Open main menu

OrthodoxWiki β

Changes

Apocatastasis

88 bytes removed, 16:06, August 25, 2008
Definition
For [[Origen]], this explicitly included the [[devil]]. In effect, Apocatastasis denies the final reality of [[hell]], and interprets all Biblical references to the "fires of hell" not as an eternal punishment, but a tool of divine teaching and correction, akin to [[purgatory]]. The implication is that hell exists is to separate good from evil in the soul.
In the twentieth-century, this doctrine was reinvigorated especially by Hans Urs von Balthasar, who, in his book ''Dare We Hope 'That All Men Be Saved'?'' (1988), expressed a qualified version of apocatastasis in which we may "hope" that all will be saved. Keeping in mind the conciliar condemnation of Origen, Orthodox theologians who tend towards universalism (the belief that all will be saved) usually adopt von Balthasar's qualified way of expressing this, and do not flatly deny the possibility of eternal damnationargue that all may be saved.
==History==
1,942
edits