The Afterlife – Part 4
Four Views on Hell Within Protestant circles there have been, and are, four primary views on the nature of Hell: 1. Universalism — In its simplest form universalism is the belief that eventually all mankind will be saved. Origen (ca. 185-254) was the first serious Christian theologian to espouse universalism. But he stood almost […]
The Afterlife – Part 3
(March 2000 – Volume 6, Issue 3) My how things change. The Pope recently came out with a series of proclamations about the afterlife. First he took the puffy clouds out of heaven. Then he removed the brimstone from hell. Now he has cleaned up purgatory! The Pope has declared that none of these places are […]
The Afterlife – Part 2
(February 2000 – Volume 6, Issue 2) Dante’s classic poem, The Divine Comedy, which has done more to shape our modern view of hell than any other work opens with these words, “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.” Like Dante, […]
The Afterlife – Part 1
(January 2000 – Volume 6, Issue 1) Introduction A few years ago a virtually unknown author, Betty Eadie, sprang to immediate celebrity status by writing the runaway best seller entitled Embraced by the Light. This was the most recent and popular book detailing the experiences of people who believe that they had died, gone to the […]
Open Theism – Part 4
(August 2002 – Volume 8, Issue 6) The Unsovereign God If God’s inability to know the future is the core doctrine of open theism, then God’s lack of sovereign power and control over the universe is the foundation of, or better, heart of openism. It is because these theologians want to believe that God is not […]
Open Theism – Part 3
(July 2002 – Volume 8, Issue 5) The Frustrated God In the mind of the open theist, God not only does not control most events on this planet, He is also blindsided by many of them – not able to foresee the future (as we saw in our last paper). Additionally, the God of openism apparently […]
Open Theism – Part 2
(June 2002 – Volume 8, Issue 4) The God Who Is Pretty Sure The preeminent doctrinal shift required by open theism, the one upon which all the others rest, is the limiting of the omniscience of God. Open theologians hotly deny this, claiming they stand hand-in-hand with classical theists in the belief that God knows all […]
Open Theism – Part 1
(April/May 2002 – Volume 8, Issue 3) Any war is composed of major battles and minor skirmishes. The skirmishes, while often little more than irritants in the big picture, nevertheless cannot be ignored. True casualties are often the result of such conflict and the military ignores them at its own peril. Still, the war is won […]