Position · 230

Christian Universalism

The view that God will in the end reconcile all people to himself, so that no one is lost forever. A softer form, “hopeful universalism”, holds only that Christians may hope and pray for this.

Holders point to passages that speak of God reconciling all things in Christ and of God’s will that all be saved, and argue that God’s love will not finally be defeated. Origen taught a final restoration of all things in the third century, and anathemas against Origenist teaching were later associated with a council of 553. Universalist churches formed in eighteenth-century America. Rob Bell’s Love Wins (2011) renewed the debate among evangelicals; it is usually read as hopeful universalism, and Bell declined the label. No major tradition holds the view officially. Critics argue that Scripture speaks of a final judgment that is irreversible.