PATRISTIC UNIVERSALISM

BY AMBROSE ANDREANO

And Moses besought the LORD his God, and

said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy
people, which thou hast brought forth out of the
land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty
hand?[...]Turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of
this evil against thy people[...]And
the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to
do unto his people.
—
EXODUS 32:11-14

I judgment
want you to see the future. Think of that dreadful
day when God gathers all the “goats”
together in what must be a most wicked city, tied down
to the altar like Isaac: prepared and ready to face that
infamous Gehenna we have all read so much about, how
will you react? If I brought you a lawn chair, would you
sit and eagerly await the death of the wicked? Would you
grab the popcorn as you search to find Adolf Hitler in the
crowd? Would you weep, perhaps seeing your son or
daughter among them, and beg Christ not to do it? Would
you be indifferent? Would you be pondering all the
reasons why they became this way, and the
environmental factors over which they had no control?
Would you wonder why Christ would make these people
in the first place, knowing this was their ultimate fate?
Would you be tempted to ask Christ to explain how it is
that the punishment fits the crime? Really think about all
the possible variables at play in this scenario.
I ask you readers, because I can see you in this
situation, and I can see Christ looking at you in a most
curious manner from the corner of His eye, testing you,
waiting to see your reaction to what has been decreed. He
is waiting to see which theology you have loved in this
life and what fruit you have bore up until this very

1
moment. Supposing you had a choice, what outcome
would bring you the most peace?

The Universalists vs The Infernalists

Ever since Eastern Orthodox philosopher and scholar of

religious studies David Bentley Hart released his new
book on universalism, reactionaries have been jumping at
the opportunity to tell everyone how wrong they think he
is: often either with (a) tired and easily refutable
misconceptions about universalism, (b) dishonest
engagement with the claims due to an underlying desire
to submit to what is believed to be “the tradition,” or (c)
criticisms of Hart’s polemical rhetoric. And thus,
universalism has once again become a trending topic, but
once again with a malnourished understanding that
remains stagnant.
Christianity Today has published a 2019 interview
with Michael McClymond, a Professor of Modern
Christianity at Saint Louis University, calling
Universalism “the opiate of the theologians.” This is a
title which acts like a giant rhetorical billboard
intentionally meant to imply the eschatological position
were some kind of irrational addiction with a basis
neither in reason, nor sobriety, nor tradition, nor
scripture.
David Bradshaw, an Orthodox Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Kentucky, recently wrote
an article (rather hopelessly) titled “No Repentance After
Death: Facing Hard Questions About Salvation,” wherein
he asserts (in harmony with McClymond) that
universalism is “incompatible with both scripture and the
great majority of our patristic and liturgical tradition.”
However, this is an assertion that is as misleading as it is
intoxicating (let alone the questionable validity of the
claim), not too dissimilar from, say, an opiate. Striking
universalism like this is to strike with a double-edged
sword, rendering the attacker highly vulnerable to a basic

2
parry. Perhaps it is actually the drunken rhetoric and
uninformed propaganda against universalism that is the
true opiate of the theologians.
Over the course of this article, I will attempt to
present honestly the objective patristic data, drawing
heavily on Origen, while giving universalism a more
charitable examination than Christendom has, to date,
apparently been unwilling to do. My attempt to
“steelman” the universalist position; arguing in the voice
of a universalist, should therefore be understood as an
attempt to improve the infernalist response against it
wherever it can be improved, mostly because I (someone
who is fairly agnostic on the subject) find the majority of
them weak and unconvincing as they stand currently.
Therefore, infernalist readers should pay careful attention
to the texts I engage with, and notice what universalists
do not believe, in order to refine the infernalist
engagement with this subject. I also want it to be clear
that I am not acting out of some kind of
"emotional" response to infernalism (as some infernalists
like to suppose for rhetorical purposes), but because I am
of a rational intellect desiring a sound and persuasive
exegesis of the scriptures. And concerning the hasty
attacks against universalism: I will not just parry such
attacks, but I will also make my own intellectual slashes
of rhetorical precision. Not to harm those of the
infernalist1 persuasion of course (I genuinely want
infernalists to improve), but to cut the belt off the sloppy
arguments, that they end up looking rather silly when the
guise of objective scholarship falls down to their ankles.

Misconceptions
It becomes apparent in these debates that very few people
have a working understanding as to what universalism
asserts on its own terms, so I thought it might be helpful
1
Throughout this essay, I will be using the term "infernalism" to refer to the
eschatological position which believes in everlasting conscious torment: a term
used by Hans Urs Von Balthasar and David Bentley Hart.

3
to explain to people what “patristic universalism" is, and,
perhaps more importantly for the contemporary reader:
what it is not. If one were to ask me a few years ago if I
would ever take universalism (also called
“apokatastasis”) seriously, I would have immediately
said no, thinking the very same things that most people
think. “Obviously universalism is false, because the Bible
repeatedly talks about hell!” Of course, presuming falsely
that universalism is a denial of hell. However, at the time,
I never honestly investigated the claims precisely
because I did not see a reason to take it seriously. Now
that I am older, a little wiser and more informed, my
zealous ignorance has taken a back seat for the sake of an
honest evaluation of a teaching that was held by more
theologians than most people want to admit. And that
alone is a reason to take it seriously, even if only to
understand the actual assertions rather than the presumed
assertions.
Many know about the universalist poster boy
Origen, but many others also either believed in the
universal restoration of all things or made statements
with universalist implications. Such figures include (but
are not limited to) Theophilus of Antioch,2 Irenaeus of
Lyons,3 Clement of Alexandria,4 Gregory of Nyssa,5
(Early) Jerome,6 Theodoret of Cyrus,7 and Isaac the
Syrian.8 There are also those who could be described
more accurately as sympathetic, unclear, hopeful, a
“closet” universalist, or agnostic, such as Gregory
Nazianzen,9 Ambrose of Milan,10 and Maximus the
Confessor.11 Suffice it to say, overt hostility towards
2
Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, 2.26.
3
Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 3.23.6.
4
Clement of Alexandria, Commentary on 1 John:
5
Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Orations, 8.
6
Jerome, Commentary on Isa. 14:7, Zeph. 3:8-10.
7
Theodoret, Homily on Eze. 6:6.
8
Isaac of Nineveh, Ascetical Homilies, Part I, 51; Part II, 39-41.
9
Gregory Nazianzen, Orations 39.19, 42.
10
Ambrose of Milan, Commentary on Psalm 1:54.
11
Maximus the Confessor, Amb. 15; 41.11; 42; 45; 65, Ad Thal. 2; 21.2-8; 36.1-
9; 43.

4
universalism was historically not the norm among the
most popular theologians of the patristic corpus, despite
how the historical narrative is usually articulated in such
a way as to erase all the complicated or controversial
parts of history in order to make it conceptually conform
to a far tidier image.
Patristic universalism is the teaching that is
primarily founded in the Pauline words of
scripture which says that (1) “every knee shall bow, every
tongue shall confess,”12 believing not the common
infernalist interpretation that Christ will one day force
those unwilling to bow against their will, but that Christ
will eventually entice all to Himself freely of their own
volition, to display not His authoritative power, but the
charismatic gravity of His goodness, that (2) “Christ must
reign until all enemies are put under his feet,”13 death
itself being the enemy in view here, rather than individual
persons, and that (3) “God may be all in all,”14 and
everywhere present as a purgatorial fire, of which Paul
says: (4) “If any man's work shall be burned, he shall
suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by
fire.”15 The universalist would point inquirers to the text
of scripture, which says to we who already believe in
Christ: “he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for
ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”16
There are also many more texts, which I will reference
throughout the course of this essay.
However, there are many misconceptions about
this teaching, and the majority of the wider Christian
culture simply does not understand it. Therefore, I will
present some arguments I often hear leveled against
universalism that any honest and objective thinker (one
that actually wants to investigate the validity of
assertions like a theological auditor, instead of trying
only to find clever rhetorical tricks to remain in blind
12
Isaiah 45:23, restated in Romans 14:11 and Philippians 2:10-11.
13
1 Corinthians 15:25.
14
1 Corinthians 15:28.
15
1 Corinthians 3:15.
16
1 John 2:2.

5
submission to “authority” or “tradition”) will find to be
lacking in weight. This is all in the hope that the
conversation might be moved (at the popular level)
beyond poor argumentation.

“Universalists don’t believe in hell.”

When most Christians hear the term universalism,
they interpret it to be a denial of hell. However, this is
not actually true. Universalism does not deny
the existence of hell, it denies specifically the absolute
neverendingness of hell. From the universalist
perspective, the fires of hell are inherently purifying, like
that of a divine reforge. Hell in the universalist paradigm
is a purgatory for everyone, until they pay their uttermost
farthing. As scripture says mystically concerning those in
spiritual prison, “Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no
means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost
farthing.”17
Hell is like a self-created ontological prison, but
prisons we are familiar with have the option to support its
prisoners with behavioral therapy. The purpose of prison,
when designed with any thought whatsoever for human
beings, is not a punitive torture chamber, but a temporary
rehabilitative quarantine. Listen to the scriptures speak
about the heart of God, saying, “The Lord is not slack
concerning his promise, as some men count slackness;
but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any
should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”18
Since the heart of God is such that desires that none
should perish, and that God is infinitely more charitable
than us, it is therefore unthinkable in the universalist
paradigm that God would not have systematically built in
anything constructive into His prison when He is warden.
Those therapy sessions and family visits, one could
argue, are the effectual prayers of the saints. And for the
universalist, such prayers will continue into the future
17
Matthew 5:26.
18
2 Peter 3:9.

6
age until every last person leaves the cell of sin and
death, bowing the knee to Christ of his own accord. For
scripture says, “Every knee will bow, and every tongue
will confess.”19

“Universal restoration in scripture can refer only

to immortality, not salvation.”

In Kevin Allen's AFR podcast episode titled, "Will

Everyone Eventually Be Saved? (Universalism)," Perry
Robinson says the following:
In the Orthodox Church, our teaching is that
everyone is made immortal by the work of Christ.
Everybody is going to exist forever. And so, sure its
a restoration of all things because sin has lost its
power. Sin can't bring death anymore. So people are
impervious to death and annihilation because Christ
has united all people to himself in taking up flesh.
And so, we can say there's a restoration of all things
because sin has lost its power. There's no more
death after this. There's no more threat of death.20
This is not a convincing argument, mainly because it is
false, but later on in this essay I will use Origen to
explain exactly why affirming the eternality of spiritual
death is problematic. Yes everyone is made immortal,
and yes everybody is going to exist in an embodied
mode forever. But no, sin does not truly lose its power in
the infernalist paradigm merely due to immortality,
because the power of sin is ontological: having also to do
with the corruption of mind and will. Not only this, but
scripture says God is the primary cause of mortality to
begin with, and it is implied to be an unfortunate but
necessary preventative measure to limit the spread and
perpetuation of sin and its effects in the material world.
Listen to the scriptures saying “And the LORD God said,
Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good
and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take

19
Isaiah 45:23; Philippians 2:10-11.
20
Section begins at around the 24:50 mark.

7
also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.
Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden
of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”21
Irenaeus explains,
Wherefore also He drove him out of Paradise, and
removed him far from the tree of life, not because
He envied him the tree of life, as some venture to
assert, but because He pitied him, and did not desire
that he should continue a sinner for ever, nor that
the sin which surrounded him should be immortal,
and evil interminable and irremediable. But He set a
bound to his state of sin, by interposing death, and
thus causing sin to cease, putting an end to it by the
dissolution of the flesh, which should take place in
the earth, so that man, ceasing at length to live to
sin, and dying to it, might begin to live to God.22
Christ did not have to come and die merely to make man
immortal, nor does one need faith in Christ to become
immortal (this will become a reality for every person,
including the wicked, as scripture testifies), which means
there must be more to the divine story than Christ simply
removing His own mandate of mortality (what
Athanasius calls "The Law of Death") from His
creatures. Immortality is incidental to the main objective,
i.e. not merely the removal of mortality from the body
(which He could have accomplished at any time after
Adam and Eve left the garden) but death's total
destruction with regards to its enslaving the inner man,
which entails a transfiguration of the “heart, soul, mind,
and strength,” unto total ontological unity with the
divine. If Christ's primary objective was to make man
immortal, and there is a substantial portion of people who
continue to live in sin and corruption (inner death)
forever, then why make man mortal to begin with? It
undermines the entire scriptural purpose of mortality.
Therefore, I must admit that this point is actually quite
strong for the universalist position because a resurrection
to immortality must itself be a sign that the continuing of

21
Genesis 3:22-23.
22
Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.23.6.

8
inner sin and death either must no longer exist, or will be
finally purged in its entirety (if we take the stated biblical
rationale all the way to its logical conclusion).

“People will grow lax in their spiritual life if hell

is said to have an end! If hell is not eternal, then
our choices are meaningless and there are no
consequences!”

This is a common assertion when speaking to the

pedagogical reasons for keeping infernalism in its current
rhetorical form. Leaving aside the ironic fact that the
universalist theologians of Christian history happen to be
some of the most sober and holy men who have ever
walked the earth (certainly those who could never be
described as “lax”), merely translating this argument is
sufficient for its own refutation. Imagine someone
saying: “If all crime does not result in a prison sentence,
and all prison sentences are not for life, then our choices
are meaningless and there are no consequences!” Putting
it this way reveals the silliness of the claim, precisely
because of the obnoxious extent of its unmeasured
severity. What kind of person would think it makes sense
for both the candy bar thief and the murderer to get the
maximum prison sentence? Nobody who could
accurately be described as “human” would believe that
this is a good or just notion.
Furthermore, since we are on the topic of future
punishment working to scare us away from bad
decisions: would the threat of a life sentence in prison
prevent any wicked man from committing a crime simply
because it is not a twenty-year sentence? Does the
inevitable convict say to himself prior to robbing a bank:
“Thank God the maximum punishment for bank robbing
is only thirty years in prison! Because if it was for life, I
am not sure I could go through with this?” Therefore,
taking into consideration how human psychology

9
actually works in this life, it makes far more sense to
suppose that the fear of hell is founded primarily on the
reality and inevitability of the torment itself (alongside
the fact that the severity and duration of the torment is
unknown), and not necessarily on the supposed
neverendingness of the torment. Neverendingness unto
itself does not add fear to the immoral fool incapable of
being threatened, nor does it add fear to one who already
fears the Lord and dreads the reality and inevitability of
hell. Neverendingness therefore serves no discernible
purpose to prevent people from growing lax in the
spiritual life, because this objective is already met by the
reality and inevitability of torment.
The universalist could easily argue that (a) the
reality and inevitability of torment, (b) its measured
severity in relation to the crime, and (c) the mystery
surrounding its duration is sufficient enough fear to keep
anyone in line.23 And that going any further than this
starts to become counterproductive: causing people to
altogether give up trying to attain what is a seemingly
unattainable goal, one with everlasting and irreversible
consequences if unsuccessful, and all for the sake of
worshiping an apparently powerless deity with less
compassion for his own creatures than his own creatures.

“Universalism removes free will.”

Another, rather odd misconception about universalism is
that it removes free will. People say things like "God
never saves people against their will!" And all throughout
the same podcast on universalism, Perry Robinson keeps
making a point to talk about the importance of the
"freedom to choose" against God (forever, being the
implication) and that if universalism is true, it therefore
23
I have elsewhere argued in my liturgical commentary that everyone will be
surprised to see how much sin they have actually caused in the world because of
the ripple-effect, which means the punishment for the evil we have caused will
be more severe than we expect (because there is more of our sins we cannot see
than we can see, as if a tree with roots having a depth measured to be multiple
times the height of the tree), and that this is the mystical meaning of the words
“committed in knowledge or ignorance.”

10
removes human freedom.
However, just because someone believes all of
mankind will be ultimately restored (in some distant post-
Gehenna age) does not mean they also believe they avoid
hell and God forced them into the kingdom against their
will (something He obviously could have done from the
very beginning). Patristic universalists were also
synergists just like most everyone else, believing that all
mankind will eventually choose God of their own will
(not without help from God and the prayers of the saints).
Also, granting Perry's libertarian notion of freedom,
human freedom is contingent only on the potentiality of
rejecting God generally, not actually rejecting God
forever. The length of the rejection is accidental to the
nature of libertarian freedom, since nobody would
seriously argue a limited rejection of God is a display of
inherently less freedom than everlasting rejection. Also, a
man who rejects God and spends a thousand years in hell
only to realize his errors and willingly desires the good,
has still done no damage to a libertarian notion of
freedom. Therefore, this argument from libertarian
freedom is so weak that it falls apart even when I grant
its own paradigm.

“The Church Fathers condemned universalism.”

In his recent article, Bradshaw writes, "Just as [The

Fathers] took for granted that some will be eternally
damned, so they assumed that there can be no repentance
after death..." I'm always wary when people talk about
the church fathers as if they were a monolithic unity.
Usually whenever someone says "the Fathers say," what
they mean is "the Fathers (who agree with me) say."
When one faces toward a field of a thousand theologians
lined up horizontally, and then narrowly squints through
a cardboard tube, its very easy to spot the "consensus of
the Fathers." Of course this is only an illusion caused by
anathematizing all dissenters from the periphery. In other

11
words, the consensus of a handful of theologians, or even
the majority of theologians in the patristic corpus, is not a
"consensus of the Fathers." These are different
individuals living in different times and in different
contexts, all having different agendas and positions
which may be a majority or a minority position
depending on the specific era. Bradshaw's conception of
the patristic corpus is, in my opinion, far too neat and
tidy: serving only to aid his rhetorical aims.
The fact of the matter is, some explicitly believed
universalism (e.g. Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Isaac of
Nineveh), others liked it but perhaps did not ultimately
have the time in their limited days on this planet to work
through all the implications to land anywhere
conclusively (ie: Ambrose, Gregory Nazianzen), still
others found it interesting at first but ultimately disagreed
(ie: Augustine, Jerome), and others were scandalized and
made hostile by it (ie: Epiphanius, Justinian). There are
even those (e.g. Maximus, Chrysostom, Basil) who are
thought to have believed in universalism privately but
thought public infernalism was a necessary pastoral
move, and that pedagogical fear was necessary for the
majority of believers, who were children of the faith,
while those who have ascended to a more sublime
understanding of God would know infernalism is not
literally the case.
As one can see, opinions on the matter are all over
the place. Some fathers condemned universalism, others
did not. Saying "the Fathers" believed this or that about
universalism is highly misleading, and the false narrative
does damage to the historical reality. This nuanced
picture should tell us that much of Christian eschatology
was (and still is) up for debate and in the realm of
theological opinion (theologoumena). Further, it would
not only be dishonest, but a most deceptive lie to point to
the one hostile group (ignoring both the large and small
distinctions between the others) and call it
"consensus" just so we can sleep a little easier at night.
Whenever his seminary students used the general phrase
"the Fathers say," the great Fr. Thomas Hopko would

12
always sharply and knowingly respond with the
challenge: "Which ones?"

“There is no repentance after death.

Disembodiment is a static existence.”

As evident in Bradshaw's article, many people are under

the assumption that disembodiment means ontological
stasis: that somehow, man can never again make motions
of the will. However, this is a premise that could not be
more arguable, and the mere fact that many influential
theologians believed this does not make it true. As
Cyprian of Carthage once said, "Custom without truth is
the antiquity of error."24 Though it is true in a technical
sense that one may not be able to "repent," strictly in an
embodied sense, this detail is irrelevant when one
remembers not only the common belief that the prayers
for the departed are effectual and salvific, but also that
embodiment is returning. The reason why this argument
was made is because it rests on the presumption that
ontological dynamism is caused by an embodied mode of
nature: that man must be embodied to be a dynamic
creature: able to will the good and repent and change and
so on. And without this embodied mode, man is a static
soul.

24
Cyprian of Carthage, Epistle 73.9

13
However, let us put aside disagreements on this premise
for now, and grant Bradshaw that it is true. My biggest
criticism of this conception of eschatology is the inherent
logical implication that the wicked are not resurrected.
The conceptualizing does not think far enough into the
future. Re-embodiment is a thing. The Nicene Creed calls
it: “I believe in the resurrection of the dead.” Therefore,
even granting the premise, one can only conceive of
being “fixed” in this way for the precise duration of
disembodiment, which is not forever if one believes all
will be resurrected bodily. Because embodiment is
inherently dynamic (as the premise goes), ultimately
everyone post-resurrection will, in theory, have the
potential to change.
Of course what I said is granting the idea, for the
sake of argument, that disembodiment is static, which I
personally do not find very convincing for the moment,
since I think ontological dynamism more likely comes
from persons themselves (embodied or not), not a
particular state of the nature of persons. So long as
personhood exists (that is the subject of individual
consciousness), then willing and internal motion exists,
which means dynamism exists even for the disembodied
(if we grant that disembodied conscious existence is
true). It seems to me that the potential for this kind of
change is linked to our ontological capacity in Love.
Stasis can only be a stasis in the sense of a perfection in
love, with every imperfect love a dynamic potentiality,
not unlike the difference between one resting on the
mountain summit and all those below who still have a
distance to climb.

14
 Predicting the inevitable implication to what he
asserts, Bradshaw goes on to say, "Nonetheless, it is true
that what prayers can accomplish inevitably depends a
great deal on the state of the soul of the deceased. No
prayer can transform someone into someone he was not."
What exactly is such an argument meant to suggest? Are
we really going to believe that prayer is only effective for
souls already set to be saved? This idea simply turns
prayer into an optional privilege for those who are
already heaven-bound, which of course makes it
altogether superfluous. Prayer here acts like a physician
who only tends to healthy patients. Listen to the Lord
who says, "They that are whole need not a physician; but
they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but
sinners to repentance."25 Who among us, having a
faithful grandmother, can say prayer has not turned them
into someone they were not? Who I am today is
inseparable from all they who have uttered my name to
God in prayer. Believing that man cannot be changed by
prayer only serves to prevent us from praying for those
who most need it.

“Universalism destroys the distinction between

good and evil.”
Just because someone believes all of mankind will be
ultimately saved does not mean they also believe
everyone will avoid going to hell. There are certainly
consequences for evil in a universalist paradigm in spite
of an ultimate salvation of all. Therefore, a distinction
exists in universalist soteriological thought between (a)
being imminently saved from entrance into hell as a
result of the actions in this life and (b) being ultimately
saved from remaining in hell in the next life as a result of
the prayers of the saints and the paying the uttermost
farthing. In other words, there are two salvations
depending on the demographic and sense: (1) the biblical
25
Luke 5:31-32.

15
sense: sheep working towards perfection in this life to be
prevented from hell’s torments in the next, and (2) the
speculative sense: goats who end up in hell have the
potential of being saved out of it. Therefore, the two
salvations are the salvation of the righteous and
unrighteous (in that order): the found sheep in this life
who are the firstfruits of salvation, saved by baptismal
water, and the salvation of the lost goats in the next who
are saved as by baptismal hellfire. As the scriptures say,
“he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I
am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy
Ghost and with fire.”26
It is for this reason that I find it makes more sense
to rebrand the concept “universal restoration” rather than
universal salvation, since the word salvation is already
conceptually tied to an escape from having to enter hell
as opposed to being saved through hell.

“Universalists don’t care about the Bible.”

Another misconception is the idea that Universalists do
not care about the Bible. “How could they? They reject
such obvious passages about the eternality of hell,” right?
Well, no. Not unless one seriously believes that someone
like Origen (who seems to have had multiple versions of
the Scriptures memorized) was somehow unaware of all
those verses.
Universalists simply define the biblical word
aiōn/aiōnios (often translated in English as “eternal,” but
can also be translated “age”) to mean an
indefinite/unspecified amount of time rather than
something with absolutely no end, which is in keeping
with the ambiguity of the biblical Greek (if the word
itself was not ambiguous, how could there be
disagreement?). “Eternal” can be used as a kind of
hyperbolic length of time that means to say it is either
beyond comprehension, beyond numerical value, or

26
Matthew 3:11.

16
having an unseen end that has not yet been revealed
(similar to “thousand” and “ten thousand” in scripture).
As an example, let us suppose a phoenix to be a
real creature, and that the mythology surrounding it was
true that it has a lifespan of a thousand years before it
dies and is reborn in an egg of myrrh to repeat the
process, and that it can only be seen by mankind once
every five hundred years.27 And for the sake of argument,
let’s say a phoenix lives on this planet for a grand total of
exactly ten thousand years through this process of death
and rebirth before it finally dies for good. Because we
have very few years on this planet, we would have no
way of knowing the phoenix technically has a limited
lifespan because it is hidden from our vantage point. This
fact would require divine revelation for us to know. Thus,
there is no real difference (for us observers) between that
finite number of years and a truly infinite number of
years. Both are perceived as eternity to us. We simply
have no frame of reference to mentally categorize what it
would even look like for anything to live ten thousand
years. Thus, it would absolutely make sense to say the
phoenix is an “eternal” creature from the perspective of
the human being who lives but “seventy or eighty
years.”28
Thus, aside from having a different definition of
eternity, the universalist could argue that when scripture
says people suffer torment for eternity, it is a reflection
either of the fact that the actual number is out of view, or
it speaks to how such an experience is internalized by the
conscience and not how it exists in any objective external
sense within time (similar to how time seems to stop
when idle, or how it speeds up when busy). Therefore,
the universalist would say “eternal” is a highly
misleading English translation, because our culture has
solidified the definition of this word, making it
unambiguous. Eternality may be extremely long, and it
may seem to be unending to the eyes, and it may be

27
cf. Herodotus, The Histories, Book II.73-75; cf. 1 Clement 25.
28
Psalm 90:10.

17
beyond what we can categorize, and it may be
unspecified and hidden, but nonetheless it is not
necessarily without end.
This objection that universalists deny scripture is
also ironic not merely because it makes the absurd
implication that universalists are somehow woefully
unaware of some basic and obvious passages that a
teenager would have read, but also because Origen
explicitly anchors his definition of words like “eternal” to
the text of scripture. This is most clearly expressed in his
Commentary on Romans, where he says:

In the Scriptures, “eternity” is sometimes recorded because

the end is not known, but sometimes because the time
period designated does not have an end in the present age,
though it does end in the future. Sometimes a period of
time or even the length of one man’s life may be designated
as eternity, as, for example, is written in the law concerning
a Hebrew slave.29

Origen here is referencing Exodus 21:5-6, where the text

says concerning the cultural tradition among the
Hebrews: “and he will be your slave eternally.” He also
goes on to reference Ecclesiastes 1:4, which talks about
the Earth standing “eternally.” It is clear, of course, that
none of these examples are actually meant to suggest
instances of endlessness, which is why the word is not as
clear as we might have been inclined to think. We need
to take Origen seriously here if we claim to be followers
of scripture, because scripture itself does not define
eternal as a duration which is absolutely and
unambiguously unending. And if we believe that the
word is to be defined solely in this way, then we
unknowingly run contrary to the word as it is defined and
used by scripture.

29
Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Books 6-10 (FOTC 104),
trans. Thomas P. Scheck (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2002), 16.

18
 “Universalism should never be taught”
Interestingly, there is evidence that Origen may have
thought universalism should not be preached to everyone,
but was only for those numbered among the mature who
are ready to hear it:
It is in the precincts of Jerusalem, then, that
punishments will be inflicted upon those who
undergo the process of purification, who have
received into the substance of their soul the
elements of wickedness, which in a certain place is
figuratively termed lead, and on that account
iniquity is represented in Zechariah as sitting upon
a talent of lead. But the remarks which might be
made on this topic are neither to be made to all, nor
to be uttered on the present occasion; for it is not
unattended with danger to commit to writing the
explanation of such subjects, seeing the multitude
need no further instruction than that which relates to
the punishment of sinners; while to ascend beyond
this is not expedient, for the sake of those who are
with difficulty restrained, even
by fear of eternal punishment, from plunging into
any degree of wickedness, and into the flood
of evils which result from sin.30

Perhaps universalism was only those who have labored

through all the textual and philosophical difficulties.
Origen was fully aware of how such a teaching could
potentially be interpreted by certain people in a way that
tempts them to not take the spiritual life seriously. He
says something similar in his exposition of Romans,
explaining why Paul in his epistle to the Romans says in
Adam “all” are negatively affected,31 and in Christ
“many,”32 but he uses the word “all” both times in his
epistle to the Corinthians:33

30
Origen, Against Celsus VI.25-26.
31
Romans 5:12.
32
Romans 5:19.
33
1 Corinthians 15:22

19
 For this reason he restrains his words and does not
put down “all men,” as is usual in other places, but
“many,” who have been made sinners through the
transgression of the one. Similarly he does not
assert that the gift in the grace of God through the
one man Jesus Christ abounds to “all” but to “very
many,” in order to keep the more negligent of his
hearers in check with fear and to make them
apprehensive, without closing the mysteries of the
divine goodness for those who are more perfect34

It is highly ironic what Origen is doing here, and I must

explain what is happening. According to Origen, Paul is
shrouding the truth about universalism, particularly in
Romans, for pastoral reasons. Origen has to explain to
his more academic audience what he thinks Paul is
doing, and this is an act which itself exposes precisely
what Paul intentionally shrouded. When it concerns the
explanation of Paul’s eschatology: Origen is forced to
take off his pastoral hat in order to put on his academic
hat.35
However, because the spirit of inquiry prompts me
to inquire further: the same could be said of any
eschatological perspective. Just because a doctrine has
the potential to be incorrectly put into practice among its
hearers does not necessarily mean the doctrine itself is
wrong. If such a thing were true, the understanding of
unending torment would have the same problem, because
people even today are scandalized
and interpret infernalism to mean that God is unjust,
therefore such a God cannot exist for He would no longer
34
Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Books 1-5 (FOTC 103),
trans. Thomas P. Scheck (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2001), 331.
35
To give a contextual analogy to further explain this: imagine Paul says to his
immediate audience “never say the f-word.” Centuries later, Origen teaches the
scriptures to people who are removed from Paul’s context, and do not know
what the shrouded term “f-word” refers to. Origen then openly says the
expletive to educate his audience about the word they should not say, which
goes against what Paul originally said not to do. This is analogous to the ironic
dilemma Origen found himself in when trying to explain universalism in Paul.
He has to explain where Paul's universalism can be seen, why it is shrouded in
Romans, that it is shrouded for pastoral reasons, and explaining all of this, in of
itself, uncovers what is shrouded.

20
be God, therefore religion is pointless, etc. No, the
universalist could easily anticipate such a response, as
Origen did, and say along with Paul who did the same,
saying: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in
sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we,
that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye
not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ
were baptized into his death?”36
Thus, viewed within a pastoral framework,
universalism was seen as an elevated mystical
exegesis that is edifying only for the spiritually and
intellectually mature, and potentially scandalous for the
infants of the faith needing to ingest doctrines in their
most simplistic liquid form.37 However, pastors and
theologians throughout the ages have largely failed to
notice that the opposite is also true: forced infernalism
acts as a scandal to the mature, precisely because of all
the heretical things it would imply about the nature of
God that runs contrary to the whole counsel of scripture.
Must the church anathematize those whose food is solid
as a means to prevent the young from choking on
knowledge, or can the adult and the infant actually
coexist? Is it wise for Mount Ebal to anathematize Mount
Gerazim? I wonder which is better: Situation A, a person
who leaves the faith and lives according to the
imaginations of the mind because infernalism has in the
eyes of him or her made the church lose all intellectual
credibility, or Situation B, a person who enters the faith
and lives according to Christ because of an intellectually
mature patristic understanding of universalism?
When commenting on Jeremiah’s lament, where he
says, “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived,”38
Origen speaks about how scripture speaks to us as if we
are children:

When guiding children we speak to children, and we

do not speak to them as we do to mature people but
36
Romans 6:1-3.
37
cf. 1 Corinthians 3:2.
38
Jeremiah 20:7.

21
 we speak to them as children who need training,
and we deceive children when we frighten children
in order that it may halt the lack of education in
youth. And we frighten children when we speak
through words of deceit on account of what is basic
to their infancy, in order that through the deceit we
may cause them to be afraid and to resort to
teachers both to declare and to do what is applicable
for the progress of children.39

The topic of universalism is a pastoral question that goes

both ways, and Christians must discuss honestly and
objectively the possibility of there being room for some
to have such a perspective in the church, even if it be
tolerated as a mere disagreeable theological opinion.

“Everlasting destruction brings glory to God just

like salvation brings glory to God.”

It must then be asked, “which is the greater outcome for

criminals in this world: capital punishment or
rehabilitative reintegration?” Surely not even the most
brutish and hard-hearted among men would suggest the
former to be greater. Therefore, even if one were to grant
that the damnation of some were to be a positive for
God’s glory, this would only make the restoration of
those same people an even greater glory. This is for one
simple reason: life is always superior to death.
Condemnation and punishment can never logically be
viewed as an inverse equal to salvation and forgiveness.
This means that were the salvation of all human
beings possible, God would absolutely prefer it over
condemnation of some because, again, salvation is better
than condemnation. Listen to the Lord who speaks
mystically to the spiritually blind and deaf: “go and learn
what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’40 For

39
Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah & 1 Kings 28 (FOTC 97), trans. John Clark
Smith (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1998), 217.
40
Hosea 6:6.

22
I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to
repentance.”41 This means that one cannot logically say
with any consistency that universal salvation is possible,
without also affirming it to be true, because scripture tells
us that this is God’s will. As the scriptures declare, God
is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance.”42 And again we hear the Lord
saying “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but
that the wicked turn from his way and live.”43
Therefore, one has to either say universalism is (a)
incorrect because it is impossible, or (b) correct because
it is possible. I use the word “possible” because I make a
distinction from that which is “conceivable.” The
conceivable is one thing, and that which is actually
possible (that which can be actualized) is another. For
there are things that are conceivable which are not also
possible for actualization.44 Therefore, logically and
exegetically speaking, there is for me no conceivable way
in which universalism (in connection with a consistent
exegetical logic concerning the nature of God) can be
both possible and incorrect. Therefore, the status of
universalism, like that of infernalism, rests entirely on its
possibility.45
This is the fundamental distinction between
universalism, hopeful universalism, and infernalism:
Universalists believe it to be actually possible for God to
save all, self-described hopeful universalists remain
unsure of the possibility of this but nonetheless hope that
it is possible (because it is conceivably a better
eschatological outcome than the infernalist vision), and
infernalists believe it is impossible for God to save all,
rendering the lost to be beyond the reach of what the
41
Matthew 9:13.
42
2 Peter 3:9.
43
Ezekiel 18:23; 33:11.
44
For example, I can conceive of a talking dog in my imagination, but this does
not mean it is possible to actually teach a dog how to speak. This means that not
all conceivable things are possible things.
45
To clarify: for universalism to be true, it must be possible for all of mankind
to eventually repent and believe. For infernalism to be true, it must be possible
for some of mankind to never repent and believe.

23
work of Christ is actually capable of achieving (usually
due to a libertarian notion of free will).

However, there is another often neglected subject of

inquiry that I find to be necessary when talking about
universalism, and that is the precise nature of death in
relation to life, and what it truly means for “death” and
“hell” to be “thrown into the lake of fire.”46 Are we to
understand death to be an everlasting antithesis of life,
forever existing merely to forever die? Or does death, in
all its forms, actually cease to exist at some point in our
future?

Origen: Life and Death are not Equals

Nevertheless no matter how much a person may

continue in sin, no matter how much he should hold
out under the dominion and authority of death, I do
not think that the kingdom of death is therefore of
eternal duration in the same way as that of life and
righteousness, especially when I hear from the
Apostle that the last enemy, death, is going to be
destroyed [cf. 1 Cor. 15:26]. And in fact, if the
duration of the eternity of death is supposed to be
the same as that of life, death will no longer be the
contrary to life but its equal. For an eternal will not
be contrary to an eternal, but identical. Now it is
certain that death is contrary to life; therefore it is
certain that if life is eternal, death cannot be eternal;
whence also the resurrection of the dead necessarily
takes place. For when the death of the soul, who is
the last enemy, should be destroyed, likewise this
common death, which, we have said to be like the
shadow of the other one, shall necessarily be
abolished. Logically, at that time room will be made
for the resurrection of the dead, when the dominion
of death has been destroyed equally with death.47

46
Revelation 20:10.
47
Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Books 1-5 (FOTC 103),
trans. Thomas P. Scheck (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2001), 352.

24
Origen argues that life and death are not to be conceived
as equals, and for both to exist without end makes neither
ultimately superior to the other. This argument from
Origen needs far more engagement from those who want
to argue for the infernalist position, because Origen here
meditates honestly on the implications of certain
interpretations of the scriptural text.
In other words, how can life be said to truly
conquer death if death exists forever? Further, how can
we say that Christ conquered death for all, if life and
death (like water and oil) coexist in the same reality
forever, and the one never overcomes the other? If, as
scripture tells us, Christ’s desires that “none should
perish,” then where exactly is the victory over death
when the devil has ultimately, through his successful
temptations, caused God to condemn a significant portion
of His own creatures, made in His own image, to an
unending death unto ages of ages? This would mean that
God is actually the one who is more at fault. The devil
merely lit the match of sin and death and threw it in the
forest of mankind, whereas God is said to actively keep
the forest burning in this way forever (perhaps deciding
that the flames of wickedness on a few trees would
extinguish themselves by free libertarian choice), rather
than simply putting out the fire wholesale (granting the
possibility of universalism), or allowing the trees to burn
out of existence (ie: annihilationism).
And if one were to say, “God cannot be caused to
do anything He does not desire,” then one is ultimately
admitting that God desires some, and not “none,” to
perish, which is not only contrary to scripture, but it has
heretical implications about the character of God. And if
one says “God is sovereign over the devil,” and “God is
love,” yet affirms infernalism, what does that say about a
God who knew the horrifying fate of those people: not
only knowing they are without hope, but intending for
them to be without hope from the beginning, since He
knew they would be better off never having been born as

25
He knit them in the womb. What does this say about how
we define “love?”

Mount Gerazim vs Mount Ebal

In the ninth homily of his Homilies on Joshua, Origen

provides a mystical exposition on what the text says
about Mount Gerazim and Mount Ebal. He uses this
image to convey two types of people in the church, each
having a different spiritual motivation to help them
ascend the “mountain top” of the spiritual life. For
further clarity, imagine that Gerazim is a mountain in the
day, having people guided to the summit by the sun,
whereas Ebal is a mountain in the shadow of night, with
people guided to the summit by candlelight. Origen says
Gerazim people are motivated to do good because they
love the good (ie: people who live by the apostle John’s
words “perfect love casts out fear”48), whereas Ebal
people are primarily motivated to do good by fear of
punishment (ie: people who live by Solomon’s words
“the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”49). To
be clear, Origen is not saying Gerazim people are saved
and Ebal people are damned, he is making a distinction
between two paths of salvation that he observes among
people in the church: the one mature and the other
immature. The mature are given the blessings of joy,
freedom, and liberty, but the immature are given a list of
curses/consequences to keep in mind so they can stay the
course. Origen writes the following:

Indeed these histories of the ancients report their

deeds. But how shall we ourselves apply this
narration of history to mystic discernment so that
we may make known who they are who go near
Mount Gerizim and who they are who go near
Mount Ebal? As I myself see, there are two species
of those who through faith hasten and go quickly

48
1 John 4:18.
49
Proverbs 1:7; 9:10.

26
 toward salvation. One of them are those who,
kindled by the longing for the promise of heaven,
press forward with the greatest zeal and diligence so
that not even the least happiness may pass them by.
They have the desire not only to lay hold of
blessings and to be made “to have a share in the lot
of the saints,” but also to station themselves in the
sight of God and to be always with the Lord. There
are others, however, who also reach toward
salvation, but they are not inflamed so much by the
love of blessings or by the desires for the promises.
Instead their view is much more like this, as they
say, “It is enough for me not to go into Gehenna, it
is enough for me not to be sent into eternal fire, it is
enough for me not to be expelled ‘into outer
darkness.’” Since there is such a variety of aims
among individual ones of the faithful, it seems to
me that what is designated in this place is this: The
half who go near Mount Gerizim, those who have
been chosen for blessings, indicate figuratively the
ones who come to salvation not by fear of
punishment, but by desire of blessings and renewed
promises. But the half who go near Mount Ebal,
where curses were produced, indicate those others
who, by fulfilling what was written in the Law,
attain salvation by fear of evil things and dread of
torments. Now it is for God alone to know who of
all of us sons of Israel is kindled by desire of the
good itself to do what is good, and who of us, out of
fear of Gehenna and the terror of eternal fire, strives
toward the good and is diligent and hastens to fulfill
the things that have been written. It is certain that
the nobler ones are those who do what is good by
the desire of the good itself and by the love of
blessings, rather than those who run after the good
through the fear of evil. Therefore, Jesus alone is
the one who is able to distinguish the minds and
spirits of all such people, and to station some on
Mount Gerizim for blessings and others on Mount
Ebal for cursings. Not so that they may receive
curses but that they may guard against incurring
them by gazing at the curses prescribed and
punishments set down for sinners.50

50
Origen, Homilies on Joshua, (FOTC 105), trans. Barbara J. Bruce
(Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2002), 102-103.

27
This passage is significant, because it is a window into
how Origen personally understood the place of
universalism in the church. For Origen, universalism
was, in essence, a Gerazim doctrine (being for mature
people who do not need eschatological fear as spiritual
motivation to do good), and infernalism was seen as a
doctrine of Ebal. Origen understood the pedagogical
place for infernalism among the “Ebalites,” even though
he himself was a member of Gerazim.

“Scripture says the fire of hell is 'unquenchable,'

therefore it can only be without end”

When scripture speaks of a fire that is "unquenchable," it

can refer to a variety of things:

1. It refers to the fact that the fire is in reference to God

Himself (as opposed to that fire on the birthday cake
which can be easily extinguished with a single breath of
wind).

For the fire of divinity is itself unquenchable by

nature, until what must be refined is finally
refined, or the Lord allows the tormenting
experience of it to be quenched.51 The fire itself is
never quenched because divinity is never
quenched, but this does not mean the negative
experience of the fire cannot ever be quenched. As
scripture says, “our God is a consuming fire,”52
and that sin is eternally consumed by “the presence
of the Lord, and from the glory of his power,” and
concerning the nature and purpose of His
eschatological fire it says, “who may abide in the
day of his coming? and who shall stand when he
appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like

51
See Numbers 11:33 for an example of the unquenchable fire being quenched
through prayer.
52
Hebrews 12:29.

28
 fullers’ soap.”53 In other words, God’s presence is
where the metaphorical language of “unquenchable
fire” points. God’s “anger” towards sin and death
cannot be quenched. In other words, there is never
a day when God will cease consuming the sin
within us, and for the sinner to be near to God is
also the experience of being consumed until there
is no more sin for the fire to consume.

2. It is a biblical image that is often directly associated

with God’s “wrath.”

The ancient Hebrews often simplistically reasoned

that if divine fire is present, and death is involved,
divine anger must also be present. This is how
Christ gets questions thrown at Him like: “Master,
who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was
born blind?”54 However, the mature theologians do
not reason like a child in this way. Listen to the
scriptures, saying: “when I was a child, I spake as
a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a
child: but when I became a man, I put away
childish things.” They have all taught us that the
wrath of God is not to be understood literally, but
is, as many have described, analogical human
phraseology as a way to explain these events from
the experiential perspective of mankind looking
upwards at the sky. “Wrath of God” is therefore a
biblical expression analogous to saying “the sun
revolves around the Earth.”
However, anyone who thinks this
unquenchable fire of God (when spoke of to mean
wrath) cannot also be quenched must listen to the
scriptures saying "And when the people
complained, it displeased the LORD: and the
LORD heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the
fire of the LORD burnt among them, and

53
Malachi 3:2.
54
John 9:2.

29
 consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of
the camp. And the people cried unto Moses; and
when Moses prayed unto the LORD, the fire was
quenched."55 The infernalist would surely respond
by saying “the quenching of the fire is linked to the
extermination of the sinner,” but this is not true.
The death of the wicked was a pedagogical sign to
those who live among the living that unquenchable
fire is quenched by repentance, and that the
“unquenchable” aspect of the fire is itself
contingent upon the extent and duration of the
wickedness. All those people who died were not
truly exterminated, because they still remain in a
disembodied form, like all who live among the
dead in Hades. To be consistent with such an
infernalist interpretation of the passage, one would
have to also believe God utterly annihilates the
wicked in the eschaton, destroying “both soul and
body” to nonexistence.56

3. It is a hyperbolic Old Testament expression speaking

to the inevitability of judgment and the lack of relief
during the time of judgment, indefinitely, until the
presence of sin is gone.

Listen to how the Lord speaks to His people

saying, “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and
take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of
Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury
come forth like fire, and burn that none
can quench it, because of the evil of your

55
Numbers 11:2.
56
cf. Matthew 10:28. The church has largely rejected annihilationist
interpretations, considering proper and consistent annihilationism would require
that the souls of the wicked cannot be resurrected, because resurrected life is
itself contingent upon those righteous who have united themselves by faith to
Christ. The scriptures say in Daniel 12:2, “And many of them that sleep in the
dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and
everlasting contempt.”And again it says in John 5:29, “And shall come forth;
they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done
evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”

30
 doings.”57 And again, “O house of David, thus
saith the LORD; Execute judgment in the morning,
and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of
the oppressor, lest my fury go out like fire, and
burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of
your doings.”58 And elsewhere it says, “Seek the
LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire
in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there
be none to quench it in Bethel.”59
Here we see how the notion of
“unquenchable” in the Old Testament is in
reference to God staying the course and doing
what He has set out to do. Scripture uses anger to
make this point. Anger is an inward motivating
agent, and anger provokes us to do a thing without
relent. Listen to the unquenchable fire of Saul,
saying, “cursed be the man that eateth any food
until evening, that I may be avenged on mine
enemies.”60 When God says His fire will not be
quenched, it simply means justice will be served,
that which is wrong will be made right, there is no
escaping the penalty, and there will be no rest until
this comes to pass. The prophets do not mean to
tell us that God intended to literally and forever
burn the nation of Israel with a fire that cannot be
put out, damning them forever. The truly
unquenchable fire of God is the fire of love. For
scripture says not only that “God is a consuming
fire,”61 but it explains the essential nature of this
fire when it says elsewhere: “God is love,”62 and
we would do well to remember that “many waters
cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown
it.”63

57
Jeremiah 4:4.
58
Jeremiah 21:12.
59
Amos 5:6. Emphasis mine.
60
1 Samuel 14:24.
61
Hebrews 12:29.
62
1 John 4:7.
63
Song of Songs 8:7.

31
 And concerning the meaning of relief:
elsewhere scripture says the following concerning
the parable of the rich man and Lazarus: ”And he
cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on
me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of
his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am
tormented in this flame.”64 It is worth noting that
the rich man in this example does not ask to be
removed from the fire, he asks for relief in the
form of a reduction in its intensity. The rich man is
not given his water break. This is what it means for
hell to be without relief. The rich man wants a cup
of water, but instead he is given the full and bitter
cup of wrath, and he must drink without ceasing
until there is nothing left to drink. Therefore,
unquenchable fire in this context means not that
there is no end to the torment, but no relief in the
midst of it.

64
Luke 16:24

32
 “If the life of punishment of the wicked is limited
in days, then so is the life of the righteous,
according to Matthew 25:46, because both use the
word aiōnios”

If aiōnios can be interpreted to mean, as I have already

argued: an indefinite/unspecified amount of time, then
there is no dilemma here. Both the duration of hell and
the duration of heaven is indefinite and unspecified, even
if the actual duration of the two experiences are not the
same. The meaning of the word is defined by the context
of what it describes. In other words, the text could read:
“And these shall go away into eternal punishment (which
is an indefinite number of days with no foreseeable
ending because the duration is unknown and presumably
different for every person): but the righteous into life
eternal (which is also an indefinite number of days with
no foreseeable ending because man is transfigured in
God and time has ceased to exist in any understandable
form).”
If we accept Origen’s argument that life and death
are not equals (which we must, considering only life is
truly and unarguably without beginning), then we must
also accept that what is said of the eternality of death
cannot logically be synonymous with what is said about
the eternality of life, simply because the word eternal is
used for both. Therefore, it seems to me that this
argument does not truly work against the universalist
position.
These are just a few of the difficult questions we
must engage seriously, and I raise them precisely because
I am, quite frankly, frustrated with the embarrassingly
low degree of intellectual rigor surrounding infernalist
engagement with this topic. If infernalists cannot form a
morally coherent and philosophically consistent
argument that competently and exegetically addresses
these extremely reasonable concerns, then the most
successful evangelist for universalism will not be Origen,
it will be the infernalists themselves.

33
 Gerazim’s Universalist Desire vs. Ebal’s
Infernalist Desire
Like Moses, a man of Gerazim, it is the heart of love that
persistently seeks to change God’s mind, so to speak, to
give wicked people what they do not deserve.65 This
prayer request is constantly uttered to God by the saints
on behalf of all humanity like the persistent widow,66 and
of course the original patriarch of all who are of Gerazim:
Abraham. For, truly, it was Abraham who, with a
widow’s persistence, reasoned with the King of Creation
concerning the wicked, perpetually saying with
increasing measure: “Let not the Lord be angry, and I
will speak: Suppose thirty should be found there?” So
God said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”67 And if
anyone instead desired to condemn the sinners to justice,
rather than to forgive them of their iniquity, scripture
would surely cry out: “and such were some of you!”68
Therefore, it seems to me our desire should be aligned
with they who rest on the summit of Gerazim.
Hopeful universalism has been the default position
of Christians (including infernalists) from the beginning,
whether they realized it or not. The reason is as follows:
if you pray for the salvation of all persons no matter how
wicked, even after they die, and you believe your prayer
to be effectual, or at least believe in the chance that your
prayer could be effectual, then you at a minimum
function as a hopeful universalist. To be a functionally
consistent infernalist (having a theology that reflects
practice), one would have to pray not for the salvation of
wicked human persons who reject Christ, but their
annihilation: calling for everlasting destruction not to the
power of death over them (that they would repent), but to
their personal existence. Paul knew a great number of

65
Exodus 32:14.
66
cf. Luke 18.
67
Genesis 18:30.
68
1 Corinthians 6:11.

34
Jews rejected Christ, committing a most terrible sin, and
yet he still desires their salvation and even speaks of its
possibility. He does not accept the idea that it is good and
just for them to be tormented forever because of their sin
against the living God. The infernalist prayer life, if
consistent in this way, is therefore not a war against hell,
but on all the righteous who wish to kick down the gates
from the outside.
Looking within myself, honestly reflecting on the
content of my own prayer and finding the desire to see
the wicked repent and not be condemned, is the major
reason why my former antagonism for universalism is
gone. And because man cannot surpass God in love, it
must be understood that wherever man is correct in his
understanding of love, God far exceeds. Therefore, if
man desires that all be saved, and that this desire can be
said to be an accurate exegetical portrait of Christ’s love,
then it cannot be true that God’s desire could fall short of
man’s desire. On the contrary, what God desires in love is
exceedingly greater than what man can achieve.
Therefore, the fundamental point of argumentation
must be with regards to what is most reflective of love’s
desire according to divine revelation: (a) the salvation of
the wicked or (b) the destruction of the wicked. This is
where it all hinges. Of course, the scriptures (when read
discerning the spirit of the whole in light of the gospels)
seem to side with the former.69 Thus, it seems to me that
we are all, for the most part, functionally universalist
already, since we are encouraged to pray for the ultimate
salvation of our enemies, rather than their ultimate
destruction. We pray for “the destruction of the wicked”
in the immediate: insofar as it relates to wicked works,
and wickedness as a category itself, but we do not pray
for human persons (who happen to also be wicked), made
in the image of God, to forever be destroyed, nor would
we want to imply that God is some distraught iconoclast
forever burning His own images in the wroth flames of
cruelty.

69
cf. Ezekiel 33:11, 1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9.

35
It seems to me to be at least theoretically possible (in
light of all the intercessory passages in scripture) that the
actualizing of a future universalist reality may be itself
contingent on our wanting it. In other words,
universalism can be possible and true if we want it and
persistently pray for it to come true. That we who are
united to Christ hold the future in our hands. Certainly
the biblical thing for Christians to do, whether one
believes in universalism or not, would be to be like
Abraham and Moses: praying that God would "repent"70
of a hopelessly infernalist future. However, to do this, we
must first wish our hearts be softer than Jonah’s: resisting
the impassioned desire to watch sinners burn in order to
satisfy the wrath of a self-righteousness inner man. I say
"self-righteous" and not "righteous" intentionally,
because this kind of anger is deceptive and causes
mankind everywhere to believe they are justified in the
righteousness of God by the passions of the flesh. Indeed,
the great and peculiar conclusion of Jonah shows us that
God cares more about cattle than angry men of God seem
to care about other human beings made in His image.
Men of wrath cannot truly be seated in the light of Christ
and still desire the death of the wicked, since God tells us
not once but multiple times in the same book: "I desire
not the death of the wicked."71 They can only desire the
death of the wicked once they leave the light to sit in the
darkness of shadow. And if anyone is tempted to escape
the dilemma by saying death is one thing and gehenna
another,72 listen to the scriptures speaking of the lake
which “burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the
second death.”73 As scripture says concerning they who
70
The scriptural language put it in this way, but this is not to be understood
literally. God is immutable and omniscient, and He knows what you will ask
before you ask it (cf. Matt. 6:8). It would be an absurd proposition to suggest
that omniscience can be somehow persuaded by mankind, when mankind has a
level of ignorance that is near unlimited by comparison. We can offer nothing
that God has not already considered in eternity past.
71
Ezekiel 18:23, 33:11.
72
As if God does not desire wicked men to die physically, but somehow does
desire that they spiritually die an everlasting death.
73
Revelation 21:8.

36
make their dwelling among shadows, "God is light, and
in him is no darkness at all."74 And again it says, "Every
good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and
cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning."75 And yet again
it says that Jonah sat not in the light, but "in the
shadow."76 Such men of wrath would surely respond by
saying, “But you have not seen Nineveh’s works! You do
not know the extent of their wickedness! They are vile
animals worthy of judgment!” However, though one may
be correct in saying another is deserving of punishment,
and one may have a very good reason to be filled with
wrath (like Jonah did), one should nonetheless hear the
scriptures saying, "the wrath of man worketh not the
righteousness of God."77 And this divine stiff-arming to
our own seemingly just rage is truly its own kind of
hellfire. Many have spoken of Jonah’s descent into hell
when he was in the belly of a leviathan, but few have
articulated Jonah’s fall into hell as he waited to watch
hell fall on others. Indeed, it was he (not Nineveh) who
was cast into hell, and his hell was the tormenting rebuke
of Christ saying, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye
are of.”78
Perhaps being a universalist is not about any of
this. Perhaps it is about simply believing that the Father
was really listening when the Son prayed on behalf of the
entire human race, saying, “Father, forgive them; for they
know not what they do.”79 However, scripture and
reason prompts me to ask you the reader: do you sit on
Gerazim in The Light of Love, made restless by the
thought of sinners suffering unending torment, or do you
like Jonah sit uncomfortably on Ebal in the shadow of
anger: made restless by the thought of sinners not
suffering unending torment?
74
1 John 1:5.
75
James 1:17.
76
Jonah 4:5.
77
James 1:20.
78
Luke 9:55.
79
Luke 23:34.

37
“I knew that thou art a gracious God, and
merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and
repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord,
take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is
better for me to die than to live. Then said the
Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?”
—
JONAH 4:2-4

38