Comments on: Wright ‘Justification’: Chapter 2

By: will

will — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:38:08 +0000

hm, somehow i meant to post this on a different blog post-the one entitled “n. t. wright and hell.” i hope the moderator of this blog or somebody can move it over there for me….

By: will

will — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:36:27 +0000

i was baffled by wright’s views on hell at first, but now think they are brilliant.

i do think he misconstrues the universalist position a bit. many universalists believe in hell. but they would insist that God’s destruction always has a rehabilitative purpose.

i myself, am a hopeful universalist. i hope for the alleviation of all pain and suffering (not the infinite multiplication of it such that the doctrine of hell implies), I hope for Christ to reconcile everything to himself, i hope for God to be all in all. and mostly, i hope for the end of all evil.
to be honest-I’m baffled by the doctrine of eternal hell. how could God with his infinite resources, not be able to bring everybody to salvation? he does desire all men to be saved right. God is love. i refuse to speak of two wills when it comes to God’s omnibenevolence.

furthermore, can God’s love be defeated? can there really be people who exert their will over God’s throughout the rest of eternity (like Lewis suggested)? can God deliver an infinite punishment upon a human being who was made in his own imaged? can any man even begin to understand the full consequences of his sin?

theses are the questions that have been constantly going through my head lately.

one thing is for sure, wright (and now Moltmann/pannenberg who i’ve been reading much lately) has allowed my to be able to understand why Christ coming as a judge is actually a good thing.

By: david yates

david yates — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:42:33 +0000

jonswales, two points: just because Paul has certain pastoral concerns in a letter doesn’t mean we shouldn’t extract from that the principles he is calling on. Maybe Wright mixes these things up sometimes when he insists on interpreting ‘in context’. On whether anybody under Torah was trying to earn salvation, I currently understand Wright as saying that is irrelevant, Paul’s concern being whether God’s people are defined by Torah or faith. So, neither Wright nor anybody else need consider historical evidence about it.

By: Mason

Mason — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:45:11 +0000

Thanks for this review. Much to my disappointment I still have to wait a couple months for IVP to release this one in the States, but I plan to get it as soon as I can.
I think you make a great point about one of the major differences in this debate, the role of history. I think that when you look at the Reformation much of their theology was an attempt to rethink the faith in light of a better understanding of history (Luther’s penance vs. repentance theme for example), so I find it odd and disheartening when Piper and others seem so wary of utilizing all we have learned about that era.
In reading Piper’s Future of Justification I saw a willingness to go back to the Reformation, but not to radically rethink things based on 1st century evidence.
As someone, can’t recall who, summarized their review… Piper’s book had Luther on the front, and Wright’s has Paul.