While it’s true (and I think important) that Jesus doesn’t usually warn pagans and heathens about wrath coming from God when they die–
WAIT, ISN’T THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT STILL IN THE BIBLE?
Aye, verily.
AND WASN’T THAT DELIVERED TO PEOPLE WHO HAD COME AS FAR AS FROM THE NORTHERN REGIONS UP NEAR TYRE AND SIDON, AN AREA CRAWLING WITH PAGANISM?
Aye, verily.
AND DOESN’T THAT HAVE SEVERAL WARNINGS ABOUT WRATH TO COME FOR PEOPLE WHO INSIST ON BEING UNJUST, NOT TO SAY UNFAITHFUL TO GOD?
Aye, verily.
INCLUDING WARNINGS ABOUT BEING BURNED IN GEHENNA!?
Aye, verily.
AND ROB BELL JUST IGNORES OR SAILS PAST SUCH THINGS, HUH!
Aye, verily.
AND AREN’T SIGNIFICANT PORTIONS OF OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY AIMED AT WARNING THE PAGAN NATIONS THAT ZORCHING IS ON THE WAY TO THEM FROM GOD?
Aye, verily.
AND DOESN’T ROB AFFIRM THAT JESUS AT LEAST SPEAKS FOR GOD, OR IS EVEN THE VERY ACTION OF GOD INCARNATE?
Aye, verily.
SO HE’S JUST IGNORING THINGS THAT MIGHT BE INCONVENIENT BECAUSE THEY WOULD BLOW HIS THESIS!!
Keeping in mind that Rob’s own warnings about hell coming after death, not only in this life, to those who insist on making life a hell (even a little), are not themselves restricted in principle to nominal religious Christians–aye, verily.
However: sauce for his goose is sauce for some ganders, too. Because Rob Bell is far from the only Christian preacher and teacher who overlooks inconvenient contexts in order to stress what he believes to be true.
For example, regarding the final fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.
NOW WAIT A MINUTE!–JUST BECAUSE JESUS SAYS IT’LL BE MORE BEARABLE FOR THOSE HELLISH PERVERTED MINIONS IN THE RESURRECTION THAN FOR SUPPOSEDLY RIGHTEOUS PEOPLE–
A warning people who think of themselves as righteous ought to keep in mind, of course (ahem)…
–DOESN’T MEAN THERE’S HOPE FOR S&G AFTER DEATH IN THE DAY OF THE LORD TO COME! IT ONLY MEANS OTHER PEOPLE WON’T SUFFER AS MUCH HOPELESS PUNISHMENT THEN AS THEY WILL! IT’S A HYPERBOLIC EXAMPLE OF HOW-MUCH-MORESO!
Like the Queen of Sheba.
RIGHT! LIKE THE… WHO?
The pagan queen who came to hear the wisdom of Solomon and who will rise up to curse the immorality of those who reject the Wisdom that is greater than Solomon.
YEAH, BUT JESUS DOESN’T SAY SODOM AND GOMORRAH WILL BE IN THAT POSITION OF MORAL SUPERIORITY!
No, but she’s mentioned in parallel with them in the same warning.
EVEN SO, THAT ISN’T LIKE SAYING THAT GOD IS GOING TO RESTORE SODOM AND ITS PEOPLE TO FELLOWSHIP WITH HIM!
Actually, Jesus was no doubt referencing what we call Ezekiel chapter 16, especially verses 44-63. Where after comparing the sins of Israel as exceeding those of Sodom and Samaria, making them look righteous by comparison, and promising equal destruction on rebel Israel, God reveals that He will restore Sodom and its people to fellowship with Him as part of His promise to restore Israel and her people to fellowship to Him, reconciling them with each other in the process. As the proverb says, “Like mother like daughter”; as the mother sinned so did the daughter; as the mother was condemned, so was the daughter; as the daughter will eventually be saved after condemnation, so will the mother.
So, yeah, Jesus may not say it straight out, but He’s referencing the salvation of pagan enemies of God after death as well as their condemnation (among whom He includes rebel Israel).
NO NO NO, THAT CAN’T BE TRUE… THERE CAN’T BE HOPE FOR THEM…
There is; and Rob rightly mentions it (though he doesn’t go into detail of course).
NO, GOD HAS TO BE TALKING ABOUT RIGHTEOUS SURVIVORS, OR A FEW SURVIVORS HE GRACIOUSLY SPARES FROM DESTRUCTION, COMFORTING EACH OTHER AFTERWARD, AS IN EZEKIEL 14, NOT TOO LONG PREVIOUSLY!
God talks about that, too, prophetically (as in Ezekiel 14, not too long previously). And no doubt the imagery being referenced here is that survivors of Israel’s overthrow by Babylon will be brought back to Palestine along with survivors of Samaria and Sodom’s overthrow, where they will live and work together in peace, as daughters of Israel, under God.
…UH, RIGHT!
Which has happened already?
… … … …UH … SURE!
Good try, but no. Israel was brought back out of Babylon, but not reconciled with the surviving people of Sodom and Samaria also brought back out of Babylon. Not least because they weren’t sent back out of Babylon! (Also, the Israelites got in trouble with intermarrying with pagans from Samaria and the area to the south where Sodom used to be, when they returned from Babylon.)
So no, this was only partially fulfilled by the historical return of survivors. But partial prophecies like this, if they are still prophecies at all, point (like the firstfruits!) as a promise for the full completion of the prophecy later. Long after everyone involved in the historical fulfillment has died, not incidentally.
OKAY, BUT THAT ONLY MEANS SURVIVORS OF THE TRIUMPHANT DESTRUCTION OF JESUS’ SECOND COMING WILL COMFORT ONE ANOTHER AS LOYAL FOLLOWERS OF GOD AFTERWARD!!
While that might make sense in regard to Ezekiel 14, which distinguishes between survivors going from the ruin to the audience, to comfort one another, Ezekiel 16 is directed to all the sinners corporately and in groups, rebel Israel and rebel pagans, as sinners who repent after the destruction and reconcile with each other under God.
More to the point: Jesus deploys the reference in the context of the Day of the Lord to come. And that’s after the Resurrection of the evil as well as the good out of hades, Sodom as well as the Queen of Sheba.
Rob then marshals an impressive list of OT references where the point is, not necessarily that God is prophecying the restoration of slain rebels after the resurrection to come (although that, too, sometimes!), but at least that the purpose of the punishment of God is hopeful of reconciliation. And not only positively hopeful, but prophetically certain of success, too!–whether the references are read as meaning only survivors or descendents of survivors, or of those who are raised to live again in the Day of the Lord to come.
“Failure, as we see again and again, isn’t final,
“judgment has a point,
“and consequences are for correction.”
(This is one of the few places where Rob acknowledges the punishment is in fact being inflicted by God.)
Even when Paul hands over Hymenaeus and Alexander to Satan in 1 Timothy, or the Stepmom-Sleeping-Guy (my nickname for him, not Rob’s!) in 1 Cor 5, the apostle still expects God to still save them somehow, not only despite this punishment, but even using it for that purpose.
And so Rob leads out this chapter with a few more pretty common observations (disputable though they may be, and no he doesn’t get into the disputes) about the ‘eonian kolasis’ of the judgment of the sheep and the goats (from the end of Matthew 25) at least possibly meaning intense correction remedial correction.
And yes, Rob has to try to shut the case too hard against his opponents on the topic of the term ‘eonian’ in Greek and the Hebrew word the Jews translated it for, ‘olam’; for he asserts again that “’forever’ is not really a category the biblical writers used”, not fifteen seconds before admitting that the biblical writers do in fact use it for that purpose sometimes (as in Psalm 90 when talking about God.)
But whenever opponents want to (quite rightly) call out Rob as cheating on this, they should remember that they themselves have also routinely cheated just as much by trying to shut down their opponents with insisting on those terms necessarily meaning what they do not always necessarily mean: such as (Rob’s closing example) in the prayer of Job after being swallowed by the sea-dragon (Rob only calls it a fish) and taken into the bottom of the depths of the sea–which in Jewish religious imagery is tantamount to being swallowed by Satan and imprisoned in punishing hell. (Though Rob, avoiding the dragon imagery, doesn’t press it quite that far.)
Jonah thought God had sent him down into that hell ‘olam’; but repented and prayed.
God made the sea-dragon spit Jonah out three days later.
Did Jonah gratefully receive that grace and make good use of it?
No; he resented that grace out of hell, granted to him when he repented, because he knew it meant God might save those Ninevites, too.
(Which, recall, was exactly why Jonah was rebelling against God’s commission in the first place. And was sent, in effect, to hell.)
Trying to edit your reactions to chapter 3 was appreciated, this time only 25 installments. But after trying to grasp the first 12, I’m left puzzled. No one on this site has impressed me with more persuasive acumen in presentations than you, when I’ve been able to process your thinking. We agree on so many things. But I must not be following your points here.
The continuous ridicule of Bell as an outright ridiculous and cheap cheater seems to me over the top and ‘shallow,’ to use another of your adjectives. You villify him for discussing verses that today’s Bibles translate with “hell” (i.e. Gehenna) without discussing every Sheol text. I don’t see your logic (or am I wrong that these need not be identical). I think it’s valuable to point out where Gehenna is used. The associated widespread insistence that he must always be comprehensive seems elitist and to ignore the genre of popular writing. Condemning him for suggesting the Hebrews focused more on this life than on the details of the next also struck me as strange, since this is widely believed, and I think sustantially correct.
I agree with you that Hinnom may not have been a garbage dump, but his aside seems understandable when this conviction is so pervasive in evangelical scholarhip, and Bell’s emphasis on present as well as future judgment seems for a pastor to be amazingly cognizant of the best current progressive scholarship such as Wright’s. You also appear deeply alienated by his rejection of the Pink Floyd caricature of “Satan.” I guess my sensibilities are different. I think it’s vital to address such caricatures with unbelievers, and that it isn’t perverse at all. Forgive me that I probably am misconstuing and failing to grasp what you are actually trying to communicate.
Yes, when I finally sat down to post it up, it came out longer than I was expecting. Sorry about that.
On the other hand, I didn’t say I was going to edit it down; only that I thought I had less to say on this chapter overall compared to previous ones. The edited-down summary will be last. I’m not there yet. (But I’ll label it as such when I get to it, and I’ll link to it in my first post for reader convenience; probably ahead of the Part link list.)
For what it’s worth, I think his next chapter is by far the strongest so far; meaning that by proportion I won’t have nearly as much to say about it. Not incidentally, he also hangs quite a bit of his chapter on agreeing that his opponents are correct in very important ways, and is far more sympathetic about presenting the ways they try to get around the implications of what they themselves insist on believing (while still trenchantly critiquing such attempts.)
You did notice that Rob himself emphatically insisted (at least twice) on his comprehensive scope and reportage, right?
But he wasn’t. Not even close. And he himself knows he wasn’t close.
So on one hand he wants his readers to feel like they have his professional assurance that he is showing them every little thing, which (by the way he presents it) is only a little list. But then on the other hand he handwaves past a bunch of data, and misrepresents the categorization of some of what he does cover.
I have routinely and consistently said that I don’t blame him for putting things in a popularistic fashion. What I do blame him for–and I have been equally consistent (even routine ) about this, too–is being unfair to his opposition. Which happens surprisingly often. This is one such time.
When someone stresses he is going to cover every example of X, in order to give his readers a more accurate idea about the X compared to what other people are saying, and even to reassure his readers that the other people are wrong (not to say misleading them) about X–then he has an obligation to provide his readers what he said he was going to. If on the other hand someone thinks his audience won’t appreciate such a study, or have time or patience or skill for following along, then fine don’t go into the details–although still be prepared to chew the details with the people he’s saying are horribly wrong and traitors to Jesus for interpreting those details another way!–and be aware that selectively generalizing the details for brevity is not a good way to show that the opponents, in their greater detailing, are doing it wrong.
But to try to have it both ways, means Rob is in fact lying to his readers, and cheating against his opponents.
And if I think about handing this book to my non-universalistic Christian friends or family, or to my non-Christian friends or family (especially up to my most beloved), then I have an obligation to warn them about this ahead of time.
So, if I bother to point out in detail where Rob is saying he’ll do something, and then I bother to point out in detail not only when he doesn’t do it but when he outright misleads his readers about what he is doing–then how am I the one being shallow? And if that tactical set isn’t worthless, then what good worth is it to bait-and-switch his readers while misleading them as to details? And if this is not cheating against his opponents to make his own position look stronger, then how is he being fair to his readers and to his opponents by doing so?
Or, if what he is doing (in regard to this tactic) is worthless at best, and even outright cheating, then why should I not say so?
Except when Rob stresses how they do focus on details of the next life, when that seems more convenient for his point. My point is that Rob tries to have it both ways.
He could have said, 'Generally the Hebrews focused more on this life than on the details of the next; but when they do focus on the details of the next, we see that God’s punishment of sin is a big theme, as well as the hope of a peaceful life on a renewed and healed Earth. And we frequently see a strong hope in God, even a sure and certain hope, that God will lead the sinners He has punished, and is punishing, into repentance and reconciliation, not only with Himself but with those they have sinned against, whether the sinners are Jews or Gentiles. I talked a lot in the last chapter about their prophetic hope of a life in God after death; and I’m going to talk a lot in the next chapter about this hope of reconciliation. But now in this chapter I have to talk about the coming threat of punishment for sin, not only in this life but in the next. In the Old Testament, for instance, we read yadda yadda yaddity yadda etc. ’
It isn’t as though Rob denies hell is coming for those who insist on having it, in the next life as well as this one. (He’ll affirm it in the next chapter, too.) So why does he avoid talking about what details there are on this topic, here where the topic is most appropriate to talk about?
The only answer that fits his presentation overall, is because he doesn’t want to talk about God being the One Who is authoritatively doing the punishing! But that’s leaving out an important and very common detail, aside from whatever reason he may think he has for doing so.
He does (sometimes, in a quickly vague offhanded fashion, including in the next chapter) acknowledge God does the punishing. But an accurate account of the data, even in generalized and popular terms, has to include the Hebrew stress on that, for better or for worse. It would at least help account for why theologians and preachers have often been so gung-ho about the threat of the punishment coming!
(But then, that would mean granting proportionate weight to their arguments.)
Actually, I know perfectly well and have often agreed that Ge Hinnom was the flaming garbage dump near Jerusalem. It stands for more than that, though.
And Rob actually agrees (eventually) it stands for more than that. So why does he joke about it as though it was only the town garbage dump ha ha?? It’s like he can’t help calling the idea of it meaning anything more than that, into derision.
I suppose I could have gone into actual detail about why the gnashing of teeth, exegetically, always refers to the people being thrown into Gehenna, just like the wailing does–not to the gnashing of animal teeth in the dump. Maybe I should expand that particular post…?
(And even though I thought his application was incorrectly aimed, I also thought it was at least imaginative. Coming from me, that’s usually a compliment. )
Which was something I also praised, and defended him about. (It should however be obvious that whatever else Gehenna could mean to Jesus’ immediate audience, it could only be a reference to future coming judgment, whether somewhat literally as a place to bury and burn bodies after a siege, or metaphorically in reference to God’s punishment of sin in the resurrection to come, or both.)
No, I’m alienated by his deployment of that secular cariacture as though this is all that the idea of Satan amounts to. He doesn’t address to the unbelievers in his audience that this is a caricature; all he does is reinforce it while rejecting it. As a professed fan of C. S. Lewis (if nothing else!), Rob ought to know better than to do that.
Edited to add: I went back to make sure I was recalling correctly, and saw that I did also write “On the other hand: it’s also possible that Rob isn’t mocking the notion of hell and the devil here, as mocking the notion that we have “evolved past” that kind of thing.”
So I was willing to grant that he might have been doing something different than he appeared to be doing.
I never sense that Bell is generally foolishly claiming that his “reportage” offers “comprehensive scope.” On ‘‘hell’ texts, my papers have also suggested ‘Gehenna’ is the consensus “word” to be so translated and has referenced “all” its’ usages. I don’t see why this is “lying, outright cheating, misleading bait and switch,” or even “worthless.”
On point 2, where does Bell “stress that the OT focuses on the details” of the after life? Since in that case my sense of OT is doubtful of you and him, I look forward to your chapter on where it details such “yadda, yadda…”
On #3, I may be more skeptical than you both about the evidence for the town garbage dump. And I’ll grant that his style may be coarse for some, but I just didn’t sense that he intends us to conclude that he has “derision” for a sober interpretation of judgment. He sums up that we must have a “volatile, violent, serious” understanding of hell, and I actually think his approach helps unbelievers to be more sober about it than they dismissively are inclined to be.
We also exegete his reference to Satan’s ‘caricature’ differetly. You see “all he does is reinforce it.” I assume saying he has a “hard time believing in” such a caricature, but doesn’t want us to see Satan as an “outdated belief,” is to encourage us to follow his look at Scripture for a more Biblical view.
Faults and all, I’m actually a bit jealously stunned at Bell’s gifted ability to communicate effectively to today’s precious despisers of religion, who still want to trust that Jesus reveals the loving God who genuinely cares about everyone.
Does he say “according to these experts, but not those other experts, Gehenna is the only word that ought to be translated by the Norse word for ‘pit/grave’? Unlike for example Sheol, the Hebrew word for pit/grave?” No (nor anything like that).
Does he say “according to these experts, who have this better argument than those other experts (giving the argument here in some brief popular fashion), hades and sheol should not be translated with the Norse word for ‘pit/grave’?” No (nor anything like that).
Does he say “according to these experts, who give such-n-such an argument (popularly summarized and simplified perhaps), the Norse word for ‘pit/grave’ ought to be used only for post-mortem punishment, which thus applies only to Gehenna and not to hades, much less to sheol, because punishment never happens in hades/sheol?” No. (And he would be wrong if he tried that, too. But he doesn’t even try that.)
He says that he is going to show his readers every verse in the Bible where the actual word “hell” is used. That’s either never (because the mere term ‘hell’, being Norse in derivation, doesn’t occur anywhere in the Bible, no more than the Gothic term “god”), or he has to show all the places where “the Bible” has been translated as “hell”. Which he doesn’t. But instead of his tactic being revealed as worthlessly cheap rhetoric (see, the Bible never mentions ‘god’ either!–or ‘heaven’ for that matter!–or ‘salvation’!), he latches onto the word commonly translated hell with the fewest instances (after Tartarus). That way he can say he has “shown” “all” the times “the Bible” uses the “actual word” “hell”. Allowing him to gloss over, not only all the times “the Bible” uses the actual word hell for other terms, but all the times the Bible talks about something tantamount to hell without using a term for it.
If he had not tried to insist to his readers that he was showing them every verse in the whole Bible where the actual word “hell” is used, I would have barely any complaint. As it is, he is directly misleading his readers.
A lot of his readers will use the King James/Authorized Version as “the Bible”. It translates all three terms (plus Tartarus!) as “hell” 54 times in 54 verses. (The terms show up more often than that, especially sheol, but aren’t always translated as “hell”.)
New King James? 32 times in 32 verses.
New International Version? English Standard? 14 times in 14 verses. (Still not as low as 12, or rather the 8 times he mentions!)
New American Standard? Revised Standard? 13 times. (Getting closer!)
Most modern Bibles will admittedly translate closer to Rob’s 12 (and I will suppose by the 8 he mentions he’s only glossing past repetitions of a term in a sentence even if they occur in subsequent verses.) But they still don’t get quite as low as he does!
However, since the effects of “Gehenna” are present in at least one “hades” scene (the one Rob himself talks about with some extensiveness, the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus), then that opens “hades” up to meaning “Gehenna” in effect, at least for sinners. If one term is going to be translated as “hell”, then, the other term might as well be, too (especially since “hell” means “pit” anyway!) And this still elides past all the occurrences in the Bible where a Gehenna effect (not even counting a ‘mere’ hades effect) can be easily construed as occurring without mentioning the term “Gehenna” per se. Moreover, even those modern Bibles will tend to feature commentary and dictionaries indicating that “sheol” and/or “hades” can and do often mean hell (in a sense beyond meaning ‘pit’ or ‘grave’ or ‘unseen’.)
Rob’s tactic is very over-convenient to his case, and is overtly misleading to his readers. “And that’s it. Anything you have ever heard people say about the actual word ‘hell’ in the Bible they got from those verses you just read.” Wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong wrong.
Then you should look at the chapter I explicitly mentioned in my complaint about this, namely chapter 2 (already reviewed), where Rob spends quite a bit of effort stressing OT details on the afterlife and how earthy and social and great it is for people who are in harmony with God. Whether he takes that imagery literally or not (and it sure looks like he’s taking it literally), he stresses the detailed importance of it.
But then when it comes to imagery in the OT about punishment, which is just as colorful, then all of a sudden Rob talks about how the Hebrews weren’t nearly as much interested in what happens after death as now (which is statistically true by weight of number of references anyway), and how it’s all vague and uncertain etc. when they do bother to mention it. How is it that the colorful OT descriptions of punishment from God in the Day of the Lord to come are vague and uncertain, too vague and uncertain to bother reckoning into an account; but the colorful OT descriptions of reward and restoration and eonian life together are not too vague and uncertain to bother reckoning into an account?! (Even back in chapter 2, when I was praising his application of the “earthy” prophetic imagery, I noted that Rob tended to selectively minimize or ignore more “static” imagery of blessing in the Day of the Lord to come, because that imagery wasn’t convenient to the point he was trying to make–and instead of finding a way to make use of that imagery, too, he just piffles it away with some derision. That isn’t good exegesis.)
Actually, I praised and defended him against detractors for not only acknowledging we should have a serious understanding of hell, but of applying that serious understanding to the next life as well as to this one (and to this life as well as the next one!)
But this still leaves me at a loss for why he treats “Gehenna” with a humorous dismissal as though we are only supposed to consider it the town garbage dump. Considering that so far his only serious gaffes have been when he is being unfair to his opposition, maybe it was reflexive here. {shrug} They treat Gehenna seriously, so he doesn’t!–until later when he does (though not specifically in reference to “Gehenna” per se.)
Really? Rob says that he doesn’t want us to see Satan as an outdated belief? Because I have that page here in front of me; and while I do see him (afterward) trying to get people to see hell as something more than an “outdated belief” that we have to “evolve” past (which I praised him for doing), I see zero evidence anywhere that he treats the idea of Satan with anything other than the derision of that paragraph. He certainly does not encourage us to follow his look at Scripture for a more Biblical view of Satan than the caricature he provides. Unless there’s a whole chapter somewhere I’m missing in my copy for that??
Again, it’s like he had to go out of his way to find something to mock his opponents about, and since he couldn’t (for various reasons) mock them on the severity of hell, he threw up a caricature of Satan to burn as a straw man.
I will add (as I did in my review) that Rob is perfectly well aware that “hades” (and “Tartarus”), if not “sheol”, mean something similar to hell, because he admits as much himself: “There are two other words that occasionally mean something similar to hell.” (“Occasionally”?? He never shows where it means anything substantially different from “hell”!)
And since he also acknowledges that hades “is essentially the Greek version of the Hebrew word ‘sheol’”, then essentially sheol can mean something similar to hell!
He even glosses over Tartarus as much as he can: it wasn’t only Greek demigods who were judged in that abyss, and they were judged pretty harshly; and the 2 Peter use of the term (also its parallel in Jude where the term isn’t used but the conceptual reference is!) isn’t only a threat for “sinning angels” but is given as evidence that God not only rescues of the devout but is “keeping the unjust for chastening in the day of judging”. (2 Peter 2:9-10; and Peter has a lot more to say about those unjust in the subsequent verses.)
I will however give him credit on probably referencing (very very quickly and with practically no detail much less discussion, except in regard to the Rich Man afterward) every chapter in the New Testament featuring the term “hades” in it.
So I’ll add a correction to my review along that line.
Since I was rather late in posting up my previous part, I’ll do this one a bit early.
Part 7: Love Wins! (Or At Least Doesn’t Lose!)
Well, here we are halfway through. Rejoice!
WE’RE ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH THIS REVIEW!?!? LORD SAVE US!!!
No no, we’re halfway through Rob Bell’s book (or 48% at the start of chapter 4). I’m pretty sure we’re far more than halfway through my review; once I stop complaining about things, I have proportionately less to write about, and I have almost nothing to complain about in this chapter! So, moving on–
WAIT, YOU’RE REALLY GOING TO JUST SKIP THIS CHAPTER?!?
Ohhhh, I suppose I could write something about it, if you insist.
…HELL, WE’RE GOING TO REGRET ASKING THAT QUESTION…
Chapter 4, “Does God Get What He Wants?”, is by far the strongest of Rob’s chapters up to now. Not least because he somehow manages to discuss the opposition with fair sympathy while also trenchantly critiquing their positions. Although he mostly goes after fellow Arminians, without much discussion of where he disagrees with Calvinists, that’s because Rob positions his thrust here as agreeing (in essence) with Calvinist persistence to salvation. This simplifies his line of discussion, maybe a little overmuch since he doesn’t spend proportionate time talking about how the Calvinist scope is too limited.
This means it shouldn’t be surprising if Calvinists attack Rob’s book more gung ho than Arminians do overall. (Which by the way seems to be the case.) It isn’t only that they’re ignoring how much he agrees with them, specifically concerning the persistence of God to salvation (although if they’re fair critics they ought to be stressing his agreement on this); it’s because Rob takes the scope of God’s active salvation as being obviously obvious, or at worst easily established.
In short, Rob is writing as an Arminian to fellow Arminians, agreeing with them about the scope, and insisting (in effect) ‘But look, the Calvs are right about God’s sovereign capabilities and persistence, too! And look what happens when we put it together!’
SO ROB JUST IGNORES THE CASE FOR THE SCOPE OF GOD’S INTENTIONS TO SAVE SINNERS?
No no, he talks about it, and makes what is at least a very suggestive scriptural case for it. I especially like his references to OT scriptures affirming that God is the Father of all humanity (not merely the creator of all humanity). He doesn’t only quote that famous verse from 1 Timothy 2, where God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth, as though that settles the matter.
Nevertheless, neither does he address his readers as though they might have trouble doubting that God intends, and acts, to save all men from sin. Calvinist readers, especially ones who are trained to read such references in terms of what seems the limited scope of God’s salvation elsewhere, are going to think he shortshrifts his presentation badly. And I can’t exactly say I blame them for that (though I have had much stronger critiques of Rob earlier in the book.)
His whole presentation is geared, as the chapter title suggests, toward readers who (as Arminians typically do) doubt or even outright deny that God gets what He wants. His Calvinist reader will naturally answer “Of course God gets what He wants!–but He doesn’t want to save all men from sin! Or maybe He vaguely does, as a side-effect of acting to save the elect from sin, but He never acts to save all men from sin.”
(Not that either Calvinistic or Arminianistic Christians, even when they’re trained professionals, are likely to put God’s salvation in terms of saving sinners from sin. On the other hand, sometimes neither does Rob!–but he’s often pretty good about that.)
While Calvinist readers may complain (somewhat rightly) that Rob doesn’t give enough attention (more like no attention!) to Calvinist concerns about apparent Biblical testimony that God acts to save some and not others; Calvinist readers ought at least to be able to jump up and down agreeing with Rob in his stress on God’s competent persistence.
Dedicated Calvinists, as such, wouldn’t be able to agree with Rob on the scope, “The God that Jesus teaches us about doesn’t give up until everything that was lost is found” (per the parables of the 100th sheep and the 10th coin). They wouldn’t say that it was “tragic” for billions of people to have “been created only to spend eternity in conscious punishment and torment, suffering infinitely for the finite sins they committed in the few years they spent on earth.” That’s what (they believe) God wants, namely billions of sinners to exist so He can hopelessly condemn them to torment (they may not like the word ‘torture’) in order to be an example of God’s greatness, and God gets what God wants!
But they ought to be able to agree, in regard to salvation (as well as damnation), “This God simply doesn’t give up. Ever.”
“In the Bible, God is not helpless,
“God is not powerless,
“and God is not impotent.”
NOW HOLD UP!–YEAH THERE ARE PARABLES OF THE LOST SHEEP AND COIN (THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON ISN’T MUCH TO THE POINT SINCE IT SEEMS LIKELY THE FATHER WILL HAVE TO ZORCH HIS OLDER SON FOR BEING AN UNGRATEFUL HATEFUL GNAT-WIT), BUT THERE ARE OTHER PARABLES, TOO! WHAT DOES BELL HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THOSE!?
I could reply that the Prodigal Son doesn’t seem to have been brought back by an active Father seeking and saving the lost, but is only joyfully received by a passive father who waits for him to return. But I’m willing to agree that this illustrates there are a wide range of parables and not all of them contain illustrations of all doctrines. (There is no Christ figure at all in the Prodigal Son parable, if it comes to that!)
But yes, this is one of my gripes about how Rob presents his argument in this chapter. And once again, the error comes from being unfair to his opponents.
“Is God like the characters in a story Jesus would tell?” Rob asks. But he acts like there aren’t other stories and parables Jesus told. Is God like a bridegroom who locks out ten of his foolish serving-girls, when God was the one running late, and refuses to open the door and let them in when they beg for entrance? (A parable that Rob obliquely refers to later when he says that “Many have refused to accept this scenario!”) Is God like the landowner who isn’t concerned in the least about converting and saving the noxious weeds that were sown among his wheat, but who is only concerned about possibly damaging his wheat if he acts too soon zorching the weeds?
EXACTLY! CALVINISTS AREN’T PULLING THEIR POSITION OUT OF THEIR BUTTS!
There are even parables where (despite what Rob rhetorically asks) God seems to settle, saying, ‘Well, I tried, I gave it my best shot, and sometimes you just have to be okay with failure’, shrugging God-sized shoulders and saying, ‘You can’t always get what you want.’
Is God like a king who tries to invite some people to His party, but they refuse for stupid and insulting reasons and even abuse his messengers, so that he invites the wretches of the world instead–and then throws out someone who, after being practically dragged in, refuses to wear the wedding sash the king has graciously provided? Is God like a landowner who only wants what’s rightfully due to him from the workers he has hired, but they rebel against him and abuse his messengers and even murder his only son in order to inherit the vineyard–leading him to zorch them off the face of the earth in revenge?
EXACTLY! ARMINIANS AREN’T PULLING THEIR POSITION OUT OF THEIR… WAITAMINUTE…
Mm-hm. There are parables which look utterly universalistic; and parables which look quite Arminian; and parables which look entirely Calvinistic. (Or maybe not entirely; the bridegroom doesn’t authoritatively choose to ensure the foolish virgins fail, and an enemy is who sowed the weeds in the wheat not the landowner. But still, the main character seems to have no intention of converting and restoring those ‘characters’.)
WHICH IS WHY NONE OF US SHOULD BE GETTING OUR THEOLOGY PRIMARILY FROM PARABLES!
True–and neither is Rob. He’s appealing to parables to illustrate points he has developed from other scriptural exegesis. But Calvs and Arms both do the same thing; and he acts like there isn’t a scriptural case for them worth even mentioning, much less replying to.
Admittedly, that’s rather like how both those other sides (Calvs and Arms) act like there isn’t a scriptural case for universalism even worth mentioning, much less replying to. It isn’t fair for them to do that; but neither is it fair for Rob to do the same thing the other way around.
This is probably my main problem with this chapter; and as annoying as it is, Rob quickly gets back to strong material.
It’s still aimed at (fellow) Arminians, not Calvinists, because it’s still phrased at answering Arminian defenses for why God doesn’t get what He wants (namely the salvation of all sinners from sin); in that regard the material isn’t very strong for a Calvinist reader.
But at least Rob looks seriously and sympathetically at Arminian defenses, in principle (not from scripture), for why love doesn’t win.
“It’s rightly pointed out,” Rob agrees, “that love, by its very nature, is freedom. For there to be love, there has to be the option, both now and then, to not love. …] If at any point God overrides, co-opts, or hijacks the human heart, robbing us of our freedom to choose, then God has violated the fundamental essence of what love even is.”
A CALVINIST (AND QUITE A FEW ARMINIANS, TOO) WOULD ANSWER THAT THIS PLACES TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON ONE CHARACTERISTIC OF GOD!
Moreover, Calvinists (unlike Arminians, usually) often go far in denying that God is essentially love–not least in order to explain why God doesn’t have to act in love (or at least saving love) toward the non-elect (per Calvinistic theology).
And Rob (perhaps because by his own admission he isn’t a theologian and has no interest in ever being one) doesn’t have, or at least doesn’t give in this chapter, any reason why God’s love is so essential to what God is, that God must always act in love (even if also wrath, but a wrath in love) toward other persons.
This is where I would appeal to the precepts and doctrines of orthodox trinitarian theism; but Rob’s book isn’t my argument, so moving along…
Rob understands that as we choose evil it often leads to more evil, “wearing grooves in a familiar path that is easier and easier to take… on and on it goes, gaining momentum all the while… and as it becomes more and more dominant in our life, it becomes harder and harder to imagine living without it.”
In a closely related defense (similar to that taken by C. S. Lewis among other theologians and apologists), if we become “less and less humane in our treatment of ourselves and others” “would a person’s humanity just ebb away eventually? Could a person reach the point of no longer bearing the image of God?” In other words, could a person so destroy their personhood through sin that there’s nothing left for even God to save?
Rob doesn’t exactly try to answer those questions, although I think he hints at answers: “What makes us think that after a lifetime, let alone hundreds or even thousands of years, somebody who has consciously chosen a particular path away from God suddenly wakes up one day and decides to head in the completely opposite direction?” But the wording recalls the example of the Prodigal Son! And of course, as even careful Arminians would admit (much moreso any Calvinist!), that depends on God empowering and leading the person to do so. So long as God is still persisting, then that might still happen.
Or again, if God allowed a person to destroy their free will through sin, to the point where a person could no longer choose to repent (much less to the point where a person was not even any longer a person), then God in allowing that would have “violated the fundamental essence of what love even is”!–just as much as if God turned us into puppets to simply ‘make us’ behave ‘good’.
Rob stumbles a bit, though understandably so this time, presenting (what is most likely) a popular misquote of arch-Reformer Martin Luther’s question, regarding post-mortem second chances of salvation by God, “Who would doubt God’s ability to do that?”
BUT CALVINISTS DON’T DOUBT GOD’S ABILITY TO DO THAT!
No, they only doubt God’s intention to do that.
AND ARMINIANS DON’T ALWAYS DOUBT GOD’S ABILITY TO DO THAT!
True; soft Arminians may doubt God’s ability to do that after death, but hard Arminians doubt God’s intention to do that after death. Yet more importantly, soft and hard Arminians doubt God’s ability to do that before death! (Whereas Calvs don’t doubt God’s ability to get it done before death–or if necessary after death, although that’s a very rare Calv position–but they doubt God’s intention to get it done at all for some or many sinners.)
ALSO, FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF CALVS AND ARMS, IT ISN’T A QUESTION OF DOUBTING IN PRINCIPLE WHETHER GOD COULD OR INTENDS TO DO THAT; IT’S A QUESTION OF WHETHER THE SCRIPTURES HAVE REVEALED GOD CAN’T OR DOESN’T INTEND TO DO IT, OR ANYWAY THAT GOD DOES NOT IN FACT DO SO!! EXPLANATIONS FOR WHY GOD DOESN’T, WHETHER ARM OR CALV IN ANY FLAVOR, FOLLOW THE DATA AS GIVEN!
It’s true that Rob doesn’t really address this concern, and that’s a real weakness of his approach. On the other hand, Rob does at least show there’s scriptural data to suggest more salvation than Arms and Calvs (either way) theologically allow!–the complaint about following the data is fine, but it doesn’t work very well when other data suggesting universal salvation is ignored; and if one set is interpreted by another set (which one way or another has to be done), the question still remains why do so? (Which tends to be a question, with answers, of metaphysical principle, regardless of whether we’re talking Calv, Arm or Kath theology.)
Anyway, Rob goes with the expectation and the trust (or at least strongly respects such a trust) that given enough time “God’s love will melt every heart, and even the most ‘depraved sinners’ will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God.”
Rob throws out a handful of names, without context, as “church fathers” who either “affirmed God’s reconciliation with all people” or who affirmed that many-or-most people in their day believed it. (This is Rob’s other stab at establishing the position as a strong early majority that was changed.)
BUT AUGUSTINE WASN’T TALKING ABOUT “VERY MANY” PEOPLE BELIEVING IN THE ULTIMATE RECONCILIATION OF ALL THINGS!
No, the quote often attributed to him on this is pretty clearly about people who believed that there was temporary mitigation for punishments in hell at different times of the year (time off for Easter or whatever), which although he doesn’t seem to have believed it he did (somewhat grudgingly) sympathize with. He stresses that even these people still believe in hopeless endless punishment, though; which raises the question of who exactly he is arguing against, to bring up a popular belief in the “refrigerium”. Jerome, the Latin translator and historian, a contemporary of Augustine, had been himself a proponent of universal salvation (following Origen whom he greatly admired), until Augustine’s influence in the Latin church and Origen’s problematic doctrinal positions in other regards led Jerome to renounce universal salvation and to deny he had ever even been a fan. He and Basil (both of whom Rob briefly cite) probably were talking about a popular universalistic majority, even if Augustine wasn’t.
Not incidentally, he also hangs quite a bit of his chapter on agreeing that his opponents are correct in very important ways, and is far more sympathetic about presenting the ways they try to get around the implications of what they themselves insist on believing (while still trenchantly critiquing such attempts.)