[Paleopsych] Keith DeRose: Universalism and the Bible
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Universalism and the Bible
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~kd47/univ.htm
[Mr. Mencken often stated that he was going to Hell. But this proves that
we are all going to go to Heaven, whether we want to or not.]
The Really Good News
[1]Keith DeRose
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1. What is Universalism?
2. Some Universalist Passages
3. "All"
4. "Interpreting Scripture by Scripture"
5. Universalism and Exclusivism
6. Universalism and Strong Exclusivism
7. Two More Passages and a Dangerous Line of Thought
8. Universalism, Judgment and Punishment
9. Universalism and Eternal Punishment: A Collision?
10. "Eternal" in the New Testament
11. Conclusion
Appendices:
A. The Danger of False Belief on this Matter
B. Free Will and Universalism
<-- Updated 6/12/03
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1. What is Universalism?
I should be clear at the outset about what I'll mean -- and won't mean
-- by "universalism." As I'll use it, "universalism" refers to the
position that eventually all human beings will be saved and will enjoy
everlasting life with Christ. This is compatible with the view that
God will punish many people after death, and many universalists accept
that there will be divine retribution, although some may not. What
universalism does commit one to is that such punishment won't last
forever. Universalism is also incompatible with various views
according to which some will be annihilated (after or without first
receiving punishment). These views can agree with universalism in
that, according to them, punishment isn't everlasting, but they
diverge from universalism in that they believe some will be denied
everlasting life. Some universalists intend their position to apply
animals, and some to fallen angels or even to Satan himself, but in my
hands, it will be intended to apply only to human beings. In short,
then, it's the position that every human being will, eventually at
least, make it to the party.
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2. Some Universalist Passages
Contrary to what many would suppose, universalism, understood as
above, receives strong scriptural support in the New Testament.
Indeed, I judge the support strong enough that if I had to choose
between universalism and anti-universalism as the "position of
Scripture," I'd pick universalism as the fairly clear winner. But more
on that later. For now, here's three passages which support
universalism.
I Corinthians 15:22. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall
all be made alive.
Comments. Note the "all." I guess there can be some question about
what it means to be made alive in Christ. A cynic might suggest that
some might be made alive in order to stand judgment and be tortured
forever. But that's very strained, especially after one's read the
surrounding context of this passage and has also discovered what's
usually meant by such phrases. It's very clear, I think, that those
who are "made alive" in Christ are, as it's often put, "saved." The
question is, To whom will this happen? This passage's answer: All! A
point of grammar, which holds for the Greek as well as our English
translations: The grammatical function of "in Christ" here is not to
modify or limit the "all." The passage doesn't say, "...so also shall
all who are in Christ be made alive." If it said that, I wouldn't be
so cheered by the passage. Rather, "in Christ" is an adverbial phrase
that modifies the verb "shall be made" or perhaps the whole clause,
"shall all be made alive." Thus, this passage says that all shall be
made alive. How? In Christ. This last point -- that it's through
Christ that all will be saved -- will be important in section 6,
below.
Colossians 1:20.^19For in him [Christ] all the fullness of God was
pleased to dwell, ^20and through him to reconcile to himself all
things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of
his cross.
Comments. Note again the "all." Show me someone burning in hell, and
I'll show you someone who's not yet been reconciled to God. So, show
me someone who's under divine punishment forever, or who is simply
annihilated, and I'll show you someone who's never reconciled to God
through Christ, and thus someone who gives the lie to this passage.
Romans 5:18: ^18Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all
men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for
all men. ^19For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,
so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous.
Comments. It's verse 18 that I'm mainly appealing to. For whom will
Christ's act of righteousness lead to acquittal and life? Answer: "all
men." (So at least we guys will be OK!) Show me someone who never
enjoys acquittal and life, and I'll show someone for whom Christ's act
of righteousness didn't lead to acquittal and life, and thus someone
who gives the lie to this verse.
Though I'm appealing mainly to v. 18, I've included v. 19 here as well
partly because some may think it casts doubt on the universalist
implications of 18, since in 19, it's only said that "many," (rather
than "all") will be made righteous. But 19 doesn't really take away
the pro-universalism power of 18. First, a point of logic: That many
will be made righteous is perfectly compatible with all being made
righteous. All dogs are mammals. True or false: Many dogs are mammals?
True, of course. It may sound strange to say that many dogs are
mammals, but it's true for all that: It's even stranger to deny that
many dogs are mammals. "Many" and "all" don't logically exclude each
other. But this point of logic is pretty barren. To say that many dogs
are mammals, while it doesn't strictly imply that fewer than all dogs
are mammals, it does suggest that fewer than all are -- which probably
explains why saying that many dogs are mammals sounds so strange.
("Why did he say 'many' rather than 'all'? Wouldn't he have said 'all'
if he thought they were all mammals?") Likewise, one could plausibly
claim that while v. 19 doesn't strictly imply that fewer than all will
be made righteous, it does strongly suggest this. Reply: But even the
suggestion of fewer than all disappears when we look at the NIV's
translation of v. 19. (Above is the RSV translation.) The NIV
translates as follows:
19For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were
made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many
will be made righteous.
The key difference, for our present purposes, between the translations
is between the RSV's "many" and the NIV's "the many." To say that the
many will be made righteous, while it doesn't imply that all will be
made righteous, neither does it imply, nor even suggest, that fewer
than all will be. In fact, v. 19, translated the NIV's way, especially
following on the heels of 18, seems to suggest, if anything, a
positive answer to the question of whether all are covered, turning v.
19 from something that counts a bit against a universalist reading of
v. 18 to a verse which, if anything, reinforces the universalist
implications of v. 18. My experts have informed me that the original
Greek here is like the NIV, and unlike the RSV, in that there is not
even a suggestion carried by 19 that fewer than all will be made
righteous. It's no doubt in response to such considerations that the
revision of the RSV, the NRSV, follows the NIV in using "the many"
rather than "many." (But it was worth first presenting the RSV
translation because many use English translations of the Bible, which,
like the RSV, employ the inferior translation of this phrase.)
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3. "All"
A key word in the above passages is "all". Here's one more
universalist passage featuring that wonderful word:
Romans 11:32: For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he
may be merciful to all.
For various reasons I won't go into here, though I think this is a
good universalist passage, I don't think this passage is quite as
strong as some of the passages we looked at in section 2. I bring it
up because it's in response to this verse that I've found a
commentator making a move I've heard many times in conversation. About
this verse, the end of which he renders, "that he may have mercy upon
all", F.F. Bruce writes: "That is, on all without distinction rather
than all without exception" (The Letter of Paul to the Romans: An
Introduction and Commentary, Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press,
1985; p. 211). Several people I've spoken with about our universalist
passages had apparently been taught that "all" can mean "all without
distinction" rather than "all without exception". What exactly is
"all" supposed to mean when it carries the former ("without
distinction") sense? Some seem to hold that it then means "some from
each group", and where it's people that are involved, each group seems
to mean each nation. For others, it means something a bit more: That
every person, regardless of which group she's in, has a chance.
But it's clear that "all", at least when used properly, never means
anything like that. Suppose some slippery character is being
investigated, and hands over to investigators several files relating
to the case under consideration. The slippery character then says that
he's handed over all the files about the case. It later turns out
that, as the slippery character knew full well at the time of his
statement, he's held on to over half of the files. Suppose his
reaction to this revelation is: "Well, I handed over several files
from each of the 10 major categories into which they fell. And I
didn't just pick the least damaging files to hand over. Rather, I
picked in a random fashion the files I would hand over from each
category, so that each file, regardless of its category, and
regardless of how damaging it was to my case, had a chance to be
handed over. So, you see, I really did hand over all the files -- all
without distinction, that is; not, of course, all without exception."
This won't fly, precisely because "all" just can't mean anything like
what the "all without distinction" crowd says it sometimes means. My
reaction, at least, is not that this fellow was being deceitful merely
in using one sense of "all" while it has another good sense. He's
worse than that: There's no good sense of "all" that would make true
his miserable lie. No, "all", when it's used properly, always means
all without exception. Quite simply, "all" means all.
But wait! When I say, quite properly, "All the beer is warm", I don't
mean that all the beer in the whole universe is warm, but rather
something like that all the beer in this room is warm, as is seen by
the fact that I can continue the sentence by saying something that
implies that there is cold beer elsewhere: "All the beer's warm, so
let's go to the kitchen and get some cold beer." So how can it be
suggested that "all" always means all? (But how can it be that "all"
could fail to mean all?)
What's going on here is that the quantifier phrases of natural
language ("all", "most", "some", etc.) are to be understood, on an
occasion of use, relative to a contextually determined domain. Thus,
when I say, "All the beer is warm", the contextually determined domain
is the things in this room, so "All the beer", in context, means all
the beer in this room. So there is some sense in which "all" doesn't
always mean all: On some occasions of use, "all", or "all the F's"
means all (or all the F's) within a limited domain. But, relative to
that domain, "all" really does mean all (without exception): My
sentence "All the beer is warm" turns out to be false if there is some
cold beer that I failed to notice in the room.
But when the domain is limited, there has to be some fairly clear clue
as to what the limited domain is. When "all" is used in the New
Testament, as in "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of
God," and similar passages, the "all", I take it, refers to all
people. It could possibly refer to some restricted class of people,
but that suggestion is to be rejected, b/c (a) there is no such
restricted class that clearly presents itself (all the people in this
room?), (b) it's incumbent on a speaker to make clear what the class
is if he means for it to be specially restricted and no specially
restricted class clearly presents itself given current conversational
intents and purposes, and (c) the NT doesn't specify any such
specially restricted class. So, "All have sinned" means that all
people have sinned, as almost all would agree.
But similarly for the "all"s of the universalist passages. No
restricted class of people clearly presents itself, and the Biblical
writers aren't so incompetent as to mean some specially restricted
class of people that doesn't clearly present itself without specifying
or somehow making it clear which class they mean. Indeed, in I
Corinthians 15:22 and Romans 5:18, each of the relevant "all"s occur
in the very same sentence (and a fairly short sentence, to boot) as an
occurrence of "all" that seems to refer to the whole human race (given
that it's the whole human race that died/was condemned in Adam), so it
would have been especially misleading or even incompetent for Paul to
mean something less than the whole human race there, since that would
involve switching the domains relative to which his claims should be
interpreted without warning in the middle of a single sentence -- and
a sentence that seems to be stressing the parallelism between its two
clauses, for that matter. So I see no reasonable alternative but to
conclude that these "all"s refer to all people.
Could they mean even more than that? Could they be including angels,
including fallen angels, and maybe even Satan himself? My reason for
not going out on that limb -- besides passages like Rev 20:10, which
reports that the devil is "thrown into the lake of burning sulpher",
where the beast and the false prophet (who's not clearly human) were
previously thrown, and where "they will be tormented day and night for
ever and ever" -- is that most of the universalist passages don't go
that far. Some, like I Corinthians 15:22, write simply of "all", and,
as I said, I think the most natural way to understand the scope of the
"all" is as referring to all people. Indeed, it's difficult to
construe that particular passage more broadly so as to include Satan,
for there seems to be no good sense in which Satan died in Adam, and
the passage reads: "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall
all be made alive." And some of the universalist passages explicitly
limit themselves to humans, like Romans 5:18, which says that Christ's
act "leads to acquittal and life for all men."
The only universalist passages that we've looked at in section 2 which
seems to carry any suggestion of a broader scope is Colossians 1:20,
the "reconciling all things" passage. (There are other passages in the
Bible carrying similar suggestions -- see, for instance, Ephesians
1:10.) How to square that with Rev 20:10, I don't know, though I am
in general far more cautious about my understanding of Revelation than
of any other book in the Bible. In general, I find it unwise to take
much of Revelation literally, and so, in questions of what will
actually happen, tend to take fairly minimalist interpretations of the
events John relates from his vision -- or at least not to be confident
of anything beyond a minimalist reading. So, for instance, though John
reports in 6:13 that "the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs
drop from a fig tree" in the vision Christ gave him, I'd be
disinclined to think that stars will literally fall to earth. That
this is not to be taken literally is now confirmed by our current
knowledge of the relative size of the earth and the stars (together
with the fact that, in John's story, this event does not completely
obliterate the earth; the story goes on), but even without such
knowledge, based merely on the genre of that part of Revelation --
John's reporting a vision he was given -- I would be disinclined to
take such a passage as a literally correct description of what will
actually happen in the future. How exactly to interpret such a passage
as to what will really happen is a controversial matter. But I tend
toward this minimalist reading: All that's meant about what will
really happen -- or, at the very least, all that we can be reasonably
certain is meant -- by this report of stars falling to earth is that
very, very bad things will happen. Given the abundance of events
reported in John's vision that must, I think, be read in such a
minimalist way, I'm very cautious about taking very literally the
report of Satan's doom in Revelation 20:7-10. Shall we now suddenly
start taking these events as literal reports of what will actually
happen? The minimalist reading here is that evil and deception will be
decisively defeated. And, though I don't want to dogmatically declare
that no more than this is meant to be a prediction of what will
actually happen, I certainly don't see any grounds for being at all
confident of anything beyond such a minimalist reading. So, I don't
think a strong reading of the "reconciling all things" in Colossians
1:20 must in any obvious or automatic way be shot out of the water by
what's to be found in Revelation. In fact, given the nature of the two
books, if anything, it's our understanding of Revelation that should
be guided by the teachings of the likes of Colossians, rather than the
other way around. Our understanding of the straight teaching of
doctrine in an epistle certainly should not automatically give way to
an interpretation of what in John's report of his vision is to be
taken as a literally accurate description of what will actually
happen. On top of all that, even if you do take Revelation 20:10 to be
a literal description of what will actually happen, the phrase that
gets translated here in popular English translations as "for ever and
ever", needn't be translated as implying endless duration; in fact, if
you insist on literalness, more literal translations render this
phrase "unto the ages of the ages" or "for the eons of the eons."
Literally, while this perhaps can, it certainly needn't, mean forever,
though it does seem to indicate at least a very long time.
Thus, though I don't find nearly as much scriptural support for a more
thorough-going universalism that includes even Satan (Origen, one of
the early universalists, held to such a more thorough-going
universalism) as I do for the more modest form of universalism I'm
here defending, and though I don't find enough support to advocate
such a more thorough-going position here, at the same time, I
certainly do think the more robust universalism is worthy of serious
consideration.
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4. "Interpreting Scripture by Scripture"
I believe the above pro-universalist passages, and, as you've seen,
take them quite literally. (I should note here that there are several
other universalist passages I didn't utilize above. The above, though,
I think, give you a good idea of the type of passages that can be
marshaled in favor of universalism.) I wouldn't say that they
constitute an overwhelmingly strong case for universalism (see
sections 5-6 below, for a view -- exclusivism -- the support for which
I am willing to call overwhelming), but it is pretty strong, and
stronger than any case I've seen for anti-universalism.
But some would urge me to interpret these passages in the light of
other scripture. (Many of these people seem never to even recognize
the possibility of interpreting the other scripture in light of these
universalist passages.) I must admit I have some difficulty in
construing myself as "interpreting" these passages. I do place
interpretations on some passages in the Bible: When I glean a
particular message for us from one of Jesus' parables, for instance,
that's an interpretation. But am I "interpreting" these passages in a
pro-universalist way? Calling this "interpretation" seems strained to
me. I often quote the above passages, not just to support, but
actually to express my universalism, and such quoting seems only in a
strained sense a case of interpreting. (Once, when someone asked me
whether I thought anyone would be denied everlasting life, I replied,
"I believe that as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be
made alive." My questioner, not realizing I was quoting Scripture,
accused me of taking an unbiblical position!)
Still, if there are passages which teach that universalism is false
with anything close to the force that the above passages carry in
favor of universalism, we're going to have to consider re-adjusting
our understanding of the above passages. Maybe they really don't mean
what they seem to. And, indeed, most who write against universalism,
when they urge an understanding of the above passages which strips
them of their universalist implications, do so largely on the grounds
that other passages of the New Testament teach even more clearly that
universalism is false. Indeed, many write as if the Biblical case
against universalism is overwhelming. But this confidence is badly
misplaced. As we'll see in sections 5, 6 and 8, below, it's mainly due
to a confusion of universalism itself with certain unbiblical versions
of universalism.
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5. Universalism and Exclusivism
Many of the passages that are typically utilized to attack
universalism teach exclusivism -- which here refers to the doctrine
that it's only (exclusively) through the saving work of Christ that
any can be saved. I agree that exclusivism is clearly taught in the
New Testament, so I won't bother to cite the supporting passages. But
the universalist needn't deny exclusivism. The biblical universalist
will accept exclusivism; she'll just disagree with the
non-universalist about the scope of who will be saved by Christ's
saving work -- the universalist exclusivist holding that, eventually
at least, through Christ, all shall be made alive. And now that I've
echoed I Corinthians 15:22, it's worth noting how this verse, as well
as the other passages discussed in section 2, highlights the
compatibility of universalism with exclusivism, since this
universalist passage insists that is in Christ that all shall be made
alive.
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6. Universalism and Strong Exclusivism
But perhaps we should distinguish between two types of exclusivism.
Let's label as strong exclusivism the position that adds to
exclusivism the further claim that, in order to be a recipient of the
salvation Christ makes possible, one must in some way explicitly
accept Christ and/or the salvation he offers. (Different versions of
strong exclusivism with differ as to the exact nature of this
requirement of explicit acceptance.) Weak exclusivism, then, will be
the position that combines the exclusivist thesis that Christ's saving
work is necessary for the salvation of any person -- so that were it
not for Christ, none could be saved -- with the position that one
needn't explicitly accept or acknowledge Christ in order to receive
the salvation his saving work makes possible.
The scriptural basis for exclusivism is overwhelming, I believe; the
support for strong exclusivism is not nearly so conclusive. It's not
that there's any strong basis for weak exclusivism. It's rather that
the scriptural basis for deciding between the two versions of
exclusivism is not nearly so great as that supporting exclusivism
itself. Still, the suggestions of strong exclusivism found in the New
Testament are strong enough that, for complicated reasons I won't here
go into, though I'm far from certain about the matter, I tend to lean
toward strong exclusivism.
And some might think that strong exclusivism is incompatible with
universalism, so that whatever evidence there is for strong
exclusivism will also be evidence against universalism. For strong
exclusivism, combined with the observation that some resist Christ all
the way to their dying moment, can seem to spell the doom of the
universalist position.
But only if death is the end of one's chances to be saved by
explicitly accepting Christ. And I haven't seen anything close to a
strong Biblical case for the position that death is the end of one's
chances for salvation. (We'll look at the typical argument mounted for
the doctrine of no further chances a few paragraphs below). Many, in
fact, content themselves with arguing that the scriptures typically
used to support the position that some will get further chances after
death are far from conclusive.
What passages are these? Well, many friends of the doctrine of further
chances cite I Peter 3:19-20 and I Peter 4:6 as supporting their
position.
(Note: The NIV scandalously translates the beginning of I Peter 4:6 as
"For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are
now dead," confessing in a study note to the NIV Study Bible -- users
of NIV's other than the NIV Study Bible don't get this warning -- that
"the word 'now' does not occur in the Greek," and explaining that the
reason they've added it is that, for reasons coming from another part
of the Bible, not even in the book of I Peter, they believe that there
are no further chances after death. Now, the case they give in that
note for the doctrine of no further chances is hopelessly weak. (We'll
encounter it below.) But put that aside for the moment. The more
pressing point here is that this practice of doctoring a translation
to protect the theological positions that the translators happen to
hold on controversial issues is deplorable. The much more responsible
NRSV, true to its general character, more reliably translates this
passage as, "For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to
the dead." This better translation leaves the matter of whether "the
dead" refers to people who were dead when they were preached to or
rather to those who were dead at the time of the writing of I Peter
about as open as it is in the original Greek. The NIV translators, on
the other hand, for no respectable reason, add a word to close down
the reading, left open in the Greek, that doesn't best serve their own
theological purposes, though it seems the more natural of the two
readings.)
Now, the issue of how to understand these passages from I Peter is as
difficult as it is controversial. I won't get into it here, except to
register my opinion that it isn't wise to lean on these passages;
they're far too inconclusive to inspire any reasonable confidence in
the doctrine of further chances after death.
But the case typically mounted in favor of the opposing doctrine of no
further chances after death is at least as inconclusive. The only
passage cited in favor of this dubious doctrine of no further chances
in the notorious NIV Study Bible note to I Peter 4:6 is Hebrews 9:27,
which reads: "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to
face judgment," with the sentence being completed in v. 28. But the
universalist who believes in further chances needn't deny that people
die once. I'm such a universalist, and I don't deny that, nor do I see
any reason why I should have to. And, as I noted in section 1 and as
we'll see in section 8, the universalist, including the universalist
who believes in further chances, needn't deny that after that death
one will face judgment. So there isn't anything in Hebrews 9:27 that
should even begin to produce any discomfort in the universalist who
believes in further chances.
The other passage that's commonly cited in favor of the doctrine of no
further chances is Luke 16:26. This is a bit stronger than the Hebrews
passage. But that's not saying much, and there's very little, if any,
ammunition to be found here for the doctrine of no further chances.
This passage occurs in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and,
as such, appeals to it suffer from all the limitations inherent in
attempts to extract theological doctrines from the details of
parables, especially when the doctrines in question are not the main
point of the parable. In this parable, the rich man, now dead and
suffering in hell, asks Father Abraham to "send Lazarus to dip the tip
of his finger in water and cool my tongue" (v. 24). v. 26 is the
second part of Abraham's explanation for why this request won't be
granted; it reads, "And besides all this, between us and you a great
chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you
cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us." But again, the
universalist needn't deny that there will be punishment, only that
such punishment will last forever. And there's no reason at all for
her to have to hold that, while the punishment is still going on,
those suffering from it can end it at will any time they want, and
cross freely from hell to heaven, nor that those in heaven (in this
parable, Lazarus is "at Abraham's side") will be allowed to visit
hell. So even if we made the mistake of trying to extract from the
details of this parable a position on the issue of whether there will
be further chances, there still wouldn't be much cause for taking this
passage as supporting the doctrine of no further chances with any
force at all. For as long as the universalist who believes in further
chances sensibly allows for the possibility that, while punishment is
occurring, those suffering from it can't just end it any time they
want, she can make perfectly good sense of the words this parable puts
into the mouth of Father Abraham. After all, if a road has been
covered with deep enough snow drifts, we'll tell someone who must
drive on that stretch of road to get to where we are, "You cannot
cross over from there to us." We'll say this quite properly and
truthfully, even if we know full well that the road will be cleared in
a few days, or that, in a great enough emergency, a helicopter could
be used to get across to us even today, if, say, we're at a hospital.
[But doesn't that show that there is a sense, then, in which they can
cross over to us? Yes, there's a perfectly good sense in which they
can, and a perfectly good sense in which they cannot. For enlightening
and accessible explanations of the meaning of "can" and related words,
I recommend Angelica Kratzer's "What 'Must' and 'Can' Must and Can
Mean" (Linguistics and Philosophy 1 (1977): pp. 337-355) and example 6
("Relative Modality") of David Lewis's "Scorekeeping in a Language
Game" (Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1979): pp. 339-359.]
So to hold that this passage establishes, not only that those
suffering from punishment can't just end it any time they want, but
that it can never, not even by the saving power of Christ, happen that
they're released from this punishment, is surely a very desperate
stretch.
In fact, I think no other doctrine can even compete with "no further
chances" in terms of the following three factors. No doctrine even
comes close to a) being so strongly believed by so many evangelicals
despite b) being so utterly disastrous in its consequences and c)
having so little by way of Scriptural support.
Still, as I admitted earlier, the case for the opposing doctrine of
further chances, based on the I Peter passages, is also inconclusive.
But I never intended to use the I Peter passages as part of my
positive support for universalism. My universalism is founded on
passages like the ones we looked at in section 2. I find them far more
forceful in their support for universalism than anything I've ever
seen adduced in support of anti-universalism. But some will disagree,
and claim that a powerful case for anti-universalism can be mounted
from strong exclusivism, together with the very plausible observation
that some never accept Christ in this life. I have merely been
pointing out that that line of thought supports anti-universalism only
insofar as the doctrine of no further chances can be established. And,
as we've seen, that's not very far at all. Certainly nothing even
approaching the power of the universalist passages. If, on top of all
that, there actually were -- against my own best judgment about the
matter -- some significant positive support for the doctrine of
further chances to be gleaned from the I Peter passages, that would be
argumentative over-kill.
Do I, then, believe in further chances after death? Yes, but not
because of anything to be found in I Peter. My belief in further
chances is rather grounded in my beliefs that (a) there are fairly
strong grounds for universalism provided by the likes of the passages
in section 2, (b) there are fairly strong grounds for strong
exclusivism in passages we haven't looked at here, (c) the only way
(at least the only way that I can see) to reconcile universalism with
strong exclusivism is if there are further chances, and (d) there's
next to nothing in the way of good reasons for denying that there are
further chances. Thus, though there's perhaps not much of a direct
case that can be made for further chances from the likes of the I
Peter passages, in light of (d), the indirect case for further chances
provided by (a)-(c) proves decisive. I stress, then, that my belief in
universalism is not based on my belief in further chances; rather,
it's the other way around.
_________________________________________________________________
7. Two More Passages and a Dangerous Line of Thought
Since we're on the topic of further chances, let me here, in a brief
digression from the main line of argument, introduce two more passages
which together have some universalist tendencies in a way that
involves the doctrine of further chances. I present them not primarily
because of the added support they might provide for universalism, but
because they'll help to illustrate a dangerous line of thought which
explains much of the resistance I had to the doctrine of further
chances. Insofar as others resist the doctrine of further chances for
the same reason I used to, they may wish to check this dangerous line
of thought. Consider, then:
Romans 10:9. If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be
saved.
This raises the question: Who will so confess and so believe? This is
one of those questions, at least with respect to the confession part,
that gets answered in the Bible, for, as we read in Philippians 2:11
and elsewhere, every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord. Maybe
some of these confessors will fail to believe in their heart that God
raised Jesus from the dead, and thereby fail to be saved. But I always
imagined this confession taking place at a time when it had become
painfully obvious that the whole Jesus story was true -- perhaps at
judgment -- so I've never really thought that these confessors weren't
believing.
To be honest, the real reason I never thought of the Philippians
passage as having universalist implications in conjunction with the
Romans passage is that I thought that such a confession would be "too
late" and so wouldn't count. Why did I think that? Romans 10:9
includes no fine print to the effect that the confession must take
place prior to death to be effective, and, as we've seen, there's next
to no good Scriptural reason to deny further chances. Well, there are
many reasons one might think this confession is too late, but,
unfortunately, in my case, the line of thought was roughly as follows:
Of course they'll confess then. It'll be so obvious that Jesus is Lord
at that point. There's no merit to confessing at that point.
Yikes! I had always been taught, and had always thought I believed,
that salvation came through God's grace alone, and not at all through
the merit of the one being saved. One just had to accept this grace,
by confessing, etc. But the above line of thought shows that the
tendency to understand rewards in term of merit was so strong in me
that I had taken the confession and acceptance part of the above story
and turned them into matters of merit -- to the point that I wouldn't
let them count if they didn't strike me as sufficiently meritorious.
This is surely a dangerous line of thought.
Three reactions: First, we don't know enough about the circumstances
under which such confessions will take place to judge their merit.
But, second, should that matter? And, third, just how wonderfully
meritorious was my confession and acceptance?
Insofar as any others find themselves engaging in the dangerous line
of thought I was subject to, they may wish to re-think the role of
merit in salvation, and how that relates to the doctrine of further
chances. But perhaps I was unique in thinking along those lines, and
this whole, thankfully short, digression was for nothing.
_________________________________________________________________
8. Universalism, Judgment and Punishment
Many of the passages that are typically utilized in attacks on
universalism teach that, after death, God will judge people and punish
many of them. Indeed, many who write as if the case against
universalism is overwhelming list scores of such passages -- which
looks very impressive -- in their long lists of what they claim are
anti-universalist scriptures.
Many of the passages typically cited in this connection are the
endings of parables in which the unprepared or otherwise naughty are
cast off to weep and wail and gnash their teeth. (It's usually in
Matthew's presentation of parables that such an ending is included.)
To get eternal punishment from such a parable is quite a leap. Some
read many of these passages as Jesus predicting the suffering incurred
during the destruction of Jerusalem. It was apparently a big issue in
the Jewish community around the time of the writing of the book of
Matthew whether this truly horrible and gruesome event was due to the
Christians following a false Messiah (as some non-Christians claimed)
or rather because the non-Christian Jews had failed to recognize the
hour of their visitation (as some Christians held). Parables in which
those not prepared for the coming of the Christ-figure are thrown out
to weep and wail, etc., can easily be read as coming down on the
Christian side of this debate. But even if one dismisses such an
interpretation (though it's difficult to see the grounds for such a
dismissal), one should begin to appreciate the tenuousness of drawing
a particular theological conclusion from such a parable.
But the above is a secondary point, especially since many of the
passages which teach that there will be punishment are not from
parables. The main point to be made is that, as I pointed out already
in section 1, universalism as I understand it -- and, more
importantly, as it's supported by the universalist passages like those
in section 2 -- is perfectly consistent with the belief that there
will be judgment for all and punishment for some. So, unless the
universalist goes overboard and claims that there will be no
punishment at all -- an extension of universalism not licensed by the
passages of section 2 -- these passages teaching that there will be
punishment won't even begin to hurt her position. So, like the
anti-universalist argument from exclusivism and the argument from
strong exclusivism, this anti-universalist argument, now from
punishment, has no force against the universalism that's supported by
the universalist passages, but only against the unwarranted extensions
of universalism that some unwise universalists might make.
_________________________________________________________________
9. Universalism and Eternal Punishment: A Collision?
But among the many passages that teach that there will be punishment,
a few (a very few, it turns out, but see also Matthew 25:46) specify
(or seem to specify) that the punishment will be "eternal." By far,
the strongest of these passages is:
II Thessalonians 1:9. They shall suffer punishment of eternal
destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the
glory of his might.
Here, finally, we have something which really has the potential to cut
against universalism. (Matthew 25:46 is weakened by the fact that it's
part of a parable. In fact, many who cite this parable as a good
source as to the duration of punishment don't take seriously its
teaching as to the grounds of the distinction between those who are
rewarded and those who are punished. It's quite clearly said that
those who are rewarded are rewarded for their good actions and those
who are punished are punished for a lack of such good actions (see
verses 34-36 and 41-43, paying careful attention to the word "for" or
"because" (depending on your translation) in each). But most who cite
this parable as a good source on the duration of the punishment don't
accept salvation by works -- perhaps because it's taught in a parable,
all the details of which needn't be taken to reflect the actual world?
At any rate, if you are inclined nevertheless to give this feature of
the parable great weight as an indication of the duration of actual
punishment, the below discussion of the meaning of "eternal" will
apply to this Matthew passage as well.)
Now, as I've noted, there are only a few passages that specify that
punishment will be (at least for some) eternal. And the universalist
passages are quite strong, tempting one to "interpret" these eternal
punishment passages away. But this II Thessalonians passage looks very
clear; I used to call it the "killer text". It looks like it collides
with the universalist passages. For a long time, I feared that just
such a collision occurs here in Scripture. I tried to "interpret" the
universalist passages away, and then to do the same to this eternal
punishment passage. But all such "interpretations" seemed very
strained -- they seemed more like denials, or at least revisions, of
what was said in the relevant passages being "interpreted."
_________________________________________________________________
10. "Eternal" in the New Testament
This is not the only issue on which I feared the various parts of the
Bible collide with one another. Fortunately, here, as I'm finding is
generally the case, this is only an apparent collision. In this case,
the appearance of a collision is produced by a problem arising with
our English Bibles' translation of "eternal".
The Greek adjective (and its cognates) that our English Bibles
translate as "eternal" or "everlasting" (and their cognates),
literally means "age-enduring" or "pertaining to an age", and can be
used in such a way that it does not imply endless duration. This opens
up a way around our collision: If the "eternal" in the "eternal"
punishment passages is understood as not implying an endless duration,
there's no conflict between these passages and the universalist
passages.
What makes this a very comfortable, and not a strained or desperate,
way around the collision is that, not only can the Greek word mean
something that doesn't imply endless duration, but it often does get
used with such a meaning -- often in the Bible itself, and even in the
Pauline corpus. Consider Romans 16:25-26, which, as our translations
have it, speaks of "the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but
is now disclosed." Here, the Greek that gets translated as "for long
ages" includes the very Greek work that is translated as "eternal" or
"everlasting" elsewhere, including the "eternal" punishment passages.
But in this Romans passage, Paul seems not to mean "eternal" by this
word, for he immediately goes on to say the secret "is now disclosed",
so of course it wasn't kept secret eternally. That's why our
translations don't translate it as "eternally" here.
[For more on this Greek term, as well as on the Greek term used here
for "punishment," which, apparently, was usually used for remedial
punishment(!), see the final section ("Punishment in the Coming Age,"
pp. 89-92) of Thomas Talbott's "Three Pictures of God in Western
Theology," Faith and Philosophy 12 (1995): pp. 79-94). More extensive
commentary on this matter of translation, which is also more
convenient for those with access to the internet, because the good
folks at the Tentmaker site have made it available on line, is Rev.
John Wesley's Hanson's treatise on [16]THE GREEK WORD AIÓN --
AIÓNIOS. Talbott now has a book, The Inescapable Love of God, which
incorporates much of his earlier prouniversalism work; for information
and for some parts that are available on-line, click [17]here.]
Incidentally, I've heard it argued by some who emphasize the
parallelism in Matthew 25:46 between the fate of the damned and of the
saved -- "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the
righteous to eternal life" -- that if you deny that punishment lasts
forever, then you must also deny that the "eternal" life of the saved
is unending. But, of course, that doesn't follow. Where the Greek word
that gets translated as "eternal" doesn't imply endless duration, it
also doesn't mean anything that implies less than endless duration. It
can mean "in the age to come," or "for long ages," or, perhaps, if
another of Talbott's suggestions is right, it can mean something like
"having its source in the eternal God"; at any rate, all of these are
neutral with respect to the question of whether what's called
"eternal" will last forever. So taking such a reading of "eternal"
here does not imply that the "eternal" life of the saved will come to
end; the most that can be gotten out of the parallelism of Matthew
25:46 is that we can't confidently base our belief that the "eternal"
life of the saved will last forever on that passage. Hopefully,
though, we have bases for that belief other than that detail of this
parable! (For much more on this passage in Matthew, see the section
entitled "THE PRINCIPAL PROOF-TEXT" (which contains several numbered
subsections) of the Hanson treatise, to which there's a link above.
For Greek words which do teach endless duration and which do get
applied to the blessed life of the saved, but which are not applied to
punishment, see the section of Hanson entitled "WORDS TEACHING ENDLESS
DURATION.")
That Paul himself uses the relevant Greek term in such a way that it
doesn't imply endless duration makes the possibility that he's using
it the same way in the "eternal punishment" passages a very live
possibility. By comparison, all the attempts to get around the
universalist implications of the likes of the passages we saw in
section 2 that I've encountered seem very strained, even desperate.
(Example: "Here where it says that God through Christ will reconcile
all things to himself, it really means (not what is says but rather?),
at least as it's applied to people, that God, through Christ, will
give all an opportunity to be reconciled to him, and where it says
that in Christ all shall be made alive, what it really means (is not
what it says but rather?) that in Christ all will be given an
opportunity to be made alive, or that all will be made alive to the
possibility of salvation.") At the very least, those who think it's
clear that the strongest scriptural case on the question of
universalism goes against the view, and that it's therefore clear that
it's the apparently universalist passages which must be interpreted
away, have a lot of explaining to do.
_________________________________________________________________
11. Conclusion.
If I'm right that Romans 11:32 is a universalist passage, it's the
thought of universalism that inspires what directly follows that verse
-- Paul's wonderful doxology of Romans 11:33-36, the penultimate line
of which takes on added significance in a universalist context:
O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?
Or who has given a gift to him
to receive a gift in return?
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever. Amen.
Universalism is far from a mere doctrine of barren theology; many,
like Paul, find great joy in the belief. Part of the joy some find is
in the thought that not only they, but their fellow humans, will,
eventually at least, experience everlasting life with Christ. But,
like Paul, you may find the joy is focused rather on God, and on how
wondrous and complete a victory will be won by the God "who desires
everyone to be saved" (I Timothy 2:4). And, on the other side, the
non-universalist picture may come to look strangely dim, not
exclusively because of the awful fate that awaits some of your fellows
on this picture, but because God is deprived of such a complete
victory, and, in winning only a partial victory, his desire that
everyone be saved will ultimately be frustrated.
For myself, it's hard to even imagine going back to my earlier way of
thinking about God, according to which it's only the case that:
God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he might have mercy
on some of them
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall some be made alive
For in Christ, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and
through him to reconcile to himself some things, whether on earth or
in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross
Then, as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one
man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for some men.
[the-end-366-bw.JPG]
[18]About the image
Last modified 24 January 1999
[19]Keith DeRose
______________________________________________________________________
Please note: This web page has generated a tremendous amount of
e-correspondence. I'm very pleased that it has caused some to
consider the important issues addressed, and am especially gratified
that it has caused some to think so carefully about the issues that
they have crafted very thoughtful responses. You are welcome to write
me about these ideas, but please understand that I simply cannot
respond to all the communications -- even all the thoughtful
communications -- that I receive, and please don't take it personally
if I do not respond. Often, it will just be that you contacted me at
a particularly busy time. And even in the best of times, I can
respond only to a very small percentage of the messages I receive.
--KDR
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
Appendices
All of the above remains basically unchanged in content since I wrote
it for an adult Bible study in early 1998. (The only changes, I
believe, are a couple of references and links to other web sites that
I added to section 10 later.) Since I posted the above on the
internet in the Winter of 98-99, I have received a lot of feedback on
it. Some of the e-mail I have received has raised substantive
points. Below I briefly address two of the areas that I have been
very frequently asked about. The first area concerns the danger of
believing and promoting universalism, and the second concerns
philosophical issues that arise in reconciling universalism with free
will. So in neither case do the concerns very directly involve the
Biblical case for or against universalism. Thus, addressing them
moves us beyond the topic of my original post. Nevertheless, since
these are two of the areas of concern that have been most often raised
about the above, it is worth addressing them here.
______________________________________________________________________
A. The Danger of False Belief on this Matter
Many have e-mailed to warn me of the dangers of believing and
promoting universalism. Two closely related dangers have been
stressed. Some focus on how important Christians will think it is to
spread the gospel if they accept universalism, and warn that belief in
universalism would undercut evangelism. Others focus on the potential
detrimental effect of promoting universalism on potential Christians
themselves, supposing many will think something along the lines of,
"Well, I'll be OK anyway, so why bother to accept Christ?"
I do not think that belief in universalism should have the above
effects. Here it is important to note that universalism -- at least
the position I've been referring to by the term -- does not imply that
it is unimportant whether one accepts Christ in this life, or sooner
rather than later. All that universalism per se rules out here is the
"infinitely big stick": that one will be eternally barred from heaven
(and perhaps consigned to hell) if one fails to accept Christ in this
life. As I've stressed, universalism itself does not rule out that
there will be punishment for some after death. Indeed, it does not
rule out that there will be a lot of punishment for some. So it's not
only consistent with the existence of sticks, but with very big --
indeed, immensely huge -- sticks, though of course universalists will
disagree amongst themselves about the nature and size of whatever
sticks there are. Universalism does rule out the infinitely big
stick. But it would indeed be very sad if Christians believed that
there is strong reason or motivation for accepting Christ in this life
only if one faces an infinitely big stick if one fails to do so.
Universalism also guarantees that all humans will eventually attain
the tremendous carrot. But does the fact that things will eventually
be OK for someone remove the motivation -- for herself and for others
-- to improve her lot in the meantime? Those who believe they are
going to heaven, whether they're universalists or not, believe
everything will eventually be OK for them, but few lose all interest
in their well-being in the meantime. And those who believe that
certain other people (say, loved ones) are destined for heaven don't
lose interest in promoting their well-being in the meantime. Why,
then, should accepting that everyone will eventually be OK sap all
motivation for promoting their well-being in the meantime --
especially since it's at least consistent with universalism that that
"meantime" can be a very long time?
It's also worth pointing out that though the universalist believes all
will attain heaven, it's consistent with universalism that what one's
heavenly existence is like may depend on one's earthly life. Thus the
universalist may hold (though perhaps some will not) that how one
lives one's earthly life -- perhaps crucially including whether one
accepts Christ in this life -- will have eternal significance, even if
it doesn't determine whether one (eventually at least) attains heaven.
But even if I'm right that belief in universalism should not have the
bad effects described above, I don't doubt that belief in universalism
will have such bad effects, at least on some. After all, some people
claim that belief in universalism would have such a bad effect on
themselves, and I'd be a fool to suppose I can judge better than them
what the effect of the belief would be on them.
But those who press the potential dangers of belief in universalism
seem to neglect the corresponding potential dangers of their own
position. Indeed, many who press the concern about the detrimental
effects of accepting universalism go on to explicitly state that there
is no danger on the other side as part of their case for resisting the
promotion of universalism.
But they are wrong. There are dangers on the other side. I have
received many e-mails from those who have related that the doctrine of
eternal hell was the biggest stumbling block to their accepting
Christianity, and many others said that believing that doctrine
interfered greatly with their ability to love God. Now, one doesn't
have to accept universalism to avoid the doctrine of eternal hell --
one can accept some view on which those who don't make it to heaven
are (eventually or right away) annihilated. But, for many,
universalism is the view that rings most true, and the version of
Christianity they'd be most likely to accept.
Suppose for a minute that universalism is correct, and suppose that
these people are right to think that there is no way that God would
allow some people to be forever excluded. In that case, promoting the
false view that God will allow such exclusion is doing great harm.
Indeed, many universalists, myself included, believe that
non-universalism is one of the most harmful falsehoods ever promoted
in the Christian church.
There is danger on both sides. Either way, if one is wrong, one may
be doing harm to people by advocating one's false view. Indeed,
either way, even if one is right, one can do some harm to others by
advocating the truth one believes. (Even if universalism is true, my
promoting that truth may cause some to lose their faith, and may
thereby harm them. Likewise, if universalism is false, those who
declare it false may thereby harm some people.) One possible response
to these dangers, whichever side one is on, would be to remain silent
on the issue. Another response is to present one's thinking on the
issue for others' consideration. That is the path I have chosen -- as
have those who write to oppose me. If I have caused you think about
the issue, to study the Bible (especially important here is reading
not just the passages for and against universalism that have been
presented, but also the material that surrounds them and gives them
their context), and to prayerfully consider the issue, then I am
happy, even if I haven't convinced you of my position.
______________________________________________________________________
B. Free Will and Universalism
Many who have e-mailed me have been concerned about free will.
Doesn't one have to freely accept Christ in order to be saved? This
is an extension of strong exclusivism. Strong exclusivism, as I have
used it above, says that in order to be saved, one must somehow
explicitly accept Christ. Now, we're adding to this that the
accepting must be free. Let's call this new position fervent
exclusivism. If we accept fervent exclusivism, how can we say that
universalism is true?
I don't know of any serious scriptural support for fervent exclusivism
itself. Still, it's worth taking seriously and thinking about,
because it is, for those who think human freedom is very important,
the natural extension of strong exclusivism, for which there is in my
view significant scriptural support. If you think that one must
accept Christ to be saved, and if you think that human freedom is
important, you're likely to think that the free acceptance of Christ
is very valuable and important -- perhaps important enough that one's
ultimate destiny might ride on it.
So, for those who are attracted to this fervent variety of
exclusivism: First note that even fervent exclusivism is compatible
with universalism. The first of these says that to be saved one must
freely accept Christ. The second says that, eventually at least, all
will be saved. It's easy to see how these can both be true: If all
will eventually freely accept Christ.
But even if it is possible for both positions to be true, is it all
plausible to suppose they will be? Supposing there is nothing barring
further chances -- that the free accepting may take place after death
(see sections 6 and 7 above) -- I don't see why not. After all, there
is an omnipotent and infinitely resourceful God, whom we know "desires
everyone to be saved" (I Timothy 2:4), and has as much time as He
needs to bring everyone around. I certainly wouldn't want to bet
against Him! 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.
(If you think that the most dramatic turn-arounds in this life have
involved an infringement on the freedom of the people involved, but
agree that they were saved nonetheless, then you you are not a fervent
exclusivist, and you should have no objections to such non-free
savings taking place after death. I am here addressing only fervent
exclusivists.)
But some seem to have a different worry -- not that fervent
exclusivism is incompatible with universalism, but that, if fervent
exclusivism is true, then nobody, not even God, can know (or at least
know for certain) that all will be saved, since nobody can know what
people will freely do. So, even if universalism will turn to be true,
we cannot know that now, and God would not have revealed that to us
already. According to this worry, fervent exclusivism doesn't show
that universalism won't be true, but it does undermine the position
that universalism is revealed in the scriptures.
This new worry, then, is based on the assumption that free will is
incompatible with foreknowledge: that it is impossible, even for God,
to know (or at least to know for certain) ahead of time what someone
will freely do. Note that God can still be omniscient despite not
knowing what we will freely do. Omniscience is a matter of knowing
all truths. And if you deny that God knows what creatures will freely
do, you're likely to also believe that there aren't now any truths to
be known about what creatures will freely do in the future. God's
"failure" to know what you will freely do then would count against his
omniscience no more than does his "failure" to know that 2+2 = 796: In
neither case is the proposition in question (now) true and so in
neither case is it the kind of proposition that can (now) be known.
But while the assumption that freedom is incompatible with
foreknowledge doesn't undermine God's omniscience, it is highly
debatable. In fact, my sense is that most theists reject this
assumption. Indeed, traditionally, many theists have supposed that
free action is not only compatible with foreknowledge, but also with
divine determinism: That one can be free even if God's decrees
causally determine you do the action in question. How can one be free
if divine decrees, issued long before one is born, causally determine
what one does? I don't know. That position -- compatibilism about
freedom and determinism -- has always seemed very implausible to me.
But even among those who join me in rejecting compatibilism about
freedom and determinism, many (and I think most) accept the
compatibility of freedom and foreknowledge.
If you believe that God knows ahead of time who will freely accept him
in this life, then you must not really be an incompatibilist about
freedom and foreknowledge, and you should have no objection to
supposing that God can know ahead of time who will freely accept Him
in the life to come. Thus, this objection will have carry no weight
with you.
If, on the other hand, you hold that foreknowledge is incompatible
with freedom, and thus hold that God does not know what people will
freely do even in this life, then you should be aware that you are
holding a minority opinion (at least among Christians, but I think
also among philosophers, both Christian or non-Christian), and if you
use this incompatibilism -- let's call incompatibilism regarding
freedom and foreknowledge zealous incompatibilism, to distinguish it
from the milder view that freedom is incompatible with
pre-determination --, together with fervent exclusivism, in objecting
to the universalist stance, then you should be aware that your
argument is resting on an assumption that is highly debatable, to put
it rather mildly. So it certainly isn't anything of a "killer"
objection to the universalist stance. As far as assessing the
strength of the objection to universalism that can be obtained by
these worries about freedom goes, that's the important point: There is
no strong objection here, since the objection is based on such a
controversial position -- indeed, on two highly debatable positions:
fervent exclusivism and zealous incompatibilism.
Nevertheless, I myself am somewhat attracted toward these
controversial views. For those of you who join me in finding these
positions appealing, despite their zealous/fervent nature, here are a
couple of options for how to put zealous incompatibilism together with
fervent exclusivism (or at least something close to it), and
universalism (or at least something close to it) into a coherent
package of views. A way to think about these two options is that one
(perhaps) compromises a bit on universalism, the other on fervent
exclusivism.
1. Holding very firmly to both zealous incompatibilism (freedom is
incompatible with foreknowledge) and fervent exclusivism (in order to
be saved, one must freely accept Christ), one can hold that, while it
may not be absolutely certain, it is OVERWHELMINGLY probable that all
will eventually accept Christ and be saved, and the probability that
any will resist forever is VANISHINGLY small. After all, God will be
on the case, and will have as much time as He needs. While it is true
that some are heading in the completely wrong direction, and give no
sign that, left to their own devices, they will do anything but
accelerate their progress in that wrong direction, they will not be
left to their own devices. There are actual instances in this life of
breathtakingly dramatic turn-arounds, and God does intervene to bring
people around in this life (without violating their freedom, according
to the fervent exclusivist). So once we jettison that disastrous and
quite unsupported view that death is the end of one's chances, there's
no reason to doubt that such divine activities will continue in the
life to come, nor that they will (eventually, at least) be successful
in yielding free acceptance.
If one takes this option, I think one can still be counted as a
universalist. After all, you believe it is overwhelmingly probable
that all will be saved, and in contested theological matters, we can't
expect to reach beyond that level of certainty anyway. (Indeed, due
to the usual causes -- human fallibility on such tough questions --
we're not even going to get up to that level of certainty, nor even
close to it, on this or any other tough matter, anyway.) But this
does seem to compromise on universalism a bit, because one is not only
admitting that one could (of course!) be wrong about the matter in
question, but also that according to the position one holds (however
firmly or tentatively), there is some (VANISHINGLY small, but still
existent) objective chance that not all will be saved. Not even God
knows absolutely for certain that all will be saved.
And this gives rise to a sticky question about whether God would
have revealed that all will be saved if He was not absolutely certain
that this would be so. It's easy to feel uncomfortable about saying
that's what God did -- even if He was amazingly close to being
absolutely certain that what we was revealing to us is true.
2. So, here's another possibility. God could pick some time in the
distant future -- a time far enough off that it is overwhelmingly
probable that all will have freely accepted salvation by then, given
the (non-freedom-violating) means of persuasion God intends to employ
-- and resolve to at that time compel acceptance of any hold-outs that
are then left. These would then be saved by their acceptance, though
their acceptance might not be as valuable, given that it was not
free. Thus, God can be absolutely certain, and can therefore
responsibly reveal to us, that all will be saved. (There are many
variations of this story that you might think up and think about for
yourself. For instance: God could pick different times for different
individuals, etc. Of course, any such story will be highly
speculative, and so one probably shouldn't invest any confidence in
any such tale. Still, these can be helpful stories in that they show
various ways that certain combinations of views can be made true, and
thus can show the views themselves to be compatible, even if one can't
be certain of the details of just how it will be worked out. In this
case, these stories illustrate ways that zealous incompatibilism and
universalism -- and even foreknown universalism -- can both be true
even while the value and importance of human freedom is respected to a
great degree.)
Now, this position does give up on fervent exclusivism (though not
on strong exclusivism or exclusivism simpliciter), since it holds that
one can be saved even if one does not freely accept Christ.
Nevertheless, it does go a fair way toward accommodating the
motivation behind fervent exclusivism -- the importance of human
freedom -- in that it has God adopting a plan by which He goes to
tremendous lengths to attain free acceptance from every person. And
those who hold this view can still maintain that it is far better and
more valuable for a person to freely accept than for this acceptance
to be coerced in a freedom-negating way. But it does deny that one
must freely accept in order to be saved, and thus it does deny fervent
exclusivism. Still, it's worth considering, for it gives those who
might otherwise insist on fervent exclusivism a compromise position
which doesn't simply write free acceptance off as unimportant. This
potential compromise position is especially valuable if I'm right
about how one would likely come to be a fervent exclusivist in the
first place: That there's no substantial scriptural support for
fervent exclusivism itself, but that fervent exclusivism is the likely
result of combining strong exclusivism (for which there is significant
support) with a belief one might have that human freedom is
important. Since the compromise position respects the importance of
human freedom, it is likely to be an attractive compromise.
[Some fine print about a very tricky matter I just skated over
above: It is worth noting that this view does depend on God's being
able to foreknow with complete certainty what He Himself will do.
Many who hold that God cannot foreknow what we will freely do seem to
suppose that He can know what He Himself will do. This gets too
complicated for me to go into in detail here. But whatever else you
believe, if you think that God cannot know with complete certainty
what He Himself will do, then, so long as you think that God will
always have the power to make us miserable (which His omnipotence
seems to assure), then you will be stuck with thinking that God cannot
know with certainty that we won't be miserable at some later time.
Thus, even those who hold that God cannot foreknow with complete
certainty what we will freely do are very strongly motivated to hold
that He can foreknow what He Himself will do. This can be because
God's freedom is in important ways different from ours. In any case,
when I speak of "zealous incompatibilism," I mean the position that
God's certain foreknowledge is incompatible with human freedom.]
The above options are sketched out as potentially helpful guides for
those who are attracted to certain combinations of views involving
freedom, foreknowledge, and salvation. It's important to reemphasize
in closing the important point reached several paragraphs above: that
there is no strong objection to universalism that can be squeezed out
of these thoughts -- at least not in any way that I can see.
6-13-2003
______________________________________________________________________
Recommended Books on Universalism:
[20]The Inescapable Love of God, by Thomas Talbott
[21]If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person, by Philip Gulley
and James Mulholland. Though I found this book quite valuable, I do
disagree strongly with parts of it. Most of my strong disagreement is
with the material in Chapter 5. Most relevant to the concerns of this
web page, Gulley & Mulholland seem to reject the position I've been
calling "exclusivism" -- the view that it is only through Christ that
people are saved. They seem to think that the denial of exclusivism
follows directly from universalism [see pp. 124-5] and in any case
give no other reason I can see for their denial. As I've been at
great pains to stress here, universalism can co-exist with what I'm
here calling exclusivism, and even with strong exclusivism -- and
perhaps even with fervent exclusivism. Perhaps G&M would agree that
universalism is compatible with exclusivism. Perhaps their claim
would be that while universalism is compatible both with exclusivism
and with non-exclusivism, it fits in better with non-exclusivism.
They write [they adopted the literary device of writing in the first
person singular, though there are two of them]: "When I became
convinced God would save every person, I tried to hold on to
traditional Christian formulas -- the trinity, the incarnation, and
atonement theology. I wanted to pour this new wine into old
wineskins. I quickly learned why Jesus recommended against this: the
old wineskins always burst. Just as fermenting wine causes old
leather to rend and tear, my expanding view of God strained the
credibility of my childhood theology" (pp. 125-6). Perhaps
exclusivism, too, is part of that old wineskin that G&M now find not
to fit in well with the new wine of universalism -- maybe they even
intended to include exclusivism in the quoted passage, as part of the
"atonement theology" of their childhood. If so, my experience has
been completely different. The Christian theology I grew up with
seems quite similar to what G&M were taught. But I had always found
it puzzling, given the relevant elements of this theology, why some
would not be saved. If salvation is won through Christ's sacrifice,
and is then God's free gift to us, why would this gift be given only
to some? Of course, there were answers that were typically given to
this question, but with one exception they struck me as implausible.
(The one reason that seemed plausible was that only some accept the
gift, but that raised the question, at least in many cases, some of
which made the question quite urgent, of why the offer wouldn't be
made under more favorable circumstances.) When I accepted
universalim, I found it to fit in better with the relevant elements of
the theology of my childhood than did the denial of universalism. So
far from being new wine that strained and burst an old wineskin,
universalism seemed to me like something that made a lot of previously
puzzling elements of my childhood theology finally come together and
make sense.
References
1. http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Ekd47
16. http://www.tentmaker.org/books/Aion_lim.html
17. http://tomtalbott.freeyellow.com/./index.html
18. http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Ekd47/about-the-end.htm
19. http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Ekd47
20. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1581128312/qid=1058409463/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-1631670-6917757?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
21. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/006251704X/qid%3D1058409593/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/102-1631670-6917757
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