Episode 122: The Devil’s Redemption with Dr. Michael McClymond
Is even the Devil redeemed? Dr. Michael McClymond of Saint Louis University handles this question in the frame of the broader historical context of universalist doctrine in his book “The Devil’s Redemption” (Baker Academic, 2018).
Referred to as a “tour de force of academic theology” (Douglas A. Sweeney), McClymond’s “magnum opus” explores the history behind not only the widespread rejection of this doctrine by Christians but also those who have embraced and suffered for it.
As a professor of Modern Christianity (who received a PhD in Theology from the University of Chicago), McClymond’s insight is invaluable in understanding this doctrine and the place it has within historical theology.
Timestamps:
15:40- Purgatorial Process
19:47- Origen and Justice
37:15- The Third Tradition
44:58- Drama in Divinity
Episode Transcription
Charles Kim 0:01
Hello, and welcome to a history of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim. With me this week will be Dr. Michael McClymond. Dr. McClymond, published with Baker press a book called The Devil's redemption, a new history and interpretation of Christian universalism. It's a two volume work. And it is a tour de force for sure. It won the Book of the Year Award and academic theology from the gospel coalition. And I, it has been some time since I had wanted to interview Dr. McClymond. And we were only able to sit down recently. So I was very grateful to have him spend an hour, we talked through some of the themes from the book, and then some other kinds of interpretive questions that came from my reading of the book. So I think that you will enjoy this conversation, there's a lot to be learned from Dr. McClymond. And appreciate Baker, academic for sending me these volumes. We do have some conversations coming up. I have interviewed Mike hobbits again, about the nature of heaven have interviewed Stanley Hauerwas. Awesome, very excited about that. And actually, Grant Bell chamber, one of my students from St. Louis University, is also going to be coming on. And we hope to have a website up for the podcast before a couple of before too long. So lots of exciting things here happening at a history of Christian theology. So if you like this conversation, or if you liked the podcast, please do rate us and review us on iTunes. And if we also have a Twitter at theology, X IA n, we have a Facebook page. And we will also have the website soon a history of Christian theology.com. So you can also find us there. So thank you so much for listening and enjoy this conversation with Dr. McClymond. Very good. Well, I'm quite excited. This is a podcast long and coming. And I was able to Baker press provided me with a couple of copies of Dr. Michael McClymond. I don't actually remember your professorial title, your professor of theology, I can't read what your
Michael McClymond 2:17
professor of modern Christianity,
Charles Kim 2:19
modern Christianity at St. Louis University, and Dr. McClymond wrote, The devil is redemption, a new history of Christian universalism. It is two volumes. It is indeed a tour de force also received a Book of the Year award. A couple of different awards, I think, from this one's from the gospel coalition, but several awards, a very thorough study from sort of the origins of Christianity up through the contemporary moment. Dr. McClymond covers a lot of ground. And so I, you know, we won't be be able to talk about all of it, obviously. But, but hopefully, this will be a good conversation to kind of draw out some threads. And we'll get people to be interested in having their own look at this very comprehensive work. So, Dr. Climate, thanks for coming on.
Michael McClymond 3:11
It's good to be with you.
Charles Kim 3:14
Well, we could almost just start with the title, because I feel like, you know, this is the kind of thing that happens on Amazon or something like that, where people see the devil's redemption, a new history and interpretation of Christian universalism. And they might think that you're arguing for the devil's redemption. So why is the book well, and you probably didn't even choose the title. Did you visit Baker give me that title?
Michael McClymond 3:37
No, I chose the title. I always felt that a good title should raise a question in the mind of the person who encounters it. So I had a book on the life of Jesus, it was called a familiar stranger. It's a kind of an oxymoron. Oh, well, in what sense? Is he? Is he a stranger? I thought we all knew it. Well, he's familiar but he is also a stray so so I picked the devil's redemption. And it is a it is an ironic title because it it's not an affirmation, of course, it almost could put a question mark next to that is the devil redeem. If one believes that God has created the world in such a way that every thing that is turned all evil is ultimately turned to good. Then in principle, one has to include, even Satan, even Lucifer has to somehow turn back like the prodigal son back into the house of the Father with Christ and the elder brother standing at the door, as it were. And so the title is deliberately intended to raise that question. And also it does raise the raises issue to have not only human realm, but also spiritual powers. And there, sell salvation or solvability. Hmm,
Charles Kim 4:54
yeah. And that so that's, that is ultimately the question. So to Yeah, to what extent is universalism In a position that a Christian can or should hold, and I think I've heard you tell the origin story of the book, but it's a pretty fascinating story where you found a kind of Handbook of was it mysticism that ended up drawing together a lot of these threads when you were at at a library in Yale is that the kind of the, the genesis of the book?
Michael McClymond 5:23
Well, going back a little bit before that I you know, this the popular book, Love Wins by Rob Bell came out in 2011. And that did, I was provoked by that, because I saw how widely worldwide impact that particular book was having I remember going to the, the St. Louis bread, Panera Bread Company and seeing this group of circle Christian women, there were like a dozen of them, and they all had their copies of Rob Bell open. And then this was a cover story of Newsweek during Easter Week, you know, what if there is no hell and and I began checking with a number of theological friends and I found that there wasn't anyone who was really intending to write any kind of response. Of course, at that time, I had no concept of how complex the whole debate of Universalist and anti Universalist was through the you know, at some 1800 years, but when I when I got leave time, a sabbatical and I was a visiting fellow at Yale University, I was yes in the bowels of Yale Divinity School Library. And I had in my pocket, a handwritten list of Christian universities, some of them not well known, Jean led, in the 1690s formed the first actual organized group of universities. So this wasn't a private opinion of an individual but an organized Universalist group and heard of a predecessor of the later Universalist Church in the US, which was prominent 19th century. So her name was there, Valentina Valentyn, Tom Berg, a number of people were not that well known. I think shelling was there because of some of his writings as an idealistic philosopher seeing pointing toward a sort of universal convergence of all reality under under God in the end, and I was wondering what connected these thinkers to one another and then I pulled off the shelf, the dictionary of Gnosis and Western esotericism, VUDA Hana Graf seems fine, but no relation probably to Hank Hannah graph for those who know of his writing the Bible instrument. But his monograph was a professor at University of Amsterdam, and he had collaborated with someone from University of Paris, and there were these chairs of esoteric studies, not not theologians, they didn't have a dog in the fight, so to speak, in terms of any theological debate over universalism. But to my amazement, there was an article in that reference work on every one of the people on who are on my list of Christian Universalist. And I thought, there's hear these people are working outside of the sphere of theological studies who seem to see a, an affinity between the sinkers. And so that got me started and thinking about the the the larger argument of the two volumes.
Charles Kim 7:58
Interesting. And that sort of that serves as the backdrop of a lot of the first volume where you're just kind of beginning with the Gnostics. And so you sort of talk about the role that Gnosticism played in a kind of universalism. And then you trace that, like I say, all the way up to the present moment. So so why is it important for the argument of your book to show connections between the sort of the early Gnostics, and then these later esoteric assist? Why is that kind of that thread that runs through these sort of 2000 years? And actually part of the kind of what should we say? The the interest of the book is that you'd actually tie in to cannibalism. You tie it, in some cases, to forms of Sufism. So this is not even something that could be reduced to simply like a Christian question. This is much broader than that. So why why is it important for your argument to show that all of these things have sort of connections?
Michael McClymond 9:02
Well, I think, you know, I think genealogy is just as important to understanding and I and I realized that some of the Universalist who don't like the argument I presented or especially my conclusions, you know, argues, this is genetic fallacy. Why would just point out that Universalist have their own genealogy and local genealogy, Universalist genealogy, that to which mine is I guess a counter genealogy is that you know, the early Christian church was Universalist. And then along came Agustin and Augustine, Latin Christianity, this heavy legalistic view that sort of that sort of descended like night upon, you know, Western Christian. And while in the East there was this light of universalism, it continued to shine through the centuries. And so one of the reasons I approached in this way as I had to really take a large broad brush approach and a wide sort of wide angle, you know, response to the Universalist genealogy It has been gaining ground. And the longer I looked at it, I mean, I was astounded at the number of you know, of explicit anti Universalis, not just among Latin fathers, but Greek, Syriac Coptic, in, you know, the Christian east. So, if you want to understand, you know, the First Amendment to the US Constitution, if you'd study, you might study something like the framers of the Constitution, the framers of the Constitution, the history of the interpretation of that, and the Supreme Court, I think theology is similar, of course, I'm speaking to a historical theologian as you are. Dr. And I am new. And so we believe, as historical theologians, that the history of an ideas is, is quite pertinent to understanding it in the present context. And then as I delved into the history, I discovered, things that I didn't expect to be investigating, like Cobla, Jewish Cobla, which has a Universalist tendency is Gershom Sholem. The great authority pointed out also Islamic esotericism. That element of my argument, this sort of inner religious, that shows the esoteric dimension of Christianity, Islam and Judaism all sort of moving toward universalism. I think that's that's a sort of, it's not the the core of my argument, but it certainly is a corroborating factor.
Charles Kim 11:22
Yeah, yeah. It is. It's hard not to go on a tangent here. But I guess one of the things that your work has sparked a lot of controversy, I guess, is the reception that is received. But one of the things that you mentioned there, and I'm Augustine scholar, so I can't help but respond to it is Yeah, is this, like, you know, is that charge that somehow everything goes wrong? And Augustine, so people do love to talk about the connection among ideas. And I think that that's right, that we should see these connections. But yeah, it is. It is one of those things. So I've become recently I started a long story, but I recently started reading a lot of TF torrents, and his sort of the Latin heresy as he called it. And basically, you know, he just he wants to say everything goes back to Augustine. There's another lover of Eastern Orthodox theology, David Bentley, Hart, who does a similar thing. And anyone who sort of is on his side of the position always goes back to Augustine, like Augustine is the one where, like you say, everything goes awry. And even in popular treatments, you'll see every now and then someone will send me a New York Times article where someone's like, all our problems and sex, they go back to Augustine, all of our problems with this, they go back to Augustine, and like it
Michael McClymond 12:37
really compelling intro Hara.
Charles Kim 12:41
Yeah. So yeah, it is, it is such a weird, it is a weird thing about doing is studying Augustine is this, like, you know, he is the one that everybody wants to beat up on? And if you, it sort of seems like if you can take him down, then maybe you're getting somewhere, I guess. Well, so I guess as we're thinking about universalism, and so really, we're talking about universal salvation. So for for the for in when you're trying to draw out this genetic fallacy, like, what is it that? How can we say any more definitively about what the specific position is that people who are Universalist hold? Because like, to some extent, it does seem like they're, you know, we could talk like, before we were actually recording, we were talking about Bart, who has a different way of talking about, and actually never really quite once to say that everybody will be saved, although he's hopeful, you know, it's sometimes it's referred to as hopeful universalism. And is, you know, is that to be distinguished from even something like CS Lewis, in the great divorce, where, you know, there's a kind of like, continual chance, and a continual return to oneself, is sort of the implication of the allegory. You know, based on the famous line, the devil would rather reign in Hell than serve in heaven. And that sort of seems like there's like a kind of, or some people would say, an inclusive ism as well. And some of his other works. But yeah, so are we, how do we know when we've moved into like this category of Universalist rather than kind of, I don't know, more fanciful interpretations of, of a way to think about the separation between heaven and hell.
Michael McClymond 14:23
Okay, well, I mean, the universe is simply as someone who says, who have who affirms that all will finally be saved. So it's an affirmation about an ultimate outcome, not the particular process and of course, one major distinction to a couple of distinctions at the outset and I'll add a third one in based on your comment, but first distinction between inter religious universalism Christian so inter religious would be like the many paths up the mountain top that all lead to the same summit, the Jesus path, the Buddha path, the Mohammed trail as it were. I'm not what that Heck yeah, heck would be a prominent representative of that of that perspective. That's not my primary focus. I'm primarily focused on Christian universalism which would affirm that all ours will finally save and are safe to Christ. But they're, you know, there's a there's a major cleavage. And and I think a lot of people who affirm universal salvation, Christian universalism, have not maybe fully reflected on this question of, does everyone go immediately into the blissful presence of God? Or is there some intermediate state something like the Catholic purgatory? Not exactly like purgatory is but which is Catholic teaching is only for those who've been baptized right? In the name of the Trinity, but something like a purgatorial process and if you say that everyone goes immediately to be with God, then you know even to go back to the 19th century literature on this where people use the example of the murder suicide the man who murders his wife and children and then shoots himself sounds very contemporary, but hey, that was happening. And then it to someone use the example of the bank robber who wants to rob a million dollars and he his his his internal wager, is that kind of a Pascal's Wager, well, if I succeed, then I'll be a millionaire. And if I fail, then I'll be in heaven. So I can't really fail. So even if I'm killed in the process of, you know, shot down by the placement caught trying to do that. So the rank and file Universalists the ordinary people in the in the pew, they thought, they said there has to be some moral Nexus is a phrase that they use between our actions now and the actions beyond. If everyone Hitler, Mother Teresa, whoever you want to put fill in the blank is just immediately in God's presence, the moment they die, they thought, how could that not be morally corrosive in terms of any incentive to live, to live a righteous life and to obey God? So that's where this purgatorial intermediate state of however long duration might come in? The response to that from the so called Ultra Universalist was that this is a denial of God's grace. If Jesus death is the full and sufficient payment of the penalty for sin satisfaction of God's justice, then that then it's all taken care of there is no more condemnation. Condemnation ended when Jesus died on the cross until the ultra universe has a malt line, I think really isn't Ultra Universalist because he wants to insist that all condemnation was swallowed up on the cross. Now, Carl, Bart seemed to say something contradictory, because he said explicitly and Emil Brunner, one of his his his former friend, and had a falling out with and in the 20s and 30s in the 30s. But Brunner was a sharp critic, initially, a Bart's universal election doctrine. When Bart said that Jesus Christ is the only condemned man. He seemed to be saying that all condemnation ended at the cross. And then the question is, what is the nature of the Christian proclamation? Is it in any sense of call to decision human decision of faith and repentance or as an announcement of what God has already accomplished on behalf of all human beings without exception, and Barack kind of wanted to have it both ways all kinds of nation was taken care of at the cross, yet he there is what he calls the open situation of proclamation in which decisions are happening and have eternal consequences. And that seems kind of that seems, you know, Oliver, crisp, well known philosopher of religion argued that bar is ultimately kind of an incoherent position to suddenly tried to play with the notion of time and eternity to try to say no, and be taken care of. But somehow, there's still a decision yet, it's not just God's decision, but but we have a decision as well. So that's, you know, that's a challenge. You seem to be raising a question about high kind of actualized versus a hypothetical universalism. I think that that goes back even to the time of origin because there was a time there was a reported we don't have the full transcript of the debate video, but origin debated a acknowledged Gnostic named Candide us in which he said that even Satan, like could be saved or something like that. And that created an uproar and, and his origins response, he says, Only an a crazy person would say that that Saint will be saved as Satan but I think what origin probably met my my suggestion would probably be met that or that Lucifer would be with scrutiny that Satan would be saved as Lucifer as the original unfallen Angel because he wouldn't be restored to that original condition. So but that's a hypothetical that's, in my view, that origin probably affirm both the hypothetical and the actual in the sequence of eons, world eons that finally, even Lucifer in fact, would be safe.
Charles Kim 19:47
Yeah, well in Yeah, so I guess I probably put too much in there. But I was trying to, you know, sort of, part of what I was trying to ask and sort of think through is, is yeah, how different thinkers kind of parse this and Your your response raised a lot of interesting questions. But one of them is like, yeah, it does seem like in sort of origins outlook, and especially as you just elucidated it there. There's a whole different notion of what justice is for. And that is to say, you know, you like the sort of the quick descriptors might be restorative justice versus retributive justice. And you talked about all condemnation on being consumed in Christ. But it does raise the question like, yeah, is, is justice simply, you know, God's like, I guess it's sort of like, we don't need any more explanation that then God judges sin and condemn sin. And so in that sense, there's like, it is retributive it is paying what is do, but there's nothing else that needs to kind of be explained. Whereas restorative justice, it seems to me breasts more on the notion that justice is in service of, of restoration is in service of something better, which is sort of a return to God or return to wholeness. And so that Justice kind of has a has that sort of purpose. And so I don't know like and you're like, and this is more of a your own theological position, which towards the end of the book, you really kind of bring your position. So do you think that you can hold a restorative kind of justice position and still be an infernal list? Or does the wrist or a particular list or whatever the phrase is that we're supposed to use on this? You know, I hear people call it a different thing. But if you believe in hell, D, can you have a kind of restorative person purpose of justice? Or does it have to just be this kind of retributive justice?
Michael McClymond 21:44
Well, I would, I would say that if your position is that all divine, you know, judgment, have this have the sole purpose of restoration. I think it's very difficult to believe in in anything other than a temporary hell, it'd be very hard to just reconcile that with an eternal hell the way I would think in terms of restorative justice. And maybe this seems like of shifting into a different register but, but in terms of what the tome is called the antecedent and consequent wills of God. Scripture says God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And that's an in First Timothy and in Second Peter, it says that he got his patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. The Calvinists interpretation of that those verses of common Calvinists irritation, I don't really find very satisfying at all means some select within humanity and that particular text, I think, I'm perhaps a little bit more Thomistic than Calvinistic in the way I would read that I think there is a universal intention. At the same time there is particularistic election now that's that's, that's paradoxical. Matt levering has done a book on his autonomous to Catholic thomist on this and said that basically, these are two different affirmations in Scripture, the universal scope and intention. And that, in a sense, is like restorative justice. Yes, God, God's intention is the reparation of the cosmos, to call an alarm to use the Jewish term. But sin, I think it's easy to underestimate the extent to which sin is like a rip in the fabric of metaphysically of the universe, it's a profoundly disruptive thing. And to get the emotion to communicate something of like maybe the on an emotive level, it's like the loving husband with his wife, who is really convinced that everything is wonderful, and the marriage would come back from a wonderful vacation. And then he she goes out and he finds opens a drawer that he hadn't looked in and he sees clear, no undeniable irrefragable documentary evidence that she's been conducting an affair with his his own best friend, right? And so what if he doesn't stop loving his wife at that moment, but it's a conflicted love, because He there's on the one hand, his love and his loyalty for her but then the sense of repulsion because of the nature of the infidelity and the deception and and he sees the dates on the documents. He sees how long this has been going on. And I think something that comes through in the representation of Yahweh in the Old Testament, like in the book of Hosea, where he he says that you know, that he's debating whether he will give Israel up and he said, I will not give you up for I am the holy one in your midst. It's really interesting because in that context, the holiness is not destructive judgment. It's God's forbearing from judgment. Yeah, because he is a holy one therefore, Israel's not destroyed. But those the tension between God's loyalty he is he is perfectly loyal to to that which He has created, not to annihilate not to destroy his purposes for good but God is also completely consistent with his own moral character, his holy hatred of sin, that he that is utterly opposed to him. And I, I think really any, any adequate theological approach to universalism has to put the cross at the very center because the cross is where the love and the justice of God intersect. We're gonna prove holy love and, and hope and God's Holy, holy justice come together. I brought together a group of about 50 local pastors, and they were talking about universalism as a pastoral issue, like what to say to congregants, and when this came up, and I had them work on it in small groups, and what they came back to me is, they ended up with the same conclusion that I did, as working pastors, serving congregations in our area that, that preaching the cross in its full depth and reality and all the different dimension to this was maybe the best way to dress universalism in a less abstract way, not not so much like well, should God have created the world, the way that he did create the kind of possible worlds argument, this is a little more grounded, let's think about the world that we live in. And, and the fact that redemption came in this very costly way through Jesus, you know, son of God shedding his own blood, I think that that kind of puts, you know, puts into perspective, both the gods opposition to sin, and but his gracious Well,
Charles Kim 26:25
yeah, yeah, well, and I think that's helpful, right. And so we've been talking about what happens at the cross. And you sort of had that notion of ultra Universalist versus the Universalist in the pews. And what's interesting is, I think there's impulses that are correct in both of those. I don't know how you'd respond to this. But, you know, it's like, I sort of understand why people want to say, well, there needs to be some kind of punishment that still happens. Or let's not call it punishment, but let's call it restoration, like so if the if sin is a corrupting force in humans, such that our will is so perverted, we don't love the right things we need to have that will restored so that it loves properly, what it should love. But it seems like that can't happen in a moment or can't happen in an instant. Where, like, you know, and what's that?
Michael McClymond 27:14
You know, that's, that's right. Yeah. I mean, you could say, well, maybe the heart of Otto Hitler, or Joseph gurbles, or whoever you want to take Pol Pot or, you know, whatever person responsible for the deaths of many people, what if it just changed in an instant becomes Yeah, becomes, you know, becomes completely sanctified or well, then there was a philosopher who made the argument of in regard to the Universalist position that, that it seems to the positions, you've seen the gate are moral choices. Now, he uses the absurd example of the McDonald's drive thru and he said, you know, you order a shake, and you drive through, you get a fish sandwich, you order a Big Mac, you get a fish sandwich, you order a Coca Cola, you get a fish. Now, it was the kind of like, you know, it doesn't doesn't matter what you've chosen, God's giving you a fish sandwich.
Charles Kim 28:03
Yeah, well, and that, I mean, that's ultimately why, you know, at least personally, I find, you know, when I think about hell, it's why the, you know, the only way that makes the most sense to me is CS Lewis's position, which is like where, essentially, CS Lewis says, God gives you what you want. And so you know, and they're like, so if I'm going to think of, you know, think in those terms, like that's, you know, that's the one that at least can satisfy my intuitions, that that you know, that God gives us exactly what we want. And and we'd rather, you know, again, going back to that rain in heaven, a reign in Hell versus serve in heaven. You know, at least I understand that as a kind of explanation.
Michael McClymond 28:44
But if I wanted to press back a little bit of Lewis, I think Lewis works apologetically. There are aspects of the gospel narratives like the foolish virgins, who are knocking and trying and Matthew Matthew 12, trying to get into the feast and are turned away. That suggests that seems to be a little bit in tension with the idea of getting what they want, are they really getting what they want? Kind of we just want to be left alone. It's not kind of what that parable. Satan is also said to be he doesn't walk willingly and he's thrown, you know, into the lake of fire. Bolo is the Greek word. Get, I don't want to, for that, or imply that, that we can completely figure this out. But there's there questions about about that construe of it like it being being about, you know, voluntary, voluntary state.
Charles Kim 29:38
Yeah. Well, and then But then, you know, sort of go back on the other side of this, like, the, the sort of ultra Universalist saying that God can do it in an instant, some ways of speaking about sort of, sort of alien gray. Yeah, alien grace or alien or sorry, alien righteousness, you know, in this sort of Reformed way, you know, I mean, Augustine was, you know, different than at least as I understand Augustine very different here, right? He he thinks that we can all ultimately work to merit salvation when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit. Right. So this is sort of the the tow mystic interpretation of Agustin on this, as I understand it, but but it's a sense
Michael McClymond 30:17
of crowds his gifts rather than our pets. And there's a sense in which it's, yeah, it's God's work in us that God is acknowledging rather than a independently generated more Palladian type of human achievement.
Charles Kim 30:31
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But then the sort of Lutheran, like, as in what Luther would have said, seems to be that, no, God just looks at us as just but it doesn't. It's hard for like, the one thing and I had Philip carry on here talking about the meaning of Protestant theology. And he gave an interesting answer to this, but when I, you know, so, but so I suggest listeners read both read his book or here, listen to that podcast, but But I sort of was having trouble with, you know, it does seem like we want to say there is some kind of sanctification or there is some kind of, like, restoration. But But sometimes the way that that sort of the the theology of justification, it makes it look like, you know, we are just in the moment, and that there isn't this kind of further work towards restoration. Yeah, so anyway, so like, I sort of, I sort of get why, you know, that's one thing that I'm always trying to like, sort of puzzle through, how do those things hold together? Because I like the Thomistic, and even Augustinian work of habituating in virtue, but but it doesn't seem like sometimes the way of understanding alien righteousness actually fits with that as well.
Michael McClymond 31:42
Yeah, well, I think that the reformed have more of a process rather than state status view of salvation, reformed. Most reformed thinkers are a little closer to Catholics in that respect. One of the related issues that may be worth mentioning here is the notion of purgatory. I have a I have a critique of the purgatorial notion, generally and of course, Purgatory, there's purgatory a and I call it purgatory to pick purgatory B, which has emerged recently in Catholic thinking is quite extraordinarily different. I mean, I can space Salvy of Pope of Pope Benedict the 16th, he says a purgatory does not necessarily have duration, it may just like just be a flash in and one would be transformed. One would not have to endure, you know, ongoing pain and suffering. And it's almost it makes me think of the New Testament verse that, that you know, we shall, we shall not all die, but we shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye, it's almost like a twinkling of eye transformation. There's very little to separate it from really from Protestant theology, because in Thomas Aquinas, Purgatory is almost like a lesser held, it's characterized, it's temporary and duration, but it involves suffering, and involves a painful process of making satisfaction for since and the issue that I that I have with this is that I think the contemporary reappropriation of purgatory wants to talk about as a time of a situation circumstance, however, you understand the place of space, the situation of moral development. So the moral development that you don't have in this life would be achieved in Purgatory, and I don't see how the traditional purgatory of just being immersed into pain, painful fire, I don't know how that improves someone morally, because moral development suggests that there's some field of action and I choose. And then I experienced the consequences of my choice. This is how a child burns, like the burned child fears of fire, you know, they they disobey the parent, they reach out, they touch the hot stove, ouch, they're not going to do that again. And I think that kind of process. So what I argue with regard to purgatory is that you would almost need to replicate the present life with its field of action and in making of moral choices, and then experience consequences in order for it to be continued moral development, which means I'm not arguing in favor of re of trans migration or reincarnation. But in some ways, that actually makes more sense because it's like you don't learn in the first lifetime, you get a second lifetime and however many lifetimes are necessary. And in fact, that's one of the versions of universalism that goes back to ancient times the carpet core audience, the first dateable reference to Universalist belief is an erroneous and he's it's because he speaks of also the carpet quads believe all souls will be saved. And it's in terms of repeated incarnation, that that comes up again with the Cathars in the Middle Ages of the cuts are regarded as a heresy, of course, by the Catholic Church, and then in Qabalistic thought the idea of multiple lives, but I I have difficulty comprehending how purgatory is really an answer to the issue of, let's say, moral turpitude, in the life of the individual at the moment of their death. Awesome. Yeah.
Charles Kim 35:03
Well, one one question I like to ask guests and actually haven't asked that in the last couple of interviews, but it just made me think you spent, you know, several years at least, and a lot of work on this book. So one question I just like to ask, and it does, this actually doesn't have to be about the book. But I say what is one idea or truth that you once believed was true, but now believe is false, or vice versa. And so a lot of guests that I have on the podcast will relate it to the book that they were writing, like something that they were surprised to find, and it changed their whole perspective on something within the work. But then I've also had other people's talk about like, choosing a different college or other things that are totally unrelated. So I'll open that up to you. What's one thing you've changed your mind on that you thought was true, but now think is false, or vice versa with the book or in life?
Michael McClymond 35:52
Hmm, well, it's great question. Let's see. I think I was I clearly was, when I began to do the research. I was unaware of what Sarah Oh, Regan of Notre Dame calls the third tradition. He refers to conservative or traditional Christian theology in here, he's going across the century. So that would include early church and Protestant, Catholic Orthodox, and then the liberal or revisionist tradition. And this third tradition, which is a esoteric, kind of Christianity, which isn't esoteric readings of Scripture, they're not they don't really fit into the category of what could be considered liberal or conservative. And that's, it's not really taught in the seminary. I mean, it's sort of like in like, the, you know, some of my PhD students, you know, we're joke that I had a Burma centric worldview, you know, naming that after Yucca Burma you know, the, the mystical cobbler of Girl It's, but I found that this figure Burma whom, on whom, Cyril Regan wrote a significant monograph, he calls him the alpha point for the reintroduction of Gnosticism, into modern culture, but you can start with Burma and then find all these lines radiating out. Paul Tillich who, you know, maybe not as prominent as he was 20 3040 years ago, but twice on the cover of Time magazine often considered one of the second maybe the second most influential theologian of the 20th century after Karl Bard maybe call Ron or two but Tillich said that he was you know, that Burma was his intellectual grandfather through his his through shelling. This study wrote two dissertations on shelling and shelling was a Burmester. And then Carl, Gustav Jung, the, you know, the essence the the psychologist and, and mythological thinker was was very much in league with Burma. William Blake, the poet so their poetic expressions of Burma's um, their, their philosophical, their, their psychological and their theological. So he's one of the most important figures that very few people actually even hear about in the course of a seminary degree and study. So I had not
Charles Kim 38:09
heard his name until I read your books.
Michael McClymond 38:13
Yeah, so so. And he's he's a difficult writer because he combines astrological and alchemical with biblical symbolism. And there's a kind of jumble of all these things. These things together, but remember, Burma's is sort of in the background, and now ironically, Brahma was not a Universalist, he, he seemed to think there was this eternal contrast of light and darkness that remained forever. But what happened is, I argued that the Burma's ultimately were unhappy with that idea of this sort of eternal dichotomy. Instead, they saw the lightest sort of overcoming the darkness. And so almost all the Burma's followers became Universalist. At the starting the starting point is, is this crisis that happens within god, this is this is the this is the non essential Gnostic idea that there is a crisis within the divine, and some kind of a split that occurs, and then this leads to the creation of the material world, but then there's a return movement of coming back. And my argument is not that, you know, origin was agnostic. I never claim that. But I say that there's an analogy between this sort of three tripartite unfolding of a pre existence date, an earthly embodied state, and then a return again to origins. So there's an analogy between that what you find in the Gnostics like Valentinus, and the later Gnostic thinkers, so called New Age thinkers of the 1980s and 90s. That would say that, you know, our souls are sparks of the Divine and I use the analogy in the book of a helium balloon in your chest and the moment you die, the balloon gets released, so it returns to Senator but, of course, that would be if you if you believe that that means that were saved because kind of according to our physical nature, what we are it isn't a, there's not a choice involved in really doesn't depend so much on Jesus, maybe Jesus is the one who came to teach us about the helium balloon in our chests to teach us that we all have the spark of the divine and that once that's released, it will return once again. So that that kind of pattern is the one that just is surprisingly pervasive. And at the risk of being controversial. I think some of the, you know, my my leading critic, which would be David Bentley, Hart, some of the directions he's going in his newer theological work seem to me to confirm this connection between universalism and esotericism, when he's talking, calling his view Vedantic Christianity and then calling himself a Monus. Now, that's well, the real the real strength of the universe's argument is really this this notion that if my inner innermost self, Soul spirit, whatever you want to call it is one with God. How can God forever remain unreconciled to himself, must that spark of the divine within a must have not returned to God and be reunited. And in this sense, you know, origin said the end is like the beginning. Or you could use a little bit more elaborate language say that the proton ology determines the eschatology that that which has come out from God must come back to God and so there's a metaphysical Miss necessity of this return happening. It doesn't hang by the slender thread of the human decision one way or the other. It must have it must happen. Another you could use this is a recycling operation, you know, we throw our our aluminum cans and our plastic and our paper together if we think if that's like body, soul and spirit, the body doesn't matter for the Gnostics. But if this it's the soul, the spirit is like the aluminum can the aluminum cans get they go back to the redemption center, they get recycled. And so they, you know, they're not they go back to their place, their proper place.
Charles Kim 42:08
Yeah. I've Yeah, a lot lots of straights of thought there. I was just rereading Wendell Berry's, the Unsettling of America. And in that he talks about how sort of modern industrial life assumes production consumption waste. And then he says, but the natural way of things is sort of like, essentially production, consumption and return. And so they're Yeah, they're like, and he's not arguing any kind of metaphysical necessity. But I do think, you know, there's, there is sort of a net, you know, you can I understand, like, we have a garden, and we have chickens. And so one of my favorite things about it is, whatever we eat and don't consume, we return or the scraps we return or the chicken poo, it goes into the garden. And so we're able to have a little bit of that sort of cycle. But I don't know that that means isn't that metaphysical necessity, but it just was one thing. It
Michael McClymond 43:06
was wonder about the souls of those chickens won't go there.
Charles Kim 43:12
Yeah, well, yeah. I always, whenever someone asked me about this, I CS Lewis has something and the problem with pain, about the saving, you will be saved you and your household. And he says domesticated animals are part of the household. And I don't know if I again, if I mess up, I think that this is necessarily true or something. I just also like it, because I love my dogs and my chickens. So you know, there was
Michael McClymond 43:35
a Pew study done recently. And it's like 20 to 30% of American professing Christians in America believe that their pets will be with them in heaven. So you're not alone in that hope or expectation?
Charles Kim 43:47
Well, and actually that that teases a guest, there's some theologian McCobb, Mike hobbits, who's in New Zealand, he's coming on the podcast next week to talk about a book he wrote on heaven. We actually had him off on to talk about TF Torrance and Theosis. And so I really, I really liked talking with him. So I'm looking forward to that one. Well, and the other thing that you were just mentioning at the end, though, was some it was it was about this sort of cleavage in God or this sort of problem in God, where then that's the beginning of this descent and then return. And that kind of one of the big takeaways and even sort of, I think, kind of one of your, your, like, reasons for being suspicious about a lot of these universal isms, as you say that you return drama into the divine. And so it seems like this is one of your key reasons for being so you know, arguing against universalism is because what it actually does, it sort of ruptures or disrupts or unsettles what, for Augustine to return to my favor. I have is ultimately what makes God rest is because God is simple because God is unmoved because God is who God is without change or alteration. And that ultimately is comforting to him. And so one of your fears is that in this sort of unit and the theology that supports the universalism, we return to, or we have this idea of a rupture and a drama in divinity. So could you sort of say more about why that's so problematic? Yeah. Well, universalism leads to that specifically. Yeah.
Michael McClymond 45:32
You know, I believe there's drama, but I believe I would side with with Iran as I think Iran as his great burden in the second century as he battled against Gnosticism, which was really at a at that point by the in the 160s, once and I think kind of attempting to gobble up Christianity and into what in fact, was kind of a evolved form of late antique paganism, of many different deities, many spirit beings, complicated mythological systems. And what was happening is the locus of salvation was shifting from the earthly to this otherworldly realm, you know, so that rather than preaching the Gospel, Jesus was born of a virgin, live the earth, you know, walk the dusty roads of Galilee, died on the cross rose, that tomb was empty, he rose again. Instead, let me tell you about the primal og dwad, you know, the the eight primal principles and then Sofia's, longs to gaze into the into the depths of booth OS, which means depth into the depths and in conceives the child out of whether herself and falls and the earth as crazy as his mythological system. And so, I think that the instinct and Aaron asked is correct, that is that salvation happens down here, not up there. And this is essential to any kind of incarnational biblically based, Judaic rooted incarnational faith. If you walked up to the cross and wring your hands up and down, you would have gotten splinters in your hands. It's and and we are saved in our material physical conditions of life because salvation happened there. And that's why I get very nervous. I respect Hans urs from balsas are to take a prominent example of someone who I think there's a great deal to learn from but when he starts talking about the beef before Jesus, there's the aurka, Gnosis this primal stuff, stripping of divinity the father strips himself of all of his divinity in order to be get the sun. There's a logic of paucity and scarcity. And I rather than a kinetic you I would take a play Radek view, as I read the the Nicene Creed God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God begotten made, there is an overflow of the fullness of who the father the not that I can mentally comprehend what exactly is meant by the beginning of the sun, I think I'm I'm with Gregory and ezines. And I think we need to reserve an apophatic reserve about that. But so far as we can understand it at all. It's not like two glasses, I have an empty glass and a full glass and I empty one glass and I one's half full, the elders have, the father doesn't lose anything and be getting a son but the overflow of the life of the Father eternally. This the son depends on that. And then the Holy Spirit is the second you know, it's a further movement beyond that. So. So this idea of, of division within God, scarcity, conflict, the Burma's believe in conflict actually Qabalistic thought the emanations of the left and emanations, the right and they're at odds with one another, and that the conflict spills over into the material world, and then the resolution of the conflict in God brings the reconciliation in the material. So that's the logic played out not with precisely the same terms precisely the same context. But again, and again, there's an analogy to that that's happening. And I it's been surprising to me, the extent to which contemporary theologians have have embraced have embraced this idea. Bruce Marshall, who I rely on fairly heavily and argue that he argument that he did on the absolute and the Trinity in in one it's cited in the literature in my book, but he has a whole argument about a kind of hey, Galleon isation up to 20th century theology, in which God only becomes God through this othering God has to be othered in some sense, and then reconciled back to God's own self for God to be God. And so it's a it's a kind of moralistic unfolding that's certainly I mean, bosses are accused you know, Moltmann of rampant a galleonism to use this phrase but I think both is or has some have his own problems too. And and I think Bart's election doctrine he builds a kind of drama within God into that election doctrine. So it's occurring in a different under a different rubric or different doctrinal loci. But it's there as well. So what's the alternative that while Augustine talked about the tranquility, tous, ordinate, ordina ordinance, right, the tranquility of order, that doesn't mean that God is static, God is a living God, symbolized by the burning bush, which is forever, in one sense, while Gregory of Nyssa at this point, I like his phrase about the moving rest. It's paradoxical because the, the eternal the burning bush is, is continually moving but not consumed. So it has that element of rest of stasis together with element of movement. So God is a is a living God, not a static inert God. But But God, as Father, Son, and Spirit are in full agreement for covenant if you want to use the Calvinistic kind of language covenant agreement with one another, the works of the Trinity, External Works are undivided their works of the Father, Son, and Spirit. And so we're not to set them against one another, as I think seems to be happening in the more going ized interpretations. Yeah,
Charles Kim 51:17
yeah, there's that that's really it's really interesting. There's a lot in there, right, you know, and I was hearing echoes of Yeah, of your last chapter in your discussion of Bard. And also, I mean, I went to Princeton seminary for my M div. So little set, you know, I actually took all my classes with Huntzinger rather than McCormick but McCormick has a new book out on the humility of Christ, and what that means are and what that means for his sort of interpretation of of Christology, which I think sort of even leans more into this, you know, the election of God and God's being. So I think he's, it seems that I haven't read it yet. But from what I, from what little I've heard about, it seems like he's leaning, sort of leaning even more heavily into that.
Michael McClymond 52:05
Yeah, yeah. There's a very complicated set of issues with regard to the, the preexistent Christ and humanity as a humanity as if Jesus Christ is the electing God. Does that mean that that God chooses his own being to become God and all those kinds of
Charles Kim 52:26
I'm not sure that I still understand it right now. But it Yeah, it was one of those things that was going on while I was there, but
Michael McClymond 52:33
Britain analogies to the kind of the, you know, some scholars talking about the always already, kind of the always, if divine manhood is always already now that's what you have in sociological understanding. And also in Cobla, you have Adam Kadmon, each human soul is sort of like a twig as it were broken off from, from the Divine tree. And so the unity is already achieved. That to me is not the era Nan or the Athanasian, or the generally the early Christian understanding in which the unity of God and humanity is enacted, The Word became flesh that happens at a particular point, before Mary conceives in her womb, a new that reality that begins at that point was not had not yet been achieved. And this is I'm just arguing what Bruner said to that he was concerned that, that Bart's idea of the his denial of the Lagace asarco see unflashy, or non incarnate log us ran the risk of denying the event character of of salvation. And if you deny the event character, then it seems like we have some kind of perennial truth that, you know, that is all true in all places in all times, and we're not actually any longer proclaiming a specific act that you know, that that you know, who came you know, for us and for our salvation came down from heaven, it became incarnate for the Virgin, but the whole structure of the Creed is the structure of it to sequential seek, you know, a series of events in which God has acted, I'm trying to sound like that, you know, God acts in history, but there's an element of that to us. There's a I'm not an anti I'm not an anti metaphysical type. I think that Christianity raises ultimate questions of metaphysics and requires us to think about being and but I don't think we can, we can simply take the gospel and make it a make it a metaphysic and that I think, is kind of at risk right now in some of the trends that are happening with with with heart and with Milbank, and with some of the others.
Charles Kim 54:39
Yeah, so yeah, it seems like one of the refrains that was sort of interesting and you use this earlier but Yeah, is this is ultimately one question that seems to be being sort of a clips are overlooked is the goodness of creation. You know, it's some of this is just, you know, why, you know, and, and, and you can sort of see why it for Gaston that was a hard thing to understand as a Platanus. Like so you know, and I think Augustine has a lot more Platonism than people realize. But one of his big, you know, one of his big, one reason why he rejected Platonism, in at least in part was the incarnation. And the Incarnation just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to him in terms of God becoming one with flesh, if that flesh is ultimately bad, or, you know, something else like that. And so I think there's, you know, that kind of wanting to honor the goodness of creation, and the goodness of God becoming human. That was part of even a way in which I said, was rejecting some of, of his sort of the Platonism that he had embraced for a while.
Michael McClymond 55:46
If you start with the Platonic metaphysic, where there are only two kinds of things, that there are the things that are uncreated and eternal, and then there are created and temporal, temporal slash perishing, if those are the only two categories, and you say, what about the body? Well, the body clearly has temporal perishing. And if you follow the logic that out, you end up with a spiritual body that has almost no relationship to the material world, which of course, is we, you know, origins treatise on the resurrection parish, we don't have a copy of that. But some people think that some of that we have enough and they vary the periodic on the on first principles to see where he's going. But then so then what about what about this the human self, innermost self, spirit or rational nature? Well, you might say it had to, if it's in that category of, of, you know, of eternal, it had to pre exist the body and exist after the body, and it will never perish. There's a kind of logic of universalism that comes out of a strict, strict, platonic view. And my little, little snippet of argument regarding Augustine, I draw not so much on the later books of the City of God that got all the attention about the nature of hell, and punishment, and so on. And but I look at the earlier critique of Platonism. And essentially, Augustine introduces a new category that which is created in in time, but will never come to an end. So if you're thinking in terms of geometry, there's like a point in and then there's like the line, right, that goes in both directions, this, this would be a ray, you put a point on Play, and then you draw the little arrow coming out from that, he said, The beatitude of the saints begins at a point in time, and they will never come in again. So he's pushing back against a platonic metaphysics at that point. He's, he's, he's adapting, altering it to, to subserve his reading of Scripture.
Charles Kim 57:44
And the last thing that I you know, it's just something I puzzle over every now and then, you know, is why people who are who embrace a form of universalism, why do they respond to people who, you know, hold to the, like, the teaching of hell? Why is it so vague? Like, like, so angry, I get it, you know, it always ends. It seems like it always ends in like, people getting very, very upset. And, you know, sort of, like, I mean, you know, obviously, David Bentley, Hart would be in this category. And, you know, one thing you email me was his response to Edward Feser. And that's still ongoing. But it's, it gets, it gets very, like, you know, I don't know, overheated to put it lightly in the rhetoric. And I've never quite I mean, other than the fact that that's kind of how David Bentley Hart writes, although he we had him on the podcast, and he's very nice when he talks to people, you know, but but when he like, sometimes when he puts his pen to paper, to go, you know, go after his interlocutors and there are others. It just it gets so fierce and I like I've never understood why. I mean, if we all ended up here one way or another, why do we have to be so angry about it now?
Michael McClymond 59:01
Well, you're echoing the point that I made in my you know, my online review of Hart's book when the essay I wrote for gospel coalition that also be saved that particular book. And and I found a lack of congruence between the thesis of the book and the tenor of the book, the emotional tenor, because if even the misguided Calvinists and the narrow minded Thomas are all going to be sharing an eternal salvation along with atheists, Buddhists, agnostics, Muslims, you name it. Small you know, African traditional religion is everyone is included. Why wouldn't that give you a? If I if I really believed that? Wouldn't that free me from having to feel that I was at odds with anyone it's like, okay, you know, if I were the universe's and Chad, you argue against me, I'd say I could smile and say, Chad, you know, you're going to understand eventually everyone will Understand, have a nice day, you know? Yeah. And I, you know, I? So I don't I don't quite get that and I'll try not to draw any psychological illusions entitled to draw about about an author who's who's angry while they're arguing, yes, yes, you will be saved, you know, you made me mad by denying it, and everyone's gonna be safe. Why can't you accept that? Okay, that's like, but I, in my review, I do question whether he's completely convinced of his own position because again, I just don't see the, the the attitude of of, of have would not be joyful, I would feel joyful. And yeah, if it were somehow conceivable, yeah. And you know, my faith based on Scripture and Christian tradition and obviously, direct experience the world led me to the conclusion that everyone is turning will turn finally to Christ and everyone will be included in in the in the community, that would be a positive thing. Yeah. I'm arguing against the shot and Freud argument that David put in his New York Times editorial that basically Christians believe in hell, because they, they, there's a part of them that enjoys the thought of people suffering. And that of course, it's it's an astounding claim to make. Because the people who have held the traditional view of humanity, we're talking about billions of people through the last 2000 years. So you're like, like, you'd have to be claiming that you knew what was in there. What was unexpressed in the minds of all these different people in all these different cultures and places around the world? That's a pretty astounding assertion.
Charles Kim 1:01:40
Indeed. Well, I really appreciate you taking an hour out of your time. Dr. McClymont. This has been an enlightening conversation, and enlightening read. And so like I said, just want to thank you so much for coming on. And also working with me through the, you know, technical difficulties and personal difficulties. And, yeah, so thank you very much.
Michael McClymond 1:02:07
If I can put in a 22nd plug, I have a new book out next year will press it's a general introduction to Christian spirituality called martyrs, monks and mystics. And so it's not it's not a controversial book. Well, I don't I don't think it's more of a really an ironic book, an ecumenical book that synthesizes Catholic, Orthodox Protestant and Pentecostal spiritualities. And I have a I have an appreciate appreciate appreciation of Christian mysticism that's built in there. So I hope that people might be might look for that about it within a year from now.
Charles Kim 1:02:45
And is that going to be two volumes and
Michael McClymond 1:02:49
about maybe about three to 400 pages? Yeah. And so I find it to be a first book.
Charles Kim 1:02:55
All right. Well, I will look forward to that. And maybe when you get close to finish, we can have you on and talk about that.
Michael McClymond 1:03:03
Well, that would be great. Thank you.
