Philosophy: Measured by Scripture: Eternal punishment shows universalism is incorrect

Where Prez Richard Mouw (Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California), had resolved many shades of concern and a few denunciations over his stand by including an outstanding living example in regard to who is going to Hell (unless such a person explicitly prepares and converts with all his or her heart -- such converts shoud always leap over into the Christian faith and its faith-community, as Soren Kierkegaard may have suggested) -- namely, the evidently unconverted Osama bin Laden at the time of his death recently.  Here I woud like to connect that solution to the problem of who's going to Hell, with another problem needing a solution.

In his mostly untranslated book, Calvinism and the Reformation of Philosophy (1932, a year after the debate opened in France on the problem of "Christian Philosophy"  from 1931 to 1935), D H Th Vollenhoven made this unusual juxtaposition of philosophical problems:

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[T]he formal recognition of the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God only obtains its content by answering the question: “What does Holy Scripture say?” The Calvinist response to this question can briefly be summarised as follows: 

1. Holy Scripture teaches the immediate sovereignty of that God who revealed himself in his Word, over all things in every relationship and in every area, and distinguishes in accordance with this clearly between God as the sovereign and that which has been created by him. [Creator/creature distinction, or Creator / creationLaw / creature distinction - Owlb] 

2. It views religion as unio foederalis (a unity of covenant) which is known to the human family by Word revelation, also already before the fall into sin. 

3. It proclaims with regard to the circumstances after the fall:  

3a  the total depravity of humankind [a desolation buffered by common grace -- Owlb]
3b.  death as punishment of sin [and relocation to Hell as part of a further punishment beyond death as such, for some -- Owlb] 

3c. the revelation of the grace of the sovereign God in the Mediator.

Let us now note the ground motives of the Philosophy measured against Scripture -- that is, those basic conceptions that take into account the Holy Scriptures in the study of all topics. In the development of its ground motives The Philosophy Measured against Scripture can peacefully depart from [a] Calvinist answer about the main contents of the Holy Scriptures.  ...

Read more ... click on the time-stamp just below ....

At first I would like to draw attention to the sub-clause: “who revealed himself in his Word”: This is not superfluous, for with no word philosophy has been playing around with more than the word “God”. Sometimes it indicated an archetypal unity; then again God was equated with the form of the world, etcetera. In particular the Middle Ages sinned heavily here, when many Christians made it their task to combine pagan thought with Philosophy measured against Scripture. Therefore it must be explicitly declared: when somebody believes that he ought to have another conception of God in philosophy than the one which Holy Scripture teaches us, then this “God” is another than the God of the Holy Scriptures and his philosophy is not Calvinist.</blockquote> 

-- Vollenhoven quotation cited from "The Idea of a Philosophy Measured against Scripture"  (16 PDF digital pages in Foundations of Calvinist Thought, intro by Mullheim and Wilhelm Rott. (Date of publication still lacking.)

Now comes the juxtaposition of Vollenhoven's critique of philosophical universalism with a linked critique of theological soteriological universalism , Chapter II pp 22-48 "The groundmotives of biblical theology":

<blockquote>Rome has taken a somewhat different way. It has rejected disjunction between thinking and believing and [hence] universalism, not all live with God. But Rome has also gone astray in its attempt to draw the line between thought and faith, for it attempted to define the dividing line in the position one takes vis-à-vis the authority which officeholders exercise within their ecclesiastical institutions. They stray because this position-taking, while not itself a function, locates itself upon functional terrain, for it constitutes the relationship between authority-seekers and holders within the pistic [faith] sphere [pisteutics]. This raises the old question whether one can find an analogue to this Christian relationship among non-Christians or whether there is nothing corresponding to this “Christian” notion of religion institutionally conceived. Heretofore, study of non-Christian religions precludes answering this question [the facts of the matter are different now]. Nevertheless, to define the difference between belief and unbelief in this manner does not identify the difference clearly. Moreover, in all the above mentioned ways of construing the problem one denies that one can serve God directly in non-pistic or non-institutional functions. Consequently, wherever these perspectives dominate the lower aspects of life, quite against the thrust of Scripture, [those lower aspects become] secularised, a process which is at first hardly noticeable, but one which grows ever stronger and more telling.

Now one sees that identification of religion and pistic function leads neither to its appointed end nor can it be called biblical. Consequently one ought to ask whether there is another way of understanding the term “religion.” Scripture itself points the way. For the same Scripture which denies universalism in and through its message about eternal punishment neither isolates religion from life nor identifies it, à la Rome, with the position of the laity over and against officeholders, however highly valued. Indeed, the Scriptures speak simply of “the heart” from which “the beginnings of life” flow.</blockquote>

-- excerpted from Calvinism and the Reformation of Theology, by DHTh Vollenhoven (1931).  The complete book seems not to have been translated from the original Dutch to English yet.

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The Roman Catholic debate on “Christian philosophy” continued and spread not only to the Netherlands but to other countries as well.

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"Although these debates originally took place between Roman Catholics and secular Rationalists, fundamental differences between different Roman Catholic positions rapidly became apparent and assumed central importance. The debates also drew attention from Reformed Protestant thinkers. Eventually the debates sparked smaller discussions among scholars in English, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian-speaking circles, and these continue to the present day."

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A web-article,  "Christian Philosophy: The 1930s French Debates"  (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) provides a brief overview of the most important contributors, the central issues and the main positions of these debates.

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At the moment what interests me most in this thread is the phrasing "the same Scripture which denies universalism in and through its message about eternal punishment" -- which seems to me to be a poor way to establish a philosophical anti-universalism (there are other options in the solution to this philosophical problem of the universals, as Vollenhoven himself tells us elsewhere).  Why turn to theology, soteriology, heaven, hell, and eternal punishment at this juncture?  When today, Christian theology is trying to cope with these issues following in the wake of Rob Bell's sortie into this combatted territory, are we helped by Vollenhoven's juxtaposition of philosophical anti-universalism and theological soteriological universalism (or near-universalism, as in my own view)?  Isn't there any other Scriptural grounds for both than such a doctrine of Hell, the place of eternal punishment?


-- Owb