The Evangelical Universalist Forum

List of those of who reject traditional hellism

But preference doesn’t necessitate a desire, Allan :slight_smile: The goats might indeed be fearful of eternal fire, they might even be ashamed of their own conduct and character, and they might even bow and confess the rightful Lordship of Yeshua (though that’s not in the context of those verses), but they might still prefer eternal fire because they’d rather suffer there, than suffer amongst the Least and alongside God. The goats reject the God that suffers amongst the Least for an idol of their imagination. The goats, in their contempt for the poor, are idolatrous. And they might just be happily miserable for it too.

Thank you for your spirited defence! :slight_smile: I’m not exactly sure what to say; “I’ll think it over” :wink:

Pog, thanks for that explanation. That makes a lot more sense. Though I suspect if non-universalists (“infernalists” ahem is very unfair) are convinced of their view, they will not be appeased by a long list of “heretics” that includes, amongst others, the Ballou Brothers (they were really second cousins who didn’t really get along, but I thought the words sounded lovely together :laughing: ). But yes, do carry on with your interesting project. I’ve said my pieces.

If we’re including “Post-Mortem Salvationists” you may wish to include Clark Pinnock and Jerry Walls. There are few other notable evangelicals who subscribe to this belief (alongside a purgatory; like Greg Boyd) but I cannot recall them.

Boyd though he entertains universalism as a hope, states (2001, p.321): “I do not see this position as having much biblical or philosophical merit.” He’s generally pretty critical of universalism whenever it comes up in ‘Satan and the Problem of Evil’. But in one of the videoblog links I included above, he states (2012): “In fact, I find I’ve got grounds for having a hope for everybody. That may sound kinda radical. But I can’t know that everyone’s saved. That’s going beyond the bounds of scripture. But Paul says in First Corinthians fifteen and in Romans chapter five, that is “all were in Adam, so all are in Christ”. There’s a direct parallel there. Which tells me that God’s got a bear-hugger ?] on everybody. And from God’s perspective, he has them all in, he’s squeezing them in. Now, I believe in free-will and the Bible warns about condemnation. And so a person can put themselves outside of that reality. You can choose to live against reality. You can choose to… say ‘no’ to God’s ‘yes’, to use Karl Barth’s terms. But you’ve got to put yourself out. The default of God’s grace is that you’re in. So based on God’s bear-hug, I have hope… I entrust everybody who dies, the worst of sinners, to the grace of Jesus Christ, and I know that they’re in the hands of somebody who loves them more… when they die they’re in the presence of someone who loves them infinitely more than any human being ever could. And I entrust that person to them. 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.” You can watch that from here.

I’d say he’s under all three. Convinced Annihilationist. Convinced Post-Mortem Salvationist. And Hopeful Universalist. Of all three though, I’d say he’s most strongly a Convinced Annihilationist (presuming his view hasn’t changed all that much since 2001).

Um, yep, eternal conscious suffering would exclude annihilationists. But they’re part of the list of authors Pog was originally talking about. :slight_smile: "…who either affirm universalism or who deny traditional models of hellism."

Dang, how many chaplains to Oliver Cromwell were convinced universalists?! I wouldn’t even have thought of one before hearing of Jeremiah White, and now there’s two!

Robin Parry has some information about that on his blog, but I don’t remember where. Shouldn’t be hard to find, and it involves a video interview with Plantinga, so there should be relevant quotes to mine.

Also, our friendly competition over at the Evangelical Conditionalism blog is a good source for finding annihilationists.

I guess as the resident Lewis expert I should write a brief blurb for him.

Lewis, Clive Staples (1898-1963), British philosopher and professor of English literature, converted from atheism to become arguably the most influential Christian apologist of the 20th century. Taught that even those who formally oppose Christ in this life may in fact be secret Christians and would enter heaven (such as the character of Emeth in The Last Battle). Strongly speculated (such as in The Great Divorce) that God would save some (but not all) previously impenitent sinners post-mortem after some mode of purgatorial punishment. Proposed a unique theory (in The Problem of Pain) merging eternal conscious suffering with annihilation: the sinner may continue to exist in relation to God’s eternal existence but ceases to exist from the timeline reality of God’s creation. Otherwise usually trended more toward annihilationism than eternal conscious suffering. Final theological statement in his final work of theology (Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly On Prayer), in regard to his affirmation of purgatory: “If this isn’t true, something better will be.”

I’m pretty sure his stepson evangelist Douglas Gresham, on the other hand, is at least a hopeful Christian universalist–I heard him lecture in person once (at a Baptist university) shortly before my own switch and was amazed to hear him basically affirming someone’s universalistic interpretation of Romans 5. Will try to find some more information on him.

Aha Jason - good question. Only two - Sterry was Jerimiah Whites’ mentor :slight_smile:

Hrm. When I saw your mention of Paul Dean I tried to find his book of dialogues (similar to Winchester’s), but only ran into a reply to his popular tract from one of his opponents. (There are a couple of his books in libraries but they aren’t for casual loan.) I wonder if Sterry has any extant books.

Wait, Winchester isn’t on the list yet! Must rectify that soon… (but won’t mind if someone beats me to it.)

We also still need White and Ston(e)house.

Eh, wait, Pog, hold up before you add Lewis. The quote from the end of Malcolm, although I typically think of it in regard to his notion of Purgatory, isn’t strictly in that context, but rather on what the resurrection from the dead will be like. (The “eons in the dark” may have been what suggested the link to me.)

Here’s a more salient quote, same book, chapter 20, on the topic of praying for the dead: “I believe in Purgatory. …] I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering. Partly from tradition; partly because most real good that has been done me in this life has involved it. But I don’t think suffering is the purpose of purgation. I can well believe that people neither much worse nor much better than I will suffer less than I or more. ‘No nonsense about merit.’ The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or much.”

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I suspect Lewis was at least a hopeful universalist. We shouldn’t read too much about hell/purgatory etc into The Great Divorce. Lewis himself tells us as much in the preface. In my view, the clue to his private opinion is tucked away in *The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. *

Caspian’s crew have mutinied. They don’t want to sail to the Utter East. Caspian replies that most of them were going to be left out anyway, and that only the very best would be chosen to come. Under threat of exclusion, all the crew but one begged to be chosen.

Again, in The Last Battle, all the creatures who hate Aslan disappear into his shadow. Lewis says he doesn’t know what happened to them then, leaving their fate open. Similarly, when Lucy begs Aslan to do something for the Dwarves, he replies, “They are so afraid of being taken in they cannot be taken out.” It is inconceivable that this is the end of their story, that Lucy, so moved by the miserable plight of the Dwarves, simply shrugs and walks off to have a good time farther in and farther up. Lewis knew this as well as anyone, but left it up to us to read between the lines.

There is an entire tradition that rejects ECT: The Seventh Day Adventist. As for Annihilationism, John Stott was said to be a annihilationist. Even to the Ire of many Calvinists. I have just come from a puritan board where they said and I quote “If he really denys the teaching of eternal hell, I find it difficult to believe he’s really a Calvinist”, amongst other things about reading his work with qualification because of his annihilationist view. I have to say that if I were a Calvinist, the idea of an eternal hell would devastate me even more because there are some who will never be able to chose otherwise. There is also John Wenham, Glenn Peoples, who has been on here, Clarke Pinnock, Anabaptist Kurt Wilems has a very interesting view of being a purgatorial conditionalist (patheos.com/blogs/thepangeab … l-cares-7/).

Considering that he’s much more explicit in TGD on the topic than he is in the Narnian portions you mentioned, if I’m going to read much into any of his fantasy work I’ll read more into the more theologically detailed one instead of the less detailed ones. :wink:

If anything, his warning at the beginning of TGD is aimed at people reading too much hope into what he’s writing about. His whole stated purpose in the introduction, for writing the book at all, is to answer back against William Blake’s verrrrry radically (even insanely) universalistic Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

This isn’t necessarily a rejection of purgatorial universalism, but it’s at least a rejection of a radically (nearly pantheistic) morally subjective universalism, and may be a rejection of ultra-universalism where evil is wholly cured by God without prior repentant cooperation. When he stops talking in fantastic imagery, however (which is what his warning about details is strictly about) and starts talking directly about the theology of universalism–and in reference to his own Teacher MacDonald, not in reference to his rejection of Blake–he has MacDonald equivocate (which MacD never did) against universalism not in hopeful favor of it maybe being true. “Any man may choose eternal death. Those who choose it will have it.” That’s absolutely a saying of Lewis, not of MacD, but he puts it in MacD’s mouth, cautioning Lewis against accepting what MacD actually wrote (which Lewis is well aware of the reality about: “In your own books, Sir, you were a Universalist. You talked as if all men would be saved. And St. Paul, too.”)

Lewis rewrites MacD, not to give himself hopeful universalism, but to caution against the hope that Lewis recognized MacD and even the Apostle Paul teaching: universalism (so says pseudo-MacD, and Lewis elsewhere in defending final hopeless perdition–and so the final hopeless loss of free will!) would destroy free will, which is the more important truth.

Notably, this is after the Tragedian has by all narrative appearances completely annihilated himself, and Lewis (in the character of himself) is complaining that this doesn’t seem entirely loving to let him go out like that and his wife not be upset by it. Pseudo-MacD comforts Lewis (sort of) with stern warnings defending the joy of the saved in the face of final loss of their loved ones.

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Hrmmm, must find some quotes from George MacDonald to select from…

Also Gregory Nyssus, the Father of Orthodoxy.

“Gregory of Nyssa offered three reasons why he believed in universalism. First, he believed in it because of the character of God. “Being good, God entertains pity for fallen man; being wise, he is not ignorant of the means for his recovery.” Second, he believed in it because of the nature of evil. Evil must in the end be moved out of existence, “so that the absolutely non-existent should cease to be at all.” Evil is essentially negative and doomed to non-existence. Third, he believed in it because of the purpose of punishment. The purpose of punishment is always remedial. Its aim is “to get the good separated from the evil and to attract it into the communion of blessedness.” Punishment will hurt, but it is like the fire which separates the alloy from the gold; it is like the surgery which removes the diseased thing; it is like the cautery which burns out that which cannot be removed any other way.”

William Barclay

“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.”

–Saint Leo the Great

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