Aionios Means Lasting?

[Homer]

It has been claimed that "lasting" is the best translation of aionios. "Lasting" is defined in dictionaries as meaning "existing or continuing a long while: enduring". "Durable" is a similar word. In the common translation disputed by universalists in Matthew 25:46 I am puzzled by what the advocates of "lasting" think it means.


Matthew 25:46, New King James Version (NKJV)

46. And these will go away into everlasting (aionios) punishment, but the righteous into eternal (aionios) life.”

Since the universalist claims "punishment" should be translated "correction", are we to understand the process of being corrected is "existing or continuing a long while", or is it the result (state of being corrected) that lasts a long while? If the adjective aionios refers to the time spent being corrected, then the statement says nothing about whether the correction will be permanent or temporary, and one would think that since there is no hint that aionios bears different meanings in the same sentence, thus we have no assurance of eternal life.

On the other hand, if aionios refers to the state of being corrected as "lasting", we still do not know if it is permanent, and we have no indication of whether the correction process might be very short. "Lasting" and "durable" are relative terms. One of our sons when a teen could wear out an ordinary pair of shoes in two months. They were not lasting. We spent more than twice as much for a pair of shoes and they lasted a year. They were lasting. It is said that a rock wall is "lasting", but I have seen rock walls that were in poor shape. Some last and some do not.

I would like to hear what the explanation is for how "lasting" should be understood in the text according to the universalists.

[steve7150]

Since the universalist claims "punishment" should be translated "correction", are we to understand the process of being corrected is "existing or continuing a long while", or is it the result (state of being corrected) that lasts a long while? If the adjective aionios refers to the time spent being corrected, then the statement says nothing about whether the correction will be permanent or temporary, and one would think that since there is no hint that aionios bears different meanings in the same sentence, thus we have no assurance of eternal life.






As i have mentioned a few dozen times with no acknowledgment the "righteous" are raised immortal so their eternal life is not based on a length of time but on a God given immortality received at the resurrection.
"Aionios" has differing definitions because it is as Rotherham defines it as "pertaining to the age" and whatever the age is relates to the subject and the context.
We are not given any info about the duration of the correction and it is probably different for each person and presumably it is permanent and it may include punishment also.
Homer if you want certainty maybe think about joining Bible Protectors group.

[Homer]

As i have mentioned a few dozen times with no acknowledgment the "righteous" are raised immortal so their eternal life is not based on a length of time but on a God given immortality received at the resurrection.

But the "wicked" are sent to "correction" after which they join the righteous so are necessarily immortal too?

So you say "lasting" (aionios) is a reference to time rather than durability?

[steve]

Homer,

I am afraid you have a mental block on this particular point. The meaning of aionios has been discussed ad nausium on other threads, in which you participated, and you have previously raised the exact question that you raise here. It has been answered multiple times. Is there some reason this point matters to you so much? Is there any defect in the answers that have already been given (multiple times) to this question, when you've asked it before?

[Homer]

Steve,

Perhaps you missed the point of my question. It was rather late in the discussion when "lasting" was said to be the meaning of aionios. What I am asking is whether the universalist thinks "lasting" refers to the time spent in "correction", or the permanency of the result of having been "corrected" which are two separate ideas.

[Paidion]

F.W. Farrar On "Aeonian"

Of all the arguments on this question, the one which appears to me the most absolutely and hopelessly futile, is the one in which so many seem to rest with entire content; viz. that "eternal or aeonian life" must mean endless life, and therefore that "aeonian chastisement" must mean "endless chastisement." This battered and aged argument, . . . if it had possessed a particle of cogency, would not have been set aside as entirely valueless by such minds as those of Origen and the two Gregories in ancient days, nor by multitudes in the days of St. Augustine and St. Jerome, nor by the most brilliant thinker among the schoolmen, nor by many of our greatest living divines. . . . No proposition is capable of more simple proof than that aeonian is not a synonym of endless. It only means, or can mean, in its primary sense, pertaining to an aeon, and therefore "indefinite," since an aeon may be either long or short; and in its secondary sense "spiritual," "pertaining to the unseen world," "an attribute of that which is above and beyond time," an attribute expressive not of duration but of quality. Can such an explanation of the word be denied by any competent or thoughtful reader of John 5:39; 6:54; 17:3; 1 John 5:13,20? Would not the introduction of the word "endless" into those Divine utterances be an unspeakable degradation of their meaning? And as for the argument that the redeemed would thus lose their promised bliss, it is at once so unscriptural and so selfish that, after what Mr. Cox and others have said of it, one may hope that no one will ever be able to use it again without a blush. I cannot here diverge into a discussion with Bishop Wordsworth and Canon Ryle, whose sermons need some adversaria rather longer than I can here devote to them; but as they both dwell on the fact that people who spoke Greek interpreted aionios to mean endless, I reply that some of the greatest masters of Greek, both in classical times and among the Fathers, saw quite clearly that, though the word might connote endlessness by being attributively added to endless things, it had in itself no such meaning. I cannot conceive how any candid mind can deny the force of these considerations. If even Origenists would freely speak of future punishment as aionios but never as ateleutetos [without end] –––– if, as even these papers have shown, Plato uses the word as the antithesis of endlessness –––– if St. Gregory of Nyssa uses it as the epithet of "an interval"–––– if, as though to leave this Augustinian argument without the faintest shadow of a foundation, there are absolutely two passages of Scripture (Hab.3:6 and Rom.16:25,26) where the very word occurs in two consecutive clauses, and is, in the second of the two clauses, applied to God, and yet is, in the first of the two clauses, applied to things which are temporary or terminated –––– what shall be said of disputants who still enlist the controversial services of a phantom which has been so often laid in the tomb from which it ought never again to emerge? How is it that not one out of the scores of writers who have animadverted on my book have so much as noticed the very remarkable fact to which I have called attention, that those who followed Origen in holding out a possible hope beyond the grave founded their argument for the terminability of torments on the acknowledged sense of this very word, and on the fact that other words and phrases which do unmistakably mean endless are used of the duration of good, but are never used of the duration of evil?
—The Wider Hope (1890), pages 327-330.

[Homer]

Hi Paidion,

Thanks for your pasted quotation.

an attribute expressive not of duration but of quality

So is this your belief, that the time of correction in hell is "quality time" with no reference to the length of time spent there? This is new to me, but I'm assuming your copy and paste reflects your position.

Can such an explanation of the word be denied by any competent or thoughtful reader of John 5:39; 6:54; 17:3; 1 John 5:13,20? Would not the introduction of the word "endless" into those Divine utterances be an unspeakable degradation of their meaning?

Eternal works just fine in all those places. Perhaps the hundreds, if not thousands of exegetes, including the early fathers, who have understood the meaning to be "eternal" have been neither competent nor thoughtful.

though the word might connote endlessness by being attributively added to endless things, it had in itself no such meaning

Since the word is a perfect cipher when used of God or eternal life (oops), I'm am at a loss to understand why the inspired writers used it in those places.

[backwoodsman]

It has been claimed that "lasting" is the best translation of aionios.

Have you read the summary of the doctoral dissertation on the meaning of the word that's been posted in some of the other threads? If you really want to know what the word means, that's going to be your best source.

[steve7150]

Can such an explanation of the word be denied by any competent or thoughtful reader of John 5:39; 6:54; 17:3; 1 John 5:13,20? Would not the introduction of the word "endless" into those Divine utterances be an unspeakable degradation of their meaning?



Eternal works just fine in all those places. Perhaps the hundreds, if not thousands of exegetes, including the early fathers, who have understood the meaning to be "eternal" have been neither competent nor thoughtful.

though the word might connote endlessness by being attributively added to endless things, it had in itself no such meaning



Since the word is a perfect cipher when used of God or eternal life (oops), I'm am at a loss to understand why the inspired writers used it in those places.




In the referenced verses which speak of life eternal with God "aionios" is connected with immortality therefore it can mean eternal, because God is eternal.
When it refers to unsaved IMO it is an undefined amount of time. However if you think it means "eternal" Homer then go with what you believe.

[Paidion]

So is this your belief, that the time of correction in hell is "quality time" with no reference to the length of time spent there? This is new to me, but I'm assuming your copy and paste reflects your position.

Nope. You know my position, that the meaning of "aionios" is "lasting". Although yes, the word "lasting" has no temporal connotation.

Since you have rejected my position from the beginning, I just thought I'd give you someone else's understanding for your consideration. Who knows? Something or someone may influence you yet!