Das Buch von Rob Bell "Am Ende siegt die Liebe" versinkt bereits wieder unter dem Staub der Jahre (Tim Challies in deutscher Übersetzung und Kevin DeYoung haben dazu ausgezeichnete Antworten geschrieben). Auch ich habe damals einen längeren Artikel "Zur Hölle mit der Hölle?" veröffentlicht. Interessierten empfehle ich zudem den bahnbrechenden Artikel "Will All Be Saved?" von Gerald McDermott.
Der Gedanke der letztlichen Versöhnung aller ist über die theologisch liberale Theologie der Protestanten und dann der Katholiken tief ins evangelikale Lager eingesickert. Das Problem beginnt meines Erachtens mit der Gotteslehre (siehe mein ausführlicher Aufsatz). Colin Hansen hat ein inhaltlich sehr ergiebiges Interview mit dem Autor eines umfassenden Werkes zur Dogmengeschichte geführt (An Interview with the Author of the Definitive Treatment on Christian Universalism). Ich greife einige Aussagen heraus:
Zur Rolle von Karl Barth und der ewigen Erlösung
- With Karl Barth in the 1940s, universalism seemed to be “skipping over” from esoteric thought into mainstream (or what I term exoteric) Christian theology. Barth scholars are themselves divided as to whether Barth should or should not be seen as teaching universalism. Yet, on some level, this question of Barth exegesis does not matter much, since Church Dogmatics II/2 without any doubt made it much more acceptable.
- When one examines the particulars of Barth’s exegesis in Church Dogmatics II/2, one sees a lot of special pleading, and even some rather weird reasoning—though I would admit that Barth’s exegesis in various other parts of the Church Dogmatics has much to teach us.
- I should note that I appreciate Barth in many ways and have learned much from Barth, while at the same time I regard his advocacy of universal election as having been theologically disastrous for his own theological development and for the theological development of the global church since the 1950s and 1960s.
Zur neusten Geschichte des Universalismus
- (I)n the 20th century prior to World War II one would have to say that universalism was “a Russian thing” (e.g., Solovyov, Berdyaev, Bulgakov).
- (F)rom the 1950s through the 1970s, one might say that universalism became a “liberal, white, Protestant thing.”
- in the 1970s and 1980s, as Catholics discussed the question of the “unchurched” while evangelicals debated the question of the “unevangelized”—two ways of framing the question of inclusivism.
- From the 1990 onward, … universalism has become a “Catholic thing,” and purportedly also an “evangelical thing” and perhaps a “Pentecostal thing” too.
Universalismus: Anziehend, defekt
- (U)niversalism is the way that many religiously believing people—and contemporary academic theologians especially—would like for the world to be.
- Hardness of heart is all around us. The Pharaoh of the Exodus may be the biblical poster boy for this attitude—unless we wish to award that place to Satan.
- (T)he sinner against the Lord may not be ready to give up control of his or her own life when told the message of God’s love.
- Universalism inevitably entails a “hermeneutics of diminishment.”
Weitere Artikel von McClymond erschienen bei Desiring God.
