David Bentley Hart's That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell & Universal Salvation (Yale University Press, 2019) is a popular new book by an outstanding Eastern Orthodox theologian on a locus that I'm passionate about—Christian Universalism! I'm pleased to say that I highly recommend it for its excellent defense of Christian Universalism from a traditional Eastern Orthodoxy perspective—so long as certain expectations are defined.

Why read another book on Christian Universalism?

Why read D. B. Hart's That All Shall Be Saved when there are so many other similar small (5.2x8.5inch), short (232page), non-academic books on Christian Universalism have already been published? Every tradition needs a book like That All Shall Be Saved to benefit Christians within that respective tradition, and to help other traditions learn through disputing with one another (c.f. John 13:34-35 ) to the benefit of all. Multiple attestations for Christian Universalism from a diversity of Christian traditions produce a stronger argument and edifies the entire church.

D. B. Hart's Eastern Orthodox perspective in That All Shall Be Saved compliments other perspectives such as Hans Urs von Balthasar's Roman Catholic perspective in Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved? With a Short Discourse on Hell, Rob Bell's evangelical perspective in Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, or David Congdon's The God Who Saves: A Dogmatic Sketch, and many, many more...

D. B. Hart's form of Universalism

In That All Shall Be Saved, D. B. Hart argues that Christian Universalism is the belief that all will be saved by Jesus Christ. Not all forms of Universalism are the same and D. B. Hart's exclusive Christian Universalism differents from other inclusive religious and philosophical forms of Universalism because he does not argue that Jesus is one of many ways that universal redemption is accomplished. In the same way, D. B. Hart's Christian Universalism is different from other heterodox forms of Christian Universalism such as Unitarian Universalism because he argues within the established boundaries of Eastern Orthodox theology.

D. B. Hart's specific form of Christian Universalism is known as Apocatastasis (or apokatastasis) and is a strict form of Universalism that argues that God must save all people as a Neoplatonist and panentheistic extension of God's nature being the ground of all goodness. Apocatastasis is explicitly mentioned in Acts 3:21 and is commonly translated as the 'restoration of all things' in most bibles. Apocatastasis theology was developed by the early church theologians such as Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, St. Isaac the Syrian, etc. (A handful of the 30,000+ Protestant denominations [1] oddly consider the biblical Apocatastasis to be heresy(!) typically based on misunderstandings of the ecumenical councils; D. B. Hart's Eastern Orthodox church—the oldest extant Christian tradition—participated in the ecumenical councils and has never condemned Apocatastasis!)

There are not many Catholics or Protestants that embrace Apocatastasis. Friedrich Schleiermacher's Universalism is one notable exception, but otherwise most embrace different forms of Universalism such as the "hopeful universalism" of Hans Urs von Balthasar's Dare We Hope? and Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics, because they believe that Universal Redemption should be a free choice by god (not something god is obligated to do) or because of the contradicting New Testament verses (some are double judgment like Matthew 25 and others are universalist like Romans 5). D. B. Hart explicitly rejects hopeful universalism because it is an implicit belief that eternal punishment may somehow be harmonized with the justice of God. D. B. Hart is not Christian Universalist like the realized eschatology of Rudolf Bultmann, David Congdon, (and arguably Karl Barth), which does not anticipate an afterlife or a future extension of life after death (or the last day).

D. B. Hart rejects all forms of eternal punishment and labels its defenders "infernalists." D. B. Hart rejects all free will arguments for eternal punishment (like C. S. Lewis' suggestion that the doors of hell are locked from the inside) because all free agents will ultimately choose what they determine to be good, and there is no other good other than god, so ultimately all will choose God. Likewise, D. B. Hart rejects the Augustine-Calvinist doctrines of election and predestination that God saves people regardless of their wills (and often contrary to it) based on a pretemporal divine decree because all will eventually will what is good, and that good is specifically identified with God (pace. Neoplatonism), and therefore to save someone against their will is not good because that person's will is destroyed and replaced by a foreign will (like a clone or Cylon).

D. B. Hart argues that the Greek words often translated as "hell" in the New Testament do not teach eternal punishment, and discusses the common arguments for hell, and also provided brief commentary on the hell prooftext. Hart argues that if these prooftexts have any literal implication of future punishment, it would be in the sense of purgatory for the goodness sake of every person. Hart concedes that one's conclusion about hell will cause a person to interpret supporting prooftexts literally and others figuratively. Hart also rejects all arguments that suggest that eternal punishment is a display of God's glory (like John Calvin), yet he lauds this as the best infernalist argument in a backhanded way.

Highlight #1. Augustine's Misericordes (The Merciful Hearted)

The All Shall Be Saved begins with a wonderful reference from St. Augustine, wherein he praises Christian Universalists and calls them 'the merciful hearted' (misericordes):

"There have been Christian 'universalists'—Christians, that is, who believe that in the end all persons will be saved and joiend to God in Christ—since the earliest centuries of the faith. . . . Augustine of Hippo (354-430) refered to such persons [universalists] as misericordes, 'the merciful-hearted'" [2]

D. B. Hart uses Augustine to frame is own admiration for Christian Universalists:

"It is my conviction, you see, that the misericordes have always been the ones who got the story right, to the degree that it is all true." [3] "When Augustine lamented the tenderheartedness, the misericordia, that made Origen believe that demons, heathens, and (most preposteriously of all) unbaptized babies might ultimately be spared the torments of eternal fire, he made clear how the moral imagination must bend, lacerate and twist itself in order to absorb such beliefs." [4]

Augustine is sadly villainized throughout the rest of the book, but the initial reference is excellent and reminded me of Oliver Crisp's chapter "Augustinian Universalism" in his Deviant Calvinism: Broadening Reformed Theology.

Highlight #2. Macarius, Francis Xavier, and Buddhist bodhisattva

The first chapter contains the horrific fable of the desert father Abba Macarius (c. 300—391) and his encounter with a speaking human skull of a dead pagan priest who is tormented in hell. D. B. Hart's description of the pagan high priest torments in hell and Macarius is one of the best sections of this entire book. Hart says that the skull of the tormented priest "recognized Macarius, and knew him to be a bearer of the Spirit, one whose prayers actually had the power temporarily to ease the suffering of the damned." [5] After the skull describes the momentary relief it experienced due to Macarius' prayers, Macarius had mercy and buried the skull. Hart concludes that "Abba Macarius was not only extraordinarily merciful but in fact immeasurably more merciful than the God he worshipped" [6]. The story demonstrates the absurdity of the infernalists arguments for eternal punishment.

D. B. Hart retells another similar story about a saint that is more merciful than the god he worshiped, "poor Francis Xavier, dying of exhaustion trying to pluck as many infants as possible from the flames of God's wrath." [7] Also, D. B. Hart laments that the bodhisattva of Buddhism has outdone Christianity in their decision to delay entry into nirvana in order to help others to enter nirvana too. He remarks about the bodhisattva that "It made me anxious that Christians were in danger of being outdone in the 'love and mercy' department by other creeds." [8]

Highlight #3. New Testament support of Christian Universalism

D. B. Hart has a long list of 20+ New Testament verses supporting Christian Universalism. Much of this is repeated from his The New Testament: A Translation. Hart includes the Greek original scriptures and then his own translation of them.

It's a helpful reference. Here is a list of the verses that are included (but it's better to buy Hart's New Testament):

Romans 5:18-19

1 Corinthians 15:22

2 Corinthians 5:14

Romans 11:32

1 Timothy 2:3-6

Titus 2:11

2 Corinthians 5:19

Ephesians 1:9-10

Colossians 1:27-28

John 12:32

Hebrews 2:9

John 16:2

John 4:42

John 12:47

1 John 4:14

2 Peter 3:9

Matthew 18:14

Philippians 2:9-11

Colossians 1:19-20

1 John 2:2

John 3:17

Luke 16:16

1 Timothy 4:10

Three Quotes Quoted by D. B. Hart

Here are three quotes from That All Shall Be Saved that were not written by Hart but were quoted by Hart in the context of his polemic that summarizes his perspective well.

D. B. Hart's Kierkegaard quote on the contradiction between justice and eternal punishment:

If others go to hell, then I will too. But I do not believe that; on the contrary I believe that all will be saved, myself with them—something which arouses my deepest amazement. —Søren Kierkegaard

D. B. Hart's George MacDonald quote that is an epitome of That All Shall Be Saved, which I loved because it contradicted Hart's toady Orthodoxy by praising his ironically Protestant sensei:

Who, that loves his brother, would not, upheld by the love of CHrist, and with a dim hope that in the far-off time there might be some help for him, arise from the company of the blessed, and walk down into the dismal regions of despair, to sit with the last, the only unredeemed, the Judas of his race, and be himself more blessed in the pains of hell, than in the glories of heaven? Who, in the midst of the golden harps and the white wings, knowing that one of his kind, one miserable brother in the old-world-time when men were taught to love their neighbors as themselves, was howling unheeded far below in the vaults of the creation, who, I say, would not feel that he must arise, that he had no choice, that, awful as it was, he must gird his loins, and go down into the smoke and the darkness and the fire, travelling in the weary and fearful road into the far country to find his brother?—who, I mean, that had the mind of Christ, that had the love of the Father? —George MacDonald

D. B. Hart's challenge to hope for Christian Universalism (despite his ironic condemnation of hopeful universalism):

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

Conclusion

I was unfair in my criticisms of That All Shall Be Saved as I read it, because I had expected it to be a remarkable new statement about Christian Universalism similar to David Congdon's The God Who Saves: A Dogmatic Sketch. If I had known ahead of time that this is an apologetic book on Christian Universalism written from an Eastern Orthodox perspective, then I would not have been as harsh (see my tweet threads below). I highly recommend D. B. Hart's That All Shall Be Saved so long as the following expectations are met:

First Expectation: D. B. Hart is an excellent writer but his flowery language in That All Shall Be Saved may cause readers to deem it too difficult to understand. D. B. Hart has an impressive command of English and other languages and is what made his New Testament: A Translation such an excellent bible. I prefer D. B. Hart's sesquipedalian vernacular but if you prefer simple English and pictures, then I'd recommend a different book, such as Rob Bell's Love Wins. (My point is that rejecting a book because it uses 'big words' is petty criticism.)

Second Expectation: As I said in the lede, D. B. Hart's That All Shall Be Saved is an apologetics book written from the confines of his traditional Eastern Orthodoxy theology, and if you are not within this demographic (or willing to join it) then expect to receive criticism. There are advantages and disadvantages to D. B. Hart's Eastern Orthodox paradigm:

The Advantage of the Second Expectation

The primary advantage is that D. B. Hart is not burdened by arguments against Christian Universalism that were developed by later Latin and Western Catholic and Protestant theologians, such as Augustine, Anselm, Thomas of Aquinas, and John Calvin. Hart primarily relies on the Greek patristics from the first centuries of the Christian church including Gregory of Nyssa, Origen, St. Isaac the Syrian, etc. D. B. Hart makes bold statements that Christian Universalism is an ethical imperative because he is not burdened by the magisterium like Hans Urs von Balthasar was in Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved? With a Short Discourse on Hell (ironically Hart's title is derived from it.) His Eastern orthodoxy perspective allows Hart to make bold statements that makes this book so great!

The Disadvantage of the Second Expectation

The primary disadvantage is D. B. Hart's debonair Eastern Orthodoxy hubris suggesting that all Western theology developed in the last 1,500 years is deformed and is dispensable. It is necessary to put up with Hart's regressive Eastern Orthodoxy toadyisms like the following: "And I could here, if I wanted to do so, play the loftily supercilious Eastern Orthodox and denounce these doctrine deformations as just so much Western Christian 'barbarism,' and then slowly, haughtily turn away and make my indignant retreat to the pre-Augustinian idyll of Byzantine theology." [9] D. B. Hart's retrogressive and recessive emphasis on the first Christian centuries of the Greek Church results in a minimal engagement with later theologians in other Christian traditions to criticism their theology as a departure from orthodoxy. For instance, D. B. Hart has hellish things to say about John Calvin (with some backhanded compliments) but he does not critically engage with the Reformed theologians Calvin's tradition produced such as Friedrich Schleiermacher, Karl Barth, Jurgen Moltmann, etc. It is sophomoric to dismiss the Reformed Tradition based on John Calvin's early development of double predestination alone without considering Karl Barth's fully developed reconstruction of Calvin. A reader may find themselves saying "What about Karl Barth?" many times. George MacDonald is one exception, and D. B Hart praises George MacDonald throughout the book.

Third Expectation: I do not believe Thall All Shall Be Saved is intended to be the definitive statement on Christian Universalism to aid Catholic or Protestants, and it is intended to show how Christian Universalism is defended from traditional Eastern Orthodox patristics.

That All Shall Be Saved is not an ecumenical and definitive statement on Christian Universalism for the entire Christian Church but it is helpful from its own perspective, because it is not burned by Augustine's Original Sin, Anselm's Satisfaction Theory, or John Calvin's Double Predestination, but ignore better arguments from Friedrich Schleiermacher, Karl Barth, or Jurgen Moltmann and others outside his tradition.

Despite the flowery language, That All Shall Be Saved has very few citations and references to other books and does not make remarkable new theological arguments. D. B. Hart is not writing ecumenical theology across all branches of Christianity like Georges Florovsky or Dumitru Stăniloae and he is not developing his theological tradition like Karl Barth improved Reformed Theology in new and exciting ways.

Appendix: @PostBarthian #ThatAllShallBeSaved Twitter Threads

As I read David Bentley Hart's That All Shall Be Saved, I posted twitter threads that summarized the section and included critical commentary. My tweets were too negative at times, but they were always sent from a point of critical appreciation, so please read them after setting the expectations I outlined at the beginning of this post.

Sources:

1. Atlas of World Christianity (2010) lists 38,000 protestant denominations in 4,000,000 independent congregations. The World Christian Encyclopedia, edited David Barrett lists 33,000 protestant denominations. Both sources are from protestant researches, and these numbers are cited by other protestant historians such as Mark A. Noll's Protestantism: A Very Short Introduction (p. 9)

2. David Bentley Hart's That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell & Universal Salvation, (Yale University Press, 2019), p. 1.

3. Hart. Ibid. p. 3.

4. Hart. Ibid. p. 76.

5. Hart. Ibid. p. 10.

6. Hart. Ibid. p. 11.

7. Hart. Ibid. p. 76.

8. Hart. Ibid. p. 15.

9. Hart. Ibid. p. 77.