A Short meditation

As a brief biographical reflection, the book that (in human terms) finally tipped me over into returning to the Christian faith from atheism was Robert Short’s The Bible According to Peanuts. Short is heavily influenced by Barth, though his book goes beyond Barthian agnosticism in its pugnacious exposition of “dogmatic universalism” from a Reformed perspective.

This book convinced me (at the time) that it was possible to be a Christian without having to believe in hell. At the same time, it convinced me that Jesus had died for my sins. Only later did I “learn” that it was only possible to believe truly that Jesus had died to save me from damnation if I believed that not everyone would ultimately share in that salvation.

My own position remains one of “cautious optimism” rather than Short’s “dogmatic universalism” (see this post from earlier in the year). But I do feel my own experience shows it is not necessarily the case that a belief in universalism undermines belief in the atoning death of Christ: indeed, in my case it was only by believing that Jesus’ death would save everyone that I was able to believe it would save me.

Universal and particular salvation

A book I’ve requested on inter-library loan (as for some reason neither Kent County Council nor the London Borough of Bromley were rushing to spend £55 on a copy): Barth, Origen, and Universal Salvation: Restoring Particularity, by Tom Greggs.

From the abstract:

[T]he book proposes that a proper understanding of the eternal salvific plan of God in the person of Jesus Christ points towards universal salvation. However, salvation is not achieved through a general principle or rule; it is achieved through the very particularity of the Son in whom all humanity is saved.

To put it simplistically, the Son achieves salvation for all, and then the Spirit particularizes that universal salvation “in individuals and communities in the present”:

However, this is in a manner which avoids a binary separation of Christians (as the saved) from all other humans (as the damned); instead, Christians are led into the ever greater depths of God, in a manner which allows God’s Spirit to be present in diverse ways with humans and human communities in their temporal particularities. This dynamic of Spirit and Son in salvation allows for the place of faith, ongoing history, and community within a soteriological schema which offers a universal hope of salvation in Christ.

And from the abstract to chapter 7:

The logic of universalism could at a superficial level lead one to ask why there is any need for faith. This chapter proposes a way through this seeming contradiction by considering the problem from the perspective of pneumatology. This helps to avoid speaking of salvation in the simple binary opposition of saved-damned.

The Spirit allows for the continued particularity of the Christian and the non-Christian while retaining the possibility of universal salvation. … The Spirit allows for human and Christian particularity without limiting God’s work of salvation. The Spirit ever deepens God’s love for humanity in the church and the individual lives of Christians without in any way detracting from the love of God for all creation.

Sounds interesting, though based on the preview here I’m not expecting to agree with everything that Greggs says.

Gunton on Barth on election

Reading Colin Gunton’s lecture on Karl Barth’s doctrine of election (from The Barth Lectures, pp.110ff.).

He begins by arguing that election in the Bible is “to do with how God calls individuals and groups to perform a particular task or function”, in contrast to the Augustinian tradition in which there is “a shift from a historical to a heavenly destination: election comes to be seen as whether people are called to go to heaven – saved or damned” (p.111).

Gunton then shows how Barth replaces Calvin’s “absolute decree” with a Christocentric approach in which “Jesus Christ is the electing God and the electing man”; in which we refuse to “look … into the godhead beyond Christ” in search of some hidden decree.

Barth draws a distinction between election (of all) and calling (of some, to witness). No one is rejected “except of course, Jesus – and he on behalf of others” (p.120).

As for Barth’s supposed universalism, Gunton writes:

He is not saying all will go willy-nilly to heaven: that seems to be the logic, but that is God’s decision not ours. You can’t say whether we are universalists or not, that is not in our decision.

Even regarding Judas Iscariot, in Barth’s words “the New Testament gives us no direct information about the outcome of this extraordinary for and against” (i.e. Jesus’ election of Judas versus his pronouncement of woe upon him). As Gunton observes:

The New Testament simply doesn’t tell us; it tells us that Judas dies in an unpleasant way. It doesn’t tell us what God does finally – woe unto him of course – but that doesn’t necessarily mean forever.

Gunton continues:

And he makes the crucial point that the elect and the rejected are two sides of each of us, two sides of our story, not two classes of people. And that is the interesting thing that he has said about all of this. I think this is an absolutely great piece of theological revision, it is an absolutely astonishing overturning of the tradition.

As Gunton puts in his conclusion:

Generally speaking what Barth did achieve was a huge improvement on the crude determinism of the Augustinian tradition, which did not represent a gracious God. The Augustinian doctrine replaces grace with gratuity: God gratuitously chooses group A and not group B – this is not the God who seeks out the lost and does not reject them.

Invest in grace, not in “freedom”

Good post by Kim Fabricius on Richard Hall’s blog: Evangelical universalism: a postscript.

Some interesting thoughts on Augustine (quoted from George Hunsinger) and on the inadequacy of human “freedom” as an alternative to Augustinianism:

For (a), at least in Pauline terms, the “freedom” to go on sinning constitutes a flagrant violation of the Trade Description[s] Act; and, further,

(b), as Marilyn McCord Adams insists, discussing “horrendous evils”, “Any god who turns us … over to the eternal natural consequences of our action pays us an inappropriate respect”, and indeed “would not thereby honor but violate our agency by crushing it with responsibility for individual and corporate ruin.”

Kim concludes:

In short, a theologically dense defence of “universal salvation” will resist investing in human freedom and put all its capital in the cunning omnipotence of divine grace, funded by a HIGH Christology and accordingly recalibrated doctrines of election and the atonement.

“Gregory Macdonald” reveals himself

Interesting to see that Gregory Macdonald “outed” himself at the end of August. He is Robin Parry, editorial director of Paternoster Press, and had kept his authorship of The Evangelical Universalist secret mainly to avoid embarrassing his employer.

He now feels able to reveal himself mainly because, while plenty of people have disagreed with him, few have denounced his views as “un-Christian”. As he observes in a later post, this has restored his faith in “evangelical generosity”.

In his “reveal” post, he quotes the final paragraph from his book:

Let me ask you to hold in your mind traditional Christian visions of the future, in which many, perhaps the majority of humanity, are excluded from salvation forever. Alongside that hold the universalist vision, in which God achieves his loving purpose of redeeming the whole creation.

Which vision has the strongest view of divine love? Which story has the most powerful narrative of God’s victory over evil? Which picture lifts the atoning efficacy of the cross of Christ to the greatest heights? Which perspective best emphasizes the triumph of grace over sin? Which view most inspires worship and love of God bringing him honour and glory? Which has the most satisfactory understanding of divine wrath? Which narrative inspires hope in the human spirit?

To my mind the answer to all these questions is clear, and that is why I am a Christian universalist.

I must go back and finish The Evangelical Universalist. I had some criticisms of it based on my initial reading of it in April. In particular I’m unconvinced by Macdonald/Parry’s suggestion of a temporary hell. If I’m a universalist at all – [note to self: insert unconvincing, hand-waving disclaimers here] – then I incline more towards what Macdonald describes as the “existential universalism” of John Robinson, which can also be looked at from a law vs gospel perspective.

Robert Capon: “I am and am not a universalist”

Robert Capon, quoted by Michael Spencer at the BHT:

I am and I am not a universalist. I am one if you are talking about what God in Christ has done to save the world. The Lamb of God has not taken away the sins of some — of only the good, or the cooperative, or the select few who can manage to get their act together and die as perfect peaches. He has taken away the sins of the world — of every last being in it — and he has dropped them down the black hole of Jesus’ death. On the cross, he has shut up forever on the subject of guilt: “There is therefore now no condemnation. . . .” All human beings, at all times and places, are home free whether they know it or not, feel it or not, believe it or not.

But I am not a universalist if you are talking about what people may do about accepting that happy-go-lucky gift of God’s grace. I take with utter seriousness everything that Jesus had to say about hell, including the eternal torment that such a foolish non-acceptance of his already-given acceptance must entail. All theologians who hold Scripture to be the Word of God must inevitably include in their work a tractate on hell. But I will not — because Jesus did not — locate hell outside the realm of grace. Grace is forever sovereign, even in Jesus’ parables of judgment. No one is ever kicked out at the end of those parables who wasn’t included in at the beginning.

Lutherans and universalism

Very interesting series of posts on universalism from a Lutheran blogger, T. Hahm. I hadn’t come across his site, Essentially Lutheran (“Thoughts on the radical Luther and his unpopular theology”), before. Sadly, it now appears to be dormant.

Mr Hahm’s series has the title “Can a Lutheran be a Universalist?” His answer is a tentative “yes”, and he builds up his case over the course of eight short but carefully-argued posts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8.

Mr Hahm argues that universalism is less of a challenge for Lutherans to fit into their overall theology than it is for Calvinists or Arminians. The Calvinist doctrine of limited atonement is in fundamental conflict with universalism, as is the Arminian belief in free will (which, Hahm argues, makes it “simply not plausible that all people would choose God”). By contrast:

Lutherans already embrace a universal atonement. Unlike Calvinist theology, Lutherans believe that God loves everyone, Christ died for all, nobody has been elected or predestined to damnation and God wants all to be saved.

Lutherans also reject the doctrine that man chooses to love God of his own free will. Unlike Arminian theology, they believe repentance, faith and salvation is a gift of God – entirely a work of God’s grace. There is therefore no theological basis to believe God cannot (or does not want to) give this gift to all people.

That still leaves the “traditional teaching of the church” and the biblical texts as obstacles, of course. Mr Hahm examines these obstacles in more detail in the course of his series of posts. The series is worth a read, even if you disagree with Mr Hahm’s conclusions. (Though perhaps not if you disagree as violently as “Fr John” in this comment.)

But what particularly struck me was Mr Hahm’s conclusion in his seventh post:

Theologically, it seems to me that a Lutheran can believe in a universal restoration without being in conflict with any other of Dr. Luther’s teachings. In fact, it seems to me that all Lutheran doctrines fall much more neatly into place with universal restoration than without it. So (to me) it is quite remarkable that there is not much more interest, study and discussion of it within Lutheranism.

It seems to me there are various possible explanations for lack of interest in universalism among Lutherans. The first possibility is that universalism is wrong, and therefore doesn’t have much traction among Lutherans (who are, of course, right).

However, I wonder if part of it is also the fact that Lutherans don’t really have a great deal of interest in the subject of hell. Universalism tends to arise as a protest against the doctrine of hell, and while Lutherans may accept the doctrine of hell, it probably has less pastoral emphasis than in some other church traditions. Lutheran sermons tend to assume that most hearers are Christians, and hence people growing up in Lutheran churches are unlikely to have a regular diet of being told that they are hell-bound sinners who need to turn to Christ to avoid eternal damnation.

Any reference to hell (as part of the proclamation of the Law) will be quickly superseded within the same sermon by a reiteration of the promises of the Gospel. Hence people are less likely to feel the terrors of hell as a real possibility for themselves personally, and hence there is less of a pressure towards universalism as a means of quenching the fires of hell theologically.

Any thoughts?

Law, Gospel and eternal destiny

To expand a little on the last paragraph of my previous post, John Robinson’s distinction between what is “the truth from the perspective of the persons facing the decisions with which the gospel confronts them” and “the truth as it is for God and faith on the further side of the decision” calls to mind the distinction between Law and Gospel.

The Law and the Gospel are the two words with which God (through his church) addresses the world. The texts describing hell and eternal damnation belong to the Law, describing (as Robinson puts it) “the genuinely deserved fate for sinners”. Texts describing forgiveness and salvation – and perhaps even holding out the hope of a universal salvation – belong to the Gospel, God’s free promise of salvation for sinful human beings.

The point is that there is not a single, harmonised word of God to us. There is either the Law in all its terror and threats – 100% conformity to the will of God, or face destruction and wrath – or the Gospel in all its freedom and unconditionality, its declaration that Christ has taken upon himself the destruction and wrath that our sins deserved.

Hence it is not our business – not the church’s business – to go around telling people what is “objectively” true: who will be in, who will be out, and so on. All the church can do is declare the two words which God has given it: the word of Law and the word of Gospel.

To hope for universal salvation is something that can only be done by those who believe the Gospel. Having been brought through the veil into the presence of our loving God, we see (and believe) the free promise of his love for all people. We are given the opportunity to hope that all people will in fact receive what is promised in the Gospel.

However, if we choose not to believe the Gospel, then the only word left for us is the Law. As the theology of the cross tells us, if we choose to try to find God by our own efforts (whether of morality, philosophy, mysticism or whatever) then the only God we will find is the “consuming fire”. We will not find God in his “proper work” of love and forgiveness, but only in his “alien work” of judgment, wrath and condemnation; of treating us as we deserve. That is the only word which is given to the church to declare to us when we are in that condition.

Now, for those who are “within the veil”, there may be a hope for them that God will, in the end, prevail over our opposition to him. But that is not a word which God or the church has for us while we refuse to accept God’s promises.

I’d be interested to know what others think of this way of looking at the issue. For me, it seems to explain why Jesus (addressing those who were resisting him and his promises) speaks in such dire and terrifying language about hell, but then the apostles (as heralds of the Gospel) seem to lack the “wretched urgency” that must surely be the result of believing that most people are facing an eternity of unimaginable, conscious torment; why, instead, they concentrate on proclaiming a positive message of faith, hope and love, often in terms that (to say the least) are open to being interpreted as universal in scope.

Hell and universalism: truth from different perspectives

From Gregory MacDonald’s The Evangelical Universalist, pp.134f (italics in original, bold added):

One could argue with John Robinson that the New Testament sets out two alternative visions for humanity: eternal life and eternal damnation. One vision asserts that all will be saved, the other than many will be damned. These two visions need to be set alongside one another and taken with equal seriousness, but not as two contradictory predictions about the future of the world (this misunderstands the character of myth) nor as alternative possible futures (as if all may be saved or some may be damned).

Rather, we should see the vision of damnation as the truth from the perspective of the persons facing the decisions with which the gospel confronts them. The hell passages set forth the genuinely deserved fate for sinners – a fate that ought to be avoided at all costs. However, the universalist texts set forth the truth as it is for God and faith on the further side of the decision.

Robinson writes, “to the man in decision – and that means to all men, always, right up to the last hour – hell is in every way as real a destination as heaven. Only the man who has genuinely been confronted with both alternatives can be saved.” However, anything less than full universal salvation could not be seen as other than a defeat for the God of love. Both sets of texts are true, but only one set will be realised in the actual future.

McGregor’s assessment of this “existentialist” approach is that “it has much to commend it” (particularly since it “cannot be accused of taking the hell texts as trivial or false”), but it is not the route he himself takes. He favours a “temporary hell” interpretation.

I’m more sympathetic to Robinson’s approach, as it fits in with (and expresses better than I had been able) my own thoughts from a law and gospel perspective. The law (including the hell texts) is all the church has to say to those who reject the gospel; if you want to deal with God on the basis of law, then the hell texts tell you where that takes you, because “our God is a consuming fire”. But the gospel remains true.

Brief thoughts on The Evangelical Universalist

I’ve still not got round to reading Gregory MacDonald’s The Evangelical Universalist, but was looking through a couple of chapters last night. This post isn’t a review, but just some quick thoughts based on a cursory flick through the book.

There are three main problems I have with (what I perceive as) MacDonald’s approach. One is that he seems more focused on “what is it permissible for evangelicals to believe while remaining evangelicals in good standing?” rather than “what is true?” (I appreciate that may be an unfair criticism, but it’s the impression I currently have).

Second, I disagree with his overall conclusion: namely, that those who die without Christ may indeed go to hell, but only for a temporary duration. I don’t see any basis in the New Testament for seeing hell as anything other than a final destination for those who go there. It also seems to reduce the impact of the cross: if sin’s penalty is finite, then Jesus’ sufferings were finite. Again, it may be that MacDonald addresses this on a closer reading of the book.

My biggest and most fundamental objection, though, is the structure and method of the book. I picked it up because I wanted to see how MacDonald deals with the many and terrible statements about hell from the lips of Jesus himself. These are dealt with in quite a late (almost the last) chapter, and MacDonald is keen to emphasise the need for Jesus’ words to be interpreted in the light of “later revelation” (in particular Paul).

The end result is that Macdonald seems to start with philosophy, then move on to the OT and NT texts, and then finally (having established a suitable interpretational framework) comes to Jesus himself. This seems to me to be the precise opposite of how we should proceed: start with Jesus and his words and actions, then look at the OT and NT texts in the light of that, and finally consider the philosophical or historical arguments.