A legacy post originally published on JULY 21, 2010 at 11:23 AM
🔗 An Argument for Universalism by Joshua Rasmussen
Suppose there is a perfect being, God—a being maximal in power, knowledge, and goodness. Then this being will likely save, i.e. restore relationship with, everyone (all humans) eventually because:
- God desires that everyone enjoy union with Himself.
- If (1) is true, then God will do everything he can, without sacrificing a higher good, to maximize the chances of everyone enjoying union with Himself.
- Granting each person an indefinite number of times the capacity to enter such a union (through repentance, trusting in Jesus, whatever) doesn’t sacrifice a higher good.
- Granting each person an indefinite number of times the capacity to enter such a union is something God can do.
- Granting each person an indefinite number of times the capacity to enter such a union maximizes the chances of all his creatures eventually entering such a union.
- Therefore, God will grant each person an indefinite number of times the capacity to enjoy union with Himself.
- If (6), then everyone will eventually enjoy union with God.
- Therefore, everyone will eventually enjoy union with God (be “saved”).
Here’s why to believe each of the premises.
1. God desires that everyone enjoy union with Himself.
This seems to fall out of God’s moral perfection. It’s good for creatures to enjoy union with a perfect being, so we’d expect a perfect being to desire this. I don’t expect this to be controversial: all the major monotheistic religions have sacred texts that suggest this.
2. If (1) is true, then God will do everything he can, without sacrificing a higher good, to maximize the chances of everyone enjoying union with Himself.
I don’t expect this to be controversial, either. God is a rational being. Therefore, if He wants something, we’d expect God to try to bring about x if He can do so without sacrificing a higher good (where “higher good” can include the prevention of certain bad things).
3. Granting each person an indefinite number of times the capacity to enter such a union (through repentance, trusting in Jesus, whatever) doesn’t sacrifice a higher good.
I suppose someone could get off here. But then I’d like to know: what higher good might be sacrificed by granting someone the capacity—any number of times—to enjoy God? It seems that enjoying God—a perfect person—would be among the very highest categories of good (if not the highest). Thus, it doesn’t seem to me that granting someone the capacity to enjoy that good could possibly sacrifice an even higher good.
Displaying God’s justice by punishing people who are not in union is plainly (it seems to me) not an outweighing good; sorry Calvinists.
(This isn’t to say that there might not be important goods reaped in delaying a person’s capacity to enjoy God.)
4. Granting each person an indefinite number of times the capacity to enter such a union is something God can do.
For example, God could grant each person the capacity to repent of their sins or to turn to God for salvation (or whatever). Both Calvinists and Arminians accept this much. If God could do it once for a person, I don’t see why God couldn’t do it again and again …
One might reply that a person can perform an action (or inaction) that, as a matter of ethical duty, God cannot ever forgive. But this would only seem plausible to me if, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, the guilty person couldn’t sincerely repent. For it makes no sense to me that a perfect being could be duty bound to never, ever forgive a certain sincerely repentant person. The problem is that it seems metaphysically possible for God to enable a person to repent from anything. So, I don’t see how a person could commit a sin which God would be duty bound to never forgive no matter what.
5. Granting each person an indefinite number of times the capacity to enter such a union maximizes the chances of all his creatures eventually entering such a union.
Well, maybe there’s something more God could do. But the thought is that He’d at least do this much to improve the chances (as no higher good would seem to be sacrificed).
6. Therefore, God will grant each person an indefinite number of times the capacity to enjoy union with Himself.
That follows from (1)-(5).
7. If (6), then everyone will eventually enjoy union with God.
Before you object, hear me out. Either the conditions for union with God must be entered into freely (in the libertarian sense) or not. If not, then God can achieve the end goal swiftly: cause everyone to meet the conditions for union. I am assuming that there can be no morally acceptable reason for God to not cause everyone to meet the conditions if He can. I will come back to this assumption in a moment.
Suppose, then, that people must enter the union with God freely. Now for another dilemma: either God knew prior to his decision of who to create which possible persons would freely unite with Him, or He didn’t know. Suppose God knew. In “Creating Worlds without Evil” I argued (persuasively) that although it’s logically possible that everyone is trans-world depraved, this is extraordinarily unlikely given an infinite number of possible persons. Indeed, it’s very likely that it was feasible for God to actualize any number of people who would all freely enter union with God. If that’s correct, then God needs a reason for actualizing persons whom God knew would freely always reject union. It can’t be for a person’s own good to be indefinitely (ultimately) separated from God. Thus, it would have to be for the good of others (either God or other creatures). But it’s morally wrong (isn’t it?) to create someone whose fate is ultimate relational separation from the perfect being solely for the sake of others. This is why I suggested earlier that there can be no morally acceptable reason for God to not cause everyone to meet the conditions of salvation if He can.
This leaves the option that God didn’t know before deciding who to create what possible people would freely do. The most salient instances of this option include open theism and simple foreknowledge. (Side remark: if you’re an open theist, then you can’t say that God knows that anyone will always freely refuse union. Therefore, you can’t say that God knows that universalism is false, assuming that God will indeed grant each person the capacity for union an indefinite number of times into eternity. Therefore, you can’t say that God revealed to us that universalism is false. At least not certainly false.)
Now each person gets an indefinite number of chances (from (1)-(6)). That is to say, God keeps giving someone a chance (perhaps spaced across intervals of time and certain events) for union until that person takes it (by repenting, turning to Love, whatever). Since each chance is genuine, the objective probability of making the right choice during any given chance is not zero. Plausibly, there are values near enough to zero that the probability never must fall below those values: that is to say, God could always make one’s opportunity for union not absurdly unlikely. What follows is that the objective probability of anyone never (even after eons into the afterlife) making the right choice approaches zero as the number of opportunities increases. Therefore, we should think it’s very unlikely that anyone isn’t ultimately restored to God.
8. Therefore, everyone will eventually enjoy union with God (be “saved”).
