That all shall be saved book

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The ghost of Raymond Chandler

5.0 out of 5 stars The moral, logical and scriptural incoherence of infernalism exposed and repudiated once and for all

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 September 2019

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The only form of Christianity that can be true is a Universalist one, says David Bentley Hart in an interview he gave recently about his brilliant new book, because, he explains, if Christianity is not Universalist then it’s internally contradictory and obviously false. To which Christians all over the world ought to be saying a loud and resounding "Amen!" That many of them are not is just one of the (many) depressing things about the state of the faith today.

Anyone who's read DBH before will be familiar with his pugnacious style, but in 'That All Shall Be Saved' the gloves are well and truly off. And rightly so, for the doctrine of hell as a place of eternal conscious torment is illogical, morally repugnant and scripturally indefensible, and yet the majority of so-called Christians continue to believe in it, or believe that they believe in it. Which is a scandal, obviously, and probably the single biggest barrier to belief for the thinking agnostic bar the problem of evil.

The tide has been turning against infernalism with accelerating speed over the last 15 years or so, with the success of pro-Universalist books by the likes of Rob Bell, Robin Parry and Thomas Talbott. But I think posterity will show that the gates of hell were finally torn down completely when DBH weighed in with his definitive demolition of the infernalist position. In 'That All Shall Be Saved' DBH lays out a watertight logical, philosophical, moral and exegetical case that the good God who called us forth from nothing will save every single one of us, without fail. Anything less would be to deny that he is God, or good, or both.

As DBH himself has stated, anyone who isn't persuaded by the book's arguments simply hasn't understood them. And I daresay there will be plenty of such people. Many will doubtless be adherents of the logical vacuum that is hard-core, five-point Calvinism, and DBH is rightly particularly severe on those who are able to cauterise their consciences to the extent of believing in a God who creates sentient creatures purely to damn them eternally for the sake of his own glory. How anyone could believe such blasphemous rubbish is beyond me, but as we say here in Blighty, there's nowt so queer as folk. That Calvin himself believed it made him, to use DBH's piquant description, a moral cretin. And it is undoubtedly moral cretinism to believe in Calvin's particularly rotten brand of infernalism.

As always DBH's arguments in 'That All Shall Be Saved' are expressed in limpid, beautifully constructed - and often very funny - prose. And so in closing my review of his magisterial new book I can do no better than quoting the man himself:

"If the [Christian] story really does end as Augustine and countless others over the centuries have claimed it must, with most - or, at any rate, very many … or, really, any - beings consigned to eternal torment, and if this story then also entails that God freely and needlessly created the world knowing that this would be the result, then Christianity has no 'evangel' - no 'good news' - to impart. There is only the hideous truth of a monstrous deity presiding over an evil world whose very existence is an act of cruelty, meaninglessly embellished with the additional narrative detail - almost parodic in its triviality - of the arbitrary salvation of a few select souls who are not even in any special sense deserving of the privilege (else grace were not grace, and absolute power were not absolute power)."

But of course it does not. Thank you, David Bentley Hart, for showing us that glorious truth with such luminous clarity.

4.0 out of 5 stars Short and readable, especially if you already enjoy DBH's style

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 May 2020

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I suspect most reviewers are already big fans of DBH, and the few 1 star reviews from people who have decided they already disagree with his conclusions. I am both a fan, and already agree, but let me try and say something useful.

This book is short and fairly accessible - to a point! Those who have read other works by DBH know that he loves a rhetorical flourish, a dismissive put down and a bit of verbosity, and even this short book confirms this. This is really my main criticism of the book: As a trained philosopher and highly respected scholar, I don't doubt that DBH could have written a dense and technical tome, and I'm grateful he chose to make this essentially a pop. theology publication. But having made that choice, I think he could have gone further and avoided Latin terms and some of his flowery language for the sake of a wider audience. I have many well-meaning friends interested in this subject who will nevertheless struggle to know what an "intentionally heteogenous phantasmagory" is.

Similarly, DBH's slights are often amusing for those of us who can smugly agree with him, but for the first time in his writing I found his regular dismissal of opponents or arguments as trivial, obvious, nonsense, banal, vacuous, facile etc. to be irritating and adds to the impression that he is singing to the choir. This was very much the vibe of "Atheist Delusions" and I enjoyed it immensely in that context, written as it seemed to be to burst the balloons of the New Atheists in the minds of the faithful. However, the polemical style feels to me a little out of place here.

Finally, he repeats himself a fair amount. I realise this can be for elucidation or emphasis but given that his writing style is not entirely plain, he is clearly writing for well-educated readers (if not formally trained in theology/philosophy). One wonders why, if they are able to easily understand what he means by a position encompassing too much "post-Hegelian dialectical dis-enchantment", they need the same point to be made so many times.

Overall, the points he makes are excellent, but from a rational argument point of view could have been made in half the space taken by what is already a short book. For this reason the rambunctious style feels over-indulgent, as though it was written deliberately so that his acolytes could write 5-star reviews here proclaiming it to be majestic, a tour-de-force, a final refutation of eternal conscious torment etc. and this makes me baulk a little, despite agreeing with him entirely.

5.0 out of 5 stars The final word

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 March 2021

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Perhaps the final word in the Christian debate on the actual possibility of the eternal/never-ending conscious torment for any finite human being.

Mr Hart pulls no punches. Why should he? He is so obviously on the winning side that actually to write such a long book on the subject seems to constantly take its toll on his patience!

The whole idea of an actual Hell of (say) Calvinist assertion and belief is obviously false. If such was discovered to be the stated belief of some small group of south sea islanders it would be dismissed as absurd, the product of a bygone age. But alas, found within the hoary archives of 2000 years of Christian history, and associated by some with salvific belief, it still finds its defenders.

Possibly, equating salvation itself with correct belief, rather than truly Amazing Grace, some poor souls are loath and fearful of amending their stock of beliefs in any way; to do so obviously questions - and would be deemed to put in jeopardy - their very own assurance of salvation.

Anyway, myself, I began to seriously walk the Buddhist path some time ago. Now I rest in Amida, an unapologetic heathen who knows with Shinran that "even the good are saved, how much more so the evil" (sic)

2.0 out of 5 stars Not for serious study or for a balanced treatment of the subject

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 March 2021

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For fans of Hart's writing style, wit and polemical punch, this is a worthwhile read. But if you want to take this subject seriously, I would recommend a more balanced and academic study called "Universal Salvation: Eschatology in the Thought of Gregory of Nyssa and Karl Rahner (Oxford Theological Monographs)" by Ludlow. This study compares the accounts of Gregory of Nyssa (who underpins Hart’s arguments) and Rahner. Ludlow fairly critiques Gregory’s platonic premises and questionable view of the nature of punishment, along with Rahner’s questionable anthropological grounding. Ludlow comes to the view (closer to Rahner) that “It seems most reasonable to assert that Christians should hope that all will be saved (whilst acknowledging the possibility that some may not) instead of either asserting the certainty of the universal victory of God’s love or affirming both this certainty and the possibility of hell together”

3.0 out of 5 stars Challenging title - less than authoritative content!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 June 2020

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Interesting take on a contested issue - but a bit too much emphasis on the author’s ‘ ‘convictions’ where he disagrees with others whose views differ! Too much emphasis on the importance of his own views....