Chapter 29
The Practical and Moral Objections Answered
Set the verses down for a chapter. For twenty-eight chapters we have been in the Greek and the Hebrew, parsing words and weighing contexts. But the hardest questions about the larger hope are not really about language. They are practical. They are moral. And they deserve straight answers.
If everyone is saved in the end, why get out of bed to share the gospel? Why fight sin if sin cannot win? Does the cross still matter if nobody finally stays lost? And is a God who makes sure everyone comes home any less of a bully than the Calvinist's God who picks some and passes over the rest?
I take these questions seriously. They are not tricks. They are the concerns of pastors who wonder if the larger hope will hollow out their preaching. They are the worries of missionaries who gave up everything to share Christ. They are the fears of parents who stay up at night praying for a son who has turned his back on God. If the hope I have been defending guts the gospel, then it is not worth defending.
The critics press the point hard. James De Young devotes several chapters to what he calls the "fatal consequences" of universal reconciliation. He asks who would be the first preacher in hell, since no believers go there.1 He warns that universalism "is more deterministic and coercive than Calvinism."2 Michael McClymond's massive two-volume study closes with the charge that universalism "eclipses grace," making salvation automatic or self-achieved rather than a free gift received by faith.3 McClymond argues that the effort to extend grace to all has ended up abolishing grace altogether.4
The Critic's Case in His Own Words
De Young presses the cluster of practical objections in his "Twenty-One Points": "Since it is necessary that there be a preacher of the gospel for anyone to be saved (as Romans 10:14–15 affirms), who will be the first preacher/witness in hell (since no believers go there)?" And further: "By insisting that all those in hell must repent, UR is more deterministic and coercive than Calvinism is." He adds that universal reconciliation "plays the devil's hand," making heaven forever unsafe.5
— James B. De Young, Exposing Universalism, "Twenty-One Points" (Points 14, 17, and 15)
These are real charges, and I want to answer every one. This chapter gathers the practical and moral case against the larger hope. It states each objection at full strength. And then it shows that the bounded, biblical universalism this book defends not only survives these objections but answers them better than the traditional view does.
The objections in this chapter touch the nerve of lived faith. They ask whether what we believe about the end changes how we live now. And they should. Doctrine that makes no difference is dead doctrine.
Paul said it plainly. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Each one will receive what is due for what was done in the body, whether good or evil (2 Corinthians 5:10–11, ESV).6 The judgment is real. The persuasion is urgent. And Paul grounds that urgency not in the threat of endless torment but in the fear of the Lord and the love of Christ. "For the love of Christ controls us," he writes, "because we have concluded this: that one has died for all" (v. 14).
Notice that Paul moves from "one has died for all" to urgency, not from "most are damned" to urgency. The scope of the gospel, on Paul's own terms, is a reason to speak, not a reason to stop speaking.
But the critics are right that some versions of universalism have, in fact, gutted mission and hollowed out morality. The history is clear. De Young traces how American universalism drifted from Christian faith into humanism across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It abandoned the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and the call to personal conversion.7 McClymond documents a similar pattern. He shows how universalist theology has often rested on assumptions from gnostic and esoteric traditions rather than from Scripture.8 I share these concerns. The question is whether the universalism this book defends falls to them. I believe it does not.
Plain Words
Antinomian means "against the law." An antinomian universalism says sin does not matter because everyone is saved. Middle knowledge (also called Molinism) is God's knowledge of what each person would freely choose in any situation He might place them in. Optimal grace is the idea that God presents the gospel to each person in the way best fitted to win a free "yes." Necessitarian means the claim that universal salvation must happen by logical or metaphysical necessity, not by free response.
This is the question I hear most often. If everybody ends up with God, why share the gospel? Why plant churches or send missionaries or learn a language to preach in a place you have never been?
Start with the simplest answer. The gospel is good news. Its name says so. The Greek word euangelion ("good message") does not mean "fire insurance." It means the announcement that God has acted in Christ to save the world. And good news is worth sharing because it is good, not only because the alternative is bad. A family that learns their child has been cured of cancer does not need the threat of relapse to pick up the phone and call everyone they know. They call because the news is wonderful.9
But there is more. On the view this book defends, sin wrecks lives now. It separates people from God now. It poisons marriages, destroys families, feeds addiction, and drives people to despair in this life. The gospel offers freedom from that wreckage today, not only in the age to come. A pastor who believes all will be saved should preach with more urgency, not less. Every day a person spends outside of Christ is a day of real loss, real pain, and real distance from the Source of all joy.
And consider what the longer road looks like. This book has argued that those who die outside of Christ face the purifying fire of God's holy presence (Chapter 17). That fire is not a vacation. It is the burning away of everything false, selfish, and rebellious in a person. The post-mortem road to God is real judgment and real suffering. No sane person would choose it as a backup plan. Evangelism spares people from that road. It invites them to walk through the door of faith now.
De Young asks pointedly, "Who will be the first preacher/witness in hell (since no believers go there)?" The question assumes that post-mortem salvation requires a human preacher. But God is not limited to human instruments. The risen Christ Himself is the Great Evangelist. Peter tells us that Christ "went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:19). The God who spoke creation into being does not need a seminary graduate to find every lost soul. The means of grace are wider than a pulpit.
I should also point out what the critics often overlook: this objection is not unique to universalism. The same "why bother?" logic embarrasses Calvinism just as much.10 If God has already chosen the elect, and their salvation is certain by irresistible grace, then why evangelize? Calvinists have an answer: God has ordained the means as well as the ends, and preaching is the ordained means. I agree with that answer and I borrow it. God has chosen to save the world through the proclamation of the gospel. We preach because He told us to, because love compels us to, and because the gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16).
The Gospel Is Good News, Not Just a Warning
If the only reason to share the gospel is to rescue people from hell, then the gospel is not really good news. It is a fire alarm. But Paul says the love of Christ "controls us" (2 Corinthians 5:14). We share because the news is magnificent, because sin destroys lives now, and because the road through post-mortem judgment is not one anyone should want to walk.
De Young warns that universalism makes sin and unbelief safe. If everyone is saved in the end, why fight temptation? Why resist evil? Why not sin freely and wait for the fire to do its work?11
Paul faced the same question in Romans 6:1. "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?" His answer was sharp: "By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (ESV). Paul did not think that a bigger grace made sin safer. He thought it made sin more absurd.
And here I want to concede something to De Young. He is right that antinomian universalism is real and dangerous. The version of universalism that says, "God is so loving that sin does not matter," is a lie. I reject it as firmly as he does. This book's universalism holds a severe doctrine of judgment. The purifying fire is real (Chapter 17). The judgment seat of Christ is real (2 Corinthians 5:10). The consequences of sin are devastating, both in this life and in the age to come. Grace is free, but it is not cheap. Bonhoeffer was right: cheap grace is "grace without discipleship, grace without the cross."12
On the view I defend, sin is never "safe." A person who sins presuming on grace is like a patient who refuses treatment because the doctor promises a cure. The cure may come, but the path through untreated disease is agony. God will burn away every falsehood, every cruelty, every selfish attachment. That is not a pleasant prospect. It is not something to presume on.
Paul tells Titus that "the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives" (Titus 2:11–12, ESV).13 Notice: the grace that brings salvation for all is the same grace that trains us in holiness. Universal scope and moral seriousness are not enemies. They are partners. And Paul adds: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12–13). The call to holy effort remains.
"But Won't People Just Wait It Out?"
The worry is that if everyone is saved, people will stop trying. But this assumes the only reason to pursue holiness is fear of damnation. Paul gives a better reason: love. "The love of Christ controls us" (2 Corinthians 5:14). We pursue godliness because we have been loved, not because we are terrified. And on the view this book defends, the road through judgment for the unrepentant is so severe that no one in their right mind would choose it. Sin is not safe. It is devastating. Grace spares us from the devastation, not from the seriousness of it.
McClymond's most important charge is what he calls "the eclipse of grace." He argues that universalism, across its history, has turned salvation into something earned or automatic rather than a free gift. He traces four patterns: "I am saved because I am divine" (the gnostic spark), "I am saved because I am human" (the eternal-Godmanhood teaching), "I am saved because I suffer" (post-mortem self-expiation), and "I am saved because God so wills it" (what he calls ultra-universalism).14 In each case, McClymond says, the biblical idea of grace as God's free, unmerited gift gets lost.
This is a serious charge, and I want to grant it where it lands. McClymond is right that gnostic universalism, with its teaching that every soul carries a divine spark that simply returns to God by nature, has nothing to do with grace. He is right that Sergius Bulgakov's theology, in which sinners expiate their own sins through post-mortem suffering, replaces the cross with self-atonement.15 He is right that any universalism built on metaphysical necessity rather than the free action of God has traded grace for a cosmic machine.
But this book's universalism is none of those things. I do not say, "I am saved because I am divine." I say, "I am saved because Christ died for me." I do not say, "I am saved because I suffer." I say, "I am saved because He suffered." I do not say, "Salvation is metaphysically necessary." I say, "Salvation is the gift of a God who knows how to win every heart without forcing any."
The universalism this book defends rests on the cross. "Through him to reconcile to himself all things, making peace by the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:20). The "all things" and "the blood of his cross" are in the same sentence (Chapter 6). Universal salvation is the application of that costly atonement to every person, not a bypass of it. This is not an eclipse of grace. This is grace at its widest. It is more grace, not less.16
McClymond himself observes that the biblical term for grace (Greek charis, "unmerited favor") implies freedom, spontaneity, and personal relationship.17 I agree. And I submit that a grace that finds every lost person and brings every one of them home through the cross is exactly that: free, personal, relational, and costly. A God who saves all through Christ magnifies grace. A God who saves some and leaves the rest in endless torment narrows it.
Whose Universalism Is Being Critiqued?
McClymond's "eclipse of grace" critique is powerful against gnostic, esoteric, and self-expiation universalisms. It is a service to the church to name these errors. But the biblical universalism this book defends agrees with every one of those critiques. We part company only when McClymond extends the critique to cover a universalism grounded in the cross, received by faith, and applied through the free gift of God. That extension does not follow from his premises.
De Young presses this hard. He argues that if universalism insists every soul must finally repent, it is "more deterministic and coercive than Calvinism."18 The logic runs like this: Calvinism says God saves some by irresistible grace, but at least it allows others the freedom to refuse. Universalism says God saves all, which means nobody gets to say no in the end. Is that not the ultimate coercion?
This is the objection I have waited twenty-nine chapters to answer in full. And the answer is middle knowledge.
Middle knowledge (also called Molinism, after the sixteenth-century Jesuit Luis de Molina) is God's knowledge of what each person would freely choose in any situation God might place them in.19 It is God's knowledge of every "what if." If God has this knowledge, then He does not need to force anyone. He can arrange each person's encounters, in this life and beyond, so that the person freely says yes. Not because the choice is rigged. Not because freedom is overridden. But because God knows exactly how to reach each heart.
Think of it this way. A master teacher does not coerce her students into learning. She knows each one. She knows what illustrations will land, what questions will open a closed mind, what timing will catch a student in a moment of readiness. She arranges her teaching to meet each learner where they are. The students still choose to understand. The teacher simply knew how to present the truth so that understanding became the free and natural response.20
Now raise that to the level of God. God is not a finite teacher guessing at what might work. He knows, with perfect and complete knowledge, what every person would freely do in every possible situation. He can compose for each soul what Jerry Walls calls "optimal grace": grace that is "deeply personal," not abstract or impersonal. On Walls's model, God "knows each of us as individuals and understands how best to speak to us and reveal himself to us so that we will return his love."21 Kenneth Keathley develops this idea within his Molinist framework. In Keathley's model, God's knowledge works in three logical moments. First, God knows everything that could happen (natural knowledge). Second, He knows everything that would happen if He created a given world (middle knowledge). Third, He knows everything that will happen in the world He chooses (free knowledge). From the feasible worlds His middle knowledge reveals, God freely and sovereignly chooses which world to bring about. His sovereign plan works through the free decisions of creatures, not against them.22 Timothy Stratton presses the point further: the two pillars of what he calls "mere Molinism" are simply that humans possess libertarian freedom and that God knows how they would freely choose before He creates. Even many Reformed theologians, when pressed, already affirm both pillars.23
And here is the distinction that matters. Compare three models:
In Calvinist effectual grace, God overrides the human will. He regenerates the elect so that they cannot refuse. Freedom, on this model, is redefined: the person wants God only because God first changed the wanting. Those not elected are passed over. This is sovereign, but it is not free in the libertarian sense.
In Hart's necessitarianism, the rational will cannot finally refuse the Good once it is clearly seen. Freedom is real in the moment, but the outcome is fixed by the nature of reason itself. On this view, universal salvation is a metaphysical certainty. I admire Hart's work and use it gratefully in this book, but I part company here. A "yes" that could not possibly have been a "no" is something less than a free choice.24
In the Molinist model this book defends, God achieves universal salvation through free choices, not against them. He knows what each person would freely do, and He arranges the encounters so that the free "yes" comes. The person could have said no. But God, in His wisdom, knew how to present Himself so that a free yes was the response. This is not coercion. It is perfect persuasion. And as MacGregor has shown, this framework can be entirely monergistic: God does all the saving work, yet through genuinely free means.25
De Young's charge of coercion assumes that the only way to guarantee a result is to force it. Middle knowledge shows a third way: the result is guaranteed because God knows the free choices, not because He overrides them. The guarantee is grounded in knowledge, not in compulsion.
And the pursuit is patient. God is not in a hurry. The offer does not expire at the moment of death and never come again (Chapter 24). God has all the time eternity allows.26 He can meet each soul in His full, unveiled presence, with all ignorance and deception stripped away. In that moment He makes the appeal that only perfect love and perfect knowledge can make. Faced with that appeal, in that presence, with all the fog cleared, a free creature says yes. Not because the creature had no choice. But because the creature finally saw clearly and chose what was always most worth choosing.
Three Models, One Distinction
Calvinist effectual grace overrides the will. Hart's necessitarianism says the will cannot finally refuse. Middle knowledge (Molinism) says God knows what the will would freely do and arranges for that free choice to happen. This third model is the one this book defends. It is fully monergistic: God does all the saving work. Yet it preserves genuine freedom, because the "yes" is genuinely the creature's own. It answers De Young's coercion charge, and it keeps genuine freedom while grounding the hope that God's love finally wins every heart.
De Young raises one more alarm: if universalism teaches that even the devil and his angels will be saved, then heaven is "forever unsafe and insecure."27 If the devil can fall, be restored, and presumably fall again, what security does anyone have?
I want to handle this with care, because it is a place where I part company with some universalists. As I noted in Chapter 2, the scope of this book's confident hope is the human race redeemed in Christ. Whether the hope extends to the non-human fallen powers is a distinct and far more open question.28 The confident case for universal human salvation does not depend on the fate of Satan and the demons. It rests on the character of God, the sufficiency of the cross, and the texts we have studied.
Even so, the worry about heaven's safety deserves an answer. On the view this book defends, those who are finally saved are not merely paroled. They are transformed. The purifying fire burns away everything that was false and rebellious in them. They emerge not as reformed criminals on good behavior but as new creatures, healed from the inside out. A person who has been through the fire of God's love and come out the other side cleansed and renewed is not a threat to heaven. They are heaven's joy.
And the "problem of evil" charge cuts the other way. McClymond raises the worry that universalism trivializes evil by guaranteeing a happy ending.29 But I think the opposite is true. A God who redeems evil's victims and destroys evil itself takes evil more seriously, not less, than a God who merely quarantines it forever. Eternal conscious torment does not defeat evil. It preserves it, endlessly. The universalist hope says evil is not merely contained; it is abolished. Every wound is healed. Every wrong is put right. That is not trivializing evil. That is taking it seriously enough to insist on its complete and final destruction.30
Step back and look at the whole picture. The practical objections, taken together, actually fit the bounded, biblical universalism this book defends better than they fit the traditional view.
On the traditional view, evangelism is urgent because most people are heading for endless torment. But that urgency carries a dark underside. It means the vast majority of the human race, including billions who never heard the gospel, are lost forever through no fault of their own. And the God who could have saved them chose not to. That is not a God whose love compels mission. That is a God whose selectivity demands explanation.
On the view this book defends, evangelism is urgent because the gospel is good news now and because sin destroys now. The longer road through judgment is a horror. But the mission is driven by love, not panic. And it rests on a God who will not stop until every last one is home.31
On the traditional view, holiness is motivated by fear: obey or burn forever. On this book's view, holiness is motivated by love: the grace that saves all is the grace that trains us to live godly lives (Titus 2:11–12). And the judgment is real enough that no one would dream of presuming on it.
On the traditional view, grace is limited in scope. On this book's view, grace is the cross applied to all, freely received by all, and never bypassed. That is not the eclipse of grace. That is grace at full noon.
On the traditional view, the coercion charge lands on Calvinism itself: God overrides the elect and abandons the rest. On this book's view, God persuades all through perfect knowledge and patient love, and freedom is preserved at every point.
Real mission. Real holiness. Real grace. Real freedom. Real judgment. And a real, final victory over evil. The practical objections do not undermine the larger hope. They find their best answers in it.32
De Young's practical case is the most systematic available. His "Twenty-One Points" in the preface of Exposing Universalism gather the charges into a single list. Points 14 through 17 press the evangelism, devil's-redemption, corrective-suffering, and coercion objections. His Chapter 15, "Eight Fatal Consequences Belonging to Universal Reconciliation," warns that universalism "disparages the love of God by rejecting, in the end, the value of the greatest act of God's loving, namely the redemption secured by the sacrificial, substitutionary, atoning death of Jesus Christ."33 I take this warning seriously. But I meet it head-on: the universalism I defend does not reject the substitutionary death of Christ. It magnifies it. It says the cross accomplished what it set out to do: the reconciliation of all things (Colossians 1:20).
McClymond's engagement is more theological than exegetical. In his concluding chapter, "The Eclipse of Grace," he identifies four soteriological patterns in the history of universalism and argues that each one undermines the biblical notion of grace as free, unmerited divine favor.34 His analysis is careful and often correct. But his taxonomy does not include the kind of universalism this book defends. This is a universalism that affirms the full substitutionary atonement, requires personal faith in Christ, holds libertarian free will, and rests on the cross rather than on metaphysical necessity. The "eclipse of grace" charge lands on the counterfeits. It does not reach the bounded hope.
Thomas Talbott and Jerry Walls provide the strongest reply resources. Talbott argues that the "why evangelize?" objection confuses the means with the end. God saves through the proclamation of the gospel. The certainty of the end does not make the means unnecessary.35 Walls, though not a universalist himself, develops the concept of "optimal grace" that is central to this chapter's answer on coercion. On Walls's model, God presents grace to each person in the way best suited to elicit a free response.36 I extend Walls's model by combining it with middle knowledge. God not only offers optimal grace but knows, with certainty, what each person would freely choose under each set of circumstances. That combination answers the coercion charge while preserving full libertarian freedom.
The Molinist scholars complete the picture. Keathley presents Molinism as holding together what Calvinism and Arminianism each struggle to hold alone. He names ten biblical affirmations and argues that "there is only one position that coherently holds to all ten affirmations, and that is Molinism." Those ten include affirmations that God is sovereign and His control is meticulous, that God genuinely desires the salvation of all, that Christ died for all people, and that God's grace is resistible. Stratton's "mere Molinism" distills the case to its two pillars. MacGregor shows that Molinism is not a foreign grid imposed on Scripture but the natural result of holding all its claims about sovereignty, freedom, predestination, and grace at face value. He also argues that the Molinist framework can be entirely monergistic. That means God does all the saving work. The creature merely responds freely to what God, in His perfect knowledge, has arranged.37
Reitan and Kronen press a key point in God's Final Victory: the problem of evil is actually harder on the traditional view than on the universalist one. If evil persists eternally in the form of unending torment, then evil is never fully overcome. On the universalist view, every evil is finite and every evil is redeemed. That means universalism takes evil more seriously, not less.42 They also observe that the fear of damnation, far from motivating holiness, can produce despair that disguises itself as rebellion and unbelief.43 The pastoral reality on the ground confirms this. Many people who leave the faith do so precisely because they cannot reconcile a loving God with eternal torment. The larger hope does not weaken faith. For many, it is the only thing that keeps faith alive.
Which Universalism Is This?
Every answer in this chapter depends on the boundary. The universalism this book defends holds costly grace, not cheap grace. It holds real judgment, not a shrug. It holds free response through middle knowledge, not coercion or necessity. And it holds the cross as the ground of salvation, not a detail to be bypassed. The antinomian universalism De Young attacks is real, and I share his concern about it. The cross-less universalisms McClymond catalogs are real, and I agree that they eclipse grace. But the biblical, creedal hope this book defends is none of those things. It is grace at its widest and the cross at its deepest, received freely by every heart that God's patient love finally wins.
Objection: "Optimal grace is just coercion with better manners. An offer no one can finally refuse is not free."
I hear this, and it deserves a careful answer. The worry is that if God knows the offer will succeed, then the person has no real choice. But this confuses two very different things. Stratton puts it precisely: this objection "conflates epistemic certainty with causal necessity." God knows with certainty what a free creature would do, but the creature retains the ability to do otherwise. A guarantee grounded in overriding the will is coercion. A guarantee grounded in God's knowledge of free choices is not.37
Consider: a mother knows her child well enough to know that if she puts a chocolate cake on the table, the child will freely choose to eat it. She has not forced the child. She has not removed the option of refusal. She simply knows the child well enough to know what the child will freely do. Now raise that to perfection. God knows every person perfectly. He knows what each would freely choose in every situation. He arranges the encounters so that the free "yes" comes. The person genuinely could have said no. But God, knowing the person perfectly, knew they would not. Freedom is preserved. The "yes" is real.38
Objection: "Your universalism makes everyone must repent. That is determinism."
De Young presses this: the "must" in universalism is a decree that all repent, and a decree is determinism.39 But the "must" here is not the "must" of force. It is the "must" of certainty grounded in knowledge. There is a difference between saying, "The sun must rise tomorrow because I have chained it to the horizon," and saying, "The sun must rise tomorrow because I know the physics of the solar system." The first is compulsion. The second is confidence based on knowledge.
In the same way, when I say all will repent, I am not saying God forces them (that would be Calvinist effectual grace). And I am not saying the will cannot do otherwise (that would be Hart's necessity). I am saying God knows what each person would freely do, and He arranges everything so that the free repentance comes. This is the middle position between Calvinism and necessitarianism, and it is the position this book holds.40
The practical objections are real. They deserve honest answers, and I hope I have given them. But in the end, the objections point toward the bounded hope, not away from it.
A God who saves all through the cross magnifies grace; He does not eclipse it. A gospel that promises the healing of the whole world is better news than a gospel that promises the healing of a fraction. A hope grounded in God's perfect knowledge of free choices is not coercion; it is the purest form of love. And a judgment that destroys evil rather than preserving it forever takes evil more seriously, not less.
Paul wrote to the Romans: "Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" (Romans 2:4, ESV).41 God's kindness leads to repentance. Not His threats. Not His deadlines. His kindness. And this book's hope is that His kindness is wide enough, patient enough, and wise enough to lead every last person home.
We have one chapter left. In Chapter 30 we will stand back and look at the whole case. We will gather the hope texts and the hard texts, the affirmations and the answers, the two streams of Scripture and where they meet. The whole counsel of God, I believe, points to the restoration of all things. But first, let the practical questions rest with a clear conscience. The larger hope does not gut evangelism, make sin safe, eclipse grace, or bully the will. It does the opposite. And the God who is behind it is the God whose "kindness is meant to lead you to repentance."
↑ 1. James B. De Young, Exposing Universalism (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock / Resource Publications, 2018), "Twenty-One Points," Point 14: "Since it is necessary that there be a preacher of the gospel for anyone to be saved (as Romans 10:14–15 affirms), who will be the first preacher/witness in hell (since no believers go there) (pp. 229–30)?" De Young frames the objection from the logic of Romans 10:14–17: without a preacher, without hearing, without faith, there is no salvation. He elaborates in ch. 13 (pp. 229–30), asking, "Who then will be the preacher of good news in hell? How will this process ever get underway there/then?"
↑ 2. De Young, Exposing Universalism, "Twenty-One Points," Point 17; cf. pp. 66, 217–19, 238–39.
↑ 3. Michael J. McClymond, The Devil's Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), V 2, pp. 1025–32, §12.3, "The Problem of Grace in Christian Universalism." McClymond structures his analysis around four formulas that, he argues, have replaced the biblical notion of grace across the history of universalism.
↑ 4. McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 1, p. 24, §0.10, "A Theological Irony: Universalism's Eclipse of Grace." McClymond writes: "The great irony of Christian universalism lies in its eclipse of grace. The effort to extend grace to all has repeatedly ended up compromising or even eliminating the notion of grace. What seems to be 'all grace' turns out on inspection to be 'no grace.'"
↑ 5. De Young, Exposing Universalism, "Twenty-One Points," Points 14, 15, and 17. Point 14: the preacher question (pp. 229–30). Point 15: "UR's insistence that the devil and his angels will repent in hell and get into heaven makes heaven forever unsafe and insecure. Such a belief is also a contradiction to logic, and entirely impossible" (pp. 53, 71–98, 204, 241, 247); "UR plays the devil's hand (De Young's wager: p. 248)." Point 17: "By insisting that all those in hell must repent, UR is more deterministic and coercive than Calvinism is" (pp. 66, 217–19, 238–39).
↑ 6. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version (ESV).
↑ 7. De Young, Exposing Universalism, ch. 16, "Universalism's Subversion of the Institutions of Society," pp. 251–57. De Young traces the historical drift from doctrinal universalism through the merger with Unitarianism in 1961. McClymond confirms this trajectory: "The Universalist Church was once ranked as the sixth largest in the United States, and was well known for its fervent advocacy of postmortem salvation for all persons. By the early 1900s, this nineteenth-century denomination had members who no longer were sure whether there was an afterlife. In the 1960s, what was left of the Universalist Church merged with the Unitarians" (The Devil's Redemption, V 1, p. xxii). De Young notes that universalists by their own definition acknowledged they were no longer Christians. See also De Young's "Twenty-One Points," Point 12: "UR opposes the institutions of the church, the government, and even marriage, all of which leads to anarchy."
↑ 8. McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 2, pp. 999–1001, §12.1, "The Cumulative Argument." McClymond's central thesis is that "universalism throughout the centuries found its strongest support in gnostic, kabbalistic, and esoteric versions of Christianity," and that "each of the preceding chapters pointed toward a single conclusion—namely, that Christian universalism has been theologically problematic in each of its successive historical forms."
↑ 9. The analogy of good news worth sharing for its own sake is developed helpfully in Eric Reitan and John Kronen, God's Final Victory: A Comparative Philosophical Case for Universalism (New York: Continuum, 2011), ch. 9, §9.4, "Effects on Evangelism," pp. 183–84. They observe that "'evangelist' means 'good messenger' and evangelism is ultimately about sharing good news (the gospel). Understood in this way, evangelism is not primarily about conversion and salvation but about declaring good news as widely as possible." They add that the motivation for sharing is "the same sort of motivation that would impel someone to call everyone they know as soon as they learn that their child has been cured of leukaemia."
↑ 10. The symmetry between the "why evangelize?" objection against Calvinism and against universalism is frequently observed. Robin Parry [Gregory MacDonald], The Evangelical Universalist, 3rd ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012), notes that the logic of Calvinism, if pressed, undermines the motivation to evangelize just as much: if God has already chosen the elect, their salvation is certain regardless (see his discussion of Talbott's "three propositions," ch. 2). Parry himself insists that mission and evangelism are "not an optional extra but essential to the very identity of the church" (Foreword to 3rd ed.), and that universalism properly understood actually strengthens, rather than weakens, the case for mission.
↑ 11. De Young, Exposing Universalism, chs. 4–5, "Reason Makes Hell and Judgment Unacceptable" and "'A Loving God Cannot Punish Anyone'"; cf. ch. 15, "Eight Fatal Consequences."
↑ 12. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R. H. Fuller (London: SCM, 1959), ch. 1. Bonhoeffer's distinction between "cheap grace" and "costly grace" is apt here: grace that costs nothing is grace that means nothing.
↑ 13. The Titus 2:11–14 passage is significant because it explicitly links the universal scope of saving grace ("bringing salvation for all people," Greek pâsin anthrōpois) with the call to holy living.
↑ 14. McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 2, pp. 1025–32, §12.3, "The Problem of Grace in Christian Universalism." McClymond writes: "One of the ironies of Christian universalism lies in what we might call an eclipse of grace. Time and again in the history of universalism, the effort to extend grace to all has ended up compromising the notion of grace. What seemed to be all-grace turned out on inspection to be no-grace." He structures his analysis around four assertions: "I am saved because I am divine," "I am saved because I am human," "I am saved because I suffer," and "I am saved because God so wills it." He concludes that only the last "preserves something like the biblical teaching on grace," yet calls it "antinomian in its implications" since it "wholly disjoins salvation from faith, repentance, obedience, and moral striving" (V 2, p. 1032).
↑ 15. McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 2, pp. 1029–31, §12.3. McClymond demonstrates the theological problem through Bulgakov: "By rejecting Christ's vicarious or substitutionary self-offering for sinners, Bulgakov placed the entire burden of 'expiation' on the backs of sinners themselves." He notes the inconsistency of thinkers who rejected penal substitutionary atonement (as unworthy of a loving God) while insisting that individual sinners must pay the price for their own transgressions through purgatorial suffering. "Bulgakov's theology is thus a stark reminder of how purgationist universalism contrasts with the message of salvation by grace. If I am saved because I suffer, then, in all consistency, it is not clear how or why Christ needed to suffer for me" (V 2, p. 1030). William Law and George MacDonald, McClymond observes, share the same tension.
↑ 16. See Chapter 6 for the full exegesis of Colossians 1:15–20, and Chapter 11 for 1 John 2:1–2 and the scope of the atonement. Together they establish that the cross is the ground, not the obstacle, of universal hope.
↑ 17. McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 2, pp. 1025–26, §12.3. McClymond notes that in ancient Hebrew, hen referred to "the kind turning of one person to another as expressed in an act of assistance," implying "interpersonal relationship, inner disposition, and specificity in action." The related term hesed (loving-kindness, grace) "always contains an element of spontaneous freedom in the demonstration of goodness or in kindly conduct and it cannot be reduced to what is owed or to a duty." The Greek charis carried a similar sense of free, personal, relational favor. McClymond's own analysis thus implies that grace is free, personal, and spontaneous.
↑ 18. De Young, Exposing Universalism, "Twenty-One Points," Point 17; cf. the section headed "Universalism More Deterministic and Coercive Than Calvinism" in ch. 10, pp. 217–19.
↑ 19. The concept of middle knowledge (scientia media) was developed by the Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina (1535–1600). For a contemporary evangelical treatment, see Kenneth Keathley, Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2010), esp. chs. 1–2. Keathley explains three logical “moments” in God’s knowledge: God’s natural knowledge (everything that could happen), God’s middle knowledge (what free creatures would do in every feasible scenario), and God’s free knowledge (what will happen in the world He chooses to create). From the feasible worlds provided by His middle knowledge, God freely and sovereignly chooses which one to bring about (ch. 1). “In the Molinist model, God sovereignly controls all things, yet humans possess real freedom for which they must give an account,” Keathley writes.
↑ 20. The analogy is limited; no human teacher has exhaustive knowledge of counterfactuals. The point is structural: optimal presentation of truth can win assent without overriding freedom.
↑ 21. Jerry L. Walls, Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), ch. 5. Walls defines optimal grace as "the optimal amount of influence toward good which God can exercise on [a person’s] will without destroying his freedom." A decisive rejection of God, on Walls’s model, can occur only when a person “persists in rejecting God in the most favorable circumstances” and has formed a “settled disposition” with “true understanding” of what is being refused (ch. 5). Walls further argues that if God cannot make up for previous deprivation in this life, He can extend grace beyond death: “given God’s unlimited resources of love and understanding, I think it is plausible to assume he could eventually accomplish this” (ch. 5). Note: Walls is not a universalist; he allows for final loss. This book extends his framework and argues that God’s optimal grace, combined with middle knowledge, succeeds with every person. R. Zachary Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God (Oxford: Oxford University Press), ch. 4, provides a detailed philosophical analysis of Walls’s optimal-grace framework in the context of what Manis calls “Molinist anti-universalism,” and notes that Walls’s logic “strongly suggests that opportunities to respond positively to God must extend into the intermediate state … at least for some people.”
↑ 22. Keathley, Salvation and Sovereignty. Keathley’s ROSES framework (Radical depravity, Overcoming grace, Sovereign election, Eternal life, Singular redemption) provides a Molinist soteriology that holds God’s sovereign plan and the free responses of creatures in tandem. Keathley specifically replaces the Calvinist “Irresistible grace” with “Overcoming grace,” which “highlights that it is God’s persistent beckoning that overcomes our wicked obstinacy” (Introduction). He observes that Molinism “affirms God’s genuine desire for all to be saved in a way that is problematic for Calvinism” (ch. 5). William Lane Craig, whom Keathley cites, describes middle knowledge as “the single most fruitful theological concept I have ever encountered” (Introduction).
↑ 23. Timothy A. Stratton, Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2020). Stratton identifies the “two essential pillars of mere Molinism”: (1) humans occasionally possess libertarian freedom, and (2) God possesses middle knowledge of those libertarian free choices logically prior to His creative decree (ch. 15). He demonstrates that even many Reformed theologians implicitly affirm these pillars when pressed, illustrating this through his “Calvinist Quiz” in which a well-known Reformed theologian conceded, “Well, if that’s what it means to be a Molinist, then I guess I’m a Molinist!” The critical point is that Molinism need not be understood as a rival to Reformed theology but as its logical clarification on the question of how God’s sovereignty relates to genuine creaturely freedom.
↑ 24. David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019). Hart argues that rational volition is by nature oriented toward the Good, and that an eternal refusal of God would require an eternal ignorance, “and therefore has nothing really to do with freedom at all.” He concedes that this amounts to a kind of determinism “at the transcendental level,” but maintains that “this divine determinism toward the transcendent Good … is precisely what freedom is for a rational nature” (Fourth Meditation). Drawing on Maximus the Confessor, he distinguishes the “natural will” (oriented to the Good) from the “gnomic will” (deliberative liberty regarding finite options). Hart’s work is philosophically powerful and a valued source for this book, but I part company here: a “yes” that could not possibly have been a “no” is something less than a free choice. This book’s Molinist approach preserves Hart’s confidence in the universal outcome while grounding it in God’s knowledge of free choices rather than in the nature of reason itself. See Appendix B for the full boundary discussion.
↑ 25. The distinction between guaranteeing an outcome by overriding freedom and guaranteeing it by knowing free choices is the heart of the Molinist answer to the coercion objection. As Stratton notes, the claim that Molinism “locks” creatures into specific outcomes “conflates epistemic certainty with causal necessity. On Molinism, God knows with certainty what a free creature would do in a given circumstance, but the creature retains the libertarian ability to do otherwise. God’s middle knowledge is logically prior to the divine decree, allowing him to know what a free agent would do without causally determining that choice” (Mere Molinism, Appendix VII). See also Keathley, Salvation and Sovereignty, ch. 1, for the philosophical grounding.
↑ 26. On the question of whether God is bounded by time in the way creatures are, and on the implications for the duration of the saving offer, see R. T. Mullins, From Divine Timemaker to Divine Watchmaker: An Exploration of God’s Temporality (London: Routledge, 2025). Mullins explores five central questions, including “what are the implications for theological doctrines such as the Trinity, creation, providence, and life after death?” (Preface). His Section IV (chs. 8–14, “Possible Structures of Time and Christian Doctrine”) argues that a divine temporalist has ample resources for grounding the Christian hope of bodily resurrection and life after death (§10.4, “Endurantism and Life After Death”). His discussion of Molinism (ch. 7, “Divine Sovereignty and Providence”) also bears on the present argument, noting that the Molinist account of divine knowledge is compatible with divine temporality. If God’s relation to time is not a zero-sum constraint, the saving encounter has all the span it needs. See also James Beilby, Postmortem Opportunity: A Biblical and Theological Assessment of Salvation After Death (Cambridge: Lutterworth, 2021), ch. 9, who writes that “I confess that I don’t know exactly what [the postmortem opportunity] will look like … But I don’t have any problem saying that God knows and, because he desires all to be saved, that he will provide just such an opportunity.” See also Chapter 24.
↑ 27. De Young, Exposing Universalism, "Twenty-One Points," Point 15: "UR's insistence that the devil and his angels will repent in hell and get into heaven makes heaven forever unsafe and insecure. Such a belief is also a contradiction to logic, and entirely impossible"; cf. pp. 53, 71–98, 204, 241, 247. De Young's "wager" (p. 248) argues that universalism "plays the devil's hand" by removing the ultimate stakes.
↑ 28. See the discussion in Chapter 2 on the scope of the hope, and the careful handling in Chapter 20 of the texts concerning the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and the status of the non-human powers.
↑ 29. McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 2, §12.5, "Christian Universalism and the Challenge of Evil." McClymond raises the worry that a guaranteed happy ending trivializes the horror of evil. He anticipates the reader who says, "Of course there would be no reason for anyone to believe in God, or repent of sin, or struggle to obey God, or engage in evangelism, if universalism were in fact true" (V 1, p. xxii). The worry is not only that evil is minimized but that a doctrine of universal salvation removes the consequences that give moral choices their weight.
↑ 30. Reitan and Kronen, God's Final Victory, ch. 9, §9.6, "The Problem of Evil," pp. 187–89. They frame the contrast sharply: "If one embraces [the doctrine of hell], then one holds that some of these evils persist eternally. If one embraces [universalism], then one holds that none of these evils persist eternally, that all evils are merely finite in scope and severity and are overcome by goods of infinite merit." They conclude: "The answer seems obvious: [the doctrine of hell] makes the problem of evil a far more serious problem than it would be were one to assume [universalism]." This is also the insight motivating Marilyn McCord Adams's argument that hell constitutes a distinctively difficult version of the problem of evil.
↑ 31. Reitan and Kronen, God's Final Victory, ch. 9, §9.4, "Effects on Evangelism," pp. 183–84. They give four reasons why universalism does not undermine the motivation to evangelize. First, Christians believe relationship with God brings genuine benefits in this life, and "desiring that others enjoy these benefits here and now would be a motive to evangelize." Second, those who die outside of Christ may "exist after death in a state of alienation from God that can only bring increasing misery the longer it lasts," so "the efforts of human evangelists may be one of God's means for hastening the salvation of all." Third, Christian universalists share the conviction that the Christian worldview is true and "the most rational worldview." Fourth, and most significantly, evangelism is about "declaring good news as widely as possible."
↑ 32. Thomas Talbott makes a related point in The Inescapable Love of God, 2nd ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014), ch. 13, “Love’s Final Victory,” arguing that the practical objections assume a false picture of moral motivation, one driven by external threats rather than internal transformation. Talbott’s analysis of love’s inclusive nature (ch. 4) also bears directly on the motivation question: if love for one person is “inextricably tied to love for others,” then the gospel’s power to transform is not diminished but amplified by its universal scope.
↑ 33. De Young, Exposing Universalism, ch. 15, "Eight Fatal Consequences Belonging to Universal Reconciliation," consequence 2. De Young argues that if all are finally saved, the value of Christ's death is diminished.
↑ 34. McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 2, p. 1032, §12.3. McClymond's conclusion: "The general conclusion is that Christian universalism has notably failed to preserve the principle of salvation by grace and to express the basic biblical insight that 'I am saved because of God's free, unconditional, unmerited love.'" He identifies four soteriological patterns and argues that none of them preserves the biblical notion of grace: the three that are theologically grounded ("because I am divine," "because I am human," "because I suffer") deny grace entirely, and the fourth ("because God so wills it") is "antinomian in its implications."
↑ 35. Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, 2nd ed., chs. 11 and 13. In ch. 11, “God, Freedom, and Human Destiny,” Talbott argues that God uses means, including human proclamation, to accomplish His saving purpose, and that the certainty of the end does not eliminate the necessity of the means. In ch. 13, “Love’s Final Victory,” he further argues that because “no illusion can endure forever,” the free creature who encounters God’s unveiled love in all its clarity will eventually repent, not by coercion but by the shattering of self-deception. The key is that God’s means of persuasion are those of truth and love, not force.
↑ 36. Walls, Hell: The Logic of Damnation, ch. 5. Walls’s concept of optimal grace is developed further in his Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), ch. 5. In Purgatory, Walls writes that “damnation is the decisive choice of evil by a person who has been given every opportunity to repent and has rejected optimal grace” (ch. 5), and develops the vision of purgatorial transformation as the process by which God’s grace goes deep and transforms character thoroughly. The development of these ideas spans Walls’s eschatological trilogy; see especially Hell, ch. 5; Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), ch. 3; and Purgatory, ch. 5. Note again: Walls is not a universalist. He is represented here as a source for the concept of optimal grace, not as a proponent of universal salvation.
↑ 37. The philosophical distinction between a guarantee grounded in knowledge and a guarantee grounded in causal determination is central to the Molinist position. Kirk R. MacGregor, Molinist Philosophical and Theological Ventures (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2020), argues that Molinism is not a philosophical grid imposed on Scripture but is “derived from the Bible” as “the best explanation” of five categories of scriptural texts: divine sovereignty, human freedom, predestination, grace, and God’s universal salvific will (Introduction; chs. 1–2). MacGregor insists, in line with biblical inerrancy, “that no locus of Scripture be subordinated to any other locus or that its original meaning … be explained away in order to accommodate some other locus.” MacGregor has also demonstrated that “the Molinist framework can be entirely monergistic rather than synergistic,” meaning that God does all the saving work through free means (cited in Stratton, Mere Molinism, ch. 15; see also MacGregor, “Monergistic Molinism”).
↑ 38. The cake analogy is deliberately homely. A richer version: a parent who knows their child perfectly well knows that if they explain, gently and at the right moment, why honesty matters, the child will freely choose to tell the truth. The parent has not coerced. The parent has known the child and offered the right appeal at the right time. God does this perfectly.
↑ 39. De Young, Exposing Universalism, ch. 10, section "Universalism More Deterministic and Coercive Than Calvinism," pp. 217–19. De Young writes: "Universalism is more deterministic and coercive than any expression of evangelical belief, including Calvinism with its emphasis on divine election and predestination. Universalism decrees (a strange thing to say, since universalists pride themselves in not having a creed) that all must repent and come to faith, either before dying or after dying. God's love triumphs over his justice; his love demands this (which is also strange, for how can love be demanding?) Clearly, universalism finds itself at odds with both biblical revelation and reason." De Young also argues that God has willed that creatures have the capacity to choose contrary to His will, and that universalism denies this by insisting all must ultimately repent; cf. pp. 66, 238–39.
↑ 40. For the three-way distinction (Calvinist effectual grace, Hart's rational necessity, and the Molinist middle position), see Stratton, Mere Molinism, esp. ch. 15 and the concluding discussion. Stratton argues that “Molinism is not necessarily a soteriological view. It simply offers a model as to how some human thoughts and actions can be free in a libertarian sense … and also how God can be sovereign over these free thoughts and actions by choosing to create a world in which he knew how people would freely choose.” Cf. Keathley, Salvation and Sovereignty, Introduction, which presents Molinism as holding all ten biblical affirmations that Calvinism and Arminianism individually struggle to reconcile: “there is only one position that coherently holds to all ten affirmations, and that is Molinism.” Robin Parry, The Evangelical Universalist, 3rd ed., pp. 29–31, develops a complementary argument: a person who is “fully informed” about the gospel would not, and arguably could not, freely reject it, because “once one has learned, perhaps through bitter experience, that evil is always destructive, always contrary to one’s own interest as well as to the interest of others, an intelligible motive for such rebellion no longer seems even possible.” Parry, following Talbott, observes that God’s unveiling of truth “is not forcing an agent to act against their will but simply clarifying the situation in such a way that the will changes” (p. 31). The Molinist model this book defends grounds that clarity in God’s knowledge of free choices rather than in metaphysical necessity.
↑ 41. Romans 2:4. Paul's language here (to chrēston tou theou eis metanoian se agei, "the kindness of God leads you to repentance") grounds the motivation for repentance in God's character, not in the threat of damnation. This is the pastoral heart of this chapter's argument.
↑ 42. Reitan and Kronen, God's Final Victory, ch. 9, §9.6, "The Problem of Evil," pp. 187–89. They argue that the doctrine of hell makes the problem of evil "a far more serious problem" than universalism does, because it entails that some evils persist eternally. They also note that the strongest available theodicies, such as John Hick's "soul-making" theodicy, are "defensible only on the presumption of universalism," since "should the second stage of 'soul-making' fail for any person, the evils endured by that person have failed to serve a role in God's providential plan and so are rendered pointless." Likewise, Marilyn McCord Adams argues that "the deepest problem of evil—the problem of how God can be good to the sufferers of 'horrendous evils'—is soluble on the presumption of universalism but is rendered insoluble if any are unsaved" (p. 188).
↑ 43. Reitan and Kronen, God's Final Victory, ch. 9, §9.3, "Pragmatic Concerns," pp. 181–83. They argue that the doctrine of hell "may actually operate as an impediment to compassion" rather than a spur to holiness. Because "to truly love those who are doomed, to love them as a good parent loves his or her child (or as Christ loves us), is to forsake perfect happiness," believers develop psychological defenses: they "create in-groups and out-groups as a form of self-protection, and limit the fullness of our love and compassion to those within our carefully demarcated circle." They conclude: "there is reason to fear that [the doctrine of hell], from a pragmatic viewpoint, narrows the scope of human love and reinforces artificially narrowed patterns of compassion. If so, then [it] is pragmatically at odds with the Christian ethic of love" (p. 183). They also observe, citing Marilyn McCord Adams, that the "disproportionate threat of hell" can produce despair that disguises itself as rebellion and unbelief.