Apokatastasis Quotes

“And what shall we say of the man Christ Jesus? Who, that loves his brother, would not, upheld by the love of Christ, and with a dim hope that in the far-off time there might be some help for him, arise from the company of the blessed, and walk down into the dismal regions of despair, to sit with the last, the only unredeemed, the Judas of his race, and be himself more blessed in the pains of hell, than in the glories of heaven? Who, in the midst of the golden harps and the white wings, knowing that one of his kind, one miserable brother in the old-world-time when men were taught to love their neighbor as themselves, was howling unheeded far below in the vaults of the creation, who, I say, would not feel that he must arise, that he had no choice, that, awful as it was, he must gird his loins, and go down into the smoke and the darkness and the fire, traveling the weary and fearful road into the far country to find his brother?—who, I mean, that had the mind of Christ, that had the love of the Father?”
― George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III

“Who, after all, is saying something more objectively atrocious, or more aggressively perverse? The person who claims that every newborn infant enters the world justly under the threat of eternal dereliction, and that a good God imposes or permits the imposition of a state of eternal agony on finite, created rational beings as part of the mystery of his love or sovereignty or justice? Or the person who observes that such ideas are cruel and barbarous and depraved? Which of these two should really be, if not ashamed of his or her words, at least hesitant, ambivalent, and even a little penitent in uttering them? And which has a better right to moral indignation at what the other has said? And, really, don’t these questions answer themselves?

A belief does not merit unconditional reverence just because it is old, nor should it be immune to being challenged in terms commensurate to the scandal it seems to pose. And the belief that a God of infinite intellect, justice, love, and power would condemn rational beings to a state of perpetual torment, or would allow them to condemn themselves on account of their own delusion, pain, and anger, is probably worse than merely scandalous. It may be the single most horrid notion the religious imagination has ever conceived, and the most irrational and spiritually corrosive picture of existence possible. And anyone who thinks that such claims are too strong or caustic, while at the same time finding the traditional notion of a hell of everlasting suffering perfectly unobjectionable, needs to consider whether he or she is really thinking clearly about the matter at all.

(from Public Orthodoxy, “In Defense of a Certain Tone of Voice”)”
― David Bentley Hart

“Three trillion trees.
They came to be
on the third day of creation.
That double-blessed day
of verdant goodness.

Three trillion trees,
one became the wood
upon which the son of God was hung.
A tree created on the third day.

The third day.
The day of three trillion trees.

And on the third day of new creation,
the stone was rolled away.
On the third day,
the gardener walked again in the garden.
On the third day,
the first born emerged from a cocoon called death.
On the third day
a new world was born.

There is the world that was,
and the world to come,
and between those two worlds
is the wood
upon which the son of God was hung.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Wood Between the Worlds: A Poetic Theology of the Cross - Library Edition

“• Jesus was sent to be “the savior of the world.”
• Jesus said he would “draw all people” to himself.
• Jesus prayed for the salvation of all, and his will is to save everyone.

Are these things true? Or will Jesus fail?

Most people I’ve met believe Christ will fail spectacularly. Not for them, of course, but for everyone else. Today most modern Christians teach that God lacks either the power or the desire to save us all. They tell us Jesus will not succeed in achieving his stated purpose, and that some people will unfortunately slip through the cracks and be lost forever.

I disagree.”
― J.D. Atkinson, Believable: Discover the God That Saves All