Universal Salvation in the Eschatology of Sergius Bulgakov

Bulgakov's deeply original and controversial eschatology remainslargely unexplored in modern scholarship. Following the universalistinsights of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, Bulgakov construedhell as a state of self-inflicted torment necessary to purifythe resurrected individual from evil. His arguments againstthe eternity of hell are as follows: the permanence of hellentails the eternal dualism of good and evil; the grace andmercy of God cannot be permanently resisted by free creatures;perpetual punishment is not commensurable with the finite crimescommitted in time; the idea of perpetual retributive punishmentleads to an anthropomorphic and unworthy image of a vengefulGod; the ontological and moral unity of humanity does not allowfor the eternal separation of humankind into the two separategroups of the saved and of the permanently damned. This articlelays out Bulgakov's vision of the universal salvation; investigatesthe roots of this vision in patristic thought; places Bulgakov'sproposal in the context of the nineteenth–twentieth-centuryRussian eschatology; and offers a critical evaluation of Bulgakov'sarguments against the eternity of hell.     

New Proposals on Theological Apologetics – Faith and Its Critics: A Conversation – By David Ferguson; The Command of Grace: A New Theological Apologetics – By Paul D. Janz; Theology in Search of Foundations – By Randal Rauser

Recent titles announce a new interest on apologetics, not in the habitual format of a popular theology providing arguments to believe, but rather as a dialogical engagement with the current developments in philosophy and science. The books under exam offer an outstanding review of the meaning for theology and faith of such tendencies, the risks and challenges they pose. Nevertheless, opportunities are perceived through the ongoing dialogue as well, for a better theological endeavor.