Universalism If there is a Good God, Everyone Must Go to Heaven

Universalism is the belief that all people can be saved, and that all people enter into heaven independently of their religion and of the knowledge they happened to gain during life. If a creator-God is responsible for the world, then, universal salvation from pain and suffering for all beings, is a requirement of benevolence. In other words, god cannot be perfectly good until all people are saved from the suffering that god itself made possible.

1. Natural Non-Universalist Religion₁

There are many non-universal religions - i.e., religions that believe many will burn in hell for ever. There are also religions that do not see themselves as universal. In fact, it is only really a few world religions that hold a belief that there is one religion for everyone₂. The ancient Greeks, and, primitive and tribal religion almost everywhere it is found, do not accept the idea of a universal religion₃. You should worship your local gods, ancestors, or spirits. The idea that people in distant places should also believe in them or worship your own local ones, is either confusing to them, or outright rejected on grounds of common sense.

2. Ethics and Eternal Punishment

"Benevolence: The Perfection of God" by Vexen Crabtree

I think it is Bertrand Russell who said that God could never condemn a person to an eternity in hell by pointing out this would be "infinite punishment for finite sins". It seems incredibly unethical and immoral for such a scheme to have been conceived by God. It is more moral that if someone is making bad moral choices in life, then God will be patient and persistent with them for all time. As God is eternal there is no time limit: Eventually all people will choose heaven. God can pluck people out of hell. No-one will spend an eternity in hell if God is moral. God's power is absolute and God's patience is infinite.
It is more moral if those who do not accept God are destroyed rather than punished. Between two choices, God will always choose the better one as God is perfect. If one option causes less pain than another, God will choose the one that causes less pain. If someone chooses never to be with God (we are assuming God cannot force people to enter heaven of their own free will), then God has 3 choices:

1. Punish them with eternity in Hell.
2. Destroy them.
3. Punish them in Hell until they change their minds.

Numbers two and three are both better than number one. God will never choose number one. No-one spends an eternity in Hell. At the end of time all people will be in heaven. For some people number three will be an option. At some point all people will change their minds and then God can forgive them and save them. Number 2 may be an option if a person is never going to change their minds, but it very unlikely that anyone can be more persistent than God when God has infinite patience. Over infinity, therefore, all people will be saved.
If evil itself exists, when all people are in heaven evil will have been completely destroyed. If we personify evil as Satan, then if Universalism is true Satan is destroyed (option 2). If a single person remains in Hell forever then evil will never be destroyed by God, and God will never achieve complete victory over death. God, however, is perfect by definition so by definition it cannot be true that anyone spends eternity in Hell.

3. Perfection and God's Victory

If everyone goes to heaven then God's creation is perfect. Universalism is a belief that God is all loving and moral and that God is positive and effective. It's a belief that all life does have a purpose, that suffering is nullified in the end. It is a belief that in the end God will be completely victorious.

“Universalism has been beneficial in my own conception of God. It causes me to marvel at God's power and love, not God's 'limitedness to save' or wrath. I feel even more gratitude, trust, and wonder of God! How marvellous are God's works!”

"Why I am a Universalist" by Christian Rev. D.R.Deinsen, M.Div.

If God is perfect, then it holds that Universalism is true as a God who saves everyone is better than a God that does not.

4. Reincarnation

Universalism combined with reincarnation seems consistent with a loving creator. It will send us back to Earth to try again rather than sending us to hell to be punished, until, eventually, everyone is saved. It is more loving, more perfect, if a God is infinitely patient with us, until every last living being has attained heaven. Of course, this is a highly problematic situation as long as the population of the Human race increases at a great rate, but, this website is largely concerned with monotheism, and reincarnation is generally a feature of atheist religions such as Buddhism or polytheistic ones.

5. There can be no-one in Hell if there is bliss in Heaven

When we love or care for someone we feel hurt and suffer then they hurt or suffer. If there is a hell, and someone we know is there, then it will cause us suffering. Our suffering will continue as long as we know they are in hell. Therefore Christians who are not universalist are caused angst and stress when they are in relationships with non-Christians, the lack of belief in universalism causes division [Deinsen's argument]. There are three conclusions we could draw from this but none of them are acceptable to most monotheists, I will present them then explain how they can be avoided.

1. There is suffering in heaven.
2. God conceals their suffering from us (blissful ignorance).
3. We no longer love those who are in hell. God stops us caring about them.

The first one is contradictory to the concept of heaven and cannot be true. The second is dubious, as God would have to lie to us. The third is not so bad, but it is still not a nice possibility and seems to deny some basic part of our Humanity (caring for others). The only valid and good resolution of this problem is:

• All people go to heaven.

This is such a perfect answer to the problem. There would be no suffering in heaven and God could show us that all we care for are happy. It is logically impossible for God to grant a single person eternal happiness unless all people are granted the same, because everyone is cared for by someone. It could be said that there may be some people who are cared for by no-one. This isn't true if God loves us all. If God loves us then he cares for us and our pain causes God to suffer. The pain of those in Hell must be intolerable for God... but as God is in heaven, God is in bliss. Therefore there can be no beings in Hell: All beings go to heaven.

6. The Importance of Having the Right Beliefs

6.1. Most People Never Hear of the True Religion₄

The vast majority of the people in the world live in cultures or communities where nearly everyone is the same religion. Millions of people die - for example children and young adults - without actually obtaining enough worldly knowledge to make a reasonable estimate of what religion they think is true. This was especially true in previous centuries, where a Christian could call all Muslims or Jews devil-worshippers and not be afraid that anyone would actually know any of them personally in order to object.

“The Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Tartars, Africans, Eskimo, Persians, Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Polynesians, and many other peoples, are substantially ignorant of the Bible. All the Bible societies of the world have produced only about one hundred and twenty millions of Bibles, and there are about fourteen hundred million people. There are hundreds of languages and tongues in which no Bible has yet been printed. Why did God allow, and why does he still allow, a vast majority of his children to remain in ignorance of his will?”

"Complete Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersol (1900)" by Robert. G. Ingersol (1900)

Ingersol's statement is no longer true, but the point is that Human civilisation has existed for over 7000 years, and the human species for somewhat longer, but religions come and go over time. The fact is, most people must have remained not only members of the 'wrong' religion, but, actually without any exposure to whatever the true religion is. How can this be?

1. God doesn't care what religion people are, or what beliefs they have.
or

2. God reveals the truth to people when they die, and cleanses of them of the biases they gained in life due to exposure to 'wrong' evidence, and lets them choose posthumously.
   or
3. God is immoral and injust, and simply punishes people for having the wrong beliefs even if they've never had a chance to learn what the 'right' beliefs are. We should all, hopefully, if we are moral beings, reject such a monstrous god.

Notice that for all possible answers to this question, it doesn't matter what beliefs a person actually had while they were alive. The only sensible conclusion, if there is a good god, is:

• It doesn't matter what beliefs you have, or what religion you happen to belong to.

6.2. The Mentally Disabled

“Forms of mental retardation affect religiosity, and, cognitive and neurological abnormalities are related to religious experiences. Some people can never believe the 'right' things about God and salvation because it is beyond their cognitive capacity. Some people are born with an inability to learn correct beliefs and doctrine about God. Therefore God cannot judge people by their beliefs. This makes religion mostly pointless, as it is clearly not essential to have the right beliefs, otherwise God would not create people who have faulty (or missing) religious experiences. If God condemns people because of the intellectual or mental shortcomings that God gave them in the first place, then God is immoral. Earthly correct belief cannot be an essential requirement of salvation.”

"What the Mentally Disabled and Those With Neurological Disorders Tell Us About God's Plan: 4. Conclusion" by Vexen Crabtree (2008)

7. Temporary Hell

“It seems there is good reason to believe in some form of "spiritual imprisonment" or "purgatory" (temporary "hell") for those who, upon death, have thus far chosen separation and rebellion from love and truth. The doors are always open in this realm and God/Reality continues to seek and persuade people, through persistent love, to accept love, truth, goodness, etc. There are likely trials and suffering (like earth but of a different type, ie of the soul, not physical) here as people "sort out" their destinies. Also, this temporary holding place likely functions as a context for divine or karmic retribution to right the injustices committed in one's lifetime. Eventually all beings are wooed by God's intense and persistent love for them however. Everyone is reunited to their Source of Being. God doesn't give up until all are convinced.”

"Why I am a Universalist" by Christian Rev. D.R.Deinsen, M.Div.

Because people feel guilty for the things they've done wrong some people some say that some people are not ready to go to heaven. When this is the case I agree with Deinsen that it appears a form of temporary Hell would allow that person to sort out their destiny until they enter heaven. In an email conversation with Deinsen in 2001 we agreed that in some criminal cases people have specifically wanted to be punished when they done something wrong. People sometimes own up to doing to wrong so that they may be forgiven. Many times when a person has done wrong (maybe to a friend) then they honestly want to make it up, to pay for it.