Heck, the doctrine of the Trinity was born in the Old Testament – and rabbis recognized that. Second Temple Judaism understood that there were “two powers in heaven”, a Yahweh who was always in Heaven, remote, and a Yahweh Who at times can be found on Earth in the form of a man. They made this distinction because there are passages where both are in action at the same time in the same passage, also because the “Angel of Yahweh” is called “Elohim”, “God”, and in other places is identified as being Yahweh, and most of the time the Angel of Yahweh is depicted as in human form.
This was really not radical at all. What goes a little farther is that some rabbis noticed that there are similar instances where “the Spirit of Yahweh” is mentioned, so the conclusion would be the same; this never developed into a “Three Powers” doctrine because of two things: first, the Christians changed the playing field because Jesus as Yahweh made a lot of sense given the Yahweh Who walked on Earth in human form; second, the Temple was destroyed and Jews were banned from living in Jerusalem. Yes, Alexandria was still there as a focus of Jewish life, but the shock of losing the Temple and the holy city shook everything up, plus a lot of Alexandrian Jews apparently turned Christian.
So when Gentile Christians started applying Greek philosophy to the Gospel and thus coming up with heresy after heresy, the Jewish backbone of the church already grasped that Yahweh was triune, a view that had spread to educated Christians fairly quickly – and thus long before any councils spoke on the matter, Christianity was trinitarian.
Yeah, but that’s just icing on the cake!
The main difference is that “hell” as defined in an English dictionary is actually not in the scriptures and was not mentioned by Jesus. Our understanding of Hell is an inheritance from Greek mythology and a few other pagan encrustations that culminated in Dante’s Divine Comedy and woodcuts of Satan as a red-garbed figure – a depiction that derives from northern European sources – torturing sinners. Jesus’ imagery of gehenna doesn’t fit our view of Hell, nor does the image of hades as also used in the New Testament.
It boils down to this: our understanding of the Trinity is easier to find in the scriptures than is our understanding of Hell because the former can be traced to the Old Testament but the latter has aspects imported from exterior sources.
Expecting that misunderstands the scriptures, since they don’t major in propositional truth statements; many things are left to be deduced. Jesus never declared Himself God in a propositional statement, but He went around saying it indirectly and acting like that’s Who He thought He was!
Though I don’t see those facts as necessarily pointing towards the trinity, I do agree that it does showcase god manifesting himself separately on earth. A sort of incarnation or manifestation factor.
That depends on the variety of annihilationism; some hold that torment lasts long enough to match the sins of the person, and then the torment ends because the person does.
It is a really great video, enough so I’m including it for anyone who might want to check it out but hasn’t yet.
I have to agree with that – double predestination doesn’t seem to fit with universalism!
= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =
But our very existence is something God has provided for us – so this would turn out to ba an argument for annihilationism.
= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =
Link doesn’t seem to work any longer.
Heh – I ran into this:
“If I were Creator of the world. . . .”
and answered it automatically before seeing the warning not to. I finished it with, “We would be so screwed”.
More seriously, I think the article fails to grapple with the arguments that Parry made in the earlier video as well as with the exegetical issue with Greek “ainios”.
This comes up against the matter of Greek αἰώνιον (eye-OWN-ee-own), which means “agewise”. I haven’t looked into it but I suspect we are suffering from the same problem Augustine tripped over with his original sin goof: bad translation into Latin, and from there propagated forward.
So this should read “age-wise destruction”, and the question then becomes what would terminate this particular sort of age? Some annihilationists would say that the age ends once the torment has matched an individual’s sins (unsatisfying since in John Jesus says that judgment now is on the basis of a person’s attitude to the light); some universalists would say the same thing while others would say that torment lasts until the person finally surrenders to Christ.
Given how stubborn some people can be, the millions of years of torment posited by some Roman Catholics of Purgatory seem reasonable – and indeed that would make Purgatory a better name than “hell”.
The universalists I described above have no problem with that, they just hold that some people need a bit longer to get there.
That only excludes the sort of universalism that holds that people are saved “by default”, which rules out the need for surrendering to Christ. One might wonder if uninterrupted torment would bring people to Christ, but if the point is surrender I suppose it might.
= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =
So true!
Though that reminds me of an argument for universalism that I overheard about three years back: that victims should never be punished no matter what their victimization drove them to. I thought of a variety of responses but kept my mouth shut.
I’ve worked with enough criminals to know that there are many who straddle the line and many who cross back and forth. The stark schism Ani posits is not viable.
Almost certainly.
Amen!
To the contrary, we are to forgive in the same way as we hope to be forgiven: completely.
That leaves the matter in God’s hands.
I don’t think anyone is denying there are such people, only that there is a stark and uncrossable dividing line.