zaitzeff

I have recently begun to wonder if Paul the apostle was a universalist
and wish to have your views on that subject. I especially welcome any comments from amaleq13, whom I know from other venues.

Anyway, I have been a liberal Christian for years and believed in both reincarnation and universalism, based on the evidence of NDEs. I recently read the book by the two Quaker pastors out in the bookstores

If Grace be True

and reading the book started me thinking about Paul the apostle and his possible universalism. I had previously known that Origen (185 to 254AD) was a universalist. Origen even believed that Satan himself would be reconciled to God. (Origen's views were condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council around 553AD.) What I had not known was that a bunch of other early Eastern "church fathers" were also universalists, and that one of them seems to have said that universalism was the prevailing view among the masses of his day. OK, supposing that this were true, how far back in history did universalism go? Does universalism come from the Bible itself or was it grafted on only later by some anonymous persons? Admittedly some passages in the Bible teach eternal punishment (e.g., Mt 25:46), but on some subjects the Bible seems to contain multiple theologies, not just one. Is Paul the apostle (or Jesus) responsible for a universalist theology found in the Bible, a theology later obscured by "Matthew", "Luke" and the author of Revelation?

By the way, I am formerly LDS and was LDS from 1973 to 1985. LDS theology includes a belief in post-mortem salvation and this is based chiefly on the following scriptures: I Cor 15:29, I Peter 3:19 and I Peter 4:6. These are passages not easily interpreted by the standard "evangelical" Christian of the Walter Martin/Gleason Archer type, nor by a Calvinist pastor, if one should encounter one. The passages in I Peter seem to indicate a belief that people now dead could hear and believe the gospel, and the I Cor 15 passage indicates that some (precissely who is in some dispute) of the Christians at Corinth were being baptized on the behalf of those who were dead. If some Christians were begin baptized for the dead, the only reasonable explanation is that those Christians doing that baptizing also believed that those for whom they were being baptized would be saved.

The LDS missionaries use these passages to argue in favor of the LDS theology, but their interpretation is not exclusive to the LDS. Vis-a-vis the evangelicals, the LDS have a strong case on the question of post-mortem salvation, but their views are also found among universalists and have been for years, both before and after the LDS adopted them around 1835. The same interpretation (of I Peter and I Cor 15:29) was offered by many and varied universalists down through the centuries and is today found on various websites having no connection to LDS theology.

In fact, one professor of philosophy at Yale says that he would come to the conclusion of the possibility of the post-mortem preaching of the gospel of Christ even without the I Peter passages and he would do it by a process of reasoning that may be identical to the one that led Paul or others to it. See
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~kd47/univ.htm

So, let us consider the following possibilities:

I. Paul believed that all men (and women) would be saved and this belief shaped his theology.

II. Believing in both the salvation of all men and also the necessity that to be saved, one must believe and confess Christ, Paul and his associates believed that some would hear and believe in Christ after their physical death.

III. Paul says that drunkards, thieves, adulterers and homosexuals would not inherit the kingdom of God. I Cor 6:9ff

9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexuals 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

However, Paul also gives us the example of a man he considered to be committing fornication in I Cor 5, a man who, after "the destruction of the flesh" would be saved. Presumably Paul understood the afflictions brought by Satan to have had a remedial and restorative effect on the soul of this fellow, resulting in his eventual salvation. Today, Christian universalists believe that all "punishment" from God is actually remedial and restorative. If Paul could believe of the man described in I cor 5 as having sex with his father's wife that he would be saved then he could likewise believe the same of other fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, thieves and drunkards. They would not be saved while committing those sins, but afterwards (while alive or after death) they would repent and be saved.

IV. The passages which are used to establish the eternal nature of eternal punishment are found in "Matthew", II Thess and Rev. What is interesting is that scholars on other grounds doubt that Paul wrote II Thess. There are 7 undisputed letters of Paul. These are Romans, Galatians, I and II Cor, Philippians, Philemon and I Thess. The disputed letters of Paul are distinguished from the undisputed by a number of factors: vocabulary, word usage, theology, sentence structure, sentence length, etc. None of the undisputed letters of Paul explicitly teach "eternal" punishment.

V. There are a number of passages in the undisputed letters of Paul which lend themselves to a universalist interpretation, among them
Romans 11:32
Romans 8:29
I Cor 15:22
Romans 5:18,19
I Cor 15:29
I Cor 15:24-28

disputed, perhaps not by Paul himself, but universalistic:
Col 1:20

not by Paul, but universalist:
John 12:32
I Tim 4:10
I John 2:2

Perhaps the most important of these is I Cor 15:28 which states that
God shall be "all in all." God Himself shall be completely dominant in all creation.

Va. The prooftexts cited by the universalists come chiefly from the
the undisputed letters of Paul.

Vb. The undisputed letters of Paul do not teach that men go to hell or experience eternal torment or punishment. This makes them a striking contract to "Matthew" and Revelation. Paul does not go even as far as Mark
in speaking of people being cast into "outer darkness where there is weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth." The gospel of Mark, however, leaves unresolved whether such weeping and wailing be temporary or eternal.

What Paul says is in Romans 2:8ff

8 But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,
9 Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;

without specifying a duration.

VI. The belief in universalism together with the belief that men must believe in Christ to be saved leads to a belief in post-mortem or at-mortem preaching
and resultant faith.

As Keith DeRose writes,

"Do I, then, believe in further chances after death? Yes, but not because of anything to be found in I Peter. My belief in further chances is rather grounded in my beliefs that (a) there are fairly strong grounds for universalism provided by the likes of the passages in section 2, (b) there are fairly strong grounds for strong exclusivism in passages we haven't looked at here, (c) the only way (at least the only way that I can see) to reconcile universalism with strong exclusivism is if there are further chances, and (d) there's next to nothing in the way of good reasons for denying that there are further chances. Thus, though there's perhaps not much of a direct case that can be made for further chances from the likes of the I Peter passages, in light of (d), the indirect case for further chances provided by (a)-(c) proves decisive. I stress, then, that my belief in universalism is not based on my belief in further chances; rather, it's the other way around."

VII. I Peter was not written by Peter but by one of the many followers of Paul who then chose to write in Peter's name.

VIII. Universalism is perhaps hinted at in the teaching of Jesus in Luke 11:9,10. (Matt 7:7,8 is the parallel passage.) "Everyone" who asks receives, and "everyone" who seeks finds. "Everyone" including both the righteous and the sinners. However, if we believe Paul in Romans 3, there are none who are righteous anyway.

IX. The belief in eternal punishment was the belief held by the Pharisees in the time of Jesus. That fact does not make it right or wrong, but it is interesting that the major prooftexts for the eternal nature of eternal punishment are found in "Matthew" and Revelation. Whoever wrote Matthew was much more "Jewish" in his beliefs than other NT writers, despite his dislike of the Pharisees. For reasons that are not clear, the Eastern church for many years held the book of Revelation in doubt as to its place in the Bible; the many early church Fathers in the East who believed in universalism would have rejected the teaching of eternal punishment found in Rev 20.

X. The belief in eternal punishment is reported to be a stumbling block of many to belief in the Christian God. Among Christians, it is reported to be a cause of diminished love for God or a hinderance to love for God. A lot of Christians, even while believing it, wish it were not true or that it could be removed from the Bible.

Jedi Mind Trick

Zoroastrianism, from which some of the Judeao/Christian views are derived, teaches that Ahura Mazda will set the world on fire in the end-time and that this will be for the purification of the wicked. All things, in the end, will be returned to the good.

johntheapostate

The fact that this author deceived his readers should indicate the level of integrity in his message.

I was wondering if you had read the thread Was Paul a liar? In my opinion the testimony of Paul is so convoluted that forming a belief system on the authority of its doctrine is ill advised. As is forming one on the Bible in general.

I used to be a fundamentalist, and for a short time I tried to be a liberal Christian. But I felt like I had to give up my intellectual integrity by cherry picking just the parts I felt like believing. If you are having trouble rationalizing your god concept may I suggest you skip the phase where you attempt to contort the Bible to reflect a god concept you can accept and move right on to agnosticism if not atheism.

Welcome to the forum :wave:

Dharma

Paul is guilty of fraud. He made Christianity, a religion in which Christ literally calls non-Jews Dogs and tells his students to ONLY go on to the children of Israel, into something it is not...i.e. universal.

Paul wasn't even alive when Jesus preached. Paul then goes on to change the very meaning of Christ which literally means "annointed" into a Hindu/taoist brahaman concept in which we are supposedly "one in Christ"...Excuse me?
:Cheeky:

so Paul is single handedly responsible for the conversion of people that Christ himself couldn't care less for. He then goes on to make non Abrahamic people into "seed of Abraham"...despite the fact that only Isaac and his children are chosen...

Paul was a detestable figure in my opinion...a person who sold snake oil for religion and fooled the world.

johntheapostate

Have you read the " Was Paul a liar? " thread?

Dharma

yes...

Amaleq13

Welcome zaitzeff! :wave:

I think Paul was primarily interested in obtaining converts and doing so by generating fear of missing out on the Kingdom was just one way. The notion that everyone will get the rewards seems contrary to that goal so I doubt it was something that Paul believed.

Dharma

Strangely enough, first Paul was a fundamentalist Jew who was anti-Christian until he was blinded and saw Christ, than he became a fundamentalist Christian anti-jewish and converted the gentile and wrote such things as to be used against Jews to kill them...perhaps he believed what he wrote, but then should anyone read anything that comes from a man with such an unsteady mind? A man with a very unsteady mind...dangerous indeed.

zaitzeff

little john,

you said that the zoroastrians believe that everybody will get out of hell at the end.

the site

http://www.religioustolerance.org/zoroastr.htm

says that the religion zoroastrianism evolved over time or may have, and added legends:

Legends, which are probably not those of Zarathushtra's original teachings are:

After death, the urvan (soul) is allowed three days to meditate on his/her past life. The soul is then judged by a troika Mithra, Sraosha and Rashnu. If the good thoughts, words and deeds outweigh the bad, then the soul is taken into heaven. Otherwise, the soul is led to hell.

The universe will go through three eras: creation;
the present world where good and evil are mixed. People's good works are seen as gradually transforming the world towards its heavenly ideal;

and a final state after this renovation when good and evil will be separated.

Eventually, everything will be purified. Even the occupants of hell will be released.

So, the question would arise as to when the idea of the release from hell and
purification of all beings arose. Before Xianity and influencing it? After Xianity and resulting from someone such as Clement or Origen? About the same time and independently?

Jedi Mind Trick

Good question... I don't know.
I was a Universalist for about a year before I de-converted... During that time I do remember reading that Sects like the Essenes and even the Pharisee taught an eventual release from torment. From what I understand at least...
Also, I think the xian doctrine is the ONLY one that ever stressed the un-ending concept.