Tag Archives: Scripture

Restitutio Omnium, Part 4: But What About…

If over the course of the first 3 parts of this series I’ve in any way obscured rather than clarified my thesis, let me here explain it… No, there is too much; let me sum up: I believe—through Scripture, tradition, and reason—that because God is all-Good, all-Knowing, and all-Loving, he, though he allows evil for a time in his Creation, will defeat all evil and save all creatures. He necessarily wants to save all because he loves all, knows how to save all because he knows all, and has the power to save all because he is ‘all-mighty.’ He will do this without violating any rational creature’s free will because free will, by nature, is teleological—always looking for the ultimate Good (who is God)—and will, by God, eventually be liberated from whatever ignorance, error, or pathology that might keep it from recognizing and turning to the loving Maker of all. Again, reason emphatically leads to this conclusion, but Scripture and tradition also support it, though with language ambiguous enough to allow others to reach different conclusions and present objections to this thesis of universal restoration. I now want to address some of those objections head-on.

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Restitutio Omnium, Part 3: Scripture and Tradition

I’m neither a Biblical nor Patristics scholar. I don’t know classical or koine Greek, don’t know Latin, and I’m not well-read-enough even in translated primary sources to claim any expertise. But I have been expanding my knowledge of both the Bible and the Tradition of the Church through amateur study as much as I can. And as my moral and philosophical reasoning over these last 8 to 10 years has increasingly discerned the necessity of a total reconciliation of all rational creatures to their Creator, I have happily learned that, contrary to my long-held indoctrinated position, the Scriptures and Tradition (of which the Scriptures are really a part) not only do not disprove the notion of restitutio omnium, but they amply support it.

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Is God An Old Man?

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Or, A Primer on Depicting the Trinity

In the Western Tradition of the Church, yesterday was Trinity Sunday. This always comes the Sunday after Pentecost, and it celebrates the reality that God has been revealed to us as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Eastern Tradition recognizes that this complete revelation of God occurs on Pentecost, when all three persons of the Trinity have been revealed to us, and so Pentecost doubles as Trinity Sunday in the East. Continue reading