Chapter 7

Böhme, Mysticism, and McClymond’s “Two Streams” Theory

A. McClymond’s Argument: Two Rivers, One Destination

McClymond has given us a grand historical narrative. I want to give him credit for that. Over two massive volumes, he traces what he sees as the deep genealogy of universalism—not just as a set of theological ideas but as a historical movement with identifiable roots, branches, and trajectories. In this chapter, we arrive at one of his most ambitious claims: that universalism flows through two major historical streams, and that both of them originate outside the boundaries of orthodox Christianity.

The first stream is Origenist universalism. McClymond describes this as a system built around the idea of preexistent souls who fell away from God and who will eventually be restored to their original state. As he puts it, the basic theme is one of “preexistent, fallen, and restored souls.”¹ This stream flows from Origen through various channels of patristic and medieval thought. We addressed important problems with McClymond’s reading of Origen in Chapters 4 and 9. But there is a second stream that concerns us here.

The second stream is Böhmist universalism. Jakob Böhme (1575–1624) was a German cobbler and mystic whose visionary writings exerted an enormous influence on later European theology and philosophy. McClymond describes Böhmist universalism as built on something quite different from Origen’s scheme. Its basic theme, he says, is “a dialectic of divine self-differentiation and divine self-reconciliation.”² In plainer terms: Böhme taught that God contains within Himself opposing principles—light and darkness, love and wrath—and that the whole cosmic drama is really the story of God working out these tensions within His own being. The roots of this vision, McClymond argues, lie in Jewish Kabbalah and its later modifications in Christian Cabala.³

McClymond traces Böhme’s influence through an impressive chain of thinkers and movements. The Philadelphian Society in London, led by the visionary Jane Lead. The German Pietist universalists Johann and Johanna Petersen. Colonial American universalists like George de Benneville and Elhanan Winchester. The German idealist philosophers Hegel and Schelling. The Russian religious thinkers Vladimir Solovyov, Nicolas Berdyaev, and Sergius Bulgakov. The twentieth-century theologian Paul Tillich.⁴ And then—here is where it gets really interesting—McClymond draws a line that runs from Böhme through the Anglican mystic William Law, through the Scottish theologian Thomas Erskine, through the Victorian writer George MacDonald, and all the way to the contemporary philosopher Thomas Talbott. He writes it out explicitly: “Böhme-Law-Erskine-MacDonald-Talbott.”⁵

Think about what McClymond is doing here. He is trying to show that even the most biblically minded, philosophically rigorous contemporary universalists are really just the latest links in a chain that stretches back to a seventeenth-century mystic cobbler who had visions of angelic beings and taught a theology that, by almost any standard, was deeply heterodox. If McClymond is right, then conservative biblical universalism is not what it claims to be. It is not a return to Scripture. It is not a recovery of patristic theology. It is the latest expression of a mystical, esoteric tradition that has always existed at the margins of Christianity.

On top of the two-streams theory, McClymond makes a second, related claim that deserves our attention. He argues that paranormal and visionary experiences have been a major historical driver of universalist belief. He writes that for many key figures in the history of universalism, belief in universal salvation was not primarily a conclusion drawn from Scripture or from theological reasoning. It was something they saw—in visions, trances, and encounters with the spirit world.⁶

McClymond assembles an impressive roster of examples. Jane Lead, who believed in universal salvation because of what she reportedly saw in the spirit world.⁷ John Pordage, the Anglican minister who experienced terrifying visions of demons and angels and built his theology around those encounters.⁸ George de Benneville, who reportedly fell into a forty-two-hour trance in which spirit beings proclaimed the restoration of all humanity to him.⁹ Caleb Rich, a colonial American universalist whose theology was shaped by two visionary experiences around 1773.¹⁰ Vladimir Solovyov, who had visions of Sophia (divine Wisdom) in the British Museum and in the Egyptian desert.¹¹ Hannah Whitall Smith, who described her universalist conviction not as something she reasoned her way to but as something she saw.¹² Sadhu Sundar Singh, who claimed to have encountered the deceased spirit of Emanuel Swedenborg during multiple journeys into the spirit world.¹³ And Hans Urs von Balthasar, whose “hopeful universalism” was closely connected to the mystical visions of Adrienne von Speyr.¹⁴

McClymond even extends this observation into the present, noting the role of near-death experience (NDE) literature in popularizing universalist ideas. He points to Betty Eadie’s Embraced by the Light (1992), in which Eadie claims to have learned during a visionary experience that all souls will be saved, that there is no eternal hell, and that all religions are valuable paths to God.¹⁵

So McClymond’s argument comes down to this: universalism, historically, is not primarily a biblical or theological conclusion. It is a conclusion driven by mystical experience and transmitted through two identifiable historical streams—both of which are rooted in heterodox soil. The Origenist stream is rooted in gnostic cosmology. The Böhmist stream is rooted in kabbalistic theosophy. And visionary experience provides the emotional and experiential fuel that keeps both streams flowing. If McClymond is right, then the whole conservative biblical universalist project is built on sand.

That is a serious charge. Let us see whether it holds up.

B. Identifying the Weaknesses: The Missing River

McClymond’s two-streams theory is, in one sense, a real piece of historical scholarship. He has read widely in the primary sources. He has traced genuine historical connections. Many of the people he names really were influenced by Böhme. Hegel really did draw on Böhme’s thought. Solovyov really did have visionary experiences. Jane Lead really did base her universalism on claimed encounters with the spirit world. I am not going to pretend these facts don’t exist.

But McClymond’s framework has a massive problem. It is not a small problem hidden in the footnotes. It is a structural problem at the very center of his argument. And once you see it, his entire two-streams theory looks very different.

The problem is this: McClymond has identified two streams of universalism, but he has missed the third and most important stream.

The third stream is the one that flows directly from the biblical text itself. It is the stream that begins with Paul’s declaration that just as all people were condemned through Adam’s sin, so all people are justified through Christ’s obedience (Rom. 5:18). It continues through Paul’s proclamation that in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor. 15:22). It flows through his breathtaking statement that God was pleased through Christ to reconcile all things to Himself (Col. 1:20). It runs through Peter’s affirmation that Christ preached to the spirits in prison (1 Pet. 3:18–20) and that the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead (1 Pet. 4:6). It surfaces in Lamentations 3:31–33, where the prophet declares that the Lord will not cast off forever, that though He causes grief He will show compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love. And it culminates in the vision of Revelation 21–22, where the gates of the New Jerusalem are never shut and the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations.

This third stream does not need Böhme. It does not need the Ungrund. It does not need the Kabbalah. It does not need visions of angels or forty-two-hour trances. It needs a Bible, a willingness to take Paul at his word, and the theological courage to follow the argument wherever it leads.

And here is what makes McClymond’s omission so damaging to his own thesis: the most important and influential contemporary universalist scholars all belong to this third stream. Not to the first two.

Consider Thomas Talbott, the philosopher McClymond tries so hard to link to Böhme. Yes, McClymond can trace a historical chain from Böhme through Law through Erskine through MacDonald to Talbott. But historical influence is not the same as theological dependence. Talbott does not build his case for universalism on Böhme’s Ungrund or on MacDonald’s fairy tales. He builds it on a careful philosophical and exegetical analysis of Paul’s letters—especially Romans 5, Romans 9–11, and 1 Corinthians 15.¹⁶ You will search The Inescapable Love of God in vain for any appeal to Böhmist theosophy. You will find, instead, close readings of the Greek text, engagement with Pauline scholarship, and rigorous philosophical argumentation about the nature of divine love and human freedom. If Talbott happened to enjoy reading George MacDonald’s novels—and who doesn’t?—that tells us nothing about the validity of his philosophical arguments from Romans 5:18.

Consider Robin Parry, who published The Evangelical Universalist under the pseudonym Gregory MacDonald. Even McClymond acknowledges that Parry uses multiple lines of argument—philosophical reasoning, biblical exegesis, and historical tradition—in his case for universalism.¹⁷ Parry’s approach is to construct a biblical-theological reading of the entire canon, showing how the themes of creation, fall, judgment, and restoration weave together into a coherent narrative that points toward universal reconciliation. There is not a single paragraph in The Evangelical Universalist that depends on Böhme, Kabbalah, or paranormal experience. Parry is doing what evangelicals have always done: reading the Bible and following the argument.

Consider David Bentley Hart, whose That All Shall Be Saved is arguably the most discussed universalist work of the twenty-first century. Hart builds his case on philosophical theology and the Greek church fathers—especially Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor. His argument from creatio ex nihilo (that a God who creates freely and out of love must bring that creation to a good end) is rooted in classical Christian theism, not in Böhmist mysticism.¹⁸ His reading of 1 Corinthians 15:28 (“that God may be all in all”) draws on patristic exegesis, not on visionary experience.

And consider Ilaria Ramelli, whose monumental The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis is the most comprehensive study of patristic universalism ever written. Ramelli builds her case entirely on patristic evidence—the actual texts of Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius, Maximus the Confessor, and dozens of other early Christian writers. Her methodology is historical. Her evidence is textual. Böhme does not appear in her index.¹⁹

So here is the problem for McClymond. He has identified two historical streams of universalism and argued that both are rooted in heterodox soil. Fine. But the universalists he is actually trying to refute in The Devil’s Redemption—Talbott, Parry, Hart, Ramelli—do not belong to either of those streams. They belong to a third stream that McClymond barely acknowledges. And that third stream is rooted not in gnostic cosmology, not in kabbalistic theosophy, not in visionary experience, but in Scripture and patristic theology.

This is a fatal problem for the two-streams theory. It is like a prosecutor who proves that two suspects committed various crimes but then tries to convict a third suspect based solely on the fact that all three lived in the same city. The historical connections McClymond traces are real. But they are irrelevant to the contemporary conservative universalist case.

The Böhme Problem: Heterodox to the Core

Let me be blunt about something. McClymond is right that Böhme’s theology is heterodox. I am not going to pretend otherwise. Böhme taught a modalistic view of the Trinity, a docetic view of Christ, a panvitalist view of the world, and a divinized view of human nature.²⁰ He reduced salvation to a kind of gnosis—a coming to awareness regarding spiritual truth. His concept of the Ungrund—a formless abyss that exists prior to and beneath the Trinity itself—is deeply at odds with orthodox Christian theology. Cyril O’Regan is probably right that Böhme introduced a form of Valentinian gnosis into modern Christian thought.²¹

We should be clear about just how far Böhme’s theology departs from anything recognizably orthodox. Böhme taught that God contains within Himself a “dark” principle alongside the “light” principle. Lucifer’s rebellion, in Böhme’s scheme, was not a creature turning away from its good Creator. It was the expression of one side of God’s own nature. Böhme’s eschatology affirmed that material reality will eventually vanish—the exact opposite of the biblical hope for a renewed and resurrected creation. He viewed heaven and hell as subjectively different experiences of the same underlying reality. He understood human nature as created ex Deo (out of God), not ex nihilo (out of nothing)—which effectively erases the Creator-creature distinction that is foundational to biblical theology.²⁰

Bulgakov, in his early essays, called Böhme a “mystical rationalist” and compared his system to the pantheistic monism of Spinoza. He wrote that Böhme’s system was essentially “dynamic Spinozism”—a view in which God and nature are ultimately indistinguishable, the only difference from Spinoza being that Böhme’s version was active and moving rather than static.⁴⁹ This is not a minor quibble about secondary doctrines. Pantheism is a fundamental departure from the God of the Bible—the personal, transcendent, wholly other Creator who is utterly distinct from His creation.

I am saying all of this clearly because I want the reader to understand: conservative biblical universalists do not need to defend Böhme. We have no stake in his theology. It is not our theology. It is not the foundation of our case. We reject his modalism, his docetism, his panvitalism, his erasure of the Creator-creature distinction, and his dialectical picture of God. We affirm the Nicene Creed without qualification. We affirm Chalcedonian Christology. We affirm that God is wholly good, that creation is ex nihilo, and that material reality—including our bodies—will be redeemed and transformed, not dissolved into nothingness. And McClymond’s attempt to tar us with Böhme’s brush is a textbook example of guilt by association.

Consider an analogy. Karl Marx was deeply influenced by Hegel. Hegel was deeply influenced by Böhme. Therefore, one could construct a chain: Böhme → Hegel → Marx. Does this mean that anyone who is concerned about economic inequality is secretly a Böhmist? Of course not. The genetic fallacy is a logical error regardless of how many links you add to the chain.

McClymond himself would recognize this in other contexts. The doctrine of the Trinity was formulated using Greek philosophical categories borrowed from Neoplatonism. The Cappadocian Fathers used the term homoousios—a philosophical term, not a biblical one—to express the Son’s consubstantiality with the Father. Does this mean the Nicene Creed is “really” Neoplatonic philosophy dressed up in Christian clothing? Of course not. The origins of a concept’s vocabulary tell us nothing about the truth or falsity of the concept itself.²²

The Visionary Experience Problem: A Straw Man with a Long History

McClymond’s argument about paranormal and visionary experiences driving universalism is historically interesting but strategically misleading. He assembles a list of figures whose universalism was shaped by visionary experience—Lead, Pordage, de Benneville, Rich, Solovyov, Smith, Singh, Balthasar (via von Speyr), and the NDE literature. And he is right: for these particular figures, visionary experience was central.

But notice what McClymond is doing. He is selecting examples that support his thesis while ignoring the ones that don’t. This is called cherry-picking, and it is a serious methodological error.

Thomas Talbott did not become a universalist because he had a vision in the British Museum. He became a universalist because he read Romans 5:18 and couldn’t find a way around Paul’s logic. Robin Parry did not become a universalist because a spirit being visited him in a forty-two-hour trance. He became a universalist because he studied the whole arc of Scripture and concluded that the biblical narrative points toward universal reconciliation. David Bentley Hart did not become a universalist because of near-death experiences. He became a universalist because he read the Greek fathers and found their arguments compelling. Ilaria Ramelli did not become a universalist because she saw angels. She became a universalist because she spent decades studying patristic texts in Greek, Latin, and Syriac and found that the earliest and most sophisticated Christian theologians overwhelmingly affirmed apokatastasis—the restoration of all things.²³

McClymond’s visionary-experience argument is a straw man when applied to modern academic universalism. It is like arguing that belief in gravity is driven by paranormal experience because Isaac Newton dabbled in alchemy. The historical fact is interesting. But it tells us nothing about whether objects fall when dropped.

The “Conflicted God” Problem: Not Our God

One more weakness needs naming. McClymond argues that the Böhmist stream of universalism produces a “conflicted God” theology—a picture of God in which opposing principles of love and wrath, light and darkness, are at war within the divine being itself.²⁴ And he is right that Böhme taught something like this. Böhme’s theology posited that the original state of things was a precarious balance of opposing principles rooted in God’s own nature. Lucifer’s fall was a “congealing” of the Father’s anger into personal form.²⁵ The whole cosmic drama, on this view, is really God working out an internal conflict.

This is not the God of conservative biblical universalism. Not even close.

The God of conservative biblical universalism is the God of 1 John 4:8—the God who is love, not the God who contains love and its opposite in some kind of dialectical tension. Our God does not have an internal conflict between love and wrath. His wrath is an expression of His love—the holy love of a Father who will not tolerate anything that destroys His children. Our God does not need cosmic drama to resolve tensions within Himself. He is, as the Nicene Creed declares, the one God, Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, fully sovereign, fully good, fully at peace within His own eternal being.

McClymond’s critique of the “conflicted God” theology is valid as a critique of Böhme. It is completely irrelevant as a critique of Talbott, Parry, Hart, or Ramelli, none of whom teach anything remotely resembling a conflicted God.²⁶

C. The Universalist Response: The Stream McClymond Can’t See

Building the Case from Scripture, Not Mysticism

I said earlier that the most important stream of universalism is the one flowing directly from Scripture. Now I need to show what that looks like. I am going to walk through the major contemporary conservative universalist scholars and show exactly where they get their arguments. Not from Böhme. Not from Kabbalah. Not from visions. From the Bible.

Start with Thomas Talbott. In The Inescapable Love of God, Talbott presents what he calls a “trilemma”—three propositions that cannot all be true at the same time. The three propositions are: (1) God sincerely wills the salvation of every person. (2) God is able to accomplish whatever He sincerely wills. (3) Some people are never saved. Any two of these propositions imply the denial of the third.²⁷ This is not mysticism. This is logic, applied to clear biblical texts. Proposition 1 comes from 1 Timothy 2:4 (“God desires all people to be saved”) and 2 Peter 3:9 (“not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance”). Proposition 2 comes from the biblical testimony to God’s omnipotence and sovereignty (Isa. 46:10; Ps. 135:6; Dan. 4:35). Proposition 3 comes from the traditional reading of texts about hell and final judgment.

Talbott argues that propositions 1 and 2 are clearly taught in Scripture and that we should therefore reject proposition 3. Calvinists accept propositions 2 and 3 and reject proposition 1 (God does not sincerely will the salvation of every person). Arminians accept propositions 1 and 3 and reject proposition 2 (God is unable to accomplish His will for universal salvation because of human free will). Talbott’s argument is that the universalist position—accepting 1 and 2 while rejecting 3—is the most faithful to the whole testimony of Scripture.²⁸

What makes Talbott’s argument so powerful is that it forces the reader to confront a genuine logical dilemma. If you believe God genuinely wants every person saved (as 1 Timothy 2:4 plainly says) and also believe God can accomplish whatever He wills (as the entire testimony of Scripture affirms), then you have only two options: either universalism is true, or you have to weaken one of those two biblical claims. The Calvinist weakens the claim about God’s desire. The Arminian weakens the claim about God’s power. Only the universalist holds both claims at full strength. This is not mysticism. This is not theosophy. This is what happens when you take the Bible seriously and follow its logic to the end.

Talbott also makes a profound argument about the nature of sin and freedom. He argues, on both biblical and philosophical grounds, that sin is not an expression of freedom but a form of bondage. Jesus said, “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). Paul described sinners as “slaves to sin” (Rom. 6:20) and spoke of the whole creation being “subjected to futility” (Rom. 8:20). If sin is bondage, then a fully informed, fully free rejection of God is logically impossible—because anyone who truly understood who God is and what He offers would have no rational basis for rejecting Him. The sinner rejects God because the sinner is deceived, confused, broken, or enslaved. And these are precisely the conditions that God’s purifying love is designed to overcome.⁵⁰

Where is Böhme in this argument? Nowhere. Where is Kabbalah? Nowhere. Where is the Ungrund? Nowhere. Talbott’s argument is built on biblical texts, formal logic, and philosophical analysis of freedom and bondage. Period.

Talbott then turns to Paul. He reads Romans 5:12–21 with meticulous care, noting the exact symmetry of Paul’s argument: just as one trespass led to condemnation for all people, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all people (v. 18). He argues that the “all” in the second half of the verse must have the same scope as the “all” in the first half. If “all” means “every human being without exception” when it refers to condemnation, then it means “every human being without exception” when it refers to justification.²⁹ Paul even adds the “how much more” intensifier (vv. 15, 17), suggesting that grace is more powerful than sin, not less. We will treat these texts in full detail in Chapter 14, but notice for now: Talbott’s exegesis depends on Paul, not on Böhme.

Now consider Robin Parry. In The Evangelical Universalist, Parry constructs a comprehensive biblical-theological case for universal restoration. He begins with the Old Testament, tracing God’s purpose from creation through the call of Abraham through the prophetic vision of a restored creation. He moves through the New Testament, examining the Gospels, Paul, the general epistles, and Revelation. His method is what any good evangelical theologian would recognize: a canonical reading that seeks to understand the whole Bible as a unified theological narrative.³⁰

Parry’s argument is that the great narrative arc of Scripture—creation, fall, judgment, redemption, new creation—points toward a final state in which God’s purposes for creation are fully realized. And those purposes, as stated from the very beginning, are to bless all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:3), to reconcile all things through Christ (Col. 1:20), and to sum up all things in Christ (Eph. 1:10). Parry takes the judgment texts just as seriously as the restoration texts. He does not wave away Gehenna or the lake of fire. He shows, text by text, that these images of judgment fit coherently within a restorative framework. The fire purifies. The destruction breaks down what is resistant to God. The severity is real—but so is the purpose behind it.

McClymond himself acknowledges that Parry “readily entertains counterarguments opposing his own position,” a quality McClymond rightly admires.⁵⁴ But if Parry is engaging counterarguments and building his case through exegesis of the full canon, then how exactly is his universalism “rooted in” Böhme’s mysticism? The simple answer is: it is not. Again: where is Böhme? Where is Kabbalah? Where are the visionary trances? They are absent, because Parry is doing biblical theology—the thing evangelicals are supposed to do.

David Bentley Hart’s approach is different from Talbott’s and Parry’s, but it is equally rooted in classical Christian sources. Hart builds his case on three foundations: the metaphysical implications of creatio ex nihilo, the moral implications of God’s goodness, and the patristic exegesis of key biblical texts. His argument from creation is this: if God created freely and out of love—not out of need, not out of an internal dialectical process, but out of sheer superabundant goodness—then the purpose of creation must be the communication of that goodness to creatures. And if the purpose of creation is the communication of goodness, then the permanent loss of any creature represents a failure of that purpose, which is to say a failure of God’s creative will.³¹

Hart also develops a devastating moral argument. If God is perfectly good, and if He creates beings whom He knows will suffer for all eternity with no possible escape, then God is either unable to prevent their suffering (which denies omnipotence) or unwilling to prevent it (which denies perfect goodness). There is no middle ground. Either God can save all and chooses not to, or He wants to save all and cannot. The universalist affirms both God’s perfect goodness and His omnipotence, and concludes that He will save all.⁵¹ Hart often draws on Gregory of Nyssa’s argument that evil has no ontological substance. It is a privation, a parasite, a shadow that depends on the good for its very existence. A shadow, by its very nature, cannot outlast the light. Once God’s light fully shines, all shadows disappear. Evil is temporary. Good is eternal. That is not a Böhmist idea. That is Nicene orthodoxy applied with unflinching consistency.

This argument is not Böhmist. It is the exact opposite of Böhmist. Böhme taught that creation emerged out of an internal process of divine self-differentiation—that God needed to create in order to work out tensions within His own being. Hart insists, with classical Christian theism, that creation is wholly gratuitous—that God created out of love, not out of need. The distance between these two positions could not be greater.³²

And then there is Ilaria Ramelli. In her review of The Devil’s Redemption, published as an appendix in A Larger Hope, Volume 1, Ramelli offers a withering critique of McClymond’s historical methodology. She demonstrates that what is good in McClymond’s treatment of the patristic evidence is not really new (it can be found in more detail in her own earlier work), and what is new in McClymond’s treatment is mostly not very good (his interpretations find ready responses in the fathers’ own works).³³ Ramelli’s point is not just that McClymond gets specific details wrong—though he does—but that his entire framework for understanding patristic universalism is flawed. The patristic universalists were not drawing on gnostic or kabbalistic sources. They were drawing on Scripture, on the Jewish-Christian tradition, and on a Platonism that they explicitly constructed against gnostic Platonism.

Ramelli makes a point about chronology that bears directly on the two-streams argument. She notes that while the Kabbalah certainly influenced some early modern Christian universalists, it was “posterior to the first systematizations of Christian universalism, from Origen onwards.”⁵² In other words, you cannot explain the origins of a third-century theological position by appealing to a medieval Jewish mystical tradition that did not yet exist. The same is true of Böhme, who was born in 1575. You cannot use a seventeenth-century mystic to explain the universalism of third- and fourth-century church fathers. The chronology simply does not work. This is a basic historical error that undermines a significant portion of McClymond’s genealogical argument. Whatever drove Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Clement of Alexandria, and the other patristic universalists to their conclusions, it was not Böhme and it was not the Kabbalah. It was their reading of Scripture and their understanding of God’s character.

Why the Chain Proves Nothing

Let me return to McClymond’s chain: Böhme-Law-Erskine-MacDonald-Talbott. This chain is historically interesting but theologically irrelevant, for a simple reason that any first-year philosophy student can identify: the fact that person B was influenced by person A does not mean that person B’s arguments depend on person A’s arguments.

George MacDonald was influenced by William Law, who was influenced by Böhme. True. But MacDonald was also influenced by the Bible, by the Calvinist tradition he grew up in, by the Romantic poets, and by his own experience as a Congregationalist minister. The question is not whether MacDonald ever read Law (he did) but whether MacDonald’s universalism logically depends on Böhme’s theology. And the answer is clearly no. MacDonald’s universalism is rooted in his understanding of God as a loving Father who will not rest until every lost sheep is found. That understanding comes from Luke 15, not from the Ungrund.³⁴

The same is true at every link in the chain. Talbott was influenced by MacDonald. But Talbott’s arguments about Romans 5:18 and the logic of divine love do not depend on MacDonald’s fairy tales. They depend on Paul’s letters and on philosophical principles that anyone can evaluate regardless of whether they have ever heard of Böhme.

McClymond’s chain is a genetic fallacy extended across four centuries. And it needs to be named as such.

What the Third Stream Actually Looks Like

I want to spend some time describing this third stream in more detail, because McClymond’s readers need to see what conservative biblical universalism actually looks like—as opposed to the caricature that the two-streams theory creates.

The third stream begins with the Bible. It reads the great “all” texts—Romans 5:18, 1 Corinthians 15:22, Colossians 1:20, Ephesians 1:9–10, Philippians 2:10–11, 1 Timothy 2:4, 1 Timothy 4:10, Titus 2:11, 2 Peter 3:9—and takes them at face value. It does not explain them away. It does not restrict the “all” to “all believers” or “all categories of people.” It lets “all” mean all.³⁵

The third stream then reads the judgment texts—the texts about Gehenna, the lake of fire, destruction, outer darkness—and takes them with equal seriousness. It does not deny judgment. It does not minimize the severity of God’s response to sin. But it reads those texts in light of the broader biblical testimony about the purpose of God’s judgment. And what it finds, over and over, is that God’s judgment is purposive, corrective, and ultimately restorative. The Hebrew words for justice (mishpat and tsedaqah) denote not merely punishment but the setting right of what has gone wrong.³⁶ The fire that God uses is a refiner’s fire (Mal. 3:2–3), not a torturer’s fire. God disciplines as a Father disciplines His children—and the purpose of discipline is restoration, not destruction (Heb. 12:5–11).

The third stream reads the early church fathers—not the medieval Scholastics, not the Reformers, not the Enlightenment philosophers, but the earliest Greek-speaking theologians who were closest to the original languages of Scripture and to the apostolic tradition. And it finds, as Ramelli has documented in exhaustive detail, that the dominant theological tradition among the Greek-speaking church fathers supported apokatastasis.³⁷ Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus (arguably), Clement of Alexandria, Bardaisan, Evagrius, Maximus the Confessor, Isaac of Nineveh—these are not marginal figures. They are among the most important theologians in the history of Christianity. And they believed in universal restoration. Not because of Böhme (who would not be born for over a thousand years). Not because of Kabbalah (which postdates patristic universalism by centuries). Because of Scripture and the theological logic of God’s love, justice, and sovereignty.

Think about who these people were. Gregory of Nyssa was one of the three Cappadocian Fathers—the theologians who gave us the classical formulation of Trinitarian doctrine. He is venerated as a saint in both Eastern and Western Christianity. He was an unambiguous universalist who wrote extensively about the eventual restoration of all rational beings. If universalism is inherently heterodox, why has the church never condemned Gregory?⁵³ Maximus the Confessor, honored in both Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism as one of the greatest theological minds of the first millennium, articulated a sophisticated version of universal restoration grounded in Christology and the doctrine of creation. Isaac of Nineveh, beloved in the Syriac tradition, wrote with breathtaking beauty about God’s love reaching even into the depths of Gehenna.

These men did not learn their universalism from a cobbler in Görlitz. They learned it from Paul, from John, from the Psalms, from the prophets, and from the deep logic of the gospel itself. They are the third stream. And they are the stream that McClymond’s two-streams theory cannot account for.

The third stream affirms everything that McClymond says universalism denies. It affirms the authority and inspiration of Scripture. It affirms the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Definition, and the full orthodox theology of the Trinity. It affirms the necessity of faith in Christ for salvation. It affirms substitutionary atonement (alongside Christus Victor and other atonement models). It affirms the reality and severity of divine judgment. It affirms hell—real, painful, terrifying.³⁸

What it adds—and this is the only point of departure from traditional particularism—is the conviction that God’s love and God’s power are great enough to bring every person to genuine, willing faith. Not by overriding free will. Not by forcing anyone into heaven. But by the relentless, patient, purifying work of His love, which “never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8) and which pursues the lost sheep until it is found (Luke 15:4).

This is not Böhme’s theology. It is not gnostic cosmology. It is not kabbalistic theosophy. It is the theology of a good shepherd who does not rest while a single sheep is lost.

Reversing the Direction of Influence

There is one more point I want to make about McClymond’s genealogical approach. McClymond assumes that the direction of influence runs from Böhme to modern universalism—that Böhme’s ideas were the cause and universalist theology was the effect. But there is another way to read the evidence that McClymond’s framework cannot accommodate.

What if universalism keeps appearing in different historical contexts—in gnostic thought, in patristic theology, in Böhmist mysticism, in Enlightenment rationalism, in modern biblical scholarship—not because it is being transmitted along a hidden chain of influence, but because it keeps arising independently wherever people take the Bible seriously and think carefully about what it means for God to be love?

McClymond himself notes that universalist ideas have surfaced in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic contexts across different centuries and continents.³⁹ His explanation is that this convergence proves the existence of an underground esoteric tradition stretching across all three Abrahamic faiths. But there is a much simpler explanation. Wherever monotheists take seriously the claim that God is good, that God is powerful, and that God loves every person, the question naturally arises: will this good and powerful and loving God really allow some of His creatures to be lost forever? And wherever that question is asked honestly, some thoughtful people conclude that the answer is no.

This is why universalism keeps showing up where McClymond does not expect it. It shows up in second-century Alexandria (Clement, Origen). It shows up in fourth-century Cappadocia (Gregory of Nyssa). It shows up in seventh-century Syria (Isaac of Nineveh). It shows up in seventeenth-century Germany (the Böhmists—yes, but also many others). It shows up in eighteenth-century America (among thinkers who had never heard of Böhme). And it shows up in twenty-first-century analytic philosophy (Talbott), twenty-first-century biblical theology (Parry), twenty-first-century patristic scholarship (Ramelli), and twenty-first-century philosophical theology (Hart).

The common thread linking all of these instances is not an underground esoteric tradition. The common thread is the biblical God. The God who declares, “I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezek. 33:11). The God who is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). The God who “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). Wherever people encounter this God in Scripture, the universalist question arises naturally. No esoteric tradition is needed to get there.

The recurrence of universalist ideas across diverse and unconnected contexts is not evidence of a shadowy esoteric tradition. It is evidence that the idea has an inherent theological plausibility that keeps reasserting itself whenever the conditions are right.⁴⁰ Universalism is not like a virus transmitted through contact. It is like a plant that grows wherever the soil of honest theological reflection is watered by the rain of Scripture’s testimony to God’s universal love.

Böhme Was Not Even a Universalist

Here is an irony that McClymond acknowledges but whose significance he underplays: Böhme himself was not a universalist. As McClymond notes, Böhme’s later sayings moved in the direction of universalism—opposing Calvinist predestination, supporting the salvation of non-Christians, and tentatively affirming some kind of purgatory—but he never made the leap to full universalism.⁴¹ It was Böhme’s followers who drew the universalist conclusion from his theology, resolving his dialectical tension between love and wrath in the direction of love over wrath.

This matters. If Böhme himself was not a universalist, then Böhmism is not, strictly speaking, a “stream of universalism.” It is a theological system that some later thinkers used as raw material for constructing universalist arguments. But that is a very different claim from saying that universalism flows from Böhme in the way a river flows from its source.

And it raises an obvious question: if Böhme’s theology was compatible with non-universalism (since Böhme himself was not a universalist), then why should we think that the universalist conclusions drawn by some of his followers are caused by Böhme’s theology rather than by other factors—such as, say, a careful reading of Romans 5:18?

The Real Foundation: Paul, Not Böhme

If I had to identify the single most important foundation for the contemporary conservative universalist case, it would not be Böhme. It would not be Origen. It would not be Gregory of Nyssa, as important as he is. It would be the apostle Paul.

Paul is the one who wrote that just as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor. 15:22). Paul is the one who wrote that God’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all people (Rom. 5:18). Paul is the one who wrote that God was pleased to reconcile all things to Himself through Christ, whether things on earth or things in heaven (Col. 1:20). Paul is the one who wrote that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10–11). Paul is the one who wrote that God imprisoned all in disobedience so that He might have mercy on all (Rom. 11:32). And Paul is the one who wrote that God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4).⁴²

These texts are the engine of conservative biblical universalism. Not Böhme. Not Kabbalah. Not mystical experience. Paul. And McClymond’s two-streams theory, for all its historical learning, never adequately addresses the question: what do we do with Paul?

Talbott builds on Paul. Parry builds on Paul. Hart engages Paul extensively. Ramelli traces the reception of Paul’s universalist themes through the patristic tradition. The contemporary conservative universalist case stands or falls on the exegesis of Paul (and the rest of Scripture). If McClymond wants to refute universalism, he needs to engage with Paul’s arguments, not with Böhme’s mysticism.

We will engage with McClymond’s treatment of the Pauline texts in detail in Chapters 14 and 20. For now, the point is this: the two-streams theory is a distraction. It directs attention away from the biblical evidence—where the real debate needs to happen—and toward a genealogical narrative that is historically interesting but theologically beside the point.

D. Counter-Objections: Answering the Strongest Pushback

“But the historical connections are real. Don’t they mean something?”

Yes, the historical connections are real. William Law really did read Böhme. George MacDonald really was influenced by Law. Thomas Talbott really was influenced by MacDonald. These are facts, and I am not disputing them.

But historical connections tell us about the history of ideas, not about the truth of ideas. The question before us is not “Where did universalism come from?” but “Is universalism true?” And that question can only be answered by examining the arguments on their merits—the biblical evidence, the theological reasoning, the philosophical logic—not by tracing genealogies.⁴³

McClymond knows this. He is a historian, and a good one. But in The Devil’s Redemption, he treats genealogy as if it were refutation. It is not. As we argued in Chapter 3, this is the genetic fallacy, and no amount of historical detail can turn a fallacy into a valid argument.

“But if so many universalists have been influenced by heterodox thinkers, shouldn’t that concern us?”

Only if we apply the same standard consistently. And if we do, we will find that it undermines a great deal of Christian theology that McClymond himself affirms.

Augustine’s theology was profoundly shaped by Neoplatonism and Manichaeism—both heterodox by any standard. Before his conversion, Augustine was a Manichaean for nine years. After his conversion, he continued to draw heavily on Plotinus and the Neoplatonists. His concept of evil as privation—which became standard in Western theology—comes directly from Plotinus. Does this mean we should reject Augustine’s doctrine of grace? Thomas Aquinas built his theology on the framework of Aristotelian philosophy, which was imported into the Christian tradition from Islamic scholars like Averroes and Avicenna. In the thirteenth century, Aquinas was actually accused of introducing pagan philosophy into Christian thought. Does this taint Thomistic theology? Martin Luther was deeply influenced by the German mystical tradition, including the Theologia Germanica—a text with connections to the same mystical currents that produced Böhme. Luther praised this anonymous text lavishly. Does this mean the Reformation is built on mystical sand?⁴⁴

Of course not. In every case, we evaluate the theology on its own merits, not on the merits of its predecessors or influences. We do not reject the doctrine of the Trinity because the term homoousios was borrowed from Greek philosophy. We do not reject the concept of original sin because Augustine developed it partly under the influence of his Manichaean background. We do not reject Thomistic natural law because Aquinas borrowed from Aristotle via Islamic intermediaries. In each case, the question is: is the theology true? Not: who influenced the theologian?

The same standard should apply to universalism. Even if every universalist in history had been a Böhmist (which is emphatically not the case), that would tell us nothing about whether Romans 5:18 teaches what Talbott says it teaches. The arguments must be evaluated on their own terms.

“But the pattern of universalism being driven by visionary experience is striking. Doesn’t it suggest something?”

It suggests that some people have come to universalist conclusions through visionary experience. But that tells us nothing about whether other people have come to universalist conclusions through rigorous biblical exegesis and theological reasoning. Both things can be true at the same time.

I could compile an equally impressive list of people who came to believe in eternal conscious torment through visionary experiences. The medieval literature on hellfire visions is enormous—think of the Apocalypse of Paul, the Visio Tnugdali, Dante’s Inferno, and countless others. In more recent times, people like Mary Kathryn Baxter (A Divine Revelation of Hell) and Bill Wiese (23 Minutes in Hell) have written bestselling books claiming to have visited hell in visionary states. Should we conclude that belief in eternal torment is “based on” visionary experience? Should we use their visions to discredit the exegetical arguments of scholars like Robert Peterson, J. I. Packer, or Don Carson?⁴⁵

Obviously not. Some people have visionary experiences. Some of those people draw theological conclusions from those experiences. But the truth or falsity of a theological position depends on the evidence and the arguments, not on whether somebody once had a vision about it.

“Even if Talbott doesn’t directly cite Böhme, isn’t there an indirect influence through MacDonald?”

Possibly. So what?

Indirect influence is not the same as logical dependence. I was influenced by my sixth-grade teacher. That does not mean my doctoral thesis depends on her arguments. Talbott may have been introduced to the idea of universalism through reading MacDonald. But the arguments Talbott makes for universalism are entirely his own—built on Paul, on philosophical analysis of divine love, and on a careful engagement with the logic of Calvinism and Arminianism.⁴⁶

There is nothing wrong with being introduced to an idea by one person and then constructing your own arguments for it from independent sources. That is how intellectual life works. Scientists are often “influenced” by predecessors whose specific theories they reject. The question is always: do the arguments work on their own terms?

“But Böhme’s theology really is heterodox. Doesn’t that matter for evaluating universalism?”

Yes, Böhme’s theology is heterodox. No, that does not matter for evaluating universalism—any more than the fact that some flat-earthers are also creationists matters for evaluating creationism.

I will say it one more time, because it is the central point of this chapter: the origins of an idea do not determine its truth. This is Logic 101. It is the genetic fallacy. And McClymond, for all his learning, commits it on virtually every page of The Devil’s Redemption.⁴⁷

Böhme was heterodox. Gnosticism was heterodox. Kabbalah is not Christian. All of this is true, and none of it tells us a single thing about whether God will reconcile all things through Christ. That question can only be answered by examining the biblical evidence, the theological arguments, and the philosophical reasoning—which is exactly what the best conservative universalist scholars have done, and which is exactly what McClymond’s genealogical approach consistently avoids doing.

Conclusion: Follow the Arguments, Not the Genealogy

McClymond’s two-streams theory is a fascinating piece of intellectual history. I have genuinely learned from it. He has done careful research on Böhme’s influence, and his documentation of the visionary-experience dimension of early modern universalism is interesting and valuable. As a work of intellectual history, much of it is solid.

But as an argument against universalism, it fails. And it fails for reasons that should be clear by now.

First, it commits the genetic fallacy. Even if universalism had originated entirely in gnostic and kabbalistic soil (which it did not), that would not make it false. The truth of a proposition is determined by the evidence for it, not by who first believed it. McClymond knows this in other contexts. He does not reject the Nicene Creed because its terminology was borrowed from Greek philosophy. He should apply the same principle to universalism.

Second, it ignores the third and most important stream of universalism—the directly biblical and patristic stream. This is the stream that flows from Paul through Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, and Isaac of Nineveh. It is the stream that contemporary conservative universalists—Talbott, Parry, Hart, Ramelli—have tapped into and continued. It is the stream that depends not on mystical visions, not on kabbalistic theosophy, not on Böhme’s Ungrund, but on the plain testimony of Scripture that God desires all to be saved, that Christ died for all, and that God will one day be all in all.

Third, it misidentifies the actual sources of contemporary conservative universalism. The universalists McClymond is actually trying to refute do not build their cases on Böhme, Kabbalah, or mystical visions. They build their cases on Paul’s letters, on the Old Testament prophets, on the parables of Jesus, on the theology of creation, on the logic of divine love, and on the testimony of the earliest and most important Greek-speaking church fathers. McClymond’s two-streams theory is aimed at a target that has already moved.

Fourth, the visionary-experience argument is a straw man when applied to modern academic universalism. Some historical universalists had visionary experiences. Some historical believers in eternal torment had visionary experiences. The truth of a theological position does not depend on whether someone once had a vision about it. It depends on the exegetical, theological, and philosophical arguments that can be made for it.

In the chapters that follow, we will turn to the real debate. We will examine the patristic evidence for universalism (Chapters 8–13). We will work through the biblical texts in detail—the “all” texts, the judgment texts, the aionios question, the Johannine and Petrine and Pauline witnesses (Chapters 14–22). We will address the theological arguments about God’s love, freedom, justice, and the problem of evil (Chapters 23–28).

That is where the real action is. Not in seventeenth-century German mysticism. Not in kabbalistic speculation. Not in visionary trances. In Scripture. In the God who declares, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5). That is the stream we are following. And no genealogical argument, however learned, can divert it from its course.⁴⁸