ST2B Dogmatic Theology Course Manager: Dr. John McDowell
Summer Term 2004
“To Save the Quick and the
Dead”:
The
Universal Scope of Salvation.
But Will All Be Saved?
Introduction
The ultimate scope of divine salvation is an issue lying at the dogmatic heart of the gospel, and not merely a fascinating side show on the eschatological fringes of theological concern. The Eastern church Father Origen insisted that a theology of God’s love demands that the divine punishment for fallen creatures must be restorative, and therefore given the unlimited time of divine patience God’s purpose for the universal restoration of the fallen creatures will prevail (a kind of Platonically inspired notion of divine emanation and return). This, of course, meant in a famous moment, that Origen had to affirm the ultimate salvation of the demons and devil. However, Origen’s conception of apokatastasis was condemned at the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 543.
The theological refusal to follow Origen’s lead here has changed in modern times. According to Richard Bauckham,
Eternal punishment was firmly asserted in official ecclesiastical creeds and confessions of the churches. It must have seemed as indispensable a part of universal Christian belief as the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation. Since 1800 this situation has entirely changed, and no traditional Christian dogma has been so widely abandoned as that of eternal punishment.[1] Its advocates among theologians today must be fewer than ever before.[2]
As the notion of eternal punishment has been in decline in modern times, the notion of apokatastasis (universal salvation) has, in contrast, become more popular.
To say that the doctrine of apokatastasis has been controversial is an understatement. The responses to it from its critics have tended to veer towards the vehement. J.Oswald Sanders, for instance, speaks of it as a “dangerous doctrine”, the “creeping paralysis of … [which] is rapidly gaining ground throughout Christendom.”[3] Generally the force of the anti-universalist apologetic has to do with the fact that it raises matters central to the Christian faith – matters of the scope of divine love, the relation between God and world, the place of the scriptures in Christian life and worship, theological anthropology, the extent of Christ’s saving work, pneumatology, the understanding of eschatology, and so on.
Edwin Blum is one of many who claim that
it is unbiblical and therefore unchristian. Its major defence ('sovereign love') comes not from exegesis of biblical texts but from an idea of love which has a humanistic orientation.
What are the problems perceived to be? Several may be identified in advance. it:
– “finds no support in the scriptures.” (Sanders)
– “trivialises sin by effectively denying that sin deserves punishment” (Edwin Blum)[4]
– consequently, impugning the righteousness of God and denying final judgment (Sanders)
– undermines Christian morality since “the choice of good or evil loses its cutting edge when the results are ultimately a good destiny in either case” (Blum)
– denigrates the central doctrine of justification by faith by denying that faith in Jesus Christ is in fact necessary for salvation;
– and erodes missionary zeal, since the significance of future judgement is altogether lost if all will ultimately be saved without distinction.[5]
Therefore, according to Nigel de S. Cameron,
The universalist challenge proves not so much a threat to the doctrine of judgement and hell as a threat to the faith as an integrated whole.[6]
The first mistake being made in these critiques, or misleading response of, is that it homogenises several different types of doctrines of universal salvation.
So Bauckham has pointed out, that
Only the belief that ultimately all men will be saved is common to all universalists. The rationale for that belief and the total theological content in which it belongs vary considerably.[7]
Trevor Hart’s reflections agree with this qualification and plea for care in interpreting and responding to doctrines of universal salvation:
it is an incorrect procedure to lump all universalistic positions together as one – and thus it may be discovered that the above charges are invalid as presentations of the weaknesses of certain universalistic positions.
The universalist conclusion is then a variegated species some types of which root and grow in theological soils where others would only wither and die. Although universalists agree that all humans will be saved, they arrive at that conclusion in a considerable variety of ways. Consequently, the biblical and theological warrants for universalism differ widely depending on the theological orientation of the defender.
Non-Incarnational Universalism - John Hick
· God’s love and God’s Omnipotence –
the doctrine of hell has as its implied premise either that God does not desire to save all His human creatures, in which case He is only limitedly good, or that His purpose has finally failed in the case of some - and indeed, according to the theological tradition, most - of them, in which case He is only limitedly sovereign.[8]
· Theodicy question – If there is either eternal punishment or annihilation for some, then:
– either God is not perfectly good – since he does not desire the salvation of all his creatures –
– or he is not omnipotent – since his purpose has finally failed in the case of some.
– Only universal salvation can vindicate the omnipotent good God in whom Christians believe.[9]
· No ‘wasted’/’pointless’ suffering –
The sufferings of the damned in hell, since they are interminable, can never lead to any constructive end beyond themselves and are thus the very type of ultimately wasted and pointless anguish. Indeed misery which is eternal and therefore infinite would constitute the largest part of the problem of evil.[10]
· God’s purposes cannot be thwarted:
the notion of hell is no less fatal to theodicy if, instead of stressing the sufferings of the damned, we stress the fact that they are unendingly in sin. For this is presumably an even greater evil - a greater frustration of the divine purpose - than their misery. Thus, in a universe that permanently contained sin, good and evil would be co-ordinates, and God's creation would be perpetually shadowed and spoiled by evil; and this would be incompatible with either God's sovereignty or with His perfect goodness.[11]
What about human freedom? Can that not thwart God’s purposes?
· Infinite number of possible worlds/lives
The present life sees the beginning of this process of the bringing of human personality to maturity and wholeness, though the progress which different individuals make is extremely varied, ranging from a great deal (in the saints) through rather little (in most of us) down to even none at all or even less than none. We must suppose that beyond this life the process continues in other environments offering other experiences and challenges which open up new opportunities of response and growth.[12]
· Gravitation of our being towards God
[the Christian doctrine of creation] authorises us to hold that in creating our human nature God has formed it for himself, so that – to draw upon another strand of Augustine’s thought – our hearts will be restless until they find their rest in him...In other words, God has so made us that the inherent gravitation of our being is towards him.[13]
· Divine leading/teaching – God is likened to as a psychiatrist helping the patient - both before death and beyond - to remove inner blockages and inhibitions.[14]
In theory God could fail; but it is a practical certainty that in the end he will succeed.
Incarnational Universalism – J.A.T. Robinson
C.S. Duthie argues that the universalist question springs neither from a perverse spirit of speculation nor from a desire to evade the reality of God's judgement upon sin.[15] So this version of universalism is determined (ostensibly at least) by concerns claiming to be proper to the inner logic of the gospel itself, and it must be accorded the epithet ‘Christian’.
Robinson’s In the End God is one of the most developed and subtle presentation of this universalist persuasion. As Bauckham acknowledges, “Robinson’s is an eloquent expression of the case for universalism as a necessity of God’s nature as omnipotent love.”[16] And T.A. Hart accolades him as providing “one of the most subtle and compelling instances of this type of universalism.”[17]
·
Love of God for all people and desiring for them to be
saved (Eph.
the sole basis for such a doctrine, as more than wishful thinking, is the work of God in Christ.[19]
The
gospel directs us unequivocally to the determinative nature of “what has been,
one decisive act of God, once and for all, embracing every creature”.[20] It is “what God ultimately asserts himself to
be” which is the driving force behind the argument, and not an abstract concept
of deity obtained independently of God’s saving action in Jesus Christ.
· God is omnipotent[21]
·
If God loves all and is omnipotent then all must
be saved. Nels Ferré: “If he can save all men, then he will save all men.”[22] “[T]he logic of the situation is simple. Either God could not or would not save
all. If he could not he is not
sovereign; then not all things are possible with God (Matt.
· Suffering in this world is reformatory and in character and also has a deterrent effect.
· An eternal dualism would render God’s victory over sin and reconciliation of all things incomplete. “Judgement”, writes Robinson, “can never be God’s last word, because if it were, it would be the word that would speak his failure.”[24] And in this case, he concludes, “God would simply cease to be God”.[25] If a human being had the power to resist God’s love forever, “this power would have shown itself to be stronger than God and thereby have reared a final disproof of the omnipotence of his love.”[26]
· The existence of an eternal hell would not only raise questions about God’s power and justice but would have the practical effect of preventing those in heaven from experiencing complete bliss. Schleiermacher argued that if eternal damnation existed, eternal bliss could not, since the awareness of those suffering in hell would ruin the blessedness of those in heaven.[27] Thus Ferré argues that “If hell were eternal, furthermore, heaven would be an eternal place of mourning. All those truly in the Agape fellowship would identify their lot with the lost.... Heaven can be only when it has emptied hell.”[28]
·
Robinson observes that in the NT there are 2 pictures of the
end which are in tension with each other:
some texts speak of a universal restoration of all things (e.g.. 1Cor.
Critical Evaluation
Invalid Charges against incarnational univeralism
1. That it trivialises or minimises the seriousness of sin
There is no suggestion of this in Robinson’s thesis. The contention is not simply that in spite of their sin all will be saved; but rather that because of Christ’s dealing with sin and because of their response to this atoning reality in faith, all will be saved. This no more trivialises sin than God himself could be said to have done by allowing any to be saved in spite of it through faith in Christ and him crucified.
2. That it emasculates the doctrine of atonement
Again this criticism presumably resides on the assumption that if all are to be saved regardless of their attitude to the cross itself, and its necessity for salvation, is called into question. This is a wholly legitimate charge in relation to Hick’s pluralistic universalism, but not so in regard to the incarnational theory of Robinson. The atoning action of God in Christ is not marginalised, but is rather at the very heart of his universalism, since it is precisely the universal scope of the cross which fuels his conviction that all will ultimately make theirs subjectively that which is already theirs objectively.
The whole of my position is in fact grounded on that upon which he insists, namely, the action of God in Christ. To assert ‘the end of the Lord’ is not to pry or to argue presumptuously into the future. The Last Day will consist simply in the outward vindication of the fact already declared. The doctrine of universalism rests wholly on this final self-assertion of God in the action of Jesus Christ. It does not rest either on logic or on human analogy.[31]
3. That it denies final judgement and the reality of hell
It is certainly true that the universalist conclusion logically entails the denial of a final separation of human beings into eternally fixed categories of redeemed and lost. But many universalists accord something like a purgatorial significance to hell, seeing it not as an end, but as a means to the end of ultimate redemption.[32] As we have seen Robinson does not take this line, but he does accord existential reality to both judgement and hell as the inevitable outcomes of rejection of the gospel. Thus his universalism does not deny that judgement and hell are real: but simply that hell will ultimately be occupied because all will finally embrace Christ and be saved.
If all this is true, why then should hell be preached? First to inform people that no one who rejects God’s grace will get off easy – the threat of hell is real and serious, a condition of rejection of saving grace. Second, “to preach to sinners that all will be saved will not reach them on their level of fear and hate of God.... They must be told: repent or perish!”[33] Hell is real even if not eternal.[34]
4. That it denigrates the doctrine of justification by faith
Clearly Robinson is not guilty of this. His case from beginning to end is rooted in the conviction that salvation comes by faith in Christ alone. It is universalist because he expects faith itself to be a universal phenomenon, a universal responsiveness to the universality of God’s redeeming love in Christ. Thus faith is not simply a boundary marker, a convenient means of identifying the difference between those who are saved and those who are not. Rather faith or Robinson is the form which salvation itself takes as it bites into our existence, forcing upon us the choice between life with God and life without him. Whether few are saved in this way or all, the necessity for and significance of such faith remains the same.
5. That it impugns the righteousness or justice of God
Robinson presents a scenario in which none are in fact saved apart from Christ, and in which judgement and hell remain the inevitable fate of those who reject the gospel. Thus logically at least it remains true that the demands of justice stand firm; even if there is finally no need to implement them.
However, it is not clear that the very criticism itself derives from a satisfactory notion of the relationship between love and justice in God – it seems to imagine a God of dual personality who is successively love or wrath, but never so simultaneously.
6. That it undermines morality and erodes missionary zeal
H.G. Jones declares that “The acids of universalism are biting deeply into our national life.”[35] He attributes to universalism the blame for the “Startling breakdown in moral, the lowered tone in society, not least among the young.”[36]
Viewed from the perspective of unbelief it might also be suggested that a gospel with no hell lacks the existential teeth to win converts. Thus Walker and Bauckham note the somewhat disingenuous approach of some in the 17th and 18th centuries who, while adhering firmly to a universalist eschatology, nevertheless treated this as an esoteric doctrine and continued to preach hell on the basis that “the threat of eternal torment was a necessary deterrent from immorality in this life” for the masses.[37] Whether in relation to initial repentance and conversion, or subsequent repentance and holiness, then, the conviction here seems to be that it is necessary quite literally to ‘scare the hell’ out of people in order to secure results.
However, just what sort of repentance or obedience is it that can result only from significant exposure to the threat and the terrors of hell? True repentance and obedience, surely, are motivated by love, joy and gratitude at so great a Saviour, and by the desire to serve for the sake of the object of that service alone; ‘repentance’ motivated primarily for a concern for self-preservation, or obedience issuing from fear of the consequences of disobedience, these can find no place in a gospel of unconditional good news. Insofar as the darkness and awfulness of hell provides a necessary foil or context for the full appreciation of the significance of the unconditionality with which God redeems us, it may properly be spoken of as a necessary part of the proclamation of the gospel. Nevertheless, it cannot become the focus of our proclamation unless we resort to a form of conditionalism which seeks an existential foothold in the fear and guilt of those who hear.
Certainly Robinson’s universalism does nothing to undermine the sense of need to proclaim the gospel. The threat of hell makes evangelism absolutely necessary, since, if all are to be saved not apart from faith but through it, then clearly they must hear the gospel preached.
If the unevangelised will in fact receive their opportunity for salvation in this life, then why should anyone bother with missions now? Some universalists respond that just because we can trust God to work things out in the future life does not mean we should shirk our responsibilities in this life to show others ‘a more excellent way’. Furthermore, “the work of Jesus Christ is the only point in history where the characteristics of God [as love and wisdom] are concretely demonstrated and revealed.”[38] Informing our fellow human beings about the love of Jesus will help bring them into God’s family sooner.
7. That it lacks any foundation in biblical teaching
This charge is made, of course, by those convinced in advance that the weight of biblical teaching is clearly in favour of some form of dualist eschatology. In this they are correct enough; but this is not at all the same as saying that the universalist such as Robinson can find no support whatever in appeal to the scriptures. The reality of the situation would seem to be that there are both texts which appear to posit a universal redemption in Christ and others (rather more as it happens) which speak of a division between the saved and lost. Faced with this dualism the victory on the basis of a satisfactory majority is irrelevant.
Thus Brian Hebblethwaite: “perhaps the general thrust of Scripture, in the sense of what it reveals about the self-sacrificial love of God, constrains the Christian mind to read the threats of loss existentially rather than objectively, and also to hope that all the free response of faith will indeed be forthcoming in the end from all.”[39]
Valid Charges against incarnational univeralism
Evangelical John Sanders[40] points out that classical universalism meets the tests of ‘evangelical orthodoxy’ to the extent that it characterises sin as rebellion from God, asserts that grace is necessary for salvation, and holds Jesus Christ as the highest expression of that grace.
Universalism has met a felt need by providing an alternative to the restrictivist belief that God desires the salvation of only a few and the damnation of most of the human race for his glory.
Furthermore, restorationists have brought to the attention of the church a biblical theme long ignored - the idea that God’s punishments are redemptive rather than merely retributive or even vindictive, as sometimes been suggested.[41]
NEVERTHELESS, even Robinson’s universalism
· Sees beyond the limits of what can be known – dogmatic dualism is every bit as problematic as its universalistic counterpart.
·
Denies the ultimate absurdly destructive
potential of sin: the omnipotence of love
cannot be such that it triumphs at the expense of true humanness, effectively
depersonalising those whom it saves and denying the possibility of even their
absurd choices.
· Hence, the universalist’s fundamental flaw, according to Hart and Sanders, arises from the fusion of love with a notion of omnipotence as that which always and inevitably achieves its purpose.
T.F. Torrance rightly argues that
All that Dr. Robinson's argument succeeds in doing is to point to the possibility that all might be saved in as much as God loves all to the utmost, but it does not and cannot carry as a corollary the impossibility of being eternally lost. The fallacy of every universalist argument lies not in proving the love of God to be universal and omnipotent but in laying down the impossibility of ultimate damnation.... There is not a shred of Biblical witness that can be adduced to support the impossibility of ultimate damnation. All the weight of Biblical teaching is on the other side.[42]
Reading Suggestions
Marilyn McCord Adams, ‘Hell and the God of Justice’, Religious Studies 11 (1975).
Richard J. Bauckham, ‘Universalism: A Historical Survey’, Themelios 4.2 (1979), 48-54.
David
Fergusson, ‘Will the Love of God Finally Triumph?’, in Kevin J. Vanhoozer
(ed.), Nothing Greater Nothing
Better: Theological Essays on the Love
of God (
Trevor Hart, ‘Universalism: Two Distinct Types’, in Nigel M. de S. Cameron (ed.), Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1992), 1-34.
Paul Helm, ‘Are they few that be Saved ?’, in Nigel M. de S. Cameron (ed.), Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1992), 255-281.
John Hick, Death and Eternal Life (London: Collins, 1976).
J.A.T. Robinson, In the End God (London: James Clarke & Co., Ltd., 1950).
J.A.T. Robinson, ‘Universalism: Is it Heretical?’, SJT 2 (1949).
Thomas F. Torrance, ‘Universalism or Election?, SJT 2 (1949).
[1]
Already in 1914 H.R. Mackintosh could write:
“If at this moment a frank and confidential plebiscite of the
English-speaking ministry were taken, the likelihood is that a considerable
majority would adhere to Universalism.
They may no doubt shrink from it as a dogma, but they would cherish it
privately as at least a hope” [‘Studies in Christian Eschatology, VII,
Universal Restoration’, The Expositor,
8th Series 8 (1914), pp.130f.]
[2]
Richard J. Bauckham, ‘Universalism: a historical survey’, Themelios 4.2 (1979), 48-54 (48).
[3] J.
Oswald Sanders, What of the
Unevangelized? (OMF, 1966), 9.
[4]
Edwin Blum, Themelios 4.2 (1979),
59-61. “The considerations argued above
seek to show that the issues involved in the conflict with universalism are not
peripheral but central to the Christian faith. … [I]f the universalist position
would turn out in the end to be correct, no lasting damage would have been
done. But if the issues are as Jesus and
the Christian church have proclaimed, the monumentous nature of the decision
concerning Christ's sacrifice is apparent.
The choice is then – life or death.”
[5]
Blum, however, gives the impression that refutation of universalism is a must
at any cost, and thus he seems to deny its validity more because of his own
presupposed ideas about the extent of salvation than from his theological
scholarship as such.
[6]
Nigel de S. Cameron, 'Universalism and the Logic of Revelation', Evangelical Review of Theology 11
(1987), 321-2
[7]
Bauckham, 49.
[8] Death and Eternal Life, 377-8.
[9] Death and Eternal Life, 341-5; God and the Universe of Faiths,
[10]
John Hick, Death and Eternal Life (
[11]
Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 377-8.
[12]
Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 253.
[13]
Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 251.
[14]
Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 250-9.
[15]
C.S. Duthie, ‘Ultimate Triumph’, SJT
14 (1961).
[16]
Bauckham, 54.
[17]
Hart, 17.
[18]
J.A.T. Robinson, ‘Universalism- Is it Heretical?’, SJT 2 (1949), 140: “In
simplest language, God’s sole will of love is to be loved by all whom He has
created for love.”
[19]
J.A.T. Robinson, In the End God
(London: James Clarke & Co., Ltd.,
1950), 108.
[20] p.99
[21] “Now to call this will of love divine is at the same
time to confess it omnipotent.... If
there was anything that could prevent this fulfilment, then that power would be
stronger than the Divine love, and God less than all-mighty.”
[22]
William Dalton, Salvation and Damnation
(Butler Wis.: Clergy Book Service,
1977), 81.
[23]
Nels Ferré, Evil and the Christian Faith
(Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries
Press, 1971), 118.
[24]
p. 106.
[25]
p. 107.
[26]
See also Ferré, Evil, 117: “Without the ultimate salvation of all
creatures... there can be no full solution to the problem of evil.”
[27]
F. Schliermacher, The Christian Faith
, 2:721.
[28]
Ibid., p. 119.
[29] p. 100.
[30] p. 130.
[31]
J.A.T. Robinson, ‘Universalism – A Reply’, SJT
2 (1949), 378.
[32]
The restorationist understanding of the nature and purpose of hell is radically
different from that of the restrictivist tradition. Restorationists view hell not as a place of
mere retributive punishment but as a remedial and paedagogical place of
transformation. They draw on Irenaeus’
vision of “life as pilgrimage”, in contrast to Augustine’s vision of life as
the context for a single decision of eternal consequence [see Owen Norment Jr.,
‘Chauncy, Gordon, and Ferre: Sovereign
Love and Universal Salvation in the New England Tradition’, Harvard Theological Review 72 (July-Oct.
1979), 303]. The pilgrimage motif
comports with an understanding of divine justice as a part of the overall
framework of God’s plan of universal salvation.
All of human existence, before and after death, is seen in the light of
a great pilgrimage toward God. No one
will be forced into heaven, and no one will enter heaven who is incapable of
enjoying it. For those who spurn God’s
love there is hell, but “hell at any time can be turned into purgatory if it is
accepted and used.” [Michael Paternoster, Thou
Art There Also: God, Death and Hell
(London: SPCK, 1967), 155]
[33]
Nels Ferré, ‘Universalism: Pro and Con’,
p. 24.
[34]
Nels Ferré says that those who preach an eternal hell do so because they want
to gain control over people [The
Christian Understanding of God, 234].
John Baillie argues that those who profess a belief in the reality of an
eternal hell actually want it for others out of vindictiveness. He claims that if the doctrine had been
developed in the light of what the proponents themselves deserved, they would
have arrived at different conclusions [And
the Life Everlasting (London: OUP,
1934), 241].
[35]
Herbert Gresford Jones, ‘Universalism and Morals’, SJT 3 (1950), 27.
[36]
Ibid., 28. Such a problem was even noted
to an extent by the ‘universalist’ John Baillie [245].
[37]
Bauckham, 50.
[38]
W.B.
[39] Brian Hebblethwaite, The Christian Hope ,
[40]
John Sanders, No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the
Unevangelized (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1992), 106-15.
[41]
Stephen Travis, Christian Hope and the
Future of Man (Leicester: IVP,
1980): “All these expositions of
universalism have something to commend them.
They have a fine emphasis on God’s love:
indeed, he who has not felt the deep attraction of universalism can
scarcely have been moved by the greatness of God’s love. And all of them grapple to some extent with
the reality of sin and divine judgement.”
[42]
T.F.