Universal Salvation

Destined for Joy is a collection of essays devoted to the theme of the absolute love of God and the gospel of universal salvation. Written over a period of 10 years and revised for publication in this volume, they represent the fruition of the author’s theological and spiritual development over a span of four decades in parish ministry. If God has truly revealed himself in his incarnate Son Jesus Christ as absolute and unconditional love, does this not mean that he intends the salvation of all?

The great fourth-century church father Basil of Caesarea once observed that, in his time, most Christians believed that hell was not everlasting, and that all would eventually attain salvation. But today, this view is no longer prevalent within Christian communities. In this momentous book, David Bentley Hart makes the case that nearly two millennia of dogmatic tradition have misled readers on the crucial matter of universal salvation.

There are still big theological discoveries to be found when digging into Scripture. Hyper-Calvinist Universal Salvation unearths a few of them, most notably, a previously undiscovered theology in Scripture, where the mysterious entity referred to in the book of Revelation as the Lake of Fire is found to be another name for GOD, who, according to Scripture, will save all condemned and unchosen human souls that were ever created at the Eschaton (end of the world), when he will immolate them in the core of his Consuming Fire (Lake of Fire), to save them by Fire (1 Cor 3: 15).

Chris Kugler presents a thorough exploration of "personal eschatology," addressing the complex theological and biblical questions about the eternal fate of human beings. While Scripture suggests the possibility of eternal loss, Kugler argues that its most relevant texts are less definitive than commonly thought. Kugler contends that a nuanced picture is called for when one considers how theology uses the Bible to develop doctrine. He presents the problems, possibilities, and prospects of the three major views on personal eschatology: damnationism, annihilationism, and universalism.