Episode 7: Robin Parry – The Historical Roots of Christian Universalism

Jared  

You’re listening to Faith for Normal People, the only other God-ordained podcast on the internet.

Pete  

I’m Pete Enns.

Jared  

And I’m Jared Byas.

Jared  

Welcome, welcome, everyone to this episode of the podcast. Before we get started, we wanted to mention that our March class is coming up, and it’s called “Why God Died: How atonement theories try to explain salvation.”

Pete  

Yeah, and it is going to be taught by our friend, and nerd in residence, Jennifer Garcia Bashaw.

Jared  

As always, the class is pay-what-you-can until the class ends, and then you can download it after that if you sign up later for $25. But if you sign up and you can’t make the live class, no worries, you can still do pay what you can, go ahead and sign up and then we’ll send a link afterward that you can access later.

Pete  

Yeah. And you’re asking, “Where do I sign up?” Well go to TheBibleForNormalPeople.com/atonement. Simple as that.

[Music]

Pete

Welcome, everyone, to this episode of Faith for Normal People, and today it’s just me, Pete, and I’ll be talking about the historical roots of Christian Universalism with none other than Robin Parry. Now Robin is an associate priest at Worcester Cathedral in England and he’s an editor at Wipf and Stock publishers, and he’s written theological books on a range of topics, and several of them deal with the issue of universal salvation in scripture, theology, philosophy, and history. So. Don’t forget, folks, to stay tuned at the end of the episode for Quiet Time where Jared will join me to reflect on the episode and we’ll give insight into our own spiritual journey. Alright folks, let’s dive in.

Robin  

Pete  

Robin, thank you for being on our podcast. Good to have you.

Robin  

Thanks. Lovely to be here.

Pete  

Yes, from all the way across the pond, as they say. But you know, it’s good for you to be here. I’m sure. Someplace else other than—Is it rainy there or what? 

Robin  

It’s snow.

Pete  

It’s snowing?

Robin  

It’s snowing, but it’s not sticking. So, it’s wet but it’s not…

Pete  

That’s just a cruel joke when snow doesn’t stick.

Robin  

I know.

Pete  

Who needs snow? That’s the way I see it. So, anyway, speaking of snow, let’s talk about Christian Universalism. That was a bad segue, but we’re doing it anyway. 

Robin  

Pete  

So, I’m fascinated and have you been fascinated with this topic. I know you’ve written quite a bit about this. And I think it’s an interest of a lot of people thinking—it really gets to an issue, I think, of what does it even mean to be Christian? And what’s the hope of Christianity? Right? So, let’s just start with the very basics. How do you define Christian Universalism?

Robin  

As simply as I can? [Laughs] It is the view that in the end, all creation will be reconciled to God through Christ.

Pete  

Okay. 

Robin  

Or you might put it like “God achieves God’s purposes for creation” or “God wins, sin loses.”

Pete  

Yes.

Robin  

Yeah.

Pete  

And so that—you know, for all things being, let’s say, reconciled to God—maybe that’s a way of putting it—one does not have to be actively consciously Christian in any way to participate in God’s cosmic plan.

Robin  

Well, everything is part of God’s cosmic plan. I mean, all of creation is part of God’s cosmic plan. Whether one has to actively participate, consciously participate, as a believer in Christ to share in that is an area that Christian Universalists have different views about. 

Pete  

Okay.

Robin  

So, that’s a separate question. The core question is, “what is Christian Universalism?” and it’s the view that all creation will be reconciled to God through Christ. 

Pete  

Robin  

Exactly what a creature has to do to participate in that, is an area—a separate question—where Universalists have different views.

Pete  

It’s interesting that Universalists would have different views about what happens to people. And this is probably part of the big misunderstanding that people have, it seems to imply only one option, but you’re saying it includes multiple options that people debate.

Robin  

Oh, lots of different views on lots of different issues. That Universalists have different views, for example—I mean, I’m sure we’ll end up talking about hell and…

Pete  

Yes.

Robin  

…post-mortem punishment, and Universalists have had different views about how to understand that.

Pete  

Mhmm.

Robin  

And whether anyone will experience it. Most Universalists have said they will, but not all of them. So there’s different views on the atonement, and how that works. Some of them are fiercely in favor of penal substitution, for example, and others fiercely opposed to it and a whole bunch of other issues, too.

Pete  

So, that brings up a question that I think, you know, is an assumption perhaps that many people make that any notion of Christian Universalism is unbiblical and heretical. Because the Bible “clearly” says that that’s not the case. Right? So, maybe we can just start with this; What are, if any, what are biblical roots, perhaps, for thinking in a Christian Universalist direction?

Robin  

Right. Because, historically, pretty much every Christian Universalist thought that what they were saying was biblical, they certainly intended it as such. It’s a bit more complicated in recent years, but I guess there’s certain biblical texts that, at face value, appear and have been understood to teach the salvation of all. Perhaps most famously Romans 5, and 1 Corinthians 15, as in, “Adam will die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” That’s 1 Corinthians 15. Which seems to suggest that the same “all that die in Adam will be raised in Christ,” the text that, for me, was very influential was Colossians 1.

Pete  

Mhmm.

Robin  

The Christ Hymn. Because it seems to tell a story that’s very Christ-focused that begins with the creation of all things in heaven on earth, visible and invisible, and moves through to God reconciling all things—the same all things, again, namely, everything that’s been created—through this bloodshed on the cross. And for all the world, this seems to be about reconciliation, which is a term that Paul always uses positively and salvifically in terms of the restoration of relationships.

Pete  

Robin  

And making peace through his bloodshed on the cross doesn’t sound like sending people to hell. [Laughing]

Pete  

Right, right.

Robin  

So, there are texts like those, which were—and 1 Corinthians 15, in the early church, was very influential that God would be all in all. Or as they understood it, in all things, God would be all. Which would entail the salvation of those things, because how could God be all in a creature, if that creature’s will was rebellious against God and turned away? So for God to be all in a creature, that creature’s will has to be in submission to God, and if God is all in all, then all creatures would be in that state, and that is the final victory of God. 

Pete  

Yeah.

Robin  

So, texts like that, or Ephesians 1 about God heading up all things in Christ. So, there’s that kind of thing. But just as important, I think, is not just texts that appear to explicitly address the issue in a particular way, but that address other important Christian theological beliefs that have an indirect bearing on the issue. So, for example, God is love. Which tells us something about the nature of God and for many Christians, this seems to at least push quite strongly in the direction of universal salvation. And it’s tied into biblical teachings that God desires to save all creatures, or all people, and so on. The idea that God is good, the idea that God defeats sin and that all the sin and damage and death that is unleashed through Adam is undone through Christ. It’s these kinds of teachings, the defeat of evil, and so on, that seem, to many Universalists, have led them towards belief in universal salvation. And it’s why I think this idea keeps popping up again and again. And sometimes quite spontaneously, almost being reinvented again and again, because the impulse behind it is very deeply held basic Christian beliefs about divine goodness, about divine ability to get God’s will done, about divine victory. These kinds of things, when you put them together, make it difficult to think how eternal damnation for some or many creatures even fits the story.

Pete  

Robin  

How does it fit in? It sort of seems out of place. And that’s why, I think, the idea is difficult to squash because it arises from deeply held gospel instincts.

Pete  

The gospel instincts, as well as some highly suggestive passages in the New Testament.

Robin  

Yeah, that’s right. And it’s not, as people often tell me, “Oh, you just think God’s nice. You just want God to be like some nice, liberal person or something.” It’s not that, it’s far deeper than that.

Pete  

Right. It’s not just, “Well, I don’t like this God. I’m going invent another one in my own image,” it’s actually grappling with—again, not just biblical passages, but maybe the nature of God. If God is love.

Robin  

Oh, absolutely. And the story of the incarnation and death and resurrection of Christ. I mean, for the early church, it was fundamental that Christ came as a human person to represent human persons before God, and that his death was on behalf of human persons, all of them, as was his resurrection. 

Pete  

Robin  

And as he participates in our condition, so we participate and share in his resurrection. And the resurrection of Christ, then, becomes the future of humanity, as they understood it. This is the victory of God, this is salvation. This is the transformation of humanity in this particular person, but the consequence of that is that all particular persons will share in that resurrection, ultimately.

Pete  

Right, right.

Robin  

And so, it was this belief that Christ represented all and died and rose to achieve his purposes for all creatures, and the conviction that God would bring about his purposes in the end. That was the driver, I think, behind different versions of Christian Universalism, and it recurs again, and again, and again, throughout history.

Pete  

It doesn’t—I want to get into that in a bit, just maybe hitting some of the highlights, the voices in church history that have espoused some notion like this. Before we get there, though, I can imagine, I can hear the voices inside of my head, and inside the heads of others listening, where they might say, “Yeah, all that’s great, but there are other voices in the New Testament that seem to suggest not Universalism, but something very exclusivistic,” so maybe—if there’s a passage or two you want to bring up, that’s great,—but how do you address the multivocality of the New Testament on this, and any one of a number of other issues we get to discuss when we talk about the New Testament?

Robin  

Yeah, I mean, that’s a good…Multivocality is a good word, because we do have texts that seem at face value to go in different directions. And so, the issue becomes precisely—the hermeneutical issue is precisely, what do you do about that? How do you handle that tension that there is seemingly in the text? And there are different ways that they’ve been handled, historically, and still today within Christian Universalism and without it—but the point is that everybody’s doing this, even if you’re an eternal tormentor, you’re having to do this. And the way that a eternal tormentors will do it is they will say, “Well, we’ve got these hell texts, and we’ve got these seeming-Universalist texts, but they can’t mean—They can’t actually teach Universalism, because they would contradict the hell texts and we know what those mean.”

Pete  

Right? 

Robin  

Right, we’ve got that locked down. So, that’s our Archimedean point. And everything else has pivoted around that. And so the universal salvation texts and all the other themes I mentioned earlier, are reinterpreted to fit and make them consistent, or attempt to do so, with the hell texts. And in part, it’s the failure of that project, the inability to sort of warp these other texts and themes to cohere with the hell texts that keeps pushing people back to think, “Well, are there other ways of doing this?”

Robin  

Historically, many Universalists simply reverse the polarity of a neutron flow, as Dr. Who Might Say, and say, “Well, what if we switch the Archimedean point? Let’s- Or even, sort of hypothesize. Let’s suppose that the Universalist texts mean what they appear to say, are the Judgment texts compatible with those? And can they be understood in ways that fit that? Or, are there ways of holding these two in tension? And there are different ways that people have tried to do that. I’ll mention just one, because I’ve always found it very fascinating, John A.T. Robinson—infamous Anglican bishop, best known for some of his stuff in the early 60s—wrote a book called “In The End, God.”

Pete  

Robin  

And his question driving it was, for God to be the God revealed in Jesus Christ—and the eschaton. The eschatology is really just a projection of what has to be true of God, if God is to be the God revealed in the Gospel. And so, he says, “Well, universalism is that,” but the way he deals with these two strands of texts is he says, “Look, they don’t fit together, you can’t take them both literally, and make them into a coherent picture. But they’re both true, so…” And he thinks the hell texts teach eternal conscious torment. I don’t, but he does. And he says, “Look, here’s a bunch of texts where there’s a threat of eternal torment,” and he said, “these are true, because these tell us what the natural end of a life that is directed away from God permanently. There is no salvation in that way of life and the only destiny that it can have is one of total and final alienation.” And the person facing the challenge of the gospel is confronted with a real choice where that is the alternative. But of course, as a matter of fact, it won’t happen, because that would be impossible. And so the Universalist texts—and this is my particular reading of his reading.

Pete  

Mhmm [Laughs]

Robin  

The Universalist texts tell us what God has to be, to be the God of Jesus Christ, but the other texts tell us about the real truth, that’s existentially true for the person making that decision, even if it won’t be their experience. And now I’m more inclined to think…Well, okay, let me just say this: however you handle this, is us doing it, the Bible doesn’t tell us how to do this. 

Pete  

Robin  

So, any way of theologically handling and holding these texts together—and there’s a bunch—is ours, and we just have to own that and acknowledge it. You know, it’s not like God told me, this is the right way of doing it. We’re trying with…

Pete  

Although, some people say that. 

Robin  

Yeah, they say it, I just don’t believe them.

Pete  

Right. This whole thing… I mean one thing that’s coming across, loud and clear, and I think it’s extremely valuable, is just remembering this is like most theological issues. This is a complicated matter. And simply to say, “Well, scripture clearly says…” Well, yeah, and that verse, first of all, it may not be as clear as you think. But yeah, granted, this seems to suggest something, but there are other places too, once again, that we have to reckon with and I think just keeping that in mind can open up theological dialogue rather than closing it down. 

Robin  

Yeah, exactly. And there’s a whole bunch of stuff, I mean, when you’re looking at particular texts and so you’d always have to, “Let’s look at the particular texts,” you know, what do they actually say? So, for example, does kolasin aionion, eternal punishment. What does that actually mean? We just assume. We think of it in English, “eternal,” “punishment.” Well, that lasts forever. Or maybe it’s even timeless. But there are many reasons to doubt that you can put that much freight or that much, that the word can hold that much weight. And we know lots and lots of biblical uses of “aion” and “aionios,” where the thing clearly has a beginning and end. It’s the sort of period of unspecified time, often long-enduring. And so you can’t say, “Well, that necessarily lasts forever.” 

Robin  

I think often in that text—of the sheep and the goats—I don’t think that text is even asking the question of how long does this last. I mean, we’re talking about the punishment of the age to come, the life of the age to come, the life that takes place in, and is fitting to the age to come. “How long does it last?” is not a question that text is addressing. And so, the texts aren’t always answering the questions we want answered. 

Pete  

Mhmm.

Robin  

That text is addressing a question of, you know, what do you do for the least of these? You know, being accountable to God for how you treat other people. That’s what Jesus is interested in. He’s not interested in settling doctrinal debates on hell, which is something else we need to bear in mind.

Pete  

What- Exactly right, and you know, the sheep and the goat. It strikes me as the focus there is on this coming kingdom, which is already in their midst. 

Robin  

Pete  

Do you want to be a part of this kingdom, or don’t you? Do you want to be outside looking in? Or do you want to be a part of this? And that’s this age to come, right? This is what’s happening in our midst here. And yeah, just to reiterate your point, this may not have anything to do with what we’re debating and again, it’s a reminder, I think, to all of us that there’s much more here than citing passages from an English Bible.

Pete  

Oh, that’s- yeah.

Pete  

And that sounds really condescending, but it’s not condescending. It’s like, you have to be able to do algebra to do certain kinds of equations, there are certain things that, if you really want to see how the sausage is made, you can’t do it from a translation, you have to study the original languages and what eternal—you know, the old- That Greek root, what it means, it may not be what we’ve been conditioned to think that it means based on either Fundamentalist or Evangelical or other kinds of Christian iterations, right. So.

Pete  

Right, right.

And the early…The Universalists in the early church very happily used this language of eternal punishment. You know, it’s biblical language from Jesus, they were more than happy to use it, they just didn’t think it meant what we assume it means.

And that in itself might send off a few alarm bells and make us think, “well, are we sure we got it right?”

Pete  

Well, how- Explain that. What did some of the early church fathers, for example, what did they mean by eternal punishment, if not “eternal,” in our sense of the word?

Robin  

Pete  

Oh, that’s right! Thank you for that reminder, Robin, this is wonderful.

Robin  

Yeah. So, if the Greek fathers… Well, so, Origen, for instance, would use the Greek, biblical language to describe this punishment. So, kolasin aionion in this instance—and that’s what he’ll talk about. And he often won’t even qualify it, or mitigate it, or say, “Of course, I don’t mean this.” It’s only in certain contexts where he explains that God’s punishment has to be understood in a manner fitting for God. So this is the important qualification for these folk. That whatever it is, it has to be appropriate for a God who is good and loving and so on. 

Pete  

Yeah. Right.

Robin  

So, a purely retributive punishment that served no redemptive good would not be appropriate. So, they thought—they often saw punishment as having an educative function, and often is self-inflicted. It depends, there were different traditions as to how the wrath of God was understood, for example. And the problem is that “wrath” is generally understood as a vice, not a virtue. 

Pete  

Yes. 

Robin  

And so, when you’re talking about God’s wrath, that immediately sets off alarm bells, “But what could that mean for a perfectly good, or perfect God to be wrathful?” So, basically, two different traditions in the early church. So, on the one hand, you have folk who go, “Well God is wrathful, but it’s a divine kind of wrath, which isn’t like our kind of wrath.” You know, it would have to be heavily qualified. And on the other hand, you had another bunch of folk who said, “Actually it’s not describing anything that’s going on in God at all. What it’s describing is from a human perspective, when you’re alienated from God and experiencing and your conscience and, so on some other…” What it feels like to be alienated from God. It feels like God’s angry with you. It feels like someone’s cross with you. So, the language about God’s wrath is actually a way of talking about how it is analogous to feeling like someone’s angry with you. But actually, they were saying, “It’s not telling us anything about what God’s feeling. Because God is so other you could… It would be inappropriate.” So, that tradition carried on. I mean, you will still find folk arguing that and the other so both of those traditions for understanding divine wrath exist to this day, but did so throughout the history of the church. And that’s the problem with talking about God.

Pete  

Of course!

Robin  

Like… what?

Pete  

I think that’s a really good point, Robin. What do we mean when we say, “God,” you know, and what is entailed by that, and in terms of talking about God. We’re right away in a wonderful conversation as far as I’m concerned. But still, it’s hard to like, after a five minute debate by citing a passage to nail it.

Pete  

Like this is the character of God. This is why—I think the question of Christian Universalism and other related issues—I don’t know how you feel about this, but in my opinion—it’s actually the continued discussion, which is the doing of theology and trying to understand, rather than simply closing down these very important discussions that people today want to have these discussions, because they’re sensing a problem as well that you said it keeps coming up. I think, I mean, you know, better than I do, I think it’s very much up today. 

Robin  

Oh, yeah.

Robin  

Pete  

So, you know, I hate to ask this question, because it could take us three hours to answer. We don’t have that much time, but can you give us a—we’ve had Brad Jersak on talking about hell, for example, a few years ago, but what does hell mean, briefly stated from some Christian Universalist point of view?

Robin  

Pete  

I know, you’re smiling at me, like, I just, I don’t know.

Robin  

Well, I can’t speak for everybody. 

Pete  

Robin  

I suppose… Let me sort of see if I can fumble and stumble my way towards something here. The language I often use is “eschatological punishment.” Okay, so the word “hell” comes loaded. It’s not a biblical word. I’m happy to use it, but I would like to explain it or qualify it.

Pete  

Wait a minute, hell is all over Matthew’s Gospel…

Robin  

You’re right. 

Pete  

What do you mean it’s not a biblical word?

Robin  

Not in the original language it’s not.

Pete  

There you go, alright.

Robin  

Yeah. So, it’s not a biblical word. It’s the way that various different words often “gehenna”, for example, in the gospels is translated and there we open a whole can of worms, perhaps worms that consume and…

Pete  

Robin  

And, just as a little incidental thing, I mean, that’s an example of one of those texts, the fire that, you know, the unquenchable fire. Which is taken as obviously teaching never-ending hell. But all of that is—which is language from Jeremiah—is the idea of a fire that does its job. You can’t put it out. You can’t stop it from doing its thing. It doesn’t mean it lasts forever and ever. 

Pete  

Right, right.

Robin  

I mean, Jeremiah’s unquenchable fire isn’t still burning, but it couldn’t be stopped till it finished its job. So…

Pete  

Probably because of the Babylonian conquest and all that kind of stuff, he’s talking about it. 

Robin  

Yeah.

Pete  

It’s going to…God’s wrath—to use that language—is going to do its work and you’re not going to be able to stop it.

Robin  

Exactly, exactly, which again, alerts us to another important point, just in passing about rhetoric. It’s very important when reading these texts not to overinterpret them as teaching through literal doctrine. They are rhetorically powerful attempts to persuade people, and often you will get this language of “destroyed without trace, and then I will restore them,” and why don’t you think, “What?”

Pete  

Yeah. Right.

Robin  

But that just alerts us to being very careful not to over-read these things as if they’re systematic theology, and they’re never meant to be such. They are, however, genuine warnings and we are meant to receive them. Well, I say “we,” the audience are meant to receive them as such, anyway. What is hell? Hell is, in a first instance, eschatological punishment, I think we’d need to explore what “punishment” may or may not be and I wouldn’t have a totally fixed view on that. 

Pete  

Mhmm.

Robin  

Personally, I think I don’t feel uncomfortable with it including elements of retribution, at least insofar as punishment, it has to be proportionate to and fitting for a crime, and that is to treat someone with respect as a creaturely free agent who is responsible. So, I don’t have a problem with that, although, I don’t think retributive punishment could be everlasting.

Pete  

Robin  

Because that punishment wouldn’t fit the crime by any stretch of the imagination. But I also think, in scripture, punishment is often and perhaps usually seen as having some educative function and so, I’d like to say that that would have to factor in. Now, whether you want to see this as a sort of consequence—I mean, a lot of the fathers saw it as the burning of the conscience. It’s not like literal fire. It’s the torment of realizing what you’ve done. Or gradually realizing what you’ve done, and the people you’ve hurt and how you’ve estranged yourself from God, and etc. This stuff feels like burning, it feels like you’re being consumed. There’s a wonderful description in the novel by George MacDonald, “Lilith.” Where Lilith—she’s sort of a devil figure, like, she’s not the devil—and she is redeemed, but she goes through these various stages of this hell, into the outer darkness effectively. And it’s a very powerful and psychologically astute description of her wrestling with a false sense of autonomy, and what it means to be free, and to do what she wants to do, and actually realizing that she’s not freed herself, but actually destroyed her freedom. And that sort of agonizing throes of getting to the place where she surrenders and actually becomes free, is liberated, you know, it’s quite powerful. And that’s a way he was trying to talk about hell.

Pete  

Well, is it fair to say, Robin, that in what you’re describing with McDonald, and also what you’re thinking that hell has a redemptive function? 

Robin  

Yeah, well, in a certain way.

Pete  

A purifying function or something like that?

Robin  

Yeah, in a certain way. So, the way I talk about it in the end of that Four Views book is that hell is just a way of talking about the presence of God, “God is light, God is fire, God is…” Depending on what state we’re in, that presence feels like heaven, or it feels like purgatory, or it feels like hell. And that’s because we—and this is me doing theological construction. I mean, this is not, “let me give you a proof text for this.” I think you could say this is a view that grows out of Scripture, but it’s not a view. That’s the biblical view. But I do think it’s biblical—So, hell then, can play an educative function insofar as it can alert it, can make us aware, and hopefully would of our condition, and can make us turn, reorientate you know, ourselves, turn towards God, and then that hell becomes experience as purgatory. But it’s not that the hell is saving us as such. It’s the work of Christ that is salvific. But hell…yeah, it’s educative. 

It’s not that God’s torturing us into accepting Christ, “Accept Jesus or I’ll burn you with a blowtorch or whatever.” It’s more that if we cut ourselves off from the source of life—and God might shield us from some of the reality of that for now, and as Tom Tolbert says—but I guess post-mortem punishment is where God stops protecting us from the reality of the kind of lives we choose. And the experience or the realization of that can turn us towards accepting the mercy that God offers us in Christ. So, I think I’d try and frame hell in that kind of context. The point is, however you do it, for a Universalist—at least for those Universalists who believe that people do go to experience eschatological punishment, which is most Christian Universalists—for those ones, the point is, it doesn’t last forever. Because if that was the end of the story of the creature, then Christ’s redemptive work for those creatures has failed. 

Pete  

Yeah.

Robin  

And that sin has forever left its mark on the story of creation, in a way that defaces-

Pete  

There’s no true redemption, yeah.

Robin  

No complete redemption. And to the extent that all of us creatures are interconnected—and we are, and our sense of who we are, and the integrity of our own being and self—is connected to other people. And if they are not redeemed, then none of us can be fully redeemed. So, to the extent that not all creatures are saved, no creatures are saved.

Pete  

Unfortunately, we need to bring this to an end here. But one of the criticisms I’ve heard, I think you’re sort of addressing it here, is that many say that any sense of a “Universalist hope” neuters the gospel. And I suspect you don’t feel that way. 

Robin  

No. 

Pete  

That’s a great answer. 

Robin  

How did you get that?

Pete  

It doesn’t neuter the gospel? 

Robin  

No! Well, what’s the gospel? 

Pete  

That’s exactly it.

Robin  

Well, I mean, there are different ways we could frame it, but you know, it’s got something to do with God coming in Christ and, and redeeming the world. 

Pete  

Right.

Robin  

How is that neutered by saying that God actually achieves God’s purposes? How does that neuter the message?

Pete  

Right, that all depends, again, as you said, and how you define gospel, whether the gospel is the good news as God saves you from eternal conscious torment, that is… That’s a dogmatic assertion that’s made by people of good faith. I mean, they’re not bad people. That’s how they understand it. So, when you take the threat of hell away, of that kind of hell away, then what’s the gospel saving you from? Well, maybe from yourself?

Robin  

Yeah and what’s it saving you for? 

Pete  

Yes, yes. 

Robin  

Because it’s—The gospel is about bringing creation. So, the way—and this is the way the early church Christian Universalists understood it—creation is made with a telos, with a destiny, with a goal. And that goal, however we might construe it, has got something to do with being united to God, reaching one’s destiny in God, and there’s different ways we might frame that in terms of deification, or Theosis, or whatever. But not becoming God, but being united to God in some deep and profound way so that all of creation has that orientation. 

And so, redemption was understood as sin being a spanner in the works, stopping creation reaching this destiny. In Christ, God deals with that, so that the world can get to the goal. That’s what we’re saved for. That’s what Christ is doing with us. It’s not just about, “Hey, believe in Jesus so that you don’t have to suffer forever.” 

Pete  

Mhmm.

Yes.

Robin  

If that’s all it is, [Laughs] that’s rubbish. Well, no. Not suffering forever is quite good. 

Pete  

Yeah.

Robin  

I’m all in favor of that. But…

Pete  

But…

Robin  

We’re saved for God, for relationship, for union with God, and so on. And my worry with folk that go, “Hey, why would anyone want to be a Christian if they didn’t think they were going to hell as an alternative?” You think, “Man. Do you think Jesus is that rubbish?”

You know, there’s no reason why on earth you’d want to follow Jesus unless it was a “get out of hell free” card?! And plus, of course, you know, in a sense—I mean, this, I wouldn’t put it like this—but it is a get out of hell card. [Laughs]

Pete  

Yeah. 

Pete  

But a different kind of way of looking at hell, too.

Robin  

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so there’s 1,000,001 reasons why following Jesus is a good thing. Because he is, I mean we are created for that. It’s the very core of our being, as Augustine says—not exactly a Universalist, actually, he was, and then he changed his mind, be that as it may—”our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.” So, there is this sort of orientation of creatures, according to Christian theology, for union with God. Right. So, the very heart of our beings, even if we try and suppress that, has this orientation towards union with God. Why would you need hell as the only thing to make you think that was worthwhile?

Pete  

Right. Yeah, I think that’s I mean, that’s a good point to end on too, that, why are we even phrasing the question the way that we do? And, you know, we’ve just skimmed the surface in this episode, Robin. And I think there are a lot of things I’d like to maybe revisit with you at some point, that we can talk about more, maybe some specific views at some other point about certain people in the history of the church. You’ve mentioned a couple, Origen for one, and I think just getting some of that down would be very valuable. But for another time, I think, Robin.

Robin  

Sure, yeah.

Pete  

Thank you so much for being with us here. I really appreciate it.

Pete  

Thanks for having me.

Jared  

And now for Quiet Time…

Pete  

…with Pete and Jared. Alright, well, here we are talking about Universalism, eternal conscious torment, all that kind of stuff. So, let’s start here; Did you Jared, ever believe in eternal conscious torment? 

Jared  

For sure. 

Pete  

I couldn’t even get that question out, you’re nodding your head. 

Jared  

Yeah.

Pete  

Furiously. So, okay.

Jared  

Yeah, it was the only way to think about hell and it was at the forefront of our theology, which was getting people to avoid hell. That was kind of the whole point. Not even so much get into heaven, as it was avoid hell. That’s kind of the, you know, youth group way of doing things, is you just kind of literally like scare the hell out of people. That’s what you’re trying to do. So, yeah, I absolutely did believe in eternal conscious torment. However, it’s always interesting, because I feel like, do you really believe in it? Because I feel like if you really believed in it, it would kind of consume your whole life. 

Pete  

Yeah, yeah. 

Jared  

Like getting your family and friends… It’s almost like if they were going into a burning building-

Pete  

It would be an all consuming passion. 

Jared  

Yeah, I would think so. So, yeah, I believed in it, but it’s almost so big.

Pete  

It didn’t have any practical…

Jared  

Yeah, that’s true.

Pete  

Locations other than—so, you didn’t really, for you growing up, hell was consistent with the character of God. It’s what God’s about.

Jared  

Yeah, well, it was this justice piece that was always at the forefront was for God to be just—it’s sort of like there was holiness and justice. So, for God to be holy, it means he cannot be around anything unholy ever. And since God’s eternal, you can’t spend eternal life with God in heaven, you would have to spend eternity apart from God because you can’t be in God’s presence and be unholy. And that’s what we are as sinners, is unholy. So, without Jesus, stepping in on your behalf, you’re stuck in your unholiness, which is to be separated from God forever.

Pete  

Which is a very juridical way of thinking. But that’s… that was normal.

Jared  

Pete  

Right.

Jared  

-Thought about, was like, consistent with the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. 

Pete  

Right. It was like Leviticus and the holiness of the tabernacle-

Jared  

Right.

Pete  

-And anything that would disturb the holiness has to be addressed sacrificially or taking a time out from the camp. Yeah, stuff like that, so. 

Jared  

Right. So, that was kind of how it was always worded. 

Pete  

So, how did you get out of that, because you don’t believe that anymore. Right? You don’t, do you? 

Jared  

No, no. What changed my mind? That’s a good question. I don’t know, at some point… It didn’t- It’s always the first thing to go, in my mind. It’s like, why would I believe in it if I don’t have to? And so once there was room in my way of viewing the Bible, and then room in my theology for it not to exist, it was the first thing to go.

Pete  

Mhmm.

Jared  

Because why would I, if- I had this view of God that eventually became irreconcilable with that, and yet I had to hold it because the Bible said it. And then once I realized, maybe the Bible doesn’t say it, well, that was easy. It was an easy thing to let go. So, what about you? 

Pete  

Well, what about me? Okay, I probably did believe in eternal conscious torment, sort of as a default, but I never thought about it, and I never looked at other people, and said, you know, “If you don’t think like I do, you’re going to go to hell.” I wasn’t raised that way. That wasn’t my upbringing and I sort of came to that stuff a little bit later, like in my late teens and 20s. It never really grabbed a hold of me. It was there. And if you had asked me, I’d say, “Yeah, I believe that.” But I just started to see, I think, it was irreconcilable with, not just the Bible—actually, it is. You can reconcile that idea with parts of the Bible. 

Let’s not kid ourselves here. But for me, it became unimaginable in light of- It just didn’t explain my reality at all. And I can’t imagine—you know, Carl Sagan in “The Pale Blue Dot” soliloquy, folks, if you’ve never heard that, I actually have it in the “Sin of Certainty,” but you should listen to it—But I remember that throwing me for a loop, like, you have a picture of the earth, you just keep going further and further away, and then you pass the planets. And by the time you get to Jupiter, you can’t even see the earth anymore. And I remember thinking, I don’t think God has an axe to grind with this little planet, and is just eager to toss people into eternal conscious torment. And then that didn’t make sense because, you know, as many people have said, the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, so to speak.

Jared  

Yeah.

Jared  

Mhmm.

Pete  

You know, so.

Jared  

Alright. Well, before we end our time, though, I think there’s a question related to that—that I think people have a hard time putting their arms around because like I said, for me, salvation… The concept of salvation depended on a hell of some kind, because that’s what you’re saved from. So, what for you, as you let go of that now, what does salvation mean, for you personally?

Pete  

Well- See, Robin put it really well, in the episode, people are always thinking that what are you saved from but what are you saved for? So, I feel like I’m being saved from my own inclinations, my own dysfunctional coping patterns that make my life miserable. You know? I think of the story of Zacchaeus, you know, in the tree, and he had this moment of conversion where he, “I’m gonna give half my stuff away,” that’s a real conversion. And, you know, Jesus’s salvation has come to this house, it’s not, “And now, because you did that, if you die tonight, you know where you’re going.” That’s not it. It’s just, you’re safe from yourself. And that’s something I know that I need some saving from, right. So, I look at it more that way, than, you know, using the courtroom metaphor, getting a juridical kind of contractual thing, that if you do this, then you will go to a good place, or if you don’t, you’ll go to a bad place. So, yeah, that’s how I think of salvation. You know, and how the cross fits into that, that’s the whole podcast or two.

Jared  

Mhmm.

Pete  

We don’t have to get into that now. But that’s, you know, people have thought about though. These are not new questions, you know, and I’m in that camp that see salvation a little bit differently, and still ties Jesus to that, even if I don’t really fully understand it. Which I’m really happy to say I don’t understand.

Jared  

Right. And that’s a great place to end.

Outro  

Jared  

Well, thanks to everyone who supports the show. If you want to support what we do, there are three ways you can do it. One, if you just want to give a little money, go to TheBibleForNormalPeople.com/give. 

Pete  

And, if you want to support us and want a community, classes, and other great resources, go to TheBibleForNormalPeople.com/join.  

Jared  

And lastly, it always goes a long way if you just wanted to rate the podcast, leave a review, and tell others about our show.  

Outro  

Thanks for listening to Faith for Normal People! Don’t forget, you can also catch the latest episode of our other show, The Bible for Normal People, wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by the Bible for Normal People podcast team: Brittany Prescott, Savannah Locke, Stephanie Speight, Natalie Weyand, Steven Henning, Tessa Stultz, Haley Warren, Nick Striegel, and Jessica Shao.

Outro  

Pete  

Okay, just making sure.

Jared  

I have something to tell you Pete…

Pete  

Jared  

I figured this would be the episode for it. 

Pete  

“I believe in hell, Pete, and you’re going there.”

Jared  

Pete  

Jared  

Pete  

That’s good…