Universalism: A Comprehensive Defense

I'm not a Christian, but here's why I think on both philosophical and scriptural grounds, Christians should think all are saved.

1 Introduction

However dark
Your story is
Your sin is not
The end of this
The lowest hell
Could not deter
The love of God
The final word

—JJ Heller

For a while, I thought that the typical Christian view on hell was an inevitable result of reading scripture. The reason, I supposed, that so many Christians think that hell is an eternal place of unending horrific punishment is that Christian scripture teaches that. In fact, for a while I thought this was quite a good objection to Christianity, that it implies truly ghastly things about hell.

However, I began digging into the scriptural case surrounding hell. What I found was that the more one looks into the topic, the more the case for an eternal hell falls apart and the more plausible universalism begins to look. The core passages supporting the view that hell is an eternal place of punishment don’t survive scrutiny, especially when one looks into the original Greek.

Given that universalism is also far more philosophically plausible than infernalism, I came away with a rather simple conclusion, one that I intend to defend in this article: Christians should be universalists. It isn’t particularly close either—infernalism requires focusing most on ambiguous eschatological passages, using extensive symbolism and metaphor and neglecting key passages that straightforwardly imply that all are saved.

Note first what universalism is. It doesn’t deny that hell exists but rather denies the eternality of hell. Universalists claim that hell is for the process of restoration, so that people eventually become worthy of heaven. Hell isn’t senseless punishment: it’s punishment for the sake of bringing people to God.

2 “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

My first argument for universalism is relatively simple, yet in my view, quite irrefutable. It has just two premises:

1. If God could save all people without sacrificing anything of greater value, he would do so.  

2. God could save all people without sacrificing anything of greater value.  

3. Therefore, God will save all.  

Why think God would save all people if he could, as premise 1 suggests?

1. God is love essentially—many verses support this (1 John 4:12, 1 John 4:8, and many more).  What does this entail?  Well, if you loved your son and knew that their separation from you would result in eternal misery, would you ever stop working on a relationship with them?  Of course not!  If you love someone you want what’s best for them and you want a relationship with them.  So if our highest good is a relationship with God, then God would want us to have such a relationship. In fact, the bible is explicit on what it means to say that God is love as it says in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”  On the infernalist view, God’s love does fail to bring around vast swathes of humanity, and love is not patient—God gives up on sinners eventually.  

2. Not wanting to save all is inconsistent with the goodness of God!  Separation from God is bad.  If one can prevent another from experiencing badness in infinite quantities, they would do so unless it would require sacrificing infinite value.  If you knew someone was suffering and would keep doing so eternally, if you could save them, minimal decency requires you do so.  

3. 1 Timothy 2:3-4 says “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  John 2:2 says Jesus is the “propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.”  These verses clearly show that God wants everyone to be saved.

4. God is described as being a father.  Ask yourself: would a loving father turn away from a relationship with his son or daughter, even if doing so culminated in their eternal misery?  A loving father would be patient, never forcing, always ready to enter into a relationship.  

So from this, we can establish that God wants everyone to be saved. But would he be able to save everyone? Ironically, if this is the premise that the Christian rejects, then they believe that God is unable to bring about his will. Yet rejecting this premise is wildly implausible:

1. Matthew 19: 25-26 says “When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.””  Isaiah 46:10 similarly describes God as “Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure.”  This suggests that to God, the salvation of all is possible.  

2. An eternal relationship with God is infinitely valuable.  Therefore, for it not to be worth God doing this, it would have to sacrifice infinite value.  But how could this be?  What would God have to give up of infinite value to get a relationship with a person eternally?  For example: suppose that God would have to override our free will to be in an eternal relationship with us. Well then he’d do that—violating free will is worth preventing an infinite harm. If your child was playing near a volcano, and the volcano would cause their eternal torture if they fell in, and you knew they’d fall in, then of course you’d prevent them from falling in! Overriding free will is a bad thing to do in general, but it can be worth it to avoid sufficiently grievous harms.

3. Rejecting God is irrational.  When a person rejects God, they turn away from the source of all that is good, from supreme value. In order for God to bring about all choosing him, he doesn’t need to override people’s free will. He just needs to equip people with suitable rationality—so that they’d always choose him. Ask yourself: how does God make you not stick your fingers in electrical sockets? He doesn’t need to override your free will—he can simply equip you with the ability to see why it’s a bad idea. But he can do that for hell too! Hell is much worse than sticking one’s fingers in electrical sockets, so if God can make you rational enough not to stick your fingers in electrical sockets, why can’t he make you rational enough not to choose hell?

4. God has an infinite amount of time to work on us. So even if each day, the odds are only 1 in 1 billion that we’d choose God, after a long enough time, we’d eventually choose him. God has forever to wait—in order to think that God can’t save people, one would have to think the average odds of us choosing him asymptotically approach zero, no matter what he does.

5. The common Christian response to this argument is that God gives us free will. Having free will, it is claimed, requires we can reject God. Now, I think we have several reasons to doubt that free will would be an impediment for God saving all, for the reasons I just gave. But I also think this relies on an impoverished conception of freedom. Romans 6:20 describes people being “slaves to sin.” Sin is like a drug—it’s addictive. Just as a cocaine addict isn’t free because his will is controlled by the drug, a person rejecting God isn’t really free—freedom, of the kind that matters, is the ability to choose the good. If God leaves us with the freedom to keep rejecting him, over and over again, to our detriment, then we’re like the cocaine addict—we’re not really free in any important sense.

3 Don’t infinite crimes deserve infinite punishment?

Here’s one common argument given by infernalists: infinite crimes deserve infinite punishment. Rejecting God is an infinitely great crime—for harming an infinitely great being is infinitely wicked. Therefore, rejecting God merits infinite punishment, and the people in hell get what they deserve. I think this is super implausible for a bunch of reasons.

1. If rejecting God merits infinite punishment, then why would God create people at all who would reject him?  If you were thinking of having a child, and you knew they would torture and murder infinity people, you shouldn’t have him.  But if rejecting God really is this bad, then why would he create them?  If we really are so wretched as to merit an infinite punishment, then we shouldn’t be created at all! There might be some cases where a person deserves an infinite punishment, but in those cases, it would be wrong to create them just to eternally punish them.

2. If this is true, then imagine that you knew that someone would reject God. Hurting them for no reason wouldn’t just not be wrong—it would be just. If you could harm Hitler, doing so would be the right thing to do—he deserves it. Similarly, if a person is going to commit a crime of infinite proportions, then it’s right to harm them. But if, as infernalists are fond of claiming, “wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction,” then this would mean that most of the time when people are in pain, that isn’t bad, because they deserve it. This is clearly super implausible.

3. This is just so implausible!  On this account, rejecting God is infinitely worse than being Hitler or Stalin or Mao.  If you found out that your child was an going to reject God, that would be worse news than them being a genuinely Christian serial killing child rapist. 

4. Even if infinite crimes do deserve infinite punishment, the best kinds of punishment are those that reform people.  If a person committed a grave crime, it would be better for them to be brought around to the good rather than suffering forever, all the while feeling no guilt.  Those who reject God but eventually come around could, in the totality of eternity, feel infinite suffering from the guilt they experience, which is much better than just being in agony constantly.  The bible is clear on this, as Ezekiel 33:11a says “Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.”

5. It might generally be true that the greater a being that you wrong the worse that is.  But this doesn’t just keep going.  If you slightly wrong an infinitely good being, that isn’t infinitely bad. If there was a very, very good being, stealing a cookie from it wouldn’t be worse than committing genocide. 

6. If this were true, then people in hell would deserve infinite torture. So then why couldn’t God torture them more than he does? Why couldn’t he literally burn them alive for all of eternity, or give them the experience of being repeatedly tortured to death, and then revived, and tortured again. If these people really deserve infinite suffering, they don’t just merit a bit of punishment—they merit the worst punishment possible, forever. Yet surely hell isn’t like that. Surely people’s experiences aren’t as bad as the worst kind of torture imaginable—a million times worse, every second, than being burned alive.

7. Imagine that you wrong a perfectly good being. Would the perfectly good being forgive you and try to redeem you, or just let you suffer forever? Would Jesus forgive those who wronged him, or cause them to suffer forever? Clearly, redemption and sorrow for one’s wrongs are better than never ending punishment.

4 “For no one is cast off by the Lord forever.” 

It’s not just philosophy that points in the direction of universalism. Scripture is quite clear on it. It’s clear that God is loving and patient and kind, that he doesn’t subject anyone to eternal misery. Lamentations 3:31-33 says:

“For no one is cast off by the Lord forever.  Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.”  

If no one is cast off by the Lord forever, how can he cast people out forever in hell? This verse appears in a chapter describing the wrath of God. But it shows quite clearly: though God’s wrath is real, it is not unending. God casts no one out forever, but seeks to redeem people.

When addressing this verse, infernalists generally claim that when the verse says no one, it doesn’t really mean no one. But why think that? Why trust the harsh, seemingly infernalist verses, but not discuss one directly in the context of God’s wrath that describes it being only temporary?

Now, the word for forever here doesn’t always mean forever. The word is לְעֹלָֽם or lə·‘ō·lām. But it usually does mean forever. Furthermore, when it doesn’t mean forever, it means of an age. But this makes no sense in context—no one is cast off by the lord for of an age.

So I think this passage strongly supports universalism.

5 “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”

There are two passages in the bible that point towards everyone praising and bowing before God. These verses are almost exactly the same. Romans 14:11 proclaims “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” Phillipians 2:10-11 says “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

The word for confess is exomologēsetai, which can also mean praise.  In fact, every other time in the Bible that God or Jesus says exomologēsetai, they are using it to mean praise.  The word for bow is kampsei which is never used in the New Testament to mean bowing out of submission.  So therefore we have two words which together make it quite unlikely that Jesus is referring to bowing out of fear.

So everyone will praise the name of Jesus. And everyone will bow before him out of veneration. That doesn’t sound like something that the crying, tortured souls in hell will do. Furthermore, it’s not something Jesus would want anyone to do if they reject him. A bow out of coersion and forced submission is not valuable—only one freely chosen is.

Additionally, 1 Corinthians 12:3 says “no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, every knee bowing and tongue confessing will be done through the Holy Spirit. But this is inconsistent with it being a forced bow, as some infernalists have claimed. This won’t be a bow of submission but of reverence.

A common rebuttal given by infernalists is that when it says every knee will bow, it’s really saying they should bow, not that they actually will. But this is an implausible reading. As Andrew Hronich notes, in his book Once Loved Always Loved:

Firstly, neither Isaiah 45 nor Romans 14 possess any sense of “they should bow, but won’t.” Instead, they emphatically affirm that “every knee will bow.” 

Secondly, the “should” in Philippians 2:10 is an aorist subjunctive, a definite outcome that will come to pass because of a prior stated action, and thus should not be understood as “you ought to bow, but you might not.” Rather, it means, “you shall bow!”

6 “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” 

1 Corinthians 15:22 says “or as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”  This is, I think, the clearest universalist proof text in the Bible. As Adam’s wrongdoing brings sin into the world, so too does Christ make all alive, free from sin. Christ cancels out the state of spiritual death brought about by Adam. Richard Bell, a scholar otherwise skeptical of universal salvation, in a detailed study of the verse says “Since Paul believes that all human beings participate in Adam’s sin and in Christ’s ‘righteous act’, a universal salvation is affirmed.”  Thomas Talbott notes “the first all determines the scope of the second. […] The grammatical evidence here seems utterly decisive; you can only reject it if you are prepared to reject what is right there before your eyes.”

The common infernalist response is that this is just saying all in Christ will be made alive. But this is not how the grammar works. It doesn’t say all in Christ will be made alive, it says in Christ all will be made alive. If I say “all will be saved by taking shelter in my room,” that doesn’t just mean that all who shelter in my room will be saved. Richard Bell’s detailed study of the passage concludes that based on the details of Greek grammar, the infernalist reading is untenable. As Keith DeRose notes:

“A point of grammar, which holds for the Greek as well as our English translations: The grammatical function of “in Christ” here is not to modify or limit the “all.” The passage doesn’t say, “…so also shall all who are in Christ be made alive.” If it said that, I wouldn’t be so cheered by the passage. Rather, “in Christ” is an adverbial phrase that modifies the verb “shall be made” or perhaps the whole clause, “shall all be made alive.” Thus, this passage says that all shall be made alive. How? In Christ.

This one is as open and shut as they get.

7 “The living God, who is the Savior of all people”

I’ve presented the previous passages in some detail. The rest I’ll just run through briefly, to get a sense of their extent, rather than discussing them all in detail. The universalist passages aren’t hard to track down—they appear constantly and are hard to avoid.

1 Timothy 4:10 says explicitly that all will be saved:

“For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.”

Romans 5:18-19 declares that Jesus’s righteous act redeems all:

“So, then, just as through one transgression came condemnation for all human beings, so also through one act of righteousness came a rectification of life for all human beings; for, just as by the heedlessness of the one man the many were rendered sinners, so also by the obedience of the one the many will be rendered righteous.”

Luke 3:5-6 describes God’s redemptive power redeeming all flesh and wholly transforming the entire world:

“Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

Colossians 1:19-20 makes essentially the same claim:

“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

Revelation 5:13 is even more explicit:

“And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.”

And Ephesians 1:8-10:

“With all wisdom and understanding, he[d] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.”

John 17:2 says God will give all people to Jesus and eternal life will be given to all people who Jesus has been given. Together, these entail that all people will have eternal life:

“For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.”

John 1:7 suggests that all will believe:

“This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that through Him all would believe.”

And acts 3:21 describes Jesus redeeming all things—surely that includes all people:

“Heaven must receive [Jesus] until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.”

2 Peter 3:9, finally, declares that God isn’t willing for any to perish, saying:

“He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

And this is just a small sample of the verses. To get around this, one needs to employ creative mental gymnastics. In contrast, the infernalist passages are easy to refute, and rest on basic misreadings. Often times they only appear convincing because of extremely contentious translations. If you read the Bible in English, you’ll get the sense that it’s an infernalist document, but only because it was translated by infernalists!

8 The better than expected argument

If Christianity is true, God is maximally great. There couldn’t be a being or a plan greater than God’s plan. The greatest human inventions, the most genius plot any human has ever had, the most thoroughly good display of altruism is not a millionth of a percent of the goodness of God. What would we expect of a being like that?

We’d expect his plan to be much better than we’re anticipating. We wouldn’t expect lots of people to overshoot the mark on how great his plan is. We’d expect that when we see the full beauty, grandeur, and greatness of his plan, we’ll see it’s incalcalculably better than anything we could imagine.

But if that’s what we’d expect, we should expect universalism to be right. Unless one is particularly sadistic and bloodthirsty (and unbiblical) they should hold that it would truly be great if God saved all. It’s better for people to choose the good for all time than to be evil and miserable all time!

Universalists have expectations of what God will do. It would be enormously surprising if God’s plan is less good than what some humans are anticipating of it. We’ll all inevitably underestimate God, but it would be a huge mistake to think some people are overestimating him.

9 Church history

My aim in this section isn’t to argue about what Catholics or Eastern Orthodox should believe. I haven’t studied the papal decrees in detail, but if you want an article on that, see here. My aim is instead to argue that those with a deep reverence for Church history, who treat the fact that the Church decreed something as very strong evidence that it’s right, should still be universalists.

There’s a sense that Church universalism is a fringe view, nearly universally opposed in Church history, especially during the time of the early Church. This is simply not correct. J.W. Hanson argues in his book that universalism was the prevailing doctrine for the first 500 years of the Church.  For instance, when Irenaeus condemned various gnostic sects that were universalist, he pointed out their heresies, but never commented on their universalism.   Augustine noted: “there are very many in our day, who though not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments.” 

There were numerous early Church fathers who defended universalism including Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD), Theophilus Of Antioch (168 AD), Origen (185 To 254 A.D.), Melito of Sardis (180), Bardaisan of Edessa (154–222), and Gregory Of Nyssa, (335-390 AD).  These people weren’t a few fringe weirdos—Origen was seen as one of the greatest thinkers of the early Church, Gregory of Nyssa was referred to as the father of fathers.  Ilaria Remelli has three different books arguing that there’s a deep tradition dating back from the very early Church.  St. Basil said universalism was held by “idiom hoi polloi anthropon,” which many like Hart, Kimmel, Hanson, and John Behr have argued is best translated as most people.  Of the early theological schools, 2/3rds of them were universalist.  In fact, the majority view among Jews around that time was that punishment in Gehenna wouldn’t exceed 12 months.  

10 Matthew 25:31-46: Sheep and goats

The most famous infernalist proof text is Matthew 25:31-46. I’ll quote it in full as standardly translated:

³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

⁴⁴ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

⁴⁵ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

⁴⁶ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

If you just read the English, this will seem like a bit of a slam dunk. But that’s only because the English translators rely on a contentious translation. If you have infernalist translators, you’ll get infernalist translations. I think the infernalist reading of this passage has 3 problems.

1. The verse describing eternal punishment uses the word aionios which, as many like David Bentley Hart have argued means simply in the age to come.  It doesn’t have to mean eternal.  This is how it’s used elsewhere in the bible, and it comes from the word aion which just means age.  Luke 20:34 uses Aion to refer to the boys of this age, in Romans 12:2, Paul uses Aionias to say “do not be conformed to this world…”.  In Ephesians 1:21 Paul uses it to say “not only in this age but also in the age to come.”  So the word translated as eternal just means something like “of the age,” and doesn’t always mean eternal.

2. The word for punishment is Kolasin, but that refers to punishment for the sake of improving, rather than for its own sake.  Plato, in the Protagoras, explicitly contrasts Kolasin with timoreitai, which means taking revenge.  Kolasin is for the sake of improving the person who is punished.  According to New Testament scholar William Barclay, “The Greek word for punishment is kolasis, which was not originally an ethical word at all. It originally meant the pruning of trees to make them grow better. I think it is true to say that in all Greek secular literature kolasis is never used of anything but remedial punishment.”  The same point comes from Ezekiel 43:10-11 who describes Kolasin for the sake of improving someone, Aristotle in rhetoric, Clement of Alexandria, and many more.  The Rotherham bible as well as numerous other translations of the Greek agrees with this.  Thus, in the age to come, God will prune us like a farmer does a tree to improve us.  In other places (Deuteronomy 8:5, Psalms 89:30-34, Proverbs 3:12, Hebrews 12:6, Revelation 3:19, etc.), God’s judgment is said to aim at restoration rather than punishment. Therefore, if it were talking about everlasting torment, rather than correction in the age to come, it would use timoreitai rather than Kolasin.

3. Why make the goats and the sheep allusion? The universalist reading makes sense of it—farmers don’t want goats to suffer! Goats were very valuable to farmers. Instead, goats required more correction. This explains why in the passage the punishment is for the goats—they are the people requiring more correction.

People often object to the translation of aionias by suggesting that, because the life is eternal, so too must the suffering be. But this assumes that this verse says that there’s eternal life. If instead, the verse just says this life is in the coming age, and the suffering is also in the age to come, they are symmetrical. Of course, there are plenty of other verses pointing to eternal life.

11 Revelation

The Book of Revelation is a very weird book. It includes these prophecies that many think are of the second coming. The main infernalist passages people point to in revelation are Revelation 20:10-15

“And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. … And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

I think using this as an infernalist proof text is very problematic.

1. The literal translation of the words typically translated as forever and ever is aiōnas ton aiōnōn which literally means ages of the ages.  But that doesn’t mean it’s eternal, as was discussed before.

2. The infernalist reading on which people are literally cast into fire and burning sulfur is quite barbaric. Instead, the universalist reading makes sense of why sulfur is used, for sulfur was used in gold and silver refining.  Zechariah 13:9 describes fire being used for refinement, as does Isaiah 48:10, and Malachi 3:3.  First Corinthians 3:15 says "If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames,” and many other verses have similar themes. In combination with the broader biblical themes and book of revelation, this is saying that believers will suffer persecution now, but those who do not believe and reject the good will be painfully refined, suffering more in total. 

3. Revelation 6:14-16 describes the “kings of the earth” hiding from the lamb and Revelation 19:19 describes the kings of the earth declaring war against the lamb, and Revelation 17:1-2 makes the same point.  They are consistently the bad guys in the book of revelation, as well as in Psalms 2:2-3 and Acts 4:26.  However, Revelation 21:24-26 says “By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.”  Psalm 72:11 says “All the Kings of the Earth will worship him and all the nations shall serve him.”  The nations also sided with the anti-Christ, yet they will enter the city.  This means that the kings of the earth who rebel against Jesus and the nations will eventually enter the city.  

4. The book of Revelation is a deeply confusing and poetic book—it’s not really clear what it’s talking about.  It might be talking about the Roman-Jewish war, as many theologians have argued.  It’s hard to draw any firm theological conclusions from this.  Its purpose was to help keep the faith of Christians facing persecution, describing in poetic terms how their faith would pay off, but it shouldn’t be taken literally, unless one thinks that sinners will literally lie in fire.   

5. The word used is basanisthēsontai which often just means suffering.  But universalists think people will suffer as knowledge of their sins washes over them.  They think they will be cleansed and purified through the love of the lord.  

6. Eis means into, so here it’s saying into the ages to come, not that it will continue throughout all of the ages to come.  If I say “going into the coming year, I have a headache,” that doesn’t mean I’ll have a headache for the whole year.  

7. This reading makes more sense of Jesus as the lamb.  Richard Murray notes “Lambs have no wrath. So, the term is an oxymoron. It’s an image clash where wrath itself is deconstructed by the jarring contradiction of two complete terms. This then allows divine wrath to be conceptually recast as the restorative and curative energies of God. Hence the Lamb.”  The most direct and literal reading of Revelation tells of a vengeful Jesus getting revenge—that’s not consistent with his loving nature and injunctions to turn the other cheek.  We must read the book of Revelation as being in accordance with what’s told in the rest of scripture. 

12 Other verses

2 Corinthians 9-19

The ones so far are the most common proof texts. But many others are often adduced—I’ll address them briefly.

⁹They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might ¹⁰ on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

In Paul’s second epistle to the Thessalonians, he says the above quote. Well, he was speaking Greek (I know Baptists, this is shocking news), but this is the popular English translation. This is another common infernalist proof text, but I don’t think it’s convincing.

1. The verse uses the word aionias which is translated as eternal. But as I explained before, it doesn’t need to be.

2. Talk of destruction is metaphorical.  Romans 6:6-7, for example, says, “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.”  First Corinthians 3:15 says "If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.”  Thus, this verse is describing that some will have their sinful nature destroyed in a painful way, not that punishment will go on forever.

Luke 16

This one tells a parable about a rich man. He didn’t help out a poor beggar named Lazarus when Lazarus was hungry. Later, after death:

In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. ²⁴ So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

²⁵ “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. ²⁶ And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

Lots of people interpret verse 26 as saying it’s impossible to go from hell to heaven. After all, it says he can’t pass over. But this is very unconvincing.

1. This is a parable with a pretty straightforward message—help out those who are struggling or you’ll end up worse off than they are.  Doing good will be rewarded.  It is not literal.  If we are going to read this much into an obvious parable then we should interpret the lost sheep and the lost coin as proving universalism, for they describe a God not content to give up on any.  

2. Even if this is about eschatology, it never says this is eternal.  Perhaps while they’re sinful, the sinful will never cross into heaven, but the universalist view is that eventually all will be purged of their sins.  If I say that my brother is not allowed to enter my room, as part of a poetic tale, this wouldn’t mean he will never be allowed in.  

3. It’s not about the final fate.  As Tim Hall notes “In Luke 16, the rich man and Lazarus are in Hades (v23). The place of eschatological judgment isn’t Hades, though—it’s the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:10). And Hades isn’t the Lake of Fire; Hades is thrown into the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:14).”  Hall furthers “Luke 16 describes a present-age reality, not an eschatological one. The rich man’s unbelieving family is still alive and walking around.” 

4. Obviously it wasn’t saying that the person could never pass over. A God who would leave people to suffer even though they are truly regretful would be wicked. Rather, it was suggesting that he couldn’t pass over at that moment.

Romans 6:23/other verses about destruction

Many verses in the New Testament describe the destruction of the wicked. For example, Romans 6:23 says “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Some think this means that those who aren’t in Christ will be either destroyed or suffer forever.

1. 1 Corinthians 5:5 says “you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”  The destruction talked about here is thus plausibly read as the destruction of one’s sinful nature, rather than killing them, when read in light of the rest of scripture.

2. This is metaphorical.  Paul also says “I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me” (Romans 7:9-10).  Scripture often talks about one’s state of sin as being a spiritual death.  For instance, Romans 8:6 said “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” This wasn’t referring to literal death but instead the spiritual state brought about by sin.  Romans 6:6-7, for example, says, “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.”  

3. Ezekiel 33:11 says “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”  God doesn’t want people to be destroyed but for their sinful nature to be destroyed. 

Daniel 12:2 

Daniel 12:2 says “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.” Sometimes, people use this as an infernalist verse, very unconvincingly:

1. This can’t be used to support infernalism given that no one believed in the infernalist view in the time of the Old Testament.  

2. The word used is Olam which can just mean for some time period.  The Bible describes Jonah as being in the belly of the fish for an Olam, not forever—just three days.  Olam can just mean in the age—so a universalist reading provided by Tim Hall is “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to the life of the age, others to shame and contempt of that age.”

3. If one says someone will be “forever embarrassed” about some event--in this case, one’s early sins—that doesn’t literally mean that in 1 trillion years they’ll feel great embarrassment.  

4. Restoration and shame are compatible, as Ezekiel 16:63 says "Then, when I make atonement for you for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation, declares the Sovereign LORD.”  Suppose a person commits a really shameful crime in this life—like a murder.  They will eternally feel shame as the price of their sins, yet they will still be redeemed.  

5. This verse is just describing what will happen when people wake.  The Bible in many other verses describes one’s sinful state as a state of spiritual death—e.g. (Romans 7:9-10, 8:6, 6:6-7).  So the reading is clear: some will awake in a state of spiritual life, free from sin, redeemed in Christ.  Others will awake in a state of shame, but that doesn’t rule out redemption.  

Mark 10:45 

Mark 10:45 says “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”  Some people interpret this as showing that Jesus didn’t give his life for all, as it says many rather than all. But it doesn’t say this. If I said “one Israeli soldier was ransomed for many,” that wouldn’t tell you if it was for all.  The point of the description is to describe the ransom, not the number he’s being ransomed for.

Mark 3:28-29

“Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

I think there are several problems with using this to support infernalism:

1. Even if a sin is unforgivable that doesn’t mean the punishment will be infinite.  A mother might never forgive someone for killing her son, but that doesn’t mean she’d support him being incarcerated forever.  

2. This doesn’t mean eternal.  It uses eonian which can just mean of an age.  It doesn’t need to mean eternal, as discussed before.

3. The dominant interpretation throughout Church history from Augustin and Aquinas and others is that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is refusal to repent.  Therefore, this passage is just saying that one who doesn’t repent of their sins won’t be forgiven, but the universalist claims all will eventually repent.  The alternative reading, according to which people who curse the name of the Holy Spirit go to hell even if they genuinely repent, is crazy.

Matthew 18:9

“If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell.”

This is another verse that’s often cited as an infernalist proof text. People who cite this don’t understand universalism. Universalists don’t deny that hell is real or that it’s bad—spending time suffering greatly rather than having the infinite joy of a relationship with God is terrible. They merely claim it doesn’t last forever. Also, the verse is clearly metaphorical—not literally describing the desirability of ripping out one’s eye.

Mark 14:21

For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born."

The reasoning goes, if Judas—the one who betrayed Jesus—would have been better off never being born, then he must not ever make it into eternal heaven. This argument is, I think, indicative of a very literal and fundamentalist reading:

1. This could be metaphorical.  If you say “if only he’d never been born” you don’t always mean it literally.  If I say “I’ll beat you up so badly you’ll wish you were never born,” that’s just a way to emphasize how bad things will be, not necessarily a literal claim.  

2. Alexander Pruss notes that he never says it would be better if he’d never existed.  He said it would be better if he’d never been born.  But then he’d have gone to heaven. 

3. The him here is ambiguous.  This could be saying it would be better for Jesus if Judas had never been born.  Young’s literal bible translates this as “the Son of Man doth indeed go, as it hath been written concerning him, but woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is delivered up; good were it to him if that man had not been born.'” I think this is not the most natural reading, but it’s certainly conceivable.

Hebrews 9:27-28

“Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.”  

Some times people cite this verse to undermine universalism, which is weird because it doesn’t contradict universalism.  The universalist agrees that we’ll die and face judgment—universalists simply claim eventually all will end up through this judgment being saved.  Some will need to be purified, but all will eventually wind up saved.  It also doesn’t say they’ll immediately be judged.  

13 Conclusion

Universalism is, as many of its detractors even admit, quite philosophically plausible. It would be surprising if an infinitely good God brings about a state of affairs in which lots of people end up suffering forever. The critics, however, worry that it goes against scripture. I hope to have shown that this charge is unfounded—universalism not only doesn’t contradict scripture but is the most consistent with the broad themes of scripture. The contrary verses are quite unconvincing—in contrast, the character of God one gets from scripture is one who saves all.

God is love essentially. Scripture says some things about what love looks like, and these are incompatible with an infernalist picture. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 says:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

On the infernalist picture, God’s love isn’t sufficient to eventually redeem God. On such a picture, love does fail, and for all of eternity, the screams of those in hell will ring out. One who believes in a God of infinite perfection and goodness should have much greater eschatological expectations than that.