} “death wouldn't be so bad” or {with pUR} “even if I now say NO during Life, later I can say YES during Afterlife and (after a non-infinite time in UR-Hell) then I'll be fine” — but it tends to decrease love motives due to not respecting the character of a God who is believed to be an EM-causer, and unfortunately this disrespect makes it much more difficult to fully trust God and love Him. Many people have a pragmatic concern about society — they are worried that if there is no fear of EM, sinners will “run wild”, causing great harm to themselves and to others — because EM seems to be pragmatically useful in its fear-based restraining of sin. But... the fearing of EM has some beneficial practical effects, AND some detrimental practical effects to (again) produce a tough dilemma. / This worry about “sinners running wild” was common in the early church (its first few centuries) when pUR was commonly believed, but was less commonly proclaimed because leaders were self-restrained by their doctrine of reserve, as explained by J.W. Hanson in Chapter 4 of his book (1899) about the history of Universal Restoration. Conflicting Factors: In each of these reasons for being cautious — for not discussing “what will happen in hell” and not claiming “I think CI (with either UR or FA) will happen, and EM won't happen” — the caution (the not-discussing & not-claiming, with non-action) produces some good effects AND some bad effects: discussing hell in church could lead to controversy, BUT it could help us discover biblical truth; we should avoid causing false hope AND false fear; believing EM usually increases one motive (due to fear of EM) for conversion-and-discipleship, BUT it usually decreases a more important motive (when believing EM leads to fear-and-disgust that makes it more difficult to fully love an EM-causing God); a fear of EM produces beneficial effects AND detrimental effects. Due to these conflicting factors, each reason for caution is closely related to a reason for action, so I (and we) have a tough dilemma. Biblical Ambiguity: There are strong arguments (and counter-arguments) for (and against) two views* – so it's difficult to be confident about which view is correct {is true because it will happen} – and this ambiguity adds to the dilemma. / * I think we find strong biblical support for the two CI-views (for FA and UR) but not for EM. Actions with Wisdom: In principle, I already have decided that action is wise, in the long run. But in each specific short-term situation, I want to use wise caution, and so far I usually have been deciding to not discuss and not claim. Although I'm sad when thinking about the unfortunate tradition of assuming (in most churches) that “God will cause the infinite misery of Eternal Misery,” I will continue to acknowledge the reality of situations as they really are — not how I think they should be — when I'm deciding how to wisely control my actions. But... later in the long run, I think that within Bible-believing churches our evaluations of “what claims are biblically justifiable” and thus “what claims are wise” will change, and I (along with others) will do EM-questioning actions more often.
• my relationship with God:Here are my responses to what I think (with appropriate humility – not too little, not too much) is the basic justice and character of God with each view: if I try to imagine – contrary to what I believe – that God will cause Eternal Misery, the horror of EM makes it extremely difficult for me to imagine being able to fully love God (with my whole heart, soul, and mind),* but... Also, I'm frustrated by the biblical ambiguity when we're evaluating FA-versus-UR, so I find myself asking “why don't You make it more clear?” But I believe there are now (and will be later) good answers for this question and for other tough questions, so ultimately everyone will be satisfied and will say "God is good, and I'm glad He created me." * Can we honor God by defending EM, and also by criticizing EM? Relationships of Other People (Believers & Unbelievers) with Each Other and with God:Soon I will begin asking others “what do you think?” to discover how they feel. Do they respond like me, or do they find it equally easy, when they imagine each view, to fully love people and God. {more about relationships} our attitudes toward other Christians and God — Principlesfor Discussing Doctrines Respectfully, with Christian Love:Jesus commanded us (in John 13:34 and elsewhere) to "love one another," and Paul tells us to "take delight in honoring each other." To help us love-and-honor each other more effectively — as individuals, and as a whole body of believers — useful principles are "in essentials unity, in non-essentials diversity, in all things charity." {who said this and why?} How can we decide if a doctrine is essential, instead of non-essential?* We should look at its importance-and-certainty by asking, "is it theologically important, AND is it taught with certainty in the Bible?"In my opinion: our doctrinal response when we ask “what is the ultimate fate of unsaved people?” is important (because it affects our thinking-and-actions) but is not important enough to be considered essential for Christian faith; AND the doctrine that is correct (is true because it matches the reality of what actually will happen in afterlife) is not taught with certainty, so it cannot be known with certainty.* When answering these questions about importance and certainty, to decide if a doctrine is essential or non-essential,... a Christian should have appropriate humility — not too much (by declaring that no doctrine is important-and-certain) and not too little (by declaring that every doctrine they propose is important-and-certain) — so we can avoid the rigid arrogances of extreme mushy relativism or extreme unjustifiable dogmatism. This section combines ideas from above and below, about relationships with fellow Christians and with God. Below, I describe what I think-and-feel about the character of God when I imagine that He will cause Eternal Misery, or Annihilation, or Reconciliation. Although some people claim that people have no right to do this kind of thinking-and-feeling, it seems unavoidable, and I'm confident that — when it's done with appropriate humility (not too little and not too much) — it's an essential part of our relationship with God. I think...• unbelievers will be affected by a doctrine of Eternal Misery: When an unbeliever is deciding whether they will “say YES to God,” what they think about hell will affect their minds-and-hearts when they are wondering “can I trust God, and love Him?” In our current culture, most unbelievers are assuming — due to commonly shared “beliefs in their culture,” reinforced by what they typically hear from Christians — that God will cause Eternal Misery. BECAUSE they think God will do EM, many unbelievers feel & think, in their hearts & minds that this would be unfair and they don't like the character of this EM-God (who will cause Eternal Misery) so they cannot trust God and love Him, and they will not say YES. This is a reason for Christians to feel sadness.• devout believers can honorably defend a doctrine of Eternal Misery: I think defenders of EM "are saying untrue-and-harmful things about the character of God." But I also think they defend EM with sincere motivations. They love God, and want to honor Him, so — BECAUSE they think the Bible teaches EM, so God will cause EM — they want to defend His character by defending the ethics of causing Eternal Misery. For similar reasons,... • devout believers can honorably criticize a doctrine of Eternal Misery: I think the biblical evidence against EM is strong.* Therefore, when I'm trying to imagine “how I would feel IF God will cause Eternal Misery for most of the people He created,” my if-then thinking is that “this would be horrible IF it happened, but it won't.” I don't think God will cause EM, so when I question the ethics of EM I'm not criticizing the character of “who I believe God actually is” BECAUSE I don't think He is the EM-causing God that I'm criticizing. *{the character of God – when we ask "What Will Jesus Do?" – is one of many Bible-based reasons to reject EM} IF and BECAUSE: These related concepts are important. Why? When we're trying to imagine the character of God IF He will cause EM, some devout God-honoring Christians think “YES, this IF will happen,” but others think “NO, this IF won't happen.” After a person decides YES or NO, they now are thinking that either “BECAUSE God will cause EM, ” or “BECAUSE God won't cause EM, ”. They are thinking that... “BECAUSE Eternal Misery will happen, ” and they fill the blank by defending the ethics of EM, so their response will honor God, or “BECAUSE Eternal Misery won't happen, ” and they fill the blank by criticizing the ethics of EM, so their response will honor God.
With either conclusion about "BECAUSE", devout Bible-believing Christians can defend God's character by saying what they think-and-feel about what they have concluded He will do, or He won't do. Here is why: When a person who (unlike me) thinks "God will cause EM" defends this divine decision, they are not giving a general defense of everyone who intentionally causes long-term misery. They are only saying that, in this specific situation, “I trust God, so I have faith that BECAUSE God will do this, He must have ethically justifiable reasons for doing it.” {if a Christian thinks God will cause EM, should they “hope against what God wants” by hoping for FA or UR? yes, because in reality they “hope against what [they think] God wants” – although they are justified in wanting to praise God for whatever He does – they should humbly hope they are wrong about God wanting to cause EM, so they are hoping that God will not cause EM.} The Complex Ethics of Trying to Honor God Do you see how each way of thinking, and therefore each response — by either defending or criticizing the ethics of a God who would cause the infinite misery of Eternal Misery — can be motivated by loving God and wanting to honor Him? And in the community of Christians, we can "take delight in honoring each other" by recognizing, in our thinking and communicating, that proponents for each of the actions (defending or criticizing) can be motivated by a sincere desire to honor God, that a separation into “good guys” and “bad guys” (or into “Bible believers” and “Bible unbelievers”) are oversimplistic and... well, are just wrong.I.O.U. – Currently (in July 2021) this section is not fully developed, so it has lots of loose ends plus links to places where the complexities are examined in more detail. Later it will be developed more completely, with fewer loose ends. Here is a rough outline of basic ideas: intentions are important – and both views (defending EM or criticizing EM) can sincerely want to honor God, and behave with the intention of honoring God. intentions aren't everything – Why not? Consider these two analogies: • a defending of God (who has been accused of doing bad actions by causing EM) is in some ways similar to defending of a man (who has been accused of doing bad actions by molesting children). But the situations are very different in one important way; all people (except bad perverts) agree that child molesting is bad; and all people (except bad sadists) agree that a person who does long-term torturing is doing bad actions,* but... (in a difference) the Christians who think God will do EM will think that BECAUSE God will do EM – and because everything done by our good God is (by definition) a good action, simply because He does it – God's causing-of-EM will be a good action, not a bad action. / intentions and consequences: A well-intentioned defending of the human can {in the long run} have good consequences IF the accusations are false (if the man hasn't been molesting children) but can have bad consequences IF the accusations are true (if the man has been molesting children), e.g. in the case of a football coach when accusations were ignored by colleagues at Penn State. A well-intentioned defending of God could {in the long run} have good consequences in two ways; IF God will not cause EM, and if we persuade people that He will not do the bad action of EM; or IF God will cause EM, and we persuade people that God's causing-of-EM will be a good action.[[ the importance of truth -- notice the correlations between accurate predicting (will your IF-belief match the IF-reality of Hell?) and whether the consequences are good or bad. ]] avoiding false hope and avoiding false fear: with either mis-match between belief & reality (between what a person believes and the reality of what will happen in Hell) there will be bad consequences {#respt} because if we "get it wrong" either way, it's bad consequences; if we say "EM won't happen" and EM does happen (and some people have said NO to God, due to "not enough fear") we gave false hope; but if we say "EM will happen" and EM doesn't happen (and some people have said NO to God, due to thinking "I cannot trust-and-love God, or even believe God exists") we caused false fear;common defenses of EM -- claim that non-EM doesn't think sin is bad (@ FA/UR eliminate sin, EM preserves it); sin can be very bad & strong, if God is very good & stronger, with UR; related, against "finite sins (<100years) --> infinite penalty" by claiming any sin against infinite God is infinitely bad (@ #infinity in ur, ur2)ethical postmodernism (@ #hum, Isaiah 55:7-8, read context of verses, chapters, @ur2#isaiah55) claim "your ethical intuitions are worthless" so you can't know anything about ethics of anything God will do, instead of "your logical arguments are worthless" (with extreme oversimplification) we choose hell for self, God just gives us what we want -- @ #dpt, weak evidence (as argument against EM)
Here is a revised version of the section above, but it's much better – is condensed, with less duplication of ideas, plus other improvements – in its latest version and (with extra ideas & details) in my page for unbelievers. We should understand the importance of “if” and thus “because”,* so we will respectfully acknowledge that Bible-believing Christians – with appropriate humility (not too little, not too much) – can try to either defend EM-doctrine or criticize EM-doctrine. This understanding of if-thus-because will make it easier to respectfully discuss doctrines about hell. It's why even though I think fellow Christians are saying untrue-and-harmful things about the character of God when they say “God will cause (because He is sovereign) Eternal Misery for most of the people He created”, I think they are not motivated by disrespectful intentions (instead they are trying to honor God); they are not saying intentionally-slanderous (untrue and harmful) things about God. Also, I am not saying slanderous things about Actual God when I criticize the character of a God who would cause Eternal Misery, instead I'm criticizing the false idea of an EM-Causing God. {more} A section outlining the many biblical reasons to reject Eternal Misery ends by recognizing that "the process of choosing a hell-view usually is heavily influenced by non-biblical factors, like having mixed motives about hoping that include wanting to maintain fear-motivation and avoid giving false hope and avoid conflicts." All people (including Christians) want to avoid conflicts that are internal and external, are personal and interpersonal. We want to avoid the internal conflict that occurs when we hear a claim that “you've been wrong in your beliefs” or “your church has been wrong in its beliefs,” because these challenges produce unpleasant feelings in our minds & hearts. And we want to avoid the external conflict that would occur if we resist the strong pressures to conform, to continue believing the culturally-accepted assumption of Eternal Misery. {you can read more about relationships with other Christians that include internal conflicts due to cognitive dissonance, and external conflicts due to pressures that produce reasons for caution} * In logic, “if” is an important concept. When I evaluate the effects of our hell views on our thinking-and-feeling about God's character and I claim that "God would be least just-and-loving IF He will cause Eternal Misery," I'm not criticizing the actual character of God. Why not? Because I'm almost certain that God will not cause EM. Therefore (in my logical thinking) an EM-causing God is only a false idea-about-God. This false idea isn't God, instead it's an incorrect theory-claim invented by humans. So all I'm criticizing is the character of this false idea (about God) that is not the actual character of God as He really is. We should be gracious by using this logic of “if” for everyone. When we're trying to imagine the character of God IF He will cause EM, some devout God-honoring Christians think “YES, this IF will happen,” but others think “NO, this IF won't happen.” After a person decides YES or NO, they now are thinking that either “BECAUSE God will cause EM, ” or “BECAUSE God won't cause EM, ” and they fill the blank in a way that will honor God. They either...
With either conclusion about IF (and thus BECAUSE) a devout Bible-believing Christian can defend God's character by saying what they think-and-feel about what they have concluded He will do, or He won't do. {more about the ethics of honoring God if-and-because}* EM is biblically implausible for a variety of reasons including the mis-match when we compare the biblically revealed actual character of God with the character of a hypothetical EM-Causing God. The Bible tells us that God is good and He does good things, but He would do bad things IF He causes EM. {should we acknowledge the elephant in the room?} This contrast between Actual God (with good character) and a hypothetical EM-causing God (with bad character) is strong evidence that the hypothesis – claiming “God will cause Eternal Misery for most of the people He caused to exist” – is wrong.But when the character of God is being evaluated by non-Christians, are they more likely to genuinely love God if they think He will cause people-harmful EM (or FA), or He will cause people-helpful UR? Christians should recognize that IF Eternal Misery will happen, this would not just be allowed by God, instead it would be caused by God, because... God would be keeping a person alive forever so God would be causing sin to stay alive forever by allowing the person's will to remain enslaved-to-sin instead of transforming them so they become freed-from sin. {free will vs freed will} |
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Evangelism:Motives for Becoming (and Remaining) a Follower of Christan option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. The Whole News ( is it Good News + Bad News ? ) Three descriptions of The Gospel (The Good News) — using EM, FA, UR — propose the same afterlife end-state for believers (it's Eternal Joy), but disagree about the end-state for unbelievers: • if we assume Eternal Misery (EM) we can tell non-believers The Whole News,* which includes The Good News (that "God loves you and offers a Wonderful Plan for Your Life") plus The Bad News (that if you die without believing, then God hates you and has a Terrible Plan for Your Afterlife, for Your Zillions Of Years In Hell – and then, as in the song Amazing Grace, "when you've been there ten thousand years,... you've no less days... than when you first began"); and this Bad News will happen to most people. {* In fact, Christians don't have to "tell non-believers... The Bad News" because for everyone the assumed-belief is that “if God exists, He will cause Eternal Misery in Hell” because this is an intrinsic part of Western Culture.} What is the most “evangelical” view of Hell? The dictionary meaning of evangel (Greek) is (in English) "the good tidings of the redemption of the world through Jesus Christ." It seems obvious that the most evangelical view is UR, and the least is EM. But if it's truly evangelical a view must be good-AND-true. Seeking truth is important so I'm encouraging you (and challenging you) to carefully study the Bible instead of assuming you already know. Since 1987 I've invested lots of time in carefully studying, and my current conclusion is that EM is extremely bad and is false, FA is better than bad and is possibly true, UR is extremely good and is possibly true. And the more I study UR (by reading & listening, thinking & writing), the more optimistic I'm becoming about its truth.
an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. Can we praise God for His Hell? I'm asking about "His Hell" because God is sovereign, so what will happen in Hell is what the sovereign God decides will happen and wants to happen, and will cause to happen (or at least will allow to happen, if God self-limits the actualizing of His sovereign control by allowing the thinking-and-actions of people to actually determine what will occur). When a person “says YES to God” they will want to obey God's Two Great Commandments by fully loving God and loving people. As one part of fully loving God, Christians should praise God for everything He does, including what He will do to unsaved people in Hell. In all three views, the process of judgment-and-hell will be very unpleasant for unsaved people. In two views, the results also will be very unpleasant. For unsaved people, the results of judgment-and-hell are permanently unproductive with both FA (permanent death) and EM (permanent misery). But with UR we can proudly proclaim that the results will be permanently productive for everyone, because God will achieve justice-by-restoration. With UR the experience in Hell can be just and also loving because it produces retributive justice for sinners (when they reap in Afterlife what they sowed in Life) and restorative justice for their victims (with a healing of wounds), plus corrective restoration for sinners (who are corrected & healed, are liberated from their slavery to sin, to achieve reconciliations with God and with people) so the results are beneficial for everyone. { With UR, could we see a return of “hellfire and brimstone” sermons, but instead of simply threatening sinners we also would be praising God for the beneficial results He will produce in UR-Hell? } A Personal Perspective: When I'm thinking about songs praising the everlasting love of God (clearly taught in the Bible) — by singing "Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not, as Thou has been, Thou forever will be" and "Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me [but does it fail others, giving up on them?]" and "old things have passed away, Your love has stayed the same" — I'm wondering “how do fellow Christians make these claims about loving that doesn't change, IF they believe that What Jesus Will Do is to cause Eternal Torment for many people (in Afterlife) that (during Life) He once loved?” Compared with me, they must be much more skilled at compartmentalizing their beliefs, if they claim WJWD is Eternal Torment and also "as You [Father, Son, Holy Spirit] have been [in Life], You forever will be [in Afterlife]" for all of the children He created, not just for those He saved in Life. I think it's much easier to praise God if WJWD for the Unsaved-in-Life is Conditional Immortality (resulting in Reconciliation or Annihilation) instead of Unconditional Immortality (resulting in Eternal Misery); and I'm not thinking “God will cause Eternal Misery” so I don't need to compartmentalize my beliefs, because I'm confident that Unconditional Immortality (with God causing Sinful Immortality for most people) is not taught in the Bible, so I don't have to struggle with how to praise God for His unchanging love and also (even though it doesn't seem loving) for His causing of Eternal Misery.
an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. Motivations for “Saying YES to God” — for Repenting and Living by Faith When a person is thinking about The Whole News and deciding whether to say YES or NO, their Total Motivation for Saying Yes is a blending of many motivations, including these: • wanting better intrinsic Life-Process — In this Life, they want to get more true joy by more fully loving God & people, because they believe that God deserves to be loved-and-served, and they believe that God can help them overcome their own self-centered sinfulness so they can more effectively love-and-serve other people. {loving God & people: what-and-how, why} Although I'm calling these motivations intrinsic (doing life-process) and extrinsic (receiving afterlife-results), all motives are internal because all contribute to how a person internally thinks about “getting what they want” in their whole life (and possibly whole afterlife) as a whole person.* A person can say YES to God (in a big decision) and then, many times each day in their everyday living, they will choose (in small decisions) whether to live by faith, whether they will say yes to God — because they are trusting Him — instead of saying no. How are these motives (extrinsic or intrinsic, love-based or fear-based or joy-seeking) affected by a personal belief in UR, FA, or EM?• An extrinsic fear-based motivation for Afterlife — due to fearing Hell — is greatest with EM, and least with UR.• An extrinsic joy-seeking motivation for Afterlife — by hoping for Heaven — is similar with all views.• Is an intrinsic love-based motivation during Life — by wanting to love God so He can help you love people more effectively — also similar for all views? Or could there be a difference for some people? for most people? In principle, a motivation to love-and-serve should be similar for all views, but... Motives for Living by Faith, with Love Love-Based Motives: A person can more effectively become a devoted follower of Christ, a dedicated disciple who is living obediently by faith, if their main motives are intrinsic and loving, if with sincere repentance (wanting to change so they will become a better person) their heart's desire is to improve their Life-process now by more fully loving-and-serving God so they can more effectively love-and-serve people. Fear-Based Motives: By contrast, a threat of Eternal Misery is extrinsic and fearing, because a person wants to avoid horrifying Afterlife-results later. This motive is totally focused on self, so it will be a much less effective motivator for “loving their neighbor as they love themself.” The ratio of LoveMotive/FearMotive is highest with UR, lowest with EM. Should we fear God? Throughout the Bible, a spiritually healthy fear of God is different than the common meaning of fear, as we see in The Amplified Bible's clarifications-of-meaning [inside brackets] in Proverbs 9:10a {"The [reverent] fear of the Lord [that is, worshiping Him and regarding Him as truly awesome]* is the beginning and the preeminent part of wisdom [its starting point and its essence]."} and in 1 John 4:18 {"There is no fear in love [dread does not exist]. But perfect (complete, full-grown) love drives out fear, because fear involves [the expectation of divine] punishment, so the one who is afraid [of God’s judgment] is not perfected in love [has not grown into a sufficient understanding of God’s love]" or, in The Living Bible, "We need have no fear of someone who loves us perfectly; his perfect love for us eliminates all dread of what he might do to us. If we are afraid, it is for fear of what he might do to us and shows that we are not fully convinced that he really loves us." {* In the minds of most people, a God who is "truly awesome" must be powerful AND good, but causing Eternal Misery doesn't seem good. } bribes and threats: We can think about the similarities between conversion-motivations that are... due to an extrinsic bribe, as when an impoverished “rice Christian” tells a missionary that they have decided to follow Christ, even though a major motivation is their pragmatic desire to gain material rewards; Because these people have been motivated by a bribe (so they will get food) or threat (so they won't get hell), we can wonder if their faith is a solid foundation for authentic living-by-faith discipleship, for fully loving God and people, building a Christ-Centered Life in The Kingdom of God.fear and free will: If a conversion is motivated by fear, due to a threat of Eternal Misery, is this really a free-will decision? It seems more like a mugger pointing a gun at you, saying “give me your wallet” so you do, but was the giving done freely? A common explanation of “why God allows free-will decisions & actions, and thus allows the suffering this causes” is that “God created humans with free will so we can freely choose to love Him, instead of being robots that are programmed to automatically love Him.” But if the “love” is motivated by a terrifying fear of Infinite Misery, can it be a genuine love? is fear-motivated love even possible? consider this analogy: Imagine that a man's marriage proposal is a mixture of loving-and-threatening, with promises that “we will have a wonderful life together if you marry me, but if you don't I will put you in my dungeon and will torture you for the rest of your life.” She says yes, but... is she marrying him because of love (for him and the wonderful life they will have together) or due to fear, or a mixture of love-and-fear? How will this kind of proposal affect her? Will she ever be able to love him in the same ways that she would have loved him IF instead he had just said “we will have a wonderful life together if you marry me”? and consider this reality: Before he explains how "George MacDonald Saved My Life" by giving him hope, Eric McCarty describes the dilemma he was thinking and feeling: "The ‘bad God’ option puts you between a rock and a hard place. You have God holding a gun to your head and telling you that the only way he takes the gun away [and doesn't pull the trigger] is to love a God who would put a gun to your head to get you to love Him. ‘Love Me or I will hate you.’ I found that impossible to do when I really looked at it." Eric also could not ignore the Eternal Misery of other people (because he loved them) even if he was saved from EM. love and praise: If we believe pUR, we would be able to love God more fully (with our whole hearts & minds) and enthusiastically praise Him because of what He will do for people in UR-Hell. / By contrast, it seems more difficult to imagine praising God for what He will do to people in FA-Hell or EM-Hell. The Purpose of Salvation: What are the main benefits of salvation by God? What is a person “saved from” and “saved to”? In addition to being saved from the penalty of death, are you saved from eternal misery in hell (and thus saved from God who would make you eternally miserable) or are you saved from the slavery of sin (saved by God who gives the wisdom-strength-love we need to reduce our sinful thinking & actions) so you are saved to being able to live free from slavery to sin? Of course, defenders of EM say “both”, but which motive is more powerful for a person who justifiably feels terrorized by a threat of everlasting misery in hell? Is this person placing a higher value on escaping hell or overcoming sin? Do they want to be saved from the damage they are doing (to self & others) by their own sinning in Life, or just be saved from the anger of God in Afterlife? Do they view salvation as their fire insurance, or as the beginning of their life of discipleship? {does God save us from God?} [[ iou - later, maybe in mid-2022, here i'll describe similarities & differences in views-of-salvation, re: what are we saved from, and saved to with UR, FA, EM, and this subsection will be improved in its ratio of ideas/words}]] Your Life is Your Gift: When God asks “what did you do with the Life I gave you?”, the way you lived will be your gift to God. Which kind of motive, love-based or fear-based, is more likely to motivate a life that will bring glory to God, and will please Him? {abilities and opportunities in hell-education and hell-justice}
an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. Practical Effects for Living Our decisions-and-actions are affected by what we believe, so we should ask: • generally – What are the practical effects on living, for Christians and non-Christians, of thinking that UR (or FA) is true, or even might be true? If people don't believe in EM-Hell, will they just say “we can do whatever we want, and we will” because their sinful desires are not restrained by a fear of Eternal Misery? Is EM useful, or even necessary, for controlling people in a society? (and if yes, is this a sufficient reason to promote it?) { But there are better reasons for people, both believers & non-believers, to be loving and kind. Also, the strength of a deterrent depends on its unpleasantness AND our confidence that it will happen, so for many people a plausible UR-Hell (or FA-Hell) could be a stronger deterrent than an implausible EM-Hell. For example, if you're a Christian you probably have no fears about Allah forcing you into an Islam-Hell that you think doesn't exist; because the threat of Islamic-Hell seems implausible, it doesn't motivate you by fear, it doesn't make you want to convert to Islam.} {more} {more: This section ends with questions about some practical effects of a grace-based gospel message.} • specifically – Defenders of EM claim that non-Christians will not seriously consider The Gospel without the fear-based threat of EM-Hell.* Instead they will just think (with UR) “even if I now say NO, later I can say YES and then I'll be fine” or (with FA) “death wouldn't be so bad.” { But people can say NO either because they DON'T believe in Eternal Misery, or because they DO. And a “belief” caused by fear is not a solid foundation for loving God, and living by faith. There are better reasons to say YES, so Christians should strongly emphasize (in their conversations with non-Christians) the wisdom of making a commitment-decision now; we should explain why if they “say yes to God” NOW, their Life will be much better now, and later their Afterlife will be much better, so at all times (during Life & Afterlife) their living will be much better. / * Defenders of EM usually claim that effective evangelism requires the “infinitely big stick” of Eternal Misery, because this terrifying threat is necessary for effective “carrots and sticks” motivation.• specifically – Will a Christian do evangelism if they think non-Christians “will be fine” (with UR) or (with FA) “will just die”? { But compared with the fear-threat of EM, there are better reasons to tell people about the love of God. In fact, it would be easier for me to share the Good News if I didn't have to explain why The Good News is not Extremely Bad News for most people. } / Also, we can explain why UR-Hell or FA-Hell should be avoided. We have reasons to expect that: UR-Hell would be a very unpleasant experience, even though a person "will be fine" eventually; or in FA-Hell a person would think “oops, if I had made different decisions in Life, now in Afterlife I would be receiving Eternal Life with Joy, instead of Death,” with psychological anticipation of non-existence that would be extremely unpleasant and frightening. / a bottom-line summary: every Christian should strongly emphasize that — whether the final result of Hell will be EM or FA or UR — when anyone “says yes to God” NOW, at all times (during Life & Afterlife) their living will be much better.[[ iou - ideas to be developed later: EM positive for morality (but fear-based motives, @ rice) -- EM negative for living by faith with changed heart/mind, true Chtn life ]] There are no simple answers about how a person WILL respond to claims for UR (or FA or EM) because each person will be affected differently, and the complex effects — the influences on thinking, deciding, and doing in all areas of life — will vary from one person to another.* Believing any view (UR, FA, EM) will affect our thoughts-and-actions, producing some good effects and some bad effects, for us and for others. For example, believing EM will influence some people to say YES due to fear-threats, but will influence others to say NO because they are thinking-and-feeling that IF God will cause EM this would be unfair (it would not be justice) and they wouldn't like His character so they could not love God and trust Him. {also: A belief in Eternal Misery can lead to bad psychological effects in many ways, including anxiety-producing thoughts about “what it would be like” if you – or the neighbors (your family, friends, colleagues, strangers) that you should be loving, that God commands you to love – were living eternally in hell. } {* These "complex effects" that "vary" are only one factor among many complex factors to consider when Christians are deciding a strategy for “what should we tell people about hell?” and every strategy will have positive & negative effects that vary from one listener to another, and vary from one situation to another. You can see a verbal-visual description of this complexity in a table showing different combinations of strategy-and-reality.} And after a person says YES, I think belief-in-EM makes it more difficult to fully love God, to trust Him and live by faith. But there is a simple conclusion about how a rational person SHOULD respond: When describing Bible-based Universal Restoration, all Christians (whether or not we think UR is likely to be true) can agree about the way people should respond to UR, so all of us should emphasize that even if UR is true, a person's overall experience (in Life and in Afterlife) will be much better if they “say YES to God” now, ASAP. * Or we can think about the analogous possibilities for FA; either FA will happen, or FA won't happen. For each possibility, a rational person should “say YES” now, ASAP, because either way they certainly will "enjoy life-with-God" now, and later will avoid Hell (whether the result-of-Hell will be UR, FA, or EM). And if FA will happen, a YES avoids the extreme disappointment (in Afterlife) of knowing that (in Life) they missed their opportunity for Eternal Joy, and they'll get Eternal Death. A YES-in-Life also avoids the possibility (which I think is unlikely but not impossible) of an extremely unpleasant surprise — and extremely unpleasant experience — with Eternal Misery.
Practical Concerns about a Gospel of Grace After explaining God's gospel of grace, Paul anticipates (in Romans 6:1) a sinful response by sinful humans who will tend to think, after they accept God's offer of grace, "Should we continue to live in sin so that God's grace will increase?" Paul answers "certainly not!" because "we know that our old being has been put to death with Christ on his cross, in order that the power of the sinful self might be destroyed, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin."A born-again person is no longer a "slave of sin." But the process of gaining total freedom doesn't happen instantly or automatically. If you want to live in ways that are more free from the slavery of sin, you must WANT to live less sinfully. In another page I describe the process, and a limiting factor: When you are wanting to live a Christ-Directed Life — when "Christ is in the life and on the throne; self is yielding to Christ; interests are directed by Christ, resulting in harmony with God's plan" — you are making Christ your King, so "you are participating in The Kingdom of God as an individual." You gradually are gaining freedom from sin when you "are not conforming yourselves to the standards of this world, but are letting God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind." But "becoming the person God wants you to be, so you can think-and-do in the ways wanted by God, requires an attitude of wanting to be personally transformed in the ways wanted by God." Unfortunately, "I've self-observed that in a supplying of love and wisdom from God to me, too often the limiting factor is my lack of cooperation... when I'm not totally willing to let God 'transform' me." {quotations are from The Four Spiritual Laws, and me, Paul, and me} Even more unfortunately, I've observed that "too often" other Christians (not just me) also are not totally willing to let God transform them. Why? One reason is because the Gospel has a biblical foundation of Forgiving Grace, so it's easy to think “God will forgive me for everything I've done in the past, and for what I'm doing now, so instead of doing what God wants — e.g. by consistently loving my neighbor in the way I love myself in all of my thoughts, words, and actions — instead I will do what I want, even if it's sinful and it isn't what God wants, because... I'm saved, so God will forgive me.” In this way and others, a gospel-of-grace can be abused by believers, but God knows this, and despite this he gives His grace to us. Because the Bible teaches salvation by grace, we should continue preaching grace, despite its potential for abuse. a humble disclaimer: What I say in this section is oversimplified. The relationships between faith & works are complex, and are debated by Christians; biblically based arguments can support a wide range of views, so doctrines of salvation-and-sanctification differ in the major branches of Christianity (Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant) and within each branch, and among individual Christians. There is general agreement about the most important doctrines, but disagreement about some important details. Even among devout Bible-believing Protestants, we see intensely vigorous debates — with “easy believism (minimal works required)” versus “lordship salvation (more works expected)” and “once saved, always saved” versus “perseverance required” plus other perspectives on these questions & others; e.g., monergistic Calvinism (with salvation depending only on the sovereign decisions-and-actions of God) versus synergistic Arminianism (with salvation viewed as a cooperative combining of God's actions & human actions); and differing views when we ask “what will happen in Hell, and what will be the ultimate results?”; plus other tough questions that are important, yet are controversial — and during these debates among fellow Christians, sometimes we see actions that are not lovingly respectful. This problem is discussed (but is not solved, of course) in our attitudes toward other Christians and God – Principles for Discussing Doctrines Respectfully, with Christian Love.
Effects of Afterlife-Doctrines for Decreasing Sinful Actions pragmatic questions: If evangelical Christians want to reduce motivations-for-sinning and actions-of-sinning — by believers & nonbelievers — what are the best doctrines about salvation and afterlife? How pragmatically effective is the traditional doctrine of Eternal Misery? Is maintaining this doctrine, by rejecting the alternatives, our best pragmatic strategy?the bottom line: I strongly think – as explained in Tips for Studying – that Bible-believing Christians should carefully study the Bible so we can determine what it teaches, and then we should believe (and teach) what the Bible teaches. pragmatic arguments: Bible-believing defenders of Eternal Misery often use non-biblical pragmatic arguments against Final Annihilation and (especially) Universal Restoration. They ask “what are the pragmatic effects of your doctrine about afterlife? how will it affect the thinking-and-actions of people?” and they claim that a non-EM view will cause a decrease in converting and increase of sinning. But a Bible-believing defender of FA or UR also can use pragmatic arguments, because "believing any view (UR, FA, EM) will affect our thoughts-and-actions, producing some good effects and some bad effects, for us and for others; ... believing EM will influence some people to say YES due to fear-threats, but will influence others to say NO because they are thinking-and-feeling that if God will cause EM... they could not love God and trust Him." some observations: The common evangelical doctrines (of salvation-by-grace and afterlife-with-EM)* don't seem to be maximally effective as pragmatic strategies to reduce sinful actions, either for believers — as explained above in Practical Concerns about a Gospel of Grace where I conclude that "we should continue preaching grace, despite its potential for abuse" that can reduce its pragmatic effectiveness if we define our practical goal as reducing sinful behaviors — or for non-believers, as explained below. {* I think we should keep salvation-by-grace, but reject afterlife-with-EM.} If we want to make our doctrines-about-afterlife maximally effective for the pragmatic purpose of reducing sinful behaviors in society,• Should we try to motivate people by producing maximum fear-of-Hell or maximum love-for-God? • Should we try to produce maximum fear by preaching Eternal Misery, instead of Final Annihilation or Universal Restoration? • Should we try to produce maximum fear by constantly preaching (both inside church & outside) the infinite horrors of Eternal Misery? If a Christian preaches about Hell less often, are they contributing to an increase of sinful thinking and actions? • Should we try to produce maximum fear by describing Hell in ways that are maximally horrible so the fearing-of-Hell will be maximally terrifying and thus maximally effective? In modern times there has been an increasing tendency to “air condition” hell, to describe it in ways that are less frightening. For example, now the pain of Hell is often described as mainly a separation from God, but without flames (in The Lake of Fire) that burn flesh. The modern focus is on psychological horrors, but without the physical horrors — as in having your entire body burned in the worst way you have experienced (either personally or in reports from others) over & over for eternity, with the nerves in your fire-damaged flesh being miraculously regenerated so you can feel the intense pain over & over — that were typical in classical descriptions of Hell. When a Christian describes a less terrifying kind of Hell, are they contributing to an increase of sinful thinking and actions? • Should we try to increase conversions by telling an unsaved person that when God decides their eternal fate, He won't care about their behavior? Should we say “you can't be saved by being good” and “if you remain unsaved when you die, you will get the same final bad result (Eternal Misery or Eternal Death) whether your sins are a little or a lot, are minor or major, whether your actions have been kindly altruistic or criminally sadistic”? This information might motivate them to make a fear-based decision to be saved. But if we tell them that “when God decides your eternal fate, He won't care how much you have sinned,” this won't motivate them to live less sinfully (with a better pragmatic result for society) while they remain unsaved. Or should we say, with UR, that “you can't be saved by being good” but “if you remain unsaved when you die, your experience in UR-Hell (yes, even with UR you will go to Hell) will be much better if you love God now. • Or... if we want to motivate more people to more fully love God (with their hearts & minds) so they will want to serve the God they love, they will want to be less sinful in their thinking & actions, should we preach Universal Restoration – instead of Final Annihilation or Eternal Misery – so more people can more enthusiastically praise God (with their hearts & minds) for the beneficial transformations He will produce in UR-Hell? • Should we tell everyone, both inside church & outside, that God will provide transformative afterlife-experiences for everyone (for the saved and unsaved) for the purpose of sanctifying people so they will be suitable for Afterlife in Heaven? • Should we tell everyone that the intensity of these "transformative afterlife-experiences for everyone (for the saved and unsaved)" will depend on a person's actions during Life? It's common in evangelical Protestantism to de-emphasize the importance of “works” for salvation, with “faith alone, by grace alone” being sufficient for salvation, without a need for good works; although good works should be a result of living by faith after salvation, they are not “counted by God” when He makes a yes-or-no decision about salvation.* Although I agree that salvation is graciously given by God based on faith, I also think Protestants should place more emphasis on “faith leading to works” when we're living by faith, and on the importance of our works-during-Life affecting our experiences-during-Afterlife. / * yes, what I've said here is oversimplified, but I think it's basically accurate; also, when we compare doctrines of salvation we find that the doctrines of Orthodox and Catholic place more emphasis (compared with Protestant) on the value of works, although all three place their strongest emphasis on faith, not works. / Here are some extra comments about two rival sub-theologies within Protestantism: when a person hears the claims of a Calvinist, they could think "why should I bother being good?" because "God already has decided my eternal fate and it doesn't depend on anything I do," even though this valid logic is somehow (in ways I cannot understand) disputed by Calvinists; even though an Arminian claims that salvation doesn't depend on merit, their requirement — a person must decide to accept (not reject) God's gracious offer of salvation — does depend on having a good heart and wise mind, so salvation does depend on merit. the bottom line: As I emphasized earlier, "Bible-believing Christians should carefully study the Bible so we can determine what it teaches, and then we should believe (and teach) what the Bible teaches" instead of using pragmatic criteria. Because we cannot be certain about what will happen in Afterlife, I have mixed feelings about two tough challenges for UR: First, people do have rational reasons for why they SHOULD respond by “saying yes to God now, ASAP during Life” even if (with UR) they will be saved eventually in Afterlife. But when we're thinking about how people WILL respond if we tell them “theTotally Good News of Universal Restoration might happen (or will happen),” there are no simple answers, because each person will be affected differently, and the complex effects — the influences on thinking, deciding, and doing in all areas of Life — will vary from one person to another. But these are also tough challenges for the non-UR views, for FA and EM, when we ask “what are the practical effects for living?”I also have mixed feelings about fellow Christians that include negative feelings of disappointment and sadness.
an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. Our Evangelistic Responsibilities Christians should try to... accurately describe what the Bible teaches by carefully studying the Bible as a whole, asking “what is the Biblical evidence for and against each view?” so we can estimate the probability that each view is true. share The Good News because it's good, and because Jesus commanded His followers to "go and make disciples of [people in] all nations." explain The Whole News, trying to... avoid giving False Hope, if a person lives their Life expecting UR, but in Afterlife they realize their fate will be FA or EM; or they might expect FA, but get EM. accurately describe the Character of God: When we askWWJD in Afterlife our answer is an important statement about the character of God, as explained below in Divine Justice. {more about our responsibilities} |
Divine Justicean option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. In this final part of the page, my goal is to show why Eternal Misery (in the afterlives of unsaved people) would not achieve justice. Appropriate Humility: Each of us has reasons for humility and reasons for confidence when we're making claims about difficult questions — like “what will happen in hell?” and whether this will be totally just and loving — that are not answered with certainty in the Bible. For these tough questions, we should say “this is HOW IT SEEMS TO ME” with an appropriate humility (appropriate confidence) that is not too little, and not too much. We should not be inappropriately over-humble (i.e. we should reject the ethical postmodernism that claims “a Christian should not think about the character of God”) because God has given us abilities (a conscience & mind, scriptures,...) that He wants us to use when we make everyday decisions, and also to understand God. These abilities allow Paul (and us) to appreciate "the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God" and to enthusiastically praise God because He will "show mercy to all." {by reading all of Isaiah 55, you'll see that God's thoughts are “higher than our thoughts” because He is more merciful than us} The Character of God: All of us develop ideas & feelings about the character of God, based on our experiences in life, especially in our reading of the Bible. These ideas/feelings will be affected when we ask “WWGD to achieve Divine Justice in Afterlife?” I think most people will agree with my thinking/feeling that the character of God seems best with Universal Restoration, and is worst if He will cause Eternal Misery,* if His gracious forgiving suddenly changes (at the moment of a person's death) into vengeful unforgiving, if His love-in-action is different in a person's Life and Afterlife. { Sometimes the morality of EM is defended by claiming that anything done by God (including EM) should be defined as being good – i.e. if it's done by God, then it's good. }* To understand why I'm not criticizing God when I claim that "the character of God... is worst if He will cause Eternal Misery," please readwhy it's useful to think "IF and BECAUSE" when we're thinking about the character of God (and of other Christians). This also is why I'm not criticizing fellow Christians who say “God will cause Eternal Misery” even though I think they are saying false-and-untrue things about God. Eternal Misery would be caused by God: Yes, if Eternal Misery will happen, it will be caused by God, because... God is keeping a person alive forever and God is keeping sin alive forever by keeping the person's will enslaved-ro-sin instead of freed-from sin [== iou, ideas to develop soon] by contrast with, despite, modern that hell chosen by person, Lewis (as C.S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain) "the gates of hell are locked on the inside." But this would happen only if God allows the person's will to remain enslaved-to-sin instead of being freed-from-sin, keeps them alive forever, --> causes eternal torment, God is sovereign so nothing happens that He doesn't allow and doesn't (@ other Lewis-section) / Jesus vs God, Jesus-during-Life-as-man (temporarily self-limiting, depending on communication with Father thru Holy Spirit, tempted but remaining obedient, quote Peter Rust, vs before-div & after-div (was different-div during incarnation living with us and for us) Table of Contents: This part of the page – examining The Divine Justice of God – includes: Appropriate Humility about The Character of God (above) and (below) Overall Changes (from Before Life thru Afterlife) - Would you choose to be born, to play The Game of Life-and-Afterlife? (questions) - The Purpose of Resurrection - Think About The Experience - Would annihilation be merciful? - The Purpose of Infinite Misery (is it necessary? productive?) — Divine Persuasion (why isn't God more obvious?) — Situations and Results (is Life fair? could Life-plus-Afterlife be more fair?) - Do unsaved people earn (because they are evil & unwise) their Eternal Misery? — Justice for Everyone (for Victims and Sinners) - Binary Justice (can it be fair?) — Degrees of Suffering in Afterlife - Should you choose to play The Game of Life-and-Afterlife? (my responses) — Divine Generosity (how would you feel if God was extremely generous?). also – ideas about biblical justice-in-hell by other authors (these articles are well written, with biblical ideas) an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. Justice in Overall Changes — from Before Life to Final State of Afterlife
Justice in Overall Changes — from Before Life to Final State of Afterlife We'll begin by focusing on the “basic justice” of a person's change-of-situation from their beginning to their end, by temporarily ignoring everything that happens in-between. All views propose the same change for a saved person, who goes from nothing (before conception) to eternal joy (in their afterlife); this is wonderful. But for an unsaved person, there are big differences in the overall change: with Universal Restoration, it's from nothing to everlasting joy; this is wonderful.
Questions about Loving Actions: If we think "love-in-action produces good results," with each view (UR, FA, EM) would the overall actions of God (during Life plus Afterlife) be loving for people who are saved-during-Life? {everyone should say “yes, yes, yes” because it's obvious that “God is good, is loving” for these people.} And would the overall actions of God (from before-Life to Life-plus-Afterlife) be loving for people who are unsaved during Life? {I think “yes, yes, no” so for these people I could say “God is a good Father, is loving” if He will cause Reconciliation or Annihilation, but “God is not a loving Father” if he will cause Eternal Misery.} / To understand why I'm not criticizing the actual character of God when I claim that “God would not be loving” if he will cause Eternal Misery, please read why it's useful to think "IF and BECAUSE" when we're thinking about the character of God (and of other Christians).
* A Question about Existence: Before you were born, if you could choose whether to be born into Life-plus-Afterlife, would you say YES or NO? A Question about Information: To answer The Existence-Question wisely, what information do you need? / You may want to think about these questions – re: desirable existence, and useful information – before you read my “spoilers” in the next paragraph. Useful Information: A) It would be useful to KNOW whether the final result of Afterlife-for-Unsaved will be Eternal Misery, or Annihilation, or Restoration, or something very different, e.g. with no Afterlife, or a different kind of (non-Christian) God, or no God, or... B) It would be extremely useful to KNOW whether or not you will be saved at the end of your Life. {although certainty-information would be best, probability-information also could be useful – e.g. instead of knowing nothing about your future situation-in-Life, with more probability-knowledge you might know whether you will be born in the American Bible Belt (with a relatively high probability of salvation) or (with lower probability) in a family-and-culture where the dominant religion is non-Christian (e.g. where it's Hindu, Moslem, or Jewish) so you'll have a much lower probability of “saying YES” to Jesus} {but you still might have a tough choice; e.g. if you knew for certain that God will cause EM, and you estimate your chances for Eternal Joy to be 80%, and Eternal Misery to be 20%, would you choose to play the game?} {when you're making your wise choices, think carefully about the overall changes with each kind of Afterlife-for-Unsaved} {my answers for the three Existence-Questions, if EM or FA or UR} a change of perspective: How do you think God should answer The Existence-Question, because He is good? {i.e. In each of three possible worlds – by combining the Life we now have with an Afterlife of EM, or FA, or UR – should a loving God create a person, causing them to be born?} Or, because God is good, what kind of world would He choose to create, or not-create? the overall result of joy + misery: Do you think it would be a better overall “combined results-of-afterlife” for two people, if one has Eternal Joy and the other has Eternal Misery, or if both eventually have non-existence with Final Annihilation? {my answer, re: a gift that won't be necessary} would you want another kind of Life? Or, in a different set of three questions, “would you choose to be created as a non-accountable person (with extremely limited life-experiences)* if God will cause EM or FA or UR in Afterlife?” {* Although a concept of “non-accountability” is not defined in the Bible, many Christians believe that two kinds of people — those who have extremely low intelligence, or die when they're very young (before birth due to miscarriage or abortion, or during infancy or young childhood) — will not be “held accountable” by God, so they will not live forever in Eternal Misery if God will cause EM for people who are accountable (because they are “intelligent enough” and become “old enough”) and are unsaved at the end of their Life. } The Purposes of ResurrectionJesus tells us (John 5:28-29) that all humans, both saved & unsaved, will be bodily resurrected, and their Afterlives will begin with judgment by God. • For people who were saved-in-Life and will have Eternal Joy, there is an obviously-beneficial purpose for Resurrection, so we can be sanctified-and-restored and Reconciled. But what about those who were unsaved-in-Life? Let's look at the results of Resurrection with four final results. • with UR, a similar beneficial purpose will occur for the unsaved people who will be fully restored in UR-Hell. • with FA, this beneficial result will not occur because unsaved people will be Annihilated. God could “show them why they deserve to be killed” before He kills them with FA, but a response of “why bother doing this to them, if they're just going to die” seems justifiable. And for others, if there will be “public” judgments,* FA (or EM) could serve a useful purpose for a saved person who thinks “wow, I'm happy-and-thankful the FA (or EM) isn't happening to me,” although this un-empathetic response is not “loving your neighbor in the way you love yourself.” • with EM, it's much worse for an unsaved person who would be MUCH better off without Resurrection-to-Afterlife, because their Eternal Misery would be very non-beneficial, so... for them, what would be God's purpose for their resurrection? * Jesus tells us (Luke 12:2-3), "there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops." [[ iou – an idea to be used later: ER would be pain without purpose, suffering with no gain due to learning-and-improving, so it wouldn't be useful for achieving anything beneficial {most theodicies, defending God against charges of "why evil in world?" claim temporary bad now → permanent good later, with negative means justified by positive end (yes, "means justified by end" is biblically sound, is justifiable when it's the means-and-ends of God, not of sinful humans) but EM cannot claim this because there is never a later good, is never a benefit . [[ IMAGINING ETERNAL MISERY -- Short Overview & Long Overview -- iou – here are some ideas to develop later: try to imagine what an unsaved person might be thinking-and-feeling in EM-Hell -- if all raised in general resurrection, and during Afterlife some (or all) unsaved think "wow, now I believe, am sorry and repent" at this point will God just say "too late, so sad" because "i'm going to kill you" or "I'm going to torment you forever" despite your repentance-and-belief -- if God won't allow repentance, then... [re: character of God, Great is Thy Faithfulness but He has changed, His love has ended] // if people are insane-during-Life (as proposed in "T" of Calvinistic TULIP) will God give them freed-will during Afterlife? if God rejects the repentance of people in Hell (FA or EM) has he removed their free will, because they say "I want to be saved" but God says "I don't care what you think, you have no freedom to change the way you were at the end of life, at your final heartbeat" -- essence of our motivations is to love God have reconciliation with Him and with other humans, so eventually, late in aterlife with blinders off, with God using more persuasion all will believe-and-repent (due to education) and will be purified (due to correction) for full salvation. ]] [[ iou – ideas for later: Imagining a Maximally-Great God, as in my paraphrasing of premise in Ontological Argument -- re: "best possible ending", i can imagine being (God) who wants to heal everyone [ur] not kill them [fa] or torment them forever to produce infinite misery [em] --- it's difficult to imagine any god who is better than ur-producing god, but is easy to imagine better than god who would cause fa or (especially) em - -- how great thou art, great is thy faithfulness, truly great = if powerful + loving/good ]] think about The Experience of Infinite Misery:For 5 minutes, try to intensely feel the reality proposed by Eternal Misery, with God causing incredible pain (certainly psychological, maybe also physical)* that will never end. Imagine yourself feeling this pain for 5 minutes.* Then imagine enduring this torment for an hour, a week, or a year. Or for 10 thousand years, when (as in the song Amazing Grace) you've no less days to suffer in pain, than when you first began. At this point, you have experienced less than 1% of your infinite suffering, your Eternally Lasting Misery. If you continue suffering pain for 13.8 billion years (the age of our universe), you're still at less than 1%. If you experience Misery for a billion universe-ages (a billion x 14 billion years) you're still at less than 1%. Is this behavior (a causing of infinite misery) consistent with the character of God, as He is revealed in the Bible? is this What Jesus Will Do? do The First Commandment: While you're imagining that God will cause Eternal Misery, try to love God "with all of your heart, soul, and mind," as Jesus commands us to do. Then instead of imagining what God will do TO people in Hell (with Eternal Misery) to hurt them, imagine what He will do FOR people in Hell (with Purgatorial Reconciliation) to help them, to sanctify them so they can be reconciled with other people and with Himself – and try to totally love Him. When you imagine each kind of afterlife-in-Hell, while you're trying to fully love God (for who He is and what He will do), I think you will experience why "with purgatorial Universal Restoration [but not with Eternal Misery] we can proudly proclaim ‘what God will do’ in UR-Hell [because it's Totally Good News], and we can enthusiastically praise God." * Or, with compassionate empathy, imagine this Eternal Misery happening to someone you love who dies unsaved, or even to an unsaved stranger, and remember that Jesus tells you to "love your neighbor in the way you love yourself." * What kind of pain? Most current defenders of Eternal Misery try to “soften the experience” by claiming the hell-fire is metaphorical (not literally physical) and it isn't causing PHYSICAL TORMENT but is causing mainly PSYCHOLOGICAL TORMENT due to separation from God. But we shouldn't underestimate the terror of psychological torment. It could be horrible. And the infinite time-duration of “forever” would make it an infinitely horrible experience, whether in The Lake of Fire a person's misery is only psychological, or is psychological-and-physical. Either way it would be misery, it would be eternal, and this Eternal Misery would be terrifying due to the knowledge that it will last forever, with God causing an unimaginably unpleasant experience, for victims who have no hope of being released from their misery. Annihilation — would it be merciful?When it's compared with Eternal Misery, I think Eternal Death (due to Annihilation) would be merciful, because an eternally miserable afterlife would not be worth living, so death would be a merciful rescue.* But compared with Eternal Joy — when the life is worth living, so losing it would be a huge loss* — an Eternal Death would be a severe penalty, and it seems (I think) to be un-merciful. {* avoiding the possibility of this loss is one reason for “saying yes” now, ASAP during Life} {* I would expect that if any sane-and-loving person finds a painfully damaged animal along the side of a road, and stops to examine it, first they would try to heal it, and if this wasn't possible they might mercifully end its life; they certainly would not keep it alive while they are continually re-damaging it for the purpose of making it remain in miserable pain. Do you think God will be less loving than this, in His treatment of painfully damaged people during their Afterlife?} {more} A Huge Triage with FA: Will most people be “thrown away” by God, by causing FA? If yes, how will God feel about making His many throw-away decisions? If FA is caused by God, will He “feel untroubled” by throwing away high-value people, feeling less troubled than I was when faced with the practical need to throw away some low-value things? After the deaths of my parents, their house contained MANY items, and emptying it required non-medical triage, by deciding what we (me and others in our family) wanted to keep, and what I would give away, and throw away. During this process, one of my goals was to minimize the throw-aways by trying to “find good homes” for items. This is analogous (but on a much smaller scale) to God's decisions if He doesn't want to “throw away” people (who are much more valuable than house-items) with Annihilation, so instead He produces Restoration. / Or does God want to “throw away” most of the people He created? Are these throw-aways a divine goal? / limitations: There is analogy to “throwing away” with FA, instead of “keeping” with UR, but there are limits, because (as with all analogies) there is a match in some ways but not others. / Also, for comparing FA-vs-EM it's more difficult to see how EM could be analogous to anything in a typical triage (medical, house-emptying, or...) so I'll think about this more deeply, to see if there is any kind of useful analogy. Infinite Misery — What would be the purpose? Is it necessary? or sufficient?How can infinite punishing (in Afterlife) for finite sins (during Life) be justifiable, fair, and loving? If you think infinite punishing (with EM) will be necessary to achieve divine justice,... imagine that in Afterlife you have been appointed, by God, to be responsible for afterlife-punishing in hell, and His only restriction is that your punishing cannot last forever, that it must end with either Annihilation or Restoration. Can you imagine any amount of punishing (with no limit on its intensity-and-duration, except it cannot last forever) that would be sufficient to achieve divine justice? If yes, then you can imagine how infinite punishing (to cause infinite misery) would not be necessary to produce justice. Satisfactory Justice with EM: Maybe it's impossible. Why? If divine justice requires infinite punishing with EM, a serious theological difficulty is that the sin-debt will never be paid for an unsaved person. Why? Because IF the sin-debt ever became fully paid, at this time God would stop the punishing-for-sinning; but the punishing never stops, so (even a zillion years into the future) some sin-debt will always remain unpaid. Therefore, if the penalty for sin is Eternal Misery, God can never “get justice” (i.e. get retributive justice) that satisfies Him, so even if punishing continues forever — and sinning continues forever — a satisfactory retributive justice could never be achieved by God, with EM-Justice. In this way, infinite punishing (to cause infinite misery) would not be sufficient to produce justice. / Another perspective on “achieving justice” is our intuitive feeling that the finite sins commited during a short lifetime (usually less than 100 years) don't warrant a punishment of infinite misery during an infinite Afterlife. A typical EM-response is illustrated with the analogy that the time required to commit a crime (e.g. the split-second it takes to murder someone with a gun) doesn't necessarily correspond to the seriousness of the crime or the punishment deserved by the crime. Usually this analogy is followed by an attempt to justify infinite misery by using the “argument based on infinities” that is examined below. Optimal Justice with UR: Yes, it seems possible to achieve UR-Justice that (for sinners) is optimal – not just satisfactory – that is adequately retributive and personally rehabilitative, and (for sinners & victims) is personally restorative for individuals, and interpersonally restorative for relationships, that could achieve the complete righteousness (the complete justice) that is the ultimate goal of God. You can see why UR could produce optimal justice in overviews, briefly and with more detail. Satisfactory Justice with FA: Compared with UR, with FA it's more difficult to understand how optimal justice would be achieved, but the satisfactory justice of FA – because for each person it would produce an overall result that either is wonderful (when they go from nothing to Eternal Joy) or is neutral (if they go from nothing to nothing) – is easy to understand.
a divine causing of infinite misery – Is this a loving action? a good action? Christians should honestly acknowledge that if – instead of doing love-in-action that will be beneficial for people – God will cause infinite misery by causing Eternal Misery (for most people) this doesn't seem like a good action that would be done by a good God. Most defenders of EM usually acknowledge this, but they often defend the goodness of EM by proposing... {i.o.u. – later the main ideas in this section will be summarized to make it MUCH shorter, and most of the details will be moved into another page.} Postmodern Ethics: A cognitive postmodernism claims that “your logical thinking isn't worth much, so we can ignore your logic.” In a similar way, EM is often defended with an ethical postmodernism by claiming that “your ethical thinking isn't worth much, so we can ignore your ethics.” This postmodern-ish claim is used to defend EM by claiming that “even though a divine causing of Eternal Misery doesn't seem (in our consciences) to be a good action that would be done by our good God, it only seems this way because our consciences are distorted by sin.”A weak attempt to defend this ethical postmodernism is by quoting God's declaration in Isaiah 55:8-9 — "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways. ... for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." — but not including the previous five words at the end of 55:7 ("for He will abundantly pardon") that explain HOW God's ways are higher than our ways. Yes, it's true that “God's ways are higher than our ways” but this is because God (in His abundant pardoning) is more graciously forgiving than we are; it isn't because He will be less graciously forgiving than us, with a causing of infinite misery that we would never do. {more about the contexts of Isaiah 55:8-9} A stronger way to defend the ethics of divinely-caused EM is a simple appeal to faith, with a justifiably humble recognition that we have no right to “judge” God, instead He judges us. This is a simple recognition that we should faithfully believe that God is good, that somehow – in a way that admittedly is difficult to understand if a person thinks God will cause infinite misery for most people – we should believe that the actions of God will be good. This is the final conclusion of Job who, "humbled and overwhelmed, acknowledges God's right as Creator to do whatever he pleases," and to be satisfied with this conclusion. We should believe that eventually we will be able to look back on everything that happened to everyone, and conclude that “yes, all actions of God were good.” a long-term perspective: If we believe that God is totally good, then we should believe that all actions done by God are (by definition) totally good, because anything done by God is (by definition) a good action. This belief can be rational (logically & ethically) only if we think about everything with a long-term perspective, believing that “means will be justified by ends” in the long-term grand plan of God. I can imagine thinking about “all that happened” and thinking “all actions of God were totally good” IF He eventually will cause universal Universal Restoration (with a wonderful ending for everyone) or Final Annihilation (with a wonderful ending for a few, and a fair-yet-sad ending for most) although the imagining is much easier with UR than with FA; but it's extremely difficult for me to imagine thinking “all is totally good” if in my Afterlife I know that most people (including many I loved in Life) are now suffering in Eternal Misery that will never end. a biblically-rational combination: We can combine a biblical humility (believing that anything done by God is a good action) with conscience-based ethics (by rejecting a postmodern claim that our ethical thinking-and-feeling is worthless). Our thoughts & feelings have value, and words should have meaning. If as Christians we tell people “God is good, He is loving and just,” our words will accurately communicate only if we are able to connect these claims-about-God with the understandings (by Christians & non-Christians) of what it means to be good, and loving, and just. In an effort to defend the necessity-and-justice of infinite misery, Roger Nicole says: "Doesn't the existence of a dark spot in the universe spoil the bliss of the redeemed in heaven and of the triune God himself? How can we be happy in heaven knowing that many are suffering in hell? This objection does not sufficiently consider the heinousness of sin and of the importance of God's honor whose majesty has been violated by our disobedience. From the vantage point of heaven and of divine holiness, the sheer ugliness of sin will be fully apparent and will undoubtedly erase remnants of natural affection that were appropriate on the earthly scene." {italics added by me}Let's examine his two claims:He claims that non-EM views (FA, UR) "do not sufficiently consider the heinousness of sin" but this is unjustifiable, is just wrong. All views agree that sin is heinous – as explained in sections about God's eliminating of sin, What and Why, What, What and How, What – so "God wants to eliminate sin... because He hates sin" and "He will eliminate sin, with FA or UR [but not with EM]." In fact, EM's failure to eliminate sin (to instead immortalize sin, causing sin to remain forever) is one of the many extremely strong biblical reasons to reject EM.And he claims that non-EM views "do not sufficiently consider... the importance of God's honor whose majesty has been violated." This is a common defense of Infinite Misery, by claiming that every sin against an infinitely holy God is an infinitely large sin-violation that deserves infinite punishing with Eternal Misery. This claim is unjustifiable because the Bible tells us that God is purely holy (is 100% holy) but it never says anything about God being “infinitely holy” so arguments using “a math of infinities” are not biblically justifiable. My more-detailed explanations of why “infinity arguments” should be rejected include this analogy: imagine a 150-pound high school football player viciously tackling a weak 50-pound child (with the result being a severely damaged child) and then trying to viciously tackle a strong 300-pound NFL pro (who will not be damaged, who will just laugh at the 150-pounder). This analogy illustrates the similarity-in-results between a strong 300-pounder being capable {like super-strong God} of coping with the tackle {coping with our sins, without being damaged} while the weak child {like weak fellow humans} will be injured by the tackle {injured by our sins, vulnerable to damage}. Because God is infinitely powerful, He cannot be hurt by our sinning, even though our fellow humans are hurt by our sinning. But for other reasons, God hates sin and He wants to eliminate sin, as explained in the next paragraph.
will Eternal Joy include knowledge of Eternal Misery?Can we have Eternal Joy if we know that other people (including many we loved in Life) are having Eternal Misery? Imagining this possibility disturbed Eric McCarty: "The trouble didn’t end with that [logical & emotional] impossibility [of genuinely loving a God who says “love me or I'll torture you forever”]. Let’s say I could find a way to love and worship this God. The nightmare of never-ending torture was just too dark, even if I’m not the one experiencing it. ... The whole concept of eternal torment for so many people [for all but a few?] is nothing else to me, and many others, than a nightmare – a nightmare from which you cannot escape, even if you don’t endure it yourself, because you are bound by love to those who do endure it. You are commanded to feel the pain. And the pain never stops." In his defense of infinite misery, Roger Nicole asks a question that is important, and seems impossible to answer well — "Doesn't the existence of a dark spot in the universe spoil the bliss of the redeemed in heaven and of the triune God himself? How can we be happy in heaven knowing that many are suffering in hell? — and answers by claiming that "from the vantage point of heaven and of divine holiness, the sheer ugliness of sin will be fully apparent and will undoubtedly erase remnants of natural affection that were appropriate on the earthly scene." Some defenders of EM have described joyful heavenly responses: Thomas Aquinas, "When contraries are placed beside one another they become more conspicuous. Wherefore in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned. So that they may be urged the more to praise God." {in Summa Theologica, ca 1270, summarizing theology of the Catholic Church} a swiss-cheesed memory in Heaven -- [[ I.O.U. – Later, maybe in mid-2022, I'll describe a less common explanation for continuing joy in Heaven despite the continuing misery in Hell, in a proposal that God will selectively delete parts of our memories, to stop us from remembering those we once loved, who in Afterlife are suffering EM, so we won't be thinking "where are they? I wish they were here with me" and we won't be sad because we won't know that they will be dead forever, or suffering forever. ]] my responses: this would be a very strange thing for God to do, and it seems counter-productive; a "swiss cheese" memory (full of holes) would cripple a coherent system of memories about our Life; it would diminish the value of our Life by making much of what we experience "disappear" in a cruel cosmic joke; it would decrease our learning from Life-experiences, and Final Annihilation might prevent a Total Reconciling of Relationships and with EM this problem would be even more troubling; a deletion-of-memories isn't biblically-eliminated as "being impossible" because the Bible says nothing about it, for or against -- but it seems incompatible with the long-term plans of God that are described in the Bible. Universal Restoration would be a much better way to wipe tears from eyes, eliminate "mourning" (Rev 21:4) with the best possible ending. lost... like tears in rain: In several parts of the Overviews (Short & Long) I describe the sad loss of people if God will annihilate them, causing all of their memories to be "lost... like tears in rain." [[ iou – in late-March 2022, I'll continue by describing the context of this short video clip (3:54) with a classic “death speech” from the ending of Blade Runner (an interestingly strange movie) when a sinfully-dangerous android (engineered and built/created by humans) mercifully saves his enemy, just before the android's death; also, I'll connect his loss of memories with the sadness of FA (is it merciful? yes & no); and these losses might be supplemented by additional losses if God will swiss-cheese the memories of saved people who remain alive in His final Heaven-Kingdom, by erasing their memories of loved ones who now are gone (due to FA or EM) so this erasing-of-memories will eliminate the mourning they otherwise would do. ]]
an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. Divine Persuasion — Is “burden of proof” an argument against Eternal Misery?Why isn't God more obvious about His existence and actions? God typically doesn't use powerful persuasion with difficult-to-doubt miracles and spectacular experiences — as with Paul on the Damascus Road when God strongly persuaded Paul by shining a bright light, knocking him off his horse, talking with him, blinding him for three days — for impressive personal evidence we cannot ignore and we should not doubt.* God persuaded Paul, but He doesn't strongly persuade most people. Why? Maybe it's because some uncertainty in life (with reasons to believe and to not believe) is useful for building, in believers, an ability to live by faith. And the ways we respond to ambiguous uncertainties — typically, for most people, caused by God providing evidence that is only semi-persuasive — will (Luke 2:35) "[reveal] the thoughts of many hearts" to God and (now & later, in Life & Afterlife) to each of us. Divinely produced ambiguity — with evidence that usually is only semi-persuasive, not strongly persuasive — can perform two useful functions, by helping us learn how to live by faith, and by revealing our hearts to God and ourselves. But... although ambiguity can be useful, in Life & Afterlife the ambiguity hurts those who choose to not believe, but who might have believed (and might have been saved by God) if the evidence had been more persuasive. Divine decisions to use "some uncertainty" seem fair if God will cause Reconciliation or Annihilation for unsaved people in Afterlife, but not if He will cause Eternal Torment. When we combine a fact (that God does not use maximum persuasion) with our faith (that God is good), we have an argument in favor of Reconciliation and against Eternal Torment. Two kinds of ambiguity — the typical absence of strong personal persuasion, plus biblical ambiguity when we ask “which of the three views is true?” (is true because it's what will happen) — seems to be a "burden of proof" argument leading us to expect an afterlife-reality, for unbelievers, of Conditional Immortality that ultimately — after a very unpleasant experience in hell — results in Annihilation or (more strongly supported by "burden of proof") Reconciliation. Why? Because... it's important to avoid giving false hope that leads to a “bad surprise” in Afterlife – especially if God will cause Eternal Misery for unsaved people, because this would be an extremely bad surprise; Therefore, failing this “burden of proof” is a reason to think that claims for Eternal Misery are false, that God will not cause Eternal Torment, and instead God will cause Reconciliation (when and how?) or Annihilation. Comparing "Burden of Proof" Support for Three Views: When we think about final results for the three views (all proposing that unsaved people will have a very unpleasant experience in Hell), we see that Eternal Misery could be an extremely bad surprise, Annihilation could be a bad surprise, but Reconciliation could not be a bad surprise. Therefore, logically this burden-of-proof argument provides strong support for Reconciliation, and strong support against Eternal Misery, when these two views are compared. But this argument could provide support for Annihilation (when it's compared with Eternal Misery), or support against Annihilation (when it's compared with Reconciliation). What Will God Do with His chosen people?Jesus often taught in parables for the purpose of hiding the truth, so it would be more difficult for people to understand & believe, because "to them [to most Jews in the time of Jesus, and since then]* it has not been granted... to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" so that "while hearing they... will not understand" so they will not "see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and return, and I would heal them." (Matthew 13:11-15) Although hiding the truth was God's intention while Jesus was living among us, will God continue doing this forever, by eternally refusing to heal most Jews because they are not now traveling His narrow road that leads to salvation? will He continue rejecting His people forever? will He continue keeping them alive in Eternal Misery? {* God also "hides the truth" from most non-Jewish people by providing them with ambiguous life-experiences, without strong divine persuasion.}Paul asked “what will God do with His people?” and struggled with this tough question in Romans 9-11, before he answered it by concluding (in Romans 11:32) that "God has shut up all in disobedience [due to Adam] so that [through Christ] He may show mercy to all," with His loving "mercy to all" inspiring (Romans 11:25-12:1) our worship: "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! ... To Him be the glory forever. Amen." more: we can compare What Hitler Did to Jews versus What Jesus Will Do to Jews if He will cause FA or EM — while we remember that Christians (whether we propose UR or FA, or EM) are using logical thinking based on "if... and because..." logic when we're thinking about the character of God with appropriate humility. more about these ideas — my main page asking “Why does God not use Maximum Persuasion?” claims that some uncertainty in life (with reasons to believe and to not believe) is useful for building, in believers, an ability to live by faith — and in my first page-about-hell one section briefly explains (in a way that's a little different than what's above) why an absence of strong divine persuasion is evidence against Eternal Misery In another page, I describe some of the personal evidence that has persuaded me to believe in the existence-and-activity of God. Why did God graciously give me this evidence? I explain that "God knows me well, and He knows that I'm ‘basically a scientist’ in the ways I think, because in all areas of life I place a high value on the logical reality checks that are the foundation of scientific method. Each of us does a scientific reality check whenever we ask, in science or everyday life, an important question: How closely does “the way I think the world is” match “the way the world really is” when I observe reality? I believe that God has graciously given me impressive evidence-for-theism ... for the purpose of persuading me that my observations of reality are a close match with a theistic view of the world, so [because God has provided "a solid foundation for my theistic worldview"] I should believe that God exists and is actively involved in my world" and because of this I should live by faith and pray with faith. But why doesn't God also give other people (like my sister) the kinds of observable evidence that He graciously provided for me? Situations and Results:Life isn't fair, in a wide variety of ways, regarding our situations (abilities & opportunities)* and results (journeys & outcomes) in Life. But with UR, Life-plus-Afterlife would be more fair, compared with only-Life, because God could do justice-with-love for everyone, for victims & sinners. Or with FA, Life-plus-Afterlife would be less unfair than with EM, and with FA the overall change would be neutral for unsaved people, instead of the infinitely negative change with EM. {* an important part of each person's situation is how much God "persuades" them by providing personally meaningful reasons to believe. } more: Stories and Principles - for example, our perceptions about the character of God that is proposed in Calvinism would be much better with a better combination of Life-plus-Afterlife, if the Calvinism claimed that God supplements His unconditional election of some people (for salvation-and-service during Life) by adding (in Afterlife) the election of more people with semi-UR, or all people with UR, or even by mercifully killing His non-elect — who are all of the people He decided to not-elect during Life, the people He thus condemned to Hell — with FA, by Annihilating them instead of keeping them alive so they can have Eternal Misery. an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. Damnation-by-Merit logically REQUIRES Salvation-by-Merit:Do people EARN Eternal Misery because they are evil and stupid?
Salvation & Damnation by Personal Merit With the extremely different binary results of EM — if God, after He makes decisions about salvation and non-salvation, will give every person either Eternal Joy or Eternal Misery — it seems more fair if a Saved Person earns their Eternal Joy (because during their Life they had an extremely good heart, and an extremely wise mind in their decision to “say YES to God”) and if an Unsaved Person earns their Eternal Misery (because during their brief Life they had an extremely un-good heart and/or an extremely un-wise mind), if God gives salvation-by-merit and therefore damnation-by-merit. {logically it's "therefore" because either both results are earned by merit, or both results are un-earned; logically, you cannot claim that “salvation is un-earned, but damnation is earned”} {this logical analysis assumes a binary splitting, so every person is saved or un-saved, with nobody being semi-saved} a summary: Does a saved person earn their Eternal Joy because they are good and wise? It seems more fair if the everlasting binary results (either Eternal Joy or Eternal Misery) will be based on merit. But most Bible-believing evangelical Christians try to deny this by saying “no, when God makes binary decisions about salvation (and thus about binary afterlife-results) He does not reward some and punish others based on personal merit, based on their own goodness & wisdom,* instead salvation is a free gift of grace from God, although a person must accept God's gift or they will remain unsaved.” But a decision to "accept God's gift" depends on goodness-and-wisdom; therefore, in this common way of thinking by Christians, salvation does depend on merit. {* According to the currently popular (but controversial) view that “once saved, always saved” a person earns their salvation when, with their good heart and wise mind, they make The Decision to believe-and-repent. Or if “always saved” is not guaranteed, a person earns their salvation when, with their good-and-wise persistence, they continue to believe and to live by faith. }But if God's decisions about salvation (and thus about Joy or Misery) are not based on the goodness-and-wisdom of each person's heart-and-mind, it's difficult to imagine how anyone can rationally defend a claim that Eternal Misery would be fair, would achieve justice. {accountability & forgiveness, for the saved and unsaved} personal merit → salvation or damnation — theological complexities with Arminianism and Calvinism: According to an oversimplified Arminianism* (claiming “free will” so salvation depends on human choices) salvation depends on HUMAN MERIT, requiring a good-and-wise decision (due to the personal merit of their good heart and wise mind). According to Calvinism (claiming that salvation depends only on God's sovereign decisions, not requiring good-and-wise decisions freely made by humans) salvation depends on DIVINE FAVORITISM, so your final fate (of Eternal Joy or Eternal Misery) depends only on whether God has decided (independent of the quality of your heart-and-mind, of your feeling-and-thinking) that you will be saved, or you won't be saved. / But with Arminius, in addition to merit-based decisions, a person's salvation also depends on “luck” (on “the cards they drew in Life” regarding their location, the religious culture of their family and society,... {more about earning afterlife-results, about grace & merit, faith & works, salvation & sanctification, for Calvinists and Arminians}* But... without the oversimplication, it's complicated, so Aaron Blumer asks "Is salvation a decision?" and explains how theologians argue about this, and why “the answers” depend on definitions. He describes many views, but I don't think any of them contradict my conclusion that "if God's decisions about salvation (and thus about Joy or Misery) are not based on the goodness-and-wisdom of each person's heart-and-mind, it's difficult [for me] to imagine how anyone can rationally defend a claim that Eternal Misery would be fair, would achieve justice." the “Monster God” of Calvinism: [[ iou – soon, maybe late-February 2022, this paragraph will be written using these ideas – that currently include lots of duplicating (because they've been cut-and-pasted from different parts of the page) – by eliminating the duplications to make the resulting paragraph shorter and more logically coherent. ]] [[ many people (including me) think God would be an immoral "monster" IF (but I'm confident this "if" won't happen) God arbitrarily (without any consideration of personal merit in the goodness of a person's heart or the wisdom of their mind, as claimed in the U of Calvinism's TULIP) decides that some people will be saved but others will be damned, AND He will give them Eternal Misery. There is no biblically-logical reason for the "AND" that combines Calvinism's essential claim (about the sovereignty of God in everything that happens) with a logically-unrelated claim that God will cause Eternal Misery, that He will cause EM for all of the people that He decides will be not-saved. / i.e. If basic logical Calvinism (claiming divine total-sovereignty) is expanded to include Eternal Misery, I think this Calvinistic God — a God who will do what is proposed in Calvinism-plus-EM by predestining some people for Hell, AND [in a claim that's not related to logical Calvinism] causing Eternal Misery for these people — is an immoral monster, but... I'm extremely confident that this monster is not who God is, and EM is not what He will do. [[ by contrast, I think it could be fair (or at least much less monstrous) IF God decides that some people will be saved-in-Life, and all others will be saved-in-Afterlife, to produce Universal Restoration; i.e. our perceptions about the character of God that is proposed in Calvinism would be much better with a better combination of Life-plus-Afterlife, if Calvinism claimed that God supplements His unconditional election of some people (for salvation-and-service during Life) by adding (in Afterlife) the election of more people with semi-UR, or all people with UR, or even by mercifully killing His non-elect — who are all of the people He decided to not-elect during Life, the people He thus condemned to Hell — with FA, by Annihilating them instead of keeping them alive so they can have Eternal Misery. / i.e. I think Calvinistic predestination would be fair with Annihilation-in-Hell (with a “nothing to nothing” overall result for the damned) and it would be even better with Reconciliation-in-Hell (with “nothing to joy” results for every person); and each of these two combinations (Calvinism-with-FA and Calvinism-with-UR) is possible, because there is no logical/theological reason that logical Calvinism should be "expanded to include Eternal Misery." [[ a God-given freed will in Afterlife would be similar to Calvinism's claim that God-given regeneration in Life allows a person to overcome their sinful Total Inability (in TULIP it's the T that is caused by an enslaved unfreed will) so they can-and-do believe in God and they do repent. / and the IP of TULIP could guarantee that all shall be saved (either in Life or in Afterlife) if the L is rejected as in 4-Point Calvinism. [[ also: I will gather ideas from other parts of this page and from the "page for extra details" and/or will make links to other places. ]]
Justice for Everyone (for Victims and Offenders) with Universal Restoration:We can imagine how UR-Hell could be a way for God to achieve justice (with love) for victims and offenders: victims get Restorative Justice leading to their reconciliation with other people (with those who harmed them during Life) and with God. offenders get Retributive Justice (for the suffering caused by their sinning) that is intrinsically fair and also is educational & healing & corrective, that leads to their Rehabilitation when God transforms them into Sanctification (when God makes them Righteous to achieve His Justice) and gives them Salvation, so they can have Reconciliation with other people and with God. In UR-Hell the suffering would be individually beneficial for every person, including those in Hell, to get restorative justice and to rehabilitate sinners, so ultimately God produces justice-AND-love for everyone. FA-Hell could be societally beneficial for The Kingdom of God, by eliminating sinners and their sin. But it's difficult to see any useful purpose for EM-Hell, any way for EM-Hell to provide benefits beyond what would be achieved with FA-Hell. Do you see why, when all things are considered, it's easiest for a Christian to enthusiastically (with their whole heart/soul/mind) praise God and proudly proclaim “what He will do to sinners (and for them!)” if they think God will do Universal Restoration, and is most difficult if they think God will do Eternal Misery? Compared with this Justice for Everyone with Universal Restoration, do you think it would be more fair if God will do Binary Justice with results that depend on salvation-or-damnation?
an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. Binary Justice — Can it be fair? (for a Wide Variety of Life-Situations)In an Afterlife with Eternal Misery, there would be an immense difference between the fates of saved and unsaved people; with the binary justice of EM, each person is given (by God) either totally good Eternal Joy or totally bad Eternal Misery. But when we look at the entire population of the world, our faith-and-actions seem to vary along a continuum, instead of a binary splitting into “good people” and “evil people”. Even though God has omniscient super-knowledge that helps Him judge each person's faith-and-actions in divinely wise ways we don't understand, the immense difference in afterlife results — if people will receive either Eternal Joy or Eternal Misery — makes it difficult to imagine how any binary EM-Justice can be fair, especially if only a few people will be saved. How can God be fair to people in a wide variety of common life-situations, for the MANY people... • who are feeble-minded, or die when they're young? {if you say "babies who die are saved," is abortion the perfect strategy for evangelism? no, I'm not suggesting this, I'm just calling attention to a logic difficulty of non-UR, with FA or EM.} • who are (if Calvinism is correct) predestined for Hell? or who are free to choose, but are “dealt a bad hand in life” because they... have life-experiences that make it difficult for them to say YES to God? • who were devout Christians for awhile, but then faded away? or who think they have been followers of Christ, but later (as in Matthew 7:21-23) they discover that Christ has judged them to be failures? What is the binary “dividing line” between saved and unsaved? what kinds of faith and living-by-faith (with how many good works?) are required to be among the "few" who "enter through the narrow gate"? Here are some details to consider: IF salvation will depend on beliefs and/or actions, with the quality of each (beliefs, actions) varying along a range for different people, and IF for Their Total Life they will get a Life Score, and IF there will be a “dividing line” between saved & unsaved — with some people just above this line (so they get Eternal Joy) but others just below it (so they get Eternal Misery) even though their overall quality-scores (for beliefs and/or actions) are almost identical — would this be fair? If this wouldn't be fair, is this a reason for God to avoid binary judging? {more about the difficulties of achieving true justice with binary justice} There seems to be no way for Christians to have the certainty of knowing, and this can produce anxiety about salvation for themselves and for people they know & love. {more about the "few"} For any of these situations, UR (with its personally customizable suffering for sins in afterlife-education) provides more flexibility for God to achieve Divine Justice-AND-Love during the overall experiences of each person in their life-plus-afterlife. The difficulties of binary grading would be less severe with FA, compared with EM, due to its less extreme differences in binary results, and its nothing-to-nothing overall change. But with FA an unsaved person still would have the infinite loss of Eternal Joy. The Challenge (for justice) of Borderline Cases: After God has considered all relevant factors — degrees of faith, amounts of faith-based good works, personal motivations, sins of omission & sins of commission, loving God and loving people,... — it seems necessary to have a “cutoff point” where someone above this line will be saved, but someone below it will be damned. For example, imagine that the cutoff-minimum is “70 points” and Saved Dave has 70.0, but Damned Sam has 69.9, so Dave gets Eternal Joy but Sam gets Eternal Misery. Do you agree with me that this doesn't seem fair? {analogy - binary grading by a human teacher and by God} Degrees of Suffering in AfterlifeJesus describes different degrees of suffering in Afterlife. Would "different degrees" be possible with the binary results of Eternal Misery, if in EM-Hell there will be infinite suffering for everyone? (yes, but...) By contrast, God could produce different degrees of suffering in UR-Hell and this would occur intrinsically if there is a correlation between suffering-caused and suffering-received, so if a person causes more suffering in Life, they will receive more suffering in Afterlife, if “what they sow, they will reap.”
Would you choose to play The Game of Life? (if UR, FA, EM)For questions asking “would you choose Life?” (if Afterlife-for-Unsaved will be UR or FA, or EM), my answers are Yes & Yes, and NO. Why? By considering overall changes the logic is simple; with UR (guaranteeing a big win, eventually) or FA (a big win or a draw) I would want to be born; but I wouldn't take the risk if there is any chance of infinite misery with EM, and defenders of EM claim it's a high chance because most people will be damned to Eternal Misery. Would you make the same choices?To choose wisely, I think we need to know only “what kind of Afterlife will God cause for the unsaved-in-Life?” I would not be satisfied with information about probabilities (am I likely to be unsaved-in-Life?) even if I estimate my own chance-of-EM to be only 1%, I still wouldn't take the chance, I would “say NO to Life-and-Afterlife” IF God will cause EM. The only three ways I would say YES is by knowing God will cause UR or FA, or knowing (with total certainty) that it's impossible for me to be unsaved-in-Life, so my possibility of getting infinite suffering with infinitely horrible Eternal Misery is zero.I think that God also has answered “yes, yes, NO” (because He is good and loving) and therefore He mercifully has created a world with Conditional Immortality (and thus with either UR or FA in Afterlife) but not with EM. Earlier I ask "would you choose to be born into Life-and-Afterlife?" and "if you think ‘no’ because you think the fate of most people will be EM [so statistically it's better to not be born], should the birth of a child be a reason for joyful celebration or sad mourning?" Logically, if God will cause EM, then a new birth should cause us to mourn, but... instead our instinctive heart-felt response is to joyfully celebrate the birth, because our instinctive gut-level intuition is that the child's fate will not be Eternal Misery. If I could choose to be created as a non-accountable person (due to either death at a very young age, or having very low intelligence) instead of an accountable person (who lives past youth and has higher intelligence) with UR or FA or EM, my answers would be “no, maybe, yes”; if UR, it's "no" because either way (accountable or not) I would get an Afterlife with Eternal Joy; and like most people, I would want to also have a full Life with intelligence & longevity; {more – explaining the reason why – for an accountable person deciding whether to play The Game of Life – the rational choices (yes, yes, no) seem simple-and-obvious.} an option: You can first read condensed-and-revised versions in the Short Overview and Long Overview. Divine Generosity — How would you feel if God was extremely generous?Jesus told parables about all-day workers and a faithful older brother that inspire questions: Would it be fair... if you worked all day, but your wages are not more than the wages of late-arrivers who worked only part of the day? (the all-day workers complained, thinking “this isn't fair” – in Matthew 20:1-16) Will it ever be too late to love God? If a wicked man (who has caused much suffering for others) believes-and-repents on his deathbed after a lifetime of rejecting God, will God forgive him and save him? I say “yes” and so do most other Christians. [[ iou – later I'll ask "is it fair" if people who became saved late in life after they did extremely evil things (like Ted Bundy & Jeffrey Dahmer?) have their sins totally forgiven by God, with no payment in Afterlife? the typical response by evangelicals is "yes" but would this be fair? a typical defense of EM is that God is loving but... He wants justice (that is retributive) so God must punish sin & sinners, but if Bundy-Dahmer have zero retribution, is this "no punishment for Christians" fair, based on typical evangelical expectations about retributive justice? ]] Should our thinking change when we ask, “will God also let a similar sinner believe-and-repent after death in their Afterlife?” If a Christian thinks “no” because “this wouldn't be fair to me, because I diligently loved-and-served God during Life,” their thinking is like that of the all-day workers or faithful older brother. But this thinking — with “mixed feelings” that could decrease their hoping for salvation-in-Afterlife that leads to Universal Restoration — is criticized by Jesus: When the full-day workers complained about the full-day wages for part-day workers, the vineyard owner defended his generosity by saying "I am not being unfair to you... are you envious because I am generous?" When the faithful older brother complained about the joyful “welcome back” party for his unfaithful brother, their father defended his generosity by saying "we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." But... if you're wise you won't wait because Jesus warns about the loss (missing the wedding feast, losing rewards,... and maybe more) caused by waiting, by not preparing well.
Evidence for Universal Restoration? Are these parables — about a Generous Owner and Forgiving Father, plus (earlier in Luke 15) diligent searching for a lost sheep and lost coin — teaching us that God's love is persistent? Yes. Will our Heavenly Father continue searching for lost sinners (no matter what road they're on) after they die? Maybe. {does God have faithful compassions that "fail not"?} Do these parables provide support for post-death repentance and thus for Universal (or Semi-Universal) Restoration? Yes. But it's not proof because non-UR interpretations also are possible. Don't Wait: Either way, whether God will or won't provide opportunities to repent after death, Jesus warns us to "be ready" and don't wait until it's too late because a person who is wise will “say YES to God” now so they can live their life for God now , so He can help them fulfill the God-given purposes for their Life. {more} |
THE LONG OVERVIEW continues |
Terms for The Three Views * In this page I'm describing a view of UR (based on the Bible, truly Christian, non-pluralistic) that can have many different labels; if a name has two blanks ( ) each can be filled in several ways, for the first (universal, ultimate, eventual, final, ...) and the second (reconciliation, restoration, salvation, redemption, ...) so there are many possible combinations. I've been calling it universal reconciliation, but probably I'll change my term to universal restoration, or (less likely) to universal restoration or ultimate reconciliation.} {update: I already made this change, in late 2020.} What are the benefits of each term (highlighted by italics) that I prefer? Here are comparisons of universal vs ultimate, and reconciliation vs restoration: different questions are answered by universal (who? all) and ultimate (when? after the penultimate afterlife-experiences of purgatorial educating, correcting, and healing by God);
more – details about questions (useful and non-useful) plus semi-UR "hybrid" views – each view has several common names, including two (conditional immortality & hopeful universalist) that I think are commonly used in illogical ways
Confusing TermsCommon uses of terms can be a cause of confusion, because the same term can refer to different views, and the same view can be called by different names. For example, Final Annihilation (FA) is usually called Annihilation or — by using the term in a way that is logically-incorrect (so I won't use it this way, I'll use it only with its logically-correct meaning) — Conditional Immortality. defining “universalism”I confidently believe that God will produce Conditional Immortality and this would occur with either Ultimate Restoration or Final Annihilation, so my view is UR-or-FA. But outside this page, my UR (i.e. the Bible-based UR that I'm describing in this page, and have accepted as one of two biblically-plausible final results of Hell) can be called by many names. In addition to Universal Restoration (the term I've finally chosen), it's also Ultimate Restoration (the second term I chose), Universal Ultimate Restoration, Ultimate Universal Restoration or (the term I originally used) Universal Reconciliation, or Universal Salvation, or Christian Universalism, or just Universalism. But these terms – especially universalism – can refer to a variety of views, with a range of meanings. Therefore, to reduce misunderstandings I want to emphasize that... In this page, Bible-based Universal Restoration (aka Christian Universalism) is non-pluralistic (instead it's exclusivist) because it claims that Jesus offers the only way to be saved, the narrow road leading to salvation. also: biblical UR is purgatorial Universal Restoration (pUR, with a purging-Hell that purifies sinners, cleansing them from sin, healing them and restoring them so they finally become the sinless persons that God always wanted them to be. UR does not claim “there is no Hell,” instead the claim is that “Hell is a temporary process that will produce a permanent result of total Restoration.” also: biblical UR is trinitarian, so UR isn't Unitarian Universalism.
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logically defining Conditional Immortality – Part 1Conditional Immortality (CI) is theologically defined by its logical if-then Condition: if a person is saved, then God will give them immortality. CI cannot occur with EM, but it can with FA or UR. Why? EM: Conditional Immortality would not occur with Eternal Misery, because with EM an unsaved sinner (who doesn't satisfy God's Condition) is given immortality; if God causes EM by causing unsaved sinners to live forever, He would be violating His clear declaration that an unsaved sinner "must not... live forever" in sinful misery. FA or UR: Conditional Immortality would occur with either FA or UR,* because... after Final Annihilation, all unsaved people have permanently died (in FA-Hell) so only saved people are continuing to live forever, and all of them satisfy God's Condition for Immortality, or... after Universal Restoration, all unsaved people have been transformed (in pUR-Hell) into saved people who satisfy God's Condition for Immortality, so He will cause them to live forever. / divine mercy and grace: God is merciful, as we see in Genesis 3 where He tells us that He will mercifully prevent eternal misery by preventing sinners from living forever in a state of sin; this prevention-of-EM would occur either with FA because they're not living forever, or with UR because they're not in a state of sin. God is gracious, and IF a person is saved – during Life with FA or UR, or during Afterlife with UR – He will give them Immortality with Eternal Joy; but He will not give any person Immortality with Eternal Misery. * CI could occur with either FA or UR, so the logical definition of CI is “FA or UR” instead of the illogical “only FA” that is implied when a person says “Conditional Immortality and Annihilation are two names for the same view.” {more: there are two ways – biblical & unbiblical – to begin a process of concluding “God will cause UR”} {what about FA vs UR? if you don't yet know that abundant biblical evidence supports Universal Restoration, you can see it in overviews - short & medium-short & longer} To compare FA with UR, we ask two questions (re: what & who) about death, and one (re: when) about after-death: • WHAT is the penalty? (both views agree that it's “permanent total death”), • WHO will receive this penalty? (“some people” with FA, or “none” with UR), and WHEN can a person be saved? (“only in Life” with FA, but “in Life or Afterlife” with UR). WHAT is the penalty for sin? The biblically-correct answer is “death” and death is the penalty with FA and UR — although we see disagreement when asking how many deaths were “paid for” by the substitutionary atonement of Jesus, with FA answering “some” while UR says “Jesus paid for all” — but death is not the penalty with EM. Therefore the many biblical reasons to reject Eternal Misery include these: EM would violate conditional immortality, so EM would produce eternally lasting sin (by producing eternally lasting “living death” in The Lake of Fire where people remain trapped in their sins forever) even though the Bible teaches us that God eventually will eliminate sin, and will eliminate death; and EM would be unsatisfactory for substitutionary atonement (when God paid the penalty for our sins) because in His crucifixion Jesus had finite suffering with death, but EM would be a penalty of infinite suffering without death. {do you see the two mis-matchings, for suffering & for death, that would cause unsatisfactory substitution if the penalty for sin is eternal sinfulness instead of death?} {more about these reasons}[[iou – this section will be combined with what's above, to show relationships – a penalty of death is necessary for FA, is compatible with UR (but isn't necessary because UR also could occur if the potential penalty is Eternal Misery but it's not enforced on anyone with UR), is impossible with EM – due to the extra line added below. / On the cross, Jesus did have finite suffering with death (as proposed for FA-Hell) so He did pay the penalty of death that is proposed in FA & UR;* but He did not have the infinite suffering without death that is proposed in EM, so God's penalty-paying substitution would fail in two ways with EM, because the crucifixion wasn't infinite suffering, but was death. Although a divine paying-of-penalty doesn't work properly with EM, it does work with either FA or UR. {also, FA & UR eliminate sin but EM preserves sin}or, “How many death penalties will God pay for?” — only some (if FA), or all (if UR), or, “so the penalty of death would be actual with FA, and potential if UR.
logically defining Conditional Immortality – Part 2In Part 1 (and again when comparing the views) we see how immortality would occur in a way that satisfies God's if-then Condition – if saved, then immortal – with 2 of the 3 views, with Final Annihilation (FA) because all unsaved people would be gone, or with Universal Restoration (UR) because all people would be saved.* Therefore the logical conclusion is that Conditional Immortality is “either FA or UR” instead of the “only FA” that is claimed whenever a person refers to Annihilationism as Conditional Immortality. I think we should be logical (instead of just traditional) in our defining of Conditional Immortality (CI). What do you think? An explanation of why Conditional Immortality would occur with either FA or UR is above and also earlier where I say: "God wants to [mercifully] prevent people from living forever in a state of sin, with eternal misery; He can prevent this unacceptable combination in two ways, either with Final Annihilation (by eliminating unsaved sinners, so they're not living forever) or with Universal Restoration (by eliminating sin-within-sinners, so they're not in a state of sin). Either way, God will fulfill His conditional promise that ‘IF saved, THEN immortal’ by giving Eternal Joy to every person who is alive." * an essential similarity: Because CI is either FA or UR an essential outcome of Conditional Immortality – having a Final State with righteous justice because sin has been eliminated by God – would occur with either FA or UR. This similarity-of-outcomes occurs because FA is CI, and UR is CI. By contrast, EM is not-CI. Therefore, EM would produce a very different Final State in which sin is being maintained by God, forever, and this unbiblical outcome is one biblical reason (among many biblical reasons) to reject EM. / Conditional Immortality produces two causally-connected purposes – to prevent people from living forever in sinful misery, as a key part of God's plan to eliminate all sin from His cosmos – that God has told us He wants, and He will produce. a non-essential difference: Although a similar Final State (without sin) would be produced by either actualization of CI, with UR this is achieved by eliminating sin-within-people, and with FA it's achieved by eliminating people, so with FA there are fewer people in The Final State. {this difference isn't essential, but could the absence of these people prevent a Total Restoration of relationships?}
Human Immortality in Afterlife:
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| biblically-plausible Conditional Immortality: |
FA Conditional non-universal |
UR Conditional universal |
Conditional EM is impossible |
| biblically-implausible UnConditional Immortality: |
UnConditional FA is impossible |
UR UnConditional universal |
EM UnConditional universal |
I think Conditional Immortality is biblically plausible (it has biblical support that is extremely strong), but UnConditional Immortality is biblically implausible, so the two top-row cells (for FA & UR) are labeled "biblically-plausible" but the bottom-row cells (for UR & EM) are labeled "biblically-implausible" and are shaded gray. So there are only two biblically-plausible possibilities, as stated in the title for this section.
Logic and The Yellow Table-Cell: In this table notice that both UR-cells are universal but one is Conditional so with UR, immortality can be universal-AND-Conditional. This is possible because although “if UnConditional, then universal” is true, a reversed-claim that “if universal, then UnConditional” is false. The existence of this yellow cell is important because it illustrates a principle of logic: sometimes (as in this situation) there is a difference in the truthfulness of an if-then claim and its reversal. This principle helps us logically define CI, because it shows the falsity of a claim that UR must be UnConditional – which is false because it depends on “if universal, then UnConditional” being true, but it's false – that can be used in a futile attempt to logically defend a definition of Conditional Immortality as only-FA. { here is another way to think about it: UnConditional Immortality is sufficient for producing universal immortality, but isn't necessary because universal immortality also can occur with Conditional Immortality.}
We should reject a common misunderstanding about
the logic of UR and (if it will occur) the reality of UR.
The logic in this section uses the logic above, as explained in the text and summarized in the table: UR could occur in two ways, either with Conditional Immortality (this is biblically-plausible, and it would allow either UR or FA) or with UnConditional Immortality (this is biblically-implausible, and it would allow either UR or EM).
Logically, a Christian who believes the Bible – and has carefully studied the Bible so they understand the strong biblical support for Conditional Immortality – should begin to evaluate UR by assuming a biblically-plausible Conditional Immortality. But unfortunately, instead – due to cultural influences (including the inertia of tradition) and personal psychology – there is a common belief that humans have intrinsically-immortal souls (even though this belief is unbiblical) so an evaluation of UR often begins by assuming Universal Immortality. This is unfortunate because it leads to the misunderstanding that UR must ASSUME universal immortality (this is false) instead of the correct understanding that UR will PRODUCE universal immortality (this is true).
Let's look at two ways of logically concluding that “God will produce UR, and thus universal immortality.” A person could begin their process of reasoning either with Conditional Immortality (that's dependent on God) or with Universal Immortality (that often is assumed to be intrinsic-and-unconditional for all humans, independent from God) and then uses logic:
1) With biblical justification because the Bible teaches us that a person's continuing existence is dependent on God (it's not independently intrinsic) and is conditional (so if saved, then immortal), a proponent of UR should begin by deciding that God will give humans dependent Conditional Immortality {this would occur with UR or FA} so the result of Afterlife-Hell will be either UR or FA, then they evaluate UR-versus-FA and conclude “it will be UR instead of FA” so their conclusion includes universal immortality that is Conditional Immortality. {yes, this combination is possible}
2) Without biblical justification a proponent of UR could begin with an assumption of intrinsic Universal Immortality so “everyone will be immortal” with either UR or EM, then they evaluate UR-versus-EM and conclude “it will be UR instead of EM.”
In these two ways, universal immortality could be a final conclusion (using biblical process #1) or an initial assumption (using unbiblical process #2). UR that is Bible-based should not assume universal immortality that is UnConditional (as in #2); instead UR first should assume Conditional Immortality and then should conclude universal immortality (as in #1).
Let's look at two steps in the overall process of logic:
Step A: Based on a careful study of the Bible, a believer concludes that the Bible teaches dependent Conditional Immortality instead of instrinsic Universal Immortality that is UnConditional Immortality. This Bible-based conclusion (in Part A) then becomes their Bible-based premise in Step B.
Step B: Based on Step A, a believer begins Step B by thinking “because there will be dependent Conditional Immortality (therefore UR or FA),...” as in biblical process #1. Then they evaluate UR-vs-FA and if they conclude “it will be UR” they are concluding “there will be Universal Immortality.”
rejecting a false claim: It's wrong to claim (or even imply) that UR must begin with an initial assumption of universal immortality {so it's UR-or-EM}. Why? Because contrary to this erroneous claim, there is no logical reason for a proponent of UR to begin with universal immortality, even though this IS the logical starting point used by some proponents of UR. Instead a Bible-believer should begin by assuming Conditional Immortality {so it's UR-or-FA}; then if they finally conclude “it's UR (not FA)” their final conclusion will include universal immortality.
[[ iou - the final section of "Part 2" will be written soon, Nov 6-8. ]]
the logic of UR and (if it will occur) the reality of UR -- [[ ideas to be use here include... Although some proponents of UR do begin their process-of-logic by assuming unconditional immortality, biblically they shouldn't do this, and logically they don't need to do it. But the logical process (used by a person) doesn't affect the actual result (produced by reality) so if God will cause UR, the same Final Result will occur whether the logic used by a proposer-of-UR is biblical (by assuming CI) or unbiblical (by assuming UnCI). ]]
I.O.U. – Soon (maybe in February 2022) I'll develop-and-revise the ideas inside this green-box.transition: I'll connect what's above (re: two human logic-processes and our afterlife-theories) with what's below, about God's reality being unaffected by human theories Theories are not Realities: Our humanly constructed Afterlife-Theories do not determine whether the divinely-decided Afterlife-Reality will be EM or FA or UR or semi-UR or something else. This distinction between Theory and Reality is important. (e.g. a Theory-about-UR can propose either biblical Conditional Immortality or unbiblical Unconditional Immortality) Yes, what we believe-and-say in our humanly constructed Afterlife-Theories does affect how we live now — in our relationships and decisions — but... no, a humanly constructed Afterlife-Theory cannot determine what the basic Afterlife-Reality will be; instead the Afterlife-Reality will be divinely decided (WWJD) and divinely created/actualized. it's also below, in logic that often [due to cultural prevalence/== of belief that humans have intrinsically have immortality that is unconditional and universal, although this belief is biblically incorrect -- theories vs realities @ur2 despite incorrect start-of-process the conclusion could be correct, despite invalid logic, process of getting-T and evaluating-T and reality itself are not necessarily connected / bottom line: BECAUSE yellow cell exists, UR is CI, everything else is just jabbering isn't logical ]] we don't have "immortal souls" - God didn't create humans with immortality, He created us for immortality that He will provide, #cisouls conclude CI, evaluate fa-vs-ur [will God save some or all?], and conclude all, because "if saved then immortal" thus all immortal. put this into Part 1 -- re: two ways to begin a process-of-concluding "UR" -- reality (humanly constructed, independent-from-humans) -- but God states (Genesis 3) that immortality will be conditional, not for sinners |
logically defining Conditional Immortality — Part 3
Of course, this Part 3 builds on Part 1 and Part 2 that each build on the essential foundations (explained before Part 1 and before Part 2) of why Conditional Immortality (CI) is taught in The Bible, why it's important, how it's related to the divine penalty of death (not long-term suffering), and how Conditional Immortality would happen with either Final Annihilation (FA) or Universal Restoration (UR), but not if God will cause Eternal Misery (EM).
Part 3 has four parts, 3A to 3D.
Part 3A
A Logical Definition of Conditional Immortality
In Part 1 and Part 2 we see how immortality would satisfy God's if-then Condition — if (and only if) saved, then immortal — with 2 of the 3 views, with Final Annihilation (FA) because all unsaved people would be gone, or with Universal Restoration (UR) because all people would be saved. Therefore the logical conclusion is that Conditional Immortality is “either FA or UR” instead of the “only FA” that is claimed whenever a person refers to Annihilation as Conditional Immortality.
Part 2 includes explanations of the...
• LOGIC-of-RESULTS: FA and UR both satisfy the logical if-then Condition of Conditional Immortality, so both produce a similar Final State (without sin), although with UR this is achieved by eliminating sin-within-people, and with FA it's achieved by eliminating people, so with FA there would be fewer people in The Final State.
• PROCESS-of-LOGIC: A person can logically conclude that “UR will happen” in two very different ways by starting their process-of-logic either with dependent conditional immortality (this is biblical) or (unbiblically) with intrinsic universal immortality that is unconditional. Although some proponents of UR do begin their process-of-logic by assuming unconditional immortality, biblically they shouldn't do this, and logically they don't need to do it. But the logical process (used by a person) doesn't affect the actual result (produced by reality) so if God will cause UR, the same Final Result will occur whether the logic used by a proposer-of-UR is biblical (by assuming CI) or unbiblical (by assuming UnCI).
[[ iou - the next two paragraphs will be radically revised soon, probably in early 2022. ]]
[[ Here is another aspect of the logic. Universal Restoration is sufficient to produce universal immortality, but it isn't necessary, because universal immortality could occur with either UR or EM. And re: our human interpretation, we can imagine how universal immortality could occur with either unbiblical unconditional universal immortality (producing UR or EM) or with biblical conditional immortality (producing UR). / Why might this be important? A failure to recognize these possibilities for “sufficient but not necessary” could be a reason to make the mistake of thinking (and then implying, or even claiming) that concluding Universal Restoration requires assuming universal immortality. {more about the logic - sufficient but not necessary - of UR}
[[ UR would be possible even if God's penalty-for-sin was infinite suffering (as with EM) because when we ask "how many people are saved from this penalty" we can answer either "some (if EM)" or "all (if UR)" because UR doesn't require CI; by contrast, FA requires CI, and EM requires not-CI. {maybe this logic already is explained somewhere in ur.htm, and I think it's in ur2.htm - later I'll check everything, will make sure it's here in ur.htm.}
a failed attempt at logical justification: In addition to The Condition (if saved, then immortal) a defender of “CI = only FA” can claim an Extra Condition by saying (as one defender did) that "in theological labeling convention, conditional is a technical term implying that conditions will not be universally met." But it's easy to see the falsity of this "convention" in many everyday-life situations where policy-Conditions are universally satisfied. For example, imagine these situations: the policy of a college is that “if you pass your courses, then you can play on our basketball team,” and all 15 roster-players pass their courses; the policy of Megabus is “if you buy a ticket, then you can ride on our bus,” and all 40 passengers buy a ticket. In both situations (with Conditional Playing & Conditional Riding) there is a Condition so the situation is Conditional, yet an Extra Condition that "conditions will not be universally met" is wrong. Or from another perspective, we can ask... Would a semi-Universalism be accepted as Conditionalism if instead of 10% salvation (a common estimate of those who are traveling “the narrow path” now during their Life) God decides that He wants 20% to be saved? but what if it's 50, 51, 80, 98, or 99.99999%? does The Extra Condition force The Condition to become a Non-Condition only if 100% satisfy The Condition, if semi-Universalism becomes Universalism? Where do advocates of “UR is not-CI” want to draw the line? And how can this line be logically justified? [[ iou - soon, maybe Nov 6-8, this section also will refer to Part 2 where the logic of biblically-plausible possibilities shows why this claim is logically false. ]]
Part 3B
The Timing of Immortality-with-UR
a better attempt at logical justification: In contrast with failed attempts (made by proponents of FA) trying to logically justify their claim that “CI is only-FA”, here we'll examine an argument that I think is more credible, biblically and logically.
This defense is based on a question: If God will cause UR, when does a person's immortality begin? For a person who was saved-in-Life, their immortality begins immediately when they are resurrected with indestructible bodies. By contrast, for a person who was unsaved-in-life, proponents of “CI is only-FA” can claim that “with Conditional Immortality this person cannot be immediately given an indestructible body because they are not yet saved, but this mis-timing (with indestructible body before salvation) would occur with UR.” This objection is biblically-logical, but a proponent of UR can respond in two biblically-logical ways:
1) When we ask “what kind of body for the unsaved?” the situation is similar for FA and UR. In either scenario for Afterlife, a person who was unsaved-in-Life will be given a body for awhile, until God is finished with the temporary “phases of afterlife” that He wants them to have. With FA these phases include a time period for The Judgment by God, and maybe a time period when they are being punished for their sins (so they will have different degrees of suffering) and a time period when they are dying and become dead. With UR these phases include a time period for The Judgment by God, and the person's time period in purgatorial UR-Hell with educating that causes them to believe-and-repent so (as happens with Christians during Life) God will save them, and correcting that makes them become personally restored (so they have no sin) and interpersonally reconciled (with other people and with God); then after they have been saved, God will give them an indestructible body, and this timing (with salvation before an indestructible body that will allow immortality) is consistent with the if-then Condition of Conditional Immortality. / a summary: With either FA or UR, a temporary body (given immediately at resurrection) must allow the continuing existence of an unsaved person for awhile, so they can experience the required phases of their afterlife, whether this lasts for a short time or a long time. The divinely-decided length of required time (for FA, or for UR) is not specified in scripture, so it could be a short time or a long time. With UR we can think of this temporary body as a “probationary body” that will be transformed into an indestructible “immortal body” after they have been saved by God, and this timing is compatible with Conditional Immortality.
2) If God decides to do UR and causes UR, God knows with certainty (due to His all-knowing foreknowledge) that an unsaved person eventually will be saved by Him. Therefore, even if He immediately gives them an indestructible body (to be used during their temporary time in UR-Hell), in the long run this immediately-indestructible “immortal body” will not violate The Condition of Conditional Immortality. It will not violate God's decision about CI — with His decree in Genesis 3:22 stating that a sinner "must not... live forever" — because the previously-unsaved person will be saved before they live forever, so they will live forever as a saved person, not (as with EM) while they remain an unsaved person.
Part 3C
Possible Reasons – Logical, Historical, Personal – for Choosing a Definition
If a claim that “CI is only FA” cannot be logically justified, why do most people – including proponents of FA, and also proponents of other views – continue to claim that “CI is only FA” so “CI does not include UR” and “UR is not-CI” ?
LOGICAL Reasons: Above is a brief reminder of why, if we logically use the Bible to define the meaning of Conditional Immortality, our biblically-logical conclusion should be that CI could occur with either FA or UR, so our definition for CI should be “either FA or UR”. Attempts to logically justify “CI is only FA” – with an Extra Condition or with a question about timing or in other ways – have not been successful, and probably cannot be successful.
But... should logic be over-ruled by other reasons?
HISTORICAL Reasons: During church history, the most common meaning for CI has been only FA. I think this historical tradition should be considered, as one factor in our defining of CI. But it should not be the most important factor. We should not be bound by tradition when there are logical reasons to question the tradition, to examine it and then reject the tradition if this seems wise, if the tradition seems wrong. And we have strong reasons to logically conclude that the tradition of “CI = only-FA” is wrong. But... tradition can produce powerful inertia, and the illogical “CI is only FA” (so “FA is CI” but “UR is not-CI”) continues to be commonly used by most people.
Logic versus Tradition: Sometimes a defender of FA will explicitly appeal to Historical Tradition (instead of just relying on everyone to implicitly assume it) as a reason to conclude that CI is only-FA. So should they also claim that recent Historical Tradition is a strong reason to conclude that the Bible teaches EM instead of FA? No. They correctly want us to focus on Biblically-Logical Reasons to evaluate EM versus FA, and they also should want us to focus on Biblically-Logical Reasons when evaluating the benefits of defining CI as only-FA or as FA-or-UR. They should want to avoid hidden arguments for their own view; instead they should want everyone to consider only clearly-visible arguments for their view.
PERSONAL Reasons: Despite the weak logical support for “CI is only FA” – so appeals to Historical Tradition are necessary – why do defenders of FA argue for “CI is only FA” so strongly? And why do I strongly argue for “CI is either FA or UR” ?
their personal reasons: It seems to me that defenders of FA (as individuals & groups)* strongly want CI to mean “only FA”. Why?
I think the foundational reason is because the Bible clearly teaches CI. Due to the strong biblical support for Conditional Immortality (along with the closely-related Death Penalty for Sin), IF we use their restrictive definition (CI is only-FA) this is an implicit “hidden argument” favoring FA (but only if CI = FA, so FA is CI and therefore is supported strongly by the Bible) when FA is compared with UR (if by definition, although not by logic, CI is not-UR, so UR is not-CI and therefore is not-supported). Even though this definition is illogical, it has persuasive power in two logically-related ways. First and directly, if CI is only-FA, the truth-credibility of CI seems to increase the truth-credibility of FA (if it's CI) and decrease the truth-credibility of UR (if it's not-CI); this illogical result happens instead of the logically-correct result of increasing the truth-credibility (compared with EM) of both FA and UR, because... Second and indirectly, the strong biblical support for CI is a strong argument against EM, and proponents of FA want their view to “get all of the credit” (with none going to UR) for the strong CI-based arguments against EM.* Separately and together, these two factors are rhetorically effective in making FA appear to be stronger – when FA is compared with CI-violating EM, and (especially) with CI-satisfying UR – simply by claiming that “CI = FA” so “FA is CI”. / * For example, Glenn Peoples (in Podcast #4 of Rethinking Hell) describes three kinds of strong biblical support for Annihilationism; the first two evidences – for CI, and thus for a Final State without sin – are support for CI that is support for FA [and also is support for UR] and is support against EM; the third, re: the words for destruction, is a claim of support for FA when it's compared with EM [and also support for FA when it's compared with UR]. Although this excellent podcast is titled "The Case for Annihilationism," much of the podcast (in his first two reasons) is also “A Case for Universalism” (because it's evidence for CI and thus for FA-or-UR) but this logical support-for-UR, that I've placed [within brackets], is never mentioned in the podcast.
another reason: The term Annihilation is a clear reminder that FA claims God will kill people who were unsaved-in-Life. To avoid this emotionally-negative connotation in the term for their view, proponents of FA want to use Conditional Immortality as a kinder-sounding euphemism, with positive connotations for the Immortality given by God, instead of negative connotations for the Annihilation (the Killing, Execution, Extermination, Elimination) done by God.
* Proponents of FA can "want CI to mean only FA" as individuals (with reasons arising from their psychology) and in groups (with reasons arising from their sociology), with complex interactions between these levels of life, affecting motivations that are strategic (as described above) and also emotional.
my personal reasons: In addition to thinking “CI = either FA or UR” is logically justifiable, I strongly want CI to mean FA-or-UR. Why? As explained above, "because the Bible strongly teaches CI" it is "a persuasive term," and I don't want “CI is only FA” to be used as an implicit “hidden argument” for FA (if it's defined to be CI) and against UR (if it's defined to be not-CI) when FA is compared with UR. Also, a definition of CI as “either FA or UR” makes it easier for me to explain my “confidence” and “semi-confidence” in two steps:
Step 1: First, I explain why CI has strong biblical support and why EM is not compatible with CI so I'm confident in claiming that EM won't happen in Afterlife,* and claiming that either FA or UR will happen, because both views are compatible with CI, so both have strong biblical support. {* EM also seems much less compatible with the biblically revealed character of God, and EM also is biblically-weaker for other reasons.}
Step 2: Second, in my evaluations of FA-versus-UR, I think there is biblical support for both FA and UR, so each result is a possibility.
Then, combining these two steps — when we first ask “WHAT is the penalty for sin?” (it's death) and then “WHO receives this penalty” (either some or none) — produces a summary of my views: I'm highly confident that EM won't happen, but I'm less confident when asking “what will happen? will it be FA or UR?” I'm a confident Conditionalist (Step 1, from 1987 until now) who currently thinks there is not enough evidence to definitely choose (in Step 2) between FA and UR. / regarding Universal Restoration, I'm a Hopeful-and-Optimistic Universalist who is Hopeful, and (beginning in 2014) is becoming more Optimistic (even 90% Semi-Confident) but is not Highly Confident: I think everyone (including me) should be a Hopeful Universalist who hopes UR will happen; and based on what the Bible teaches, I'm an Optimistic Universalist who thinks “UR might happen,” but I'm not Highly Confident in claiming “UR will happen.”
the bottom-line question: I think we should be logical in our defining of Conditional Immortality, but... what do you think?
Part 3D
logically defining a System of Terms:
We should try to think-and-communicate in ways that are clear, not sloppy. To promote thinking that is more logical, and communicating that is less confusing, every term (in a system of related terms) should have only one meaning.
Unfortunately, some people use conditional with two different meanings — to describe God's decisions-about-life based on His if-then condition, and also how the giving-of-life depends on God — and they imply that both of these are conditional. In an effort to reduce confusion and increase clarity, I'm proposing that we should use two words to describe the two meanings: we should use dependent for dependent existence, so (to clarify the intended meaning) we can use conditional only for conditional existence. { i.o.u. - There is some duplication in what is above and below; soon, December 6-8, I'll revise this section to eliminate duplications and make it better. }
Consistent with this principle, we should carefully define the adjective-terms we use to describe immortality. I think these terms should include: unbiblical intrinsic immortality (with continuing existence independent from God) contrasts with biblical dependent immortality (with continuing existence dependent on God); biblical conditional immortality contrasts with unbiblical unconditional immortality that is not the same as possibly-biblical universal immortality because... universal immortality could be produced in two ways: by God's universal salvation of all (in a UR-result that is biblically possible because it would be consistent with conditional immortality); or by God's forcing of unconditional immortality on unsaved people (in an EM-result that seems biblically impossible because it would violate conditional immortality).
All of these adjective-terms (plus other terms) form a "system of related terms" with interactions between concepts that are related-yet-different. For example, when we compare dependent immortality with conditional immortality, we see that...
dependent allows conditional, because if (as Bible-believers should believe) life depends on God, then (as Bible-believers should believe) God is able to make conditional decisions about life and death. Do humans have intrinsically-immortal souls? No. When we read The Bible carefully, we see that it doesn't teach an intrinsically universal Unconditional Soul-Immortality, even though this typically is assumed by those who propose the Unconditional Soul/Body Immortality required by Eternal Misery. Instead, The Bible does teach a Dependent Existence (for awhile or forever) that allows the Divine Control of Life wanted by God, so He can produce a Conditional Immortality of Body-and-Soul.* Thus, God's Condition-Based Decisions (when He uses His if-then Condition to decide who lives) require Dependence (with God being able to decide who lives) but go beyond it. Dependence is necessary for Condition-Based Deciding, but Dependence is not sufficient for determining who will be given life by God, in the life-or-death decisions made by God.
* In the Bible, in Genesis & Revelation "the tree of life" is God's way of describing His divinely supernatural giving-of-life by preventing death.
MORE about defining Conditional Immortality and Why should Conditional Immortality mean “either Annihilation or Reconciliation” instead of “only Annihilation”? and also {A Problem-Solving Perspective: Two Human Problems (Spiritual Sinning + Physical Mortality/Death) and Two Divine Solutions (Salvation-and-Sanctification + Conditional Immortality)} {can Eternal Misery be biblically defended by re-defining death?}
and MORE about Dependent Existence – {and MORE about assumptions of soul-immortality that influenced acceptance of EM are in Sections 7.1c & 7.5 & A1-A4 of my paper about EM-vs-FA}