If you’re interested in Evangelical Universalism, and you want something that will really challenge your trad sensibilities; forget Rob Bell’s Love Wins!, and step up to Gregory MacDonald’s (Robin Parry’s): The Evangelical Universalist.Β MacDonald provides coherent, cogent, and honest exegesis of all of the crux interpretums in the discussion; and beyond that, he actually tells you straight up that he is a Universalist (even though he takes a pseudonym for his pen-name for his book π ). It has really provoked my thinking, and caused me to really think about my own trad position on hell. If you’re honest, it will you too. Anyway, let’s move beyond Bell (if we’re going to have this discussion), and engage MacDonald. I’ve been processing his presentation for the last couple of days, and I’m still going to continue to hold my trad views on heaven/hell (ECT, Eternal Conscious Torment); but a little bit more gingerly than before. I plan on posting on the book a little in the days to come; I have a chapter to go, then I’ll be done with the book.
Athanasian Reformed
πππππ’π π·ππ πππππ‘ ππ πππ‘ππππ’π. ππ‘π ππ¨π«π π¨π ππ¨π π°π’π₯π₯ π₯ππ¬π ππ¨π«ππ―ππ«.
When I say “gingerly,” I don’t mean less convinced (about my view); just that I’ll have a better understanding why someone would chose to hold to a heterodox position better than I did before π .
I will say this, the more time I have to reflect on this book, the more I realize how tenuous and overly creative MacDonald’s exegesis is. You have to accept a whole load of interpretive decisions (his) — finely tuned as it were — to ever get to where Parry ends up. In end, as I wind down from the book, much of what’s going on seems to be question begging. In other words, it’s the same old story, exegesis is never naked; there is always an interplay between the exegesis and the informing theological grid the exegete brings to the Text. In this instance it is immediately clear (given chptr 1) what theological (analytical philosophical) grid that Parry is bringing to the Text, and thus obvious what will be informing his interpretive decisions at those crucial junctures.
Who wouldn’t “want” to believe in universalism? To me though, this matter has always been a matter of trust in God (bowing the knee at who He is). It seems to me that Parry is driven to have everything answered (even those things that God HAS NOT chosen to answer, even in light of Parry’s creative exegesis). Evangelical Calvinism takes a loosely construed dialectic approach to bib interpretation and theologizing; meaning that there remain unresolved tensions in God’s self-disclosure to us. So with such things we need to simply trust that He is fair and loving and is always gracious and just; even in light of the reality of an eternally conscious and tormentuous place like the Lake of Fire. We’ll understand how that’s possible at the consummation . . . now we walk by faith not sight (II Cor 5:7).
I actually think I’m going to move on from this issue, and let what I just said close out my reflections on this issue. I can understand why folks would want to believe in Evangelical Universalism, but really, in the end, it seems rooted in dealing with an issue of theodicy and thus doxological issues; as Parry/MacDonald himself makes clear about what led him on the journey that resulted in his ‘conversion’ to Evangelical Universalism and the writing of his book.
I was hoping the name of the blog would be changing to the “The Evangelical Calvinist Universalist” as awkward as that would sound!
All of your points are well taken in critiquing Parry and I think it is primarily an entire hermeneutical framework that belays the difference in the end. The issue for me is that we all frame the text in a particular way and come to it with particular presuppositions and especially strong ones as they relate to hell and eternal damnation. Every theological framework has their “problem texts” that don’t seem to fit into the system and require what you term “creative exegesis.” (I only think there were one or two instances where I felt like he was strained, primarily on mentioning the book of life and the texts on the lake of fire in Rev.) Evangelical Calvinism and especially classical Calvinism has this problem no less than Arminianism and EU.
I’m still at the point where I’m attempting to look at the whole metanarrative and see which rendering of the story seems to fit better with the overall picture of creation, anthropology, incarnation, redemption, and eschatology as filtered through our doctrine of God. I think J.A.T. Robinson’s primary contribution to the conversation is that he shows us how truly dependent our eschatology is on our doctrine of God. Obviously attempting to fit a picture onto the texts means I’m reexamining singular texts and passages and attempting to be careful how much my presuppositions are operating in rendering them. This is where I’m still having a hard time making the shift; I feel as if the case for EU must be particularly strong from an exegetical standpoint because the traditional readings that provide my presuppositions have existed for so long.
Even though I’m still examining the universalist system, I’m much less inclined to feel as if I’m moving there at this point than I was a few weeks ago. If you hadn’t presented the Evangelical Calvinist view of election through Habets article on Torrance at the specific time you did, I would be struggling much, much more than I am with universalism. I think my struggle is first and foremost with the doctrine of double predestination and its lack of biblical undergirding. Now that I feel as if that problem is mostly resolved, I am still having some intellectual angst over other issues related to hell, mostly its nature as eternal conscious torment, the potentially large number of people who will inhabit it without ever hearing the Gospel, and the relation of love and justice in the framework of God’s simplicity. I agree that we must bow to mystery at some point, but I’m still praying and thinking and reading through these issues until I feel at peace again.
I really, really appreciate your thoughts and presentation of Evangelical Calvinism, because they’ve pushed me to thinker longer and harder about this universalism stuff before pressing too hard into it.
@Randy,
I agree that all approaches are going to suffer, to some extent, from ‘creative exegesis’; I think this is definitely a judgment call then, in re. to discerning which system of interpretation suffers from it the most.
I think holding to the idea that God is love does not also necessitate in universalism; I think it becomes a matter of waiting on God to understand further how what is “apparently” being communicated through Christ and Scripture fit into who He is eternally in himself. I guess I feel like Evangelical Universalism just does not “want” to WAIT.
I am really glad to hear that you’re probably not going to end up at the universalist system; but if you do, Randy, I’ll still love you brother π . I am encouraged to know that some of what has been shared here has been helpful to you (I can say the same for your blog); I’m sure Myk would be happy to know that something he has written has served you in a fruitful way too!