"For we labor and struggle to this end because we have hoped in a living God who is the savior of all human beings, especially those who have faith." –1 Timothy 4:10
The Amorphous Imprecision of “Universalism”
As Hart himself argues, words mean something. And their meaning derives, not primarily from prescriptive dictionary etymology, but at least includes descriptions of a word’s evolving dominant usage. And when a word suffers accretions and contortions through misuse or new use, they may even become so sullied as to warrant disuse.
I prefer not to identify with the label' universalism,’ not because I object to Hart’s thesis as such—I don’t—but because that term has suffered decomposition beyond his best use of it. Today, the majority who identify as universalists do not merely believe “that all shall be saved.” Pop universalism—now the default account of the doctrine (as used by proponents and detractors)—denies that we even need salvation or a savior to begin with. The infernalist critics then weaponize this assumption as slander against its best and most responsible theologians so that universalism comes to mean:
- Jesus doesn't matter,
- the Cross doesn't matter,
- sin doesn't matter,
- there is no final judgment,
- faith in Christ doesn't matter.
In other words, the Incarnation of the Christ has become dispensable in pop universalism. That is notHart’s position. Or Robin Parry’s. Or Thomas Talbott’s. Or Fr. John Behr’s. Or Gregory of Nyssa’s. Or Isaac the Syrian’s. Or Maximos the Confessor’s. Or that of Sergei Bulgakov or St. Silouan the Athonite. All of these surely affirm ultimate redemption without ever compromising the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I, too, believe that ultimately, every eye will see Christ, every knee will bow to Christ, every tongue will confess Christ. It’s there in our Bibles. I believe that Christ will restore all things and reconcile all things, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. The apostles say so. I believe God so loved the world that he sent his Son to save the world and draw all men to himself. I’ve read those red-lettered words. I believe Paul’s claim that Christ will bring every enemy under his feet, including death, and hand the kingdom over to his Father so that God will finally be all and in all. I believe that as in Adam all died, so in Christ, all will be made alive (Rom. 5, 1 Cor. 15). I am convinced that whatever destruction Adam wrought in us all, “how much more” the redemption of Christ has and will overcome death for us all. I believe this. The infernalists cannot affirm these Scriptural truths without endless caveats and contortions that nullify them.
I also believe these biblical promises will only occur:
- because of Christ,
- through the Cross,
- where sin and death are defeated,
- that all will pass through a restorative judgment into life, so that
- all who see him will willingly respond in faith to the all-merciful One.
In other words, in these five points, I’ve rejected what the word universalism has come to mean for most universalists and for most of its opponents. And so have Hart, Parry, Talbott and so on.
Does citing this catena of Scriptures make me sound like a universalist? I resist the charge because so many universalists are now just pluralists (any path gets you there, without faith in or need of the Lamb of God, crucified and risen). Thus, I am nota universalist in today’s common use of the term. I consistently say so when I write or teach, despite the slander. I prefer phrases such as 'hopeful inclusivism' or 'ultimate redemption' – as in ALL are included in Christ's saving work and will ultimately be saved as they place their hope in him. H.I. believers embrace the possibility (or more boldly, the reality) of post-mortem repentance because death has been defeated and Christ now holds the keys of death and hades.
Hart’s Patristic Universalism
The universalism Hart advocates is a specific subset that some call patristic universalism. Unlike pop universalism, Hart retains all the key vital features found in two of my favorite saints, St. Gregory of Nyssa (which is also to say, St. Macrina the Younger) and George MacDonald. Hart might describe these elements differently, but in general, they expand on the tenet proffered earlier:
- Jesus Christ alone is the author and finisher of our salvation.
- The Incarnation of Christ, climaxing in his Passion (death, descensus and resurrection) is the fundamental means by which God saves us and restores all things.
- Sin and death matter greatly, but Christ has already and will ultimately overcome sin (by his freely given forgiveness) and death (by raising up humanity in his resurrection).
- There will be a final judgment, and although it's nature, duration and details are held in mystery, the agenda and outcome are revealed as entirely restorative and redemptive.
- That all sentient beings will ultimately willingly embrace this salvation through the restoration of their natural wills, established in Gethsemane and effected by the beatific vision, when every eye sees him, every knee willingly bows and every tongue joyfully confesses the Lordship of Christ.
DBH’s patristic adaptation of the universalist label may work with his fans, but I suspect he’ll confound and confuse both disciples and detractors who assume universalists abandon any the above essentials because that’s exactly what most do. This isn’t Hart’s fault. The problem is with the term and with sloppy readers (if they even bother with reading). If we’re to call Hart a universalist on his own terms, then I recommend always including the patristic modifier and insisting others do so also. So, disagree with him if you like, but as a patristic universalist, Hart cannot rightly be accused of heresy. Indeed, far less so than his critics.
Origen’s Cautious Universalism
Hart rightly looks to Origen as a patron saint for patristic universalism and is among Origen’s best apologists, along with John Milbank and Fr. John Behr, whose newly released edition of First Principles is no doubt history's most significant rehabilitation of Origen's memory since Gregory the Theologian and Basil the Great compiled his Philokalia. And I’ve never seen a better or more concise defense of Origen’s apokatastasis than Hart’s First Things tribute to “Saint Origen.” That two-page gem stands as definitive and irrefutable.
With that background, I note how Origen is frequently derided anachronistically for his eschatological optimism when in fact, he showed humility and expressed caution beyond what you see later in either Nyssa or Hart. It’s not that Origen wavers in his faith that all will be saved. Rather, Origen faces the same dilemma we’ve run into again today:
What do we say to the immature? On the one hand, if we threaten them with hellfire, why would they embrace Christ, except out of fear? The typical hellfire rhetoric may have worked for St. John Chrysostom or Jonathan Edwards, but it is no longer effective anyway. It creates atheists.
But on the other hand, if we tell the masses all shall be saved, won’t the immature reply, “Then what’s the point? Why bother with Jesus?” And they ask it rhetorically, without hearing our response. We already see both sides of this problem on a massive scale. It’s a theological pickle—a pastoral double-bind for preachers.
Among the fathers, including Origen and maybe Maximos, the revelation of apokatastasis is worthy of an 'honorable silence,' divvied out with caution lest the immature misappropriate it as license, whether for hedonism or as a path away from the gospel altogether.
“These are matters hard and difficult to understand,” he writes. “...We need to speak about them with [p.199] great fear and caution, discussing and investigating rather than laying down fixed and certain conclusions” (On First Principles 1.6.1).
So, I see in some of the fathers an undercurrent of a cautious apokatastasis(cf. Ware’s “Dare We Hope for the Salvation of All”), sometimes announcing universal victory even while retaining the rhetoric of hellfire. For example, contrast St. John Chrysostom’s boldly universalist Paschal Homily with his frequent threats of hellfire. Why? Some of our most revered fathers preached hell to manage the spiritually immature with dire warnings of sin’s consequences. But why feed the immaturity of fear with more fear? We must ask ourselves how well has that worked for us. In our current climate, that tactic failed on a colossal scale, to the point where converting away from Christianity sounds like better news than the gospel!
Paul, whom Hart regards as an obvious universalist, was faced with a similar dilemma in Rome (see Rom. 6:1). His all-inclusive grace teaching sounds like dangerous stuff. Opponents caricatured it as a green light for sin. Their objections included such nonsense as, “Then why not persist in sin so that grace may abound”? But Paul didn’t share Origen’s caution. He doubled down on grace rather than retreating. He modeled preaching universal grace as truth, even if many would malign it as heresy or misappropriate it for licentiousness. Where Origen proceeds with caution, St. Paul does not. St. Gregory of Nyssa does not. Nor does Hart, obviously. And he’s in good company with the apostle to the Gentiles and the 'flower of Orthodoxy.’
Still, we note the dilemma because Origen’s caution was not empty cowardice. A Christless libertine universalism has indeed once again gone viral that warrants correction.
All that to say, I still think 'universalism’ is such a problem-laden, amorphous term that it fails to be as precise as Hart is or needs it to be. It’s a dull breadknife in the hands of a master surgeon. Calling it 'patristic' at least fends off some of the libel.
CLICK HERE to read part I: "In Praise of Hart"
CLICK HERE to read part IV: "Inclusion or Ultimate Redemption"
CLICK HERE to download the full review of David Bentley Hart’s That All Will Be Saved - Jersak
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