withallyourmind.net

In this and the following posts, I hope to show that the doctrine of universal salvation is not well supported scripturally, nor did it ever enjoy widespread acceptance as orthodox theology. It has been opposed throughout church history on solid theological and philosophical grounds. Today, I’ll look at some historical evidence.

Contrary to the appeals of universalists which claim that universalism was the dominant belief of the early church, the evidence proves otherwise. Norman Geisler states:

With rare exceptions (like Origen), it is difficult to find significant fathers in the long centuries of the church, up to and throughout the Reformation, who embraced this unorthodox teaching.

The doctrine of apokastastasis (universal salvation) was routinely condemned by orthodox theologians and councils. Among the early Fathers, there is almost universal support for the teaching that some humans will undergo eternal, conscious punishment. Justin Martyr (c. 100 – c. 165) stated:

… that (Satan) would be sent into the fire with his host, and the men who follow him, and would be punished for an endless duration, Christ foretold.

Irenaeus (c. 125 – c. 202) claimed that the lake of fire…

… is called Gehenna, which the Lord styled eternal fire. ‘And if any one’, it is said, ‘was not found written in the book of life, he was sent into the lake of fire.

Cyprian (200-258) argued that although God has prepared heaven…

… He has also prepared hell… eternal punishment… the vast and eternal gloom of perpetual night.

Lactantius (c. 240 – c. 320) stated…

… immortality is promised to the righteous, and everlasting punishment is threatened to the unrighteous.

The medieval fathers also rejected universalism. I have already alluded to Augustine’s (354-430) influence in the West. Augustine stated:

It is in vain, then, that some, indeed very many, make moan over the eternal punishment, and perpetual, unintermitted torments of the lost, and say they do not believe it shall be so; not, indeed, that they directly oppose themselves to Holy Scripture, but, at the suggestion of their own feelings soften down everything that seems hard, and give a milder turn to statements they think are rather designed to terrify than to be received as literally true.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), standing near the end of the medieval period, stated:

Now a venial sin deserves eternal punishment if it be united to a mortal sin in a lost soul, because in hell there is no remission of sins.

Next, a look at scriptural evidence.