I edged my way into a conversation regarding the next life over at the Christian Forums site.  When I mentioned Patristic Universalism, the conversation went downhill pretty rapidly, especially from an Orthodox priest who seemed upset that I continue to defend this understanding of God’s teleological will.  Here’s a bit of what went on, with my comments in bold red.

Father M:  well, your main hang up since coming here has been universalism. and it’s that you bring up the same arguments for universalism, they get refuted, you say you’ll think about it, then you leave TAW for a bit, then you come back with the same arguments for universalism.

it’s not just that you lean toward it or hope for it. you have professed that it’s what makes sense or else God is a sadist (which is wrong) or that it’s not the original teaching (which is wrong). then usually there is some comment that since you are such a sinner, your only hope is universalism (which is wrong).

and I didn’t call you a heretic, but you are outside of the Church.

ME:  No, you didn’t. I called me a heretic because according to many people whom I have interacted with, it is a heresy to believe in Universalism, hence, I am heretic.

And unfortunately, I am outside the Church.

And yes, I made the comment about my hope being Universalism because unlike the legal-minded Western soteriology, which says that if you say so many Hail Marys or wear a Green Scapular, or “Ask Jaaaaauzuz to be your personal Lord and Savior” you have your ticket to heaven fully punched, the reality is that God deals with us on the basis of our ontology (that is, how much we have changed to become like Christ).

Theosis, not legal standing.

Therefore, knowing as much as I do about my “inner man” and the struggles I have, the failures I have, and how I just can’t seem to get it together, despite my best efforts, Universalism offers me a picture of God’s mercy that is so abundant that I can really have hope in it. (In other words, looking at my inner man, if God is the angry God of the hellists, then I am in deep kimchee.  Universalism gives me a real hope that I don’t find in the Western idea of God as angry Judge looking for all my messes)

I also have a real sorrow in my heart because my being in mean-spirited Anabaptist Fundamentalism for years caused my children to reject the Christian faith. What child wants anything to do with the condemnatory Jesus of Fundamentalism? I have no qualms about describing Fundamentalists as a highly dysfunctional family. So my choice of a wrong religion has negatively impacted my children. Again, the hope that Universalism offers me, the consolation, is that despite my severe screw up in this area, God’s mercy will overcome this in the end. (How can I have joy if I sincerely think my children are going to an eternal hell of torment and my behavior was the cause of it?)

Father M:  well, God’s mercy is everlasting and can overcome any sin, but that isn’t why universalism is heresy. the issue is whether or not you or I truly desire His mercy. that is why universalism is heretical. (David Bentley Hart addresses this issue – man’s free will and his desire for God – in his new book, THAT ALL SHALL BE SAVED.  Get it and read it!)

yes, God does deal with us according to how much we are like Christ, but it is possible for someone to eternally not want to be like Christ. (How does Father know this? Has he been to the next life to see the interactions of souls with Christ our God?)

and if universalism gives you consolation, that’s irrelevant to whether it is true or not.

(I skip over a few posts in the thread which are not germane to the subject at hand) 

Father M:   figured I would reply here, but I saw on the new thread about hell, you are once again laying hell being eternal at St Augustine.

why? you know that isn’t true.

ME:  It most certainly is true in the sense that Augustine was the one who really got it off and running with his wretched doctrines about humanity, God’s wrath and his utter misunderstanding of the Greek. Augustine was highly influenced by Latin understandings of God as the Great Judge of condemnation rather than the loving father, and followed the idea the idea that judgment will be the Roman courtroom rather than the spiritual hospital where people are healed. There may have been other people who taught eternal damnation at that time, but in Augustine’s own words they were in a minority.

I get the feeling that you believe this is something I’ve come to lightly and without a lot of study. I get the sense that you feel that I’m more emotionally attached to this teaching then attached to it from the aspect of philosophy, logic, the character of God, and the proper interpretation of the scriptures in Greek. My first thought was to tell you to wait for me to write a lengthy explanation to you, but there is already a pretty good explanation out and David Bentley Hart’s new book. I have read several of the critiques from men who claim high positions of education in the Christian world and none of them have even remotely answered any of what he has written. What they have almost all done to the man is complain that he’s mean-spirited and contemptuous. I have no problem with this because there is some things that are taught that deserve contempt, especially when they make our loving God either weak and powerless or as mean-spirited as the pagan gods of antiquity.

The fact remains in historical record that when the Orthodox bishops of Constantinople finally saw Augustine’s writings they were appalled by some of them. But by then his writings had taken over the Western world and swept through it like fire through gasoline-soaked dry grass. As the Latin culture became more dominant in Christianity, so did the ideas associated with penal substitution, total depravity of mankind, and the misinterpretation of the scriptures, all leading to the conclusion that mankind is by nature damned and hated of God.

I could go on and on here, because this has been a process of intense study for me, not something that I just jumped into because of emotionalalism. I’m not changing my mind on this unless God himself enlightens me and shows me that I am wrong, which I am praying about, but I sincerely doubt that seeing God as love, Universal restoration being the telos of that, is either wrong or offensive to Him. The only thing we disagree on is the end. We both agree that the torment of those who are wicked is the love of God experienced as torment. I see that torment because the torment is restorative and corrective. You take the position that it will never end because God is powerless against man’s free will and unable to overcome that. If I believe that, can I really believe that God will be able to achieve ultimately the very purpose for which He created mankind, that is, total union with him through Christ Jesus?

The bottom line is this, those in the church who did teach eternal damnation were in the minority, they were culturally influenced by the Latin church, and they don’t have a philosophical leg to stand on. Their understanding of God’s mercy was just as warped as the understandings of the Arians a couple of centuries earlier. Just the fact of the popularity of the Arian heresy shows that the fathers and bishops of the church could err, and did so quite grievously. In the timeline of history we we see that the teaching of Apokatastasis was the predominant teaching until Augustine, and following Augustine Justinian, who together manage destroy it from the teaching of the Church and replaced it with the courtroom mentality of the Romans. This is why I say what I say.

With all due respect for you as a priest and honoring your ordination, I would kindly challenge you to set aside your prejudices, which I believe come from your Western background as a convert, read David Bentley Hart’s new book, and then if you still disagree, write a detailed explanation as to why rather than throwing stones at his personal character as other men have done in trying to protect him, it claiming as your only defense that the Church teaches eternal damnation. According to several various authors I have read, the Church in the East does not have either a catechism or a defined eschatology.

I’ve gone on way too long. I’m not changing my mind about Augustine and I’m still studying Apokatastasis with a real sense that this is the truth about God’s love. If you wish you may aid me in this search by praying that the Lord will reveal his truth to me and that my heart will be open to it no matter where it takes me.

Thank you.