The Evangelical Universalist Forum

List of those of who reject traditional hellism

Evangelical Universalism
#124

Yay, Dick beat me to finding a Stonehouse quote! (Not that it was difficult to beat me, as I’ve been shamefully procrastinating in that for weeks. :wink: Super-glad he got there first, now I don’t have to worry about not doing it anymore. :mrgreen: )

Btw, how many of Stonehouse’s books on this have you been able to dig up, Dick? I located a couple of sequels in non-digital archives but obviously I can’t access them. :frowning: (I read his first tome on the topic, the one you quoted from, a year or two ago. He has a pleasingly meticulous approach if also quaintly insistent on attempts at precisely quantifying the years intended by various eon phrases. Well it was pleasingly meticulous to someone like me anyway. :unamused: )

#125

Another curiosity about him is that he’s the only binitarian theist I’ve ever read. Not bi-theist, not unitarian of some kind. One substantial unity of substance of Most High Deity (in effect), not two distinct entities; but two persons not three or only one.

#126

That is curious. Is that Father and Son minus the Spirit? Has it for anything to do with son as Logos replacing Spirit in his theology?

#127

Updated with more of Sobornost’s wonderful book (leg?) work. :slight_smile:

#128

Updated. :slight_smile:

#129

May I add Roger Tutt’s snippet library? It seems quite extensive as a research mine, if no one has tapped it yet.

I know I speak for all the admins and moderators when I express our strong gratitude for the efforts you and Dick (among other people) have made for working on this list, Pog! {bow!} Not that we should be competing with TM, of course, but as you say their list could stand some polishing and we’ve made a good start with it. I hope you-all will continue as you find the time and energy to do so!

(I’ll keep contributing too some minas every once in a while for this list of course. :slight_smile: )

#130

All updated :slight_smile:

#131

Our one and only local long-running restaurant in my little town is called the Toot-n-Tell-It, because long before I was born it was a drive-thru.

My Mom and Dad are both going to love that joke, Mom because she grew up here, Dad because they both eat several times a week at the TNT (and he hangs out there twice a day with his cronies for coffee) and he grew up Catholic. :sunglasses:

#132

space saving

#133

So guys, what about Karl Barth? By his own words he must be reckoned a hopeful universalist, and there are many who say he was actually a full blown universalist. Consider this quote, from The Humanity of God (1960);

“This much is certain, that we have no theological right to set any sort of limits to the loving-kindness of God which has appeared in Jesus Christ. Our theological duty is to see and understand it as being still greater than we had seen before.”

Hopeful certainly. Finer minds than mine must decide whether Barth can be classified otherwise (that means you, Dick :smiley: ).

J

#134

Hi Pog
Maybe I mised it but I didn’t read the name “Sadhu Sundar Singh” who has been an influence on me. These quotes may help to categorise:

“With regard to the doctrine of reincarnation and transmigration also, I have conversed with Swedenborg and some other Hindu saints who, after entering into the spiritual world, have accepted the Lord as the only true God and Saviour and also those who have not yet accepted Him. They all say that reincarnation is impossible . . .”

[The Helper (January 2, 1929), p. 217]

However bad and evil-living a man may be, there is in man’s nature a divine spark or element which is
never inclined towards sin. His conscience and spiritual feelings may become dulled and dead, but this spark of the
divine is never extinguished. This is why even in depraved criminals there is always some good to be found. It has
been noticed that some of those who have commited murders with the utmost violence and savagery have often
generously aided the poor and oppressed. If this divine spark or element cannot be destroyed, then we can never be
hopeless for any sinner. If we say that it can be destroyed, then sorrow at separation from God because of sin and the
remorse of hell will never be felt, because for feeling this pain of sorrow and remorse there is nothing in man but this
spark – and hell will not be hell without this feeling. And, if he feels the pain, then, being tortured by it, sooner or
later will assuredly compel him to come to God for restoration.

[Meditations on Various Aspects of the Spiritual Life in the chapter “Finally All Men Will Return to God”]

#135

space saving

#136

I’d go with hopeful for Barth, too. His denial of universalism (and he knew what his teaching added up to) was much along the line of denying religious pluralism and denying that he was teaching the certain salvation of all sinners.

His theology might still have added up technically to universalism, but he himself didn’t take it to certainty.

#137

All updated! Thanks guys - this list is really working :slight_smile: Great finds Johnny, sobornost and pilgrim.

#138

done

#139

Reading a book called Problems with Atonement. The author mentions a 19th and 20th century philosopher named Vladimir Soloviev who talks about theosis and the restoration of all things. Does anyone know if he is a Universalist?

#140

Hi Caleb -

He’s on the list as ‘Solovyov’ - his name can be spelt either way. Yes he was a universalist - he doesn’t argue for it, he just assumes it because his idea of humanity means every human being and ‘theosis’ means the transforming sanctification of humanity rather than just the individual.

Here’s a not I have on him (not sure where it comes form)

Solovyov strongly defended the concept of universal salvation, which was after all implicit in his overriding idea of the restoration of unity-of-all at the end of the world historic process. Indeed, the concept of personal salvation was totally incompatible with his metaphysics. Solovyov thought of humanity in purely social terms, and went so far as to refuse to recognize any essential opposition between the individual and society: a person was "only the meeting point of an infinite number of relations with other individuals." Since human beings were profoundly social, “the final end of their efforts, is not found in personal destiny, but in the social destinies of mankind as a whole.” Solovyov therefore denied that “individual souls alone could and ought to be saved,” because this implied the abandonment of the basic Christian task of transforming all human life into the Kingdom of God.

He was a lifelong opponent of Russian anti-Semitism and wrote in 1890 that -

‘The increased awakening of ethnic and religious enmity, so contrary to the spirit of Christianity, suppresses the feeling of justice and humaneness, demoralizes society at its root and can lead to moral anarchy, especially in view of the already noticeable collapse of humanitarian ideas and the weakness of the juridical principle in our lives. This is why, if acting only out of a feeling for national self-preservation, it is necessary to emphatically condemn the anti-Semite movement, not only as immoral in its essence, but as extremely dangerous for the future of Russia’

#141

What an interesting thought. Very Trinitarian, namely, there is no such thing as an individual…

#142

Updated.

#143

He doesn’t seem to be saying there is no such thing as an individual per se (which would be modalism not trinitarianism, and maybe not even amounting to modalism since it would deny the individual existence of God, too!); but rather that no individual exists apart from relation to other individuals. That’s trinitarian (or at least binitarian) at the level of God’s single foundational existence. Also a point of theology more often expressed in Eastern Orthodoxy than among Western Catholicism, which is one of the main foundations of EOx (and related) theories of universal salvation: the fate of one is shared by all, and to deny this ends up denying or at least opposing the Trinity.

I hadn’t studied any of that when I arrived at Christian universalism as a logical corollary to coherent ortho-trin (and my approach validates the filioque, which the EOx wouldn’t mostly appreciate :wink: ), but the notions connect quite well and even overlap in places. :slight_smile: