Universalism

I’m supposed to be doing homework, and instead I’m going to rant because I’m frustrated. As research for a paper I’m supposed to write relating to Christianity and other religions, I looked up this quote from The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis. The quote is from a section at the end of the book where Aslan the lion (who represents Christ in the series) is speaking to a man who has spent this whole life serving a false god, or devil-figure, named Tash. That should be enough background. Here’s the quote:

Thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been, but I was quite shocked that pulling up this quote also pulled up a bunch of blogs and articles condemning Lewis for being a universalist and a heretic. One website in particular (http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/cs_lewis-exposed.htm) criticizes Lewis for smoking a pipe and drinking in a pub and believing in purgatory. It says he is “teaching damnable false doctrine” and calls him a “dangerous false teacher.” Now, just so you know my bias on the subject, I’m a pretty unashamed Lewis fan. In fact, he typically makes my top five list of heroes and my mom had pretty much every book he ever wrote lying around our house growing up (not that I read them all, but you get the idea). Anyway, that's all to say, I’m somewhat biased, but that doesn’t mean I agree with Lewis on every theological point so I think I can at least strive for objectivity in my response to this. Actually, this is not intended to be a defense of Lewis at all, but I do want to respond to the universalism charge because it’s a legitimate concern, but I think severely misguided.

Universalism, by my best understanding, is the idea that all roads lead to heaven. That is, all religions are legitimate and all faiths are equal. This notion is contradicted by scripture, which says salvation is found in Christ alone. With this, I agree, as I think would Lewis. But what is salvation? Now I’m going to digress and tell you a little personal story, but will eventually lead us back, I hope, to the topic at hand.

I accepted Christ (was “born again,” “got saved,” or whatever term of Christian jargon you prefer) when I was about six years old. In my six-year-old understanding, accepting Christ meant acknowledging that I was a sinner and that Jesus died to pay the price for my sins. Once I accepted this and asked for his forgiveness, he would come into my heart, and I would go to heaven when I die. Now, none of this understanding is fundamentally wrong, and I still essentially agree with it today, but I think it is both overly simplistic, and overly complicated. Let me see if I can better explain what I mean by continuing my story.

As a teenager, I had a pretty severe crisis of faith, the root of which was doubt in my own salvation. I knew the decision that I had made as a child and had been told that my decision would save me, but gradually, it didn’t seem like enough. In reading the scripture, I read about being saved by grace through faith, but I also read seemingly contradictory statements that implied that it is our actions that denote us as children of God. (Case in point, Paul says that Abraham was justified by faith, and James says he was justified by works. To me, the Bible seemed full of “contradictions” like that). So I was a pretty good little Christian teenager, but I was still a sinner and I began to wonder, am I truly saved? How do I know that praying that prayer as a child is enough? And this sent me into about a year of depression and some pretty intense soul-searching. I scoured the Bible and I begged God for answers to my questions and I didn’t find any.

Gradually, I came out of my depression and my doubt ebbed away. In fact, I’ve never seriously doubted my salvation since. The oddest thing about this is that I never found the answer to the question of what salvation is. The truth, as I’ve come to realize, is that my fears were allayed, not with a doctrinal solution, but with the presence of God himself. In going through that period of depression, God became real to me in a way that he never had been before. My salvation did not and does not rest on praying that “sinners prayer,” on asking God to save me, on walking faithfully with him since, on my own faith in Jesus, or on countless other tenants of traditional salvation that we are taught. My salvation comes from Christ alone. It is God who saves. It is Jesus who paid the price. Nothing I can do will save me. Therefore, there is no assurance except that which comes from God himself. If you try to have faith in your doctrinal notions of salvation, they were utterly fail you. They are true, but they cannot save. They are just doctrines. It is God who saves. I cannot emphasize that enough. Does it make sense what I’m saying?

Now, back to C.S. Lewis and the notion of universalism. I am in no way trying to say that all roads lead to heaven, but I do believe that since it is God who saves and not a doctrine, it could very well be true that he could choose to save a Tash-follower who was ultimately seeking and serving Aslan even though he didn’t know it. I think this notion is very much in keeping with the just and merciful God that the Bible describes. In fact, look in Matthew 25 at the parable of the sheep and the goats, which I think supports this idea.

The website condemning C.S. Lewis as heretical that I cited above says, “there is only one true gospel, and that is salvation through repentance and faith in the blood of Jesus Christ.” I agree with this statement, but in the context of the website, it worries me. I think we’re making a god out of our salvation doctrine and worshipping it instead of Christ. Christ does ask us to repent and have faith in his blood, but that is not why we are saved; we are saved because Christ saves us. End of story.

I hope you don’t take this the wrong way and call me a heretic. If you do disagree, I’d like to hear your concerns so maybe I can explain myself better than I have.