Just saw Hellbound? posting about this on FB.
amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ … tationcomd
interesting.
This initially got me a tad excited, but the book itself isn’t about universalism in patristics. The author is just using the term “Patristic universalism” to mean “evangelical” and (presumably) Restorationist/purgatorial universalism. Readers should be cautious in that the Patristics chapter probably borrows heavily from Hanson’s questionable history scholarship (as indicated by the Bibliography).
that’s what i was wondering about…thanks!
You know 
sometimes I get a bit confused by terminology. I think it’s to do with debates among American universalist - which I am only just getting a handle on.
So a restorationist is a purgatorial universalist? And we can also refer to this group as Katholics?
And the opposite of restorationist is an ultra? And they believe every one is saved anyway and there will be no need for further pain in the world to come? And they are sometime referred to as ‘inclusivists’?
When did this division begin? I’m not sure there is an equivalent division in British universalism.
Interesting. Hmmmm 
Yeah, restorationists are universalists who believe in some form of purgatory. I’m not exactly sure what the common term for purgatorial-universalism on this board is, but I use Restorationist because that’s what the American purgatorial-universalists called it, and they were the first to give their ideas a distinctive title. The schism came about in late-1800s New England universalism, when those who believed in some sort of punishment after death tried to make the distinction, contra to the (Ultra-) universalists, that not everyone will be saved [from future, post-resurrection wrath] even if everyone will ultimately be restored to God. The Ultra-Universalists believed instead that there were no punishments after death as punishments are meted out here on earth and death would free all from sin making further punishment redundant (a view that the Restorationists believed made God’s last enemy our saviour). Prior to the American schism, according to this dude Hughes, universalists were disinclined to entertain many internal theological disputes due to strong external opposition, the general cordiality and intimacy of the universalist community and a general aversion to creeds — which would be why you don’t see any schism in British universalism.
I think the ‘Katholic’ you sometimes see here refers to universalism generally.
I’ve always understood ‘inclusivism’ to simply refer to the belief, independent of universalism, that whilst many people do not explicitly affirm faith in Yeshua, they still follow him, insofar as they can given the cultural, psychological and spiritual restraints on the grace afforded them — God speaks however he can to whomever he can. I’d be an inclusivist and a Restorationist.
Thanks Andrew - that’s really useful. My hunch is that the ‘ultra’ teaching possibly emerges from the same mind-set and around the same time as New Thought/Positive thinking and, perhaps, spiritualism. From a cursory reading it seems that some American universalists were attracted to spiritualism while others were not. That’s a very interesting area for someone to look at sometime.
The Unitarian universalist biographies site is a great resource 
Thanks for pointing it out.
Another interesting site -
Purgatorial universalists on this board are usually just called purga-u’s. Or I call us that anyway. Ultra-u sounds cool, too. 
But since there isn’t a standardized terminology, that leads to problems of course. As noted above, historically the universalists who taught some kind of purgatory called themselves “Restorationists”, but ultra-u’s have just as good a reason to be called “restorationist”, maybe even better!
While it’s true that the ultra-u version morphed into the (so-called but not really) “unitarian universalist” position via spiritualism and so forth, Christian ultra-u’s are not about that at all. (Nor are Christian unitarian universalists, who may or may not be purga or ultra, but who are definitely and dogmatically Christian and unitarian not religious pluralists. 
)
Historically the difference seems to be (and still evidently is on this forum) focused on two issues:
1.) What does free will involve (particularly created free will)? If it’s primarily about capabilities, then ultra-u will tend to follow, since sin is then primarily about having immature or crippled abilities or mistaken knowledge, any of which can be healed by God without needing punishment per se (even though the healing may be temporarily unpleasant). If it is primarily about what we choose to do with the capabilities we have (including the capability of choice itself), then purga-u will tend to follow, since someone could have all the advantages and still willfully choose to delude themselves or try something else.
Related to that distinction is the question of how important God regards the human capability of choosing between options without our behaviors being dictated by circumstance. Some ultra-u’s agree this is still very important, and argue that sin involves our behaviors being too dictated by (non-moral, non-rational) circumstances, which God frees us from by growing and healing us. The end result is that once we really are free to choose the good, we will certainly choose the good because we’re perfectly rational and best informed, but we’ll still be doing so freely and indeed as freely as possible. However other ultra-u’s tend to think in terms of free will needing to be curbed, or not really existing at all to begin with (just a question of what is influencing us to behave, God or something else more). Purga-u’s tend to have a strong belief in the importance of human free will, not in the sense of being self-existent but as a factor of true love, but we also (ironically) tend to be proportionately suspicious of free will: a person is also free to sin and to fall, so we have a bit of a different idea of what constitutes trustworthy assurance that a person will no longer do that eventually.
Ultra-u’s tend to be, in other words, more Calvinistic and/or compatiblist about human (and maybe even divine) free will; and purga-u’s tend to be more Arminian and/or libertarian about human (and maybe even divine) free will.
Ultra-u’s and purga-u’s, as might be expected, also tend to have different ideas about rebel angels and the fall of man parallel with their ideas of free will and development. It’s hard to explain how someone in much better position than we currently are morally fell, if ultra-u notions and expectations of free will are true; so if there are rebel angels then in various ways they aren’t much like the traditionally developed notion of highest created spiritual intelligences (they’re maybe only impersonal forces or psychotic projections from real persons or mythical poetic language explanations or at most they might be something like sentient dinosaurs who existed before man and fell due to initial technical limitations – I like that theory a lot by the way ); and there’s a tendency to regard the fall of man as not so much a fall but more of an upward evolutionary struggle from necessarily flawed beginnings (which does have the advantage of synching with a lot of current science of course). Purga-u’s tend to have a more traditional concept of the fall of men and angels, with some kind of special creation (even if also integrated into a population of more evolutionarily developed species), and with much less (or even no real) excuse about the first moral transgressions.
Somewhat oversimplifying it, ultra-u’s tend to think more in terms of moral failure, and purga-u’s tend to think more in terms of moral crimes, although we can each recognize and include something of the other notions in our accounts.
2.) Universalists who also hold to a traditional form of penal substitutionary atonement, tend strongly toward being ultra-u, since logically if the Son has already accepted all the wrath of God and so thereby paid for all sin, there is no reason to expect more wrath of God against other persons. (Except at the fall of Jerusalem maybe. Ultra-u’s of this sort tend to be preterists, too, but preterism is strongly connected to the fall of Jerusalem as a penalty. Ultra-u’s don’t have to be preterists, though, any more than preterists have to be Christian universalists – NT Wright being a famous modern example – and might reject in principle that the fall of Jerusalem has anything to do with God’s wrath even if they also agree it somehow fulfills all future prophecy of God’s wrath. Or apparently so.) Universalists who hold to different concepts of atonement (including different notions of penal penalty being experienced on the cross, e.g. penal solidarity instead of penal substitution) might or might not be ultra-u or purga-u, since the ways of accounting for free will tend to be independent of the question of PSA. But this is still a hugely important issue for many ultra-u’s, too. I have occasionally remarked myself that if I ever came to think PSA was true, I would be even more of a Christian universalist than I am now, i.e. I’d be ultra-u (expecting no wrath of God for anyone except against Christ) instead of purga-u (expecting post-mortem wrath of God in at least some cases).
One may also thus observe that despite my problems with ultra-u, I do tend to regard them as being even more Christian universalistic than I am. Which I generally regard as a compliment.
Im nearly finished reading it, and it’s really quite good, for the most part. The title is a bit misleading, of course. But on the whole, I think he does a good job of defending universalism from a historical/ biblical perspective. I think that in the main, he achieves his stated goal at the beginning of showing that universalism is at least not heretical. He does a good job of defending the final restoration while still taking a strong stance on judgment/ consequences for sin.
Do you know what it is about Hanson’s history that some consider “questionable”?
I found him to overshoot the mark quite a bit in trying to make the evidence come out to his theory (i.e. that universalism was the prevalent belief among Christians for the first five centuries). His book was better than I expected, but still.
Thanks Jason. I Appreciate the feedback.
Have you actually read the book ?
Today the term “Restorationist” denotes 4 or 5 different positions other than any type of universalist.
I am loathe to call myself a “Universalist” since to many (if not most) people, this term refers to what we would call an “Ultra-Universalist.”
Since I believe in the universal reconciliation of all people to God, and that this will require post-mortem correction for many (or perhaps all), I call myself a “Reconciliationist.”
Oooops I never looked at the reply here - thanks for that Jason (great stuff) and thanks Piaidon (yes I’ve seen ‘restorationist’ used differently and that clarifies things for me).
From what I’ve read - from a purely bring historical point of view - Hosea Ballou was the original ultra universalist (and Whittemore was his strong supporter). Yes and Ballou’s doctrine was in line with what he termed ‘Calvinism improved’. The early ultras seems to have stressed that we receive punishment for our sins in this life rather than the world to come. The doctrine declined in the American Universalist Church as this life started to improve with advances in medicine etc… It seems that optimism about the present world could sometimes (but not always) reinforce a belief in punishments in the world to come.
Does anyone know who the notable ultras are today?
Not really, but I suspect Hanson takes inclusivist and unlimited atonement statements made by early theologians and interprets them as affirming universalism. It’s obviously easy to do because people can make countless claims that seem incredibly universalist (like Pope Francis did recently), but simply aren’t. Parry has expressed something to the effect of: Hanson was too generous.
No, Wendy, I haven’t. I have a copy and have thumbed through it. The claim that universalism was the prevalent view of the primitive church (not merely a prevalent view) was just a bit too much for me. I figured I was better off investing time in Ramelli’s stuff.
Hanson also tends to argue along this line:
1.) We know for a demonstrable fact that some ancient Christian universalists practiced a “doctrine of reserve” where they preached as though punishment was hopeless for the sake of people they thought would abuse the truth of full salvation from sin.
2.) Therefore we can never be entirely sure from the surviving records of other Fathers that they weren’t also using a doctrine of reserve.
3.) Some of the Fathers (such as Athanasius) had demonstrably high regard for universalists, and sometimes seemed to write where the logic pointed to universalism, even though (like Athanasius) they expressed explicit teachings in favor of hopeless punishment.
4.) Therefore, we should count those Fathers as Christian universalists OMG SEE UNIVERSALISM WAS ACTUALLY THE PREVALENT BELIEF AMONG CHRISTIAN TEACHERS BACK THEN OMGOMGOMGOMG!!! (Or words to that effect. )
I think someone might have already made a similar comment of what I am about to reply, but just in case. I wanted to comment on the book, I read the entire book and the intent is to provide assurance that Universalism is NOT a heretical theological view. Which is a essential since many in the mainstream world believe it is, the book is filled with information pertaining to views of other respected theologians throughout the history of the church.
Hanson’s book was called Universalism the Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years, and states on the first page of his forewords, “The purpose of this book is to present some of the evidence of the prevalence in the early centuries of the Christian church, of the doctrine of the final holiness of all mankind… [The author] has aimed to present irrefragable proofs that the doctrine of Universal Salvation was the prevalent sentiment of
the primitive Christian church. …] The author believes that the following pages show that Universal Restitution was the faith of the early Christians for at least the First Five Hundred Years of the Christian Era.”
From his conclusion,
“All ecclesiastical historians and the best Biblical
critics and scholars agree to the prevalence of
Universalism in the earlier centuries.”
“From the days of Clement of Alexandria to
those of Gregory of Nyssa and Theodore of Mopsuestia
(A. D. 180-428), the great theologians and
teachers, almost without exception, were Universalists.
No equal number in the same centuries were
comparable to them for learning and goodness.”
“In one word, a careful study of the early history
of the Christian religion, will show that the doctrine
of universal restoration was least prevalent in the
darkest, and prevailed most in the most enlightened,
of the earliest centuries—that it was the prevailing
doctrine in the Primitive Christian Church.”
I gather that his intent is to argue that Christianity was the prevailing doctrine for the first four or five centuries.
Updated to add: Ah, got it, you were referring to Patristic Universalism, not Hanson’s book. Sorry.
HI Jason,
I agree that Hanson promotes the idea Universal Salvation was the prevailing position of the early church. This is questionable since many of writings were burned (in particular Origen writings).
But, I appreciate how Patristic Universalism does not make this claim, but rather makes a good apologetic case that the eventual salvation of ’ all ’ is not heresy but is reasonable. And I would say it is very similar to Thomas Talbott book, ’ The Inescapable love of God’.