I’ve been reading through Hanson’s (in)famous book recently (in between bouts of re-reading LW for the review); I’m tentatively planning to do some kind of summary of the points with a fairer weighting, because I think he stretches the case beyond its purview. But I do have a higher regard for his case than I was expecting to have going in.
I would like to see a modern update more soberly, cautiously and critically presented. I am sure I am not qualified to write it, though. Does anyone else know of one that covers at least as much material as Hanson (ideally more), but without stretching his case?
Just took a peek at the comments over at Justin’s blog and … wow! Not sure it is what he expected, but clear, reasoned argument from EU supporters is cleaning up over there. It “feels” as if people are listening …
"]I want to preface my comments with two facts: I deeply respect Dr. Helm and I am not a universalist. With that out of the way, his post is simply full of scholarly inconsistencies and issues.
First, he claims that he’s read more than once that most early Christian were universalists, yet this is setting up a straw man because in fact evangelical universalists (the serious scholarly types) themselves are admitting of this fact. The most evangelical universalists such as Thomas Talbott, Robin Parry, Bradley Jersak, and Keith DeRose argue is that there is a minority tradition, a slender thread of universalism throughout church history. This is far different than claiming that most early Christians were universalist; this latter argument is largely due to a nineteenth century work that has since been throughly refuted.
Second, as Alex mentions above, Augustine did in fact state that there were “very many” who did not believe in eternal conscious torment as Augustine did. Helm explicitly states that Augustine would have mentioned a large swath of universalists if they in fact existed, yet Helm claims he did not. This is simply wrong. (see the following link for the quote: ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefat … ns.htm#C29) Now, what does need to be qualified here is that Augustine could be in fact referring to annihilationists and universalists together and not simply one or the other group. Along with the traditional belief in eternal conscious torment, annihiliationism and universalism were the three major eschatological strands of thought in existence as related to the final destiny of unredeemed humanity (see for example David Powys, Hell: A Hard Look at a Hard Question; also note that the early Christian universalist thinkers still believed one had to have faith in Christ).
Third, the condemnation of Origen in 553 is a much disputed matter and not as easily discussed as Helm posits. Origen himself was condemned formally at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, but the Origenist form of universalism that was condemned was prior to the official beginning of the council and thus outside the strictures of it’s formality. Even if the neo-Platonic form of universalism that Origen held to was condemned (what was actually condemned was not strictly Origen’s teachings, but the development of his teaching by his disciples; it is highly contested what parts were his own thought and what was that of his disciples), this does not mean that ALL forms of universalism were condemned. This leads to my final point.
Helm seems to argue that only Origen was a universalist in the early church amongst major thinkers. However, it is widely known that Gregory of Nyssa believed in universal reconciliation without the heavy neo-Platonic undergirding and neither his theology nor his person were ever condemned. He is actually venerated amongst the Fathers. Further, although it is disputed, there is at least viable evidence that points towards Clement of Alexandria following this line of thought as well.
In sum, I think that Helm’s concluding paragraph above could be pointed at his own piece of writing, yet I hope that his overtures do not become ingrained in the mind’s of Christians. Even though universalism was not the most prevalent strand of thought in early Christianity, it is no favor to history or scholarship to provide misinformation.
"]Dr. Helm does not identify the sources of the claim he reports. Declaring to whom Augustine might have been referring does not demonstrate that Helm is wrong.
And is it too much trouble to copy and paste the portion of Augustine’s Enchiridion you actually want us to read instead of merely supplying a link to the entire 32,000 word work?
"]Ron,
Here is the specific quote from Augustine:
It is quite in vain, then, that some- indeed very many- yield to merely human feelings and deplore the notion of eternal punishment of the damned and their interminable and perpetual misery. They do not believe that such things will be. Not that they would go counter to divine Scripture but, yielding to their own human feelings, they soften what seems harsh and give a milder emphasis to statements they believe are meant more to terrify than to express the literal truth (Augustine, Enchiridion, Ch XXIX, 112)
This quote is taken as evidence by many scholars that there were other strands of thought besides that of Augustine in existence at the time of its writing. It is clear that “very many” believed something other than what Augustine did. There can only be two groups to which Augustine was referencing in the context of this quote: either annihilationists or universalists. I was simply trying not to be dogmatic earlier, but in reading the quote in its entirety, it would seem to point towards the fact (and many such as Talbott, Parry, etc espouse this) that it is referencing universalists. At any rate, Dr. Helm fails to mention this quote at all and simply says Augustine does not comment on the matter, which is not true if you read the above. (The link should have taken you down to #29 as it is listed on the url, but it isn’t functioning as it did when I first utilized it)
And no, Dr. Helm does not mention the sources he is refuting, but to target the weakest link in an argument is building up a straw man that seemingly allows you to refute or severely critique a position. Instead of aiming there, it would have been nice to see him interact with the stronger forms of evangelical universalism and attempt to discuss these. Why bother discussing a view that isn’t held by most evangelical universalists? None of them would aver that universalism was the majority position of the early church and they provide the most substantive arguments for universalism in an evangelical context. Refuting a simplistic misnomer does nothing to drive the whole conversation deeper.
Jason Engwer, one of the more sober authors at Triablogue, gave a good riposte attempt I thought; though he neglects to account for (or even mention) the so-called “doctrine of reserve” as a factor in Origen’s “inconsistencies” (not to say Clement of Alexandria’s before him.)
And yes, I would love to see David Konstan take a shot at it. I’ve loved his collection and analyzation of term usage, though I haven’t commented much on it.
Oh okay, those are from Beecher’s book! Hanson (whom I just finished reading yesterday) likes to quote and reference him. I recognized one of the paragraphs immediately.
I should probably just find a copy of Beecher’s whole book and upload it to my Kindle…
Here is a list of urls which I hope will be helpful. You still have to do a little work and piece names places and dates together but I believe the work load has been diminished quite a bit. I made sure they worked for me before posting them. I had them on a Word document and had to push ctrl while I clicked on them.
Note: Fortyworc’s list of links runs a wide gamut between sources (like Hanson) who portray just about every Patristic as universalist, and those who dispute even generally accepted universalists, with lots of moderate room in between.
It’s a good list of links, but still a lot of workload!
(Also, some of the link formatting still needs cleaning up. The link to Dow’s book for example is broken.)
I and my wife are just beginning to investigate the whole Universalism doctrine and are ignorant to the various degrees and nuances of thought concerning it. I began putting the list of urls together for us in order to answer the basic question of the original post. We both wanted to find out if the 6 schools of theological thought 1) did indeed exist, 2)were connected in some fashion with Universalism, 3)included the early Church Fathers, 4)fit into the time-frame of the first 500 years of Church history. The pros and cons of the doctrine have not been as important to me during this initial search as the credibility of those making the historical claims. The list I posted probably does include a broad spectrum of agreement vs disagreement as to the validity of this doctrine. I think I have satisfied my desire to know whether the claims about the ancient schools, the people involved and the accuracy of the 500 years can be backed up by sources other than one author in one remark in one book with others just believing repeating it . Yes, there is still a crap load of work searching out what those sources say. It took some time just finding and reading the information in those urls. Maybe they will enable someone who is very busy to do a more leisurely, in depth, off and on study.
The above link to the book was included in my post because the author seems to corroborate the above mentioned claims of Universalists. It is a source with many other sources. Even though he rebuts the idea of the early church fathers being predominately Universalists, he writes of the schools, the people, and the time in agreement with Universalis.
Thanks for the links. I’m eagerly awaiting Ilaria Ramelli’s first book (I just check with Robin & it’s meant to be finished this year) on this topic. I suspect it will be the most in-depth book on this topic ever printed - she been working on 3 academic volumes for about 14 years, and she going to do two mid-level books to summarise them!
Does anyone else know of one that covers at least as much material as Hanson (ideally more), but without stretching his case?
