I have to emphasize that Rob also emphatically states, more than once, that when people do this they are contributing to hell in the day of the Lord to come, too.
Rob doesn’t downplay judgment, except in the sense of refusing to consider judgment hopeless. (And refusing to consider the maximum hopelessness of God refusing to even try to save some people from sin, thus not even trying to empower them, much less lead them, into any kind of goodness.)
What I wrote in the previous comment is factually true (about the contents of Love Wins anyway); and since Luke mentions it, Rob says some things about the worst thing in the world being rebellion against God, too. He does so in a way that leaves even people who don’t believe in God without an excuse for ignoring what he’s talking about (as per Rom 2, now that I think of it. ) Even people who don’t believe in God typically still believe in love to some extent; and they know they ought not to sin against love (so to speak); but Rob closes off any attempt at subjectively escaping that condemnation by connecting love back to the full fundamental reality of God Most High. Love isn’t an abstract standard that someone might or might not choose to follow based on their own choice–Love is the omnipotent and omnipresent personal reality Who is going to authoritatively act in judgment against sin, as well as act to save from sin.
(On the other hand, Rob in LW is admittedly a bit inconsistent about God acting in wrath to punish people, but that isn’t unusual for an Arminian, including one who is a fan of C. S. Lewis. Yet Rob, like any good Arminian, affirms that a punishment for sin is coming, even if he usually focuses in terms of sinners punishing themselves in and through their sin; and occasionally he implies or hints or even mentions that God has something authoritative to do with that punishment.)
Very true. I guess we need to know when we’re reasoning, when we’re rationalizing, and when we’re somewhere in-between. (I officially coin the word Reasonalizing. Wonder if it’ll go viral…)
(I posted the video on my blog does that mean I’m promoting it and am one of those who dare confuse it with an informed discussion of Rob Bell and George MacDonald?)
I hope no one confuses Tom Talbott’s Calvinistic straw-man from *The Inescapable Love of God *with a genuine discussion of Calvinism.
I agree; I don’t think we should get rid of the saying of the itching ears (and yes it was Paul in one of the Tim epistles, 2 Tim if I recall correctly.)
But people abandon sound doctrine to satisfy itching ears for more than one reason. The urge to slander, for example, by applying the itching ear saying to people who aren’t abandoning doctrines and following false teachers in order to satisfy their own lusts. (Or to teachers who demonstrably aren’t doing what is accused of them.)
The principle is a good one generally speaking, but requires care and accuracy if it is going to be applied particularly.
For example, I don’t recall Luke abandoning sound doctrine in order to satisfy a desire for slander by stating falsehoods about Rob Bell; so the itching ears saying wouldn’t apply to him.
I for one didn’t notice the strawman, and to be fair to Calvinism I would be grateful if this could be pointed out to me on another thread say. Until it is, I have to say that I regard Tom’s perspective as fair.
I’m not sure that’s a fair question; if Luke saw any compelling arguments for one or more kinds of universalism (scriptural arguments or otherwise), he’d already be either a universalist or a positive agnostic on the topic (unable to come down solidly yet on a position with apparently more than one good options.)
Since he solidly isn’t a universalist, his answer would have to be no, wouldn’t it?
What might be a more feasible question to ask is whether he’s able to sympathize with any scriptural arguments for universalism at all (even though for whatever reason he doesn’t find them compelling). For example he can see why people might easily and honestly understand this scripture to testify to God’s scope of intention to save sinners from sin, or that scripture to testify to God’s salvation of at least some sinners from sin post mortem, even though he himself believes mistakes are being made in the interpretation there.
Or alternately, are there scriptural arguments universalists use (for universalistic apologetics) which he finds compelling but not ultimately in favor of universalism? To give perhaps the most pertinent example, when universalists argue (from the scriptures and otherwise) in favor of the persistence of God in saving from sin the sinners God chooses to save, he may agree not only with the immediate conclusion of those arguments but with the validity and accuracy of their approach–but he himself deploys them in Calvinistic Reformed theology! (Since that class of soteriology agrees with Kaths about the original and continuing intentional persistence of God to save, over against Arm denial of original persistence.)
I hope that when a ‘strawman’ allegation is made, the poster is prepared to substantiate his position, otherwise it becomes no more than a meaningless cheap jibe. I’m sure this cannot be the case.
I don’t know if it counts as slander (or libel, since it’s in print ), but this does look like you’re simply discounting my emphatic report of what Rob Bell does in his book in order to find fault with him (and not only to find fault but to slot him into the false teacher denunciation of 2 Tim.)
To repeat what I said before, which perhaps you missed reading (despite insisting I was wrong about what I said):
In my experience, people’s ears are not itching to hear that they’re creating hell for themselves and other people now in this life;
people’s ears are not itching to hear that this is true even when they do ‘small’ sins;
people’s ears are not itching to hear that this is true even if they’re nominally “Christian” (go to church, say the creeds, take communion, etc.);
people’s ears are not itching to hear that unless they repent they’re going to keep on doing so in the next life, too;
people’s ears are not itching to hear that they’ll be the ones who suffer in the next life for doing so;
people’s ears are not itching to hear that their suffering in the next life will get worse and worse as long as they persist in holding to their sins;
and people’s ears are not itching to hear that Jesus Christ is the only way for any of us to receive eternal life, including salvation from the wrath and punishment coming to us for our sins.
And Rob Bell, in various ways, repeatedly affirms all that in his book.
Now: what part of what I said do you rebut as being wrong? Because when you said I was wrong, you didn’t mention anything I actually said in defense of Rob Bell and treated him as though he was only focusing on realized eschatology in this life; which seems to imply that you disagree that he is doing any of those other things in his book. Except a quick agreement that he is preaching hell in this life; but I have met or read exactly no one, ever, whose ears were itching to hear that they were creating hell for themselves and for other people in this life by their insistence on sinning–which is what Rob Bell is teaching on that topic. Not merely that some kind of hell exists in this life through no fault of his readers, which is what in my experience people’s ears do itch to hear on this topic.
But as a pastor maybe you find people itching to hear that they’re personally responsible for their and other people’s misery, and that God’s wrath is on the way to them if they don’t shape up and stop their sinning (and so they abandon true doctrine to follow false teachers in order to fulfill their lust to hear this about themselves.) That would be very strange to me, but hey you work Down Under, things are weird there.
) Even people who don’t believe in God typically still believe in love to some extent; and they know they ought not to sin against love (so to speak); but Rob closes off any attempt at subjectively escaping that condemnation by connecting love back to the full fundamental reality of God Most High. Love isn’t an abstract standard that someone might or might not choose to follow based on their own choice–Love is the omnipotent and omnipresent personal reality Who is going to authoritatively act in judgment against sin, as well as act to save from sin.
(Or to teachers who demonstrably aren’t doing what is accused of them.)