Gregory MacDonald > Quotes

“Clearly punishing the perpetrators of horrendous evils in hell forever and ever is not going to overcome horrendous evils in the lives of the victims, and it would certainly not be a display of God’s goodness to the criminals. Eternal conscious torment contributes nothing to God’s purposes of redeeming creation. In fact, it would “only multiply evil’s victories.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“The traditional theologian will not allow that it is possible for those in hell to find salvation; but, I ask, how is that teaching compatible with the kind of divine love revealed in the biblical story? How could God be love if he draws a line at death and says, “Beyond this point I will look for the lost sheep no more; and even if they try to return, I shall turn them away.” It seems to me that such a God would not be behaving in a loving way. In conclusion, I suggest that the problem is not that the universalist sentimentalizes God’s love and forgets his wrath but, rather, that the traditional theologians underestimate God’s love and unhelpfully disconnect it from his justice.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“have been supposing that God loves everyone and wants to show mercy on all. Indeed, I have hinted that I believe that if God did not love and try to save everyone, he would be less than perfect. Calvinists will not agree to this. God has to be just, they maintain, but he does not have to be merciful. He has to punish unforgiven sin, but he does not have to forgive sin. This is a common view among theologians, but it ought to be seen as problematic for a Christian view of God. To subordinate divine love to divine justice so that God has to be just but does not have to love is odd for a Christian who confesses that God is love.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“is thus, on the one hand, the Messiah representing the nation of Israel and, on the other, the second Adam representing the whole of humanity. In his representative role nobody is excluded. Christ”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“The premises in my arguments all rely on traditional Christian claims about God, and it is those very claims that seem to conflict with traditional views of hell and yet fit so well with universalism. I would suggest that these arguments ought, at the very least, to make us wonder if we have not misunderstood certain biblical teachings on hell. Only if we are absolutely certain that we have not done so should we appeal to mystery.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“God, according to the Calvinist, does not love all people and want to save them. If he did then he would. Rather, he loves the elect—his chosen people. It is them he loves, was for them he died, and it is they he will save.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“The group of views I wish to consider could be described as Christian Universalisms. What they have in common is that the origin of the universalist impulse and the way it is worked out theologically are integrally Christian. This needs to be stressed, because some critics speak as if the real motivations for Christian universalism lie not within Christian theology but within a “wishy-washy” pluralism or relativism. This is not only insulting but is patently false.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“What is my own view about Bell’s theological stance? Most critics of Bell think that he goes too far. It will come as no surprise to learn that I, on the contrary, think that he does not go far enough.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“What kind of universalism is found in the Old Testament? One in which ultimately all humanity without exception acknowledges the universal sovereignty of Yahweh and worships him.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“I think that the reflective Christian ought to start by taking the tradition as the default position—it should be assumed to be correct unless good grounds can be found to reject it.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“One common concern is that the orthodox churches worldwide (Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant) have more or less universally rejected universalism, so there must be something wrong with it. There is much substance to this objection, and Christians do need to weigh the wisdom of the ages with deep seriousness.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“as the Bible says, that “as in Adam all die even so in Christ should all be made alive.” As was the first, even so was the second. The “all” in one case could not in fairness mean less than the “all” in the other. I saw therefore that the remedy must necessarily be equal to the disease, the salvation must be as universal as the fall. —Hannah Whitall Smith1”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“To object by saying, “Well, if hell is not forever, it doesn’t really matter if someone has a spell there,” is like suggesting that because you will recover from the long and painful illness, it isn’t worth taking precautions to avoid it.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“it is a little ironic that Packer, as a five-point Calvinist, faces an exactly analogous objection. If God will save the elect anyway, so the objection runs, why bother proclaiming the gospel to them? They will be saved one way or another. Packer’s response, and I would agree with him, would be that the way God saves the elect is through the proclamation of the gospel. But if that response saves Calvinism, it will save universalism also; and if the criticism damns universalism it damns Calvinism too.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“Finally, some try to avoid the universalist implications of Romans 5:18–19 by arguing that the verses speak only of the salvation bought for all people and offered to all people, and it cannot be inferred from this that all people will avail themselves of the offer. This position acknowledges that Romans 5:18–19 speaks of the salvation of all individuals but maintains that Paul simply cannot have expected this universal deliverance to happen, because elsewhere he clearly expects some to be saved and others to be condemned at the judgment. Consequently, 5:18–19 speaks of Christ’s universal atonement and his desire to save all, but no more. The problem with this interpretation is that Romans 5 says nothing about an offer of salvation for all but of a salvation achieved for all, which all will receive. The objectors are correct in drawing attention to the judgment texts in Paul, and the universalist will need to have something to say about them.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“That the majority of people do not embrace salvation in this life does not mean that their experiences now do not lay a foundation for a later acceptance of it.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“It is often a thought of some considerable comfort to those suffering that if the injustices they suffer are not rectified in the present age, they will be in the life to come. The sufferings of the present will be more than made up for in the glories of the new age.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“In part this is because Bell tends to ask leading questions rather than to make assertions so it is not always easy to distinguish between what he is claiming and what he is wondering about.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“Sacrificing some individuals for the benefit of the system is not the action of a God who values individuals”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“In the Old Testament, the object of Yahweh’s love is usually the nation of Israel rather than individuals within it, although at times his love for individuals is mentioned. The word “love” is a covenant concept, often occurring in the contexts of political treaties, where it refers to “a solemn, public commitment of fidelity that covenant partners make to each other
. . . Yahweh in covenanting love chooses Israel to be covenant partner whom Yahweh will protect.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“For Gregory, then, in the incarnation the divine Word is united not only with the nature of the individual human being Jesus but also with human nature as a whole. Since all that is common to human nature is in need of redemption, it is necessary that the incarnate Word share in everything common to that nature—from birth to death—with the result that not only human nature as a whole but also the one who introduced human nature to evil in the first place is restored to the original state.”
― Gregory MacDonald, "All Shall Be Well": Explorations in Universal Salvation and Christian Theology, from Origen to Moltmann

“One thing that is important to notice about God’s love for Israel is that this love is quite compatible with his anger at their disobedience and his just punishment of them. When God acts to judge his people, one should not infer that he is no longer being faithful to his covenant or that he no longer loves them. He punishes them because he loves them, and he will not allow wrath the final word because he loves them.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“The reason that I think the Old Testament does not envisage the salvation of all individuals who have ever existed and is thus not universalist in the strong sense of the word is that it has no conception of life after death, at least until the very end of the Old Testament period (Dan 12:2).”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“One thing that is important to notice about God’s love for Israel is that this love is quite compatible with his anger at their disobedience and his just punishment of them.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“For in [God’s] union with this one man [Christ] He has shown His love to all and His solidarity. In this One He has taken upon himself the sin and guilt of all, and therefore rescued them all by higher right from the judgment which they had rightly incurred, so that He is really the true consolation of all. For in the death of this One it has taken place that all who had incurred death by our sin and guilt have been released from death as He became a Sinner and Debtor in our place, accepting the penalty and paying the debt.
—Karl Barth”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“So, until I can be convinced otherwise, I judge that, even though it is not mainstream within Christianity, universalism is no threat to orthodox Christianity.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“Critics of universal salvation often claim that its proponents focus too much on God’s love, to the exclusion of such equally biblical themes as God’s justice or his wrath.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“We must be open to the possibility that we have misread the Bible.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“We have seen that the nations will be brought to worship Yahweh through a restored Israel. Israel, according to Isaiah 40–55, would be restored by an act of divine grace in a second exodus and by means of an individual who embodies the nation’s identity and destiny. Israel’s story is one of judgment and mercy, destruction and salvation, exile and restoration, death and then life. The story of the nations in the Old Testament is parallel to Israel’s—divine judgment followed by divine mercy mediated somehow through the Servant of Yahweh.”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist

“Not all Christian beliefs are equally important (though you might never guess that from the way some Christians seem willing to fight tooth and nail defending every little ‘truth’).”
― Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist