Homer,
You wrote:
What "second death", "destruction", "eternal punishment", the figure of weeds thrown into a furnace, destruction of body and soul, etc. etc. paint a picture of is finality. Indeed the church from ancient times has seen the "final" judgment as just that.
I am not sure which period, or which representatives, of "the church from ancient times" you are referencing. It is true that your view has a very ancient representative in Irenaeus, though we have little evidence that this has consistently been the view of the church from ancient times. All three views were current at the time of Irenaeus, and his view seems to have been no longer in the discussion by the time of Augustine, who only found it necessary to refute the widespread Origenist (universalist) view of the church in his attempt to establish eternal torment. By the time Augustine's view prevailed, "finality" was the one ingredient missing from the church's view of hell. No punishment could be regarded as "final," since there was always more to come into eternity.
And this is what I contend for and find unambiguous. I don't care to speculate on what the wicked may endure and see not one mention of post mortem salvation. So I think it is wise to maintain at least silence on the subject where the scriptures are silent.
This is not a consistent approach with you.
But there is a difference between dogmatically proclaiming universalism and considering that there are scriptures that, taken at face value, appear to support EP or annihilation. I am dogmatic about neither.
Nor am I dogmatic about any of the three views. However, the scriptures that speak of God's will to save all and His power to accomplish His purposes outnumber any verses that specifically support the distinctives of either eternal torment or annihilationism. We can't reach our conclusions, however, simply by counting up the respective numbers of supportive texts for each view, but by discovering which texts teach something foundational about God, and therefore provide the correct paradigm for the interpretation of the remaining texts. That is, do we take the scriptures about wrath and let them modify the scriptures on God's universal love, or do we take God's love as fundamental, and understand the wrath passages in that light?
We have no commission to preach or promote universalism.
Nor have we been commissioned to preach or promote any alternative view of hell.
The warnings and threats given by Jesus, we have no business diminishing.
True, and no biblical student should even think of doing so. However, interpreting His statements correctly would seem desirable.
He told us "Go into the world and preach the gospel" and "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned". He regarded that as good news. We should speak as He spoke and leave the speculation aside.
Isn't this precisely my approach? It is you that are not willing to lay aside speculations about what occurs after the final judgment. I am saying the Bible is unclear. You are the one using the term "unambiguous."
