The Apokatastasis Question

The question of universal restoration (apokatastasis): whether all rational beings, and perhaps even the demons, will finally be saved. This section sets out what exactly was condemned in connection with Origenism in 553 (and how the scope of the anathemas is itself debated); the unimpeached sanctity of St. Gregory of Nyssa and the witness of St. Isaac the Syrian; and the modern debate reignited by David Bentley Hart’s That All Shall Be Saved (2019) — throughout distinguishing dogma from the space of theologoumenon with precision (§4.2).

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

This is, with the toll-houses (Section 03), one of the two great open questions of Orthodox eschatology, and it is treated to the same §4.2 discipline: name the positions and their proponents, distinguish what the Church has defined from what she has left open, and adjudicate nothing she has not settled. The distinction that governs the whole section is between dogmatic universalism — the confident assertion that all will certainly be saved — and the hope that all may be saved, entertained without presumption. The former runs up against the tradition’s dogmatic boundary; the latter has been voiced by saints and remains within the space of legitimate theological opinion. Keeping those two apart is the whole art of this question.

Files

  • origen-nyssa-and-the-553-condemnations.md — Origen’s apokatastasis and what exactly was condemned in 553; the debated scope of the anathemas; Gregory of Nyssa’s unimpeached sanctity; Isaac the Syrian.
  • the-modern-universalism-debate.md — David Bentley Hart’s That All Shall Be Saved (2019) and its critics; Kallistos Ware’s “hope”; the dogmatic boundary versus theologoumenon space.

See Also