Hosea Ballou (1771–1852)
Hosea Ballou was born into the family of a poor Baptist preacher in Richmond, rural New Hampshire, in 1771.283 Hosea’s mother died before he was two, so Maturin, his father, raised his eleven children alone. The home was a strict Calvinist household, but not one that lacked love.
Hosea had no formal education as a child as there was no school, so he had to teach himself to read and write. From his youth he was very inquisitive and possessed a sharp mind. In particular, he was fascinated with theological issues and was constantly questioning the “givens” of the Calvinist theology he had inherited.
When Hosea was seven or eight, Caleb Rich began preaching the universalist message around Richmond, and after winning some converts he became the minister of a universalist society spread across Warwick (his home base), Richmond, and Jaffrey. So Hosea would have become aware of this religious opinion as a child, not least because some of his distant relatives were among Rich’s converts.
Ballou had long struggled with the Calvinist doctrine of reprobation and so the universalist alternative intrigued him, though his instinct was to treat it as suspect. He spent many hours in his late teenage years debating the issue with Caleb Rich, seeking to expose its flaws, yet the issue would not let his mind rest.
In 1789, when Ballou was nineteen, he was converted by two Baptist evangelists and baptized, yet his doubts about Calvinism persisted. He decided to look more closely at the Bible in relation to the issue of the scope of salvation and eventually found himself more and more persuaded that God would indeed save all people. For this he was excommunicated by the Baptist church in Richmond.
He enrolled himself in school to catch up on the education missed in his childhood and then set off to become an itinerant universalist preacher.284 He had already started to receive a good reputation as a preacher by 1794, when, aged twenty, Hosea attended the General Convention of Universalists in Oxford, Massachusetts. Here he was unexpectedly ordained. Elhanan Winchester, in his sermon on the last day of the convention, grabbed a Bible and pressed it against Ballou’s chest, declaring, “Brother Ballou, I press to your heart the written Jehovah!” Ballou was then charged to serve as an ordained minister, much to his surprise. From that point on, the Rev. Ballou devoted himself totally to the ministry of itinerant preaching, with his reputation growing year by year.
His first pastorate was over three churches in Vermont (1803–9), followed by Portsmouth, New Hampshire (1809–15), Salem, Massachusetts (1815–17), and finally Boston’s newly formed Second Society of Universalists (1817–52), where he ministered for almost thirty-five years.285 Though he now worked from fixed church bases, he still travelled widely on preached tours. He was also involved in various denominational matters: playing a key role in the annual General Convention (from 1791 onward); helping to draw up the Winchester Profession of Faith (1803), the closest the universalists got to a formal creed;286 helping compile a new hymn book (1808);287 publishing numerous influential books; co-launching, editing, and writing for The Universalist Magazine (1819–20), which became an important means of propagating the faith, and other universalist magazines;288 and, most importantly, drawing thousands to universalism through his preaching ministry over the decades. He was a fearless apologist for the universalist faith and he loved to debate—in print and face-to-face—with ministers who took traditional positions.
Ballou was always his own man when it came to theological matters. He did not replicate the theological systems of any of the “founding fathers” of American universalism, but drew on eclectic influences to craft his own system. And his thought was not static, but continued to develop, such that on several issues one can trace shifts—some gradual, some sudden; most early, but some late. The major period of theological reconfiguring took place between 1790 and 1805 when his seminal A Treatise on Atonement was published.
One can easily see the influences of universalists like Rich, Winchester, and perhaps especially Chauncy,289 and unitarians like Joseph Priestly, on Ballou’s thought, but one of the more surprising inspirations was the work of deists like Ethan Allen, whose Reason: The Only Oracle of Man (1784) was a blistering attack on Christianity in the name of reason. This book deeply impacted Ballou—one can see, for instance, Allen’s arguments against the Trinity replicated in Ballou’s work. Of course, Hosea never embraced Allen’s deism nor his rejection of the Bible, but the book forged his lifelong commitment to the authority of reason. Ernest Cassara considers Allen’s book to be Ballou’s likely introduction to unitarianism and the spark that forced him to rethink the atonement.290
A Treatise on the Atonement (1805, 1832)
Ballou’s most influential publication was A Treatise on the Atonement, which was the culmination of the main phase of his theological rethinking. Its divergences from previous universalist books and its widespread impact justify us outlining his argument. The discussion proceeds in three stages from an analysis of sin (the illness), through atonement (the cure), to universal salvation (the effects of the cure).291
Part 1. Sin (15–70)
The first section considers the nature, the causes, and the effects of sin.
The nature of sin (15–24). Intention plays a critical role in Ballou’s understanding of sin—it is an evil intention that constitutes an evil action. Sin is a deliberate violation by an agent of what that agent believes is a moral law. Now, we are finite creatures so, of course, our understanding of the moral good is limited, as well as our understanding of the particulars of any specific situation in which we choose to act or of the consequences of our actions. Our evil intentions are finite as are the consequences of our actions. For sin to be infinite would require us to violate an infinite moral law, but such a law would be beyond our comprehension, and thus beyond our ability to violate. Sin is as finite as the agents that cause it.
Now the mainstream Western tradition in Ballou’s day saw sin as infinite on the grounds that it is committed again the infinite law of the infinite God. As such it is infinitely bad and deserves an infinite punishment (i.e., everlasting hell). This view Ballou sets out to expose as irrational by means of a fleet of arguments.
Sin is usually declared infinite on the grounds that it violates God’s infinite will for creation. However, says Ballou, this argument won’t work. If God is infinite in power and wisdom, then nothing violates his will—not even sin. If it did, God would only have finite power and wisdom, and violating his will would incur only finite demerit. Ballou’s God is so ultra-sovereign that even human sin is part of God’s predetermined will, a temporary part of the overall plan leading to final salvation. God’s intentions for the events that happen are for the ultimate good of creatures and as such those events are not evil acts of God, but good acts, even if they are painful and even if God often works through the acts of human agents whose intentions, and thus whose acts, are evil.292
The doctrine of infinite sin has a series of unpalatable consequences. If sin is infinite then nothing is greater than it, not even divine goodness or love or power or God himself. If sin is infinite it has infinite consequences that will torment not only creatures, but also God, forever. If every sin is infinite and every sin is as bad as every other, “the smallest offence against the good of society, is equal to blasphemy against the Holy Ghost” (19). Against this is the clear teaching of Scripture that some sins are worse than others (Matt 12:31; 1 John 5:16).
The causes of sin (24–56). Ballou dismisses the traditional Christian story that the origins of sin are found in the fall of rebel angels. This, he says, simply knocks the problem back a level, rather than explaining anything—we now have to explain Lucifer’s sin and find ourselves tied in knots when we attempt to. (In fact, Ballou does not even believe in the existence of the devil, except as a symbol of the carnal mind, not unlike Gerrard Winstanley.)
Ballou develops his own theological anthropology in which Christ was the image of God gran
ted rule over creation. In Genesis 1, humanity was created in the image of God in that humanity was created in Christ, the heavenly man. This, however, was before man was formed from the dust of the ground. So here we have a version of the preexistence of human souls prior to their enfleshment. When God sends humans to be embodied, they are thereby constituted as mortal creatures with natural passions and limited self-knowledge. Thus, humans have a dual nature: a heavenly nature (after Christ) and an earthly nature. The latter is the origin of our natural appetites, the satisfaction of which can never satisfy “the heavenly stranger within” (32). The earthly mind of humans can only dimly grasp the moral law impressed on it in a shadow-like way by the heavenly self. Our dual existence is one of conflict between the passions arising from our embodied nature and the heavenly self.
The story of the garden of Eden is not literal history, but a figurative story to communicate the ideas explained above. There the carnal human mind (symbolized by the serpent) is hostile to God and cannot submit to God’s law and deceives us from the law of the spirit of life in Christ (the tree of life) to indulge the fleshly nature (the tree of knowledge). Notice that for Ballou, this situation of human conflict with sin is not a result of a fall from a state of perfection, but is the condition in which we exist by virtue of being embodied beings. God, in his wisdom and for the ultimate good of his creatures, formed Adam from the dust subject to struggle and frustration and death. The struggle and the sin were all part of the bigger plan. Ballou-the-determinist does not flinch from seeing God as the ultimate cause of human sin. Though “the immediate causes of sin are found in our natural constitutions” (41), the appetites and passions and confusions that arise from embodiment. We are not mortal because we sin, but sin because we are mortal.
The effects of sin (56–70). For Ballou, the consequences of sin are experienced by sinners in this life in the wounded conscience: “There gnaws the worm that never dies, there burns the fire that is never quenched. A consciousness of guilt destroys all the expected comforts, and pleasures of sin” (56). He rejected the notion that sin can bring happiness in the short term, but will bring disaster in the afterlife. Sin brings disaster now. It only offers false promise, for by its very nature it torments the soul. We desire to sin, but only because we have been deceived into thinking it will make us happy. For as long as a soul sins, it remains in spiritual death.
Now our dual-natured humanity is such that in our earthly nature, formed in Adam, we cannot obey the law of God, but in our heavenly nature, created in Christ, we are in perfect conformity to the divine law. Both of these claims are true of human beings now.
Part 2. Atonement (71–123)
Three false views of atonement (71–104). Ballou begins with an attempt to pull apart some of the main Protestant atonement theories of the day in order to set his own account up as an alternative. The first “false” view of atonement is the Calvinist view of penal substitution, the mainstream Evangelical view (71–87). Ballou argues that we must reject any suggestion that God punished Jesus for our sins in order to clear our debt. His rejection of penal substitution—a view he tries to demonstrate as irrational and offensive—marks another shift within American universalist theology, which previously had been largely sympathetic to the view; indeed, in its Rellyan versions it had made the view pivotal to its universalism.
The second “false” view is that of Hugo Grotius, which was held in New England by the followers of Samuel Hopkins (1721–1803) (87–97). Here the death of Jesus is simply a display of the justice of God in the punishment of sin. Christ suffers the alleged infinite penalty of the law, satisfying justice. In the atonement, God acts for the display of his own glory, rather than for the good of the creature as such.
The third “false” view is that Christ’s death dealt with the original sin of all humans forever, but not the actual sins (97–104). This was a view held by some of the Arminians in New England. Thus, no one will ever suffer for the sin inherited from Adam; but this simply places humanity in the position of being on probation, and if people commit actual sins of their own they will be judged and condemned for them, unless they repent. So the atonement put all people into a position in which they may possibly be saved (if they avoid sin or be sure to repent of it all), but there are no guarantees for anyone.
The necessity of atonement (104–16). A key move Ballou makes in setting out his own account of atonement is to argue that atonement is not made in order to change God’s orientation to us, but our orientation to God. It is not God that needs to be reconciled to us; we need to be reconciled to God. Sin made Adam mistakenly think of God as his enemy (so he hides from God) and that good works could reconcile God back to him (he covers himself with self-made leaf garments). But God’s attitude to Adam has not changed: God calls to him, clothes him, and promises that the woman’s seed will crush the cursed serpent’s head. God still cares for humanity as a father. “As God was not the unreconciled party, no atonement was necessary for his reconciliation” (106). Rather, the atonement is necessary to change us—to renew humanity’s love for God. The atoning work of Christ therefore “was the effect, and not the cause of God’s love to man” (106). God needs no blood sacrifice to reconcile himself to humanity. Such a notion is horrific and tends to breed Christians who imitate their God by hating and persecuting “sinners.”
Humans sold in slavery to sin cannot see clearly and are dissatisfied with God. Consciousness of sin and distorted knowledge of God make God appear to us as angry. Atonement helps us to see God as he really is toward us. The death of Christ is, in other words, an attestation of God’s unchanging love for sinners. It is a revelation of divine love aimed at changing our perceptions of the divine and overcoming the enmity against God lodged in the human heart. “[T]he manifestation of God’s love to us, causes us to love him, and brings us to a renewal of love” (124).
Ballou insists that “[w]ithout atonement, God’s glorious design, in the everlasting welfare of his offspring, man, could never be effected” (112), but he does not make clear why God could not have achieved his goal of revealing his true self to humanity and renewing our love for him apart from Christ’s death. He does claim that God has not given to anyone bar Christ the ability to effect reconciliation, but his argument for this is simply that if God had done so he would not have needed to send Christ (121–22).
Jesus, the Mediator who atones (116–23). As a unitarian, Ballou does not believe that Christ is the second person of the Trinity. Christ is the supreme created being—“the first human soul which was created, as Adam was the first man that was formed” (119). He is the original image of God, and like an ambassador he represents God in his words and actions. As such he is able to perform atonement by functioning—in his official role (not in his being)—in the place of God.
The Nature of Atonement (123–40). Jesus has the power to remove the veil of darkness from our hearts and to enable us to properly perceive both God and the world, thereby causing us to love God and to hate sin. (Christians who think God is an enemy who needs pacifying and who should be served out of duty have clearly not yet received the enlightening atoning work of Christ, but remain in darkness.)
Part 3. The consequences of atonement: universal salvation (140–236)
Atonement will eventually produce “the universal holiness and happiness of mankind” (141). God created humanity in Christ then formed them in flesh and blood in Adam. This phase of human existence in which spirit and flesh battle and in which sin makes us captives is overcome in atonement. God’s grand plan is to restore humanity “back from his formed state . . . to his original created state” (141). And nothing can even threaten, let alone thwart, God’s sovereign purposes.
Ballou seeks to dismantle a range of theological defenses of hell and of limited salvation. To take an example, in response to those who say that God creates hell so that those in heaven can better appreciate the blessings they have, Ballou asks us to imagine
a father with enough provisions to keep his ten children all alive and happy. “Which way would good sense and parental affection chuse, either to feed five to the full, and starve the rest to death, that their dying groans might give the others a better appetite, and their food a good relish, or to let them all be hungry enough to relish their food well, and all alike partake of it?” (145).
Ballou also makes some positive arguments against eternal hell. For instance, Ballou’s view is that misery is parasitic upon sin. If sin ceased to exist, then misery would cease to exist. So, for God to perpetuate sorrow and pain for eternity in hell would require him not to defeat sin, but to perpetuate it for eternity by having people sin endlessly. Such a view, he says, is absurd.
Furthermore, Christ’s happiness will not be complete until “he see the travail of his soul and be satisfied” (Isa 53:11). That is to say, Christ remains unsatisfied until all for whom he died come to share in salvation; and if hell is forever then he will never have his happiness complete. Nor will the redeemed enjoy complete happiness if their fellow human beings remain in everlasting misery. Eternal hell thus forever takes the shine off the final joy of Christ and the redeemed.
To those who believe that the saints will rejoice in the justice of hell, he replies, “If perfect reconciliation to God will effect complete happiness at the sight of human misery, the more we are reconciled to God, the more satisfaction we should take in seeing our fellow creatures miserable! Then, those, who can look on men in distress, with the least sorrow, are the most reconciled to divine goodness; and those who feel the most sorrow at the afflictions of their fellow men, are the most perverse and wicked!” (183). Even if hell was divine justice, we do not need eternal misery to appreciate divine justice. Indeed, what kind of judge would take delight in sentencing sinners to death! Only a disgusting one. “I had rather be possessed of that sympathy which causes me to feel for another, than to enjoy an unsocial pleasure in a frosty heaven of misanthropy!” (189).
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