When I think of the existential theology of Paul Tillich I’m forced to try to simplify so my tiny brain won’t be traumatized. My personal organization of his thought goes like this 1) God is the Ground of all Being, 2) Existential questions arising from human’s estrangement from their being can be correlated to theological answers, 3) These answers aren’t answers in the normal sense but the “truths” of the answers are revealed in our religious symbols, 4) Christ is the symbol of the New Being or non-estrangement from God.

“God is the Ground of All Being.” In Tillich’s thinking, God is being. To say that God exists is just as atheistic as to say God does not exist since it puts Him inside the structure of being. Humans are beings. All of time of space is busy “being” as we speak. God is the ground on which being rests.

Don’t ask me how, but this causes humans to be estranged from being. This state of estrangement causes anxiety because questions of meaning, death and isolation arise out of it. These questions have Christian theological answers according to Tillich. But I don’t think they are answers in the “Q and A” form. The answers arise out of the truths presented in our religious symbols.

I’m pretty sure Tillich’s idea of religious symbols has a healthy dose of CG Jung. “God is the Ground of All Being” is the only non-symbolic statement that can be made about God since He exists outside of being (outside of time/space at the very least). Everything else is a religious symbol. Christian doctrines are just signs pointing us in the right direction.

This includes the doctrine of Christ. This is the real kicker. I’m pretty sure Tillich had a sort of adoptionist Christology where Jesus became non-estranged from God. I don’t know if Tillich thinks Christ “overcame” this estrangement of if God simply chose him to not be estranged. But since Christ is not estranged, he is the ultimate symbol pointing toward our New Being. Human’s New Being is their state of non-estrangement from God

I really like Tillich’s theology because of the hugeness he is able to give to God. I also like his emphasis that symbols are not “just symbols” but they point to things that are deeper than words can express. That is why they are not words instead of symbols. Mythology and art also suffer from this mindset of “truth” only coming in “the right answer” form we learn in school.

I struggle with not liking him because Christ becomes “just a symbol.” I realize that this struggle is hypocritical because I just got done saying symbols are not lesser forms of truth. But part of me gets it and another part does not.

I have suspected for awhile that the language of “Christ’s sacrifice” was intimately tied to the sacrificial system that was embedded in the Jewish culture at the time and the symbolic language would be utterly lost on us today. I think if I understood the vast cultural significance of the sacrifice then I would have less of a stuggle realizing the value of the symbolic and mythical sacrifice of Tillich’s New Being.

According to John Hick, the reason God has many names is that since God’s general revelation is revealed to everyone the world’s religions sprang up as different responses to the divine reality, embodying different perceptions which have been formed in different cultural and historical circumstances. All of these perceptions have their strengths and weaknesses and when they are in dialogue they can learn from one another.

There is a difference between a world religion and an world theology. Hick (like the Dalai Lama) doesn’t advocate the abandonment of the religion of your youth in favor of a one universal religion where everyone worships pretty much the same. He does advocate for a theology that interprets religious experience within Christianity as well as in the other “great streams of religious life.” These would include non-theistic religions of hinduism, buddhism and even Marxism and Humanism.

Karl Rahner’s idea of the “anonymous Christian” is that there are members of other religions to whom Christ has been revealed and so they are saved. The common criticism of this idea is that nothing is stopping anyone from calling Christians “anonymous Buddhists” or “anonymous Muslims.” Hick abandons the idea of the anonymous Christian and says that all religions can be viewed as equally salvific if you understand Jesus being God as a metaphor. He says Jesus never taught that he was God. Others referred to Jesus as God because he lived in complete openness to God’s Agape love. Since God is love this is kind of the same as saying something like, “Steve Jobs is geek chic incarnate.” He says, “Agape is incarnated in human life whenever someone acts in selfless love.” I think this is what it comes down to for Hick, as far as we act in self-giving love God is made incarnate in us also.

It is a common belief in inclusivist soteriology that all religions are expressions of God. The closer they come to Christianity the better, and they are not perfect until they are explicitly Christian. In this way all religions are moving toward Christianity.

John Hick speaks of a Copernican revolution in religion. Early astronomers believed all the celestial objects revolved around the Earth. After they started observing these objects in more detail they realized they don’t move in perfect concentric circles around the earth. They decided that celestial objects must move in other orbits while ultimately orbiting the Earth. They called these additional orbits “epicycles.” In trying to describe the epicycles they become more and more complex until someone (Copernicus) dared to say that maybe all the celestial objects don’t revolve around us, maybe they revolve around the Sun. This got him into lots of trouble.

Like Copernicus, Hick says that maybe all religions don’t revolve around Christianity but maybe all religions revolve around God. He says this Copernican revolution in religion “must involve a shift from the dogma that Christianity is at the center to the thought that it is God who is at the center and that all the religions of mankind, including our own, serve and revolve around him”.

Here are some good links on the phrase “post-evangelical”. The prefix “post” shouldn’t automatically be associated with post-modernism because it usually means “as a reaction to”; i.e. post-modernism is a reaction to modernism.

internetmonk
He gives a definition of “evangelical” and talks about why evangelicalism and protestantism is coming to a conclusion. The last third he talks about the “post” in “post-evangelical”

opensourcetheology
This guy expresses his worry of the demise of post-evangelicalism. But, his reasons are pretty familiar: If you think that truth can’t be known or agreed upon then how can a foundation be built? Still, just because what is true can’t be agreed upon does not mean that some past assumptions of evangelicalism aren’t glaringly untrue.

toward-jerusalem
This guys breaks “post-evangelical” down as saying very few things are knowable for certain and dogmatism is unwarranted. The diversity of Christianity is to be embraced instead of rejecting various parts. So the “post” in “post-evangelical” isn’t a rejection of the past but an embrace and broadening of the past.

After reading The Five Streams of the Emerging Church I figured I was just a liberal emerging Christian. I don’t know if I like the reactionary flavor of “post-evangelical”, but I think it definitely describes me.

Off the top of my head, the things I most react to are 1) exclusivist soteriology, 2) dualistic eschatology and 3) Biblolatry.

As far as exclusivist soteriology goes, I tend to think the idea that only Christians are saved should be rejected outright. Some people reject various forms of liberation theology simply because they are violent, no questions asked. I’m the same way with exclusivist salvation; if that is where a theology leads then I tend to just laugh and move on.

As far as dualistic eschatology, I think I can embraced it in a mythic sense but not a literal sense. I don’t believe in a traditional, literal view of Heaven and Hell as two separate and opposite places. But, sometimes it is useful to think of them that way.

As far as the near God-like status that is given scripture, I just sort of think that it’s correct interpretation that turns scripture into the Word of God. If you are led to literally pluck out your eyes, you’ve been reading scripture but not the Word of God.

Okay, I’ve spent some time talking about the scriptures that are typically used to support a view of everlasting torment in the afterlife. Here are some scriptures that are used to support universal reconciliation. Interesting to think about if nothing else…

Rom 5:18-20 So then as through one transgression [Adam's] there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness [Christ's] there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One, the many will be made righteous. And the Law came in that the transgression might increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more!

I Cor 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.

The use of the word “all” here encompasses all that are condemned through Adam. Which would be, you know, everyone. For some reason many of us interpret the second “all” means less then everyone.

Rom 14:4 Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and stand he will, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

II Cor 5:14,15 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, that they should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.

Are we to say that if the Lord “makes him stand”, or if the love of Christ compels/controls him then He is violating the man’s free will?

Rom 14:11 For as it is written, “As I live”, says the Lord, “every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God”.

So, after the knee bows and someone repents, God will still send them to Hell? Jesus told us to forgive 70×7 in ONE DAY! Wouldn’t God do the same?

I Pet 4:6 For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that even though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God.

I Cor 5:4,5 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Could this mean that on the day of the Lord Jesus that people will be given the chance to “bend the knee” as in the previous scripture?

Col 3:11 Christ is all, and in all.

Paul surely doesn’t mean “all” does he? Like, “everyone” kind of all?

I Tim 4:10 It is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.

*cough* *hack* WHAT?! *cough* Did you say “Especially believers”!?!?!

Matt 5:22 “…and if you say ‘you fool’ you will be liable to the hell of fire”. Remembering first that Jesus calls the Pharisees all kind of names, including “fool” in Matt 23:17, it is obvious Jesus isn’t speaking literally. The point Matthew is making here is that he is defining Jesus as the new Moses. Matthew 5 is the beginning of the “Sermon on the Mount”. Moses received the law on top of a mountain. Jesus begins this whole thing redefining the law of Moses. “Do not think I have come to abolish the law but to fulfill it… you have heard that it was said ‘you shall not…’ but what I tell you is…”

Matthew doesn’t say that the pharisees are in the crowd here but Jesus still seems to be talking to them. If the Pharisees were proud of anything they were proud of 1) being sons of Abraham 2) their strict adherence to the law of Moses. The Pharisees basically thought that if the people of Israel would adhere to the law of Moses with more strictness then God would make the Romans leave them alone. Jesus is rebutting this teaching by saying that it is the pharisees who are in danger of hell by putting to much overemphasis in one area.

Another interesting thing about Jesus mention of Gehenna here is that in his illustration he says “you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.” If Jesus is speaking about a place punishment in the afterlife, is it a temporary place?

I’ve been doing some thinking on Luke 16: 19-31. This is the story about the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man died and went to Hades while Lazarus went to “Abraham’s bosom”. Here is my current thinking on the parable. First off, I don’t think it’s a parable or narrative about the afterlife. The parable before it is about the shrewd manager. Between the parables Jesus says stuff like, “Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you?” You know, stuff about money.

Just before Jesus tells the parable about Lazarus and the rich man it says this: “Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Him.”

Jesus is talking directly to the Pharisees at this point. Or at least directly about them. Saying that they have high regard for the law and the prophets and low regard for people in lowly positions. I think that has something to do with the chasm in this story. In the U.S. and modern society, people can move from low to high socio-economic positions, but back then, it was impossible. Also, the rich man called Abraham “father” and Abraham in turn called him “child” or “son”. Could this chasm be between the sons of Abraham and the Gentiles? That would certainly go along with Jesus’ statement about people not believing “even if someone were to return from the dead.” Jesus is predicting that the Jews won’t believe even after he comes back from the grave. Anyhow, if this was the case, then this chasm wouldn’t exist for long.

This same “presence of the pharisees” is in Luke 12:1-5. If you read Luke 11 it seems that this was said to incite the Pharisees! Given the fact that the Pharisees were one of the only groups that believed in “Hell” in Jesus day and I think they were the ones that started using Gehenna as imagery for it, I continue to think that Jesus was just using their imagery against them.

I also think it is important to note that the “hell” Jesus uses here is Gehenna. Since Gehenna was a burning junk yard outside of Jerusalem where people dumped bodies, Jesus seems to be using this figuratively to simply say, “fear the one who decides what is done with you after you die.” That is all he’s saying. Eugene Peterson translates it like this:

I’m speaking to you as dear friends. Don’t be bluffed into silence or insincerity by the threats of religious bullies. True, they can kill you, but then what can they do? There’s nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life—body and soul—in his hands (The Message).

So what about the interpretation that says people literally can’t cross between Heaven and Hell. Jesus crossed the chasm when he went to Hell after he died. Abraham seems to have no problem talking to people accross the chasm. This rich man is clearly repenting and asking forgiveness. Jesus said to forgive people 70×7 time in one day. Would He do the same?

We are all probably aware of the fact that “Sheol” in Hebrew scripture is the usually translated as “the grave.” The problem with saying that Sheol is Hell is that God is in Sheol. Psalm 139:8 says, “If I ascend to Heaven you are there, if I make my bed in Sheol you are there.” God being absent is usually a big part of people’s definition of Hell. It is usually said that the reason there is so much suffering in Hell is because of the fact that God is not there. I’ve often heard Hell defined as “the absence of God.”

Okay, so Sheol does refer to Hell. But how about God’s anger? Could that be considered Hell? Hebrew scripture often describes God’s anger as having some sort of redemptive purpose. God’s is angry with his people in order to bring about a conduct change or a change of heart.

But, in Daniel 12:2 we see the first hint of an afterlife in Hebrew scripture. “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” Assuming that “contempt” means “torment” is a huge stretch. The problem is that it is done all the time. We read a word like “destruction” in the Bible and assume it means “everlasting excruciatingly painful torture.”

What Klassen says about the word “olam” (which is translated “eternity”) is really interesting. Olam has several meanings. It can mean a long period of time until the Messiah completes his work of redemption on earth. It can mean the whole period of the law; during this lifetime; or seventy years.

The Pharisees were the only group in the Gospels who believed in a literal Hell of ongoing punishment with no redemptive purpose. When Jesus says something we usually interpret as “Hell”, he was usually talking to the Pharisees. Also, among the Pharisees, this belief wasn’t quite consistent. For example, it was sometimes believed that there would be a limited time of judgement after death, say a year, and annihilation would follow. So, the concept of a literal Hell did not appear in Hebrew scripture and the Pharisees probably got it from the cultures that surrounded them.

I’ll talk a little more about the origins of belief in Hell later. But before I do I’ll talk about Hell in the Gospels and Hell in the Epistles.

I read Randy Klassen’s What Does The Bible Really Say About Hell? in which he tries to address all the main points in scripture that talk about Hell. It really seems to be written for fundamentalists or literalists that either believe in the traditional view of Hell or are struggling with it.

Interestingly enough he starts with a book in which there are no scriptures about Hell: the book of Acts. Klassen’s point is that if the first century church didn’t use Hell in their preaching of the gospel then why do we?

In Peter’s first sermon (Acts 2 14-40) he quotes from Joel saying that God will pour out his spirit on sons and daughters, men, women and slaves. That there will be signs in heaven and earth. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Peter says that the men that his audience handed over to the Romans to be crucified was the Messiah and he had risen from the dead because death could not hold him. He exhorted these people to be baptized in the name of Jesus in order to be “saved from this corrupt generation”. Peter wasn’t talking about a future time and place. The Messiah was supposed to deliver the Jews from the hands of the Romans. “This corrupt generation” was probably taken to mean the current situation of being ruled by pagans.

In Peter’s second sermon (Acts 3:12;26) he says again that his audience had killed the Messiah in which they hoped. This Messiah was sent to them in order to bless them and turn them from their wicked ways. Interestingly their is no elaboration of “wicked ways” at this point. The focus here is on blessing.

Someone who reads the second sermon might say, “Ah-ha, Peter said that anyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus will be ‘utterly rooted out of the people!’ Surely that means they will go to Hell!” But, there is no mention of Hades, Gehenna, the Valley of Hinom, etc. To assume this means Hell is to project an a priori interpretation onto the scripture.

The next sermon in Acts is Stephen’s defense before the high priest and council (Acts 7:2-53). Stephen gives a history of Israel from Abraham to Moses to Solomon with the point being that Israel persecutes the prophets that are sent to them by God. Stephen uses some pretty harsh language like, “you uncircumcised in heart and ear”. Now, would have been a perfect time to bring up the topic of Hell if Stephen thought it was important. But apparently he didn’t.

Klassen ends up going through much scripture in Acts where you would think Hell would be mentioned. Going through all of it here would probably make for a very long and boring blog entry. His point is that a doctrine of the Heaven and Hell which is so important to us today didn’t even really appear on the radar of early church. The following is the list of scripture Klassen addresses in his chapter on Acts.

Peter’s sermons
Acts 2 14-40, Acts 3 12-26

Stephen’s
Acts 7:2-53

Philip meets the Ethiopian
Acts 8:32-33

Saul’s conversion
Acts 9:4

Peter’s witness to Cornelius
Acts 10:34-48

Paul’s first recorded message
Acts 13:16-41

Lydia and the Roman jailer
Acts 16:11-34

Paul at Mars Hill
Acts 17:22-28

Paul at Ephesus
Acts 20:32

Paul defends himself before the tribune in Jerusalem
Acts 22-26

Paul’s encouraging words when they were ship wrecked
Act 27:24-26, 33-38

Paul under house arrest
Acts 28:30-31

According to Augustine and other retributivists God has a conflict between his mercy nature and his justice nature. His roles as Divine Judge and his role as Divine Father. The conflict between these to roles or natures was resolved by the death of Jesus. The purpose of punishment is to satisfy the requirements of justice. “To extract from them a compensating loss so the scales of justice will balance” (p. 148)

The idea of infinite punishment comes from the idea that a just punishment is based on the greatness of the one whom the sin was committed. God in infinitely great so the smallest of sins deserves an infinite punishment.

Okay, so let me just comment on that idea a bit. If that idea were true then it would mean that if you stole $10 from me then you’d owe me $10 back. If you stole it from Bill Gates, then you’d owe him like $10,000 back. If you stole it from a homeless man then you’d only owe him $5 back. Stealing cash would be a bustling business.

Now think of a criminal who goes to jail, serves the punishment but is never sorry about his crime and has every intent on doing it again. Has punishment canceled out his crime? Talbot’s answer is “no”, it would not have been cancelled out to the fullest. If the criminal went to jail, was truly sorry for what he did and managed to make restitution for what he had done (like if he was a tax collector in the time if Jesus and repaid everyone back for ripping them off) THEN his crime would have been cancelled out to the fullest.

Talbot talks about a “just punishment” for a crime - one that brings about reconciliation:

“So if, as our alternative picture suggests, forgiveness and just punishment have the same object and the same goal (namely, reconciliation), then the idea that sinners deserve forgiveness is no more absurd than the idea that they deserve punishment.” (p. 162)

Talbot then says that Augustinians are extremely tolerant of sin, universalists are, in fact, less tolerant of it:

” As the Augustinians see it, God opposes sin enough to punish it, but not enough to destroy it altogether; instead of destroying sin altogether, he merely confines it to a specially prepared region of his creation, known as hell, where he keeps it alive for an eternity. According to our alternative picture, however, God forgives sin for this very reason: In no other way could he oppose it with his entire being” (p. 164)

Talbot then says that says to doers of sin must be punished by redemption and forgiveness!

“Augustine surely is right about one thing: At the very least, the ones responsible for terrible atrocities must learn a hard lesson; in particular, they must be made to appreciate teh horror of their own actions. But the paradox is this: Only someone on the road to redemption, only a forgiven sinner, can fully appreciate the horror of even the most monstrous acts.” (p. 167)

Talbot next talks about how God is love. “God is love” is a quality of God just like “God is omniscient” or “God is omnipresent”. Just as God is always everywhere and always knows everything, God always loves everyone and his love does not diminish or change.

Apparently this was a problem for Calvin as in his Institutes of Christian Religion he only comments on it briefly. He says that “God is love” does not comment on the essence of love but that it only shows what he is found to be by the elect. Talbot also talks about the views of Edwards, Packer and Piper.

Talbot does reiterate his belief that people can experience punishment as God’s love. At this point I thought to myself, “okay so a girl who gets raped is supposed to thank God for her suffering as it produces the destruction of her false self within her.” And that makes no sense. But think of the same kind of extreme case from the other non-universalist perspectives:

This same girl gets her Masters in Social Work and spends the rest of her life helping rape victims overcome the trauma in their lives. Sadly enough this girl has spent this whole life as an atheist because the guy who raped her was her youth pastor, a guy who believed in Jesus and has “said the prayer.” From other, non-universalist, perspectives, the girl goes to Hell and the guy goes to Heaven. That is supposed to make more sense than the universalist idea that they both are either forgiven or pay their debt and go to Heaven? Not to me. This universalist stuff is looking pretty good at this point, though I won’t be a believer until I personally comb at least the the whole NT for more evidence. It’s just to damn good to be true (which, again, is a good sign, IMHO )

The scriptures that I encounter that make universalism less believable are scriptures like, “No one comes to the Father except through the Son”, and “Esau I have hated”

Talbot talks about the Esau one though (although I didn’t understand his explanation):

“If God so much as loved Esau less than he did Jacob, that would itself suffice to diminish his holy character and to contradict the Pauline claim that God shows no partiality to anyone” (p. 119)

Talbot then confuses the crud out of me. He says, “why does he attribute to God a hatred for Esau? I see no reason to suppose that he literally does. He merely adopts a perfectly natural way of talking” (p. 121) and he says “hatred” is a “thoroughly anthropomorphic idea, a human way of speaking” (p. 121)

“For God’s ‘hatred’ is no different from his love in this respect” (p. 122)

He returns to the idea that God’s perfecting love will consume the false self, which we either perceive as an act of mercy or wrath. He mentions that Esau did eventually come to love Jacob and they were reconciled as brothers. He also mentions Jacob declared to Esau, “for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God”. Which, admittedly, is quite a thing to say to someone who is literally hated by God.

Talbot then talks about “Exclusivism”: the idea of “us vs. them”, God love Jacob and hates Esau, God loves Jews and hates Gentile, Jesus will have mercy on us but not them. He says:

“The last thing one may want … is a God whose love and mercy extends to all person including the members of enemy tribes, and the last commandment one may want to hear is that we must love our enemies as well as our friends” (p. 123)

and:
“Even as Jonah did not want God’s mercy to reach the Ninevites, so many of Paul’s contemporaries did not want it to reach the Gentiles … For as they saw it, such teaching implied that God, having broken his promise to Abraham, was unjustly extending his mercy to the Gentiles. That God’s original promise … had already included a reference to all nations … seemed not to matter at all” (p.124-125)

God “broke the law” when Esau’s inheritance was passed to Jacob. He “broke the law” again when He let the Gentiles in. God will break it again when he let’s in the likes of Osama bin Laden?! I think, according to Talbot, Osama bin Laden will ask for forgiveness, and Jesus will accept.

To good to be true? Is God’s goodness better than anything we could ever imagine? Do we really believe that?

This is how it was for me: Imagine a line slanting from the left and upwards towards the right. On the left put a “O”, put a smattering of “N”’s along the line and put “G” on the right.
O = old man
N = new man
G = God

Basically if I look at my old nature and the progress I have made in my new nature from year to year, I believe I can follow that trajectory to imagine the nature of God. This is how I imagine the nature of God. Any text that says that God is “obligated” to do something (like forgive people or punish then) always make me uncomfortable. For a mortal to talk about God’s obligations seems silly. I bet it’s hilarious to God.

But if I can see this “obligated” behavior of God along the continuum then I can believe it is the nature/character of God.