A little over three years ago I posted this on Boar’s Head Tavern. I’m not sure I’ve changed.
Since my universalistic tendencies have been well established, it seems that a few sentences, maybe a paragraph of explanation are in order.
First, I prefer to think in a universalistic manner because if it were my choice nobody would be left behind, I love the idea that all things can be reconciled in Christ. Second, by thinking universalistically I’m able to comfortably talk to everyone I encounter as if they’re a believer. Third, since I talk to everyone as if they are a believer I have no need to categorize everyone I encounter in life; I don’t need to keep a list in my head of who’s “in” and who’s “out”. This was always a tough thing for me, it caused a lot of stress, anger and sin (and I see that it causes a lot of stress, anger and sin in others). Fourth, I’ve come to believe (operationally) that salvation is God’s issue and task-at-hand, not mine.
This may be a reaction to my recent immersion in Robert Capon’s writings. It wouldn’t be my first reaction to what I’m reading. As a final note I must acknowledge that what I prefer has not always aligned with what God prefers, which is of course the genuine test of reality and truth. I’ve never been able to get my head around monergism, I just know that I made somechoices. The issue for me is that at some level of thinking about this kind of stuff my head starts making noises like it’s going to asplode, and when that happens I realize that for all of us it truly becomes like Robert Duvall’s character in Secondhand Lions, ”Hub” says: “Eventually, a man simply has to decide what he wants to believe.”
This may be why I’m likely PoMo, but that’s a subject for another post.
I found the following in the Wikipedia entry for Robert Capon:
“I am and I am not a universalist. I am one if you are talking about what God in Christ has done to save the world. The Lamb of God has not taken away the sins of some — of only the good, or the cooperative, or the select few who can manage to get their act together and die as perfect peaches. He has taken away the sins of the world — of every last being in it — and he has dropped them down the black hole of Jesus’ death. On the cross, he has shut up forever on the subject of guilt: “There is therefore now no condemnation. . . .” All human beings, at all times and places, are home free whether they know it or not, feel it or not, believe it or not.
“But I am not a universalist if you are talking about what people may do about accepting that happy-go-lucky gift of God’s grace. I take with utter seriousness everything that Jesus had to say about hell, including the eternal torment that such a foolish non-acceptance of his already-given acceptance must entail. All theologians who hold Scripture to be the Word of God must inevitably include in their work a tractate on hell. But I will not — because Jesus did not — locate hell outside the realm of grace. Grace is forever sovereign, even in Jesus’ parables of judgment. No one is ever kicked out at the end of those parables who wasn’t included in at the beginning.”
