All shall be well : explorations in universal salvation and Christian theology, from Origen to Moltmann /
Macdonald, Gregoryedt
Cambridge : James Clarke,
2011.
Universalism runs like a slender thread through the history of Christian theology. It has always been a minority report and has often been regarded as heresy, but it has been surprisingly resilient. Over the centuries Christian universalism, in one form or another, has been reinvented time and time again.  In this book an international team of scholars examine the diverse universalisms of Christian thinkers from Origen to Moltmann. In the introduction Gregory MacDonald argues that theologies of universal salvation occupy a space between heresy and dogma. Therefore disagreements about whether all will be saved should not be thought of as debates between "the orthodox" and "heretics" but rather as "in-house" debates between Christians. These studies aim, in the first instance, to hear, understand, and explain the eschatological claims of a range of Christians from the third to the twenty-first centuries, while also offering constructive, critical engagement with those claims. Readily accessible to the general reader, this engaging and informative collection will be of great value to students of theology and religious history.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Introduction : between heresy and dogma / Gregory MacDonald -- I. Third to Fifteenth Centuries : -- 2. Apokatastasis : particularist universalism in Origen (c.185-c.254) / tom Greggs -- 3. The subjection of all things in Christ : the Christocentric universalism of Gregory of Nyssa (331/340-c.395) / Steve Harmon -- 4. Sin has its place, but all shall be well : the universalism of hope in Julian of Norwich (c.1342-c.1416) / Robert Sweetman -- II. Seventeeth to Nineteenth Centuries : -- 5. Love is all and God is love : universalism in Peter Sterry (1613-1672) and Jeremiah White (1630-1707) / Louise Hickman -- 6. Union with Christ : the Calvinist universalism of James Relly (1722-1778) / Wayne K. Clymer -- 7. Between Calvinism and Arminianism : the evangelical universalism of Elhanan Winchester (1751-1797) / Robin Parry -- 8. Salvation-in-community : the tentative universalism of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) / Murray Rae -- 9. Postmortem education : universal salvation in Thomas Erskine (1788-1870) / Don Horrocks -- 10. The just mercy of God : universal salvation in George MacDonald (1824-1905) / Thomas Talbott -- II. Twentieth to Twenty-First Century : -- 11. The final sanity is complete sanctity : universal holiness in the soteriology of P. T. Forsyth (1848-1921) / Jason A. Goroncy -- 12. The judgment of love : the ontological universalism of Sergius Bulgakov (1871-1944) / Paul Gavrilyuk -- 13. I do teach it, but I also do not teach it : the universalism of Karl Barth (1886-1968) / Oliver D. Crisp -- 14. The totality of condemnation fell on Christ : universal salvation in Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) / Andrew Goddard -- 15. In the end, God...the Christian universalism of J. A. T. Robinson (1919-1983) / Trevor Hart -- 16. Christ's descent into hell : the hopeful universalism of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) / Edward T. Oakes -- 17. Hell and the God of love : universalism in the philosophy of John Hick (1922-  ) / Lindsey Hall -- 18. The annihilation of hell and the perfection of freedom : universal salvation in the theology of Jürgen Moltmann (1926-  ) / Nik Ansell
Universalism runs like a slender thread through the history of Christian theology. It has always been a minority report and has often been regarded as heresy, but it has been surprisingly resilient. Over the centuries Christian universalism, in one form or another, has been reinvented time and time again.  In this book an international team of scholars examine the diverse universalisms of Christian thinkers from Origen to Moltmann. In the introduction Gregory MacDonald argues that theologies of universal salvation occupy a space between heresy and dogma. Therefore disagreements about whether all will be saved should not be thought of as debates between "the orthodox" and "heretics" but rather as "in-house" debates between Christians. These studies aim, in the first instance, to hear, understand, and explain the eschatological claims of a range of Christians from the third to the twenty-first centuries, while also offering constructive, critical engagement with those claims. Readily accessible to the general reader, this engaging and informative collection will be of great value to students of theology and religious history.
Salvation
Universalism