Thursday, March 19, 2020

Is it wrong to want damnation to be true

I commented once before on a post by apostate Randal Rauser (defending hopeful universalism), but I'd like to make an additional observation. He quotes J. I. Packer's statement that:

“No evangelical, I think, need hesitate to admit that in his heart of hearts he would like universalism to be true. Who can take pleasure in the thought of people being eternally lost? If you want to see folk damned, there is something wrong with you!”

There are three problems with appealing to Packer's statement:

i) It's a bogus argument from authority. Packer's opinion doesn't make it true. His opinion creates no presumption that it's true. 

ii) Whether or not I want to see folk damned is a red herring. The real issue isn't what I happen to think is best, but what God thinks is best. 

iii) Suppose there is something wrong with me. But if universalism is true, so what? Universalism takes the sting out of Packer's disapproval, as well as Rauser's disapproval. 

2 comments:

  1. Hitler, Stalin, pol pot, members of Isis. We could go on. Does Rauser think they should off?

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  2. Packer, in his very next paragraph, goes on to infer that those Evangelicals who succumb to the appeal of universalism have sunk to the level of the Serpent in the Garden: "You shall not surely die."

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