Relax everybody. Perhaps “Universalist” was a poor choice of words and should have been spelled with a low case “u.” And it probably should have been posted over at my tongue-in-cheek “Slightly Irreverent” blog anyway – with a little more satire thrown in for good measure. I was hurried when writing it and obviously erred on the side of brevity. My main beef is with this whole matter of orthodoxy and the finite, “analytical” interpretations thereof. I like the way R.K. Chesterton puts it in the opening of his book, Orthodoxy:
“Poe, for instance, really was morbid; not because he was poetical, but because he was specially analytical. Even chess was too poetical for him; he disliked chess because it was full of knights and castles, like a poem. He avowedly preferred the black discs of draughts, because they were more like the mere black dots on a diagram. Perhaps the strongest case of all is this: that only one great English poet went mad, Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad by logic, by the ugly and alien logic of predestination. Poetry was not the disease, but the medicine; poetry partly kept him in health. He could sometimes forget the red and thirsty hell to which his hideous necessitarianism dragged him among the wide waters and the white flat lilies of the Ouse. He was damned by John Calvin; he was almost saved by John Gilpin. Everywhere we see that men do not go mad by dreaming. Critics are much madder than poets. Homer is complete and calm enough; it is his critics who tear him into extravagant tatters. Shakespeare is quite himself; it is only some of his critics who have discovered that he was somebody else. And though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators. The general fact is simple. Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like the physical exhaustion of Mr. Holbein. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”
Do I believe there is a hell? Yes! The Scriptures are quite clear on this. Can I presume to know what hell will actually look like or where the line is infinitely drawn on who it’s inhabitants will or will not be? No! The Scriptures are not clear on this, except for the orthodoxy of our interpretations. “…reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite…to understand everything a strain…seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”
One thing I do know, unequivocally. Love reigns! This is what compels me to preach the Gospel, so that Love will reign universally. I’ll let God be the judge of who fits how and where into that eternal universe. And I do so with the sure and certain knowledge that Love will always prevail.
Here’s how another poet puts it:
“Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” – 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 NKJ.
For the time being, I’ll remain a poet, not a theologian, thank you!
JN
Note: I expand upon this universal love idea thoroughly in my book, Lean Right, Love Left: Balancing the Body - http://www.joenoland.com/joenoland/Creations.html
