I don’t know what Orthodox say about it,
The Orthodox, just as the Catholics, are really all over the map on this issue. But in fairness, the East is much more prone toward universalism than the West was prior to the 20th century.
pretty established…demons will be eternally in hell
Man, it’s just really all very complicated. I’ve been looking into this issue for a couple of years now, and the situation is so very complex. All I can say regarding the specific issue of the Angels is that yes, the scholastics engaged in a lot of angelology. And yes, the general thought was summarized by Aquinas—once the angel has set its mind, that mind cannot be unset. But this is angelology—scholastic speculation. It’s reasonable, as all of Aquinas’ opinions are. But is it true? :man_shrugging:t2:
even if no one goes to hell…it must be for eternity.
Now here is where we find enormous variety, in the East and West, and spread over the early, medieval and modern church. Ok so, it’s hard to know where to begin bc the issue is so very complicated.
The West does follow a lot of St Augustine’s thought on this issue, though not always. Augustine advocated twofold predestination. And he also thought most were damned. And he certainly believed hell to be an inescapable, neverending realm of punishment.
The first thing I’d say is that looking at death as a “magic moment,” point of no return, is a modern thing in the church. You’ll find this belief in the Middle Ages but not really in the early church (Augustine being an exception). The Cappadocian fathers looked at hell punitively, but they certainly didn’t regard it as a realm co-eternal with God. Their problem with evil being co-eternal with God is simple: what could be co-eternal with God?? Actually, nothing could be, so they reasoned. He has no equal. There is none like Him. So, the end of things cannot be, as Gregory of Nyssa and others reasoned, that heaven and hell are two equal tracks that simply extend indefinitely into the future. Because, if that were the case, what did God really make “new” in the new heavens and new earth? That’s just more of the same—good and evil, co-existing.
But here is where it gets really interesting (odd?): some early church fathers thought that what Christ was saving was
humanity itself, not this or that particular human. So, the entire human race is seen as a continuum and one entity—not as a collection of separable individuals. (I in you, and you in me.) Humanity is in the process of returning to God—not this nor that individual human, separate from others. They thought of humanity as a “collective.” “For as in Adam, all die. Even so in Christ, all shall be made alive,” St Paul says. From what I can tell, the majority of the early church fathers took that rather at face-value. All died in Adam. And Christ redeems all and brings the race back to the Father in the fullness of time.
It’s really interesting stuff! I’m still trying to wrap my mind around Sts Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor.
