Alvin F. Kimel > Quotes

“If Macbeth is right and life should prove to be nothing more than “a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing,” then it was never worth the telling.”
― Alvin F. Kimel, Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation

“In the words of the great Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar: Love alone is credible; nothing else can be believed, and nothing else ought to be believed.”
― Alvin F. Kimel, Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation

“We are not free because we have multiple choices available to us; we become free when we choose well, thereby achieving the happiness for which we are divinely destined.”
― Alvin F. Kimel, Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation

“The gospel, rightly spoken, involves no ifs, ands, buts, or maybes of any sort. It does not say, “If you do your best to live a good life, God will fulfill that life,” or, “If you fight on the right side of the great issues of your time . . . ,” or, “If you repent . . . ,” or, “If you believe . . .” It does not even say, “If you want to do good/repent/believe . . . ,” or, “If you are sorry for not wanting to do good/repent/believe . . .” The gospel says, “Because the Crucified lives as Lord, your destiny is good.” The Reformation’s first and last assertion was that any talk of Jesus and God and human life that does not transcend all conditions is a perversion of the gospel and will be at best irrelevant in the lives of hearers and at worst destructive.”
― Alvin F. Kimel, Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation

“Unconditional promise, too, has its own characteristic grammatical pattern: because . . . therefore . . . Because Jesus is risen,
your future will be glorious. Because you are baptized by water and the Spirit,
you are now empowered to live a life of faithfulness and love. Because your Creator will see to your needs,
you are free to give generously and sacrificially to the oppressed and destitute. Because God has forgiven you all your sins on the cross,
you are now free from the bondage of the past and can give yourself wholeheartedly to the way of love and compassion. Because God is your Good and will bring you into overflowing happiness,
you have nothing to gain from sin and wickedness. Because the Father of Jesus is absolute Love,
you need not fear that he will ever abandon you, no matter what.”
― Alvin F. Kimel, Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation

“The gospel tolerates no conditions. It is itself unconditional promise. And when it is rightly spoken, it takes the conditions we put on the value of our life as the very occasions of its promise.2”
― Alvin F. Kimel, Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation

“And what is a merciful heart? It is the heart burning for the sake of all creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and every created thing; and by the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful man pour forth abundant tears. By the strong and vehement mercy which grips his heart and by his great compassion, his heart is humbled and he cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in creation. For this reason he offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner he even prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in his heart in the likeness of God.19”
― Alvin F. Kimel, Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation

“Only a person who does not love could find hell for others tolerable—but then that person would himself be in hell.”
― Alvin F. Kimel, Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation

“Faith” is not the label of an ideological or attitudinal state. Like “justification” the word evokes a communication-situation: the situation of finding oneself addressed with an unconditional affirmation, and having now to deal with life in these new terms. Faith is a mode of life. Where the radical question is alive all life becomes a hearing, a listening for permission to go on; faith is this listening—to the gospel.”
― Alvin F. Kimel, Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation

“The irresistibility of God for any soul that has truly been set free is no more a constraint placed upon its liberty than is the irresistible attraction of a flowing spring of fresh water in a desert place to a man who is dying of thirst; to choose not to drink in that circumstance would be not an act of freedom on his part, but only a manifestation of the delusions that enslave him and force him to inflict violence upon himself, contrary to his nature.”
― Alvin F. Kimel, Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation