http://www.ovrlnd.com/Universalism/unieletter.html
I'll copy the questions being asked:
QuoteI realize that not all of the following is believed by every universalist, but all of the following is believed by some universalists. Therefore, I ask for proof because I can find no evidence of the following in Scripture despite the assertions of universalists:
1) The sins of the wicked being forgiven in the after life.
2) The wicked repenting in the after life.
3) The wicked accepting Jesus Christ in the after life.
4) The wicked avoiding judgment in the after life.
5) The wicked having sin "conditioned" out of them in the after life.
6) God tormenting the wicked in the lake of fire (presumably to condition sin out of the wicked).
7) The wicked getting out of the lake of fire.
8) Nor can I find anywhere that God repents of His judgment on Satan in the afterlife, or anywhere else. Satan was condemned by the Almighty in Genesis chapter three.
9) Nor do I see any evidence that God will acquit any fallen angel ever.
10) Nor do I see all peoples being saved in the after life
Hello B-T.... :bigGrin:
Long time no talk to.
Are you posting this so people will answer these questions?
Debbie
QuoteAre you posting this so people will answer these questions?
Hey, Deb, it's good to see you!
Yeah! You are right
1) The sins of the wicked being forgiven in the after life.
2) The wicked repenting in the after life.
3) The wicked accepting Jesus Christ in the after life.
4) The wicked avoiding judgment in the after life.
5) The wicked having sin "conditioned" out of them in the after life.
6) God tormenting the wicked in the lake of fire (presumably to condition sin out of the wicked).
7) The wicked getting out of the lake of fire.
8) Nor can I find anywhere that God repents of His judgment on Satan in the afterlife, or anywhere else. Satan was condemned by the Almighty in Genesis chapter three.
9) Nor do I see any evidence that God will acquit any fallen angel ever.
10) Nor do I see all peoples being saved in the after life
Questions 1-3 are answered in 1 Peter 3:18-20, 4:6. Christ descended to hell with the Gospel while the audience of the Gospel in hell included the wicked contemporaries of Noah.
Question 4 is irrelevant because 1 Peter 4:6 says that the dead in hell first face judgment before they can live with God.
I see no Bible verses directly answering questions 5-7, but given the answers to 1-4, I don't see the importance of questions 5-8.
Concering question 8, the Bible never directly teaches that God will reverse His judgment on Satan, but Jeremiah and Ezekiel teach that all divine judgments of doom are conditional.
Question 9 is answered in 1 Peter 3:18-20. The contemporaries of Noah referred to as "spirits in prison" (NIV) refers to the fallen incarnate angels ("son of God") that fathered the Nephilim according to Genesis 6:1-4.
Question 10 is answered by pulling many Bible verses together concerning God's love, God's grace, conditional judgment, and the Gospel in hell.
I pray that my quick answers are helpful. A lot of these ideas are expanded upon in one of my articles http://theoperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/10/orthodoxy-and-gregory-of-nyssas.html (http://theoperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/10/orthodoxy-and-gregory-of-nyssas.html).
An entirely different (but compatible) Biblical approach is to transcend the mundane mind and note that the logic of the Bible demands mutability of the past. I'll be starting a thread on this subject in depth. For now, note that an omniscient God who counts every hair on every person's head could not have told Isaiah in 65:16 "... the past troubles will be forgotten and hidden from my eyes" unless He was referring to an explicit change to the past in which those troubles "never happened in the first place."
Indeed, the moment we assume that an omnipotent God with power of time can engineer changes to the past, every question except number six dissolves into nothingness. Yes, the person who sinned in one "version of history" may choose to sin again in the next "version of history," but an omnipotent God can spin off as many versions of history until the person chooses not to sin. And with that, we get an exact Biblically apropos answer to question six regarding the Divine Purification that people receive in the lake of fire.
Sure, I'm taking a verse literally that most take poetically, but that's a testament to the tenacity of the carnal mind to view time from a mundane perspective and deny the power of God over time, a power that necessarily underpins a prophetic scripture such as the Bible. The question I ask is whether the Holy Spirit is at last unveiling the logic of time-symmetric causation such that mutability of the past will be an easily perceived truth from now on? If so, the logic of love will prevail over the preachers of eternal damnation once and for all.
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