Friends: I think eternal salvation isn’t just about God loving us, but also about who and what we choose to love in this life.  Bob

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Spirituality Column #920

July 2, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

What Will You Love?

By Bob Walters

“All flesh shall see salvation.” Luke 3:3-6 quoting Isaiah 40:5

What about that?  Will everyone be saved?

For the past several years in my various readings and studies from various sources and teachers, I’ve noticed this unmistakable, current cant in various academic and theological views: Universalism, the view that everyone will be divinely “saved.”

It’s a real thing, a current cause célèbres among some very bright Christian intellectuals.

I have a tough time buying it, but make no mistake, this isn’t about a progressive church saying “do whatever you want to do.” This is about sophisticated, modern scriptural and theological academics reconstituting centuries-forgotten minor doctrines of the ancient church, dormant through the Middle Ages and Early Modern Era, who now today reject “the doctrine of eternal punishment in hell by unrepentant sinners.” And I’m thankful to emeritus professor R.V. Young for pointing this out and writing a pretty fair push-back.  We’ll get back to Dr. Young in a minute.

My most direct acquaintance with the idea of universal salvation was from a writer named David Bentley Hart whom I have read frequently over the years on a wide variety of topics in First Things journal.  It is an intellectual task yet a delightful linguistic workout to keep up with Hart’s vocabulary and syntax.  His “baroque” writing is akin to that of the late atheist commentarian Christopher Hitchens, though Hart is no atheist.

And Hart is no iconoclast either, merely blasting away at the status quo for the pure enjoyment of watching the chips fly.  No less than Origen of Alexandria (AD 185?-254?) and Cappadocian father Gregory of Nyssa (AD 335-395) put forth similar “universal” ideas in the formative years of the church. Scholars have picked it back up the past 100 years or so.

Hart, undoubtedly the most vocal of modern voices on the topic, in 2019 authored the book, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation. Hart is a fellow at the University of Notre Dame, a renowned scholar of philosophy and theology, and, as a political persuasion, is an avowed democratic socialist. Hart is a gifted, fascinating writer and thinker with quite a sizable online following; I know; I used to be one of them.

When Hart went all in on the universal salvation thing, I backed away because the notion simply didn’t/doesn’t make sense to me.  I read the Bible; you probably do, too. Judgment happens.  Yes, Jesus came to “save not to destroy” (KJV Luke 9:56, John 12:47).  But thankfully Professor Young, mentioned above, penned as leavening an “op-ed” to Hart’s “Olly olly oxen free” as I’ve ever read.

Young’s article, “The Narrow Gate,” runs in the current issue of Touchstone, A Journal of Mere Christianity, where Young, Emeritus Professor of English at North Caroline State University, is a senior editor.  There is a quick bite of the article HERE, but the bulk of it requires a subscription. It is a great magazine I highly recommend and enjoy. Sorry I can’t provide the entire article.

My primary aim here is to expose that this “Universalist” idea exists in modern theological thought, and then to note that Young does a masterful job examining Bible verses, the Gospels, Paul, ancient sources, biblical development, and modern scholarship to arrive at a compelling, comforting, and inspiring case for faith’s continuing critical role in eternal salvation.

Life’s purpose, Christ’s purpose, and the great dramas of human life go away if sinning yields the same eternal outcome as being a saint.  Young points out in so many words that we do not get to decide to be saved; we get to decide what we love. Salvation comes from that, not dispassion.

Matthew 25:31-46 is among many places Jesus notes that judgment and eternal sorting – sheep and goats, wheat and chaff, etc. – will happen. That’s God’s job.

Our job is not to judge but one – neither Judas nor Hitler – but only one: myself. Scary.

We Christians are pretty touchy about Jesus leaving heaven’s gate wide open for everyone.  But ask yourself this: Who would you sincerely pray for God not to save? Probably no one. 

And therein lies the drama, the tragedy, the comedy, the joy, and the despair: Are we willing to love God and others enough to trust our salvation to God’s merciful hands and Jesus’s grace?

I believe we must, I believe love is a choice we make, and I believe that is how it works.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is aware of the especially secular preponderance of thought along the lines that “God must be a monster” if He doesn’t save everyone. The question is, “Why would anyone want to spend eternity with God if that person didn’t want to spent this life with God?