It may interest some people that Steve Hays has responded to my four part response to him. In the interests of fairness you may wish to read it.
In summary: he still disagrees with me and still things I am a bad and dangerous person.
Oh dear. Never mind.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/search?q=gregory+macdonald
I have already said that I will not be responding to it (not because I cannot but because I judge it to be fruitless). Readers must judge for themselves the merits of our respective arguments.
It simply remains to thank Steve for all the hours he has put into reading my book, and responding to it. It is an honor to be taken seriously, even if only in order to be 'refuted'.
I also thank Steve for making the book more widely known and inadvertantly communicating that its arguments warrant serious consideration. I hope that others follow his lead in reading and considering the case for universalism. Perhaps he has increased the sales a little. :-)
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8 comments:
You realize he's going to take that to mean you're doing it to make money on sales... {wry g}
JRP
(In completely unrelated news, the blogger word verifcation random program thing just put up "zcatfish". The odds against it generating a long English word like that on any given attempt are pretty high... wish those odds had been spent on something I cared about. {lol!} But I thought it deserved to be mentioned for its unusuality.)
I went to read his response to your response but his attitude and name calling turned me right off. My view is that UR isn't something that most are supposed to understand in this age anyway, that only a few are chosen to grasp it at this particular time, though everyone will in an age to come.
The way Steve treats Rachel...he'd better be glad Christian Universalism is true!
"In chapter 3, MacDonald admits, when all is said and done, that the OT doesn’t teach universalism (72-73). "
Well I always thought the OT had a patchy and/or developing theology of the afterlife, let alone of an eschataological soteriology. Therefore for the OT not to contain an explicit account of the final revelation of universalism is surely to be expected?
Who knows?
Steve, by the grace of God through Jesus Christ (combined with your hope faith, which are actually also gifts of God) I'll see you in heaven.
Here's hoping.
I rather find that the OT does. It's just poetic about it, in a tough-love kinda way. As Oliver says, any vaguery is on a par with the hope of resurrection and the salvation of those who have died; the two concepts are very closely connected and are developed in parallel, in conjunction with the Day of the Lord to come.
Which I could go into in immense depth, and eventually will, but not now. {g}
JRP
Greetings all,
Does Gregory post to comments becuase I've got some issues I would love to email.
Concerning the response that the worst thing you can do is make soemone think they can be saved when they can't seems to me a bit problematic.
I never devoloped from the EU (througout the book), the idea that you can do whatever you like and God is ok with it.
It's seems to me that UR has as much a use of metaphors (fire, cut to pieces, weeping, gnashing of teeth) that communicate to the unregenerate that God will deal with thier sin in a harsh way if he has to.
So his premise to me seems to be a bit off target.
He should first quote in hise response that Mcdonald has stated that the worst thing you can do is totrue someone, WITH DOGMA. In other words Mcdonald said this w/o scoping that God would torture your children in front of you. Scripture simply states nothing of the sort. So when scripture reads God deals with the individual then yes mcdonald is right, the worst thing he could do is totrue you.
The response is too narrow and does not work within a framework of wider understanding.
Classic tranditionalism.
Auggy
Gene
you are quite correct - I do indeed believe in coming wrath and in the use of biblical metaphors to describe it.
It is possible to believe in dreadful judgement without having to contrue it in the most maximally dreadful way.
I did read steve response.
Sorry to everyone if my writing is terrible. Make no mistake I know this already.
But being among good people who have patience (fruit of the spirit) I have no fear of being "illiterate".
So my apologies to everyone including steve that my writing abilites are not as sharp as others.
As for his response:
And the worst thing you can do to your fellow man is to nurse in him the false hope that no matter what he thinks or does in this life, God will save him in the next.
For sheer cruelty, nothing matches that damnable illusion. Instead of warning your fellow man of the worst possible fate, your encourage him to pursue a hellbound path until it’s too late to reverse course. No earthly atrocity comes close to such a vicious and malicious lie.
First thing is first...
Learn to spell Steve. re-read the statement above and then take a seat next to the pharisees. If your gonna knock me for my bad writing then you should aim for perfection. LOL!
I don't see how in CU (christian universalism), believing in hell, leaves someone to persue a hellbound path.
Steve shows how I take his statements and paraphrase them (he thus corrects me), and I admit rightly so.
Where has Talbott or Mcdonald ever encouraged people to continue on a hellbound path.
Ok, so many people like steve see it as inherent.
Perhaps I might explain, as I do with my "fellow men" at work.
So you think hell is fun? Try this for starters. Go to a swimming pool full of water and drench yourself with lighter fluid. Take a match and light yourself on fire. Give it lets say....10 seconds. Ok, Ok, give it 5 seconds...Too long huh.
What makes you think hell is just ok.
I think if Steve can do that little test then he might have a different perspective of 10 years in hell. How about 10,000 years.
What about 1,000,000,000 years.
People don't want that for 10 seconds they sure as Hell (no pun intended) don't want it for a Millenium.
I don't want my friends to go hell ANYMORE than I see them in it already...SEPERATED FROM GOD.
Auggy (Gene)
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