Re Godincident, Letters, September
Zander Dunn continues to fall into the trap identified by Augustine ages ago — that if one believes what one likes about the gospel and rejects what one doesn’t like, it’s not the gospel one believes but oneself. Theology that begins in opinion rather than revelation is bound to find itself at odds with the gospel, the Bible, and the church that proclaims both. The fact that two of Zander’s paragraphs begin with the word “I” gives a strong indication of the source of his theology. It does not help his cause to quote Bible passages that seem to imply universalism without also dealing with the many that don’t. If one quotes the Bible as an authoritative source, one needs to deal with the whole thing. Neither does it help to point to people like Origen as a way of suggesting that universalism was always a Christian option. Origen’s theology was recognized by the early church as often being unbiblical and is recognized today as being influenced as much by Platonism and Gnosticism as by scripture. The Christian church exists, not as a collection of people who say “I believe,” but as a community of faith that says “We believe” and on the basis of that shared faith proclaims Jesus to a world that is perishing without him.
