Hi all, 
Robin Parry did a podcast with Randal Rauser on Universal Salvation which he posted on his (Randal’s) blog a couple days ago.randalrauser.com/2014/03/robin-parry-on-universal-salvation/ Give it a listen! 
Is Robin rabble rousing again?
…i’ll get my coat.
I enjoyed it 
That’s a good response, but it still doesn’t answer the problem that allowing people to simply be no more is a form of God giving up, God admitting defeat at the hands of His creation. God allowing death (the last enemy to be defeated) to have a partial victory, of God Himself not triumphing totally by allowing death some victory in the end.
Well I believe that death will be no more in the New Creation but not in this one.
If God (the ground of all being) wants people to FREELY develop a character desiring Him and some of them refuse, it would not be a defeat at all to accept their choice.
It wouldn’t be a defeat if God still had things He could do to lead them to freely develop a character desiring Him; but it would be totally contradictive to God’s intentions to act to ensure they could never develop a character desiring Him.
You do realize that if God annihilates a person, God is thus the one agreeing with and ensuring they never freely develop a character desiring Him, and in fact God is the one authoritatively and permanently destroying the freedom that He granted them in the first place, right?
You can’t emphasize “FREELY” in one breath, and then posit God utterly and thoroughly and permanently destroying the FREEDOM you’re emphatically trying to base your theory on – before you even take another breath! – without radically undermining the whole ground of your theory.
God does not and cannot possibly respect freedom by destroying a person’s freedom so completely they cease to exist as a person at all.
I can kind of understand ECT proponents trying to take that line, because at least the persons still exist, though without the freedom to repent and develop a character desiring Him, taken away by God or unable to be protected by God from Whom alone they derive their freedom – so they still have serious contradictory problems! But at least the persons still exist for ECT proponents to have highly confused notions about whether God is somehow respecting their freedom as sinners. Annihilation, by contrast, totally and permanently removes the person, and so also the person’s freedom in each and every regard, from existence altogether!
I cannot for the life of me understand why conditionalists, of all people, would appeal to a respect for personal freedom to defend a doctrine of the maximum possible destruction of freedom. It’s like annihilationists routinely have no idea what annihilation means. Even some Calv annis of my acquaintance talk that way! – and of all annihilationists, they ought to be the ones most likely to remember that annihilation means the authoritative destruction of the person (because their soteriology includes the non-elect starting off with no possible freedom, and by God’s choice never any possible freedom, to develop a character desiring God. Annihilation of the person is only one step beyond that along the same line of non-respect and non-regard for the never-granted freedom of some creatures.)
Moreover, God didn’t accept your choice to refuse righteousness. The only reason you’re saved from sin at all is because God continues allowing you your freedom while utterly rejecting some of what you do with your freedom.
I enjoyed the podcast. It always amazes me that people think UR will somehow minimize evangelism; when the reality is that Infernalism terribly hinders evangelism. Who likes to be the bearer of “Bad News”. And no matter how you package it, “You’re going to Hell unless you…” is BAD NEWS. Also, kind hearted people are reticent to being judgmental, declaring others to be going to Hell is judgmental. I mean, “God loves you so much that He sent His son to die for you, but if you don’t have faith in Him then he’s going to burn you in Hell” is just not Good News. It’s bad news, the worst of all news.
I’ve found that UR has actually motivated me to be more evangelistic because I can say with assurance that “God loves you” and that God will never give up on you. If He has to chase you to Hell, He’ll ultimately save you. Love does not fail and God loves you. Of course, for me, along with the revelation of UR came the revelation of the brotherhood of all humanity, that you are my brother/sister whether you know it of not. And along with UR came the understanding that God saves us from this present evil age where people are consumed by the fires of evil from within and without, consumed by lust, greed, fear, etc. We are saved from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. And it is the Good News of God’s love as revealed in the birht, life, death, ressurection of Jesus, and outpourning of the Spirit that frees us and our loved ones from evil. So love compells us to share this wonderful, glorious, awesome Good News!
I’ve certainly evangelized a lot more (and my gifts don’t even specialize in that) since becoming a universalist.
Still, there’s certainly a special motive, for Arminians at least (and Calvs when they want really bad to be like Arminians ), to evangelize when a possible result to be saved from is final ultimate tragedy. A lot of people (even Calvs) do evangelize for just that reason, or that’s a prime reason, so I think it’s reasonable to worry that if that motive is regarded as mistaken its contribution to the desire to help people might not be replaced by something anywhere near as strong.
Hmm, I think it is really a sad testimony if people are holding back from embracing UR simply because they are worried that they won’t be as motivated (or will remove the motivation) to help others or present the saving hope of Jesus’ reign both in word and action because they don’t wouldn’t think that said people would not either be tormented forever or destroyed. There are billions of people that need the hope of rescue and renewal that comes through Jesus, that need the church to bring in holistic unity the full gospel, evangelization that includes social, political and work and witness of justice and social, political and justice witness and work that contains evanglisation and the proclamation in word, life and deed that Jesus is Lord. The cross and the kingdom as a whole and single thing, and there are many people that desperately need another way and the living hope that only comes through Christ, if the Protestant and evangelical church can only think (and I know I’m being very over-generalizing here, and know this by far does not describe everyone) that Christians will only be motivated to take God’s love into the dark places of the world and people’s lives if said people are at risk of being tormented/destroyed forever (not to mention there are people for whom it will avoid having to go through the second death, so a number, maybe many, how have turned from much of their humanity might still have to face that which should be enough), and can’t see the terrible hurt and pain people face now, we have a far bigger problem then whether or not it might be risky for evangelicals to believe UR in my opinion.
Robin specifically mentions annihilationism along with ECT as two versions of hopeless punishment (or fate) at around 4:45.
His dichotomy is between final unrighteousness and final righteousness, not ECT and universalism. He does however focus for a while on the psychological issues in ECT where some people think ECT is a happy outcome somehow. That less of a problem for annis for obvious reasons; but I think it’s still a problem for less obvious reasons (so to speak): annihilation still results in final unrighteousness and final loss of beloved creatures of God, and yet it’s often popularly sold as being a substantially and significantly happier result.
(Robin typically mentions annihilation, but since anni wasn’t primarily on his radar when he was going through his soteriological crises, he naturally doesn’t talk much about something that wasn’t a factor when giving a biographical sketch. I was a little surprised he mentioned it at all at 4:45, while still in his autobiographical mode! – but that’s because he wanted to be fair about noting it’s out there as an option, too.)
Anni isn’t happier than ECT imo. It’s just less disastrously miserable. It is NOT good enough for our magnificent Father who loves all He’s created and is fully capable of (and therefore obligated to persist in) saving all of those He loves. I think I’m going to start calling myself Katholic when people ask 
but only in print – it might not work in face to face conversation.