David Bradshaw's paper "Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance after Death" is very interesting. He explains how St. Maximus follows St. Dionysius the Areopagite in teaching that all human beings have the free will to either choose God or reject Him, and their eternal fate will simply be the perpetual realization of this free choice. Those who choose God, who is the very principle of goodness and being itself, will themselves naturally tend towards higher states of goodness and being, which finds its fullest culmination in the Age to Come when God is all-in-all. When this happens, there will be no more options to turn away from God, He will simply be fully-filling all things, and so those who have disposed themselves towards receiving God in this life will eternally experience the fullness of the divine presence as a state of never-ending bliss and happiness.
Almost Annihilationism
Almost Annihilationism
Almost Annihilationism
David Bradshaw's paper "Patristic Views on Why There Is No Repentance after Death" is very interesting. He explains how St. Maximus follows St. Dionysius the Areopagite in teaching that all human beings have the free will to either choose God or reject Him, and their eternal fate will simply be the perpetual realization of this free choice. Those who choose God, who is the very principle of goodness and being itself, will themselves naturally tend towards higher states of goodness and being, which finds its fullest culmination in the Age to Come when God is all-in-all. When this happens, there will be no more options to turn away from God, He will simply be fully-filling all things, and so those who have disposed themselves towards receiving God in this life will eternally experience the fullness of the divine presence as a state of never-ending bliss and happiness.