Editing Afterlife (section)

====Orthodox Christianity====
The Orthodox Church is intentionally reticent about the afterlife, as it acknowledges the mystery, especially of things that have not yet occurred. Beyond the second coming of Jesus, bodily resurrection, and final judgment, all of which are affirmed in the [[Nicene Creed]] (325 AD), Orthodoxy does not teach much else in any definitive manner. Unlike Western forms of Christianity, however, Orthodoxy is traditionally non-dualist and does not teach that there are two separate literal locations of heaven and hell, but instead acknowledges that "the 'location' of one's final destiny—heaven or hell—as being figurative."<ref name="Andrew P. Klager 2011">{{cite web| url = http://www.clarion-journal.com/files/new-klager-compassionate-eschatology-with-biblioklager-1.pdf#page=19| title = Andrew P. Klager, "Orthodox Eschatology and St. Gregory of Nyssa's ''De vita Moysis'': Transfiguration, Cosmic Unity, and Compassion," In ''Compassionate Eschatology: The Future as Friend'', eds. Ted Grimsrud & Michael Hardin, 230–52 (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 245.| access-date = 3 May 2016| archive-date = 25 March 2016| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160325232147/http://www.clarion-journal.com/files/new-klager-compassionate-eschatology-with-biblioklager-1.pdf#page=19| url-status = live}}</ref>

Instead, Orthodoxy teaches that the final judgment is one's uniform encounter with divine love and mercy, but this encounter is experienced multifariously depending on the extent to which one has been transformed, partaken of divinity, and is therefore compatible or incompatible with God. "The monadic, immutable, and ceaseless object of eschatological encounter is therefore the love and mercy of God, his glory which infuses the heavenly temple, and it is the subjective human reaction which engenders multiplicity or any division of experience."<ref name="Andrew P. Klager 2011"/> For instance, [[St. Isaac the Syrian]] observes in his ''[[The Ascetical Homilies of Isaac the Syrian|Ascetical Homilies]]'' that "those who are punished in Gehenna, are scourged by the scourge of love. ... The power of love works in two ways: it torments sinners ... [as] bitter regret. But love inebriates the souls of the sons of Heaven by its delectability."<ref>St. Isaac the Syrian, "Homily 28," In ''The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian,'' trans. Dana Miller (Brookline, MA: Holy Transfiguration Monastery Press, 1984), 141.</ref> In this sense, the divine action is always, immutably, and uniformly love, and if one experiences this love negatively, the experience is then one of self-condemnation because of free will rather than condemnation by God.

Orthodoxy therefore uses the description of Jesus' judgment in John 3:19–21 as their model: "19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." As a characteristically Orthodox understanding, then, Fr. [[Thomas Hopko]] writes, "[I]t is precisely the presence of God's mercy and love which cause the torment of the wicked. God does not punish; he forgives... In a word, God has mercy on all, whether all like it or not. If we like it, it is paradise; if we do not, it is hell. Every knee will bend before the Lord. Everything will be subject to Him. God in Christ will indeed be 'all and in all,' with boundless mercy and unconditional pardon. But not all will rejoice in God's gift of forgiveness, and that choice will be judgment, the self-inflicted source of their sorrow and pain."<ref>Fr. Thomas Hopko, "Foreword," in ''The Orthodox Church'', Sergius Bulgakov (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1988), xiii.</ref>

Moreover, Orthodoxy includes a prevalent tradition of ''[[apokatastasis]]'', or the restoration of all things in the end. This has been taught most notably by [[Origen]], but also many other Church fathers and Saints, including [[Gregory of Nyssa]]. The [[Second Council of Constantinople]] (553 AD) affirmed the orthodoxy of Gregory of Nyssa while simultaneously condemning Origen's brand of universalism because it taught the restoration back to our pre-existent state, which Orthodoxy does not teach. It is also a teaching of such eminent Orthodox theologians as [[Olivier Clément]], Metropolitan [[Kallistos Ware]], and Bishop [[Hilarion Alfeyev]].<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.clarion-journal.com/files/new-klager-compassionate-eschatology-with-biblioklager-1.pdf#page=25| title = Andrew P. Klager, "Orthodox Eschatology and St. Gregory of Nyssa's ''De vita Moysis'': Transfiguration, Cosmic Unity, and Compassion," In ''Compassionate Eschatology: The Future as Friend'', eds. Ted Grimsrud & Michael Hardin, 230–52 (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 251.| access-date = 3 May 2016| archive-date = 25 March 2016| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160325232147/http://www.clarion-journal.com/files/new-klager-compassionate-eschatology-with-biblioklager-1.pdf#page=25| url-status = live}}</ref> Although apokatastasis is not a dogma of the church but instead a [[wikt:theologoumenon#English|theologoumenon]], it is no less a teaching of the Orthodox Church than its rejection. As Met. Kallistos Ware explains, "It is heretical to say that all must be saved, for this is to deny free will; but, it is legitimate to hope that all may be saved,"<ref>Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Church (New York: Penguin, 1997), 262.</ref> as insisting on torment without end also denies free will.