Atheism is on the rise. In an age where information is readily available and the answers can be searched at your fingertips, it’s no wonder why people are leaving their faith left and right.
When I was questioning my faith and everything I believed in, atheism seemed like the only alternative to traditional Christian doctrines. Their answers seemed logical in comparison to what I was taught in church — that God loves the entire world, doesn’t want anyone to go to hell, but yet somehow the majority of the world would be damned forever, and he knew this would happen and still chose to bring this universe into existence — all for the sake of
But how could any of us have “free” will if it wasn’t even our choice to be born?!
I realized that none of my previously held beliefs were making any sense. I was losing my faith and losing my mind at the same time. For the first time in my life, I felt hopeless. Yet, atheism failed to answer the longing in my heart for purpose and meaning in this life. It didn’t fix the depression, it only made it worse. Its logical conclusion is nihilism — that ultimately there is no purpose or objective meaning in this life. I just couldn’t accept that. So I kept searching… and searching.
Thankfully I stumbled upon a few websites that offered an alternative way of thinking about the problem of everlasting punishment in hell. My problem wasn’t with punishment itself, or with God being just — we all inherently crave a perfect justice system that puts an end to sin and the pain it causes while bringing justice to victims of evil. The desire for a perfect system like that could only exist if God himself is perfect — that is, if we are claiming to be “made in his image” and if morality is “written on our hearts”. Yet, if this is true, why was I struggling with the concept of punishment that lasted forever?! The morals God had written on my heart were telling me that not only was this the furthest thing from perfection, but it would be the greatest EVIL known to mankind. What could possibly be worse than the thought of someone burning in hell for all eternity for a lifetime of sins committed?! Where is the justice in that?!
I knew in my heart there just had to be another way for God to punish sin, yet still have a redemptive plan for this entire universe. If not, I just couldn’t see why he would create this world in the first place.
The solution? Universal Reconciliation.
I landed on Tentmaker Ministries website and Julie Ferwerda’s book, Raising Hell. Both claimed that by using an accurately translated Bible* (see resources), you would see that the scriptures actually teach that Jesus is the savior of the whole world (1 John 4:14, 1 John 2:2
It seemed too good to be true… was I just being hopeful? Was this heresy?
Thankfully, after thorough research, many tears, and sleepless nights filled with doubts and questions, I finally realized that there were answers to life’s hardest questions — answers the church wasn’t willing to reveal but answers that were backed by accurately translated scripture. Answers that satisfied both my soul and my mind.
But before I recommend answers, you must first understand the questions that I was struggling with. Many of these are the same questions that a large number of atheists who were once believers struggled with but were shot down with, “WHO ARE YOU TO QUESTION THE DIVINE? HIS WAYS ARE HIGHER THAN OUR WAYS!” So instead, they’ve quietly left the church and settled for, “Well, I’d rather believe in no god than a monster god who would create a universe with this much evil in it and then tortures his creation for all eternity.”
So if you’re willing to question, here’s a list compiled with some of my deepest questions, along with other common questions I found (resources listed at the end) that others were asking surrounding this topic.
Brace yourself, this won’t be comfortable if you believe in what traditional Christianity is preaching.
- Why did God create Satan, if he already knew ahead of time all the evil that Satan was going to do?
- If the majority of the world won’t be saved because of the work of the enemy, then doesn’t Satan win? Why would God allow this if He is “all-powerful” and “all- knowing”?
- Who created evil in the first place? – (Isaiah 45:7)
- Do earthly parents love their children more than God does? – Earthly parents would never torture their children for disobedience, nor would they annihilate them, or separate themselves from their children for all eternity.
- Does God actually love all people the same? If so, why are some people given thousands of chances to hear the Gospel and experience his love, while other people are born into the worst conditions, simply trying to survive and begging for food, never coming in contact with a missionary in their lives?
- Does God ask us to forgive our enemies when He is ultimately not willing to do the same in the end?
- Is being punished forever for sins committed in a short lifetime really “justice”? Or can we never understand his form of justice?
- If we are called to become more like God, but yet we can’t understand his justice, how can we ever strive to reflect his true character?
- Does God operate on a completely different moral scale than us? (His evil is our good, our good is his evil).. or are we truly made in his image?
- If God does NOT will for anyone to perish, but already knows ahead of time that they will, why does he still create them? Knowing that they may never even have a chance to hear the Gospel?
- Is the only purpose of this present life to make it into heaven? If so…
- Do all babies and children go to heaven? Wouldn’t it be more compassionate to abort a baby and ensure its salvation, than allow it to grow up and possibly go to hell?
- If God is love (1 John 4:8 ) and loves all people, and love supposedly never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8) and love is what draws people to God, how is it that the majority of humanity won’t be saved? Seems like God’s love fails most of the time.
- If God truly wills for all to be saved, does God not get what God wants?
- What does it mean that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord? – Will God be forcing everyone to worship him? Or will people freely be worshipping him?
- Does everybody really get the same fair chance to believe in Jesus before they die? If hell is the worst possible fate of mankind, and if God is truly loving, then…
- Why did He fail to mention “hell” in Genesis as the price for sin?
- Why doesn’t the Old Testament ever teach about or even mention “hell”?
- Why does apostle Paul never once mention hell?
- Why was hell not the orthodox position of the early Church for five centuries after Christ?
- Why can the most studious theologians not agree if we are saved by election or free will?
- Why do some of the most literal translations of the Bible, Young’s Literal Translation and the Concordant Literal NT, not mention “hell” or “eternal” punishment on a single page?
- Which Bible am I supposed to use to derive my truth from? -Even Greek scholars cannot agree on this.
- Why would God purposely blind people and then send them to hell? (Exodus 4:11; John 12:39–40)
- If hell was real why didn’t Moses warn about this fate in the Ten Commandments or the Mosaic Covenant consisting of over 600 laws, ordinances, and warnings? The Mosaic Law simply stated blessings and cursings IN THIS LIFETIME for failure to keep the Mosaic Law.
- Why did God NOT clearly define that the wages of sin would be eternal damnation in hell? Why did he instead say that the penalty for eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was DEATH?
- If hell is real, why don’t the Jews, many who know the Old Testament better than most Christians, not believe in the modern Christian concept of hell? They say they don’t believe it because it is not in their Scriptures.
- If hell doesn’t exist in the Old Testament, how could Jesus and his disciples teach that salvation was deliverance from a place that is not even found in their Scriptures? (There was only the Old Testament at that time.)
- If hell is real, since
SOME English translations use the word “hell” for the Greek word “Gehenna,” in the New Testament, why didn’t this same place (Gehenna) get translated hell in the many places where it appears in the Hebrew form “ga ben Hinnom” in the Old Testament? If the Jews did not understand this valley as a symbol of everlasting torture, why doSOME English translations give this word such a meaning? - If hell was real, why did the early church appoint an avowed universalist as the President of the second council of the church in Constantinople in the fourth century? (Gregory Nazianzen, 325-381)
- If hell was real and a place of no escape, why did the early church teach Jesus went to Hell (Hades), preached to them and led captivity captive?” (Eph. 4:8,9; Psalm 68:18; 1 Peter 3:18-20
- If hell was real and the grave settled the matter forever, why did the early Christians offer up prayers for the dead?
- If hell was real, why didn’t the church teach it until AFTER the church departed from reading the Bible in Greek and Hebrew, substituting Latin in its stead several centuries after Christ’s death?
- If hell was real, why did not a single Christian writer of the first 3 centuries declare universalism as a heresy?
- Did Jesus intentionally doom non-Jews to hell? (Matthew 10:5–6; Matthew 15:22–24)
- What kind of person does God resist? Is. 29:13–14; Luke 10:21–22; John 12:39–40; 1 Cor. 1:27–29 (see CLT)
- Did Paul wish to be eternally separated from God in hell? Romans 9:3
- If hell was real and found in the original Greek manuscripts of the Bible, why is it that it was primarily those church leaders who either couldn’t read Greek (Minucius Felix, Tertullian
), or hated Greek as in the case of Augustine, that the doctrine of Hell was advocated? - Is fire (i.e. “lake of fire”) a literal fire? Deut. 4:20; Zeph. 3:8–9; Mark 9:49; Luke 3:16; 1 Cor. 3:15; Heb. 12:29
- How can people be dead forever if death is destroyed? Isaiah 25:8; 1 Corinthians 15:26; Revelation 20:14
So anyways…. I could go on. But there are only so many questions ones mind can handle before going completely insane. And though this post does not seek to provide the answers, I can tell you that Universal Reconciliation is the only ideology/theology that thoroughly answers these questions without violating your morality or your intelligence.
So if you too have been struggling with any of these questions and demand answers. I encourage you to check out the hope and answers that Universal Reconciliation has to offer. It will absolutely change your life.
List of Resources:
- Frequently Asked Questions about Universal Reconciliation
- List of resources for Universal Reconciliation
- Example of translation discrepancies:
3. Raising Hell by Julie Ferwerda
4. Honest Questions and Answers about Hell by Mercy Aiken and Gary Amirault