Posted on 05/28/2009 9:16:08 AM PDT by Salvation
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The theory that hell is essentially a kind of purgatory in which sins are expiated, so that eventually everyone will be saved. Also called apokatastasis, it was condemned by the church in A.D. 543, against the Origenists, who claimed that "the punishment of devils and wicked men is temporary and will eventually cease, that is to say, that devils or the ungodly will be completely restored to their original state" (Denzinger 411).
My opinion only.
Yes, it IS a strange definition, since it presupposes that anyone who would assert that there is no Hell would presuppose that there is, however, a purgatory. Most universalists, these days, also deny the existence of purgatory, so it is an overly narrow definition.
Thanks for that additional information. How do they account for those who live an evil life, say addicted to drugs, alchohol. gambling, pornography?
I just guess they will be very surprised at their particular judgment at the moment of their death.
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I have a theory about that. While some of the writings of the Early Fathers, that are today characterized as origenist, are heretical, others are simply teaching about Purgatory in an inchoate form.
Note that origenism is very much about the Purgatory: it states that divine mercy is so great that even Satan one day will be pardoned. The Purgatory, after all, is not a consequence of there being a Hell, but rather of there being a Heaven.
When the Great Eastern Schism occurred, it became important in the East to extirpate any mention of Purgatory in the patristics. So anything St. Gregory of Nyssa, or Origen, had to say about the operation of divine mercy after death was brushed aside as origenist.
I wanted to make a collection of these so-called origenist quotes and publish it on FR in that light, but never found energy to do it.
I got some interesting news, Salvation:
Those addicted to drugs, alcohol, gambling or pornography MAY not be going to Hell, if I understand the current teaching of the Catholic Church correctly.
For a sin to be mortal, it not only needs to be grave, but it also needs to be made willfully. Someone who is truly addicted may not be capable of making a willful decision to engage in a grave sin. As such, their culpability may be lessened due to an impaired will. On the other hand, if a person does commit grave sins because they are addicted, they have a grave moral responsibility to do all they can to break that addiction, including relying fully on all available means of grace.
I’m not sure what you mean. Are you saying that St. Gregory of Nyssa and Origen did not actually mean to say that all souls in Hell would one day end up in Heaven, but just sound like they do because they are talking about purgatory, not Hell?
I read some of Gregory of Nyssa (if memory serves) and Origen that was wholly compatible with our notion of Purgatory as an anteroom of Heaven and Hell as another possibility. The heresy begins once you say that everyone ends up in Heaven. It is possible that they also said that, and sure that many understood theem that way, and therefore they came close or even fell into that heresy (Origen, at the least). But I am also saying that much of what they said was not stating that heretical thought and simply taught essentials of Purgatory without naming it. Origen, by the way, denied that he ever taught that Satan himself will eventually be pardoned. But if Hell never collapsed in his view, then it is Purgatory that he taught.
For example, if I were to say: “souls pay for their sins with suffering”, that is correct teaching. If I also say “God is so merciful that often he stops their suffering, forgives them and rewards them with Heaven”, that is also correct teaching, and that explains Purgatory. It is only if I replace “often” with “always” that I fall to origenism, because the possibility of Hell collapsed in my teaching.
Yes, God is loving and wants us to come to him. “Ask, Seek, Knock”
However, God is also a just God.
What you are saying is that all will be forgiven whether they repent or not. That is not what John the Baptist or Jesus told us!
If they are sick, yes, I agree with you. But if they have been to Confession and promised to reform their lives, but still sin...............only God can be the judge then.
Consider this: God gave man a choice in the garden. To take God at His Word or to reject Him. Man made that choice and reaped the logical conclusion of that -- a separation from God.
Today, man has a choice to accept God and take Him at His Word or to reject Him. There are those who will accept and those who will reject...it's totally their choice. Those who accept Him will eventually live in eternity with Him; those who reject Him will eventually live in eternity without Him.
Imagine all of the human souls, reintegrated with incorruptible bodies, who have rejected God, along with all of the heavenly bodies who rebelled against God, all collected together and utterly separated (by their own will) from God. What would you end up with: utter destruction and annihilation that could not ever end (because incorruptible means incorruptible, after all). Would that not resemble a lake of fire to a man who was able to observe it (as Saint John was when he was inspired to write his apocalypse)?
The bottom line is that this does not occur by the will of God, but by His Grace -- His grace to allow His Creation to make choices.
Dear Salvation - Don’t put words in my mouth. Go back and read what I said.
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