In the ever-increasing debates which are taking place around the subject of Apokatastasis, or Universal Salvation, I find that as I read missives that fly back and forth between the participants, those who are firmly settled into the the camp of Eternal Conscious Torment can be either blitheringly stupid, unable to think clearly, or just do not want to admit that they have been intellectually bested, which is the sin of pride.

Yes, I know what I said completely lacks charity. It does, however, not lack for honesty in my feelings toward those inane comments which they make, comments that drive me up a wall. In short, I am writing this in a very bad mood regarding the very idea of a God who wills the damnation of the majority of mankind. My anger will be reflected here in my smarmy and insulting language towards these people. It is one thing to have never heard about Apokatastasis and be confused, asking questions to try to understand. It is quite another to have studied the apologia for it quite thoroughly and having been given the right answers, refuse to believe what is right in front of your face. Some of the things I have read – and there are simply too many to list here – are simply stupid on steroids, along with an unwillingness to sit down and really meditate and think about the whole issue and the ramifications of the idea of an eternal hell of torment.

I am beginning to understand why Dr. David Bentley Hart is so justifiably abrasive with such folks. I thought about going back and editing out my vitriolic comments, but upon further thought, this is how I feel and therefore, I am letting the world know about how I feel. Forgive me, Lord.

FROM AN ONLINE FORUM SITE:

QUESTION: Yet it seems there is no official teaching on Universalism? I understand hopeful universalism but if there are those that say it’s untrue, and Scripture seems to back up the belief it is not true, then what? How does this work in the Orthodox Church?

ANSWER: It’s a yes in the sense that Christ is risen, and therefore everyone is going to get a resurrected body in the end. Christ saved all from what He came to save us from, which is death. However, that resurrection can be damnation if we live a life of unrepentant sin. as Orthodox, we absolutely can hope and pray that all will repent so the resurrection of everyone is unto blessedness, but we cannot assert that it will be that way. That’s God’s judgment.

I am stunned to see that the answerer does not understand that if men and women are raised unto damnation, then death has won, especially since this person is Orthodox and during Pascha, we sing, “Christ is risen from the dead, by death He trampled death.” Well, if people are raised to damnation, then death is not trampled, it is still very much in force. This is what an agenda can do to rational thought. This is completely irrational thinking at its worst. You claim to believe one thing because the Church teaches it (that Christ’s death has completely destroyed death) and in the next breath claim that death will continue forever in a place called Hell. That’s what Hell is – eternal separation from God, which is the state of death.

Then the same poster goes on to say: “DBH (David Bentley Hart) and Fr Aiden unfortunately get this wrong. there is a proper way to understand Apokatastasis.” Yet this poster does not go into any detail as to why Hart and Fr. Aiden are wrong. This is another technique which I often encounter. Just say that the other person is wrong and then walk away, thinking you have won the argument. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have seen this response. What is particularly annoying is when someone who is not on the level of educational brilliance and philosophical intelligence as these men wants to smear them from a corner, rather than to step in the ring and get their intellectual ass handed to them by Hart and others who are on a high caliber of intellectual and philosophical thought.

From another poster in another forum, I had the following conversation:

ME: So once again, you dodge the question in order to hold your position. The simple fact is that only a psychopath of the worst sort would create sentient beings for the sole purpose of seeing them writhe in torment forever. And the simple fact is that God, being all knowing and foreseeing the Fall of Mankind in the Garden, went ahead and created the cosmos anyway, which means that if ECT is true, billions would go into eternal, horrible, unrelenting torment. Foreknowing this fact, it then means that this was His will. You cannot escape that conclusion. And I have seen no one respond to David Bentley Hart’s statement to this fact in his first meditation of TASBS. They simply call him names, insult his character, and leave. Tell me why God is not a psychopath if ECT is true? I’ll wait .Oh, and God says this in the Scriptures:

John 12: 47 And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.

Romans 5: 19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

1 Corinthians 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

2 Corinthians 5: 14-15 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

OTHER PERSON: You might as well put me on ignore. I don’t deal with people like you. Why don’t you ask Fr. Matt?

In other words: “I don’t want to think about a God who would willingly create sentient beings in complete foreknowledge of them spending eternity in torment, so go away! Waaaaaaa!!!! You told me the truth. I hate you! Go away, you mean person!”

Then there are those types who somehow think that taking two semesters of Koine Greek means they have a complete and thorough understanding of the language which puts them on an understanding level of people like Dr. Illaria Ramelli. The list of degrees and credits to Dr. Ramelli’s name is way too long to put here, so I will just give you a link to see just how brilliant this woman is: https://philpeople.org/profiles/ilaria-l-e-ramelli. And yet, somehow, they feel qualified to either question or insult this brilliant woman over her understanding of the Greek word “aionios” because it doesn’t mean what they desperately want it to mean? The same people who do this will, over and over and over, run from any debate with intellects such as David Bentley Hart or Dr. Ramelli. Yeah, you’re real smart and brave hiding behind your keyboard. I’ll respect you more when you don your intellectual armor and come to the fight, but I won’t hold my breath for it to happen because you KNOW you will git yer ass handed to you! They will make you look like an utter fool, and I will delight in it!

There are those who have tried to respond to Dr. Hart online, but inevitably, they simply do not answer the issues which Dr. Hart brings up. I have yet to see one single response to Dr. Hart’s First Meditation in his book, THAT ALL SHALL BE SAVED. That is the meditation on “creatio ex nhilo,” which I mentioned earlier. It is the understanding that protology is eschatology, that things are created unto an end, a telos for which they are designed. Therefore, if there is an eternal hell of conscious, unrelenting torment, then God created mankind unto this telos, both knowing this would happen and having it be His will.

It is not at all a pleasant thought to think of a Divine Being who, rather than being our loving, heavenly Father, is an angry God who creates sentient beings within His will that they be tormented forever, while the rest bow down to Him in craven fear and worship Him forever for His glory in damning the others. Then, when this is done, they will all peer over the parapets of heaven and enjoy the eternal barbeque of the sinners!

No, I am not kidding! Here are three quotes to prove my point:

TERTULLIAN: What a spectacle when the world and its many products, shall be consumed in one great flame! How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye! What there excites my admiration? What my derision? Which sight gives me joy?? As I see illustrious monarchs groaning in the lowest darkness, Philosophers as fire consumes them! Poets trembling before the judgment-seat of Christ! I shall hear the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own calamity; view play-actors in the dissolving flame; behold wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows. What inquisitor or priest in his munificence will bestow on you the favor of seeing and exulting in such things as these? Yet even now we in a measure have them by faith in the picturings of imagination. [De Spectaculis, Chapter XXX]

THOMAS AQUINAS: 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. The saints in heaven know distinctly all that happens to the damned. [Summa Theologica, Third Part, Supplement, Question XCIV, “Of the Relations of the Saints Towards the Damned,” First Article, “Whether the Blessed in Heaven Will See the Sufferings of the Damned?”]

JONATHAN EDWARDS: The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever. Can the believing Father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in Hell? I tell you, yea! Such will be his sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish His bliss. [“The Eternity of Hell Torments” (Sermon), April 1739 & Discourses on Various Important Subjects, 1738]

They shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment shall ascend up forever and ever. Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever and ever. – Revelation 14:9-11; 18:20, 19:3

If you have happened to stumble upon this blog piece and believe in eternal, conscious torment, perhaps you could tell me why such statements don’t qualify men who believe such things about God as sociopaths of the most vicious and obnoxious kind, not to mention deeply insulting and blaspheming both our loving heavenly Father and the work of Christ on the Cross on behalf of all mankind.

I’ll wait.