The Logical Fallacy of Christian Universalism

[darinhouston]

However, you write as if the appeal of salvation is to the sinner's interest, rather than God's. So what if most sinners don't want to be saved from their sins? God wants them to be. He has the right to get what He wants.

You're the only one I've heard giving this message. I love it and I wish it would "catch on" in evangelical circles.

[steve7150]

The statement "everyone will be saved with no possibility of unsaved" (in the scope of God's Plan and providence) commits
a formal fallacy in logic which we call of contradiction of terms. The terms in contradiction have to do with the concept
of salvation and the word "saved" as well as "everyone" reaching the same inevitable fate and leaving NO ONE to experience
any permanent effect or be in danger or threat of ever experiencing "non-salvation."

In order to be "actually" saved FROM something...that "something" has to exist in reality... You can not be saved fromy
something that is NOT real and is not a threat or is not any sort of a DANGER to you... because it is impossible for you
to end up being "un-saved."





What we are saved from is our sins which is real and a condition everyone experiences. If we die in our sins we end up in the lake of fire which is where the great majority of mankind will live. The question is whether this is a "danger" to be saved from if it is not eternal. Many feel if punishment is not eternal it is not punishment at all but i suspect that whatever period of time a sinner spends there will be appropriate for his crimes based on God's judgment.
I think postmortem salvation is very likely and in fact is the only explanation to reconcile everything in the bible about God's will and his character verses man's nature.
So if Christian Universalism is true then i take the pertinent verses to be prophetic in nature rather than God forcing anyone to accept Christ.

[Homer]

Hi Steve,

You wrote:

Actually, it is your statement that "the natural man has no desire to be 'saved' from his sins" that reflects Calvinism. Their view of total depravity teaches that the unregenerate cannot even desire to know God, nor seek Him. You and I understand the scriptures differently, I think.

I never said or meant to imply that they can not desire to know God. I was simply speaking to their lack of desire to be "saved" from a lifestyle that they are very comfortable in, and while they have not experienced, nor can they foresee, any negative consequence sufficient to motivate them to change.

However, you write as if the appeal of salvation is to the sinner's interest, rather than God's.

I must be misunderstanding you. Surely you are not contending that the gospel is not an appeal to the self-interest of the lost? For the "good news" to be good there must have been a perception of something bad antecedent to the good. Jesus appealed directly to the true self interest of people:

Matthew 16:24-27, New King James Version (NKJV)

24. Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.

John 12:25-26, New King James Version (NKJV)

25. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.

I don't know how you read it, but Jesus appears to me to frequently, as in the preceeding examples, appeal to self-interest.

God wants them to be. He has the right to get what He wants.

Recently I was reading an article on "restoration of all" in the Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, a two volume extension of the Schaff-Herzog encyclopedia. In the article there is the following comment:

The Scriptures therefore seem to teach both a final restoration of all and the exclusion of some personal beings from the restoration. Their consistency may be preserved by understanding the "all" collectively, not distributively, so that the totality, the system of things, is to be restored but not every particular being that ever has existed within it.

Notice that in our well known statement in John 3:16, "for God so loved the world", the Geek word for world is kosmos, a singular noun. Kosmos would then seem to metonymically refer to the human race, mankind.

A good illustration of what this means would be that of a gardener. The man maintains a large rose garden. He gives great care to the garden which he loves, tending to each plant lovingly and as expertly as possible, while considering the particular needs of each plant. They are watered, fertilized, weeded, and treated for insects and diseases as appropriate to their optimum health and production of beautiful flowers. Then in the winter they are pruned and protected from the weather. In spite of the gardener's efforts, some of the roses do not thrive and produce few flowers. Some become diseased and endanger the other roses, particularly those infected with crown gall which can bring death to the plant and spread to others. The gardener is patient, however, and gives the plants the best care, hoping they will recover, but at some point the gardener recognizes when particular plants are hopeless. When pruning time comes, the hopeless plants are uprooted, thrown on the burn pile, and destroyed along with the agents infecting them. They are no longer a danger to the Rose garden.

Yes, the gardener loved each rose he planted in his garden. But he loved the garden even more than the individual roses in it, and new roses replaced the ones destroyed; the rose garden was restored to its original state. The gardener got what he wanted. And God can have what he wants without any one of us.

My illustration seems entirely consistent with Jesus' illustration of the vinedresser, John 15:1-6, where the unproductive vines are thrown on the burn pile and destroyed. His illustration admits of no restoration of the branches.

This same argument could be made against the gospel that you and I both believe—namely, that the grace of God is so great that, no matter what we have done in this life, we can be saved. If this is not an escape from hell, what is? Yet you have no objection (I think) to teaching the possibility of salvation even on one's deathbed. Would this teaching not equally encourage sinners that they can do whatever they want, right up till the last breath, and then escape from hell? I see little difference between preaching the one or the other in this respect.

That is a very weak argument; a foolish risk. One never knows whether Jesus "will pass their way again". They may never have another opportunity. Any moment may be our last, then what? Not only that, but I believe God may give up on a person prior to death. Will His Spirit contend with man forever"? I am not sure He will.

You often talk as if the avoidance of just a little while in flames provides minimal incentive for repentance prior to death. I seriously doubt that this idea is the product of serious consideration. If you were told that you must stop watching television or else be burned at the stake, do you think you would cavalierly wave this off, reasoning, "Ah well, the pain of being burned up will only last a few minutes! Now, where's that remote...?"

There are degrees of faith, or belief. The person who is concerned with going to hell, but only vaguely certain there is a hell or what it is, but is certain of the enjoyment he has for the moment, in his life of sin, weighs his options. While surfing the channels with his remote, he had paused to hear the prominent evangelical preacher warning about hell and the judgement to come. That is a terrible fate. His life he has now, of great pleasure, is real, not an abstaction. Shall he give it up, he asks himself, and deny self to follow Jesus? Lose his life to save it? What to do? Then he hears from a universalist friend that hell is only a temporary place of punishment until he repents. He reasons "if that's the case, I will know for certain about Jesus and hell, if I go there, and repent right away! He has weighed his options and the scale tips-----

"Salvation then doesn't mean we are in a better position than others, it means we are in a better position than we would have been without Jesus."

Very well-summarized!

I must say my feeble mind does not understand this. It seems to say that we are in a better position when we are saved (that is, in jesus), but no better off than the lost (others?).

[steve]

Hi Homer,

You wrote:

I never said or meant to imply that they can not desire to know God. I was simply speaking to their lack of desire to be "saved" from a lifestyle that they are very comfortable in, and while they have not experienced, nor can they foresee, any negative consequence sufficient to motivate them to change.

I believe the lack of desire to be saved is an indication that the Father is not actively drawing them at this time. If a person has no interest in God, they cannot be saved, regardless how many threats we heap upon them. We could put a gun to their head and give them a more urgent motivation than telling them about eternal torment (they may not believe in eternal torment, but they believe in the gun). This is not a biblical way to make converts. You don't create love for God in the heart by such means.

Surely you are not contending that the gospel is not an appeal to the self-interest of the lost? For the "good news" to be good there must have been a perception of something bad antecedent to the good. Jesus appealed directly to the true self interest of people:

[quotes Matthew 16:24-27 and John 12:25-26]

I don't know how you read it, but Jesus appears to me to frequently, as in the preceeding examples, appeal to self-interest.

As near as I can tell, the quoted verses were not evangelistic, but were addressed to disciples of Jesus. In fact, this is the case with almost all the teachings of Christ about penalties and rewards (certainly it is so with most of His statements about gehenna). Jesus often encouraged His disciples with such words to let them know they had made the right decision, and that they would never have occasion to regret it. By contrast, I believe Jesus appealed more to the conscience than to the self-interest, when seeking converts.

When we take statements that Jesus addressed to believers and then preach them to unbelievers we are not mimicking His strategy. I think you and I really do have a fundamental disagreement about the gospel. I think the good news is actually good in itself, with or without reference to bad news.

My illustration [of the rose garden] seems entirely consistent with Jesus' illustration of the vinedresser, John 15:1-6, where the unproductive vines are thrown on the burn pile and destroyed. His illustration admits of no restoration of the branches.

I agree that the rose garden illustration is a good parallel to the vine and branches metaphor. Some individuals are often sacrificed for the health of the community (by the way, this comment about branches being burned is another example of Christ discussing the consequences of unbelief in private with the disciples, not to unbelievers).

However, you are assuming that the people represented by the burned branches have no postmortem future. The branches that are burned up are almost certainly a reference to the Jews suffering in the conflagration of AD 70. The "Vine" illustration comes from Isaiah 5:1ff. There the vine is Israel. When Jesus says He is the "True Vine", in that context, He is saying, "I am the True Israel." To be in the true Israel requires abiding in Christ.

Those Jews who were not His disciples (i.e., who did not abide in Him) were doomed. Only the True Israel would be saved, while those who were apostate Israel would face the judgment of being gathered and burned in Jerusalem. This speaks, in my opinion, of a physical judgment on the apostate nation. What will happen to these people after the final judgment is a separate discussion.

That is a very weak argument; a foolish risk. One never knows whether Jesus "will pass their way again". They may never have another opportunity. Any moment may be our last, then what? Not only that, but I believe God may give up on a person prior to death. Will His Spirit contend with man forever"? I am not sure He will.

My point is that God's giving people postmortem opportunity to repent is no more unfitting than for Him to give them decades to repent before death. If God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, then this-life opportunities and postmortem opportunity are of a piece. When does God stop desiring all to repent? When they die? Why then? What has changed in them at that moment that extinguishes the love God had for them a moment earlier?

The point you were making is that God's extending so much grace as this would only encourage people to put off repentance. Mine was that the grace of God that we both believe to be the legitimate message of the gospel often has the same effect. People will often hedge their bets. However, if their hearts are prepared properly to love God, this will not be a problem for them.

There are degrees of faith, or belief. The person who is concerned with going to hell, but only vaguely certain there is a hell or what it is, but is certain of the enjoyment he has for the moment, in his life of sin, weighs his options. While surfing the channels with his remote, he had paused to hear the prominent evangelical preacher warning about hell and the judgement to come. That is a terrible fate. His life he has now, of great pleasure, is real, not an abstaction. Shall he give it up, he asks himself, and deny self to follow Jesus? Lose his life to save it? What to do? Then he hears from a universalist friend that hell is only a temporary place of punishment until he repents. He reasons "if that's the case, I will know for certain about Jesus and hell, if I go there, and repent right away! He has weighed his options and the scale tips-----

My point is that the pain of burning at the stake would be sufficient to deter most sensible people from incurring that penalty, if they take the possibility seriously. The same is true of eternal torment. Those who have heard of eternal torment (most people) and who do not believe in it, nor take it seriously, are no more likely to convert than is a man who is warned that he will be burned at the stake, but who does not believe it, nor take it seriously. Minutes of excruciating pain, and millennia of excruciating pain, both have a motivating effect (though not one that motivates to love God) upon the person who genuinely anticipates suffering them.

The point was made to counter your repeated suggested that the threat of a limited time in hell would not provide adequate incentive for most people to become Christians. The fact is, the threat of an eternity in hell has not provided sufficient motivation for most people either. Perhaps real motivation to love God comes from elsewhere than threats of torture?

I must say my feeble mind does not understand this. It seems to say that we are in a better position when we are saved (that is, in jesus), but no better off than the lost (others?).

You are taking mkprr's statement out of context. Breckmin was arguing that, if everyone is saved, then no one is saved. To support this argument, he said that non-salvation of some must exist in order for there to be genuine salvation of others. By implication, saved people are not saved from anything unless someone else is worse off than them. Mkprr wisely pointed out that salvation has to do with what happens to the saved person objectively, not with how much worse off anyone else may be. It was a perfect and succinct rebuttal of breckmin's argument.

[TK]

However, you write as if the appeal of salvation is to the sinner's interest, rather than God's. So what if most sinners don't want to be saved from their sins? God wants them to be. He has the right to get what He wants.

You're the only one I've heard giving this message. I love it and I wish it would "catch on" in evangelical circles.

.

I agree. I have been listening to Steve G's I John lectures and he goes into this in some detail in lecture 7 starting at about the 26 minute mark.

TK

[Homer]

Hi steve,

You wrote:

As near as I can tell, the quoted verses were not evangelistic, but were addressed to disciples of Jesus. In fact, this is the case with almost all the teachings of Christ about penalties and rewards (certainly it is so with most of His statements about gehenna). Jesus often encouraged His disciples with such words to let them know they had made the right decision, and that they would never have occasion to regret it. By contrast, I believe Jesus appealed more to the conscience than to the self-interest, when seeking converts.

When we take statements that Jesus addressed to believers and then preach them to unbelievers we are not mimicking His strategy. I think you and I really do have a fundamental disagreement about the gospel. I think the good news is actually good in itself, with or without reference to bad news.

I do not think you can always make a clear distinction between kerygma and didache. It is at best a controversial endeavor among theologians. Consider the following from an article by Ron Halbrook in Truth Magazine:

At any rate, Dodd and Ketcherside agree that preaching the gospel is one thing and teaching the doctrine is another. How foolish when we realize that "doctrine" simply means "teaching - a thing taught," and that the gospel is teaching - a thing taught, therefore, doctrine. "Preaching was an inclusive activity, not restricted to the proclamation of a missionary messenger. Kerysso - needs a message to complete its meaning. This message was an inclusive message of what God had done toward a particular people, and what the response of the people should be to what God had done" (Robert C. Worley, Preaching and Teaching in the Earliest Church, p. 32). "The thing taught"- the doctrine - in the New Testament proclaims both what God has done and what we must do; there is one message, not two, and all of it is the Gospel.

The statements of Jesus I quoted could be classed as kerygma, which calls for a decision: decide now if you will follow me or not, lose your life or save it.

Re the passages in Isaiah 5 and John 15, while both are about grapes, the one (Isaiah) is concerned about an entire vineyard, the other (John) about a vine and the fate or some of its branchs. It seems to me you confound the two. In my illustration of the gardener I compared the interests of the garden as a whole (Isaiah's vineyard) to that of individual rose bushes (Jesus' reference to branches), two different things.

All I have time to comment on for now: gotta get to work.

[steve7150]

he had paused to hear the prominent evangelical preacher warning about hell and the judgement to come. That is a terrible fate. His life he has now, of great pleasure, is real, not an abstaction. Shall he give it up, he asks himself, and deny self to follow Jesus? Lose his life to save it? What to do? Then he hears from a universalist friend that hell is only a temporary place of punishment until he repents. He reasons "if that's the case, I will know for certain about Jesus and hell, if I go there, and repent right away! He has weighed his options and the scale tips-----



You really believe God wants folks with him in heaven because they are afraid of eternal hell, not because they love him. Didn't Jesus say loving God was the most important command and is fear of hell a fulfillment of this command? The same could be said of the sinner who in this life plans to repent immediately after he finds himself in hell. Do you think God can see through this Homer? No one is fooling God and anyone who thinks they can is a fool. Trust God to dole out the appropriate sentence without this one size fits all eternal punishment.

[Homer]

You really believe God wants folks with him in heaven because they are afraid of eternal hell, not because they love him. Didn't Jesus say loving God was the most important command and is fear of hell a fulfillment of this command? The same could be said of the sinner who in this life plans to repent immediately after he finds himself in hell. Do you think God can see through this Homer? No one is fooling God and anyone who thinks they can is a fool. Trust God to dole out the appropriate sentence without this one size fits all eternal punishment.steve7150

What irony! We are told it is unaccepatable for a person to become a Christion for fear of the consequences, namely hell. Then we are told those who go there will be converted, every one of them. But of course actually being in the flames of hell has nothing to do with their conversion! They hear the gospel now and reject it, but accept it there with a 100% success rate? They have the words of Jesus and the apostles in this life but are unmoved; there must be some very talented preachers there. And no mention of this great mission field in the scriptures.

[steve]

The idea that people are either frightened or tortured into submission in hell is no necessary part of the restorationist position. All that is essential to that position is that that people are brought to true repentance (a change of heart) in hell as others (like ourselves) have been brought to repentance prior to death. Many of those who repent prior to death do so with a measure of fear, and many do so as a result of severe providences experienced in this life. Such experiences often awaken the conscience or alert the sinner to the reality of God or reality beyond the merely mundane. That the same may be true in hell is not innately absurd, inconsistent, nor ironic. If people are indeed brought to repentance in hell, I would imagine that their having finally seen Christ as He really is will have played a major role in the breaking of their hearts.

[Homer]

We have repeatedly been assured that all God's punishments are corrective. If the flames of hell are not a converting agent they would be gratuitous according to universalist theory, no? And if they do play a role, then that would obviously be less honoring to God than conversion based on fear of hell in this life, which is based on faith in the veracity of Jesus' many warnings, not apodictic knowledge.