Along with the Harvard theologian Harvey Cox, he spearheaded the field of secular theology and, like William Barclay, was a believer in universal salvation.

In 1960 Robinson served as a witness for the defence in the obscenity trial of Penguin Books for the publication of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Following a ten-year period at Woolwich, Robinson returned to Cambridge in 1969 as Fellow and Dean of Chapel at Trinity College, where he lectured and continued to write.

[10] Modern Universalist writer Brian Hebblethwaite[11] cites Robinson's In the End, God: A Study of the Christian Doctrine of the Last Things[12] as arguing for the universal reconciliation of all immortal souls.

George Hunsinger, author of Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth[14] writes that "[i]f one is looking for an uninhibited proponent of universal salvation, Robinson leaves nothing to be desired."

In this book, an analysis of the early history of the doctrine of the parousia, Robinson states: "That the heart of the Christian hope was now, once more to 'wait for God's son from heaven', for a second and final coming which would complete and crown the first, is a belief for which we have found no firm foundation in the words of Jesus himself.

[16][17] According to Exploration into God in (1967), he felt its chief contribution was its attempt to synthesize the work of theologians Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, both of them well known in theological circles, but whose views were largely unknown to the people in the pews.

The modifications of the Divine image posited by Robinson have some aspects in common with the psychological deconstruction of God-ideas put forward by his fellow Cambridge theologian Harry Williams in his contribution to the symposium "Soundings" edited by Alec Vidler and published in 1962.

[19] This view has never quite dissipated, for in his later books, Robinson would champion early dates and apostolic authorship for the gospels, largely without success.

[32][33][34] In a letter to Robinson, the New Testament scholar C. H. Dodd wrote, "I should agree with you that much of the late dating is quite arbitrary, even wanton[;] the offspring not of any argument that can be presented, but rather of the critic's prejudice that, if he appears to assent to the traditional position of the early church, he will be thought no better than a stick-in-the-mud.

"[35][36] Robinson's call for redating the New Testament – or, at least, the four gospels – was echoed in subsequent scholarship such as John Wenham's work Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem and work by Claude Tresmontant, Günther Zuntz, Carsten Peter Thiede, Eta Linnemann, Harold Riley, Jean Carmignac, and Bernard Orchard.

[citation needed] Bart Ehrman maintains that Robinson's early dates for the gospels, especially those for John, have not been taken up among most liberal scholars of Biblical historicity.

He also wanted to prove that John is independent of the Synoptics and better than them at describing the length and time period of Jesus' ministry, Palestinian geography, and the cultural milieu of the early first century there.