History of Christian universalism
Modern Unitarian Universalism emerged in part from the Universalist Church but, being a non-credal faith, it holds no official doctrinal positions.
As David Fisher, a bishop and professor of philosophy has put it, "In the final analysis, the question of salvation is always an inquiry into the balancing of human free will with God's mercy and forgiveness.
The advocates have argued that the apparent contradiction between Bible verses that describe God eventually reconciling humanity to goodness (such as in the Epistle to the Ephesians) with those that describe damnation to most of humanity (such as in the Book of Revelation) is that threats of long-term punishment function just as threats, not necessarily as predictions of future events, that will not be actually carried out.
[1] One recurrent objection to universalism made by many has been that having a deep-rooted belief in eternal torment as a possibility is a necessary deterrent from living an immoral life.
Universalists have often responded that punishments for sin can function well without being eternal, especially in the afterlife when one can face severe treatment first before one eventually gets to heaven.
[14] Brian E. Daley writes that Clement viewed "punishment after death as a medicinal and therefore temporary measure" and that he suggested "with great caution the related prospect of universal salvation for all intelligent creatures", for example in his Stromateis, Book VII, Chapter 2.
[15][16] According to Daley, Origen was firmly convinced that "all human souls will ultimately be saved" and "united to God forever in loving contemplation" and that this is "an indispensable part of the 'end' promised by Paul in I Cor 15.24–28."
Daley also notes that Origen sometimes called this final state of universal salvation ἀποκατάστασις and suggested it was already a familiar concept to his readers.
"[18] Gregory of Nyssa, who was declared "the father of fathers" by the Seventh Ecumenical Council,[19] is interpreted by many scholars as a proponent of universal salvation[20][21][22] Gregory stated, "when death approaches to life, and darkness to light, and the corruptible to the incorruptible, the inferior is done away with and reduced to non-existence, and the thing purged is benefited, just as the dross is purged from gold by fire.
[25] Many heteroclite views became associated with Origen, and the 15 anathemas against him attributed to the Second Council of Constantinople condemned a form of apokatastasis, along with the pre-existence of the soul, animism, a heterodox Christology, and a denial of real and lasting resurrection of the body.
Solomon of Akhlat, a thirteenth-century bishop of the Church of the East, defended universalism in his Book of the Bee, mostly basing himself on citations of Isaac of Nineveh, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Diodorus of Tarsus.
[33] David Bentley Hart confirms this and adds that Timotheus II, a fourteenth-century patriarch of the said church, "thought it uncontroversial to assert that the aiōnios pains of hell will come to an end when the souls cleansed by them, through the prayers of the saints, enter paradise.
"[34] The period between the Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment featured extended debates about salvation and hell, but although figures such as Erasmus rekindled interests in the Greek Church Fathers, and early advocates of universal salvation, such as Origen, became more broadly known as new editions of their writings were published, the universal restoration was not a doctrine that mainstream Reformers wished to restore.
Furthermore, despite initially denying his universalism before Urbanus Rhegius, teary-eyed Denck then allegedly confessed his belief "that no man or devil was eternally damned", and appealed to biblical sayings about God's mercy (though he did believe in a painful hell).
[38] The 17th century saw a resurgence of Christian universalism: Prominent universalists of this time also include the Cambridge Platonists in 17th-century England such as Peter Sterry.
Arminianism and Quaker doctrine received much attention, but Christian universalism was still a fringe phenomenon in terms of scholarly thinking at the time.
[40] William Law in An Humble, Earnest, and Affectionate Address to the Clergy (1761),[41] an Anglican, and James Relly, a Welsh Methodist, were other significant 18th-century Protestant leaders who believed in Universalism.
in the Universalist Union magazine, suggesting that John Wesley (d. 1791) had made a private conversion to Universalism in his last years but had kept it secret.
Universalism was brought to the North American colonies in the early 18th century by the English-born physician George de Benneville, who was attracted by Pennsylvania's Quaker tolerance.
[42] John Murray (1741–1815)[43] and Elhanan Winchester (1751–1797) are usually credited as founders of the modern Universalist movement and founding teachers of universal salvation.
Frederic Farrar's famous series of sermons in Westminster Abbey in 1877, published in print as Eternal Hope a year later, disputed the traditional views of damnation and punishment.
Children's author Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time) was an advocate of universalism,[45] which led several Christian retail outlets to refuse to stock her books.
[46] In the late 1990s, theologian Max King introduced a doctrine called "Transmillennialism", which was an extension of the preterist system of eschatology, that held the two covenants overlapped during the times of the New Testament, and the final end of the old age, and judgment portrayed in Revelation and elsewhere, was fulfilled by the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD70.
[50] American Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart has also argued for the coherence of the universalist position, most notably in That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (2019).
She makes the case for its presence and Christological and Biblical foundation in many Fathers, analysing its meaning and development from the birth of Christianity to Eriugena.
