The burden of proof concerning universal reconciliation appears to rest upon its opponents. There is the general teaching of scripture that God desires to save all men. This is not a mild desire. It is an obsession serious enough to induce Him to sacrifice His Son to accomplish it. Rather straightforward passages seem to say that Jesus will reconcile as many things to God as were originally created (Col.1:16, 20) and to have as great (actually greater) an impact upon the salvation of the race as Adam had upon its condemnation (Rom.5:18). Jesus said He came to seek and to save that which was lost. How many things have been lost? Is there someplace that says He only came to recover a few of the things that are lost? His words do not imply any such limitations. There are many scriptures that describe God's plan this way (I have listed about fifty previously, as per your request at the time). These verses,
prima facie, would teach eventual reconciliation of all to God.
The Bible seems to say that the time is coming when Christ will have defeated all opposition and death will have no permanent victory. Talbott argued that, if one person remains eternally the victim of death, then Paul's question, "O death, where is your sting; O grave, where is your victory" (which is supposed to be rhetorical and unanswerable), will have been answered, and Paul's intended point will have been neutralized. The burden of proof, as I said, would fall upon those wishing to overthrow the plain-sounding texts on this. What would that require?
1) For annihilationists, it would require a demonstration that the "destruction" passages preclude later reconciliation. If a scenario can be imagined in which the wicked will experience
olethros (destruction, ruination), followed by reconciliation, then there would not be any need to postulate annihilation. All the words in the Old Testament speaking about the destruction, melting, consuming, etc., of sinners, are describing temporal judgments (usually of nations), and do not obviously preclude some divine activity in their lives after death. In other words, universal reconciliation can easily accommodate most (perhaps all) the proof texts used by annihilationists, if necessary. Though this does not necessarily prove universalism, it does mean that annihilationists will have to go further than this in shouldering the burden of proof.
2) For traditionalists, it would require proving that the post-judgment torment of the lost is never-ending. If it is not never-ending, then it may lead to universal reconciliation further down the line. I know of three verses that "sound" like they describe never-ending torment. However, none of them has an air-tight case. All three are capable of being accommodated by restorationism (this involves exploring the meaning of Greek words like
aionios and
kolasis). The traditionalist view, in my judgment, has the weakest of all cases, exegetically.
3) For both annihilationists and traditionalists, it would require demonstrating that there is no opportunity after death for repentance, or, if there is, that there are finite humans who can put up infinite resistance to the dealings of God. To my knowledge, there is not one verse supporting either of these notions, and they are both simply assumed by those who, for some reason, have an emotional reaction to universal reconciliation.
I am always waiting to be persuaded by which ever view can present the strongest scriptural case. Therefore, I welcome anyone to meet the burden of proof so that the case for one of these other views can be carried forward.
I think many here agree that the case for the traditional view is flimsy in the extreme. Many have moved toward annihilationism as a reaction to it, but are not willing seriously to consider restorationism. Annihilation is a halfway house between the two "extremes." It is similar to those who have been dispensationalists all their lives making the "big move" to post-tribulational premillennialism. Amillennialism is just too far to jump in a single step. Of course, a very large percentage of those who move from pre-trib to post-trib end up going all the way to amil, given enough time to emotionally adjust to such radical changes.
Consider John Stott's comments, defending annihilationism, but dealing with what he calls the "apparently universalistic texts" of scripture:
…the eternal existence of the impenitent in hell would be hard to reconcile with the promises of God’s final victory over evil, or with the apparently universalistic texts which speak…of God uniting all things under Christ’s headship (Ephesians 1:10), reconciling all things to himself through Christ (Colossians 1:20), and bringing every knee to bow to Christ and every tongue to confess his lordship (Philippians 2:10-11), so that in the end God will be ‘all in all’ or ‘everything to everybody’ (1 Corinthians 15:28).
Then he says:
These texts do not lead me to Universalism, because of the many others which speak of the terrible and eternal reality of hell. But they do lead me to ask how God can in any meaningful sense be called ‘everything to everybody’ while an unspecified number of people still continue in rebellion against him and under his judgement.
You see the cavalier dismissal of universalism because of the texts that "speak of the terrible and eternal reality of hell." The only problem here is the word "eternal." So many studies have been done on
aionios over the past few years, that no informed scholar would wish to base his doctrine on one preferred translation of this word. Most traditionalists (e.g., Chrysostom), annihilationists (e.g., Fudge), and those as yet uncommitted (F.F. Bruce) even admit that its probable meaning is "pertaining to the age", rather than "eternal." Every responsible lexicon admits that
aionios often refers to things that are not actually everlasting. Jacoby writes:
…few are so bold as to claim that the Greek adjective aionios always suggests “infinity in time”—such thinking has been rejected by most modern exegetes.
When the traditionalist Marshall charged that universalism bears the burden of proof against traditionalism, Thomas Talbott replied:
…in the presence of Paul’s clear statement affirming that justification and life comes to all [Rom.5:18], the burden of proof, it seems to me, is just the opposite of what Marshall claims it to be. If someone should affirm that, according to Paul, those who fail to repent before their 50th birthday will never be saved, then that person must bear the burden of proof; and similarly, if someone should affirm that, according to Paul, those who fail to repent during their earthly lives will never be saved, then that person must also bear the burden of proof…does Paul say anything remotely like this?
It is hard (for me) to find fault with this reasoning.
