The Naiveté of Naïve Universalism

The naïve construal of universal salvation (“the view that upon death all persons are instantly transformed by God in such a way that they fully desire communion with God and are thus fit for enjoying the beatific vision forever”¹) suffers, argues Michael J. Murray, from two critical weaknesses.

First, naïve universalism renders our experience of evil gratuitous. Evils are gratuitous, Murray explains, if God permits them to impact our lives yet from them does not bring about an intrinsic good that outweighs the sufferings, burdens, and privations they impose:

On the NU picture, all human beings end up in perfect communion with God, enjoying the beatific vision forever. This entails, however, that one’s fate in eternity is entirely independent of the individual choices a person makes and the beliefs a person adopts in the earthly phase of their existence. Thus, the evils that one experiences in the earthly life are gratuitous. Why, one is led to wonder, would God put us through such a pointless exercise, an exercise filled with much misery, suffering, and travail, only in the end to invest the experience with no ultimate consequences or significance?²

If our beliefs, choices, and actions do not determine our eschatological destiny, if nothing about our temporal existence is necessary to the securing of our final good, then what the heck is the point of the afflictions and evils we endure? And that is the point—they have no point. If all will be saved in instantaneous transformation, then our present struggles and sufferings are rendered meaningless; they have no salvific purpose. Our creation into this fallen world thus becomes an act of divine cruelty. Surely the Almighty could have skipped the mortal coil bit and jumped right to glory:³

Why would God prefer to have us spend our first seventy or so years of existence in this earthly phase, enjoying a measure of intrinsic good but with the accompanying evil required to secure it, rather than positioning us in such a way that these years are spent in perfect communion with Him in heaven? After all, any earthly goods obtained would pale in comparison with the goods achieved by spending those years in this way.⁴

Second, naïve universalism denies the autonomy of human beings. As Murray defines the term, autonomy designates not just the freedom of the individual to make choices but the ability to affect one’s world through one’s free actions:

It is a commonplace among theists responding to the problem of evil that appeal be made to creaturely freedom. Since, creatures are free (in the libertarian sense) they have the power to go wrong, and God cannot de-activate this power without de-activating the creature’s freedom. Furthermore, it is commonly held that the existence of these free creatures justifies the resultant moral evil, since a world with free creatures is on balance better because the existence of such creatures permits the possibility of moral goods. But, as many have noted, it is not mere “freedom of choice” that the theist is after with such theodicies. What the theist really needs is a freedom of choosing that is expressed in actions that influence the course of events in the world. Thus, in addition to the ability to choose in the absence of determinism, the libertarian theist also wants choices that result in significant change in the local environment. Let us call this latter feature “autonomy” to distinguish it from the mere “freedom of choice” often emphasized by libertarians. Thus, a world with “autonomous” creatures is a world where creatures are not only allowed to make evil choices, but choices which issue in evil acts and have evil consequences. A world with agents who can choose freely but are unable to act autonomously would be a world filled with freely choosing brains-in-vats. While free choosing might go on, the choices would never have expression in or impact on the local environment, whether good or evil.⁵

Naïve universalism denies personal autonomy. While it affirms libertarian choosing, it also imposes a single eschatological outcome for all human beings. In this life we are free to cultivate a depraved character, but in the eschaton, no one will have a depraved character. All our hard work in becoming evil will have been for nothing. It’s like going through the drive-thru at MacDonalds. We are free to order any items on the menu we want—hamburger, french fries, milkshake, whatever—but no matter what we order, the attendant always gives us a Big Mac. So with universalism. No matter whether we have lived a virtuous or sinful life, no matter how wickedly we have behaved, no matter what kind of persons we have become, when we die God will make us holy and loving people, with or without our consent. “While free choosing may go on in the universalist’s world,” remarks Murray, “it is a free choosing that is without autonomy, since one is transformed into a lover of God, whether one chooses to be such or not.”⁶ Protest as we might, the game is rigged. The Creator doesn’t ask our permission to save us; he just does it. Love wins—always. I’m sure you feel as violated as I do.

The theodicean question remains: If God is able to instantaneously change us into immortal persons fit for heaven apart from our willing (brains-in-vats), why does he place us in a world of gratuitous evil, suffering, and death?⁷

Is naïve universalism as naïve and flawed as Michael Murray presents it? I personally do not find his article convincing, but others will disagree. Over two millennia, the overwhelming majority of universalists have preferred, and continue to prefer, a purgatorial model. This model appears to escape Murray’s strictures. We will examine universalist purgatory when I return to my review of Once Loved Always Loved.

 

Footnotes

[1] Michael J. Murray, “Three Versions of Universalism,” Faith and Philosophy, 16 (1999): 56. In the 19th century, Hosea Ballou advanced a universalist position that appears to qualify as naïve universalism. It was very popular in American universalist circles for several decades but eventually lost out to restorationist construals. See “Death and Glory: The Ultra-Universalism of Hosea Ballou.”

[2] Ibid., 56. “An evil E is nongratuitous if, and only if, (a) there exists some outweighing intrinsic good G such that it was not within God’s power to achieve G without either permitting E or permitting some other evil at least as bad as E and (b) there is not some further intrinsic good G*, which is both exclusive of G and greater than G, which could have been secured without permitting E or some other evil at least as bad as E.” Ibid.

[3] Roberto De La Noval raises this concern in his review of That All Shall Be Saved: “Universalism: The Only Theodicy?” See David Bentley Hart’s response: “Theodicy and Apokatastasis.” Also: Thomas Talbott, “Universalism and the Supposed Oddity of Our Earthly Life,” Faith and Philosophy 18 (2001): 102-109.

[4] Murray, 57.

[5] Ibid., 58.

[6] Ibid., 59.

[7] For a critique of Murray’s argument, see Daniel Howard-Snyder, “In Defense of Naïve Universalism,” Faith and Philosophy, 20 (2003): 345-363. Also see Andrew Hronich, Once Loved Always Loved (2023), chap. 7.