Just as Edward Fudge is heralded in conditionalist circles as the foremost thinker, the same can be said about Thomas Talbott in universalist circles. The following are quotes from his introductory chapters in one of the best books discussing universalism available today, Universal Salvation? The Current Debate.
"Consider the following inconsistent set of propositions:
1. God's redemptive love extends to all human sinners equally in the sense that he sincerely wills or desires the redemption of each one of them.
2. Because no one can finally defeat God's redemptive love or resist it forever, God will triumph in the end and successfully accomplish the redemption of everyone whose redemption he sincerely wills or desires.
3. Some human sinners will never be redeemed but will instead be separated from God forever."
If the above set of propositions is logically inconsistent, and it surely is, then at least one of the above propositions is false. But which one? Because Christian universalists accept both proposition (1) and proposition (2), they reason deductively that proposition (3) is false."
"Because Western theology includes, moreover, two respectably orthodox traditions, one of which holds....that proposition (1) is a clear teaching of Scripture and the other of which holds...that proposition (2) is a clear teaching of Scripture, we are entitled to conclude, I think, that the case for universalism is not nearly as `palpably weak' as [some] would have us believe. For if it were so 'palpably weak', you would expect that the respectably orthodox among us would at least agree on which part of the case is `palpably weak'. So which is it, proposition (1) or proposition (2)? Should we limit the scope of God's love, as the Augustinians do? Or should we insist that God's loving will suffers an ultimate defeat, as the Arminians do? If neither of these options seems acceptable, then one is left with the belief that God loves all equally and that his loving will cannot be thwarted forever. And that is universalism."
"...our task in what follows will be to examine two prominent New Testament themes: that of Christ's ultimate victory and triumph, on the one hand, and that of divine judgement, on the other."
"Unlike those who believe that God will never destroy sin completely, but will instead keep it alive throughout an eternity of hell, universalists and annihilationists agree that God will utterly destroy sin in the end and destroy it forever. But whereas the annihilationists believe that God will do this by annihilating some of his own loved ones, the universalists believe that God will do it in the only way possible short of annihilating the objects of his love: by saving them from their sins."
"Paul clearly taught that Christ will destroy death and a host of other cosmic forces inimical to the interest of humankind. So how should we understand this? Universalists believe that the same God who commands us to love our enemies loves his own enemies as well. But God does not love sin or death or anything that separates us from him, and Paul also referred to these as enemies. So here we must distinguish carefully between the sense in which such personified evils as Sin and Death and various cosmic forces are enemies and the sense in which real people under the power of such evils are enemies. Christ destroys enemies of the first kind (non-persons) by obliterating them, that is, by eliminating them from his creation entirely." When he does destroy sin and death and various cosmic forces, he likewise destroys enemies of the second kind (sinful persons) in the only way possible short of annihilating them: by redeeming them while they are yet enemies. For only enemies of the second kind (persons) are possible objects of God's redemptive love."
"So herein lies the Christian universalist's understanding of God's ultimate victory, which is also a key to a proper understanding of divine judgement. God is too pure (read `too loving') to allow evil of any kind to survive forever in his creation. He will not, therefore, merely quarantine evil in hell, but will instead destroy it altogether even as he regenerates the evil ones themselves."
"As Paul himself predicted, the `last enemy to be destroyed is death' (1 Cor. 15:26); and at the end of Revelation 20 we thus see death itself being consumed or destroyed in the lake of fire. This is also called `the second death', which is simply the death of death: the time when Death itself dies everlastingly. But in Pauline theology death is more than a physical process; it is also a spiritual condition and includes everything that separates us from God. Accordingly, the final destruction of death must also include a final destruction of everything that separates us from God. Those who endure the second death will, for reasons of a kind already given, suffer a great loss and will no doubt experience the final destruction of their sinful nature as if it were the very destruction of themselves. Still, like those failed Christian leaders whose false works must also be consumed, they themselves `will be saved, but only as through fire' (1 Cor. 3:15)."
"If you impose upon the Bible the faulty idea that God's justice and mercy are in conflict," you will inevitably conclude that punishment is a matter of justice, not mercy, and forgiveness a matter of mercy, not justice. You will then take the biblical warnings concerning future punishment as proof that God could not possibly be merciful to all, despite what Paul explicitly said. You will also conclude that Jesus came to save us not from our sin, but from the terrible justice of God. As I see it, however, the Christian message is just the opposite of that. God sent his Son into the world not for the purpose of saving us from the justice of God, but for the purpose of establishing that very justice, which is also altogether merciful, in us. When every evil is finally destroyed, every wrong finally set right, and every opposing will finally transformed, then and only then will the scales of justice finally balance; then and only then will God truly be all in all."
