David Congdon, "Paul, Evangelicals & The Problem of Universalism"

David is quickly becoming a blogger that I keep returning to. Like a bad habit. Here are his thoughts about the aforementioned title. He's got a book coming out on Universalism, and he works at IVP. He's a charming fellow. Go check him out.

Congdon:

1. The Problem: Rom. 5:12-21

Few passages have exercised such a profound influence on the shape of Christian theology as Rom. 5:12-21. Moreover, as William Barclay notes, “no passage is more difficult for a modern mind to understand”[1]—though, of course, not only modern minds. The famous so-called Adam-Christ typology in these verses has vexed interpreters for centuries, particularly the universal dimension of “πάντας ἀνθρώπους” (Rom 5:12). In his treatise, “On Marriage and Concupiscence,” Augustine states that Paul does not mean “that Christ removes to life all those who die in Adam.” He then offers this interpretation:

[Paul] said “all” and “all,” because, as without Adam no one goes to death, so without Christ no man to life. Just as we say of a teacher of letters, when he is alone in a town: This man teaches all their learning; not because all the inhabitants take lessons, but because no man who learns at all is taught by any but him.[2]

Calvin, for his part, offers the standard Protestant interpretation in his commentary:

[T]he benefit of Christ does not come to all men, while Adam has involved his whole race in condemnation; and the reason of this is indeed evident; for as the curse we derive from Adam is conveyed to us by nature, it is no wonder that it includes the whole mass; but that we may come to a participation of the grace of Christ, we must be ingrafted in him by faith.[3]

Augustine and Calvin reflect the general consensus of the Christian tradition, which has insisted that passages such as Rom. 5:12-21 and 1 Cor. 15:21-22 are not to be interpreted as favoring a universal salvation.

Recently, the issue has become more acute among English-speaking Protestant evangelicals, who have been unimpressed with the options historically available to them: (1) a so-called Arminianism which locates salvation anthropologically in the free decision for Christ, and (2) a so-called Augustinianism-Calvinism which locates salvation in the decretum absolutum of double predestination. Two notable examples of this ongoing conversation include Universal Salvation? The Current Debate,[4] which takes its cue from the work of philosopher Thomas Talbott, especially his book, The Inescapable Love of God,[5] and The Evangelical Universalist,[6] a recent pseudonymous publication that seeks to offer a biblically grounded position on universal salvation. In these works, as well as in other articles, Rom. 5:12-21 is a central passage. While patristic theologians like Origen[7] and Gregory of Nyssa[8] and modern theologians like Hans Urs von Balthasar[9] are frequently mentioned, Karl Barth is often at the center of these discussions both as a theologian and as an exegete. Barth is often accused of (or praised for) being a universalist, generally with reference to his later theology post-Church Dogmatics II/2.[10] Few, however, consider Barth’s exegetical insights into Rom. 5. By first examining the arguments for and against a universalist interpretation of Rom. 5:12-21, I argue that while Barth’s interpretation of Romans does justice to the central concerns of each side in his formulation of a dialectical anthropology in the “shadow” of a “consistent eschatology,”[11] there are certain aspects to the Pauline text itself which Barth does not touch upon that are important in the debate over universalism.

Footnotes:

1. William Barclay, The Letter to the Romans (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), 78.

2. Augustine, “On Marriage and Concupiscence,” Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1.5 (New York: Christian Literature Publishing, 1886), Book II.46, 302.

3. Commentary on Rom. 5:17.

4. Robin A. Parry and Christopher H. Partridge, eds., Universal Salvation? The Current Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).

5. Thomas Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God (Parkland: Universal Publishers, 1999).

6. Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2006).

7. See Origen, On First Principles, trans. G. W. Butterworth (London: SPCK, 1936).

8. See Gregory of Nyssa, The Catechetical Oration of Gregory of Nyssa (Early Church Classics), trans. J. H. Srawley (London: SPCK, 1917); On the Soul and the Resurrection (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2.5), trans. W. Moore (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988). See also M. Ludlow, Universal Salvation: Eschatology in the Thought of Gregory of Nyssa and Karl Rahner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

9. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope ‘That all Men be Saved?’ with A Short Discourse on Hell (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988).

10. Oliver Crisp, in particular, has presented a cogent argument for why Barth’s theological positions in the Church Dogmatics necessitates universalism. Of course, on purely logical grounds, Crisp is entirely right. But of course Barth’s concern for divine sovereignty and his rejection of human logic as the highest value in theology prevents him from drawing the conclusion of universalism. See Oliver D. Crisp, “On Barth’s Denial of Universalism,” Themelios 29:1 (2003), 18-29.

11. See Bruce L. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909-1936 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 207-40. 

For my part, Romans 5 is quickly becoming the standard text by which Universalists stake their claim. Talbott offers his opening argument based on the exegesis of Romans 5, though it should be noted that Robin Parry builds his (cogent and compelling) case around Colossions 1:15-20.

Also, having just read David's opening, I'll confess that I simply don't know what to do with Romans 5. I will read through the remainder of his arguments and see what happens.

Something else I am considering (and this would have to be explained via a scholar like Parry, Talbott and Condgon) is Paul's use of 'anthropos' in Romans 5. Is he referring to simply humanity (or specifically a human being) or is it more specific? 'Anthropos' seems to have a wide lexical use, and doesn't necessarily mean the "historical" Adam. Could it just mean "human?" Or is Paul singling out the "original" human, Adam? We shall see what happens. I'm loving this so far.

Fan boy moment: I also own Barth's commentary on Romans. I shall read his section on Romans 5 and see what comes about.

For the entire post, enjoy it here.

--Nick

John Sanders, Free Will Theism & Universalism

Open Theist John Sanders engaged with Universalist Thomas Talbott in Universal Salvation? The Current Debate. I think it was a decent response to Talbott, though I wasn't necessarily convinced in regards to Sanders. Still a most able response.

Does Talbott’s view of being fully rational respect human choice adequately? Do you consider free will essential to how God made us? Does God “risk” when God makes humans and gives them free will? Or, does a libertarian sense of free will entail that God had to take risks when God made humans? Why do you think God made a world in which humans could rebel against God? Is that the best of all possible worlds? Why?


Followers of this academic debate will not be surprised to learn that Sanders doesn’t think Talbott takes freewill theory seriously enough. In the end, Sanders thinks Talbott robs choice of power because God makes conditions that virtually require, or at least necessarily entail, a choice for God.

He begins with a smaller point: Talbott’s belief that humans in heaven can’t be happy knowing the suffering of those in hell. Sanders’ big point is that we don’t know the heavenly condition or ourselves well enough to render such a judgment.

Sanders argues for a libertarian free will and that means humans could have chosen otherwise when they chose to do something. His point here is that God gives humans that kind of free will and that entails humans choosing not to respond to God. So God risks non-love and rejection when God gives humans libertarian free will. Talbott finally argues that such a libertarian free will does not describe God’s redemptive plan.

For the rest, click HERE.

--Nick

Thomas Talbott quote

‎"It is the good news that Christ has achieved a complete victory over sin and death, that there is therefore no such thing as a hopeless condition, and that the ultimate truth about the universe is glorious, not tragic."

--Thomas Talbott.

Kevin Miller, "Why I reject Free Will -- But Embrace Choice"

I've interviewed writer/director Kevin Miller for The Christian Manifesto, and I found this blog post quite interesting. Check check check it out. ;)

As regular readers of this blog know, my investigation into the doctrine of hell has made me rather skeptical of the notion of free will. That is, I find it virtually impossible to conceive of how a being that is neither omniscient nor omnipotent can ever make a choice that is not to some degree constrained by fear, ignorance, deception or bondage to self-destructive desires. Therefore, I can’t accept the idea that any of our choices are free in the sense that most people imagine them to be. Instead, I see our decisions as the product of a complex web of influences and experiences, most of which we are not consciously aware. So the notion that God would condemn anyone to an eternity in hell as punishment for decisions made under such circumstances seems the height of injustice.

Now, you might want to challenge this assertion by arguing that history offers overwhelming evidence that human beings are free to do pretty much anything their minds can dream up. For example, you might argue that I’m perfectly free to commit murder right now, just as millions of people before me have done. And I would have to agree with you that, yes, despite various hockey-related injuries, I am physically capable of taking the life of another human being at this moment. But this is where the agreement ends, because to my way of thinking, ability does not equal freedom.

Think about it: Could the decision to carry out a murder ever be considered a free choice? If so, we would have to point to someone like Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik as a paragon of freedom. But I don’t see anyone doing that. Instead, the more Breivik describes his motives, the more we realize the depth of his depraved thinking. His killing spree wasn’t an example of freedom in action. Instead, his actions merely confirm that murder is always driven by one or more of the following factors: fear, ignorance, deception, self-destructive desires or mental illness. I would argue that the same can be said for virtually any destructive or self-destructive behavior you can imagine. None of these acts are the product of a free will. Instead, they are symptomatic of a will in bondage.

A few other objections typically come up at this point:

1) If our choices aren’t free, then they aren’t actually choices. Everything we do is determined. We’re just playing out a script.

No rational person can deny the fact that human beings make choices. We make hundreds of them each day. So jettisoning the idea of free will does not require us to ditch the idea of choice. Instead, it’s a matter of asking what might be influencing or even determining our choices. Once again, I’m suggesting it’s virtually impossible to answer that question in an ultimate sense or to come up with an example of a choice that isn’t somehow constrained by fear, ignorance, deception or bondage to self-destructive desires.

Think back to the story of the Fall in Genesis, for example. The decision to eat the forbidden fruit was the direct result of deception—which was made possible by ignorance. When the serpent initially tempted Eve by casting aspersions on God’s motives, apparently she didn’t know enough about God to counter his accusations, so she trusted the serpent more than God and ate the fruit. You could also say that the serpent played on the couple’s self-destructive desire for autonomy—ironically, upon their desire to be “free” agents unconstrained by God or each other! As soon as they realized what they’d done, fear entered the picture, prompting yet more irrational behavior. Would you really want to call any of these decisions free?

Another example, one of the most important choices we ever make—the decision to get married. What motivates this decision? And what motivates the choosing of a particular spouse? At the most fundamental level I can say that you probably don’t recall choosing your sexual orientation. Instead, for as long as you can remember, you were simply attracted to one gender or the other—or in some cases, both. (And this is to say nothing about whether sexual orientation is a product of nature or nurture. Either way, the choice was out of your hands.)

Second, I can say your choice of a spouse was definitely constrained by ignorance of all the potential people you could have married—seeing as you probably didn’t take the time to speed date with every potential candidate on the face of the earth. I’m not sure if I want to comment on how fear, deception or self-destructive desires might bear on such a decision, but I’ve already demonstrated that even though this choice isn’t completely free, it’s still a real choice. You made a decision. You got married. For better or worse.

Incidentally, by rejecting free will, I’m not going to the other extreme and arguing that every choice we make is done in a state of complete bondage. Clearly, some choices are better than others. The freer you are from fear, ignorance, deception and self-destructive desires, the better your choices will be. So it’s not an either/or case here—total freedom vs. total bondage. It’s a matter of recognizing that all choices are made along a continuum of freedom. As psychologist Richard Beck puts it, rather than talk about free will vs. no free will, it’s better to think about it in terms of strong vs. weak volitional capacity.

2) If our choices aren’t free, then they don’t really matter.

Try telling that to your spouse! Even if our choices aren’t free, they still matter, because every decision we make affects not only ourselves but others as well. This is why I find abandoning the notion of free will so helpful, because instead of diminishing the consequences of our choices, it actually gives us a far greater understanding of their meaning. Rather than see ourselves as islands floating out in the middle of the ocean, we are able to dive down deep where we see that even islands connect to the mainland eventually. The appearance of separateness is merely an illusion. In the same way, we are all connected through a chain of cause-and-effect that stretches back into the past, forward into the future and in every direction in the present. There’s nothing we can do that won’t somehow enhance or disrupt the flow of energy and information across this vast web of relationships. With so much riding on every decision, there’s even more reason to ensure we are making the best possible choices—creating the best possible causes—so that our actions produce the most constructive effects. That means doing everything we can to minimize the distorting effects of fear, ignorance, deception and bondage to self-destructive desires. The less bearing those influences have on our decisions, the freer our decisions will be.

Alternatively, if you want to hold onto the notion of yourself as a free agent—an “un-caused cause,” so to speak—then you’re really seeking the same thing Adam and Eve were after when they ate the forbidden fruit. You’re also arguing that you can make decisions that are completely independent of your history and your environment—in other words, decisions that are completely isolated from the two biggest shapers of your identity. That hardly seems rational, because what exactly is motivating those choices then?

Also, seeing as you’re arguing that you are capable of making choices that are completely independent of your history and environment, then everyone else must be in the same boat. That means you also have to argue that your choices couldn’t possibly influence or determine the behavior of others, which is essentially a denial of reality.

3) If our choices aren’t free, then we don’t bear any responsibility for them.

I’ll concede this objection in part, but only to prove a larger point. It’s true that once we begin to see ourselves not as autonomous agents acting independent of our environment but as interconnected nodes in a vast network of influences, the notion of holding individuals solely responsible for their behavior begins to break down. Instead, we start to see sick individuals as the product of a sick system. This isn’t to excuse individual acts of deviance. It seems reasonable to hold those closest to the deviant act most responsible for the deviant behavior. But I fear we have gone too far in the opposite direction, where our entire legal apparatus has become a systematic denial of responsibility for the welfare of our fellow human. When someone commits a crime, rather than ask how our actions or indifference may have helped create an environment conducive to the deviant behavior, we focus almost exclusively on seeking retribution against the offender. By vilifying individuals, we can conveniently look past our own moral failings, which pale in comparison to the monstrous behavior of the offender, thus enhancing our sense of self-righteousness.

This leads us back to the traditional Western doctrine of hell. Rather than recognize the interconnectedness of humankind and the complexity of causation that goes into each and every decision, it seems to be premised on the notion that human beings are isolated monads who will be held solely responsible for their actions in some eternal sense. As I’ve sought to demonstrate above, such a doctrine is very difficult to square with reason and experience. And that should motivate us to ask whether or not we’ve interpreted the Bible correctly on these matters.

As I’ve no doubt illustrated more than once, I’m not much of a philosopher, but I do recognize a good argument when I see one. Perhaps the best version of the argument I’ve tried to make above is put forward by philosopher Eric Reitan in the book Universal Salvation? The Current Debate. Eric’s contribution is called “Human Freedom and the Impossibility of Eternal Damnation,” and its by far the best rebuttal of the free will defense of hell I’ve ever read. I can’t recommend this book or Eric’s chapter enough, so I’ll leave you with a taste to whet your appetite:

In order for a choice to qualify as truly free, the person making the choice needs two things: First, a full and adequate understanding of the nature of the choice (as [Thomas] Talbott puts it, freedom from all ignorance and deception); second, freedom from any bondage to desire (more precisely, bondage to sinful desires that the person is powerless to resist). But anyone who understands the options and is free from bondage to desire would have no more motive to reject God’s offer, and every motive to accept it. Furthermore, we never freely choose what we have no motive to choose and every motive not to choose. Hence, it is incoherent to speak of someone freely choosing damnation. Anyone who does choose damnation must therefore lack genuine freedom. God could save them by removing their ignorance, deception or bondage to desire—thereby restoring (not interfering with) their freedom.

Miller/Hellbound?

Check out the entire book of Universal Salvation. Eric Reitan and Jerry Wall's responses to Talbott, and his concluding remarks in return are worth their weight in the $19 I paid for them. Of course, reading Marshall and Talbott spare was a treat as well.

--Nick

Scot McKnight, "Top Five Most Influential Books"

Mine are in no particular order:

1) The Inescapable Love of God by Thomas Talbott


Thomas Talbott's ability to make an exegetical and logical case for trinitarian exclusive universalism that leave room for a will that could be free is refreshing. A very logically concise and rigorous example of an evangelical universalist who deals with proof-texts and actively engages with those who disagree with him.

2) The Coming of God by Jurgen Moltmann


As Talbott is logical and philosophical, Moltmann is very Eastern in his thinking. He writes as if he is telling a very grand story that is far beyond anything you've ever heard. His background as a drafted German soldier experiencing hell in prison camps and him saying "Jesus found him" is not only a powerful example of God's sovereignty, but also God's desire to be all in all. An intimate and powerful case for universalism. 

3) Man and Woman, One in Christ by Philip B. Payne


I was raised Complementarian, and this book certainly helped changed my mind on the entire issue. Payne spends countless pages addressing each counter-example, using his experience in textual criticism and detailed exegesis, leaving no stone unturned. His findings on I Corinthians 14 are unprecedented, and he has indeed shown me that it is very reasonable to be an Egalitarian. Of which I proudly am. 

4) Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard


Most people put Mere Christianity here. When I first read MC at Biola, I was going through a pretty rough time spiritually, and found MC trite. This is not to suggest that MC *is* trite, but after rereading it several times, I didn't find much of it compelling. However picking up F&T did indeed offer a different way of looking at things. That is the strength of Kierkegaard. 

5) God At War by Gregory A. Boyd


If one is looking for not only a holistic take on atonement, theodicy and God's foreknowledge, look no further. Boyd tackles all three in this weighty book, which reads like a textbook filled with mythological battles. His use of Scripture is compelling, his belief in Christus Victor has given me much food for thought, and even his "open" view of God has shown to be reasonable, even if I don't believe in it.

Jesus Creed/ Top 5

McKnight's top five are:

Martin Buber, I and Thou
Augustine, Confessions
Dante, Divine Comedy
John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship

Which books make your top 5? Excluding the good book, of course.

--Nick

George MacDonald, "The God Revealed in Jesus Christ"

This article was offered for free by author Thomas Talbott on his website. It is from the anthology "All Shall be Well; Explorations in Universal Salvation and Theology, From Origen to Moltmann," edited by Robin Parry (or Gregory MacDonald, as he was known).

This post will cover pages nine through thirteen, and continue in the essay written by Thomas Talbott on my favorite deceased theologian, George MacDonald.

Universal Salvation in the Theology of George MacDonald (1824-1905) by Thomas Talbott

Now if, according to MacDonald, Jesus Christ is the very revelation of God to us, just what is the nature of the God he reveals? In a sermon entitled “The Creation in Christ,” MacDonald asked: “Now what is the deepest in God?”27 That is, what is the most basic attribute of divinity, the one that explains God‘s most basic reasons for acting? It could not be his power because having the power to do something could never, by itself, provide a reason to do it. Neither does having the power to do something exclude the possibility of doing it for a selfish or even for a demonic reason. So, because Jesus himself described God as our “Father in heaven,” because his entire message, as MacDonald understood it, was one of love and forgiveness, and because I John 4:8 & 16 declares twice that God not only loves but is love, MacDonald likewise wrote: “In one word, God is Love. Love is the deepest depth, the essence of his nature, at the root of all his being. . . . His perfection is his love. All his divine rights rest upon his love.”28 But if it is indeed God‘s nature to love, how then should we understand his holiness and justice? Are not these also attributes of God? People sometimes say, as if it were an illuminating remark, that God is not only loving and merciful, but also just; they then exhort us to take into account God‘s justice, as well as his love, and to avoid an overly sentimental understanding of his love. According to MacDonald, however, God‘s justice is itself an expression of his love and, beyond that, his justice and mercy are exactly the same attribute. Nor was MacDonald‘s understanding of God‘s perfecting love, which a sinner might sometimes experience as wrath, harsh judgment, or even a temporary hardening of a heart, even remotely sentimental.

“I believe that justice and mercy are simply one and the same thing; without justice to the full there can be no mercy, and without mercy to the full there can be no justice; that such is the mercy of God that he will hold his children in the consuming fire of his distance until they pay the uttermost farthing, until they drop the purse of selfishness with all the dross that is in it, and rush home to the Father and the Son, and the many brethren—rush inside the centre of the life-giving fire whose outer circles burn. I believe that no hell will be lacking which would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children.”29

So God is not, in other words, a split personality whose justice pushes him in one direction and whose mercy pushes him in another. In order to illustrate the point, MacDonald chose, as a text for his sermon entitled “Justice,” the King James translation of Psalm 62:12: “Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy; for thou renderest to every man according to his work.” He then pointed out that, given the prevailing Calvinist theology of his day, one would have expected this text to read very differently, something like: “Also unto thee, O Lord, belongs justice; for thou renders to everyone according to his or her work.” But if MacDonald was right about justice and mercy (and the Calvinists of his day were mistaken), then it matters not which term one might choose. For the two resulting statements are, if not synonymous, at least logically equivalent, and so both are true if either one is true.30 MacDonald might also have pointed to a text such as Isaiah 30:18, according to which God‘s mercy expresses his justice: “Therefore the Lord wants to be gracious to you; . . . he will rise up and show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice.” Or he might have pointed to the eleventh chapter of Romans, which explicitly teaches that God‘s severity towards the disobedient, his judgment of sin, and even his temporary hardening of a heart all express his boundless mercy. The point is that, according to explicit teachings in the Bible, God‘s justice and mercy both require exactly the same thing, namely, an absolute destruction of sin and the separation of every sinner from it.

This single move, that of affirming an identity between divine justice and divine mercy, strikes at the very heart of Calvinism as a system of theology. Many Christians who might reject MacDonald‘s universalism—Arminians, Roman Catholics, and other freewill theists—can nonetheless accept such an identity, but a Calvinist cannot. You cannot consistently affirm a doctrine of limited election (much less that of limited atonement) unless you suppose that God deals “justly” with some people—namely, the non-elect—without being merciful to them. In defense of limited atonement, therefore, the Calvinist philosopher Paul Helm has argued that mercy differs from justice in just this respect: By its very nature mercy must be supererogatory, an expression of undeserved love, and hence cannot rest upon a moral necessity of any kind. “What is essential to such [undeserved] love is it could, consistently with all else that God is, be withheld by him. If God cannot but exercise mercy as he cannot but exercise justice then its character as mercy vanishes. If God has to exercise mercy as he has to exercise justice then such ‘mercy‘ would not be mercy [i.e. would not be undeserved love]. . . . A justice that could be unilaterally waved would not be justice, and a mercy which could not be unilaterally waved would not be mercy.”31

Now the first thing to observe about such an argument is that it is not a biblical argument at all; that is, it does not rest upon the interpretation of some biblical text or combination of texts. It is instead a quasi-philosophical argument of a kind that MacDonald encountered repeatedly and always rejected on the ground that it rests upon an utterly pagan understanding of justice and mercy.32 The easiest response would be to make Helm a present of the word “mercy” and then simply to replace it with any one of the following: “beneficence,” “kindness,” “compassion,” or even “pity.” One could then note the absurdity of the following claim: “If, given his essential attributes, God cannot but exercise beneficence [kindness, compassion, or pity] as he cannot but exercise justice, then its character as beneficence vanishes.” And, finally, one could point out that Romans 11 culminates in the statement: “For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful [or beneficent] to all.”33 As I have suggested elsewhere, the basic Pauline concept here, typically “translated in our English Bibles with the word ‘mercy,‘ is not that of undeserved love at all. It is instead that of beneficence, kindness, compassion, or pity. It has in view not the setting aside of a just punishment, as Helm supposes, but the relief of misery or distress.”34 In fact, MacDonald himself rejected as absurd the whole idea of God withholding a deserved punishment from someone. For if divine justice and mercy are the very same attribute, then God withholds a deserved punishment only if he withholds his mercy as well.

Behind the widespread idea that God‘s mercy is supererogatory lies the more general absurdity that, even as our Creator, God owes us nothing in our so-called fallen state; in particular, he has no obligation (no responsibility grounded in necessity) to save sinners. But MacDonald rejected that view as patently absurd. For just as the decision to have children entails an obligation to care and to provide for them, however disobedient they may become, so God‘s decision to create us entailed a freely accepted obligation to meet our true spiritual needs. MacDonald thus exclaimed:

Away with the thought that God could have been a perfect, an adorable creator, doing anything less than he has done for his children! . . . The idea that God would be God all the same, as glorious as he needed to be, had he not taken upon himself the divine toil of bringing home his wandered children, had he done nothing to seek and save the lost, is false as hell. Lying for God could go no farther. As if the idea of God admitted of his being less than he is, less than perfect, less than all-inall, less than Jesus Christ! less than Love absolute, less than entire unselfishness! . . . It will be answered that we have fallen, and God is thereby freed from any obligation, if any ever were. It is but another lie. No amount of wrongdoing in a child can ever free a parent from the divine necessity of doing all he can to deliver his child.35

So here, once again, we see how MacDonald‘s vision of God‘s all-pervasive love so inflamed his imagination that he found much of the Western theological tradition, insofar as it departs from a consistent expression of it, deeply offensive.

--Nick

Footnotes:

27 “The Creation in Christ.”  In Unspoken Sermons, 420.

28 Ibid., 421.

29 “Justice.” In Unspoken Sermons , 535.

30 Two statements need not be synonymous in order to be logically equivalent. For example, “The triangle on the board is equilateral” and “The triangle on the board is equiangular” are not synonymous statements. But they are logically equivalent. It is necessarily true that both are true if either one is true.

31 Helm, “The Logic of Limited Atonement,” 50.

32 There are in fact powerful exegetical arguments in support of MacDonald‘ s contention here. For an exceptionally careful study of how the translation of the Hebrew Bible into the Septuagint and the subsequent translation of the Septuagint into the Latin Vulgate distorted the Hebrew understanding of justice and drove an unwarranted wedge between justice and mercy, see McGrath, “Justice and Justification”; for a discussion that non-specialists might find somewhat more accessible, see Brinsmead, “The Scandal of God‘s Justice: Part 1”; and for an exhaustive review of the biblical evidence, see Marshall, Beyond Retribution, chapter 2: “The Justice of God in Paul and Jesus.”

33 Rom 11:32.

34 See Talbott, “Grace, Character Formation,and Predestination unto Glory,” 22.

35 “The Voice of Job.” In Unspoken Sermons , 340, 342– 43.

Keith DeRose, "Universalism, Hope & The Hitler Types"

Keith has given us another interesting post. I quite liked it.

Enjoy.

"Lord," Ananias answered, "I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem..."

I'm taking the phrase "the Hitler types" from a post by Richard Mouw (my former teacher at Calvin College: as if there weren't enough Calvin connections in this series!). You may want to read Mouw's whole post, but to set the context for the bit about Hitler, Mouw has stated clearly that he is not a universalist, and in explaining his position, he seems to have indicated that he agrees with Rob Bell that people who choose hell will get it, when he writes:

And I certainly do believe that some folks choose that hell. The Hitler types. The man who kidnaps young girls and sells them into sexual slavery. They are well on their way to hell, to becoming inhuman monsters. To be sure, as the hymn rightly reminds us: "The vilest offender who truly believes/ that moment from Jesus a pardon receives." But for those who persist in their wicked ways, eternal separation is the natural outcome of all the choices they have made along the way.

And many have (especially recently) expressed finding it especially difficult to believe that the likes of Hitler (or Tony Soprano, in the case of an odd opinion piece in the NYTimes by Russ Douthat!) might make it to heaven. Why? Well, the most natural explanation for the special problem here would be that these "Hitler types" are especially bad. Picking up on that, together with Mouw's later-expressed openness to hope that people might be able to accept Christ after death, one colorful comment to Mouw's post reads:

But then, you do affirm hell to be a real place, sir. Full of those "Hitler types" and pedophiles. As for the rest of us gossips, slanderers, and adulterers of the heart, things are looking up. Turns out, God is a God of multiple chances. In this life, and the next.

I don't think Mouw's special problem with Hitler types going to heaven is directly that they are just too bad to make it in. Mouw does after all immediately go on to indicate his agreement with the hymn that even the "vilest offenders" can be pardoned, so if there are chances after death (which I don't read Mouw as necessarily endorsing, but as at least hoping for and not ruling out), it would seem possible that even the vilest offenders might have a chance. My guess is that Mouw's thinking is that the "Hitler types" are especially unlikely to turn to Jesus, even if they do get the chance to do so after death: They are very solidly in the "choosing hell" column now, and there's little reason to think they won't continue to be so.

And so, certain individuals are thought to be especially problematic for universalism. The main reason for thinking they don't wipe out hope (or so it seems to me) is that we know already from this life that even the most dramatic turnarounds are possible - and we get a pretty good example of such a turnaround in Acts in the case of Saul/Paul, who seems to have been a bit of a "Hitler type"--the "chief of sinners" to use his own (translated) way of expressing that he was "the vilest offender." (It is perhaps no coincidence that the best scriptural grounds for thinking that Christ's act of righteousness actually might lead to acquittal and life for all people are from the writings of one who had been something of a Hitler type himself before being redeemed.) My response in my on-line defense of universalism: "We know that some in this life have been only been moving further and further away from accepting Christ. And some people can be very obstinate. And some have become incredibly evil in this life. But, on the other hand, even in this short life, we all know of instances in which people having all three of these problems to a great degree who were brought around and were saved. So, again, I see no grounds for pessimism that an infinitely resourceful God, who is able to take as much time as He needs, will be able to win over everyone eventually." Of course, I am here supposing that God's ability to save people continues after their death, and that God does indeed desire that all people will be saved, but given those assumptions, which seem correct to me, I see little reason to give up hope here. (And without those assumptions, hopelessness seems to spread far beyond the Hitler types, so I'm seeing not much of a special problem in these cases.)

Victims and (perhaps even more so) the loved ones of victims of cruel and horrible evils may find the idea of the perpetrators of these evils ever escaping hell revolting. (And I imagine that some of the loved ones of some of the worst abuses of Saul's might have found it difficult to hope for his salvation.) This of course doesn't apply to all of the victims or loved ones of victims: some are astoundingly gracious about this. (A wonderful example of someone adopting a gracious point of view is given in this account of a 9/11 survivor.) Those of us who hold that or hope that even the perpetrators of the worst evils of this world may eventually be reconciled with their victims & with God should recognize that the resistance some people feel to such a view and to such a hope can be coming from a good place -- concern for the victims and for justice -- even as we think this resistance is somehow ultimately wrong. And while we may hold that joining God in hoping or desiring that all people will be saved is some kind of ideal, we should at the same time recognize that in our messy world, not all cases of adopting this hope would be changes for the better: For some who don't hold this hope, some of the nearest versions of themselves who do hold such a hope may do so because they are not as concerned for those who have suffered. We certainly don't want to encourage them to become such versions of themselves.

I strongly encourage those of an opposite point of view to take a similar attitude. If you for instance think that all who fail to accept Christ before death will suffer eternal conscious torment, and you think that this is made clear enough that in some good sense we should not even hope for a better fate for them, you may think that in some sense not hoping for, say, the wellbeing of a deceased loved one is some kind of ideal. (This way of thinking seems very alien to me, but that's not surprising: the differences in points of view here are very great.) But you can still recognize that those who hold such a hope may be coming from a very good place, and that in our messy world, not all cases of abandoning such hope would be changes for the better.

DeRose/ Prosblogion Blog

You can find Thomas Talbott commenting on purgatory and other things in the comments section. A valuable resource.

--Nick

Is Rob Bell a Universalist?

No.

It's been over a year, so I figured addressing this would be a nice circular return to form.

He's an Arminian inclusivist who believes in the possibility of post-mortem salvation, and hopes that all people will be saved. Universalism seems to demand a specific level of certainty. Meaning all will eventually be saved. Keith DeRose contacted me and offered a unique and challenging perspective, in that "hopeful" universalism seems to be a personal preference or feeling, rather than an objective view of the data.

Instead of certain, I offer "highly probably" universalism as the best way to define "certain" universalism. "Hopeful" universalism will be termed "possible" universalism from this point forth.

I think Thomas Talbott, Eric Reitan, Robin Parry, Jurgen Moltmann, George MacDonald and Keith DeRose are "highly probable" universalists.

I think Rob Bell is not a universalist, but he believes it is possible. Possibility does not seem to grant universalism. It merely presents it as an option. That is all Rob Bell did. Presented an option and stepped back.

Rob Bell is not certain of whether or not all will be saved. He has said that the afterlife in regards to heaven/hell is speculative. But he hopes all will be saved, and he is open to think it is possible. But he is not certain, and since he cannot be certain, to tag him with the label is simply incorrect. Most "highly probable" universalists will correct you on the label as well.

No need to read anymore into his book. If you want universalism, read the above mentioned gentlemen. Besides Rob Bell, of course. The literature offered by the above gentlemen (particularly Moltmann and MacDonald) is quite compelling.

Arminian.

Inclusivist.

Postmortem salvation.

And I think only one of those labels (arminian/inclusivist/postmortem salvation) is incorrect. I'll be like Bell and maintain some level of certain cheekiness by not saying which one.

And

That's

How

This

Blog

Post

Ends.

--Nick

Why Would Christian Universalists be Motivated to Evangelize?

I post this not because I agree with everything in the essay (for one, I'm not a liberal Christian), but because I sat and thought about it for over 30 minutes. Anything that gives me pause to think is worth having others think over. I appreciate Eric's response.

The other day I received an e-mail from one of my students. As I finished writing my response, it occurred to me that readers of this blog might be interested in it. And so I’m including the relevant pieces of the exchange in this post. 

Here’s the question my student asked: 

I started to read Thomas Talbott's book The Inescapable love of God, and wanted to ask you something. Most Christians seek to convert others out of a desire to save them. As a universalist, would you still be concerned with saving and also converting other people? If so, what are you saving them from? Unlike most evangelists who claim to save the potential Christian from hellfire, a universalist would not be worried about eternal damnation. It seems then, the motivation for evangelism is at least partially removed by removing the fear/threat of eternal damnation. Unless you believe in some form of original sin, you wouldn't be saving the person from their depravity either. Perhaps you would be offering them the chance to a better, more fulfilled life. It seems the motivation for a universalist would be positive; trying to make someone’s life better whereas to others it would be more focused on saving them from Hell (removing a negative consequence). What are your thoughts? I know this might be personal, so you don't have to respond to this. But as a Universalist yourself, do you have a motivation and if so, what is your motivation, for “seeking souls” (so to speak)? 

Here is my [Eric's] reply: 

Speaking for myself, I have very little invested in converting people to Christianity (although I do have a great interest in convincing people who think otherwise that there are versions of Christianity that can be embraced by reasonable and morally decent people). That said, Christian universalists might experience an evangelical calling for several reasons. I can think of four off the top of my head. 

(1) The first is the one you touch on in your comment. Specifically, Christian universalists might believe that there are positive life benefits (in terms of subjective life satisfaction or happiness, and in terms of resources for moral improvement) that are possible in this life if and only if one opens oneself up in this life to the kind of relationship with God that Christianity claims has been made available through Christ's life and work. Desiring others to enjoy these benefits here and now, Christian universalists might take on an evangelical mission.

(2) They might believe that, while the salvation of all is inevitable, this is not because they don't think there is a subjective requirement for salvation but because they think it is inevitable that all will eventually come to meet this requirement. So, they may think that enjoying the blessings of union with God is only possible for those who have chosen to open themselves up to those blessings--and while it is certain that all will eventually open themselves up in the relevant way, those who do not do so by the time of their death will exist after death in a state of alienation from God that can only bring increasing misery the longer that it lasts (a finite "hell," if you will). These universalists might believe that the effort of human evangelists is one of God's means for hastening the salvation of all, and so feel it is their calling to be God's agents in this way. In the absence of those efforts, they might think that more people will experience the "hell" of alienation from God for a longer period of time before realizing their error and turning to God.

(3) In its original meaning "evangelist" means "good messenger." To evangelize is to share good news ("gospel" means "good news"). In the Christian context, the good news is typically taken to be that God loves us all with an unwavering love and that, on account of Christ, we have been forgiven all our transgressions. In short, it's not about conversion at all, but about declaring good news as widely as possible. In this sense, the motivation for evangelism is, at least in part, the same sort of motivation that would impel someone to call everyone they know as soon as they learn that their child has been cured of leukemia. They want to share their joy at this wonderful news. But in the case of the Christian gospel, the news also seems to be of a sort with beneficial pragmatic implications for those it is being shared with. If people are hunkering down in their cellars waiting for enemy planes to fly overhead and drop bombs, the news that the enemy has been defeated will mean that people can come out of their hidey-holes. In such a case, running through the streets shouting out the good news is not merely motivated by a desire to share a personal joy but to let people know that they no longer need to burden themselves in a particular set of ways.

(4) Christian universalists might be convinced that the Christian worldview makes the most sense of human experience, that it fits the pieces of our experience together into the most coherent whole, as well as offering pragmatic resources for living better lives. In other words, they might be convinced that by the most plausible ways of measuring the truth of a worldview, some variant of Christianity comes out as the worldview most likely to be true. In this case, what might motivate them is the same kind of thing that presumably motivates Dawkins to preach atheism--a belief that one has the truth (or at least the most rational worldview) combined with the belief that it's just good in itself if more people believe the truth (the most rational thing).

Let me dwell for just a moment on (1). My own thinking with respect to (1) is that what has the pragmatic benefits is not belief in Christian doctrine as such, but rather a certain kind of attitude of openness to being moved and transformed by a good greater than oneself. While the Christian narrative can inspire the relevant kind of openness, it doesn't always do so. In my judgment it depends a great deal on just how the story is told—and versions of the story that emphasize hellfire seem to me to be less effective in this respect. It also depends on the life history of an individual. Some have had such a poisonous relationship with Christianity that even the best versions of the story evoke all the psychological crud laid down by that relationship. In that case it is likely that the greatest pragmatic benefits will come from a different narrative altogether, one which hasn't been poisoned. And my experience (with friends who are Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, agnostics, religious naturalists, etc.) is that many different narratives can be effective in evoking the relevant attitude of openness. Again, it depends on just how the story is told. So, believing Christian teachings is neither necessary nor sufficient for bringing about the kind of openness to being transformed that, I think, has the clearest pragmatic value. 
I also think this openness will have to be the primary subjective component to any defensible view of eternal salvation--a fact which has clear implications for my understanding of (2). While I have thoughts on (3) and (4) as well, I suspect my arguments in my book and on my blog make my views on (4) pretty clear, and my thoughts on (3) would probably take awhile to formulate precisely. So I'll leave it at that for now.

Eric teaches philosophy at Oklahoma State University, and has written "Is God a Delusion" and "God's Final Victory: A Comparative Philosophical Case for Universalism." He has also contributed to "Universal Salvation? The Current Debate" with several other authors such as Thomas Talbott, Daniel Strange, and I. Howard Marshall.

For the original post and the subsequent discussion, Reitan's post.

--Nick

C.S. Lewis & George MacDonald, "The Nature of Christian Faith" part II

This article was offered for free by author Thomas Talbott on his website. It is from the anthology "All Shall be Well; Explorations in Universal Salvation and Theology, From Origen to Moltmann," edited by Robin Parry (or Gregory MacDonald, as he was known).

This post will cover pages four through nine, and continue in the essay written by Thomas Talbott on my favorite deceased theologian, George MacDonald.

Universal Salvation in the Theology of George MacDonald (1824-1905) by Thomas Talbott

Although MacDonald was never shy about challenging the prevailing theological doctrines of his day, sometimes with a surprising degree of harshness, he also denied that the proper purpose of teaching was to persuade others to conform their thinking to the teacher‘s own thinking. Instead, the sole purpose should be to acquaint people with the living Christ of the New Testament. As MacDonald himself put it: "I believe that no teacher should strive to make men think as he thinks, but [should instead strive] to lead them to the living Truth, to the Master himself, of whom alone they can learn anything, who will make them in themselves know what is true by the very seeing of it. I believe that the inspiration of the Almighty alone gives understanding. I believe that to be the disciple of Christ is the end of being; that to persuade men to be his disciples is the end of teaching."(13)

These words also illustrate the extent to which MacDonald adopted a Christocentric approach to revelation. Like Karl Barth whom he anticipated in this regard, he seems to have distinguished sharply between the incarnate Word of God, which is the light (or the true revelation) that comes into the world and enlightens every person, and the words of any human witness, such as John the Baptist, who might testify to the light.(14) As the incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ is the ultimate and final revelation from God, and everything else, including everything else in the Bible, must be interpreted in light of this ultimate and final revelation that, sooner or later, will enlighten every person. Faith is simply the obedient response to this revelation, and, as such, it can also be a reliable source of knowledge under the right conditions. In that one respect, at least, MacDonald‘s understanding of faith was similar to that of John Calvin, whose overall theology he passionately rejected. For even as Calvin held that "the only true faith is that which the Spirit of God seals in our hearts,"(15) so MacDonald held that "the inspiration of the Almighty alone gives understanding"; and even as Calvin held that certain convictions sealed in our hearts by the Spirit of God are "self-authenticating," so MacDonald held that "the Master" enables us to "know what is true by the very seeing of it."

By faith, for example, "we understand that the world was created by the word of God"(16) and we can know this, furthermore, without having to infer it from other propositions or from some body of evidence. Or, to express the point in a way familiar to contemporary philosophers, at least some of the truths known by faith are properly basic in Alvin Plantinga‘s sense.(17) In no way, however, did MacDonald identify saving faith with the possession of correct doctrine. Faith may be a source of knowledge, but it just is an obedient heart or a disposition to obey; and it "is the one terrible heresy of the church," MacDonald lamented, "that it has always been presenting something else than obedience as faith in Christ."(18) In particular, Christians too often confuse faith in Christ with an acceptance of certain theories or abstract doctrines about his nature and work, and they just as often confuse an absence of "correct" doctrine with an absence of faith. But like Kierkegaard, MacDonald held that an acceptance of correct doctrine is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition of saving faith.

It is not a sufficient condition, because accepting a particular theory carries no guarantee of obedience; and besides, "to hold a thing with the intellect," he insisted, "is not [even] to believe it [in the relevant sense]. A man‘s real belief is that which he lives by."(19) And neither is an acceptance of correct doctrine a necessary condition of saving faith, because one can have an obedient heart, a willingness to submit to the "true light, which enlightens everyone,"(20) without giving assent to any particular theory about the nature of Jesus Christ and his redemptive work. MacDonald even went so far as to suggest that an atheist might be closer to the Kingdom of God than a professing Christian: "It is better to be an atheist who does the will of God, than a so-called Christian who does not. . . . The doing of things from duty is but a stage on the road to the kingdom of truth and love."(21)Indeed, our theological opinions and theories, however correct they may be, might be the very thing that prevents us "from being Christians. For when you say that, to be saved, a man must hold this or that [theory], then are you leaving the living God and his will, and putting trust in some notion [such as a theory of atonement] about him or his will."(22) But our task, MacDonald contended, is simply to follow in obedience the one who died on our behalf and rose again in triumph; it is not to haggle over humanly devised theories about the way in which the death and resurrection of Christ successfully reconciles us to God.

Accordingly, a set of incorrect theological opinions, honestly and humbly held, could no more condemn someone than a set of correct opinions, held apart from a transformed heart, could successfully save someone. But if that is true, then in what sense, exactly, is faith also a source of knowledge? MacDonald‘s rather nuanced answer includes an appeal to Philippians 3:15–16, wherein Paul wrote: "Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything [my emphasis] this too God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained." Commenting on this text, MacDonald wrote: "Observe what widest conceivable scope is given by the apostle to honest opinion, even in things of grandest import!—the one only essential point with him is, that whereto we have attained, what we have seen to be true, we walk by that."(23) So faith (or an obedient heart) is indeed, MacDonald contended, the principle instrument through which God imparts spiritual understanding and a knowledge of himself. But whatever light now dawns in our understanding, whatever ultimate truths we now discern (however faintly), and whatever obligations we now acknowledge, we must allow that to penetrate our hearts and to transform us. We must, in other words, own up to whatever light we have. When we follow that light in obedience and thereby submit to it, the Spirit will inevitably enable us to see farther and wider.

We thus approach what I (and many others) have found to be the single most refreshing aspect of MacDonald‘s approach to religion. He recognized that we must all proceed from where we now are in our respective spiritual journeys, and he saw no virtue in trying to suppress honest doubt or in ignoring moral qualms concerning, say, a widely accepted interpretation of the Bible. Such bad faith, as he saw it, is the very antithesis of a genuine faith in Christ. "Do not try to believe anything," he thus exhorted, "that affects you as darkness. Even if you mistake and refuse something true thereby, you will do less wrong to Christ by such a refusal than you would by accepting as his what you can see only as darkness."(24) Granted, what a given person sees as darkness at a particular time may depend on a host of cultural and individual factors, perhaps even on a confusion of one kind or another. Even MacDonald‘s own teachings, he would have acknowledged, may affect some as darkness. But with respect to any genuine revelation from God, it "is impossible," he believed, that "you are seeing a true, a real thing—seeing it as it is, I mean—if it looks to you darkness."(25)

Imagine yourself, by way of illustration, a simple peasant with no knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, little knowledge of the Bible‘s historical background, and no access to scholarly works on the Bible. Imagine further that, even though you believe in your heart that racism and slavery are terrible evils, you should find yourself utterly unable to refute, exegetically, your pastor‘s racist interpretation of the curse of Ham or his appeal to Paul in support of institutional slavery. And imagine, finally, that your pastor should then play his trump card: an appeal to original sin in an effort to knock you off your moral convictions, as if sin would more likely corrupt your deeply rooted moral convictions than it would his interpretation of Scripture. How should you then respond in the face of your pastor‘s seemingly superior knowledge of the Scriptures and his injunction to bow humbly before them (as he interprets them, of course)? MacDonald‘s counsel on such matters was clear: Hold on to your moral convictions, treat them as part of the light that the Word of God has brought into the world, and do not "let your cowardly conscience receive any word as light because another calls it light, while it looks to you dark. Say either the thing is not what it seems, or God never said or did it. But, of all evils, to misinterpret what God does, and then say the thing as interpreted must be right because God does it, is of the devil."(26)

To be continued.

--Nick

Footnotes:
12 "The Child in the Midst." In Unspoken Sermons, 15. Unspoken Sermons was originally published in three series in 1867, 1885, and 1889 in London by Longmans, Green & Co.
13 MacDonald, "Justice." In Unspoken Sermons , 536.
14 See John 1:1– 9. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations from the Bible will be from the New Revised Standard Version copyrighted in 1989 by the National Council of Churches in the United States of America.
15 Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion , Bk. 1, Ch. viii, Sec. 5.
16 Heb 11:3.
17 See Plantinga, "Warranted Christian Belief", ch. 8. According to Plantinga, ―gospel truths resemble self "evident propositions" in the same respect that "perceptual and memory beliefs" resemble them. That is, "They are evident, but don‘t get their evidence from other propositions; they have their evidence in themselves (and not by way of inference from other propositions" (Ibid., 262). 

18 "The Truth in Jesus." In Unspoken Sermons , 393.
19 Ibid., 390.
20 John 1:9.
21 MacDonald, Paul Faber, Surgeon , 25.
22 "The Truth in Jesus." In Unspoken Sermons , 390– 91.
23 Ibid., 410.
24 From Rolland Hein‘s edited version of "Light" in George MacDonald: Creation in Christ, 42. I choose this edited version because MacDonald‘s use of "thee," "thou," "thy," and some older linguistic forms in the paragraph from which the quotation is lifted could be distracting to some readers.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.

Robin Parry's "All Shall be Well," a review

Howdy folks. For those looking for a historical perspective on the Christians who believed in Universal Salvation, look no further. This is the definitive book.

And here is a review of it.

Theological Scribbles

--Nick

Universalism and Judgment: Giving Texts Priority

I love McKnight. He delves into the fray of the judgment/all texts in regards to universalism and eternal torment and asks some very provocative questions:

"On a flight recently I was reading a book about hell, and one of the chapters was devoted to examining the so-called “universalism” texts in Paul’s letters. Sometimes Paul says things like “As in Adam all die, so in Christ all are made alive.” The issue is how “all” that “all” is! What I observed is that the author focused on showing that the “all” didn’t really mean “all.” This, undoubtedly, is the traditional view in the church. 

But it got me to pondering this question: Why do we use the judgment/hell texts to trump the “all” texts? Why don’t we use the “all” texts to trump the hell texts? This is a question about method today, and not a question about which one to believe. I’m curious what you think about the proper method: How do we know which group of texts has the priority? What criteria do we use to choose between the two? 

Is it as easy to say “all” doesn’t mean all as it is to say “in the end salvation will conquer all” (after the judgment, after hell)? How do we decide?"

McKnight lists about a dozen of texts in the post, and I post there here as well. What do we do when we're stuck at an impass?

Universalism Texts

John 12:32: And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Acts 3:21: Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.

Romans 5:18: Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.

Romans 11:32: For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

1 Cor 15:22-28: ²² For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. ²³ But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. ²⁴ Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷ For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. ²⁸ When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

2 Cor 5:19: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

Phil 2:9-11: ⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

1 Tim 2:4: who [God] wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Titus 2:11: For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.

Heb 2:9: But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

1 John 2:2: He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

2 Peter 3:9: The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

Judgment/Eternal Hell Passages

John 3:18: Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

John 3:36: Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

John 5:29: and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.

Acts 28:24-27:

²⁴ Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe. ²⁵ They disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul had made this final statement: “The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your ancestors when he said through Isaiah the prophet:
²⁶ “‘Go to this people and say,
“You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.”
²⁷ For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’

Romans 2:5-12
⁵ But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. ⁶ God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” ⁷ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. ⁸ But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. ⁹ There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; ¹⁰ but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹¹ For God does not show favoritism.
¹² All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.

1 Cor 6:9-10: ⁹ Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men ¹⁰ nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Hebrews 10:26-31: ²⁶ If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, ²⁷ but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. ²⁸ Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? ³⁰ For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” ³¹ It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

2 Peter 2:9-10
⁹ if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. ¹⁰ This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority.
Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse on celestial beings…

Rev 20:10-15: ¹⁰ And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. ¹¹ Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. ¹² And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. ¹³ The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. ¹⁴ Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. ¹⁵ Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

Thoughts?

Jesus Creed -- Giving Texts Priority

--Nick