Parsing the Elements of a Universalist Meta-Heuristic
using Gelpi’s account of Lonergan’s normative, evaluative, interpretive & descriptive functional specialties
The logic of the functional specialties unfolds in such a way that foundational impasses will generally foreclose on our ability to reach doctrinal or systematic consensuses.
Conversely, one needn’t reject universalism per se based on one’s distaste for another’s preferred idiom or systematic approach. After all, one does not derive one’s Christology or eschatology from metaphysics.
I place this here to encourage those who engage the universalism of folks like David Bentley Hart & Jordan Daniel Wood to not cursorily & summarily dismiss their work tout court based on what are otherwise rather isolated disagreements, especially if those arise from a distaste for another’s metaphysics.
Universalist arguments are multifaceted, methodologically, as they probe distinctly different aspects of a given reality. Each component argument remains integrally related to each other and some may be foundationally derived from others in a progressive, logical sequence.
However, some underived isolated arguments can stand or fall on their own, quite independent from & without necessarily threatening the integrity of the others, especially when they’re otherwise methodologically autonomous from them.
Concretely, then, if one buys into the exegetical & patristic evidential arguments for universalism, or at least receives them as doctrinally defensible minority positions, what I am encouraging one to do is to BYOM, i.e. bring your own metaphysics, meta-heuristic, phenomenology or narrative storytelling.
Functional Specialties
1) normative – foundations (exegetical, liturgical, historical & philosophical)
2) evaluative – doctrines (creedal & theologoumenal)
3) interpretive – systematics (theopoetic & metaphysical idioms)
4) descriptive - communications (pastoral, homiletical, missiological)
Examples of Diverse Approaches (by Functional Specialty) as Could Be Compatible with Universalism
Foundations (exegetical, liturgical, historical & philosophical)
David Bentley Hart’s Theological Anthropology vis a vis his account of an authentically human knowledge & a genuinely rational freedom and on his relational conception of personhood (mutually constitutive)
David Bentley Hart’s Inventory of Temporal & Eternal (Proleptic & Eschatological) Relations per a Universalist Synthesis as supported by & integral to his own New Testament Translation & Exegesis
Jordan Daniel Wood’s Exegetical Hypotheses regarding the corpus of Maximus the Confessor
David Bentley Hart’s Evidential Inventory of Patristic Support for Universalism
Doctrines (creedal & theologoumenal)
Jordan Daniel Wood’s Maximian Neo-Chalcedonian Christology
Gelpi’s Synoptic Narrative Maximian Christology
David Bentley Hart’s Inventory of theological predicates as remain indispensable for doctrinal coherence
David Bentley Hart’s Game Theoretic Analysis of the antecedent - consequent will distinction & its eschatological collapse
Systematics (theopoetic & metaphysical idioms)
Bracken’s Neo-Whiteheadian Metaphysic of Universal Intersubjectivity
Gelpi’s Neo-Peircean, Realist, Social, Triadic Metaphysics of Experience
Jordan Daniel Wood’s Neo-Hegelian, Maximian Christological Cosmology (as provisions a coherent account of hypostatic identity)
David Bentley Hart’s Neoplatonic Metaphysics of Participation (& the eminent intelligibility of analogical language)
Communications (pastoral, homiletical, missiological)
Rohr’s Universal Christ - a contemplative reconceptualization of the Cosmic Christ
And, especially where pastoral communications are concerned, let’s not be too harsh. GNaz would encourage pastors to consider their audiences and then to communicate the faith in the least inadequate way practicable. So, yes, enough with the condescending arrogance aimed at Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM!
Finally, speaking of inadequate ways to communicate: All of these above elements are addressed in my own PanSEMIOentheism - A Universalist Franciscan Cosmotheandrism