One can argue \u2013 perhaps with theologians like Origen \u2013 that there is some hope that all people will find salvation.\u00a0 Perhaps, with Knitter, one can argue that the love of God is such that it cannot be finally and ultimately frustrated, and that eventually every soul will come to see light and respond to the invitation of grace.\u00a0 Perhaps, with Hick, one can conclude that the infinite power of God cannot finally be denied, and that to believe in anything like \u201chell,\u201d as if it were a place of literally endless torment, is to deny omnipotence and the constancy of divine compassion.\u00a0 Insofar as God\u2019s power is unlimited and God\u2019s love is eternal, there is no end to the call of grace to all souls, and therefore \u201chell,\u201d however full of recalcitrant souls it may be, must eventually be empty.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure this is true, but let us suppose it is.\u00a0 Let us suppose it is true.\u00a0 True.\u00a0 Then pluralism is false.\u00a0 Note the theological assertions of power and love; note the assumptions of divine personhood and implications of eternal identity in salvation.\u00a0 These must be taken as truths for the universalist argument to make sense, and yet they contradict other religious views of Ultimate Being and human nature.\u00a0 Thus this hopeful universalism necessarily makes theological statements and anthropological claims that are ultimately (perhaps) very Christian but, by the same token, not Buddhist or Vedantist.\u00a0 The result of this for simple logic is that when Knitter says, “The truth of Jesus’ way is open to the truth of other ways,”\u00a0he\u2019s just wrong.\u00a0 Rather this Christian truth is the truth that continually offers itself even to the most wayward and misguided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One can argue \u2013 perhaps with theologians like Origen \u2013 that there is some hope that all people will find salvation.\u00a0 Perhaps, with Knitter, one can argue that the love of God is such that it cannot be finally and … Continue reading