On Hel

And no, that's not a typo. I read this little blurb tucked away from here:

"Hel or Hela, in Scandinavian mythology, goddess of the dead, a child of Loki and the giantess Angurboga, dwelt beneath the roots of the sacred ash, Yggdrasil (q.v.), and ruled the nine worlds of Helheim. In early myth all the dead went to her: in later legend only those who died of old age or sickness; she then became synonymous with suffering and horror"

The commentator then goes on to discuss how the Roman Catholic Church absorbed many pagan ideas / and concepts while trying to convert. My first thought was - aside from "huh, that's kinda cool" was one that reached far back into my English Lit courses of High school where I read Dante's Inferno. One of the first glimpses of hell contained nine rings. Curious coincidence or direct derivative?

Universal Reconciliation pt II

So I finally brought the subject of Universal Reconcilation up to the wife. Not because I was shying from it, or was by any means ashamed of this new thing I stumbled on, but I wanted to be sure I had a decent, initial grasp of the subject matter. After all, it doesn't make for a whole lot of conversation to say "Well I was reading about so and so" and when she asks "So, what about...?" I'm just left with no answer. I like discussing things - theology in particular - in all forms, and to discuss, some basic knowledge is required. Hopefully she'll have read what I pointed out to her when I get home (yes I'm being unproductive at work at the moment) and we can both toss this new idea around.

The more I read other's thoughts, exegetical works and the history behind Universal Reconciliation, the more I seem to be running out of objections. And let me tell you, anyone that knows me knows I can object - very well. I can play devil's advocate for things I hate so well you'd have thought it was engrained in me at birth.

I would have made an excellent lawyer.

But I digress. I'm really running out of objections, and the more I toss this around, the more I'm becoming a believer. It does make me want to brush up on my biblical Greek and Hebrew so I'm not constantly going back to the books to verify what I'm reading. Even if my occasional readers of this blog do not ever agree with me on this, do take away that verifying is always a good thing.

My hub for this intro to the concept has been at tentmaker's "scholar corner" which can be found right here. Some of it very general, some of it gets a little technical or long. But there should be something for anyone. I started jumping around a bit, depening on my time or attention constraints. And then I moved on to other sites, and eventually came back.

Maybe in the next day or two I'll drop by one of the local seminaries and peruse their library on the matter. They have a few excellent resources to pull all sorts of good articles electronically. I'm sure I can dig up more on this there. Maybe for a next entry I'll blog some thoughts on a particular thought.

Wow almost a month

I've been slacking on this. Well, not much else seems news worthy as "dad" as a lot of my energies have been around that.

I have also had a bit of an encounter in the theological realm, the kind that is like "Hmmm, never thought I'd question *that*!" Namely, heaven, hell, salvation, etc. right to the very core. Well, almost the very core. Christ is the core, and He's untouched. I have however, been challenged with the notion that maybe there's a large flaw that exists in the mainstay of Christian doctrine. Originally I had dismissed what is known as "universal reconciliation" right out the window. For the layman, its the belief that Christ has paid the penalty for all sins for all of the human race, everywhere in everytime. That means everyone, everyone. Everyone is "saved" and eventually comes around to God - either pre or post death. There's a down and dirty article on Wiki. And as I had always thought before, it wasn't really based on anything but "good" feelings, and clearly went against everything the church had taught for a long time, not to mention was about as unbiblical as one could get. Obviously the Bible - whether you think its the true Word of God - teaches a hell, and that some (or a great deal) of people will be condemned to it; lost if you will.

As it stands now, after doing a lot of reading (a lot!) I have come to two conclusions. First, the arguements for Universal reconciliation are sound, have merit and are quite solid. Secondly, I'm now more convinced of those arguements than I am of my original line of thought (the mainstay of Christian belief). That's not to say I'm completely persuaded just yet, but all of my initial objections to the belief, both historical and exegetical (bible study) have been for the most part, shot down and/or answered quite well. Its a very weird feeling to have - again no less - a core belief reshaped so quickly.

I suppose at this point, its simply being called into question. But still - very interesting stuff.