I’d just add here that truth has to be relative/ relativistic, because relative implies (or =) relational. Since Jesus was/ is a personal being sent to restore our relationship with God, and said that he was the Truth (as opposed to a proposition or set of propositions), this makes sense to me.
Yes Melchi - I think it is this aspect of Hegel that some continental theologians like Kung, von Balthassar, and even Barth have found useful while begin heavily critical of his through in other ways. They have seen in Hegel an attempt to talk about God as relational and as giving food for thought regarding the classical conception of God as unchangeable, impassable, self subsistent etc. I think I remember a Robin Parry post where he talked about God’s unchanging nature consisting in his dynamic loving relational nature (which almost sounds like a bit of Hegeling).
Here’s a couple of links for anyone interested (one is a mercifully short summary of the book that neither Dave nor I could read by Kung - it gives the gist)
growrag.wordpress.com/2012/02/03 … dox-hegel/
etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/ … 1_JETS.pdf
Regarding Francis Schaffer and Hegel - the following critique makes sense to me -
First Schaeffer -
Now the critique -
Bahnsen - have you read his books on theodicy? I’m not sure I would trust his critique of Schaeffer.
I don’t want to turn this into a discussion about the deceased Schaeffer. He did imo have at least as good a take on Hegel as Bahnsen claimed to have. That’s really all I have to say about that.
OTOH, the pdf was very interesting, thanks. 
edit: sorry, I meant theonomy!!
Hi Dave old chum 
-
Sorry for the delay here - my brain did all of a sudden start to grind to a halt. Actually I wouldn’t trust Bahnsen on theodicy - not a jot or a tittle (he seems to be very similar to Frances Schaeffer, but just happens to have been more perceptive about Hegel IMHO).
Yes Francis Schaffer is deceased - I actually liked him and felt warmth for him after reading his son’s memoir. I guess the only reason why I’ve been so touchy about this one is when I was nineteen I read some of Schaeffer’s and his colleague Rookmaaker’s books and they completely paralysed my ability to think for myself and left me in a sate of perplexity that was sometimes suicidal for three years. Just one small example, I always remember how Rookmaaker consigned van Gough to hell and claimed that when we look at his paintings we should see these as a horrific warning of a soul in damnation - and being filled with terror when looking at Van Gogh paintings or seeing any goodness in his letters to his brother Theo because I was so unable to think past Rookmaaker and Schaffer. Och that’s in the past but I have a slightly allergic reaction to Frances when I hear his name, because I can still remember being too terrified to think - and that is completely and utterly not your fault Dave
I think Bahnsen did actually say something here that I was trying to say in a bit of a waffly fashion about Hegel and his dialectic. Namely it is not about relativism and a slide into narcissistic subjectivism. It is actually about looking for the truth that is left when two faulty views of life that contain some truth collide - and he is talking about history here.
I think Tom Talbott is being sort of Hegelian in this respect when he looks at the best in the Calvinist and Armenian positions and combines these in universalism.
I think you are being Hegelian in your appraisal of Frances Schaeffer - he has provided you with a valid critique of subjectivism but his account of scriptural objectivism (Reformed fundamentalist orthodoxy) is something you reject for a more flexible hermeneutic that is far more based in history and doesn’t see the Bible as a flat text of equal literal validity in all its parts. So you respect Schaeffer but see him as partial/one sided I think (well you must do, because he brooks no compromise with the positions you’ve expressed on scripture and the trinity).
Also you like Charles Taylor - as I do. Now he writes much about the dangers of the slide into subjectivism - that’s the pole of the free spirited individual taken to extremes in Hegelian terms. But he does not simply rail against the evils of modernity (which is the fundamentalist subtext and can lead to some pretty horrible things when evil is seen in the ‘other’ all of the time). Taylor seems implicitly aware of the opposite distorted extreme of the authoritarian ‘ethical’ community. He is looking at ways in which the impulse towards self-fulfilment/individualism can be turned to the good by being placed in the horizon of important questions and commitments. His whoel method of dialogue between the ethic of the indixivual and the hosrizons of a greater ethical community - which I applaud - is Heglian I think
Some books do have that effect on us - for me, it was Boettner’s The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination - I had that same sort of paralysis you’re talking about, Dick. That was my first HUGE step away from Calvinism.
My friend, I can certainly understand your reaction to those books by he who shall not be named.
As for Hegel -
The First Law of Philosophy: For every philosopher, there exists an equal and opposite philosopher.
The Second Law of Philosophy: They’re both wrong.
I’ve benefited from your explanations, as always, Dick!
AND NOW I HAVE FINALLY CAUGHT UP WITH THE THREAD!
…but I have nothing in the least to say about Hegel, of whom aside from minor references in very secondary sources I might as well be completely ignorant. 
Anyway, I wasn’t bored with the thread, but was super-busy elsewhere, mostly with ‘work’ work. Finally caught up this morning, enjoyed it thoroughly: all praise to Sobor!
http://www.wargamer.com/forums/smiley/icon_respect.gif
Well maybe not all praise (that wouldn’t be Christian), but lots of appreciation anyway. 
And a hearty Amen! to that.
Incidentally, I might pay real money for [tag]Sobornost[/tag] to write up a summary digest of SttH, since I think a number of site members and visitors would appreciate that, not having time and/or energy to plow through 850+ pages.
(Ah Dave – so you’ve had that hitting a wall without wearing a crash helmet experience too - all sympathy to us both)
I’m completely flabbergasted by all of this praise Jason – and remember that I’m half Quaker so you should never take your hat off to at least half of me 
(silly plonker that I am 
).
I’d be very happy to work on a digest of this Jason. As the discussion has developed lots of new things have cropped up and it’s too sprawling in its current form. I think it is important to have answer to this lecture – it’s essentially a persecution myth in the making. No one is going to get bunt at the stake because of it – but Universalists might be dis-fellowshipped in some churches on the basis of it. What is so annoying is that it ranges widely in arcane areas of knowledge that no one who listens to the lecture or reads the book - when it comes out - will have much inclination to check out (both will simply act to confirm existing prejudices in most). Also it sounds very plausible in some ways. So yes I’d be delighted to do this and can get going on it properly the week after next.
I guess we should check that Arlenite is OK about this - but I think he has his own project concerning fighting this one and a proper digest from me - with bibliographies - would help him too.
Thanks
Dick
My apologies for being so quiet. I’m in the midst of end-of-the-semester writing, studying, etc., but I’ve tried to keep up with at least reading the discussion. I’d be delighted if you whirled up a digest, Dick, if you want to subject yourself to such an undertaking.
Oh well Arlenite someone has to do it - so
I’ll become the cleaner
Of McClymond’s dark patina
In the morning
Someone has to do it
Dunk the mop in suds and fluids
Come the dawning
I’ll set my liquid gumption
Against each errant germ
And scrub that Gnostic chalice clean
Of things that makes us squirm
When I become the cleaner
Of McClymond’s dark patina
In the morning
(Sung to the tune of ‘Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina’)
Bravo!
Love it, Dick!
I really meant a digest of Sword to the Heart after your Hegelian romp; but a digest of this thread would be something I might pay actual money for, too.
I’ve got you Jason - yes OK. See PM… I’m being a monomaniac here
Back to Hegel -
How do I know that Hegel did not actually teach apocatastasis and therefore cannot be described as a Universalist if I do not have detailed knowledge of Hegel’s voluminous writings? Well the answer is that it seems almost certain to me that he did not teach it (and I need to be proved wrong on this before agreeing with Dr McClymond). My hypothesis is based first on the fact that serious Hegel scholars disagree on whether Hegel actually teaches anything about the immortality of the soul. And second it is based on another curious fact. Dr H. Martensen was Kierkegaard’s contemporary and Bishop of Zeeland in Denmark. He was the Christian Hegelian par excellence and thus Kierkegaard derided him for his abstract metaphysics . Martensen wrote the following -
Hegel scholars today argue that Matensen was a funny sort of Hegelian for speculating on the afterlife in the first place. But I think the example of Martensen does demonstrate my point – when a solid Hegelian does dabble in speculations of this kind there is no reason to think that they will inevitably be Universalist in their eschatology.
Was Hegel a Christian Universalist?
I’m am almost certain that he did not teach apocatastasis as part of his philosophy (and actually I’d say ‘I’m certain’ as much as a chap can be certain – but my claim is of course falsifiable by new evidence)
Have Christian Universalists ever used Hegel as a resource in their philosophy/theology?
Yes – Barth and Kung (hopeful Universalists) have, and so has Moltmann (certain Universalist). Indeed Dietrich Bonheoffer (hopeful Universalist) was probably influenced by Hegel in his idea, mooted in Letter’s and Papers from Prison, of ‘Mankind come of Age’ (as Kung argues in his book on Hegel and Christology). But in using Hegel – or having a dialogue with some of his ideas – they were thinking through the theological implications of God being active in the history of humanity and not their eschatology as such.
Tillich, who also gets a mention in Dr McClymond’s lecture theorised about all things coming from Unity and returning to Unity – in a way that almost fits Dr McClymond’s (flawed)typology of Gnosticism. However Tillich was a funny sort of Universalist - he believed that whatever is essentially good about a person will somehow survive (as opposed to all believing that all people will be redeemed and made whole), and his eschatology is expressed in abstract terms of ‘Being’ and ‘Absolute’ that sometimes seem to verge on Monism and lose any sense of relationship IMHO (and loose any mooring in Biblical Revelation). He got his ideas form Schelling rather than Hegel – a thinker even more difficult than Hegel and who influenced continental Romanticism but is largely forgotten today.
Hegel has had very little influence on Universalists who are not part of the continental tradition of theology. We might find bit and bobs of use of synthesis in the thinking of Tom Talbot, Robin Parry, Rob Bell etc. However, there is no big debt to Hegel in their writings.
Why would someone want to forge a strong polemical connection of Hegel with Christian Universalism today?
Because Hegel has been associated with pantheism, totalitarianism, Gnosticism and the occult and – if someone is arguing (falsely) that Jacob Boehme is the fount of modern universalism, that person can also claim ‘and Hegel was influenced by Boeheme’.
Was Hegel a pantheist?
Hegel argued vigorously that he was not one – that his philosophic idea of the absolute had relationship at its basis. After Hegel’s death one faction amongst his successors - the so called Young Hegelians – lead by Strauss - interpreted , indeed bowdlerised Hegel in a pantheistic direction. Strauss argues that the Absolute will be realised not in the individual in relationship with other individuals but in the ‘race’. But this is a complete distortion of Hegel
Was Hegel a totalitarian?
Strauss’ pantheism of course opened the way for totalitarian thinking – pantheism entails a denial of the individual and as a political ideology (as a opposed to a wooly mystical opinion) can underpin totalitarianism. Marx – then turned Hegel on his head arguing that Hegel was right about some things – dialectical process, alienation etc – but the material rather than the spirit was the basis of historical change; and that the contradictions in history would be resolved in the classless society to which was the deterministic, impersonal goal of history. (Camus was to refer to this goal of history, rightly IMHO, as the abstract man of tomorrow who legitimated the slaughter of countless millions of real people today) Hegel himself did not predict the future and was very worried by revolutionary fanaticism and nationalism in his day. His main concern was with realising the sort of society in which the claims of the individual and the community could both be honoured.
The twentieth century thinkers who blamed Hegel for all manner of evils notably Karl Popper and Eric Voegelin – were not well acquainted with the real Hegel. Popper based his critique on a pre selection of Hegel done by another, while Voegelin based his critique on an appraisal of Hegel seen through the eyes of the Marxist Alexander Kojeve.
Was Hegel a Gnostic?
This was first claimed by a Neo Hegelian theologian Ferdinand Bauer in the nineteenth century and has been taken up by Voegelin in an extreme way and Cyril O’Reagan in a far more modest and focussed way. Hegel was not influenced by the ancient Gnostics. He is certainly a very difficult writer so in this sense he is a bit exclusive (but so was Kant). His actual intentions for his philosophy were modest – he did not try and give a total explanation of everything and certainly did not predict the future like Marx and his followers. He does speak in ‘Phenomenology of the Spirit’ about something he terms ‘Absolute Knowing’ – but this does not denote correct and exhaustive knowledge but rather the possibility of us being open to the absolute in terms of relationship (it is a critique of Kant’s idea that human beings can know nothing of the absolute at first hand).
Yes Hegel is very difficult and obscure – but I’m not sure this makes him a Gnostic in either of the senses that Voegelin uses the term.
Was Hegel an Occultist?
Dr McClymond cites a book Hegel and hermcitsm and claims this somehow backs up his thesis (whatever his thesis is). Hegel was certainly influenced by ideas current in this times that seem strange and unscientific to us like mesmerism and animal magnetism – but these just happend to be ideas that were current in his times (root around in any thinker or theologian and you’ll find some baggage of this kind). Hegel was also inspired by Jackob Boehme. He was critical of Boehme but Boehme’s idea of the immanent Trinity did inspire him poetically (although he changed Boehme’s idea radically).
Dr McClymond’s argument here seems to be implying that
Boheme was a universalist and the fount of modern universalism (false)
Boheme was influenced by occult ideas (true to some extent)
Totalitarianism has its roots in Gnosticism and Magical Alchemical traditions that undermine rationality (this is what Voegelin’s followers now argue in tandem with their polemic about modern Gnosticism – and it’s the start of a complex discussion rather than an obvious truth)
Hegel was influenced by Boehme and open to various magical alchemical ideas (true in a qualified sense)
Hegel was a Universalist (his thinking does not advocate universalism)
Hegel was a totalitarian (false – but certain successors of Hegel who changed his ideas radically were)
Therefore universalism is of a kind with occultism and totalitarianism (false – non sequitur)
Dr McClymond’s arguments are kind of Gnostic in being totalising and requiring a level of hugely abstruse argumentation to refute.
That’s the backbone of my Hegel stuff completed. Any Questions (about specific details to fill out any bits of the outline)?
I know that the deeper I go here the more obscure it gets and I get . I hope you can see why it seems to me that we have a persecution myth in the making here – and how some of the preposterous links and conclusions drawn by Dr McClymond seems only explicable in the light of a Voegelian polemic That has turned very sour indeed (I may be wrong in some small details but I believe I’m very much on the right track here).
Ironically Voegelin was at heart a passionate defender of freedom – he sought to delineate the society or polity in which what he called ‘the tension toward the ground of being’ could be protected. What he meant by this ‘tension towards’ is the truth of the human situation – that we live in between the relative and the absolute. We have intimations of the absolute but our knowledge of the absolute will always be limited and revisable especially in the social and political sphere. I would agree completely – it is only sad that in his intemperate and ill focussed attack on Gnosticism and what he deemed to be Gnostic currents in modern thought he furnished those that have come after him with a charter for paranoia and projection of evil onto many others without discrimination (and with Dr McClymond the ‘evil other’ seems to have become the Christian Universalist).
Christian Universalists today have little connection with thinkers and visionaries such as Jacob Boehme and Friedrich Hegel (and it is untrue that Christian Universalists in the recent past taken as a whole had connections with them). Today at EU the fount of our inspiration is Biblical Christianity and the Universalist Church Fathers read in the light of the superior scholarship that is now emerging about them. This much seems obvious to me.
Also I think that we are getting to point where we are ready to discuss the legacy of the American Universalist Church (which was only a small part of the wider re-emergence of Christian universalism). This denomination was short lived and there were many reasons for this. IF we find that part of this history had to do with some members losing their way in speculations about pantheism and various other quasi mystical ideas including new thought mind cures (which I think is probable) then we can learn from this history.
In this we are no different from the likes of Dr McClymond – we are a people with a history and live in between the relative and the absolute; and to somehow try to discredit our history through insinuation because it is comprised of imperfect people and imperfect movements seems uncharitable.
The resistance theology of Beze – Calvin’s successor (however understandable in the light of the St Bartholomew Day massacres) did much to ferment terrible and pitiless wars of religion in France. It inspired French Calvinist participation in the French Revolution and the Terror echoes with the earlier religious wars in the destruction done in the name of absolutes. Rousseau the unwilling theorist of the French Revolution learned his ideas of the General Will in the Genevan Cantons and his political thinking shows a huge debt to his Calvinist upbringing (while his rejection of hell, probably based on his reading of Marie Huber who had a very tenuous historical connection to the Philadelphians – she was the granddaughter of a Camisard – played very little part in his political theory, and anyway he was not a Christian universalist ). I could go on at some length – but we can all learn through our collective pasts. And yes we should be charitable to Calvinism too – however much we may passionately disagree with strong Calvinism, Calvinists too have a nuanced and complex history (I’m enjoying Alister McGrath’s ‘A Life of John Calvin’ at the moment which is a salutary read).
Regarding totalitarianism – much work has been done on how totalitarianism thrives on demonization of the ‘evil other’ and heresy hunting and rooting our dissent. The writings of Norman Cohn are standard works in the field and these also point out how totalitarian persecuting ideologies are often rooted in paranoiac, dualistic views of good and evil and in violent millenarian expectation. We should all take note here – including Dr McClymond.
Dear All–
Thank you all for your incisive comments on the presentation(s) I did at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 2012.
I am hopeful that the book on universalism, when it appears, may address many of the questions that you have all raised in the 350+ comments.
One of the “aha” moments came as I was in the Yale University stacks (where I was a Visiting Fellow in 2012) with a list of names of Christian universalists prior to 1900, and I was wondering: What is it that links these people together?
To my considerable surprise, each of the names on my list had an essay devoted to him or her in Wouter Hanegraaff’s Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. So that was the start of a process of tracing out a number of different forms of Christian universalism, including the gnostic-esoteric, unitarian, and christocentric strands. Cyril O’Regan’s works let me back to F. C. Baur’s Die christliche Gnosis, which is a very helpful work for understanding German-language theology in the 1800s and 1900s. It is also quite helpful for understanding why universalism became pervasive in Germany before it did in the English-speaking world. Someone should translate it–or at least the portions dealing with the modern era.
The brief lecture I gave did not (and could not) express the larger historical and an analytical template that I will be presenting.
I hope that you will all keep an open mind–and will read my book. It may be late 2015 when it is appears. I have all your comments to think about before then…
Yes, i do expect to become EXTREMELY wealthy and influential through writing this book.
Unless I am discovered first for my rock 'n roll talents, which unfortunately have grown rusty in recent years.
I will certainly keep your many comments in mind.
Thank you.
Yours,
Michael McClymond
Professor of Modern Christianity
Saint Louis University