The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Michael McClymond on Universalism

Evangelical Universalism Arguments against Evangelical Universalism
#381

Dear Dick–

There’s a lot of Erasmus happening on my hallway at the university.

Clarence Miller–whose office is near mine–worked for years on the critical edition of Erasmus’s works in English. Maybe you have seen his translation of the Erasmus-Luther debate, which includes Erasmus’s often overlooked response to Luther’s Bondage of the Will?

Clarence is a true gentleman and great to consult with on issues of Latin translation. There’s a lot of seventeenth-century literature on Origen in Latin–especially Pierre-Daniel Huet’s *Origeniana *. It’s on Googlebooks–the first volume is 130 megs–see if your computer times out before it downloads. Huet laid the foundation for the modern study of Origen. As an orthodox Catholic, Huet was critically minded toward Origen.

In any case, yes, Erasmus and what we might call the Erasmian spirit was deeply shaped by Origen and what we might call the Alexandrian spirit. I see theology through the centuries as, in some respects, a tug-of-war between Origenist and Augustinian tendencies. Origen’s thought (to over-simplify) oscilated between the poles of human freedom and divine justice. Augustine’s thought (to over-simplify) oscillated between the poles of human sin and divine redemption. Rational explicability clearly has a greater importance for Origen’s way of doing theology than for Augustine’s way. Of course, it’s possible for people to overdraw the contrast, and while Origen was, I think, undervalued for his manysided contributions to Christian spirituality and exegesis prior to the mid-1900s, Augustine has recently been demonized and now he is the one being undervalued. My colleagues include a world-class Origen scholar (two doors down), and not one but two well-known Augustine scholars. So I’m getting plenty of critical feedback on my patristic analysis.

Jonathan Edwards, on my reading, lies somewhere in between Origen and Augustine in terms of the stress on rationality–the explicability of God’s ways to the limited human mind. He is known of course for just one sermon–out of 1200–which hardly seems fair. Of course I am referring to the “Sinners in the Hands” sermon. That’s like saying, “Abraham Lincoln? Wasn’t he guy that unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Illinois in his earlier years?” Yes, but, there’s just a little bit more. Edwards is very “Eastern” in his idea that there is no salvation without participation in God. This is not an incidential feature, but quite a defining element. My co-authored book Edwards is the first to be based on the complete 73-volume online Yale University Press edition of Edwards’s writings.

Re: William Law, if you are talking about *The Spirit of Prayer *and The Spirit of Love, then I have to say that I find those books both deeply Bohmist. When Law starts to expound the doctrine of the source spirits, and talks about the fall of the angels, etc., he is doing little more than paraphrasing Bohme. It’s like Cliff Notes to Bohme in substantial portions of the later Law. It is true that he tones down or removes Bohme’s more egregiously unorthodox ideas. (Bohme held that the Trinitarian God was born out of the Ungrund, which is a kind of primal, undirected, chaotic will. (It’s almost as though someone rewrote Genesis: "In the beginning was waste and emptiness. And there was a blind, undirected stirring in the waste and emptiness. And the waste said: ‘Let there be God!’) Consider also that Law refers to Bohme as his “master” and as “highly illuminated,” or something like that. He uses this surprisingly sycophantic language. Moreover, there is Law’s behavior to take into account: he devoted the final decades of his life to preparing the collected edition in English of Bohme’s works.

Law’s edition of Bohme is what George MacDonald read. What Thomas Erskine of Linlathan read. Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin translated Bohme into French. German readers of Bohme included Schelling, Oetinger, Baader, and Hahn. Among the Russians there are many, including most notably Soloviev. All of the people just mentioned were Bohmist Christian universalists.

The idea that the Bohmist are not significant is a misunderstanding caused by (a) an unjustified neglect in English scholarship of non-English authors, and (b) a failure to see what is under the surface in English-language authors such as William Law and George MacDonald. Law wants to make Bohme safe for church use–just as Hans Martensen in Denmark sought to do. (That’s the bishop that Soren Kierkegaard attacked in Against Christendom, by the way.)

I’m glad you brought up Gerard Winstanley, who together with Richard Coppin and Joseph Alford, was a universalist who published in 1648-1649. What’s going on here? Do you have a theory? If so, let me know? It’s happening amid the chaos of the English Civil War, culminating in the Puritans’ execution (Anglicans say: murder, regicide) of King Charles II in 1649. Do you see these mid-1600s English authors as Origenists?

By the way, with your interest in Origen and Erasmus, do you know of the new book series called Adamantiana, which contains essays in both German and English on the modern reception of Origen? There’s one volume just on George Rusts’s *Resolution Concerning Origen and the Chief of His Opinions *(1660), which is one of the most important Origenist treatises of the seventeenth century? The best treatment I know of Erasmus appropriation of Origen is Max Schar’s Das Nachleben des Origenes, which offers a rather full account. He also looks at the Florentine humanists (e.g., Pico della Mirandolla) and their reappropriation of Origen–often through the lens of the *Corpus Hermeticum *and the Kabbalah (to the extent they really understood it).

What sort of universalists are y’ll on this website?

Are you you believers in post-mortem punishment?

Or are you “ultras” who deny post-mortem punishement?

Or both?

Or don’t you discuss that question?

MM

#382

In response to the discussion of Hegel here…
See Glenn Magee, Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition (Cornell University Press).
You only have to read the first few pages to get Magee’s drift.
Magee argues that Hegel was “not a philosopher” in the sense that he was seeking after wisdom. Instead Hegel has already attained wisdom. Thus he wrote from a kind of God’s-eye view of all reality.
Compare with Bohme whose Zentralschau–inner vision into the nature of reality–took place in the year 1600 as he glanced at the sunlight reflecting from a pewter dish. Hegel praises Bohme as the first German philosopher.
In any case, you can look at Magee’s account and then decide for yourself if Hegel is properly linked to esotericism, or whether he’s just rationalist touting thesis/antithesis/synthesis that we all learned about in the 20 min. section in our Intro to Philosophy course.
For twentieth-century theology, it is Hegel’s speculative theology of the cross that is important. Without Hegel, I’m not sure that we would have seen the sort of christocentric and crucicentric universalism that one finds in Barth, Balthasar, and Moltmann. Barth’s doing a lot more than just expounding the Bible. Consider the carefully argued poisition of Bruce McCormack (Princeton Sem.) who argues that Jesus as a human CREATURE is eternal, and is the precondition for the existence of the Trinity. “Jesus Christ is the electing God.” There is no logos asarkos. Apparently the Incarnation happens eternally. Just as the Bible teaches?

MM

#383

Hi Mike :slight_smile: – thanks for getting back and sorry for the sort delay -

Good :smiley:

Yes I know this work and am very sympathetic to Erasmus thought about predestination and freewill and how these matters are actually beyond us and it was unwise to allow them to become so central to Reformation debate because it lead to mush bloodshed. Castellio influenced greatly by Erasmus makes the same point in his defence of religious freedom in the wake of the burning of Michel de Servetus

That’s great!!! I will look him up Mike. I’ve heard o f Huet many times. But about me – I’m an amateur historian *(but I know the rules of the game very well). I’m actually an all rounder arts humanities and community education teacher – and currently a full time carer - but I’m the best they’ve got on this site, poor wretches :smiley:

I wouldn’t demonise Augustine Mike – not at all. And I have seen this done often and unintelligently. I love Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ and I think he said some very deep things about human desire especially in his doctrine of the Two Cities. Having said this I’m also obviously critical of much in Augustine and incline toward Origen – and although Julian of Eclanum falls down on the other side of error I have some sympathy with him on many points. But glad you are getting critical feedback - it’s what collegiality is all about. I’m not world class - andI may be poor but I’m honest :laughing:

Agreed – it is a shame that he is remembered for the one sermon . Some of his other writings are very beautiful actually and profound (but I do wish held not made that sermon :wink: )

I know about the doctrine of the Ungrund – IMHO it’s poetry rather than rational metaphysics and seems to point to God existing in freedom and his creation being given free space to exist. Like you I find Bohme difficult and have to rely on Boehme scholars to inform my views – I wouldn’t sit odnw and read him for pleasure. William Law did modify Boehme greatly – Bohme was not a universalist and Laws gets his universalism it seems from Nyssa and Mother Julian,. He also makes great use of Iranaeus’ doctrine of Recapitulation (but he cannot have know that Iraneuas was actually a near universalist).

Law makes lots of changes to Bohme – he was keen to teach ‘no new thing’ - and seems to have been enlisted Boeheme initially so as to provide arguments against Deism that he was keen to combat. He did refer to Boheme in high faluting terms – but he was an English gentleman and it came with his deferential idiom (Charles Wesley always refereed to Law as John the Baptist who had lead him to Christ – and there is more in the relationship, love and arguments between John Wesley and Law than at first meets the eye I think). I think Boeheme mainly seems to have provided Law with a (slightly baroque) psychology with which to understand the workings of the human heart. The only whacky stuff he takes on board are the myths of the Androgyne, the pre-Mundande fall – but on the whole he is very practical and level headed and you can read Law and ignore these aspects as anachronistic. He was not interested in Boeheme’s alchemical idiom, or the UNgrund, or the Virgin Sophia, or in replicating Boehemes visionary experiences in himself at all

Law’s edition of Boheme is actually misnamed – it is Freher’s edition with Freher’s illustrious. I think after Laws’ death his friends published Freher’s edition – hence the confusion. All of the people you name were influenced by Boehme in very different ways and for some the influence was very diffuse – as was the case with George MacDonald; certainly influenced by Law but only seems to have perused Boehme
The idea that the Bohmist are not significant is a misunderstanding caused by (a) an unjustified neglect in English scholarship of non-English authors, and (b) a failure to see what is under the surface in English-language authors such as William Law and George MacDonald. Law wants to make Bohme safe for church use–just as Hans Martensen in Denmark sought to do. (That’s the bishop that Soren Kierkegaard attacked in Against Christendom, by the way.)

All of this is addressed in the symposium volume listed in my post above (which is really good Mike and well worth a read) – and in great detail. Law was a marginal and neglected non-juror and pacifist – I don’t think he ever thought his influence would be great at all. He certainly had an influence on Universalism – especially in England – but his success in promoting Boehmenism (which I don’t think was his intention) was only taken up by a few specialist. And Boehme mark was not a universalist, and he believed in penal substitution too (unlike Law and GMac).

Regarding Bishop Martnesen –unlike Law he used Boeheme in a speculative rather than a practical way,. But he was not a universalist. Kierkegaard’s’ beef with him was that he had taken off into airy flight of abstract metaphysics and neglected the existential encounter with Christ in the moment of decision – the leap of faith. Kierkegaard – outside of his very authoritarian politics – was the philosopher of human freedom par excellence. He once said that a universe operating on God given deterministic laws would be tantamount to an abortion. Also in his private journals he once made a very universalistic statement – that if God could save him he was confident God would save everyone’

I think that Winstanley– since he shows no linguistic or symbolic affinities with Bohme whatsoever (and the Boehmenists were not universalists at this time) – was influenced by the Anabaptist Spirituals tradition stretching back to Hans Denk and Sebastian Frank who in turn were influenced strongly by Erasmus (although they were radicals unlike Erasmus). As for the others – I’m not sure but I’ll hazard a hypothesis. Calvinism at this date – especially as communicated i by popular preachers – had engendered an epidemic of despair, psychosis and suicide among more sensitive souls (there is huge evince for this). Within Puritanism this engendered a reaction – it was a bit like the free grace movement today. Some teachers of free grace simply stressed that we should follow the moral law out of love rather than fear and that God does forgive our failings and is always gracious and that depression is not a sign of damnation. Others went to antinomian extremes – a bit like John Crowder (well at least he’s going there if he doesn’t grow up quick). But there were also Calvinist antinomians around – a bit like Mark Driscoll.

Regarding the execution of the King – unlike Elizabeth the Stuarts governed neither wisely nor well and provoked the Puritans with arrogance. The death of the king was justified largely no ideas taken from Bezes’ Calvinist resistance theory with Charles characterised as Elgon the fat king of the Midionites .

I don’t know the book but will look out for it. The Florentine humanists – Ficino and Pico – were proponents of the perennial religion – but neither were universalists. Pico wouldonly go so far as to argue that poor Origen was would not be damned on the last day. Yes they were saturated in Hermeticism and Lurianic Kabbalah. Now Erasmus was positive about Pico’s work ‘The oration on the Dignity of Man’ – because of its Origenist view of freewill (a view supported by nearly all of the Church Fathers before Augustine). But he would have no time for ‘Kabbalistic and Talmudistic nonsense’. And the universalist traction that runs in Anglicanism and in the Armenians such as Le Clerc is also level headed and balanced.

I’m a purgatorial universalist. I think most people here are. Btu we are not a Church but rather a discussion Forum – and there are people here who actually believe in eternal damnation (nad your a member too now Mike :wink:)

Yours in cordial collegiality

Dick

P.S. Forgive the typos – it’s part of whatever small charm I have that I leave them in because sometimes I make amusing ones :smiley:

#384

It seems to me that an under-emphasis on the person of the Spirit is not simply a universalist problem. Rather, especially as of late, it’s a (perhaps correct) borderline cliché to claim that so-and-so does not give significant attention to he Spirit. But, the Spirit’s precise role has always been somewhat more ambiguous than that of the Father and Son, and I am not particularly surprised when any theologian does not devote reams of paper to explicating a robust pneumatology.

As far as the contention that Ballou and the 19th century American Universalists more readily accepted unitarianism because they did not have a sufficiently robust understanding of the Spirit, I think it is far more likely that the Ballou tradition adopted unitarianism out of its particular theological method. Ann Lee Bressler, in her excellent The Universalist Movement in America, 1770-1880, contends that Ballou et. al. attempted to walk a fine line between a commitment to the inspiration of the Biblical text itself and “Enlightenment rationalism” (supposedly in contrast to Channing’s Unitarians, who - despite holding many similar theological beliefs as the Universalists - tended to overemphasize the latter).

Additionally, no doubt in part because he was holding to a clear minority position (and one that many more conservative-minded Christians considered heretical), Ballou was not prone to place much weight on the authority of traditional creedal statements, etc. The result, I think, was that Ballou and friends felt free to look at the (esp. New Testament) Biblical text itself and recognize that trinitarianism was by no means obviously taught, and, indeed, that it appeared at times to imply unitarianism (and they were, of course, not the only ones coming to this conclusion at the time, and indeed many had come to it before them). Unitarianism also had the added bonus of being more easily squared with “reason” than Trinitarianism.

It was this combination, I think, that provides a far more likely explanation for the American Universalists’ tendency to unitarianism than an insufficient pneumatology (even though the latter might be the case as well). If there is a relevant theological critique to be made here, I think it would not so much lie in the realm of pneumatology as in ecclesiology and theological method (i.e. an under-emphasis on the authority of the ecumenical creeds).

Are you claiming that a Christocentric universalist would seemingly be required to affirm that the Spirit (at Pentecost?) is presently on/in all of humanity? If so, I must confess that I do not see why this would necessarily be the case. And even if a universalist wanted to affirm that the Spirit indeed was present everywhere (the Spirit blows where it will and all that), this would not necessarily entail her adoption of a pneumatology offensive to (certain) non-universalist orthodox sympathies, as she could adopt a qualitative distinction between the special presence of the Spirit in the present believer and the “working” presence of the Spirit in the believer-to-be. That is, it seems to me that the universalist could absolutely affirm that at Pentecost the Spirit came upon the believers and remains specially present in members of the universal Church of Christ, while nevertheless contending that all will eventually be included in this Church. There, the Spirit provides charismatic gifts and all the usual stuff of traditional Christian theology. This view would likely be more agreeable to a purgatorial universalism, although an ultra-universalistic version is likely possible as well.

I’m not even sure that Barth and von Balthasar could not be read in a similar way (or at least easily modified to say something similar). I can imagine them making a distinction between the salvation that Christ has objectively accomplished on the cross and (esp. in von Balthasar) in his descent into hell and what the Spirit is subjectively doing in-time in the members of the visible Church. On this view, it is not surprising that the Spirit manifested itself in particular individuals, for these are the members of Christ’s phenomenal body on earth! But this does not entail that those without this special presence of the Spirit are not, from an “eternal” perspective, members of Christ’s body as well, but merely that they have not yet been united to Christ from an earthly, presently-unfolding perspective. Maybe this works theologically and maybe it doesn’t, but it does not seem to succumb to the brief critique you sketched.

This will likely be one of the more exciting aspects of your work to me, as I think you’re right that non-Anglophone universalists (besides Schleiermacher) have been given far too little attention. Likewise, I agree that universalists should not - in the case that your arguments in favor of condemning certain historical universalists with theologically unacceptable forms of esotericism or Gnosticism are indeed sound and persuasive - balk at your findings. For, again, such an argument is not an argument against universalism itself, but at most certain forms of it.

Hopefully you are not forced to cut too much. I enjoy a chunky book! :smiley:

#385

Mike – here is a list of books that I have found helpful for this discussion (hope some catch your eye)

MUST READS -
Hessayon,A. And Apetrei,S (eds); ‘ An Introduction to Jacob Bohme; Four Centuries of thought and Reception
Gregory, Alan; Quenching Hell: The Mystical Theology of William Law

Good sources to measure the temper of Universalist and Wide Hope Anglicanism
Plumptre, E.H.: The Spirits in Prison and other studies on the Life After Death
Farrar, Fredric William; Eternal Hope: Five Sermons Preached in Westminster Abbey 1877

TWO MORE MUST READS -
Walker, D.P.: The Decline of Hell
Rowell, Geoffrey; Hell and the Victorians

ON ERASMUS AND HIS TRADITION –
Screech, M.A.; Laughter at the Foot of the Cross
Bienteholz, Peter G.; Encounters with a radical Erasmus
Dodds, Gregory. D.; Exploiting Erasmus; the Erasmian Legacy and Religious Change in Early Modern England

ON RELIGION DURING THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR
Como, David R.; Blown by the Spirit – Puritanism and the Emergence of an Antinomian Underground in Pre-Civil War England
Bennett, Z and Gowler, D; Radical Christian Voices and Practice
Bradstock, Andrew; Radical Religion in Cromwell’s England

ON THE UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OF AMERICA
Bressler, Anne Lee: The Universalist Movement in America 1770-1880
Cassara, Ernest; Universalism in America – A Documentary History of a Liberal Faith

ON THE FLORENTINE NEOPLATONISTS ETC
Walker, D.P.: Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella

RESPECTFUL AND INSIGHTFUL BUT STILL CRITICAL BOOKS I HAVE ENJOYED AS A NON CALVINIST REGARDING CALVIN AND CALVINISM
Lee, Phillip J.; Against the Protestants Gnostics
McGrath, Alister E.; A Life of John Calvin
Robinson, Marilynne; The Death of Adam

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON HELL IN OTHER RELEVANT RELIGIONS
Raphael, Simcha Paull; Jewish View of the Afterlife
Scholem, G; Major Trends in Jewish Myssticism
Khali Mohammed Hassan; Islam and the fate of others
Zaehner. R.C.; The Religion of the Magi

#386

I’m meant to be on holiday :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: so I’ll post one final for you Mike and then have a break -

Mike I think the Boehme link can be overegged – I really do. He had very little influence on the mainstream Anglican universalist tradition for example and this developed over three centuries – and we can get a good idea that a number of people who were at one point in time afraid of declaring their hand for fear of being killed or being unwilling to cause division or whatever, were actually Origen inspired universalists – read Sir Thomas Browne for example. And English Universalism goes back to its first flowering in the fourteenth century in William Langland and Mother Julian along with others who gave latitude to a Wide Hope at this time. And the influence of Piers Plowman persisted among the radicals in the Civil War (so that’s another possible influence on Winstanley)

As I’ve said in a post above I think Boehme works can be seen as a sort of visionary nervous break down. His writings are an attempt to salvage the liturgical and mystical traditions of ancient Christianity, lost to him but still intuited, when under assault by Magisterial Protestantism – liturgical hours of prayer, a feeling of connection between microcosm and macrocosm, a place for the feminine in spirituality, an understanding of human psychology and a road map of the transformation of desire from cupiditas to caritas(in archaic language albeit). Boehme seems driven by the same nostalgia for a vanishing worldview that we find in C.S, Lewis ‘ The Discarded Image’ (and his astrological ideas – which were not about prediction but about a symbolic mesh between man and cosmos would have found imaginative resonance in Lewis who also used these symbols in his imaginative writings. And Boehme’s opus was produced against the back drop of the terrible Thirty Years War of religion – and a theme that crops up again and again in the radicals is that theological correctness is not enough. Those who slaughter and torture and burn in the name of this are of a different temper than Jesus. They are truly children of wrath. If Law had had say the writings of Maximos the Confessor readily to hand I’m sure he would have consulted these rather than Boehme – but perhaps he too felt Boehme’s sense of dislocation over arid scholasticism and forensic theology.

Regarding Wesley’s’ view of Law – tore he was outraged at Laws; embrace of Boehme and wrote a very ill tempered tract agonist Law (which later he said that if it was published again he would soften somewhat because the hurt was real, they were actually friends, and Wesley at his worst had a sharp tongue). Yes Wesley called Boehme a ‘demonosopher – although he still claimed to admire the man’s humility and perseverance under persecution. But then he also called Calvinism the ‘doctrine of demons’ as did Charles Wesley – and meant it when he said it. Wesley first fell out with Law because when he was converted by Peter Bohler the Moravian he accused laws – in Serious Call and Holy Living – of not teaching justification by faith. Bohler it later turned out was a universalist. Wesley in old age was convinced that Law was saved and published a number of edited books by universalists and wide hopers in his Methodists Library. HE was never a universalist – but later Wesley is getting very wide in his hopes. Now John Murray was expelled by the Methodists for embracing Universalism but these were Whitfield’s Methodists. Some scholars see a continuity between Serious Call and Holy Living and Spirit of Prayer and Spirit of Love

OK Mike we’ve talked about the problematic in American Universalist historiography – all of the so called victims in Church history which they identified with at first – must have been universalists. Well they were reading their own concerns back into the past and one of the reasons for the demise of the American Universalist Church was their Johnny one note scholarship – all about eschatology all about seeing the people marginalised in Church history as somehow good and therefore universalists. They were also socially progressive – and supported abolitionism and education of girls for example – and at first they had a very strong sense of group solidarity – when they were thriving. By the late nineteenth century many other denominations in America became open to at least wide hope and even hopeful universalism and they lost their raison d’etre because of this. Also under the influence of Transcendentalism and New Thought (‘self actualisation’ as you’d call it) many became more and more individualistic and the total focus on eschatology in an age that was over positive about science and human progress lead many to flirt with spiritualism. Hence their demise – but this was not the case with non sectarian universalists in the mainstream Churches. And I note that this sit has never advocated a separate universalist denomination. They complete lost their balance I would say and also their sense of service to the wider Church. Btu the influences that lead to their demise were not unique and you can trace similar influences on American Evangelicalism – even at its most conservative.

Calvinist historiography can be equally flaky. I think of the great Reformed apologist Frances Schaeffer – and I don’t deny that he care deeply and said many wise things. However…

In his analysis of western culture Francis Schaeffer focuses on “analysis of key moments in history which have formed our present culture.” He is primarily interested in the “presuppositions” and “world views” upon which aspects of the culture are based, and he attempts to trace their impact through three strands-philosophy, science, and religion.

Heres’ a quick resume and analysis of ‘How shall we then live?’

After a very quick look at the decline of Ancient Rome (due, we are told, to “no sufficient inward base” or an inadequate world view) and a slightly longer survey of the Middle Ages, Schaeffer turns to his special interest, the Renaissance and Reformation and the interplay of their themes. But the golden age of the Reformation was short-lived, and almost half of the book traces the “breakdown” of science, philosophy, and religion in the modern age and the consequent pessimism that Schaeffer discerns. Here the author is perhaps at his best, reworking material presented in a score of other books-especially his Inter-Varsity Press trilogy The God Who is There, Escape From Reason, and He Is There And He Is Not Silent.
In spite of all the analysis offered, the basic purpose is apologetic and the interpretive scheme simple. The “pristine Christianity set forth in the New Testament” was progressively distorted through the Middle Ages by the admixture of a “humanistic element” climaxing in Aquinas and the Roman Catholic synthesis. Biblical Christianity was largely recovered in the Reformation, but successively undermined by the reassertion of Renaissance humanism, and eventually the Enlightenment, so as to lead to the present “collapse” that must follow from the eroding of Christian presuppositions. A recurrent motif is that only a society built on “biblical absolutes” can resist totalitarianism. This claim sets the choice implicitly reflected in the title: either re-establish society on a Reformationally understood “biblical base” or face an imposed totalitarian order.

Schaeffer’s whole historical analysis is, ironically, fundamentally predicated on what can only be considered an “a-historical” basis. He is concerned not only to establish the necessity of a transcendent foundation for society and thought, but assumes that such a foundation is effective only if it is manifested in terms of “absolute, universal standards” or “absolute values.” His view of religious authority and biblical inspiration is explicitly predicated upon the idea that “when God tells people what he is like, what he says is not relatively true but absolutely true” (p. 86). This assumption leads Schaeffer immediately to a strong doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture and a fundamental opposition not only to the historical interpretation of the Bible but apparently to the whole modern historical consciousness.

Schaeffer makes some strange moves to preserve this position. In spite of his tendency to absolutize a rather scholastic reading of the Reformation, he is willing to criticize the Reformed tradition for its early lack of missionary activity, its “non-compassionate use of accumulated wealth,” and its failure to oppose slavery and racial prejudice. Schaeffer is, however, quite clear that the Bible does provide “absolute” guidance on these issues; it was only inconsistency and disobedience that failed to produce, for example, opposition to slavery. There is in this book no sense of the ambiguity of the biblical witness on such issues as slavery or the role of women, no acknowledgment of the extent to which the critique of slavery required a hermeneutical shift inconsistent with his own theology, or no awareness of how the opposition to slavery was at least in part associated with a repudiation of the Reformed determinism that he would apparently defend.

Yes Schaeffer like the American Universalists before him is writing history from a view of self innocence. However, the Reform tradition in America did support slavery (big time), at times it authorised genocide on the grounds of Calvin’s commentary on the Book of Joshua, it persecuted dissenters with zeal etc and Calvin’s diatribes against the Jews which Schaffer also rejected were well in line with biblical understanding in his day (except for lone voices like Erasmus) and Calvinism has also been used frequently to justify racism with Apartheid being only the most extreme example.
I have cleat with the charge that Calvinism is also a form of Gnosticism in previous posts on this thread – if we want to make the case it can be made, and cogently.

None of us are innocent. And Calvinism like other forms of Christianity needs to confront its own demons and live more peaceably and lovingly. We all do. And we all need to confront our own tendencies to Gnosticism and lack of charity. AND we don’t need to throw out the baby with the bathwater – that goes for all of us too.

In Christ our Hen

Dick

#387

I’m really enjoying this discussion, everyone, and appreciate the input of all you learned folks! :smiley:

I did note this from Mike upthread regarding Tom Talbott and purgatorial “punishment.”

As one who has read quite a bit of Tom’s work I think this is a bit of a misreading of Talbott here and as [tag]TomTalbott[/tag] occasionally posts here, I’ll try tagging him and see if he’s interested in joining the discussion—especially if his views might be included in Mike’s book. :wink: (I do cringe a bit thinking of calling on Tom with a tag like a genie in a bottle… :confused: )

#388

We don’t have any ultras in the UK :slight_smile: Ultras are following hard Calvinist logic into universalism. I wonder if there are any in the USA still? I think this was very much an internal debate in the American Universalist denomination and more of a product of Relly than of Winchester. It’s obsolete as far as I’m concerned and I’d never heard of it until two years ago. I can think of my own answer to Mike’s misgivings about Purgatorial universalism - the free willer belief is that in the end all will come to repentance - however long this takes - and this will always be a collaboration between God’s grace and the sinner’s will. God desires to save all, God’s will is not frustrated - but this is providence rather than iron determinism all too humanly and syllogistically pictured- so the rest is mystery. And salvation is actually not just about being freed from punishment - it’s about restoration or sometimes even first establishment of relationship between people and God and between people and their neighbours. Obviously the hardened and insentient criminal, and the slaughtering tyrant will have more to work through and work l through painfully than others. Bonheoffer was a cautiously hopeful universalist - he understood that we are implicated in each others sins so we have to be saved together too :slight_smile:

#389

Although I haven’t yet read the book (it’s on my Amazon wish list!), my understanding is that the late Howard Donagan claimed in In the Hands of a Happy God: The “No-Hellers” of Central Appalachia that the Primitive Universalist Baptists in Appalachia were very much Calvinist-inspired ultra-universalists in a similar vein to Hosea Ballou. Although, I don’t believe they are too great in number, and I imagine that the vast majority of evangelical universalists in America are purgatorial (likely the result of the popularity of C.S. Lewis and the fact that the most well known contemporary English-speaking evangelical universalists - Parry and Talbott - are purgatorial as well).

Edit: And I just saw that there is already a thread on them here. I could’ve sworn I had seen a discussion on these boards somewhere! :smiley:

#390

A few further wee notes that came to me last night –

A few further wee notes that came to me last night –
Unlike Boheme Law speaks of God in terms the orthodox via positive terms of Plenitude rather than Ungrund/ Absence (and the latter could be construed as a sort of mangled mode of speaking in via Negativa)

I think another way that Boehme fits medieval modes of thinking and a nostalgia for these in a violent and rapidly changing world is in his use of visions. Visio was standard mode of thought and literary communication in medieval and Patristic Christianly. A Visio came from the exercise of active imagination and intuition in engaging a deep problem symbolically – Dante’s Divine Comedy, the English medieval poet who wrote the stunning poem about grief entitled ‘Pearl’, Langland’s Piers Ploughman, the Visions of St Perpetua prior to her Martyrdom – all fall into this category and have affinities.

At the Reformation with the invention of the printing press, the new emphasis on literacy and rational theology marginalised visio which fell out of fashion until the Romantics revived interest in it as a corrective to the mechanistic cosmology and anthropology of Enlightenment rationalism taken to extremes. Visio was never meant to be a direct revelation from God as if the person was speaking for God. At it’s best it was meant to be the product of imagination and intuition illumined by ‘intellect’. I think we have lost this understanding of our forbearers. They saw the world in symbolic, pictorial terms. Biography and allegory were never far apart as in Augustine’s Confessions. Some of the strangeness of the later Boehmenists is down to them trying to reappropriate a lost way of thinking – sometimes not very successfully. Soloviev had his first vision of Sophia when he was nine – this was the age that Beatrice was when Dante first beheld her according to La Vita Nuova – the two are clearly related.

This is Magee’s view – but see Andrew Shanks on Hegel. He completely disagrees with this reading of Hegel – and Magee’s book has not been well received by many Hegel scholars (it’s hard for me to say too much for certain because I’m not an Hegel expert - although I think I get the gist well enough).

Hegel certainly had little influence on English Universalism (and I don’t think he had much influence on American universalism either). His influence on some continental theologians concern using his philosophical concepts to try to think of God as more dynamically engaged with the world than in the static categories of classical theism - and that’s the whole of it. He was not a Christian Universalist neither was Schelling – they were pantheists of different hues IMHO. Hegel has little influence on contemporary Universalists – C.S. Lewis taken to logical conclusions far more so. Of course Ferdinand Bauer was an Hegelian.

I can give you the references to the discussion of Hegel I’ve read in various stuff by Andrew Shanks and Gillian Rose if you’d like. The gist of some of the relevant bits of their take on Hegel is

Hegel’s ‘absolute knowing’ was a counter to Kantian rhetoric. He was stating against Kantian scepticism that we can have some sort of knowledge of the ‘Real’, however partial this may be.

‘Absolute knowing’ in Hegel is not a magical, authoritarian, quasi Gnostic ideal. For Hegel the main focus, especially in his mature thought, is on patient and humble negotiation between different points of view – the individual and the group, the religious and the secular etc; and he was committed to constitutional monarchy and gradual change in the end, having been appalled by the excesses of the French Revolution and Bonapartism.

Hegel does not even address the question of the immortality of the soul in his writings – so he can hardly be termed a Christian universalist.

#391

All fascinating stuff, and good to hear different perspectives.

I’m intrigued about the non-English scholards Boehme may’ve influenced…is their influence something we draw on at all? Is it possible that we’ve taken the “good” of Boehme but rejected the “wacky”, like Law did according to Dick? We can (and should) do that with any thinker, as nobody is going to be 100% wrong or right. But surely it must be clear that we reject the “wackiness” of Origen himself, let alone Boehme?

The idea of the Pentecost being a narrative that begins with a representation of all nations (at least those that were able to be there) and sets in motion a sort of “in or out” situation where those who participate in the church and receive the Holy Spirit (if we can agree what that looks like these days, across the whole church…tales of tongues of fire and actual languages being spoken as a direct witness are few and far between now) are “in” and the rest of the world is welcome to join, but is by definition “out”…well i can see where that comes from.
However, i don’t think that’s the situation that God set in motion at all. I think He scattered seeds…the first that grew were given special blessings (and i’m not saying we can’t anymore, that’s a whole other debate…suffice it to say that i think God gives what is needed for every situation) to facilitate an explosive beginning for the church, which would spread like wildfire…the motivation here clearly (at least clearly to me!) for that fire to spread across the globe and leave no heart untouched. So i don’t see the contrast between the Apostles who received the Spirit and those who didn’t at that time as a valid view of the narrative. I think you can see this…first of all it’s the Apostles, then it’s the many Jews from around the known world who were there for Pentecost as well, who spoke different languages, then it’s Peter getting the vision telling him to preach to the Gentiles…then you have Paul making grandiose claims about everything that ever existed being part of God’s plan for redemption. It’s a clear progression…the “in” crowd were not meant to remain an “in crowd”…they were merely the starting point for the inclusive Kingdom of God.
Just my thoughts, i really hope that made sense and that i did actually understand Mike’s statement on the subject :blush:

#392

James - that made excellent good sense to me. Ach we so ‘scholars’ - we have our place and uses; but what a funny lot of mutants we are. You speak here from sounds practical wisdom - and your point if just and ‘well earthed’. I don’t know about Mike but I got a flat nose from walking along the road reading a book and bumping into Lamppost’s. And that’s not very pratical at all :smiley:

I am free to appreciate what is good in Jonathan Edwards without having to embrace ‘Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God’ I think tis sermon was a dreadful piece of emotional manipulation - delivered in a monotone - which had men on all fours barking like animals and women and children shrieking with terror; not very New Testament I think (no records of Paul doing anything remotely like this). But I can say that although I think the image of the spider held over a flame is vile and puerile and sadistic and manipulative - when Edwards speaks elsewhere of his wonder at a Spider’s web and does so beautifully, this I can affirm. Likewise I can applaud his kindness towards the Native Americans without having to agree with his belief that they are the remnant of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel; and I can applaud his thoughts about social justice without having to forget that he was a slave owner - although one his sons freed their slaves after his death I understand - so he probably acted according to his father’s more generous ‘spirit’ rather than his less generous ‘letter of law’ spirit. This happens. People are complex - all us are. I am a human being -therfore nothing human is alien to me. I know James is a human and not an android or alien :laughing: - despite rumours - because I’ve met him in the flesh :laughing:

#393

Exactly :slight_smile: Well, i found out my intended is a cyborg (has a steel pin in her jaw from a motorcycle accident years ago)…but no, i’m reasonably sure i’m human too :wink:

#394

Hi Steve dear friend - I think the answer to your question about how to communicate with Tom Talbot and indeed Robin Parry - both of whom have been heavily criticised by Mike (and neither of whom I’ve read much of) - is… Well let’s take Robin for example. He’s; begin criticised by a peer academic and should defend himself on a site inspired by him. He may be on holiday - as I am :laughing: ; but if not, it’s a fair cop to expect him to wing in at any moment soon. ‘How does’t thee Robin? - come and have a butcher’s at EU mate’

Butcher’s hook is rhyming slang for ‘look’ btw. And I can’t be bothered to stand on ceremony. Mike has taken my joshing pretty graciously - Robin can take it too :laughing:

Why is it that Americans these days are more deferential than Brits? it used to be the other way round :laughing: Stuff and nonsense I say :laughing:

#395

Totally agree, Dick!
Robin Parry helped me realise that my instinctive Universalistic beliefs (which i mostly denied by thinking it wasn’t an option) were actually Biblically tenable. I am quite sure nothing he said set off my usually accurate Gnostic-alarm bells.

#396

Hi Dick, :smiley:

Well, I’ve sent out the smoke signals which Alex saw and posted emails to Tom and Robin. Hopefully they’ll be able to jump in and Mike will stay around for a bit if they do… :wink: (Grabbing a nice seat on the couch and bowl of popcorn, myself… :laughing: )

#397

Dear All–

I hope to respond more fully later on. Today I’m working on my chapter on seventeenth-century Origenism–a major revival that took place in the 1640s-1670s, both on the Continent and in England.

Please help me with this. I’ll write just the bare bones of the theological problems I see in the development of universalist thought in early Christianity.

For the time being, let’s skip the pre-Origenist universalists, and just focus on Origen.

Origen said: “The end is like the beginning.”
Right?

The “end” that Origen had in mind (i.e., apokatastasis) was a restoration of the condition of the preexistent souls that were originally in communion with God.
Right?

Yet, starting with Nyssa, virtually all the ancient universalists jettison the idea of actual thinking, conscious, deciding PREEXISTENT souls, that “fall” into bodies, from which they later emerge.
Right?

So Nyssa, having abandoned preexistence, abandoned the apokatastasis doctrine.
Right?

WRONG!

What? Was Nyssa illogical or what? If “the end is NOT like the beginning,” then why believe in the apokatastasis at all?

Good question–don’t you think?

The answer seems to be that Nyssa relied heavily on a different argument–or one that is only hinted at in Origen.

The argument is that “evil had an origin in time, so it must have an end in time.”

Great!!!

Now we have an argument that might work.

Ramelli sees this as a valid argument. Sergei Bulgakov used this argument. Everything is jake…

But wait a minute. My BODY had an origin in time. Ooops!!! Is my body going to dematerialize??? That’s a problem. (Of course Evagrius and some of the so-called “radical” Origenists taught a kind of de-materialization. And so did Vladimir Soloviev. There’s even a book by Oliver Smith on de-materialization in Soloviev [or Solovyov]).

Come to think of it, if my SOUL did not preexist, then it too had an origin in time.

Now, I’m having doubts… What if the “evil had an origin in time” argument proves TOO MUCH?? Maybe it’s the ultimate argument for annihiliationism–as in UNIVERSAL annihiliationism. Evil is obliterated–but so is everything else. Only God remains.

Right, everyone? (Am I missing something? Is there any way to salvage that particular argument–presented as recently as 2013 by Dr. Ramelli?)

Back to the drawing board. We have no universalist argument from “the end is like the beginning.” Nor does “evil had an origin in time” prove what we might want it to prove. After the failure of Plan A and Plan B, we need a Plan C…

[DRAMATIC PAUSE…]

Light bulb!!!

What if universal salvation were based on universal choice–not on the soul’s origin (in a preexistent unity with God), nor on a dubious metaphysical theory regarding the necessary withering away of evil?

But can we believe this? Is it credible???

From everyday life, do we actually see people making “the same choice”?

If we wait long enough, will the human will be like a roll of the dice, that eventually is going to come up as “double box cars,” i.e., faith/decision/repentance/bowing the knee to Christ?

(Eric Reitan uses just this analogy. The human wills will EVENTUALLY go the right way, like a randomly tossed coin. Imagine the randomly blinking lights on the Christmas tree. Eventually, every one of them come ON at the same moment. Bingo–Apokatastasis!)

What about the Pharaoh of the Exodus? Didn’t he become HARDENED over time, and thus less amenable to Moses. The more time he got, the less open or receptive he was to God’s call through Moses.

Doesn’t the universalist have to go seemingly against the texts of scripture, and ordinary human experience, which both agree in showing us hardness of heart?

And if we reject the hardness of heart thing, then we might think of the will as NOT habituated into evil. But then is the will habituated into good?

(Historical note: Both Augustine and Maximus the Confessor rejected Origenism because the idea of release from hell meant that people could fall out of heaven. Brian Daley argues, by the way that Maximus was not a universalist. Balthasar, I think, was wrong on this. And Maximus in the Ambigua trashes the whole Origenist narrative. Check the new English translation by Nick Constas.)

Yes, Virginia, there CAN BE an apokatastasis. But to get this result (under the Plan C scenario) we need to affirm that (a) the will is free in the sense that a tossed coin or die is free), and (b) that the different wills of different people will–under the lays of probability–eventually all align with one another. But this gives us an unstable heaven. And it gives us only a MOMENTARY apokatastasis–not something that is enduring.

That’s not much of a universalist hope, is it?

Hmmmm

Let’s change the analogy from tossed coins to the realm of actual human choosing.

Isn’t universalism something like a 100% election result?

You know–I’m not making this up (do a Google Search)–Kim Jong Un this spring reported that in the North Korean election there was 100% turnout and 100% was in favor of himself.

People laugh at this. No one believes it.

Then why do we believe in a 100% election result for God/Jesus?

So maybe, in the Origenist tradition, Plan A fails, and so does Plan B (not a contraceptive–please!), as well as Plan C?

If there’s a way out–let me know. I’LL BECOME A UNIVERSALIST.

MM

#398

I will be personally appalled if we don’t get some feedback for Dr Mike here - who has shown good grace and genuine openness and sweet heartedness here and is a scholar of excellent reputation - sweet heartedness especially to me with my joshing. Please boys - it might take a little time because this is the holiday season - but please come back and address his concerns here as soon as you can. And girls to if you can muster Professor Illaria Ramelli or Julia Fedwera or however; I only thought first of ‘boys’ first because I was thinking of Jason, Robin and Tom (the three stooges? :laughing: ). This is a vital and stimulating debate. :smiley:

love

Dick (lover of Dame Folly)

#399

You only referenced Reitan, so perhaps you’ve just read his earlier solo-written articles. However, in his full-length book with John Kronen, God’s Final Victory: A Comparative Philosophical Case for Universalism, he defends universalism (and argues against ECT) not only on the libertarian account of freedom that you mention, but also a rationalist or (semi) compatibilist account of freedom as well. So, the universalist need not hold to (a) to begin with. It is simply one move a universalist might take.

First of all, if your “unstable heaven” critique was valid, it would also be valid for any Christian theology with a libertarian account of freedom, even one that held to the traditional doctrine of hell (so, pretty much all Armimians). Not that (as I believe a Calvinist), this is particularly worrying to you, but it’s not like this would only be a universalist problem.

Secondly, the problem of an “unstable heaven” is not, I think, particularly troubling for libertarian free will. For even the libertarian can say that, in heaven, the saved individual is presented with such an overwhelmingly beautiful and compelling vision of God, that there is (almost?) no possible motivation to sin once there.

Of course, a libertarian still must allow that it is metaphysically possible for an individual to sin in heaven, but she need not concede that this is a practical possibility. You might counter that the Devil - if you indeed take Lucifer to be an actual creature - supposedly had such a vision and fell away. A few potential responses to this line are that (a) the devil also did not have the backdrop of an entire history of sin and redemption to more fully understand the consequences of his actions, and (b) that the devil would be initially far more tempted to usurp God (as God’s “second in command”) than redeemed humans, who would recognize how lowly and blessed they are. And, I imagine that there are quite a few more.

In actuality, it is not a scenario akin to a bunch of flickering Christmas lights all suddenly shining at precisely the right moment for a “MOMENTARY apokatastasis.” Rather, those who accept redemption are secure, and the trick is simply ensuring that those who have not yet accepted it eventually do “turn on” or land heads-up. And, just to reiterate, the universalist who holds instead to a rationalist/compatibilist account of freedom would have just as stable of a heaven as any Thomist or Calvinist. And, in practical terms, I think so would the libertarian. [Edit: Again, maybe this isn’t in Reitan’s solo articles, but in the book, an important point of Kronen and Reitan’s coin analogy is that the “heads” side of the coin has superglue on it, to ensure that once the coin lands heads-up, it sticks.]

Perhaps the better analogy would be an electrician who takes out his old Christmas lights, only to find that most of them have broken bulbs or frayed wiring. Being an especially anal electrician, he carefully devotes himself to each light. One by one they turn on, until the entire bunch is shining. [this analogy might not adequately express the “probabilistic” aspect of libertarian freedom, but it’s intention is to show that the lights “stay on” once they’re fixed, so it’s not like you have to get them all to blink at precisely the right moment].

If this was an election that only ended once every individual voted for a certain candidate, and that candidate also happened to be the most persuasive, powerful, good, loving, just, and knowledgeable being imaginable, and who also took a personal interest in every single voter, then, yes.

As Talbott notes, we often see those who are ingrained in destructive vices often reach a “rock bottom,” which compels them to attempt to change their lifestyle - even if they are not, on their own, fully capable of doing this (ahem grace). So, it’s not like “hardening” or self-destructive vices are some irreversible course of action.

But, you’re right that we also see a number of individuals die in destructive and sinful habits. But, this all happens within a very brief span of time. Isn’t it at least possible (or downright probable) some would have changed if given, say, five years of additional time? Similarly, we also live in a morally and epistemically ambiguous world in which we creatures have an extraordinarily limited capacity to understand the consequences of our own actions, nevermind how the world really is. And, of course, many people who are trapped in such destructive and sinful lifestyles were “set-up” for failure from the beginning by being born into destructive environments. And, in no small number of cases, it is precisely God’s supposed representatives who cause the deepest harm, often leading their victims to a rejection of God and to fall into self-destructive habits.

So, no, I do not think that it goes against scripture or ordinary experience that God is perfectly capable, especially given an unlimited amount of time, of leading back even the most self-destructive and rebellious sheep. Because that’s precisely the business that God’s in.

#400

Can i just say thanks to Dr Mike for again spurring forward a fascinating discussion!
And Arlenite, i love your reply.