Perhaps my favorite piece yet! I love especially the last note about the education of Men and Gods across a variety of realms. When I think of Shin Buddhism I often wonder if Paul's third heaven was really that different than a pure land. Perhaps traveling to these realms is even what the church triumphant does when translated into a spiritual form. They might carry good instruction to any number of spirits across any number of worlds so that they all might be reconciled together in the being of Christ. I am becoming increasingly convinced that Christians and Buddhists can occupy one and the same imaginative and religious "world." But then, such syncretism already exists across many countries in the East.
The resurrection is a return to the normal, not to an afterlife. An afterlife represents our brokenness and bondage. To preach anything less becomes as your dream points out, demonic. It’s unfortunate that gospel of Christ has been replaced by the gospel of Lazarus and the Rich Man. This is why I believe that the idea of universal salvation is so threatening. How can there be no heaven without no hell…, as they say. When you get rid of the idea of heaven and hell, an afterlife, the goal of the resurrection becomes clear, which is the restoration of all things. There might indeed be a terrible judgment before such restoration, but a judgment implies that your worthy of being judged. Judgment is salvation, to chastise someone means that they are worth saving, as the apostle Paul eloquently displays in 1st Cor. 5:5.
I was just listening to a recitation of the Gospel of Nicodemus on my evening walk in the Ozark mountains, and I got a bit teared up at this line (which most scholars date to around the early 4th century). The following quote is from Hell personified, so to be precise this is a dialog between the god Hades and Satan:
"Wherefore now I know that the human which was able to do these things is a god strong in command and mighty in courage, and that he is the savior of humanity. And if you bring him unto me, he will set free all that are here shut up in the hard prison and bound in the chains of their sins that cannot be broken, and will bring them into the life of his godhead forever."
The deepest pits of hell are being emptied of EVERYONE.
Don't know how I'm just coming across this one. This is easily one of your best entries I've read so far. Feels very succinct and to the point; this one goes for the heart with precision.
Some demonic soteriologies like mentioned in your dream/vision don't even engage at a karmic level, some try to circumvent the role of works/deeds in cosmic justice, and instead try to have an arbitrarily predetermined destination. The rub here between systems is that there is a tension on either end with supposed "free" will and the determining power of our actions, versus the ultimate determinism present in both universalism and double-predestination styled Calvinism.
I mention that to say that there seems to be some tension between "transcending" a karmic viewpoint, versus circumventing it, or perhaps going THROUGH it to another point? There is a higher state of consciousness past karma in the afterlife, but not all perspectives that bypass it are superior, such as in many of the theologies manifested in your dream-state.
What role do our actions play in our suffering, and to what degree are we rightly culpable, or at least to what degree is purgation necessary?
At this point I hope the Rabbinic reflections on purgatory lasting a few mere days is more correct than the different Christian and various Buddhist Asian intuitions of many long aeons or thousands of hells. Even if those ages of hells eventually end for the sake of the All, I would obviously prefer the conclusions of the Jews' speculations on this.
Perhaps my favorite piece yet! I love especially the last note about the education of Men and Gods across a variety of realms. When I think of Shin Buddhism I often wonder if Paul's third heaven was really that different than a pure land. Perhaps traveling to these realms is even what the church triumphant does when translated into a spiritual form. They might carry good instruction to any number of spirits across any number of worlds so that they all might be reconciled together in the being of Christ. I am becoming increasingly convinced that Christians and Buddhists can occupy one and the same imaginative and religious "world." But then, such syncretism already exists across many countries in the East.
The resurrection is a return to the normal, not to an afterlife. An afterlife represents our brokenness and bondage. To preach anything less becomes as your dream points out, demonic. It’s unfortunate that gospel of Christ has been replaced by the gospel of Lazarus and the Rich Man. This is why I believe that the idea of universal salvation is so threatening. How can there be no heaven without no hell…, as they say. When you get rid of the idea of heaven and hell, an afterlife, the goal of the resurrection becomes clear, which is the restoration of all things. There might indeed be a terrible judgment before such restoration, but a judgment implies that your worthy of being judged. Judgment is salvation, to chastise someone means that they are worth saving, as the apostle Paul eloquently displays in 1st Cor. 5:5.
I was just listening to a recitation of the Gospel of Nicodemus on my evening walk in the Ozark mountains, and I got a bit teared up at this line (which most scholars date to around the early 4th century). The following quote is from Hell personified, so to be precise this is a dialog between the god Hades and Satan:
"Wherefore now I know that the human which was able to do these things is a god strong in command and mighty in courage, and that he is the savior of humanity. And if you bring him unto me, he will set free all that are here shut up in the hard prison and bound in the chains of their sins that cannot be broken, and will bring them into the life of his godhead forever."
The deepest pits of hell are being emptied of EVERYONE.
Don't know how I'm just coming across this one. This is easily one of your best entries I've read so far. Feels very succinct and to the point; this one goes for the heart with precision.
Some demonic soteriologies like mentioned in your dream/vision don't even engage at a karmic level, some try to circumvent the role of works/deeds in cosmic justice, and instead try to have an arbitrarily predetermined destination. The rub here between systems is that there is a tension on either end with supposed "free" will and the determining power of our actions, versus the ultimate determinism present in both universalism and double-predestination styled Calvinism.
I mention that to say that there seems to be some tension between "transcending" a karmic viewpoint, versus circumventing it, or perhaps going THROUGH it to another point? There is a higher state of consciousness past karma in the afterlife, but not all perspectives that bypass it are superior, such as in many of the theologies manifested in your dream-state.
What role do our actions play in our suffering, and to what degree are we rightly culpable, or at least to what degree is purgation necessary?
At this point I hope the Rabbinic reflections on purgatory lasting a few mere days is more correct than the different Christian and various Buddhist Asian intuitions of many long aeons or thousands of hells. Even if those ages of hells eventually end for the sake of the All, I would obviously prefer the conclusions of the Jews' speculations on this.