Chris Date, and Nick and Allison Quient, from Rethinking Hell (anni site), team up to respond to Dr. Parry’s plenary speech at the 2015 Rethinking Hell conference.
rethinkinghell.com/2015/09/episo … rry-part-1
I’ll post Ep 77 next week (or whenever their release schedule is.)
Saw this on Twitter earlier today and listened to it when you posted it.
I’m trying to engage more with arguments against universalism at the moment so ended up making loads of notes on it. I might add some more thoughts later…
My basic response to part 1:
They totally didn’t understand Parry’s pressure-cork analogy - it was nothing to do with ‘feeling’ pressure as Nick Quient seemed to think (who I suspect felt pressure when he was a universalist because of a perceived lack of exegetical evidence) but more to do with theological propositions and what they add up to i.e. if God wants and intends for all to be saved and He works towards saving them then how does He not end up saving all? It’s in that context that Parry makes the remark about how people deal with this e.g. by speculating or arguing that God doesn’t intend to save all and that He intends some to be damned. Universalists can take one of the pieces out (i.e. the idea that not all will be saved) and low and behold the cork is released - God wants all to be saved, acts for all to be saved and achieves the salvation of all.
I’m not sure they particularly grasped Parry’s point about the relationship between exegesis and theological narrative either. I don’t think he diminished the importance of exegesis in that clip at all to be honest. I think he was just pointing out that you can’t just point at a few texts and go “there, my point is proved” when frankly anybody can do that. Of course exegesis is extremely important but I don’t think you can separate individual exegesis of texts from the grand theological narrative in mind, and vice versa, especially when a number of the texts could go one way or the other depending on the narrative of scripture and the theological implications.
Allison Quient’s point about Parry making a distinction between the fire purifying and destroying didn’t make much sense to me, especially as she herself agreed that the fire is intended to purify. The problem is that if the fire is intended to purify all people then, under annihilationism, either there is a result God has not intended (just…no 
) or He did intend to destroy some people (and not purify them).
I didn’t agree with NQ’s argument leaning on Colossians 1:23 - it’s no argument against universalism that the reconciliation is conditional on human response, even if it’s clearly stated after the seemingly accomplished fact of reconciliation. We can’t keep our reconcililation without persevering but if God regards it as having been completed and accomplished (especially if it relates to the idea of the kingdom being now and not yet, which I think it probably is) then it’s going to get done. This is backed up when we bear in mind that this reconciliation is clearly implied to be from sin (verse 21 and 22). I’m not entirely sure how you can argue all things will be reconciled (expressly from alienation, hostility and evil deeds) and yet argue that even one person won’t be saved.
AQ’s response as to how annihilationism makes sense in regards to all things being reconciled was truly bizarre and absolutely did not answer the question in any way. NQ’s followup made a little more sense until he started arguing that part of reconciliation has already happened in that “God has been reconciled to you” (for someone seemingly so committed to exegesis, I’d love to know where the hell he got that idea from. That’s on top of the fact that Colossians 1 is very obviously talking about God reconciling us to Himself not, in any way, the other way round.)
AQ completely divorced God’s responsibility from ours when she tried to refute this idea of annihilationism making God an iconoclast - yes we destroy ourselves by rebelling against God but that in no way absolves God of responsibility for destroying the existence of rebels, whether or not it’s an active destruction or simply a passive withdrawal of existence - under annihilationism, God is still very much an iconoclast. The only way round that is if you suggest that God has no choice in our existence coming to an end and no power to do anything else, at which point I would start arguing that you didn’t really believe in God. 
Chris Date responds differently, suggesting that Parry’s argument that God wouldn’t use capital punishment on us and act as an iconoclast is refuted in the the story of the Flood or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. I think Parry’s point though is that this can’t be the end result or intention and AQ pointed out that Parry might respond by saying that all those people destroyed in those events will be raised again at the general resurrection, which I think is a legitimate argument.
AQ makes the point that God often gives people what they want even if it’s bad for them but that’s utterly irrelevant considering we all agree that God also gives people what they don’t want because it is good for them.
The funniest part of all was when NQ pointed to Paul asking the Church at Corinth to remove the guy who had been sleeping with his step-mum, as if this was a) in any way an argument against universalism, and b) ignoring the fact that the punishment is unbelievably explicit about the purpose being the salvation of that same man (1 Corinthians 5:5).
Ok, that wasn’t really a basic response was it? 
I’m listening to Robin’s brilliant talk now
My thought exactly. Part two had me thinking that as well.
Agreed again. I first heard that and thought, surely he knows the conclusion to this doesn’t help his ‘point’—cognitive dissonance 
“Unbelievably” explicit indeed!