"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
Inclusion: Athanasius, Wesley & the Queer Community
Hence, I have proposed we opt instead for the language of “inclusion” that describes the Pauline, Johannine and Athanasian theology of the Incarnation. The term has an abiding and specific heritage in its theological focus on the inclusion of all humanity in the Incarnation of Christ—the hypostatic union of natures, divine and human (collectively) in the God-man. And through Christ’s Incarnation, our inclusion en Christo extends into participation in the perichoretic life of the Trinity. I see this inclusion explicitly in teachers like St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, St. Hilary of Poitier and St. Gregory the Theologian. More recently, it has emerged in the West in the works of J.B. Torrance, T.F. Torrance and C. Baxter Kruger. Likewise, this inclusion is undoubtedly inherent in the Orthodoxy of D.B. Hart.
Incarnational inclusion says all have been included in the Incarnation, and all have been forgiven and reconciled (Rom. 5, Col. 1) by the Cross of Christ. Salvation is thus already established in the Incarnation, experienced now by faith in Christ and will become ultimate in our resurrection. For Inclusivists, the future tense in “all shall be saved” means “I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come.”
Then again, inclusion, too, has a variety of common referents. For example, 'hopeful inclusion’ has also been used to describe John Wesley’s understanding of a wider hope for salvation among righteous pagans outside explicit Christian conversion and confession.
In Acts, for example, Cornelius the righteous God-fearer is declared 'acceptable' and even 'already clean' prior to his conversion. God has already heard his prayers and approved of his alms-giving. Before his new birth in the breaking waters of baptism, Cornelius had been in the womb of Christ, conceived with Christ in the Virgin. Cornelius' name was inscribed in the wounds of Christ's Passion. His inclusion preceded his repentance, because long before he united himself to Christ, Christ had already united himself to Cornelius. Hearing the gospel, according to Wesley, was not, however, unnecessary. It was the culmination of his inclusion—it brought this righteous God-fearer into the deeper experience of his full inheritance in Christ.
More recently, inclusion has become a rallying term for progressive Christian sexuality that seeks to make space for the queer community to participate fully within the Christian church. This latter use of inclusion has gained such ascendancy in everyday parlance that to avoid confusion, I wonder if I need to let go of the term for the same reason I don’t use universalism. Namely, when I’m speaking as an incarnational inclusivist, most people don’t know what I mean, and when they use it, they don’t mean what I mean. I’m personally comfortable with the linguistic crossover across these various uses of inclusion because I see how they are related. But I am in such a minority when speaking of incarnational inclusion that I can be misunderstood … and I’d rather be understood than cling to the label. Thus, my pet moniker needs to be judged by the same measure with which I’m judging Hart’s. Fair enough.
Summary of the Hopeful Inclusivist Defense
- The hopeful inclusivist does not overtly declare a presumptive universalism(and neither does Hart). Like Origen (but not Hart or Paul) they typically exercise a cautious universalism because of immature adherents and sloppy opponents.
- Hopeful inclusivists who follow Maximos believe in ultimate redemption through humanity’s forthcoming freed-will“Yes,” effected by the transfiguring power of the beatific vision.
- Like Hart, Talbott and Parry (but unlike most pop-universalists), hopeful inclusivists believe in ultimate redemption by a particular means: namely, through Christ, his Incarnation, death and resurrection; through preaching the gospel to all and praying for all; and (like Gregory and Maximos) through restorative judgment and a free and willing response of love and faith in Christ.
- The hope of the hopeful inclusivist is not a wavering doubt nor is it certitude in a doctrine (however biblically or philosophically sound). It has a sure and constant faith, hope and conviction: Christ himself.
In the end, Hart rejects hopeful inclusivism through a superb articulation of the HI position!—just as we might expect Maximos to rebut modern universalism using Hart’s very best arguments!
A Unilateral Compromise
Despite the word count I gave to critiquing this one point of That All Will Be Saved, to say that I love the book is not an indulgent overstatement. I believe it stands as the most important book on the topic, and I see it as virtually irrefutable. I have waited prayerfully and lustily for its arrival. And my high hopes were dramatically exceeded. May it still be in print 100 years from its timely release!
From my years as a fan and follower of Hart, I don’t expect him to consider compromising his use of the term 'universalism’ or his critique of hopeful inclusivism. But I believe he has inspired me to a unilateral compromise of sorts.
I know and accept what Hart and others in his stream mean by universalism. I remain convinced that because most universalists have abandoned Hart’s own precision and faith, the term universalism will not help me articulate what he means by it. To distinguish him from the pluralists and allow for his preference of that term, I propose we consistently call Hart a “patristic universalist,” gathering within that phrase the full range of views across the fathers (from cautious to hopeful to dogmatic) from Clement and Origen to Gregory and Maximos. That label might help us draw boundaries with those who would misrepresent Hart.
For my part, I can see how the hopeful inclusivist label has begun to serve me poorly on three fronts. 1. At best, it has been a way of denying I’m a pop-universalist to the haters, and that didn’t work anyway. 2. The inclusivist term as I have used it is now relatively archaic vis-à-vis its current usage among progressives for the inclusion of LGBTQ folks in church and society. 3. If a genius such as DBH can so completely misunderstand 'hope' in Balthasar or Ware, the word must be a more significant stumbling stone than I realized. For these reasons, I’m inclined to appropriate a bolder phrase that I think encompasses all the patristic, cautious and hopeful universalists: namely, ultimate redemption.
UR—ultimate redemption—seems to capture both Hart’s intent and my own. UR holds to a confident faith that all will be saved, but only through Christ, by his Paschal victory and through restorative judgment and our willing faith/love response to the Christ.
And while apokatastasis has suffered historical misuse, slander and a distorted version was anathematized (maybe, sort of), perhaps ultimate redemption is a good, specific English translation for Peter’s intent when he proclaims “the restoration of all things” in Christ. That is, UR retains and affirms the biblical term apokatastasis and St. Gregory of Nyssa’s rehabilitated orthodox use of it. It also draws a red line with pluralist universalists, declaring that we do need redemption and we do have a Redeemer.
Trying on my compromise, “I am not a universalist, but I would defend the Orthodoxy of DBH’s patristic universalism, because I believe he has made a biblical, theological and philosophical case for ultimate redemption that defies refutation.”
So finally, for the hundredth time, NO, I am not a universalist. Period. But in my affirmation of the New Testament gospel of ultimate redemption, yes, I can sound like one. To me, they aren't the same thing.
CLICK HERE to read part I: "In Praise of Hart"
CLICK HERE to download the full review of David Bentley Hart’s That All Will Be Saved – Jersak
Another reason that you should not use the term “hopeful inclusivist” is that some Conditionalists like me use it for the view that, while not all will receive eternal life, we do not know that only those who die with faith in Christ will be ultimately joined with him. In other words, between the first and second death, we don’t know a lot of what will happen.
Christian universalists have, as far as I can tell, never used the term “universalism” as a synonym for “pluralism”. The point of universalism is just that salvation is universal. In this sense I think the word fits, while “hopeful inclusivism” sounds like someone who agrees with Clark Pinnock’s understanding of soteriology–but is maybe not as sure as he was. The only thing needed to make the word “universalism” clearly Christian is the word “Christian”. Robin Parry’s “Evangelical Universalism” is equally clear, I think.