Monday, November 4, 2019

Why I say Universal Salvation NOT Apocatastasis

The problem with the term Apocatastasis is that as it was used during Church controversies of the era of the Ecumenical Councils it became as strongly tied to (in my opinion wrong) ideas of what Salvation even is as it was to being about who gets Saved.

Especially when tied to Origen it is about a Platonic Notion of the Pre-Existence of Souls, and that our "Salvation" is that we eventually become one with God losing our individuality, like the After Life presented in Star Wars, becoming one with the living Force.  It was this heresy condemned by the 543 Synod of Constantinople and addressed by the 15 Anathemas often linked to Constantinople II in 553.

My position on the creation of Souls is currently Traducianism, which is a rare example of me agreeing with Augustine of Hippo, but before Augustine it was Tertulian's view but I don't always agree with him either.

Now I don't disagree with Origen because Councils condemned him, I don't care what they do.  I firmly disagree with Constantinople II's condemnation of The Three Chapters and Ephesus's condemnation of Nestorius.  I do agree with the Chalecondian Definition on how the Divine and Human natures of Christ relate, but what those men taught is not sufficiently different enough to be heretical, same with the Miaphysites who disagreed in the opposite direction, only Eutyches was guilty of Monopysitism.

I've read all 15 Anathemas and nothing comes close to being like what I believe.  Anathema 14 is primarily addressing this wrong idea of what Salvation is, not who gets Saved.

I don't know how many Councils can be said to have addressed "Apocatastasis" in some fashion, but the only one to explicitly affirm Endless Torment and Anthamatize any who disagree with Endless Torment is the 754 Iconoclast council that was later overturned and repudiated by Nicaea II the Seventh and final Ecumenical Council, the same council that made a point of declaring Gregory of Nyssa the Father of the Fathers, someone who unambiguously taught Universal Salvation.
"(18) If anyone denies the resurrection of the dead, and the judgment, and the condign retribution to everyone, endless torment and endless bliss, etc."
Robin Parry makes the argument that Endless Torment and Annihilationism make God the ultimate Iconoclast, destroying His own Image.

None of this changes that I can't approve of the Iconophiles either.

I believe in Universal Salvation because I believe in a literal Bodily Resurrection of the Dead for EVERY person who ever has or ever will die.

So still much of what separates me from other Universalists of either the Evangelical or Orthodox variety is that I have no desire to claim affinity with Origen, I prefer to claim affinity with Gregory of Nyssa and the "Nestorians" and Gerrard Winstanly.

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