Time to be saved?

James Turner has argued that views of purgatorial post-mortem salvation face a dilemma given how their motivating intuitions seem to intersect with the concept of Jesus’s second coming (i.e., the parousia). Namely, they can accept that some persons experience “abrupt purgation” (undermining a key reason for affirming purgation), they can posit all who are not already saved at the second coming are damned (a view which is highly distasteful to purgatory advocates), or they can deny the parousia (a position which is unorthodox). I offer a way of defusing this problem by constructing a second-chance soteriology on which persons in post-mortem purgation experience a state of psychological time dilation. In so doing, I first articulate the problem at hand before turning to relevant examples from fictional media and the neuropsychology of dreaming to support my constructive efforts. Finally, I apply this solution to a pre-existing soteriological model which already uses such resources so as to demonstrate its usefulness: namely, my compassionate exclusivist view.

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Publication Details

Journal
Agatheos :
Published
2025-05-19
DOI
https://doi.org/10.69574/aejpr.v2i1.23011
Primary Topic
Healthcare Systems and Challenges
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Time to be saved?

Aaron Davis
Agatheos :
Healthcare Systems and Challenges
article

Time to be saved?

Aaron Davis
article en

Abstract

James Turner has argued that views of purgatorial post-mortem salvation face a dilemma given how their motivating intuitions seem to intersect with the concept of Jesus’s second coming (i.e., the parousia). Namely, they can accept that some persons experience “abrupt purgation” (undermining a key reason for affirming purgation), they can posit all who are not already saved at the second coming are damned (a view which is highly distasteful to purgatory advocates), or they can deny the parousia (a position which is unorthodox). I offer a way of defusing this problem by constructing a second-chance soteriology on which persons in post-mortem purgation experience a state of psychological time dilation. In so doing, I first articulate the problem at hand before turning to relevant examples from fictional media and the neuropsychology of dreaming to support my constructive efforts. Finally, I apply this solution to a pre-existing soteriological model which already uses such resources so as to demonstrate its usefulness: namely, my compassionate exclusivist view.

Agatheos :Vol. 2(1)
University of St Andrews (GB)
Openalex Percentile: Top 82%
Healthcare Systems and Challenges
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Time to be saved? — Aaron Davis · Agatheos : (2025) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS