Evangelical Universalism Archives

Cover image of "Until the Last One's Found" by Curt Parton

Until the Last One’s Found, Curt Parton. Wipf & Stock (ISBN: 9798385225439) 2024.

Summary: An evangelical pastor argues that God will ultimately reconcile and restore all to himself through Christ.

Curt Parton is an evangelical pastor who has come to believe that God will ultimately reconcile and restore all people to himself through Christ. For many years, he accepted the idea that a number of people would be consigned to a judgement of eternal conscious torment in hell. In Until the Last One’s Found, he outlines from scripture, church history, and theological argument, why he changed his mind.

He begins by outlining his approach, which is to go to scripture. He is modest, in affirming that scripture, but not necessarily his understanding, is inerrant. Parton then discusses the words in Hebrew and Greek translated as “hell.’ He argues that all both sheol and hades may be understood as the place of the dead Gehenna, most used by Jesus referred to the Valley of Hinnom where garbage was burned. The question is how much should the word be pressed to refer to a place of fiery judgement?

Parton turns from here to consider the view of hell through church history. Was a belief in eternal conscious torment the consistent view of the church through history. He argues that Clement, Origen, Dionysius Pamphilus, Eusebius, Athanasius, Gregory, and Jerome all affirmed universal reconciliation and restoration. Augustine did in his early, but not later writings. He also notes later Protestants who held this view as well including Hannah Whitall Smith and George MacDonald.. A belief in a judgement of eternal conscious torment was not the consensus in the early church. It was not part of any of the early creeds, except for the Athanasian Creed.

He then discusses references to the “eternal fires” of hell and the translation of aion. He argues for this as referring to an age rather than an endless suffering. This is one place where I differ with the author because scripture (Matthew 25:46) parallels eternal life and eternal punishment. I felt here the author tried to argue that these needn’t mean the same thing. Yet the text offers no basis for that. However the author offers an extended argument otherwise that I will not try to summarize here.

His next chapter considers other passages teaching eternal conscious torment. I would agree that we may not infer eternal torment or a description of hell from Luke 16:19-31. But to dismiss the fact that the rich man is portrayed as suffering conscious torment from which there was no release, I think is unwarranted. On Hebrews 9:27, the verse speaks of death, then judgement. True, it doesn’t speak of what comes after apart from judgement. But neither does it give any warrant to believe in a later restoration.

The author then turns to theological argument. Here, the argument against eternal conscious torment is that it makes Gods salvation less than the penalty of sin, and far from glorifying God, diminishes his glory. Nor does he believe hell is necessary to motivate evangelism. In fact, he argues it undercuts the gospel.

Having discussed eternal conscious torment, Parton goes on to make the case for universal restoration spending a chapter each on Old and New Testament evidence, particularly citing the “all things” passages. He follows this by a theological case. He discusses the problematic syllogism of those believing in eternal judgement:

God loves everyone and intends for each person to be saved.
God will accomplish everything he intends.
Some people will be eternally lost.

This is not a problem for the evangelical universalist who believes all will finally be saved. He then, in the following chapters, addresses objections to this view, the most notable, that of free will. He observes the reluctance of C.S. Lewis and the resistance of Saul as examples of God overcoming free will.

After closing thoughts and sharing further resources, he briefly discusses annihilationism, that the dead will cease to exist. He also offers a fascinating discussion of Calvinism, Arminianism, and Universalism, suggesting Universalism provides a point of connection between the two views.

I think this is the best argument for evangelical universalism I have read and it is presented pastorally. It convinced me of one thing. Belief in eternal condemnation should not be treated as a test of orthodoxy. That said, I was not convinced by the argument. Briefly, the discussion of aion was not persuasive to me, nor was evidence offered to provide a basis for post-mortem reconciliation and restoration. Finally, Christianity has never been logically consistent and this felt a bit too pat to me.

That said, I will be the last to say what God can or cannot do. I would be delighted to see Parton revealed to have been right. I do wonder about the opportunity of post-mortem salvation for some, including those who never heard, and perhaps others who were unrepentant in life, who may not have understood the grace of God in Christ. It’s harder for me to believe all hardness of heart will be overcome. I think there may be some for whom heaven would be a greater agony than hell. But for myself, I cannot go beyond what we know in scripture, and I find no assurance from the silence of scripture on our post-mortem existence to embrace the universalist view.

Finally, I will mention the author reached out to me to review his book and was glad to send it, even after I shared that I would likely disagree. I was grateful for the chance to read it, the author’s sincere passion for God’s glory, and that he gave me thought-provoking arguments!

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

The Evangelical Universalist, Gregory MacDonald. Eugene: Cascade Books, Second Edition, 2012.

Summary: This book provides the biblical, philosophical and theological arguments for why the view that all will finally be saved is consistent with evangelical theology and also includes additional appendices responding to issues raised since the book’s first edition.

One of the most difficult challenges to the Christian faith is the existence of hell, which often calls into question how a loving God could permit eternal punishment. More than this, I know few people who relish the thought of anyone they know, less any human being, being consigned to hell for eternity, whatever one’s idea of hell might be. Gregory MacDonald argues that this is in fact inconsistent with the Christian idea of God’s redemptive purposes and acts as revealed in the scriptures of the Old and New Testament. MacDonald would argue for salvation through Christ alone by grace alone as well as real judgment for the unrepentant, and thus would claim that his position is in fact “evangelical.”

First for a few pieces of housekeeping. One is that Gregory MacDonald is a pen name for Robin A. Parry, an editor at Wipf and Stock Publishers. For the sake of this review I will use the name under which the book is published and refer you to the author’s explanation for the use of this name. Second, I should say upfront that I differ with the author in that I would affirm the eternal condemnation of the unrepentant, and continue to hold this view after reading MacDonald’s argument. That said, I would number MacDonald among the more articulate and thoughtful exponents of this view.

MacDonald begins with the “problem” of hell and the logical inconsistency of an all-powerful, and all-loving God who has effected a cosmic redemption in Christ of all things, and yet those who do not believe in Christ are eternally damned. He would contend that final universal salvation of all in Christ is the best resolution of this problem. He contends that this may be biblically argued to be the case if it has positive support from scriptures and does not conflict with the explicit teaching of scripture.

Turning from logic to scripture, he observes God’s treatment of Israel and the nations in the Old Testament and Christ, Israel, and the nations in the New Testament to show that the metanarrative of scripture is consonant with a vision of universal final salvation. In particular, he gives weight to the “all” passages including Romans 5:12-21, I Corinthians 15:22, Colossians 1:20, and Philippians 2:5-11, arguing that “all” means “all without exception” rather than “all without distinction”.

He turns to Revelation, which has some of the most clear descriptions of hell and observes that judgment texts are followed by salvation texts in such a way that he would argue that hell is a real, but temporary judgment followed by the final salvation of all. Lastly, he considers the gospel texts dealing with hell, some of which he observes remain problematic for his view. He writes:

“Clearly my interpretation is underdetermined by the texts, so I cannot claim that it is obviously the only way to interpret that matter. I am not so much exegeting the texts as trying to draw out the logic of New Testament theology as I understand it and its implications for those texts. In the process I may be offering ways of reading the texts that go beyond what their authors had in mind. When that is the case, I am seeking to remain true to what they did have in mind, even if I feel compelled by the wider canon of Scripture to say more.” (p. 140)

MacDonald then concludes his argument by arguing the advantages of Christian universalism: (a) it makes the problem of evil less difficult, (b) it enables us to hold together important Christian teachings that pull apart with a traditional view of hell, (c) it adds an inspirational dimension to our ecclesiology, worship, and mission, and (d) it has significant pastoral benefits.

The book closes with a series of appendices detailing responses to his critics, his thoughts on the contribution of Rob Bell’s Love Wins to the discussion, and his engagement with Calvinist ideas of election and moral formation. Most of these have been added to the second edition of the book.

What I appreciated about the book was both the serious attempt to argue a biblical and evangelical case for universalism that sought to be God honoring and evinced a personal humility on the part of the writer. At the same time, I found myself unpersuaded, and it seems appropriate to articulate some of the reasons why I found this so:

The insistence on logical consistency is a recurring theme of heterodoxy in Christianity, in which orthodoxy often involves holding apparently contradictory truths in tension, such as is the case with the incarnation, the Trinity, divine sovereignty and human free will, and more. That we see both a wideness of God’s mercy and judgment against unrepentant wickedness should not surprise us.
I found the case he made from scripture an inferential one that went from some statements of apparent universalism to saying what other passages speaking of apparently eternal judgment must really mean. The block quote above is a telling admission of how this approach glosses over texts that are at variance with the inference of universalism, and a kind of a rejection of the evangelical hermeneutic of interpreting scripture by scripture.
His argument that everlasting judgment being a failure of God’s purposes begs the question of “why hell at all?” Can’t it be argued on his terms that God’s inability to save all within their lifetime on earth is itself a similar failure? And how is it a victory of God for people to believe to escape the protracted consequences of sin in MacDonald’s version of temporary hell?
I also wonder whether he gives sufficient credence to the hardening of the human heart and the effects of deliberate unrepentance. C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce explores the scenario of the possibility of post-mortem salvation and the hardened refusal of many to accept this.

Yet MacDonald opens a conversation that is important to be had. In truth, many in pastoral counsel to the grieving seem to imply some form of post-mortem salvation for some and others in apologetics cede the possibility of some form of post-mortem salvation for those who have never heard the message of Christ in their lives. How might we intimate the possibility of salvation for some and not allow the ultimate salvation of all?

I still think at the end of the day that the safer course is that of Deuteronomy 29:29:

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

Among the things revealed are the truths of how we might have abounding and everlasting life in Christ, the commission of God’s people to proclaim this truth to the nations, and the warnings of judgment for those who neglect and refuse this truth. While God will do as he wills, I don’t feel at liberty to go beyond the things revealed, even if doing so would relieve certain tensions. Truthfully, I’ve enough on my hands to live faithfully according to what I do know.

_____________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”