Whatever the temptation to dismiss Dr McClymond’s arguments - which we only know of as they have been given in an informal setting - I think we probably should take them very seriously. I sense a powerful counter narrative to counter the Christian Universalist narrative taking shape. Of course it is based on over simplifications – but big narratives are. However, I think we should treat this ‘big narrative’ with respect and consider the best ways to argue against it very carefully. It may well become standard as part of a Protestant ‘orthodox’ argument against universalism based in an interpretation of history. I can see it panning out as I write this. It might well repay closer consideration than we have given here.
For example it seems to me that McClymond means something quite subtle when using ‘Gnosticism’ - and since he mentions both Boehme and Hegel I think he must be versed in the writings of the Catholic intellectual Cyril O’Reagan of Notre Dame and Yale to inform his ‘big story’. See
Agreed, though it’s frustrating to butt our heads against the same pathetic arguments again and again.
But if there isn’t a cohesive response that at least discredits this type of nonsense…you’re right, a persecuting narrative could arise, and be worse than we’ve encountered for some time…though i suspect it would be less bloody then our predecessors have suffered.
Hi James 
I dunno about a persecuting narrative; but I think I am beginning to be aware of a strong narrative that could be used to dismiss universalism and seem very convincing for some (because it’s approach is very academic).
You may be right, Dick - you usually are 
. But I see nothing new or powerful in McClymond’s lazy *a priori *dismissal of Universalism - based on Arlenite’s excellent summary in this thread. I would need to examine his arguments in more detail myself to be sure, of course.
By all means let’s consider this incipient ‘counter narrative’. But let’s not worry ourselves into thinking that it’s going to derail the Universalistic movement. I say this not so much because of anything McClymond - or indeed any anti-Universalist (and there have been many) - says, but because I belive that those who wish to remain close-minded to the truth of Universalism do not need the biased, ill-informed musings of a minor academic to legitimise their reactionary stance.
Mind you, I suppose it’s easy to say that from the ‘heretical’ viewpoint of already being a convinced, dogmatic, hard-core, dyed-in-the-wool, take no prisoners Universalist myself . The moment I realised that I didn’t have to be constrained by the shackles of orthodoxy, that it was okay to make my own mind up, using the mind and the heart and the conscience God gave me, about the Last Things, indeed all the things of God, ECT was dead in the water for me. (And for that I have George MacDonald to thank.) So I believe our ‘job’ is simply to push the door of conscience open, even just a little tiny crack, and let the light shine in. No amount of argument, no narrative, no matter how powerful, will change the mindset of the orthodox believer as long as that door remains closed, because those arguments, that narrative, will not be given brain space - they will be dismissed, a priori, as McClymond has shown. But once the door is opened, I reckon, and the believer *gives themself *permission to think, it’s only a matter of time before the truth will overwhelm them, and ultimately set them free.
Cheers
Johnny
No I don’t think it will derail the universalist movement - not at all 
I can just see that it is worth anticipating as an argument that needs careful countering. So I may give some further thoughts if anyone is interested
I am!!!
I agree. It will definitely be a book that will need to be read and responded to from a universalist position. I suspect that universalists will soon have to put up with the charge that they are now gnostic too in addition to all the other horrible things!
I think that you’re right that he must have a more subtle definition of gnosticism in mind (probably borrowed from O’Regan - since he does cite O’Regan in the lecture). But, as I mentioned earlier, I’m pretty sure O’Regan himself would contend that at least von Balthasar is, in fact, an anti-gnostic!
And, the funny thing is that the requirements for his historical prescriptive argument against universalism are so high that you need only show a single Christian universalist position that doesn’t share this gnostic doctrine of God in order to invalidate it. It would, I think, be far more interesting if he left out this prescriptive argument and merely attempted to show: “hey, these universalists seem to have read or adopted certain gnostic features.” It would not be a definitive case against universalism, but it would raise interesting questions.
It doesn’t have to be factually accurate, logically valid, topically appropriate, or even particularly new, to be powerful in the sense of achieving the intended goal.
Most people don’t have the time (even if they had the skill) to do the research and analysis for themselves; we all have to trust a lot of people to be competent in areas where we ourselves aren’t specialists. As a theologically, exegetically and conservatively careful Christian universalism (and annihilationism for that matter) gains ground, most non-universalists will quite naturally want and look for easy-to-hear refutations of universalism and positive arguments for non-universalism – but ones which sound like someone else has done competent work.
It only has to seem powerful to be powerful. Consider the wave of responses, directly and indirectly, to Rob Bell’s Love Wins. I’m far from being the biggest fan of that book myself, and on several points I don’t blame opponents for jumping up and down on Rob and nuking his book from orbit; but a lot of claims made about Rob and his book are also demonstrably false, and those claims are often attached to various moral condemnations. Yet those demonstrably false claims are made by people who purportedly read the book and who sound (to people with only a casual acquaintance to the topic) like they know what they’re talking about.
Agreed. He could have been much more careful and cautious, and so consequently on point.
But he wasn’t. Which leads me to think he intends to sell books. 
Edited later to add: I shouldn’t have made even a minor inference from his methods about his intentions (i.e. to sell books with an easy looking colorful refutation of all Christian universalists to people looking for easy reasons to ignore anything a Christian universalist might look like he’s saying.) I’m sorry about that and I’ve added it to my post here for sake of fairness to Dr. McCly. His reasons for being wildly uncautious and uncareful about his accusations aren’t any of my business. His wildly uncautious and uncareful (and often proportionately inaccurate) accusations and arguments are.
Wow - he cites O’Reagan !!! And agreed O’Reagan does see Balthazar as an anti-Gnostic. Here’s what I wrote before you posted
Dr McClymond’s arguments – when taken at face value seem to suggest that he is arguing that modern Universalists are direct descendants of the ancient Gnostics and that the ancient Gnostics believed in universal salvation (and I’m sure that this is the message that anti-universalists would have been reassured by). However, I’m sure this is not what he means – he’s far too intelligent for this (although this point is worth clearing up with anyone who listening to those videos makes the leap of identifying Gnostics and Universalists). Rather I think Dr McClymond is drawing upon the scholarly narrative which originates with nineteenth century German theologians and found its most extreme exponent in Eric Voeglin – who see the return of Gnosticism in disguised forms as the rot at the heart of modern civilisation.
One scholar has bemoaned that –
And I’d add that there is a book about Protestant Gnostics that identifies Fundamentalism as Gnostic and we here have sometime identified the Gnostic elements in Calvinism.
In the end the term Gnostic does seem to disintegrate – but the modern critics seem to use it as a term against any system that does not allow for the transcendence of God but tries to manipulate God into fitting into a total explanatory human system of knowledge.
I think Dr McClymond must be influenced by the Catholic Cyril O’Regan (although I’m not sure Dr O’Regan would approve of Dr McClymond’s theology in which specific use of ‘Gnostic’ as an adjective for Christina Universalism.
So I think it is probably in abstract ideas such as metalepsis that Dr McClymond is grounding his charge of Gnosticism against Christina universalism.
The charge is basically that universalist interpretations of the Bible manipulate the text to conform to a pre-existing grid not derived from the text (which is a technique derived indirectly and unknowingly from Valentian Gnosticism)
All the best
Dick
I’ll do another couple of posts on the other aspects I anticipate if you’d like.
You don’t pick the title “The Devil’s Redemption” for subtlety.
Unless, of course, you’re actually arguing that the devil’s gonna be saved, but I think we’ve ruled that out as the book’s thesis. 
Sign me up as interested too!
That makes sense, Sobor, but it’s still silly to call ideologically convenient eisegesis “Gnosticism” – the Gnostics weren’t the only people to do that, and the basic conceptual and methodological error has nothing especially to do with the various doctrines popular among the Gnostics (least of all the doctrine of salvation by doctrinal knowledge).
I have long suspected that the ferment about Gnosticism and its characteristic-set derives from the fact that most critics of the Gnostics also believe in salvation by doctrinal knowledge (for all practical purposes even when not overtly so – but often also overtly so!) so they need to find something else to oppose rather than self-critically admit to the same principle error.
As to the “other thief”, this claim is rather pretentious, IMO, at least in regards to making him the example of the general lost. In the first place, one must place himself in the same sandals in order to get a proper pespective. Jesus might have made waves all around Israel, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean that He was universally known. We do not know how much exposure this thief actually had to the teachings of Jesus, if at all. (The “saved” thief was at least exposed to the idea that Jesus had a kingdom coming).
Secondly, up to this point there have been several “Messiahs” that had come and gone who have made similiar claims and some met with similiar ends. So is it not unreasonable when this thief mocked Jesus on the cross, it was toward what he believed to be just another “candidate” who obviously turned out false (seeing that the Messiah was to rule forever, and therefore so much for Jesus). Remember, the "saved " thief at also been mocking Jesus before he “came to himself”.
Thirdly, if I Corinthians 15:1-3 effectively summarizes the Gospel, then that event hadn’t yet taken place, so how could this other thief make any sort of informed decision about Jesus, particularly when such an event was unprecedented.
Finally, it is obvious that Jesus agrees with this accessment after being mocked and ridiculed by stating, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”. Presumably, that intercession extended to the unrepentant thief as well as the crowd before Him.
Hi Jason yes I agree it’s’ unfair and silly – but I reckon it may be an argument that needs countering carefully so it’s worth looking at. That’s my only point in having a good look.
OK the next track of the argument I’m predicting and concerned about (but not agreeing with) is a historical one rather than a meta-historical structuralist one.
Dr McClymond – following Cyril O’Reagan identifies Jacob Boehme as a figure of huge importance it the emergence of modern universalism (To be fair, O’Reagn is concerned with Gnosticism rather than universalism but it seems that Dr McClymond is using his arguments in a way that O’Reagan had not intended because O’Reagn has no bones with Hans Urs von Balthazar which is worth noting again). O’Reagan has devoted a whole volume in his works against modern Gnosticism to Boehme (although he has pondered whether he is using a sledge hammer to swat a fly). He sees him as the father of modern Gnosticism and O’Regan has identified him it seems as the father of modern universalism.
Boheme was not a Universalist. His writings on spirituality did depend on personal revelations and visions and these are couched in very abstruse language drawn from alchemy and the hermetic writings and possibly from Kabbala. His writings did appeal to many of the early Pietists – whose Protestants who were put off by the dry scholastic formalism of the second and third generations of orthodox Calvinists and Lutherans. Boehme was reinterpreted in Universalist terms a hundred years after his death and was a clear influence on one strand of early modern universalism. I’ve noted in a previous posts those who were thus influenced –
George de Benneville
Elahanan Winchester
Paul Siegvolk
The Petersens
Jane Lead
Anne Bathurst
Some of the early Quakers
The German Town Universalists of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania (including the Dunkers)
Richard Roache
Sterry and White
Sower the Elder and the Younger
William Law
William Blake
Nicolas Berdyaev
Some of these figures were strongly influenced by Boehme and also by personal visions in their universalism – George de Beneville, Jane Lead, Ann Bathurst. Others were inspired at second hand or third hand - Winchester was influenced by Siegvolk’s Everlasting Gospel’ which was a biblical confirmation of the visionary insights of Anne Bathurst in her tract of the same name. Some like White and Sterry and William Law were inspired by Boheme but wrote with clarity and acute reasoning powers.
I see this as an issue that we have to deal with. Some strands of universalism have been connected with the non –rational especially when arid and oppressive scholasticism was the only alternative on offer. When we talk of a cloud of witness –especially as Tentmakers do - I think we need to be aware of this.
I can see the arguments developing. For example. Mother Julian may not have been influenced by Boheme (because she lived well before him) but she still depended on personal revelations; that other seventeenth century European universalist and nineteenth century American universalist were Masons or Rosicrucian and some embraced spiritualism. And Universalists today are often fascinated by NDE’s all as ways of associating universalism with the occult and the irrational
In the lecture, he keeps repeating the charge that universalism is gnostic and thus not “biblical.” So, I suspect that you’re correct that one of his primary features of gnosticism is this sort of manipulation of the biblical text (although, in the lecture, he identifies the gnostic doctrine of God as the root problem). Otherwise, I’m just not sure what other features of gnosticism he can say that all of these theologians share. He mentions some of the typical ones (original “evil” in God, emanationism, etc.), but I just can’t see these present in any of the authors that I’ve read.
It would seem then that he’s reducing “gnosticism” to metalepsis and universalism. But, then, he’s just not talking about the same “gnosticism” that the Church has condemned. So, what’s the problem? It’s not like Origen had a drastically different hermeneutic than the same people who established the creeds and foundational doctrines of the church. Who isn’t a gnostic then? Only the non-universalists? It’s just circular.
Why not just write a book trying to show how universalists have misread scripture? It’s far more direct. But, I imagine the rhetorical appeal of being able to say “universalists are gnostic” is, as you’ve mentioned Sobernost, just too good to pass up. However, when everyone is a gnostic, including those who explicitly positioned themselves against gnosticism, the contention just starts to become wearisome.
Edit. I just saw your most recent post, Sobernost. That genealogy is interesting, and the more overbearingly mystical elements of universalism are something that universalists do have to consider responding to. As I mentioned in one of the earlier posts, if he developed that line and tried to show that within a certain trajectory of universalists, there seem to be some fishy elements, it would be a far more nuanced and helpful narrative. But he takes on a challenge far greater than that, and all signs point to the fact that his narrative and arguments can’t withstand the weight.
Having just read Enns’s The Evolution of Adam, (and of course with a new hammer, everything looks like a nail) , McClymond would have to consider Paul a Gnostic given his…ummm…“creative” use of OT scripture in his theology. Of course Paul gets a free pass because he’s…well, Paul.
I completely agree with both posts I was just thinking of how some might try to nuance the argument. It’s at tricky one about the Boehemenist tendency. I think there were some really good people in that crowd. I hope when the second volume of ‘All Shall Be Well’ comes out someone will address some of these issues with good sense. It seems to me that the visionary element in universalism is explainable in other ways - when an oppressive and seemingly watertight logico-rationlaity is suppressing and twisting deeper hopes these will emerge in visions I think.
Julian’s’ visions were actually compelling NDEs and the more remarkable thing is what she did with the visions in her life of obedience (and anyway they fit into a wider matrix of spiritual debate in England during her day)
The hermeticism of Bohme’s day was actually one of the stands in early modern scientific discourse that was vitalistic rather than mechanistic.
Ann Bathurst vision were precipitated by the awful fear that her dear children were damned
However, weird Bohme’s writings were in the hands of his interpreter William Law they do appear to have clear Christ centred spiritual worth - and even Wesley would not condemn Law outright.
I think Boehme’s influence on Hegel - the other arch gnostic so called - was minimal. He actually saws himself as most influenced by Lutheran concepts of freedom.
If some universalists in Europe - especially when persecuted - were joined to secret mystical societies, and if there some flirted with secret societies and even with spiritualism this was marginal. And if we are looking for skeletons in the cupboard there are plenty in all sorts of ‘orthodoxies’.
And of course as you say the Bohemenist universalists are only one strand/lineage.
But I think it is good to anticipate this ‘narrative’
I might have something more to say about the Marcionite track too - even though this was not made by McClymond himself.
It is wearisome - but I hope I’m not being boring pondering it 
(and how it might be developed by others)
I’m enjoying this, Dick…
Maybe if there’s a way to comment on his lecture, someone could link to this (i confess i’ve not actually listened yet )
I also think that this is a very esoteric argument tracing all modern Christian universalism back to Boheme (as well as being untrue), The thing about Boheme (and Hegel) is that they are so complex that only an expert can have any chance of understanding them - and actually I assume that Dr. McClymond is not an expert but is merely relying on secondary sources. So there is no way a lay audience can challenge the assertion - it’s unfalsifiable because incomprehensible; and I reckon if Dr McClymond was pressed on his assertions by an expert in either thinkers he’d be hard pressed to find good answers). But I was for giving him the benefit of the doubt