Bishop Kallistos Ware, a convert from Anglicanism to Eastern Orthodoxy, devotes a chapter in his book The Inner Kingdom to the question, “Dare We Hope for the Salvation of All?” This is one of the most fascinating debates in theology, involving as it does the apparently irreconcilable contradiction between God’s omnibenevolence and man’s freedom. Bishop Ware cites the famous texts from Paul that seem to point toward universal salvation. (I Cor. 15:22: “As all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.” Rom. 5:18: “Just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.” I Cor. 15:28: “God will be all in all.”) He represents the opposing view as well, with great fairness: “If the triumph of God’s love is inevitable and there is ultimately nothing for us to choose between, does this not make our present acts of moral decision trivial and meaningless?”

The third-century theologian Origen, one of the key historical proponents of the notion of universal restoration, advocated that the doctrine be kept secret, lest it lead people into spiritual laziness. Ware writes:

No doubt it is for this reason that the 19th-century Pietist theologian Christian Gottlieb Barth remarks, “Anyone who does not believe in the universal restoration is an ox, but anyone who teaches it is an ass.”

To this Ware appends a footnote that is, for me, worth the price of the book:

Professor Donald Paul Burgo of Fontbonne College, St. Louis, . . . rightly adds that the ox and the ass were already at the stable in Bethlehem before the wise men had found their way to it.

One of the best examples of theological charity I’ve ever come across. These are matters far above the mind of man; but we are reliably told that man is destined for matters far above the mind of man.