Why I am a Universalist

A (sort of) brief Summary

I am a Christian universalist.¹

Although many thoughtful and theologically orthodox Christians throughout history have also been universalists, many who were raised believing that eternal conscious torment was the only biblical and orthodox view of hell, and so have only been capable of reading Scripture (or Church tradition) with this presupposed framework in mind, are understandably confused by this position. Naturally, they may ask questions like the following:

How is it possible to believe all will be saved when Christ so often speaks of a final judgement and hell?

Does the Bible not teach that we are free to reject His offer of salvation, and thus definitively exclude ourselves from eternal life?

How is it possible to believe in universal salvation when Scripture speaks unambiguously of God’s inexorable justice?

There are many biblical, theological, and philosophical arguments for universalism, and the responses to these arguments, and the responses to those responses, can quickly become quite intricate and complex. Here, however, I’d like to just briefly lay out the “opening moves,” so to speak, in favor of the universalist position. My primary goal here is thus not to convince anyone of universalism (though I’d be happy if I could contribute to this result!). Instead, it is simply to (1) dispel some of the main popular misconceptions about universalism, and (2) show how the universalist perspective is reasonable, even if the considerations I offer here are in no way conclusive. In what follows, I lay out this prima facie case for universalism in the form of brief questions, and brief answers.

What is Christian universalism?

Many confuse Christian universalism with what is sometimes called “religious pluralism.” According to religious pluralism, all religious traditions are equally valid and equally lead (or may lead) to salvation. This conflation of religious pluralism or indifferentism with Christian universalism is common in evangelical apologetics circles, but religious pluralism is not the position of the Christian universalist.

Instead, Christian universalists believe that only one religion, Christianity, has the fullness of truth, and that eventually all will be saved through faith in and obedience to Christ. Additionally, Christian universalists believe in hell, and that many will go there for punishment. However, they believe that this punishment is finite in duration and remedial in its purpose. Those in hell will be saved, but (in the words of St. Paul) “as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:15).

Is there any biblical evidence for Christian universalism?

Indeed there is. In fact, many of the most explicit and holistic descriptions of the final end of all things in Scripture (descriptions that do not involve parables, figures, or metaphors) clearly state, without qualification, that all things will be reconciled in Christ.

Here’s just a sample from the New Testament (though there are many suggestions in the OT, as well, of God’s future restoration of all things):

For it pleased the Father that in Him [Christ] all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. - Colossians 1:19-20

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. - Philippians 2:5-11 (Note that elsewhere in Scripture we are taught that “no man can say ‘Jesus is Lord’, except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3))

For as you [Gentiles] were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their [Israel’s] disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all … For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen. - Romans 11:30-32,36

Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous. - Romans 5:18-19 (Note the parallel here: All men (or “the many”) were made subject to death and condemnation because of Adam’s sin, and this same all men (this same “many”) were gifted justification and life (not “the potential” for justification and life) through the New Adam, Christ)

For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all. - 1 Corinthians 15:21-28 (Will all things be ‘subject to Him’, if there are eternally persons whose wills are not subject to Him in hell? Will God indeed be ‘all in all’ if there are eternally persons who are bereft of His indwelling Spirit?)

Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. - John 12:31-32 (The word translated ‘draw’ here in the Greek is literally ‘drag’ - Christ will drag all men to Himself when He is lifted up from the earth on the Cross)

But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. - Acts 3:18-20

The next day he [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! - John 1:29 (Note that, although we are accustomed to read into this passage the notion that Christ, the Lamb, potentially takes away the consequences of the world’s sin, this is to project something into the text that’s simply not there. What John says is straightforward: The Lamb will take away the sin of the world. Every last sin, He will take away. What room will there be, then, for the allegedly enduring, unending sin of the damned?)

These and other passages appear to clearly teach that God will, in the end, redeem every last person.

But Scripture also indirectly teaches universalism in a variety of ways, such as, for example, by teaching two things that jointly imply universal salvation: (1) God wills the salvation of all (Ezek. 33:11; 1 Tim. 2:4; Jn. 3:16; etc.), and (2) nothing (not even human wills) can thwart His will (Job 42:2; Ps. 115:3; Isa. 43:13; Eph. 1:11; Isa. 45:7-9; Isa. 55:11, Ezek. 36:26; etc.). If God wills the salvation of all, and nothing can thwart His will, then it follows logically that God will accomplish the salvation of all. (And note that the puzzle of how we are both free in some sense, and that nothing can thwart God’s purposes, not even our wills, is a philosophical problem, not an issue posed by Scripture in favor of some particular view of free will!)

There are a number of other ways Scripture indirectly teaches universalism, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

How do universalists deal with the countless passages that speak of a coming judgment of the wicked and separation between those who accept Christ and those who reject Him?

We accept all of those passages! There will indeed be a judgment where the righteous and the wicked will be separated, the righteous entering into eternal life and the wicked being sent away into the punishment of Gehenna. All such passages, however, are perfectly compatible with the punishment of Gehenna eventually ending, with the wicked being purged of their sin and so becoming the righteous, and joining the saved in their blessed life.

So no language of a coming wrath, exclusion, punishment, outer darkness, or fiery torment is inconsistent with the universalist position.

“But what about the suggestion in certain passages like the parable of the Sheep and Goats which speak of the punishment as eternal?”, one will likely ask.

Here universalists appeal to the wealth of scholarship that’s been done to show that the Greek term(s) usually translated as “eternal” in English, aionios and its cognates, do not necessarily mean “eternal” in the sense of unending (it is aionios, for example, that’s used to describe the “eternal” fire in the parable of the Sheep and the Goats). The root of aionios, “aion” (where we get our English term “eon” from), simply means “an age.” So “aionios” translated more literally can simply means something like “enduring for an Age.” Alternatively, some scholars have suggested it can have a qualitative meaning, something like “pertaining to the Age to Come” or “having the quality of the coming Age.” Note that this is not to say that aionios never means “eternal” in the sense of unending duration. What it does mean, however, is that the term does not always mean this—it depends on context, how it’s being used, and so on.

What universalists claim, then, is that in the very small number of passages in which the coming judgment is described as “eternal,” the sense of such passages can equally well be translated as a punishment or a fire that “pertains to the coming Age,” is “Age-enduring,” or etc.

“But if the punishment isn’t eternal, doesn’t that mean the life isn’t eternal?”, I hear you ask.

Well, no. In the Sheep and the Goats passage (Matt. 25:36), the contrast and the parallel are preserved on this reading: When Christ comes to judge, the righteous will go into the life of the age to come (or into “age-long life”), and the wicked into the punishment (or “chastisement”) of the age to come (or “age-long punishment”). The fact that the life truly lasts forever, whereas the punishment does not, is in no way dependent on the interpretation of this passage. That the saved are given everlasting life, immortality, is taught clearly and repeatedly elsewhere in Scripture and in terms independent of aionios and its cognates.

In the end, universalists believe the universalist-sounding passages are far clearer than the very few that might seem to imply eternal damnation. Because of this, applying the exegetical principle that we ought to interpret the less clear passages in Scripture in light of the more clear, it makes sense to interpret the hell texts as speaking of a penultimate judgment that will ultimately lead to the total victory and salvation of all spoken of more clearly elsewhere in Scripture.

Isn’t universalism a modern novelty? Why should we trust such a novel doctrine?

Universalism has been held by some of the greatest saints and theologians of early Church history. This includes St. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Didymus the Blind, Evagrius Ponticus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Isaac of Nineveh, and plausibly also St. Maximus the Confessor and St. Gregory Nazianzen.

If you’re not familiar with these figures, you should be. They were great defenders and developers of Trinitarian and Christological orthodoxy, the monastic traditions of the Church, and some suffered and died for the orthodox faith we can now take for granted as setting the standard of Christian faith and Scriptural interpretation.

What about God’s justice? Isn’t universalism just a bit of wishful sentimentalism that ignores God’s justice?

Far from it. In fact, some of the aforementioned universalists in the early centuries of the Church had some of the most terrifying descriptions of the just punishment of those in hell (and in this life) I’ve read.

Universalists fully accept that God is just, and that His justice is inexorable. The deeper question here is what God’s justice is or involves. The question presupposes that God’s justice must involve the eternal torment of the damned. But we reject this presupposition, in favor of the far more biblical (and Christ-centered) conception of justice according to which God’s justice is always ordered towards the healing and repentance of those upon whom it is inflicted.

In the words of Hosea, “He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bind up our wounds” (Hos. 6:1). Scripture also often associates God’s judgment with images of healing, refining, or cleansing, as in Malachi 3:2: “But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap”; and also Job 5:18: “For He bruises, but He binds up; He wounds, but His hands make whole.”

And if one thinks that such images of judgment leading to restoration apply only to Israel or the Church, consider the following: In Ezekiel, after God says of Egypt, “I will bring a sword against you and kill both man and beast. Egypt will become a desolate wasteland. Then they will know that I am the Lord,” He later says, “At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the nations where they were scattered. I will bring them back from captivity and return them to Upper Egypt, the land of their ancestry. There they will be a lowly kingdom. It will be the lowliest of kingdoms and will never again exalt itself above the other nations.” What seemed to be an unqualified prophecy of God’s utter destruction of Egypt for the sake of His just vengeance, then, eventually results in a restoration and a humbling of Egypt. Similar examples might be given.

In short, universalists believe in God's justice, but we believe God's justice must always and only be understood in the context of His love. For God is love, but God is never referred to simply as ‘justice’. God is just, indeed, but God's justice is not some principle within God standing in tension with His love or mercy (as if God could be divided!). Instead, justice is only ever, because it could be nothing else but, an expression of the infinite act of Love that God is. God's justice is, so to speak, only His love in its manifestation or mode of corrective chastisement.

And this is because God is more fundamentally Father than He is judge or magistrate (as George MacDonald has so beautifully pointed out). God's judgment is that of a loving Father on His children, not that of a cold, removed judge exacting penalties for penalty's sake, with no paternal end in mind for the good of those He passes judgment upon. And this is precisely what Christ teaches us: that God is a loving Father above all else; that He never returns evil for evil, but rather returns good for evil; that He leaves the 99 sheep until the one lost is found; that He patiently waits until His prodigal children come to their senses and return home to Him, when He embraces them with loving arms; that His forgiveness and mercy are endless, as we are only His children when we forgive ‘seventy times seven’; that even as we crucify the very Son of God, He prays ‘Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.’

God's justice will be done in hell, but as with everything God does, even the just punishments of hell will serve His loving and redemptive purposes. For, as the great universalist St. Paul reminds us, Christ must reign until all are subject to Him and God will be all, in all.

But what about human freedom? Can't human beings resist God forever if they choose?

“Our hearts are restless,” wrote St. Augustine, “until they rest in Thee.”

We were made for God, and nothing will ever satisfy us but Him. All our desire and seeking is a more or less dim reaching out to Him. Union with Him is the summit of human happiness, and anything less will therefore, of necessity, eventually disappoint.

Given these facts, how is it possible that any being, made for God, could ever resist Him eternally? So long as we are resisting Him, since we were made for Him, our resistance could therefore only be due to two causes: Either (1) we are ignorant of Him or the actual nature of the choices we're making, or (2) we're subject to the coercive power of sinful habits, the flesh, or the devil. Im both cases, our choices are therefore not truly free, for they are mixed with ignorance, coercion, or both. A truly free choice is one made with full knowledge, and without any coercion. But then, if our hearts are truly restless until they rest in God, how could anyone possibly choose against God once God liberates them from ignorance and the coercive power of habit, fleshly weakness, and/or demonic influence?

What this shows is that the only truly free choice is a choice for God, who is our natural end and fulfillment. This is why Scripture says ‘he who sins is a slave to sin,’ whereas ‘whom the Son sets free is free indeed.’

So, the argument from ‘freedom’ for the eternity of hell is unconvincing. Perhaps some, like the prodigal, will only return home once they realize the full weight and consequences of their sin. But at that point, at that final moment of deep realization, humiliation, and dissatisfaction, how could they not with the prodigal then come to themselves and say, ‘I will go back to my Father's house.’

Wouldn't it be unjust for God to force everyone into heaven?

Universalists do not believe God will force anyone into heaven. Instead, we believe that eventually God will persuade everyone, by whatever means necessary, to freely repent, obey, embrace and be transformed by Him.

In other words, there will be no wicked, resistant persons in heaven whom God has forced to be there. Instead, there will only be the wicked become righteous, and the resistant become willing.

Wouldn't universalism make evangelism pointless?

Far from it! For, as the previous answers imply, God has still ordained in His providence that the normative way persons should come to Him for healing and redemption is through the evangelism of those who are already on that path of healing and redemption. As St. Paul says, “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).

But perhaps underlying this question, for some, is the assumption that evangelism will be ineffective if we can’t threaten people with eternal punishment. I must confess that this is an extraordinarily odd thing for a true (or at least mature) Christian to think. First, if the motivation of fear is wanted, the universalist can still issue warnings as part of evangelism—just as the Apostles in Acts did, though note well that there is not a single sermon in Acts where eternal punishment is threatened (though a more generic coming judgement is). A punishment need not be eternal to be serious and to be avoided. If I told you you could either take an easier medicinal cure I have for you now, or you can suffer painfully for 10,000 years, would you seriously think that because the 10,000 years of intense suffering is finite that you therefore have no good reason to avoid it and take the easier cure? Similarly, the coming wrath of God is still seriously to be avoided even if it will be finite in duration.

However, more importantly, a far better, more noble reason to motivate people to become and stay Christians is love rather than fear. As St. John says, “Perfect love casts out all fear.” Our goal, then, should be to try to perfect ourselves and others in love, motivated primarily by the truth, beauty, and goodness of God, rather than servile fear of punishment. “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering,” wrote St. Paul, “not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”

If all will be saved, what was the point of Christ's atonement on the cross and resurrection?

Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection are precisely the means by which He has overcome the tyranny of sin, death, and the devil, thereby opening the way for all to come to Him and be reconciled. These are the means by which He will in the end save all.

In fact, universalists have a far more exalted view of the power of Christ’s atoning work than other Christians, for we believe that Christ has so completely “conquered death by death” (to quote the Orthodox paschal hymn), “taken away the sin of the world,” and “cast out the prince of this world,” that nothing now stands in His way in His mission to “draw all men unto Himself” and seek out every lost sheep until all have come back to the fold.

And that, in (sort of) brief summary, is why universalists hold the position they do, how they reply to common objections, and why I myself am a universalist. Much more could be said, but hopefully this primer will be helpful to some in at least seeing universalism as a reasonable position for a Christian to take.

For further reading, I recommend ‘Justice’ and ‘The Consuming Fire’ from George McDonald's Unspoken Sermons, ‘The Evangelical Universalist’ by Robin Parry, ‘The Inescapable Love of God’ by Thomas Talbott, ‘That All Shall Be Saved’ by David Bentley Hart, and (most importantly) ‘On the Soul and the Resurrection’ by Gregory of Nyssa and ‘On First Principles’ by Origen.

I end with the words of St. Paul:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen

1. A couple brief notes: First, a distinction is sometimes made between so-called “hopeful” and “confident” universalism, but even these terms can be interpreted in different ways. A more helpful question is how probable, roughly speaking, a given universalist believes it is that all will be saved. I’d classify myself as believing it is very probable that universalism is true, though I am not certain that it is true. Moreover, I do not believe the truth of Christianity stands or falls on any particular eschatology (though I do think the traditional ‘eternal torment’ view creates far more problems, both Scripturally and theologically, than do universalism or annihilationism). Second, I will not address the more complex issue in this post of how a Catholic or Orthodox Christian, committed in some sense to the authority of Church tradition, can reconcile universalism with that tradition (I myself am Catholic, and used to be Orthodox). Instead, this post is aimed only at ‘mere Christians’ who accept the inspiration and authority of Scripture (however precisely one defines that), basic Nicene orthodoxy, and recognize the importance of reasoning theologically from Scripture .