Book Review: Once Loved Always Loved by Andrew Hronich

Once Loved Always Loved (Wipf & Stock, 2023) by Andrew Hronich is a very impressive defense of universal salvation. As far as I can tell, the author has read, watched, and listened to just about everything on the topic. This is particularly true regarding the philosophical and theological literature. His bibliography alone goes on for twenty pages in small type! I do not know anyone who has read as much on the topic of the final destiny of human beings as Hronich has. And the long bibliography is not just for show. One scholar after another shows up on just about every page of his book. The author knows the eschatological landscape well and walks around it with ease and facility. And what makes this truly amazing is that he does not (yet) have a Ph.D.! Clearly he is one super-intelligent man. (I imagine he was a terror in Sunday School.) Currently Hronich is working on a Master’s degree at Princeton University. I do not know if he has designs on an academic career in philosophy or theology, but I sure hope he does.

In the Introduction, Hronich shares a bit of his background. He was raised in a fundamentalist Baptist household and congregation and attended Liberty University. After graduation he entered into full-time church ministry under the tutelage of a “prestigious evangelical apologist.” A the very beginning of his ministry he decided to focus his preaching on the claim that “all human beings . . . are condemned to an eternal fate of conscious torment” unless they turn to Jesus Christ and confess him as Lord and Savior. Every person is born into a massa damnata, but God has made provision for their rescue by conversion and regeneration in the Spirit. Hronich also intimates that his preaching was informed by strong Calvinist convictions.

In the first year of his ministry, however, our young preacher began to wonder about the salvific state of those who have never heard the gospel. How is it possible that they are doomed to eternal perdition if they have never had an opportunity to embrace the good news of Jesus Christ? “Questions such as these,” he tells us, “opened my eyes to see that many of my brothers and sisters were living in fear, yet pretending to abide in love. We believed in a God of wrath yet prayed to a God of mercy, sang to a God of love yet preached a God of anger.” And so his questions multiplied. He then read Rob Bell’s book Love Wins and found it persuasive. Even so, he could not bring himself to believe that Bell’s message was true. His wrestling continued.

Hronich found himself drawn to Romans 5. The Apostle sure sounds like he is declaring universal reconciliation. He consulted the commentaries of well-known Calvinist exegetes (he specifically names John Piper, John MacArthur, and R. C. Sproul) and did not find their answers convincing. “Does Paul mean that all men will be justified?” he wrote in his Bible.

Finally, the Scriptural testimony compelled him to conclude that universal reconciliation is true. Not only does it make sense, it makes sense of everything—“of justice, forgiveness, mercy, grace, wrath, punishment, repentance, etc.” Having looked God in the face, he “came to understand what perfect love is, what and who God is.” A paradigm shift had taken place in his mind and heart. There is now no turning back.

Once Loved Always Loved is the fruit of Hronich’s new vision of the God who is absolute love. Universalism is indubitably true; indeed, he believes that “if classical theism is true, then universalism follows.” This is a bold claim, as he readily acknowledges, but our author is convinced that he can rationally demonstrate that universalism logically follows from Molinist, open theist, Wesleyan, and Calvinist premises. That this is so is the burden of his book. We shall see.

For whom then is Once Loved Always Loved written? Not for the ordinary person in the pew, perhaps not even for ordinary seminary trained pastors. Though Hronich weaves his strong evangelical-universalist convictions throughout his argumentation, he is predominantly concerned to address the best arguments advanced by philosophers and theologians who defend the dogma of eternal damnation and reiterate the strongest objections to this dogma advanced by universalist philosophers and theologians. No stone is left unturned. Unlike other titles that have been written over the past two decades, his case for universal salvation is both intellectually rigorous and comprehensive. The volumes written by Thomas Talbott, John Kronen & Eric Reitan, and David Bentley Hart are intellectually rigorous, he observes, and have been important in the formation of his thinking; but they do not cover the subject as comprehensively as he has done—hence the need for this book.

Hronich’s fundamental thesis is simple: God will bring all human beings to glory. He advocates a hard (necessitarian, dogmatic) universalism, not a contingent (hopeful, soft) universalism. The latter he believes (rightly, in my opinion) fails to resolve the evangelical and moral concerns raised by the prospect that one, some, many may be eternally damned:

On contingent universalism’s assumed premises, God would remain essentially good in any state of affairs, but it just so happened that the state of affairs that was instantiated in this world was one where universalism obtains. Yet, there are other possible (and feasible) worlds where contingent universalism fails to obtain, thus postponing the question of how God’s perfect goodness could be consistent with such a dreadful state. While such a horrid state of affairs did not happen, it could have. Why? How could God’s goodness possibly be consistent with such an awful end? (p. xviii)

Hronich confidently believes that he has written a book that will be “a mainstay on the subject for many years to come.” Perhaps he has. I intend to test his confidence in this review, though I fear I lack the competence, despite my wide reading on the topic over the last decade. He knows the philosophical terrain in a way that I do not. I’m just an ordinary (retired) parish priest.

At this point I have only skimmed the entirety of Once Loved Always Loved and have only read closely the first chapter. I will blog on a chapter after I have finished reading it. I expect a rereading of each will be necessary. At this point I do not know if I will write an article on each chapter or only on those that particularly interest me. I also reserve the right to revise my published thoughts after I have concluded my blogging. I deem that possibility necessary for a faithful review. This is an unusual way to review a book, I know—it’s fair neither to the author nor my readers—but at this time of my life, it’s the best I can do. What I do know is that Once Loved Always Loved will be a challenge for me.

I wish to note two initial criticisms, neither of which are directed to the author. First, the publisher should have invested in a good proof-reader. I have already noticed several errors in chapter 1, including a citation that should have been block-quoted. Second, the publisher should have provided an index. A scholarly book like this demands and deserves one.

(cont)