Critical review of "The Evangelical Universalist" - Part 1

[Alex_Smith]

My friend (although he is passionately anti-EU) Joe (you’ve probably come across things from him before that I’ve commented on) has read the The Evangelical Universalist twice (he is an intense person in everything he does ) and has posted an in depth, critical review on his blog

Part 1 - Crossing the line: MacDonald’s conversion to Universalism

[Alex_Smith]

Thanks for taking the time to read the book and share your thoughts on it. For now I won’t discuss the points you raise, as I’ve invited the author (Robin Parry) to reply. If he is unable due to work commitments, I’ll have a go myself

Joe

I wrote a long comment and the blog site swallowed it. No time to retype. Here is the (very) brief version.

1. Thanks for these.
2. I am afraid that I don’t have time to respond point by point to all your comments
3. I will do a second edition of the book that takes into account your criticisms and those of others. I just need to wait a year or so to give people a chance to make sensible criticisms.

So hang in there and you’ll get my reply.

I look forward to the second edition

I’m not going to address all your points, because I don’t have time and don’t know Robin’s reasoning on things like the order of content/chapters (you seem remarkably critical about that, even in the introduction).

I’m surprised by your “never questioned the traditional teaching of the Church” comment, as I thought that it’s very Reformed to be examining and testing the traditional teaching?

2 Timothy 4:3-4 is a warning that we **all **must remember e.g. Human nature is mistrusting, fearful of the unknown and desiring of revenge, therefore we have a bias to reading the Bible and seeing God that way.

In regards to “terms of right and wrong”: “Universalism, I suggest, occupies a middle ground between dogma and heresy. It is neither a teaching that all orthodox believers are expected to adhere to (in the way that the Trinity, or the union of deity and humanity in the one person of Christ are), nor one that they must avoid at all costs. Perhaps the most appropriate category to employ is that of theologoumena. … There are plenty of matters that are theologumena about which a believer may hold strong convictions. For instance, if universalism is theologumena then so is its denial, yet it is rarely suggested that a firm conviction that some people will be lost forever is in some way unorthodox (though one may argue that it is theologically inappropriate)” (Robin Parry in the introduction of ‘All Shall Be Well’)

[Alex_Smith]

Hi Robin

Thank you for reading my post, and for commenting. I thank God for granting you the grace to consider them.

I hope to post serially through the key sections of your book, and I hope that I will have completed the review in time for your own review it in the course of your preparations for your Book’s revision.

I am complimented by your comment that my criticisms may at least be considered sensible. I hope also that you will find my comments neither unbearable nor unfair. And if and where you don’t find them as such, I will need to wait to your revision of the Book where I hope I can identify any misunderstandings on my own part.

And I pray that God would fill you with all wisdom and revelation through his Spirit in the knowledge of Christ.

In Christ, Joe

Hi Alex

Re. 2 Timothy 4:3-4

I only said quote from Soren Kierkegaard is positioned to set anybody on edge who in relying on mainstream Christian doctrine has never questioned the traditional teaching of the Church through the centuries.

I agree that we don’t accept our doctrine from church tradition, and we need to question them and test them against the Scripture.

Hi again Alex

Re. Expecting MacDonald to argue in terms of right and wrong,

You’re surprised by my surprise? My main point was that I expected him to appeal first to the Scriptures themselves.

The search for a best-fit philosophical model of doctrine with reason would I’m sure be very surprising/unexpected to most thoroughgoing evangelicals, I’m sure.