I think Paul was very clearly a universalist of some kind, but it's hard for me to see how Jesus or the author of Revelation could be read that way. ECT is sorta equidistant from all of them that it ends up plausibly working to unify everything, but it's not really found directly anywhere.
I think this is probably the best explanation of Paul's universalism I've come across: https://stanrock.net/2015/05/20/purgatorial-hell-faq/ The idea isn't that Paul thinks everyone will automatically go to heaven immediately, just that everyone will ultimately be reconciled after a period of purgatorial suffering that you can avoid if you enter into the New Covenant. This view helps to unify Romans 9 and Romans 11 - God cuts off the Jews as part of his grand plan for redemption, but they will be grafted back in after the world is purged of sin. I'm not sure I totally buy it, but it makes more sense to me than seeing Paul as either an annihilationist or an ETC person.
It's really the only straightforward reading of the passage.
28 As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now[e] receive mercy. 32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
It's hard to have a more explicitly universalist conclusion to the whole line of reflection that begins in chapter 9 than saying that "God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all", without just coming out and saying something like "God is the savior of all men, especially those who believe".
Yeah it's a fascinating interpretation. It's interesting that Paul is also viewed as the key advocator of predestination in the reformed crowd. Everyone reads Paul however they want I guess. I wonder how Stan would interpret the passages traditionally interpreted in a predestination/ETC way like 8:29, 9:18, 9:22, etc. He touches on 18 but pretty weakly imo. Think I'm still team annihilationism for now
There's an answer! Some Christian universalists propose that everyone is in fact elect, and that's how everyone has hope of recovery. But this is misguided and anachronistic -- it comes from the false taxonomic conflation of "elect = has hope of recovery" and "unelect = has no hope of recovery," and then attempting to retrofit universalism with that false start.
Rather, notice Romans 11:7-12. Here, the elect (per Romans 8:29) are contrasted against the stumbling unelect (per Romans 9:18), their "backs bent continually." But what happens with the unelect? Verse 11 asks: Have they stumbled to as to fall beyond recovery? The answer: No! In fact, they shall be fully included eventually (Gr. pleroma), yielding even greater riches.
The correct Pauline taxonomy is that there are those chosen for "honorable" purposes (Gr. timen) and others for "dishonorable" roles (Gr. atimian) in the plan of God. The monergism of Romans 9 is turned on its head in chapter 11, where God will have his happy ending eventually. It's also important to point out that the synergistic perspective on this very same timen/atimian taxonomy shows up again in 2 Timothy 2:20-22 (the high road is for those who "cleanse themselves"). Hence ultimate universalism is compatible with interim exclusivism. "The way is narrow, and few find it." To enjoy rightstanding at Judgment, a person's record must be clear. Repentance, forgiveness, regeneration (starting a new life), and practicing authentic love & mercy going forward (James 2, Galatians 5:6). Otherwise a correctional hell looms, in proportion to what a person did (Psalm 62:11-12).
That's tough though, because Jesus also uses that term for eternal life - so you have to either think that eternal life also only lasts for a little bit, or think the term means two different things within the same sentence. It also just seems like Jesus would be more clear about the fact that all the destruction and torment he was talking about was only temporary. Obviously the best explanation is just that Jesus didn't have it fully worked out in his head, like most apocalyptic religious figures don't.
That definitely could be, but then I'm not really sure what "life of the age" really means. It certainly seems like he had some larger future scheme in mind, and it would at least be *nice* if the good part went on forever!
Another trouble with the, "You send yourself to Hell and God is just allowing you to make your free decision," view is that God doesn't allow you to make the free decision to leave Hell. Supposedly, once you're there, it's impossible to escape for all of eternity. But if God is just allowing you to choose Hell out of your own free will, surely he would allow you to leave as well.
There are two common ways that people respond to this. One is the, "Hell is locked from the inside," defense. You *could* leave Hell any time you wanted to, but everyone in Hell just chooses not to. But it's very hard to see how this could be the case given Christianity's other commitments. According to Christianity (or at least, according to the versions of Christianity that use the free will argument to justify Hell), anyone can repent at any time, at least during life. Even Hitler could have gone to Heaven if he had repented before dying. But if this is the case, people should be able to repent in Hell as well. It can't be that everyone who's gone to Hell is just so corrupt that there's no chance they'll ever choose to change, since Christianity holds that no one is that corrupt, not even the worst people on Earth. And most of the people in Hell are much less corrupt than Hitler! It simply doesn't make sense to say that there's always a chance for someone to change before they're dead, but after they're dead, it's absolutely set in stone that they'll stay the same way forever: What changed about them when they died? Did they lose their free will after dying? If they did, then using the importance of free will to defend Hell makes no sense.
The other problem about this view is that it implies that Hell must not actually be that bad. Hell is so nice, in fact, that every single person who goes there chooses to stay there for eternity. Now, some Christians who hold a revisionary view of Hell might see this as a good thing - it makes the doctrine more defensible. And that's true: If Hell is simply a less good place than Heaven, or a place where people who are somehow not able to enjoy the fruits of Heaven can live out their best (after)lives regardless, then its existence becomes a lot more defensible. But this is meant to be a defense of the ECT view, and on that view, it's by definition impossible for anyone to enjoy their time in Hell. It's literally the worst experience possible, such that no one could possibly want to be there.
The second defense is that Hell is outside of time, so it's not that people choose at the moment they die to go there and then are stuck there forever - rather, they are there timelessly, so there's never a time when they could choose to reverse that choice. But this view also seems to require some revisions of standard Christian doctrines. After all, it implies that Hell is not really ECT, but timeless conscious torment, and it would presumably imply the same thing about heaven - it's not eternal life, but timeless life. But Christianity is entirely built on the promise of eternal life! Now, maybe this was just a metaphor - when we talk about eternal life, we really just mean that it doesn't end because it's outside of time altogether, not that it doesn't end because it lasts infinitely long. But this either doesn't work, or doesn't save the free will defense of Hell from this counterargument.
To see why it doesn't work, consider what it is that makes the idea of Heaven so appealing. Part of it is the fact that you will get to experience joy forever. But in timeless heaven, you won't experience joy for an infinitely long time - in fact, you won't experience it for any time at all. What's so great about "eternal bliss" that doesn't even last a single Planck time?
The second part is that neither you, nor the people you love, are ever really gone. No one has to face oblivion because you'll never die in heaven - there's always just more of the future for you. But not so in a timeless Heaven! There is no *after*-life, just this one timeless "moment" (even calling it a moment is too much because that would give you a single instant in time) where you still exist. But that's it. No matter how you slice it, either death or one timeless point after death is when your consciousness will cease to exist: Depending on how your psychological states across time and non-time are linked, either death is really the end in exactly the same way naturalists think it is - the "lights go out" and you never have any experiences or sensations ever again - or your subjective experience of time ends with that timeless bit - basically, it feels to you like the timeless bit happens "after" the part that's in time, just as a time traveler could experience the year 1924 "after" he experienced 2024. But even in that latter possibility, your timeline still ends with the timeless "moment". You've just moved oblivion back by one infinitesimal point.
The third thing that make Heaven appealing is the idea that you'll get to see your dead loved ones again. And I guess this could technically be sort of true in a timeless Heaven. But you'd only see them for an interval of zero time. In other words, you wouldn't actually have time to do anything meaningful with them. You couldn't even tell them how much you missed them or what happened after they died. And after that, nothing. You get the change to see your loved ones one more time, but that's it, and you can't even do anything with it. You would need at least some non-zero interval if time to make this promise meaningful.
The same is true about the promise of uniting with God. Sure, it sounds pretty nice, but who really cares if it's just for a single non-instant, shorter (infinitely shorter, in fact) than the time it takes to blink an eye? Some would say that even that would be pretty significant - the experience of being united with God is so profound that just one instant of it would change my life. Except... there's no life left to change! I'm already dead, and aside from this one instant, there's nothing at all left for me.
Now, there is a workaround to all of these challenges. One could hold that, while Heaven is timeless, it's still infinite in some meaningful sense that makes it as if you had an infinite amount of time to experience joy, avoid oblivion, see your loved ones again, and unite with God. Perhaps it lacks literal physical time, but has some other aspect that's similar enough to be metaphorically treated as time, and that we can experience in a similar way. Perhaps it contains infinitely many conscious experiences that are linked in such a way that we feel a subjective time just like we do in the physical realm. This solves all the problems with a timeless Heaven above and makes the promise of eternal life seem meaningful again. It's no longer an empty promise but at worst a useful metaphor for what really happens. But this also destroys the defense that Hell is outside of time. We're now right back where we started: It may not have physical time, but it contains some aspect that's metaphorically enough like time to allow us to experience eternal bliss, do meaningful things with our loved ones and God, and never have an "end" to our experience. But if this is so, people in Hell will not have an "end" to their experiences or their ability to make choices after they choose Hell. There will always be metaphorical time left for them to change their mind, and always infinitely many metaphorical future hellish experiences that they can avoid by doing so.
I think universalism is the most biblically defensible view by far.
I think Paul was very clearly a universalist of some kind, but it's hard for me to see how Jesus or the author of Revelation could be read that way. ECT is sorta equidistant from all of them that it ends up plausibly working to unify everything, but it's not really found directly anywhere.
Curious what makes you think Paul is a universalist. Hadn't heard that before and Romans 9 seems tough to square with that view.
I think this is probably the best explanation of Paul's universalism I've come across: https://stanrock.net/2015/05/20/purgatorial-hell-faq/ The idea isn't that Paul thinks everyone will automatically go to heaven immediately, just that everyone will ultimately be reconciled after a period of purgatorial suffering that you can avoid if you enter into the New Covenant. This view helps to unify Romans 9 and Romans 11 - God cuts off the Jews as part of his grand plan for redemption, but they will be grafted back in after the world is purged of sin. I'm not sure I totally buy it, but it makes more sense to me than seeing Paul as either an annihilationist or an ETC person.
It's really the only straightforward reading of the passage.
28 As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now[e] receive mercy. 32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
It's hard to have a more explicitly universalist conclusion to the whole line of reflection that begins in chapter 9 than saying that "God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all", without just coming out and saying something like "God is the savior of all men, especially those who believe".
Lol, nice
Yeah it's a fascinating interpretation. It's interesting that Paul is also viewed as the key advocator of predestination in the reformed crowd. Everyone reads Paul however they want I guess. I wonder how Stan would interpret the passages traditionally interpreted in a predestination/ETC way like 8:29, 9:18, 9:22, etc. He touches on 18 but pretty weakly imo. Think I'm still team annihilationism for now
There's an answer! Some Christian universalists propose that everyone is in fact elect, and that's how everyone has hope of recovery. But this is misguided and anachronistic -- it comes from the false taxonomic conflation of "elect = has hope of recovery" and "unelect = has no hope of recovery," and then attempting to retrofit universalism with that false start.
Rather, notice Romans 11:7-12. Here, the elect (per Romans 8:29) are contrasted against the stumbling unelect (per Romans 9:18), their "backs bent continually." But what happens with the unelect? Verse 11 asks: Have they stumbled to as to fall beyond recovery? The answer: No! In fact, they shall be fully included eventually (Gr. pleroma), yielding even greater riches.
The correct Pauline taxonomy is that there are those chosen for "honorable" purposes (Gr. timen) and others for "dishonorable" roles (Gr. atimian) in the plan of God. The monergism of Romans 9 is turned on its head in chapter 11, where God will have his happy ending eventually. It's also important to point out that the synergistic perspective on this very same timen/atimian taxonomy shows up again in 2 Timothy 2:20-22 (the high road is for those who "cleanse themselves"). Hence ultimate universalism is compatible with interim exclusivism. "The way is narrow, and few find it." To enjoy rightstanding at Judgment, a person's record must be clear. Repentance, forgiveness, regeneration (starting a new life), and practicing authentic love & mercy going forward (James 2, Galatians 5:6). Otherwise a correctional hell looms, in proportion to what a person did (Psalm 62:11-12).
Revelation is pretty easy to explain away as is Jesus because it uses aionias
That's tough though, because Jesus also uses that term for eternal life - so you have to either think that eternal life also only lasts for a little bit, or think the term means two different things within the same sentence. It also just seems like Jesus would be more clear about the fact that all the destruction and torment he was talking about was only temporary. Obviously the best explanation is just that Jesus didn't have it fully worked out in his head, like most apocalyptic religious figures don't.
But I think he’s just saying both the life and the punishment occur of the age.
That definitely could be, but then I'm not really sure what "life of the age" really means. It certainly seems like he had some larger future scheme in mind, and it would at least be *nice* if the good part went on forever!
Well if in the age to come some would get punished and others rewarded that in no way implies its eternality.
Another trouble with the, "You send yourself to Hell and God is just allowing you to make your free decision," view is that God doesn't allow you to make the free decision to leave Hell. Supposedly, once you're there, it's impossible to escape for all of eternity. But if God is just allowing you to choose Hell out of your own free will, surely he would allow you to leave as well.
There are two common ways that people respond to this. One is the, "Hell is locked from the inside," defense. You *could* leave Hell any time you wanted to, but everyone in Hell just chooses not to. But it's very hard to see how this could be the case given Christianity's other commitments. According to Christianity (or at least, according to the versions of Christianity that use the free will argument to justify Hell), anyone can repent at any time, at least during life. Even Hitler could have gone to Heaven if he had repented before dying. But if this is the case, people should be able to repent in Hell as well. It can't be that everyone who's gone to Hell is just so corrupt that there's no chance they'll ever choose to change, since Christianity holds that no one is that corrupt, not even the worst people on Earth. And most of the people in Hell are much less corrupt than Hitler! It simply doesn't make sense to say that there's always a chance for someone to change before they're dead, but after they're dead, it's absolutely set in stone that they'll stay the same way forever: What changed about them when they died? Did they lose their free will after dying? If they did, then using the importance of free will to defend Hell makes no sense.
The other problem about this view is that it implies that Hell must not actually be that bad. Hell is so nice, in fact, that every single person who goes there chooses to stay there for eternity. Now, some Christians who hold a revisionary view of Hell might see this as a good thing - it makes the doctrine more defensible. And that's true: If Hell is simply a less good place than Heaven, or a place where people who are somehow not able to enjoy the fruits of Heaven can live out their best (after)lives regardless, then its existence becomes a lot more defensible. But this is meant to be a defense of the ECT view, and on that view, it's by definition impossible for anyone to enjoy their time in Hell. It's literally the worst experience possible, such that no one could possibly want to be there.
The second defense is that Hell is outside of time, so it's not that people choose at the moment they die to go there and then are stuck there forever - rather, they are there timelessly, so there's never a time when they could choose to reverse that choice. But this view also seems to require some revisions of standard Christian doctrines. After all, it implies that Hell is not really ECT, but timeless conscious torment, and it would presumably imply the same thing about heaven - it's not eternal life, but timeless life. But Christianity is entirely built on the promise of eternal life! Now, maybe this was just a metaphor - when we talk about eternal life, we really just mean that it doesn't end because it's outside of time altogether, not that it doesn't end because it lasts infinitely long. But this either doesn't work, or doesn't save the free will defense of Hell from this counterargument.
To see why it doesn't work, consider what it is that makes the idea of Heaven so appealing. Part of it is the fact that you will get to experience joy forever. But in timeless heaven, you won't experience joy for an infinitely long time - in fact, you won't experience it for any time at all. What's so great about "eternal bliss" that doesn't even last a single Planck time?
The second part is that neither you, nor the people you love, are ever really gone. No one has to face oblivion because you'll never die in heaven - there's always just more of the future for you. But not so in a timeless Heaven! There is no *after*-life, just this one timeless "moment" (even calling it a moment is too much because that would give you a single instant in time) where you still exist. But that's it. No matter how you slice it, either death or one timeless point after death is when your consciousness will cease to exist: Depending on how your psychological states across time and non-time are linked, either death is really the end in exactly the same way naturalists think it is - the "lights go out" and you never have any experiences or sensations ever again - or your subjective experience of time ends with that timeless bit - basically, it feels to you like the timeless bit happens "after" the part that's in time, just as a time traveler could experience the year 1924 "after" he experienced 2024. But even in that latter possibility, your timeline still ends with the timeless "moment". You've just moved oblivion back by one infinitesimal point.
The third thing that make Heaven appealing is the idea that you'll get to see your dead loved ones again. And I guess this could technically be sort of true in a timeless Heaven. But you'd only see them for an interval of zero time. In other words, you wouldn't actually have time to do anything meaningful with them. You couldn't even tell them how much you missed them or what happened after they died. And after that, nothing. You get the change to see your loved ones one more time, but that's it, and you can't even do anything with it. You would need at least some non-zero interval if time to make this promise meaningful.
The same is true about the promise of uniting with God. Sure, it sounds pretty nice, but who really cares if it's just for a single non-instant, shorter (infinitely shorter, in fact) than the time it takes to blink an eye? Some would say that even that would be pretty significant - the experience of being united with God is so profound that just one instant of it would change my life. Except... there's no life left to change! I'm already dead, and aside from this one instant, there's nothing at all left for me.
Now, there is a workaround to all of these challenges. One could hold that, while Heaven is timeless, it's still infinite in some meaningful sense that makes it as if you had an infinite amount of time to experience joy, avoid oblivion, see your loved ones again, and unite with God. Perhaps it lacks literal physical time, but has some other aspect that's similar enough to be metaphorically treated as time, and that we can experience in a similar way. Perhaps it contains infinitely many conscious experiences that are linked in such a way that we feel a subjective time just like we do in the physical realm. This solves all the problems with a timeless Heaven above and makes the promise of eternal life seem meaningful again. It's no longer an empty promise but at worst a useful metaphor for what really happens. But this also destroys the defense that Hell is outside of time. We're now right back where we started: It may not have physical time, but it contains some aspect that's metaphorically enough like time to allow us to experience eternal bliss, do meaningful things with our loved ones and God, and never have an "end" to our experience. But if this is so, people in Hell will not have an "end" to their experiences or their ability to make choices after they choose Hell. There will always be metaphorical time left for them to change their mind, and always infinitely many metaphorical future hellish experiences that they can avoid by doing so.