Hello all,
I was pleased to see there being dialogue specifically regarding Tim Keller. He is someone I have respected for years. He is a dear friend of some friends of ours and we know first hand that he is a man of great integrity and surprising humility for all his success. His wife Kathy also is notable for her grace and humility.
Our small group of Evangelical Universalists just launched a website containing an Open Letter to Tim Keller since it was his teaching that, as we say,“brought us to the very brink of EU”. This was on account of his sweeping sermons and quotes on the restoration of all creation and also his introduction of Lesslie Newbigin’s missional ideas (that our election is an election *for *the world). Ironically Newbigin was a universalist.
We open the **About Us **page with actual quotes by Keller, the Gospel Coalition, Cornelius Plantinga and Michael Williams whom we contend say things they are not supposed to mean but describe the position of the Evangelical Universalists perfectly. Scot McKnight is another we mention on the blog. There are so many now that are resonating with and delivering this message of mission and restoration recently that we can’t even keep up!
They are so close without even realizing it!
Would love to have feedback on the letter. Please offer any suggestions for further clarification or points we failed to cover.
Excellent, Phillip. I understand perfectly what you mean. So many come so close to preaching universalism without realizing it, mainly because they either can’t see or refuse to see the implications of what they say!
Freedom is a funny thing. If I have a glass of lemonade and a glass of iced tea, I can freely choose between them because both drinks appeal to my nature as a human being. If I have a glass of lemonade and a glass of raw sewage, I can still choose between them, but the choice is strongly biased by my nature, and therefore less free. If I have a glass of lemonade and a glass of some liquid I find utterly repulsive, I am no longer free to choose. I am bound by my nature to drink the lemonade. Would I feel angry that my liberty had been somehow compromised? Not at all. I’d enjoy the lemonade and I’d enjoy flushing the other stuff down the drain.
Were I perfectly good by nature, I would find sin utterly repulsive. I would no more reach out my hand to take it than flap my arms and fly. I would have no “liberty” to choose evil, nor would I desire such liberty.
Just as there was a serpent in Eden, there was a serpent in Adam. Adam was very good, not absolutely good. Were he absolutely good, he would not have eaten the apple. By nature, he would have found the very suggestion utterly nauseating. Adam was very good, but perfection would only come through suffering. He had to experience the bitterness of sin existentially, not abstractly. Therefore, God let the snake into Paradise. In mercy, God bound Adam into disobedience. God hanged a stinking mass of sin round his neck like an albatross. God clothed Adam in the bloodied skin of a dead thing.
The thing is … EU does not deny necessarily deny or diminish any of the 4 points listed. It merely asserts that the deliverance via the cross Keller believes was provided for some was actually provided for all … even if some must spend a finite amount of time in hell in order to be delivered via the cross.
To put it more bluntly: EU can still have the doctrine of everlasting conscious torment for those who do not embrace the cross, just like Keller, and still be bona-fide EU.
I would assert that what separates EU from traditionalism is not the doctrine of “everlasting conscious torment for those who do not embrace the cross”, but it is the doctrines of
a.) how long people will have the opportunity to embrace the cross and
b.) how many will eventually do so.
I think I am tracking with you and I think that is what I had onlyhoped was true before I became an EU. I remember reading somewhere that CS Lewis said (it could have been someone else so don’t quote me) that yes, he certainly believed in (eternal) hell but he also did not believe anyone would be there. That stuck in my mind and gave me a “notion” to hang on to until God in His time would finally reveal to me full UR. (The reason I think it was Lewis is because I remember thinking that his other writings don’t agree with that and yet at the same time many of his fantasies take huge liberties with the traditional view of eschatology implying he believed in a much bigger picture than he let on. My personal experience with Lewis is that he was all over the map and very hard to pin down on this issue.)
Anyway, I digress! So are you saying that we could believe there IS an eternal hell but that the cross was simply effectual enough to ensure that no one end up there which would satisfy the traditionalists assertion that we are saved from the eternal wrath of God?
I have thought that that would be a way for the traditionalists to embrace UR and not compromise some of their doctrines.
And that is how I have often listened to Keller simply filtering it through the UR view which is in my opinion pretty easy to do since he never qualifies his sweeping statements of restoration. He did a sermon on Ez 16/Isa 19 that actually confused some people into thinking he actually WAS teaching UR!
But in the final analysis I would personally have to disagree on account of the fact that the Bible seems to teach that it is death that is the wages of sin and not ECT. Also it still leaves in tact a god who “needs” to use a retributive punishment (even hypothetically) in order to be just. But I think it could be a good starting point for some individuals as they are weaning off of the traditional view. I don’t think we need to force people to see everything at once.
That sounds like a strangely illogical thing for Lewis to say. My question to him would be, what is the purpose of an ‘eternal’ hell if no one is in it?
I looked at your website and really liked it btw. I really loved the open letter to Tim Keller there! I think it’s funny how many good bible teachers actually do unwittingly teach aspects of UR without realizing it.
I like that firedup! I wouldn’t have much problem with hell, as long as there is hope at the end, mabye “hell” is kind of like the pigpen for the prodigal son? just a bad place to hang out til people come to their senses, and will find the Father out waiting for them?
Yes it was very illogical but at the time when I read it I was grabbing at straws if you know what I mean. It made a bit of sense because the Bible did seem to teach EH but I did note the verses that seemed to contradict that God was going to lose anyone to hell. I guess the person who said it (Lewis? It was probably caught in a letter to someone that got published, you know things you believe but don’t let on publicly) was thinking that the purpose of EH was to say: look what I saved you from, here’s what My wrath entails and what the cross saved you from…? (…yeah, doesn’t really work).
I added an addendum to that last post btw.
Thanks for the encouraging words regarding the site!
No problem; My wife isn’t a very theological person, but I had her read the letter, and she really liked it. I also agree with your addendum, that we should not (nor can we!) force anyone to see it all at once…My experience is that seeing any of it at all is only by the grace of God, like everything else!
I think that is exactly what it is and I use that “analogy” (God-inpired at that) on our website to help people see that as there is a temporal “free-will” where we do chose which way we will go, God has His means to bring us to our senses and in alignment with His heart. And I don’t think the prodigal looked back at his time in the pigpen and ever said, “gee, that was totally worth the trip”. No one will say that the refining fire was worth the season of sin, no one. But the gospel is that the Father is waiting for each one of us to come home from either a life of overt sin (the younger) or covert sin (the older). And as always the sooner the better, for two reasons: to avoid the pain of chastisement and also to receive the unspeakable blessings and experiences we would miss out on if we were in a “far country”!
Yeah, I think that’s what I’m saying. Certainly it is true that if someone does not repent they will be in a place of conscious torment, however you wish to define “conscious torment” and wherever you wish to place it. If theoretically they never repent, then they will be in an everlasting place of “conscious torment”. So at least in theory, ECT is true. EU would teach that there is always a chance for repentance and that eventually all will. But EU never denies that “conscious torment” exists for the unrepentant.
So after everyone eventually repents, will God still keep the place of torment around … as a reminder of what we have been redeemed from? Maybe. To me it does not matter. The point is that to embrace EU you do not have to discard the idea that “conscious torment” exists for the unrepentant for as long as they continue to in their unrepentance, which *theoretically *could be forever.
I think many traditionalist are worried that EU necessarily diminishes our conception of the how bad sin is and how much we deserve a forever hell. Individual EU people may do this in their theology just like individual Calvinists may do this in their theology. But it is not inherent (or necessary ) to the EU approach. Under EU, hell can be whatever hell is for a Calvinist or an Arminian. It can be as bad and deserved as you want to consider it to be. We can all debate how bad and deserved it is, but in my mind it is not at the heart of EU (as I expressed in my earlier post.)
In the back of my mind many of my comments on this site have to with focusing on the main differences between EU and traditionalism, as I am engaged in communication with many traditionalists quite routinely. I want people to see how compelling the logical arguments for EU are. With this in mind I don’t want to get sidetracked by nonessentials, such as how bad hell is or how much we deserve an everlasting hell. With a guy like Keller I want to say: "Lets just all agree to consider hell to be the worst it can be and lets just consider an everlasting hell to be what we all deserve. (At least for the sake of argument.) And yes, the doctrine of hell, as you have described it, is important. Now … let’s talk about what really divides us … "
What is so attractive about about EU is not that it limits the severity, deservedness, or theoretical duration of hell, but that it redefines the intent of hell, from one of RETRIBUTION to one of REDEMPTION.
That’s not a bad way to approach it, although I still think that even conceding that much is ultimately based on the unbiblical assumption that it is “hell”, not death that we are being saved from. Remember that in the OT, they didn’t really have a concept of the afterlife, because death was largely seen as the end. It is sin and death that we are saved from, and from the annihilation of remaining in the grave. That was the whole point of the resurrection. Sin is extremely serious, because it is why we have death! But we know that death will be done away with in the end (it is the last enemy to be destroyed, because sin must be eradicated first).
Thank you that is helpful. I am willing to let Keller, or whomever, “let hell be the worst it can be”. But I think no matter what you will have to talk about the atonement. This seems to be what every reformed theologian tries to uncover (Wittmer, Chan, Galli, Keller). I tried to address this on the website. I invite more insight into this.
There are 2 things I am thinking:
One is the fact that it seems that the concept of ECT is sustained by the Penal Substitutionary Atonement since it is the eternal wrath of God that is viewed as being propitiated by either the cross or an eternal hell. And while I do not reject it as one of many metaphors of the atonement I think it begs the question of what about the view of the church for the first thousand to fifteen hundred years where the PSA view was either non-existent or in rudimentary form?
The early church as I understand had more of a Christus Victor model along with the Ransom theory until Anselm. Therefore considering all the power and influence the early church had it seems untenable that they had an inferior view of the cross. Did we really lag in our understanding of the cross for fifteen hundred years until the Reformers set it straight? I appreciate Scot McKnight on this where he talks about all the metaphors together and how it is in the final analysis actually very much a mystery (same with Leon Morris).
So if one must stand solely on the PSA to make a case for ECT then it leaves hanging the question as to what the early church was running on for power(!)
And I don’t like the way the Reformed arguments go that try to force the PSA above all the other atonement theories when in fact it wasn’t held by the early church and in all honesty the cross is a mystery in many ways. It is multifaceted and has perhaps as many facets as there are souls, since we all have unique needs. He is after all Jehovah Our Provider…meaning whatever you need.
The second reason I would contest the ECT view even hypothetically is because it changes the focus of the cross from being about delivering us from a condition to that of delivering us from a location. Fear of sin often gets eclipsed by a fear of hell. A terminal sin nature ending in death is very bad news indeed and enough to send the world to its knees before the Savior when they are given eyes to see.
Yes, I think this is a huge point that needs to be grasped–that the very nature of justice is righteousness or “right-useness”. I think in light of all the recent work on social justice as modeled in the Scriptures (by Colson, Justice that Restores and Keller, Generous Justice etc.,) this connection will become more and more obvious…that all justice in God must be redemptive.
Melchizedek & phillip macdonald : You have Good points worth considering.
My main point is that EU does does not necessarily preclude a concept of ECT in theory. Though I hesitated to use the word “torment” in my previous post, as it tends to conjure of images of God giggling with delight as He stretches people out on a torture rack, I also made sure to indicate I was using the term in a vague sense. I think we all believe that those separated from Christ are not happy campers, whether in this life or the next. This could also be termed a state of “torment”. It may not be because God is actively torturing the person … it may simply be the result of a person facing the guilt and consequences of their own sin … it may be because the person is sad to not be in God’s presence … but it will be torment nevertheless. But more importantly I was trying to point out that if theoretically one never repents, that person will necessarily remain in this place of torment. (EU offers assurance that such will never happen in actuality.)
I think it is interesting to discuss the various theories of the atonement in relation to EU and traditionalism. But as I have explained the concept of ECT above, could not ECT still be compatible with other theories of the atonement like Christus Victor? Put another way, could not Christus Victor also be used to support the idea of a place of conscious torment that exists as long as there are unrepentant sinners, which theoretically could be forever?
Rev 14 They are tormented in the presence of the lamb and his holy angels. I dont think the theory that the torment is being away from the presence of God holds up. This was my old pastors exPlanation btw.
Im not saying your whole idea is wrong btw firedup. Just the theory thats en vogue with evangelicals to try and lessen the horrible nature of ET that hell is away from the presence of God. There are many verses saying we cant get away from God
Gotcha, redhotmagma. That’s a good point about how we can never get away from God. In any case when I used the term “torment” I just meant that whatever it is, wherever it is, its positively “no fun”. Those who do not trust in Christ and His forgiveness are on the “wrong side” of God and it will be miserable for them. For that matter, we experience such misery (AKA “torment”) today when we sin against God and for a time refuse to repent. Those who die never having trusteed in Christ … as I said before … will not be “happy campers”.
Yes, and I think your point is well taken. It seems that as those who believe in UR argue against ECT we often swing the pendulum the other way downplaying or neglecting the very real threat of the judgment of God where no one will leave saying it was worth it, no one. Colliding with the God of the universe is certainly not going to be pleasant.
But on the other hand perhaps we feel like we are dealing with “abused children” who every time we raise our hand they flinch and duck. So also we are afraid to mention “judgment” because people auto-translate that to mean eternal damnation. I think that is sometimes why I back off at first when telling someone about the gospel. But at some point we must make clear the “severity” of the Lord.
