PARTICIPATING IN THE DIVINE DANCE

David B. Hart: That All Shall Be Saved — What To Expect?

SEPTEMBER 7, 2019JOHN SOBERT SYLVESTEDIT"DAVID B. HART: THAT ALL SHALL BE
SAVED — WHAT TO EXPECT?"

From early reviews and liberal previews of

David Bentley Hart’s That All Shall Be Saved

it does not appear that DBH will be offering a sylly syllogism grounded in some neatly
interwoven exegetical, philosophical argumentation, which pretends to prove too much.
Rather, he will offer an informal, rhetorical appeal to our common sense & sensibilities,
grounded in our messy shared experiences, respecting the analogical interval between
anthropological & divine realities while paying dutiful heed to certain participatory efficacies.
Those would include the joyous, luminous & glorious effects of which are proper to no known
determinate causes, as they transcend the mysteries of all suffering & the realities of all sin.
Protologically & proleptically those efficacies constitute all manner of incarnational guarantees,
seals, earnests, down payments & first fruits. Yes, we realize them now, in part, hence, we
confidently believe & mandatorily proclaim their utter fulfillment eschatologically.

Below are interwoven threads of – not formal premises with coerced conclusions, but – shared
human experiences and intuitions, which might weave a story, a tellable story, that would best
resonate with the Greatest Story Ever Told.

Below are my words, my interpretations, of what I imagine DBH to be saying. His rhetoric
entices me, more like getting caught in a web of meaning, a tad tangled but happily so, less like
getting caught in a trap of logic, where the axioms are supposedly self-evident, although
anything but.

 God doesn’t need evil, suffering or pain. While those can be redeemed in His economy, any
essential epistemic distancing can otherwise be closed via theosis. [Hence we reject morally
repugnant evidential theodicies, while satisfied with unavoidably vague logical defenses &
sustained by robustly pastoral existential consolations.]
 Those theotic processes don’t absolutely determine reality since they require the synergetic
cooperation of freely acting human persons. [Hence we reject compatibilisms.]
 Human acts aren’t absolutely free; however, since all (trans-)formative processes, whether
theotic or redemptive, are necessarily ordered toward truth, beauty, goodness & unity, our
participations in same will grow that freedom, our practicing of same will grow virtuosity.
[Hence we reject libertarianisms.]
 The will and intellect, respectively, as efficient acts in potency to material causes & formal acts
in potency to final causes, are integrally related, in human volition. [Hence we
reject voluntarisms & intellectualisms.]
 Our secondary natures, both virtuous and vicious, are situated between such acts (efficient &
formal) and limited potentialities (material & final), reinforcing or impeding their telic
realizations but never extinguishing those human potentials. [Hence any notion of frozen
potentialities, post mortem, is anthropologically incoherent.]
 Human persons are often guilty of willful blindness or vincible ignorance. But as finite, fallible
persons, we will never attain such an absolute knowledge of either temporal or divine realities,
such that we could be absolutely culpable for any, much less all, remnants of our ignorance.
[Hence even a vincible ignorance could never warrant an absolute punishment, as that would
be disproportionate to our inescapably finite offenses.]
 It’s inconceivable that, given sufficient time, divine telic processes (theotic and/or
redemptive) would not close enough epistemic distancing to situate every last person,
beatifically, in proper relationship to God, others, cosmos & self as ordered toward truth,
beauty, goodness & unity with an authentic freedom. [Hence we can not only hope for but can
be confidently assured that all may be saved.]
Conclusion – I’m drawn to this theological anthropology of DBH. Curiously, while it works
well enough in a classical framework, especially when tweaked by a more personalist Thomism
(e.g N. Clarke), I can also square it with a process approach (e.g. D. Griffin, Joe Bracken),
particularly one that eschews nominalism. Likely this is due to the inherent adaptability of an
informal narrative vs a strict argument.

In the final analysis, though, while I consider certain classical and process approaches to be
legitimate opinions within the theological contours of the first seven or so ecumenical councils, I
find a creatio ex nihilo ex chaosprocess approach to be more pastorally consoling, existentially
satisfying and rhetorically persuasive than even Hart’s classical articulation.

Human persons are determined-enough to enjoy value-realizations and free-enough for those to
be deeply meaningful.
So, to Einstein and the compatibilists, I reply: “Yes, God does play dice.”

And to the nihilists and libertarians we retort: “But they’re loaded.”

To all, I’d observe: “One may, quietistically, refrain from playing and remain, essentially, an
imago Dei. Or one may continue playing and, crapping out, increasingly become an imago
Similitudino.”

I began my life’s work in philosophical theology herein:

https://www.academia.edu/26023098/Reasons_and_Values_of_the_Heart_in_a_Pluralistic_
World_Toward_a_Contemplative_Phenomenology_for_Interreligious_Dialogue

And have completed (at least, it feels so, for now) that work herein:
https://www.academia.edu/39367925/Retreblement_-
_A_Systematic_Apocatastasis_and_Pneumatological_Missiology

With some clarifications of my theological anthropology here:

https://www.academia.edu/40144605/The_Vestigia_Imagines_and_Similitudines_Dei_per_U
niversalism_and_Apokatastasis
https://www.academia.edu/40009632/More_eschatological_anthropology

https://www.academia.edu/39981926/Eschatological_Anthropology_Voluntarism_intellectualis
m_libertarianism_and_compatibilism_-_Oh_my_

https://www.academia.edu/39945745/Apokatastasis_-
_an_hypothesis_with_an_intro_to_retreblement

Posted in philosophical theology, systematic theology, systematic theophany, theodicy, Uncategorized

Tagged apocatastasis, apokatastasis, David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved, universal
salvation, universalism