I can't tell you how much I agree. I came to the same conclusion a few years back, persuaded by similar arguments. I have some notes.
First, your section on aiōniois is pretty good, but you could make a stronger case by also mentioning Romans 16:25:
Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past
The greek translation of the word "ages" here is aiōniois. A lot of bible "original word" explainers will translate this directly as being eternal, but that can't possibly be right - Paul is clearly speaking about a finite time here.
A few people elsewhere have mentioned that this whole thing stems from a desire to make Christianity conform to our own flawed internal morals. If the charge is laid against me, I can't dismiss it. I have to question the premise instead. My whole morality is informed by Christianity, without it I'd have to build morals out of, what, evolutionary psychology? And from within the moral system of Christianity, I'm seeing a contradiction. God is supposedly a grand orchestrator with a perfect plan that will make everything all right in the end if we will only trust it. Yet if we take the Infernalist teachings of an eternal hell at face value, God is going to fumble and let not only some, but most of His children be lost forever. We're supposed to be fighting for the winning side, but satan is going to get the larger portion of humanity?
Once you look past the authorities and their grand proclamations of Hell being eternal, most of the arguments for how a benevolent God could possibly allow such a thing strike me as weak - even the higher quality arguments proposed by great figures like CS Lewis don't stand up to scrutiny. It ultimately comes down to whose authority you trust, and the original scriptures muddled through the lens of our modern English translations.
I'm afraid I can't say I trust the Catholic or Orthodox churches on this point. I've spent some time looking into the state of Universalism in the early Christian church, a history you touched on in the comments on Origen. My view is mostly informed by this document [WARNING: Long and dry read, I don't expect commenters to read this], which argues that Universalism was a majority or at least commonplace view in the early church. If that's right, then the whole thing reeks of a doctrine endorsed for social engineering purposes. The early Catholic church is ascendant, they're taking more power in the Roman empire, they need to think more about how to keep the peasants in line... oh, hello there Augustine! We don't know enough to say for sure that's what happened, but there's enough things pointing in that direction to construct a narrative.
In the end, however we argue about it, we'll meet God one day and have to accept the truth, whatever it turns out to be. Thank you for posting this. I've really enjoyed your posts on your faith journey and would like to see more.
I'm seeing you get some criticism from others so I wanted to say thank you for sharing this. I enjoyed this and your post on chronic pain. Christ be with you!
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I can't tell you how much I agree. I came to the same conclusion a few years back, persuaded by similar arguments. I have some notes. First, your section on aiōniois is pretty good, but you could make a stronger case by also mentioning Romans 16:25:
Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past
The greek translation of the word "ages" here is aiōniois. A lot of bible "original word" explainers will translate this directly as being eternal, but that can't possibly be right - Paul is clearly speaking about a finite time here.
A few people elsewhere have mentioned that this whole thing stems from a desire to make Christianity conform to our own flawed internal morals. If the charge is laid against me, I can't dismiss it. I have to question the premise instead. My whole morality is informed by Christianity, without it I'd have to build morals out of, what, evolutionary psychology? And from within the moral system of Christianity, I'm seeing a contradiction. God is supposedly a grand orchestrator with a perfect plan that will make everything all right in the end if we will only trust it. Yet if we take the Infernalist teachings of an eternal hell at face value, God is going to fumble and let not only some, but most of His children be lost forever. We're supposed to be fighting for the winning side, but satan is going to get the larger portion of humanity?
Once you look past the authorities and their grand proclamations of Hell being eternal, most of the arguments for how a benevolent God could possibly allow such a thing strike me as weak - even the higher quality arguments proposed by great figures like CS Lewis don't stand up to scrutiny. It ultimately comes down to whose authority you trust, and the original scriptures muddled through the lens of our modern English translations.
I'm afraid I can't say I trust the Catholic or Orthodox churches on this point. I've spent some time looking into the state of Universalism in the early Christian church, a history you touched on in the comments on Origen. My view is mostly informed by this document [WARNING: Long and dry read, I don't expect commenters to read this], which argues that Universalism was a majority or at least commonplace view in the early church. If that's right, then the whole thing reeks of a doctrine endorsed for social engineering purposes. The early Catholic church is ascendant, they're taking more power in the Roman empire, they need to think more about how to keep the peasants in line... oh, hello there Augustine! We don't know enough to say for sure that's what happened, but there's enough things pointing in that direction to construct a narrative.
In the end, however we argue about it, we'll meet God one day and have to accept the truth, whatever it turns out to be. Thank you for posting this. I've really enjoyed your posts on your faith journey and would like to see more.
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