Universalism: Catholic Article

[jabcat]

Was doing some research, and found an article on Universal Salvation in New Advent, a Catholic Magazine.  Pretty interesting, including calling the teachings "propaganda"    :mshock:.  They somehow left out that 2 of the 3 schools of theology in the early church taught ultimate reconciliation  (:Oops:).


Universalists

A Liberal Protestant sect — found chiefly in North America — whose distinctive tenet is the belief in the final salvation of all souls. The doctrine of universal salvation found favor among members of various Christian Churches (see APOCATASTASIS for its treatment anterior to the foundation of the Universalist Church). The present article will exclusively consider Universalism as a separate denomination.

Doctrinal principles
The historic creed of this religious body is the profession of belief adopted by the General Convention at Winchester, New Hampshire, in 1803. It contains the following articles:

We believe that the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments contain a revelation of the character of God and of the duty, interest, and final destination of mankind.
We believe that there is one God whose nature is Love, revealed in one Lord, Jesus Christ by one Holy Spirit of grace, who will finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness.
We believe that holiness and true happiness are inseparably connected, and that believers ought to be careful to maintain order and practise good works; for these things are good and profitable unto men.

To meet the objections raised by some Universalists to parts of the foregoing articles, a briefer statement of essential principles was adopted in 1899 by the General Convention held at Boston. It required for admission to fellowship the belief in the following articles:

the universal fatherhood of God,
the spiritual authority and leadership of His Son Jesus Christ;
the trustworthiness of the Bible as containing a revelation from God;
the certainty of just retribution for sin;
the final harmony of all souls with God.


Complete (fairly short) article here; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15181a.htm

[WhiteWings]

I think "Protestant sect" doesn't go down well on many terror gospel sites.
Plus the way they decribe UR is closer to Catholism than Prostestantism.

The infliction of temporal punishment for sin insufficiently atoned for on earth is now generally admitted.

For example.

[HartleyDamboiseII]

Christ Triumphant has a lot to offer on the North Afirca and other schools too.
Found at tentmakers scholers corner too.

I just took a quick read of the above statement, and found not much wrong with the wording.

Lee

[Paul Hazelwood]

Correct me if I am wrong, doesn't catholic doctrine state that all enter purgatory?

[WhiteWings]

Not 100% sure but I think you are wrong Paul :winkgrin:
Straight to Heaven. Detour to heaven. Straight to hell.

[Paul Hazelwood]

Not 100% sure but I think you are wrong Paul :winkgrin:
Straight to Heaven. Detour to heaven. Straight to hell.

That very well could be, I wonder what determines someone getting the detour?

[martincisneros]

I think "Protestant sect" doesn't go down well on many terror gospel sites.
Plus the way they decribe UR is closer to Catholism than Prostestantism.
The infliction of temporal punishment for sin insufficiently atoned for on earth is now generally admitted. For example.

Hence my problems with the more readily talked of versions of UR on many of the discussion boards with full preterism, limited duration future punishment, zero Hell punishment that requires a fatalism in this life that's both unhealthy philosophically and isn't born out by experience though it'll "look good on paper" with Scriptures that are cited for it but doesn't answer sufficiently the Scriptures about God wanting the wicked to prosper (yes, they're there -- lots of 'em -- I'll do your homework for you on the fact that their bottomline is to stock pile stuff so that it's more easily given over to the righteous in lump sums when God wants to balance the Books), what I've ingeniously brought up in the past about these consequences being worked out in our descendants since there will seem to be a tiny bit more Scriptural support for that than some of the other views though it doesn't address sufficiently one's own transformation but only answers a balance in nature on consequences, and other views, and why God's brought me back to my Word of Faith roots because it'll answer the issues of a just process, the issues of the just suffering for the unjust to bring them to God [and His male/female image] while personally not having a falling out with God over it from a damaged psyche in the process, the role of intercessory prayer, while agreeing with full preterism that "in one sense" absolutely all of it is a completed work yet Scripture and experience both dictate something further to be walked out in the inheriting of those things -- almost a re-earning of it every generation, although realistically the correct Biblical terminology would be "laboring to enter into His rest" and what constitutes a just labor that merges together all of the different streams of thought in the Bible about a New Covenant priesthood, the purpose of living a good and beneficial to others life, and what constitutes the completion of the "understood harvest" that's both implicit and explicit in Scripture regarding each and every single matter of life in each Creature in all of Creation.

In other words, the way I see it from that perspective: all of it was 100% taken care of on the Cross, but that doesn't take away the process involved in our being conformed to His image and speaking the same things after Him, and the role He's chosen for that to have in the recovery of all of the rest, while giving us "life in the eon to come," which is authority in the spirit realm to deal with all of the persecution that's trying to breathe down our necks over the hundredfold with the Philistines of our day envying our prosperity as they envied Isaac who counted well after well as a seed, in Genesis 26, 'til evidently the Spirit of Christ in him (1Peter 1:10-12) indicated this certain one was his exclusively.  As a side-note, the temptation to lust being resisted (or passing by the wells that aren't yours, Proverbs 5) can be [in your priestly role before Him] accounted as a seed towards God bringing one that's worthwhile and is a part of receiving one's Genesis 24 miracle if one's single or receiving the life and wholeness a relationship's been lacking as the angel who brought you two together is the very angel that'll send Hagar home when there's been a falling out.  Resistance to temptation (or just passing by all of the other wells 'til you're at the right one) is a seed to where you've not only gained the victory of personal sanctification, but can count on God for better than you were being pushed to fall for, and it winds up being a seed for the victory of the entire Body against those kinds of pressures when they arise because on a "quantum level" our Gethsemanes and our book of Proverbs and Song of Solomon coronations are each other's and account towards the momentum of the whole Body having what they're standing on the Scriptures for in their own lives.  Refusal to compromise on what God's told you pushes you further in the grocery line at checkout towards yours.  And as an added benefit, as Genesis 26 bares out, your enemies wind up being reconciled with you -- all because of the refusal to compromise on what God had given you.  A sound Biblical worldview of turning the other cheek will always, in the way it did in Isaac's life in Genesis 26, bring about an ultimate peace treaty with every enemy.  The value of the process, the sacrifice, and the harvests to have all that God's promised you will always be revealed much, much later on in a peace treaty with one's enemies.  But we're called to be at peace with all men (i.e. or to be in His image), to pursue each of our harvests of our inheritance and those things that God specifies as ours (i.e. laboring to enter into His rest) -- those things are our parts of the equation, and He then, as Proverbs says "when a man's ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him."  Nothing about a sound presentation of the Universal Restoration sets aside our imitation of Christ in feeding the multitudes, the good confession before Pilate, and morning by morning having our ears opened to what He'd tell us, as it says in Isaiah's prophecy to the Body, but that winds up being the catalyst to the peace He's made by the Blood of His Cross with every seen and unseen principality and power.

[WhiteWings]

Not 100% sure but I think you are wrong Paul :winkgrin:
Straight to Heaven. Detour to heaven. Straight to hell.

That very well could be, I wonder what determines someone getting the detour?

Maybe this link is of some use Paul. http://www.rosarychurch.net/answers/qa101998b.html

[WhiteWings]

Question: Why do we never hear about praying for the souls in hell? Shouldn't we pray for them, at least out of charity? (S.B.)

God hears the prayers of His people. Those on Earth, the "Church Militant," and those in Heaven, the "Church Triumphant," can beg His clemency on behalf of those in Purgatory,

A strange view. Firstly the will of God is adjusted by prayers.
Secondly a famous person likely receives more prayers than average. A former pope will receive countless prayers and the silent Catholic with no friends has to burn a little longer because of lack of fame....

[martincisneros]

A strange view. Firstly the will of God is adjusted by prayers.
Secondly a famous person likely receives more prayers than average. A former pope will receive countless prayers and the silent Catholic with no friends has to burn a little longer because of lack of fame....

No, God refuses to carry out His will without prayer, faith, the Blood, the Word, and obedience because He's made us co-laborers and co-creators with Him in Christ, and because there has been a fall, so that the default settings are absolutely not and never have been or ever would be His will in these eons -- hence the press for the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ, otherwise there's frustration of the grace of God and disobedience and frustration of His plans can occur for the duration of the eons of eons.  Ephesians 6 teaches wrestling for it, and Hebrews says to do it or die in the wilderness.

And as to the rest, in 2Corinthians chapters 8 and 9, it's accepted according to what one has and not according to what one doesn't have, and my previous post also goes a long way towards answering this with regards to victories that are won in the behalf of the others having an organic effect on all of the rest so that it passes through the blood stream or quantum foam of all of Creation on those higher dimensions that effects all of the rest, so that the same universality that applies to Christ and Adam applies to us that each falls and rises and is blessed accordingly or damned accordingly to what each of us does or doesn't do.  Christ and Adam aren't uniquely the two federal heads of humanity, each of us is, if man being the head of his wife, and a million other passages of Scripture about us being Christs or having the old man about our ways is to teach us anything at all.  A lot of UR folks will fault Arminianism for putting the weight on the individual, but the Scriptural balance isn't that it rests on two men in all of history alone -- each of us is responsible for each and every generation previously born and unborn as chains in the link so that although it's unquestionable that it's ultimately by the Blood of Christ, each of us has his/her both corporeal and incorporeal role in the discipleship of the nations.  So, in other words, the whole situation is a 100 trillion times heavier than Armianianism asserts and UR folks that fault Arminianism for placing responsibility on the individual are in grave error, Scripturally.  Each of us has an effect on absolutely all of the rest by our obedience or our disobedience to go with the plan of God, and as butterfly can't flap it's wings without changing the price of bread on the other side of the world, each disobedience to His will compounds the suffering of all of the rest in the creation of their famines, whether spiritually or economically and relationally in every single way.  Mankind isn't the first to devise the internet.  Humankind is a kind of internet that God created and man in devising the internet has simply created in his own image on a technological level.  Each of us is the server upon which every one else's program successfully runs or bombs.  But the will of God isn't as simple as Him alone or Adam and Christ, but is explained to us metaphorically using those symbols, and yes, ultimately it all rests in the Cross of Christ as far as what Zechariah was prophesying as the fountain of cleansing from sin and uncleanness, but the responsibility of the removal of the iniquity of the land in one day lies with each of us uniquely as it rests with Him because we ARE one with Him and one another. :bgdance:



Thanking God for a typo free day, one day;-)

[martincisneros]

I know that it can sound like a bit of a contradiction, but He lowered Himself in creating anything out of His desire for reciprocal love to where the biggest part of His will does exist outside of Himself & that's difficult to grasp when we're used to thinking & relating in limited 3 to 4 dimensions of the space/time zone that we live in, & it requires some understanding of either an enormous amount of Scripture or string theory in terms of thinking outside of 3 to 4 dimensions to fully wrap one's mind around it. But it's the tension on truth on what parts of God that God has spoken outside of Himself in creating anything to start with. He truly did delegate accountability & something approximating an earth-lease for how His will would be carried out & obedience is uniquely presented to us in the Scriptures as a big part of how He gets what He wants, & He's designated salvation, redemption, prosperity, damnation, & everything else as being relational & dependent on what each one is doing at any given moment for the wholeness of every molecule. Thankfully, righteousness has majority control even when He's dealt with "a remnant" in previous eons, but then that gets into the whole issue of kenosis by obedience & kenosis by disobedience & a million other things that are beyond the intended scope of my addition to this thread. But it basically takes you back to the seed principle of Mark 4 that the seed can't say to the ground, the water, & the light that "I have no need of thee" & vice versa on all of the above if any of it is going to produce His intended ends & bring all things back into Himself.

[Doc]

My understanding is that some Catholic circles have embraced UR, (or at least rejected ECT) so I don't think the message of this particular group is even universal among Catholics.

[Paul Hazelwood]

My understanding is that some Catholic circles have embraced UR, (or at least rejected ECT) so I don't think the message of this particular group is even universal among Catholics.

Hi Doc, your comment is interesting to me when you say "some Catholic circles". I have always thought that one Catholic church is the same as the next because they all must teach the same doctrines in unity. Perhaps this is not true, please elaborate more.

[WhiteWings]

Paul, can't find an article right now but Catholisim are a set of core believes mixed with a few local pagan believes. The reason was to spread the doctrine more easily.

[Doc]

My understanding is that some Catholic circles have embraced UR, (or at least rejected ECT) so I don't think the message of this particular group is even universal among Catholics.

Hi Doc, your comment is interesting to me when you say "some Catholic circles". I have always thought that one Catholic church is the same as the next because they all must teach the same doctrines in unity. Perhaps this is not true, please elaborate more.

I can't think of what the reference was off the top of my head, but it seems I remember a while ago that the RCC made some kind of official statement to the effect that an eternal (endless) hell was inconsistent with a loving God. I'll see if I can dig up the reference...

[johnnymormon12]

My understanding is that some Catholic circles have embraced UR, (or at least rejected ECT) so I don't think the message of this particular group is even universal among Catholics.

Hi Doc, your comment is interesting to me when you say "some Catholic circles". I have always thought that one Catholic church is the same as the next because they all must teach the same doctrines in unity. Perhaps this is not true, please elaborate more.

That is the image the Catholic Church wants to portray, but as a former Catholic I can tell you that it is false.  There is much division Catholic Church, there are SSPX'ers (traditionalists), people who believe UR, pro and anti abortion Catholics, Catholics who support birth control, Catholics who believe Vatican II didn't go far enough, etc.  The image they like to portray is one of unity, but the truth is the vast majority of Catholics, whether openly or not, don't follow all of the Church's teaching.

[Chris]

Was doing some research, and found an article on Universal Salvation in New Advent, a Catholic Magazine.  Pretty interesting, including calling the teachings "propaganda"    :mshock:.  They somehow left out that 2 of the 3 schools of theology in the early church taught ultimate reconciliation  (:Oops:).

It's actually 4 of 6.  :thumbsup: (according to Schaffer's)

Another thing you'll find at advent is:

Were Origen and Origenism anathematized? Many learned writers believe so; an equal number deny that they were condemned; most modern authorities are either undecided or reply with reservations. Relying on the most recent studies on the question it may be held that:

  1. It is certain that the fifth general council was convoked exclusively to deal with the affair of the Three Chapters, and that neither Origen nor Origenism were the cause of it.
  2. It is certain that the council opened on 5 May, 553, in spite of the protestations of Pope Vigilius, who though at Constantinople refused to attend it, and that in the eight conciliary sessions (from 5 May to 2 June), the Acts of which we possess, only the question of the Three Chapters is treated.
  3. Finally it is certain that only the Acts concerning the affair of the Three Chapters were submitted to the pope for his approval, which was given on 8 December, 553, and 23 February, 554.
  4. It is a fact that Popes Vigilius, Pelagius I (556-61), Pelagius II (579-90), Gregory the Great (590-604), in treating of the fifth council deal only with the Three Chapters, make no mention of Origenism, and speak as if they did not know of its condemnation.
  5. It must be admitted that before the opening of the council, which had been delayed by the resistance of the pope, the bishops already assembled at Constantinople had to consider, by order of the emperor, a form of Origenism that had practically nothing in common with Origen, but which was held, we know, by one of the Origenist parties in Palestine. The arguments in corroboration of this hypothesis may be found in Dickamp (op. cit., 66-141).
  6. The bishops certainly subscribed to the fifteen anathemas proposed by the emperor (ibid., 90-96); and admitted Origenist, Theodore of Scythopolis, was forced to retract (ibid., 125-129); but there is no proof that the approbation of the pope, who was at that time protesting against the convocation of the council, was asked.
  7. It is easy to understand how this extra-conciliary sentence was mistaken at a later period for a decree of the actual ecumenical council.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11306b.htm

Someone at Christian Forums recently pointed that out to me.

[Universalist Catholic]

I have noticed that all religions out there seem to do the same thing.  They all speak like their religion was so perfect, and neglect to mention the inconsistencies.  However, they enjoy bashing other religions.

[WhiteWings]

I have noticed that all religions out there seem to do the same thing.  They all speak like their religion was so perfect, and neglect to mention the inconsistencies.  However, they enjoy bashing other religions.

Just a way of hiding their own insecurity....