#UniversalRedemption

[rethinkingthefaith]

Albert Schweitzer, Universalist

Albert Schweitzer was one of the great Christian scholars and humanitarians of all time. Here's what he had to say about the extent of redemption:

"There is still a question: What will happen to those souls who were wicked in the world? Will God judge these souls and say, 'I do not want to see you' and put them into hell? Oh, we know that if God wanted to judge souls and to put them into hell, ours souls would go to hell. But we know that God is love and that God forgives, and this is why we believe that God will ultimately forgive all those souls, and that if he punishes those who did not obey him in life, this will be only for a time, and in eternity all souls will come back to him. But we who know God, we know his Word and we want to keep our soul pure, so that we may bring a soul to him that has obeyed him in life, so that when we die our soul may return joyfully to God's house. (From "The Africa Sermons," Nov. 5, 1933)

Who among us doesn’t hope Schweitzer is right?

[wyclif]

John Preston on the Free Offer of the Gospel and Universal Redemption

But (which is the ground of all comfort) it is given to every man, there is not a man excepted; for which we have the sure word of God, which will not fail. When you have the Charter of a King confirmed, you reckon it a matter of great moment: What is it then, when you have the Charter of God himself? which you shall evidently see in those two places, Mark 16:15, “Go and preach the Gospel to every creature under Heaven”: What is that? Go and tell every man without exception, that there is good news for him, Christ is dead for him, and if he will take him, and accept his righteousness, he shall have it; restraint is not, but go and tell every man under Heaven. The other Text is, Rev [22:17]. “Whosoever will, let him come and take the waters of life freely.” There is a quicunque vult, whosoever will come, (none excepted) may have life, and it shall cost him nothing. Many other places of Scripture there be, to prove the generality of the offer: and having a sure Word for it, consider it.

John Preston, The Breast-Plate of Faith and Love, (London: Printed by George Purstow, and are to be sold in the Companie of the Stationers, 1651).

[rethinkingthefaith]

Universal Salvation: Considering the Possibility

"The Lord has compassion over all He has made." Psalm 145:9

The scenario is easy enough to imagine. Mother Teresa spies an old man dying in the streets of Calcutta. She sponges his fevered brow and has him transported to a medical facility. After giving him a cup of water, the nun prays with him and whispers to him about God's love. It makes no difference to her that the suffering man has lived an irreligious life. Her love and mercy are unconditional. He need not confess a doctrine in order to be the recipient of her compassion. As his breaths grow increasingly shallow, Mother Teresa does everything she can to comfort the man, to make him feel loved.

Now imagine that the man dies and passes into the next life according to the prevailing theology. He is without hope. The love and mercy he knew moments earlier from one of God's imperfect creatures flees away before God Himself. He is a cursed soul.

The difficulty ought to trouble every believer in popular religion. Based on our scenario, Mother Teresa turns out to be more merciful, more compassionate, more loving than Deity. While performing her acts of charity in the name of Christ, she is adopting the very opposite stance that God Himself adopts moments later. How can this be?

Consider another scene: A devout Quaker takes to heart the holy obligation to love his enemies. He has received harsh treatment from some neighbors. Still, he prays for them. When one of them falls ill, he brings over a meal. He does whatever he can to help in time of need and adopts a cheerful demeanor toward them, despite their animosity. His actions are much like Jesus'.

Suddenly, one of these neighbors dies in a car accident. He leaves this life at odds with the Divine. So how will God treat His own enemies when they stand before Him? Will it be consistent with the way His servant, the Quaker, treated the man? Not according to mainstream belief. No, the Quaker's Christlike heart toward his foes is not a reflection of God's dealings with His enemies. Again, how can this be consistent with the divine perfections? Does God tell us to love our enemies and do good for them, yet bring wrath upon His?

The question is all the more pointed when we consider that Jesus bids us to love those who do not love us, so that we may be "perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." (Matt. 5:46-48)

Considering universal salvation

This is not intended as a presumptuous judging of God and His ways. That would be the height of folly. If God really does relate to His creatures the way orthodoxy says He does, then I have misread the internal monitor that informs my sense of justice and mercy. This is certainly a possibility. A thousand prejudices influence my thinking, and I confess that this may be one of them. But it hardly seems criminal to consider alternate possibilities when popular theology fails to engage reasonable questions.

In my article Thoughts on the Afterlife, I asserted that there is no place for dogmatism in our beliefs surrounding life after death. But there is room for thought, leanings, theories, providing we understand their fallibility.

In that spirit, I approach the doctrine of universalism as a theory that makes more sense to me than the other views of personal eschatology. Universalism argues that God will eventually draw the entire human race to Himself, that every person's heart ultimately will be right with its Maker. I present it here as a possibility, one that I realize may be wishful thinking in the extreme. Admittedly, I am not fully convinced of it. But there are reasons for holding out such a hope.

On the deepest level, universalist considerations do not come to me via theology or even Bible verses. They come when I consider the people whom the traditional system places in hell. I think of a little Jewish lady bowed over with age, a young man raised in an irreligious home, droves in India eking out a destitute existence. Then I contemplate the love that flows from the throne of God and the Savior who died forgiving his murderers. When I do this, the traditional view loses its credibility.

I am aware that intuition is a poor foundation for a religious doctrine. And equally aware that such biases can contaminate our handling of Scripture and theology. But the love and mercy of God are presuppositions for which I make little apology. Other Christians taint their objectivity with lesser biases, such as a desire to follow the majority or to vindicate a cherished creed.

The attributes of God

Thankfully, though, theology does offer its supports to universalism. The greatest of these may be the perfection of the divine attributes. God, for instance, is sovereign. His will is supreme and must carry the day. All that He wills, he fulfills. Isaiah taught this (Isa. 46:11). So did Daniel (Dan. 4:35) and Paul (Eph. 1:11). Nothing, not even the stubborn will of man, can thwart God's will.

And what is this will with regard to the scope of redemption? Paul wrote that God "will have all men be be saved." (1 Tim. 2:4) God desires not the death of the wicked, but a mending of their ways (Ezek. 18:23). He is willing that no one should perish (2 Peter 3:9). Place the sovereignty of God beside His stated will to save the world and universalism becomes tenable.

Let me restate the point: 1. The Bible tells us that God is sovereign. 2. He has a will. 3. His will positively must come to pass, no matter the odds. 4. His will is that all turn from their evil ways and be saved. Where is the break in this chain? How can we absolutely rule out universal salvation in the light of such truths?

The other attributes of God support his sovereignty. God is all wise and would not create a world that might slip out of His control and ruin most of His rational creatures. God is all-powerful and will not fail in His attempts to win humanity to Himself. His arm is not shortened that He cannot save, as Isaiah prophesied.

The attributes of love, compassion and mercy are at the highest level of perfection in Deity. Even many of His creatures who have an infinitely inferior measure of such graces would gladly save everyone if they could. It only makes sense then that the God whose kindness and pity so exceed ours would do likewise. It cannot be that His creatures have a wider breadth of mercy than He.

And yet, that is what the mainstream's exclusionism gives us: Imperfect human beings whose mercy and compassion are more liberal than the Father's. It sets forth erring men and women who are called to love their adversaries, while God holds Himself to the lower standard of hating His (or at least acting as if He does). What thoughtful believer can own such a contradiction as sound doctrine?

The Christian hope as "good news"

Universalism is serious when it calls the Christian message "good news." The mainstream calls its view by the same name, while affirming that most people on the planet will die in their sins without hope. Humanity is heading toward a precipice of ruin and only the tiniest remnant (in proportion to the whole) will escape.

To this day, I wonder how anyone who believes this fervently can ever have a happy moment. Souls perishing each second of the day! Can a person be joyful knowing that such a thing is going on all around them? True, you may be relieved about not being among the lost yourself, but such a sentiment hardly resembles selfless, Christian compassion.

Suppose someone predicted that a dirty bomb would explode in your town and kill the vast majority of its inhabitants, but that you were destined to escape it. Would you rejoice at the news? Would hearing about this thrill you to the depths of your being? Such jubilation would be a dark blot on one's character.

Supports from Scripture

Universalism has the support of many passages in Holy Scripture. It is consistent with the Old Testament prophetic vision of a world at peace with Yahweh:

"All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him." (Psalm 22: 27)

"All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord ... You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing. The Lord is just in all his ways and kind in all his doings. ... My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, and all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever." (Psalm 145: 10, 16-17, 21)

"On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines ... And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth." (Isa. 25:6-8)

"From new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, says the Lord." (Isa. 66:23)

"For from the rising of the sun to the setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering, for my name is great among the nations." (Mal. 1:11)

Critics may see in these texts nothing but hyperbole, a recognition that someday Jews and Gentiles alike would see the salvation of God. They may be right. But don't such passages challenge on some level the common idea that most of humanity will be lost? In the face of texts that speak of "all flesh" eventually coming to God, it is striking that traditional Christians so easily sustain their belief that most flesh will not come to God.

Suppose we held contrarian views in the face of other universal "all" passages. Would this make good sense? Can we read, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God," while holding a belief that the majority has not sinned? And when we read about the crucifixion, where "all forsook him and fled," can we argue rationally that most stayed by his side? If not, then how can we read texts about all nations, all families and all flesh coming to the Lord without at least considering that the human story will have a happy ending?

Universal salvation is consistent with the New Testament assertion that God loves the world (John 3:16), and that Christ has brought salvation to all (Titus 2:11), that he has reconciled every person to the Father (2 Cor. 5:18) and has come to save the world, not condemn it (John 3:17). Three times, the Bible tells us that every knee will bow and every tongue pay homage to the Lord (Isa. 45:23, Rom. 14:11, Phil. 2:9-10).

The book of Revelation looks forward to a day when all rational beings without exception give glory to God and Christ:

"Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, ‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.' " (Rev. 5:13)

Biblical objections

True, there are many texts that militate against universalism. I doubt that the biblical authors can rightly be called universalists. But the logical consequence of what they taught about redemption and the love of God certainly cracks open the door. Peter said that the prophets of old did not understand the full implications of their own utterances (1 Pet. 1:10-12). Could it be that even the New Testament writers on some level shared this imperfection with their Old Testament counterparts?

I do believe that many of those texts that appear to contradict universal salvation speak of judgments in this world. Even statements about "unquenchable fire" probably refer to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., not a judgment in an immortal world. Isaiah used a similar statement to convey a temporal judgment in his prophecy (1:31).

The judgment of God spoken of in the New Testament -- including the terms "destruction," "eternal punishment," (literally, "punishment of the age," NOT "endless punishment"), "condemnation" -- were all at hand, set to fall upon that generation. The coming of the Son of Man in fiery judgment was not an event reserved for the distant future or beyond the grave -- it was imminent, ready to sweep the land (Matt. 10:23; 16:27-28; 24:30-34). It makes sense then to locate the fulfillment of these words in the first century.

Grace after death?

Another consideration relating to the universalist theory is this: Nowhere are we ever told that death ends our opportunities for redemption. In fact, there is evidence that the New Testament supports after-death grace (1 Pet. 3:19-20; 4:6). Could it be that the multitudes who leave this life without a right heart may gain one hereafter?

Those who find God on this side of the grave are called "the elect" in the New Testament. Universalism holds out hope that an even larger body is elected to find Him after this life so that He can literally "have mercy on all." (Rom. 11:32) How else can such "larger hope" texts come to pass unless the ages of eternity are fitted to bring much of our race into a right relationship with the Sacred?

The immediate reaction of most Christians today is against such a concept. But on what basis, other than its initial strangeness to us? It was not strange to the ancient church. Many in the early centuries of the faith prayed for the dead to find ultimate redemption. Some, as Paul tells us without disapproval, were even baptizing on behalf of the dead (1 Cor. 15:29). Other Christians of antiquity commonly held that Christ entered hades and emptied it after the crucifixion.

And so the ancients did not see death as the end of all opportunities for all human beings. And why should they have? There is no necessity laid on God to cut off hope with one's last breath. Why should something as arbitrary and capricious as death be the deciding factor?

Universalism has an ancient tradition behind it. It is not a novel idea invented by a few modernists. The early church had plenty of adherents to universal redemption. Greek-speaking Fathers of the Church -- those fluent in the New Testament tongue -- were especially apt to be universalists.

A destiny of purpose

Universalism gives purpose to the creation in a way that the other views of personal eschatology do not. In the mainstream view, multitudes are born, live and die -- only to find that their entrance into this world was an absurd misfortune. Time sweeps away entire villages, cities, cultures whose existence must be deemed pointless.

Here there is no comfort for the parent of a suicide victim. No rest from the nagging concern that one's family may at the last be sent to perdition. Every natural disaster in a nonchristian land severs multitudes from God for eternity. Victims of the Holocaust pass through their excruciating ordeal only to be cast away when they arrive in the Divine presence. Life becomes futile and existence devoid of purpose.

Universalism makes the suffering of this life purposeful, part of the soul-making process. To the universalist, punishment -- even punishment in the next life -- is corrective and helpful to the one chastened by it. To the traditionalist, punishment simply is an end in itself. Suffering becomes the last word for most of humanity.

True, the unpleasantness of an idea is no proof of its falsity. But which view is more consistent with a loving God whose "mercy endures forever"? Which sounds more like "glad tidings of great joy"? Which makes Jesus "the savior of all men, especially those that believe" (1 Tim. 4:10)?

Some may complain that such a view fails to do justice to the many biblical texts that speak of evildoers perishing in their sins. Universalism does not easily address the predestination of some to eternal life and the passing by of others, an idea common in Paul's epistles. I am sensitive to those objections, despite not being a biblical inerrantist. Many times, I consider modifying the position to exclude the wickedest of the human family. It may well be that those who pursue evil for its own sake, voluntarily removing themselves from God and all goodness, will forfeit the gift of existence. But consistency makes me hesitate. If Christ "tasted death for every man," (Heb. 2:9) that would seem to include the worst.

This, as I said before, is not the stuff of dogma. Universal salvation remains an inconclusive theory (albeit a sensible one). It is not something that I am prepared to shout from the rooftops as one of those "things most surely to be believed." But it remains a possibility in the minds of many. It is a hope that the psalmist was right when he declared that "all flesh will bless His holy name, forever and ever." (Psalm 145:21).