The Evangelical Universalist Forum

For many, ECT IS compatible with God being “all in all”

Featured Writers Dr Richard Beck
#1

Richard:

My question is a bit hard for me to put the sharp focus upon that I’d like. But I hope to convey it’s essence and learn how you handle all this.

We’ve said (or inferred) many places on this site that should ECT hell be reality, that is not compatible with God’s promise/prediction that, through Christ, He will be “all in all”. That “all in all” must mean UR in that it could not mean torturing (or annihilating for that matter) those He purportedly “loves”. We hold this view because we see no conceivable way that “love” would allow, let alone participate in such a thing. Love, for the UR proponent at least, must mean at least this: the desire for and active working towards what is best for the other.

But as we well know, many in fact do believe in ECT (or annihilation) and find it fully compatible with a God who can be said to be “all in all”. Further, some also accept that love really does strive for what is “best” for that person but that, in the case of the lost sinner, what is “best” is in fact hell/annihilation. It’s dressed up in various guises: CS Lewis speaks of the door of hell being locked from the inside – implying that one has the “freedom” to choose where he will be most happy and that God goes along with this.

But it’s rather worse than all that because it also implies that GOD will also be fulfilled and happy for eternity with this arrangement! (Talbott makes a brief case for the fact of UR given that GOD will be happy/fulfilled in eternity and such a thing is inconceivable unless UR is true.)

So my question (s) to you are along these lines:

– what must be going on in the mind of a person (from your vantage point of understanding the human way of processing things) who holds that God being love, and being “all in all” is completely compatible with ECT (or annihilation)??
– How do you respond to those who hold that these things are compatible??
– What biblical case do you make for the incompatibility of these 2 ideas??

Thanks
Bobx3

#2

I’ve inserted numbers in your quote above to mark out my thoughts about each:

1). I don’t think the proponent of ECT is working with a real description of love. What I think they are doing is something like this: “If God does it it is loving.” It’s sort of a version of divine command theory: If God does it or commands it it is good. I think the debate turns on this issue. For those believing in ECT there is a strong appeal to God’s sovereignty, that God can do whatever God wants and, because this is God, those actions define love and goodness. By contrast, proponents of UR will start with a vision of love and then ask if conceptions of God are consistent with those understandings. The criticism they receive for doing this is anthropomorphizing God, forcing God to fit a human conception. A lot could be said by way of response from both groups at this point, but the point I’m making is that the proponent of ECT isn’t ever really working with a description of love that anyone would recognize. The ECT proponent focuses more on God’s power than love, arguing that God’s power is love. Which, in my opinion, is very unpersuasive.

2.) I struggle with how to respond given that we’re starting from such different locations. So I start with very low expectations about what a conversation can accomplish. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever changed anyone’s mind about ECT in an argument. And I don’t expect to in my lifetime. It’s a heart issue, not a head issue. Like the Parable of the Sower.

But if a conversation happens I try to point out two things. First, I try to point out the monstrous consequences of ECT. That is, I don’t think proponents of ECT really think, and I mean really think, about what they are saying or believing. So I try to (nicely) point out the horror of their beliefs and then ask, “Are you sure you want to claim that God is like that?” Second, I try to push hard on the parental metaphor of God’s love. I ask, would you as a human parent do that to one of your rebellious children? And if not, is God not more loving than you?

3.) I don’t know if there is a “biblical case” per se as what we have are a set of texts that push and pull in different directions. It’s an example of what Christian Smith has called in his recent book The Bible Made Impossible “pervasive interpretive pluralism.” So the issue, for me, is about regulating passages. Which passages do we use to regulate our understanding of other passages? For example, which passage regulates your understanding of women’s roles in the church: “There is neither male or female” or “I don’t permit a woman to have authority over a man”? Egalitarians allow the former to regulate the latter and complementarians reverse it. Something similar happens with the UR and ECT debate. Neither side has a “case” exactly, just different regulating texts.

#3

Richard, I think you’re right on the money that for a lot of people who believe firmly in ECT it’s really more about God’s power then it is about God’s love… that and a tendency to say ‘it must be good because God is good’ with no questions asked…

For me though, when I believed, albeit halfheartedly, in ECT (though I usually thought of it from a more Arminian or ‘Lewisian’ standpoint), up until about six months ago, I think it was really more about fear and because ‘everyone else believed it’, and because my church taught it, and because that’s what the Bible seemed to be saying at the time…
I didn’t want to believe it was true, but tried to accept it because I felt like I had to and had no other choice, even though it drove me crazy at times and made it more difficult for me to trust God whenever I seriously thought about it…

So I think those who believe in ECT fall onto a spectrum… on one side, there are those who are really firm about it and relatively okay with it (and my guess is they tend to be more Calvinistic in their thinking), and on the other side, there are those who, like I was myself, are really not okay with it and wrestle with it a lot but don’t feel like they are allowed to throw it out (and my guess is they tend to be more Arminian in their thinking)… in between you have all kinds of variations; Calvinists, like Jaxxen here on the forum, who have wrestled with this in some way and are sympathetic towards those who also have wrestled with it, even though they accept it themselves, at least intellectually and theologically; Arminians who are pretty much okay with it, even though they may focus on God’s love in their every day conversation and teaching… there are people who obsess about it, and people who compartmentalize it and don’t really think about it…

So I think everyone is different, in how they may hold or react to or process this doctrine…

And I agree that probably the best way to talk about this with anyone is to appeal to their conscience… although when it comes right down to it, it’s between them and God…
I believe that God opened my eyes to this, and that it wasn’t a matter of my being any smarter or wiser than anyone else… I believe it was just grace (and, at least in my case, an answer to many agonizing prayers), that it was a gradual revelation from God… and I believe that it’s much the same with everyone else who comes to see this. It’s a work of God’s Spirit in someone’s heart (like you said, it’s more of a heart issue then a head issue) more than anything else.

And what you said at the end does make sense, about how people who believe in ECT and people who believe in UR both do the same thing pretty much when they read the Bible, just it’s from opposite sides.
But I do think that UR has this advantage over ECT, as far as biblically… more than anything, throughout all of Scripture, and especially the New Testament, love seems to be the focus…
Jesus said it summed up the Law and the Prophets, and Paul said to the Corinthians ‘and these three remain: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love’, and John said that ‘God is love’… there is that sense that from the Bible’s perspective, rather then saying, as you mentioned, God’s power is love, you could say, instead, that God’s love is power… that love is the most powerful force in the universe, that ‘love is stronger than death’, that love, like Philip Yancey once pointed out, ‘is the only power that can conquer the human heart’, that love is what God is really all about…
Of course this all depends on one’s definition of love, but I think the Bible makes God’s definition of love (forgiveness, mercy, compassion, grace, etc.) pretty clear in a lot of places, Corinthians 13 being one example, and I think when someone really looks deeply into this, what love really is, and gets a feel from the Bible of what the love of God looks like, especially when looking at the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, then, at least in my opinion, ECT doesn’t really gel very well with it… it just doesn’t make much sense. :neutral_face:

This is why I think so many who assent to the doctrine of ECT admit that it is hard to understand, and they admit that they don’t particularly like it or that it saddens them… I believe that most people who believe in this doctrine don’t believe in it because it makes a lot of sense to them, or because they particularly relish the concept, but do so for other reasons…

I think a part of this, for some, is the fear of questioning God about things, and of rejecting traditional views, and especially when the majority appears to hold those views… and another part of this, for some, is pride, or even callousness, that ‘at least we’re in’ attitude, and that ‘well, they’re just bad people, so who really cares what happens to them?’ attitude… and such fear or pride is rarely admitted to or talked about…

But like I said, everyone is different, so…

But anyone, just wanted to throw in my two cents on this.

Blessings to you :slight_smile:

Matt

#4

Thanks for your reply Richard. It is both helpful – and sobering…

Helpful because I’ve encountered so much frustration when trying to share this truth with others of devout faith and belief, and this helps explain why they don’t embrace what I have. For me, UR has been utterly liberating. And invigorating. So I imagine that others surely must be just on the cusp of discovering this same liberation that I have; and I’m eager to help them on the way.

But alas, they see it as a threat to their already certain and comfortable dogmas. So tension results. And I have imagined that engaging them in discussion might result in understanding of why they remain comfortable with theology that appalls me.

Sobering however because I am afraid that contained in this inability to see ECT as incompatible with God’s love is the same kind of social and psychological dysfunction and pathology that perpetuates the scourge of spousal abuse. Or child abuse. A way of defining love which allows such personal violence. And in fact some even speak of this divine violence as redemptive!

There is something truly frightening to me about the vision of a humble believer, bowing His head – as much to cringe as in worship – to God’s superior “power” and believing that in this he is in proper relationship to God. For to me, it represents an utterly scandalous departure from God as seen in the Christ.

So, trying to develop a coherent and compassionate system of dealing with my fellow believers who actually are not troubled by God being “all in all” and yet in charge of ECT…
I need to cultivate ways of sharing the joy of Christ with my fellow travelers even while being scandalized by their view of love…

Bobx3

#5

Wow, this is an amazing thread. It encompasses what’s going on in a human concerning UR as well as what’s going on in the Bible concerning UR. I especially appreciate Richard’s honesty in saying that the Bible “pushes and pulls in different directions”. This was a HUGE thing for me to have to admit and I am not yet completely comfortable in saying that! Coming from the school of the Bible being “The final, authoritative, infallable, unadulterated, Word of God”, I always felt that would/should mean that the Bible was perfectly clear and concise. Digging into it though, it’s not really as clear as I’d like. What does this mean? What is the Bible supposed to mean to us?

#6

Sass, I do believe (personally) that the bible IS God’s authoritative word to us. It’s just that it’s not all that easy to learn to read it correctly. If we read it in company and under the council of His Spirit, we WILL read it more or less correctly, even if that means putting some things on the shelf for later enlightenment. However, one thing that has helped me tremendously is recognizing that the bible as a whole is far more accurate than the bible in bits. The entire narrative must be taken together, and we must recognize that (in Jesus words) “You search the scriptures because in them you think you have aeonian life, but they are they which testify of Me.” (my paraphrase) So the entire witness of scripture taken together, is to point to Jesus.

And to the general discussion: As for ECT being compatible with a view of God being love, and God being all in all, the only thing I can come up with is that most folks just don’t think this through (at least Arminians). Anyone with imagination and compassion can clearly see that the idea of ECT and (to a somewhat lesser degree) annihilation, are seriously out of step with the concept of love as taught in scripture.

And if the descriptions of love given in scripture are not in concert with God’s ideas of love, then what on earth are they doing there? We are to be like Jesus. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Therefore we are to be like God the Father. Therefore, our love should be just like His love, especially since He IS love. Yet He tells us to be patient, kind, gentle, forgiving, not keeping a list of wrongs, always giving back good for evil, doing good to those who treat us shamefully, etc.

Logically then, the descriptions and commandments given in scripture concerning love should point directly at the sort of love that God IS. And if He IS love – that kind of love – well, there’s no way ECT can fit into that, even if He ISN’T powerful enough to save the world.

But we also know that God IS powerful enough to do whatever He sets out to do. Something doesn’t make sense here.

And yet Richard is absolutely right. No one who is not already most of the way there toward a new view on God will be persuaded by any of our arguments because they simply cannot SEE them. They have their filtered sunglasses on, and only God knows how to remove those shades. But I do think we can help those who are unpersuaded, or who have learned to LOOK at what’s actually in front of them (a difficult thing to learn), and who are willing to allow God to change their minds. In that case, of course, it isn’t us doing the persuading, but the person her/himself in cooperation with the HS and we are but a handy, very blessed, tool in His hands.

Blessings, Cindy

#7

I think this is very helpful and insightful discussion. I think that Richard’s latest blog post actually has some bearing on what’s going on here; to quote:
"Our slavery to the fear of death is largely implicated in the ways we construct our identity, the ways we pursue meaning and self-esteem. We do this by neurotically borrowing an identity from what the bible calls “the principalities and powers,” our cultural worldviews, ideologies, and institutions. In biblical language we engage in idolatry, serving cultural images that are, at root, projections of our fears.

The principalities and powers, along with the self-images they create via idolatry, are aligned with sin and the satanic in that the idols have to be believed absolutely (i.e., appear to us as God or as godlike) if they are to function as anxiety buffers. This causes us to engage in worldview defense, denigrating and demonizing outgroup members who call our worldview into question.

What we see in all this is how we create a fear-based identity which makes us inherently defensive and prone to rivalry and violence. Driven by existential anxiety, identity and self-esteem are “enslaved to the fear of death” and, thus, produce sin and “the works of the devil.” Here we have a psychological description that converges upon the biblical witness: “the sting of death is sin.” More, we also now understand, at a deep psychological level, why “perfect love” must “cast out fear.” The fear of death causes us to create an identity that makes us vulnerable to sin and the satanic. The biblical term for this vulnerability, a weakness rooted in mortality fears, is sarx, variously translated as “flesh” or “the sinful nature.” Consequently, to step out of sin, death, and the satanic, to move toward love, we need to escape the “slavery of the fear of death” in how we form our self-concepts."

The italic and bold emphases I placed in the quote here, are a large part of what I see happening in those who are stuck in the ECT paradigm. They are unwittingly engaging in idolatry with the principality/ power of this ideology/ worldview/ institution that we call ECT theology. So they are in effect trapped in sin in this way (keeping in mind that sin means; to miss the mark.) So as I see it, combating this is very much a spiritual warfare issue. ECT is actually a principality/ power that needs to be actively prayed against and resisted; a stronghold that needs to be pulled down, a vain imagination that exalts itself against the knowledge of God! The strength of this ideology (as we are all aware) is huge, and the reactions of people held under its sway fall right in line with the description above: “This causes us to engage in worldview defense, denigrating and demonizing outgroup members who call our worldview into question.”

#8

Hi Cindy, thanks for you input. I believe the Bible is God’s Word also, but take Richard’s example for example. “Neither male nor female (In Christ)”, vs. “I never allow a woman to have authority over a man”. One of these always will HAVE to be watered down to make them both true. Whether we say the not allowing women to teach was “cultural”, or we say Paul was speaking “spiritually” about there being no difference in Christ, I feel these things are just…Dare I say it? Contradictory? They are. One HAS make one less true than the other or at LEAST say one is literal and the other figurative. On what authority do I arbitrarily decide these things? What suites me, makes sense to me? I have no authority do that, further, I DON’T KNOW and it’s just not honest in the first place. But if I don’t have an answer, it makes me feel like there is no answer and THAT…Kinda. Stinks. Too. :wink:

#9

Hey, Sass

I suggest you pick up Jon Zens’ book “What’s with Paul and Women” for a lot of interesting cultural insights into the particular question you bring up. I had that particular passage (and a couple of others) on the shelf for years. I knew in my heart they didn’t work. (Paul greets a female apostle, Junia, for goodness’ sake – he couldn’t have meant it like it sounds.)

It would be off-topic for me to go into all the stuff Jon shares, here on this thread, but if you want a quick run-down, just write me directly (click on my name at the top of the post). It’s far more than “explaining away” scripture. The thing is that scripture was written to particular people in a particular cultural context and if we don’t understand the cultural context, we miss out. That’s when we have to listen to the HS and, on the occasions where He doesn’t precisely explain a difficult passage, put it on the back shelf awaiting further enlightenment.

Certainly there are scriptures (particularly eye witness accounts of events) that ARE contradictory. My hubby (35 years in auto claims adjusting) says this makes them that much more believable. No two eye witnesses EVER see things the same. A perfectly coordinated accounting from various sources just means they got together beforehand to “get their stories straight” (ie: possible fraud).

But as for doctrine? I really believe that it can always be reconciled so long as we’re able to dig up the context we need, whether historical, cultural, etc. We may not always be able to do this, of course, but the HS will let us know when we need to hold off on a conclusion, if we listen to Him.

Blessings, Cindy

#10

A defining moment for me on this was when I was doing some youtubing some time back. I came across a video featuring John Ankerberger hosting a debate. The debate was about baptism being nesscessary for salvation. 2 Doctors of theology on one side, 2 doctors of theology on the other, all with Bibles on their laps. All using the Bible to defend their position, and all doing it! I didn’t watch anymore and don’t know what the outcome was, it doesn’t matter. The fact that there was even a debate to be had on such an important (doctrinal) subject was stunning. I mentioned this to some friends of mine and all I could get was what they THOUGHT…Their OPINION on the matter of is baptism nesscessary. But what does the BIBLE SAY? It says: “He that believes AND is BAPTISED shall be saved.” and “If thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and believe within thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shall be saved”. There is no context that will change what these scriptures teach and say. I’m not saying the Bible isn’t inspired…I’m just wondering if they way WE look at it, is the way God wants us to look at it. Anyway, this is one subject I’m going to be looking into a lot…Peace.

#11

I am definitely greatly amused at how a lot of these highly biblical churches full of people who believe in young earth creation and think women shouldn’t be pastors, yet think baptism is just “outward demonstration of an inward change”. Yeaaah, OK, except when did Jesus ever say that? Or Paul? Biblicists are seriously not that biblical. They’re only biblical when it coincides with their tradition.

As someone with a transcendent and pseudo-Quakerish approach, I don’t think God is limited by baptism or lack of thereof (no more than he is limited by someone’s verbal declaration of a person with a specific name such as Jesus), but he definitely ordered the stuff for Christians at least. And it was usually done in a hurry. And Jesus did it. So, yeah…

On the other hand, I remember a certain Christian prancing around on reddit who said that to get saved you have to get baptised full submersion, and all other baptisms don’t work. :laughing:

#12

Well yes, Bird –

That’s just the thing; the legalism. Jesus did clearly say that baptism is a non-negotiable part of salvation, but does that mean that a person who doesn’t realize this (wasn’t told, didn’t read it, etc.?) is going to suffer ECT because s/he didn’t get it done fast enough, didn’t use the right form, didn’t have the right names and words said over them? That’s one of my “shelf items” at the moment, but if any of you would like to help me take it down, I’m there!

Love, Cindy

#13

Cindy, I’d love to give some of my views on your shelf items, but I’m afraid I can only do so in essay form. :laughing:

I can do, reference an argument I heard used by evangelicals. There was a thief crucified with Jesus, and he was not baptised, yet Jesus said he’ll meet him in Paradise.

#14

:laughing: Bird

Yes, I know what you mean. People ask short questions, but they typically take L-O-N-G answers. I’ve heard (and said) the thief on the cross thing. And then of course some smart-alec always must reply, “So then if you’re a thief on a cross, you’re okay.” And of course they have a point.

But then you read/hear some western Christian going on about how baptism is legalism and not necessary and by gum they’re not going to do it. (sigh) And meantime some girl is getting baptized in the surf in Malaysia knowing that when she gets home her Mslm husband (to whom her father sold her) is going to beat her senseless (yes, that’s an actual person, and yes he did beat her badly). So you tell me which one of these people is a disciple of Christ.

And yet, do you really “go to hell” for not getting baptized? I’m guessing not, though you might have some distance to cover in the next age before you learn not to be a complete pig-headed moron. :wink: