The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Necessary vs Contingent Universalism

Evangelical Universalism Arguments for Evangelical Universalism
#1

Hi Everybody,

What is the most that can be proved from the Bible: contingent or necessary universalism? Why?

I doubt that contingent universalism (i.e. all people freely come to God eventually) is really universalism, for it seems to lack assurance; however, it appears that the more necessary universalism is, the less freely we might come to it? Naturally, this involves the interminable discussion over determinism and free will; however, I think it matters if somehow contingent universalism is self-contradictory (and if all the Bible shows is contingent universalism).

#2

I expect ultra-universalists believe necessary universalism is the most that can be proved from the Bible, and purgatorial universalists (like myself) believe contingent universalism is the most that can be proved from the Bible even when we also believe the Bible proves God shall certainly universally save everyone. :wink:

The point in other words is that a lot of universalists, including the most ancient ones (leaving aside the question of the scriptural authorities), believed and believe on God’s prophetic assurance (as well as expecting it for metaphysical reasons related to God’s characteristics) that all people certainly shall freely come to God eventually.

So it isn’t a question of lacking assurance for such people, it’s a question of how God goes about it and to what extent creaturely free will plays a role.

Merely hopeful universalists, who don’t believe they have assurance of final victory, do of course tend to be contingent universalists, too – if they believed universalism was deterministically brought about they wouldn’t be only hopeful universalists after all. But the categories aren’t split neatly between contingent on one hand and necessary on the other.

It’s more like contingent-(U)nknown, contingent-Y(es), and necessary.

#3

I think it matters if somehow contingent universalism is self-contradictory (and if all the Bible shows is contingent universalism).

Perhaps the statements that sound universal are prophetic like “As in Adam all men die even so in Christ all shall be made alive.”

The “shall” could be a prophecy and this may be true in many of the similar sounding universal verses. The contingency may not be so contingent.

Additionally i think mans free will is very overrated. Paul hated Christ but when he saw the risen Christ it took about 30 seconds for his free will to adjust to a new reality.

#4

Well I for one don’t think the discussion over free will and determinism is interminable. :stuck_out_tongue: I believe that eventually all rational creatures will freely come to perfection.

The more important question though is the one relating to God. Will He ever stop trying to save his creation? If we say no, how can we not be universalist?

#5

I have a different take on this. I believe firmly that God is trans-temporal, and so he can know in advance the outcome of completely free choices. Because of this if he says that everyone will be saved then he’s right, he’s already seen everyone make a free choice to accept grace.

The problem is that from a point of view inside time we see probabilities and uncertainty of outcome. God sees the one and only case that actually happens.

I tried to express this in a time-travel story:

*“No. I didn’t even know I’d have anyone with me. Dan, it isn’t like that, we don’t pick out a bystander and
say let's use him to change history. All we can see in advance is if we are going to make things better or
worse, we don’t know how or who is involved until it happens. When you first saw the hookup to the palace and
wanted to step through, further back when Simmo picked you to take the register to the head, those were
completely free decisions, we didn’t force you. What we did do is choose where, when and how I arrived.”
I thought for a moment. “You chose the moment that gave you the best probability of­ No, that sounds
wrong.”
Tom smiled. “Probability is just another word for not knowing. Toss a coin, heads or tails? Probability
says both are equally likely, time travel tells you which. We know that if I arrived on a certain date, with a
particular appearance, in this place, your people would survive and go on to build galactic empires that last for
millennia. We didn’t know how, or who would get hurt. We did know that it would work, and that if we didn’t do it
you all died out.”
*

#6

Jason, I am having a problem wrapping my head around contingent universalism w/ assurance. How could God provide this assurance w/o some sort of determinism? Take Lewis’ Great Divorce novella (assuming that to be a fair analogy), though God is still reaching out to the lost (which supports ChrisGuy’s contention that God never stops trying), but there are still those who reject Him. The only way that I could see that contingent universalism is T and assured is if God’s foreknows (this foreknowledge being merely omniscience with no causal interference, if that is possible - which many Cals would deny obviously) that indeed everybody will freely come to Him. I think the Bible is mixed evidence: there are certainly verses that give assurance, but there are verses that call that assurance into doubt. Apart from the Bible, if we have genuine freedom, it would seem possible for people to reject God throughout eternity, and perhaps even likely if Lewis’ has described the afterlife fairly. Kierkegaard thought that one could have sort of irrational, demonic despair, that rejects God simply b/c one can; if K is right, then I can’t say how God could, on a contingent scheme, give assurance that everybody will be saved - unless, again this is very unlikely IMO, that God foreknows (w/o causality) that everybody will freely come to Him, but if God has to play fair (and not override our wills in any way), then the odds would not seem good, unless the afterlife involves serious disillusionment (but Lewis’ Divorce depicts an afterlife with seemingly more potential disillusionment, like the momentum of our sin could compound and no matter how many time God extends His hand, a hardened sinner according to Lewis might reject)

But I think I am raising ChrisGuy’s ? again: Is Lewis’ theology/soteriology universalist? Is it enough to say that God never stops trying, even though, in fact, some will go on rejecting? But I think most people who endorse universalism want more assurance than Lewis provides… Lewis is like halfway b/w the traditional view and universalism in that he allows for postmortem salvation, but doesn’t have assurance (unless the Divorce is merely illustrative of a particular pt as opposed to generally depictive of the afterlife)

#7

PM, if you toss a hundred dice, it is highly unlikely that all sixes would turn up. Indeed, the probability would be 1 over 6 to the hundredth, which is approximately 1 chance in 65331862350007090609669026715809 followed by 46 zeroes.

If you tossed the hundred dice a million or even a trillion times, you probably would not get all sixes. But what if you simply never stopped tossing the hundred dice? Eventually all would turn up as sixes.

But these are people, not dice, you say. If they choose, they can choose to hold out forever! Can they? With God never giving up on them? He may even send out his completed saints to influence them. God will never give up until all come under His authority. He’s got an infinite amount of time to work on them. If any of them hold out forever, that would indicate that they have wills just as powerful as that of God! I don’t think so.

#8

Hi Paidion,

If there is no cut-off point to accept/reject God, then given an infinite amt of time, and God’s continual persuading, everybody could come around. I think this is what is meant by “contingent” universalism. However, i am trying to understand why Lewis, for instance in the “Divorce”, seemed to be of the opposite conviction, that people who rejected God in their earthy lives seemed unable to do it even when presented with multiple and gracious opportunities in the afterlife. Why do you think Lewis argued this way?

#9

Without looking it up ISTR the line in the divorce is something like: You cannot fully understand the relationship of choice and time until you are beyond both.

CSL was very careful to present both the universalist and particularist cases in that book. My feeling is that he leaned towards universalism, but it was so far off the mainstream at the time that he said very little about it.

#10

Wormwood,

Hi. Hmm, that is interesting (that Lewis leaned towards universalism in your opinion), as it seemed in many of his books he warned of Hell, but on second glance maybe he was warning people not to wind up in a sort of Origenist, purgatorial temporary Hell. However, though it has been awhile since I have read Great Divorce cover-to-cover, I think that it definitely implies that our earthly choices have great impact on what we’re able to do in the afterlife; hence, some spirits are unable to accept God. Yet, a few of the lost spirits accept God in the afterlife in that story. And certainly being able to still choose God after death puts Lewis in a different camp soteriologically than many traditionalists. Do you know of anywhere (letter, obscure book) that Lewis was explicit about universalism or considering it?

#11

The only reference I can point to is the one in Great Divorce. However I don’t think he really believed in ECT. In Screwtape the damned are consumed by the devils and (presumably) annihilated, in (IIRC) Abolition of Man the damned decay into a “Witless Psychic Sediment”. I’ll post again if I remember any more.