The Case for Universal Salvation

For God knew the beginning to the end. That being said, it would be a huge oversight to lose so many souls to eternal hellfire. When Jesus spoke of God's judgement upon the wicked, he referred to divine judgement as aionios kolasis, meaning age-long chastisement. The idea was that a person who turns away from God and lives a life of evil will have to face justice - a purgatorial period in the afterlife - before enjoying eventual harmonious reunion with God.

Jesus explicitly prophesied that after his death on the cross and resurrection, he will "draw all people to myself." (John 12:32). This hopeful promise was echoed by the teaching of the Apostles who founded the Christian ecclesia (church community). For example, St. Peter taught that Jesus visits sinners in hell to help them become redeemed (1 Pet. 3:18-20, 4:6).

Numerous verses in the writings of St. Paul speak of God's plan for the ultimate reconciliation of all, and Paul approvingly referred to the practice of baptism on behalf of the dead in the Corinthian church he founded (1 Cor. 15:29). This practice presupposes that God will save even those who died in sin and unbelief. Paul's vigorous and courageous efforts to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ were probably the most important factor in the development of Christianity as a major world religion. He was at the forefront of the movement to include non-Jews in God's new community of faith and to broaden the understanding of salvation beyond the confines of Jewish law. Paul created an intellectually coherent view of the meaning and message of Christ that was heavily focused around the teaching that through successive ages of time, God is in the process of bringing all beings back to Himself- that through the transformative influence of His firstborn Son, the Christ, all people can be raised up into the station of mature sons and daughters of God (e.g. see 1 Cor. 15:22, 2 Cor. 3:18, Gal. 4:4-5, Eph. 5:1).

Other early disciples of Jesus whose writings appear in the Bible also advocated a universalist understanding of the Gospel of St. John the Apostle was a notable example. He made the striking statement that "God is Love" (1 John 4:8,16) and frequently wrote of the importance of Christians showing love to everyone as brothers and sisters.

The early church from the time of the Apostles until the 4th century was primarily a Universalist church. Most of the church fathers during this period believed that all people will be saved. Over time, alternative doctrines about the fate of sinners grew more popular, such as annihilationism and eternal conscious torment. These doctrines were often held by Christians who could not read the New Testament in the original Greek language in which it was written, and who interpreted the Bible through the lens of barbaric forms of paganism. It is noteworthy that Irenaeus the Bishop of Lyons wrote a lengthy book called Against Heresies in the late 2nd century, which never once mentioned universal salvation as a heretical belief. This is because for the first few centuries of Christian history, Universalism prevailed as the mainstream understanding of the Gospel.

The greatest theological school of the Patristic era- which directly descended from the Apostles themselves- was called Didascalium and was based in Alexandria, Egypt. It was founded by St. Pantaenus (d. ca. 216) in the year 190 C.E. Pantaenus, described by some of his students as "the Sicilian bee," was a Stoic philosopher who beame a Christian missionary and traveled as far as India to spread the Gospel. He sought to reconcile the best of Greek philosophy with the radical new spiritual message of Jesus and the Apostles. He was martyred for his faith in Christ.

The Didascalium was the earliest catechetical school, and it played a very influential role in the development of Christian theology prior to the rise of the imperial Roman Church. The city of Alexandria was the center of learning and intellectual culture for the entire ancient world. This cosmopolitan metropolis was the meeting place of philosophers, theologians, writers, teachers and students of various belief systems, and during the first three centuries of Christian history it became the most important city in the Christian world. The Alexandria school of Christianity was thoroughly Universalist in its theology. One wonders how history would have been different had Alexandria remained the center of gravity of Christian thought instead of Rome, which developed a diametrically opposite theological system based on the teaching of eternal damnation.