The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis

The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis
Author: Ilaria Ramelli
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 910
Release: 2013-08-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004245707

The theory of apokatastasis (restoration), most famously defended by the Alexandrian exegete, philosopher and theologian Origen, has its roots in both Greek philosophy and Jewish-Christian Scriptures and literature, and became a major theologico-soteriological doctrine in patristics. This monograph—the first comprehensive, systematic scholarly study of the history of the Christian apokatastasis doctrine—argues its presence and Christological and Biblical foundation in numerous Christian thinkers, including Syriac, and analyses its origins, meaning, and development over eight centuries, from the New Testament to Eriugena, the last patristic philosopher. Surprises await readers of this book, which results from fifteen years of research. For instance, they will discover that even Augustine, in his anti-Manichaean phase, supported the theory of universal restoration.

All Shall be Well

All Shall be Well
Author: Gregory MacDonald
Publisher: James Clarke & Company
Total Pages: 454
Release: 2011-08-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 022790298X

Universalism runs like a slender thread through the history of Christian theology. Over the centuries Christian universalism, in one form or another, has been reinvented time and time again. In this book an international team of scholars explore thediverse universalisms of Christian thinkers from the Origen to Moltmann. In the introduction Gregory MacDonald argues that theologies of universal salvation occupy a space between heresy and dogma. Therefore disagreements about whether all will be saved should not be thought of as debates between the orthodox and heretics but rather as in-house debates between Christians. The studies in this collection aim, in the first instance, to hear, understand, and explain the eschatological claims of a range of Christians from the third to the twenty-first centuries. They also offer some constructive, critical engagement with those claims.

Rethinking Hell

Rethinking Hell
Author: Christopher M. Date
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2014-04-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1630871605

Most evangelical Christians believe that those people who are not saved before they die will be punished in hell forever. But is this what the Bible truly teaches? Do Christians need to rethink their understanding of hell? In the late twentieth century, a growing number of evangelical theologians, biblical scholars, and philosophers began to reject the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment in hell in favor of a minority theological perspective called conditional immortality. This view contends that the unsaved are resurrected to face divine judgment, just as Christians have always believed, but due to the fact that immortality is only given to those who are in Christ, the unsaved do not exist forever in hell. Instead, they face the punishment of the "second death"--an end to their conscious existence. This volume brings together excerpts from a variety of well-respected evangelical thinkers, including John Stott, John Wenham, and E. Earl Ellis, as they articulate the biblical, theological, and philosophical arguments for conditionalism. These readings will give thoughtful Christians strong evidence that there are indeed compelling reasons for rethinking hell.