The primary appeal of universalism is the belief that we will be reunited with all our loves ones. Now, I’ve already pointed out that there are internal problems with that facile argument, so I won’t repeat myself here. Instead, I’m going to make a different point.
Suppose I’m a consistent universalist. Not merely consistent in what I believe, but consistent in how I act in accordance with what I believe. As a universalist, how would I be inclined to behave towards my loved ones?
I would be inclined to take them for granted. Neglect them. After all, what’s the hurry?
There will always be another day, another chance, to make things right or spend more time with them. If not in this life, then in the afterlife. Time is on our side. No loss is irretrievable. In universalism, there's no such thing as "too late!"
If, by contrast, you’re a traditional Christian, and you’re consistent with your belief in hell, then that introduces a note of urgency into your relationships. You value your loved ones all the more because you don’t assume that you will always have them around. The sense of what it would mean to lose them forever is never far from your mind.
That also interjects an element of sadness into some of your relationships, an anxious quality, but by the same token, it deepens the bond. It makes you a caring and compassionate person.
It’s like having a friend or family member with cancer. You’re not sure how it will turn out. So you spend far more time with them, and the time you spend is better time.
In the age of modern science, it’s easy to assume that everyone we know and care about will fill out a normal lifespan. And when they unexpectedly die in an automobile accident, we bitterly regret all the lost opportunities to spend more time with them—when we had the time to spend.
Universalism, if taken seriously, fosters a spirit of indifference and procrastination. Our loved ones are less loved. And our circle of loved ones is smaller. We befriend fewer, and lose contact with others, because we’re sure that everything will turn out fine for them in the long run.
Universalism prides itself on its superior empathy, but practically speaking, it cultivates a callous outlook on life.
It’s like the liberal who subcontracts his charity to a government agency. It relieves him of having to be personally charitable. “That’s not my department!” He can pretend to be oh-so concerned about the plight of others without having to become personally involved.
To some extent, belief in hell casts a long shadow on the Christian life. But under that shadow is a level of love which you will never find in the fatalistic optimism of the consistent universalist.
Universalism may foster indifference, but doesn't Calvinism? "There's nothing we can do: they were either doomed or saved as decided by God at the foundations of the world". Why bother preaching? It's just a useless endeavor (albeit, one ordained of God).
ReplyDeleteMoreover, I've yet to see a Calvinist fret over the concept of their immediate family or friends entering the flames for all eternity. Usually, so long as they're "secure" in their knowledge of being among the elect, everything is usually A-OK.
I'm not saying ALL Calvinists are like that, but that's just been my experience.
James, is there any other difference between 'caricature' and 'charicterization' other than how they're spelled?
ReplyDeleteHi James, one reason to preach would be that we are commanded to. Another is that we don't know who the elect are. It's not like they have the letter 'E' tattooed on their foreheads or something. On the other hand the universalist, if she is correct, knows that everyone will ultimately be saved, no matter what she does. So in that sense, everyone is marked with the invisible E (thus the Universal aspect of 'Universal'ism).
ReplyDeleteJAMES SAID:
ReplyDelete“Why bother preaching? It's just a useless endeavor (albeit, one ordained of God).”
Because God ordains the means along with the ends. The means of grace (e.g. preaching) are coordinated with the grace of faith: the disposition to believe with the object of religious belief. It’s pretty logical if you bother to think about it.
“Moreover, I've yet to see a Calvinist fret over the concept of their immediate family or friends entering the flames for all eternity.”
How many Calvinists do you see on a regular basis, anyway? Do you attend a Reformed church? A Reformed college? A Reformed seminary? Seems unlikely.
How would you be in any position to know how they feel about the fate of their loved ones? Have you ever sat down with them (how many?) and asked them?
Spare us your canned projections about the average Calvinist.
“Usually, so long as they're ‘secure’ in their knowledge of being among the elect, everything is usually A-OK.”
How would the fact that I might feel secure in my salvation relieve me of concern or trepidation about the fate of my mother or father or brother or best friend from high school who died outside of Christ or may be on the way to dying outside of Christ?
If I’m safe inside a lifeboat and see, out of reach, my younger brother cast upon the waves as the dorsal fin of a shark approaches, is that “A-OK”?
Do you have the slightest idea what you’re talking about? No, you don’t. You’re an outsider to the religious experience you presume to describe. Make due allowance for your limitations.
A Calvinist is resigned to the will of God. To the wisdom of his ways.
That doesn’t short-circuit our natural affections.
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ReplyDeleteSteve, I will confess I am limited in my exposure to the internet blogs and the things self-professed Calvinists say and write. Thus far, Calvinists have by-and-large written of the condemnation of their families in a very clinical and distanced manner. Now, they may certainly feel conflicted about it, but if they are, it's not coming out in their writing.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they feel it would be blasphemous to wrestle with God over His decisions? I don't know.
You speak of "natural affections" as if they were a good thing. (I think they can be.) I'm willing to be corrected, but these are often designated as a weakness, not a sign of goodness or humanity. Our "natural affections" get in the way of an acceptance of God's will, no? They prohibit us from taking His just judgments with a glad heart. As Calvinists often say to me "Who are we to answer God back?"
Again, I'm not suggesting YOU or any other contributors here are actually cold-hearted and selfish. Nevertheless, it seems that the Christian faith in general (and Calvinism in particular) demands a certain detachment of affection and loyalty towards other humans. We must, in the end, be willing to stand by and accept their end as decreed by God, awful as it may be.
JAMES SAID:
ReplyDelete“Steve, I will confess I am limited in my exposure to the internet blogs and the things self-professed Calvinists say and write. Thus far, Calvinists have by-and-large written of the condemnation of their families in a very clinical and distanced manner.”
Which Calvinists on which blogs?
“I'm willing to be corrected, but these are often designated as a weakness, not a sign of goodness or humanity.”
Natural affections are natural goods. They’re only a weakness if taken to a sinful extreme, like the parents of a murderous son who buy him a plane ticket to a country without an extradition treaty.
“Nevertheless, it seems that the Christian faith in general (and Calvinism in particular) demands a certain detachment of affection and loyalty towards other humans.”
We always feel a certain detachment about perfect strangers. That isn’t limited to Calvinists. And you weren’t talking about “humans” in general, but about our own friends or family members. Quite different.
“We must, in the end, be willing to stand by and accept their end as decreed by God, awful as it may be.”
And an atheist would say we must, in the end, be willing to stand by and accept their end as decreed by natural selection, awful as it may be.
Is the following propostion true?:
ReplyDeleteIf I don’t share the gospel with a person, that person will still go to their predetermined eternal destiny.
RUDDER SAID:
ReplyDelete“Is the following propostion true?:__If I don’t share the gospel with a person, that person will still go to their predetermined eternal destiny.”
No, it’s false. Because it’s simplistic. Predestination includes the means.
If someone is predestined to be saved, then that will include his believing the gospel. He isn’t predestined to be saved irrespective of his faith or lack thereof.
And if someone is hellbound, the fact that he never heard the gospel (to use your example) is a means of perdition.
I think you may have misunderstood my question. Let me rephrase it. Is the following proposition true?: If I personally don’t share the gospel with a person, that person will still go to their predetermined eternal destiny.
ReplyDeleteRUDDER SAID:
ReplyDelete"I think you may have misunderstood my question. Let me rephrase it. Is the following proposition true?: If I personally don’t share the gospel with a person, that person will still go to their predetermined eternal destiny."
To be saved, a person must ordinarily believe the gospel. (We'll bracket the special case of little kids and the mental incompetents.)
*You* don't have to be the source of his knowledge, but he won't to go heaven apart from saving faith in the gospel, from one source or another.
You wrote, "*You* don't have to be the source of his knowledge, but he won't to go heaven apart from saving faith in the gospel, from one source or another."
ReplyDeleteI'm not asking if a person can be saved apart from the gospel. I'm asking if the following statement is true: If I personally don’t share the gospel with a person, that person will still go to their predetermined eternal destiny
RUDDER SAID:
ReplyDelete"I'm not asking if a person can be saved apart from the gospel. I'm asking if the following statement is true: If I personally don’t share the gospel with a person, that person will still go to their predetermined eternal destiny."
That depends on whether your sharing the gospel, or not sharing the gospel, was an instrumental means in achieving their predetermined destiny, for better or worse.
James,
ReplyDeleteNot to toot my own horn, but I did write a post on my blog last year after the deaths of my grandparents, who were not believers. Although short, perhaps this will give you a better idea of how a Calvinist - a biblically-minded Christian - deals with the loss of loved ones:
http://kjsulli.blogspot.com/2007/04/call-of-jesus.html
I do hope that comes across as something more than "clinical detachment."
Kyle, I appreciated the post on your family, but while it's certainly not callous, I'm not certain what it IS saying. Is there a hope that things may be other than what you think them to be? Is it a sense of frustration with them? With God for not having decided to save them?
ReplyDeleteJames,
ReplyDeleteYou’re always on the lookout for some wedge issue which you can use to pressure a Christian into making a seditious admission about his dissatisfaction with God’s plan and providence.
But your current example isn’t distinctive to Calvinism or theism. Suppose I’m an atheist. Suppose I (inconsistently) believe that murder is wrong. Suppose my son commits murder.
How do I feel about that? I feel conflicted. Part of me feels that my son ought to be punished for his crime. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
But another part of me still cares about him and grieves over his fate. Same thing with a Christian father of a murderous so.
So they have conflicted feelings. Big deal. What do you think that proves?
Do you think Christians have to like everything that happens? Something can be for the greater good, yet we still dislike the tradeoff.
Do you think OT Jews were always fond of the Mosaic law? Did they like it if their son or daughter committed a capital offense? No. Did they like it if their mother or father or sister or brother committed a capital offense? No.
In the nature of the case, we don’t have much control over our feelings. Feelings don’t prove anything one way or the other.
I may be madly in love with a woman who would be totally unsuitable as a wife. I’d be miserable if I spent my life with her, and I’d be miserable if I spent my life without her. Our emotions can sometimes box us into odd conundra. What does that prove? Nothing.
Heaven will have its compensations. And our emotions will be sinless.
James,
ReplyDeleteI was struggling at the time with how to grieve the loss of my grandparents, knowing that they were unbelievers to the end. Had I really been faithful to share the gospel with them while they were still living? How was I to handle the idea that I would never see them again, not even after my own death? What could I say to comfort family and friends if I could not honestly say that my grandparents were now "in a better place"? What comfort could I even take for myself? Why would Jesus say something to a man mourning the death of his father that seemed so heartless? "Let the dead bury their dead"?
That post of mine was made while I meditated on these questions & on what the call of Jesus is. I don't think even now that I can adequately answer all of these questions. But I did & do know this: that Jesus will never cast away the one who humbly comes to Him, but that such a one will find in Jesus life without end. And this is really the only comfort one has in life & in death.
It doesn't remove the sorrow & grief for those we love falling eternally under the just condemnation of the most holy God; but, in due time, the grace of the self-same God through Christ will heal our wounds & wipe away our tears. Our hope, then, is in Jesus, and He calls us to follow Him in spite of everything that may come.
I hope that clarifies where I'm coming from.