Difference between revisions of "Apocatastasis"

From OrthodoxWiki
Jump to: navigation, search
m (Definition)
m (Corrected an extra bracket and my italization mistake in external links.)
(No difference)

Revision as of 03:30, September 19, 2006

This article or section needs a cleanup to bring it to a higher standard of quality. Recommendation:
See talk page.
More detailed comments may be noted on the talk page. You can help OrthodoxWiki by editing it, especially to conform to the Style Manual and the suggestions in How to write a great article.
This article or section is a stub (i.e., in need of additional material). You can help OrthodoxWiki by expanding it.

Also spelled "Apokatastasis."

Definition

Apocatastasis (from Greek: apo, from; kata, down; histemi, stand - literally, "restoration" or "return") is the teaching that everyone will, in the end, be saved. It looks toward the ultimate reconciliation of good and evil; all creatures endowed with reason, angels and humans, will eventually come to a harmony in God's kingdom.

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