"All Shall Be Well" - cover and blurb
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Lady Julian of Norwich
Universalism runs like a slender thread through the history of Christian theology. It has always been a minority report and has often been regarded as heresy, but it has proven to be a surprisingly resilient “idea.” Over the centuries Christian universalism, in one form or another, has been reinvented time and time again.
In this book an international team of scholars explore the diverse universalisms of Christian thinkers from the Origen to Moltmann. In the introduction Gregory MacDonald argues that theologies of universal salvation occupy a space between heresy and dogma. Therefore disagreements about whether all will be saved should not be thought of as debates between “the orthodox” and “heretics” but rather as “in-house” debates between Christians.
The studies that follow aim, in the first instance, to hear, understand, and explain the eschatological claims of a range of Christians from the third to the twenty-first centuries. They also offer some constructive, critical engagement with those claims.
• Origen (Tom Greggs)
• Gregory of Nyssa (Steve Harmon)
• Julian of Norwich (Robert Sweetman)
• The Cambridge Platonists (Louise Hickman)
• James Relly (Wayne K. Clymer)
• Elhanan Winchester (Robin Parry)
• Friedrich Schliermacher (Murray Rae)
• Thomas Erskine (Don Horrocks)
• George MacDonald (Thomas Talbott)
• P. T. Forsyth (Jason Goroncy)
• Sergius Bulgakov (Paul Gavrilyuk)
• Karl Barth (Oliver Crisp)
• Jaques Ellul (Andrew Goddard)
• J. A. T. Robinson (Trevor Hart)
• Hans Urs von Balthasar (Edward T. Oakes, SJ)
• John Hick (Lindsay Hall)
• Jürgen Moltmann (Nik Ansell)
Comments
the title is a quote from Lady Julian of Norwich—hence the quote marks.
Pax
Robin
So, I wonder: Does her inclusion (and the taking of the title from her) imply that she was a universalist?
I haven't really studied the matter. My understanding of her thought is just based on my own read-through of a modernized version of her Revelations (which I love). But I wouldn't have classified her as a universalist. *Maybe* as someone open to universalism. Certainly as someone whose thought has aspects that in some ways point toward the view. Much seemed to me to come down to how to understand the second half of Chapter 32. She seemed to be resolved to hanging on to the teaching of the faith that many will be damned to eternal hell, but at the same time taking it on faith that, despite that, somehow, all shall be well.
What EU book are you working on next? :)
easiest to order from W&S.
I have no plans for any other universalist books (though I am not against doing another in principle).
I think my next book will be a travel guide to the biblical cosmos
Robin
Ahhhh! Well, it would be spoiling things if I gave the game away on Lady Julian! You'll have to read the chapter (which is very good).
Pax
Robin