John Dickson's pessimistic hopeful UR in "666 And All That"

[Alex_Smith]

Ever since I came across John Dickson, I’ve been impressed at his graciousness & level headedness. Earlier this year I read one of his most popular books, “Promoting the Gospel”, and because of many unqualified statements about God’s power & love, I thought he might be a closet EU?? Unfortunately when I contacted him, he said he wasn’t & that I should read “666 And All That: The Truth About the Future”.

I’m now about 2/3 of the way through reading it and so far I agree with about 90% of it! Puzzlingly they continually makes statements (e.g. about God’s justice putting things right for Christians and non-Christians!?) that I think simply can’t be fulfilled by ECT. I plan to write an in depth review when I’ve finished it & send it to them in the hope that they might see the inconsistency of their position & ditch ECT. Please pray for wisdom in what to write & more importantly that God would open their eyes regardless.

I’m currently reading chapter where they look at “What about those who haven’t heard?” and found this, which in my opinion equates to pessimistic hopeful universalism!

… God could, as an act of sheer mercy, choose to pardon men & women on the basis of Christ’s atoning death, whether of not they knew about the means of mercy. … We are insisting on the obvious point that God could do it if he chose to and that, if he does, it will be on the basis of his grace secured through Jesus and not by any other means (such as a sincere religion, good works, etc.).

We want to … offer some biblical arguments which lead us to what you might call a ‘restrained hope’ that the Lord might extend his mercy to some outside the visible people of God - even though we remain fundamentally pessimistic about the fate of those outside of Christ.

[JasonPratt]

“extend His mercy to some”

Sounds like hopeful post-mortem salvation, not hopeful UR (pessimistic or otherwise).

(I agree that the other statements you mentioned sound like they’re ‘overreaching’, from that standpoint, into UR!)

[Alex_Smith]

Fair point Jason, although my thoughts were that if He allows that God might pardon “some outside the visible people of God”, then it’s logical to assume He might pardon all “outside the visible people of God”.

Anyway I’ve finished reading the book & am excited to be writing a response now. Very much in draft form as I’m still going back over the book looking for quotes, but please feel free to comment or make suggestions.

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Response to "666 And All That"

Justice

“The first Christians longed for Judgment Day, not out of some macabre fascination with vengeance but because they longed for the wrongs of our world to be put to right.”(p14)

According to Google, “vengeance” is “punishment inflicted or retribution exacted for an injury or wrong”. That certainly sounds like ECT to me! What does it mean to be “put right” isn’t pre-Fall the “right” way for creation?

“Since we know that God will bring justice for all when he appears as our Judge, we should now be striving to be like him, to act justly, to care for the people that our Judge care for, to make sure we are loving our neighbour as he commands.” (p20)

“For all” not just some. The justice is loving.

“In short, he [Christ] is coming to overthrow evil and establish justice.
It is no exaggeration to say that the central job description of the Messiah in the Old Testament is to right the wrongs of the world. … his teaching overturned all that is false and opposed to God. But this is only a glimpse of his work of overturning evil and establishing justice. The real work is yet to come when … evil is destroyed” (p70)

In ECT sinners continue to oppose God… Likewise evil is not destroyed if it continues in ECT.

“The criteria of judgment was outlined in Jesus’ earthly preaching, but the judgement itself - which will bring all things into conformity with that teaching - is still to come.” (p71)

“One of the dominant themes associated with the parousia is the need for us to live now in conformity with that future reality” (p72)

How are people (part of “all things”) in ECT in conformity with Jesus’ teaching??

Your endnote 18 (p197), helpfully reminds us that God is very concerned for both Christian & non-Christian poor - indeed He’s so connected to them that doing/not-doing something for them is compared to doing/not-doing something for Him. Why wouldn’t this compassion & connection continue in the next age?

“The ethos of liberation theology is surely correct - a society should be judged by how it treats its weakest members.” (p21)

Those in ECT would be the weakest members in the next age.

Love

“Love does no harm to its neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.” (p73)

Given God is love, doesn’t that mean He does no harm (irreversible damage) to us, His neighbour?

Resurrection

“All of life will be revived and empowered by the breath or spirit of the eternal God.” (p17)

Even non-believers??

Literature
ECT mainly based on apocalyptic literature & parables

“images of what the future will be like.” (p28)

“Keeping our eyes open to the kind of biblical literature … should help us to steer clear of falsely literal readings of symbolic passages, or of trying to pin down imagery for clues about dates and times … when, in fact, it was designed instead simply to stimulate our religious imaginations.” (p35)

“The genre of eschatology discussion in the Bible is frequently apocalyptic … We therefore cannot insist on precision about the details” (p49)

Isn’t insisting upon it being “everlasting” exactly that??

In contrast, EU mainly appeals to

“didactic, plain prose, straight to the point” (p28)

material such as:

“For all have sinned (fall short of the glory of God) & are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus!” (Rom 3:23-24)

“[God] through Christ to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.” (Col 1:20)

"“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.” (Rom 5:18)

Further Chances

“We want to be given another chance, an opportunity to go back and fix up our mistakes or do something we left undone.” (p59)

Our salvation in this life isn’t based on us fixing our mistakes, neither is our salvation in the next.

Purgatory

“Purgatory posits a place or time in between death and judgment during which one’s sins can be ‘paid off’ or purged by acts of penitence and self-punishment. This idea is associated mainly with medieval Catholicism, but continues to this day and has been a significant part of some Christian understandings of eschatology.” (p59)

Purgatory isn’t just a medieval Catholic idea, Gregory of Nyssa held something similar long before them, & according to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purgatory Judaism, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, even some Protestants (like Jerry Walls) do too. Importantly, there’s a significant difference between paying for one’s sin yourself & having it purged out of you by God. In the 2012 “Journal of Anglican Studies”, on p198, James Gould wrote:

"It might seem that belief in purgatory contradicts Anglican teaching. Point 22 in the Thirty Nine Articles says, ‘The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory … is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture.’ While the Reformers had good reason to reject the scandals involving indulgences, pardons, relics and invocations to the saints, it is possible – as Newman argued – to believe in purgatory without accepting ‘the Romish doctrine’ … since the satisfaction and sanctification views are clearly different.

In the satisfaction theory the purpose of purgatory is to remove guilt by paying for sins which are not repented of before death. The problem with this view is that, according to Scripture, Christ alone makes complete and final satisfaction for sin. … But while the imperfect do not need further punishment, they do need additional purification.

In the sanctification theory that I have defended the purpose of purgatory is not to pay for sin, but is to complete the process of transformation which is necessary for eternal fellowship with God. As Justin Barnard puts it, ‘on the satisfaction model, what gets purged through the purgatorial process is the penalty for sin … By contrast, what gets purged in the sanctification model is the disposition to sin.’

Many Anglicans have abandoned the Reformers’ assumption that death in and of itself perfectly sanctifies a person’s character. While some avoided the term ‘purgatory’, Ussher, Newman, Pusey, Maurice, Claude Moss, C.S. Lewis and the Commission on Doctrine all embrace the idea that those who die in a state of grace and favor with God but who are not free of sin and ready for complete union with God need a period of growth in their ability to love."

The article also goes to some length explaining why sanctification in ‘purgatory’ makes much more sense theologically than being made instantly perfect.

[JasonPratt]

Fair point Jason, although my thoughts were that if He allows that God might pardon “some outside the visible people of God”, then it’s logical to assume He might pardon all “outside the visible people of God”.

Unless there are specific reasons to believe He won’t.

Also, it depends on what the author means about “the visible people of God”. By “some” he might mean “the invisible people of God” in a Calvinist sense, who are currently outside the visible people (thus outside the faith at the moment) but who are still intended to be saved by God eventually. A Calv post-mortem salvationist could go with that easily and still reject the idea that God will pardon all outside the visible people of God. Or an Arminian (like Lewis) might go with the idea that the sheep, like Emeth in the Chronicles, are outside the visible people but are part of the invisible people because they’re already following God faithfully: they (and perhaps we) just don’t know it yet, but God does.

I’ll have to read over your comments later. I’m certainly happy to be back where I can even do that, though!