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GOTT-September 11, 2005

Wheaton Conference: “Philosophers Think About Heaven and Hell”

For those who might be in the vicinity of the Chicago area, and who might be interested:

On October 20-22, there will be a conference, “Philosophers Think About Heaven and Hell” at Wheaton College.  The conference web page with a schedule and further information is here.  The following are listed as speakers:

Claire Brown , University of Notre Dame
James Cain, Oklahoma State University
William Davis , Covenant College
Keith DeRose, Yale University
Paul Griffiths, University of Illinois, Chicago
Kenneth Himma, Seattle Pacific University
Jonathan Kvanvig, University of Missouri, Columbia
Michael Murray, Franklin and Marshall College
Scott Ragland, St.Louis University
Mark Talbot, Wheaton College
Thomas Talbott, Willamette University (OR)
William Wainwright, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Jerry Walls, Asbury Seminary (Keynote speaker)

Though I’m listed, I’ll just be a commentator on one of the real papers — the one given by Jon Kvanvig (the author of the book THE PROBLEM OF HELL (Oxford UP, 1993)).

I’m looking forward to finally getting to meet my fellow universalist, Tom Talbott (author of The Inescapable Love of God, and main contributor to the recent Universal Salvation?: The Current Debate).  It looks like we’ll be outnumbered, though:  I’m guessing that Jerry Walls’s keynote address, together with the papers entitled “Why Everlasting Punishment?”, “Universalism, the Value of Autonomy, and the Finality of Hell”, and “Why Universalism is Still Unsatisfying”, and maybe some others as well, will be against universalism.

But it looks like fun — at least to me.  (And I hereby resist — or do I? — the temptation to make some remark about it looking like a hell of a conference.)

Posted by Keith DeRose in Events | Permalink

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Comments

After I encountered a persuasive, conservative , Biblical argument for Universalism, it seemed like “case closed” to me. The gates of hell shall not prevail!

There is undoubtedly a unpleasant afterlife potential, though, that we are urged to avoid. For a long time, I considered it as purgatory, but now I lean much more to reincarnation.

Posted by: Jon Zuck | September 12, 2005 at 11:44 PM

What it an important conversation. Or at least it can be, if it remains vitally connected to this matter of our conception of God, our life together in community, and our identity as “called-out” ones struggling alongside our neighbor. Otherwise, it could be a rather sterile academic excercise.

The jury’s still out for me on the nature and extent of salvation, but here are some good universalist websites I’ve found:

http://www.gospelfortoday.org
http://www.growthingod.org.uk
http://www.savior-of-all.com
http://www.tentmaker.org
http://www.universalsalvation.net
http://www.destinedforsalvation.org
http://www.angelfire.com/dc/universalism/home.html
http://www.jesuspaidforyou.com
http://www.infinite-grace.com
http://bible-truths.com
http://www.pantelism.com
http://www.truth.info/future/universalism.htm

Posted by: Mike Morrell | September 14, 2005 at 11:42 AM

I have a little on-line defense of universalism, “Universalism and the Bible,” at:
https://campuspress.yale.edu/keithderose/1129-2/

And, though it’s been out for a while, I only quite recently found a very helpful discussion of one of the main universalist texts, Rom 5:18:
-Richard H. Bell, “Rom 5.18-19 and Universal Salvation,” New Testament Studies, Vol. 48 (2002), pp. 417-432. To quote Bell’s own summary of his paper, he argues “that Paul does in fact support a universal salvation in Rom 5.18–19. Such an understanding is supported by both the context and by a detailed study of these verses” (p. 417).

Posted by: Keith DeRose | September 17, 2005 at 01:37 AM

I am a student at Vanderbilt Divinity. I am a charasmatic universalist, probably most similar to Carlton Pearson. I am very pleasantly surprised to see Wheaton hosting something like this. It speaks I believe to a universalist revival among Evangelicals like the world has literally never seen before.

Thanks mucho,
Woody Lucas

Posted by: Woodrow Lucas | November 19, 2006 at 12:58 AM

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