Is anyone still a bit afraid of ECT, even as a universalist? Please help me soothe my fears. I’m in a really difficult place and state of mind right now.

Blessings, Zoe

ECT? Can you spell out this term for everyone’s benefit? Ectopic pregnancy?

No.

ECT is such a cruel idea that there is no way to be safe from it if you take it seriously:

Some hard-core Catholics say that unless you’re one of them, you will go to everlasting Hell.
Some hard-core Protestants say that unless you’re one of them, you will go to everlasting Hell.
Some hard-core Muslims say that unless you’re one of them, you will go to everylasting Hell.
Etc.

So, no matter who you are, what you do, or what you believe, there is a whole list of groups which say you are going to everlasting Hell.

Further, if God were so wicked as to consign some to everlasting Hell, how could we trust what He says? Perhaps He enjoys sending righteous and religious people to Hell. Perhaps He enjoys the sense of betrayal they feel while they burn in Hell: “But God said if we did X, He wouldn’t send us here!” Perhaps God thinks it is “to His glory” to lie about Hell, knowing that He will send everybody there. Perhaps He thinks it would be an offense to His justice to allow even a single person to escape everlasting Hell. Etc.

In short, if the universe were the creation of an ECT deity, then we all would have no hope. None whatsoever, because we couldn’t trust anything that deity said about how to escape ECT.

All of the above considerations show that ECT is a risibly absurd doctrine. It merits laughter rather than fear. One might as well spend sleepless nights afraid that Bigfoot is going to crash through the window and get you. I’d have a far easier time believing in Bigfoot abductions, a flat earth, and that my cousin’s friend’s sister ate lunch with Elvis at the local diner last Tuesday, than I would in believing in ECT. Out of all the absurd and impossible ideas in the world, it is the silliest.

So throw-off this doctrine of devils and rejoice!

ECT = Eternal Conscious Torment

Geofrey - I’m going to tentatively put you down as ‘not believing’ in ECT.

Oh, Man - I’m in trouble. Elvis just invited me to lunch, along with his Big Foot pet, at the Flat Earth Cafe!

Eternal conscious torment, but ectopic pregnancy works too! Oh my that sounds horrible D:

DaveB, that’s a pretty safe bet.

Hi Zoe - I just stumbled upon this thread I know it was a few weeks ago.

I can see that “fear” is a big part of what you are dealing with, and that is very difficult. Try and meditate on all the passages where Jesus told us to “fear not” - I once read somewhere where someone counted the amount of times we have been told not to fear - it was a big number. Maybe if you spent some time in prayer and meditation just on that point?

Also - a lot comes down to the “nature” of God - lets forget the subject of ect for the moment - but just ask yourself “WHO is God?” Is he perfectly just, perfectly loving? Do we believe this? IF we believe this - then we can leave eternity in his hands.

I think about my kids - how much I love them - how I would walk to the ends of the earth for them - and I’m told that God loves them EVEN MORE than me…wow…if he loves them with even more passion and compassion than I do…then I can trust their fates in his hands…

I will include you in my prayers Zoe!

Geof has a good key point about Extra Crispy Terror. Namely, someone somewhere is always (until the end) going to think that you, yes you, will surely be going into eternal conscious torment, for not being just and honoring God like they do. (Or, at best, annihilated.)

But maybe it will help if you remember that they think God is best honored, and even honors Himself (or the Persons of God honor each other), with at least final dishonor and blasphemy against Himself; or that, at best, God is incompetent to avoid at least some final dishonor and blasphemy to Himself. (Whether those who finally blaspheme God are then annihilated out of existence or not, is irrelevant to this point.)

Still, if ultimate reality is such that it doesn’t care whether people cooperate in positive value of ultimate reality or not, or cares but can’t bring it about for lack of competency, or worst it chooses to ensure some people always rebel against it, then there isn’t anything we can do about that. Even if we figured out how to convince it to be on our side, or to convince it that we are on its side, ultimate reality would still ultimately be that kind of reality instead of a reality that can and does achieve the fulfillment of love in justice between persons.

And if trinitarian theism is true, then ultimate reality actually is the ever-ongoing fulfillment of love in justice between persons as the ground of all reality. But if something less than that is true, it just is, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Maybe it will still bring that about someday anyway at a lesser level of reality. Or not, since personal love would be only something it happens to do, not something it intrinsically is in its own self-existence.

But that’s what’s at stake in whether trinitarian Christianity is true, or not: whether ultimate reality actively and personally goes the farthest distance in self-sacrifice, even for rebels against it, for the sake of fulfilling justice between persons in mutual love between persons, or not.

And that’s what’s at stake in whether Christian universalism is true or not, too.

I appeal to the attributes of God, especially as Creator of man and the purpose He has in creating Man, “in Our Own Image” he set up the conditions for which we were thrust into this world. This is His problem to solve (if it does indeed need solving, but I think it was solved even before Creation began).

If He made us so knowing that a majority of us are going to end up in Eternal Conscious Torment, then that isn’t bringing glory to Him at all, especially in His Greatest Creation: Man.

I recommend reading an article I’ve been studying about the Attribute of God on the Tentmaker site called:

150 Reason for Believing in the Final Salvation of All Mankind By Eramus Manford

I think you’ll find just knowing what kind of God we really serve will go a long way in alleviating your fears.