The Evangelical Universalist Forum

List of those of who reject traditional hellism

Disputed (and some Proto- or Non-Christian) Universalists (or anti-hellists)

Amalric of Bena - also Amaury de Bène or Amaury de Chartres (died c. 1204-1207), French scholastic theologian whose teachings were condemned In 1204 by the university of Paris, and the teachings of his followers condemned at the Lateran Council of 1215. Hosea Ballou 2nd makes a tentative remark on p.303 of *Ancient History of Universalism *(1842) that Amalric may have been a Universalist; and others Universalist historians have followed suit without the same caution. However, the fragmentary information seems to suggest that Amalric took the teachings of John Scouts Erigena to one-sided and extreme conclusions, teaching an extreme form of pantheism -that God is all and thus all things are one because whatever is, is God; and that he who remains in love of God can commit no sin. So the corollary of his teachings could be extreme antinomianism – and he may well have inspired the Brethren of the Free Spirit. His followers taught that -Hell is ignorance, therefore Hell is within all men, “like a bad tooth in a mouth”.

Anonymous, the **Dies Irae **(Day of Wrath) from the Roman Requiem Mass is a thirteenth-century Latin hymn attributed to either Thomas of Celano (1200– c.1265) or to Latino Malabranca Orsini (+1294). It has been given memorable setting and hugely dramatic in the Requiem Masses of both Mozart and Verdi. The first verse runs:
‘Dies Irae, dies illa,/Solvet saeclum in favilla,/Teste David cum Sibylla’ (The day of wrath,/ that day/Will dissolve the world in ashes/As foretold by David and the Sibyl!’). The context of the entire hymn is of the soul pleading to be spared damnation, as in the sixteenth:‘Confutatis maledictis,/ Flammis acribus addictis:/ Voca me cum benedictis’ (Once the cursed have been rebuked,/ sentenced to acrid flames:/Call Thou me with the blessed). However, back to verse one, the Sibyl who foretells these scenes of doom with David, is the Sibyl of the Sibylline oracles where the saved intercede for the damned and the damned are restored.

Arnold, Matthew (1822–1888), English poet and notable Victorian cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools:
'“He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save!”/ So rang Tertullian’s sentence, on the side/ Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried, --“Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave/ Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave!”/ So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed, The infant church, of love she felt the tide/ Stream on her from her Lord’s yet recent grave,/ And then she smiled, and in the Catacombs,/ With eye suffused, but heart inspired true,/ On those walls/ subterranean, where she hid/ Her head in ignominy, death and tombs,/ She her Good Shepherd’s hasty image drew,/ And on His shoulders, not a lamb, a kid’ (Songs of the Soul: gathered out of many lands and ages, p.383).

Arndt, Johann (1555 –1621), German Lutheran theologian. Although reflective of the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy, he is seen as a forerunner of Pietism because he wrote several influential books of devotional Christianity: *True Christianity *(1605-10) and *The Garden of Paradise *(1612) that have been hugely influential on German and Swedish Protestantism. In these writings Arndt shows a debt to the mystic Johannes Tauler and to the Theologica Germanica. To date no explicit evidence of universalism has been seen; however, certainly Arndt’s attempt to balance head and heart in Christian faith laid the ground for the later Pietist Universalists.

Bartol, Cyrus Augustus (1813-1900), American Unitarian minister and key figure in transcendentalism. His anti-hell credentials are evident from the quotations in Cloud of Witness, p,223-224 (‘Sheer blasphemy and inhumanity in the old theology is the doctrine of a doom to perdition and eternal woe to our persona; or our ancestral delinquency’). However, his quasi pantheistic conception of UR as immortality in the ‘over soul’ is more evident in the following passage:
‘What is it that accepts misery from the Most High, defends the Providence that inflicts its woes, espouses its chastiser’s cause, purges itself in the pit of its misery of all contempt of His commands, and makes its agonies the beams and rafters of the triumph it builds? It is an immortal principle. It is an indestructible essence. It is part and parcel of the Divinity it adores. It can no more die than he can. It needs no more insurance of life than its author does. Prove its title? It is proof itself of all things else. It is substantive, and everything adjective beside. It is the kingdom all things will be added to’ (Radical Problems, p.365, 1872).

*** Borges**, Jorge Luis (1899 –1986), Argentine short-story writer, essayist; religious themes recur in his work, although it is hard to pin him down to any faith tradition or orthodoxy. His work embraces the “character of unreality in all literature”. In his essay, *La duración del Infierno *he suggests that no transgression can warrant an infinite punishment on the grounds that there is no such thing as an “infinite transgression”:
‘I believe that in our unthinkable destiny, in which infamies rule like a carnal pain, every bizarre thing is possible, even the perpetuity of a Hell, but also that it is irreligious to believe in it’ (La duración del Infierno, p.x, 1932).

Browne, Sir Thomas (1605 –1682), English physician, author of varied works in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and hermeticism:
‘…good Men’s wishes extend beyond their lives, for the happiness of times to come, and never to be known unto them. And therefore while so many question prayers for the dead, they charitably pray for those who are not yet alive; they are not so enviously ambitious to go to Heaven themselves; they cannot but humbly wish, that the little Flock might be greater, the narrow Gate wider, and that, as many are called, so not a few might be chosen’ (‘Christian Morals’, in Complete Writings, vol 3, p.142).

Butler, Rev William Archer (c. 1814-1848), Irish Protestant clergyman and Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Dublin. Hanson (in Cloud of Witness, p.303) quotes Butler as follows:
‘Were it possible for man’s imagination to conceive the horrors of such a doom as this (endless punishment), all reasoning about it were at an end; it would scorch and wither all the powers of human thought…and those, it may be, with the keen sympathies and characteristics that the Christian loves and values, seen to be at last among the victims of that irreparable doom, -can we doubt that he would come forth with intellect blanched and idealess from a sight too terrible for any whose faculties are not in the scale of eternity itself? It is God’s mercy to believe what adequately to conceive were death.’ However, the final sentence in this quotation is the key; Butler actually appears to be arguing that only God’s mercy can enable us to believe these things without going mad (a curious defence of ECT). The writer James Barlow confirm this reading, because he quote the same passage from Butler adding that, ‘The awful nature of this doctrine is not however overlooked by its ablest defenders’ (Barlow, Eternal Punishment and Eternal Death: An Essay, p.10, 1865).

Byron, Lord George Gordon (1788–1824), English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic Movement, author of Don Juan, famed as a freedom fighter in the Greek War of Independence, and for his life of excess including huge debts and numerous love affairs. His reputation as a universalist rest on the facts that his long suffering wife clearly was one, and on the inclusion of his poem ‘The Immortal Mind’ in the 1853 Anthology *The testimony of the poets *by the American universalist Epes Sargent. However, this poem merely expresses a general sentiment about the transcendent survival of ‘mind’ after death:
‘Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear,/ It lives all passionless and pure:/An age shall fleet like earthly year;/Its years as moments shall endure./ Away, away, without a wing,/O’er all, through all, its thought shall fly,/ A nameless and eternal thing,/ Forgetting what it was to die’ (The Immortal Mind, final stanza).

Campbell, John McLeod (1800 –1872), Scottish minister and Reformed theologian who numbered F.D. Maurice and Thomas Erskine in his circle of friends. He was removed from his ministry in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland for holding, against the Westminster Confession, that Christ’s death was not only for the elect but for the whole world. On the other hand, Campbell also rejected universalism - “God’s love does not imply safety…pardon is not salvation.’ As strongly as Campbell insists that atonement, pardon, and forgiveness are universal, he emphasized that they are temporary. Campbell was so far from universalism that he did not doubt that the number of people saved will be small, even as Noah’s ark saved only eight:
'the present condition of the human race is, that God has forgiven all men their sins—not as a permanent and eternal condition of things, but as a preliminary state—preliminary to a day in which he shall judge men according to the deeds done in the body, whether they have been good or whether they have been evil’(Sermons and Lectures 1,p.119).

Carlyle, Thomas (1795–1881), Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era. His *The French Revolution *was the source book for Charles Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities. Coming from a strict Calvinist family - parts of his autobiographical work *Sartor Resartus *recall to mind the terrifying sermons of Jonathan Edwards - Carlyle was expected to become a preacher by his parents, but while at the University of Edinburgh he lost his Christian faith. However, Calvinist values, remained with him. Pessimism characterized both his personal life and much of his literary output. He celebrated constant labour as the basis of an existential redemption from the haunting anguish of being alive (and is pictured in Work, a painting by Ford Maddox Brown, discussing the merits of labour with F.D. Maurice). Despite his inclusion in Hanson’s *Cloud of Witness *(pp. 139-140) it seems best to think of Carlyle as a non-believer who still had a sense of the transcendent and employed religious language to express this. For example, in words not quoted by Hanson Carlyle says:
‘There are depths in man that go to the lowest hell, and heights that reach the highest heaven, for are not both heaven and hell made out of him, everlasting miracle and mystery that he is’ (*The French Revolution *vol ii, pp. 178-180, 1838).

Carrol, Lewis, pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832 –1898), English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. The author of the famous *Alice in Wonderland *. No evidence seen to date to of explicit expression of universalism by him. However, he was a very close friend of George MacDonald and in 1862, seemingly as a result of Rev. H.B. Wilson being charged with heresy for questioning eternal punishment, Carrol eschewed attendance at St Mary Magdalene, the prestigious University Parish Church and instead travelled each Sunday to London to attend St Peter’s Church in Vere St (just off Oxford Street), where the incumbent was the radical and controversial hopeful universalist F.D. Maurice. Some have seen he author’s tolerant and equable universalism in the famous races which follow under the Dodo’s presidency in Alice. ‘At last’ the Dodo said, ‘everybody has won, and all must have prizes’ (Alice in Wonderland). Carroll’s diary for July 20 1862 reads:
‘Morning and afternoon at Vere St. Mr Maurice preached both times. I like his sermons very much’ (*Carroll’s diary *for July 20 1862).

Channing, William Ellery (1780 – 1842), American Unitarian and one of Unitarianism’s leading theologians. His religion and thought were among the chief influences on the New England Transcendentalists, though he never countenanced their views. Channing was dismissive of Ballou’s universalism – he was basically Armenian in outlook and emphasised man’s moral freedom and God’s moral justice in his teaching; whereas Ballou emphasised God’s sovereign power to save. The following quotation that Hanson gives in A Cloud of Witness, p.117, is actually a rejection of Calvinist reprobation rather than a statement of Universalism (and Hanson admits that he cannot recall a clear stamen of the latter by Channing):
‘We consider the errors which relate to Christ’s person as of little or no importance compared with the errors of those who teach God brings us into life wholly depraved and wholly helpless, that he leaves multitudes without aid which is indispensably necessary to their repentance, and then plunges them into everlasting burnings and unspeakable torture for not repenting’ (Memoir of William Ellery Channing, Volume 1, p. 387, 1851).

Cheyne, Dr George (1671–1743), English pioneering physician, early proto-psychologist, philosopher and mathematician. Without explicitly defending universalism, he clearly gives it implicit assent in his work Philosophical Principles of 1715 (the only ambiguous phrase in the following extract being ‘to make then as happy as their respective natures can admit’):
‘He Maintained that there is a principle of action in intelligent beings, analogous to that of attraction in the material system, which is the principle of reunion with the first cause [God], who ‘’infinitely powerful, and perfect must necessarily subject, draw and unite all intelligent beings to himself, to make the as happy as their respective natures can admit.’ He is the sole object of their happiness, and the must be brought to enjoy it ‘This happiness is the very end of their creation, it being impossible infinite intelligence should make intelligent beings for any other end’ (quoted in Whittemore, The Modern History of Universalism, p 207, 1860).

Clarke, McDonald (1798–1842), American poet of some fame in New York City in the early part of the 19th century. He was an influence on, and eulogized by Walt Whitman; but widely known as "the mad poet of Broadway’. Hanson includes him in *A Cloud of Witness *not as an explicit believer in UR but rather as one who gave fine expression to the idea that hell is made up of human selfishness:
‘How narrow are the bounds of hell/Of blood and dust how small a part!/The cloister of a forehead’s clouded swell./The dungeon of a loathing heart’ (Hanson, Cloud of Witness, p. 155).

Clephane, Elizabeth Cecelia Douglas (1830–1869), author of the hymn *The Ninety and Nine *(melody by Ira Sankey). While it seems she was not a universalist, John Wesley Hanson considered her hymn the essence of Universalism. He called this hymn “the literal language of our faith.” Hence Elizabeth Clephane is sometimes found on internet lists of universalists:
'There were ninety and nine that safely lay/ In the shelter of the fold./ But one was out on the hills away,/ Far off from the gates of gold…//“Lord, Thou hast here Thy ninety and nine; Are they not enough for Thee?”/But the Shepherd made answer: “This of Mine/Has wandered away from Me…But none of the ransomed ever knew/ How deep were the waters crossed;/Nor how dark was the night the Lord passed through/ Ere He found His sheep that was lost’ (The Ninety Nine).

Cowper, William (1731–1800), English poet and hymnodist– a forerunner of Romantic poetry with a playful and comic gift – one of his poems has the engaging title To the Immortal Memory of the Halibut, on Which I Dined This Day. However, all of his life he feared hell which lead to frequent bouts of insanity and despair. Paradoxically many of his hymns breathe universal hope which lead the universalist poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning to observe in *Cowper’s Grave *– ‘O poets! From a maniac’s tongue was poured the deathless singing!/O Christians ! at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was clinging!/O men! This man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling, /Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye were smiling!’. This paradox is clear in his following famous lyric:
‘Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,/The clouds ye so much dread/Are big with mercy, and shall break/In blessings on your head.//Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,/But trust him for his grace;/Behind a frowning providence,/He hides a smiling face’ (from God moves in mysterious ways).

Donne, John (1572 –1631), English metaphysical poet - famous for his sensual style and ingenious similes/conceits - satirist, lawyer and, later in life, Anglican Dean of St Paul’s. As a cleric he was known for his moderating influence on Calvinism (he was something like a three point Calvinist). Some of his religious poetry suggest universalists sentiments at variance with his theology. Hanson cites Donne’s *Holy Sonnet *:
‘What if this present were the world’s last night? … And can that tongue adjudge thee unto hell,/ Which prayed forgiveness of his foes’ fierce spite?/Non! No!’(A Cloud of Witness, p.52). However, the context of the poem is Donne seeking personal assurance of forgiveness for his youthful riotous life, by undertaking an Ignatian meditation upon the Final Judgment – so the emphasis is primarily personal rather than universal here.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Mikhailovich (1821-1881), famous Russian novelist, short story writer, and essayist, best known for Crime and Punishment, *The Idiot *and The Brothers Karamazov:
‘Crush this soul with mercy, show it love, and it will curse its handiwork, for within it there are so many good beginnings. The soul will grow enlarged and will behold how merciful God is, how fair and just are men. He will be horrified and crushed by the repentance and the numberless debt that stands before him from this day … Justice is not the retribution merely, but also the salvation of the ruined man … Let other nations have the letter and the retribution, we have the spirit and the sense, the salvation and regeneration of the ruined’ (*The Brothers Karamazov *p.x).

Espy, James Pollard (1785–1860), American meteorologist famous for developing the convection theory of storms (hence his nickname ‘Storm King’). His word that are quoted by Hanson are inconclusive, I think. They could merely be an instance of him showing a detached empathy with a universalist audience he was lecturing to, rather than a statement of personal conviction:
[commenting on the Scripture passages ‘As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive’ and ‘Have we not all one Father?’ when giving [i]a lecture at the Baltimore Murray Institute in 1842 after a question from Rev. James Shrigley] ‘Both are good, but ‘’Have we not all one Father?’’ is infinitely better. It is a question which will induce men to think, and if men will only think they will soon discard the idea of eternal punishment. If one Father, of course, it follows one origin and one destiny for all; I have not been a close student of the Bible, but one thing I feel quite sure, the Universalists have both reason and philosophy on their side’ ( Hanson, Cloud of Witness, p.128).

Ferguson, Rev Fergus (1824-1897), Scottish minister of Montrose Street Evangelical Union Church, tried by the Glasgow Presbytery at one time as a heretic for questioning limited atonement. He wrote of the doctrine of the eternity of hell and evil, as a Calvinist disciplined in coherent logic, that it is:
‘A notion not only incompatible with every one of the fundamental propositions of pure orthodoxy, but logically destructive of every one of them’ [on this evidence he could have been either a universalist or an annihilationist] (quoted in Hanson, Cloud of Witness, p.224).

Frederick II of Prussia (1712 –1786), also know as Frederick the Great; ‘Enlightened Despot’ and correspondent of Voltaire. He was a Deist in belief and wrote scornfully of revealed Christian religion. He features on Universalist lists because of the following quotation from him that is actually concerned with universal toleration of religions rather than universal salvation (and is modelled upon a similar saying by the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus):
‘In my kingdom everyone can go to heaven in his own fashion’ (see Gollancz, Year of Grace, p.14 – the saying by Epictetus is ‘All religions must be tolerated… for every man must get to heaven in his own way’).

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749–1832), German polymath -writer, artist, and politician, his body of work includes epic and lyric poetry; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. Born into a Lutheran family, in later life he described himself as “not anti-Christian, nor un-Christian, but most decidedly non-Christian” – but Hanson includes him in *A Cloud of Witness * –although the entry is unconvincing (which is not the case with the entry for Shelley for example). It is well know that Goethe’s Faust, the original story of a man’s wager with Hell, ends surprisingly. Unlike the retellings and dramatizations of the tale Faust is saved (however, this is more an allegory of the necessary unity body and spirit than a work of Christian hope). Goethe’s religion seems to have been a pantheistic belief in immortality:
‘My own conviction of a continuous existence springs from my consciousness of personal energy, for I work incessantly to the end. Nature is bound to assign to me another outward form of being as soon as my present one can no longer serve y spirit’ (quote in Hanson, Cloud of Witness, p78).

Hobbes, Thomas of Malmesbury (1588 –1679), English philosopher whose 1651 Leviathan established a foundation for Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory. Hobbes was accused of ‘atheism’ in his day – but ‘atheism’ at the time could mean anyone whose theology departed from orthodoxy. Perhaps he is best seen as a ‘proto-deist’. Certainly he strongly disbelieved in hell:
‘Seeing now there is none that so interprets the Scripture as that after the day of judgement the wicked are all eternally to be punished in the Valley of Hinnon; or that they shall so rise again as to be ever after underground or underwater; or that after the resurrection they shall no more see one another, nor stir from one place to another; it followeth, methinks, very necessarily, that which is thus said concerning hell fire is spoken metaphorically; and that therefore there is a proper sense to be enquired after (for of all metaphors there is some real ground, that may be expressed in proper words), both of the place of hell, and the nature of hellish torments and tormenters’ (Leviathan, Chapter xxxviii Of The Signification In Scripture Of Eternal Life, Hell, Salvation, The World To Come, And Redemption).

Huber, Samuel (1547–1624), German Reformed pastor who deeply disliked Theodore Beza’s hardening of Calvin’s doctrine of double predestination and therefore came to agree with the Lutherans regarding the objectivity and universality of God grace. He was invited to come to Wittenberg, where he was supposed to help the faculty there fight Calvinism. Trying to avoid the ditch of double predestination, he went in the other direction and claimed that election and justification were universal. Being universal, election and justification were communicated to all human beings. Huber never really went all the way though and said that all were going to be saved. In fact, he taught that people could (using their own free will) reject this universal justification and election. Aegidius Hunnius (1550–1603) defender of Lutheran orthodoxy against Calvinism set out to refute Huber in the *Saxon Visitation Articles *leading to Huber’s exile:
‘we propose … not only to wash away the charges he has made, but especially to refute his shameful errors concerning the eternal election and predestination to eternal life, not only of the children of God, but also of the children of the devil (that is, all the impenitent); similarly, his errors concerning the universal justification of all men—of unbelievers no less than believers; concerning also the regeneration of hypocrites in Baptism, which is said to be conferred on them in that very act of treachery and impiety’ (Dedication to Saxon Visitation Articles, p.x, 1592).

Hugo, Victor Marie (1802–1885), French Romantic poet, novelist, and dramatist, his best-known works are the novels Les Misérables, and *Notre-Dame de Paris *(known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame). Hugo started out as a Catholic but ended life as a freethinker Deist rationalist and implacable hater of religious fanaticism:
‘A society that tolerates misery, a religion that tolerates Hell, a humanity that tolerates war, is to me an inferior one. With all of the strength of my being I want to destroy this human depravation. I damn the slavery, I chase away the misery, I heal the sickness, I brighten the darkness, I hate the hatred’ (from the introduction to Les Miserables, 1862).

Ingersoll, Robert Green “Bob” (1833 –1899), American political leader, civil war veteran, and orator, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism. He was nicknamed "The Great Agnostic. Hanson includes him in the ‘A Cloud of Witness’ anthology (p.306) on the grounds that this ‘most noted skeptic’…obtains a glimpse of the grandest truths’. His famous quotation lionizing universalism (which Hanson does not cite) is shot through with the polemical exaggerations of a seasoned agent provocateur:
'Strange! That no one has ever been persecuted by the church for believing God bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed for thinking him good. The orthodox church never will forgive the Universalist for saying “God is love.” It has always been considered as one of the very highest evidences of true and undefiled religion to insist that all men, women and children deserve eternal damnation. It has always been heresy, to say, “God will at last save all” ’ (*Complete Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll *, p. 78, 1900).

Joris, David, referred to as ‘David George’ by Whittemore and others (1501–1556), Dutch Anabaptist on the “mystic” edge of Anabaptism, leading by citing dreams, visions and prophecies (and antagonist of Menno Simmons of the scriptural wing of the Anabaptists – although both advocated pacifism). Against his charismatic emphasis was his rationalist approach to the topic of the devil and supernatural evil in interpreting the devil as an allegory. He taught that human beings make choices for good and evil without the interference of Stan, that heaven and hell are within us, and that judgment takes place now as we make our choices(which is not necessarily a universalist sentiment). The Pietists were attracted by the way in which Joris undermined the learning of orthodox theologians in favour of a church taught directly by God’s Spirit. It is not surprising, therefore, that Joris should figure so prominently in the Pietist effort to rethink and retell their communal story by appeal to the Christian past. Joris served as an early witness to the Pietist vision, one that reoriented Christianity away from ceremony and sacrament to inward experience.

Jortin, Dr. John (1698–1770), English church historian and Anglican priest, famous for his Life of Erasmus. His writings are witty as well as authoritative; for example (the prophetic) – ‘What pity it is that women do not write ecclesiastical history and take their revenge upon us’. He shows more of an implicit than an explicit universalism from sources viewed to date. He argues that ‘some of the best defenders of Christianity, down from Origen have been unkindly traduced by injudicious Christians’ and that the Ecclesiastical Councils (which, among other things, condemned universalism – although he does not clarify this):
‘…have been too much extolled by Papists and some Protestants. They were a collection of men who were frail and fallible. Some of these Councils were not assemblies of pious and learned divines, but cabals, the majority of which were quarrelsome, fanatical, domineering, dishonest prelates who wanted to compel men to approve of their opinions, of which themselves had no clear conception, and to anathematize and oppress those who would not implicitly submit to their determination!!’ (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, Volume 1, p.x, 1805).

Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804), German philosopher from a Pietist background who is a central influence on modern philosophy. He argued that human perception structures natural laws, and that reason is the source of morality. His system of ethics is termed ‘universalist’ – but universalist in this sense is about his belief that we should always act in a way that considers the effect of a specific action if everyone acted that way. Hanson cites Kant also as an eschatological universalist - although Whittemore more shrewdly states that Kant merely ‘inclines towards universalism’. The evidence is mixed. In 1793 in *Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason *Kant argues that since morality concerns the adoption of universal principles every human being is guilty, in one sense, of an infinite (or ‘universal’) amount of violation of the law, and consequently an infinite punishment is not unjustified. However, in his small work of 1794 The End of All Things, he appears to have changed his mind:
‘Why were a few, or a single one, made at all, if only to exist in order to beamed eternally miserable, which is infinitely worse than non-existence’ (Kant quoted in Whittemore, *Modern history of Universalism *,p.280). However, the context of Kant’s remarks is an argument about the providence of war, because this provides opportunities for virtuous self sacrifice, and prepares human beings for the day of judgment ‘of forgiveness or damnation by the judge of the world.’

Leggett, William (1801–1839), American poet, fiction writer, and journalist. His poem *A Sacred Melody *expresses hope in loved ones being united after death. This is quoted by Hanson in Cloud of Witness, p. 167 - but Hanson omits the final two lines that seem to limit the poems universality (in my view):
'If yon bright stars, which gem, the night,/Be each a blissful dwelling sphere,/where kindred spirits reunite,/Whom death has torn asunder here;/How sweet it were at once to die…//But oh! How dark, and drear, and lone, /Would seem the brightest world of bliss,/IF wandering through each radiant zone,/We failed to find the love of this!’…//’Tis heaven that whispers ‘dry thy tears’/The pure in heart shall meet again!’ (A Sacred Melody).

Leo I (the Great), Saint, Pope (c. 391/400-46), Bishop of Rome, Doctor of the Church, best known for persuading Attila the Hun not to invade Italy and being a foe of heresy:
‘Before he was betrayed, the Lord had rightly said, ‘When I have been lifted up, I shall draw all to myself,’ that is, I will deal with the whole condition of mankind and will call back to integrity the nature lost long ago. In me will all weakness be abolished; in me will all wounds be healed’ (xxxx, p.x).

Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States:
'One of Lincoln’s associates, Mentor Graham, tells of Lincoln: ‘He took the passage, ‘As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,’ and followed up with the proposition that whatever the breach or injury of Adam’s transgressions to the human race was, which no doubt was very great, was made just and right by the atonement of Christ’ (*The Almost Chosen People *by William J. Wolf, p. 47).

Mill, John Stuart, (1806–1873), English utilitarian philosopher, political economist and civil servant. Mill was also a Member of Parliament and an important figure in liberal political philosophy. Mill was an atheist - a Calvinist by upbrining who embraced Comtes’ ‘religion of humanity’ - but he said one thing eloquently with which Hanson concurred – and paraphrased in Cloud of Witness:
‘I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply the epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to Hell for not so calling him, to Hell I will go’ (Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, p103, 1865).

Milnes, Richard Monckton (1809–1885), English aristocrat, poet, patron of literature and politician. He was the persistent suitor of the Universalist founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale, who finally rejected his proposal of marriage afraid it would interfere with her ability to follow her calling to nursing. He wrote a moving poem of consolation in bereavement (it was written in 1839, so the ministering angel cannot be about Florence; she died in 1901). Although Hanson cites this along with the some of the other extracts and poems of this type in Cloud of Witness, its scope is personal rather than explicitly universal:
'And in the quiet of gloom I saw/The blessed image, moving, ministering/By me, about me, -just as heretofore//‘O ye! Who talk of Death, and mourn for Death,/Why do you raise a phantom of your weakness,/And then shriek loud to see what ye have made?/There is no Death, to those who know of Life -/No Time to those how see Eternity!’ (*Life in Death *quoted in Hanson, Cloud of Witness, p.203).

Monsell, John Samuel Bewley (1811-1875), Irish minister in the Anglican Church of Ireland and author of the hymns *Fight the good fight *and O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. His name appears on some Universalist lists. No evidence seen to date of his explicit universalism but his *O worship the Lord *does have a fear free trust in God as its keynote:
‘Fear not to enter his courts in the slenderness /of the poor wealth thou wouldst reckon as thine; /for truth in its beauty, and love in its tenderness, /these are the offerings to lay on his shrine. //These, though we bring them in trembling and fearfulness, /he will accept for the Name that is dear; /mornings of joy give for evenings of tearfulness, /trust for our trembling and hope for our fear’ (from O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness).

de Montaigne, Michel Eyquem (1533–1592), French Catholic writer and statesman. He was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre. He became famous for his ability to merge serious intellectual exercises with casual anecdotes and autobiography—his massive volume Essais (translated literally as “Attempts” or “Trials”) contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. In his own time, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman than as an author. During the Wars of Religion in France, Montaigne, a Roman Catholic, acted as a moderating force, respected both by the Catholic King Henry III and the Protestant Henry of Navarre. Montaigne was horrified and amazed that Frenchman could torture Frenchman for the sheer fun of it during the Wars of Religion, amusing themselves by enjoying the ‘pleasant spectacle’ of the anguished twitching of their enemies as they slowly tortured them to death (Montaigne Essay, Book II, ch.2, ‘On Cruelty’ paraphrased by Screech, Laughter at the foot of the cross, p. 17). He is most famously known for his sceptical remark, ‘Que sçay-je?’ (‘What do I know?’ in Middle French; modern French Que sais-je?). This has lead to him becoming revered as the father of modern scepticism. However, it is in keeping with the thinking of other Christina humanists – such as Erasmus in *Praise of Folly *– who stress that our human ability to understand ultimate truth is limited. We see through a glass darkly, and therefore must be tolerant of those who differ from us:
‘Moreover, the powers and actions of our souls must be examined not elsewhere but here, at home in our bodies. Any other perfections they may have are useless and irrelevant; it is for their present state that their whole immortality will recieve its acknowledged rewards: each is entirely accountable for the life of a human being. But it would be an act of gross injustice to lop off the soul’s powers and resources, to strip her of all her weapons and then to take the very time when she lies weak and ill in prison - a time of repression and constraint - and to make that the basis for a judgement leading to endless, everlasting punishment; it would be unjust to limit consideration to so short a span, to a life that may have lasted a mere two hours or, at he very worst a hundred years - an instant in proportion to infinity - and then, from that momentary interlude, to order and establish, once and for all, the whole state of her future existence. To reward or punish on the basis of so short a life would be disproportionate and iniquitous. To get out of this difficulty, Plato wants future rewards and punishments never to exceed a hundred years and always to be proportionate to the actual length of a man’s life. Quite a few Christians too have imposed temporal limits on to them’ (‘An Apology for Raymond Sebond’ from Montainge’s Essays, trans by M. A. Screech, penguin classics edn, pp.617-18).

Montgomery, James (1771–1854), Scottish editor, hymn writer and poet, and author of Angels from the Realms of Glory. He was particularly associated with humanitarian causes such as the campaigns to abolish slavery and to end the exploitation of child chimney sweeps. The evidence of his being a universalist is scant. Hanson simply asks the reader if the following can be interpreted ‘in harmony that the doctrine that Christ shall be defeated’:
'He shall reign from pole to pole/With illimitable sway;/He shall reign when, like a scroll/Yonder heavens are passed away;/Then the end;-beneath his rod/Man’s last enemy shall fall;/Hallelujah! Christ in God/God in Christ, is all in all!’ (from Hark the song of Jubilee, quoted in Hanson,* Cloud of Witness*, p. 94).

Nichol, John Pringle (1804–1859), Scottish educator, phrenologist, astronomer, economist and friend of John Stuart Mill who did much to popularize astronomy in a manner that appealed to nineteenth century tastes. I youth he was a licensed preacher for the Church of Scotland but his theological opinions changed –he remained inspired by a deep feeling of reverence and by the respect due to the beliefs of others, but his own religious views were far from what is commonly called orthodox He expresses cosmic hopefulness from his awe at the cosmos, although there seems to belittle specifically Christian about this:
‘In the vast heavens, as well as the phenomena around us, all thing are in a state of change and progress… Is annihilation a possibility real or virtue, while hospitable infinitude remains? No! Let the night fall; it prepares a dawn when man’s weariness shall have ceased, and his sol refreshed and restored… To come! To every creature these are words of hope spoken in organ tone; our hearts suggest them, and the stars repeat them. And through infinite aspiration wings its way rejoicing, as an eagle follows the sun’ (View of the Architecture of the Heavens, p.x, 1837).

Ossoli, Sarah Margaret Fuller (1810 –1850), American journalist, critic, and women’s rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement. She was the first full-time American female book reviewer in journalism. Her expression of UR is very much in terms of pantheistic immortality:
‘The One in All/In the one Truth, each separate fact is true;/Eternally in one I many view,/And destinies through destiny pursue…/But in the earth and fire, water and air,/Live earnestly by turns without despair,/Nor seek a home till home be every where!’ (The One in All).

Pantaenus (died circa. 200 A.D.), theologian and philospopher, possibly originally from Sicily (Clement of Alexandria refers to him as ‘’the Sicilian Bee’’) and, according to Eusebius, the leader of the Catechetical School of Alexandria from around AD 180. The writings of Pantaenus have not survived, nor is there any record of him having taught universalism or proto- universalism. But it remains a strong possibility that the teacher of Clement of Alexandria passed the doctrine of apocatastasis to his pupil (who, in turn, passed it to Origen). However, J.W. Hanson assertion that this was ‘beyond doubt’ overstates the case (see Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church, p.49).

Parsons, Theophilus (1797–1882), American Dane Professor of Law at Harvard remembered chiefly as the author of a series of useful legal treatises and some books in support of Swedenborgian doctrines:
‘Where should we read in any new book, where should we hear in any sermon, of the damnation of infants, absolute election and predestination; or an atonement which presented God as vindictive and merciless, condemning a large part of His children, before their birth, to eternal misery, and hating with infinite and eternal wrath, not only sin but sinners, whom He had foreordained to be sinners? The Orthodox community has generally gone so far from such doctrines, that many may deny that they ever were preached, and charge me with error and injustice. 1 would advise persons who do so, to read the spider sermon, so called, of Jonathan Edwards lately republished. In all ages there have been those who turned their minds away from such pictures, and, even while assenting in words, greatly modified these views in their thoughts and feelings. But that such views were widely preached, and, indeed, passionately urged, is a matter of history’
(Outlines of the religion and philosophy of Swedenborg, p.303, 1902).

Pope, Alexander (1688 –1744), English Catholic famous for his satirical verse often included on internet lists of Universalists. However, in his Epistle to Burlington’ he ridicules the ‘soft Dean’ who ‘’never mentions hell to polite ears.’ Elsewhere he also ridicules the merciful doctrine of latitudinarian clergymen in the reign of the Dutch King of England William III:
'The following licence of a foreign reign/ Did all the dregs of bold Socinus drain;/ Then unbelieving priests reform’d the nation,/And taught more pleasant methods of salvation;/ Where Heav’n’s free subjects might their rights dispute, /Lest God himself should seem too absolute: /Pulpits their sacred satire learned to spare, /And Vice admired to find a flatt’rer there!’ (An Essay on Criticism, section).

Postel, Guillaume (1510–1581), French linguist, astronomer, Cabbalist, diplomat, professor. He believed in the restoration of all things – using the poetic imagery of Cabbalitic texts to express this - and the unification of all humanity and all religions in Christ. A sincere and saintly man, his terrible isolation in the face of all orthodoxies of his day seems to have unbalanced his mind and he eventually saw himself as a John the Baptist figure for a female incarnation of Christ. He was committed for insanity rather than burned at the stake due to the intercession of powerful friends:
‘ … [some] satisfy themselves by introducing the greatest tyrant into the world, and persuade themselves that there is never to be a restoration of all things here, so that Satan seems to have destroyed more than Christ is able to restore. O, the greatest impiety!’ (Letter of 1553).

Pucci, Francesco (1543–1597), Italian philosopher and Christian humanist scholar. In 1572 he went to Oxford University in England, apparently expecting to find sympathy with his antagonism to the Calvinistic tendency in Protestantism, but his disputations soon annoyed the authorities, who expelled him. He believed at least at one point, that all human beings are in a state of grace/salvation, already saved and simply in need to awaken to this; he defended his beliefs in his De Fide natura hominibus universis insita. Clear and comprehensive information about Pucci and his beliefs is probably buried in specialist publications written by Italian scholars for the time being.

Reade, Charles (1814–1884), English novelist and dramatist, best known for The Cloister and the Hearth. Described by friends as a generous, liberal, warm-hearted Christian gentleman, explicit evidence for his universalism is thin, but a character in one of his novels protests that:
‘Eternal punishment! If it is not a fable, who has earned better than I am earning if I go on.[However] It is a fable, it must be so. Philosophers always said so, and now even divines have given it up’ (Put Yourself in his Place, vol.ii, p.201, 1870).

Rogers, Samuel (1763–1855), English Romantic, poet, author of *The Pleasures of Memory *, and during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, who made his money as a banker. The evidence of his universalism seems thin without additional supporting evidence. Hanson tells us that James Freeman Clarke once met the poet who recited Adam’s complaint from *Paradise Lost *by Milton to him -(‘How can he exercise/Wrath without end on Man whom Death must end?/ Can he make deathless Death? that were to make/ Strange contradiction, which to God himself/Impossible is held, as Argument /Of weakness, not of Power’ -Book 10, lines 796-801). Clarke then added:
‘Milton had put an argument into the mouth of Adam complaining of punishment, which he had not answered. There is no answering that indeed, except we admit that all punishment is corrective’ (Hanson, Cloud of Witness, p.86).

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778), Swiss Genevan philosopher and writer who influenced the French and American Revolutions and modern political, sociological, and educational thought. He was raised a Calvinist, converted to Roman Catholicism, and then reverted to Calvinism. However, his mature thinking is Deistic – advocating the civic celebration of the ‘natural religion’ of the God of Reason, and critical of Christianity for its lack of emphasis on citizenship in this world. Rousseau was for a time much disturbed and distressed by the doctrine of eternal damnation (which he eventually rejected). However it does not necessarily follow that his Deism implies any ultimate eschatological hope:
‘But were it true that the Gospel is preached in every part of the earth, the difficulty is not removed. On the eve preceding the arrival of the first missionary in any country, some one person of that country expired without hearing the glad tidings. Now what must we do with this person? If there be a single individual in the whole universe, to whom the Gospel of Christ is not made known, the objection which presents itself on account of this one person, is as cogent as if it included a fourth part of the human race’ (Emile, Vol. II, p. 94f.).

Ruskin, John (1819 –1900), leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, and a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. His first faith was harsh early Victorian evangelicalism –but, a man of great sensitivity, he lost his faith but attempted to return to it believing in a kinder more loving God. Sadly his final years were marred by bouts of insanity and obsession with Satan and damnation:
'And the first clause of it – the Lord’s Prayer –of course rightly explained, gives as the ground of what is surely a mighty part of the Gospel –its first great commandment, namely, that we have a Father whom we can love, and are required to love, and to desire to be with him in heaven, wherever that may be, and to declare that we have such a loving Father, whose mercy is over all his works and whose will and law is so lovely and lovable that it is sweeter than honey and more precious than gold’ (*The Lord’s Prayer and the Church – Letters Addressed to the Clergy *, p.13, 1896, quoted in Hanson Cloud of Witness).

Sand, George, pen name of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant (1804 – 1876), French novelist, memoirist and bohemian, she was a also a devout Catholic. The evidence for her universalism is thin but significant. In her novel Spiridion, an aged monk who is the guardian of handed-down religious secrets states:
'L’ Eglise Romaine s’est porte le dernier coup: elle a raveler son suicide le jour on elle a fait Dieu implacable et la damnation eternelle’ (‘the Roman church committed suicide the day she invented an implacable God and eternal damnation’) (quoted by Hanson in Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church, p.127).

Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von (1759 –1805), German poet, philosopher, historian, playwright, and friend of Goethe. He gives stirring expression to Universalist sentiments in his ‘Ode to Joy’ – set to music that overwhelms with its passion by Beethoven as the climax to the Ninth Symphony. The sentiments of the Ode are informed by a mixture of Christian and Pagan ideas rather than being purely Christian (Schiller was a Freemason):
'Close the holy circle tighter,/Swear by this golden vine:/ Remain true to the vows,/Swear by the judge above the stars!// Escape the tyrants’ chains,/Generosity also to the villain,/Hope upon the deathbeds,/Mercy from the high court!/The dead, too, shall live!/Brothers, drink and chime in,/All sinners shall be forgiven,/And hell shall be no more’ (Ode to Joy, lines 93-104, 1785).

Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792–1822), major English Romantic poet, critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. A radical in his poetry as well as his political and social views he is well known as an advocate of atheism. However, C.S. Lewis accorded him the status of ‘virtuous pagan’ and it is clear that the God in whom he disbelieved was the God of extreme Calvinism, and that he worshipped the God of love and had universal hope for humanity in the form of the Platonic deity of ‘Intellectual Beauty’. This tension can be seen in his long poem Queen Mab:
''God, Hell and Heaven:/A vengeful, pitiless, and almighty fiend,/Whose mercy is a nickname for the rage/Of tameless tigers hungering for blood;/Hell, a red gulf of everlasting fire,/Where poisonous and undying worms prolong/Eternal misery to those hapless slaves/Whose life has been a penance for its crimes’ (Book iv 210-217); ‘Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom,/That leads to azure isles and beaming skies/And happy regions of eternal hope’ (Book ix 160-163).

Simon, Jules François (1814–1896), French statesman, philosopher and exponent of rational religion (which critics argued paid too little attention to positive revelation):
‘We are asked whether punishment will endure eternally? It is a question which should not be introduced by itself into philosophy. The eternity of punishment destroys one of the two objects of punishment, purification, reformation; it exaggerates the other beyond possibility, for there is no sin committed in time which calls for eternal punishment. There is no principle of reason which either leads to the doctrine of the eternity of punishment or even admits it’ (La Religion Naturelle, p.304, 1856).

Spener, Philipp Jakob (1635–1705), German Lutheran theologian known as the “Father of Pietism.” When post reformation Protestant orthodoxy increasingly emphasized right doctrine as the sole criteria for salvation, Spener simply urged that Christianity canto be believed and is not redemptive without first being practiced. Pietism with its emphasis on religion of the heart always had a strand of universalism. It appears that Spener himself was either a hopeful Universalist or believed in some future merciful mitigation of the punishments of the lost:
‘This learned and holy leader of the Pietists expressed a hope that there would be “better times” for the lost in the distant future’ (from Johann Matthias Schrockh, Christliche Kirchengeschichte seit der Reformation, viii. p.292, 177,7 quoted in Farrar Mercy and Judgment).

Sumner, Charles (1811–1874), American politician and senator from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War. The extract that Hanson quotes from Sumner seems to conflate ideas of universal restitution with optimism about human progress. The two are not necessarily at odds, but the terrible events of the first part of the twentieth century were to erode this essentially secular optimism which Karl Barth’s neo-orthodoxy had to challenge in order to keep hope alive:
‘Every victory over evil redounds to the benefit of all. Every discovery, every human thought, every truth when declared, is a conquest of which the whole human family are partakers. -Thus does the ‘Law of Human Progress/Assert eternal Providence,/And justify the ways of God to man – by showing Evil no longer a gloomy mystery, binding the world in everlasting thrall, but as an accident, destined under the laws of God to be slowly subdued by works of men as they pass o to the promised goal of happiness’ (quoted in Hanson, Cloud of Witness, p.213).

**Theologia Germanica **(believed to have been written in the later 14th century), a mystical treatise by an anonymous German author. It proposes that God and man can be if man imitates the life of Christ, renouncing sin and selfishness, ultimately allowing God’s will to replace human will. The Theologia’s refrain ‘Nought perishes in Hell but self will’ found its way into the phraseology of later Universalists even if it would be pushing things to claim it as an explicit Universalist text. Martin Luther revered the work and translated it from medieval German into High German (1516 and 1518) although some would argue that he never really understood its teachings. It also gained immense cachet among the Radical Reformers, and in later Pietism. In 1528, Ludwig Haetzer republished *Theologia Germanica *with interpretive “Propositions” by Hans Denck. After this Sebastian Castellio ,Valentin Weigel and Johann Arndt (endorsed by Philipp Jakob Spener) all produced editions. The list reads like a rogue gallery of proto-universalists. John Calvin declared the work to be “poison supplied by the Devil.”

Twain, Mark (1835 –1910), American author, humorist, and lifelong Presbyterian who sometimes wrote like a Universalist but sometimes tended towards cynicism about Christianity because of ECT doctrine. In this sense he was a troubled, equivocal soul:
‘There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing, and predatory as it is–in our country particularly and in all other Christian countries in a somewhat modified degree–it is still a hundred times better than the Christianity of the Bible, with its prodigious crime–the invention of Hell. Measured by our Christianity of to-day, bad as it is, hypocritical as it is, empty and hollow as it is, neither the Deity nor his Son is a Christian, nor qualified for that moderately high place. Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilled’ (Autobiography, Volume 1, p.x).

Vane, Sir Henry the Younger often referred to as ‘Harry Vane’ (1613 –1662), English politician, statesman, and briefly Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A religious radical and proponent of tolerance he supported the creation of Roger Williams’ Rhode Island Colony and Harvard College. He was a leading Parliamentarian during the English Civil War and was beheaded as a traitor on Tower Hill because of this at the Restoration. Bishop Burnett writes sympathetically of the peaceful composure with which Vane met his death, adding:
‘I have sometimes taken pains to see if I could find out his meaning in his works, yet I could never reach it. And since many others have said the same, it may be reasonable to believe that he hid somewhat that which was a necessary key to the rest. His friends told me, that he leaned to Origen’s notion of a universal salvation of all, both of devils and the damned, and to the doctrine of pre-existence’ (History of My Own Time, p.295, 1724).

Veneto, Francesco Giorgi (1466–1540), Italian Venetian Franciscan friar, and author of the work De Harmonia Mundi Totus (The Harmony of the Whole World). He believed that the Truth of Christianity was proved by the Cabbala and advocated the unification of mankind through Christian Cabbalist philosophy. His works were owned by Dr Sir Thomas Browne. Petersen cites him as a Universalist – no explicit evidence seen to date; but his work certainly influenced the hermetic and Pietist strands of Christian universalism.

Whitman, Walter “Walt” (1819 –1892), American poet, essayist and journalist; religious pluralist and transcendentalist (but not specifically Christian):
'Give me, O God, to sing that thought!/Give me—give him or her I love, this quenchless faith/In Thy ensemble. Whatever else withheld, withhold not from us,/Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space;/Health, peace, salvation universal’ (from Song of the Universal, lines 57-62).

Windett, James (died 1664), English physician, Latin versifier, linguist and friend of Sir Thomas Browne, In 1661 he published De vita functorum statu (‘On the state of the dead’), a long Latin letter, with numerous passages in Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, addressed to Dr. Samuel Hall. It begins with a general discussion of the word ‘Tartarus’ and of the Greek and Hebrew words and phrases used in describing the state of man after death, and goes on to consider the Greek and Hebrew views on the state and place of the good, on a middle state, and on the place of the wicked with related subjects. His letter shows erudite knowledge of the Talmud’s presentation of Gehenna as an intermediate, purgatorial state, and even shows knowledge of the equivalent traditional Muslim idea (No direct quotations seen currently).

Former Universalists

Augustine, of Hippo (354-430), bishop of Hippo Regius, saint and major Latin Church Father:
‘xxxx’ (xxxx, p.x).

*** Holtz**, Chad (xxxx-), American; former United Methodist pastor of Marrow’s Chapel, Henderson, North Carolina, who was removed from office in part for his public internet support of Rob Bell’s hopeful universalist book Love Wins. Originally, Chad commented that, ‘I think justice comes and judgment will happen, but I don’t think that means an eternity of torment’, but after attending a conservative rehabilitation ministry (Pure Life Ministries) to overcome ‘sexual addiction’ he altered his stance and declared:
‘I repent of my past denial of hell or that a person could ever be eternally seperated [sic] from a holy God. I know now that I had no fear of God. Therefore, I had no knowledge of God (Prov. 1:7). I was a fool with an MDiv. I was wrong’ (Chad’s blog, Unchained, entry 1 June 2012).

Jerome, (c.347-420), saint, Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian, historian, and Doctor of the Church best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate):
‘xxxx’ (xxxx, p.x).

Annihilationists/Conditionalists

Allon, Rev. Henry (1818-1892), English Congregationalist clergyman, and co-editor with Henry Robert Reynolds of the British Quarterly Review:
‘It does not follow, however, that finality of moral condition implies unending being or unending consciousness of retribution. There is no moral necessity to suppose this, while both the finality and the symbolism are such as would probably find their adequate interpretation in the simple idea of finality — the ending of sin and of sinful being: whether by the natural cessation of the latter — which seems the most plausible — or by other processes, we are not told’ (*The Contemporary Review *- Volume 32, p.356, 1878).

**Arnobius the Elder **(died c.330), Early Christian Apologist and former rehtorician, first certain annihilationist:
‘But what man does not see that that which is immortal, which is simple, cannot be subject to any pain; that that, on the contrary, cannot be immortal which does suffer pain? … For they are cast in, and being annihilated, pass away vainly in everlasting destruction…For that which is seen by the eyes is only a separation of soul from body, not the last end-annihilation: this, I say, is man’s real death’ (Against the Pagans, Book 2, Paragraph 14).

*** Atkinson**, Dr. Basil Ferris Campbell (1895-1971), theological writer and bible commentator, under-librarian of the University of Cambridge, librarian to the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, and participant in the formation of the Inter Varsity Fellowship:
‘If the ungodly are in conscious misery for eternity and above all if they continue in increasing sin for eternity, how can we believe the apostle’s supreme declaration in 1 Corinthians 15:28 that God will be all in all without narrowing its scope and distorting its meaning?’ (Life and Immortality, p.x).

*** Bruce**, Dr. Frederick Fyvie (1910-1990), theologian, Professor of Greek at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Leeds, head of the Department of Biblical History and Literature at Sheffield University:
‘annihilation is certainly an acceptable interpretation of the relevant New Testament passages … For myself, I remain agnostic. Eternal conscious torment is incompatible with the revealed character of God’ (Letter from F. F. Bruce to John Stott in 1989, as quoted in John Stott: A Global Ministry).

*** Bullinger**, E. W. (xxxx-xxxx), Concordant Publishing:
‘xxxx’ (xxxx, p.x).

*** Buzzard**, Sir Anthony Farquhar 3rd Baronet (1935-), biblical scholar, unitarian Christian theologian, author and professor at Atlanta Bible College:
‘What a joy that an honest Bible-searcher gives the public a chance to renounce one of the cruellest errors of traditional theology-- that the God of all compassion is intending to torture and torment the wicked ceaselessly for eternity. I doubt if most churchgoers allow themselves even to think through what that hideous notion implies. As it turns out it is a pernicious mistake to adopt the non-biblical idea of an immortal soul, from which it would follow that being immortal the wicked could never die!’ (a comment on patheos website in response to the article: Stories of Hateful Fundamentalists Coming to a Theater Near You).

Dale, Rev. Robert William (1829–1895), English Congregationalist minister, leader of the Independents in Birmingham, and the initiator of the Civic Gospel movement, promoting the belief that service on the town council had both moral and religious worth:
‘The traditional theory of the endlessness of sin and of suffering has lost its authority … The appeal to fear is being silently dropped. Augustine said that it very seldom or never happens that a man comes to believe in Christ except under the influence of terror. This sweeping statement … is flagrantly inconsistent with all that we know of the rise of Christian faith and hope in the souls of men in our own times’ (Preface to Dr. Petavel, p. 7).

Fontaine, James (xxxx-xxxx), English Conditionalist who published his treatise Eternal Punishment Proved to be not Suffering but Privation anonymously in 1771 under the pen name ‘A member of the Church of England’. In this he argues that although at the Last Day both the righteous and the wicked will be raised, only the righteous will be raised ‘in power’, possessing immortality, and the wicked consequently will cease to exist:
'Our appetites, our facilities, and our moral relations, each subserve to the perfection of our nature, and prepare us for God’s presence; it is right employment of those, by virtue of the spiritual life Christ offers us, that procures our immortality. All duties of life have an immortal tendency: well performed they make us more Godlike, and so fit us for his presence’ (Eternal Punishment Proved to be not Suffering but Privation, p.x, 1717).

*** Fudge**, Edward (1941-), theologian and lawyer, best known for his book The Fire that Consumes:
‘Are we supposed to think that the God who loves the world so much that he gave his only son so believers would not perish but have eternal life is going to then turn around and throw billions of them into something resembling a lake of volcanic lava and make it so they cannot die, so they will have to endure this forever. That doesn’t sound like the God that I know and see in Jesus Christ’ (Interview with The Christian Post).

*** Gumbel**, Nicky (1955-), Anglican priest, vicar and author, best known as the developer of the Alpha course:
‘xxxx’ (xxxx, p.x).

Ignatius, of Antioch (?-107) Martyr and Apostolic Father, 3rd bishop of Antioch, student of John the Apostle, disputed conditionalist:
“Let us not, therefore, be insensible to His kindness; for were God to reward us according to our works, we should cease to be” (The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians).

Justin Martyr (100–c.165), Early Christian Apologist and foremost defender of Logos doctrine, martyr, proto annihilationist:
‘The souls of the pious remain in a better place, while those of the unjust and wicked are in a worse, waiting for the time of judgement. Thus some which have appeared worthy of God never die; but others are punished so long as God wills them to exist and to be punished’ (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Chapter 5).

Locke, John 1632 –1704), English Enlightenment philosopher and political theorist, champion of religious toleration. Secret Arian and annihilationist:
‘By death some men understand endless torments in hell-fire. But it seems a strange way of understanding a law which requires the plainest and directest words that by death should be meant eternal life in misery. Can any one be supposed to intend by a law which says, ‘For felony thou shalt surely die,’ not that he should lost his life, but be kept alive in exquisite and perpetual torments?’ (The Reasonableness of Christianity As Delivered in the Scriptures, p. 6).

Milman, The Very Reverend Henry Hart (1791–1868), English Church historian and ecclesiastic, Anglican Dean of Westminster and Dean of St Paul’s, and author of the Passiontide hymn Ride on, ride on in majesty:
‘To the eternity (endlessness) of hell torments there is and ever must be — notwithstanding the peremptory decree of dogmatic theology, and the reverential dread in many minds of tampering with what seems to be the language of the New Testament — a tacit repugnance’ (History of Latin Christianity, vi. p. 253).

Milton, John (1608–1674), English poet, defender of free speech, and civil servant under Oliver Cromwell. He is best known for *Paradise Lost *which, written ‘to justify the ways of God to men’, second only to Dante, has furnished the Western imagination with visions of ECT. However, in Book 3 Christ the Eternal Son argues with God the Father:
‘Father, who art judge/Of all things made, and judged only right./…shall the adversary thus obtain/His end, and frustrate thine? Shall he fulfill/His malice and thy goodness bring to naught?’ The theological logic here - employed by Milton’s God in answer - necessitates the incarnation so that Christ can pay the debt owed by Adam; but the poetic logic here is anti-hell in total - God’s purposes are greater than the satisfaction of his justice. In 1823 a Latin manuscript was discovered, almost certainly by Milton, entitled *On Christian Doctrine *which confirms something long suspected for other reasons; namely that Milton was in fact an English Arian – hence he would have been an annihilationist, and hence the ambiguity about eternal hell in Paradise Lost.

Newton, Sir Isaac PRS MP (1642 –1727), English physicist and mathematician widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time. He was a secret Arian and annihilationist:
‘The degree and the duration of the torments of these degenerate and anti-Christian people should be no other than that which would be approved of by those angels who had ever laboured for their salvation, and that Lamb who had redeemed them with His most precious blood’ (On Rev. xiv. 10, 11).

*** Peoples**, Dr. Glenn (1975-), independant scholar, philosophical and theological writer and notable internet blogger, currently working for the Inland Revenue Department New Zealand:
‘Not only am I an annihilationist, but I think that all evangelical Christians should be annihilationists, because
the biblical case for annihilationism is very strong, and I think the arguments against annihilationism are very
weak in comparison’ (*Why I am an Annihilationist *at beretta-online.com).

*** Personne**, Johan Wilhelm (1849-1926), Swedish Lutheran Bishop and prestigious Biblical scholar for whom the Bible was ‘the eternally deciding standard’:
‘The exegesis, that for example in Revelation 21:4 “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,” etc., sees a guarantee that God shall cause the saved to forget the agony of the lost, that exegesis is so miserable that I am almost ashamed to mention it. And when I hear of a clergyman who rejects the apprehensions of his members concerning the eternal suffering with the exhortation: “Do not think about that, just see to it that you yourself will be saved,” I have difficulty in not thinking mean things of him’ (Pastoral Letter to the Diocese of Linköping 1910).

*** Pinnock**, Dr. Clark (1937-2010), Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at McMaster Divinity College and notable advocate of Open Theism:
‘My point is that eternal torment serves no purpose at all and exhibits a vindictiveness totally out of keeping with the love of God revealed in the gospel’ (Four Views on Hell, p. 153).

Richardson, Samuel (flourished 1643–1658; unconfirmed birth and death), English Parliamentarian Army preacher during the civil war and leading Baptist in London after the Restoration. A man of independent views; an Arian and annihilationist:
‘The doctrine of endless hell torments hath caused many to murder themselves, taking away their own lives by poison, stabbing, drowning, hanging, strangling, and shooting themselves, casting themselves out of windows, and from high places, to break their necks and by other kinds of death, that they might not live to increase their sin, and increase their torments in hell’ (A Discourse of the Torments of Hell … with many infallible Proofs that there is not to be a Punishment after this Life for any to endure that shall not end).

*** Sanders**, Dr. John E. (1956-), notable inclusivist and open theist, professor of religious studies at Hendrix College, Arkansas, and former Frederick J. Crosson Fellow at The Center for Philosophy of Religion, Notre Dame:
‘xxxx’ (xxxx, p.x).

*** Stott**, John Robert Walmsley (1921-2011), noted Evangelical leader, one of the principal authors of the 1974 Lausanne Covenant, 2005 Time magazine ranked Stott among the 100 most influential people in the world:
‘Emotionally, I find the concept [of eternal conscious torment] intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain’ (*Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue *by David L. Edwards with a response from John Stott. 1988, p314 ).

*** Temple**, William (1881-1944), Archbishop of York and Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the founders of the Council of Christians and Jews, fellow and lecturer in philosophy at Queen’s College, Oxford:
‘xxxx’ (Christus Veritas, p. 209).

Watts, Isaac (1674–1748), English hymn writer best known for When I Survey the Wondrous Cross; theologian and logician; Independent/Congregationalist of moderate Calvinistic leanings. Known as the “Father of English Hymnody”, he is credited with some 750 hymns (He appears on some internet lists as a universalist because of his inclusion in Farrar’s Mercy and Judgement):
‘There is not one place of Scripture that occurs to me, where the word ‘death’, as it was first threatened in the law of innocency, necessarily signifies a certain miserable immortality of the soul either to Adam, the actual sinner, or to his posterity’ (The Ruin and Recovery of Mankind, Question xi. P.228, 1740).

*** Welch**, C. H. (xxxx-xxxx), Concordant Publishing:
‘xxxx’ (xxxx, p.x).

*** Wenham**, John (1913 - 1996), clergyman, vice-principal of Tyndale Hall, Bristol and noted bible scholar:
‘I believe that endless torment is a hideous and unscriptural doctrine which has been a terrible burden on the mind of the church for many centuries and a terrible blot on her presentation of the gospel. I should indeed be happy if, before I die, I could help in sweeping it away’ (Facing Hell, An Autobiography 1913-1996, p. x).

Whiston, William (1667 –1752), English theologian, cosmologist, and mathematician. A leading figure in the popularization of the ideas of Isaac Newton, and a noted translator of Josephus; a publicly proclaimed Arian and annihilationist (for which he lost his professorship at Cambridge):
‘The astonishing love of God toward mankind is so absolutely inconsistent with these common but barbarous and savage opinions…the torments, the exquisite torments of these most numerous and most miserable creatures, are determined without the least pity, or relenting, or bowels of compassion in their creator’ (The Eternity of Hell Torments Considered, pp. 18-19).

White, Rev. Edward (1819-1898), English Congregationalist minister. As a young man he had attended York Street Congregational Church in Walworth along with Robert Browning. The strict Calvinism of Clayton made a strong and negative impression on both of them. Later Clayton was the author of two popular works What was the Fall? and* Life in Christ* that set out a conditionalist theology:
‘White believed that ‘thoughtful children knew very well what doctrines underlay the surface teaching in families, schools and churches’. The doctrine of election and reprobation was ‘taught in a quiet and respectable way’ but its implications caused him considerable pain. ‘It nearly drove me mad with secret misery of mind, in thinking of such a God’, he wrote. ‘From fourteen years old and upwards our faith depended very much on the art of not thinking on the hateful mystery’ (see, F.A. Freer, Edward White, his life and work, pp 5-7, 1902).

*** Wright**, Right Revd. Nicholas Thomas (1948-), leading New Testament scholar, former Bishop of Durham, current Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary’s College, St Andrews:
‘I don’t find any of these three traditional options completely satisfactory, but I think a somewhat different form of conditionalism may be the best we can do. We should of course always stress that the question of who shall eventually be saved is up to God and God alone, and that we can never say of anyone for certain, including Hitler and bin Laden, that they have gone so far down the road of wickedness that they are beyond redemption. I take it, however, that there are many who do continue down that road to the bitter end’ (Rethinking the Tradition).

Post-mortem salvationists

Alford, Henry (1810 –1871), English churchman, Dean of Canterbury, theologian, textual critic, scholar, poet, hymnodist, and writer:
‘The inference every intelligent reader will draw from the face [of Christ preaching to the once-disobedient dead]: it is not purgatory; it is not universal restitution; but it is one which throws blessed light on one of the darkest enigmas of divine justice: the cases where the final doom seems infinitely out of proportion to the act which has incurred it. And….it would be presumption in us to limit the occurrence or the efficacy of this preaching….Who shall say that the blessed act was confined to them?’ (On I Peter iii, 19).

*** Boyd**, Dr. Gregory A. (1957-), adjunct Professor of Theology at Bethel University, author, and senior pastor at Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota:
‘In fact, I find I’ve got grounds for having a hope for everybody … I can’t know that everyone’s saved. That’s going beyond the bounds of scripture. But Paul says … “all were in Adam, so all are in Christ” … Which tells me … from God’s perspective, he has them all in, he’s squeezing them in … So hold fast to the exclusivity of Christ, but don’t feel like there’s anything wrong with having hope, and believing that there’s a wideness in God’s mercy, and his love is unfathomable and gracious, and we have confidence in that also’ (Videoblog:* Q&A Salvation *2012).

Butler, Joseph (1692. –1752), English bishop, theologian, apologist, and philosopher. He is known, among other things, for his critique of Thomas Hobbes’s egoism and John Locke’s theory of personal identity:
‘Virtue … is militant here, but it may combat with greater advantage hereafter … There may be scenes in eternity lasting enough, and in every way adapted to afford it a sufficient sphere of action … And … suppose all this advantageous tendency of virtue to become effect amongst one or more orders of vicious creatures in any distant scene or period throughout the universal kingdom of God; this happy effect of virtue would have a tendency, by way of example, and possibly in other ways, to amend those of them who are capable of amendment and being recovered to a just sense of virtue’ (The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature, vol I, p.13, 1736).

Church, Richard William (1815–1890), English High Churchman and Anglican Dean of St Pauls:
‘I should be disloyal to Him whom I believe in as the Lord of Truth if I doubted that honest seeking should at last find Him. Even if it do not find Him here, man’s destiny stops not at the grave, and many, we may be sure, will know Him there who did not know Him here’ (*The Contemporary Review *Volume 59, p.143).

Hope, Alexander James Beresford M.P. (1820–1887), English politician and author, and devout Anglican:
‘All reason all experience, all Scripture, unite in the teaching that the Divine work of teaching goes on behind as well as before the veil’ (Contemporary Review, vol. xxxii. 1878).

Hort, Fenton John Anthony (1828 –1892), Irish theologian and editor, with Brooke Westcott of a critical edition of The New Testament in the Original Greek. He was a friend of both Charles Kingsley and F.D. Maurice:
‘F.J.A. Hort, who had earlier corresponded with F.D. Maurice on the topic of eternal punishment, regretted Maurice’s unequivocal rejection of purgatory, but agrees with Maurice on the three points at the heart of the controversy; that eternity was independent of duration; that power of repentance is not limited to this life; and that it is not revealed whether or not all will ultimately be saved’ (from Geoffrey Rowell, Hell and the Victorians, p.83-84, 1974; citing, at footnote 80, A.F. Hort *Life and Letters of F.J.A. Hort *, pp. 266-275, 1896).

Johnson, Samuel (1709 - 1784), English writer a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and a philanthropist. He feared heel for himself excessively but was hopeful for others:
‘(Boswell) “What do you think, Sir, of purgatory, as believed by the Roman Catholicks?” (Johnson) “Why, Sir, it is a very harmless doctrine. They are of the opinion that the generality of mankind are neither so obstinately wicked as to deserve everlasting punishment, nor so good as to merit being admitted into the society of blessed spirits; and therefore that God is graciously pleased to allow a middle state, where they may be purified by certain degrees of suffering. You see, Sir, there is nothing unreasonable in this.”(Boswell) “But then, Sir, their Masses for the dead?” (Johnson) "Why, Sir, if it be at once established that there are souls in purgatory, it is as proper to pray for them, as for our brethren of mankind who are yet in this life’ (Boswell, Life of Johnson, p.x).

*** Lewis**, Clive Staples (1898-1963), philosopher and Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford, later chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge, influential Christian apologist and author best known for his Narnia series:
‘I believe in Purgatory … I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering … But I don’t think suffering is the purpose of purgation … The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or much’ (Malcolm, ch. 20).

Lombard, Peter (c. 1096-1164), French Catholic scholastic theologian and author of Four Books of Sentences, which became the standard textbook of theology the Middle Ages:
‘That some sins are remitted after this life, Christ shows in the Gospel (Matt. xii. 32). Whence it may be understood, as holy doctors teach, that some sins are pardoned in the future….But in that cleansing fire some are purged more slowly some more speedily, according as they have loved those perishing things less or more……Those who build gold, silver, precious stones, are secure from either fire: not only from that eternal fire which will torture the impious forever, but even from that fire of emendation in which some will be purged who are to be saved’ (Four Books of Sentences, Dict. xxi. A.B. ).

Martensen, Hans Lassen (1808-1884), Danish Lutheran bishop and academic with an interest in Christian mysticism and speculative theosophy:
‘As no soul leaves this present existence in a fully complete and prepared state, we must suppose that there is an Intermediate State, a realm of progressive development, in which souls are prepared and matured for the last judgment … The intermediate state, in a purely spiritual sense must be a purgatory determined for the purifying of the soul’ (Christliche Dogmatik, 276, 1870, quoted in Farrar’s Mercy and Judgment).

Perpetua, Vibia (c. 181-203), Martyr, leader, woman of letters:
‘The following was shown to me in a vision … Dinocrates had been my brother after the flesh, seven years of age, who died miserably with disease … Between him and me there was a large gap, so that neither of us could approach the other … I was aroused and knew that my brother was in suffering. But I trusted that my prayer would bring help to his suffering … I saw that the place which I had formerly observed to be in gloom was now bright. Dinocrates, with a clean body, well-clad, was finding refreshment … I understood that he was translated from the place of punishment’ (The Suffering of the Holy Martyrs: Perpetua and Felicitas, Chapter 2).

Perrone, Giovanni (1794–1876), Italian Catholic Jesuit theologian:
‘All agree in saying that it is too violent to admit at once into heaven all those who only repented of their past evil life at the end, and who indulged too much in the sensualities of this life, since nothing defiled enters there; also it is too harsh to assign all such to eternal torments’ (De Deo Creatore, p. 119, n. 7).

Wake, William (1657 –1737), Church of England priest and Archbishop of Canterbury:
‘It may, with much more agreement to the text (Matt. Xii. 32), follow that all men, be their sins what they may, shall have grace of repentance whereby they may be pardoned in the world to come, the blasphemer against the Holy Ghost alone excepted’ (Discourse of Purgatory, p. 20).

*** Walls**, Dr. Jerry L (xxxx-), former lecturer at Asbury Theological Seminary, currently Visiting Scholar, Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame:
‘missionaries do not convert people who would otherwise be lost’ (Hell: the Logic of Damnation, p.xx).

Whittier, John Greenleaf (1807 –1892), American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. He is usually listed as one of the Fireside Poets and was strongly influenced by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. He is famous for the words of the hymn Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, from his poem The Brewing of Soma, sung to music by Hubert Parry.
‘I am not a Universalist, for I believe in the possibility of the perpetual loss of the soul that persistently turns away from God, in the next life as in this. But I do believe that the divine love and compassion follow us in all worlds, and that the heavenly Father will do the best that is possible for every creature that he has made. What that will be, must be left to his infinite wisdom and goodness’ (Samuel T. Pickard, Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, vol 1, p. 265,1907).

Disputed Post-Mortem Salvationists

Luther, Martin (1483 –1546), seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation:
‘God forbid that I should limit the time of acquiring faith to the present life. In the depth of the Divine mercy there may be opportunity to win it in the future’ (*Letter to Hanseu Von Rechenberg *in 1522, translation given in Farrar’s Mercy and Judgment):
On the EU website Derek Flood gave an alternative scholarly translation of Luther’s letter:
‘It is quite another question whether God could give faith to many as they die or after they die, and could therefore sanctify them through faith. Who would doubt that He could do this? However, no one can prove that he does’

Wider Hope Salvationists and Inclusivists (and Christian Pluralists)

Barclay, Robert (1648 –1690), Scottish Quaker, governor of the East Jersey colony in North America and the most eminent theologian of the Religious Society of Friends. His ‘Apology’ influenced John Wesley’s’ doctrine of prevenient grace:
‘It wonderfully commends us as well the certainty of the Christian religion among infidels, as it manifests its own verity to all, in that it is confirmed and established by the experience of all men; seeing there was never yet a man in any place of the earth, however barbarous and wild, but hath acknowledged, that at some time or another, less or more, he hath found somewhat in his heart reproving him for some things evil which he hath done, threatening a certain horror if he continued in them, as also promising and communicating a certain peace and sweetness, as he has given way to it, and not resisted it’’ (Apology 143).

Bathurst, Elizabeth (d. 1691), English Quaker preacher and proto-feminist:
‘…none should need to fear their Eternal Predestination or Reprobation to Everlasting Misery, as thought God hath foreordained some for Everlasting Damnation; for God would have all men come to knowledge of the Truth and be saved’ (spoken while interrupting a Calvinist meeting at Spitalifields in 1678 to ‘make Proclamation of Gods’ Universal Love’).

Berrow, Capel (1716–1782), English theologian and Anglican Rector of Rosington:
‘The endless misery of the majority cannot be made reconcilable with any one attribute of the Deity whatever’ (Theological Dissertations – No 2 Predestination Election and Future punishment, 1772).

Burnet, Gilbert (1643 –1715), Bishop of Salisbury, Scottish theologian and historian:
‘Instead of stretching the severity of justice by an inference, we may rather venture to stretch the mercy of God, since that is the attribute which of all others is most magnificently spoken of in the Scriptures; so that we ought to think of it in the largest and most comprehensive manner’ (On Art. XVIII).

*** Catechism of the Catholic Church** reads:
‘God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want ‘any to perish, but all to come to repentance’’( xxxx, p.x).

Child, Lydia Maria Francis (1802-1880), American Unitarian, abolitionist, women’s rights activist, opponent of American expansionism, Indian rights activist, novelist, and journalist:
‘Everywhere we hear voices of supplication; everywhere we see hands stretched toward the Infinite ‘’seeking after God, if haply they may find him.’’ Let us recognize them all as fellow pilgrims on the same mysterious journey. Let us all give each other cheerful assurance that we are all being guided through devious paths homeward by the Universal Father. (Aspirations of the World, p.276, 1878).

Clarke, Dr Adam (1762–1832), Irish Methodist theologian and biblical scholar:
‘There is room for hope in his [Judas’]death. The chief priests who instigated Judas were worse men than himself, and if mercy was extended to those, the wretched penitent traitor did not die out of the reach of the yearning of its bowels. And I contend, further, that there is no positive evidence of the final damnation of Judas in the sacred text. I would not set up, knowingly, any plea against the claims of justice; and God forbid that a sinner should be found capable of pleading against the cries of mercy on behalf of a fellow culprit. Reader, learn from thy Lord this lesson: ’ Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy’ (Quoted in P.T. Barnum’s Why I am a Universalist, 1896).

*** Cleveland**, Elizabeth Hannah Jocelyn (1824-1911), American Quaker and author of the witty and once popular narrative poem for young people *No Sects in Heaven *in which a Priest in his fine vestments, a gray suited Quaker, Dr Isaac Watts with his psalms, John Wesley, a Baptist (and more) struggle across a river, each imaging his own way is the only one to heaven. However at the end of the poem:
‘And priest and Quaker, and all who died,/ Came out alike on the other side./ No forms, or crosses, or books had they, /No gowns of silk, or suits of gray, /No creeds to guide them, or MSS., /For all had put on Christ’s righteousness’ (No Sects In Heaven: and Other Poems, p.x, 1869).

Curione, Secondo (1503 –1569), Italian Reformer and Professor of Theology at Basle. In his 1554 *De Amplitdue beati regini *(The extent of the kingdom of the Blessed) he argues in favour of God having a larger Kingdom than Satan and attributes the opinion of the fewness of the saved to the Devil. Curio was generally abused and persecuted because of this book:
‘Whatever God wishes, that is right and lawful to Him, and since He wishes to be called rich in goodness and mercy, it follows that He wishes to pour forth His goodness and pity on the most, and not upon a few. Otherwise, why does He wish to be called Father of Mercy and God of all consolation? And envious are all who wish so great a good to belong to a few only’ (De Amplitude beati regni, p.25).

Faber, Frederick William (1814 —1863), noted English hymn writer and theologian, who converted from Anglicanism to the Catholic priesthood:
‘There’s a wideness in God’s mercy/Like the wideness of the sea;/There’s a kindness in His justice,/Which is more than liberty./There is no place where earth’s sorrows/Are more felt than up in Heaven;/There is no place where earth’s failings/Have such kindly judgment given’ (from There’s A Wideness in God’s Mercy)

*** Florovsky**, Georges (1893 – 1979), Russian Orthodox priest, theologian, historian and ecumenist:
‘Without doubt even in the demonic depths the creature remains the work of God and the traits of divine design are never effaced. The image of God, obscured by the infidelity of sin, is nevertheless preserved intact, and that is why there is always, even in the abyss, and ontological receptacle for divine appeal, for the grace of God’ (*If Grace Is True *by Gulley P. and Muholland J., p.217).

Fox, George (1624 –1691), English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends:
‘And then is the gospel, that is everlasting, preached unto all nations of mankind, and all that are driven out from God in the power of darkness; to the intent that they may all come up again to God, and have life and immortality brought to light by his Almighty power, that expels death and darkness….destroying that which made the separation, and broke unity, which is the enmity in people’s minds, which the light, that enlightens everyone that comes into the world, destroys’ (George Fox’s Letter 216).

*** Graham**, Reverend William Franklin “Billy” (b, 1918), eminent American Protestant evangelist:
'(Graham): … I’ve met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations, that have never seen a Bible or heard about a Bible, and never heard of Jesus, but they’ve believed in their hearts that there was a God, and they’ve tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived’. (Schuller) ‘I’m so thrilled to hear you say this. There’s a wideness in God’s mercy’. (Graham): ‘There is. There definitely is’ (Dr. Robert Schuller interviews Reverend Billy Graham, 1997).

Grosart, Alexander Balloch (1827 –1899), Scottish Presbyterian clergyman, literary editor of rare Elizabethan Puritan literature, and author of a work arguing against the damnation of children (which proves that the idea was still haunting at least some nineteenth century Protestants):
‘How are they saved from it *? My answer is – precisely as Original Sin reaches and involves them. Just as in the First Adam they all ‘died’…so in the Second Adam, the ‘Last Adam’, they are all’ made alive’…just as children come under the curse without any act of their own, so, equally without any act of their own, do they come under the blessing, when , dying children they are incapable of deciding between curse and blessing. I harmonize the sister-act and doctrine of inherited depravity with this universal salvation of children’ (The lambs all safe: or, the salvation of children, p.88, 1850).

Guthrie, Thomas (1803–1873), Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland and noted philanthropist:
‘My belief is that in the end there will be a vastly larger number saved than we have any conception of. What sort of earthly government would that be where more than half the subjects were in prison? I cannot believe that the government of God will be like that’ (Life, p. 773).

Hooker, Richard (1554 –1600); Anglican priest and key founder of Anglican theology, writer of Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. The wide hope in Richard Hooker’s sermons and writings, written at a time when Anglican Calvinism seemed triumphant, was an important factor in creating the environment for Anglican Universalism:
‘The safest axioms of charity to rest itself upon are these ‘ he which steadfastly believes is (saved) and ‘he which believes not as yet may be the child of God’. It becomes not us during this lifetime altogether to condemn any man seeing that (for anything we know) there is hope of every man’s forgiveness, the possibility of whose repentance is not yet cut off by death. And therefore charity ‘which hopeth all things’ prayeth also for all men’
(Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book v, Ch.49. 1-2).

Ken, Bishop Thomas (1637–1711), English cleric who was considered the most eminent of the Anglican non-juring bishops (who refused to swear an oath of loyalty to William III) and one of the fathers of modern English hymnology. Several of his hymns are Universalist or at least very wide in their hope:
‘Each heavenly Harper strikes his tuneful lyre :/Good Angels joy, when but one sinner weeps, /Heaven Jubilee for every mourner keeps. /But their ecstatic joys were unconfined, /At the Salvation of all lapsed mankind’ (from ‘Hymn for Second Sunday After Christmas’,Bishop Ken’s Christian year; or, Hymns and poems for the holy days and festivals of the Church, published 1868).

Mandeville, Sir John, (early 1300s -1383) likely pseudonym of Jan de Langhe of Flanders, compiler of the fantastical The Travels of Sir John Mandeville:
When speaking of his imaginary contacts with the Brahmins of India he writes, ‘And although it is true that they have not the articles of our faith, nevertheless I trust God loves them well for their good intentions and that he finds their service agreeable as if they were Job who was a pagan who he knew as his true servant. I trust that God loves well all these that love him and serve him meekly and truly and who despise vainglory of the world as these men do and as Job did’ (Mandeville’s Travels, Egerton Manuscript 146. 8-13; Dick’s (sobornost) translation).

Newton, Thomas (1704-1782), English cleric, biblical scholar and author who served as the Anglican Bishop of Bristol:
‘Nothing is more contrarient [contrary] to the divine nature and attributes than for God to bestow existence on any beings whose destiny He foreknows must terminate in wretchedness without recover’ (Dissertation On the Final State of Man, p.x, 1761).

Penn, William (1644 – 1718), English Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania; champion of democracy and religious freedom and noted for his good relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Indians:
‘The Humble, Meek, Merciful, Just, Pious and Devout Souls, are everywhere of one Religion; and when Death has taken off the Mask, they will know one another, tho’ the divers Liveries they wear here make them Strangers’ (Fruits of Solitude, 519).

Selden, John (1584–1654), English jurist and a scholar of England’s ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law; John Milton hailed Selden in 1644 as “the chief of learned men reputed in this land”:
‘Salvation. We can best understand the meaning of salvation from the Jews, to whom the Savior was promised. They held that themselves should have the chief place of happiness in the other world; but the Gentiles that were good men, should likewise have their portion of bliss there too. Now, by Christ the partition-wall is broken down, and the Gentiles that believe in him are admitted to the same place of bliss with the Jews; and why then should not that portion of happiness still remain to them, who do not believe in Christ, so they be morally good? This is a charitable opinion’ (Table Talk – Being the Discourse of John Selden, p.139, written c. 1654 – published 1786).

Uhtred of Bolden (c.1316-1396), English Benedictine monk and theologian who argued in his *Contra querelas fratrum *that when a person dies they experience a pre-mortem vision of God response to which determines salvation:
‘Quilibet viator tam adultus, quam non adultus, Sarazenus, Judaeus, at Paganus, etiam in utero materno defunctus, habebit claram visionem Dei ante mortem suam; qua vision manente, habebit electionem liberam convertendi se ad Deum, vel divertendi se ad eo: et si tunc elegerit converti ad Deum, salvabitur; sin aum damnabitur’ (Andrew E. Larsen, *The School of Heretics: Academic Condemnation at the University of Oxford *, p.111-112).

Wesley, Charles (1707–1788), English leader of the Methodist movement, and younger brother of John Wesley, famous as a hymn writer (Hark! the Herald Angels Sing, *Jesus, Lover of My Soul *and Love Divine, All Loves Excelling among many others). He was ever horrified by the doctrine of double predestination:
'Horror to think that God is hate! / Fury in God can dwell!/ God could an helpless world create,/ To thrust them into hell!// Doom them an endless death to die, / From which they could not flee:—/ No, Lord! Thine inmost bowels cry / Against the dire decree!..’ (from Hear, holy, holy, holy Lord, Father of all mankind).

Wesley, John (1703 – 1791), Anglican cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement:
‘[Prevenient grace elicits]… the first wish to please God, the first dawn of light concerning his will, and the first slight transient conviction of having sinned against him…I only assert, that there is a measure of free-will supernaturally restored to every man, together with that supernatural light which "enlightens every man that cometh into the world’ (On Working Out Our Own Salvation, Sermon 85).

Zwingli, Huldrych (1484 – 1531), notable leader of the early Reformation in Switzerland:
'I cannot believe that the Lord will cast away from Him nations whose only crime it is never to have heard of the gospel. No, let us abjure the rashness of setting bounds to the divine mercy…” (from Zwingli’s dedicatory abstract to Francis I in Commentarius).*

… to which we need to add, of course, our own:

Dr Thomas Talbott
Dr Robin Parry
Prof Richard Beck
Dr Bob Wilson
James Goetz
Derek Flood

plus, off the top of my head:

John Hick
NT Wright
Jan Bonda
Eric Reitan
Marilyn McCord Adams
Carlton Pearson
Eric Stetson
Charles Dickens

J

While NTW is close to universalism in some regards, he seems to remain firmly for now in a Lewisian annihilationist category, much like Edward Fudge. (Originally I had said Jerry Walls, but he goes with a Lewisian version of ECT. I’m a bit spaced on allergy medicine this morning… :laughing: :unamused: )

Good project though, Pog. :slight_smile:

You might want to rename “Dogmatic Universalist” to “Convinced Universalist”. Dogmatic connotes exclusion to me.

One unknown one: Florence Nightingale.

Jason

Yeah, NTW is a funny one. Some of the stuff he writes is unvarnished Universalism from soup to nuts. And yet he isn’t a Universalist. I’d put him in the same ballpark as Robert Farrar Capon, and indeed Jerry Walls. The only thing which prevents all these guys from embracing Universalism with open arms is their commitment to free will. Capon says that God never withdraws the offer of salvation, but it is at least theoretically possible that some people will stubbornly refuse that offer into eternity.

Eric Reitan has refuted this argument - to my mind wholly convincingly - in an essay collected in Robin Parry’s book Universalism the Current Debate. And he does so without curtailing our freedom. (Which is important for me as a Universalist, as I consider genuine, albeit corrupt human freedom to be essential to any meaningful theodicy.)

Cheers

Johnny

… and how could we forget:

The self-proclaimed world’s most outspoken Bible Scholar, Martin Zender
Rob Bell
Mark Driscoll - whoops, silly me :smiling_imp:

J

That was true about Lewis, too, on rare occasion. His chapter (or one of them) on human sin in The Problem of Pain is so strongly universalistic I’ve rarely seen an actual universalistic put it better. Tons of his Teacher MacD coming through in that chapter.

(Also, I happen to like your colorful way of putting it there. :smiley: )

Yeah, great idea, Pog :slight_smile:

Yeah Prof, I’ve heard people question some of the names on Tentmaker’s list of universalists, saying that some of those names don’t really fit, and were kind of shoehorned in there, and there may be some truth to that.
I do think that everyone on the list was at the very least open to or would have been sympathetic with universalism though.
I’m sure even Samuel Johnson cried out for it in his heart (I know I did when I was in his place), even if he never embraced it or even studied it.
No doubt there are the best of intentions behind the making of that list, but then they may not have a scholar on hand like yourself to give it more weight. :wink:
Perhaps you could chime in over there, and offer your assistance in putting a better more concise list together? :slight_smile:

And if nothing else, maybe you could help Pog out, and make sure nobody gets shoehorned in the wrong category. :wink:

As for my two cents, just to add a couple people that aren’t on the Tentmaker list, there’s some of my favorite authors, including Philip Yancey, who may possibly fall into one of the latter three categories (my friend Charles Slagle heard that Yancey’s pastor [not sure if its his current one] is a universalist, so that may mean Yancey is at least open to other possibilities than ECT), Frederick Buechner (whose writing is very universalistic, not to mention gracious and eloquent, in its approach, and who even mused once that perhaps ‘Old Scratch’, aka Satan, may be redeemed someday… definitely not something an infernalist would say :wink:), Brennan Manning (who claims not to be a universalist much like N.T. Wright, but whose writings certainly sound universalist and point strongly in that direction), and Donald Miller (who doesn’t really talk about hell in any of his writing, as far as I can recall, but by the nature of his writing doesn’t sound at all like an infernalist, and would probably fall into one of the two latter categories, at the very least).

Also William Paul Young, author of The Shack, is definitely a hopeful universalist, if not a convinced one. Not sure if he’s on the Tentmaker’s list or not, but he’d be a good one to add. :slight_smile:
And while I’m at it, mi’aswell throw in one of The Shack’s co-authors, Wayne Jacobsen, who is an annihilationist… and speaking of annihilationist, mi’aswell throw Greg Boyd in there too (I remember Jason is a fan of his :wink:). :slight_smile:

If I can think of any others, I’d let you know. :slight_smile:

Hi Dick

I think you’re right about Dr Johnson. I recall reading how he brooded about hell, and the possibility that he might end up there. But as Matt says, I’m sure he nursed at least some hope that Universalism was true. And let’s be honest, shouldn’t every Christian do likewise? Isn’t it our express duty to desire and pray for the salvation of all people? So in that sense the good doctor probably was a hopeful Universalist.

As you guys probably know, cynic that I am, not only do I think far too many Christians don’t do this, but I think some - perhaps even a lot - actually desire the exact opposite. This is explicit in the misanthropic ravings of some of the most egregious Calvinist / Augustinian theologians of yesteryear (eg Tertullian, a sadist to make Polpot weep, or Jonathan Edwards, had all the compassion for helpless sinners of a block of concrete; a horrible, spiteful man.

I guess where I stand on this is that any Christian worthy of the name is actually a hopeful Universalist - a Universalist lite, as it were. So for me, the only ‘brand’ of Universalism proper is dogmatic, full fat Universalism (although I label myself a hopeful dogmatic (Arminian) Universalist because I hope that God exists, but I’m sure, I’m utterly dogmatic about the fact that if He does exist, He will indeed save all of us - eventually (that’s where the Arminian bit comes in).

P&L

Iohnny

Well, I’m only self-published. :wink: So I don’t really count any more than other people here. (That’s why I declined the site creators’ offer to include my name on the masthead and to have a category for myself along with the other authors.)

But that’s a bit of a porous category now. So, sure, why not. :slight_smile: I very much appreciate the thought. :smiley:

Interesting!–I wonder if Jeremiah White (contemporary Christian systematic universalist author and chaplain to Cromwell) knew about him.

Has anyone mentioned Elhanan Winchester (1751-1797)?

Sonia

Don’t know if you guys are interested in conditionalists but some (in Pog’s cool style):

John Wenham (1913 - 1996):
“I believe that endless torment is a hideous and unscriptural doctrine which has been a terrible burden on the mind of the church for many centuries and a terrible blot on her presentation of the gospel. I should indeed be happy if, before I die, I could help in sweeping it away”

John Stott ():
“Emotionally, I find the concept [of eternal conscious torment] intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain. But our emotions are a fluctuating, unreliable guide to truth and must not be exalted to the place of supreme authority in determining it . . . my question must be—and is—not what does my heart tell me, but what does God’s word say?”

Glenn Peoples:
“Not only am I an annihilationist, but I think that all evangelical Christians should be annihilationists, because
the biblical case for annihilationism is very strong, and I think the arguments against annihilationism are very
weak in comparison.”

Convinced Universalists

Paul Dean (1789–1860) was a student of John Murray and was the only prominent trinitarian universalist of his generation. He pastored a Unitarian church (the only Unitarian pastor do have remained trinitarian) and co-founded the Massachusetts Association of Universal Restorationists (MAUR) with his very close friend Adin Ballou after they left/were ousted from the mainline ultra-universalist churches for their Restorationism (Purgatorial-universalism). When they became estranged over Adin’s radical social ideals, MAUR essentially disbanded, which I suspect contributed to the general decline in purgatorial universalism. He was ecumenical towards non-universalists (over the generally schismatic attitude of the ultra-Us), and was theologically conservative/evangelical, although he did reject impassibility (which isn’t really that radical either).

Adin Ballou (1803–1890) was, like his close friend Dean, a convinced universalist. He had some rather fascinating ideas, albeit peculiar and unorthodox, but was a truly inspirational fellow. He was an exemplary abolitionist, radical pacifist and socialist (greatly influencing the Christian anarchist thought of Tolstoy, who regarded him as the greatest American writer!). Ballou ran a truly remarkable race — he delivered eight to nine thousand sermons, married one thousand couples, wrote about five hundred articles, edited a journal and founded a utopian community.

This is a cool project, but I wonder whether the title should be changed from “infernalism”. In my mind, infernalism is highly offensive or completely meaningless — either signifying that the person is, as an infernalist, abominable/diabolical for not believing in universalism, or signifies that they simply believe in some abode of the dead, or some post-mortem “punishment” (and if so, so what? So does Dean, Ballou and myself). You don’t have to change it on my account, and I don’t mean to be pedantic, but I do find it offensive and/or meaningless.

I think Steve Gregg also holds that view.

Dr. Beck shared an article on here recently where he described himself as a hopeful dogmatic universalist:

viewtopic.php?f=74&t=3815&p=53746#p53746

And I kind of agree with Andrew, might be good to change the topic title, maybe switch it from infernalism to eternal torment or something.

Hi pog

Respect to you for taking on this very worthwhile task. I’ll chip in when I can. Here’s a couple of entries:

convinced universalist
Hick, John (1922-2012) English theologian and philosopher. “In wrestling with the problem of evil I had concluded that any viable Christian theodicy must affirm the ultimate salvation of all God’s creatures.” (Evil and the Love of God)

hopeful universalist
Farrer, Austin (1904-1968) English theologian and philosopher, chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford. “Cannot everlasting mercy save from the everlasting fire or let the irreconcilable perish in it?” (Saving Belief)

I too would switch the title of the thread. If nothing else, a lot of Universalists do not deny the existence of ‘hell’ in some senses. How about something positive, along the lines of “list of people who affirm the truth of Universalism, or allow the possibility of it being true”. That’s a horrible clunker obviously, but I’m sure you or somebody here can come up with something more succinct!

Cheers

Johnny

I do love Mother Julian Dick. I’m reading her Revelations now. Surprised she wasn’t denounced as a heretic, when she at times calls God our mother.

Must say I don’t particularly find infernalism offensive. Think I would’ve proudly held that title back when I was trying my best to be a Calvinist. I guess you could argue it’s unhelpful if it rattles people, but I cannot help but feel some will be rattled by any title you produce for such a topic.

Personally I find ECT so abhorrent, that I have no issue calling it cosmic child abuse etc. I think it is so vile, that in this case a spade needs to be called a spade. That said, care must be taken that it is the logical conclusions of these beliefs that are vile, not the adherents themselves

That’s pretty true. Even Matt/Edward’s suggestion “Eternal Torment” offends me, and I subscribe to the possibility of an eternal consequence. Eternal torment or even eternal punishment implies it’s a condition actively decreed from God. That I definitely do not subscribe to. I’m with Johnny on this. I think focusing on the affirmed belief of these people (i.e. universalism) would be more relevant and less offensive for everyone.