Talk:History of Christian universalism

message: Because whoever edited this recently posted a few scant arguments against the Universalist teachings of several church fathers as if they were undisputed truth and as if there weren't plenty of arguments towards their Universalist tendencies. The bias in this article is unmistakable and needs to be balanced out, badly.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.186.139.54 (talk) 01:39, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does someone have a bone to pick with Universalism? 

message: This statement is moved here, until a source for it is provided:
:and became popular on the American frontier during the Second Great Awakening 
What is the source of this statement? To my knowledge, the prominent preachers like Finney were decidedly against universal reconciliation (see, e.g., Finney and Universalism at Google), and there was also theologically not much in common between the liberal New England theology where there definitely existed universalim influences (e.g. Emerson and Harvard) and the second awakening denominations like Baptists and Churches of Christ which are sure neither liberal nor professing universal reconciliation.
There have been a few groups at the fringes of the second awakening professing universal reconciliation (some Seventh-day Adventists, Christian Science), but that does not mean the idea was overall popular.
I found one mentioning of universalism related to Second Awakening, there it meant not universal reconciliation but that everyone has the chance to get saved - in distinction from the Calvinist double predestination of First Awakening. Irmgard 10:10, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't write the sentance in question, but I assume it relates to mormons, who beleieve everyone has the opportunity to be saved in the second awakening, but that the wicked will choose to reject God yet again, prefering eternal damnation. Thats not exactly universal reconciliation ;) Sam Spade 15:32, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks to me that statement is somewhat lacking source and verifiability... I'll move it here, until the matter is cleared up. --Irmgard 19:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second Great Awakening - please provide source 

message: I removed the list of Bible quotes and quotes from notable people. We should be able to attribute these through reliable sources that report on them. I have moved them to User:Vassyana/universal salvation, so they are available for reference. Vassyana 14:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  removed lists 

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You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Vassyana 02:24, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-automated review 

message: I think it would be good to create a category for Christian universalists which the articles on such people could be tagged with.  Currently, some of them are in the Universalists category, but Christian universalism is distinct enough that I think it could use it's own category, which would be listed beneath the more general term as well.  Any thoughts, objections? Jacob1207 05:07, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This would be best raised at WikiProject Christianity. Vassyana 21:35, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Christian Universalists section created. Must be distinctive for Christian Universalists or it will be deleted.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by StudentoftheWord (talk • contribs) 22:25, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: A category for Christian universalists?

message: Hell is defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 1033):
'We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."610 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.611 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self- exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell." ' 
In the words of Pope John Paul II, "The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. Rather than a place, Hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy". July 28, 1999 statement of Pope John Paul II concerning the topic of Hell  An earlier catechism, however, describes the suffering of those in hell in more traditional terms, as fiery "punishment" rather than as "self-exclusion" from God."Those are punished in hell who die in mortal sin; they are deprived of the vision of God and suffer dreadful torments, especially that of fire, for all eternity...The souls in hell are beyond all help...The souls in hell do not have supernatural faith. They believe, however, the truths revealed by Almighty God, not with divine faith, but because they cannot escape the evidence of God's authority...The punishment of hell is eternal." A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Revised Edition of the Baltimore Catechism, St. Anthony Guild Press, New Jersey (1949), pp144, 145
The idea of hell as a place, in traditional Catholic circles, has been promoted in recent years by the publication of the purported visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima, Portugal in 1917. Mary is supposed to have revealed a vision of hell as a "great sea of fire.""Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent." Lucia Santos: Fatima, In Lucia's Own Words, The Ravengate Press, Still River Massachusetts (1995), p104 Many Catholics point out that the Magisterium of the Catholic Church does not require Catholics to give credence to any private revelation, though the vision has been declared worthy of belief. It is also suggested that these visions (if true) are using imagery that uneducated people might understand (the seers of Fatima were peasant children).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by StudentoftheWord (talk • contribs) 20:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Existence of Hell

message: "Four of the six theological schools of thought in ancient Christendom supported universalism, and only one supported eternal damnation. Additionally, theological thought appears more varied before the strong influence of Augustine, who forcefully denied universal salvation."
This really needs clarification and citation. Asd28 03:12, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Early History 

message: Why are "Origen," "Clement of Alexandria," and "Alexandria" each separate sub-categories of the Early Christianity section?  Since Origen and Clement were teachers at the Catechetical School, surely it would be better to either simply list them as separate thinkers, or group them under a category of "Alexandria?"
68.33.152.87 (talk) 05:19, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alexandria 

message: I am surprised that the Parable of the Lost Sheep is not mentioned anywhere in the article or in discussion of the subject.  Surely this parable is amoungst the foremost of scriptual indications that there will be universal reconciliation? The Parable of the Prodigal Son is another scriptural source that comes to mind. 203.113.232.209 (talk) 09:48, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What Jesus had to say on the matter 

message: The article should maybe offer more insights and views with regards to particular and final judgement. There is an absolute and unusual theory of reconciliation which holds that hell might be already empty right now ; there is also the more common end-of-time idea of reconciliation, which believes that hell may not be empty now, but that it might hopefully be sometime in the future at the final judgement. 69.157.229.153 (talk) 23:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Particular judgement and Final judgement

message: This is an article describing Christian Universal Reconciliation, not a soap box for other religions to give their complaints on it. Refer them.
Why is there no "Criticism" section? I've noticed that many similar articles seem to have them. While in reality this concept greatly contradicts the Bible and most Christian groups, the article reads like it is a mainstream Christian belief. Basically, it seems that the POV of this article contradicts reality. Is there any reason not to make such a section? Kainosnous (talk) 07:03, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weaseling 'Views Against' and adding it to discussion

message: This article has a major flaw: Universalism is not the same belief as Ultimate Reconciliation; not even from the narrowest Christian definition.  This article blurs the two into a muddy topic.  That is the cause of some of the disagreement I'm reading.  To drastically over-simplify the difference; Universalism means everyone gets a "pass," while Ultimate Reconciliation recognizes that the unrepentant get punished, but all will eventually be reconciled to Christ.  --LanceHaverkamp 17:46, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Flaw: Universalism ≠ Ultimate Reconciliation  

message: This entire article, while mostly very good stuff, is largely about church history and ecclesiastical activity within the topic.  The article ought to explain the development of the concept discursively and argumentatively through the centuries, and, one would think, the surrounding analysis by seminal thinkers.  Yet there is no mention of the several philosophers or religion and theologians throughout history that have been most influential in this regard.  
For example, we don't mention that the "man to beat" in all this, since the 1970's, is John Hick, whose monumental book "Evil and the God of Love" redefined the topic, was translated into 16 languages, went through countless printings, is required reading in every PhD program in PofR, and was called attention to by the Pope himself - yet, we have no mention of this.  It's painfully incomplete.  What we are reading now ought to be 50% of the article, and the other 50%, which doesn't exist yet, ought to be about the actual substance of the debate.  Needs to mention not only Hick, but his detractors, e.g. Walls, Davis, and so on.  The people that no respecting graduate school would allow a PofR or Theol student to avoid reading, if they dared claim any competency in this topic.  
I'll try to add a section getting started in this -- others please help!
Tim Musgrove  —Preceding undated comment added 17:59, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ecclesiological History vs. Intellectual History 

message: Can someone please clarify what is meant by '1800s' in section 4? In order to disambiguate, I need to know if this refers to the decade or the century.
Thanks, The boss 1998 (talk) 20:54, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation 

message: This was in the article:
The mixed message about the afterlife described in the Bible has been commented on by scholars as early as 1917; then, Harvey W. Scott wrote, "That there is no definite affirmation, in the Old Testament of the doctrine of a future life, or personal immortality, is the general consensus of Biblical scholarship." Some sections of the Old Testament appear to argue that no afterlife exists even for the good and just, with the Book of Ecclesiastes telling the faithful: "The dead know nothing. They have no reward and even the memory of them are lost"Ecclesiastes 9:5 (although this is not the normative Jewish view).
While this is an interesting issue- I don't feel that it is relevant to Universal Reconciliation... Sethie (talk) 00:08, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: does this fit?

message: I think this article should be named as Universal Reconciliation, not History of Christian Universalism. History just does not cover all the materials this article has. It has various explanations of universal reconciliation all over. 2001:4430:6816:D956:0:0:DC:24E6 (talk) 09:48, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  We should move this article to 'universal reconciliation' again!

message: I have moved a large paragraph.
It is a summation of the transition from torment/anhilation to universal salvation... it feels very out of place at the begining of the history section. Sethie (talk) 20:33, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: History section