The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Piper's "Does God Desire All To Be Saved?"

Evangelical Universalism Arguments against Evangelical Universalism
#21

Lotharson, just to help you out – I also did see your remark “we need to be honest” as an attack on my honesty. The implication was clear that I was not being honest or to put it more bluntly – that I was deliberately being dishonest. That’s just how it came across. I know that’s probably not what you wanted, so you might want to temper that a bit next time.

I probably would have ignored your post since it seemed rude to me, but I think Night Raven gave you a very good answer. I’d like to see your evidence that the language wasn’t hyperbolic. Just because the remarks were consistent with one another isn’t an indication that they were not hyperbolic. What’s more, the historical evidence Raven mentioned (which seems well-attested, and this isn’t the first time I’ve seen it) appears to be in his favor. Even today such hyperbolic language is consistently used in the Middle East. To return to Raven’s analogy, if we consistently say of a football game which we won by a decent margin, “We SLAUGHTERED them!!!” (over and over and from various sources) then does that mean we sent the opposing team and their schoolmates to the mortuary? I believe the Pentateuch is true but I don’t believe it’s purely historical. It’s true in the way of ancient literature of that period, and it’s inspired, but I don’t believe for a moment that Joshua and his band of merry swordsmen slaughtered the people of the promised land from the babe born yesterday to the old man leaning on his cane. It isn’t consistent with God’s character to have commanded such a thing. Besides which, the historical evidence we have doesn’t support it.

#22

JohnnyParker,

Wow!  I didn't know that the book was free either!  (thanks for the info jonny95).  Though, some consolation for you, I think I paid more 4 it, like $7-8 for an e-book (is that more than 3 pounds?).  
Clearly, Piper's arguments would have been better if had they considered universalism as well.  I bought the book thinking it was a critique of universalism, since Piper was pretty adamant that Rob Bell has become a heretic or whatever.    I don't understand why more conservative theologians/exegetes, who are very intelligent imo, don't even give universalism its day in court.  For instance, William Lane Craig, who I think is more erudite than Piper, has perhaps given philo reasons against universalism, but almost completely dismisses it scripturally just with 1 Thess and the Matt sheep and goats.    
I don't know if I would see the distinction b/w God's permitting and causing evil as getting God off the hook.  Take "Calvinistic" or deterministic universalism; if we have no free will, then, while there isn't a eternal Hell, you still have to construct a theodicy, or at a least defense, for the POE re thisworldly evil.  And, as I've argued on other posts, this is more problematic on the assumption of universalism, b/c there is seemingly no motive for God to allow this evil.  Granted, I think God's omnipotence could, as Paul stated that 'all present suffering will not matter one whit in the expanse of eternity', sort of retroactively transform our current suffering, but tell that right now to finite creatures who have to experience it :smiley:
Hmm... I don't know if being a Reformed theologian (i.e. tauting *sola Scriptura*) automatically makes one an inerrantist, though perhaps Piper is.  The biggest modern champion I know of Biblical inerrancy today is Norman Geisler, and I don't think he is quite Reformed - in fact, I think he holds to Amyraldism or "hypothetical universalism", which is a very interesting view if ur familiar with it.  I think Biblical inerrancy and Piper's argument that we shouldn't be tempted to let our theology smooth scriptural tensions (tho, ironically, Piper's Calvinism in fact does this :smiley: ) are different things.**
#23

Cindy,

I think your Labyrinth worm is a wise worm. :smiley: I like Sam the Eagle from the Muppet Show and hope that the new Muppet movie has him in it somewhere. Would you concede, though you are convinced that universalism is T, that a few scriptural verses have to be blunted to make it totally persuasive, or do you think that there is absolutely no scripture that causes tension with it? As I’ve admitted, I am sometimes tempted to Deism (specifically, Paine’s “theophilanthropy” if “Deism” just means watchmaker God as Jason pointed out to me - personal God, we follow our conscience to the best of our ability, and trust that God will be fair in the afterlife) since the Word causes all these theological disputes. I don’t think God could blame people for that. I don’t really want to lose Christ in the bargain, but, if on the chance I am wrong and Christ promotes Calvinism, then perhaps I am not losing that much.

Did you ever contemplate deism or were cynical or revealed religion given the Cal, Arm, Univ arguing? How did you get to the point where you think that Cal, Arm and Univ. verses can stand side-by-side (and yet univ. is persuasively T)?

#24

Ok, I read Piper’s essay.

  1. First of all, he’s pretty condenscending when he says that “we all have different gifts, and not everyone is called to this kind of intellectual climb. I don’t mean that the non-climbers [read stupid] will see less glory or worship with less passion. There are glory in the valleys [read stupid places]. And there are paths into beautifies of God that are less intellectual.”

In other words, if you don’t understand what Piper says, it’s only means you are less intelligent than him. But hey, you can still worship God in your stupidity.

But then that is another point of dispute. He’s calling this work as an act of worship, as if he is Abraham or Moses who has climbed this mountain [of Calvinism, I suppose] enough to be familiar with it to help guide the readers, the intelligent one’s at least. “Nevertheless, some of us are wired for this climb.” Or perhaps predestined for this climb.

Ah, but the climb isn’t about intellectual satisfaction, so Piper would have us believe. It is about worship. Of course, it is. “God gets more honor when we worship on the basis of what we know about him than he gets if we worship on the basis of what we don’t know.” Apparently, JP forgot the scripture where it says, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?”

God isn’t worshipped on the basis of our intellectual knowledge of Him, but by how much we are devoted to Him in our hearts and in our obedience to Him.

  1. On world missions. JP seems to think that what we learn about God here in this essay will affect how we evangelize the world, stating, “If we are confused about God’s election and God’s universal invitation to salvation, we will not love the world as we ought.” So I guess we cannot love the world properly if we don’t hold to this Calvinist doctrine?

  2. His aim is “to show from Scripture that the simultaneous existence of God’s will for all people to be saved and his will to choose some people for salvation unconditionally before creation is not a sign of divine schizophrenia or exegetical confusion.” Unfortunately, his efforts to explain fall flat on several levels.

The problem lies in his approach to try and accomplish this. He admits that he is driven by the texts, and not logic. In other words, this is an execise in prooftexting, rather than deductive logic, because his case “is inescapable in the Scriptures.” Well, there you have it. We can’t escape the idea of the two wills of God. Piper is careful to repeatedly refer a quote from an Arminian source, I. Howard Marshall, in connection to I Tim. 2:4, "We must certainly distinguish between what God would like to see happen and what he actually does will to happen, and both of these things can be spoken of as God’s will."

But this is not the same as saying there are two wills of God. The instances he uses to support this only shows what God can do to accomplish His original intended will despite man’s efforts to the contrary. In the case of the death of Christ, God foreordained Christ to died on the cross BECAUSE GOD KNOWS THE HEART OF MAN. God is the Master Psychologist. He knew exactly how Judas and the Pharisees would respond to Jesus long before they even started plotting.

Sometimes, it seems that something happens in the course of events in Scripture that thwarts God’s original intentions. For instance, when Judah commanded Onan his son to go into his dead brother’s wife Tamar and conceive a child, Onan let his seed spill, and God ended up slaying him. So how would the seed of Abraham continue in Judah’s house? Well, to make a long story short, Judah ended up knocking up Tamar. Was it done in sin and deceit? Yes, but that’s not God’s fault. Yet somehow the Promise Seed was kept in the house of Judah. God’s original will was accomplished regardless. You see that replete all through scripture. But that doesn’t mean God has two wills. He just know how to manipulate people get His will to come to pass.

  1. About Pharoah’s hardening heart. God already knew Pharoah’s heart. He even said so before Moses went up to Egypt. Exodus 3:19, God speaking, “And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand.” This is not telling us that God has already hardened his heart, but that Pharoah is already predisposed of his own will to resist Moses. Then in verse 20, He says, “And I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go.” This all is the Lord’s will.

God doesn’t tell Moses he will hardened Pharoah heart until Exodus 4:21, but that is only after Moses complains that Pharoah won’t believe him and asks for signs and wonders to be done. Pharaoh’s heart was already hard. And the reason God hardens it further is not because He has some vindictive hatred for Pharoah, though He is displeased in Pharoah’s treatment of His people, but that the Exodus will be all the more glorious *in the eyes *of the Egyptians and the Israelites. It will bring glory to God while accomplishing His original will. It speaks nothing about Pharoah’s eternal destiny one way or another.

Does God desire all to be saved? It doesn’t seem so apparently. But if God’s “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” This tells me He’s not finished yet. Maybe He needs to send a few more plagues until they do.

#25

Hi, Myshkin

Last first – I’ve been told I’m something of a deist because I lean toward believing that God set the universe on a course and then more or less stood back and watched – up to a point. I think He probably gave it a nudge here and there as needed, but mostly let things work themselves out, knowing that sooner or later we’d come along; a species sufficiently advanced mentally and physically to be capable of sustaining consciousness. At that point, I think we can pick up the Garden of Eden story as an appropriate myth to explain our “awakening.” For me this explains the POE better than any other thought system I’ve encountered. It has the added bonus of being compatible with contemporary scientific thought (whether that means anything much or not, I don’t know. :wink: )

I’m not sure what “revealed religion” means though. And I’m not sure why the Calv/Arm/Kath arguing would point to deism? As to why I think that Kath is more convincing than Calv or Arm – or how I got to that point – it seems to me that Kath reconciles the three while doing no violence to scripture. The Calvs have to twist and distort God’s love for the world, and the Arms have to discount His omnipotence and His mightiness to save. Kaths have only to accept the positive assertions of both, and in addition to illuminate the scriptural precept (which we have largely lost) that God’s judgment as portrayed in the 1st and 2nd Testaments appears always to aim for regeneration. You might not get that idea from reading a single chapter or from an entire book – but if you tie it all together, you’ll find that even Sodom and Egypt and Edom and Lebanon are eventually drawn into the fold. Babylon itself, under Cyrus, becomes an instrument of grace to God’s people. It will be better for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for Capernaum and Bethsaida according to Jesus (which intimates there are degrees of punishment, which requires that some punishments at least are not infinite).

In addition, Kaths must demonstrate that death is not the deadline for repentance. Scripturally and logically and theologically this is not a problem. The only problem is with people’s visceral reaction to a challenge against a doctrine they’ve been taught and have held from early childhood, and their fear of letting it go, lest they lose their place in the Kingdom. That in itself is unscriptural. We’re save by grace through faith, which is not of ourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. If we can’t save ourselves in any way, how can we insist that we endanger our salvation by a possible mistake in doctrine? But people are afraid, so they don’t hear that far.

Last first: I can’t think of any verses I’d need to “blunt,” as you so descriptively put it. :wink: It’s certainly possible there are some, but which ones did you have in mind?

Love, Cindy

#26

To be fair, I don’t disagree with Piper on that point. God wants us to worship him in Spirit and in Truth and for that to happen, we have to know why we’re worshiping him. The reason I personally get interested in any type of theological debate is because I want to gain a better understanding of who God is so I can worship him more. The bit where Jesus uses that verse in Matthew that you quoted is where the children were praising him in the temple - the reason why they were praising him was because they saw him healing people and knew that this was the ‘Son of David’. They didn’t worship him based on something they didn’t know. It was an overflow of praise out of realising who Jesus was.

I still haven’t got round to finishing reading this essay but it’s utterly grim what I have read. I’ve only recently come across this idea of God having two wills and so I’m not claiming to be anything other than amateur with my thoughts on this but is it not obvious that God having something that he WANTS to happen (for example, nobody to sin or go against him) and on the other hand WILLING something else to happen (people sinning and going against him) are just completely contradictory and stupid notions? Piper seems to me to be promoting a logical fallacy. Of course God will allow things to happen or even sometimes carry out things himself that he would not ideally want to occur but that’s only to get to a point where he eventually gets everything he wants - all his creation to be in loving fellowship with him. If he doesn’t get to that point of what he ‘wants’, then either he never wanted it in the first place or he failed to be able to carry it out. His will cannot be about electing some people to eternal hell without a way out and not only that, but willingly causing a person to carry out something sinful just so he gets to punish them - that’s a ridiculous slant on who God is.

The worst part of it is not that it’s illogical (at least to me) but that he manages to make it look like God views humans purely as objects for him to create stories with for his own enjoyment, without the slightest bit of care for them. And that he’s allowed to do that because he’s God.

I have no idea how that justifies God being able to do anything he wants. In Piper’s head, even subconsciously, he appears to think that God can do anything, not because he is perfect in his love for all that he has created and that he knows what’s best, but basically because he has the power to carry it out. If he’s created us, then he can do what he likes with us. That’s such poor thinking, it’s unreal. Just because you created something doesn’t mean you have no obligation or responsibility for that creation. Piper seems to think that God is allowed to do anything he wants and still be worthy of praise, which isn’t true at all. That would be like saying a President or Prime Minister can carry out mass homicide just because they have the power to have it carried out. Power is not a reason to be above moral scrutiny for your actions to your subordinates, nor does creating any kind of being (and especially a being which cannot function properly without you) allow moral freedom for you to do what you want with it either.

#27

Hi Jonny95

Great post mate. You cut straight to the chase of the absurdity of Calvinism. And you’re right, Piper does indeed think God has no moral obligation to his precious children, made in his image let us remember. Says he:

“I am not ignorant that God may not have chosen my sons for his sons. And, though I think I would give my life for their salvation, if they should be lost to me I should not rail against the Almighty. He is God. I am but a man. The potter has absolute rights over the clay. Mine is to bow before his unimpeachable character and believe that the Judge of the earth has ever and always will do right.” (my emphasis)

Think about that statement for a moment. Piper only thinks he would give his life to save his children from eternal damnation. Wow, you’re all heart, John! Most parents I know would give their lives to save their children from physical death. Piper only thinks he would give his life to save his children from eternal death. (Note he doesn’t even contemplate giving up his own salvation for the sake of his kids - unlike the apostle Paul.)

That sort of self-serving callousness lies at the very heart of Calvinism. I’ve said it before, and I’ll go on saying it until I’m blue in the face, it is impossible to be a committed Calvinist without either cauterising one’s natural feelings of empathy - of love - for one’s fellow human beings, including beloved family members - and hence flying in the face of Jesus’ command that we should love each other as he loves us - or taking leave of one’s senses. I suspect Piper is in the former camp, although I do wonder …

Cheers

Johnny

#28

Hi Prince

Two quick points in response to your post:

  1. As an Arminian Universalist, I believe ‘free will’ is essential to any meaningful theodicy. As I have argued elsewhere, I believe that the so called problem of evil is an intrinsic corollary of a truly free creation.

  2. Piper is certainly an inerrantist. Check out his desiringGod blog for proof - desiringgod.org/articles/2-b … -inerrancy

Cheers

Johnny

#29

One final observation from me and then I’m done with this thread. Thinking about Calvinism, and predestination to reprobation, depresses the hell out of me :frowning: :

Under the heading ‘Christ Invites Everyone to Come - So Should We’, Piper ends his book by affirming the “universal offer of the love of God and the salvation of Christ to everyone in the world”, saying that “we now offer [Jesus] and all that he has achieved for his elect to everyone on earth”.

We now offer Jesus and all that he has achieved for his elect to everyone on earth.

There you have it, spelt out in plain English - the cruel cosmic practical joke that is Calvinism. God ‘offers’ salvation and eternal bliss to everyone, but only the elect can accept the offer. The reprobate cannot accept it, even if they want to - although of course, according to Calvinist dogma, the reprobate would never want to anyway. That, so Piper would have us believe, is the sense in which God desires all people to be saved. Huh!

Night all.

Johnny

#30

I like Raven of the night :wink: , and thank you also for the gentle and courteous reply. But my suggestion was not the fact that the narrative clearly speaks of total destruction (it does) nor should we on a plain reading (who are outside that near Eastern culture with it’s tribal roots) should not find that abhorrent. But my suggestion was rather, how would this book have been heard by the Jewish audience in exhillic and post-exhillic times (and whatever oral tradition or traditions lay behind it through the long years of development to the text we have), on one level would they have heard the story in the same manner as some other ancient cultures sometimes described their conquests in similar term but we are fairly certain that such total destruction took place, and see the account being hyperbolic in it’s very nature. The presence of some Canaanite people and cities that are recounted as having been wiped out in the Judges narrative might have lead possibly to Israel to understanding the narrative in this way, it would have some consistency with other surrounding cultures. But I guess that is the wider purpose of my suggestion, of letting first off the document be what it is in it’s own setting, and seeing how was it heard and understood by the ancient Jewish people (and possibly the oral story that lay behind it during it’s transmission, though that is more difficult to really get with much confidence in most respects), was it used to legitimize holy war to destroy their neighbours and create an empire? This seems doubtful with what we know of the kingdom of Judah, it doesn’t seem to have been an imperial power player in the near East (assuming the story as we have it was in a recognizable form back then) and after their conquest by Babylon under the domination of various pagan powers I don’t think it was the case either (unless it possibly played a role during the Maccabean revolt, I don’t think so for the what I do know of it, but I freely admit I still much reading to do on that major event in Jewish history on those events :wink: ). This might at least suggest that the story wasn’t taken in that way, and perhaps wasn’t to be read as a actual account of conquest (still less of God authorizing it) but rather a possibly has been put forward which suggests that the depiction of conquest was used as a narrative setting to convey a message about who was a member of God’s people and who wasn’t (in which the contrasting fates of Rahab whose faithfulness to the God of Israel marks her out as part of or joins with God’s people, despite being a Canaanite and a prostitute, while Achan and his family, despite being Israelites, due their faithlessness prove themselves to really be Canannites and suffer their fate). In this it also serves as a echo of the developed Torah itself, and the other narratives being brought into their fuller development.

The above idea has some purchase with me as it would help during the post-exhillic period (not least the Maccabean period) would help Israel with a narrative that they must not compromise with or bow to pagan oppressors, and be traitors to Israel. It would also link with the rise through and beyond the Maccabean period (into and beyond the NT period itself) the drive of having ‘zeal for the law/Torah’, of seeing the only answer to the crisis Israel faced was to follow in the examples of Joshua narrative of keeping separate and strongly maintaining the badge of their position as God’s people, standing in covenant with Him. And in the face of extreme occupation leading to some taking these ideas in more radical and violent directions, taking as their examples Elijah (with the Baal priests), Phinenas (and possibly narrative message of Joshua, if the above was it’s message in a harsher line) and of the Maccabees themselves. This was particularly the case in the Shammaite school of Pharisees (which while not exactly part of the Zealot movement - since I don’t think things were so formalized at that time- they had definite sympathies with them) of using violence against other Jews who would have been seen as compromising with the Greeks, Syrians or Romans, and who were maintaining the proper badges that defined Jews as Jews (which also illuminates somewhat circumcision debates in the NT, and not least the pre-conversion Paul’s problem with Christians), so that Israel would show and remain firmly God’s people and He would deliver them and defeat their pagan oppressors bring in His Kingdom. Of course the Hillelites wing was more moderate and did not advocate such violent zeal, but it had similar concerns of Jews remaining Jews and keeping faithful and retaining the works that marked them as Abraham’s family.

Anyway, given those concerns this gives me some reason to think this suggestion is closer to who this story was being heard and understood, rather then specifically as a text advocating war, and given that possibility would underline though we are right to express our anger at the idea of the heinous evil of genocide (and even more so the idea of God demanding it) the importance of working with care and diligence to understand how this text was heard by it’s earliest audiences, and what it’s purpose might actually be. And then seeing how that message then works with the whole narrative of Scripture as a whole and so on.

(a long post, so I hope my dyslexia doesn’t cause to may troubles in reading it, and thank you again for your gracious response :slight_smile: ).

Oh as to Piper, well I’m not a greatest fan of Calvinistic doctrine, not least they view that love is not an essential description of God’s nature but just one aspect that flows from Him to certain people (assuming I have understood that part of Calvin that I read aright), I find that highly offensive to God and of the central Christian revelation that God is love as a fundamental aspect of Who He is. As such, I’m not sure I can talk about those aspects to much in kind terms (which wouldn’t be very fair or loving to my Calvinist brothers and sisters :wink: ) so I shan’t say much more, and own’t hijack this thread anymore :slight_smile:.

Edit and P.S. (have edited above little for clarity since I returned to add this message) I forgot to thank people for their kind posts, I was intending to thank you for them, but after finishing this post and thinking about the anti-slavery thread I was going to post it slipped my mind, so I apologize and thank you again for you understanding and kind posts, I very much appreciated them :slight_smile:

#31

Cindy: I am sorry if I offended you in any way.

Such was not my intention at all.

But I do feel that (in general) many Evangelicals are not trying to really discover what the Bible says because they want to avoid the conclusion that some passages are truly odious.

By “honesty”, I did not mean that these folks CONSCIOUSLY and willingly distort the text but that they resort to extremely unlikely interpretations to salvage the text** at a subconscious level.**

I am advocating to first use the normal historical method to interpret a Biblical text before discovering its meaning and deciding if it is compatible with God’s perfection.

Most Evangelicals I know (but not necessarily you) assumes from the start that the text is inerrant and has to be compatible with God’s goodness, even if it means resorting to extremely unlikely interpretations.

Let us consider the psalmist praying for the violent death of the **children **of his foes or Mose ordering soldiers to kill an entire folk except the virgin girls they would keep for themselves as booty.

The most plausible interpretation of these texts is that the writers got God wrong.

I really think that people believing in universal salvation must recognize the presence of errors in the Bible in order to be consistent.
Actually I believe that everyone (Calvinists, Arminians, Univeralists, Pelagians…) must also recognize the presence of conflicting voices within Scripture, however painful this realization might be in the beginning.

P.S: Have I been offensive? If so, how could express the same ideas without uselessly hurting anyone?
I would sincerely appreciate your help.

Lovely greetings.

#32

Nope, that was fine. :slight_smile:

I agree that the bit about killing everyone but keeping the virgin girls as booty is not God’s will for the people. My take on this though is that this is a history of the people. They have varying degrees of understanding as to what God really told their ancestors to do. Nobody, even inerrantists (with the possible exception of sociopaths) takes these things as prescriptive. Many people have the added burden of thinking every word of scripture is “God breathed,” and that makes passages like this, which they (let’s face it) KNOW God didn’t ordain, or at least in the way the text seems to say, difficult for them to reconcile. But that’s not my take on the scriptures. I think it’s an authentic history written in the fashion of the historical accounts of that era. It’s useful for us so long as we know what it is, and so long as we can distill it down to his symbolic meaning. It’s certainly not, in its bare-faced surface reading, an example for us to follow.

As for the Psalm you reference, yeah that’s a problem for a lot of people. Silly really, since it is not presented as God’s sentiments at all, but the sentiments of a person who had just witnessed this sort of behavior in enemy soldiers against his own people and maybe even against his very own little ones.

There are quite a lot of passages from Job, spoken by Job’s “FRIENDS,” which I’ve heard preached from the pulpit as the “word of God” when it was in fact meant as a horribly bad example of what we should NEVER say to a friend going through catastrophic tragedy in his or her life. Yet it gets preached as though it were the pure words of God like silver refined in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

That said, I do try to take the Bible seriously. If there’s something there I find troubling, I want to know why that’s there. I don’t automatically assume that it’s straw in the manger, but I search to see if I’m not understanding it correctly (as is often the case). What I assume until such a time as I can do no better, is that there’s some cultural thing I’m missing, some figure of speech I couldn’t know about, some reason for that goofy law that would have been understood by the hearers of that day, or even some mistranslation of the text that’s making it look so unacceptable to me. There are a few passages I hold in abeyance in hope of future understanding, but I’ve FOUND that understanding regarding so many of the more difficult passages that I’m hesitant to toss out the puzzle just because I can’t yet solve it.

I know that you’re keen that others should see the conditional immortality that you see in scripture, and I do understand WHY you see it. I was a conditionalist for about a year before I moved clear over to the “dark side” with the universalists. :wink: I wouldn’t have moved if I hadn’t seen what seems to me very, very good reason to do so. That said, I do respect your position. Many very astute theologians do hold that. I just don’t believe it myself. I don’t find the arguments for it compelling enough – then or now. But as for you, you should believe whatever the Holy Spirit enables you to believe and if CI is where you’re at, that’s where you should be unless/until God moves you somewhere else.

#33

Also, assuming he WOULD give his life for his sons’ salvation, it’s quite worrying that he doesn’t realise that he’s actually claiming a higher level of love than God - HE would die for the salvation of his sons but it’s possible God wouldn’t. No better way to subtly make a slant on God than to effectively claim that you’re more loving than him.

We’re in a little bit of trouble if God is less loving than John Piper.

#34

edit

#35

:astonished: . Good stuff.

#36

Sobornost,

Well, certainly we shouldn’t be reading John Piper 3 hrs a day, even if we agree with him, but I think to avoid the works/ideas of those with whom we disagree will lead to shortsightedness and dogmatism. Now, I take it that you are an “evangelical” universalist; that is, you hold to universalism as well as the divinity of Christ, the authority of Scripture, classical attrib. of God, etc. Well, as you probably appreciate, more people are turning to pluralism and universalism w/o Christ than w/ Him. Then, at the end of the day, you might want to read your John Pipers occasionally, for writers like Piper are still affirming the evangelical part of the belief set that many others are questioning, though I think it is wise to read as much as the literature one can, for and against. However, I sympathize with JohnnyP and not wanting to wallow in those ideas, such as Piper’s idea that God reprobates while still seemingly giving false hope through evangelism that the Reprobate can be Elect. Still, even if just to confirm to oneself that a view is wrong, it is worthwhile to examine ideas with which we disagree (or think we disagree with).

Cindy,

By deism, I mean knowing God through rationality, conscience and the heart. My quandary is that if I accept Talbott’s triad - I seem to be led not necessarily to universalism (though I think it is a great defense against universalism necessarily being heretical as many Cals and Arms believe) but to soteriological agnosticism. I do not know if I need to provide a verse or verses that need to be dealt with, as that might be tedious, though perhaps you have a universalist defense of every verse that seems counter to it :smiley:. If I read the “alls” really as “all”, and limit the meaning of “aion” to a finite duration (except for aionion Heaven of course :smiley: ) and such things, I think there are less verses contra universalism. (But again my knowledge of such things is to due to study, how can the avg person have the time to know what all these Gk words “really” mean? ) But there are still some puzzling passages. For instance, if we take all the verses that affirm human freedom in salvation (Arm), then it seems it is at least theoretically possible to damn oneself for all eternity, even if there is no deadline for salvation. Also, if the Bible 100% unconditionally affirms universalism, then it is strange that more evangelicals who are questioning the scriptural validity of eternal Hell think annihilationism is T instead of universalism (such as lotharson). Now, you may be right (I think u said this) that annihilationism might seem less heretical to evangelicals than universalism, and is more readily embraced for that reason. As Bell and others have put it, universalism is sort of the “Last Reformation”, being that we are in that Reformation period, many traditionalists still hold out to some kind of permanent punishment out of tradition as much as anything. But there are verses in which aion is linked with destruction, not just punishment, making annihilationism seem plausible, for destruction means finality regardless of how one construes aion. (although some construe the destruction verses to mean a kind of purging of sin as opposed to destruction of persons).

Have you asked: why did God allow to the Bible to be so confusing, as to mislead so many to Cal or Arm? For I think this is a valid question. Even if you have addressed every verse that appears to invalidate universalism, there are millions of people who will be mislead into thinking that the Bible affirms Cal, Arm or Annihil.(for sake of arg, I am assuming that univ is T). So, by “tempted to deism”, I mean discarding the Bible and revealed religion b/c of the uncertainty that surrounds it, but not embracing atheism, but just sticking with things that can be known through reason and conscience. Not that these are absolute guarantors of certainty either, but at least one in that case is only subject to self-deception as opposed to myring through Gk, opposing and even sometimes duplicitous theological opinions, 3000 pages of texts, etc. Again, I am very loathe to give up Christ, but if Christ turned out to affirm Cal, then I might not be losing as much as I though in turning to something like Paine’s Theophilanthropy.

#37

Myshkin, I think you’re a good deal more widely-read than I am, so some of the things you talk about are somewhat opaque to me. :blush: For some reason I can’t seem to train myself to read with any degree of speed and still comprehend what I read. I guess a man’s got to know his limitations (or hers in my case). :wink:

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the scriptures seem to me to be taken by many as some sort of fourth member of the Godhead (making it a “quatrity”?) The way Paul and the other apostles (and Jesus for that matter) interpreted the “writings” would drive any modern rationalist exegete crazy.

My interpretation method goes something like this (theoretically): I read, copy down word for word, write out my paraphrase, then ask myself the 5 W’s + an H, Then, what does this tell me about God?; what does it tell me about people?; what does it tell me about our relationship with God?; about our relationship with other people? Is there a Sin to avoid?, a Promise or a Prayer or a Praise? an Example to follow? a Commandment to obey?, some Knowledge of God to treasure? (S.P.E.C.K.)

The thing is, that’s not enough to satisfy me. The Holy Spirit breaks into this study and I welcome that “interruption.” Father gives me new insights into His word that could never have come from a mere mundane study of it. Yes the study is vital and without it, I very much doubt I could gain the depths of the Spirit. But without the Spirit, the study would mean less than nothing; it would only deceive me into thinking I know far more than I do know, and cause me to trust in that knowledge instead of trusting in my Father. Both the rational and the mystical are vital to us – or at any rate, vital to me.

The opacity of the scriptures to those who believe they should be studied for the “letter” doesn’t trouble me. The thing that troubles me is that people so foolishly do precisely what the Pharisees did – and of course, the fact that I and you are in danger of doing the same, because that kind of “study” is natural to us. It’s important to me that the revelations I believe I receive from Father do not contradict or go in a different direction from the whole witness of scripture, so I study hard. I do believe that we the church need leaders (a thing I wasn’t so sure of not long ago) because many people do not or cannot take the time to study as I’m privileged to do. I depend heavily on the scholars who open up the Greek and Hebrew to me and provide me with what information is available concerning cultures and histories and the beliefs of the early/mid/late servants of the church. We do need these leader-scholars, or at the least, we benefit greatly from their work. Ultimately though, it is the Spirit who gives life. If anyone is of the Spirit of Christ, he will have the life and the mind of Christ, whether or not he has complete understanding of the written word (as none of us do).

I’m afraid I’ve gone off on somewhat of a tangent. :blush: And I’m not sure whether I’ve actually addressed your question – still I hope this helps you to understand my position. :slight_smile:

Love, Cindy

#38

Oh yes . . . the destruction thing . . . that’s usually “appolonius” (hope I said/spelled that right). It’s also used of the lost sheep of the house of Israel whom the Lord came to seek and save, the lost sheep the Good Shepherd seeks until He finds it, the lost son who finally returns and is received by the Father, and in many other places where we wouldn’t naturally be able to read it as utter irrevocable destruction. Now maybe our translators had very good linguistic reasons for rendering it “lost” rather than “destroyed” or “destroyed” rather than “lost” where they did this, or maybe they were informed by their soteriologies. I don’t know, but maybe [tag]Jason Pratt[/tag] or [tag]Paidion[/tag] would be willing/able to give us some light on that? I’d appreciate that for myself. I think they’ve spoken of this before but I can’t remember what they said or where to find it.

#39

Well, thanks for the compliment, although my erudition is certainly function of wikipedia as well :smiley:

i definitely believe the HS is crucial; however, what do you say to the Cal who is equally convinced that HS is leading them? I concentrate on the texts (or consider deism some days) b/c apparently the HS endorses every theology :smiley:

#40

This is interesting actually…didn’t God actually do just this: give His life for His evil children!!! what else could we be before His grace but reprobate sinners by even this form of theology?