The Logical Fallacy of Christian Universalism

[john6809]

Breckmin,

In response to Steve's statements that we are saved from sin, in this lifetime, you wrote,

You say "saved from one's sins (Matt.1:21)" but how does the word "from" apply when we've already committed such sins? How can you be saved "from" an action you have already committed if you have already committed or experienced it?

and

We were not saved "from" committing them... the only thing that makes any sense is for us to be saved from the "consequences" of these sins.

Yet, in response to Paidion, you wrote the following,

Paidion wrote:Yet you have denied that Christ died to deliver us from sin, and insist that the reason was that we might be saved from eternal hell.


These are NOT diametrically opposed. It is clearly both... but what you are not seeing is that our "sin" is against a Holy Creator who will Judge us for such sin if we do not receive forgiveness and payment (Christ's Atonement).

Is this not also a logical fallacy? How can it be impossible to be saved from sin, since we have already sinned as you pointed out to Steve, and at the same time, salvation from sin and salvation from hell are not diametrically opposed as you pointed out to Paidion.

[steve7150]

Yes. Universalism is a very clear heresy and I usually don't use that word lightly. I don't even claim that Sabellianism or some
teachings of Nestorius are heresy but would rather say these are aberrational teachings... but universalism is not only heresy
it is satanic deception (just like many of the false teachings of Harold Camping). The gospel is that Jesus died and saved us from
something VERY real...eternal hell. He didn't just save us from sinning again. He didn't save us from some action we have already
committed or will commit until we are in glorified bodies...rather He saved us from the CONSEQUENCES of our sins.. and these
being the eternal consequences of our sins.





Breckman,
You claim Christian Universalism is a heresy even though it is God's will that everyone be saved and as a Calvinist (i assume) you know God's will is irresistible so CU is the logical result of Calvinism.However since Calvinism only believes Jesus died for some then i submit it is illogical because on the one hand we have God's will is everyone s/b saved yet on the other hand we have the contradiction that Jesus only died for the elect by God's will.
The two are contradictions and major contradictions and dividing God's will into different categories does not solve the problem because God's will is an unconditional statement and limiting atonement is an arbitrary action contradicting a plain statement from God.
Additionally the whole issue of salvation is questionable if everything is predetermined, then what are we saved from, God's will?

I do agree on the matter of salvation and what are we saved from, in that ultimately it boils down to the consequences of sin which are many. However i can't agree on "eternal hell" as opposed to hell because "aionios" simply is an undefined amount of time and not eternal therefore one of the consequences of dying in your sins is in fact ending up in the lake of fire. The fact that if CU is true then sinners are there for an undefined amount of time, but until they get the opportunity to repent they have something still to be saved from, which is separation from God and all that goes with it.

So until CU is effectuated, salvation is unfinished and incomplete and not necessarily inevitable but just a possibility that may or may not happen. Even if it ended up being true why is it inevitable?

[Breckmin]

What do you hope to accomplish in this thread?

First let me thank you for the question. Earlier you asked something to the effect of "how is logic working out for you as an
evangelism tool?" I believe firmly that it is the Holy Spirit Who opens people's eyes up to the Truth of the Logos (or Logic) of
God. Most of the time when I am answering questions of atheists and skeptics... it is to the believer who is struggling with
their faith that I am writing...not to the person who I believe is unregenerate and completely blind to the Holy things of God.

So I just explain what I believe is the truth of the Word of God and let the Holy Spirit convict people....since I personally can
change no one's heart.

Likewise, what I hope to accomplish in this thread is to first just explain the concept of "if everyone is ultimately headed
to the same inevitable fate of heaven, and it is impossible to have any other condition other than heaven in eternity, then
then the part of the word "salvation" that refers to saving someone from a real threat that exists can not be used... because
there is no opposition condition (such as eternal hell) to be saved from in eternity."

What I hope to accomplish by explaining this point is what is called a "truth encounter." If only one person is delivered
from the deception of this position then it is worth it to me." But once again, it is the Holy Spirit Who convicts people of
truth... I can only be a secondary instrumental influence by providing the argument... I can't actually change anyone's mind.

... on the view against which you're trying to argue,

Please understand that before we can have an actual argument, the people or persons to whom we are arguing with
must understand the point which is being made. So far, I feel as though this is only "explaining" and not actually
really debating the specific premise yet. (that an opposite condition of salvation must be either possible or actual
in order to properly use the word in relationship to saving someone)

You say you don't think it matters whether you have your facts wrong

Please quote where I have said this. What I did say is that all a logician would have to know is that there is
no opposition condition existing in eternity in order to identify a fallacy with respect to the use of the word
in relationship to the concept saving.

but not only are you factually wrong on multiple points,

I would encourage you to see that this is general and does not identify any specific point for which is/was factually wrong.

but your logic is best described as nonsense,

This also is general and fails to deal with any specific point which is made. Please quote a specific point
to which you are referring.

This has all been brought to your attention multiple times by several of us,

What specific point has been brought to my attention that is a valid one? For the record, there are plenty of
people who are messaging me in other venues or social networks like youtube and other forums who DO see
the logic of this argument. I do not say this as any sort of consensus gentium appeal to make an argument,
but only say this as an observation that many people who are coming to this thread to just read the argument....
see it clearly and agree that it is not only a valid argument... but also very basic logic.

yet you keep hammering on your argument with no apparent interest in discussion or learning,

I still feel as though we are on step one - and that I am still just explaining the argument.

and no apparent recognition that anyone else has said anything useful.

I don't want to get caught up in long diversions which take away from the simplicity of THIS particular argument
and all of the implications which follow it regarding the discombobulation of universalism (which we haven't
got to yet).

That tactic seems unlikely to convince anyone of anything, and certainly doesn't display the mutual respect and humility Scripture indicates is fitting for followers of Christ; hence my question.

Perhaps you are misreading me but... Is this website specifically a universalist forum only? I thought Steve was undecided?
There seems to be people posting here who also believe that universalism is heresy... and an attack against the part of the
gospel where Jesus' Sacrifice is saving us from something eternally significant. It is the Holy Spirit's job to convince people
and I can not convince any universalist of anything. All I can do is encourage you to pray for protection from deception and
see clearly the possibility that you have been deceived by explaining one particular fallacy related to universalism.

We should all pray sincerely to the Father and ask God to deliver us from anything that is not from Him. May the Lord Bless You.

[Paidion]

Breckman,
You claim Christian Universalism is a heresy even though it is God's will that everyone be saved and as a Calvinist (i assume) you know God's will is irresistible...

Hmmmmm... sounds as if God would be eligible to be one of Breckmin's "heretics."

[Breckmin]

How can it be impossible to be saved from sin, since we have already sinned as you pointed out to Steve, and at the same time, salvation from sin and salvation from hell are not diametrically opposed as you pointed out to Paidion.

First, I'd like to thank you for quoting me on a specific point rather than saying what it is that I think or generalizing... and I thank you for your response.

When I said:

We were not saved "from" committing them... the only thing that makes any sense is for us to be saved from the "consequences" of these sins.

this is clearly an elliptical statement in that the subject I am referring to is "we are not saved from committing the action itself" since
we do indeed end up "committing the action." Also when I said "the only thing that makes any sense" is also elliptical and I apologize.
It is within the context of not being saved "from" committing the action itself.

When you say, "How can it be impossible to be saved from sin" perhaps you are not seeing that there are indeed multiple ways
in which we are saved from sin...but clearly these generally have to do with some consequences or what will happen if we continue.

If you read further you will see that I said to Steve:

It is the way in which you are using the word "from" that I object to... especially if you are claiming
that it is just the action itself rather than the consequences of that action. The consequences of sins here - are what is the danger...
not the action of sinning or committing a lawless deed or living an aimless life itself. You would have to explain more of what you
mean here when you use the English word "from" to describe this salvation.

The "danger" is in facing a Holy Creator with our sin debt if we do not have our sin forgiven by trusting in His Perfect Sacrifice.
The "danger" is in not being saved from our sin...

If not possible to "not be saved" from our sin then there is no danger to anyone,

Is this not also a logical fallacy?

I would have to know which logical fallacy you are referring to (you'd have to name it)... or whether you are just claiming that you feel
this is somehow contradictory. The reason that I immediately noted that these two concepts are not opposed is because of the way
in which the scriptures give elliptical statements continually... which is why we don't want to over simplify the meaning of sentences.

[Paidion]

Romans 5:9 tells us "we will be saved from God's wrath" through Him and this is clearly through His Sacrifice on the Cross.

I was sure you'd bring up this verse. However, being saved from God's wrath is NOT tantamount to being saved from eternal hell. Apparently you haven't succeeded in finding a single verse which speaks of being saved from eternal hell. Of course, we want to be saved from God's wrath. No one WANTS to have to go through God's severe corrective punishment. But God will not give us any more discomfort in correcting us than is absolutely necessary. Here is some more gems from George MacDonald's writings. MacDonald's life bore out the truth of his writings:

A Condensation of “Salvation from Sin”
Which is Chapter 1 of The Hope of the Gospel
by George MacDonald (1824-1905)

The wrong, the evil that is in a man; he must be set free from it. I do not mean set free from the sins he has done: that will follow; I mean the sins he is doing, or is capable of doing; the sins in his being which spoil his nature, the wrongness in him, the evil he consents to; the sin he is, which makes him do the sin he does.

He will want only to be rid of his suffering; but that he cannot have, unless he is delivered from its essential root, a thing infinitely worse than any suffering it can produce. If he will not have that deliverance, he must keep his suffering. Through chastisement he will take at last the only way that leads to liberty. There can be no deliverance but to come out of his evil dream into the glory of God.

The Lord never came to deliver men from the consequences of their sins while those sins remained. That would be to throw the medicine out the window while the man still lies sick! That would be to come directly against the very laws of existence! Yet men, loving their sins, and feeling nothing of their dread hatefulness, have (consistently with their low condition) constantly taken this word concerning the Lord to mean that he came to save them from the punishment of their sins. This idea (this miserable fancy rather) has terribly corrupted the preaching of the gospel. The message of the good news has not been truly delivered.

He came to work along with our punishment. He came to side with it, and set us free from our sins. No man is safe from hell until he is free from his sins.

Not for any or all of his sins that are past shall a man be condemned; not for the worst of them does he need to fear remaining unforgiven. The sin in which he dwells, the sin of which he will not come out. That sin is the sole ruin of a man. His present live sins, those sins pervading his thoughts and ruling his conduct; the sins he keeps doing, and will not give up; the sins he is called to abandon, but to which he clings instead, the same sins which are the cause of his misery, though he may not know it --- these are the sins for which he is even now condemned.

It is the indwelling badness, ready to produce bad actions, from which we need to be delivered. If a man will not strive against this badness, he is left to commit evil and reap the consequences. To be saved from these consequences, would be no deliverance; it would be an immediate, ever deepening damnation. It is the evil in our being (no essential part of it, thank God!) from which He came to deliver us --- not the things we have done, but the possibility of doing such things anymore.
As this possibility departs, and we confess to those we have wronged, the power over us of our evil deeds will depart also, and so shall we be saved from them. The bad that lives in us, our evil judgments, our unjust desires, our hate and pride and envy and greed and self-satisfaction ---- these are the souls of our sins, our live sins, more terrible than the bodies of our sins, that is, the deeds we do, because they not only produce these loathsome characteristics, but they make us just as loathsome. Our wrong deeds are our dead works; our evil thoughts are our live sins. These sins, the essential opposites of faith and love, these sins that dwell in us and work in us, are the sins from which Jesus came to deliver us. When we turn against them and refuse to obey them, they rise in fierce insistence, but at the same time begin to die. We are then on the Lord's side, and He begins to deliver us from them.

[Breckmin]

Breckman,
You claim Christian Universalism is a heresy even though it is God's will that everyone be saved and as a Calvinist (i assume) you know God's will is irresistible so CU is the logical result of Calvinism.

If CU is the result of Calvinism, then why are particularists always told it goes back before Clement? (joke) I don't agree that CU
is the logical result of Calvinism or Augustinianism but I do think that many people fall into the universalist' deception because of
misunderstandings regarding what Augustinians/predestinarians actually teach or mean with what they teach.

When you say, however, "you know God's will is irresistible" we are already getting into some problems. Clearly God's Preceptive
Will (sometimes called His "Declared Will") is indeed resistible. FTR, I do not hold to Irresistible Grace because I do not subscribe
to the nomenclature of it.. but I DO hold to a similar position called "Inevitable Special Grace" because we clearly DO resist certain
blessings that God would give to us/have for us ...were it not that we give into the flesh so easily and often as we do. I also
believe that we can resist God's grace throughout the majority of our lives but as a side note I do indeed hold to "a" position of
prevenient grace and my own distinctions made with regards to Sola Gratia.

However since Calvinism only believes Jesus died for some then i submit it is illogical because on the one hand we have God's will is everyone s/b saved yet on the other hand we have the contradiction that Jesus only died for the elect by God's will.

Already we have even more problems when you say "everyone should be saved" because this "should be" fails to address
God's Permissive Will in allowing people to NOT become saved...or to "pass over them" and not adopt them from a predestinarian
perspective.

We could spend the next year going through where we would need to make distinctions with respect to Calvinism and where
I personally disagree with the way in which certain concepts are explained, however.

The two are contradictions and major contradictions and dividing God's will into different categories

What you are not understanding is what we call the ineffability of using just one word to describe God's Ordination or Providential
Will in respect to His Desired/Declared/Preceptive will verses His Permissive Will (things like sin and rejecting God and/or not
worshiping Him, etc) and how these subsist from the Decretive Will or God's Sovereign Ordination (which does NOT mean simply
"cause"). This is a long discussion.. and I feel it is a different discussion from the logical fallacy of universalsim and the use
of the English word "salvation."

does not solve the problem because God's will is an unconditional statement

You are attempting to use one English word to describe something that is clearly multifaceted with respect to things
that take place in God's universe which displease God and are NOT part of His Declared or Preceptive Will.

and limiting atonement is an arbitrary action contradicting a plain statement from God.

Limited atonement has its own complexities which would be a long discussion. In partucularism it is "sufficient
for all but effective for some" (those who believe and are saved). It is not arbitrary, however, and another long
discussion perhaps we could address later in a different thread.

I do agree on the matter of salvation and what are we saved from, in that ultimately it boils down to the consequences of sin which are many.

Thank you for this agreement.

However i can't agree on "eternal hell" as opposed to hell because "aionios" simply is an undefined amount of time and not eternal therefore one of the consequences of dying in your sins is in fact ending up in the lake of fire.

There are multiple reasons why we would know that hell is eternal and (Lordwilling) if I'm able, I'll open up a thread
later to address these. I'm sure you know the verses already which infer that the symbolic lake of fire is eternal.

The fact that if CU is true then sinners are there for an undefined amount of time, but until they get the opportunity to repent they have something still to be saved from, which is separation from God and all that goes with it.

The writer of Hebrews tells us that the judging (krisis) comes after our dying (apothanein) and this is a once (hapax) dying.
This in correlation with other scriptures such as Luke 16 where in verse 26 a mega chasma or a great chasm/gulf or gape
exists and if we wrongfully try to say that this state would change then we only need to go back and ask why did Jesus
say in verse 31 that they still wouldn't be persuaded even if someone rose from the dead. The fact is, if they are going to
be saved anyway the parable makes no sense.

So until CU is effectuated, salvation is unfinished and incomplete and not necessarily inevitable but just a possibility that may or may not happen. Even if it ended up being true why is it inevitable?

If it is God's plan to save everyone then it is inevitable that everyone reaches the same inevitable fate. God is omniscient
and knows whom He is going to save. Using the word "salvation" implies that an opposite condition to the contrary can
exist... but with this form of universalism... no "non-salvation" exists therefore when we are in eternity looking back
(from this perspective) the meaning of being "saved" is the same as everyone reaching the same inevitable fate. It
would be a good fate to be in, but the word salvation and how we are using it - is what is in question. Thank you, Steve.

[Breckmin]

Apparently you haven't succeeded in finding a single verse which speaks of being saved from eternal hell.

I've already given scripture references for an eternal hell.... but what you are doing here is extremely over simplistic with respect to
the implications of other verses that talk about hell or talk about hell being eternal.

I would encourage you to go back and read where I have given multiple verses already which deal with concepts like Matt. 25:46.

You are failing to address concept verses "a sentence spelling it out for you." This is also seems like a diversion from the
specific logical fallacy for which we are discussing.

[Homer]

Hi Paidion,

I do not know much about George MacDonald, but I do not find him very impressive.

He will want only to be rid of his suffering; but that he cannot have, unless he is delivered from its essential root, a thing infinitely worse than any suffering it can produce.

It seems to me he is saying that Hugh Hefner must be suffering more now, although unbeknownst to him, than Hefner ever could in hell. That's not much of an evangelism tool - tell a sinner that right now is the worst he will ever have it.

The Lord never came to deliver men from the consequences of their sins while those sins remained. That would be to throw the medicine out the window while the man still lies sick!

When we consider being saved from physical illness as an analogy to what our Saviour accomplishes for us on the cross the analogy seems to fail because we continue "to stumble in many ways", if we are to believe James. We would not credit a physician with curing our cancer if it kept coming back.

It is the evil in our being (no essential part of it, thank God!) from which He came to deliver us --- not the things we have done, but the possibility of doing such things anymore.

Is evil something more than sin? Is there no possibility we will do evil after we are saved but a possibility of committing sin which is something less than evil? Do you know anyone who no longer sins?

Our wrong deeds are our dead works; our evil thoughts are our live sins. These sins, the essential opposites of faith and love, these sins that dwell in us and work in us, are the sins from which Jesus came to deliver us.

Again, if that is all His sacrifice accomplished (a partial escape from sinning), that would not seem as significant as an 100% escape from the consequences of sin in the future life.

When we turn against them and refuse to obey them, they rise in fierce insistence, but at the same time begin to die. We are then on the Lord's side, and He begins to deliver us from them.

Now he seems to speak of something different - progressive sanctification, which I can agree with. Or does he?

[john6809]

Breckmin,

Forgive me for being a simpleton. I can't seem to get past the following:

You wrote:

...there are indeed multiple ways in which we are saved from sin...but clearly these generally have to do with some consequences or what will happen if we continue.

Clearly... maybe to you, your interpretations are clear. Generally... if these generally have to do with some consequences, then maybe some of the ways we are saved from sin are not about being saved from hell. Again, your arguments seem flawed.

By admitting this, are you not clearly saying that an act of salvation has occurred? What more are you looking for? Is there not enough danger of displeasing the Lord in this lifetime (with it's attendant consequences) to consider salvation from sin to be a salvation from a real danger? Is a danger only real if it is permanent?

It seems to me that we disagree on the "consequences or what will happen next" applying only to a permanent punishment in hell - you seem tosee only one option as being worthy of the title "real danger". Therefore, you seem toonly allow for genuine salvation to apply to one final, permanent, danger.

For the record, I am not a Universalist. I only recently became aware of the existence of alternative views of hell. At this point, I am undecided as to my beliefs. I believe someone else on this forum once said that, regardless of your view of hell, there is obviously a great urgency to get right with the Lord, and the sooner, the better. However, I do believe that He died to save us from our sins so that we might live and live more abundantly, and this includes in this present age.