An excerpt from David Bentley Hart’s provocative new book, That All Shall Be Saved. As this chapter’s title suggested, he’s “Doubting the Answers,” and he’s giving us something to think about:
… for Christian thought in general, the question of one’s just deserts before God is irrelevant—as it was, for instance, for the woman taken in adultery. If what the New Testament says about God is true, then it is God’s will not to repay us according to our merits, but simply to claim for himself those of his creatures who had been lost in slavery to death. I remain convinced that no one, logically speaking, could merit eternal punishment; but I also accept the obverse claim that no one could merit grace. This does not mean, however, that grace must be rare in order to be truly gracious, as so many in the infernalist party so casually assume it must. Grace universally given is still grace. A gift made to everyone is no less a gift, and a gift this is intrinsically precious need not be rare to be an act of the highest generosity. Conversely, that gift becomes no more precious—indeed, it becomes much less so—if it is certified in its value by being distributed only parsimoniously. Our very existence is an unmerited gift, after all (unless, of course, there really is an eternal hell, in which case it is also, and perhaps preponderantly, an unmerited brutality). More to the point, if Paul is right, then—whereas natural justice is wholly concerned with matters of law and proportional consequences—the supernatural justice revealed in Christ consists in God’s victory over all the powers that separate his creation from him, and to that degree is as “unjust” as any other act of wholly unmerited mercy is. (52)
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7 comments
Steve Bauer says:
Sep 24, 2019
Throw out everything Paul says about “in Christ” and “through faith” and Hart is spot on. Even the Parable of the Gracious Father (Luke 15) leaves the question open as to whether the elder son (whose attitude indicates he no more deserves a place at the party than the younger son) will take the father’s invitation or walk away from it. His refusal does not negate the graciousness of the father.
James K says:
Sep 24, 2019
Of all the unbiblical heresies, Universalism has become the most tempting as I have gotten older. The idea that the death of Christ redeems everyone is just making that much more of his grace, right? No matter how good that might seem, the text just does not support this idea.
Also, the idea that “no one…could merit eternal punishment” minimizes what sin really is. All sin, even what I would see as small and trivial is a rejection of the greatest and ultimate good that is God. In my “low anthropology” and perhaps simultaneously my high theology, hell, though sobering, makes sense. Most importantly, the text confirms it.
Todd Brewer says:
Sep 25, 2019
DBH is right (in a sense). Universalism is entirely possible, but it exists more as a hypothesis rather than a belief of certainty. In other words, if one were to follow the logic of grace Paul traces out in Romans right up through Chapter 11, then one could hopefully hypothesize that all will be saved by Grace. But that is all that can be said and even saying so probably peers too far into the “hidden” God Luther did not dare to speak of. What is revealed is salvation by grace *through* faith in Christ, necessarily entailing the subjective appropriation of grace.
Michael Cooper says:
Sep 25, 2019
Thank you for this post. It addresses a subject that needs to be dealt with openly and honestly and with a lot of love, peace and understanding from all sides. I too have struggled with this issue for many years, and the Bible texts are far from clear. I do not think that all of the passages can be reconciled if they are all read as categorical statements. What happens then is that in conservative “orthodox” circles the “eternal fire” passages are read categorically, while Paul’s “For God has consigned all to disobedience that he may have mercy on all” are not read categorically but rather are blunted or ignored by being read “in the context of all of scripture”. As St. Paul himself candidly admitted, we see through a glass darkly. And if Paul himself did, I am not surprised that in most things I see through the glass not at all.
Steve Bauer says:
Sep 26, 2019
The biblical texts are quite clear where it comes to salvation. Paul weaves two parallel threads throughout Romans. Both threads must be read categorically. The first can be seen in Romans 11:32 (among others)–God has mercy on all. Through Jesus’ death on the cross, God declared the whole unrighteous world to be righteous. God’s mercy that gives eternal life (grace) is universal. But the reality that the Wedding Feast is open to all does not necessitate that all will be willing to put on the wedding garment. God’s mercy is not some inchoate force that “surrounds us and binds us.” The second thread that must also be read categorically has nothing to do with “eternal fire passages.” This thread is summed up in passages like Romans 11:22-24. It has to do with the reality that God’s universal mercy is also incarnated in one particular Man and available only through Him. After all, Jesus called Himself the Vine.
Michael Cooper says:
Sep 26, 2019
One of the many reasons the Biblical texts don’t seem so clear to me is Matthew 25:31-46, which is perhaps the clearest and most comprehensive parable told by Jesus concerning eternal judgment and salvation. It makes no reference to belief in “the Son of Man” or personal faith in Jesus as a condition of “salvation”. On the contrary, the “saved” do their works of love toward the weak and powerless without any consciousness of the “Son of Man” whom they are then standing before at the last judgment. Nevertheless, they are judged to be “righteous” based on these works of love, without reference to their faith or what other “bad” things they have done. Of course this is a parable, and reading too much into it does not respect the literary form. Maybe I am doing that, but there does not seem to be much hesitation to read a boatload into it by those who feel the need to reconcile it with the necessity to “accept Jesus as your personal lord and savior” in order to be “saved”.
Ken says:
Sep 26, 2019
I understand the argument that sin merits eternal punishment, although I don’t agree with it for reasons I won’t go into. But even if someone deserved it, that doesn’t explain why a God whose nature is merciful, who loves even those who turn against Him, would let them suffer eternally. They may choose evil, the logical end of which is removal from His presence – hell. But the God who gave them life could presumably extinguish that life, so that they wouldn’t further suffer. As far as I see, hell needn’t be eternal.