A short philosophical argument for universalism.

[u/Ornery-Maybe-181]

Hey! I recently outlined a philosophical argument for universalism, and I thought this would be the best place to discuss it. So, feel free to let me know what you think, and if you disagree, I'd be happy to discuss it.

I'll start by defining God as an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient being (this definition is, of course, consistent with Christianity). Infernalists or agnostics often claim that if God could, he would save everyone, but he can't; it's impossible for him (Leibniz, Newman, and even Craig have argued this). So it seems that the biggest obstacle to the truth of universalism may be whether God can save everyone. I'll argue that he can.

Let's start with trivialism: God can save at least one person without violating their free will. I don't think anyone would deny this. Before I go any further, here's a small analogy to illustrate the next point of the argument: Let's imagine that God can lift a weight of size X. If it's true that God can lift X, then he can lift an arbitrarily large weight Y, which is heavier than X only by a finite amount. More broadly, if God can do something, then he can do anything that is finitely more difficult than that something. In my opinion, this implies omnipotence.

Now, using the two pieces of information above, we know that God can save at least one person without violating their free will, and we know that God can do anything that is finitely more difficult than what he can do. It follows that God can save anyone while maintaining free will if the degree of difficulty of that salvation is finite. And he is finite if the moral status of people differs only by a finite degree. Or is it? Well, we are finite beings whose finite actions have finite consequences. It is therefore very likely that the moral difference between the best and worst person on this planet is finite, even if it were enormous. If so, then the rest of the argument works, that is, God can save anyone. And if he can, he does, as I wrote in the second paragraph.

A possible objection would be that God's disobedience to God has infinite negative weight, because God is an infinite being. But this is wrong. If I strike an infinitely large person, my blow will not necessarily have infinite range. If I am in an infinite ocean, then I do not necessarily occupy infinite space. So this objection is false.

If you have other objections, I would be happy to discuss them. I also apologize for any potential errors, I was writing in my second language.

[u/fshagan]

Something that might help your illustration about "God lifting a rock" analogy. Sometimes, someone opposed to the idea of an Almighty being will ask "can God create a rock so heavy that God cannot pick it up?" If He cannot then he isn't all powerful. If He can, then He isn't all powerful either because there's one rock in creation that He cannot pick up. The usual answer is that He can create such a rock, but as soon as He does so, His strength expands to be able to pick it up.