Theodicy, the Restoration of All Things, and an Open but Hopeful Future

Open and Relational Theology, especially its Process form, focuses on theodicy. It seeks to offer a vision of God that makes sense of the Christian confession that God is love while recognizing that evil exists in the world. It does so by challenging traditional understandings of divine power, such that, as with the vision offered by Thomas Jay Oord, since love is noncoercive, God is unable to prevent evil. Instead, God walks with and comforts us as we experience evil. Some within this movement are unsure about whether any theodicy fully explains the reality of evil. One way of responding to this reality is to think in eschatological terms. More specifically, one can embrace the view that God will bring a universal restoration of all things, such that evil will ultimately be overcome. 

In this paper, I will seek to develop an eschatological vision of hope that embraces an open future while also embracing an eschatological vision that embraces the concept of the restoration of all things. In pursuit of this vision, I draw upon biblical texts such as Acts 3, where after healing a man with a disability, Peter takes an opportunity to share a message of God’s coming realm, declaring that Jesus will remain in heaven “until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets” (Acts 3:21-23). I will also draw on the work of theologians Jürgen Moltmann, Sergius Bulgakov, and, where possible, Piere Teilhard de Chardin, along with older Orthodox theologians including Origin and Gregory of Nyssa.  

Another way of rendering the idea of “universal restoration” is to conceive of the “restoration of all things” (apokatastasis). Although the reference in Acts 3 does not require belief in universal salvation, other passages of Scripture, especially in Ephesians and Colossians, suggest that God will reconcile all things to Godself. This may involve, as I believe, the possibility of universal salvation. Jürgen Moltmann provides a sense of what this might involve in his book The Coming of God. 

“In the cosmic christology of the Epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians, not only all human beings and earthly creatures but the angels too—evidently the disobedient ones, since for the others it is unnecessary—will be reconciled through Christ. As reconciled, they will be gathered together under their head, Christ (who must here be understood as the personified Wisdom of Creation), and will thus be perfected. What is meant is nothing other than the restoration of all things, the homecoming of the universe in the form of what Irenaeus called the recapitulatio mundi.” [Jürgen Moltmann. The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology (Kindle Locations 3467-3470). Kindle Edition].

Some of the early theologians, including Irenaeus, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa, spoke of some form of universal restoration, though this might include some form of purgation (refining fire). So, consider this word from Gregory of Nyssa, which is found in his Catechetical Discourses (26:8): 

“For just as in the case of those who are healed with cuttings and cautery, they are indignant with [their] healers, cringing at the pain of the cut, but if through these things health should be regained and the pain of the cautery should be passed, they will be thankful to those who affected the healing in them; in the same manner, when the evil in nature, which is now mingled and growing with it, is taken out through long periods, when the restoration to the ancient [state] of those who are now lying in vice comes to pass, there will be thanksgiving in unison from all creation, both from those who have been chastised in purification and also from those who had no need of purification from the beginning.” [Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Discourse: A Handbook for Catechists, (St. Vladimir’s Press, 2019), p. 120].

Gregory uses the Greek word apokatastasis (restoration) here, a word found in the New Testament only in Acts 3:21. The early twentieth-century Russian Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov offers helpful guidance when it comes to envisioning a future that includes the restoration of all things (apokatastasis). For Bulgakov, the idea of the restoration of all things provides a useful theodicy in that evil will not have the final word since God will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28).  

If we posit an open future, if God acts out of love, and love is noncoercive, how do we envision an endpoint? Is there hope that all things might be restored? We find references to the restoration of all things in several places in Scripture, along with messages of divine judgment. Thus, the question is whether God has sufficient power to bring to a close the present age such that God’s realm might come to full fruition. This is, in part, a response to the question of theodicy, especially if current theodicies fall short, including those posited by many within the Open and Relational Theology movement.