“But there are not a few who would be indignant at having their belief in God questioned, who yet seem greatly to fear imagining Him better than He is.”
–George MacDonald

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
-1 John 4:18

“To say that God’s goodness may be different in kind from man’s goodness, what is it but saying, with a slight change of phraseology, that God may possibly not be good?”
-John Stuart Mill

“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.”
-1 John 4:16B

“It is not the way of the compassionate Maker to create rational beings in order to deliver them over mercilessly to unending affliction in punishment for things of which He knew even before they were fashioned, aware how they would turn out when He created them- and whom nonetheless He created.
-St. Isaac of Nineveh, Ascetical Homilies

“What therefore is the scope of Paul’s argument in this place [1 Cor. 15:28]? That the nature of evil, at length, be wholly exterminated, and divine, immortal goodness embrace within itself every rational creature; so that of all who were made by God, not one shall be excluded from his Kingdom. All the viciousness, that like a corrupt matter is mingled in things, shall be dissolved and consumed in the furnace of purgatorial fire; and every thing that had its origin from God, shall be restored to its pristine state of purity.”
– Gregory of Nyssa, Tract in Dictum Apostoli

“The Sacred Scripture does, indeed, call our God ‘a consuming fire’ (Heb. 12:29), and says that ‘rivers of fire go before His face’ (Dan. 7:10), and that ‘He shall come as a refiner’s fire and purify the people’ (Mal. 3:2,3). As therefore, God is a consuming fire, what is it that is to be consumed by Him? We say it is wickedness, and whatever proceeds from it, such as it figuratively called ‘wood, hay, and stubble’ (1 Cor. 3:12-15) which denote the evil works of man. Our God is a consuming fire in this sense; and He shall come as a refiner’s fire to purify rational nature from the alloy of wickedness and other impure matter which has adulterated the intellectual gold and silver: consuming whatever evil is admixed in all the soul.”
– Origen, Against Celsus, IV, 13

“God’s wise fire is “saving, disciplinary, leading to conversion.”
– Clement of Alexandria, Stromata VI, 6

“Fire is conceived of as a beneficent and strong power, destroying what is base, preserving what is good; therefore this fire is called ‘wise’ by the Prophets…We say that the fire purifies not the flesh but sinful souls, not an all-devouring vulgar [earthly, natural] fire, but the ‘wise fire’ was we call it, the fire that ‘pierceth the soul’ which passes through it.”
– Clement of Alexandria, Stromata VII, 2:5-12

“God forbid that I should limit the time of acquiring faith to the present life. In the depth of the Divine mercy there may be opportunity to win it in the future.”
– Martin Luther, Letter to Hanseu Von Rechenberg, 1522

“For it is needful that evil should someday be wholly and absolutely removed out of the circle of being.”
– Gregory of Nyssa (332 to 398 A.D.), leading theologian of the Eastern Church

“In the present life God is in all, for His nature is without limits, but he is not all in all. But in the coming life, when mortality is at an end and immortality granted, and sin has no longer any place, God will be all in all. For the Lord, who loves man, punishes medicinally, that He may check the course of impiety.”
– Theodoret the Blessed (387 to 458 A.D.)

“When death shall no longer exist, or the sting of death, nor any evil at all, then truly God will be all in all.”
– Origen (185 to 254 A.D.)

“All men are Christ’s, some by knowing Him, the rest not yet. He is the Savior, not of some and the rest not. For how is He Savior and Lord, if not the Savior and Lord of all?”
– Clement of Alexandria

“So then, when the end has been restored to the beginning, and the termination of things compared with their commencement, that condition of things will be re-established in which rational nature was placed, when it had no need to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; so that when all feeling of wickedness has been removed, and the individual has been purified and cleansed, He who alone is the one good God becomes to him “all,” and that not in the case of a few individuals, or of a considerable number, but He Himself is “all in all.” And when death shall no longer anywhere exist, nor the sting of death, nor any evil at all, then verily God will be ‘all in all’”
– Origen (185 to 254 A.D.)

“The Son “breaking in pieces” His enemies is for the sake of remolding them, as a potter his own work; as Jeremiah 18;6 says: i.e., to restore them once again to their former state.”
– Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea (265 to 340 A.D.)

“Our Savior has appointed two kinds of resurrection in the Apocalypse. ‘Blessed is he that hath part in the first resurrection,’ for such come to grace without the judgment. As for those who do not come to the first, but are reserved unto the second resurrection, these shall be disciplined until their appointed times, between the first and the second resurrection.”
– Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (340 to397 A.D.)

“Stronger than all the evils in the soul is the Word, and the healing power that dwells in him, and this healing He applies, according to the will of God, to everyman. The consummation of all things is the destruction of evil…to quote Zephaniah: “My determination to gather the nations, that I am assemble the kings, to pour upon them mine indignation, even say all my fierce anger, for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent”…Consider carefully the promise, that all shall call upon the Name of the Lord, and serve him with one consent.”
– Origen (185 to 254 A.D.)

“The nations are gathered to the Judgment, that on them may be poured out the wrath of the fury of the Lord, and this in pity and with a design to heal. In order that every one may return to the confession of the Lord, that in Jesus’ Name every knee may bow, and every tongue may confess that He is Lord. All God’s enemies shall perish, not that they cease to exist, but cease to be enemies.”
– Jerome (340 to 420 A.D., commenting on Zephaniah 3:8-10)

“Mankind, being reclaimed from their sins, are to be subjected to Christ in the fullness of the dispensation instituted for the salvation of all.”
– Didymus the Blind (313 to 398 A.D.)

“Our Lord is the One who delivers man [all men], and who heals the inventor of evil himself.”
– Gregory of Nyssa (332 to 398 A.D.)

“While the devil thought to kill One [Christ], he is deprived of all those cast out of hades, and he [the devil] sitting by the gates, sees all fettered beings led forth by the courage of the Saviour.”
– Athanasius (296 to 373 A.D.)

“Our Lord descends, and was shut up in the eternal bars, in order that He might set free all who had been shut up… The Lord descended to the place of punishment and torment, in which was the rich man, in order to liberate the prisoners.”
– Jerome (347 to 420 A.D.)

“In the liberation of all no one remains a captive! At the time of the Lord’s passion the devil alone was injured by losing all the of the captives he was keeping.”
– Didymus (370 A.D.)

“While the devil imagined that he got a hold of Christ, he really lost all of those he was keeping.”
– St. Chrysostom (398 A.D.)

“Wherefore, that at the same time liberty of free-will should be left to nature and yet the evil be purged away, the wisdom of God discovered this plan; to suffer man to do what he would, that having tasted the evil which he desired, and learning by experience for what wretchedness he had bartered away the blessings he had, he might of his own will hasten back with desire to the first blessedness…either being purged in this life through prayer and discipline, or after his departure hence through the furnace of cleansing fire.”
– Gregory of Nyssa (332 to 398 A.D.)

“That in the world to come, those who have done evil all their life long, will be made worthy of the sweetness of the Divine bounty. For never would Christ have said, “You will never get out until you have paid the last penny” unless it were possible for us to get cleansed when we paid the debt.”
– Peter Chrysologus (380 to 450 A.D.)

“I know that most persons understand by the story of Nineveh and its king, the ultimate forgiveness of the devil and all rational creatures.”
– Jerome (347 to 420 A.D.)

“In the end or consummation of things, all shall be restored to their original state, and be again united in one body. We cannot be ignorant that Christ’s blood benefited the angels and those who are in hell; though we know not the manner in which it produced such effects. The apostate angels shall become such as they were created; and man, who has been cast out of paradise, shall be restored thither again. And this shall be accomplished in such a way, that all shall be united together by mutual charity, so that the members will delight in each other, and rejoice in each other’s promotion. The apostate angels, and the prince of this world, though now ungovernable, plunging themselves into the depths of sin, shall, in the end, embrace the happy dominion of Christ and His saints.”
– Jerome (347 to 420 A.D.)

“For it is evident that God will in truth be all in all when there shall be no evil in existence, when every created being is at harmony with itself and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; when every creature shall have been made one body.”
– Gregory of Nyssa (335 to 390 A.D.)

“The wicked who have committed evil the whole period of their lives shall be punished till they learn that, by continuing in sin, they only continue in misery. And when, by this means, they shall have been brought to fear God, and to regard Him with good will, they shall obtain the enjoyment of His grace.”
– Theodore of Mopsuestia (350 to 428 A.D.)

“We can set no limits to the agency of the Redeemer to redeem, to rescue, to discipline in his work, and so will he continue to operate after this life.”
– Clement of Alexandria (150 to 215 A.D.)

“Do not suppose that the soul is punished for endless eons (apeirou aionas) in Tartarus. Very properly, the soul is not punished to gratify the revenge of the divinity, but for the sake of healing. But we say that the soul is punished for an aionion period (aionios) calling its life and its allotted period of punishment, its aeon.”
– Olympiodorus (495 to 570 A.D.)

“The mass of men (Christians) say there is to be an end to punishment and to those who are punished.”
– St. Basil the Great (329 to 379 A.D.)

“There are very many in our day, who though not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments.”
– Augustine (354 to 430 A.D.)

“For the wicked there are punishments, not perpetual, however, lest the immortality prepared for them should be a disadvantage, but they are to be purified for a brief period according to the amount of malice in their works. They shall therefore suffer punishment for a short space, but immortal blessedness having no end awaits them…the penalties to be inflicted for their many and grave sins are very far surpassed by the magnitude of the mercy to be showed to them.” – Diodore of Tarsus (320 to 394 A.D.)