Open Theism Discussion Board

Then the good Dr. writes: I think this picture, which Arni Zachariassen shared, is supposed to illustrate the difficulty of choosing between universalism and the sort of particularism that believes that anyone who is not a Christian (however that is defined) goes to hell.

I wonder whether the unattractiveness of both options ought not to provide encouragement to explore other options, such as annihilationism. Surely ceasing to exist would be better than either spending eternity with Hitler, or eternity knowing that people like Gandhi are in hell.

But it is hard to embrace our own mortality - apparently so much so that it drives some people to Intelligent Design! :-)

Brandon

It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.

To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa

Brandon

It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.

To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa

Best review of "Love Wins" by Don Miller of "Blue Like Jazz"

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.--Saint Augustine

Brandon

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.--Saint Augustine

I've been waiting for this: "Can hope be wrong? On the new universalism"

Probably the best response to Rob Bell and EU I've seen yet. Funny how two scholars from the same institution come out differently on this topic. Mouw and Smith. I do appreciate Smith's warnings though. Even Robin Parry says that if EU is wrong the default position should be the traditional view. That being said I can see the implications of keeping it that way--"a heaven to gain and a hell to shun" sort of thing. I also appreciate his warning on allowing our imaginations and hopes (I really don't get his use of Matt 22:30, that's a misunderstanding of the Universalist position though) being submitted to scripture. At the same time his particularity and exclusivism seems to weigh in heavy on his understanding of where we are coming from.

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.--Saint Augustine

Though Smith might not condemn and be non-judgmental I do note a bit of sarcasm and condescension when he says:

The question, then, is just what compels one to be an evangelical universalist? Some resort to prooftexting, operating with a naive, selective reading of Scripture. I'm going to do the evangelical universalist a favor and ignore such a strategy, only because I think it can be so easily refuted. (Many of these evangelical universalists would pounce on such selective prooftexting in other contexts.)

He’s going do us a favor??? I suppose there are SOME who proof text and if that is who he is speaking to fine. But I really have not seen much of that as it seems that most of those who are universalists come from the traditional view as it is the dominant view. So it’s not as if they are coming to it to proof text a position but rather have arrived at the position they are at via wrestling with the text and then possibly providing some proof texts for the position.

Smith goes on to say:

Instead, it seems that the macro-motivation for evangelical universalism is less a text and more a hermeneutic, a kind of "sensibility" about the very nature of God as "love" (which includes its own implicit sensibility about the nature of love).

Like what? That God’s love is everlasting while his wrath and judgment is but for a short while? That wrath and judgment is loving? Or is hell incompatible with God’s love? Who’s working with certain sensibilities about divine love?

And what about this?

1) "I can't imagine" that a God of love would condemn Gandhi to hell. (Always Gandhi. Why Gandhi? As Ross Douthat asks, can you insert Tony Soprano here? Doesn't the evangelical universalist case of Gandhi imply a kind of salvation by works? But I digress...) Or, as Winner puts it, evangelical universalists "can't imagine their secular friends aren't going to heaven."

Well, you’ve, Tom, dealt with that above. ON THIS PAGE. But let me ask it this way. Who is closer to heaven? Gandhi or Tony Soprano? I would tend to believe that Gandhi is. But isn’t God the righteous judge who knows who’s in and who’s out? Who knows what’s in the deepest recesses of our hearts? I don’t know about Gandhi. I don’t know that God WOULDN’T “condemn” him to hellish existence so as to purify and bring him to the place that God is his only source of aesthetic fulfillment and becoming.

I agree with you about what he says about the trinity of theologians he mentions. I think Parry edits a book that deals with the question of the historicity of universalism here: “All Shall Be Well” I’ve yet to read this one.

In the end I do like it when Smith says we should submit our imaginings and hopes to scripture. That’s a fair warning for everyone including himself.

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.--Saint Augustine

Brandon

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.--Saint Augustine