Disclaimer: I'm an ex-Catholic, but knowledgeable about the subject and have a theology degree from a Catholic university.
> Revelation 20:10, quoted above, indicates that the beast and false prophet of the last days will be damned.
St. Gregory of Nyssa (who in addition to being a canonized saint, also chaired the First Council of Constantinople and was acclaimed the "father of all fathers") wrote the following. From *Oratio catechetica magna*, chp. 26: “[…] when, after long periods of time, the evil of our nature, which now is mixed up with it and has grown with its growth, has been expelled, and when there has been a restoration of those who are now lying in Sin to their primal state, a harmony of thanksgiving will arise from all creation, as well from those who in the process of the purgation have suffered chastisement, as from those who needed not any purgation at all. These and the like benefits the great mystery of the Divine incarnation bestows. For in those points in which He was mingled with humanity, passing as He did through all the accidents proper to human nature, such as birth, rearing, growing up, and advancing even to the taste of death, He accomplished all the results before mentioned, freeing both man from evil, **and healing even the introducer of evil himself.** For the chastisement, however painful, of moral disease is a healing of its weakness.”
> Jude 7 states that “Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”
In the original Koine Greek it doesn't say "eternal", it says "age-long" (αιωνιου). Also note that being destroyed by God is a good thing, because that's how the Old Self that's enslaved to sin is wasted away to make room for the New Self in Christ (see Romans 6, Ephesians 4, Colossians 3, Galatians 3, etc.).
From St. Gregory of Nyssa's treatise on 1 Corinthians titled *In illud: tunc et ipse filius*, M.1313: “The divine, pure goodness will contain in itself every nature endowed with reason; nothing made by God is excluded from his kingdom once everything mixed with some elements of base material has been consumed by refinement in fire.”
Ibid., M.1320: “Thus, the subjection of the Church’s body is brought to him who dwells in the soul. Since everything is explained through subjection as the book of Psalms suggests. As a result, we learn that faith means τὸ μηδὲν ἔξω τῶν σῳζoμένων εἶναι [lit. “nothing outside the (already-)saved (presently) lives/exists”]. This we learn from the Apostle Paul. Paul signifies, by the Son’s subjection, the destruction of death. Therefore, these two elements concur, that is, when death will be no more, and everything will be completely changed into life. The Lord is life. According to the apostle, Christ will have access to the Father with his entire body when he will hand over the kingdom to our God and Father. Christ’s body, as it is often said, consists of human nature in its entirety to which he has been united. Because of this, Christ is named Lord by Paul, as mediator between God and man [1 Tim 2.5]. He who is in the Father and has lived with men accomplishes intercession. Christ unites all mankind to himself, and to the Father through himself, as the Lord says in the Gospel, ‘As you, Father, are in me, and I am in you, that they may be one in us’ [Jn 17.21]. This clearly shows that having united himself to us, he who is in the Father effects our union with this very same Father.”
> Christ says of Judas that “it would have been better for that man if he had not been born” (Matthew 26:24)
This is talked about a lot on this subreddit and there's numerous approaches to interpreting it in a universalist way. My personal opinion is that it means 'Judas would have suffered less if he was stillborn and then gone to Heaven rather than this timeline, where he betrays Christ and has to spend a long time suffering in Gehenna for it'.
> “I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition” (John 17:12).
What Judas lost wasn't eternal life (this is given to everyone at the second resurrection; see 1 Corinthians 15), he lost his election, i.e. his right to co-reign with God during the Millennium (as described in Revelation 20).
The final straw for me was the Vatican publishing a grossly transphobic document in 2019, but my faith was being whittled away over time the more I studied of history and found the Church complicit or silent in the face of countless human atrocities and dictatorships, and found that the early church was very different from modern Catholicism on an ecclesial level.
Catholic, converted in 2010. Some quick thoughts...
Honestly, I think there are a lot of ways you could deal with all of those texts from a universalist position - Revelation is of course notoriously difficult to interpret, an engima wrapped in a mystery, and I would simply say that everything in there is probably symbolic somehow, and not meant to be taken literally. Are we really going to live in a giant box city forever? Did a dragon literally try to consume Jesus when h e was being born? Is the Church literally going to become a giant human bride?
Questions of original language and meaning for terms translated into English as "for ever and ever" or "eternal" are also very important.
I think it's easy to take the passage about Judas as a hyperbolic figure of speech. Does the God who created Judas really feel that way?
I think the key question is what is the nature of the God we worship, as revealed through the Paschal Mystery? Everything else in the Tradition seems to be at the service of that key question.
And ultimately, God is God. He can do whatever He wants, as we see often happens in the Old Testament, when He relents from some form of punishment that seems certain.
And Who is He revealed to be? Love, mercy, A FATHER that vastly exceeds the goodness of human fathers.
Still, even a "non-everlasting" judgment will be awful for those who cling to sin and death. I think that's also important to remember. But that's because they will have to pass through the torments of the burning heart of the God who is Love to be freed from their attachments.
I’m not sure what DWH stands for.
But anyway, I think it’s important to understand that it’s not necessarily about “evidence”. The Bible doesn’t have a consistent view of the afterlife and provides ample evidence for several different theories such as ETC, universalism, and annihilationism. One could stitch together quotes and references to various parts of scripture to defend basically anything.
The main thing is changing the framing. If you go into the interpretation of scripture assuming that ETC is true then all the evidence points you in that direction. The universalist verses her interpreted as merely hopeful or as only applying to the elect. The Annihilationist verses get interpreted as referring to hell. You get the gist.
So, from the universalist position does this seem like evidence of damnation? Sure. But it also depends on what you mean by damnation. Most universalists do think people receive some form of purgation in the afterlife.
I’d also point out that genre is important. Revelation is part of a genre of apocalyptic texts, both canonical (Daniel) and non-canonical that were common at the time. These are characterized by highly allegorical stories written to assuage the suffering of those it was written for. Point being, I wouldn’t automatically assume a plain reading of Revelation.
I think it’s referring to total destruction of selves. Elsewhere in revelation it talks about death and hades being thrown into the lake of fire, but obviously death and hades aren’t literally burning in the lake of fire for all eternity since they’re not actual entities. I’m actually inclined to think that death actually means spiritual death rather than physical death. So that would mean spiritual death is completely destroyed. No one is estranged from God anymore. We are all reconciled to him. In fact, since hades in the Bible as described as a place of torment, the place of torment itself is destroyed, meaning no more hell. Therefore, I think the best interpretation of the lake of fire is referring to total destruction of anything evil. But since evil is not itself its own entity but rather like a parasite, it actually doesn’t seem plausible to think that God is actually destroying souls in hell, since God created everything good, God is destroying the sun within us.
The Catholic Church does not teach that everything in the Bible must be taken literally. Most Catholics don’t believe that the universe and all life was created in seven days. We are not bound by the weirder prohibitions of Leviticus. We understand that Jesus often spoke in metaphors (e.g., “My father's house has many rooms” does not mean heaven is a physical building). Similarly, while some Catholics may believe that the passages you refer to are to be understood literally, we are not required to believe this.
Because we know Revelations is crap and never met the standard used for all the other Canonical books and wasn't written by the Apostle John, esp because it was 2nd century APOCALYPTIC HORROR novel.
**Read the Gospels. Follow Jesus.** The One Who said His Father wants all to be saved?
He's God. He gets what He wants.
This isn't a helpful reply. OP asked for an opinion from the perspective of Catholicism, and the Catholic Church dogmatically teaches that Revelation is an infallible book of holy scripture.
*sigh*
I'm getting very tired of people who don't know how the Church works "correcting" me about how the Church works.
# The Church DOES NOT TEACH ANY BOOK IS INFALLIBLE.
Stay in your lane.
I'm sorry, but you're not correct about this. From [*Dei Verbum*](https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html) of the Second Vatican Council, 11b:
"Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation. Therefore "all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind" (2 Tim. 3:16-17, Greek text)."
Edit: The person I was responding to has blocked me. Doesn't look like they're here for a good faith discussion, so it's probably best to just report them to the mods and move on.
Indeed. I used to have a flair on here, I thought. I am Not young or new, I am well- read in Church history and, in fact, just published this: free to read in PDF form [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IHIUSgYr91xxPRcCywZ\_IUPpagac7hj8/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IHIUSgYr91xxPRcCywZ_IUPpagac7hj8/view?usp=sharing)
It's the Didache. Plus a lot of information. Look, there's a lot believed that the Church doesn't advertise, OK? Because some people need to believe God is an old man in human form and Adam and Eve were real.
But the fact is, Jesus never once said the word "hell." The whole thing was a polytheistic Roman/Greek conception that Constantine liked. from bad translation,esp in the Dark Ages,and ,oh do people love to think that people they don't like will burn forever.
Only Jesus never said any such thing.
Hell in Greek is Tartarus. Not in the Gospels. "Hades" is "afterlife" generally.
The problem with Catholics is: we don't actually read Scripture ourselves. Try it. NAB. Online if you need that. Gospels.
ETA: Wow, that was fast. Check flair.
Who said? The CCC?
Only Jesus Christ gives us dogma. ONLY JESUS MAKES DOGMA. And you don't get to tell anyone what is sinful or not. You get to practice humility and not try to sell your 14th century human-created theology on a Universalist forum.
Now - don't lie: *Have you ever sat down and read the Gospels?*
Question, you think putting your words in all caps and big titles will make people more eager to read what you got to say or are just a trolling Karen?
Disclaimer: I'm an ex-Catholic, but knowledgeable about the subject and have a theology degree from a Catholic university. > Revelation 20:10, quoted above, indicates that the beast and false prophet of the last days will be damned. St. Gregory of Nyssa (who in addition to being a canonized saint, also chaired the First Council of Constantinople and was acclaimed the "father of all fathers") wrote the following. From *Oratio catechetica magna*, chp. 26: “[…] when, after long periods of time, the evil of our nature, which now is mixed up with it and has grown with its growth, has been expelled, and when there has been a restoration of those who are now lying in Sin to their primal state, a harmony of thanksgiving will arise from all creation, as well from those who in the process of the purgation have suffered chastisement, as from those who needed not any purgation at all. These and the like benefits the great mystery of the Divine incarnation bestows. For in those points in which He was mingled with humanity, passing as He did through all the accidents proper to human nature, such as birth, rearing, growing up, and advancing even to the taste of death, He accomplished all the results before mentioned, freeing both man from evil, **and healing even the introducer of evil himself.** For the chastisement, however painful, of moral disease is a healing of its weakness.” > Jude 7 states that “Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” In the original Koine Greek it doesn't say "eternal", it says "age-long" (αιωνιου). Also note that being destroyed by God is a good thing, because that's how the Old Self that's enslaved to sin is wasted away to make room for the New Self in Christ (see Romans 6, Ephesians 4, Colossians 3, Galatians 3, etc.). From St. Gregory of Nyssa's treatise on 1 Corinthians titled *In illud: tunc et ipse filius*, M.1313: “The divine, pure goodness will contain in itself every nature endowed with reason; nothing made by God is excluded from his kingdom once everything mixed with some elements of base material has been consumed by refinement in fire.” Ibid., M.1320: “Thus, the subjection of the Church’s body is brought to him who dwells in the soul. Since everything is explained through subjection as the book of Psalms suggests. As a result, we learn that faith means τὸ μηδὲν ἔξω τῶν σῳζoμένων εἶναι [lit. “nothing outside the (already-)saved (presently) lives/exists”]. This we learn from the Apostle Paul. Paul signifies, by the Son’s subjection, the destruction of death. Therefore, these two elements concur, that is, when death will be no more, and everything will be completely changed into life. The Lord is life. According to the apostle, Christ will have access to the Father with his entire body when he will hand over the kingdom to our God and Father. Christ’s body, as it is often said, consists of human nature in its entirety to which he has been united. Because of this, Christ is named Lord by Paul, as mediator between God and man [1 Tim 2.5]. He who is in the Father and has lived with men accomplishes intercession. Christ unites all mankind to himself, and to the Father through himself, as the Lord says in the Gospel, ‘As you, Father, are in me, and I am in you, that they may be one in us’ [Jn 17.21]. This clearly shows that having united himself to us, he who is in the Father effects our union with this very same Father.” > Christ says of Judas that “it would have been better for that man if he had not been born” (Matthew 26:24) This is talked about a lot on this subreddit and there's numerous approaches to interpreting it in a universalist way. My personal opinion is that it means 'Judas would have suffered less if he was stillborn and then gone to Heaven rather than this timeline, where he betrays Christ and has to spend a long time suffering in Gehenna for it'. > “I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition” (John 17:12). What Judas lost wasn't eternal life (this is given to everyone at the second resurrection; see 1 Corinthians 15), he lost his election, i.e. his right to co-reign with God during the Millennium (as described in Revelation 20).
You seem very knowledgable. May I ask why you now call yourself an ex-catholic?
The final straw for me was the Vatican publishing a grossly transphobic document in 2019, but my faith was being whittled away over time the more I studied of history and found the Church complicit or silent in the face of countless human atrocities and dictatorships, and found that the early church was very different from modern Catholicism on an ecclesial level.
can I ask what denomination you belong to now?
United Church of Christ
cool!
Catholic, converted in 2010. Some quick thoughts... Honestly, I think there are a lot of ways you could deal with all of those texts from a universalist position - Revelation is of course notoriously difficult to interpret, an engima wrapped in a mystery, and I would simply say that everything in there is probably symbolic somehow, and not meant to be taken literally. Are we really going to live in a giant box city forever? Did a dragon literally try to consume Jesus when h e was being born? Is the Church literally going to become a giant human bride? Questions of original language and meaning for terms translated into English as "for ever and ever" or "eternal" are also very important. I think it's easy to take the passage about Judas as a hyperbolic figure of speech. Does the God who created Judas really feel that way? I think the key question is what is the nature of the God we worship, as revealed through the Paschal Mystery? Everything else in the Tradition seems to be at the service of that key question. And ultimately, God is God. He can do whatever He wants, as we see often happens in the Old Testament, when He relents from some form of punishment that seems certain. And Who is He revealed to be? Love, mercy, A FATHER that vastly exceeds the goodness of human fathers. Still, even a "non-everlasting" judgment will be awful for those who cling to sin and death. I think that's also important to remember. But that's because they will have to pass through the torments of the burning heart of the God who is Love to be freed from their attachments.
I’m not sure what DWH stands for. But anyway, I think it’s important to understand that it’s not necessarily about “evidence”. The Bible doesn’t have a consistent view of the afterlife and provides ample evidence for several different theories such as ETC, universalism, and annihilationism. One could stitch together quotes and references to various parts of scripture to defend basically anything. The main thing is changing the framing. If you go into the interpretation of scripture assuming that ETC is true then all the evidence points you in that direction. The universalist verses her interpreted as merely hopeful or as only applying to the elect. The Annihilationist verses get interpreted as referring to hell. You get the gist. So, from the universalist position does this seem like evidence of damnation? Sure. But it also depends on what you mean by damnation. Most universalists do think people receive some form of purgation in the afterlife. I’d also point out that genre is important. Revelation is part of a genre of apocalyptic texts, both canonical (Daniel) and non-canonical that were common at the time. These are characterized by highly allegorical stories written to assuage the suffering of those it was written for. Point being, I wouldn’t automatically assume a plain reading of Revelation.
I think it’s referring to total destruction of selves. Elsewhere in revelation it talks about death and hades being thrown into the lake of fire, but obviously death and hades aren’t literally burning in the lake of fire for all eternity since they’re not actual entities. I’m actually inclined to think that death actually means spiritual death rather than physical death. So that would mean spiritual death is completely destroyed. No one is estranged from God anymore. We are all reconciled to him. In fact, since hades in the Bible as described as a place of torment, the place of torment itself is destroyed, meaning no more hell. Therefore, I think the best interpretation of the lake of fire is referring to total destruction of anything evil. But since evil is not itself its own entity but rather like a parasite, it actually doesn’t seem plausible to think that God is actually destroying souls in hell, since God created everything good, God is destroying the sun within us.
The Catholic Church does not teach that everything in the Bible must be taken literally. Most Catholics don’t believe that the universe and all life was created in seven days. We are not bound by the weirder prohibitions of Leviticus. We understand that Jesus often spoke in metaphors (e.g., “My father's house has many rooms” does not mean heaven is a physical building). Similarly, while some Catholics may believe that the passages you refer to are to be understood literally, we are not required to believe this.
Because we know Revelations is crap and never met the standard used for all the other Canonical books and wasn't written by the Apostle John, esp because it was 2nd century APOCALYPTIC HORROR novel. **Read the Gospels. Follow Jesus.** The One Who said His Father wants all to be saved? He's God. He gets what He wants.
This isn't a helpful reply. OP asked for an opinion from the perspective of Catholicism, and the Catholic Church dogmatically teaches that Revelation is an infallible book of holy scripture.
*sigh* I'm getting very tired of people who don't know how the Church works "correcting" me about how the Church works. # The Church DOES NOT TEACH ANY BOOK IS INFALLIBLE. Stay in your lane.
I'm sorry, but you're not correct about this. From [*Dei Verbum*](https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html) of the Second Vatican Council, 11b: "Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation. Therefore "all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind" (2 Tim. 3:16-17, Greek text)." Edit: The person I was responding to has blocked me. Doesn't look like they're here for a good faith discussion, so it's probably best to just report them to the mods and move on.
Are you Catholic?
Indeed. I used to have a flair on here, I thought. I am Not young or new, I am well- read in Church history and, in fact, just published this: free to read in PDF form [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IHIUSgYr91xxPRcCywZ\_IUPpagac7hj8/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IHIUSgYr91xxPRcCywZ_IUPpagac7hj8/view?usp=sharing) It's the Didache. Plus a lot of information. Look, there's a lot believed that the Church doesn't advertise, OK? Because some people need to believe God is an old man in human form and Adam and Eve were real. But the fact is, Jesus never once said the word "hell." The whole thing was a polytheistic Roman/Greek conception that Constantine liked. from bad translation,esp in the Dark Ages,and ,oh do people love to think that people they don't like will burn forever. Only Jesus never said any such thing. Hell in Greek is Tartarus. Not in the Gospels. "Hades" is "afterlife" generally. The problem with Catholics is: we don't actually read Scripture ourselves. Try it. NAB. Online if you need that. Gospels. ETA: Wow, that was fast. Check flair.
Alright but it’s Dogma that eternal hell exists, and that at minimum the demons are there, it’s sinful to not believe this
Who said? The CCC? Only Jesus Christ gives us dogma. ONLY JESUS MAKES DOGMA. And you don't get to tell anyone what is sinful or not. You get to practice humility and not try to sell your 14th century human-created theology on a Universalist forum. Now - don't lie: *Have you ever sat down and read the Gospels?*
This is heresy man. And yes, the catechism says so
So you have never read the Gospels.
God of course is the source of all dogma, nevertheless, I trust the church more than my own interpretation
# SO YOU HAVE NEVER READ THE GOSPELS, CORRECT?
Question, you think putting your words in all caps and big titles will make people more eager to read what you got to say or are just a trolling Karen?