Dark thoughts have clouded our minds.
For centuries, thanks largely to the Augustinian tradition that has so
influenced evangelicals, we have been taught that God chooses a few who
will be saved and has decided not to save the vast majority of
humanity. God is planning (in his sovereign freedom) to send most of
those outside the church to hell, and he is perfectly within his rights
to do so. If as a result large numbers perish, theologians have assured
us that God would feel no remorse and certainly deserve no blame. The
result of such instruction is that many read the Bible with pessimistic
control belief and find it hard to relate humanly to other people.
- Charles H. Pinnock
One
really has to ask oneself how, given an eternally valid bifurcation of
mankind like this, simple love of one's neighbor, or even love of one's
enemy in the Christian sense, could still be possible. It should not
remain unmentioned, however, that certain late Catholic Scholastics,
for their part, had racked their brains about whether, assuming that
God were to reveal to me privately that one of my fellow men was
destined to hell, I should still love that person with Christian love
or would, instead, have to treat him with politeness only."
-Hans Urs von Balthasar
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With these thoughts in mind, doesn't it make sense to forgo all assumptions about how far the atoning work of Christ reaches, and to announce that, at the very least, we
hope that by God's grace all will be saved, that at the very least, we hold out the
possibility that one can be saved without, perhaps knowing it?
Writings like Left Behind, and those of Frank Perretti and Ted Dekker, illustrate how easily we can come to regard those who oppose us, not as misled humans who at least think they're doing right, but as evil and demonic in and of themselves. Jesus modeled the opposite: "Forgive them, for they do not know what they do." At the time of our most intensive evil - nothing less than deicide - we were given the benefit of the doubt.
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All I know is that I wouldn't be surprised if, at the great judgment seat, God said, "Oh, just kidding. Everyone's welcome at my table." Jesus says, "Your tabs are already wiped clean; all the drinks from now on are on me." I'm not saying that this will happen, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.
-Nicholas Stanton Roark
Comments (6)
No, it doesn't. It's the most humanizing, dignifying thing in the world. It means that God loves and respects people enough not to make them spend eternity with Him if they choose not to. I don't believe God has decided not to save anyone. He doesn't want anyone to perish, and He gives everyone a choice.
It's not a choice between Calvinism and universalism. It's possible to believe that hell exists and that people send themselves there by rejecting God, using their free choice.
I believe hell shows exactly how much God loves people and respects our choices. If He forced us all to be saved, He wouldn't be totally loving.
@Pickwick12@xanga - You know, I'm with you. I'm a hyper-Arminian. But I still hold out hope that God figures out a way to work things so that all who died in Adam are raised in Christ (as Paul so eloquently and hope-fully put it).
-ND
@sirnickdon - Even if they don't want to be?
@Pickwick12@xanga - Nobody chose to be born in the first place. Maybe life isn't fair, and maybe that's okay.
Or maybe it will be as George MacDonald said, that "the fire will not burn us unless we worship thus, but until we worship thus." And in the end, the last damned soul will realize that what they thought was hell, hoped was hell, was purgatory after all, and the last rebel will throw down his arms and surrender to God's patient grace.
Maybe not. But maybe. I just won't undersell the possible reach of God's grace.
-ND
No me gusta the Left Behind books. So much about them was dehumanizing. I just never had the right term for it before.
I tend to put all my stock on Jesus' words and not doubt he meant what he said. I just could never figure out why we needed scholars to tell us not to believe what he said. As if Christ couldn't say it best himself.
Then we sit around and pick each other to death because we don't agree what they said he said. I don't get it. One follows Paul, another follows Apolos, but what is that to me if Christ is preached.
But I ain't gots no learnin.