A Defense of Universalism

Originally posted on FACEBOOK:

My pastor, friend, and employer Father RW Hyde gave a sermon today in defense of conditional salvation. Reverend Hyde gave a powerful defense of his contention that true Universalism is false, and yet emphasized the ultimate mystery surrounding the nature of salvation, leaving open the question of what conditions must be met to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. He made it clear that he thought all who had a relationship with Jesus Christ could be counted among the saved, but also warned against drawing any lines clearly demarkating who was 'in' and who was 'out'. Let me begin by saying that I found the sermon moving and impressive. I found his position both nuanced and theologically sound. "Father Bill" was in rare form, and I found a lot in the sermon that I agreed with and liked. Whats more I found those parts I didn't agree with challenging and inviting. It is to those parts that I now turn.

The biggest beef I had with Father Bill's defense of conditional salvation was his reconstruction of the basic Universalist argument. He put the argument in the form of a syllogism: "God loves all people, God will save anyone He loves, therefore all people will be saved". This was the reasoning he then went on to argue was non-biblical. I want to contend here that this is not the strongest possible argument for Universalism, and offer an alternative argument from Biblical sources. I am not one to contend that we are forced to stick to the Bible slavishly when reasoning about God, nor do I think that the Bible is as monolithic on the issue of salvation as Reverend Hyde implies (in fact I think there are passages that clearly support Universalism and passages that clearly support conditional salvation, and we are forced to adjudicate between the two). However, I'd like to offer what I think is the strongest BIBLICAL argument one could give in defense of Universalism, if nothing else then to stick to the spirit of the sermon as it was given.

In this argument I will make the following contentions: first, I will contend that the central ETHICAL question with which Jesus is concerned is the question of the nature of the self. Jesus, I will argue, was less concerned with what we do, or how we believe, or even what the meaning of our lives is, than He was with the simpler but perhaps more difficult question of "who am I, really, anyways?" I will further argue that given Jesus' answer to this question, it is impossible for any one person to experience salvation unless all people experience salvation. That ultimately, we are only left with two options: either everyone is saved, or no one is.

I will begin with one of Jesus most powerful, mysterious, and famous sayings: "Anyone who tries to preserve one's life will lose it, and anyone who loses it will save that life alive." (Russell Pregeant's Translation). This saying stands as a paradox. What does it mean to 'lose one's life'? And how can one 'lose one's life' and yet 'save it'? What kind of teaching is this? It is first and foremost, NOT a straightforward ethical teaching. Jesus gives us no roadmap to follow to discover its meaning. It is mysterious and foreboding on purpose. It is, at base, a challenge for us to ask that all-important question 'who am I'? In the same vein, Jesus' injunction to 'turn the other cheek' (Matt 5:39 B) to 'give your cloak also' (Matt 5:40) or most shockingly to 'hate your mother and father' (Matt 10:34-35) should not be taken as straightforward moral teachings. They are, rather, vicious attacks on our normal sense of who we really are. Just as shocking to the Jews of Jesus' time is the claim that one's neighbor is the 'Good Samaritan' (Luke 10:30-36). To the hearers of Jesus' time the term 'Good Samaritan' would've made as much sense as talking about a 'Good Nazi'. It is, in fact, another way to disorient us, to destroy our normal sense of OURSELVES, to push us to 'lose our lives' and ultimately to identify who we are, with those people in the world with whom we CANNOT identify ourselves. Ultimately to 'lose your life' is to transcend yourself, and to 'save your life' is to find out that only when you have transcended all the little circles you like to draw around yourself (I am MY family, MY country, MY race, MY 'good people', MY 'saved') do you find who you really are. In the end, Jesus is calling us to identify our very selves with the whole of things, with all other people, to find our fulfillment in the fulfillment of all reality, and all people.

Let me be clear, this is not a matter of simply wanting other people to be happy, or wanting other people to be fulfilled. It is to realize that their happiness IS your happiness, that their fulfillment IS your fulfillment, and ultimatety that their sin is your sin as well. You cannot draw strict lines between 'me' and 'that person' between 'us' and 'them'. There is no line, you will never truly understand yourself until you understand yourself as a part of and as being constituted by, all of reality, including all people. Imagine who you most cannot identify yourself with...and now realize that you are a part of them, and they a part of you, what Jesus is talking about is no less radical than that.

The implication for salvation should be clear. In the end I cannot disentangle myself from anybody. If anyone fails to take part in salvation, then a part of me fails to take part in salvation, and I cannot in any way truly claim to be 'saved'. If any part of me burns forever in Hell, then how can I in any way claim salvation? If any part of me is obliterated into nothingness, how can I claim to find the real fulfillment I seek (which is only discovered in the fulfillment of the whole of existence)? Whats more, Jesus claim is inclusive of God. Part of the community, the wholeness, the selfhood Jesus was inviting us into was God's selfhood, that was the very significance of the Incarnation, that God Himself had chosen to become a part of all of us. So any unsaved people would in effect be parts of God Himself cast into the darkness. God in Christ has become a part of all of us, and we a part of Him, and we have discovered we are all a part of each other. In such a system, which lies at the very heart of Jesus' ethical teachings, Universal salvation is the only possible choice. Because we are all part of each other, if any of us is not saved, none of us is saved, and any one of us can only partake of salvation, if every one of us does.