Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:12 am
stellar renegade wrote:The number one reason I believe in universalism is because it falls precisely in line with the God that I've experienced that all good-natured people seem to intuitively feel exists; and because the God of ECT can do nothing but repulsively disgust me, or strike me as horribly cowardly and weak, depending on what theory you rest on. If don't think that any such god could even hold claim to have been the Creator of the world; if I encountered him I would call him Satan, or at best a fraud.
But there are numerous reasons on every level (historical, scriptural, philosophical) why I believe that God is a universalist. None of those are the clincher, though. I think it only makes sense that the central point is an emotional or spiritual one, if such an issue is a matter of real life and death at all.
Stellar,
A few years ago, I'd have said that was a load of sentimental hogwash. "The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked..." so we can't know on our own what is good and what is bad. The tradition I come from says we can't trust our own feelings and perceptions, and must rely solely on Scripture for our knowledge of God. I would have considered what you said as an example of people not 'enduring sound doctrine', gathering teachers to satisfy their 'itching ears,' and turning from truth to fables. (as per 2 Tim 4)
I'm thankful to be able say I've come a long way in the last 5 years. I can appreciate and take joy in what you say.
I would never have come to believe in unversalism if I hadn't seen it in scripture. But now, having come, it would be very difficult--impossible, I think--to convince me of anything less, for the reasons you stated so well. Having come to know a greater God and a greater Love, what could persuade me to turn my back on Him?
Besides, the fact remains that I do see it in scripture, and I can't imagine that changing. When I believed in ET, it wasn't so much that I saw it myself in scripture, but that people told me it was there, and I read the verses they pointed at, and I believed what they told me it meant.
Sonia