Neal Punt on Rob Bell's controversial book, Love Wins -- heaven, hell & fate of everyone who ever lived

Frequently Asked Questions No. 24

Three observations about Bell’s book, 

Love Wins**

by Neal Punt

 Two critical and one positive observation about Rev. Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins.

  

    THE FIRST ― It is impossible to overestimate the value that the Bible places on the name of God. Therefore we know that Exodus 34:6, 7 reveals a pivotal truth about God and his relationship to sinners:

          “And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming [His Name], ‘The

            Lord, the Lord the compassionate and gracious God, slow to

            anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to

            thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he

            does not leave the guilty unpunished’ ” (Ex. 34:6, 7).

      Unquestionably God speaks here about two distinct groups of sinners. The one group experiences the gracious abounding love of God in the forgiveness of their sin. The other remains in their guilt. The continuing existence of these two separate groups has to do with “proclaiming” something about God’s name.

       The Bible has many stories (accounts) about these two distinct groups. These biblical accounts can be chronicled. The two groups are never joined together and no one ever passes from one group to the other. Using the familiar metaphors we can say the one group experiences “heaven” the other “hell” on earth.

       Bell melds these two entities into a single mass of human beings that at times experiences Gods “abounding love” (“heaven”) and at other times is punished because they are “guilty” (“hell”). This “heaven” and “hell” are real, according to Bell, and have a major effect on our present day life.  Whether we experience this real “heaven” or “hell” depends on how we use the freedom of choice that God has given us.

Read more »

Soteriological Near-Universalism: Rob Bell Case preceded by Neal Punt Case in Christian Reformed Church

posting 12r

The blog-entry that follows comes out of my reflections and research on the Rob Bell Case, and my encouragement upon taking notice that reformational scholar Dr Richard Mouw has supported pastor Bell.  To understand Mouw's position better I had to go back to the Neal Punt Case which prepared me to take on Jan Bonda's work as well.  

By way of intro, please note that Dr Mouw tawt philosophy at Calvin College for manuy years. After taking admin positions as well, Mouw was appointed President of Fuller Theological Seminary and continued to write many good books.  Eventually, I hope to get to his book responding to John Piper's book, Desiring God.  The reply is Mouw's God Who Commands, becawz Piper wants to treat the imperatives regarding Joy in the Bible , especially the New Testament, as deontologicals floated up out of their Biblical contexts (Northrup Frye) . In that book, Mouw references "The idea of divine generosity, see Neal Punt, What's Good About the Good News, the Plan of Salvation in a New Light (Northland Books, pp. 87-92)." Mouw says further that his own book Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport (Zondervan Books, 2004, p. 130) also advances this idea of divine  generosity. I have these for-me-new sources on the problem being addressed here. As I said in a draft for an email to some friends:<blockquote>Earlier in 1985, while Mouw was teaching philosophy at Calvin College (I believe), the Christian Reformed Church actually put a pastor on trial for heresy.  The Neal Punt case.  The charge of heresy was made by the Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada CRC -- very distant from where Punt was pastoring in the Chicago region CRC (this can be done in the CRC).  Here's the link from a website Neal Punt still maintains today in his retirement. He was exonerated by the Chicago classis (as presbyteries are known in the CRC).  Now, I disagree with Punt becawz I come to this question from the standpoint of the Interim State as the missiological foundation of a soteriological near-universalism (a stance close to but not necessarily identical to Punts own carefully-honed position which he calls "Evangelical Inclusivism."  Punt has used the phrase "biblical universalism" in at least a URL address; but I had had the impression that there was yet another website expressing a related stance on the problem at hand but different from Punt's and my own, a third option for a solution to ruffly the same problem.   

Read more »