Dear Terry,
I don't think you grasped what I was comparing. Packer is admitting that
Genesis is a wax nose. He can't tell what it says, he's flexible
concerning the diversity of opinion on what it says. But he can tell
WITHOUT A DOUBT, what's inside the hearts of Christians in the next life.
That's the comparison I was drawing.
J. I. Packer's comment that "Love and pity for hell’s occupants will not
enter our hearts” at least leaves out any "rejoicing" at the "sight of
hell's torments" (which was a once popular Christian view among respected
orthodox Christians), though Packer's remark still remains a cold one none
the less. Far colder than some remarks made by respected Evangelical
Christians of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
For instance, in the 20th century, C. S. Lewis a "respected Evangelical,"
praised the 19th century univeralist Evangelical Christian George
MacDonald as "my spiritual mentor," and also included George as a
character in THE GREAT DIVORCE, and Lewis even cited the words of another
universalist Christian from the Medieval ages who had a vision of Jesus
preaching unverslism (Julian of Norwich). Lewis even went so far as to
have George say, "St. Paul spoke as if all men would be saved," and there
was no dispute of that opinion of what St. Paul said, not in Lewis' novel,
except to acknolwedge that such a question remains shrouded in mystery.
As for other "respected" "Evangelical" universalists have you checked the
18th and 19th century? There were plenty then. The greatest works by
evangelical Christian universalists of the 18th and 19th centuries are no
longer being republished, so they remain outside the collective memory of
today’s evangelicals who seem to have grown more damnation-cocksure and
less willing to buck conservative religious politics or the evangelical
book market. Take Hannah Whitall Smith’s book, The Christian's Secret of
a Happy Life, which has sold millions. The Billy Graham Evangelistic
Association even handed out copies at one of their crusades. But how many
evangelicals have ever read about Smith’s beliefs regarding the salvation
of all mankind? When evangelical publishers recently reprinted another of
her books, The Unselfishness of God and How I Discovered It, they
deliberately left out three whole chapters that featured universalistic
passages. Or check out Elhanan Winchester's The Universal Restoration
(1787) and his profoundly moving sermon, "The Outcasts Comforted" (1782),
Andrew Jukes' Restitution of all Things (1867), Thomas B. Thayer's Origin
and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment (1855), J. W. Hanson's
Universalism the Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its
First Five Hundred Years (1899), and George MacDonald's Unspoken Sermons.
With the exception of MacDonald's sermons, much of this material has
slipped into near oblivion.
Florence Nightingale? Universalist Christian
Clara Barton? Universalist Christian
-----------------------------------------------
Have you also checked universalist Christians in the early Church?
Today's Evangelical appear to have little appreciation of Christianity's
own past, and how "respect" for various views, from universalism, to
infant damnation, to the abominable fancy that those in heaven would
"rejoice" over seeing the fate of those in hell, have CHANGED, DEPENDING
ON THE ERA you are studying.
The Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (1908) by Schaff-Herzog says in
volume 12, on page 96, "In the first five or six centuries of Christianity
there were six theological schools, of which four (Alexandria, Antioch,
Caesarea, and Edessa, or Nisibis) were Universalist; one (Ephesus)
accepted conditional immortality; one (Carthage or Rome) taught endless
punishment of the wicked. Other theological schools are mentioned as
founded by Universalists, but their actual doctrine on this subject is not
known."
Augustine (354-430 A.D.), one of the four great Latin Church Fathers
(Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome and Gregory the Great), not a universalist
himself, still admitted: “There are very many in our day, who though not
denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments.”
Origen, a pupil and successor of Clement of Alexandria, lived from 185 to
254 A.D. He founded a school at Caesarea, and is considered by historians
to be one of the great theologians and exegete of the Eastern Church. In
his book, De Principiis, he wrote: “We think, indeed, that the goodness
of God, through His Christ, may recall all His creatures to one end, even
His enemies being conquered and subdued.... for Christ must reign until He
has put all enemies under His feet.” Howard F. Vos in his book Highlights
of Church History states that Origen believed the souls of all that God
created would some day return to rest in the bosom of the Father. Those
who rejected the gospel now would go to hell to experience a purifying
fire that would cleanse even the wicked; all would ultimately reach the
state of bliss.
The great church historian Geisler writes: "The belief in the inalienable
capability of improvement in all rational beings, and the limited duration
of future punishment was so general, even in the West, and among the
opponents of Origen, that it seems entirely independent of his system."
(Eccles. Hist., 1-212)
Gregory of Nyssa (332-398 A.D.), leading theologian of the Eastern Church,
says in his Catechetical Orations: “Our Lord is the One who delivers man
[all men], and who heals the inventor of evil himself.”
Neander says that Gregory of Nyssa taught that all punishments are means
of purification, ordained by divine love to purge rational beings from
moral evil, and to restore them back to that communion with God.... so
that they may attain the same blessed fellowship with God Himself.
Eusebius of Caesarea lived from 265 to 340 A.D. He was the Bishop of
Caesarea in Palestine and a friend of Constantine, great Emperor of Rome.
His commentary of Psalm 2 says: “The Son 'breaking in pieces’ His enemies
is for the sake of remolding them, as a potter his own work; as Jeremiah
18;6 says: i.e., to restore them once again to their former state.”
Gregory of Nazianzeu lived from 330 to 390 A.D. He was the Bishop of
Constantinople. In his Oracles 39:19 we read: “These, if they will, may go
Christ's way, but if not let them go their way. In another place perhaps
they shall be baptized with fire, that last baptism, which is not only
painful, but enduring also; which eats up, as if it were hay, all defiled
matter, and consumes all vanity and vice.”
---------------
The flip side, the "abominable fancy."
For centuries, Christians believed that the heavenly few would see and
even rejoice at the sight of hell’s multitude being eternally tortured. As
Paul Johnson pointed out in A History of Christianity, “This displeasing
notion was advanced and defended with great tenacity over several
centuries, and was one of the points Catholics and orthodox Calvinists had
in common.”
AUGUSTINE
They who shall enter into [the] joy [of the Lord] shall know what is going
on outside in the outer darkness…The saints’… knowledge, which shall be
great, shall keep them acquainted…with the eternal sufferings of the lost.
[The City of God, Book 20, Chapter 22, “What is Meant by the Good Going
Out to See the Punishment of the Wicked” & Book 22, Chapter 30, “Of the
Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and of the Perpetual Sabbath”]
TERTULLIAN
What a spectacle…when the world…and its many products, shall be consumed
in one great flame! How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye! What
there excites my admiration? What my derision? Which sight gives me
joy?... as I see... illustrious monarchs... groaning in the lowest
darkness, Philosophers…as fire consumes them! Poets trembling before the
judgment-seat of…Christ! I shall hear the tragedians, louder-voiced in
their own calamity; view play-actors…in the dissolving flame; behold
wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows... What
inquisitor or priest in his munificence will bestow on you the favor of
seeing and exulting in such things as these? Yet even now we in a measure
have them by faith in the picturings of imagination. [De Spectaculis,
Chapter XXX]
THOMAS AQUINAS
In order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them
and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are
allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned…So that they may be
urged the more to praise God…The saints in heaven know distinctly all that
happens…to the damned. [Summa Theologica, Third Part, Supplement, Question
XCIV, “Of the Relations of the Saints Towards the Damned,” First Article,
“Whether the Blessed in Heaven Will See the Sufferings of the Damned?”]
ST. ANTHONY MARY CLARET
Once [a soul] is condemned by God, then God's friends agree in God's
judgment and condemnation. For all eternity they will not have a kind
thought for this wretch. Rather they will be satisfied to see him in the
flames as a victim of God's justice. ("The just shall rejoice when he
shall see the revenge . . ." Psalm 57:11) They will abhor him. A mother
will look from paradise upon her own condemned son without being moved, as
though she had never known him.
[“The Pains of Hell,” Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, consisting of
thirty-five meditations from The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius as
explained by St. Anthony Mary Claret. St. Claret’s “explanations” were
written in Spanish in the late 1800's.
http://fatima.org/library/cr59pg08.html]
CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY
What will it be like for a mother in heaven who sees her son burning in
hell? She will glorify the justice of God.
- Catholic Truth Society pamphlet from the late 1960s, part of a
catechismal teaching [cited in an essay by the English poet, Stevie Smith,
"Some Impediments to Christian Commitment”]
JONATHAN EDWARDS
The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever…
Can the believing father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children
in Hell? I tell you, yea! Such will be his sense of justice that it will
increase rather than diminish his bliss. [“The Eternity of Hell Torments”
(Sermon), April 1739 & Discourses on Various Important Subjects, 1738]
THOMAS BOSTON [Scottish preacher]
“God shall not pity them but laugh at their calamity. The righteous
company in heaven shall rejoice in the execution of God’s judgment, and
shall sing while the smoke riseth up for ever.”
WILLIAM KING
“The goodness as well as the happiness of the blessed will be confirmed
and advanced by reflections naturally arising from this view of the misery
which some shall undergo, which seems to be a good reason for the creation
of those beings who shall be finally miserable, and for the continuation
of them in their miserable existence.” [De Origine Mali, 1702]
During America’s “Great Awakening” the popular hymn writer, Isaac Watts
(1674-1748), even set Christians’ feet to tapping with this crisp little
verse:
What bliss will fill the ransomed souls,
When they in glory dwell,
To see the sinner as he rolls,
In quenchless flames of hell.
This “abominable fancy” (as it came to be named) was based on various
Bible verses:
The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance.
- Psalm 58:10
Let the wicked perish at the presence of God…But let the righteous…rejoice
before God: yea, let them exceedingly rejoice.
- Psalm 68:2-3,22-23
In Isaiah 30:31-33 a human sacrifice takes place (the “man” who is killed
represents the nation of Assyria), and the act is accompanied by festival
songs, gladness of heart, the sound of the flute, tambourines and lyres.
Moreover, “the Lord” performs the sacrifice.
And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have
transgressed against me.
- Isaiah 66:24
A man suffering in “Hades” sees another man luxuriating in “Abraham’s
bosom,” and vice versa.
- Luke, chapter 16
Ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the
kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.
- Luke 13:28
They shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the
holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their
torment shall ascend up forever and ever…Rejoice over her, thou heaven,
and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her… And
again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever and ever.
- Revelation 14:9-11; 18:20, 19:3
Having such “inspired” verses behind it, this teaching did not grow out of
favor with orthodox Christian theologians until the age of the
Enlightenment when, for instance, Thomas Burnet punctured it with a prick
of irony, “What a theater of providence this is: by far the greatest part
of the human race burning in flames forever and ever. Oh what a spectacle
on the stage, worthy of an audience of God and angels! And then to delight
the ear, while this unhappy crowd fills heaven and earth with wailing and
howling, you have a truly divine harmony.” [De Statu Mortuorum &
Resurgentium Tractatus, 1720]
J. I. Packer's comment that "Love and pity for hell’s occupants will not
enter our hearts” at least leaves out any "rejoicing" at the "sight of
hell's torments." Though it does appear like a cold remark none the less.
Far colder than remarks made by Respected Evangelical Christian
universalists of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Cheers,
Ed
Received on Thu Oct 14 13:55:04 2004
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