A Common
Universalist Argument
Universalists often make arguments for their position based on
God’s love. They point out that God is love. He loves the world. He even loves
His enemies. They then reason that you would never destroy someone you love. Would
a loving parent would destroy their child? Based on this, they conclude that
God will not destroy anyone in hell. This argument may be summarized as
follows:
God is love.
Love would never destroy anyone.
Therefore, God will never destroy anyone.
Universalists who argue like this have a good starting point. They
are entirely correct to say that God is love (1 John 4:8). It is true that God
loves the world (John 3:16) and that He loves His enemies (Matthew 5:44, Romans
5:8-10). These truths are clearly revealed in God’s Word. And yet,
Universalists reach a conclusion that directly contradicts other truths which
are also revealed in God’s Word. God’s Word teaches that the unrighteous will
suffer an “eternal punishment” (Matthew 25:46), “eternal destruction” (2
Thessalonians 1:9), that they will “perish” (John 3:16), their souls and bodies
will both be destroyed by God in Hell (Matthew 10:28), and they will be burned
to ashes (2 Peter 2:6).
So where
does the Universalist go wrong?
Basically the Universalist is attempting to extrapolate from a
known starting point, God’s love. From that point they try to figure out what
God will do with the unrighteous after their death. The problem is not with the starting point.
God really is love. The problem is with the method of extrapolation. The further one extrapolates from the known
starting point without any additional revealed truth, the more likely one is to
make errors.
Here is an example of how extrapolation from a known starting
point can lead to errors. I served in the Navy for five years as a junior
officer on submarines. It’s very important to know exactly where a submarine is
because if we didn’t we could literally run into an undersea mountain.
Navigation always started with using some known external reference points to
determine our exact position. These reference points could be lighthouses if we
were close to shore, or satellites or the stars if we were out in the ocean.
But when we were underwater, known reference points were not always available.
So we used a type of extrapolation called dead reckoning. We knew where we
started and by keeping track of what direction we were going in and how fast we
were going, we could calculate where we were. The problem with dead reckoning
is that even very small errors add up overtime. A 1% error in a compass could
result in being a couple of hundred miles off course by the time you crossed
the Atlantic. Much less error than that could be disastrous. That’s why
whenever we came up to periscope depth, if at all possible, we tried to get a
new external fix on our position.
Universalists have an excellent starting point when they begin
their argument with God’s love. God’s love is verified by the reliable lighthouse
of revelation in God’s Word. The problem is that they then try to reason out a
really long ways. They attempt to dead reckon all the way past the end of this
age, into the next age, and to God’s judgment day. It seems to me that they
trust their logical dead reckoning more than they trust what God’s Word says
about the fate of the unrighteous. This leads to error.
Let’s give a closely related example of this type of error.
Someone might reason like this:
God is love.
Love would never create a world where there is a lot of pain and
suffering.
Therefore, God would never create a world where there is a lot of
pain and suffering.
But He did.
The starting point of the above argument is the same as the
starting point of the popular Universalist argument based on God’s love. From
there, both arguments extrapolate based on what they think love means God would
and would not do. The arguments go wrong because they presume to be able to
predict what God would do based on just one piece of data and extrapolating a
long ways from that one reliable data point.
What Would
Love Do?
While love is not God’s only attribute, I believe that all that
God does is entirely consistent with His love. At first it might seem that
predicting actions based on love would be so simple that any child could do it.
But that is naïve. Due to the massive, pervasive, deeply rooted sin in people,
there are complex and difficult situations where the most loving action is not
obvious or easy.
Should a wife stay with her husband if he’s abusive? What if he
abuses her children? What if he is beating her child, she rightly fears for the
child’s life, and a gun is within her reach? What would love do?
Here’s a true and tragic story. A little over a week ago a pastor
and his wife who are in their 70's came home and found two robbers in their house.
The robbers beat the husband, tied them both up, and burned down their house.
The pastor was badly burned but escaped. His wife died. According to news
reports, both of the robbers had extensive criminal histories. One had even
been charged seven years ago with breaking and entering into another house
where three people were shot and one of those three died. Now in a situation
like this, what is the loving thing to do with respect to the criminals? Would
love ever lock someone up for life? Would love ever execute anyone? Our human
justice system is imperfect. But what if we knew someone’s future actions would
bring great harm, damage, and suffering to many other people? Do we only
consider our love for the criminal? What about his past and future victims? What
would love do?
When you consider all the people involved, an execution might be
consistent with love. God commands us to
love our neighbor and teaches us that all the rest of the law is based on love.
God revealed that in some cases executing people for crimes like murder was
right and good. God commanded this for Israel.
NIV Exodus 21:12
"Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death.”
Does the Bible teach this kind of love? Does the Bible call it an
example of God’s love when He destroys some hard hearted sinners who refused to
repent after many chances in order to rescue His people?
Psalm 136:
10 to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt His love endures
forever.
11 and brought Israel out from among
them His love endures forever.
12 with a mighty hand and
outstretched arm; His love endures forever.
13 to him who divided the Red Sea
asunder His love endures forever.
14 and brought Israel through the
midst of it, His love endures forever.
15 but
swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea; His love endures forever.
Some sins are so serious that God insists that parents must be
willing to see even their own children executed if they commit these sins:
Deuteronomy 13:6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the
wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let
us go and worship other gods" (gods that neither you nor your ancestors
have known,
7 gods of the peoples around you,
whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other),
8 do not yield to them or listen to
them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them.
9 You must certainly put them to
death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands
of all the people.
The verses above are part of God’s law. Jesus said that all of the
law was based on love (Matthew 22:40). God knew that showing pity to people in
some cases would result in much greater damage and suffering to others in the
long run. What would love do? We don’t have to guess. The same Bible that tells
us that God is love tells us that He will destroy the unrighteous on His day of judgment.
A Little
Extrapolating of My Own
Human sin has brought great suffering and loss to the world God
created. God has gone to incredible lengths to rescue us from our own sin. He
even sent His son to die for us. What more could He do?
God’s rescue plan has resulted in the salvation of millions. Based
on God’s Word, we can be confident that people will be saved from every
language and nation.
But some people reject God’s amazing grace. What if God knows that
allowing these people into His eternal kingdom would ruin it in ways similar to
what we see on earth now, only on a scale that extends for eternity? Would it
be unloving for God to destroy these unrepentant, unrighteous people so that
others can enjoy an eternity of His love? I don’t see why this is inconsistent
with God’s love. In fact, it seems that God’s love requires it.
But I don’t trust my own extrapolating any more than that of the
Universalists. That’s why I look to God’s own revelation to see what He tells
us about the final fate of the unrighteous. As I stated at the beginning of
this post, God’s Word reveals that the unrighteous will, in fact, perish. God
will destroy them. Their destruction will be eternal.
Anticipating
Universalist Objections
Because I have spent time reading Universalist material and
interacting with Universalists, I am aware of different types of objections Universalists
might raise to my arguments in this post. I can’t cover all Universalist
arguments in one short post, but I will briefly mention two.
Objection
#1: Since God is all powerful
He can cause all the unrighteous to love and obey Him.
Answer: Maybe
there are some things which power, even unlimited power, cannot do. Maybe power
cannot force people to love, because love by its very nature cannot be forced (You
may read more about this here: Does
Love Require Free Will?).
Objection
#2: Surely, given enough time
and the right kind of revelation, everyone would freely choose God’s way of
love. Some Universalists believe that as
the unrighteous suffer in Hell they will come to their senses and accept God
one by one until Hell is empty.
Answer: First, God is not obligated to give sinners
who deserve destruction an endless amount of time to repent. But even if He
did, there is no guarantee that they would. The Bible teaches us that outside
of Christ sinners do not tend to improve and draw closer to God over time. In
fact, their hearts become ever harder, their thinking darker, and their sins
more heinous. For those who do not immediately recognize this truth from the Bible,
I explain it here: The
Universalist Story is Not a Realistic Story.
Perhaps a more fundamental answer to the second objection is that
the unrighteous cannot repent in Hell because the unrighteous will be burned to
ashes in Hell and ashes
can’t repent.
Conclusion
God is love! This is a glorious, comforting, powerful truth that
shapes all of reality.
Universalists have a good starting point when they begin an
argument with “God is love”. However, when they extrapolate into areas far from
human experience (like God’s judgment at the end of this age) they come to a
conclusion that is different from what God reveals in the Bible concerning the
final fate of the unrighteous. This should cause Universalists to reevaluate
what decisions love might make when faced with unrepentant sinners who reject
God’s grace, have ruined this current age, and might ruin the New Earth if they
were allowed to exist there. We don’t have to guess. God has revealed that He
will destroy the unrighteous with an eternal destruction. They will exist no
more. Everyone left will enjoy God’s love forever and love God and others as He
always intended.
Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .
