The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Struggling with doubt-- advice?

Evangelical Universalism
#1

Hello friends,

By way of introduction: I posted on this website a few years ago to ask some questions about Christian Universalism, and I eventually concluded that it was a true doctrine. Then I didn’t think about it very much for like, three years.

Recently, though, I watched Shoah, a nine-hour documentary about the Holocaust. I cannot describe in words what I have learned by watching this film. It has cut to the heart of me in a way that few experiences in my life have.

After watching it, I was depressed for about three days, not merely because of what I learned, but because watching the film reminded me of the inexpressibly repugnant doctrine of eternal suffering in Hell. It occurred to me that what happened to the victims of the Holocaust is nothing compared to what awaits many of them if the traditional doctrine of Hell is correct-- the thought that God has prepared an eternal Auschwitz for much of humanity is just more than I can bare.

I am struggling with intense doubt about this issue, because for three years I haven’t thought about Universalism really at all, but now I am worried that maybe I was wrong. Maybe Christian Universalism isn’t correct. Maybe people do suffer for all eternity (or are annihilated). But if that is true, I feel I will be driven to despair.

My question to all of you is: how can I have confidence that Christian Universalism is true, that Christ saves all? Is there a particular exercise or thought process I can utilize to quell my doubts about this subject? I read David Bentley Hart’s writing on Universalism, and he seems so confident in its truth I envy him a little. I bet you he never worries like this. I would like to possess that sort of confidence in Christ’s universal redemption.

I am just a very sensitive person, I guess. I feel everything so deeply. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Warren Conrad

#2

The whole Hitler appeal is IMO an illogical and hypocritical furphy… like it’s apparently okay to be repulsed, sickened, and angered by the temporal torture and extermination of six million Jews by an evil, unjust, and hateful Hitler; and yet exclusionists’ will then turn around and whole heartily applaud, justify, and support the supposed eternal torture or annihilation of the very selfsame Jews by a good, just, and loving God… go figure!?

#4

My question to all of you is: how can I have confidence that Christian Universalism is true, that Christ saves all? Is there a particular exercise or thought process I can utilize to quell my doubts about this subject? I read David Bentley Hart’s writing on Universalism, and he seems so confident in its truth I envy him a little. I bet you he never worries like this. I would like to possess that sort of confidence

Would it bother you if annihilationism were correct or a hybrid of CU & CI was the justice of God?

#5

I think the starting point is convincing yourself that ECT is not true. And this might involve looking at some alternatives to ECT, like:

P-Zombie (some type of exile)
Annihilation
Metaphorical view of heaven and hell
Eastern Orthodox view of heaven and hell as states - not places

Imagine you were a big shot in the Walking Dead TV series on AMC. What would you personally do about the zombies :question: :smiley:

Torture them?
Exile them?
Try to make them human again?
Some other solution?

Then read through some of the different alternatives to restrictivism in Positions for the Lost, done by an excellent, Mormon scholar (but confined to traditional Christianity)

And entertain some of the Socratic type questions in Love Wins by Robert Bell.

And just read through some of the different discussions here on universalism.

Technically, I’m a hopeful universalist. And an actual Inclusivist (Positions for the Lost) and Purgatorial Conditionalist;

#6

Maybe instead of trying to believe UR is true, focus on seeing how weak ECT is. There are basically three destinies for the lost; universal salvation (where they are no longer lost), annihilation and eternal torment. I think that of the three, ECT has the weakest support. There are too many words in the Bible that suggest annihilation, words like “destroyed” “burnt up”, “chaff”, “destruction”, “cut off”, and my personal favorite, “death”. The onus is on the proponents of eternal torment to prove their case. For me the evidence leads me to believe that the end of the lost is either annihilation or universal salvation. For your sanity, if you can’t believe in UR, then focus on annihilationism, conditional immortality.

#7

Warren,

Eternal conscious torment in hell (ECT) is such a cruel idea that there is no way to be safe from it if you take it seriously:

Some hard-core Catholics say that unless you’re one of them, you will go to everlasting Hell.
Some hard-core Protestants say that unless you’re one of them, you will go to everlasting Hell.
Some hard-core Muslims say that unless you’re one of them, you will go to everylasting Hell.
Etc.

So, no matter who you are, what you do, or what you believe, there is a whole list of groups which say you are going to everlasting Hell.

Further, if God were so wicked as to consign some to everlasting Hell, how could we trust what He says? Perhaps He enjoys sending righteous and religious people to Hell. Perhaps He enjoys the sense of betrayal they feel while they burn in Hell: “But God said if we did X, He wouldn’t send us here!” Perhaps God thinks it is “to His glory” to lie about how to escape Hell, knowing that He will send everybody there no matter what. Perhaps He thinks it would be an offense to His justice to allow even a single person to escape everlasting Hell. Etc.

In short, if the universe were the creation of an ECT deity, then we all would have no hope. None whatsoever, because we couldn’t trust anything that deity said about how to escape ECT.

All of the above considerations show that ECT is a risibly absurd doctrine. It merits laughter rather than fear. One might as well spend sleepless nights afraid that Bigfoot is going to crash through the window and get you. I’d have a far easier time believing in Bigfoot abductions, a flat earth, and that my cousin’s friend’s sister ate lunch with Elvis at the local diner last Tuesday, than I would in believing in ECT. Out of all the absurd and impossible ideas in the world, it is the silliest.

So throw-off this doctrine of devils and rejoice! :smiley:

#8

Actually, there are four. What I call P-Zombie or self-imposed exile, is very popular in contemporary, theological circles (i.e. Bloody Hell - Is there room for alternative views of hell?. Perhaps it’s like Sarte’s No Exit. ?).

#9

Self-imposed exile, while popular, is still a variant of ECT (if the soul remains conscious) or anni (if the soul turns into a philosophical zombie that only resembles an actual person in every identifiable way but actually isn’t a person after all).

#10

Warren,

Different people are reassured by different things – and reassured to different degrees by different things! It’s hard to guess ahead of time what will reassure you and what won’t.

Perhaps, in relation to the holocaust, you might consider this angle: how could God glorify Himself (and from a trinitarian perspective, how could one Person of God glorify another person of God) by giving to Himself creatures that ultimately fail to glorify God? How would a moral Auschwitz ever lead to that result, whether the impenitent souls keep existing forever (locked in by God or locking the door against God, either way), or are eventually ashed?

(The gift theory works to a certain degree with varieties of unitarian Christology and theology, too, but a unitarian non-universalist could just say that however much Christ wants to accomplish submitting all things to the Father as he himself submits to the Father, after all he isn’t God so if he fails that’s understandable. The ancient trinitarian and proto-trin Fathers, insisting on the full ultimate deity of Christ, insisted in relation that the Son could be trusted to save from sin whomever He intended to save; ditto the Father and the Holy Spirit.)

#11

Hello all,

Thank you all for your replies.

I have let myself breathe a little over the last few days—got good sleep, worked out, spent time with family… I think this is necessary for hyper-sensitive people like me to get back to normal after getting all bent out of shape about something.

Slowly I have been going through the common Universalist passages of Scripture. I also read the Psalms, particularly the ones about how much God loves everyone (136, 139, 103, etc.) and I have read the Gospels, particularly the ones where Jesus is ministering to suffering people. By doing these things I have been able to quell my doubts.

Geoffrey: I appreciate your encouragement. I agree that if an eternal Auschwitz is the destination of some human beings, then we do not have hope. But after reading the aforementioned Scriptures, I cannot believe that God would allow such a hopeless outcome.

Jason: That is a good point. The only way that the Holocaust victims (or even the Nazis) losing God forever (whether through annihilation or eternal torment) could bring glory to God is if that was their predestinated destiny, and this is the sort of predestinarian theology that I reject. If then, God truly does desire the salvation of everyone, then every lost Holocaust victim or perpetrator will be a blow to God, and He cannot be glorified that way.

I think I just need to breathe and my confidence that Christ truly will save all will grow—in the same way that my confidence that God is Good, that God is Trinity, that Jesus is risen from the dead, that Jesus is present in the Eucharist, that justification is by faith alone, that the resurrection will occur, etc. etc. will grow naturally the more spiritually mature I become and the more I reflect on these beautiful doctrines—and CU certainly is a beautiful doctrine. Someday I will be able to say with David Bentley Hart, “I am, and have never concealed that I am, a complete and unreserved Universalist… I am not really wrestling with [that issue], at least not in a moral or intellectual or existential sense.”

I also have good news—I have been accepted to Yale Divinity School to study theology! By God’s grace, I will be able to work as a professional theologian.

Peace,

Warren

#13

Excellent. Assuming you still have your convictions on universalism, once you finish the Yale degree. I’m sure you’ll make some great contributions, for the universalist cause.

#14

Qaz,

Psalm 22 goes even farther than that! (Note to self, should drop an ExCom entry on it…) All the families of the earth at all ends of the earth will repent and “remember” (which is a translation of a technical term for making the past present and participating in the past during the Passover mal which became the Lord’s Supper / Communion / Real Presence), and turn to YHWH and worship Him. Those who go down to the dust, as you noted, are included, and those specifically include “the one who cannot keep his soul alive”. The whole point to “conditional immortality” is supposed to be that no one can keep his soul alive except by accepting Christ (which ends up divorcing God from any responsibility in their annihilation, as though He isn’t the one and only authoritative power keeping their soul alive!); but on this Psalm, “even he who cannot keep his soul alive” will come to true homage! – bowing before YHWH and telling of His righteousness to people who have not yet been born before the general resurrection!

(As a side note, this suggests people will be born after the general resurrection of the evil as well as the good.)

#15

I reject also the idea that God could act so self-contradictedly as to predestine people to finally refuse to truly glorify Him as a way of bringing glory to God! That’s nonsense on par with calling evil good and good evil. It would still be nonsense on a non-trinitarian theology, but it would be catastrophically omni-fatal nonsense if trinitarian theism is true: it could only mean that one of the Persons is glorifying Himself by bringing dishonor and blasphemy to the other Persons!

(My smiley archive died some months ago, so please imagine a vomiting smiley here… :angry: )

Keep watch out for theologies like that.

#16

A vomiting smiley ? :laughing:

#17

Of course. The smiley has been watching too many news commentaries, on Trump and Hilliary :exclamation: :laughing:

#18

Hi Warren,

My heart goes out to you, as I have had intense struggles myself in the past of desperation of the truth of the eventual salvation of everyone.

I believe God has similar desperation - otherwise He would not have sent His Son for us - to be the “Saviour of the world” - this demonstrates just how desperate He is! I think your longing for this is a testament of a love for others that mirrors the heart of God.

I went through a period of massive desperation which caused great distress… I just so wanted it to be true! Then, I believe, God helped me come to a position of peace, which I could accept trusting Him that He would do the absolutely best thing. My position is now as follows, and it gives me much peace:

A) God will do the right thing - this is undeniable from the Bible.
B) God will do the best thing possible - since anything less would not be worthy of God.
C) God is love, and light - so what He does will be maximally loving and maximally bright.
D) Therefore, If universal reconciliation is possible, then God will either bring it about, unless there is an even more loving, even brighter reality.
E) What is this greater reality? We may not even be able to conceive of it, but I believe either God will bring about universal reconciliation, if it is possible, or bring about an even greater reality.
F) We can trust God that He will do the right thing, which may be UR, or may be something we don’t know yet that is even better. In trusting Him, we can have peace that God will never do anything wrong.

Just wanted to share this as it helped me so much! Bless you brother!

All peace in Christ,
Elliot