I think this is an area where people who outright believe in, or who may be attracted to UR have an issue. For example, what Scripture are you appealing to as warrant for the idea that one might learn obedience in the LoF, when someone like DaniH might argue that the LoF is destructive rather than purgatorial? Or someone like me might point out that the LoF is referred to as the 'second death', see. Rev. 20:15, cf. Rev. 21:8.
The second death is permanent, so I'm not sure how we would sneak purgatory into it. I.e. Righteous in Christ -> die -> resurrected to new life Those outside of Christ -> die -> resurrected to judgment -> second death What reason do we have for thinking that there's an addition -> after 'second death', e.g. second death -> restored to new life?
Paul being the one to run to when trying to demonstrate UR in the early church. Paul places too much emphasis on living faith, imitating Christ, 'running the race', etc., to allow one to get away with turning to (for example) Romans 5 or Colossians 1 to gather proof-texts for his apparent Universalist beliefs. Sure, but at the same time we need to keep in mind that when the NT was being written, it was the OT that was being read. The concepts found in the NT are either going to be a continuation of those found in the OT, or they are going to be in contradiction to those found in the OT, or they are going to be unrelated / not significant to those found in the OT. None of it, if you don't think NT teaching on salvation / hell come from a Paul who's been corrupted by Hellenism. The question would then become: if in the OT there is no real concept of hell or need for salvation, but in the NT there is both a concept of hell and need for salvation, how do you reconcile the differences beyond pointing them out?
Doesn't mainstream Christianity not teach that the soul is immortal? It can't die. If so, the second death (like the first one in Eden) is the separation from God into the LOF, outside the gates of the city where are the: dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. [22:15]
If we're going with mainstream Christianity, then there's no indication that the LoF is anything other than final. It's not purgatory.
I was responding to your "The second death is permanent", thought you meant annihilation. You did not?
With respect to what DaniH might say, but that's not what I meant by permanent (sorry). I meant 'final', i.e., if you're tossed into the LoF there's no being lifted out.
Alright. Regarding annihilation - doesn't [22:15] excludes annihilation as a possibility? They are alive. And the question is if God's prediction and demand in Isa 45:22-24, Rom 14:11, Phil 2:8-10, Rev 5:13 already is fulfilled or not. Back to our discussion, how do you know for sure the second (spiritual) death (separation from God) is permanent?
Okay. Maybe we can this some other time. Saves me a lot energy because it's one of those topics that is far from conclusive anyway. So Paul, if you are reading this (and all the other nonsense people write about you) and your cheeks increasingly have become more red then please erase my name out of your notebook as one of those people you want to have a good conversation with in the future.
Yes. The reasonable point I want to make is that the OT prophets kept Israel sane from pagan influences from neighbouring countries. Punishment in afterlife is rampant in pagan religion (Egypt, Greek) and pre-date NT hell with 1000 years. Then when the OT prophets stopped speaking (at least 200 years before Christ if I have understood it well) then pagan hell slipped into Judaism. It's hard to grasp to what extend but there are pointers. The parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16 is such a pointer. IMO the context (v14) shows that Jesus equals the Pharisees with the rich man in the story (The Pharisees, who were lovers of money) and then Jesus in the parable uses an example (Abraham's bosom) the Pharisees apparently were familiar with, that is how I read it. "The rich and the poor man" was a known story from ancient Egyptian pagan religion predating the NT with roughly 1200 years. Consider the below quote from the British museum: Setne II consists of two main stories, written in demotic script on papyrus. In one story Setne sees the funerals of a rich and a poor man. He is then taken to see different parts of the Underworld where he sees the two men again, but this time their positions are reversed. This story may have influenced related Jewish and Greek legends. Furthermore the parable shows similarities with the Greek underworld predating the NT with 500 years. Add-up that Abraham's bosom is nowhere in Scripture, it's even hard to find references on the internet. So the question arises what we can derive from the parable: #1. Did Jesus endorsed the Abraham's bosom view? #2. Or just the opposite, did He ridicule it in return? #3. Or was He using their (false) view of hell to point out they were moving into that direction and left their false belief untouched?