Very true, Dick…i’m rather irritated that universalists stoop to that level.
i’ve occasionally disagreed with the balance that the mods here have attempted to strike when hardline Calvinists or Arminians come ostensibly to debate, but really to preach…but it makes me realise what damage can be done if we give our tempers free reign to attack people for their beliefs. you can see the shape of some of the arguments used on Matt Slick based on what he’s chosen to remember. Saying he wouldn’t mind his mother burning in hell, for example, is probably based on someone building the argument that Calvinists are particularly vulnerable to, that thinking God is glorified by the reprobate burning in hell is GOOD because God is good, and if God wants to burn people, that BECOMES good…and then bringing it home to show him how he feels about his own family in that situation. but regardless of how polemic the argument was or wasn’t, he’s chosen to remember that someone told him he was a monster that would laugh when God burned his reprobate family.
we’ll always be misinterpreted that way when we credibly threaten another point of view, but it’s important not to give real justification for it.
i call McClymond lazy and greedy…and while the latter may be open to debate (he may be totally sincere and intending to donate all the proceeds to charity, for all i know) and thus something i take back, i think his scholarship IS lazy because he’s started at a conclusion and attempted to make the facts fit, when they don’t, as Dick says. So he’s not putting the effort in that would have resulted in fewer mistakes and possibly some real challenges for us.
neither comment on his work however is based on him disagreeing…it’s based on him choosing an exciting topic guaranteed to sell to a certain market, and not putting the work in to make it credible.
Good post James 
Since I’ve mentioned limbo in connection with Dr McClymond’s talk I’d just like to comment on one insult allegedly levelled at Matt Slick that -
As far as I understand this, Calvin who believed in paedo-baptism - was sure that the children born to elect families even if they died unbaptized would be elected to salvation. However, he would not commit himself on children who die un-baptised or in infancy who are born to non-elect families. It seems here that the merciful turn that ‘the damnation of infants is not to my taste’ (Leibniz) has also affected mainstream five point Calvinism (I understand that John Piper is affirmative in toto that infants who die will not be damned. I have seen the name of Dr Dodderidge cited on Calvinists websites as one who affected this necessary revolution. There is strong evidence from his personal correspondence that Dr Dodderidge towards the end of his life was in fact edging towards hopeful universalism (see Pog’s list)
That’s good news, and supports your statement that most Calvinists are notional rather than literal, which i find comforting. John Piper may have his bad points, but you’ve mentioned a good one here. we can’t wholesale condemn anyone…or we
a) become wrong, because nobody is 100% good or bad, including ourselves
b) sound like our opponents!
c) fail to glorify God who is patient with us as we hotly debate our opinions on things He already knows
saying that, passion against unjust views can be a valuable thing. for example…i’m passionately opposed to slavery as i’m sure we all are here 
Corpselight:
"but it makes me realise what damage can be done if we give our tempers free reign to attack people for their beliefs. "
Of course! I desribed how blogging can be a wonderful experience for learning to love our foes and to become more moral persons.
Sobornost: yes there is a true difference between what a person professes to believe and what her heart really approves of.
I do think, however, that there are really Calvinists out there who truly believe in unconditional damnation AND who act in a hateful and bullying way towards unbelievers (including progressive Christians such as myself).
I think it is fair to say that these folks worship an evil demon they call gods.
And the comparison with Germans supporting Hitler is also a fair one, for many also demonstrably suffered under cognitive dissonance.
OK Lotharson - that’s a long argument I guess. People with cognitive dissonance in Nazi Germany were turning their back on or participating in actual despicable crimes and therefore colluding with them. Others who believe terrible things about the eschaton - if they do not act on these - have a notional belief in my view. People wit terrible views about hell can be kind and loving and caring. However, the danger is that these beliefs can actually affect how they behave towards others I’ll grant you that.
See below for proof the Boehme was not a universalist -
jacobboehmeonline.com/yahoo_site … 184510.pdf
How comes it that he [Christ] draws not all?
Answer.
380. There lies the Ground: Dear defiled Piece of Wood smell in
thy Bosom.
Question.
381. What dost thou smell there?
Answer.
382. If thou art laid hold on but in the predestinate Purpose of
the fierce Wrath in its Constellation, as Esau, Ismael, and the
like, there is Remedy enough.
383. But, if thou art a Thistle, out of the innate, inherited, active
Sins, wherein the predestinate Purpose of God in the Anger has
imaged, figured, or formed itself into a Figure or Representation
of the Life; of which God said in the predestinate Purpose of
his Righteousness, He would visit, or punish the Sins of the
Parents upon the Children into the third or fourth Generation;
then it is dangerous.
384. For this living predestinate Purpose in the Anger of God has
clearly already a Figure or Representation in the Science of the
speaking Word; and is of new severed and divided from the
incorporated Ground of Grace.
385. Not of God’s predestinate Purpose, but by the Source or
Fountain of Sin, which Fountain has wholly united itself with
the Anger in the predestinated Purpose, and introduced it into a
Life of Darkness.
386. And there the incorporated Grace lies afar off, and there
Christ is dead and rests in the Grave, and before he rises, this
evil Spirit must be gone into the Abyss.
387. The predestinate Purpose of God now holds these back, and
gives them not to the Grace of Christ, for they are ThistleChildren;
their Will is a living Devil in
the Form or Likeness of an Angel among other Men.
388. The predestinate Purpose of God knows every Ens, while it
is yet a Seed in the Man and the Woman; and knows to what this
Sprig of Wood, when it will come to be a Tree, is profitable.
389. And the Thistle comes not only from the Mother’s Body or
Womb, out of the first Ground; but also through the outward
Influence, Accidents, and Occasions of Time, wherewith the
most perish : Christ calls all these.
390. Many of them have also still a little Spark of the Divine
Drawing in them; which gives them to the predestinate Purpose
of Christ, viz. his Voice, so that sometimes they hear Christ
teaching in them ; and these are invited and called to aloud.
391. But the outward Influences, Accidents, and Occasions
destroy that again, and crucify Christ’s Voice and inward Calling,
before he is incarnate, become Man, or born in them, and
introduce the Serpent’s Ens in Christ’s Stead.
392. And then when it comes to the Election or Predestination in
the Time of Harvest, when Men thresh out, fan, and cast the
Corn; then these are but the Chaff of the Corn, and have not the
Divine Weight and Firmness in them.
393. And then they remain behind in the Center of the Darkness
in God’s Righteousness in the Anger; and then it is rightly said,
Few are chosen out of them.
394. For the Father of the House chooses for himself only the
good Fruit for his Food, the other he gives to the Beasts: So also
here; Whatsoever has not grown up in the Divine Ens, and is not
born of God, that cannot see God.
That seems…clear?
Boehme was obviously a fan of being concise and clear!
I’ve been stuck at the house thanks to four inches of icefall (thankfully in sleet balls, not in glaze or sticky sleet, so it just rolled or bounced off most surfaces like tiny hail and didn’t accrue – otherwise we’d look like a category 6 hurricane had come through here by now!) So while I have internet access, I don’t have access to most of my materials and I’m a bit loath to finish a sweep-up without them.
Just letting y’all know I haven’t abandoned the thread. 
But I probably won’t be able to start a sweep-up on his QA session until Thursday at the earliest, although Sobor et al have done good work on several points already (and several points would only be reiterated from previous comments so I don’t know yet how much would be left over).
I’ll say off the cuff that the idea that Gregory Nyssa was only tolerated thanks to his big brother Basil runs totally against the respect people had for him at the time and afterward (to the extent of trying to explain away his flagrant universalism). One does not get invited to take over the presidency of an Ecumenical Council or to write the Great Catechism of one’s time, because one’s big brother might be upset with people. 
(And the guy who had to step down early as president for non-doctrinal reasons, Gregory Nazianius, was either a quiet universalist or near to being one from his evidence – so the bishops voted a guy who was MUCH MORE OBVIOUSLY universalist to take the place of a guy who was only kind of quietly one.)
This is completely aside from the question of what Basil actually believed; but if he actually wasn’t universalistic (instead of only taking the standard line of the doctrine of reserve and teaching ECT publicly for the benefit of the common laity), he was the black sheep in the family – who could trace both their Christianity and their universalism directly back through Gregory Thaumaturgus (via Macrina the Elder) to Origen (who evangelized and led Gregory to conversion). Basil certainly uses Origen’s methods as much as the other Cappadochians. And if as Big Brother he felt inclined to protect Gregory (and their best friend friend GregNaz, and their sister Macrina the Younger whom Basil helped start the first official nunnery), he would have also had the authority to clamp down on GregoryNyss and tell him to at least put a sock in it.
The fact is that direct challenge to universalism had only just recently started with Epiphanius and Jerome, who weren’t getting much of anywhere with it (other than scaring Jerome into throwing Origen and Eusebius the historian under the bus – while he blithely went on teaching the same universalist precepts himself, as Rufinius sarcastically observed.)
I think there’s at least a suggestive coincidence that universalism didn’t start coming under more authoritative fire until Rome had not only fallen but had repeatedly and permanently fallen under the boots of pagan and neo-Arian Christian northern tribes. Justinian, who was busy trying to protect the remaining Imperial territory from further encroachment in all directions (and bribing the Lombards to attack other barbarians, then bribing the Lombard Queen to help her lover kill the king and abscond to Ravenna with most of the Lombardian treasure ), would be naturally inclined to take a harder line about the fate awaiting such people; as would Pope Vigilius.
I took the liberty of compiling this thread onto one Word document. I omitted some banter and superflous posts, but I still managed to paste about 103 pages, and Jason isn’t even through with Sobornost’s transcription. Once we are done here, I’ll either post it or email it somehow to anyone who wishes to work on it as a rebuttal. More can be added as we research or when McClymond ever gets his book published. But that’s about all i can do on helping to form this project. If anyone else has any other suggestions on how we can coordinate this, please let me know.
With all due respect,** consistent** Calvinists are blasphemers and this ought to be clearly stated if they are aggressive and bigoted towards other people. Jesus did as well towards the pharisees.
One other wee point – the little I know about the Russian Orthodox émigrés from Stalin’s regime – of which Bulgakov was a key figure - is that they supported the Social Democrat movement of Kerensky that was ousted by the Bolsheviks and once exiled in Europe they bravely fought also against both Fascism and anti-Semitism. At one point Dr McClymond sneers at the term ‘God manhood’ – one of their terms – as having something to do with self deification – it actually refers to the Orthodox doctrine of theosis’ which has nothing to do with self deification but rather concerns the process of sanctification. He evokes their memory in terms of the totalitarianism that he wishes to associate with universalism via Hegel and Marx and which he implies is the nightmare that follows human self deification(which is a tortuous connection to say the least). Again suffice to say that the Russian émigré Orthodox Church fought against totalitarianism and all crimes committed against individuals in the name of an impersonal goal of history. The fact that they were collectivist in terms of their ideals of social democracy rather than laissez faire libertarians is no reason to make the charge of totalitarianism against them by implication.
Now McClymond is starting to make me angry.
Impugning heroes that fought fascism and anti-Semitism in his sad goal to sling mud at Universalism is pretty shameful.
Well obviously I’m concerned to tone down any stuff about Dr McClymond being a Pharisee (on the grounds that I’m not Jesus and in any case Dr McClymond is not plotting to entrap me/us and hand me/us over to torture and death). But in saying that i don’t’ want to take away from the fact that he doesn’t just use a lot of poor arguments – often untrue or with a grain of truth that is distorted by a covering of half truths and untruths). He also has a very clear subtext in his lecture of ‘guilt by association’ – and I/we shouldn’t ignore that in attempt to be fair to him. I think three time she says vaguely positive things about some universalists; he acknowledges that Origen was tortured for his faith (but this does not modify his opinion of Origen), he acknowledges that Soloviev was a polymath (but his might be more about the vanity of his learning than anything else); and he acknowledges that Bulgakov resisted Stalin. Btu again with Bulgakov this is not expanded into the whole positive picture that his universalism was the ‘ideology/theology’ that inspired the Russian Orthodox Émigré Church to heroically resist totalitarianism. I know nothing of the Russian Church that collaborated with Stalin – but I’d think that their theology very probably wasn’t Universalist.
I hope bishop Hilarion is listening to the émigré legacy regarding Putin today but that’s topic for the politics threads 
Have to agree…we can pull him up on his awful scholarship, but we shouldn’t judge his heart.
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This is very interesting, Dick.
I’m going to quote McClymond here:
This is a fascinating and very “backward” perspective, I think. Paul the Apostle’s world was rocked by the revelation of Christ. And this earth-shattering event, the death and resurrection of Christ, made him look backwards and totally reinterpret many Old Testament passages (and even manipulate the meaning). If Paul is any example, the Old Testament must be understood in light of the New! (the term “old wineskins” comes to mind… 
)
Blimey, Dick…that must’ve been torture to listen to, let alone transcribe.
He’s clearly got the wrong end of the stick with Universalism. There may be flavours of it that resemble that, but i’ve not seen it here. It’s certainly not what Robin Parry describes in his book, which McClymond claims to have read i think?
I’m pretty sure he’s missing the mark with Postmodernism and Gnosticism too.
GF and GH are not presenting true arguments either.
This is still, IMO, the biggest strawman of the year so far. But the year is still young…we may get a worse one!
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