Universalism Against the World
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This episode takes the form of a quick commentary on my previous episode ("No One Can See My Face and Live") followed by a short asynchronous exchange between Jason and me (selected messages from the Signal voice app). This exchange covers similar ground to our longer discussion, "My Lord and My God." The episode centers around the exclusivity of Christ and the deceptions of the enemy.
This episode covers a lot of the podcast's regular themes--near-death experiences (NDEs), the exclusivity of Christ, and the relationship between the self and God. It is in large measure a commentary on and refinement of the points I made in my previous episode, "Assorted Thoughts on Natural Theology."
Reflections on natural theology as itself a sort of forbidden fruit: Creation from nothing versus pre-existence, and, of course, hell and the hope of universal salvation. Equity Equation by Jason Schweizer: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CoNO-yNAKYG/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Another chat with Peter L'Esperance. We delve more into my upbringing and Hare Krishna.
A longform exchange between Jason and myself in which we try to understand the necessity and nature of the Incarnation. 1 Corinthians 8:6, NASB: "yet for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him." Pageau and Fr. De Young on the God-Man: https://youtu.be/g4XeV3O2gew My conversation with Jacob: https://youtu.be/bJvy2RSuw_Y Bible Study with Jacob and Jason: https://youtu.be/83QwcDDIe-Y Christopher Langan: hology.org
Peter L'Esperance moderates a discussion between atheist Christopher Lazarro and myself. Miscellaneous solo reflections follow. Link to Peter's new podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7njfWVzH2LUGJPts3eBSUx?si=7RgutIpuTymVzc6gKobD3w&utm_source=copy-link Link to Peter's album: https://open.spotify.com/album/3IFYOO62N1fQ1uqziACOLm?si=_fIREKoPRUCCk1OPsfou1g&utm_source=copy-link Link to Nate Hile's conversation with Jordan Daniel Wood: https://youtu.be/f1JNy1uw0ss Link to random video of Luke Thompson just being awesome: https://youtu.be/6B0D3QVYTas Christopher Langan's work: hology.org
Patchwork episode featuring clips from Nate and Jason. Unfortunately this episode is not so much a conversation as it is a smorgasbord of clips recorded in our group chats on the Signal app. Grail Country/Nate: https://youtu.be/d9YDXBppk4E David K Bernard: https://youtu.be/yyftqYNPVnY John Milbank on Grace Saves All: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGF2aWRhcnRtYW4ubmV0L3BvZGNhc3Q_Zm9ybWF0PXJzcw/episode/NWVhMDkzY2U4NzgxMjEyNjFkODAzYzViOjVmNzNiZTQ4MDViYjMzNGZjNDY3NWYyOTo2MjE5MmM0Yjk1NDE4MTExOWMxZGE5NjM?ep=14
Description in episode. Here is the link to the song referenced in the first couple recordings ("Christ Jesus" by Deer Tick): https://youtu.be/hobfo6Cs8uI
Rajat and I do a brief reaction video to the conversation that Joe Schmid hosted between Joshua Rasmussen and Eric Reitan, in which they responded to various philosophical and theological criticisms of universalism. Link to the source video: https://youtu.be/sxQyKw04Ncg
Peter L'Esperance takes the initiative in setting up an interview with Andrew Hronich, probably the single-most comprehensive expositor of Christian universalism despite his young age. (Toward the end of the conversation, Peter takes over the interview as well.) We discuss issues of Christian eschatology including moral philosophy, free will, biblical eschatology, and the experience of hell among other topics.
Conversation with Peter L'Esperance: Two amateur theologians discuss Christology, eschatology, Bill Wiese, and NDEs. "Bonus content" at 2:14:20 More thoughts on Oneness Christology pulled from my Signal conversations with Jason, Luke Thompson, and Luke J. In these exchanges, I have a tendency to throw out ideas or even near-quotations without attribution, so I here I would like to cite Asher Walden, Howard Storm, David Bentley Hart, and--as ever--Christopher Langan as major influences on what I say here. Link to the Grail Country video referenced in the recordings: https://youtu.be/I6vHqJlvkV8
Conversation with Peter L'Esperance: Two amateur theologians discuss Christology, eschatology, Bill Wiese, and NDEs.
This episode consists of a series of voice messages I sent to listener Peter L'Esperance, who weighed in with his reasons for believing universalism to be the most plausible form of Christian eschatology. My response is a sort of mini-meditation on the nature of desire/desirability, the image of God, and free choice. In so doing, I cannot help but sound a tiny bit like the otherwise inimitable David Bentley Hart (as well as two of my other big influences, Christopher Langan and Daniel Siegel).
Description in episode. Mistakenly refer to John Milbank as John Milton in the first few minutes so please excuse the error.
In this conversation, Jason and I sit down with Peter Hiett, a universalist pastor based in Colorado. Hiett's biblical interpretations are some of the most interesting I have encountered and I strongly encourage checking out his website, relentless-love.org youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/PeterHiett podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-sanctuary-downtown-relentless-love/id499682116?ign-mpt=uo%3D4&mt=2 church website: https://thesanctuarydenver.org/ Jason's YouTube channel (Almond Tree): https://youtube.com/channel/UCcL1sJjhPDHONZo6GiSttkw Mentions: Christopher Langan George MacDonald Georg Hegel David Bentley Hart Jordan Peterson TS Eliot Sam Lebens Bernardo Kastrup Richard Rohr Karl Barth Julian of Norwich Jason Pratt Luke Thompson
Wayne Fair ("Sovereign Love") invites me to share my spiritual journey. Sovereign Love YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/user/MrHwaynefair
(In which I descend into the chaos of metaphysical speculation once again.) This episode is a sequel of sorts to "Saying Yes to God" and, like its predecessor, deals with the likelihood of confident versus hopeful universalism. As a result it also touches on topics such as the nature of sin/love, time/eternity, possibility/actuality, free will, and causation. Apologies for the characteristically terrible audio quality toward the end.
Almond Tree stalwarts Jason and Mitch join me in responding to Andrew Hronich's biblical case for restorationism as presented on Cameron Bertuzzi's YouTube channel, Capturing Christianity. Link to original video: https://youtu.be/1f_9jCX7NHc
Featuring Craig and Jason from Almond Tree
Most will not understand this episode at all. Those who do will most likely not be happy with it (as neither will many of those who did not understand it). I am not happy with it. My dog, who resented the random pauses during our morning walk, was not happy with it. But I am posting it anyway. Relevant notes: In my thought, the limit that the Manifest God (or Second Person) approaches is the Unmanifest God (or First Person). The limit that your higher self approaches is Christ or the Second Person. The limit that your momentary experience approaches is your higher self.
Michael Sartori and I discuss creation, possible worlds, and universal salvation. Michael's channel: https://youtube.com/user/mlts9984
Thoughts on the (necessarily) corrective nature of afterlife punishment.
In this unintentionally somewhat comical episode, I indulge my oratorical side, giving a 24-minute debate-style statement to an audience of no one except my one-year-old son, who lends his own voice to the first few minutes. This monologue was recorded on a windy morning in an otherwise secluded park, with a noisy freeway not too far from us. Given that this talk was also recorded using the microphone of a cheap pair of wired earbuds, the resulting audio quality was (at least at times) as hellish as its subject matter. If you dare to listen to this recording, you will have to excuse the occasional unintelligible phrase as well as extreme microphone popping. Again, caveat auditor. The recording is in two segments because, at the end of the first, another car pulled up to the park for a minute only to leave as inexplicably as it arrived. (Perhaps the driver saw me and concluded that I was a lunatic.) In terms of substance, this address weaves together many universalist themes from stalwarts such as George MacDonald, Thomas Talbott, and (to a subtler extent) David Bentley Hart. I must also thank the YouTube annihilationist Mark Corbett for the two citaitons from Hebrews which support my/Talbott's interpretation of Matthew 25:46, tending as they also do to support the conditionalist interpretation of that verse. The extemporaneous nature of the speech is evident at various points but most especially in its ending, which even I have to admit falls a bit flat. The reason I decided to post this audio despite its numerous flaws is that it does a good job of conveying my recent thinking, including a few new insights which are perhaps original to me. It is the distillation of almost two years' reflection on theology following 12-14 years of atheism/materialism. I pray that God will give me many more years in which to make up for the lost time.
In this conversation, I talk with self-described evangelical universalist and trinitarian apologist Jason Pratt. (Following my guest's penchant for abbreviation, I will hereafter refer to him as JPratt to distinguish him from my other friend named Jason.) In this episode, we discuss debating strategies for universalists as well as the trinitarian logic underpinning JPratt's cumulative case for evangelical universalism.
This is a long and somewhat disorganized episode on the topic of eternal punishment with special reference to Matthew 25:31-46. It is a meta-episode cobbled together out of smaller episodes, some of which were released previously as standalones but then retracted for reasons explained at the outset. Suffice it to say, I make quite a few mistakes in this episode, both logical and "empirical" (with respect, for example, to Biblical Greek--toward the beginning of the episode I say "aidios" means endless whereas the correct term is "ateleutos" among others). I hope these errors will not necessarily detract from the substance of what I have to say here.
