Feminine perspectives on Universal Salvation.

 I recently obtained Sarah Apetrei’s book The Reformation of The Heart: Gender and Radical Theology in The English Revolution.  It’s about the often overlooked significance of many Women during the Religious chaos of that period including how on some subjects they were more radical than their male counterparts.   

And the Chapter titled Salvation is about Universal Salvation.  Mentioning women like Lady Eleanor Davies, Elizabeth Attaway, Anne Yeman, and Anna Tarpnel (and also mentioned Elizabeth Bathurst, Lady Anne Conway and Jane Lead a generation later).

I think a similar tendency may have existed in other eras too.  Yes the vast majority of known documented Universalists are Men since Men have usually been more allowed to publish and publicly teach their ideas to begin with. 

However it’s important not to forget the arguably greatest Universalist Theologian Gregory of Nyssa,  depicts his OneeSan Macrina The Younger as his chief spiritual mentor especially on this subject.

Julian of Norwich was a medieval English Mystic who might be the best precedent for it in the English speaking world prior to the Revolution.  Some women have also had a role to play in the modern revival of consideration for the topic.

I hold the controversial view that Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene were the same person and was the Beloved Disciple, making her the Author of the Fourth Gospel and perhaps also the Epistles commonly attributed to John, at least the First of them which I think was originally an appendix to the Fourth Gospel which I prefer to title The Dissertation on the Word of Life.  

I can build my argument for Universal Salvation independent of those books, but some of the most Emotionally Powerful verses come from them.  Emphasizing how God Loves the Whole World, that none can pluck us out of Jesus hand in 10:28-29, that He will Draw all men unto him in 12:32, that we are Saved because God first loves us, in 1 John 4:19.

There may already be a lot more known then I’m already aware of. 

Baptists should believe in Universal Salvation.

The first reason is that many Baptists love to stress that Baptists have long been advocates of Religious Freedom aka Liberty of Conscience.  

Baptists have been at the forefront of it right from the beginning of the Baptists as we today understand them with Thomas Helwys and John Smyth.  Before them some notion of Religious Toleration had been proposed in the English speaking world by some 16th Century Puritans like Robert Browne, but for them it was just about disagreements within Christianity (or even just within Protestantism), it was these first Baptists who were the first to argue for Religious Liberty for even Jews, Muslims and Atheists.

And this tradition continued with Leonard Busher followed by Richard Overton, the real ideological brain of the Levellers, and then Roger Williams and John Clarke who founded Rhode Island.  Then Isaac Backus and John Leland during the era of the American Revolution.

My reason for arguing Universal Salvation should naturally go with belief in Liberty of Conscience is not quite what you’d probably first assume.  The relationship between Religious Freedom and Evangelism should be the argument that conversions made under force or coercion simply will not be sincere.  

I believe Jesus Christ should be viewed as the model for Human morality, not as a Sovereign who doesn’t hold Himself to the same rules as His subjects.  So if it’s morally wrong for us to persecute, torture or kill people for holding the wrong beliefs, it’s an absurd contradiction to then say that is ultimately exactly what Jesus will do when He returns.

For the Scriptural Reasons Universal Salvation is true, start by checking out my Six Points of Universal Salvation page, then read other posts with the Universal Salvation tag where I go more in depth.

Now my fellow Universal Salvation believers in Pedobaptist denominations may argue that since Salvation isn't only for a select few; why not just Baptize the babies automatically?  Well as an Evangelical Universalist I still see a meaningful distinction between those who are in The Kingdom already and those who aren’t yet.  Water Baptism is a ritual performed to symbolize choosing to become a full Citizen of The Kingdom.  

But returning to why specifically Baptists should rethink any knee jerk rejection of Universal Salvation is the fact that Baptists who came to that conclusion appeared very early on.  And were even important players in getting the ball rolling on modern Universalism in the first place.

They start at least with the 17th Century Bell Alley General Baptist Church of Thomas Lambe, Henry Denne and Samuel Oats.  And in her book The Reformation of The Heart: Gender and Radical Theology in The English Revolution starting on page 69 Sarah Apetrei highlights the women of that Congregation who were important voices of Universal Salvation like Elizabeth Attaway.  They were an influence on first Gerrard Winstanley and then The Quakers.

The Everlasting Gospel by Georg Klein-Nicolai is a German book on Universal Salvation that seems to have its origin among the Schwarzenau Brethren also called the Dunkers and German Baptists.

The rise of Universal Salvation in the American Colonies in the late 18th Century that led to the foundation of the Universalist Church of America involved several Baptists and people of a Baptist Background.  Elhanan Winchester would probably be the most orthodox to modern Baptists, but there’s also Adams Streeter and Hosea Ballou who also each had been Baptist Pastors, Caleb Rich who was born into a Baptist family, and Giles Chapman who married a German Baptist.  

James Murray and his mentor James Relly never had actual ties to any Baptist Church, but they came to a view on the Sacraments basically the same as the Quakers and like Gerrard Winstanley and the early Quakers a Baptist perspective on the Pedobaptism vs Credobaptism debate plays a role in how they got there.

The Universalist Church of America as a denomination never had a uniform policy on Baptism, but they were always consistently Congregationalist.

George MacDonald had been a Congregationalist, so not a Baptist but someone who'd agree with us on Church Polity.

The main contemporary Baptists who believe in Universal Salvation are the Primitive Baptist Universalists in Appalachia, who are more theologically liberal then other Primitive Baptists (and myself) on a number of things.  I'm hoping writing this can help change that.

The Seventh Day Baptists are partly known for being one of the most allowing of divergent doctrinal views within its denomination.  And I do agree that the Sabbath was never changed to Sunday, that idea is based on a misunderstanding of two verses.  So it does disappoint me that when I read the Statement of Faith on their official website the only belief of mine that is in potential conflict with any part of it is Universal Salvation.  

I also see a logical relationship between Sabbatarianism and Universal Salvation.  Believing that Sunday supplanted the Sabbath goes hand in hand with the mainstream Christian view that God permanently divorced Israel to take a new wife.  I'm not a Dispensationalist or strictly speaking a Two House Theology advocate.  Rather for me God’s determination to restore Israel no matter how far they fall is a specially emphasized part of His refusal to allow any to perish.  

And going back to Sarah Apetrei's book, there is documentation of the wife of John Belcher an early Seventh Day Baptist as Pastor of a Church at Belle Lane in the 1660s believing in Universal Salvation.

I know a lot of Baptists are among the most strict KJV Onlists so I should also link to this old post of mine.

https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2017/05/kjv-only-universalism.html

And for the Landmarkists who think the Novatians were ancient Baptists, there is evidence they may have believed in Universal Salvation.  It was their critic Cyprian who popularized the idea that there is no Salvation outside The Church which went hand in hard with how he was also the first to really stress making Infant Baptism obligatory.

Novatus, or as he is often called, Novatian, an eminent presbyter of Rome, who contested the bishopric of the church there with Cornelius, advanced something like Universalism. He extolled in the highest, though in general terms, the unbounded goodness of God (De Regula Fidei, cap. ii., prope finem, edit. Jackson, Lond., 1728, pp. 23-25); and maintained that the wrath, indignation, and hatred of the Lord, so called, are not such passions in him as bear the same name in man; but that they are operations in the divine mind which are directed solely to our purification (De Regula Fidei, cap. iv.). In short, he asserted the peculiar principles of Universalism; but whether he pursued them out to their necessary result does not appear.

https://universalistchristian.org/books/ancient-history/

No Purgatory still isn't Biblical in Universal Salvation based Theology.

Every now and then I'll see an ally on Universal Salvation say something like "The Catholics were right about Purgatory" and even I have bordered on the sentiment in the past.  However that completely misunderstands the purpose Purgatory has in Augustinian, Mediaeval and Tridentine Theology.

The root word that Purgatory comes from is Biblical, there is talk about Purging Fire in Scripture, however it is used as a verb not a noun.  

Purgatory as a name of a plane of existence is based on pointing to the verses that most undeniably refer to Corrective Judgment like in Malachi 3 and 1 Corinthians 3 and all the Refining Fire passages The Total Victory of Christ likes to talk about and saying they are referring to something different from The Lake of Fire in Revelation or from the Gehenna Fire Jesus warned of .  While those of us who have a proper Biblical understanding of Universal Salvation conclude those are all the same and can't be separated from each other.  

Augustine was clear that Purgatory was only for the Baptized.  It was in origin explicitly about rejecting Universal Salvation by creating an alternate explanation for the existence of Corrective Punishment passages.

It also when combined with the Platonist denial of Soul Sleep created a teaching that Purgatory is a place many of the dead currently are in, and this is where the idea of Praying for The Dead came from, which lead to the whole Indulgences thing, the Indulgences never claimed to get anyone out of "Hell" they were about shortening one's potential stay in Purgatory.  I however view all of the relevant passages as not happening till The White Throne Judgment after the Bodily Resurrection of even Unbelievers.

Purgatory was not an incidental doctrine that came to be labeled Catholic during the Reformation, it was actually vital to understanding the inciting Incident, Martín Luther wasn't even agaisnt the Office of the Papacy yet when he wrote the 95 Theses, everything he initially talked about were Symptoms of the false Doctrine of Purgatory.

Purgatory isn't a term for affirming Corrective Punishment, it's a term for limiting it only to Believers.

The Sheep and Goats Judgment is a Judgment of Nations not Individuals

While I don't always agree with The Total Victory of Christ YouTube channel (like their overreliance on the Creeds) their discussions of the Sheep and Goats Judgment of Matthew 25 are pretty good.  What I have to say here is in addition to all of that not in opposition to it.

Because another key point believers in Universal Salvation should stress is that this is a judgment of Nations not Individuals, that is explicitly the word used in verse 32.  I know Dispensationalists want to say "nations" here means "Gentiles" and that "the least of these my brethren" are The Jews.  But the Hebrew "Goyim" Biblically meant Nations, the modern "Gentiles" meaning came later, even if it is relevant to some NT uses of "Ethnos" it's not universal and in a context like this certainly doesn't work.  It's obvious from the context that "the least of these my brethren" means the poor and suffering and marginalized and least privileged of society not people literally genealogically "brethren" to Him in a way others are not.  Jesus is The Son of Man, all children of Adam are His brethren no matter if they recognize Him as their Savior yet or not.

As a Parable I don't think this is the most literal depiction of what the coming Judgment will look like. But the Moral of the Story is that Nations will be Judged based on whether or not they fed and cared for the poor and needy, an idea The Hebrew Bible already communicated in Ezekiel 16:49.

And so this understanding of Matthew 25 isn't just relevant to Universal Salvation but also to Christian Communism.  The argument of Conservative and Libertarian Christians that the Communalism of the Early Church in Acts or all the stress Jesus put on caring for The Poor all over this Gospels are only calling for Voluntary Charity and do not support Government Action are destroyed by this clear and simple reading of Matthew 25:31-46.  Yet everyone forgets to consider it relevant to that topic because we're so caught up in arguing over what it says the Punishment will be rather then who's being Punished and what The Sin is.

It is a passage modern Christians all over the Soteriological Spectrum can't exegete properly because of how modern Capitalist Individualism has poisoned their brains.

Calvinism is often predicated on not reading to the End.

John 6:44 is a verse that I'm sure is attractive to Calvinists saying no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws them to Jesus.  The thing is the same Gospel returns to that theme in John 12:32 where it is clarified that Jesus will draw ALL MEN unto Him.

This is even more apparent in how they deal with the Epistle to The Romans.  

In chapter 9 verses 15 and 18 we are told God has Mercy on who He will.  However in chapter 11 verse 32 it is clarified that God consigned all to disobedience so that he might have Mercy upon all.  

Same with the fixation on Romans 9's quotation of what Malachi said about Jacob and Esau.  The word Malachi used that gets translated "hate" really only means to not be preferred in a given context.  Romans 9 is Paul summing up Israel's past while Romans 10 is about the present and Romans 11 the future.  Esau may not be name dropped again in chapters 10 and 11 but what he represents in Romans 9 is still relevant, that being the Gentiles.  In the present the children of Jacob are now under a temporary spiritual blindness and those God "hated" before are now the ones who are fruitful provoking Israel to jealousy in Romans 10:19 and 11:11.  Romans 11:25-26 makes clear that the fullness of the Gentiles will be grafted into Israel and then ALL Israel shall be saved.

One bad theory of Hermeneutics you'll find out there is the "law of first reference" that the first time The Bible mentions something is key to understanding every later reference to it.  I find that theory appalling because to anyone who knows how writing works it is obvious that Romans 11 is explaining and clarifying the earlier references to these concepts especially in Romans 9.  But Calvinists instead will always do the opposite and use Romans 9 to debunk how someone like me quotes Romans 11.

Resistibility of Grace

There is a tension in the sentiments I express on this blog, between being sympathetic to Arminianism and wanting to explain why Universal Salvation does not contradict God giving Free Will to Humanity on the one hand, in contrast to my rejection of Existentialist Free Will ideology as a Left Wing Materialist on the other.

The key to resolving this seeming contradiction is how we think about Resistible Grace.  I agree with Arminians, Lutherans and Molinists that many humans who God is actively calling are resisting Him. Bible passages that support that include Luke 13:34, Acts 7:51 and 2 Timothy 3:8.

The verses Calvinists cite to support Irresistible Grace all in my view as a Universal Salvationist refer to how God will ultimately get His way, they do not contradict some people having resisted for their entire mortal lives.

But the difference between me and most who would oppose Calvinism on this point is that I don't think humans resist because of our Free Will, we resist God because of the Sin nature, because of Total Depravity, it effects each of us in different ways so some will be able to overcome it more then others.

There is no Biblical Support for the notion of Free Will as in Man Freely Choosing to be Evil, to me that is an oxymoron, man's nature is to be Good, Sin is a disease interfering with that natural tendency according to Matthew 9:9-12

This bad Free Will ideology did infect the Church early on, being in Justin Martyr, Ignatius and Tatian, it is another influence of the rise of Plutarchian Middle Platonism during the Second Century.

Six Points of Universal Salvation

The author of the YouTube Channel Total Victory of Christ has their own Five Points of Universal Restoration proposal, but it’s flawed in my view in how it brings in his positions on other doctrines.  So I want to devise a system that both Origenist and Anti-Origenist Universal Salvation believers can agree on.  And partly structure it as a response to the Five Articles of Remonstrance and the TULIP (Five points of Calvinism).

But I also decided on 6 Points since I prefer Hexagrams to Pentagrams. I prefer the Star of David to the Star of Remphan.

Total Depravity: God has consigned All to Disobedience so that he might have Mercy on All. Romans 11:32, Romans 5:11-21, Matthew 9:9-12, John 6:44, John 12:32.

Absolute Atonement: Jesus is the Atonement for our Sins but not of ours only but of The Whole World. 1 John 2:2, 1 Timothy 2:4, 4:10, John 3:16, Hebrews 2:9, 2 Corinthians 5:18-21, Colossians 1:15-20.

Unconditional Grace: Grace ultimately benefits even those who resist it because God is not willing that any should Perish and the Gates of New Jerusalem are never closed even though not everyone will be immediately inside of it.  1 Timothy 2:6, Revelation 21-22. Matthew 18:14, 2 Peter 3:9.

Perseverance of The Shepherd:  The Good Shepherd will find all his Sheep and none shall pluck them out of his hand.  Matthew 18:12-14, Luke 15:3-7, John 10:28-29.

Christ Victorious: 1 Corinthians 15 defines The Gospel as The Resurrection and is clear that all will be Resurrected and that Death and Hades will have no Victory in agreement with other Scriptures.  Revelation 20, Isaiah 25:8, Hosea 13:14.

Finite Punishment: Leviticus 26:42-45 and Deuteronomy 30 make clear that God’s judgments on Israel do not remove His promise to inevitably restore them, this is reaffirmed in Malachi 3 when he says his Fire is to purge and purify the Sons of Levi.  Ezekiel 16 promises the inevitable restoration of even Sodom.  Habakkuk 1:12 says God’s punishments are for correction.  Psalm 30:5 says God’s anger is for but a moment and Psalm 103:9 says his Anger will not last “forever” but later verse 17 says his Mercy lasts from Age to Age. In Matthew 5:26 and 18 34 Jesus defines punishment as being until a debt is paid.  Luke 12:46-48 is consistent with that but adding in agreement with 2 Peter 2:22 that punishments for sinful believers will be worse than for nonbelievers.  1 Corinthians 3:15 confirms there will be a judgment of works but even those consumed are still saved.

Arminian Universal Salvation

Strictly speaking Universal Salvation is considered a separate position from either Calvinism or Arminianism, that schism that happened among the Dutch Reformed was predicated on both sides assuming not everyone will be saved.

However among modern proponents of Universal Salvation on the Internet who came out of Protestant Denominations, they mostly come out of fairly mainline ones and thus try to sound more Calvinist then they do Arminian, Peter Hiett is explicit that he is a 4 Point Calvinist removing only Limited Atonement, he came out of Presbyterianism.  He refuses to even mention Arminius when talking about his belief in Unlimited Atonement.

For me though there is only one point of Calvinism I kinda do agree with and that's actually the one Arminianism doesn't actually disagree with, Total Depravity.  Unfortunately that is the most easy to strawman/misunderstand of the points of Calvinism because of modern people reading the modern connotations of "depravity" onto this term coined when King James was still on the Throne.  It simply refers to the fact that All Have Sinned, that Sin is a disease we've all been infected with, that it's only possible to follow God if God is calling us via The Holy Spirit.  The difference between what Calvinism believes and what I and Arminians believe on this is simply whether God is calling everyone or only a chosen few.  The Arminian Agreement with Calvinism here is why they aren't Pelegians, Pelegius did deny Total Depravity and was one of the first to condemn Universal Salvation by associating it with Origen.  It's actually not that different from Secular Determinism, meaning I was mostly wrong in the past when I insinuated Arminains would be in agreement with Existentialists.

The other three Articles of Remonstrance vs Points of Calvinism are bound up in how Protestantism has conflated Salvation with other things.  

Elect is just a fancy way of saying Chosen, not every reference to Election in the New Testament is about the same choosing, however I view not one of them as being a reference to Salvation.  I already have a post proving that "the many" can refer to everyone so "Many are called but few are Chosen" only makes sense if the Chosen are those who Choose to answer the Call rather then Refuse it.  They choose to be part of The Kingdom on Earth, to be those proclaiming The Gospel that Death will be swallowed up in Victory.

Grace is resistible during this mortal life but eventually those who resist it now will be Saved regardless because God never gives up, just like an Anime protagonist.

Jesu said "all who Persevere to the end will be saved" in the Olivet Discourse, that people started thinking it was about Eternal Salvation is frankly embarrassing to all sides of the argument.  Regardless I come at this form the perspective of someone who's prior Soteriology was Free Grace Eternal Security.  Now however I do believe there is something a Believer obtains when they place their Faith in Christ that can be lost if they renounce that Faith (I struggle to define what exactly that is however), and I also believe that our Rewards are contingent upon obedience, but Salvation was never contingent upon either Faith or Obedience.  You can't lose something that wasn't your responsibility to begin with.

So in a sense I can claim to agree with Arminius over Calvinists on all Five Articles from a Universal Salvation perspective, and I'm not the first.

First of all there is evidence that Arminius himself was at least an Inclusivist.

https://wesleyanarminian.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/inclusivism-luther-zwingli-and-arminius/

The General Baptists of the early 17th Century were named that primarily after their positron on Atonement.  John Smyth and Thomas Helwys were full Arminians who in the statements of faith they made proclaimed even a belief that Salvation could be lost.  But the larger General Baptist movement did include some who taught Universal Salvation.

According to Thomas Edwards there were even Universalists in John Goodwin's congregation, the leading Arminian Congregationalist.

Ariel Hessayon wrote a thesis you can find online as a PDF called Winstanley and Baptist Thought documenting how certain ideas of Gerrard Winstanley he got from the General Baptists since he had been one for a time.  Winstanley stopped being a Baptist because he decided to stop preforming the ordinances at all for the same reason as The Quakers.  In fact a lot of the early converts to Quakerism came out of the General Baptists.  General Baptist Henry Denne also anticipated the Quaker Inner Light Doctrine.  (18th Century Universalist James Relly also went on to reject the Earthly Sacraments but for some reason was buried in a Baptist Cemetery.)

Sarah Apetrei has written about Universal Salvation being popular among specifically Baptist Women during the English Revolution in her book The Reformation of The Heart: Gender and Radical Theology in The English Revolution.

Amusingly the Baptist Perpetuity Doctrine is today usually taught among Calvinistic Baptists but it is in fact only the General Baptists who can claim a lineage through the Anabaptists and Waldenses, indeed the Anabaptists and Waldenses seem to be who Arminius himself got his Soteriological ideas from.

Another informative PDF is The Baptist Universalist: Elhanan Winchester by Robin Parry.  Winchester was first converted to Credo-Baptism by a Free Will Baptist then backslide into the Calvinism he was raised in for awhile before finally being lead to Universal Salvation mainly by the precedent for it that existed among the "German Baptists" the Schwarzenau Brethren another group descended from the Anabaptists.

John Wesley is considered a type of Arminian, and there is debate about whether or not he became a Universalist soon before he died.  Soren Kierkegaard also developed a very Free Will centric theology but expressed in his private journals a preference for Universal Salvation.

I have prior posts on this blog responding to arguments that Universal Salvation conflicts with God respecting Free Will.  Some Free Gifts can't be rejected.

The Vexations of an Anti-Origen Universalist

I don't have any personal problem with Origen, I'm sure he was a nice guy and a Faithful follower of Jesus.  But as far as internal disagreements between Christians go Universal Salvation is about the only thing I agree with him on.  

He played an important role in the development of so many Middle Platonist/Neopythagorean tendencies that I consider at the root of everything wrong with Mainstream Christianity.  From his weird views on The Resurrection and the Immortality of the Soul to Divine Transcendence and Immutability and Impassability to Asceticism and Puritanical Sexual Morality and Infant Baptism and Free Will and his hyper allegorical approach to Scripture not to mention the Proto-Arianism in his Logos Doctrine founded on the bad Septuagint translation of Proverbs 8:22-25.

I recently purchased A Larger Hope?, Volume 1 by Ilaria L. E. Ramelli off Amazon and found it very frustrating.  I feel it's counterproductive for Universalists to play along with the idea that Origen is the main character in the history of Universalism.  Because if everyone after Origen is getting it directly or indirectly from Origen then that weakens the doctrine, if it all goes back to one guy who was controversial even while he was alive being exiled from Alexandria by it's actual Bishop, that's not a good look.  Not to even mention how that narrative reinforces the Great Man Theory of History.

Even when talking about people before Origen she says it's not "fully developed" yet.  To me the Doctrine of Universal Salvation is fully developed by Scripture itself, it's departing from it that required post Biblical Theological innovations, and the main Pre-Nicene culprits I blame for laying the groundwork are Tatian (who said he was Anti-Plato even though his theology was identical to contemporary Middle Platonism and was Proto-Arian in the same way Origen was) then Tertullian perhaps unintentionally in how he translated some Greek words into Latin and Cyprian of Carthage.  But the different forms of Infernalism are fully developed during the Theodosian era by Augustine of Hippo, Pelagius of Britannia, John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria.

What we need to stress is not just that the earliest critics of Origen didn't include his Universalism in their critiques of him but that Methodius of Olympus is even teaching Universal Salvation in the exact same text he wrote to refute Origen On The Resurrection.  If Origen taught Universal Salvation more clearly and explicitly then anyone prior to him, it may be in response to Cyprian being the first to teach that there is no Salvation outside The Church.

Because the thing is those first Theodosian enemies of Universal Salvation were weaponizing the association with Origen from the start, Pelegius explicitly said when defending himself that anyone who accepts a face value reading of Romans 5 is an Origenist and that is why that council exonerated him.  Ironically I feel Arminians should stop embracing Pelegius for the same reasons, the association of Pelegius with Arminianism began as a Calvinist attack on Arminainism.

When Ramelli gets to discussing the Antiochene School even then she still wants to define their Universal Salvation as being argued with arguments similar to Origen's.  But it was that school that was founded on opposition to Origen's influence being the opposite of him in their approach to Scripture, on that issue being even more Anti-Origenist then I am.  That they taught Universal Salvation even more clearly and unambiguously should be the death nail to labeling it as inherently Origenist.

She also began her discussion of Antioch with Diodorus of Tarsus.  Theophilus of Antioch taught Universal Salvation in the 2nd Century and died around the same time Origen was born.  And then there is the representative of Antioch at the Council of Nicaea, Eustathius of Antioch.

Eustathius is one of the least talked about major theologians of who were at Nicaea, and thus his absence from Ramelli's book was one of my major disappointments with it.  The most in-depth discussion of Eustathius I've found was an article titled The Theological Anthropology of Eustathius of Antioch by Sophie Hampshire Cartwright.  Thing is I can't find that PDF simply googling it anymore which is why I'm glad I'd downloaded it.  

This article talks about how firmly Anti-Origen Eustathius was, however my main criticism of it is when it talks about Universal Salvation starting on page 370.  It acknowledges the Universalist implications of a lot of what Eustathius taught, yet insists he ultimately didn't believe in Universal Salvation because he referred to "Aionios Punishments" and "unquenchable fire" even though both those Biblical concept are acknowledged by all Biblical Universalists.  Aionios means "The Age" not Eternal and refers to when the Punishments happen not for how long, the Fire is described as Unquenchable to tell us about the Fire itself not how long anyone will be in it, the Fire is the very presence of God, it is the Baptism of The Holy Spirit.

It also talks about Eustathius as a bit of a Proto-Nestorian showing that his connection to the later Antiochene School isn't just a coincidence of location.

Athanasius of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea were both fans of Origen to some extent.  And even Gregory of Nyssa had also probably read Origen. But they were still not following some of his more out there ideas.  

In time the Alexandrians were probably the first in the East to depart from Universal Salvation as we see with Cyril of Alexandria who had at one point thought even Augustine was too merciful.  

And the relationship between Origenism and Caesarea has a nuance I feel many overlook.  Theophilus of Caesarea was the teacher of Clement same as Clement was the teacher of Origen, so they could have got it from Caesarea rather then the other way around, then awkwardly mixed it with their Platonism which was very native to Alexandria.

It is I suppose also important to me to stress that Origen's belief in Universal Restoration was in-spite of his interest in Platonism not because of it.  The traditional view of Hell is another mainstream Christian Doctrine that comes from Platonism not Scripture being taught in Gorgias.  Plato may not have meant it to be taken literally, but Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism were all about taking Plato literally and nothing else.

But the final act of my rant here shall be about what Salvation even is to Origen.  

Origen's Salvation involves everything becoming one with God in a way that implies a loss of individuality.  It likely has it's Biblical roots in Ecclesiastes 12:7, but that verse is about what happens at physical death, Christians who have a proper Understanding of The Resurrection believe that is undone at The Resurrection, to Origen however it seems that Resurrection is only a step in making that happen.  The only time Origen's ideas resemble Stoicism is the one aspect of Stoic Metaphysics I consider incompatible with The Bible.

What Origen believed about the ultimate destiny of every Human Soul doesn't sound like Salvation to me at all, it sounds like the Human Instrumentality Project.... and that's the real reason I hate Origenism so much, talking about it causes me to make a Neon Genesis Evangelion reference.

The Gospel is the Bodily Resurrection, that we all live Forever with God in a perfectly restored but still Material and Physical Universe.

Forgivness explained

In recent years there's been a growing trend among certain Social Justice inclined Leftists on YouTube and elsewhere to say that society's overvaluing of Forgiveness is bad actually, especially the Christian value of it being a moral failing not to Forgive.

The first problem is that the word "forgive" itself is another one of those words used in English Bibles that was still an accurate translation in 1611 but in how it's usage has evolved has become misunderstood.

The expression "forgive and forget" is often said with the implication that the former can't be done without also doing the latter, but that is not what Biblical Forgiveness is.  In The Bible only God is said to Forgive and Forget in Jeremiah 31:34 "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." and Hebrew 8:12 "For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more." and also 10:17, but that is ultimately Eschatological, it's about how things will be when the very existence of Sin has been eliminated.

The word "forgive" is an economic term in origin, to forgive a debt is to relinquish any expectation or even desire to be repaid.  And The Bible especially The New Testament's discussions of the concept are explicitly linked to that economic understanding, the "Parable of the unforgiving servant" in Matthew 18:21-35 is textually entirely about debt forgiveness, it's relevance to moral forgiveness is the metaphor.  That's why "earned" forgiveness is any oxymoron, if they somehow actually made up for what they did (which is usually not possible) then in this analogy they repaid the debt, no forgiveness is necessary.

Forgiving someone doesn't mean trusting a person who's proven themselves untrustworthy, or acting like nothing happened.  And Forgiving an abuser doesn't mean staying in or returning to a relationship with them.

The New Testament's emphasis on Forgiveness is entirely about rejecting Retributive/Punitive Justice.  And so this post is not me saying this common SJW position on forgiveness is actually perfectly compatible with Scripture, because these people mostly are in favor of Retributive Justice, even if they say they are not, you can say you prefer "Restorative Justice" all you want but if you have the attitude that it's a horrible injustice for a person not to be "punished" even though punishing them will not actually undo any of the harm they did, that's retributive justice.

But I'm not done yet talking about areas where I'm on their side of this issue.  One of the few morals common in Anime I don't like is how some seem to say children always owe something to their parents no matter how abusive and/or neglectful they were, this is part of joyce-stick's problem with the Mahou Shoujo Site Manga (the Anime hasn't gotten that far), and it bugged me in Clannad After Story.  On the blog that is primarily me talking about Anime I did a psot on After Story before I'd finished it appreciating it's found family element with an MC who's biological father was a drunken neglectful failure finding a surrogate father in Nagisa's father.  The problem is the show later devotes an arc to him reconciling with his father and even goes so far as tell him he did nothing wrong.

And I know a lot of Christians think this sense of unconditional loyalty to a sperm donor is Biblical because of the Fifth Commandment.  But in my opinion one has to do more then give birth to you and let you live in their house till a certain age to be worthy of the title of Father or Mother.  The New Testament is all about how true Family has nothing to do with biological relation.  So you can forgive a bad parent in the proper understanding of forgiveness I laid out above, but to "Honor" them as your Mother or Father when they weren't one would actually violate the Fifth Commandment by diminishing that Honor.

The Biblical understanding of Forgiveness and Atonement and Redemption is also easier to understand when you properly understand what Sin means and the materialist understanding that no one is entirely responsible for their own actions.

There is also the Psychological fact that for many people forgiving someone was good for their own mental health, finally being able to do it felt like a burden being removed.  The Bible even applies this to God Forgiving us in Isaiah 43:25 "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins".

I guess it's time to get into how this ties into the discourse surrounding Redemption narratives in fiction.  One fairly well known Video Essay on the topic I can't remember the name of right now talks about a distinction between passive redemption and active atonement, being redeemed vs redeeming themselves, the former is as they acknowledge what The Christian Gospel is about but the latter is what she prefers.  The thing is this preference for "earned" redemption is a form of Meritocracy, a key pillar of the justifying ideology of Capitalism.

That video was cited in a Sailor Moon Video that's not watchable anymore because of Toei's incomprehensible copyright standards, I'm pretty sure it was a Unicorn of War video but I could be remembering that wrong.  It was about The Blaok Moon Saga of Sailor Moon and comparing different versions of it.  Now for this saga I am mostly in agreement that the 90s Anime version was a failure.  But this issue came up in the context of how they don't like the redemption of the Spectre Sister because it's passive redemption, and their redemption arc is one of the few aspects of the 90s Anime version I like.  Now in fairness the 3 episodes that cover their redemptions are not all equal, the forcing Calaveras and Petz to share the same spotlight episode again was ill advised, and Bertheir's felt uninspired.  But the Koan episode is one of my favorite episodes of the series and like most good episodes during this saga was written by Katsuyuki Sumisaya.

Ya know how there was this variation of Universal Salvation that framed it as those in Gehenna being let out when the Saints themselves ask Jesus to show Mercy?  Augustine alludes to it in City of God as the second most popular soteriology he doesn't like, and it's the form presented in the Apocalypse of Peter.  Well the Koan redemption episode of Sailor Moon really works as an analogy to that version of Universal Salvation.

Now there are many variations on this anti-Forgiveness attitude out there.  Lily Orchard is not representative of most, but I feel I have to bring her up because she's the most extreme, she is very vocally Revenge is Good actually and it's kind of insane to see a supposed Leftist being this in love with Retributive Justice, she kind of just debunks her own worldview by actually saying it out loud.

The Sects of First Century Judaism

This is what Josephus has to say in Antiquities of the Jews Book 18 Chapter 1.

2. The Jews had, for a great while, had three sects of philosophy peculiar to themselves. The sect of the Essens; and the sect of the Sadducees; and the third sort of opinions was that of those called Pharisees. Of which sects although I have already spoken in the second book of the Jewish war;¹ yet will I a little touch upon them now.

3. Now for the Pharisees, they live meanly, and despise delicacies in diet; and they follow the contract of reason: and what that prescribes to them as good for them they do: and they think they ought earnestly to strive to observe reason’s dictates for practice. They also pay a respect to such as are in years: nor are they so bold as to contradict them in any thing which they have introduced. And when they determine that all things are done by fate,² they do not take away the freedom from men of acting as they think fit: since their notion is, that it hath pleased God to make a temperament; whereby what he wills is done; but so that the will of man can act virtuously or viciously. They also believe that souls have an immortal vigour in them: and that under the earth there will be rewards, or punishments; according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life: and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison; but that the former shall have power to revive and live again. On account of which doctrines they are able greatly to persuade the body of the people: and whatsoever they do about divine worship, prayers, and sacrifices, they perform them according to their direction. Insomuch, that the cities give great attestations to them, on account of their intire virtuous conduct, both in the actions of their lives, and their discourses also.

4. But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this; that souls die with the bodies. Nor do they regard the observation of any thing besides what the law enjoins them. For they think it an instance of virtue to dispute with those teachers of philosophy whom they frequent. But this doctrine is received but by a few: yet by those still of the greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost nothing of themselves. For when they become magistrates; as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be; they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees: because the multitude would not otherwise bear them.

5. The doctrine of the Essens is this; that all things are best ascribed to God. They teach the immortality of souls: and esteem that the rewards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven for. And when they send what they have dedicated to God into the temple, they do not offer sacrifices: (3) because they have more pure lustrations of their own. On which account they are excluded from the common court of the temple: but offer their sacrifices themselves. Yet is their course of life better than that of other men; and they intirely addict themselves to husbandry. It also deserves our admiration, how much they exceed all other men that addict themselves to virtue, and this in righteousness: and indeed to such a degree, that as it hath never appeared among any other men, neither Greeks nor Barbarians, no not for a little time: so hath it endured a long while among them. This is demonstrated by that institution of theirs, which will not suffer any thing to hinder them from having all things in common: so that a rich man enjoys no more of his own wealth, than he who hath nothing at all. There are about four thousand men that live in this way: and neither marry wives, nor are desirous to keep servants: as thinking the latter tempts men to be unjust; and the former gives the handle to domestick quarrels. But as they live by themselves, they minister one to another. They also appoint certain stewards to receive the incomes of their revenues, and of the fruits of the ground; such as are good men, and priests: who are to get their corn, and their food ready for them. They none of them differ from others of the Essens in their way of living: but do the most resemble those Dacæ, who are called Polistæ. [Dwellers in cities.] (4)

6. But of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaick notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty; and say that God is to be their only ruler and lord. They also do not value dying any kinds of death; nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends: nor can any such fear make them call any man lord. And since this immoveable resolution of theirs is well known to a great many, I shall speak no farther about that matter. Nor am I afraid that any thing I have said of them should be disbelieved: but rather fear that what I have said is beneath the resolution they shew when they undergo pain. And it was in Gessius Florus’s time that the nation began to grow mad with this distemper; who was our procurator; and who occasioned the Jews to go wild with it, by the abuse of his authority; and to make them revolt from the Romans. And these are the sects of Jewish philosophy.

Based on the Metaphysics it's clear that the sect of Judaism to which the Early Christians at least nominally belonged was basically the Pharisees.  That can be difficult for a moderner to wrap their head around given how much the word "Pharisee" is colloquially treated as synonymous with being the "Bad Guys" of the Gospels.

Often people who clearly qualify as Christians but exist outside the mainstream will simply refer to what they oppose as "Christianity", I personally try not to do that even though I have greater disagreement with the mainstream Church then some who do, but it is a thing.  

Josephus also tells us here that most of the common people were basically with the Pharisees, so those mass crowds of people Jesus attracted must have been made up of lots of Pharisees. And then Josephus suggests a lot of people in positions of power were really Sadducees merely pretending to follow the popular religion.

There are hints in The Gospel narrative itself that Jesus' criticisms of the Pharisees are really criticisms from within directed at their leadership.  

In the first three verses of Matthew 23 Jesus tells us two things about the leaders of the Pharisees.  The seat they sit in makes them legitimate heirs of Moses, this to me confirms that the Sanhedrin of the Greco-Roman period as an institution does have unbroken continuity with the Council of Seventy Elders ordained in Numbers 11:16-25.  

The other appears to be that what they preach is correct, they simply don't practice what they preach.  Other things Jesus says about them may seem inconsistent with that, seem absolutely about what they teach.  But I think "from a certain point of view" how you practice what you preach can include how you teach it and interpret it.  The point is Jesus couldn't have said that if He disagreed with the core definition of being a Pharisee.

Luke 7:36-50 features a Pharisee named Simon who Jesus is on pretty good terms with.

In Acts 23:6 Paul identifies himself as still a Pharisee on simply the grounds that He believes in The Resurrection of The Dead.  So likewise all of Christianity can claim the same.

According to the timeline that can be inferred from The Talmud, Shammai was head of the Sanhedrin from about 20-30 AD.  Some have observed similarities between the teachings of Jesus and Hillel the Elder, the head of the School that Shammai opposed.  This particular internal disagreement within the Pharisees doesn't come up in Josephus, possibly because in his time the Shammai school was already mostly defunct.  But the time period I and many others place the ministry of Jesus is at the height of Shammai's influence, so the Pharisees who are the bad guys of the Gospels could be mainly him and his followers.  I do think certain people online overstate the similarities between Jesus teachings and Hillel's to suit various misguided agendas of their own.  But it's interesting because modern Rabbinic Judaism also descends not only from the Pharisees but specifically Hillel's school.  Perhaps Shammai should have filled the role of the made up Zerah (played by Ian Holm) in the 70s Jesus of Nazareth miniseries.

However even in Josephus's brief description of the Pharisees there is at least one apparent disagreement with The New Testament view of The Resurrection, and that's how it seems ONLY the "Righteous" will be Resurrected.  1 Corinthians 15,  Acts 24:15, Revelation 20 and Jesus in John 5:28-29 are all clear that everyone no exceptions will rise again., and The Hebrew Bible agrees with the NT on this in Daniel 12.  Now as a proponent of Universal Salvation I disagree with most mainstream Christians on exactly what it means that the unjust will face "Judgment" after their Resurrection, but we do all still agree that they will also rise again to a literal bodily Resurrection.

And that last point is key to why I wanted to discus the Doctrine of the Resurrection in the context of 1st Century Judaism.  Some people try really hard to abuse certain details of 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5 to suggest Paul and other NT writers must mean by "Resurrection" something that is actually functionally the same as what either the Essenes (we live forever as immortal souls without a body) or Sadducees (no real after life at all) believed.  However we see here that people who believed those kinds of things in first century Judaism didn't use the language of Resurrection, so it's silly to think Paul or Peter or Jesus would if that's what they meant.

Another interesting observation I can make from Josephus's description is how there was a familiar debate about Human Free Will vs Divine Sovereignty.  With the Essenes being like Augustine and the Calvinists, while the Sadducees were more like Pelegius or the Arminians.  The Pharisees however have a more nuanced take on that tension that again I feel is closer to what The New Testament is actually saying, but could also be compared to the Stoic position on Free Will vs Fate in Greek Philosophy.  I also feel like the Sadducees are functionally Deists, what we today call Deism began in Greek Philosophy with Aristotle and then the Epicureans.

Many people want to connect the Essenes to the origins of Christianity based on their practicing a voluntary communalism similar to the Early Church in Acts.  But they did it for a different reason, they had inherited a Pythagorean notion of the Immortality of The Soul, and indeed Classical Pagan Pythagoreans also practiced a sort of Voluntary Communalism, but for both it was about viewing the physical world as a Prison they seek liberation from.  Early Christians lived this way to be a light within the world and salt of the earth.  The Early Christians were true Communists, the Pythagoreans were more like Strasserists or NazBols, they were in bed with totalitarian governments in Samos and Crotone, and likewise I have argued that those Josephus called Essenes were those Matthew 22 called Herodians.  Philo's description of the Essenes also repeats that they had the support of many "Great Kings".  I've also talked about the Pythagorean role in the origins of Puritanical Sexual Morality, and the Essenes seem to have been the same way on that too, as well as their Misogyny, I think the Essenes were basically Herod's Proud Boys.  The Zealots were the Revolutionary Anarchists, and they were also originally a sect of the Pharisees.

Update: Of course much Confusion about the Essenes exists because of how they are conflated with the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Many have questioned that connection for reasons that have little to do with why I'm skeptical of it.

I partly reject it, I don't think the Scrolls all have a common origin.  Even if they did all come from that one settlement called Qumran, maybe the assumption everyone living there was all of the same sect is wrong.  Some Scrolls do seem fairly consistent with how Josephus described the Essenes, but other Scrolls mention the Resurrection, and also clearly have an interest in Eschatology and The Messiah.

Roman A. Montero in All Things In Common says the Pythagoreans weren't like the Essenes or Early Christians because they weren't Messianic or Apocalyptic.  But the thing is from what Josephus tells us, Eschatology was inherently the purview of the Pharisees, people with Essene or Sadducee views on the After Life would be just as uninterested in the Future as most Pagan Greeks were.  He also mentions how the Pythagoreans were a purely upper class phenomena, and again based on the Herodian connection I think the real Essenes were too.  It's possible at Qumran the Essenes were the Bourgeoisie who owned the place while the Pharisees were the Proletariat.

Update: "Everlasting Prison".

The "everlasting prison" in the above translation of Josephus's description of the After Life view of the Pharisees might in some other translations read "eternal prison".  In this case Eternal/Everlasting is Aidios which in a real sense does mean that, not Aionios which never actually means that.

Some of my Universal Salvation allies make much out of the Pharisees here using different language then Jesus who used Aionios and not that particular word for "prison" either, saying Jesus would have used the same word if He also meant a punishment with no end.  But I feel we overstate our case on that one a bit.

First of all Jesus was not speaking in Greek, and what ever main doctrinal statements the Pharisees had that Josephus got this from probably weren't in Greek either, they were either Hebrew or Aramaic. I am also with those who believe Matthew's Gospel was originally written in one of those languages not Greek.  The possibility that Josephus and the New Testament are sometimes translating the same Semitic expression into Greek differently can't be ruled out.

However even the Greek words in question can have nuance to how they are used.  Jude used "Aidios chains" to describe an imprisonment that is clearly defined as having an end.  And in my view those Angels are not Supernatural Angels but those who were swallowed up by the earth with Korah and Dathan.  So the Prison in the Pharisees eschatology could be Aidios in the same way Jude's chains are.

Maybe my prior assumption that Josephus or the Pharisees he got that from were absolutely precluding the Unrighteous from future Resurrection was mistaken.  Maybe the contrasting language there is like those Bible Verses that seemingly contrast "Life" and "Judgment" at the Resurrection. The Pharisees Jesus was most often in conflict with certainly seem like the kinds of people who wouldn't like Universal Salvation.  But I doubt the very idea was inherently unheard of in Pharisee circles.

In Josephus's description of the Zealots when he says they refuse to "call any man lord" for God is their only Lord, I do think that is a different Greek translation of the same sentiment Jesus expressed in Matthew 23:8-10, one says "Master" the other says "Lord" but the gist of meaning is the same.  

Usually when someone suggests Jesus and the Early Christians were Zealots it goes hand in hand with saying the Pacifist parts of His teachings were a later Romanized white washing.  However I have come to see the Zealot movement as like the Anabaptists of the 16th Century and Secular Anarchists of modern history (and Petr Chelčický could be considered the Pacifist Taborite), they included Violent Rebels like Thomas Muntzer, absolute Pacifist Separatists like those the Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish descend from, and many gradients in-between.  With the reputation of the violent rebels often used to justify not believing the pacifists when they claim to be non-violent.

The New Testament is Collectivist not Individualist

First of all to properly understand what I mean by Individualism and Collectivism in this post I suggest you watch this Peter Coffin video Individualism V. Individuality, it's only half an hour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eijYEYzAQu0

In the modern world Indivdualism is associated with certain ideologies that in America at least are generally classified as Conservative.  Now a lot of these people are Conservative Atheists, Ayn Rand was an Atheist, she knew her brand of Individualism was utterly incompatible with proper Christian values.  But some of these Conservatives are Christians like Jordan Peterson who's technically Canadian but the thing about Canada is if your a Conservative in Canada you probably obsess over America in reaction to how much Canadian Liberalism is founded on hating America.

However a more obscure figure in the modern YouTube Right is a channel called TIK who have made some interesting videos on Hitler and Mussolini being one of the few YouTubers interested in acknowledging their differences, both are bad but they had differences that make Hitler worse, however being better then Hitler is not a grand endorsement.  In one video of his I watched he talks about the history of states and power systems from his POV and then says Jesus introduced the concept of the Individual.  So I assume that means to him the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is that the Old Testament is Collectivist since it's about Israel and the New Testament's innovation was that now God made Covenants with Individuals not a Collective.

This view of the New Testament doesn't hold up.  Anything you can make sound Individualist about the New Testament was already there in The Torah, the punishments already punished individuals for example.  The actual innovation of the New Testament is that it's expanding the Collective, or rather returning God's focus to all of Adamkind.

The TNAK starts out about all of Humanity, the first 10 and a half chapters of Genesis. And on occasion YHWH reminded Israel that he still cares about the rest of the world like in Ezekiel 16 (the parts about Sodom) and Daniel 2-7.

In Matthew Jesus talks about gentiles entering the Kingdom before some of the Children of the Kingdom, that's not an expression of Individualism but of outsiders being let into the Collective.  

The Sheeps and Goats Judgment in Matthew 25 is defined as being of "Nations" not Individuals.

Paul in Romans 5 talks about all being made Sinners because of one Man's Sin, but then all being made righteous because of one Man's righteousness, similar to how he discuses Death and Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15.  Then in Romans 11 he says the fullness of the "Nations" will be grafted into Israel and then ALL Israel shall be Saved.  And that God consigned ALL to disobedience so that He might have Mercy on ALL.

Elsewhere The New Testament talks about The Church being the Bride of Christ and Body of Christ and Temple of God.  Inherently Collectivist symbolism.  Even when Paul brings our Individual being Individual Temples of the Holy Ghost in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 and 6:18-20 it's tied into that grander doctrine and clearly arguing agaisnt Lockean Self Ownership (or Body Ownership as some modern libertarian prefer to rephrase it) our Bodies are ultimately owned by God but also collectively shared with the rest of the Community of Believers.

It was the advent of Calvinism V. Armianism that laid the foundation of Individualizing The Gospel, in both those systems Salvation is a covenant with an Individual they only disagree on who to give the agency in that Covenant.  ColdCrashPictures calls Objectivism "Prosperity Gospel for Atheists" an analogy that immediately reminded me of my own calling Existentialism is Atheistic Arminianism.

But not all Collectivist Ideologies are good, Fascism is very Collectivist as is Nationalism.  That's why I stress how The Gospel is an Inclusivist Collectivism.

It was Gerrard Winstanley who introduced Universal Salvation to the Modern-English speaking world, and he was also a Communist.  What untied the true Gospel and Communism so naturally is that both are founded on the true Collectivist perspective of The New Testament.

Update: Here is another good Peter Hiett Sermon.

https://youtu.be/HfT5YDD_-tM?list=PLehrY6axvoewN-jVBcGc5qH5sZog5RzT3

In what way do I possibly still qualify as an Evangelical?

You can consider this a follow up of sort to What Kind of Christian am I.

That's a question one might ask when they see how Leftist I have become Politically and Progressive Socially with my old Libertarianism in regards to victimless crimes still in tact, combined with my now rejecting theologically the traditional view of Hell, and yet I still call myself an Evangelical from time to time.

Religion for Breakfast recently appeared in someone's video about Evangelicals and the Republican party however doing so only to define Evangeliclaism in religious terms separated from the politics.
https://youtu.be/zpLCIc5PvQw?t=148

He laid out four characteristics and I feel I line up with all of them.

1. Born Again Experience

On this one you can argue I'm not semantically since I now believe the Biblical use of Born Again in places like John 3 is about the Bodily Resurrection not something that happens at Conversion. But I still see importance in the Conversion experience, often preferring "Begotten Again" analogizing it to a new Conception rather then Birth.  Because of my Soterology I don't think only believers are Saved, and I don't think every "true believer" has to have a particularly dramatic experience, my own was relatively gradual.  However this conversion importance is why I'm with the Baptists on Baptism at least.

2. The Personal Relationship with Jesus I definitely value, and ironically this is exactly something most Evangelicals have been losing in their obsession with conservative politics.  And my status as a Continuationist makes me more Evangelical then most Baptists interestingly.  Andrew Henry cited Wesley as a founder of Evengelicalism, he condemned Slavery and called out the Founding Fathers on their hypocrisy.

3. Evangelism is another one I may relate to differently as a Universal Salvation believer.  But to me that just means I more accurately know what the Evangelion is.

4. I do believe The Bible is inerrant and the final authority.  The Conservatives are simply interpreting it wrong.  However I am still a Young Earth Creationist and stress a future Literal Bodily Resurrection in my Eschatology. 

Evangelical Protestant Soterology

American Evangelicalism, and to an extent Protestantism as a whole, has gotten it into their heads that being Saved is synonymous with not being punished for your sins.

That's why they can't accept the multiple Scriptural witnesses about God's Punishments being for Correction, or YHWH promising Israel He will Save them AFTER He Punishes them.

The reason they can't even entertain any alternative theory of Atonement to Penal Substation is because to them Penal Substitution is what the word Atonement itself means.  But the truth is in Ancient Israel the idea behind making a Sin Offering or Trespass Offering was never that you aren't being punished because the Goat is being punished in your place, the idea was losing this Goat, or the money you had to spend to obtain it, was your punishment.  It was essentially a ritualiezed way of paying a Fine.

Salvation is about not being punished for our sins in a sense, in the sense that the original required punishment for eating the fruit was death, and likewise the Torah throwing around the Death Penalty pretty liberally.  Because of Jesus's Death and Resurrection we are all saved from that maximum sentence.

But that's another thing, even though these Evangelicals will quote verses about "the wages of sin is death", they don't' actually believe that, they think the modern concept of "Hell" is what "death" actually means when Paul says that.

Now you can be forgiven for your Sins, as Ezekiel 18 lays out forgiveness is a result of Repentance.

I was accused recently of "denying repentance" because of my current Soterology.  But the truth is it was before I believed in Universal Salvation, or at least while I was still transitioning into it, that I made posts on this blog agaisnt repentance.  Where I argued you did not need to make a serious attempt to change your ways for God to forgive you.

That's why I find it really offensive when Evangelicals accuse advocates of my Soteorlogy of denying that actions have consequences when they are the ones who think the point of believing in Jesus is a Get Out of Hell Free Card.

I believe that unrepentant sinners will be punished.  But I also see more then one passage in The Bible that implies Believers will be punished more then Unbelievers (like Luke 12 and Ezekiel 16), because we're without excuse, we can't claim we didn't know what the rules were.

Now some particularly Eternal Security believing Evangelicals do have some nuance on this issue.  Kent Hovind I believe once said that Sin is a "legal matter" if your an unbeliever but a "Family Matter" if your a believer.  Because they feel God only considers believers His Children.

But Paul said at the Sermon on Mars Hill in Acts 17 that all Human beings are Offspring of God. 

Meanwhile how can Sin ONLY be a Legal Matter for exactly the people who never consented to this Law Code in the first place?  Certain American Christians keep saying "consent of the governed" is a Christian Principal yet they don't actually think God operates that way.

Lexical vs Impressionist interpretations of The Bible.

When you say you take The Bible literally, some people (I'm addressing specifically fellow believers here) will then act like that means I'm not being logically consistent unless I think every figure of speech where God has wings means he's actually a giant bird.  No other book is treated this way, but whatever.

One Independent Baptist Pastor who's Church I attended a few times said he prefers to say he takes The Bible seriously rather then literally.  But that's being disingenuous, Allegorists believe they're taking Scripture seriously, in fact they argue we're not when we treat it like a Fantasy Novel.

And I'm not actually the most absolutely hyper literalist Christian anyway.  So I do somewhat struggle with how to define how I view Scripture.

Then Digibro who I follow for Anime reasons started a serious of videos categorizing the way different people think, both real and fictional.  The third video is the one to finally inspire me to make this post, it kind of presumes you saw the prior two longer ones but if your not interested in an hour of Digi categorizing every Anime character he cares about then you can skip them, the third one is only about 15 minutes.

How Anime Character Think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1ndTCR4aKg

Updating and Explaining
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSyGye7D2ao

Lexical vs Impressionistic Thinking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt60-Hf1Duk

[Update: You'll now have look for those on the InternetArchive.

https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Digibro%2FDigi%22

They have been reuploaded on YouTube including a channel called The Neurotypeline, who have this Playlist.  Also Digi now goes by Trixie since she came out as Trans.]

Now what I'm about to say is perhaps not where you thought I was going, but hyper Allegorical approaches to Scripture like those popularized by Origen and Augustine are in fact a highly Lexical approach.  It comes from thinking a certain word or string of words must always be saying the same thing or being said for the same reason.

Take for example when InspiringPhilosophy argues that because in many later Bible narratives someone goes to sleep before they have a dream that turns out to be a divine symbolic vision.  Then Adam going into a Deep Sleep in Genesis 2 must mean what follows is merely a symbolic vision.  When it seems to me far more obvious that God is putting Adam to sleep for the same reason any doctor puts a patient to sleep before performing an invasive surgery.

Some who you can argue are way more "Literalist" then I am are perhaps also hyper Lexical in their own way.  But once you decide a certain term must always be being used consistently, it's far easier to force an allegorical approach to an obviously literal passage then a literal approach to an obviously symbolic one.

Still the "Law of first mention" is an example of a highly lexical fallacy used by Christians of all camps.

Interpreting The Bible highly Lexically is a problem since obviously God is a more Impressionist thinker, He can communicate Lexically since the first words ever spoken were His words, and His Son is called The Word.  But He also existed before Words and I believe always wanted His message to be able to transcend the original language it was written in.

My Impressionist approach to Scripture can even allow me to view some entire books as fictional narratives that didn't necessarily actually happen, like Job and the Song of Songs.

But the general Impression of The Book Genesis is that it's telling us the actual origins of Humanity and Civilization and then more specifically The Israelite people.  That doesn't mean it's not also teaching important lessons, but they are important because they literally happened, it's documenting Humanity's first mistakes so we of later generations can try to learn from them.

The Hyper Allegorists are indeed perhaps also very Linear in thinking, you see contrary to how they often try to paint literalists, we are not denying the deeper truths that matter regardless of if it actually happened or not.  No most people labeled Literalists are the ones who understand a passage can serve different purposes at once.  Origen however was a bit more Lateral minded then his descendants.

Revelation is a book where no interpretation is free from some level of seemingly picking and choosing when to take it literally and when not to.  No one actually believes Revelation 13 is saying the world will be lead to worship Satan by a pair of Kaiiju.  But it's equally silly to then turn around and take nothing literally when the intent of The Book is still clearly that it's telling us what will happen in the future.

My Impressionist understanding of The Bible's meta-narrative is that the TNAK's prophecies of a future Temple or Tabernacle are fulfilled in The Church being The Temple of God, if that conflicts with taking certain passages literally even though they seemed literal at the time then so be it.  However I also believe we are a Temple still under-construction.

Part of why is because it is equally my Impressionist understanding of The Bible's meta-narrative that The Resurrection of The Dead is a physical bodily Resurrection, and so we are His Tabernacle already but we won't be a complete Temple until all Flesh is Resurrected.  Getting lexically lost in certain details of 1 Corinthians 15 is where the justification to Spiritualize The Resurrection comes from, but the closing verses finalize what the Impression is supposed to be.

And that leads me back to Universal Salvation and how we tend to discus it.  The clear Impression The Bible is trying to give about God's Character is that He is Love in 1 John, that His Love endures forever as the Psalms repeatedly claim.  That He is not willing that any should Perish as Matthew 18, 2 Peter 3 and 1 Timothy 2 make clear.

So who even cares if the word "Eternal" is a technically accurate translation in Matthew 25 or not.  When we remember that the Chapter Divisions weren't there originally so the start of Matthew 26 is indeed the close of that narrative, even that story in it's own Context is ending on The Impression that Jesus is about to take this Eternal Judgment upon himself.

It is the doctrines of Annihilation and Endless Torment that are dependent on the same Lexical obsessions that create allegorist heresies.  Yet we ourselves get bogged down in Lexical exercises trying to argue with them on their terms.

My own mind has too many Lexical tendencies, so on these blogs I will probably continue to employ Lexical methods in how I argue my views.   But the starting point should always understand that God is an Impressionist.  So the point of what's being said is more important then the details.

There is a theory that Mark's Gospel was originally written in Latin.

I've already argued on this Blog from Biblical References that John Mark spent time in Rome but not Peter.

Mark contains over half of the New Testament's Laitnisms, Laitnisms are inevitable just because of Rome's influence at the time.  But Mark a couple of times actually explains Semitic words using Latin ones.

Now I should clarify that no one proposing this thinks The Vulgate version of Mark is the original Latin version of Mark.  That text is still viewed as Jerome's translation of a Greek Mark as it is for the rest of the New Testament.

David Bruce Gain is one scholar who's been a proponent of this theory.  He has made his own personal reconstruction of what he thinks the original Latin text was, and his own English Translation of that Latin version.  I do disagree with him sometimes, for one he ends Mark with Mark 16:8 which is a theory I reject and may be the subject of it's own post in the future.

And on the subject of Mark 16:1 I disagree with "the Sabbath was past" being an interpolation "based on Matthew 28:1".  What Mark says here is distinct from how it's phrased in Matthew, and because neither Latin or Greek had a word for "week" in the first century this detail was necessary to clarify that the Sabbath following the Passion was over.  Torah literate readers would see it as referring to the instructions for First Fruits.

There is a limit to how much I'd be willing to change Mark based on this theory.  If Mark was originally in Latin I still feel the Textus Receptus (not any Alexandrian manuscripts) version of Mark is a very accurate Greek Translation of that Latin.  And I also think the Peshita version of Mark is a translation of the original Latin not the Greek.

I believe the Simon of Matthew 16 and Mark 14 was a Jar-Maker not a Leper, what that would mean for the textual history of Mark or Matthew (which I believe was originally written in Hebrew) I can't say for certain yet.  Though the ablity of the Peshita to get it right if it was using a Latin source even though the Greek got it wrong from the same source implies that Latin text transliterated rather then translated the title.

The robe placed on Jesus at his Trial and Execution I believe was a red robe that the soldiers described as purple mockingly and that's how we reconcile apparent contradictions there.  What's interesting is how only Mark mentioned the Color Purple.  So Mark has Jesus seemingly clothed in Purple with a Crown of Thrones and a staff, and presumably blood on his face.  Mark is making Jesus look like the Triumphitor of a Roman Triumph.  Yet there are two roles in the Triumph Jesus is playing, he's also the enemy of Rome (proclaimed King of The Jews) being humiliated and sacrificed to the Heavenly Father.

Now there are reasons why my Universal Salvation allies might be a little worried about suggesting any book was originally in Latin, we like to blame Latin translations for the issues we have with how certain passages read in modern English.

However Mark has no equivalent to Matthew 25's parables, I have argued for Universal Salvation being compatible with the KJV, and again we don't think the Vulgate is the original.  4th and 5th Century Latins are a factor in these problems, but Greek speakers like Cyril of Alexandria also helped.  I think we've perhaps been too hard on Tertullian for example.

David Bruce Gain's translation of his reconstruction of Mark 3:29, the only verse in Mark where the KJV uses "Eternal" in reference to punishment.  "but one who blasphemes against the dedicated breath will be penalized.He will be guilty of wrongdoing for ever".

This reading fits pretty well with how I interpret the "unpardonable sin" issue based on studying it mainly via Matthew.  This is the one sin where you can't get out of the punishment by genuinely repenting.  But that doesn't mean the punishment is Endless Torment or Annihilation.

Later in Chapter 9 David Bruce Gain's proposed original Latin does use a Latin transliteration of Gehenna every time you see Gehenna in the Greek, it's never simply "translated" infernus like the Vulgate often does.  I don't know if he has pre-Vulgate texts to support that or if it's just an inference.

However I do feel Gain is wrong on verse 49, he removed all references to Salt and has that verse just refer to being consumed by fire.  Now I think it's possible his version of verse 50 could be correct, but even he still has salt being referenced in verse 50, he has pay off with no set up.

He recognizes that this section is drawing on the very last verse of the book of Isaiah.  But that's not the only Old Testament reference in mind here, there is also Leviticus 2:13 and Deuteronomy 29:23., and maybe also Ezekiel 16:4, 43:24 and 47:11.

Update:  I'm starting to feel like I'm guilty of some hypocrisy in how I treated the Vulgate up above.

I strongly advocate for favoring the Received Text when it comes to the Greek (Textus Receptus over Alexandrian variations) the Aramaic (Peshita) and even for favoring the Ethiopic version of the Apocalypse of Peter over the Akhmim manuscript IF I were to entertain treating it as canonical.  But once I became aware of the possibility of a book being originally in Latin the anti Vulgate sentiments of my Protestantism clouded my judgment.

My interpretation of Mark 3:29 is perfectly compatible with the Vulgate reading, since the word it uses in place of the KJV's "Damnation" is "delicti" which Google translate says simply means "offense" and "in danger of " actually means "guilty of".  So "is guiltily of an eternal offense" works perfectly.  I still consider Matthew closer to what Jesus actually said, but this can be a valid expression of the same idea.

Also, I was flat out wrong on Gehenna, the Vulgate never "translates" it Infernus, every single time Gehenna is in the Greek the Vulgate says Gehenna too.  Now David Bruce Gain's reconstruction has a different transliteration, but that's not a difference worth slipping hairs over.

Hades is what the Vulgate likes to "translate" infernus, but Hades doesn't appear in Mark.  Hell in the context of what Hel/Hella was in Norse mythology was originally a perfectly fine equivalent to the Hebrew Sheol and Greek Hades, it's using the same word for Hades that caused what Hell means to be confusing.  In 1 Corinthians 15:55 the Hades/Grave/Hell half of the verse is dropped entirely which mutilates the very poetic structure of the passage.  Somehow the Vulgate uses both inferni and tartarum in 2 Peter 2:4.

My belief that Infernus was fundamentally wrong was a mistaken understanding of Latin combined with my nerdy reasons for thinking it should have been Orcus.  I had it in my head that it meant fiery first and became a name for Hell when used in Bible translations.  It's the reverse however, it's literal Latin meaning is "the lower world".   The Aeneid, a Latin epic poem inspired by Homer's epics uses Infernus of Hades.

I think every place where I explicitly expressed disagreement with Gain would put me in agreement with the Vulgate.

Except for what I hypothesized about Simon the Leper, the Vulgate like Gain definitely says Leper here.  I'm also starting to doubt Hebrew Matthew will support the Jar-Maker reading given what I've seen from people talking about the known texts so far.  So it seems like the Peshita may be the one guilty of a scribal error there.

The fact that the name of Bethany probably comes from "House of the Poor" or "House of affliction" supports the idea that Lepers would be concerned.  I do believe the Bethany siblings themselves were wealthy, probably devoting much of their time to helping the poor in this area.  It's possible Simon wasn't called "The Leper" because he was a Leper but because of an association with helping and caring for them.

Maybe the meaning of the name of Simon/Simeon/Simonis is the key, which means hearing or to regard.  Maybe it meant the House of hearing the Lepers?

There is also the theory that Simon the Leper and Lazarus are the same person.  I've long been unsatisfied by the theory that the etymology of Lazarus is a form of the Hebrew Eleazer, every Hebrew name that begins with El still has the E in their NT Greek forms.  And Josephus used Lazarus in Wars 5.18.7 even though he used Eleazar often.  Well the Hebrew word Leper used in the Torah in Leviticus 13 and 14 is Tsara or Zara, the Hebrew letter Tzadi usually becomes a Zeta in Greek.  And L' is a Hebrew prefix usually interpreted to mean "to" but seems to sometimes be used as an alternate definitive article.  During Greco-Roman times if people knew the Hellenic/Latin words for this condition began with an L the L prefix here could have been wordplay.  The other Lazarus in The Bible in Luke 16 seems to be described as a Leper even though traditionally no word for Leper is used there, and since it's a parable personal names shouldn't be used there.

Another Update: Vetus Latina

I had thought that Pre-Vulgate versions existed only in fragments.  But this is an independent received tradition that existed along side the Vulgate virtually until Trent, and there is a roughly 350 dated manuscript of the Gospels.

The Etymology of the word Gospel

When people say "Gospel" means "Good News" they are mainly describing the meaning of the New Testament Greek word it is used to translate.

Euangelion, often via Latin influence transliterated as Evangelion, Evangeliun or Evangelium (and because of Engrish the name of a certain Anime named after this word is sometimes incorrectly spelled Evangerion).  Eu is a Greek Prefix that means good or positive, and angleion means a message or proclamation, being what the word "angel" comes from.

Some in The Hebrew Roots movement and Sacred Name movement have naturally developed a theory on what the Biblical Hebrew word for Euangelion should be, Besorah Strongs# 1309, itself the feminine form of Basar Strongs# 1319.  Neither word ever appears in the Pentateuch and it isn't used in any verse I feel confident in saying is referring to the New Testament Euangelion in advance, but none the less I agree that it is a reasonable plausible Hebrew equivalent.

These movements also have a thing for demonizing a lot of the key words used in mainstream English speaking Christianity.  The word Gospel has become a synonym for Good News regardless of it's original etymology and so I'm not making this post to argue there is anything evil about using that word to convey that meaning, and I will probably still continue to do so in the future.

Still it is an interesting observation I feel, because you see "Gospel" is a corruption of "Godspell", as in a divine spell or magical incantation.

Now people in these movements usually don't support Universal Salvation, quite the contrary the Sacred Name movement thinks Salvation is dependent on pronouncing YHWH and Y'shua correctly, and different sects of it can't agree on that pronunciation.

But in a prior post on this blog I essentially argue how it is Exclusive Salvation particularly as understood by Protestant Evangelicals that turns the Euangelion from a Positive Proclamation to a Magick spell you have to say correctly with their "Sinner's Prayer" obsession.

The Aarmaic Peshita where you expect to see Euangelion/Gospel in Mark's Gospel usually uses Sabartha/Sabarthi.  However the first verse of Mark's Gospel (it's full title basically) uses Evangeliun, a Latin form.  I have become increasingly open to the theory that Mark was originally written in Latin, and so I can't help but now see this first verse as evidence the Peshita version of Mark is a translation of a Latin version.

Who are the "Many"?

The Greek word Polus/Pollwn is translated a lot of different ways in English Translations of the New Testament (even the same translation never translates it the same every time) including "altogether", but perhaps the most important uses of the word are certain key passages where the KJV and most others it seems render it "many".  I don't know if every "many" in English Bibles is this word, but I have verified it is for each verse that I shall single out below.

The way we use "many" in modern 21st Century English means a large number, but presumably you would never use it if you actually meant 100% of the what you're referring to, and it's not even necessarily the majority.

And that is why Calvanists will use this Last Supper quote from Matthew 26:28 and Mark 14:24 to try and support limited Atonement.

"For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."

Of course it used to be Calvinists admitted they had no direct Biblical support for Limited Atonement, that it was just based on "logical" deductions from other allegedly Biblical conclusions.  Another verse in Matthew using the same word for "many" they might cite is 20:28, and there is also Hebrew 9:28.

The problem is that Greek word wasn't used the way we modern English speakers usually use "many".  Maybe "many" was used that way in the time of William Tyndale and King James, I don't know.

The context being ignored is that "Polus" is the root of the words "Polity" and "Politics" (and is related the Greek word for "City" as well as Politeia the Greek word that gets translated "Republic"), a more accurate translation of the word when used in these kinds of context would be "the Population" or "the Populous".  And some Biblical uses of the word where it gets translated "many" demonstrate this.  Like in Romans 5 where "many" is clearly used interchangeably with "all" in reference to those made Sinners in Adam and then made Righteous in Christ.

I actually think the best translation in these kinds of passages would be "The Masses".

But to provide context for Matthew is that twice earlier in the Gospel Jesus said "For many are called, but few are chosen", in 20:16 and 22:14.  The latter is as the final point of the Parable of the Wedding Feast which starts at the beginning of chapter 22.  There is some disagreement on who exactly the "few" are in that parable, but there is no dispute that the "many" who are called is clearly absolutely everyone, even generally in Calvinist commentaries of that parable just to them it's somehow still only the "Chosen" who are saved.  I like Peter Hiett's sermon on the parable in question though I'm not sure I 100% agree with his interpretation.

1 John 2:1-2, "propitiation" in the KJV is the Greek word for Atonement.

1 Timothy 2:4-6, which also demonstrates that God's Will is to Save everyone along with Matthew 18:14.

Those verses render limited atonement impossible, it's also difficult to reconcile Limited Atonement with Acts 2:21, 1 Timothy 4:10 and John 3:16.