A MORE CHARITABLE CHRISTIAN ESCHATOLOGY Attempts from the Victorian era to the present day to mitigate the problem of eternal punishment with particular attention to the teaching of T.R. Birks and its influence. Submitted to the University of Wales through the department of Religious and Theological Studies in the University of Wales College, Cardiff for the degree of M.Phil. By RAYMOND GWYN BROMHAM, 2000 172 SUMMARY The central purpose of this study is an assessment of the development of the Christian doctrine of eternal punishment from the early Victorian age to the present day. This has been done with a view to examining any drift from the traditional view, noting in particular how far this movement away from orthodoxy has been part of the thinking of those of an evangelical persuasion. The growth of other views such as universalism and conditional immortality (annihilationism) is traced, the latter being discovered as the increasingly more acceptable alternative for evangelical Christians than the conventional teaching of eternal conscious suffering for those believed to be finally rejected. Of the many nineteenth-century figures involved in this debate, T. R. Birks has been selected for closer examination, because of the somewhat unique character of his ideas on this doctrine and because of their disturbing impact on the Evangelical Alliance of his day. Similarly, the assessment of twentieth-century developments has focused on Henri Blocher, who, like Birks, has been noted for the rare view that those ultimately lost will acquiesce, despite their eternal suffering, in the righteousness of God, their judge. However, in the conclusion, one’s findings incline to conditional immortality as the more acceptable alternative view of eternal punishment, especially in the context of biblical teaching, theodicy and the promotion of the gospel. This opinion is endorsed by the fact many scholars and leaders of the evangelical sector of the church strongly favour the conditionalist stance. 173 Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The Victorian Debate: Everlasting Punishment Or Eternal Hope 12 Causes of this wind of change 13 Conditional Immortality: growth and consolidation 17 Opposition to conditionalism 30 Universalism: latent and explicit 32 Stronger universalism 47 A hesitant attempt to defend the traditional view 49 Classic evangelical defence of the traditional view 51 Chapter 2: T. R. Birks: (1) Victory: Hell Without Evil 55 Historical Background 56 “The Victory of Divine Goodness ” 64 Originality of Birks 66 “Difficulties of Belief ” 84 Chapter 3: T. R. Birks: (2) “This Painful Yet Interesting Controversy” 87 The role of E.H. Bickersteth 93 The coverage of the controversy in ‘Evangelical Christendom’ 97 Birks and F.D. Maurice 105 F.W. Grant’s critique of Birks 107 “Lux Mundi” and R.L. Ottley 113 Assessment 115 Chapter 4: Twentieth Century Developments, Particularly The Consolidation of Conditional Immortality Among Evangelicals 117 The pull towards universalism 174 117 A kinder hell and the missionary imperative 125 Mission, evangelism and the wider hope 127 The growth and consolidation of Conditional Immortality 130 Other advocates of conditionalism 138 Reaction against conditionalism 144 Wenham: the sequel 147 Continuing conflict and official consensus 148 Chapter 5: Henri Blocher: Birks Redivivus? 150 Blocher’s thesis: a re-appraisal of the traditional view 153 Blocher’s thesis: sin shall be no more 153 The contribution of C.S. Lewis 156 Conclusion: What more can He say . ? 159 Some reactions to Blocher’s theory 159 Pawson’s original contribution 160 Bibliography 172 175 INTRODUCTION In his discussion of Christian beliefs, the celebrated astronomer, Fred Hoyle, expresses his exasperation over the way Christians approach life after death: In their anxiety to avoid the notion that death is the complete end of our existence, they suggest what is to me an equally horrible alternative. If I were given the choice of how long I should like to live with my present physical and mental equipment, I should decide on a good deal more than seventy years. But I doubt whether I should be wise to decide on more than 300 years. Already I am very aware of my own limitations, and I think that 300 years is as long as I should like to put up with them. Now what Christians offer me is an eternity of frustration. 1 This ‘horrible alternative’ of heavenly frustration is a far cry from the terrible possibility of hellish torment, which has been the more usual cause for concern of those contemplating the next world. And when such a prospect is proclaimed by the Church, with the alleged support of Scripture and tradition, as an eternally conscious experience, the sense of outrage or hopelessness is unbearable for those lacking the assurance of God’s love. Certainly, the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation would consolidate such a reaction. However, acquiescence in despair for oneself or others has not been an option for a growing number over the last one hundred and fifty years or so, who have challenged the dogma of eternal torment, and who have sought alternatives more in accord with divine justice and human worth. The object of this study will be to consider such attempts of a growing body of Christians in this period to mitigate the horrors of eternal punishment, while seeking more humane ways of understanding the final judgement and while acknowledging the authority and full inspiration of Scripture. Granted the steady and powerful progress of the liberal and critical approach to Scripture and theology during the period under consideration, it has to be admitted that the growth of the challenge to the traditional doctrine of eternal punishment has virtually paralleled this less constrained attitude to the Bible and its teaching. As Leslie Houlden has observed: 172 In the matter of the integrity of doctrine, the effect of liberal thought has seemed to involve a gradual attenuation of the orthodox doctrinal ‘package’. First one, then another element has been challenged and apparently abandoned: the inspiration and authority of Scripture, the magisterium of the church, the incarnation, the Trinity, hell, life after death. 2 However, the misgivings of various evangelicals over this harsh dogma are hardly likely to have been the result of an erosion of their confidence in the Bible (including its teaching on the existence of hell), if the essential definition of evangelicalism is to mean anything. It cannot, then, be gratuitously assumed that denial of eternal punishment as traditionally taught goes hand in hand with a weak view of the inspiration of Scripture 3. Even so, the attempts of some evangelical Christians to mitigate the horrors of the traditional view of hell by promoting ideas such as conditional immortality (or annihilationism 4), have not met with the approval of fellow evangelicals or from others of a conservative doctrinal stance. The object, then, of this study or quest is to review and evaluate the progress of this doctrine from Victorian times to the present, particularly, but not exclusively, noting the interest and reaction of the evangelical fraternity. This will be done, then, in as broad a context as possible. Since the rapid growth of the tenet of conditional immortality in the nineteenth century and its consolidation in the second half of the twentieth century have 1 Fred Hoyle , The Nature of the Universe , Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1963, p. 123. 2 Leslie Houlden, Liberalism: Britain, Modern Christian Thought, Ed. Alister McGrath, Oxford, Blackwell, 1997 reprint, p. 322. 3 This can be seen again, e.g., in the doctrinal stance of the Christadelphians (originating in the middle of the nineteenth century) who have always held to the infallibility of Scripture despite rejecting eternal punishment (as well as other doctrines, such as the Trinity). Further, of particular note here is T.R. Birks , whose independent ideas on the future of the unsaved were considered unscriptural by some of his contemporaries in the Evangelical Alliance. Yet, far from abandoning the orthodox view of the Bible, he demonstrated [in his The Bible and Modern Thought , 1861] his allegiance to scriptural authority by mounting an assault on the notorious Essays and Reviews soon after its appearance. Published in 1860 Essays and Reviews was perhaps the earliest major and classical case of the liberal attempt to accommodate traditional belief to various aspects of ‘modern’ knowledge. 4 Early in the debate about eternal punishment, F.W. Grant assumed conditional immortality to be identical with annihilationism. See his Facts and Theories as to a Future State, London, Alfred Holness (or New York, Martin Cathcart), 1879, p. 5. This thesis virtually follows this view. Incidentally, Grant, a staunch evangelical traditionalist, cites the example of the unorthodox Christadelphians, to warn against entertaining ideas such as annihilationism (p. 8f). 173 proved to be of major significance in the history of modern evangelicals, this view will have to occupy a large part of this enquiry. The emergence of the Evangelical Alliance in 1846 promised a new stage in the promotion of unity among evangelicals. However, this aim was threatened by the unfortunate over-reaction to the views of T. R. Birks, general secretary of that body, almost a quarter of a century later. Our study will focus on this for good reasons. Because of the row over Birks’ apparent mitigation of the unproductive horrors of hell, his views do not appear to have been adequately considered at the time as another serious interpretation of the dogma. His theory seems to have resurfaced at the Fourth Edinburgh Conference on Christian Dogmatics in 1991, in the form of Henri Blocher’s lecture, indicating perhaps that its appeal is not exhausted. One has given extended consideration to the ideas of Birks, then, because his contribution to the debate has not received sufficient recognition or appreciation, in my opinion.