An odd thought comes to mind during the current to-ing and fro-ing which has arisen with regard to Rob Bell’s upcoming book ‘Love Wins’.
(Warning: generalisations ensue.)
It seems odd that those who have taken issue with Bell are generally characterised (in a number of ways) as being in the reformed and calvinistic tradition, and that the underlying theology of Bell’s book is supposed to be sympathetic to some form of universalism.
What strikes me as peculiar is that the reformed tradition is generally optimistic about the totality of those who will be saved in contrast to those who aren’t reformed.
Reformed theology utterly believes that people will certainly be saved because it is God who saves them. In addition the reformed tradition understands that this singular saving work of God can be achieved in the unborn, the infant who cannot yet understand, and those who grow to adult years but who are incapable of ever intellectually understanding the Gospel. When God promises Abraham that his (Abraham’s) spiritual descendants will be more numerous than the grains of sand or stars in the sky which he beheld around him, that God was not indicating a small or remnantal number.
All of this because of God’s saving work. The only reason we believe not all will be saved is because the Bible doesn’t teach that all will be saved.
In contrast those who have rejected a reformed or calvinist understanding of the Scriptures effectually believe that heaven could theoretically be empty. Which is to say that every single human being could have chosen to reject Christ’s saving work. (And we all rejoice that this is not true.) But the idea that individuals have to hear and make a conscious expression of their will in order to be saved is one of the reasons why these folk have been earnest in evangelism and mission throughout the history of the church.
They have even gone so far as to claim that the reformed/calvinist understanding kills the evangelistic imperative since God is the one who saves.
But currently we have a situation where it seems to be suggested by those who reject a reformed/calvinist understanding that it does not matter if humanity hear the gospel during their lives, but that other religions, conscientiously lived, may be evidence of God’s grace. More, that those who have consciously understood and rejected the claims of the Christian gospel, may still be reconciled to God through it, albeit unknowingly. (Does someone want to explain to Christopher Hitchens that he’s really saved because of Jesus?) And more still, that after their physical death people may have opportunity to experience salvation through Christ.
There has been something of a turnaround during the twentieth century where a significant portion of evangelicalism seems to have confused a merciful fountain flowing for the cleansing of God’s people has been confused with a ‘Barth’ full of (theoretically) infinite salvation. I think we’re seeing more and more fruit from that change of direction.
In short, it seems that the reformed who are asserting that the Gospel teaching about God’s saving work as taught by the Scriptures has a definite form and that form needs to be preserved and shared with people of every culture throughout the earth because that Gospel is the ordinary means through which God effects His saving work in the lives of humans, and it is among those that are not reformed that the notion is arising that God is going to save them all whether we make the effort to refine and communicate the Gospel or not, and whether they want that salvation or not.
And that strikes me as odd.
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