Hi Rick,
In Acts 17 Paul proclaimed some bad news about how gravely in error the Athenians were:
Exodus 20 (NASB)
3"You shall have no other gods before Me.
4"You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5"You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Strange, but in my Bible I don't see Paul quoting Exodus 20 at the Areopagus. He does, however, point out that there is a better way to worship God than through an object.
THE COMMANDS OF GOD CANNOT BE DIVORCED FROM THE GOSPEL.
Are you saying that prior to sharing the Gospel with someone we should list the commands of Exodus and Leviticus?
I wrote:
Jesus is Lord. The implication, of course, being that in Him is found life and light and meaning and purpose and forgiveness and peace and security and hope and, most of all, love.
You replied:
And also the implication, of course, being that OUTSIDE OF HIM is found DEATH and DARKNESS and NIHILISM and GUILT and CONFLICTS and INSECURITY and HOPELESSNESS and, most of all, HATE.
Absolutely! Those words well describe my life apart from Christ.
When you became a Christian did you know you were a sinner and that God would judge and hold you accountable by the Man (Jesus) He appointed? ... I don't understand how you seem to be extricating the forgiveness of sins from becoming a Christian.
No, I had almost no concept of what sin was and, therefore, of my own sinfulness, when I became a Christian. I was not a repentant convert in that sense. By becoming a Christian though I was surrendering to Jesus' lordship, which included a willingness to learn what He considered to be sin and to repent from it. As I said earlier, that began a process which continues to this day.
I don't understand how you seem to be extricating the forgiveness of sins from becoming a Christian. "Jesus is Lord" is never separated from sin (God's Commands) and forgiveness (through Christ).
From Christ's perspective, I'm certainly not. I agree that "Jesus is Lord" is never seperated from Christ's forgiveness for our sin. This is why I stated that the implication of "Jesus is Lord" is that "in Him is found life and light and meaning and purpose and
forgiveness and peace and security and hope and, most of all, love."
My own experience was that I received forgiveness before I even knew I needed it. Later, as I realized this, I marvelled at His grace towards me (and still do).
In Paul's address to the Athenians, he didn't exclude the truths about sin OR forgiveness.
Paul commended the Athenians for being religious and built upon their flawed theology to explain that the divine being shouldn't be worshipped as an image. This was the only specific "sin" that Paul brought up and he did so in a most gracious manner, actually using their idolatry as a way to explain the one true God to them. Paul even quoted the Greek poet Epumentes ("In Him we live and move and have our being") and the Stoic philosopher Aratus ("We are His offspring"). He is beginning from where they're at and appealing to them as a philosopher, without failing to acknowledge sin and judgement. He uses their worship of idols as a starting point and so, obviously, must make it clear that he is not condoning idolatry. Forgiveness doesn't really come up except by implication.
Paul's gracious, sensitive and strategic approach is a far cry from the heavy-handed techniques of "Way of the Master" which rely on beating someone down with condemnation over sin in order to make them feel they need Jesus as an escape from Hell.
Both sin and its consequences and the forgiveness of sins are inherent in the Gospel that "Jesus is Lord".
I agree.
Calvinists and Universalists (or Reconciliationists) embrace the philosophy of Determinism and base their entire theology on or around it....(I just had to point this out).
That is not accurate. Determinism and Existential Autonomy are two ends of the spectrum. It does not need to be a case of
either/or. I believe it is
both/and. We are autonomous, but our self-determination is finite. We do not possess unbounded freedom. We make choices, but our choices are always within boundaries. Lots of factors determine the scope of those boundaries and, therefore, the amount of autonomy one has in any given situation.
Lastly, I need to go back a bit and dispute this statement that you made:
Neo-Platonism and dualistic gnostic themes are prominent in the teachings of Origen who, as you know, taught universalism.
Origen was certainly influenced by Plotinus (the founder of Neo-Platonism), but I think clarification needs to be made about "dualistic gnostic themes" being prominent in his teachings. Origen, in keeping with Platonism made a distinction between the physical world and the "invisible" or "spiritual" world (as many Christians still do). This Platonic worldview certainly led to his allegorical approach to scripture interpretation. In that sense, he was a dualist. On the other hand, Origen was not a dualist in the sense of viewing good (God) and evil (Satan) as having any kind of equality or balance. As McGrath writes:
"Origen was deeply suspicious of any form of dualism - that is, any belief system which acknowledged the existence of two supreme powers, one good and one evil. This belief was characteristic of many forms of Gnosticism, and was very influential in the eastern Mediterranean world in the late second century. Arguing that dualism was fatally flawed, Origen pointed out that this had important implications for the Christian doctrine of salvation. To reject dualism is to reject the idea that God and Satan rule over their respective kingdoms for eternity. In the end, God will overcome evil and restore creation to its original form. In its original form, creation was subject to the will of God. It therefore follows, on the basis of this "restorationist" soteriology, that the final redeemed version of creation cannot include anything along the lines of "a Hell" or "a kingdom of Satan." All "will be restored to their condition of happiness ... in order that the human race ... may be restored to that unity promised by the Lord Jesus Christ." - Alister McGrath, Christian Theology, 437
It strikes me that a lot of the defense of Christian Universalism in this thread is really just correcting mistaken assumptions about what Universalists believe.