, Scot McKnight"]On a flight recently I was reading a book about hell, and one of the chapters was devoted to examining the so-called “universalism” texts in Paul’s letters. Sometimes Paul says things like “As in Adam all die, so in Christ all are made alive.” The issue is how “all” that “all” is! What I observed is that the author focused on showing that the “all” didn’t really mean “all.” This, undoubtedly, is the traditional view in the church.
But it got me to pondering this question: Why do we use the judgment/hell texts to trump the “all” texts? Why don’t we use the “all” texts to trump the hell texts? This is a question about method today, and not a question about which one to believe. I’m curious what you think about the proper method: How do we know which group of texts has the priority? What criteria do we use to choose between the two?
Is it as easy to say “all” doesn’t mean all as it is to say “in the end salvation will conquer all” (after the judgment, after hell)? How do we decide?
So today I will give a list of the universalism/all texts and then a list of some judgment texts, and you can think through these and tell us what you think of the questions above.
…I’m glad he’s thinking about it & asking questions 
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