Apocatastasis

From OrthodoxWiki
Revision as of 05:21, September 18, 2006 by FrJohn (talk | contribs) (Sources and External links)
Jump to: navigation, search
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 (literally, the restoration of all) 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.

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