Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T12:47:27.878Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hopeful universalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2020

MICHAEL REA Open the ORCID record for MICHAEL REA [Opens in a new window]
MICHAEL REA*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, 100 Malloy Hall, Notre Dame, IN46556, USA
*
e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues against the rationality of ‘hopeful universalism’, the components of which include the unconditional considered hope that soteriological universalism is true, and an absence of belief that it is true. Some proponents maintain that there is simply not enough evidence to affirm or deny universalism; others believe that it is probably false but nonetheless hope they are mistaken. This article argues that worshippers of God who maintain unconditional considered hope in the truth of universalism ought either to believe universalism or seek to abandon their hope in its truth, depending (in part) on how their confidence in the considerations that steer them away from universalism measure up against the beliefs that underwrite their hope in its truth. For such people, neither withholding belief in universalism nor believing that it is false while continuing to hope that it is true is a rational option.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 266 - 283
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Balthasar, Hans Urs von (2014) Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved? With a Short Discourse on Hell, 2nd edn, Kipp, David & Krauth, Lothar (trs) (San Francisco: Ignatius Press).Google Scholar
Bergmann, Michael, Murray, Michael J., & Rea, Michael C. (eds) (2011) Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God of Abraham (Oxford: Oxford University Press)Google Scholar
Bergmann, Michael, & Rea, Michael (2005) ‘In defence of sceptical theism: a reply to Almeida and Oppy’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 83, 241–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloeser, Claudia & Stahl, Titus (2017) ‘Hope’, in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University), <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/hope/>.Google Scholar
Craig, William Lane (1989) ‘“No other name”: a middle knowledge perspective on the exclusivity of salvation through Christ’, Faith and Philosophy, 6, 172–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Jonathan (1741) ‘Sinners in the hands of an angry God’, in Hickman, Edward (ed.) The Works of Jonathan Edwards, II (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974), 7–12.Google Scholar
Fergusson, David (2001) ‘Will the love of God finally triumph?’, in Vanhoozer, Kevin J. (ed.) Nothing Greater, Nothing Better: Theological Essays on the Love of God (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans), 186–202.Google Scholar
Hart, David Bentley (2019) That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (New Haven CT: Yale University Press).Google Scholar
Jones, Paul Dafydd (2012) ‘A hopeful universalism’, The Christian Century, 129, 22–27.Google Scholar
Paul, L. A. (2015) Transformative Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Paul, L. A. (2020) ‘Who will I become?’, in Lambert, Enoch & Schwenkler, John (eds) Becoming Someone New: New Essays on Transformative Experience, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 16–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raz, Joseph (2010) ‘On the guise of the good’, in Tennenbaum, Sergio (ed.) Desire, Practical Reason, and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 111–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rea, Michael (2013) ‘Skeptical theism and the “too-much-skepticism” objection’, in McBrayer, Justin P. & Howard-Snyder, Daniel (eds) The Blackwell Companion to The Problem of Evil (Malden MA: Wiley), 482–506.Google Scholar
Rea, Michael (2018) The Hiddenness of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rea, Michael (2020) ‘Protest, worship, and the deformation of prayer’, in Rea, Michael (ed.) Essays in Analytic Theology, II (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Stein, Edith (1962) Welt und Person: Beitrag zum christlichen Wahrheitsstreben: Edith Stein's Werke VI, Gelber, L. & Leuven, R. (eds) (Freiburg: Verlag Herder).Google Scholar
Stump, Eleonore (2018) Atonement (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar