The Evangelical Universalist Forum

"The Prodigal Gospel of Rob Bell" (aka JRP's long review)

Featured Writers Jason Pratt
#141

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.)

#142

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.”

#143

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…

#144

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.

#145

“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…

#146

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’.

#147

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.)

#148

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.

#149

EVEN IF THEY WERE, A POPULAR MAJORITY DOESN’T MEAN MUCH!

True, popularity doesn’t mean a position is true.

EVEN A SCHOLARLY MAJORITY DOESN’T HAVE TO MEAN MUCH!–IF THEIR REASONING AND/OR DATA ARE FAULTY, THE MAJORITY OF PROFESSIONALS ARE STILL WRONG!!

True again. (And there is more evidence than commonly supposed that a large minority of Christian theologians, after the time of Origen if not before, were believers in universal reconciliation; maybe even suggestions of a majority in various times and places, up until sometime after the rise of Islam, although Western Europe and Northern Africa west of Egypt kept an early majority in favor of eternal conscious torment.)

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander either way: the majority, whether popular or scholarly, whether universalistic or non-universalistic, might still be wrong.

However, as difficult as it is to suss out positions taken by various teachers and cultures in Christian history, it’s still worth answering the common charge popular today that practically no one in ‘orthodox’ Christianity was ever a universalist. Origen, admittedly, may not count as being in the ‘orthodox’ party, but he still made important contributions to the eventual technical positions of the ‘orthodox’ majority; and Gregory of Nyssa (to pull another name from Rob’s quick-draw hat) helped compose the Nicene-Chalcedonian trinitarian creed formulation. For his defenses of trinitarian theism, he is still honored among Western and Eastern Catholics as “the father of orthodoxy” and “the orthodox of the orthodox”.

BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN HE WAS RIGHT ABOUT UNIVERSAL SALVATION!!

Nope. He might still be wrong about that. (Or, he might have been right in his conclusion and wrong about how exactly he got there!) The same is true for any of the other big-name universalists whom history has largely forgotten (or conveniently forgot they were universalists). Similarly, hard-core orthodoxy proponents who weren’t universalists (Augustine being the most famous example) weren’t necessarily right about being non-universalists despite being hard-core orthodoxy proponents.

Rob’s presentation would have been fairer if he had bothered to acknowledge these things in favor of his opponents as well as in his own favor.

#150

Still, I think he makes a fine point (one which Calvinists ought also to agree with!) when he rhetorically asks, “Which is stronger and more powerful, the hardness of the human heart or God’s unrelenting, infinite, expansive love? “Thousands through the years,” including practically every Calvinist, although Rob doesn’t hint so, “have answered that question with the resounding response, ‘God’s love, of course.’”

And whether they were a small minority, a sizable minority, a small majority or a great majority, it’s still undeniably true that “At the center of the Christian tradition”, yes including orthodox trinitarian theism, “since the first church have been a number” (however many that number might have been) “who insist that history is not tragic, hell is not forever, and love, in the end, wins and all will be reconciled to God.”

SO THERE’S THE BOOK TITLE!

Yep; this is a big reason why opponents and supporters say that the title of his book itself indicates Rob is being a universalist.

#151

BUT THERE HAVE UNDENIABLY BEEN A NUMBER (HOWEVER LARGE OR SMALL, BUT AT LEAST INCREASINGLY LARGE) AT THE CENTER OF THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION WHO ALSO INSISTED INSTEAD THAT LOVE DOESN’T WIN!–ER, OR MAYBE THAT LOVE WINS BUT NOT THAT WAY!

Rob does acknowledge this, too; but he acknowledges it in a way that gives priority to reassuring the universalists (and even moreso the non-Christians who might convert if they thought love wins that way) that you don’t have to believe in hopeless punishment to be a Christian. “The Christian faith is big enough, wide enough, and generous enough to handle that vast a range of perspectives.”

BUT BELL DOESN’T LIKE TO ALLOW THE SAME THING THE OTHER WAY AROUND!!

Unfortunately true. In fact, right after saying his he writes that “It’s important that we be honest about the fact that some stories are better than others.” Guess which stories he thinks are worse.

THE STORIES TOLD BY CALVS AND ARMS!

Good guess. :wink:

Now, aside from the fact that I agree with him that those aren’t as good a story (in any sense) as universal reconciliation and salvation from sin, at least Rob isn’t trying to pretend that all theological ideas are equally true and so equally worthy of acceptance. That’s fair enough.

But neither does he give much indication of really being prepared to respect his opponents the way he wants them to respect universalists (or whatever half-semi-quasi-version he thinks he is but isn’t.) This chapter is stronger than usual in his book because he does here go further than usual in respecting his opponents. He crits non-universalists for “failing to extend grace” to universalists; but he doesn’t do very well at extending grace back himself.

#152

Except maybe in this way: after all he says and does, after all his emphases on God’s persistence as well as scope of salvation, even after a (relatively) brief but suggestive look at the end result of the Revelation to John (where he actually doesn’t mention several things that might add more weight to the hope of the eventual success of God’s evangelism)–after all this, Rob Bell still says we don’t need to (and cannot) resolve or answer the questions “Will everybody be saved, or will some perish apart from God forever because of their choices?” Instead of resolving and answering those questions “We simply respect them, creating space for the freedom that love requires.”

HUH–DOESN’T SEEM TO US LIKE HE HAS RESPECTED ARM AND CALV ANSWERS TO THOSE QUESTION MUCH!

Yeah, he seems more concerned with leaving room for answering yes to “will everybody be saved”. But by backing off his insistence on the persistence of God, he does leave room for some kind of Arminianism to maybe be true after all.

NOT SOME KIND OF CALVINISM, TOO?

No, Rob constantly insists on the scope of God’s salvation; so no he doesn’t even remotely leave room for Calvinism (compared to Arminianism) to be true.

#153

So when Rob declares that “Hard and fast, definitive declarations then, about how God will or will not organize the new world must leave plenty of room for all kinds of those possibilities”, he definitely isn’t leaving room for the possibility that God’s scope of salvation in organizing the new world isn’t total. He only leaves room for God to not persist, or to incompetently persist.

WHICH ROB HAS DEFINITIVELY DECLARED GOD WILL SURELY DO!

Yes; his attempt at backing out here looks very inconsistent.

He also definitively declares that whether or not God gets what He wants, we humans will certainly “resoundingly, affirming, sure and positive” get what we want. “God is that loving.” If we want hell, we get hell.

WHAT IF WE WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE IN HELL AND NOT BE BOTHERED BY GOD?

Uh, no, apparently we don’t get that if we want it.

WHAT IF WE WANT TO BE SINNERS WITHOUT ANY CONSEQUENCES WE WOULD RATHER AVOID FROM DOING SO?

Um… nope, Rob definitively declares we won’t get that either.

WHAT IF WE WANT TO OPPRESS OTHER PEOPLE FOREVER WITHOUT INTERFERENCE FROM GOD SAYING ‘ENOUGH, NO FURTHER’?

Nopity nope nope; Rob assures us we won’t get that, no matter how much we may want to.

#154

OKAY!–JUST CHECKING ON WHETHER BELL IS TALKING REAL SENSE HERE OR IS ONLY BEING RHETORICALLY CONVENIENT AGAIN!!

Yep, he’s being rhetorically convenient again. Although this time, he isn’t being rhetorically convenient against his opponents. If anything he’s being rhetorically convenient in their favor! Or anyway in favor of soft Arminianism.

Or maybe not in their favor? Because he turns around again and affirms that (as Arminians would eventually deny, one way or another, not to say Calvinists, too!) “Love always leaves room for the other to decide.”

Rob may, at the end, throw away all (or most) he has talked about concerning the persistence of God to lead sinners to repentance and salvation; reducing God to standing around waiting like the father of the Prodigal for his son to come to his senses and come home.

But if Rob, at the end, refuses to say for sure that love wins, in the sense he strongly insisted upon earlier in the chapter…

at least he insists love wins in the sense

that love

doesn’t

lose.

[Part 8 starts in the next comment below.]

#155

Part 8: Taking It Personally

I have even less to complain about in Chapter 5. I don’t suppose this means I can just skip it and proceed along…?

NO! WE NEED EVERY LAST COMPLAINT FROM YOU! AAAALLLLL OFFFFF THHHHEMMMMMMMM!!!11!!!

Sigh. Oooooookaaayyy.

My biggest gripe about this chapter is really only a passing gripe from back in chapter 1. It’s more of a joke at the expense of Rob’s rhetorical ineptitude than anything.

REALLY?

Yep. Remember when Rob critiqued a particular defense of hopeless punishment by stating that “the problem” with this defense was that the phrase “personal relationship” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible? And then just moved along as though that settled the matter?–or even made a lick of sense to say, considering how extremely often the topic of personal relationships (including in regard to salvation) shows up in the Bible?

OH, YEAH! BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHA! AHHH… GOOD TIMES… WAIT, DOES HE QUOTE THE BIBLE NOW WHERE IT USES THE PHRASE “PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP”!?

No.

DANG.

But he does emphasize the reality and importance of personal relationships here, including with Jesus and in regard to salvation.

OKAY, THAT’S ALMOST AS FUNNY! NOW THAT WE THINK OF IT, HASN’T HE BEEN DOING THAT SEVERAL TIMES BETWEEN THEN AND NOW?

Yes, I just had other things to comment and complain about so I didn’t bother to mention it.

I’m going to mostly be complimenting (and somewhat summarizing) Rob now; but you’re entirely welcome to interject a hoot about “PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS!” whenever we run across something of that sort. It’ll be fun. :slight_smile: Just don’t use it as an excuse to ignore the other things.

SIGH. OOOOOOOOKAAAYYY.

#156

I like Rob’s introductory remarks that the cross has become the most successful ‘logo’ in world history, but that its success is paradoxically so strong that people tend to use it to mean whatever. (I’m frankly a bit doubtful that Rob’s example, the rapper Eminem, converted to Christianity in any meaningful way during his absence, seeing as how a cross is part of the stylized rapper-gangster “bling”. But I won’t diss Rob’s charitable pondering on the topic.)

And even when people try to represent some religious meaning with it, the basic concept is so familiar (“Jesus died on the cross for your sins”) that the meaning, or the meanings, can be lost.

MEANINGS? PLURAL?

Yes, because as Rob rightly and colorfully reports, the New Testament authors (and even Jesus by report in the Gospels) describe what the cross means in several different fashions.

#157

First (and I love his “Didn’t see that coming, did you?” approach to this), it means the end of the whole culture of religious sacrifice as an attempt to maintain a peaceful relationship–

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP!!

Heh. --with the gods. (Or with God, although Rob shies away, for whatever reason, from explicitly acknowledging that the Hebrews were doing this in their tabernacles and Temples and elsewhere by the express command of God. But his basic point stands without having to go into the complexities of acknowledging this.)

Jesus, on the cross, is the ultimate sacrifice (by God Himself) that thoroughly pleased the only God Who ever mattered.

Or again, Paul in Colossians 1 writes that through the cross God was making peace through the blood of Jesus, reconciling all things to Himself. Reconciling, Rob rightly says, is “a word from the world of relationships” where two persons–

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS!! WITH GOD!! FOR SALVATION!!

Heh. --have found a way to work out the differences between them and come back together. Peace has been made.

OH. UH… BUT WE… WE THOUGHT ‘RECONCILE’ MEANT…

Yes?

IT CAN’T MEAN MAKING PEACE!!

Why not?

BECAUSE THEN UNIVERSALISM WOULD BE OBVIOUSLY TAUGHT IN THE… UH… WE MEAN, BECAUSE THEN THE BIBLE WOULD CONTRADICT ITSELF!!!

Obviously one set of verses has to be interpreted in light of another set; or both sets in light of some third set or in light of some guiding principle.

#158

ALL RIGHT BUT WHAT ABOUT ATONEMENT!?

You mean at-one-ment?

YEAH!–UH… WHAT?

That’s how the word is supposed to be pronounced; it was coined in English originally to get across the meaning of {katallos} (or conciliation in Latin) and similar cognates in Greek. You aren’t supposed to pronounce it a-tone-ment. (Although if you do you should think in terms of two things coming into harmony of tones together!)

Not that Rob gets into any of this. In my opinion he should have taken some time to do so, because most other teachers aren’t likely to teach it, even if they know it themselves–because then… well… :wink: they’d be teaching that God acts to save all creatures in heaven and earth from sin, actively reconciling them to Himself through His sacrifice on the cross.

And that would be ‘heresy’! Also, incidentally, it would be exactly what St. Paul teaches in Colossians. Oh noes. :open_mouth:

#159

NOW WAIT WAIT WAIT JUST A MINUTE. ARMINIANS HAVE LONG BEEN AWARE THAT PAUL IS TEACHING THE RECONCILIATION OF ALL THINGS, NOT ONLY SOME, ON THE CROSS!

Until you make exceptions. Unlike St. Paul.

WE DON’T MAKE EXCEPTIONS! ALL MEN EVERYWHERE ARE INCLUDED! UNTIL AFTER DEATH! EVEN THEN THEY’RE STILL INCLUDED; GOD JUST GIVES UP ON THEM OR IS FORCED TO QUIT TRYING TO RECONCILE THEM! OR MAYBE STOPS ACTING TO RECONCILE ANYONE AFTER THE CROSS, LEAVING IT ENTIRELY UP TO US AFTERWARD… sigh… BUT THE POINT IS EVERYONE IS INCLUDED!! THAT’S PRACTICALLY OUR BIGGEST EVANGELICAL POINT, AND IT’S SUPER IMPORTANT FOR SAKE OF EVANGELISM!!! WE CAN BE SURE EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST A LITTLE OPPORTUNITY TO BE SAVED!!–AT LEAST IN PRINCIPLE IF NOT IN PRACTICE!!

Well, that was sufficiently qualified! :wink:

WE HAVE TO QUALIFY THE GLORIOUS RECONCILIATION OF ALL THINGS TO GOD, IN ORDER TO COMPORT WITH THE GLORIOUS AND/OR TRAGIC CONDEMNATION OF SOME OR MOST THINGS TO HOPELESS PUNISHMENT!

I understand; I used to be the same way myself.

AND NOW, NO DOUBT, YOU THINK GOD EVEN RECONCILES DEVILS TO HIMSELF. FEH!

Whereas, Arminians don’t.

NOT HARDLY!

So in fact you do make exceptions. God isn’t in fact reconciling all things to Himself on the cross. Just like the Calvinists teach.

…WELL, NO. BUT PAUL DOESN’T… HE DOESN’T REALLY MEAN ALL THINGS…

Isn’t “all things I say, whether in the heavens or on the earth” still in the Bible?

YEAH, BUT… BUT THAT ISN’T ALL THINGS IN HELL! OR UNDER THE EARTH! OR WHATEVER!

So what things in the heavens have sinned and need reconciling to God, if not rebel angels?

THE… BUT… BUT THAT’S MERELY POTENTIALLY SO!

If God chose for it to count.

RIGHT! AND HE DOESN’T!

He doesn’t elect them for salvation, in other words, even though He testifies (through St. Paul at least) that His work (in the fullness of His deity) was entirely sufficient to reconcile them, too.

#160

ALL RIGHT FINE! WE JUST BECAME CALVINISTS!

After all, hopelessness in the gospel has to be affirmed somehow, right?

EXACTLY!–WAIT…

I should mention here that Calvinists will not typically affirm that God was actually acting to reconcile all things to Himself either; because persistence of God’s salvation is extremely important to their theology. If He even intends (much moreso acts) to reconcile someone, to save them from sin, then He keeps at it until He gets it done. They have to read in a merely potential static reconciliation of all things, when Paul says God was reconciling all things to Himself on the cross. Or they have to ignore or discount Paul’s own emphasis of scope “all things I say!–whether in the heavens or on the earth!”, which specifically parallels Paul’s immediate previous insistence on Christ being the highest Lord conceivable in creating union with the Father. The scope of Christ’s power and authority parallels the scope of Christ’s salvation of sinners from sin: they stand or fall together.

RIGHT! THAT’S… THAT’S WHY WE’RE ARMINIANS!!

Because of the total scope of God’s action to save, testified here (among other places).

EXACTLY!–WAIT…

We’re kind of getting away from dealing with Rob’s argument, so I’ll spare you further disconcertion on this point and get back to summarizing him.

PAUL DOES SAY SOON AFTERWARD THAT HE HOPES AND TRUSTS HIS READERS WON’T GO BACK TO BEING UNRECONCILED TO GOD, YOU KNOW!

I know. I’m not discounting the intransigence of sinners. That’s important to keep in the account, too. But I trust first and foremost in God (including to save). I don’t trust first and foremost in sinners (not to be saved or otherwise)! How about you?! :slight_smile:

…LET’S JUST GET BACK TO ROB’S BOOK.

Right.