Appendix C
The Three Libraries Behind This Book
This book draws on three families of sources. They match the three project libraries the author works in when drafting chapters. The first library holds the works answered: the two major anti-universalist books whose arguments the forty chapters of this book engage and reply to. The second holds the works that defend the hope directly: the biblical, theological, and patristic cases for the final salvation of all. The third holds the works on postmortem opportunity, the divine-presence model of hell, optimal grace, and the philosophical defense of a saving encounter beyond death. Every source named in the chapters and footnotes of The Redemption of All belongs to one of these three groups.
Each entry below gives the author, the title, and a short note on what the book argues and how this book uses it. I also note the citation convention followed in the footnotes. The entries are descriptive, not argumentative. This appendix is a guide to the cast of voices, not a set of verdicts on them. For the book’s own verdicts, see the chapters themselves.
A Note on the Three-Library System
The author maintains these same sources, identically, across three separate project libraries: Anti-Universalism, Universalism, and Postmortem Salvation. Each chapter is drafted in whichever library holds its primary sources, and any source from a different library is pasted into the working session. The groupings below are not theological teams. Several authors appear as allies and critics in different chapters. The groups simply reflect which library a source lives in and what kind of work it does in this book.
Library: Anti-Universalism (the default library for this book)
These are the two books this project exists to answer. Nearly every chapter begins by stating an argument from one of them, in the author’s own words, at full strength. They are resident in the Anti-Universalism library, which means they are searchable and quotable whenever a chapter is being drafted. Because the foundation of every chapter is the accurate statement of a critic’s argument, this is the library most chapters are drafted in.
2 vols. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018.
This is the main target of The Redemption of All and the strongest scholarly case against Christian universalism in print. McClymond surveys the whole story of the hope from the second century to today. His main thesis is that the hope, across most of its forms, grows out of a Gnostic-Kabbalistic-esoteric line of thought. He traces two main streams: Origenism and the theosophy of Jakob Böhme. His capstone claim, set out in chapter 12 (“The Eclipse of Grace”), is that the hope, in straining to extend grace to all, ends by eclipsing grace. All-grace turns out to be no-grace. Why? Because saving is reduced to nature, or to the way things must be, or to the self making itself clean. The free, costly work of Christ fades from view.1
McClymond’s twelve chapters cover the church’s teachings and newer views (ch. 1); the gnostic, kabbalistic, and esoteric roots (ch. 2); Origen and Origenism from 200 to 410 CE and from 410 to 1700 (chs. 3–4); Böhme and the Böhmists (ch. 5); the Anglo-American universalists (ch. 6); German and Russian thinkers (chs. 7–8); Barth, Moltmann, and the post-1970s relational theologies (ch. 9); Rahner, Balthasar, and the Roman Catholic turn (ch. 10); the variety of contemporary universalisms, including Talbott, Parry, Bell, and the charismatic preachers (ch. 11); and the concluding appraisal, “The Eclipse of Grace” (ch. 12). Six appendices follow.
This book treats McClymond with real respect and uses his catalog with thanks, because he has done the church a real service. His list of where the hope has gone wrong is, in many places, exactly right. The gnostic forms, the Böhmist dualism, the lawless strands, the esoteric streams: he is right to name them, and this book agrees with much of that critique. What this book contests is his reach: that the critique lands on the biblical, creedal, Christ-centered hope of a Gregory of Nyssa. The burden of every chapter is to show that it does not. McClymond is pressed hardest in Chapters 1–10 (his eclipse-of-grace thesis), Chapters 15–21 (history and the church), and Chapters 34–40 (the modern defenders and the conclusion).
Citation convention: V 1, p ___ or V 2, p ___. The two volumes are paginated continuously, with Volume 2 beginning at page 609. The resident copy carries running page markers throughout. Where a page number is unavailable, cite by chapter and section number (e.g., §12.3).
Resource Publications, an imprint of Wipf & Stock, 2018.
De Young provides the strongest recent verse-by-verse case against the hope of final salvation for all. Where McClymond works through history and theology, De Young works through the biblical texts. His thesis is that the case for the final saving of all fails at every point. It fails in the words of the Bible, in logic and reason, in church history, and in the texts of Scripture. He argues that Jesus and the apostles plainly teach an endless hell and that faith in Christ is needed for salvation.2
De Young’s book is organized into two main sections. Section 1, “Refuting the Appeals of Universal Reconciliation,” runs in four parts and eleven chapters: the appeal to biblical language (chs. 1–3, covering the meaning of “age,” the meaning of hell, and the reality of the afterlife); the appeal to emotion and reason (chs. 4–5); the appeal to church history (chs. 6–8, including “the creeds of universalism”); and the appeal to texts of Scripture (chs. 9–11, covering the “all” and “whole” texts, the choice-and-freedom texts, and other proof-texts). Section 2, “Correctly Interpreting the Bible,” covers the parables and Jesus’ teaching on hell (ch. 12), the apostles on judgment and hell (ch. 13), sixteen questions that expose universalism’s supposed false beliefs about hell (ch. 14), eight fatal consequences (ch. 15), and universalism’s alleged subversion of society (ch. 16).
This book engages De Young most heavily in the exegetical chapters. His chapter 1 is answered in Chapter 22 (the age-words). His chapters 9–11 are answered in Chapters 25–26. His chapters 6–8 are addressed in Chapters 15 and 21. His chapter 12 is taken up in Chapter 32, and his chapter 13 in Chapter 33. Note the author’s surname: this is James B. De Young, not to be confused with Paul Young, author of The Shack.
Citation convention: ch __ + subsection heading. The resident copy preserves De Young’s chapter and subsection titles but carries no running page numbers.
Library: Universalism
These are the books that defend the hope of universal reconciliation. They supply the positive case, the patristic evidence, the exegetical replies, and the philosophical framework that the chapters of this book draw on when answering McClymond and De Young. When a chapter is drafted in the Anti-Universalism library (the usual case), these sources are pasted into the working session as cross-project materials.
2nd ed. Wipf & Stock. Foreword by J. P. Moreland.
Stratton is the main voice for middle knowledge in this book. He sets out the three logical moments of God’s knowledge (natural, middle, and free), the mechanics of world-selection, and a “two-pillar” definition of what he calls mere Molinism. Stratton himself is not a universalist; he notes this openly. This book borrows his framework and extends it. If God knows what each person would freely choose in any setting, He can compose the best possible sequence of appeals for every soul. He can do this in this life and beyond, without ever forcing the choice. That extension powers the replies in Chapter 5 (non-necessitarian universal hope), Chapter 26 (the freedom objections), and Chapter 28 (whether hell only hardens the heart).
Citation convention: chapter number/title and subheading. No page numbers.
Nashville: B&H Academic, 2010.
Keathley offers a full Molinist account of how God saves, built around the “ROSES” model (his answer to the Calvinist TULIP). His treatment of God’s sovereign knowledge, grace that overcomes, and the safety of the saved supplies the backdrop for this book’s Molinist defense. Though Keathley does not argue for the hope, his framework shows how a strong view of God’s rule and real free will can hold together. This book draws on him most in the grace chapters (Chapters 4–6) and wherever middle knowledge does its work.
Citation convention: page and/or chapter.
Pickwick Publications, an imprint of Wipf & Stock, 2022.
MacGregor brings together essays that apply middle knowledge across a range of problems in thought and theology. His work supports the Molinist frame this book uses for its freedom-and-grace arguments. He is named in the chapters that deal with God’s knowledge of “what if” choices and the chance of a freely-chosen “yes” from all.
Citation convention: chapter.
2nd ed., 2016. Bible quotations from the NASB.
Burnfield provides both a reasoned argument and close Bible study for the hope of universal saving, with a special focus on the early church fathers. He builds his case around the “all means all” texts: Psalm 22:27; John 12:32; Isaiah 45:22–25 with Philippians 2:9–11; Romans 5:12–21; Romans 11:32; and Colossians 1:20. He also argues for mercy beyond the grave, drawing on Matthew 11:23–24; 12:32; Christ’s descent; and Ephesians 4:8–9. He addresses key objections, including the aiōnios question and the charge that Origen was a heretic. His survey of the patristic witness (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa) anchors this book’s replies on the early church and Origen (Chapters 15–16). He is also drawn on in Chapter 22 (the age-words) and Chapter 25 (the “all” texts).
Citation convention: chapter number and section heading.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019.
Hart is one of the most gifted and most debated voices in the whole discussion. His book is structured as four meditations. The first is on who God is. The second takes up biblical eschatology and the New Testament’s afterlife language. The third asks what a person is. The fourth addresses freedom and the rational will. His linguistic and exegetical observations are among the most valuable in this book’s arsenal. He shows that no New Testament term precisely matches the English word “hell.” He argues that Hadēs names a temporary realm of the dead, not a permanent destination. He reads kolasis (the punishment-word of Matthew 25:46) as carrying a corrective sense. And he makes the case that the “fire” language of the New Testament is imagery, not chemistry.3
Hart is a source, not a counterfeit. He is fully orthodox: he holds to the Trinity, the creeds, the incarnation, the atonement, and the rising of the dead. This book uses his work with thanks. But it parts from him on one point. Hart holds that the saving of all is a fact that must be so, that the will cannot say a final “no” to God. This book keeps real free will and holds the hope as a deep trust, not a claim that it must happen by sheer logic. That split is also this book’s answer to McClymond’s “saved by sheer must” charge (Chapter 5): the version McClymond rightly faults is Hart’s, which this book does not hold. For the full treatment of where Hart sits on the line, see Appendix B.
Citation convention: meditation/section (e.g., “First Meditation,” “Second Meditation”).
Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf & Stock, 2019.
This is the modern-history companion to Ramelli’s massive Volume 1 on the church fathers. It traces the thread of the hope from the Reformation through the 1800s. The hope never vanished. It came back again and again in thinkers close to the creeds. This book draws on Parry and Ramelli when answering the “fringes, not the center” charge (Chapter 19) and the chapters on the early church and Origen (Chapters 15–16). Ramelli’s patristic work, above all her The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis (Brill, 2013), is named throughout.
Citation convention: chapter.
Beauchemin writes at a popular level. He makes the biblical case that God’s judgments are always purposeful and always aimed at restoration, never at endless retribution. This book uses him as a supporting voice for the argument that the fire of judgment is restorative, not punitive in the sense of retribution without end. He appears most in Chapter 12 (whether universalism trivializes evil) and Chapter 24 (the lake of fire).
Citation convention: chapter.
Resource Publications, an imprint of Wipf & Stock, 2024. Bible quotations from the NKJV.
Coates offers a recent, wide-ranging case for the saving of all that spans the Bible, reason, and the mystics. His breadth makes him a useful added voice across several chapters, and his NKJV base text goes well with this book’s main use of the ESV.
Citation convention: chapter/page.
2014; 2nd ed. 2018.
Hurd’s first and broadest book lays out a full case from the Bible and from theology for the saving of all through Christ. It covers the texts that speak of God’s saving scope and the character of God as shown in the whole of Scripture. It also treats the peace promised in the letters of the apostles. This book draws on it for the broad framework of the hope, especially in the chapters on grace (Chapters 4–6) and the conclusion (Chapter 40).
Citation convention: chapter and section heading.
2019.
This is the single most valuable source for the exegetical chapters of this book. It is a direct, point-by-point answer to De Young’s Exposing Universalism, and since this book answers many of the same arguments De Young raises, Hurd’s reply is the natural companion. He addresses the restoration, reconciliation, and salvation-of-all texts. He covers the duration of punishment and the age-words, hope for the dead, the testimony of the church fathers, and the logic of universal reconciliation. Because it answers the same critic, it is the most-used paste-in across the project. It is drawn on most heavily in Chapters 22–25 (the exegetical core), Chapter 21 (the creeds of universalism), and Chapter 30 (the argument from silence).
Citation convention: chapter and section heading.
2016.
Hurd reframes the five points of Calvinism and argues that the hope of final saving for all solves the old Calvinist-Arminian standoff. Calvinism holds that grace cannot be refused but comes only to the chosen. Arminianism holds that grace can be refused but comes to all. Hurd argues that the hope holds grace that wins in the end for all. This reframing is useful in the grace chapters (Chapters 4–6), where McClymond charges that the hope eclipses grace.
Citation convention: chapter and section heading.
2018.
Here Hurd makes the restorationist’s case against conditional immortality (annihilationism). He argues that the destruction-language of Scripture speaks of the ruin and remaking of the rebel self, not the snuffing out of a person’s existence. He also addresses the Hebrew olam and its relationship to time and eternity. This is relevant wherever the book treats conditional immortality as the honest fallback (see Appendix B). It also feeds into the chapters on destruction-language: Chapter 24 (the lake of fire), Chapter 29 (reconciliation or destruction), and Chapter 33 (the apostles on judgment).
Citation convention: chapter and section heading.
Library: Postmortem Salvation
These sources address what happens after death. Does God’s saving offer continue? How does the divine presence shape the soul? What grounds exist for hope beyond the grave? Several of these authors are not on the side of the hope. Some defend endless torment but make concessions the book finds telling. Others develop models of cleansing, optimal grace, or a saving meeting beyond death that this book adopts and extends. When a chapter is drafted in the other two libraries, these sources are pasted in as cross-project materials.
Beilby provides the most careful recent defense of a saving offer after death. He addresses the problem of those who never heard the gospel, the test cases, and those who received a twisted version of it. He surveys the early church’s witness and answers the standard objections from Hebrews 9:27 and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16). This book uses him most in Chapter 27 (the no-second-chance texts) and Chapter 14 (whether a universal ending empties the present). He also appears in Chapter 20 (the spirit-world connection) and Chapter 23 (the sheep and the goats). Beilby’s own hope is more modest than this book’s: he restricts the postmortem offer to the unevangelized. This book extends it to all, and states the difference where it matters.4
Citation convention: page. The text carries embedded page numbers.
Jonathan brings the pastoral side of hope beyond death into focus. He asks what this hope means for grieving families, for the joining of love and justice, and for a biblical reading of God’s mercy after the grave. This book draws on him for the pastoral register, especially in Chapter 14 (the seriousness of the present) and Chapter 27 (the no-second-chance texts).
Citation convention: page. The text carries embedded page markers (e.g., “[p. 100]”).
3rd ed. Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf & Stock, 2026. Foreword by Chris Tilling. Afterword by Oliver D. Crisp.
Written under the pen name Gregory MacDonald, this is Robin Parry’s exegetical and theological case that evangelical Christianity, taken to its own conclusions, leads to universalism. Parry works through the universal-scope passages and traces the structure of Revelation. He points to the open gates of the New Jerusalem and the nations bringing their glory into the city. He argues that the Book of Life is never closed. He is a primary exegetical ally for the texts chapters, especially Chapter 23 (the sheep and the goats), Chapter 24 (the lake of fire), Chapter 25 (the “all” texts), Chapter 29 (reconciliation or destruction), and Chapter 32 (the parables and Jesus on hell). McClymond critiques Parry by name in §11.4 of The Devil’s Redemption, making this a key paired source.5
The Third Edition is a major expansion of the earlier editions. It is now paginated throughout, with running page markers from the front matter (roman i–xxxii) through the body (arabic 1–322). It adds two new chapters: chapter 7, on the patristic doctrine of apokatastasis, and chapter 8, on Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. It also adds three new appendices. Appendix 2 sketches a theology of universal election. Appendix 4, “Responses to (Some of) My Critics,” answers objections raised since the first edition. And Appendix 5, “A Response to Michael McClymond’s Theological Critique of Universalism,” is a direct reply to the eclipse-of-grace case at the heart of The Devil’s Redemption. In that appendix Parry addresses McClymond’s charges that the hope is a slippery slope into heresy, that it is esoteric mysticism in disguise, that it eclipses grace, that it lacks a proper theological foundation, and that it threatens the doctrine of the atonement. Because Parry now answers McClymond head-on, this Third Edition is also a key paired paste-in for the eclipse-of-grace chapters (Chapters 1–10) and the conclusion (Chapter 40).
Citation convention: page. The resident Third Edition carries running “[p. N]” markers throughout. Where a page is unavailable, cite by chapter.
1st ed. Universal Publishers, 1999; 2nd ed., rev. and expanded, Cascade Books (Wipf & Stock), 2014.
Talbott is the figure McClymond presses hardest. He is the leading philosophical defender of Christian universalism, and McClymond devotes significant space to him in §11.3 and in the concluding appraisal. Talbott argues that God’s love is unconditional in its nature and unlimited in its scope. He develops the argument from divine love and the informed-freedom dilemma. He builds on the Romans 11:32 reading: “God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.” He poses a trilemma that he says forces a choice between universalism, Calvinism, and incoherence. The second edition adds a chapter on “Predestination unto Glory.” Because McClymond targets him by name, Talbott’s own words are the key paste-in for several chapters. These include Chapter 13 (the argument from evil), Chapters 34–37 (McClymond’s case against the modern defenders), and the freedom chapters.
Citation convention: chapter.
With Bourgeault commentary.
Boros develops the “final decision” hypothesis: the idea that at the moment of death each person stands in the immediate presence of God and makes a fully informed, definitive choice. This is one of the pillars beneath the broader case for hope after death. This book engages it as part of the framework for what happens when a person meets God face to face. It appears most in Chapter 27 (the timing of the offer’s end).
Citation convention: chapter/section.
Wipf & Stock, 2023.
Hronich provides a rigorous recent case for universal restoration. He critiques the view that the finally lost are simply destroyed. He defends repentance after death. And he develops a Molinist-universalist argument: God’s middle knowledge, paired with His love, ensures that every free creature is brought home at last. This book draws on Hronich in Chapter 11 (the challenge of evil), Chapter 13 (whether the argument from evil proves too much), Chapter 17 (the scope of the hope), Chapter 26 (the choice-and-freedom texts), and Chapter 28 (whether hell only hardens the heart).
Citation convention: chapter.
The Postmortem Salvation library also holds the optimal-grace excerpt from Walls’s Hell: The Logic of Damnation.
Walls is not a universalist. He defends the reality of hell as a possible final destination. What makes him valuable for this book is his concept of optimal grace. The idea is that God’s grace is “deeply personal and individual,” fitted to each heart by a God who knows it perfectly. This book borrows the concept and extends it. If God offers each person the form of grace most likely to win a free “yes,” the hope follows. And if He has all of time to do so, no force on the will is needed. Walls himself does not take that step, but this book does. His work appears most in Chapter 6 (grace eclipsed by self-expiation), Chapter 26 (the freedom objections), Chapter 28 (whether hell only hardens), and Chapter 37 (when the cross recedes).
Citation convention: chapter/section. Purgatory lacks page numbers in the resident copy.
Manis develops the divine-presence model of hell. On this view, heaven and hell are not separate places. They are the same unveiled presence of God, felt as joy by the willing and as torment by those who resist. He also provides the key treatment of 2 Thessalonians 1:9. He reads the Greek olethros (“ruin”) and the phrase apo prosōpou (“from the face/presence”) in a telling way. It means “ruin that comes from the presence of the Lord,” not “exile away from” it. His Molinism section complements Stratton.
Manis’s own model is a form of eternal conscious torment. He is no universalist. This is what gives his concessions their weight. When a defender of ECT grants that the fire of God’s presence is not random and that it follows from who God is, the case for hope gains a witness who has no reason to favor it. The fact that he also grants that the language of ruin need not mean exile makes the point even stronger. This book uses him most in Chapter 12 (whether universalism trivializes evil), Chapter 24 (the lake of fire), Chapter 28 (whether hell only hardens), Chapter 33 (the apostles on judgment), and Chapter 36 (Talbott’s “destructive salvation”).6
Citation convention: page, where the table of contents anchors a section.
Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010. Bible quotations from the NASB.
Baker builds the case that the fire of hell restores and cleanses. She argues that the Bible’s images of fire, brimstone, and ruin, read in their old-world setting, point not to endless torment but to a painful process of refining. The cross and those in the fire are not separate stories on her reading; the fire is the cross’s saving work carried on. This book draws on her in Chapter 6 (grace eclipsed by self-expiation), Chapter 22 (the age-words), Chapter 24 (the lake of fire), and Chapter 37 (when the cross recedes).
Citation convention: page and/or chapter. The text carries embedded page markers (e.g., “[p. 51]”).
Routledge Studies in Analytic and Systematic Theology.
This volume addresses divine knowledge, God’s seeing of the future, and how He guides the world. It supports the middle-knowledge and optimal-grace framework that this book uses to answer the freedom charges and the “hell hardens” charge. It is drawn on in the background for the Molinist chapters.
Citation convention: chapter.
Every source listed above lives, the same way, in one of the author’s three project libraries: Anti-Universalism, Universalism, or Postmortem Salvation. Any chapter of this book can reach any source by drafting in the right library or by pasting the source into the working session. The groupings above show which library holds each source, not which “side” the author places it on. Several sources (Walls, Manis, Beilby) lean toward the older view, not toward the hope. What they share is a library label, nothing more.
When a chapter’s footnote cites a source without further comment, the format given above is the one in use. When a reader wants to know where a source fits in the larger case, the chapter that leans on it most is the place to look. The cross-links above point the way.
Finding the Argument
This list tells you who the voices are and where to find them. It does not lay out the arguments. For those, follow the chapter links above to the chapters that engage each source most fully. For the book’s central line between the two kinds of the hope, see Appendix B. For every argument mapped to its chapter and the critic’s citation, see Appendix A.
↑ 1. Michael J. McClymond, The Devil’s Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018). McClymond is professor of modern Christianity at Saint Louis University. The book was the 2018 Academic Theology Book of the Year (The Gospel Coalition) and a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2019. The eclipse-of-grace thesis is concentrated in ch. 12, especially §12.3 (“The Problem of Grace in Christian Universalism”).
↑ 2. James B. De Young, Exposing Universalism: A Comprehensive Guide to the Faulty Appeals Made by Universalists Paul Young, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, and Others Past and Present to Promote a New Kind of Christianity (Resource Publications, an imprint of Wipf & Stock, 2018). De Young is Senior Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Western Seminary, Portland, Oregon.
↑ 3. David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019). Hart is an Eastern Orthodox scholar and philosopher. His companion translation, The New Testament: A Translation (Yale University Press, 2017), also informs the biblical arguments of the present work. On the meaning of kolasis, see the Second Meditation and Hart’s footnotes on Matthew 25:46.
↑ 4. On the distinction between Beilby’s restricted scope (the unevangelized only) and this book’s universal scope, see the discussion in Chapter 27.
↑ 5. Robin A. Parry, The Evangelical Universalist: The Biblical Hope That God’s Love Will Save Us All, 3rd ed. (Cascade Books / Wipf & Stock, 2026), published under the pen name Gregory MacDonald. Foreword by Chris Tilling; afterword by Oliver D. Crisp. McClymond engages Parry in The Devil’s Redemption, §11.4. Parry’s direct reply to McClymond’s theological critique appears in Appendix 5 of the Third Edition.
↑ 6. R. Zachary Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God. Manis’s own position is a divine-presence form of eternal conscious torment, not universalism. On the significance of an ECT-holder’s concessions for the universalist case, see Chapter 33.