The strange case of Dr. Universalist and Mr. Reformed

by Steve Douglas

December 13th, 2010 | 21 Comments

Synchronicity in the blogosphere can be almost spooky.

I was sitting in the library working on my dissertation a few days ago when an interesting thought occurred to me out of the blue. I floated it among some of my friends something like this:

If the universalist is right, everyone will be reconciled to God in the end. To many believers, universalism is a dangerous doctrine because they fear that evangelism will suffer, and so if universalism turns out to be wrong, more people will perish as a result of their having been lulled into a false sense of security. But the Reformed should have no bone with universalists: if the Calvinist is right, God’s people will go to heaven regardless. It is only those who reject unconditional election and irresistible grace who should find universalism to be a threat.

Although this statement leaves untouched the question of the universalist’s and the Calvinist’s precise beliefs about evangelism as a Christian responsibility, the general consensus was that this is fairly airtight reasoning. In part I offered it as an attempt to show a huge class of universalism’s most vocal critics (the Reformed) that their core reasoning bore more affinities with universalism than they might care to admit. But my main point was that, despite the common belief that universalism is not merely a harmless false belief but one which poses a severe practical problem, i.e. it supposedly encourages a tapering off of evangelism, this is in fact only a valid fear if one believes that God is not sovereign over salvation. It is only the non-Calvinist who needs be wary of any pragmatic ill effects (as opposed to biblical or theological problems) of universalism.

In discussion with my friends, I came to realize that I, as someone who shamelessly flirts with universalism and shamelessly casts aspersion on many of the hideous conclusions of Reformed soteriology, fall equally-but-inversely under my own critique. I realized that if Ido indeed entertain the possibility of universalism, I could not maintain an unequivocal objection to at least one of the petals of T.U.L.I.P.: irresistible grace.

My friend Drew Smith then pointed me to a post written the day before, in which Roger Olson pointed out how universalism typically relies upon one of the same presuppositions underlying the so-called “doctrines of grace”, viz. that God will have His way in the end — they merely differ on the character of God and His way (although this is a dramatic difference). Olson objects to both views on the same basis: the free will objection to universalism and Calvinism, the problem of God somehow overriding human wills in order to force Himself upon us.

Drew also pointed out a post from last month by Eric Reitan, an excerpt from his upcoming book on universalism dealing specifically with the objection to universalism from free will. Well, it just so happened that the heretic universalist Joel Watts pointed out another blog post published today voicing the free will objection to universalism/Calvinism, which was also defended by Rod of Alexandria, who memorably characterizes universalism as “predestination with a smile on its face.” Interestingly, as evidence for the validity of the thought I had in the library, I’d like to note that all of the above-cited objectors to universalism are non-Calvinist, Wesleyan-leaning Christians.

But of course I was unaware of all of this when I was sitting in the library on Friday, and was already preparing to blog on the topic. Almost makes me think that this is all a part of some great divine plan set in order before the foundations of the world…almost.

I have a few thoughts on the free will objection, which I don’t find particularly persuasive, but I won’t really go into it here. For a start, however, be sure to read Eric Reitan’s post, and this from me/MacDonald as well. What are your thoughts?

December 13th, 2010

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  • http://twitter.com/tegregory Eric Gregory

    Actually, you can easily not fall under the “threat” of Irresistible Grace as Calvinist assert it. It is not necessarily grace that allows for universalism as you could argue that purgative and restorative punishment will fall on those who do not yet believe or have not yet been purified (whatever that means) and that, after their time of purgation, would be allowed to enter the kingdom of God. Gregory of Nyssa was a proponent of this view on apokatastasis/universal reconciliation for he did not want to remove God’s justice in punishing sinners, but understood punishment to be restorative and therapeutic instead of vengeful and retributive.

    I don’t think you run into the “problem” (if it is one) of God forcing grace on people who don’t want it. Those who refuse Christ just get all of their crap burned away since the conclusion of all human life is subsumption in the Divine.

    • http://undeception.com/ Steve Douglas

      Eric, I certainly wouldn’t say that a universalist need accept Calvin’s own definition of irresistible grace, just as they generally would find difficulty accepting the typical Calvinist definitions of love and justice. But in a search for common chords of brotherhood…it’ll do in a pinch. ;-)

      The version of universalism I find compelling is one that certainly acknowledges a need for some sort of therapeutic or purgative step in our individual futures. Indeed, even C.S. Lewis thought it more likely than not that there would be a stage analogous to when the dentist rinses your mouth out before letting you get up from the chair. And of course this is also in line with MacDonald’s perspective on God’s desire to rid our souls of all wickedness: “He will have him clean.”

      I’d love to read that Gregory of Nyssa paper you wrote for your class. Heck — if you’re not going to publish it on We Are the Stories…I’m always happy to have guest posts. ;-)

  • http://thechurchofjesuschrist.us/ Joel

    You know my thoughts, you right-of-already-fell-off-the-cliff dude guy. Not sure if you followed the conversation between John and I, but it noted that his surmising might do with a little adjusting after meeting with early Christian thought.

    You know, the thought that says that all of creation will be redeemed, whether on this side or that side of the great divide.

    • http://undeception.com/ Steve Douglas

      I admired how easily he backed off on that — so many of us tend to stake out our positions and defend them against all assaults, no matter how reasonable.

      • http://thechurchofjesuschrist.us/ Joel

        Wait… are you calling me reasonable?

        • http://undeception.com/ Steve Douglas

          Hey, even a blind squirrel gets a nut every now and then.

          –
          Steve Douglas
          Sent with Sparrow

  • Paige

    Well, here are my simple thoughts.

    The position I take has been likened by another (who will remain unnamed here) as the bastard child of Calvin and Arminius.

    I do put some stock in determinism, as I see God is big enough to accomplish His will, even if He has to override another will. Those on the “free will” side of this argument have argued that this violates “love”, and therefore God let’s one “choose” eternal damnation, or eternal life. When I ask if they have ever personally over-ridden the will of their own child (it really should read “WHEN they have…”); were they, as parents, being unloving? I get bird’s chirping for my response.

    What if God has given us a table full of choices, but “eternal damnation” (the way Dante imagined) is not one of the choices on that table? If I offer my children chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry, have I failed to love them because I didn’t offer them cinnamon?

    I view God as Father of all. If a truck is barreling down on His toddler standing in the middle of the road, I don’t see Him standing by the side of the road, wringing His hands and hoping Jr. will move.

    • http://undeception.com/ Steve Douglas

      Paige, I have used that very analogy in my own head before (but I especially loved the way you put it)! Like you, my overriding view of God is as Father; the way Jesus taught us to speak of God (and he should know!) was as Father. Some will balk at the idea of God as Father of all (rather than merely the Father of the righteous), but nevertheless it strikes me as wholly implausible that He whose Son died for God’s enemies should be so callous as to be content for any human to be run over merely because s/he is not His own.

      I suppose the biggest issue for me is this: punishment for sin makes the most sense when considered to be remedial rather than merely retributive. Even in the OT book of Jonah, God expresses His Fatherly concern for those pagan Ninevites “who cannot tell their right hand from their left”. Sin is a blindness; it is sickness. God is the Great Physician. What doctor do you know, “great” or not, who would allow a patient to die on his operating table if the ability to save the patient lay in his power?

  • Paige

    Steve,

    Paul boldly claimed unconverted pagans to be the offspring of God, so I think we have license to claim God’s Fatherhood over all humanity.

    I think your points are valid, and will be looking for your blog post when you put it altogether. Also, really enjoying your MacDonald Mondays :)

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1179427679 William Tanksley Jr

      All humanity including the religious leaders of John 8? “The one who belongs to God listens and responds to God’s words. You don’t listen and respond, because you don’t belong to God.” See the context regarding Jesus’ apparent denial of God’s fatherhood to them; and flip back to see that he’s denying something to specific people, one of them known to us by name.

      You could argue for universal adoption in spite of these verses, but not universal fatherhood.

      • http://undeception.com/ Steve Douglas

        First off, it is the tendency (sometimes the bread-and-butter) of systematic theologians to overdefine and read too much into the figurative speech of Scripture. I must emphasize that much of the talk of God as “father” is metaphorical, analogical; there are metaphors in Scripture that do not always agree on all points, e.g. Paul’s talk of sonship vs. being a slave, adoption vs. new birth, etc. I think there are ample biblical reasons to consider God-as-Father to be the philosophically fundamental metaphor, but to argue that there are no conflicts with other, sometimes conflicting, biblical analogies would be foolish. As I said, though, I do find ample scriptural and philosophical spport for the idea of God as father of all humanity, for which a good person such as we think He is would naturally feel certain obligations for welfare.

        It is certainly true that there is talk of “adoption as sons” throughout the NT in reference to a change in status for believers. But I would caution against taking our modern understanding of adoption and applying it too woodenly to the text: literally, huiothesia does not mean to “become a son”, but “to be taken and accepted as a son”. It is certainly to be granted that we do not live as sons of God until we turn homeward as did the Prodigal Son, who was after all within the parable representative of unbelieving Gentiles (the elder brother was a type of the Jews). The father in that parable affirms, “He once was lost,” and this is the state we invariably grow into, whereupon we are “adopted as sons” by this world (but are sinners Satan’s or God’s offspring? cf. Act 17.28). Remember that in Jesus’ genealogy, God is accounted the father of Adam, who (historical or not) is taken as the father of all humanity. And as you gamely pointed out, even granting that God is not the father of all in a spiritual sense does not preclude an eventual “adoption” (in our current sense) for all.

      • Paige

        I see your point, yet I I feel Jesus is making a point here about who the self-righteous are actually following. In the same way they claimed Moses and Abraham, Jesus is telling them that to do that they needed to embrace Him. Does one really believe that when Jesus states, “you are of your father, the devil,” that He is implying that the devil is responsible for the creation/origin of these people?

        To the dualistic mind, it is always either/or, and Jesus is continually coming up against that mind during His ministry. When one awakens to the realization of one’s true identity and origin (found in God), one can never claim a time that God was not one’s Father.

        Paul had that Damascus encounter which brought true awareness to his life and heart. His ministry was the ministry of reconciliation. This has deep implications that impact the truth of humanity’s origin.

        • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1179427679 William Tanksley Jr

          Paige, I agree that “your father the devil” isn’t ascribing creation to the devil; but by the same token being able to claim God as one’s father isn’t the same as claiming God as one’s creator.
          Almost all these posts seem to presume that simply because God created us, He’s our father, and that’s the end of it. I don’t think there’s any support for that at all; it’s merely a modern metaphor.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1179427679 William Tanksley Jr

    Well, first of all, even the bare five-point Calvinist (a hypothetical being; there are always other doctrines) asserts “limited atonement” (or particular atonement), which although it doesn’t absolutely contradict universalism, at least implies its contradiction.

    Second, all the Reformed (including, for the sake of this distinction, the Reformed Baptists, to which I cleave) hold much deeper doctrines, all of which emphasize the importance of the means by which God provides salvation — evangelism, declaring the Gospel, declaring repentance, participating in the Sacraments, and so on (I’ve picked distinctives for Baptists, Calvinists, and Lutherans.

    Finally (to come to a 3-point landing), the idea of ‘grace’ within these doctrines is something that is not an obligation. I often see a moral disgust at the idea of God refusing grace to anyone; but this disgust is either mistaken, or we are not talking about grace. A thing that is morally obligatory is not grace, by definition (Paul relies on a similar idea when he contrasts grace against wages). To be fair to you, this argument isn’t against universalism; rather, it’s against the idea that the reformed doctrines of grace imply or assist universalism.

    • http://undeception.com/ Steve Douglas

      Hello again, William!

      It should be noted that I don’t believe Calvinism or universalism imply one another. My point is that they share some basic beliefs that are contradicted by most non-Calvinists.

      I also did not want to get into the question of evangelism, which most Calvinists and all “evangelical universalists” would uphold as a sacred duty.

      Regarding your ideas of “grace” and “obligation”, let me ask you: is forgiveness an obligation? Is love an obligation? If it’s our responsibility to love our enemies, if that’s our Christ-commanded “obligation”, then is it not truly love and forgiveness? Or is it not more nobly so for being granted to all indiscriminately? Grace does not mean prejudice; it does not imply disfavor to others, or else “gracious to all” and “full of grace” would be absolutely meaningless. Grace means a gift. Surely it is silliness to say that someone who give gifts to all alike is not gracious, by arbitrary definition! Grace is not a wage earned by the recipients, since one doesn’t earn gifts. If Santa threw out his “naughty and nice” list one year and brought toys to all, would they be any less “gifts”? Rather, they’d be that much the less tied to any semblance of earned wages. Can’t a person give equal grace to all? Then why not God? If you say “justice” or the like, the discussion has changed subjects from grace as something good “by definition” withheld from some but given to others.

      But as I said, I’m not trying to say that “the doctrines of grace imply or assist universalism” — merely that they resemble one another in (to me) unexpected ways.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1179427679 William Tanksley Jr

        My point in bringing up evangelism wasn’t that it’s a sacred duty; rather, my point is that it’s one of the means by which, according to most Christian churches, God ordinarily saves people. Thus, it’s not true that Calvinists believe that if nobody evangelizes “God’s people will go to heaven regardless.” Rather, God will have nobody among His people. (The doctrine is that God arranges things so that this will not happen — He will always preserve “a remnant”.)

        Forgiveness is indeed a moral obligation, and we forgive in imitation of God; so by looking to see how we are commanded to forgive others we can see how God forgives us. Consider how Jesus commands us to go about forgiveness in Matt 18; the process requires us to actively seek out our brother, but the process may end in what we now call excommunication! Every detail we can find about forgiveness says that it’s preceded by repentance.

        I’m not sure that love is an obligation. I’m not sure that it CAN be an obligation. It may well be the grounds of morality, without which no good act can be actually good (but which is meaningless without good acts). That’s a bit philosophical, but no more so than asking whether love is an obligation.

        Your last quote deserves more fullness: “Or is it not more nobly so for being granted to all indiscriminately?”

        I don’t know. Forgiveness doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that is granted indiscriminately; love does seem plausibly so, but this hardly proves that it’ll produce the same result, or similar results, for all.

        And grace? Well, I can’t fence that in — but God can. Whether he DID is a different question, but let’s just note that God’s love cannot constrain His grace, or it’s not grace.

  • http://twitter.com/bad_christian Sean R Reid

    At the risk of being WAY above my educational “pay grade” in this discussion, I’m reminded of C.S. Lewis portrayal of Heaven/Hell in “The Great Divorce.” The debate here seems similar Lewis’ idea that you’re always free to accept God’s grace but it’s not a simple transition (i.e. walking on the grass of heaven is painful as a non-corporeal entity). As such, residing in Heaven or remaining in Hell -which, in the case of the story, is being separated from God, alone in bitterness/holding on to your human hangups- is ALWAYS, even after death, a matter of your willingness to accept the gift of, and responsibility associated with, grace.

    I find this position to be the most consistent with character of an all-powerful, all-loving God.

    • http://undeception.com/ Steve Douglas

      As such, residing in Heaven or remaining in Hell -which, in the case of the story, is being separated from God, alone in bitterness/holding on to your human hangups- is ALWAYS, even after death, a matter of your willingness to accept the gift of, and responsibility associated with, grace.

      Yes, Lewis always maintained that hell’s doors were locked from the inside: if anyone was finally separated from God it was because this was their own preference. The imaginary dialogue with George MacDonald at the end of The Great Divorce, the scene with the chessboard, still gives me chills. Lewis never seems to have fully embraced his “master’s” vision of God as a father who would always, through eons yet future, wait until He was recognized for who He was, which MacDonald believed would unavoidably result in loving and accepting God as Father. Lewis never really did quite rule that possibility out, though.

  • Anonymous

    I had always avoided universalism as heresy and apostasy. Then, through extended Bible study, I saw that everyone is indeed going to heaven through Christ. Therefore, I wrote The Biblical Case for Everyone Going to Heaven: http://wp.me/PNthc-i6

  • cimawr

    In my view any theology that has a God, who the beloved apostle describe as “love”, condemning any of His beloved creation to eternal torment is illogical and effectively blasphemous. Yet this is what most denominations of christianity have done. The non-believer often subconsciously picks up this hideous underlying message and hence the vehemence with which many reject the gospel.

    Far from undermining evangelism, christian universalism would invigorate evangelism. For the first time in 15 centuries the church would once again be preaching true good news for all!

    • http://undeception.com/ Steve Douglas

      Absolutely right on all counts. Thanks for the comment!