In the early church, this was a respectable & widely held belief, split with annihilation (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, Philo), and to a lesser extent, eternal torment. This was held by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Didymus the Blind, Gregory of Nyssa, Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Eusebius of Cesarea, and Theodoret, likely as well as Heraclas of Alexandria, Gregory Thaumaturgus, and Athenodorus of Pontus, Jerome, Chrysostom, Basil, and Gregory of Nazianzum.
There were at least six theological schools in the Church at large. Of these six schools, one, and only one, was decidedly and earnestly in favor of the doctrine of future eternal punishment. One was in favor of the annihilation of the wicked. Two were in favor of the doctrine of universal restoration on the principles of Origen, and two in favor of universal restoration on the principles of Theodore of Mopsuestia.
It is also true that the prominent defenders of the doctrine of universal restoration were decided believers in the divinity of Christ, in the Trinity, in the incarnation and atonement, and in the great Christian doctrine of regeneration; and were, "in piety, devotion, Christian activity, and missionary enterprise, as well as in learning and intellectual power and attainments, inferior to none in the best ages of the Church, and were greatly superior to those by whom, in after-ages, they were condemned and anathematized."
This question was never decided within the church until Emperor Justinian via the Council of Constantinople in 543AD decreed that ateleutetos (endless) should prefix aionios in the creeds instead, without debate on the matter. He had been influenced by the view of Augustine, who admitted that he didn't like or know Greek well, but interpreted the latin aeternum (from the Vulgate) to be eternity. Furthermore, much of the basis for eternal torment comes from the apocryphal Book of Enoch and apocalypse of Ezra. Universal reconciliation has never been declared heretical by an ecumenical council.
Three supportable propositions -- Pick 2:
- God’s redemptive love extends to all human sinners equally in the sense that he sincerely wills or desires the redemption of each one of them.
- Because no one can finally defeat God’s redemptive love or resist it forever, God will triumph in the end and successfully accomplish the redemption of everyone whose redemption he sincerely wills or desires.
- Some human sinners will never be redeemed but will instead be separated from God forever.
Calvin:
- God is omnipotent
- God will save only some
- Reject proposition 1: God does not (fully love or) wish to save all
Arminius:
- God wishes to save all
- Only some will accept salvation
- Reject proposition 2: God cannot accomplish his wishes
Universal Reconciliation:
- God wishes to save all
- God is omnipotent
- Reject proposition 3: God will save all
There is no conflict between sovereignty and free will if God will eventually save all humankind: Christ died for all. God is all powerful and can influence anyone to repentance, yet it is by our free will. Some come to faith in this life. Some come to faith through corrective discipline. God is all powerful, so he is wise enough to bend all wills, whether it is through this age or the next.
- Creation is also eschatological - without the end, we cannot make sense of the story.
- God created every aspect of the universe from nothing.
- God had full knowledge of what humans would do and created them anyway.
- What does it say about God if he chose to create a universe where the vast majority of those created in his image will be in eternal, conscious torment?
- Does this not make him, while admittedly supremely powerful, ultimately unloving?
- When we use words like 'good', 'just', and 'love' to talk about God, we cannot allow those words to become meaningless equivocation.
- How can we be in perfect bliss knowing our loved ones are in retributive, eternal, conscious torment?
- Will we be lobotomized, or will we take pleasure in the fate of the damned?
- We are corporate beings, and those whom we've loved are part of what defines us.
- Freedom only exists when our choices pursue an end
- Otherwise, our 'freedom' is merely randomness & meaningless
- For all creatures, our end is 'the good', as far as we can perceive it
- With more clarity on the goodness of God, we are more inclined to choose him
- True, continual self-condemnation requires perpetual, fully-informed, rational decision-making
- Evil is privatio boni, and knowledge of the truth will set us free
- With complete knowledge of God, we cannot help but choose Him as the ultimate good
- Following Anselm, each offense against an eternal God are infinite, and therefore, varying degrees of punishment are impossible.
- Unborn children and infants who die & aren't elect/baptized are subject to the same, infinite punishment as Hitler.
- All those who never heard the gospel or are among 'the nations' in the OT never had the slimmest chance of redemption.
- Either God's election is arbitrary, or he makes it possible for only a select few to choose him (via circumstance & experience). Either way, what does that say about God, when their eternal fate is at stake?
- Either the term 'love' is meaningless, or we are called to love those whom God does not. Or, should we extend common grace only - that is, allowing them to have a brief, generally not completely horrific life, and little more?
- God cannot be all in all if there eternally exists a torture chamber filled with beings created in His image.
- What was the point of creation?
- How is Christ's victory greater than Adam's fall?
- How does Christ fulfill his purpose of saving the whole world?
- How does God achieve the ultimate, perfect victory in the end?
- Is this the perfect story for the perfect God?
- How can all knees bow & tongues willingly & worshipfully confess that He is Lord?
- How can we see universal redemption as a possibility without seeing it as a certainty, knowing that God is love, omniscient, and omnipotent?
- The need for an infinite retributive punishment to be meted out for the sin of those human agents who are fallen
- The need for sin to be atoned for (in Christ’s death on the cross) for sinful human agents to be counted among the elect
- The need for the display of both God’s grace and mercy and God’s wrath and justice in the created order.
- God decrees to create and elect all human agents.
- God decrees that the mechanism by which the sin of all human agents is atoned for is the death of Christ.
- The sin and guilt accruing to all sinful human agents is transferred to Christ, who is punished on their account on the cross.
- Thus, all human agents are saved; none are lost, and none are in hell.
- Could God have created a universe with one more believer? n + 1...
- If God really does need someone upon whom to display his wrath, why not just one person? Or why not a spiritual being?
- The implication of such an idea is that God could not create any world that did not contain sin.