Scotist graciously has provided a fairly good clarification of his comments to my recent piece on CWOB. I think he still is accusing me of heresy but at least he’s doing so in a relatively straightforward fashion by which he might readily accuse most of Christendom.
If there is anything clear from Scotist’s argument to this hard-nosed and newly minted Magister Scientiae, it is that the idea of universal salvation has gone too far. While I appreciate the deep compassion of Origen, certain 19th century New England controversialists, and our dear Scotist, I cannot be swayed by appeals to God’s irresistibility or that Christian ethics and Christian hope requires us to believe in the salvation of every ktisis . While this certainly would be a mark of success, we are unprofitable servants and creation has a few warps in the old woof. And as the Article on Predestination and Election reminds us, “Furthermore, we must receive God’s promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth in us in Holy Scripture: and, in our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God.”
This particular Article (XVII, if you’re keeping score at home) is a most salutary one in that it admits predestination and election as both a blessing and a curse. And the best way to remove this particular curse is to treat all comers as if they were potentially the elect. For Scotist, this means that he would share the Eucharist with all comers in good order. For me, it means that we do not let the past unduly bear on font or table. We are not the authors of the Apostolic Tradition , who would bar unsavory persons from the waters of regeneration, despite the acts of our Lord, who admitted prostitutes and tax collectors to his service. We do not permanently excommunicate anyone and I know of no priest in this Church who would deny the unrepentant but honestly earnest for the Lord from the Sacrament at the last. Even the strictest penitentials of the ancient Church allow for this.
What I cannot admit from the Scotist’s argument is that we are mandated to hope for something that is contrary to the promises of the Holy Scriptures, which bars in sundry places for sundry reasons certain offenders from the New Jerusalem and speaks of actual non-specific people being damned. The Gospels speak of crops burning, outer darkness, and all of the other horrors which Chrysostom relishes in his sermons. Moreover, since most of us fall into the ranks of these offenders, we are clearly offered regeneration in baptism. These offenders we are but no more. We have been washed. We have been sanctified. We have been saved through Jesus Christ. The most universal salvation for which I have evidence is those who have excuse according to the light of nature as Paul says in Romans. I, like the apostles and the Articulators, know of no other name under heaven but Jesus by which we have salvation. But I have faith that the name of Jesus is written throughout the cosmos in every blade of grass and every pulsar.
And despite my vexation with a universe in which some are not brought into the fullness of the light of Christ at the end of things, I have enough confidence in God’s justice and our freedom to realize that this may just be the way things are. Why the Fall, if God is always irresistible? Why the Destruction of the Temple, if God is always irresistible? Why every horror of human being to human being, if God is always irresistible? Why does God limit his irresistibility?
When we offer communion to the baptized, we say nothing about the verity of their election, which is between them and God. Instead, we recognize their potential for election, that these persons have made a choice to subsume their identity to that of Jesus Christ, casting their crowns in the sea and prostrating themselves before the Lamb. We already have recognized the immanence of the eschaton in that by admitting them on account of their potential for election. We have no way of judging the potential of any other class of persons, though we have no grounds to assume any particular person’s state of grace.
Scotist says, “But do we know universalism--say, the doctrine that all are saved at the end of all things--is true? I do not think so. Nevertheless, Scripture leaves room for us to hope that all might be saved.” I claim that we have no such grounds for hope and indeed quite the opposite, nor is such hope incumbent on us. We have been allowed the freedom to choose damnation and to reject God’s Grace, probably because God is equivalently free. So great is God’s love for us. Nor does denial of universal salvation need have any deleterious impact on Christian ethics. We have no justification for conversion by the sword or any analogous tactic of discrimination. We are obligated to allow all the same freedom all sentient beings have received from their Creator.
22 comments:
I can't tell exactly what you're talking about sometimes, because I don't speak Latin, but are congratulations in order for your scholastic accomplishments?
If so, then: Mazel Tov!
Now I'll read the post....
Yeah, I can't get with the idea that "all will be Saved." Suppose somebody doesn't want to be Saved? That's perfectly within their rights.
There's another good saying I heard recently. "God has some that the Church has not - and the Church has some that God has not." So I don't know why it's automatic that a Christian would be saved, either.
I'm not really sure how this fits into CWOB, though. Like I said: I'm of two minds on this topic. It seems unreasonable to me that Jesus in the bread would allow himself to be eaten by someone he didn't care to be eaten by; He got Himself in there, and I'm sure He can get Himself out.
But I do like and believe in the "Freedom" argument, even though I'm not clear on how it's relevant to the topic.
I still have that post to write. I'm going to have to think about yours a bit more. I will say this, much of this discussion is what happens when we rip Sacraments out of liturgical framework as loci for discussion and when we're not clear about the entire movement of initiation.
I'm writing on this too... I've seen the Scotist's posts but have been too distracted by the diss to focus on them...
Biblically, of course, there's Matt 7:21-23: "21. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
It does kinda cut against the universal salvation thing...
Bls--
I just received my M.S. in Planetary Science. That and a few bucks will buy you a cup of coffee ;)
I'm not quite sure how much of this is related to CWOB myself. But Scotist is setting the bounds of the conversation, so I respond as best as I can.
"God has some that the Church has not - and the Church has some that God has not." I'm fairly sure Augustine says something similar, though the first part may be more restrictive.
Derek--
When you write at the Cafe, I'm sure this conversation will become far more interesting and exciting. I look forward to it.
*Christopher--
I read everything you write, though I usually don't have anything productive to say about it. I'm quite intrigued by what you mean about ripping Sacraments from their liturgical framework.
Coffee would be great anytime, Caelius. ;)
I agree this is going to get interesting. But that's what the blogs are for, after all!
one thought... on all those burnings and hellfire and "not everyone" statements: what if they are treated as threats instead of promises?
I was thinking more of the Eastern Christian understanding that universal salvation is something hope for, but not something promised, but I notice Fr. Haller has addressed this. We can hope for universal salvation but cannot say its a done deal. This would be close to CS Lewis.
Jesus utilizing upaya, Fr. Haller? Could be...
Upaya... perhaps. The question is God's aim in creation and salvation. I don't want to posit a coercive salvation, but picture the final confrontation with God all will one day experience as almost irresistably persuasive. I find unsatisfactory the notion that life is a kind of trick question, which if you get wrong you are doomed to eternal punishment -- that seems to be incompatible with a God either of love or of justice. So I'm left with either an annihilationist view of damnation, or a universalist vision of salvation --- again, as a matter of hope rather than conviction.
I did have a sort of "Origenist" dream many years ago, a very vivid one. I was in heaven and literally everyone was there. They were all in the 20s and wearing shorts and Hawaiian shirts, and drinking tall cool drinks. Satan was there too, and he kept coming up to people and saying, "Can I get you anything?"
FWIW
"Satan was there too, and he kept coming up to people and saying, "Can I get you anything?""
Ah. So even if you want to rule in Hell, you end up serving in heaven!
I like it.
(Still, free will and all.
If human beings are created that way, then it should apply all the way, including up to and beyond the end of the world, IMO. They should be free to rule in Hell, if they wish.
Of course, I guess it might depend on one's definition of "Hell," as well. Headwaiter, then? ;-) )
Satan as cabana boy. The conversations when I'm not here are amazing ;)
But Fr. Haller
The deal is this, following William Temple and CS Lewis (and the East), that I don't think Hell is outside of Heaven. It's the continuation of curvatus in se in the midst of the glorious and eternal light. The light others would experience as God's love, those in Hell would experience as fire towrath. But the wrath is not God's but their own exposed to God's loving flame which they refuse to turn to and repent. Lewis said in the Great Divorce, "Hell is a state of mind". Those of us who've known something of Hell in this life know there is truth to his statement. I also think his vision allows for those to refuse finally God's persuasion and shrivel to dust. Without God, we have no being, and it does seem a possibility though I hope none choose it.
Yes, that's pretty much my own view. I've never been convinced by Augustine's argument against annihilationism in City of God , though I'm never quite sure, vide :
"What ever does anyone want but a life without pain:
A certain surety to take all fear away? This I cannot
Give them nor grant myself, abandoned now to this dead world’s winds.
Best yet never to be born, said the poet, yet falsely sung he
For it is better yet to live though we die and fall e’en to Hell
Among the damned where the winter and the summer winds beat aeterne
Where they remain forever in their own hot wrath, unquenchable.
Yes, best to live for ages of ages amidst unending pain
For a chance to know and to be known on the shores of wavy space
Below dense, refracting skies, upon energy absorbing ground.
To taste those fleeting joys which enliven the orbs of the worlds.
Yet this sphere I have defiled and on this coast my trunk will lie,
As all my hard knowledge rises into that realm of countless stars
To be recovered by wiser ones than I who’ll daren’t strive too hard.
O my breath is short, my face is growing cool; the suit is failing.
If I knew what to repent, I would, for heavily I have sinned.
Still pray I that though my body will unburied lie on the face
Of Ares, while all humanity my memory will hate and rue:
May I mine own good Poet meet and dream yet of what He may do."
One of the things we don't often consider when discussing this is God's persuasive (versus the late- Augustine's irresistable) grace is that I think God's work for us in this regard would involve the community and not simply God directly.
For example, let's imagine Adolph Hitler, one of those we all would most likely think not capax Dei.
First, because I don't think our salvation is just for us, but for the all of Creation, I can imagine Br. Puppy greeting me, not simply as DOG big idea but as a self, however, different from a human self (and however similar) from within his own kingdom--the canine. We both became more ourselves through our human-canine relationship. Lewis does a similar thing with cats in the Great Divorce. Linzey has helped with this as well, and Lee at A Thinking Reed muses on such matters once in a while.
Second, Hitler clearly had a hatred for humanity (which was shaped by twists and horrors in his life. Have you seen the first movie in the Hannibal Lecter series? It's less about a serial murderer than how we can be so severely deformed and reminded me of Hitler), but he loved his German Shepherds. Through, with, and in his dogs God may be able to reach him, pull him out of himself toward others, toward the Other. Through those dogs, he may catch the glimpse that turns him around.
That is, God will work through whatever relationships with another we might have had that sparked any bit of love, awe, care. That is my hope, even as I recognize with Lewis the possibility of annihilation as a process of continual turning away until nothing left upholds us in being.
FYI, my piece on CWOB may be up at the Cafe as early as tomorrow. While I'll direct people there, I'll invite pseudonymous comments on my site to keep the discussion going.
Wear your asbestos undergarments... ;-)
I am suspicious of a James Joyce-styled Hell, thinking of his wonderful description in Portrait of An Artist, especially because I would so enjoy seeing certain people tormented forever in it.
In short, I am one of those dubious types implicated in Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity in Pt. I of his Genaeology: for me, part of the pleasures of heaven would be in hearing the ghastly screams of the damned, as Aquinas et al. suggested. The question, "What would the viscosity of molten pulps of flesh burning for (say) 100,000 yrs in Hell's furnaces, yet not burned up (and so I suppose not blackened or even seared), be?" is a live one for me, pressed on by the resurrection faith that denies universalism.
Of course, God takes pleasure in no such thing--he takes pleasure, strictly speaking, in nothing at all. That does not make him a nihilist, pace Cunningham, but it does mean, as Mr. Compson once suggested to his son Quentin, that we are incapable--even Hitler, Pol Pot, and Pinochet--of doing anything truly evil, anything totally beyond the reach of redemption.
Caelius,
Any deviation from the core doctrine of the Christian faith, as implied by the Creeds or by Scripture (concerning what is needed for salvation), is heresy. And it seems to me that CWOB touches on the core, inasmuch as it concerns the nature of the Eucharist, without which no community can be church. As our positions are formally incompatible, at least one of us is a heretic, maybe both.
I do not see any way
around it--though of course I may be wrong. That is not to say either of us willfully holding a false doctrine, known by us to be false; nor that either of us has presented demontrative arguments in favor of our preferred positions that the other refuses to recognize; such failures would be matters of formal heresy. I take it formal heresy here is not at issue.
Now I do not think that any sacrament is necessary for salvation--neither did Aquinas, for what it's worth. Any thought to the contrary, I would think, is sheer foolishness. Thus, the matter of heresy here cannot be settled by Scripture alone, inasmuch as nothing in it touching the Eucharist concerns a matter of what is necessary for salvation. See?
Rather, I am concerned here with the Symbol of faith embodied in the Nicene Creed, especially as it touches the first article on the Father. I am of the opinion anyone denying CWOB is committed to denying the first article--whether they have actually denied it or not.
The issue concerns the nature of the Father implied in Eucharistic praxis. Praxis and credal allegiance ought to be compatible--but for those denying CWOB, they cannot be.
As best I can tell, Eucharistic praxis forbidding CWOB implies God is not Almighty, in the sense of being Omnipotent. All Eucharistuc praxis forbidding CWOB should be eradicted, as it would not be done--if we were consistent--in Truth in the service of God, the only possible God, the one who is Omnipotent.
BTW: There is something odd in picturing irresitible grace as coercive--this needs a mighty good argument, I should think.
Where does all that leave the unforgivable sin? Granted it may be that no one has or will ever commit it, but should we refuse to believe that it is real?
Jon
"And it seems to me that CWOB touches on the core, inasmuch as it concerns the nature of the Eucharist, without which no community can be church."
So the Quakers aren't church, then. Hmm.
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