The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Volf: The Final Reconciliation

Volf has been in Australia over the past week & has even appeared on our ABC’s Q&A:

He also just finished being the keynote speaker at the 3 day RE:THINKING A Public Faith conference, where one of his talks was on reconciliation. Here are some tweets from it:

I wish I’d been there to ask him some questions as he seems very sympathetic & I suspect he’s getting more sympathetic as time passes. I’ve asked about getting the video… Anyway, all this prompted me to ask our friend Keith DeRose about him (they both work at Yale) and he gave me the paper attached below :sunglasses:

, Volf"]When asked, whether it is true that one day in heaven we will see again our loved ones, Karl Barth is reported to have responded, “Not only the loved ones!” The sting of the great theologian’s response—be ready to meet there even those whom you dislike here—is more than just a personal challenge. It contains a serious and, as it turns out, inadequately addressed theological problem. How can those who have disliked or even had good reasons to hate each other here, come to inhabit together what is claimed to be, in Jonathan Edwards’ memorable phrase, “a world of love”? The not-loved-ones will have to be transformed into the loved ones and those who do not love will have to begin to do so; enemies will have to become friends.
A few years before he wrote the paper,

, Volf"]Though those who have been touched by God’s love ought to hope for a universal non-refusal, if they are not blind to the human condition they will be hesitant to count on it.

Volf-Modern Theology-The Final Reconciliation.pdf (178 KB)

Volf’s seriousness about grace’s calling to forgive does seem to push toward U.R.'s hope. Gotta love the spirit of “I’m not a universalist, but God may be!” Especially when one sees that God’s actual nature is the most crucial reality.

Indeed, I’m hoping he keeps thinking about this :slight_smile:

Here’s a surprising footnote:

, Volf"]The unpardonable sin—blasphemy against the Holy Spirit—was, following Augustine, taken to refer to the final impenitence, not to an act of sin, however heinous. “This blasphemy”, argued Augustine, “cannot be detected in anyone … as long as they are still in this life”; and except for “an impenitent heart against the Holy Spirit, by which sins are cancelled in the Church”, he claimed, “all [other] sins are forgiven” (Sermon 71,21, in The Works of Saint Augustine. Sermons III, trans. Edmund Hill, ed. John E. Rotelle [Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1991], pp. 259f.).If it’s about our stance towards the Holy Spirit, surely that can change with the Spirit’s help.

, Volf"]In Christian theology, the last judgment is situated in an economy of grace—grace, however, which does not negate justice but affirms it precisely in the act of transcending it. :sunglasses:

[tag]Richard Beck[/tag] if you haven’t already read this paper, I think you’d find it very interesting.