Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation

by Alvin F. Kimel, David Bentley Hart, Bradley Jersak (Foreword)

Featuring a Foreword by Bradley Jersak and Afterword by David Bentley Hart

“This is a book that many of us have been waiting for for a long time . . . Enthusiastically recommended!”
— Robin A. Parry, Ph.D., Anglican priest, editor, and author of The Evangelical Universalist

Destined for Joy is a collection of essays devoted to the theme of the absolute love of God and the gospel of universal salvation. Written over a period of ten years and revised for publication in this volume, they represent the fruition of the author’s theological and spiritual development over a span of four decades in parish ministry. If God has truly revealed himself in his incarnate Son Jesus Christ as absolute and unconditional love, does this not mean that he intends the salvation of all? As Jesus declared to Dame Julian of “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

Many readers will be surprised to discover that hope for universal salvation was widely prevalent in the early Church and is robustly defended today in the writings of theologians across the theological spectrum. In this extraordinary collection, Alvin F. Kimel discusses the works of the 7th century mystic St Isaac the Syrian and 14th century mystic Julian of Norwich, the 19th century writer George MacDonald, Lutheran theologians Robert W. Jenson and Gerhard Forde, evangelical philosopher Thomas Talbott, and Eastern Orthodox theologians Sergius Bulgakov and David Bentley Hart, to name just a few of many. It’s an indispensable resource for anyone interested in understanding the doctrine of universal salvation.

"Al Kimel puts brilliantly the argument for full Christianity that has too rarely been made in the past."
— John Milbank, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Nottingham and author of numerous books and essays, including Theology and Social Theory, Being Reconciled, and The Suspended Middle

Genres: Theology, Religion, Christianity, Christian, Philosophy

455 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 30, 2022

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe I just finished the best theology book I’ll read in 2022.

I’ve been making a list in my head of the “10 Books that Made me a Christian Universalist”. Let’s see:

1. That All Shall Be Saved by David Bentley Hart (though a few essays in his Hidden and Manifest pushed me over the edge first).
2. Her Gates Shall Never Be Shut by Brad Jersak - Probably the book I’d recommend first to evangelical types who want lots of Bible.
3. A Larger Hope Volume 1 by Illaria Ramelli - A brilliant sourcebook that demonstrates the historical tradition of Universalism in the Church.

Next would be:

4. Destined for Joy - This one is a little bit of all three of those. Not as straightforwardly biblical as Jersak, but Bible is there. As strong and to the point, and a bit detailed and longer, than Hart. Lots of history akin to Ramelli.

In some ways, this is the best of all these worlds. I imagine an evangelical or fundamentalist might want more bible and a theologian may want more details on the history. Hart’s book is more concise, for Kimel’s is a series of essays. But this is a fantastic one-stop-shop for strong universal arguments from all angles - Bible, ancient Christians (Isaac the Syrian looms large, along with Julian of Norwich) and more contemporary theologians (Hart, Talbott and others).

Kimel may not be a scholar, but he sure sounds like one. This is especially so in his essay on the Fifth Ecumenical Council, arguing that this council did not condemn universal salvation despite what popular understanding may say. Also, plenty of top theological scholars endorse this book including John Milbank, John Behr, Chris Green and Douglass Campbell.

Finally, Kimel writes with a pastoral intensity. This is not merely an academic issue for him. In the intro he writes of his son’s suicide and the book ends with his eulogy from his son’s funeral. He writes, “I will not be saved without my Aaron. There can be no heaven for me without my son”. This is ultimately the best argument for Universal Salvation - are human parents more loving than God? George MacDonald and others have asked this question, but perhaps none so poignantly as Kimel.

When Jesus speaks of how God loves more than a human father, giving good gifts always compared to humans who fail, does this not mean God is more loving? God’s ways are higher than our ways because they are MORE than our ways - more loving. God is a better Father, not a worse one. Any decent parent would never give up, never stop loving a son. As we are wrapped up in relationships, we literally cannot be saved if our loved ones (and by extension, all people) are saved. Take away my relationship to my kids and my wife - what of “me” is left to save? For any of us to be saved, for God to love, we all must be saved. And we will. Because God is Love.

This book is a must-read.

[Scriptor Ignotus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do not advocate a doctrine of universal salvation—because I don’t need to. It is more than sufficient to take a defensive posture, holding fast to the God of infinite love and extravagant mercy revealed by the living testimony of Christ and His Apostles—the God Who took it upon Himself to die our death, destroy the tyranny of the prince of this world, despoil Hades of its treasures, and transform the very chthonic darkness of mortality into a passageway to a new life of infinite joy and bliss in the Heavenly Kingdom—and to point out that every attempt to square the omnipotence and benevolence of God with any eschatological picture that leaves even one soul in a state of eternal torment proves upon inspection to be logically preposterous, morally obscene, scripturally precarious, spiritually poisonous, and even downright blasphemous.

We have it on good authority (1 Cor. 15:20-28; 1 Tim. 2:1-6; Ti. 2:11-14; 2 Peter 3:9; Col. 1:19-20; Eph. 1:7-10; Rom. 5:18-19) that the Father of Jesus Christ desires all rational beings to be saved from the vale of suffering and delusion that the world has become under its captivity to sin and death, and that all things—the entire cosmos—be reconciled to Him in His risen and glorified Son, Who now lives beyond the trappings of conditioned being and bids us to take up our own cross and follow Him. We also have dire warnings about the sufferings of Gehenna, the Aeonian fire of God, which awaits the wicked and unrepentant, as well as the prospect of exclusion from the table of the coming Kingdom for some who may have assumed they had reserved seats.

Universalists have the temerity to assume that God will get what He wants, and so they understand Gehenna to be one episode within a greater epic of cosmic restoration: a necessary fire of purgation that burns away our worldly attachments, the kindling that we ourselves have provided by yoking ourselves to idols (Is. 50:11), and purifies the image of God in every soul, making it fit for the heavenly banquet. The things we have built upon the foundation of Christ—Who is Truth, Life, and Goodness itself—will be tested with fire, says the Apostle Paul. If the structure survives, we will be rewarded; if it falls, we will still be saved, “but only as through fire (1 Cor. 3:10-15).” The purpose of hell is to burn away bullshit; and if you’re someone like me, who has built his entire life around bullshit, the fire of God is fearsome enough without being experienced as endless suffering.

Infernalists, on the other hand, cannot simply play the Uno reverse card and reposition the universalist hopes of the Apostles within an eschatology of eternal torment. If God desires all to be saved, and all are not saved, then God has failed, and in fact is not God at all as traditionally understood: not the Alpha and Omega in Whom all things live and move and have their being, but a limited deity who is compelled to share power with sin; the latter no longer conceived as privatio boni, but as a pre-eternal power somehow coequal with God Himself. God becomes an idol.

If God does not desire all to be saved, then the Apostles were wrong, the Gospel imagery of a God Who bestows His grace equally upon all (the parables of the vineyard workers, the prodigal son, the lost sheep, the lost coin; Christ’s injunction in the Sermon on the Mount to love our enemies as the Father does, etc.) is meaningless, and one is set inexorably upon a path to double predestination: a doctrine which the Orthodox Church has long rejected. The sovereignty of God might be preserved, but not His goodness. In either case, we would be forced to conclude that John the Evangelist was simply wrong when he declared Christ to be the Savior of the World. In point of fact, He would not be the Savior of the World, but only of a relatively small party of the elect. He would be only a new Noah or Nehemiah, preserving a defeated remnant to fight another day; rather than God Incarnate, the conqueror of hell, destroying the binds of death and drawing all things to Himself in a final cosmic consummation like that envisioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.

Saint Isaac of Nineveh explains it well: “It is not the way of the compassionate Maker to create rational beings in order to deliver them over mercilessly to unending affliction in punishment for things of which He knew even before they were fashioned, aware how they would turn out when He created them—and whom nonetheless He created.”

Defenders of eternal torment will inevitably appeal to free will. The possibility of eternal hell must remain open, they claim, because God will not interfere with our freedom of choice; therefore we must consider that some will choose to reject God forever. But this is a misunderstanding both of the nature of freedom and the nature of God. The rational freedom of any creature is inevitably teleological: it is by nature oriented toward the rational “source” and “end” from which it derives its existence. As David Bentley Hart puts it, “Freedom is a relation to reality, which means liberty from delusion. This divine determinism toward the transcendent Good, then, is precisely what freedom is for a rational nature.” If God is our Creator, then not only is He the ultimate object of every desire, but He is also the reason why we desire anything at all. To be united with God is to be free; to desire anything but union with God is to be in a state of illusion, and thus unfree.

The appeal to free will supposes that human freedom and self-fulfillment, on the one hand, and the being and will of God, on the other, are in conflict, when in fact they are ultimately one and the same. To be a human being is to be called from eternity to eternity. As Saint Augustine once prayed, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Indeed, it is the very perception that our freedom can be found in opposition to God—that we, who owe our existence to God, can carve out a little space for ourselves in the world that God created—that is perhaps the defining characteristic of our fallen condition. God is not our adversary, and He never has been. This is the Gospel.

Furthermore, the New Testament says nothing about the possibility of “choosing” hell as one rational option among others. When the Son of Man condemns the unrighteous to the aiónios fire in Matthew 25, for example, the latter are quite surprised by this development; the King certainly does not respect their NAP. The notion of freedom as something linked inextricably with truth, and that the unrighteous are ultimately trapped in a state of ignorance, meanwhile, has much greater attestation. “Father, forgive them,” Jesus says while being crucified at the behest of a crowd that has chosen to release bar-Abbas instead of Him, “for they know not what they do.” God, says Paul in 1 Timothy, “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” implying that a lack of knowledge is precisely what the saved are being saved from. Clearest of all is Jesus’s pronouncement in John 8 that those who sin are slaves of sin, and the truth will set them free. To quote Hart again, “To see the good truly is to desire it insatiably; not to desire it is not to have known it, and so never to have been free to choose it.”

But even if the concept of eternal punishment seems not to cohere either with reason or with scriptural statements implying universal reconciliation, it is nonetheless true that the New Testament speaks of everlasting torment—right? Actually, no; at least not in any but the most vague and ambiguous way. Most modern English translations of the New Testament were produced by people who were already committed to a doctrine of eternal damnation, and who translated the text in a way that conformed with what they assumed it was “supposed” to say. The word αἰώνιος (aiónios), typically rendered as “eternal”, is a highly polyvalent term that was almost never employed to signify something never-ending. It is the adjectival form of aἰών (aeon), a word which typically referred to a life, age, or world of indefinite—but rarely infinite—duration.

Thus Κόλασις αἰώνιος, usually rendered as “eternal punishment”, literally means something more like “the punishment (or chastisement) pertaining to the age”, or perhaps, “the age of punishment”. It can take on both a qualitative and a quantitative sense, but the former was more common. Confusingly, the word is applied to the age to come and to ages that have already ended, and yet it is also used to modify “God”. So in Romans 16:25-26, Paul refers to “the mystery which was kept secret for long ages [aioníois]”, clearly referring to ages that are now over, while in the next verse he refers to aioníou theou, which presumably signifies the enduring nature of God. Aiónios contrasts with the word aΐdios, which carries a more definitive connotation of endlessness: but the latter appears only once in the New Testament.

The writers of the New Testament were not particularly concerned with the concept of everlastingness or quantitative infinity; the topic only piqued the interest of later generations of Christian philosophers. The evangelists were not philosophizing—they were evangelizing. They were proclaiming the dawn of a new, Messianic age and describing its character. History was thought of as a succession of aeons: the aeon of Christ had succeeded the aeon of the law, and the return of Christ would mark a new series of aeons. Smaller ages were contained within larger ones, and so Paul would refer to the aeon of the aeons to describe a larger epoch, and to the aeons of the aeons to describe the sum total of all ages; a phrase he applied only to God. Whenever the New Testament speaks of “aiónios fire” or “aiónios punishment”, or indeed “aiónios life”, it most likely refers to the quality of the coming age. It certainly does not in itself refer to any kind of final, endless, eschatological state.

Κόλασις (kólasis), typically translated as “punishment”, is also ambiguous in meaning. It can refer to punishment, but its earliest sense was something more like “chastisement”, or “correction.” It connoted a removal of excess, and was sometimes used to refer to the pruning of bushes or trees. It later came to signify punishment, but Clement of Alexandria used the word in its former sense in his Stromata:

“For there are partial corrections which are called chastisements [kólasis], which many of us who have been in transgression incur by falling away from the Lord’s people. But as children are chastised by their teacher, or their father, so are we by Providence. But God does not punish, for punishment [timoria] is retaliation for evil. He chastises, however, for good to those who are chastised collectively and individually.”

Suffice it to say, any claim that the New Testament teaches a never-ending torment for the reprobate at the end of time is, at best, highly dubious.

But then again, none of this matters, because universalism was condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553.

Right?

Wrong. The current consensus of patristics scholars is that the anathemas purportedly condemning universalism were not part of the actual council, but were instead propagated by a preconciliar meeting arranged at the behest of the emperor Justinian, who authored them. The Council never addressed these anathemas; and even if it had, the brand of “universalism” condemned by them was condemned as an integral part of a larger system of thought: a sixth-century “Origenism” that would have been unrecognizable not only to the likes of Gregory of Nyssa and Isaac of Nineveh, but even to Origen himself. The version of apokatastasis that was anathematized by this meeting was one in which all souls were returned to a supposed pre-existent, bodiless state. It was not the universalism of Gregory of Nyssa, who at the Council was named among the eminent Fathers of the Church, and who would be honored by the Seventh Ecumenical Council with the title, “Father of Fathers”.

Fr. Aidan’s book is an exhaustive demolition of what David Bentley Hart rightly calls “the most horrifying [idea] that the religious imagination has ever entertained—one that, taken to heart, can make existence itself seem like a cruel burden visited on us by an unutterably merciless omnipotence.” Its message of universal reconciliation—of all things becoming one in the love that is God—is needed more urgently than ever. The listless world awaits the advent of the Christianity that should have been—and perhaps could be yet.

[Xavier Ramey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took my sweet time with this and I’m glad I did. I have a lot to say but digital and even written words won’t do this justice . The love of Jesus Christ truly knows no bounds. Not even death or own self damning could ever shake it, and I’m grateful to see a piece of literature that truly encapsulates my heart as well as humanities heart whether they choose to follow Jesus or curse his name. I’m grateful through the love of God that all and I mean ALL of creation will be with Jesus in the kingdom. I’ve journaled much more of my thoughts but I’ll plant some of the same words here regardless. All is well now and forever because the love of the lamb transcends all of our deepest fears and hate. May the asinine doctrine of traditional hell be deconstructed and rebuilt with the eternal knowledge that God was, is, and forever shall be love. May it be so for eternity. Amen.

[Kaleb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written by Father Aidan Kimel, it's a collection of essays/blog posts about universalism, the Christian belief that ultimately all will be saved. There’s a touching introduction about his son Aaron dying by suicide. He dedicates the book to his son and says that he refuses to be saved without Aaron; no salvation could be worth it if he had to forget Aaron.

The book goes over the major argument for universalism and against alternative views. Mix of really cool arguments; scriptural/exegetical, philosophical/theological and historical/traditional.

Scriptural/exegetical: Believe it or not, the Bible strongly points towards universalism. There are a LOT of verses on this, but some of the high points are 1 Timothy 2:3–6, 1 John 2:2, Colossians 1:19–20, and 1 Corinthians 15:25–28. The Bible regularly speaks of universal reconciliation and salvation.

Many of the verses that seem to point towards endless torment in hell rely on a Greek word “aiónios.” Aiónios can mean eternal, but it can also mean a long period of time. In fact, it is used in the New Testament multiple times to refer to a temporary period of time (in Romans 15:25–26 and Jude 7). Many scholars, including many who are not universalists, acknowledge this. Alas, when it was translated to Latin, it was translated as “eternal.”

If we have two possible interpretations; eternal punishments or long-lasting punishment, surely we should use a hermeneutic of love as a tiebreaker. Does it make more sense for a God of love to torture for infinity or for him to use the punishments of hell to bring us closer to him, the same way a father punishes a son he loves? The latter is far more consistent with the person of Jesus Christ and the rest of the Bible’s focus on universal reconciliation.

Traditional: Universalism is a minority position historically but it’s always been an accepted view. Many important figures in the early church (Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Isaac the Syrian), the Middle Ages (Julian of Norwich), and contemporarily (Sergius Bulgakov, George MacDonald, Thomas Talbott, Robert Jenson) are universalists. Many other prominent figures (Karl Barth and Pope Francis) are “hopeful universalists”; not conclusively stating that all will be saved, but hoping for it.

There’s an interesting essay about how (contrary to what some believe) universalism was never condemned as a heresy at the 5th Ecumenical Council. It’s a minority view, but its popularity is growing.

Theology: A lot here, but this review is getting long and I wrote about this in my review of “That All Shall Be Saved.” Long story short; the God of perfect love and mercy, who sent his Son to die for all the world, would not damn any of his creation to eternal conscious torment. It’s also strange to speak of people freely choosing hell. Choosing an eternity of hell is the choice of a madman; it is the furthest thing from freedom.

I love reading about universalism. It’s a controversial position, one that is slandered in mainstream Christian circles as naive or childlike. Universalists are regularly accused of being sentimental or warping theology to fit our preferences. But alas. The more I learn, the more firmly I become convinced. Nothing else fits the Christian tradition so well. The joy of salvation is spoiled if anyone is left behind.

“The true story is so much more ennobling—and, for that matter, so much more beautiful.”

[Jake Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read a few books on universal salvation now and this was my favorite by far. It covers all aspects of the argument (exegetical, philosophical, theological/historical) and of course some arguments are stronger than others, but the main thrust of the book is written in a way that is powerful and compelling. It was also incredibly pastoral throughout which was helpful to not get so bogged down in specific arguments and Kimel is always drawing the reader back to the love of God and the way that love has to actually work itself out or Christians are contradicting ourselves in some sense. (Maybe. Still tying to play devils advocate in my head)
Dare we hope for the salvation of all? Kimel would say we must hope, for it is integral to the gospel itself.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really it's a scrapbook collection of quotations with minimal commentary, not in any way a new statement of the case. Also at times quite repetitive, with the same quotes included upwards of three times without justification. Not a cohesive whole, but a good source for further reading and with some strong sections.

If you want to convince someone (or find hope for yourself), Talbot's book is what you need.

[Corey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a collection of blog posts and read as such. I liked it. It didn't grab my attention but there is plenty of good points made. The article on the Fifth Ecumenical Council (not) condemning universalism was interesting. The homily for his son was very moving. By far the most emotional of all the arguments I've read, but that is in no way a bad thing.

[J. Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I don’t necessarily advocate the position of universal salvation, this was a great read (or listen) regardless. I found it to be more readable and more cordial than DBH. It is easy to follow and the arguments maintained are strong, historical and well reasoned. Overall good work, despite not being in full agreement.

[Adam Marquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I appreciate about this book is that it takes a topic, which is often discussed in ways that are out the reach of those who don't think about such things regularly, and breaks it down into bite sized bits which make the topic accessible. It covers all of the major bases.

[Dominic De]

Stunning and powerful

I read and struggled with Hart, was moved by Balthasar, and am enchanted by Kimmel. I cant believe infernalism has so deep a stranglehold on the humble hearts of the Little People of God, and for so long. It was a logical phase of faith that we returned to, a dualism from before the beauty of the Gospel breathed from Christ's mouth. I'm ashamed, in the best way, that I have believed in all this for so long. I hope to continue understanding all the implications for a faith - as a Catholic - lived in unconditional trust in God's unconditional love. Thank you, and thank you again, and all will be well. This I now believe.

[Clem · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the heaviest books that I’ve read in quite some time. The author, Father Alvin Kimel (a retired Orthodox priest) has one of the most extensive websites on the internet on Universal Salvation. For those who may not know, Universal Salvation is the belief that one day, eventually, all will be saved and reconciled to God. This book is essentially a cherry-picking of the masses of material out there that Father Kimel has collected. If you’ve read everything on his website, my guess is that it essentially contains all that is in this book. However, I’d be willing to bet the most mere mortals wouldn’t have the time nor the stamina to consume all of Father Kimel’s writings, musings, and collections.

He's a very deep writer. At times I felt as though I wasn’t reading a book, but rather taking a semester-long advanced college course. It’s not that he simply covers a lot of bases, but his writing style is extremely learned and many of the chapters made me feel like an 8-year old who barely knows how to add and subtract and suddenly found themselves in an advanced Trigonometry class. Don’t misunderstand me, the topics and chapters are very good, it’s just that the average reader won’t be able to consume this volume, say, over a long weekend.

Here is just a small sampling of some of the words Father Kimel uses in this work that made me thankful I had a dictionary handy:

tautologous, polity, locus, radix, inculcate, colloquial, impenitent, proleptic, polysemy, exegete, lexical, preterition, paradigmatic, anchorite, adamantine, shewings, merveyle, sunder, puissant, and nonextant.

Some of these words aren’t even IN the dictionary. Anyway, if you’re familiar with the definitions of such words, it’s probable that you’ll have an easier time than I did when it comes to finishing each chapter in a somewhat timely fashion. When one, such as myself, though, has to consistently stop and consult a dictionary on numerous occasions, it tends to slow down the journey somewhat. I also had to reread several sentences throughout to ensure I understood what was being written.

We then come to the fact that Father Kimel quotes numerous long (and longer) passages from many of history’s finest theologians. So we get to read many selected passages from the works of Isaac the Syrian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, George MacDonald, Basil of Caesarea, John of Damascus, Robert Farrar Capon, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Gregory of Nyssa and Origen of Alexandria. In fact, there’s an entire (very long) chapter on the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 A.D. and provides extensive evidence that, whereas Origin and his Universalist musings have widely been stated to have been condemned, Father Kimel gives us detailed information that this was not, in fact, the case.

My biggest critique of this book is that when Kimel refers to all of these theologians and their writings, he’ll quote extensively from their work, sometimes multiple pages worth for each referral. These quotations are in small print, and one must ensure their brain stays attuned when reading through such heavy material. I feel Father Kimel may have done the reader a better service to his readers by giving a summarization himself of each point and not quote his sources in such a tedious fashion.

His goal, however, is to leave no stone unturned and he succeeds amazingly. The author is not one who I would want to get into an argument with trying to prove the point of infernalism or an annihilationism. Kimel covers an awful lot of real estate in this book. The chapters don’t necessarily progress in any sort of linear fashion, but the material is so well-written (and extremely encouraging) that we really don’t mind.
I just might argue that if you could only have one book that supports the hope of Universal Salvation, this is probably the book that you would want. Of course, it would be helpful to have all of the articles on Father Kimel’s website as well. You may just need a few decades to adequately read and digest them all.

[Michael Bertrand · Rating 4 out of 5]

I pick up this book every now and then when I'm feeling discouraged.

I work at a substance abuse rehab. I'm in recovery. I know people who have died of substance abuse and adjacent issues. Many of those were not mainstream, traditional Christians, and many had no religious belief. Did they go to Hell?

The religious community of my youth would say yes. They had their chance to repent, turn away, and begin a new life, but they did not. They chose something other than Jesus as their Lord and Savior- therefore...

The church I was ordained in, the Episcopal Church, was very different from the religious community of my youth. Generally, it had a permissive attitude that just didn't seem right. People make mistakes- sometimes big ones- and there are consequences. Thus, saying, "everything's fine" or "everything's okay" didn't fit.

And now, as a Roman Catholic, I wrestle with the issues I mentioned above- and with the general question of Theodicy, or "Why does Evil exist if God is good?"

Fr. Kimel's Destined for Joy is a compilation of essays on the topic of Universal Salvation, or the idea that everyone might go to Heaven. I say "might" because Fr. Kimel isn't trying to present a fundamental dogmatic teaching in this book. Instead, he's presenting a strong possibility. He cites Church Fathers, mostly from the Orthodox side (he's an Orthodox priest) in favor of the possibility. He also cites David Bentley Hart, as well as other modern philosophers.

It's a heavy book.

Fr. Kimel and Hart make a strong argument in favor of the possibility that all will be saved. I especially appreciate how Hart addresses theodicy- basically, if God truly is all Good, then He can't abandon anyone to eternal suffering in Hell. Hart- as cited by Fr. Kimel- says a lot more than that, but that's the basic gist.

It's a reassuring book. So many that I've known, who've died in addiction, were abandoned by so many along the way. It is tremendously reassuring to hear that God has not abandoned them as well, and that the Church has known this from very early on.

[Ephrem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alvin F. Kimel's Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation is an excellent book that provides a much needed and irenic look at the concept of universal salvation. Through carefully researched theological arguments and personal reflections, Kimel presents a compelling case for why all people should be saved from sin and death, regardless of their beliefs or actions. He also examines how this doctrine has been interpreted throughout history, both in terms of its implications on morality and its potential to bring hope and joy to those who have suffered under traditional Christian teachings about hell. His work is thought-provoking yet accessible, allowing readers to gain insight into this complex topic without being overwhelmed by technical language or dense theoretical debates. Overall, it is an inspiring read that will leave readers with renewed faith in God’s love for mankind.

[Marsha Raasch · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was one of my goals to finish this and some other non-fiction books by the end of the year. Thanks to a week off work with COVID, I'm closing in on my goal!
This book was not particularly revelatory to me since I'd largely come to the same conclusions as the author, having read him and many of the sources he uses, over the years.
But as a well-thought-out, and considered-from-all-angles exposition of what is called "universalism" which is the logical and yet somehow shocking knowledge that God did not create creatures who He would knowingly destroy, this book may well answer any lingering questions you may have.

[Josh Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re looking into ultimate reconciliation i honestly would not recommend this book as a first resource . as far as a stand-alone resource though, it is really wells done . i guess the important disclaimer is that it is less academic and more meditative on many facets of the viewpoint. there is a lot to learn . again though, not exegetical

[Harley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a good overview of the “hard universalism” theology of salvation being taught today by the likes of David Bentley Hart. Even if you think you don’t agree with that theology, this book will at least help you to understand it.

[Aj Jansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It was beautifully written, honest, and inspiring. I did find the amount of quotes difficult as I found the different writing styles throughout made it hard to focus. That said, the book is worth a read. Particularly the last chapter and the homily in the appendix.

[James R. Riddle Sr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book to be experienced

as a believer of fifty plus years I have been searching for and preparing for the reading of this book and the painful glorious truths presented therein.

[Alex J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, the chapters on ecumenical condemnation of origin/apokistasis is worth the price of the book but can be read on his blog.

[Reinier Sonneveld · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book on the subject there is.