I think most Universalists would say that you will have to do the "not fun crap stuff" at some point - one side or the other of the grave. There has to be a process of regeneration that avoids, to put it bluntly, populating heaven with the same motley bunch who've made this world the pl7ace it is.
Why can't they just get transformed? If it's up to any of us to work our way to a regenerate state, then we are going to be there for a a while - possibly an eternity (and well done, you've just reintroduced Purgatory).
Going through life considering all the godly virtues to be 'not fun crap stuff' would be a great way of resenting ones life, with the chance of running into the sharp end of passages like 1 Corinthians 3/Matthew 7 in the afterlife.
At the risk of suppurating from here, as this is a thread that invites Love vs. God comparisons. My response to @Marvin the Martian is upstream there. Suffice it to say, empty threats are no way to parent, to befriend, to embrace.
@KarlLB, then heaven will be empty. Unless it starts with the same motley bunch of us who've made this world the place it is.
@Lamb Chopped, we're all for real. We're all going through the motions and outright hypocrites.
I think most Universalists would say that you will have to do the "not fun crap stuff" at some point - one side or the other of the grave. There has to be a process of regeneration that avoids, to put it bluntly, populating heaven with the same motley bunch who've made this world the pl7ace it is.
Why can't they just get transformed? If it's up to any of us to work our way to a regenerate state, then we are going to be there for a a while - possibly an eternity (and well done, you've just reintroduced Purgatory).
Why not? Perhaps instant transformation isn't actually possible. Perhaps it can only be achieved via a process in which we willingly participate.
And yeah, I know it looks a bit like Purgatory. I can't square the circle any other way though.
Going through life considering all the godly virtues to be 'not fun crap stuff' would be a great way of resenting ones life, with the chance of running into the sharp end of passages like 1 Corinthians 3/Matthew 7 in the afterlife.
Going through life considering all the godly virtues to be 'not fun crap stuff' would be a great way of resenting ones life, with the chance of running into the sharp end of passages like 1 Corinthians 3/Matthew 7 in the afterlife.
I think "starting now" as it were is worth it for three reasons:
1. The further down you go the further up there is to climb. Think of Marley's chain in terms of it getting longer as time goes on.
The other way to look at it, of course, is that you will have all of eternity to climb back up, but only this short life to have some fun.
2. Hope.
Hope for what? In this scenario, salvation isn’t a hope but a guaranteed fact.
3. People trying to improve here rather than screwing each other over should improve things in this life. Whether this has happened is hard to judge as we have no control group.
Improve for whom though, and at whose expense? Remember that in Biblical terms, we in the West are Romans more than we are Jews - oppressors more than we are oppressed. We’re the rich young man being told to give everything away, and walking off greatly saddened by the requirement.
Going through life considering all the godly virtues to be 'not fun crap stuff' would be a great way of resenting ones life
Hence the problem I identified for universalism. People are much more likely to do it if by so doing they can avoid eternal agony and torture in the world to come, in comparison to which being a bit resentful is a walk in the park on a bright spring day.
One thing I've noticed this Lent is how different obedience looks depending on where you stand.
I used to see it as drudgery--the sort of thing you do because you have to, but no fun at all, and taking all the joy out of life. Keeping rules and regs, that sort of thing. And who knows, I may fall back into that mindset, though I really hope not, because it sucked.
But it looks really different if you come at it from the point of view that a) you're already saved, redeemed, bought-and-paid-for, whatever you like to call it, and therefore no more rule-keeping is necessary for that. That's all been handled by Jesus, and as a result ... well, shit. I'm going to embarrass myself again. Oh well. As a result, I and a lot of other people find ourselves deeply in love with him, and we are actively looking for ways to make him happy. And the Law is right.there. to show you the kinds of things that make him happy. So you (that is, me) come at it with a totally different motivation, one that is based in freedom and love, not "have to" anymore.
Does that sound childish? Because it is, but I'll say it here anyway, because I have no dignity anymore. It's a lot like being a child picking dandelions for an adult they love. The dandelions may not be worth a lot intrinsically, but as signs of love they are worth the world to the person the child gives them to. And the same is true of our good actions when we're offering them to Christ out of love.
Seriously, it makes all the difference, and I've lived on both sides of that divide. I'd rather be in love with Christ and doing stuff to make him happy, than still trapped in a rule-keeping system trying to improve myself or earn salvation or make the world a better place or what have you. The result (my works) may look exactly the same, but the experience is a helluva lot better.
But it looks really different if you come at it from the point of view that a) you're already saved, redeemed, bought-and-paid-for, whatever you like to call it, and therefore no more rule-keeping is necessary for that. That's all been handled by Jesus, and as a result ... well, shit. I'm going to embarrass myself again. Oh well. As a result, I and a lot of other people find ourselves deeply in love with him, and we are actively looking for ways to make him happy.
I do not have that reaction to it all being handled by Jesus. I have a feeling of gratitude, certainly, but not anywhere near the level of “make the rest of my life (and/or eternity, take your pick) all about making him happy”.
Yeah, I don't know if it's just that I'm OLD (and have been through a lot of shit) or what. It seems to be intensifying as time goes on. Maybe I'm just weird? But that thread we had a while ago about him seemed to turn up others like me...
Going through life considering all the godly virtues to be 'not fun crap stuff' would be a great way of resenting ones life
Hence the problem I identified for universalism. People are much more likely to do it if by so doing they can avoid eternal agony and torture in the world to come, in comparison to which being a bit resentful is a walk in the park on a bright spring day.
But it's not true. I mean, I'm impressed with the short term pragmatism. But it's been disastrous in the long term. For the credibility of Christianity. Of God.
How long did the pragmatism last as a deterrent? As a motivator? How moral did it make Christians?
Would they have been less moral, worse bastards, if universalism was explicit in the gospel?
Going through life considering all the godly virtues to be 'not fun crap stuff' would be a great way of resenting ones life
Hence the problem I identified for universalism. People are much more likely to do it if by so doing they can avoid eternal agony and torture in the world to come, in comparison to which being a bit resentful is a walk in the park on a bright spring day.
Yeah but damnation isn't avoided by resentful compliance, and while there are plenty of prodigals who come home in the pages of scripture, those who insist on carrying on some kind of book-keeping against the eternal generally have their choice honoured to the tee by God.
Ok, so I'm no longer a hot Proddy but I'm with both @chrisstiles and @Lamb Chopped on this one, whilst hastening to say that I certainly don't have it sussed.
We serve a Christ whose 'yoke is easy' and whose 'burden light.'
Compared to most people in the world we've got it easy. And it's not as if any of us here are Coptic monks living as hermits in the desert. That can't be a barrel of laughs.
But neither is caring for elderly relatives or enduring long term illness or working in a toxic workplace or dealing with bereavement or a child with physical or mental health issues or ...
Yeah, I don't know if it's just that I'm OLD (and have been through a lot of shit) or what. It seems to be intensifying as time goes on. Maybe I'm just weird? But that thread we had a while ago about him seemed to turn up others like me...
Going through life considering all the godly virtues to be 'not fun crap stuff' would be a great way of resenting ones life
Hence the problem I identified for universalism. People are much more likely to do it if by so doing they can avoid eternal agony and torture in the world to come, in comparison to which being a bit resentful is a walk in the park on a bright spring day.
Yeah but damnation isn't avoided by resentful compliance, and while there are plenty of prodigals who come home in the pages of scripture, those who insist on carrying on some kind of book-keeping against the eternal generally have their choice honoured to the tee by God.
Counterpoint: the parable of the two sons (Matthew 21:28-31) suggests that resentful, grudging or unenthusiastic obedience is good enough.
Going through life considering all the godly virtues to be 'not fun crap stuff' would be a great way of resenting ones life
Hence the problem I identified for universalism. People are much more likely to do it if by so doing they can avoid eternal agony and torture in the world to come, in comparison to which being a bit resentful is a walk in the park on a bright spring day.
Yeah but damnation isn't avoided by resentful compliance, and while there are plenty of prodigals who come home in the pages of scripture, those who insist on carrying on some kind of book-keeping against the eternal generally have their choice honoured to the tee by God.
Counterpoint: the parable of the two sons (Matthew 21:28-31) suggests that resentful, grudging or unenthusiastic obedience is good enough.
Especially if the reward, so to speak, is an eternity of living with someone you don’t love and barely tolerate?
Y'know - that last point is the reason that I am drawn to universalism.
Depending on which version of "not saved" someone is working to, in a non-universalist setting I have the real possibility that a lot of people who really matter to me are or will be anything from on an eternal rotisserie of agony or snuffed out of existence basically for not finding the whole Christian thing sufficiently credible. As you know, that's an edge I teeter on frequently myself.
If you want a definition of a God I don't - can't - love and would barely tolerate, there he is right there.
The main barrier between me and him, if I'm honest, is the fear that he really is like that.
But my *hope* - and all the faith I have is just that - hope - is that despite everything God is real, and despite the fear, he's not like that.
Seriously, it makes all the difference, and I've lived on both sides of that divide. I'd rather be in love with Christ and doing stuff to make him happy, than still trapped in a rule-keeping system trying to improve myself or earn salvation or make the world a better place or what have you. The result (my works) may look exactly the same, but the experience is a helluva lot better.
Amen. And loving other people (and animals and...) too. It shouldn't really ultimately be about "fire insurance." (Again, I'm not a universalist, but in this post, Lamb Chopped "speaks my mind," as the Quakers might say.) But our emotions in this world can be in the way rather than helpful, too.
I suppose it would be fair to say that I'm a "hopeful universalist," which is to say, I hope and pray everybody ends up in the Kingdom, and I see nothing in Scripture which would absolutely rule it out... My problem, of course, is that I don't see a clear promise that it will turn out that way, and so it remains a hope, not faith. And of course my hope is based in the character of God, because he's not a bastard, whatever certain cherished Shipmates may think, and he is the kind of person to seize the slightest excuse to drag people out of danger and into blessedness... quite unscrupulous, in fact. The more I get to know him, the more I hope... he's made some spectacular "saves" in the past year in front of my eyes, if I can call it that. People basically everybody had given up on, finding a surprising amount of peace and grace in their last days (we work with a LOT of elderly people) when nothing in their previous 80-odd years would have predicted it. forgiveness and family reconciliation, sometimes... It makes me hopeful for the part I can't see, which is between them and God alone.
I suppose I ought to say that based on what I know of myself, I can quite see why all the scary passages in the parables etc. are there. If God told me outright that there was no danger of anybody missing out, and that the only question was how long it would take a given person to reach blessedness, I'm ashamed to say I would most certainly sit down on my butt and be a lazy creature when it comes to serving God's people and sharing the Gospel. I'd feel guilty about it, but not enough to get me to do anything. And the fact that my laziness and failure to speak up was also leading to a lot of quite unnecessary pain and suffering for other people in THIS world... well, I strongly suspect I'd shut my eyes to that fact and hum "la la la" to drown it out. Some people, like me, need a kick in the rear to show a proper concern for others.
Seriously, it makes all the difference, and I've lived on both sides of that divide. I'd rather be in love with Christ and doing stuff to make him happy, than still trapped in a rule-keeping system trying to improve myself or earn salvation or make the world a better place or what have you. The result (my works) may look exactly the same, but the experience is a helluva lot better.
Amen. And loving other people (and animals and...) too. It shouldn't really ultimately be about "fire insurance."
I’ve realised something - you guys are talking as if loving God (and others, for that matter) is a choice. But it’s not, at least not for me. I have no idea how to make myself feel something I just don’t feel.
I’ve realised something - you guys are talking as if loving God (and others, for that matter) is a choice. But it’s not, at least not for me. I have no idea how to make myself feel something I just don’t feel.
Since when did loving someone depend on how you feel about them?
@KarlLB
One of the (many) arguments I have for universalism is that many, if not all people, would be unable to worship a God who refuses to show any mercy to their unsaved loved ones. The great theologian Thomas Aquinas thought that one of the joys of heaven would be to look down and see the suffering of the damned. Really? If it's your wife, husband, mother, or child down there?
Many Orthodox theologians teach that there is no separation between the saved and the unsaved ( Rivers of Fire) and it's just that the saved experience His love as joy, while the unsaved experience it as torment. So you're standing, metaphorically of course, next to people you love in a state of eternal joy, while they scream out in torment to a God who refuses to ease their suffering?
Any one of us would immediately curse such a God and terminate our eternal bliss. Apart from a very small number of people, who seem to be constitutionally evil, and I can't pretend to know how God could deal with them, the majority of "sinners" are just people with human weaknesses. How many of us can stand to see an animal suffer? Or another person? Is there an infinitely loving, omnipotent creator, who allows sentient creatures to suffer, entirely deaf to pleas of mercy? I certainly could never worship such a being
@KarlLB
One of the (many) arguments I have for universalism is that many, if not all people, would be unable to worship a God who refuses to show any mercy to their unsaved loved ones. The great theologian Thomas Aquinas thought that one of the joys of heaven would be to look down and see the suffering of the damned. Really? If it's your wife, husband, mother, or child down there?
Many Orthodox theologians teach that there is no separation between the saved and the unsaved ( Rivers of Fire) and it's just that the saved experience His love as joy, while the unsaved experience it as torment. So you're standing, metaphorically of course, next to people you love in a state of eternal joy, while they scream out in torment to a God who refuses to ease their suffering?
Any one of us would immediately curse such a God and terminate our eternal bliss. Apart from a very small number of people, who seem to be constitutionally evil, and I can't pretend to know how God could deal with them, the majority of "sinners" are just people with human weaknesses. How many of us can stand to see an animal suffer? Or another person? Is there an infinitely loving, omnipotent creator, who allows sentient creatures to suffer, entirely deaf to pleas of mercy? I certainly could never worship such a being
Yeah, I think that's roughly where I am.
As for Aquinas I'm often given to wonder if he was a sociopath.
The Orthodox don't believe in Purgatory as such, but there are ideas about an intermediate state - forget the 'Heavenly Tollbooths' malarkey. That's an Eastern Mediterranean superstition.
We don't tend to speculate a great deal about 'the life of the world to come' but a kind of 'hopeful' - rather than a dogmatic universalism - would not be uncommon.
We also pray for the dead. Again, we don't speculate how that works. We pray for them because we love them.
Your scenario of the 'saved' blissfully enjoying God's eternal presence whilst their condemned relatives screech and wail beside them, metaphorically speaking, doesn't fit either with the way we think of God - ie not a bastard - nor does it fit with the 'Rivers of Fire' thing as I understand it. I don't pretend to fully understand it of course.
All I can say is that it doesn't 'feel' as you've described it now I'm on the inside as it were and getting to grips or growing into Orthodox models and ways of thinking.
That doesn't mean I've 'arrived'. Sin is a disease. The Cross provides the cure but the treatment can last a lifetime and beyond.
@KarlLB has articulated legitimate concerns. I wouldn't downplay them. I might try to reassure him that God isn't as he fears he might be. But I can't 'prove' or convince him of that. @Lamb Chopped has given instances of grace operating at the 11th hour. I'm happy to take her word for it, but Shipmates could give other explanations.
My old mother in law behaved in an almost beatific way in the days before her death. It sometimes looked as if she could 'see' into the beyond as it were. I found that scary, reassuring and challenging all at the same time. My daughter simply thought it was how her Gran behaved as a person of very simple and direct faith.
'Some said it thundered.'
I must stop saying that. It's becoming as much of a Gamaliel thing as 'both/and'.
I suppose one way of looking at it is that the 'damned' - whoever they might be and if there are any - aren't those who cry out to God for mercy but those who refuse to do so. In Orthodox icons of the Harrowing of Hell, Adam and Eve reach out to Christ as he reaches out to them. There's always the possibility of them leaving their hands by their sides and staying where they are.
However we understand these things the idea of the 'righteous' or the 'saved' being indifferent to the torments of the damned or - worse, gloating over them - isn't what Orthodoxy is about. Nor, I submit, does it accord with contemporary Roman Catholic or most mainline Protestant 'takes' on these things.
Just because Aquinas, or Jonathan Edwards or some hell-fire street preacher or scary beardy-wierdy monk in a cave somewhere came out with lurid descriptions of these things it doesn't mean that everyone in those respective traditions see things the same way.
Why are we so easily trapped in pre-Enlightenment, magical, dark superstitious thinking? Which started bad, I mean awful, with Jesus (in a long line since the Egyptians and hundreds of thousands of years before) and got worse! Like Aquinas'. No wonder Trump. Say anything and it's true, because it's been said. The answer is evolution of course; seeing patterns that aren't there confers survival more than missing them.
Is it that the alternative is the uncertainty we feel without a story, no matter how bad, is worse? We have to fill the vacuum of unknowing and big old eschatological stories are easily sucked in, despite intelligence and education? As Viktor Frankl found in the matrix of Auschwitz, any purpose, any meaning, will do. And here we are, just outside the wire.
If there were transcendence, none of the dark stories about it are true. All of our "that'll do", gene perpetuating, developmental states till dementia and/or death are just maggot. Irrelevant, but for the would be fact that there is something that can be properly gestated, metamorphosed, de-reconstructed, cared for, loved. Loved better. Loved to eternal imago-hood.
If Love is the ground of being, all is well for all. The trouble is that conflicts with the Abrahamic story. That umbilical has to be cut. With the risk that nature is her own ground. And we just have to do the best we can with each other.
Aquinas is explicit: the blessed do not get any intrinsic enjoyment from the sufferings of the damned as such, but purely get satisfaction from seeing that justice is being done.
(Summa Theologica, Supplement, article 94.)
I am not convinced by his argument about why God and the blessed no longer feel compassion for the sufferings of the damned; but Aquinas wants to rule out the possibility of sadistic enjoyment.
I beg his pardon, as many of us have relished and relish that yet. As the movie Ghost captured. My old Nan used to say God doesn't pay His debts with money. And so did I...
Aquinas is explicit: the blessed do not get any intrinsic enjoyment from the sufferings of the damned as such, but purely get satisfaction from seeing that justice is being done.
(Summa Theologica, Supplement, article 94.)
I am not convinced by his argument about why God and the blessed no longer feel compassion for the sufferings of the damned; but Aquinas wants to rule out the possibility of sadistic enjoyment.
It's not justice though, is it? That's the problem with eternal torment - infinite punishment for finite sin. Where's the proportionality?
Universalism looks more and more like individualism's eternity of last resort (in which God is perfect in all His human attributes, including incoherence).
Universalism looks more and more like individualism's eternity of last resort (in which God is perfect in all His human attributes, including incoherence).
I get outside the brackets, but not within. I'm just projecting idealized love on God, which (love) is a human attribute perfected. But incoherence? It's a fantasy, yes, as there is no warrant for there being an intentional agent causing infinite nature. But if there were, They would be ... hmmm. There wouldn't have to be transcendence for nature would there? Why would They be capable of that? Just because They are ineffably transcendent, supernatural Themselves. Why would they endlessly create ephemera that returns to noise? Art? ... Incoherence?
Universalism looks more and more like individualism's eternity of last resort (in which God is perfect in all His human attributes, including incoherence).
@KarlLB
One of the (many) arguments I have for universalism is that many, if not all people, would be unable to worship a God who refuses to show any mercy to their unsaved loved ones. The great theologian Thomas Aquinas thought that one of the joys of heaven would be to look down and see the suffering of the damned. Really? If it's your wife, husband, mother, or child down there?
Many Orthodox theologians teach that there is no separation between the saved and the unsaved ( Rivers of Fire) and it's just that the saved experience His love as joy, while the unsaved experience it as torment. So you're standing, metaphorically of course, next to people you love in a state of eternal joy, while they scream out in torment to a God who refuses to ease their suffering?
Any one of us would immediately curse such a God and terminate our eternal bliss. Apart from a very small number of people, who seem to be constitutionally evil, and I can't pretend to know how God could deal with them, the majority of "sinners" are just people with human weaknesses. How many of us can stand to see an animal suffer? Or another person? Is there an infinitely loving, omnipotent creator, who allows sentient creatures to suffer, entirely deaf to pleas of mercy? I certainly could never worship such a being
Yeah, I think that's roughly where I am.
As for Aquinas I'm often given to wonder if he was a sociopath.
Quite a number of leading religious figures have been sociopaths. I don't know whether Aquinas was one of them but an overly Scholastic and juridical approach can lead that way, most certainly.
To misquote the poet R S Thomas completely out of context, 'God in his time, or out of time, will correct this.' God can deal with our sociopathy just as he can with our greed, selfishness and anything and everything else.
Please don't misunderstand me when I make the following comments, but one of the reasons I'm not on the same page as @pablito1954 on this one is that it can - I said can - lead to a kind of inverted judgmentalism against those who hold a different view.
'I couldn't possibly bow down and worship a God who refuses to show mercy to our unsaved loved ones. How could we possibly stand there and watch their torment without cursing such a God or terminate our own eternal bliss? Anyone who believes such a thing must be a bigger bastard than I am ...'
Well, perhaps. But who is to say that God is going to refuse mercy to 'unsaved' loved ones? We pray for our loved ones, living or dead. 'Will not the God of all the earth do right?'
However we understand the 'Rivers of Fire' thing or any other model of thinking about the life of the world to come, it certainly wouldn't involve our being any less indifferent to human (or animal) suffering than we are now. If anything, if any of us are going to be in that number when the saints go marching in, we'll have a far more acute sense of mercy and compassion than we have now - not less.
We have to watch out for judgmentalism in all its forms. 'Judge not lest ye also be judged.'
I'm finding there's a big emphasis on that within the Orthodox Tradition and it's taking me a good while to adjust - not that I'm saying that all non-Orthodox are a bunch of judgmental bastards. Far from it.
'I couldn't possibly worship a being like that,' well, no, and I don't think anyone is asking us to do so. God is not a bastard. 'Will not the judge of all the earth do right?'
The Gamaliettes aren't believers. They aren't 'saved' in the evangelical sense. I still pray for them and seek their well-being. Whatever happens I don't expect to spend eternity wrapt in blissful contemplation of the Divine while they suffer the torments of the damned. I don't know exactly what to expect. But unless we all simply return to dust with no 'after-life' in any way, shape or form, I don't see why it should involve God being any different to what we've been told - that he is a God of infinite love and mercy.
I can 'live' with that.
My brother once met a guy who was convinced that his daughter was 'reprobate' - ie. that she was predestined to eternal Hell Fire with no possibility whatsoever of redemption. He was a hyper-hyper-Calvinist. The chilling thing was that he seemed rather pleased at the prospect. What a bastard!
Now, what did I say about not judging others ... .
Now, not all Calvinists or Aquinas-style Roman Catholics or 'Western' Christians in general are as overly deterministic as that. It's an extreme example and yes, sociopathic. Fundamentalism can lead to sociopathic behaviour.
I do believe in the 'reality' of the final judgment and the life of the age to come, but I don't pretend to have a handle on how things pan out or who will or won't be enjoying the eternal presence of God. That's God's business not mine.
I've got enough on trying to get my own spiritual walk and my own life in order.
I've got enough on trying to follow Christ and show the kind of love and compassion he showed to people. I've got enough on trying to stop judging and criticising others including people on these boards.
I'm not trying to sweep any of this stuff under the carpet. The Orthodox Liturgy talks of the 'fearful judgement seat of Christ.' The NT has plenty of warnings and scary bits, but if Christ is the Judge we should expect him to show the kind of love, mercy and compassion he showed during his earthly ministry.
The Rich Young Ruler walked away. Our Lord was saddened by that. He wasn't angry or condemning, but saddened. The Rich Young Ruler had rejected a more excellent way.
We don't know what happened later, whether the young man repented at some point and gave his wealth to the poor. He may or may not have done. We don't know. 'But will not the God of all the earth do right?'
I dunno; it seems like the line of thought leads inevitably to universalism. I just took the final step.
I've noticed a lot of people are able to accept all the premises that lead to a conclusion and yet not assert the conclusion. My mind doesn't work that way. If X had been shown to be 5+4+2 I feel pretty confident in stating, without a divine diktat to the effect, that X is 11.
Aquinas is explicit: the blessed do not get any intrinsic enjoyment from the sufferings of the damned as such, but purely get satisfaction from seeing that justice is being done.
(Summa Theologica, Supplement, article 94.)
I am not convinced by his argument about why God and the blessed no longer feel compassion for the sufferings of the damned; but Aquinas wants to rule out the possibility of sadistic enjoyment.
It's not justice though, is it? That's the problem with eternal torment - infinite punishment for finite sin. Where's the proportionality?
Well, I'm a universalist.
I just want to rescue Aquinas from the charge of sociopathy when it occurred to him as something to reject.
I think if you're not a universalist or an annihilationist Aquinas' position is the best of the bad options. But I do agree they're all bad options.
I'm not one for Proof Texts, but I read 1 John. 2 vv.1-2 in church yesterday and that nailed it for me. 'If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. And not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.' (NRSV translation.So far as I am concerned, seeking to place limits on the mercy of God is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. You are free to disagree.
Universalism looks more and more like individualism's eternity of last resort (in which God is perfect in all His human attributes, including incoherence).
Well those are certainly words.
I think it's an attempt to damn universalism by association by putting it in the same sentence as "individualism".
If we are doing proof texts then even back in my evangelical days I could cite chapter and verse as grounds of a 'wider hope.'
Romans 2 for instance, although I've come across attempts to interpret it differently than I did. I won't expand on all that as this is Purgatory not Kerygmania.
There's also the thing about being saved 'as through fire' - Ouch! It burns but you come out refined and 'purged' at the other end. Oh, wait! There's Purgatory again ... 😉
I get what @KarlLB says about adding up the numbers and arriving at a sum. Maths was never my strong point but I do 'get' that.
I s'pose from an Orthodox perspective - which tends to emphasise human freedom - there always may be those who reject salvation in any way, shape or form - whether pre-mortem or post-mortem. Hence, I imagine, why universalism is 'permitted' as pious opinion but not dogmatised as an absolute certainty within the Orthodox Church.
Well, whatever the case, we'll all find out soon enough. It's probably better to err on the side of caution.
We don't save ourselves. We are saved by Christ. How that works out 'on the ground' and for whom isn't up to us to judge.
We've got all the scary verses and the medieval Hell's Mouth frescoes - and they occur in Romania as well as in Western Europe - and the 'Ladder of Ascents' icon where nasty demons are trying to pull monks and clergy off a ladder to Heaven. They are climbing a stairway to heaven, as it were ... 😉
The demons succeed in dragging a few of them, including bishops, off the rungs.
It all depends how literally or figuratively we take this stuff. To say that God is the ultimate Judge isn't to put limits on his mercy as he will always judge according to his love and infinite mercy.
Again, that's constipated with ancient text that doesn't work literally at all, that was the result of seeing and projecting through a glass darkly at best. By incarnate God. It's entirely up to us to judge such theology. To realise that it doesn't measure up to the competence of the intentional ground of infinite being, i.e. Love, in the slightest. It's barely out of the Bronze Age.
That's your perspective and prerogative. I don't see anything 'Bronze Age' about it, but clearly I'm not as 'advanced' as you are.
I'm not taking the Hell Mouth depictions literally.
It's interesting that Elder - now Saint - Sophrony had the scales ⚖️ on a depiction of the Last Judgement on a fresco in the monastery at Tolleshunt Knights tilted in favour of mercy rather than condemnation.
Can all Christianities be valid, though? The universalist would almost have to say yes. I'm not sure that counts as a strength, theologically speaking.
I don’t think asking exactly what is meant by “valid” is approaching Clinton–“Is” territory.
No, but you get the point, right? I'll apologize, b/c this is Purgatory after all, and words matter, and all of that. I was simply musing about the possibility that some things out there that claim to be a Christianity ultimately might fail a Christianity Test.
No argument, but what I was trying to figure out was how that fits with a universalist having to say that all Christianities are valid. I was trying to parse what you meant by “valid” means in that context. Does it mean that all things that call themselves Christianity (not to mention, I guess, things that aren’t Christianity) lead to salvation? Because most universalists I know would say it is Christ, or God, who saves, not Christianity, valid or invalid.
In other words, I wasn’t trying to pull a “what does is mean?” It wasn’t a trick question. I was just trying to understand exactly what you were musing about rather than assuming and risking assuming incorrectly.
Thank you, but it's probably grist for a different mill. Sorry if I derailed things.
It's not about being advanced. It's about being coherent. If Love wins, it's despite the text. The horrors of the NT, of the gospels, let alone Revelation, of Jesus, of damnationism, aren't as bad as Bronze Age nightmares? There's a perspective where they're better? What's @KarlLB's nightmare?
Can all Christianities be valid, though? The universalist would almost have to say yes. I'm not sure that counts as a strength, theologically speaking.
I don’t think asking exactly what is meant by “valid” is approaching Clinton–“Is” territory.
No, but you get the point, right? I'll apologize, b/c this is Purgatory after all, and words matter, and all of that. I was simply musing about the possibility that some things out there that claim to be a Christianity ultimately might fail a Christianity Test.
No argument, but what I was trying to figure out was how that fits with a universalist having to say that all Christianities are valid. I was trying to parse what you meant by “valid” means in that context. Does it mean that all things that call themselves Christianity (not to mention, I guess, things that aren’t Christianity) lead to salvation? Because most universalists I know would say it is Christ, or God, who saves, not Christianity, valid or invalid.
In other words, I wasn’t trying to pull a “what does is mean?” It wasn’t a trick question. I was just trying to understand exactly what you were musing about rather than assuming and risking assuming incorrectly.
Thank you, but it's probably grist for a different mill. Sorry if I derailed things.
Chrisstyles was saying that mere compliance isn’t enough.
It’s not that it isn’t enough. It’s that getting eternal life is orthogonal to reproducing a particular set of outward behaviours. As per the closing coda of the parable you referred to above.
I’ve realised something - you guys are talking as if loving God (and others, for that matter) is a choice. But it’s not, at least not for me. I have no idea how to make myself feel something I just don’t feel.
Since when did loving someone depend on how you feel about them?
Universalism looks more and more like individualism's eternity of last resort (in which God is perfect in all His human attributes, including incoherence).
Well those are certainly words.
I think it's an attempt to damn universalism by association by putting it in the same sentence as "individualism".
Universalism here seems to be derived from the idea that other people should be saved because of how it makes us feel. As we, too, should be saved.
There is a textual coherence to God, through His only begotten son, teaching how His mercy and justice are realised through judgment and heaven and hell; and spelling out the consequences for those of His created beings who know the difference between good and evil, right and wrong.
This God is stark and unyielding to our minds - but when we start projecting our own values onto God, even in an idealised way, He loses coherence, as do our theology and doctrine.
I’ve realised something - you guys are talking as if loving God (and others, for that matter) is a choice. But it’s not, at least not for me. I have no idea how to make myself feel something I just don’t feel.
Since when did loving someone depend on how you feel about them?
Universalism looks more and more like individualism's eternity of last resort (in which God is perfect in all His human attributes, including incoherence).
Well those are certainly words.
I think it's an attempt to damn universalism by association by putting it in the same sentence as "individualism".
Universalism here seems to be derived from the idea that other people should be saved because of how it makes us feel. As we, too, should be saved.
There is a textual coherence to God, through His only begotten son, teaching how His mercy and justice are realised through judgment and heaven and hell; and spelling out the consequences for those of His created beings who know the difference between good and evil, right and wrong.
This God is stark and unyielding to our minds - but when we start projecting our own values onto God, even in an idealised way, He loses coherence, as do our theology and doctrine.
No, I am drawn to Universalism because it is manifestly unjust to condemn human beings infinitely for their finite sins. I know loads of people who don't or can't believe this Christianity thing and the sum total of how many of them deserve any kind of Hell is precisely zero.
We want people not to go to Hell not to make us feel better, but because it's manifestly unjust. There is neither justice nor mercy in the doctrine of Hell.
If words like "justice", "love" and "mercy" don't mean anything even vaguely like their human meanings when applied to God, then they have no meaning when applied to God, and we need more accurate words. "Sadism", "Vindictiveness" and "hatred" spring to mind as closer human concepts.
And if you think I have one ounce of desire to love a God who would fling my atheist son and father into Hell, you've got another think coming. That God would absolutely be a bastard, and would still be a bastard regardless of how I felt about him. His evil would outshine that of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot combined.
You and your God can fuck off, frankly. I might as well burn in Hell as spend eternity in his presence.
What really sticks in my craw here is people complaining about other people saying God is a bastard when it's their fucking description of God that makes him look like one.
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Why can't they just get transformed? If it's up to any of us to work our way to a regenerate state, then we are going to be there for a a while - possibly an eternity (and well done, you've just reintroduced Purgatory).
Going through life considering all the godly virtues to be 'not fun crap stuff' would be a great way of resenting ones life, with the chance of running into the sharp end of passages like 1 Corinthians 3/Matthew 7 in the afterlife.
@KarlLB, then heaven will be empty. Unless it starts with the same motley bunch of us who've made this world the place it is.
@Lamb Chopped, we're all for real. We're all going through the motions and outright hypocrites.
Why not? Perhaps instant transformation isn't actually possible. Perhaps it can only be achieved via a process in which we willingly participate.
And yeah, I know it looks a bit like Purgatory. I can't square the circle any other way though.
I was working with @Marvin the Martian 's framing there.
Sure, as was I.
The other way to look at it, of course, is that you will have all of eternity to climb back up, but only this short life to have some fun.
Hope for what? In this scenario, salvation isn’t a hope but a guaranteed fact.
Improve for whom though, and at whose expense? Remember that in Biblical terms, we in the West are Romans more than we are Jews - oppressors more than we are oppressed. We’re the rich young man being told to give everything away, and walking off greatly saddened by the requirement.
Hence the problem I identified for universalism. People are much more likely to do it if by so doing they can avoid eternal agony and torture in the world to come, in comparison to which being a bit resentful is a walk in the park on a bright spring day.
I used to see it as drudgery--the sort of thing you do because you have to, but no fun at all, and taking all the joy out of life. Keeping rules and regs, that sort of thing. And who knows, I may fall back into that mindset, though I really hope not, because it sucked.
But it looks really different if you come at it from the point of view that a) you're already saved, redeemed, bought-and-paid-for, whatever you like to call it, and therefore no more rule-keeping is necessary for that. That's all been handled by Jesus, and as a result ... well, shit. I'm going to embarrass myself again. Oh well. As a result, I and a lot of other people find ourselves deeply in love with him, and we are actively looking for ways to make him happy. And the Law is right.there. to show you the kinds of things that make him happy. So you (that is, me) come at it with a totally different motivation, one that is based in freedom and love, not "have to" anymore.
Does that sound childish? Because it is, but I'll say it here anyway, because I have no dignity anymore. It's a lot like being a child picking dandelions for an adult they love. The dandelions may not be worth a lot intrinsically, but as signs of love they are worth the world to the person the child gives them to. And the same is true of our good actions when we're offering them to Christ out of love.
Seriously, it makes all the difference, and I've lived on both sides of that divide. I'd rather be in love with Christ and doing stuff to make him happy, than still trapped in a rule-keeping system trying to improve myself or earn salvation or make the world a better place or what have you. The result (my works) may look exactly the same, but the experience is a helluva lot better.
I do not have that reaction to it all being handled by Jesus. I have a feeling of gratitude, certainly, but not anywhere near the level of “make the rest of my life (and/or eternity, take your pick) all about making him happy”.
But it's not true. I mean, I'm impressed with the short term pragmatism. But it's been disastrous in the long term. For the credibility of Christianity. Of God.
How long did the pragmatism last as a deterrent? As a motivator? How moral did it make Christians?
Would they have been less moral, worse bastards, if universalism was explicit in the gospel?
Yeah but damnation isn't avoided by resentful compliance, and while there are plenty of prodigals who come home in the pages of scripture, those who insist on carrying on some kind of book-keeping against the eternal generally have their choice honoured to the tee by God.
'We are not under Law but under grace.'
Ok, so I'm no longer a hot Proddy but I'm with both @chrisstiles and @Lamb Chopped on this one, whilst hastening to say that I certainly don't have it sussed.
We serve a Christ whose 'yoke is easy' and whose 'burden light.'
Compared to most people in the world we've got it easy. And it's not as if any of us here are Coptic monks living as hermits in the desert. That can't be a barrel of laughs.
But neither is caring for elderly relatives or enduring long term illness or working in a toxic workplace or dealing with bereavement or a child with physical or mental health issues or ...
It’s probably me who’s weird.
Counterpoint: the parable of the two sons (Matthew 21:28-31) suggests that resentful, grudging or unenthusiastic obedience is good enough.
Especially if the reward, so to speak, is an eternity of living with someone you don’t love and barely tolerate?
What was it that you think their father wanted?
Y'know - that last point is the reason that I am drawn to universalism.
Depending on which version of "not saved" someone is working to, in a non-universalist setting I have the real possibility that a lot of people who really matter to me are or will be anything from on an eternal rotisserie of agony or snuffed out of existence basically for not finding the whole Christian thing sufficiently credible. As you know, that's an edge I teeter on frequently myself.
If you want a definition of a God I don't - can't - love and would barely tolerate, there he is right there.
The main barrier between me and him, if I'm honest, is the fear that he really is like that.
But my *hope* - and all the faith I have is just that - hope - is that despite everything God is real, and despite the fear, he's not like that.
If the only alternative is an eternity in Hell, then…
Amen. And loving other people (and animals and...) too. It shouldn't really ultimately be about "fire insurance." (Again, I'm not a universalist, but in this post, Lamb Chopped "speaks my mind," as the Quakers might say.) But our emotions in this world can be in the way rather than helpful, too.
I suppose I ought to say that based on what I know of myself, I can quite see why all the scary passages in the parables etc. are there. If God told me outright that there was no danger of anybody missing out, and that the only question was how long it would take a given person to reach blessedness, I'm ashamed to say I would most certainly sit down on my butt and be a lazy creature when it comes to serving God's people and sharing the Gospel. I'd feel guilty about it, but not enough to get me to do anything. And the fact that my laziness and failure to speak up was also leading to a lot of quite unnecessary pain and suffering for other people in THIS world... well, I strongly suspect I'd shut my eyes to that fact and hum "la la la" to drown it out. Some people, like me, need a kick in the rear to show a proper concern for others.
I’ve realised something - you guys are talking as if loving God (and others, for that matter) is a choice. But it’s not, at least not for me. I have no idea how to make myself feel something I just don’t feel.
One of the (many) arguments I have for universalism is that many, if not all people, would be unable to worship a God who refuses to show any mercy to their unsaved loved ones. The great theologian Thomas Aquinas thought that one of the joys of heaven would be to look down and see the suffering of the damned. Really? If it's your wife, husband, mother, or child down there?
Many Orthodox theologians teach that there is no separation between the saved and the unsaved ( Rivers of Fire) and it's just that the saved experience His love as joy, while the unsaved experience it as torment. So you're standing, metaphorically of course, next to people you love in a state of eternal joy, while they scream out in torment to a God who refuses to ease their suffering?
Any one of us would immediately curse such a God and terminate our eternal bliss. Apart from a very small number of people, who seem to be constitutionally evil, and I can't pretend to know how God could deal with them, the majority of "sinners" are just people with human weaknesses. How many of us can stand to see an animal suffer? Or another person? Is there an infinitely loving, omnipotent creator, who allows sentient creatures to suffer, entirely deaf to pleas of mercy? I certainly could never worship such a being
Yeah, I think that's roughly where I am.
As for Aquinas I'm often given to wonder if he was a sociopath.
Chrisstyles was saying that mere compliance isn’t enough.
We don't tend to speculate a great deal about 'the life of the world to come' but a kind of 'hopeful' - rather than a dogmatic universalism - would not be uncommon.
We also pray for the dead. Again, we don't speculate how that works. We pray for them because we love them.
Your scenario of the 'saved' blissfully enjoying God's eternal presence whilst their condemned relatives screech and wail beside them, metaphorically speaking, doesn't fit either with the way we think of God - ie not a bastard - nor does it fit with the 'Rivers of Fire' thing as I understand it. I don't pretend to fully understand it of course.
All I can say is that it doesn't 'feel' as you've described it now I'm on the inside as it were and getting to grips or growing into Orthodox models and ways of thinking.
That doesn't mean I've 'arrived'. Sin is a disease. The Cross provides the cure but the treatment can last a lifetime and beyond.
@KarlLB has articulated legitimate concerns. I wouldn't downplay them. I might try to reassure him that God isn't as he fears he might be. But I can't 'prove' or convince him of that. @Lamb Chopped has given instances of grace operating at the 11th hour. I'm happy to take her word for it, but Shipmates could give other explanations.
My old mother in law behaved in an almost beatific way in the days before her death. It sometimes looked as if she could 'see' into the beyond as it were. I found that scary, reassuring and challenging all at the same time. My daughter simply thought it was how her Gran behaved as a person of very simple and direct faith.
'Some said it thundered.'
I must stop saying that. It's becoming as much of a Gamaliel thing as 'both/and'.
I suppose one way of looking at it is that the 'damned' - whoever they might be and if there are any - aren't those who cry out to God for mercy but those who refuse to do so. In Orthodox icons of the Harrowing of Hell, Adam and Eve reach out to Christ as he reaches out to them. There's always the possibility of them leaving their hands by their sides and staying where they are.
However we understand these things the idea of the 'righteous' or the 'saved' being indifferent to the torments of the damned or - worse, gloating over them - isn't what Orthodoxy is about. Nor, I submit, does it accord with contemporary Roman Catholic or most mainline Protestant 'takes' on these things.
Just because Aquinas, or Jonathan Edwards or some hell-fire street preacher or scary beardy-wierdy monk in a cave somewhere came out with lurid descriptions of these things it doesn't mean that everyone in those respective traditions see things the same way.
Is it that the alternative is the uncertainty we feel without a story, no matter how bad, is worse? We have to fill the vacuum of unknowing and big old eschatological stories are easily sucked in, despite intelligence and education? As Viktor Frankl found in the matrix of Auschwitz, any purpose, any meaning, will do. And here we are, just outside the wire.
If there were transcendence, none of the dark stories about it are true. All of our "that'll do", gene perpetuating, developmental states till dementia and/or death are just maggot. Irrelevant, but for the would be fact that there is something that can be properly gestated, metamorphosed, de-reconstructed, cared for, loved. Loved better. Loved to eternal imago-hood.
If Love is the ground of being, all is well for all. The trouble is that conflicts with the Abrahamic story. That umbilical has to be cut. With the risk that nature is her own ground. And we just have to do the best we can with each other.
(Summa Theologica, Supplement, article 94.)
I am not convinced by his argument about why God and the blessed no longer feel compassion for the sufferings of the damned; but Aquinas wants to rule out the possibility of sadistic enjoyment.
It's not justice though, is it? That's the problem with eternal torment - infinite punishment for finite sin. Where's the proportionality?
I get outside the brackets, but not within. I'm just projecting idealized love on God, which (love) is a human attribute perfected. But incoherence? It's a fantasy, yes, as there is no warrant for there being an intentional agent causing infinite nature. But if there were, They would be ... hmmm. There wouldn't have to be transcendence for nature would there? Why would They be capable of that? Just because They are ineffably transcendent, supernatural Themselves. Why would they endlessly create ephemera that returns to noise? Art? ... Incoherence?
Well those are certainly words.
Quite a number of leading religious figures have been sociopaths. I don't know whether Aquinas was one of them but an overly Scholastic and juridical approach can lead that way, most certainly.
To misquote the poet R S Thomas completely out of context, 'God in his time, or out of time, will correct this.' God can deal with our sociopathy just as he can with our greed, selfishness and anything and everything else.
Please don't misunderstand me when I make the following comments, but one of the reasons I'm not on the same page as @pablito1954 on this one is that it can - I said can - lead to a kind of inverted judgmentalism against those who hold a different view.
'I couldn't possibly bow down and worship a God who refuses to show mercy to our unsaved loved ones. How could we possibly stand there and watch their torment without cursing such a God or terminate our own eternal bliss? Anyone who believes such a thing must be a bigger bastard than I am ...'
Well, perhaps. But who is to say that God is going to refuse mercy to 'unsaved' loved ones? We pray for our loved ones, living or dead. 'Will not the God of all the earth do right?'
However we understand the 'Rivers of Fire' thing or any other model of thinking about the life of the world to come, it certainly wouldn't involve our being any less indifferent to human (or animal) suffering than we are now. If anything, if any of us are going to be in that number when the saints go marching in, we'll have a far more acute sense of mercy and compassion than we have now - not less.
We have to watch out for judgmentalism in all its forms. 'Judge not lest ye also be judged.'
I'm finding there's a big emphasis on that within the Orthodox Tradition and it's taking me a good while to adjust - not that I'm saying that all non-Orthodox are a bunch of judgmental bastards. Far from it.
'I couldn't possibly worship a being like that,' well, no, and I don't think anyone is asking us to do so. God is not a bastard. 'Will not the judge of all the earth do right?'
The Gamaliettes aren't believers. They aren't 'saved' in the evangelical sense. I still pray for them and seek their well-being. Whatever happens I don't expect to spend eternity wrapt in blissful contemplation of the Divine while they suffer the torments of the damned. I don't know exactly what to expect. But unless we all simply return to dust with no 'after-life' in any way, shape or form, I don't see why it should involve God being any different to what we've been told - that he is a God of infinite love and mercy.
I can 'live' with that.
My brother once met a guy who was convinced that his daughter was 'reprobate' - ie. that she was predestined to eternal Hell Fire with no possibility whatsoever of redemption. He was a hyper-hyper-Calvinist. The chilling thing was that he seemed rather pleased at the prospect. What a bastard!
Now, what did I say about not judging others ...
Now, not all Calvinists or Aquinas-style Roman Catholics or 'Western' Christians in general are as overly deterministic as that. It's an extreme example and yes, sociopathic. Fundamentalism can lead to sociopathic behaviour.
I do believe in the 'reality' of the final judgment and the life of the age to come, but I don't pretend to have a handle on how things pan out or who will or won't be enjoying the eternal presence of God. That's God's business not mine.
I've got enough on trying to get my own spiritual walk and my own life in order.
I've got enough on trying to follow Christ and show the kind of love and compassion he showed to people. I've got enough on trying to stop judging and criticising others including people on these boards.
I'm not trying to sweep any of this stuff under the carpet. The Orthodox Liturgy talks of the 'fearful judgement seat of Christ.' The NT has plenty of warnings and scary bits, but if Christ is the Judge we should expect him to show the kind of love, mercy and compassion he showed during his earthly ministry.
The Rich Young Ruler walked away. Our Lord was saddened by that. He wasn't angry or condemning, but saddened. The Rich Young Ruler had rejected a more excellent way.
We don't know what happened later, whether the young man repented at some point and gave his wealth to the poor. He may or may not have done. We don't know. 'But will not the God of all the earth do right?'
I've noticed a lot of people are able to accept all the premises that lead to a conclusion and yet not assert the conclusion. My mind doesn't work that way. If X had been shown to be 5+4+2 I feel pretty confident in stating, without a divine diktat to the effect, that X is 11.
I just want to rescue Aquinas from the charge of sociopathy when it occurred to him as something to reject.
I think if you're not a universalist or an annihilationist Aquinas' position is the best of the bad options. But I do agree they're all bad options.
I think it's an attempt to damn universalism by association by putting it in the same sentence as "individualism".
Romans 2 for instance, although I've come across attempts to interpret it differently than I did. I won't expand on all that as this is Purgatory not Kerygmania.
There's also the thing about being saved 'as through fire' - Ouch! It burns but you come out refined and 'purged' at the other end. Oh, wait! There's Purgatory again ... 😉
I get what @KarlLB says about adding up the numbers and arriving at a sum. Maths was never my strong point but I do 'get' that.
I s'pose from an Orthodox perspective - which tends to emphasise human freedom - there always may be those who reject salvation in any way, shape or form - whether pre-mortem or post-mortem. Hence, I imagine, why universalism is 'permitted' as pious opinion but not dogmatised as an absolute certainty within the Orthodox Church.
Well, whatever the case, we'll all find out soon enough. It's probably better to err on the side of caution.
We don't save ourselves. We are saved by Christ. How that works out 'on the ground' and for whom isn't up to us to judge.
We've got all the scary verses and the medieval Hell's Mouth frescoes - and they occur in Romania as well as in Western Europe - and the 'Ladder of Ascents' icon where nasty demons are trying to pull monks and clergy off a ladder to Heaven. They are climbing a stairway to heaven, as it were ... 😉
The demons succeed in dragging a few of them, including bishops, off the rungs.
It all depends how literally or figuratively we take this stuff. To say that God is the ultimate Judge isn't to put limits on his mercy as he will always judge according to his love and infinite mercy.
Otherwise, we've all had it.
I'm not taking the Hell Mouth depictions literally.
It's interesting that Elder - now Saint - Sophrony had the scales ⚖️ on a depiction of the Last Judgement on a fresco in the monastery at Tolleshunt Knights tilted in favour of mercy rather than condemnation.
Love wins.
Thank you, but it's probably grist for a different mill. Sorry if I derailed things.
No worries at all.
It’s not that it isn’t enough. It’s that getting eternal life is orthogonal to reproducing a particular set of outward behaviours. As per the closing coda of the parable you referred to above.
Universalism here seems to be derived from the idea that other people should be saved because of how it makes us feel. As we, too, should be saved.
There is a textual coherence to God, through His only begotten son, teaching how His mercy and justice are realised through judgment and heaven and hell; and spelling out the consequences for those of His created beings who know the difference between good and evil, right and wrong.
This God is stark and unyielding to our minds - but when we start projecting our own values onto God, even in an idealised way, He loses coherence, as do our theology and doctrine.
And yes all would be saved by Love.
No, I am drawn to Universalism because it is manifestly unjust to condemn human beings infinitely for their finite sins. I know loads of people who don't or can't believe this Christianity thing and the sum total of how many of them deserve any kind of Hell is precisely zero.
We want people not to go to Hell not to make us feel better, but because it's manifestly unjust. There is neither justice nor mercy in the doctrine of Hell.
If words like "justice", "love" and "mercy" don't mean anything even vaguely like their human meanings when applied to God, then they have no meaning when applied to God, and we need more accurate words. "Sadism", "Vindictiveness" and "hatred" spring to mind as closer human concepts.
And if you think I have one ounce of desire to love a God who would fling my atheist son and father into Hell, you've got another think coming. That God would absolutely be a bastard, and would still be a bastard regardless of how I felt about him. His evil would outshine that of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot combined.
You and your God can fuck off, frankly. I might as well burn in Hell as spend eternity in his presence.
What really sticks in my craw here is people complaining about other people saying God is a bastard when it's their fucking description of God that makes him look like one.