The Afterlife for Unbelievers:  will the final result be
Eternal Misery, or Annihilation, or Restoration ?

Bible-Based Evidence
for Ultimate Restoration

in the Bible and Church History and

by Logically Combining Popular Theologies:

The following sections explain why Eternal Misery (EM) is not supported, and purgatorial Ultimate Restoration (pUR, or UR) is supported, when we carefully examine what the Bible teaches about the purpose of Hell, and what was believed by early church leaders, and when we logically combine theologies of divine sovereignty.

In the early church, many Christian leaders (perhaps most) believed that God will save all people.  Why?  It was mainly because of what they learned when they carefully studied the Bible.

• AB) The strong biblical support for Ultimate Reconciliation comes in two stages.

• A)  Conditional Immortality versus Unconditional Immortality:   Conditional Immortality is clearly taught in the Bible in what God does with His "tree of life" (removed in Genesis & restored in Revelation) to produce His merciful death penalty for sin (seen throughout the Bible) along with penal substitutionary atonement (to justify His salvation of us, although His substitution would not be satisfactory if He will cause EM), and more.   Conditional Immortality would occur with Ultimate Restoration or Final Annihilation (but not with Eternal Misery) so a second stage compares...

• B)  Ultimate Restoration versus Final Annihilation:   In the Bible, God tells us (in some places) that He wants to save all people, and (in some places) that He will save all people (to produce Ultimate Restoration), that "as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22) because "as through one transgression [the sin of Adam] there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness [atonement by Jesus] there resulted justification of life to all men" (Romans 5:18) and (Romans 11:32) "God has shut up all in disobedience [due to Adam] so that [through Christ] He may show mercy to all," with His loving "mercy to all" inspiring (in Romans 11:33-36) our worship: "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! ... For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things.  To Him be the glory forever. Amen." *   The birth of Jesus was "good news of great joy which will be for all the people" (Luke 2:10) so we joyfully "have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe" (1 Timothy 4:10) because Jesus came "to save the world" (John 12:47) by becoming "the atoning sacrifice... for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2) so He "takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) and is "the Savior of the world" (1 John 4:14) in a process that will be actualized when (in Life or in Afterlife) God saves every person, because — like a good shepherd who loves all of his sheep and wants to find-and-save every sheep (or coin or son, as Jesus tells us in Luke 15 where the numbers remaining lost are 0-of-100, 0-of-10, 0-of-2) — God will "go after the one that is lost, until he finds it." (Luke 15:4)   If you have not "settled matters" with other people, "you may be thrown into prison... [and] you will not get out until you have paid the last penny" (Matthew 5:26) but ultimately – when "until" has happened for every person – God will (through Jesus Christ) "reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross" (Colossians 1:15-20) so (Philippians 2:11) "at the name of Jesus every knee will bow... [and] every tongue will confess [with sincerity and loving admiration] that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."     /     * This conclusion of Romans 9-11, with "mercy to all" and thus "glory forever" in 11:32-36, leads to the exhortation in Romans 12:1, "Therefore... in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship."     {more – there are many other UR-supporting passages in the New Testament & Old Testament}    Also, consider the connections between...

Fire and Baptism and Death:  These are related in ways that support pUR, with “big picture” connections between Matthew 3 — IF when Jesus baptizes with fire He will burn the evil "chaff" in a person's character so only the good "wheat" remains in their character, analogous to Matthew 13 if a person's "weeds" {the evil parts of their character} are burned so only their "wheat" {their good character} remains, analogous to 1 Corinthians 3 when "the fire will test" each person's works and some will be "burned up" but the person "will be saved... through fire" — and comparing Revelation 20 (if baptism with fire by immersion in The Lake of Fire produces a purifying death-of-sin during Afterlife) with Romans 6 (when baptism with water by immersion in a lake of water symbolizes a purifying death-of-sin during Life).   {more about the connections}

We also see that when pUR is compared with FA or EM,  pUR is more consistent with what the Bible tells us about the character of God (with love in action) when we ask the most important WWJD-Question, “What Will Jesus Do?”

Above, you've seen strong biblical evidence-for-UR.

Below, you'll see that biblical evidence-against-UR is much weaker when this evidence is evaluated logically — when we understand what UR is & isn't, and we use only biblical evidence that challenges the actual claims of Christian UR that is Bible-based so it's purgatorial and exclusivist — and IF God will continue to graciously offer salvation to people who repent-and-believe during Afterlife.  For example, a color-coded table comparing the 3 views shows two kinds of verses (about suffering in hell and the narrow road with two kinds of people) that are weak evidence against UR,  but one kind of verse (about God hating sin) that is strong evidence against EM:

    • verses that describe suffering in hell are not evidence-against-UR because all views (including UR) agree that some people will suffer, with weeping & gnashing.
    • verses describing the narrow road of salvation are not evidence-against-UR because all views (EM, FA, and biblical non-pluralistic exclusivist UR) agree that the road is narrow, that salvation requires faith in Jesus, with genuine repentance;   and even though few people are traveling the narrow road now (during Life), this does not mean that few will ever travel it, either now in Life (acknowledged by UR, FA, EM) or (as proposed by UR) later in Afterlife.  Logically, “few traveling it now” is not evidence-against-UR unless a person already has used illogical circular reasoning that begins (for reasons independent from these verses) with a prior conclusion that “it's now or never” because salvation-in-Afterlife is impossible, therefore UR is impossible.  More generally, using similar logic,...
    • verses describing two kinds of people (already-saved & temporarily-unsaved) are not evidence-against-UR "unless a person already has used illogical circular reasoning [to conclude that]... therefore UR is impossible."  Logically, "two kinds of people" is not evidence (or it's very weak evidence) because UR agrees that most people — all who were not traveling the narrow road during Life, so they were unsaved when they died — will continue being unsaved during some not-yet-final periods of time in Afterlife.  These times will include a penultimate state (semifinal state) when unsaved people are being sanctified in purgatorial UR-Hell, where divine fire is purifying them until their sin is gone, until God has prepared them for their ultimate state (their final state) in His sinless Ultimate Restoration,  when God has healed all persons and all relationships (with each person being purified so they have no sin, so they can be totally reconciled with all other people and with God, so they fully love people and fully love God), when there will be one kind of person (saved).     {also: in the Old Testament, several times we see God telling His people that first He will bring judgement on them, but later He will restore them, as explained by Robin Parry}   {but... will there be any process-differences and outcome-differences between people who were earlier-saved or earlier-unsaved at the end of their Life?}  {more - in a shorter summary (about the two meanings of ultimate) and a longer description}
    • verses that seem to describe two kinds of people (with one kind being thrown into fire) may actually be describing two kinds of character within a person (and their evil character being eliminated by divine fire). 
    • by contrast, verses telling us that God hates sin (and wants to eliminate it) are strong evidence-against-EM because with EM (but not with UR or FA) SINNING would continue forever because God would be forcing unsaved SINNERS to live forever with misery, in the final state of the world He created, and these people would continue to sinfully hate God forever.     {defenders of EM often claim that UR & FA “don't take sin seriously,” that only EM (not UR or FA) would be a satisfactory divine response to sin, but is this criticism justifiable?  no, because with EM sin is preserved, but sin is eliminated with UR or FA.}

Currently I'm optimistic that Ultimate Reconciliation will happen, about 75% confident.  Why this high?  Because overall, when everything is considered, I think UR can logically respond to claims of evidences-against-UR more effectively than FA or (especially) EM can logically respond to claims of evidences-for-UR.  Why this low? (i.e. why not 100% ?)   Because despite the effective logical responses by UR, I think there is...

ambiguity in UR-versus-FA:   Based on my careful studying of what the Bible teaches about three views, I'm very confident that only two views of “what will happen in Hell” — purgatorial Ultimate Restoration (pUR, aka UR) and Final Annihilation (FA), but not Eternal Misery — are biblically justifiable possibilities.  Why do I think it could be two views, instead of one view?  It's because

    defenders of FA have “answers” (but are they satisfactory?) for pro-UR arguments that include pro-UR verses you see above plus other verses;  and
    defenders of UR have “answers” (but are they satisfactory?) for pro-FA arguments that include pro-FA verses like Second Death in The Lake of Fire and statements about two kinds of people (with one kind being burned with fire) and others.

Therefore we see biblical ambiguity due to biblical support for UR but also for FA.  For example, the Bible doesn't clearly say “yes” or “no” when we ask two important questions:  “can God (and will God) save a person in their Afterlife if this person is rejecting Christ at the end of their Life?”     { I.O.U. – Later, I'll describe some of the Bible-based logical arguments and counter-arguments (and counter-counter-arguments,...) that can be used to defend UR, or to defend FA.}

One kind of strong Bible-based evidence is theological, because of what the Bible tells us about character of God, by telling us that He is loving, and He wants justice.  It seems to me that the best way to achieve justice (= righteousness) is for God to heal all people and all relationships to lovingly produce The Best Possible Ending for His Story with universal Ultimate Restoration, by restoring every person so they will be what He always wanted them to be.  When I think about how wonderful this would be, how just-and-loving God would be (with love-in-action producing righteousness that is justice) if He does this, if He has decided to end His story this way, it gives me a strong reason to enthusiastically praise God for everything He is and does (including what He will do for people in Hell, will do for their benefit by destroying their sinful nature) so it helps me more fully love God with my whole heart-and-mind.

But even though there is ambiguity and thus uncertainty, I'm noticing a trend in my views:  the more I'm learning about UR, the more optimistic I'm becoming, due to my increased understanding of the strong biblical support for pUR (and the weak biblical support against pUR) when all things are considered.

Here is a history of my rough estimates:  After 23 years of studying, in 2010 my estimates for each view were {98% FA, 1% EM, 1% UR};  but starting in 2014 when I began learning more about UR this changed to about 50-50 between FA and UR;  and now in 2021 it's roughly {75% UR, 25% FA, 0% EM}, with it being "roughly" because my estimates for the reality-truth of UR can range from 60% to 90% (depending on how I'm weighting different aspects of the overall evidence) with an average of 75%, about 3/4 confident.

We see another biblical reason to believe Ultimate Restoration when we...

    logically combine Theologies of Sovereignty, and conclude that

    IF divine love plus divine power, THEN Ultimate Restoration.

Two popular systems of theology — with differing answers for the important question of “who does what?” (i.e. “how does God choose to use His divine sovereignty?”) in a process of salvation — claim strong Biblical support, are common among modern evangelical Christians, and are generally considered worthy of respectful theological discussion.  The majority view is Arminian, but Calvinism is a significant minority.

When we accept two claims about God's fatherly love and sovereign power, in claims (each accepted by Arminians or by Calvinists) that...

    IF God loves everyone He has created, so God wants to save everyone (this is accepted by Arminians, but rejected by Calvinists)*, and
    IF God uses His power to sovereignly “get what He wants” in salvation (this is accepted by Calvinists, but rejected by Arminians)*,

THEN — because God wants to save everyone, and God gets what He wants — our logical conclusion will be Ultimate Restoration.

Or, with a brief summary:  IF divine love plus divine power, THEN Ultimate Restoration.

This IF-IF-THEN logical statement is similar to the difficult IF-IF-THEN logical questions challenging our claims for a powerful-and-loving God:

1) IF God is all-powerful, and IF God is all-loving, THEN why does God allow suffering now during Life?

2) IF God is all-powerful, and IF God is all-loving, THEN why would God allow Eternal Misery later during Afterlife? *

Typically #1 is answered by explaining that...  1A) God shared our suffering when He came to live with us, and die for us;   1B) the current suffering of people is temporary, it's only during Life, and eventually (after Life is over) God will use the suffering for our benefit.  When we apply these explanations for Afterlife in #2, the love-in-action of Jesus (described in 1A) is equally true for 2A.  But if God will cause Eternal Misery in Afterlife, the logic of 1B (with “ends justifying the means” because the suffering is temporary and it produces benefits) becomes illogical if it's used for 2B-and-EM (because for most people the suffering is permanent and it produces no benefits).

* I cannot understand how a combination of Calvinism plus Eternal Misery* — by claiming that God does not want to save everyone (and by using His total sovereignty, He will not save everyone) AND He will cause Eternal Misery for those He chooses to not save — is consistent with the biblical God who loves people and wants justice.     {* logically, Calvinistic claims about sovereignty should be separated from claims about Eternal Misery, but historically these two claims are connected. }

* But... Arminians who are not Universalists can claim that God does “get what He wants” if He forever (in the past, present, future) allows human free-will decisions that include deciding whether to accept or reject the grace He offers — because although God does want to save everyone, He also wants (even more than this) to allow human free will — and some humans will continue deciding to reject Him.  This claim seems biblically-logical, although it's rejected by Calvinists (for reasons that are biblical & logical) and also by Christians who claim that God will not allow a result of eternally lasting misery (or death) to be determined by foolish decisions by people during Life when their will was enslaved by sin.  Instead, God will transform them in UR-Hell so they have a freed will that no longer is enslaved to sin, so will be truly free and they can make a wise free-will decision.

* Because we are Bible-believing Christians who believe that God is all-powerful, we should ask an even stronger question:  why would God cause Eternal Misery in Afterlife?  because life depends on God and quality of life depends on God, if there is eternal life (that depends on God) that is miserable life (that depends on God, because He could change it from misery to joy if He wanted this), it seems that God would be causing (not just allowing) the Eternal Misery.   {why am I very confident that this won't happen?}

MORE about this logic – including what is and isn't accepted by Arminians and who is to blame for a person's damnation and the double-predestinating (to heaven & hell) of Calvinism and why logical Calvinism (re: the total sovereignty of God) does not require historic traditional Calvinism (= logical Calvinism + Eternal Misery), so logical Calvinism and traditional Calvinism should be evaluated independently.

Early Church History provides evidence against Eternal Misery and evidence for Conditional Immortality (i.e., for Final Annihilation or for Ultimate Restoration).

writers of the Bible:  In what they spoke (as recorded in Acts of the Apostles) and wrote (in their letters), the earliest major church leaders – Peter, John, James, Paul – described divine judgment, but not a divine causing of Eternal Misery.  In the Bible, these leaders never mentioned eternally lasting torment.  It's very probable that this absence of EM — the number of times they mention it is... zero — shows us that they did not believe EM.  And it certainly shows that they didn't think “the final state of unbelievers” was an essential part of The Good News.

readers of the Bible:  After books of the New Testament were written, post-apostolic leaders of the early church were able to read these books in their native language of Greek, so their understandings were not hindered by translations that were biased to support EM.  In the first five centuries of church history, extra-biblical writings of prominent “church fathers” show that all three views (Ultimate Restoration, Final Annihilation, Eternal Misery) were common, and all were respected as acceptable options, so major statements of belief – as in the Apostle's Creed and Nicene Creed – say nothing about UR or FA or EM.  Therefore all of the views, then and now, can affirm these two classic creeds;  and all views now can affirm the modern “fundamentals” of Christian faith.     {more about Church History including Creeds & Fundamentals}

the big changes:  Later, EM became the dominant view, mainly for reasons that were linguistic (by producing-and-reading misleading biased translations that led people to believe EM, when the Bible was translated from Greek into Latin and other languages, which distorted the thinking of Augustine and of those who were influenced by him), philosophical (due to the influence of non-Biblical philosophies claiming intrinsic non-dependent unconditional immortality), and political (because some practical effects of EM helped a church/government control people with fear-based threats), plus the powerful inertia of tradition.   /   But the non-EM views, FA and UR, continued to be proposed by some Christians, and these views are again (as in the early church) becoming much more common in recent decades.   {more}

What are my views?

an option:  You can first read a brief summary and then a short overview in the Table of Contents.

A.  I'm very confident, but not certain, that Eternal Misery (EM) will not happen in Afterlife.  Why?  Two strong biblical reasons are because...

    • EM is not consistent with the Conditional Immortality (and closely related Death Penalty for Sin) that is clearly taught in the Bible, and
    • EM doesn't seem consistent with the biblically revealed character of God, re: justice-and-love, when we ask “What Will Jesus Do (during Afterlife) with people who reject him (during their Life)?”
    Also, the main supports typically claimed for EM are isolated “hell verses” that — when they're examined carefully — provide very weak biblical supports for EM, compared with the very strong biblical supports against EM.
    And there are other other biblical reasons to reject EM.

B.  The other views — Ultimate Restoration (UR) and Final Annihilation (FA) — have strong biblical support,* and I think each is a possibility.  Therefore, although I'm a confident Conditionalist (in claiming “UR or FA will happen, and EM won't happen”), I'm not highly confident in claiming that either “UR will happen” or “FA will happen, so UR won't happen.”   But I strongly prefer UR because it would be a “happy ending” for more people, so...

    • I'm hoping that UR will happen, with God eventually causing every person to be transformed (as in Romans 12:2) so they will be restored into the person He wants them to be, and they can be reconciled with all other people and with Himself,  and

    • I'm optimistic that UR will happen,  so (combining my hope and optimism)...

•• I'm a hopeful-and-optimistic Christian Universalist.   I'm a very confident Christian Conditionalist who is confident due to the strong biblical evidence for Conditional Immortality so I conclude that UR or FA will happen, and EM won't happen.

* There is biblical supporting evidence for UR and also for FA.

Personal History:  Later, I explain why — due to my two-stage process of evaluation (resulting in A+B above, concluding "FA or UR will happen") plus biblical ambiguity — I'm confident about Conditional Immortality, and am optimistic about universal Ultimate Restoration.     {in my first stage – from 1987 to 2014, before I began learning more about UR – I quickly concluded (by the end of 1987) that EM wouldn't happen, and then (from 1995 to 2010) I wrote-and-revised two papers (long & 1-page) about EM-versus-FA}     /    a clarification:  I think a Bible-believing Christian Universalist should be a purgatorial Christian Universalist who proposes strong exclusivism (by claiming “only Jesus saves” so other roads do not lead to God and explicit belief in Jesus-as-savior is necessary for salvation) and believes people who were unsaved during Life will experience Hell (in The Lake of Fire) during Afterlife.

Personal Feelings:  I have mixed feelings about two related challenges for UR because for many listeners less fear will be produced by UR than by EM.  But I think we should emphasize love (instead of fear) as our main motive for “saying yes to God,” and most people will be able to love God more fully (to obey His Greatest Commandment) if they believe He will heal everyone with UR, and they will find it more difficult to love God fully if they believe He will most people with EM.  And I have mixed feelings about fellow Christians — I'm disappointed in them (because usually they “assume a conclusion” instead of carefully studying the Bible) and I'm sad (because I think they are saying false-and-horrible things about the character of God, about what Jesus Will Do although I think that in doing this they are trying to love-and-honor God) — and mixed feelings about sharing my views with them.

Persuading Myself (becoming more optimistic & more hopeful):  The more I'm learning about UR, the more optimistic I'm becoming, due to my increased understanding of the strong biblical support for UR when all things are considered.  Also, I'm becoming more hopeful that UR will happen, because the results would be extremely good, so the actions of God would be extremely good;  in pUR-Hell, God could do love-in-action by producing the good results of healing all people and all relationships;  these results would give us strong reasons to praise God because of what He will do for people (not just to people) in purgatorial UR-Hell.  Because the best results — the most loving, most good — would be produced in UR-Hell (not in FA-Hell or EM-Hell), and because the Bible tells us that God is loving-and-good, we have a strong biblically-logical reason to be more optimistic.

Persuading Others (by using Bible-based logic):  In many parts of this page, I defend the biblical credibility of UR.  Why?  I'm very confident that God will not cause Eternal Misery in Afterlife, that instead He will do either purgatorial Ultimate Restoration (pUR, or just UR)* — by using Hell to purge unsaved people of their sins, to purify & restore them, to reconcile them with other people and with Himself — or Final Annihilation (FA).  When we compare pUR/UR with FA, I think there is no clear winner but overall ("when all things are considered") I think the biblical support is stronger for UR.  And I'm strongly hoping that UR will happen, as explained above in Persuading Myself.  I'm also hoping more Christians will join me in being hopeful-and-optimistic that God will cause Ultimate Restoration to happen.   /   And even more strongly, I want more Christians to reject the doctrine of Eternal Misery, beginning below with Two Bible-Based Reasons to reject Eternal Misery.

Two Bible-Based Reasons to reject Eternal Misery:
Conditional Immortality and The Character of God.

Many Reasons:  Also — in addition to God's use of Conditional Immortality (to mercifully solve the problems of Sin & Death without causing sin to exist forever and without causing unsatisfactory substitution for substitutionary atonement) and The Character of God (when we ask “What Will Jesus Do with Unsaved Sinners?”) — there are other kinds of evidence against Eternal Misery,

    from early church history,   first when the apostles, in their biblical sermons & letters, never describe the duration-and-result of hell to be Eternal Misery,   then when all three views were common and were respected, when Eternal Misery was not the dominant view that it eventually became in the Middle Ages;  and...
    from the Bible because it contains evidence for Final Annihilation and also evidence for Ultimate Restoration with God seeming to declare (in some places) that He will save all people, and in some places that He wants to save all people, plus the logic that if God wants to save everyone, and if God gets what God wants, then He will save everyone;   and there is a lack of support for Eternal Misery in the few isolated “hell verses” that often are mis-translated or mis-interpreted yet are the main evidence claimed for EM.   I encourage you to decide that "instead of ASSUMING you already know what the Bible teaches, you will carefully STUDY the Bible to learn what it really does teach."

an option:  You can first read a short overview in the Table of Contents.

The next two sections – about conditional immortality and death – are closely related, because death is God's penalty for sin, and conditional immortality is God's gift for sinners, to mercifully solve the problem of sin-and-death.  We'll begin by looking at “the big picture” of our story's beginning & ending, in Genesis & Revelation, to see how sin-and-death are connected with immortality.

Conditional Immortality  —  God will cause a person to be immortal IF they are saved.

Immortality:  The Bible teaches that instead of creating humans with immortality, God created humans for immortality that He would give to those who meet His condition for immortality;  His condition is “if saved, then immortal.”

Sin and Death:  These two problems are closely related because they are causally related, with sin causing death.  Adam became a sinner when he disobediently ate from "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."  God responded by declaring (Genesis 3:22) that a sinner "must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."  God does not want people to live forever in a state of sin, so He was being merciful when He prevented this by removing our access to The Tree of Life.  Then what happened?  As explained in Genesis 2:17 (which literally says “dying you will die”), humans began a gradual process of continually "dying" (which happens naturally when we don't have the supernatural protection supplied by God thru His Tree of Life) and this process leads to our eventual death.  In this way, death became God's divine penalty for human sin.     /     As explained above (but it's important, is worth repeating), this penalty was – and still is – an act of mercy because God did not want people to live forever in a state of sin.  It also is a severe penalty because God removed a potential gift (of eternal life) that would have been very good – if we were not sinners – during Life, and eventually will be very good – because we won't be sinners – during Afterlife.

Salvation and Life:  Later, in His physical Heaven-Kingdom, God will defeat death by giving back "the tree of life," as stated in Revelation 2:7 and 22:14.  But this divine gift of immortality will be given to only those who "overcome" (2:7) because they "wash their robes" (22:14), who are saved by accepting The Grace of God, offered through Christ, so they meet the IF-THEN Condition that has been set by God:  IF [but only if]* you accept The Grace (offered by God) so you are saved by God, THEN you get The Life (supplied by God) through His "tree of [everlasting] life."  Because of the important "only if" Condition, IF you reject The Grace so you are unsaved, THEN you don't get The Life, because a sinner "must not be allowed to... live forever."   /   * Why is it "only if"?  One piece of evidence is Rev 22:14-15, where Jesus contrasts the saved (who "have the right to the tree of life") with the unsaved who are "outside," apparently in The Lake of Fire where they will live forever (if EM) or die forever (if FA) or (if pUR) will "wash their robes" so they can enter the city and eat from "the tree of life."  This contrast — and the fact that in the entire Bible there is no statement that unsaved people will be given eternal life — lets us logically infer that immortality (given by God) will be given ONLY to people who are saved, thus the "only if" in God's Condition that "if (and only if) saved, then immortal."

comparing the views:  A divine giving of everlasting life that is consistent with Conditional Immortality (with God's if-then condition that if saved, then immortal)...

    is possible with Final Annihilation because if there is FA, all people who were unsaved (during Life) would permanently die (in Hell during their Afterlife), so only people who have been saved (during Life) continue existing, and all of them satisfy The Condition for Immortality;   it also*
    is possible with Ultimate Restoration because if there is UR, all people who were unsaved (during Life) would have educating-and-healing experiences (in Hell during their Afterlife) that convert them into people who have been saved (during Afterlife) so they will satisfy The Condition for Immortality;  but...
    is not possible with Eternal Misery because forcing people who are not saved (in either life or afterlife) to live forever — so they have Immortality even though they don't satisfy The Condition — would violate God's clear statement that an unsaved sinner "must not... live forever" in sinful misery.

    * a logical definition:  logically, Conditional Immortality (CI) should be defined as “FA or UR” because the if-then condition of conditional immortality would be satisfied with either FA or UR.  Therefore we should not define CI as “only FA” even though, unfortunately, CI is commonly used in this illogical way whenever someone says “FA is CI”.     {more: two ways – biblical & unbiblical – to begin a logical process of concluding “UR will happen”}

Eternal Sin:  God hates sin because its effects are extremely destructive, so He wants to eliminate sin from His creation.  Will this happen? will God achieve His goal?   The Bible tells us “yes” but with Unconditional Immortality — if God causes most people to be eternally alive with Eternal Misery (EM) — sinners-and-sinning will exist forever, and His creation will never be freed from sin.  A claim that God will cause immortalizing-of-sin (by causing EM) is wrong in very important ways, is not what the Bible teaches, is one of Four Biblical Reasons to reject Eternal Misery.  By contrast, with Conditional Immortality (CI) — if God will cause either Annihilation (FA) or Reconciliation (UR) — all sin will be eliminated by God.

The Death Penalty for Sin

Due to the sin of Adam, God removed access to the Tree of Life so The Penalty for Sin was Death.   God's penalty for sin is always death, in our past-present-future,  first in Genesis 3 and therefore now in Life and later in Afterlife.  We see His divinely decreed penalty of death (not long-term suffering) throughout the Bible:

    in the Old Testament,  God prevented death in Abraham's test-of-faith, and The Passover;  God's most severe judicial penalty for sin (in The Flood, Sodom & Gomorrah, The Law,...) was death, not long-term suffering;  the OT Sacrificial System required death, not long-term suffering.
    and in the New Testament,  God created a better NT Sacrificial System — to achieve His purpose of saving us from our slavery to sin and from the judicial results of our sin (i.e., from death) — by sacrificial substitutionary atonement when Jesus died for us.*  Jesus did not suffer in eternal misery for us, so PSA doesn't work for EM.
    In the NT, God's new-and-better sacrificial system is connected symbolically with OT deaths, in Abraham's test of faith — because "The Lord Will Provide" the sacrificial death that symbolizes His justice, first by providing a ram to save Isaac, and later by providing Jesus to save us — and also The Passover (at the time of year when Jesus gave His life for us, as celebrated in our Holy Communion) and the OT sacrificial system.    {in fact, God's action of removing His "tree of life" was merciful}

* The penalty for sin is death, and when Jesus – who is God, who is one person in the triune God of Father-Son-HolySpirit – voluntarily died for us (to be a sin-atoning substitute for us), God was paying His death penalty for us, to produce penal substitutionary atonement.  But is this divine payment-of-penalty given to all people (if He will cause UR) or (if He will cause FA) only some people?   To clarify the essential differences between FA and UR, we ask two questions about death, and one question about timing:

    • first,  “WHAT is the penalty for sin?”  —  it's everlasting total death, in both FA and UR;
    • then,  “WHO will receive this penalty?”  —  it's some people (if FA), or no person (if UR);

    and “WHEN can a person be saved?”  —  it's only in Life (if FA), but also in Afterlife (if UR).

death and immortality

What is the relationship between The Death Penalty and Conditional Immortality?   Death is God's Penalty for Sinners.  Conditional Immortality is God's Gift for Sinners — for either some of us (with FA) or all of us (with UR) — and The Condition, decided by God, is being saved by God, who wants to save us from slavery to sin (now in Life) and (later in Afterlife) save us from everlasting Death.

a brief biblical summary:  God's penalty of Death was decreed in Genesis 3:22, and God's gift of Conditional Immortality is promised in Revelation 2:7 & 22:14.

dependent immortality allows conditional immortality

How?  Because if (as Bible-believers should believe) life depends on God, then (as Bible-believers should believe) God is able to make conditional decisions about life.

Do humans have intrinsically-immortal souls?  No.  When we carefully study the Bible, we see that it does not teach a universal intrinsic-and-Unconditional Soul Immortality independent from God, even though this often is assumed by those who propose the Unconditional Immortality of Soul/Body that would occur with Eternal Misery.*  Instead, the Bible does teach a Dependent Existence (for awhile or forever) that allows a divine control of life & death;  this lets God make decisions about life & death — by contrast with an intrinsic immortality that automatically sustains life, even if God says “no” — so He can produce a Conditional Immortality of Body-and-Soul.   God's condition-based decisions (when He applies His if-then Condition to decide who lives) require Dependent Existence (because God must be able to decide who lives) but go beyond it, because although Dependent Existence is necessary for allowing divine decisions (about life-or-death), Dependent Existence is not sufficient for determining the decision-result.  Instead, God will make a Condition-based decision about whether He will give immortality to an unsaved person;  and God has told us that He will say “no” because (Genesis 3:22) an unsaved sinner "must not... live forever."

* An unbiblical assumption of Intrinsic-and-Unconditional Immortality (imported into Christianity from Greek philosophy, especially Platonic) leads to this unbiblical reasoning:  all humans will exist forever, either with salvation and Eternal Joy, or with damnation and Eternal Misery.

logically defining two terms:  To promote logical thinking & accurate communication, we should use two different terms — dependent immortality and conditional immortality — for two different claims, because each term answers a different question regarding God's decisions about life-or-death.  Simplified into one-word summaries, some essential questions (about life or death) are:    why? (God's decisions will be based on criteria that include His Condition for Conditional Immortality);    how? (God's actions will cause whatever happens, because humans have Dependent Immortality instead of Intrinsic Immortality);   also (as explained below),   what? (God's penalty for sin is death, not long-term suffering),   who? (God will give death to some if He causes FA, or to none if He causes UR).     {MORE about Logically Defining a System-of-Terms}   {the Bible tells us that in The Final State there will be no sin and no death;  this kind of Final State occurs with Conditional Immortality (with either FA or UR) but not with EM, and this is a strong Bible-based reason to reject EM}

Biblical Immortality:  The biblical principle of Dependent Existence is why I began this section about Conditional Immortality by stating that "instead of creating humans with immortality [that is intrinsic, is independent from God, that occurs without Him], God created humans for immortality [because although we are mortal, we have the potential for immortality] that He would provide."     { If you hear someone claim that “humans are created in the image of God, who is immortal, so we are immortal,” you can ask “are we also, like God, omniscient (knowing everything), omnipresent (being everywhere), omnipotent (able to do everything), and omnibenevolent (totally loving in all ways)?” }

logically defining Conditional Immortality – Part 2

In Part 1 and when comparing the views we see how immortality would satisfy God's if-then Condition — if saved, then immortal — with 2 of the 3 views, with Final Annihilation (FA) because all unsaved people would be gone, or with Ultimate Restoration (UR) because all people would be saved.  Therefore the logical conclusion is that Conditional Immortality is “either FA or UR” instead of the “only FA” that is claimed whenever a person refers to Annihilationism as Conditional Immortality.  I think we should be logical (instead of just traditional) in our defining of Conditional Immortality.

universal Ultimate Restoration (that produces universal immortality) does not assume universal immortality.  Therefore a person could conclude that “UR will happen” in two ways.  Their process of reasoning could begin either with biblical dependent conditional immortality (that depends on God) or with unbiblical intrinsic universal immortality (that is intrinsic within all humans, independent from God), and then uses logic:   1) With biblical justification a proponent of UR should begin by deciding (because the Bible teaches it) that God will give humans dependent conditional immortality {this would occur with UR or FA} so they evaluate UR-versus-FA and conclude “it will be UR instead of FA” and their conclusion is universal immortality.   2) Without biblical justification, a proponent of UR could begin with an assumption of universal immortality {this would occur with UR or EM} by assuming that all humans have intrinsic universal immortality, so they evaluate UR-versus-EM and conclude “it will be UR instead of EM.”   /   By using the logic of either #1 or #2, universal immortality could be a final conclusion (using biblical process #1) or an initial assumption (using unbiblical process #2).  UR that is Bible-based should not assume universal immortality (as in #2), instead UR should conclude universal immortality (as in #1).

4 Biblical Reasons to reject Eternal Misery

Christians have many Bible-based reasons to reject a doctrine of Eternal Misery (EM) — and instead to believe that unsaved people eventually will be either Annihilated (with FA) or Reconciled (with UR) — including these four reasons:

1a.  EM would violate the Conditional Immortality clearly taught in the Bible, because — even though the Bible teaches (in Genesis & Revelation) that unsaved people "must not... live forever" — with EM unsaved people would be forced to "live forever" in Eternal Misery.   By contrast, only saved people (who satisfy The Condition decided by God) will live forever with FA or UR.     /     Due to EM's unbiblical violation of Conditional Immortality, EM would cause two permanently-unbiblical situations, in 1b and 1c:

1b.  EM would cause sinners-and-sinning to exist forever, thus immortalizing sin, and God's creation would never be freed from sin even though the Bible declares that being freed from sin will happen.  With UR or FA, God would ultimately "reconcile all things to Himself" (the Bible promises that this will happen) but this wouldn't happen with EM because God would be causing billions of still-sinful humans to live forever with Eternal Misery, sinfully hating Him and “gnashing their teeth” in anger against Him.  Although defenders of EM often accuse FA & UR of “not taking sin seriously,” sin is totally eliminated with FA or UR, but sin is preserved with EM, and this violation of a key biblical principle is a very strong biblical reason to reject EM.

1c.  EM would cause death to exist forever, thus immortalizing death, because with EM The Second Death must be redefined (in a strange way) to mean eternal conscious existence in misery (eternally living in death?) so The Second Death would continue forever, and God's creation would never be freed from death even though the Bible says "the last enemy that will be abolished is death."

2.  EM would not produce a satisfactory substitution for substitutionary atonement, with Jesus (instead of us) paying the penalty for our sins.*  Why would the substitution be unsatisfactory with EM?  Because EM claims the penalty for sin is infinite suffering, without death.  But... is this what Jesus, offering Himself as our substitute, experienced for us?   No.  Jesus had finite suffering, with death.  As you can see, with EM the substitution of substitutionary atonement is a very poor match because of two major differences:  Jesus had finite suffering (but EM would produce infinite suffering);  and Jesus had physical death (but EM would require eternal physical existence without physical death, with The Second Death defined in a very strange way so it means eternally miserable living, without the relief of death).   /   By contrast, the substitution is much more satisfactory (is a much closer match) with FA or UR.

* Are claims for Penalty-Paying Substitutionary Atonement (commonly called Penal Substitutionary Atonement, PSA) supported by the Bible?   Yes.   The essence of PSA — with our death penalty being paid by the death of Jesus — is an essential part of The Gospel, is its heart of love, is the essence of divine love in action.  {iou – soon, here I'll combine two ideas – God's death penalty is merficul, Conditional Immortality is merciful – to explain why PSA is mercifully loving}   The central claim of PSA is clearly stated by Paul ("we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son" when "Christ died for us") and Jesus ("the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep") and Peter ("Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh").  And there is strong support from Bible-based logic, in the clear symbolic continuity between the sacrificial systems used by God in the Old Testament and New Testament.    /    I think PSA is the most important part of divine atonement, but is not all of it because several “theories of atonement” can claim support from the Bible, and I think each contributes to what Jesus did for us with His crucifixion-and-resurrection;  in the Bible we can find several reasons for why God decided to provide this atonement, and for “how-and-why it works,” and for the many kinds of benefits (for people and for God) arising from it.  But of all the reasons & benefits, I think PSA has the strongest biblical support.  Therefore any Bible-based view of Hell should provide a satisfactory substitution when we consider PSA (for penal substitutionary atonement), and EM fails to do this.     /     Although I support PSA, I think some descriptions of it are flawed, are not compatible with what is taught in the whole Bible.  I agree with Christians (including some proponents of UR) who criticize these flawed descriptions.  But even though PSA sometimes is described in unjustifiably harsh terms (especially by its opponents, but also by a few proponents), we should understand it — and be thankful for it — as The Love Story of PSA.  I think a Bible-based view of Hell (including FA or Bible-based pUR) should accept PSA and emphasize its importance, and should use PSA as a reason to reject EM.

Each of these Four Biblical Reasons (1a-1b-1c, and 2) is a strong reason to reject Eternal Misery, but is compatible with either Annihilation or Reconciliation.

more than four:  Christians also have other Bible-based reasons to reject Eternal Misery and to accept Ultimate Restoration (by believing biblical statements that God will save all people, and by logically combining two popular theologies) or accept Final Annihilation.

MORE - about these 4 Reasons to reject Eternal Misery, due to Conditional Immortality and to prevent perpetual Sinning with EM (so satisfactory justice is impossible?) & perpetual Second Death {what are the connections between spiritual death (described in Gen 3:6-13) and physical death (decreed & actualized in Gen 3:22-24)?} and because Substitutionary Atonement is a satisfactory substitution with FA (or UR) but not with EM and...

MORE - about Conditional Immortality and The Death Penalty for Sin - is in Part 2 (re: what the Bible teaches about Death & Salvation) and (re: logic versus tradition, and controversy when asking “how should we define Conditional Immortality?”) in Part 3 that is a deeper examination of my two questions about WHAT and WHO (+ When).

The Character of God  —  WWJD ?

an option:  You can first read a short overview in the Table of Contents.

Based on what we learn about God from the whole Bible, in a different kind of WWJD-Question (that is more important for billions of people) we should ask “What Will Jesus Do with Unsaved Sinners?”  Will he decide to cause Eternal Misery (EM), or Final Annihilation (FA), or Ultimate Restoration (UR)?  will He torment, or kill, or heal?     {we really are asking “What Will God Do?” because in the tri-une God (Father, Son, HolySpirit), WWJD=WWFD=WWHD = WWGD;  but Jesus does tell us (John 5:22) that "the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son" so the WWJD decisions of Jesus are WWGD, although all 3 persons of the triune God already are in total agreement about whether the ultimate result will be UR or FA or EM, or something else.}

Here are two whole-Bible principles:

    God's justice is strongly emphasized throughout the Bible, and by Jesus;  God sets high standards for us, for what we think-and-do, and He will hold each of us accountable for our thoughts-and-actions.
    God's loving is strongly emphasized throughout the Bible, and by Jesus;  when God forgives us, it's because He loves us.

Justice-and-Love:  In the afterlife, will God forgive those who rejected Him during their lives?  The Bible teaches us that God wants His actions to achieve justice and (with merciful forgiving and in other ways) be loving.  Sometimes during our discussions of what would happen in hell (with EM, FA, UR) these two essential character traits are contrasted, so we're thinking about God's justice OR love.  Instead, we should think about how God could do justice-AND-love, to achieve justice in ways that also are loving.  (is it possible that God is, during Life-and-Afterlife, Always Totally Just AND Always Totally Loving?  can we praise God for what He will do to people in hell?)     {appropriate humility about the moral character of God}

love-in-action produces good results:  When our actions are loving, we do good for the people we are loving-with-actions, and God would do good for people in UR-Hell but not for people in FA-Hell or (especially) EM-Hell.

human loving and divine loving:  God wants us to be loving in our actions — "always try to do what is good [for every person,] for each other and for everyone else" — so we expect God to be loving in His actions.

Does God love His enemies?  Jesus tells us to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven;  for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."  Jesus tells us that we should love our enemies because God loves His enemies.  But does God love everyone only until their death when His "compassions that fail not" do fail?

When we carefully examine the whole Bible,* I think the biblically revealed character of God is consistent with either UR or FA, but it seems to me that God's character is best with UR, and worst with EM.     {* When we study the whole Bible, another strong-and-clear principle is that death is the penalty for sin. }

This page is being written for Christians but I'm supplementing it with a page for non-Christians.  Why?  My goal is "to show them that this [a belief that God will cause Eternal Misery for most people, so The Gospel is a combination of Very Good News plus Very Bad News] is not justified because the Bible does not teach Eternal Misery, so they will be able to have confidence that God loves every person — both now and in their future, in their Life and Afterlife — so they will be able to trust-and-love God, and say YES to God."

more – about the character of God and thinking about the ethics of Stalin & Jesus by comparing WDSD & WWJD.

WHAT — Accurate Understanding of All Views

an option:  You can first read a short overview in theTable of Contents.

This section supplements my summary ofThe 3 Views by using a table to clarify the similarities & differences that make some questions useful while others are non-useful.  The table also calls attention (with YES and YES/YES) to evidence against Eternal Misery.

What is Ultimate Restoration?  This page describes an evangelical Christian Ultimate Restoration (UR) that is based on the Bible, that can affirm all fundamentals of Christian faith, including the Apostles' Creed and Nicene Creed.  This kind of UR — instead of other definitions that are possible and are sometimes called “universalism” — is what I will describe & evaluate.

This table summarizes key questions-and-answers by four views, by EM, FA, UR, plus a semi-UR hybrid.  The table's logical organization will make it easier for you to understand the views, to compare them and see their similarities & differences.  Notice that in most rows, all views agree;  questions that distinguish between views occur only in rows where the views disagree.

Similarities and Differences:  In the table, you can see that all views (EM, FA, semi-UR, UR) agree (yes yes yes yes) about resurrection & judgment for everyone, and suffering in hell for the unsaved.  But they disagree about what will happen in hell, about the duration of hell-experience (will it be eternal with EM, or temporary with FA, semi-UR, UR) and whether the permanent final result will be everlasting continual misery (EM) or non-existence (FA) or reconciliation (UR), or (with semi-UR that is FA+UR) some non-existence + some reconciliation.     {more - we should avoid intellectually dishonest Strawmen & Myths}

The fourth view, semi-UR, is a hybrid (of FA+UR) that combines some aspects of FA and UR.  You can see the key similarities & differences in the column for semi-UR, where its underlined answers show how semi-UR agrees with UR but not FA (no YES YES), and how semi-UR agrees with FA but not UR (NO NO yes) because with semi-UR, in a purgatorial Hell during Afterlife there will be reconciliation for some (those who become saved, so there is purgatorial Reconciliation) and annihilation for others (those who are not saved, so there is purgatorial Annihilation).     {if humans have free will so they can choose to not-repent, can we know that all will repent in their Afterlife, as claimed by UR?}

I.O.U. – Eventually, but probably not until April 2021, I'll revise this section because I now think ALL questions are useful (when they're correctly answered) for helping us UNDERSTAND the views, but only SOME questions are useful for helping us DISTINGUISH between the views when we're evaluating the views, when we're trying to determine their biblical plausibility.  Below is what I wrote earlier, and most of it (with only a few minor changes, as described in the first) will remain after the revision:

An understanding of all views is necessary to recognize that some questions, but not others, are logically useful for helping us distinguish between the views:

    • it's not useful to ask will some people suffer? because all views agree (yes yes yes yes, for the first 3 questions) that God will resurrect & judge all people, and unsaved people will suffer in hell, so whatever they sow in Life, they will reap in Afterlife.   {sowing and reaping - HOW will God transform Christians by renewing our minds to produce Sanctifying Restoration so we can have Reconciliation, so together we can enjoy Afterlife in Eternal Joy?  and  IF God will allow repentance-and-faith in Afterlife for people who were unsaved during Life, in what ways – compared with the process for saved people – might the process for unsaved people be similar, and different?}
    • it's useful to ask if salvation requires faith in Jesus, with repentance? because — even though each view says "yes" — this question helps us understand that Christian universalism (saying "yes") is not religious pluralism (saying "no"). *  
    • it's useful to ask will God allow repentance-and-faith after death? because FA & EM say no, but UR and semi-UR say YES.*  A related question that is not useful is asking whether everyone will "die once and after this comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27) because all views say “yes, this is how it will be,” but the views don't agree about what will happen (i.e. WWJD?) during-and-after judgment, when we ask “what will happen in Hell? will it be eternal misery, or death, or healing?”     {* This question is very useful because our answer is very important when we evaluate the biblical support for UR (or semi-UR) versus FA or EM, because if the afterlife-reality will be "yes" this weakens most of the biblical arguments against UR.  But this question is not clearly answered "yes" or "no" in the Bible. }
    • it's useful to ask “based on what we learn from the Bible and from life, does the view seem to be unfair?” because many people — IF they believe God will cause EM — think and feel that this EM would be unfair and they do not like the character of this EM-causing God so an unfortunate effect/result is that they cannot love this EM-God and trust Him.
    • and it's useful to ask will God force unsaved SINNERS to live forever? because the YES is a serious biblical flaw of an EM that requires universal unconditional immortality with God causing sinners to "live forever" even though this would violate His judicial decision in Genesis 3:22 that sinners "must not be allowed to... live forever."  This unbiblical requirement is one of 4 reasons to reject EM which also include EM saying YES when we ask will sinning continue forever?   /   note:  A person who proposes UR could believe (although I don't) that God has created humans with properties that will cause everyone to live forever.  But if UR actually happens, this reality (with Universal Immortality) would not violate Conditional Immortality because God would not "force unsaved sinners to live forever" because everyone who is living forever will be saved due to the UR that will be produced by God.

 *   Do all roads lead to God?  The postmodern relativism of pluralistic universalism — aka religious pluralism, or just universalism (in a commonly assumed meaning that differs from my definition)* says “yes”.*  By contrast, evangelical Christian Universalism (Ultimate Restoration, UR) says “no, only one road (the narrow way of following Jesus Christ) leads to God.”  But UR does claim that God will search for each person, and will be able to find them — eventually, in Life or Afterlife — no matter what road they are on, as illustrated by diligent searches for a lost sheep and lost coin.     {more: Christian Universalism is compatible with Exclusivist & Strong Exclusivist views of Salvation – personally, I think that IF God allows post-death salvation because He wants UR or semi-UR, for this post-death salvation (as with pre-death salvation) He will require explicit belief in Jesus Christ so "at the name of Jesus every knee will bow... every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Philippians 2:10-11), so my view of UR includes strong exclusivism.}

* Unfortunately, for many people "universalism" means the claim of pluralism that "all roads do lead to God."   {and maybe is associated with the mostly-unbiblical denomination of Unitarian Universalism that feels free to ignore much of what's taught in the Bible}

* In this page I'm describing a view of UR (based on the Bible, truly Christian, non-pluralistic) that can have many different labels;  if a name has two blanks (                  ) each can be filled in several ways, for the first (universal, ultimate, eventual, final, ...) and the second (reconciliation, restoration, salvation, redemption, ...) so there are many possible combinations.  I've been calling it universal reconciliation, but probably I'll change my term to ultimate restoration, or (less likely) to universal restoration or ultimate reconciliation.}  {update: I already made this change, in late 2020.}

What are the benefits of each term (highlighted by italics) that I prefer?   Here are comparisons of universal vs ultimate, and reconciliation vs restoration:

    different questions are answered by universal (who? all) and ultimate (when? after the penultimate afterlife-experiences of purgatorial educating, correcting, and healing by God);
    different aspects of corrective healing seem to be implied by reconciliation and restoration, but... I think restoration can be (and should be) used for both aspects of healing if God will produce restorative healings of all persons AND restorative healings of all relationships;  but the superficial implications can seem different in reconciliation (to heal relationships with God & with people) and in restoration (the result of sanctification, when God has transformed a sinful person so they finally have become the righteous person He always wanted them to be), with reconciliation being a result of the healed relationships (the restored relationships) that occur in the whole community – including God (Father, Son, HolySpirit) and people – when there has been a restoration-to-righteousness of all individuals.     {more - about these four terms, and others}

more  –  details about questions (useful and non-useful) plus semi-UR "hybrid" views  –  each view has several common names, including two (conditional immortality & hopeful universalist) that I think are commonly used in illogical ways

an option:  You can first read a short overview in theTable of Contents.

Earlier, I explain why — due to the biblically revealed Character of God and Conditional Immortality (with a Death Penalty for Sin) — I'm very confident that Eternal Misery will not happen in Afterlife, so of the three views only two seem plausible.  Therefore my question is whether the afterlife-reality for unsaved sinners will be Ultimate Restoration (UR) or Final Annihilation (FA).

universal Ultimate Restoration  —  Hopeful and Optimistic

our Hopeful Universalism:  One of the two great commandments of Jesus is to "love your neighbor as you love yourself."  Each of us wants Eternal Joy for ourself, so we also should want this for our neighbors.  We should want everyone to have Eternal Joy, so we should hope for a universal Ultimate Restoration – with a restoring of all persons and reconciling of all relationships – that includes all of our neighbors.  Every person, and especially every Christian, should be a Hopeful Universalist.     {more}

a personal perspective:  My younger sister was a wonderful person (why did so many people love and respect her?) who got cancer and died too soon in 2010.  During her life, she seems to have rejected the grace offered by God.  { I can only say "seems" because we don't know what happened in her heart & mind privately, just between her and God. }   Therefore I'm wondering “what will Jesus do with her?” and “will we ever see her again?”  Due to her life experiences — different than my own, so “but for the grace of God” I also could be saying NO to God — she had rational reasons for saying NO.  But I think her heart & mind were basically good (with less of our typical self-centered human sinfulness, compared with most other people) and with appropriate experiences after death, she would say YES to God.  I love her, and hope that God will give her (and many others) an opportunity to reconsider — during her afterlife when more evidence will be available, and she will have a different perspective — when God will give her educational corrective-and-healing experiences that will transform her into the fully-restored person that He always wanted her to be, and she will say YES.  I hope-and-pray that ultimately my sister will be reconciled with God and with me (and all of our family, and her many friends) in the eternal heaven-kingdom of God.     {also: a gift of merciful death – by giving up my eternal joy to stop her eternal misery – that won't be necessary}

my Optimistic Universalism:  I think we have logical/theological Bible-based reasons to be optimistic, to think UR might happen.  But my optimism isn't certainty.  In this page I'm not trying to prove that universal Ultimate Restoration is taught with certainty in the Bible.  Instead I just want to show that — in addition to hoping UR will happen — we also have logical Bible-based reasons for optimism, for thinking UR might happen.   And I want to explain why I'm not highly confident when evaluating UR-versus-FA so I won't confidently claim that either “it will be UR” or “it will be FA.”  But the more I'm learning about the biblical support for UR, the more optimistically confident I'm becoming.

comments about terms:  Unfortunately, hopeful universalism is now commonly used to mean having reasons to be optimistic (but not claiming extremely high confidence) about universalism, thinking that God might eventually save all people.  Do you see the mis-match between being hopeful and having reasons for optimism?  Instead of this mis-matching, logically the optimistic claim should be called optimistic universalism, and we should use hopeful universalism to describe being hopeful that all will be saved.

Why is my optimism justified?  Some reasons for optimistically thinking “not EM, and maybe UR” are explained above & below,

above:  What are the views?  -  My Views and My Feelings  -  The Character of God (asking WWJD?) and Conditional Immortality with a Death Penalty  -  WHAT - Accurate Understandings of 4 Views  -  Hopeful and Optimistic  and

below:  Previous & Current Theologies  -  WHEN (after death) and HOW (maybe... with experiences to teach-and-heal, to achieve Divine Justice-with-Love)  (Free Will and Semi-Universalism)  -  Hell-Verses (claimed as support for EM) and Biblical Support for UR & against UR and Why is the Bible ambiguous?

also below:  Effects on Relationships  -  Effects on Evangelism  -  Questions about Divine Justice

When and How ?

IF a person “says NO to God” during their Life, and IF God eventually will save them, when and how will they be saved?

WHEN  —  Salvation in Afterlife?

an option:  You can first read a short overview of this section in theTable of Contents.

Why should we ask "Salvation in Afterlife"?   Because if God eventually will save all people — as declared in many verses — to produce purgatorial Ultimate Restoration (pUR, or just UR),* He could allow previously-unsaved people (those He didn't save during Life) to believe-and-repent after death, during their Afterlife.  If He wanted to save a person, God could skillfully persuade them in Afterlife (much more strongly than in Life) with more information and by giving them a different perspective, and educational-corrective-healing experiences that eventually produce in them a freeD will, so their will is freed from the slavery to sin (Romans 6) that hindered their hearts-and-minds during Life;  their freed will allows them to freely make a wise decision, and they freely “say YES to God” with sincere belief-and-repentance.     /     * reconciliations-during-Afterlife could include all people (→ UR) or just some people (→ semi-UR).

Will this happen in Afterlife?  The Bible doesn't explicitly say “yes” or “no”.   {but the “no” isn't a difficulty for UR}

Is this question important?  Yes, because if God will graciously allow salvation during Afterlife, most Bible-based objections to UR are weakened or eliminated.     {more} 

When we ask “will God give salvation in afterlife?”, a deeper examination shows why we can say “maybe yes” based on evidence that is biblical {what does the Bible say?  not much one way or the other,* so there is minimal support for both YES & NO} and theological {why does “the burden of proof” favor UR?} and logical {because after-death repentance seems required by “strong exclusivism + universal salvation” plus the observation that during Life, few people pass the “narrow road” test of strong exclusivism}.

What is strong exclusivism?  I think the Bible, especially in the New Testament, certainly teaches exclusivism (so the only source of salvation is Jesus, through His incarnation and substitutionary death) and probably teaches a strong exclusivism (with salvation requiring explicit belief in Jesus, leading to repentance and living by faith) that seems to limit salvation-during-Life to only "a few" who are now (during Life) following the narrow road.*  So if all are saved with UR (or even if more than "a few" are saved with semi-UR), this wider salvation seems to require some salvation-during-Afterlife.   In other words, logic (re: UR + exclusivism + observations of unsaved people) leads to a conclusion of salvation during Afterlife, and this is allowed by the Bible because it does not explicitly say “yes” or “no”.

Actually, the question of inclusion-vs-exclusion is not very important for UR.  It's much more important for FA and EM because these views reject the possibility of salvation in Afterlife, so if God excludes a person based on their thinking-and-actions during Life, there is no more hope for this person;  they will be lost forever, they are damned to either Annihilation or Eternal Misery.  By contrast, with UR those who are excluded at the end of their life will have another chance during Afterlife,* so even if most people are being excluded now (because they are now traveling on the wide path to destruction) they can be included later.     {* in The Great Divorce, a novel by C.S. Lewis, unsaved people are allowed to repent in afterlife;  some do repent and they are saved.}

* Hebrews 9:27 is not biblical evidence against Salvation in Afterlife, because Christians who propose Ultimate Restoration agree that "people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment."  They only disagree when we ask “what will happen during God's judgment?” and “what are the final results of judgment?”

* If strong exclusivism will be God's criterion for salvation, most Jews will be excluded from "the few" because (as planned by God) most Jews have rejected "explicit belief in Jesus," they have not accepted Him as their Messiah.  So... will God really cause most of His chosen people to experience Eternal Misery?

Regarding the character of God, we should ask WWGD?

Consider the claim in this hymn:

    Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
    there is no shadow of turning with Thee;
    Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not,
    as Thou has been, Thou forever will be.

If you believe in Eternal Misery, is this claim — about divine faithfulness with compassions that "fail not" — limited by time?

For most of the people created by God, with EM would His temporary loving-and-forgiving occur only during the person's life, so at the moment of death His attitude-and-actions change to permanent hating-and-unforgiving?     {if “yes” this would be a powerful reason to fear death}   {if God will cause EM, the Gospel is Good News + Bad News because when an unsaved person dies the divine love-for-them changes into hate-for-them;  The Good News that “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your Life” becomes The Bad News that “God hates you and has a terrible plan for your Afterlife” – for example, what changed between pages 70 and 200?}   {will God forgive a person if they believe-and-repent just before death at the end of their Life?  but if they aren't good-and-smart so they don't choose wisely, will He never forgive them after death in their Afterlife?} 

WWJD?

HOW will God produce Reconciliation?

Maybe... with radical transformation, by

Educational Healing in Purgatorial UR-Hell?

an option:  I strongly recommend that you first read the overview of these sections (about educational correction-and-healing) in the Table of Contents.

IF God will produce Reconciliation-during-Afterlife, for people who were Unsaved/Unreconciled-during-Life, then maybe... God will use a process in UR-Hell that is analogous to whole-person edifying education in a school.  It also might be analogous, in many ways but not all, to rehabilitative correction in a prison, or medical healing in a hospital, with sinfulness removed by spiritual surgery.  So it could be useful to think of UR-Hell as educational corrective healing.  During UR-Hell the process of education produces corrective healing, to achieve God's goal of doing justice for all victims-and-offenders.

IF this occurs in UR-Hell, it will be a purgatorial process, as in divine fire (pur in Greek) that purifies, with divine purging by HolySpirit-surgery to remove things — like all kinds of sinfulness — that God doesn't want the person to have, to be.  By contrast with a view that proposes Ultimate Restoration (UR) without any process of purging-in-Hell, my view of UR is purgatorial Ultimate Restoration (pUR).  This name is more accurately descriptive because it distinguishes between Non-Purgatorial UR (NpUR) and Purgatorial UR (pUR),  and its abbreviation, pUR, reminds us of the divine fire (pur in Greek) used by God to actively save-and-sanctify previously unsaved people in UR-Hell, when God uses His divine pur to purge/refine during the purgatorial process (P) that produces the result (UR) He wants;  if God wants UR, He will use P to produce UR.   {or He could use P to produce semi-UR}     /     This purgatorial process in UR-Hell is NOT the Purgatory of Roman Catholicism;  although both contain "purg" they are very different.  Therefore, Purgatorial UR-Hell should be evaluated for what it is, for what it actually proposes;  it should not be criticized for what it isn't, for anything connected with Catholic Purgatory.     /     IOU – Soon, probably in early 2021, I'll develop these ideas & questions regarding the little that God has told us about His process-of-purifying:  the suffering of people in purgatorial UR does not produce atonement-and-salvation, because atonement-and-salvation already was done by Jesus in His crucifixion and resurrection;   as described above, we can view the function of UR-purgatory as educational & corrective & healing, and each of these would perform a particular function;   education would persuade an unsaved person that they do believe and they do want to repent, leading to their salvation;   correction would purify a person, removing their sin (burning it out of them in The Lake of Fire) so they become fully sanctified, without sin;   healing would also (as with correction) be sanctifying, but healing emphasizes that the person will be totally-ok in all ways (not just purified from sin) so they will totally restored to being the way God always wanted them to be, both internally (in their feeling-and-thinking-and-doing) and externally (with all relationships being healed) so all individuals and all relationships will be healed.   /   in summary,  education produces salvation,  correction produces sanctification,  and healing describes the restoring (to God's original goal for the ideal states He always wanted) of all individuals & all relationships, when every person has been sanctified.

Maybe... after unsaved people are resurrected and judged, God will give them educational experiences in hell that correct-and-heal them, that lead them to believe & repent so they can be reconciled with Him.  How?  We can think about QUESTIONS and SPECULATIONS.

QUESTIONS  —  we'll begin with questions about HOW:

    In any view (UR, FA, or EM), “how will saved people be radically transformed so we are not still sinful, so we are sanctified and are suitable for Afterlife in Heaven?”  and...
    if UR occurs, then “in Hell, how will unsaved people be radically transformed so they are not still sinful, so they are sanctified and are suitable for Afterlife in Heaven?”

These two how-questions, considered individually and together, lead to other questions:  compared with the process for saved people, in what ways might the process for unsaved people be similar, and different?   will God change us (or them) instantly, or in a time-process?   will we (or they) passively receive the changes, or be active participants?   in what ways will the process be better for saved people? (we should expect the process-and-results to be much better for people who are saved during Life, but in what ways will it be better?)     {maybe... God will use every person's Afterlife to produce total sanctification (with radical changes that get rid of all sin) for everyone, and salvation for those who need it because they were unsaved at the end of their Life}   {total sanctification, to achieve sinless perfection, is not possible during Life;  instead God wants us to cooperate in a process of partial sanctification, "do not conform to the pattern of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind." Romans 12:2 – Is this a process that begins in Life for Christians, and will be completed in Afterlife for only them? or will God do this for everyone?  and what about losing your life to gain it (Mark 8:35) for everyone? here, the word for losing is apollumi, often translated as being destroyed}   /   {iou - later, I'll describe how a process of being "radically transformed" might be described by everyone being salted with fire (Mark 9:49), and by fire-burning of works (1 Cor 3) that certainly will occur for all Christians, and probably for all people.}   {J Preston Eby has useful ideas about experience-differences in The Lake of Fire}

We also can ask, about the final Ultimate Restoration, “compared with the final outcomes for saved people, in what ways might the final outcomes for unsaved people be similar, and different?”  The Ultimate Kingdom of God will include two kinds of people — those who earlier in His Story (at the end of their Life) were saved, or were unsaved — but at the end of His Story all people (both earlier-saved and earlier-unsaved) have been radically transformed so they are sinless, so they are suitable for living in His Kingdom.  But (as discussed above) the Bible doesn't give us complete answers when we ask “HOW will people be radically transformed so we become sinless?” and “in what ways will this how-process be similar, and different, for earlier-saved people and for earlier-unsaved people?”  These questions-about-process are not answered in detail, and neither are questions-about-outcomes — “WHAT will be the final outcome for the earlier-saved and earlier-unsaved?” and “will there be any differences in final results, with earlier-saved people receiving some benefits that earlier-unsaved people won't have?”  But there are a few biblical references to apparent “permanent rewards” for earlier-saved people, plus parables about “temporary rewards” like the earlier-saved being invited to attend a celebration (a wedding banquet,...) that earlier-unsaved people will miss.   {IOU - later, there will be “more” about these questions.}

I.O.U. – Below (in small green font) you'll see ideas that will be developed later, responding to the questions [above] about similarities & differences in edu-experiences for saved vs unsaved. [[ ==

one factor in a response:  IF life videos of each person will be viewed by all other persons, this requires participation by saved & unsaved, in unpleasant experience of seeing own sins during own life review (and own suffering when are victim during LR's of other people)  /  so what is the difference between experiences for saved & unsaved?

here is one ueful perspective:  Eastern Orthodox view of Heaven & Hell, proposes that same divine fire in Heaven & Hell (so these aren't different "locations") but the fire's source-and-effects are viewed differently, are seen/felt as good-helpful by saved Christians and as bad-hurtful by unsaved nonChristians   /   is a person saved or not?  abiding in vine or not?  knowing God or not? {e.g. Jesus "I never knew you"}  born-again (with death of sin) or not?  fully loving God (with heart-and-mind. feeling-and-thinking) or not?

super-empathy, with knowing-understanding others leading to change of values-priorities for evaluation criteria, changing from win-lose (iWin-youLose) = victory for me, to win-lose (if zero sum) being neutral, with my gain = their loss, instead of my gain > their loss because I'm self-centered instead of "loving neighbor as myself"

analysis of Total Restoration:  it would require Personal Restorations (repairing of internal feelings + thinking-deciding-doing) sanctification of individual) plus Interpersonal Restorations (repairing of external relationships)

RESTORATION -- first Sanctification and then Reconciliation:  an authentic Total Reconciliation (of every person with every other person and with God) will require a foundation of total sanctification that transforms each person until they become righteous with total sanctification so they are not sinful, so they have been transformed and personally restored (in all ways) into finally becoming the person God always wanted them to be.   /  

MERIT -- unless salvation is universal, it must be based on merit (good heart + wise mind " good-and-wise decision) to produce a merit-caused decision as in "born again" change-in-life  /  merit plus lucky draw in life (location, culture of family & society, etc) -- salvation must be based on HUMAN MERIT (with Arminius) or DIVINE FAVORITISM (with Calvin)

As explained earlier, I strongly recommend that you first read the overview of this section in theTable of Contents.

The Consequences of Sins:  The Bible says very little about an afterlife process of changing for the purpose of eliminating sin in the hearts & minds of saved people or unsaved people.  But...

    sins have consequences — both now in Life, and later in Afterlife — as explained when Jesus warns "everyone" that "If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off.  It is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands [or "two feet" or "two eyes"], to go into hell,* into the unquenchable fire ...  For everyone will be salted with fire."  Our sins (of commission & omission, by what we do & don't do) produce consequences — because "God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap" and God "will repay each person [and maybe... one aspect of repaying will be a disclosing of their thoughts & actions in life-review videos that produce beneficially-transformative sorrows] according to what they have done" when in Afterlife "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad" — with the consequences-of-sin coming to us first during Life and then in Afterlife, whether the Afterlife Reality will be UR, FA, or EM.  And fire "will test the quality of each man's work" to determine if they will "receive reward" or "suffer loss," although the person "will be saved, yet so as through fire."    {* Jesus wants us to take sin seriously, because He does;  and He sets high standards for what He wants us to think & do. }     {more & more}   {the verses quoted are from Mark 9, Galatians 6, Romans 2, 2 Corinthians 5, 1 Corinthians 3}
    everything will be revealed in afterlife:   Jesus tells us "nothing is covered up that will not be revealed... proclaimed on the housetops."  This total revealing to everyone does not happen in Life, so it will happen in Afterlife,  maybe... in life-review videos that everyone (you + others) will see?   {more}
    consequences will be based on actions, will occur for saved & unsaved:   When we study the Bible as a whole, we see that...  • our experiences during Afterlife will depend on our actions during Life, e.g. "if your hand causes you to stumble... whatever a man sows... what they have done... the things done while in the body... each man's work";   • a process of afterlife experiences that educate-correct-heal will occur for all people — for "everyone... a man... each person... all... each of us... each man" — for people who are saved & unsaved (for believers & unbelievers, Christians & non-Christians);   • but compared with those who have not been saved during Life, in Afterlife the process (and result) will be much better for Christians who have believed-and-repented so they have “said YES to God” and have been saved during Life.

The Forgiving of Sins:  In many places, the Bible also declares the total forgiving of sins by God.  But...

    forgiving is not transforming:  Although a divine forgiving of sins is merciful and wonderful, helping us feel thankful & joyful, by itself a divine forgiving of sins does not produce the radical transformation that is required for total sanctification, for the total cleansing-from-sin that will be required for everyone to live with total joy (mental, spiritual, relational, physical) in a heavenly Kingdom of God.

Consequences + Forgiving:  So... how does this combination (sins having consequences + sins being forgiven) fit together, in Life and Afterlife, for people who during Life were saved?  or were unsaved?

SPECULATIONS  —  and we'll continue with speculations about HOW:

Each of these speculations begins with "Maybe..." as a reminder that I don't claim to know the details of “what might happen” in UR-Hell, if there will be a UR-Hell.

• Life-Review Videos of a Person, to produce Sorrowful Repentance:   Maybe... one productive aspect of Afterlife Education-in-Hell will be Life-Review Videos that "disclose" to let a person re-experience, in a very intense way, their thoughts-and-actions during Life,* so they can observe their sins and the effects of their sins.  During these personally meaningful experiences, God could give them super-abilities (intellectual, emotional, empathetic,...) that will help them to understand more completely-and-accurately, and to feel an intensely sorrowful repentance for all of their sins, including both sins of commission (the bad things they did in their thoughts-and-actions) and sins of omission (the good things they didn't do, but they could have done if they had fully used the abilities & life-opportunities that were given to them by God). 

• Life-Review Videos of a Person, with Super-Experiencing:   Maybe... God will give super-experiences that will help a person more fully understand, and intensely experience, the total positive results of their beneficial thinking & actions (with feelings of super-joy) and the total negative results of their sinful harmful thinking & actions (with feelings of super-sorrow).  Their joys and sorrows would be increased if God gives them:

    multiple super-senses (to see, hear, feel,...) so they will have an intensely powerful re-experiencing of what happened during their Life;
    external super-knowledge about God, so they know Him more fully — with intimate spiritual relationship — and they understand how their sins against people were also sins against God,  and
    internal super-knowledge about themself so they understand, more completely and accurately, the “why” of their own thoughts & actions,  and
    external super-knowledge about people and events, so they know “all that happened” during Life from the perspectives of other people (by knowing their life-situations and their thoughts/feelings) so the person knows the total cause-and-effect results of how every other person was affected by their own actions, and (as part of their super-knowledge about God) an understanding of His interactions with them during each event, and of how they responded to what God was urging them to think & do),  and
    super-compassion for people, so they truly “love others as they love themselves” with genuinely deep caring, so they feel deep sorrow for all of their actions that have caused pain for other people.

Divine Empowering-and-Sanctifying:  if God will use life-review videos in UR-Hell to educate-correct-heal people,  probably... He will give each person super-abilities to enhance their experiencing of the videos;  and certainly (not maybe) He will provide divine guiding-and-empowering by Holy Spirit to help each person learn more from their experiences during their purgative process of transformation-into-sanctification.  These interactions with God would be an essential part of the person's intense re-experiencing of Life.   /   How?   Maybe... during Life-Review Videos (plus other educating-and-healing experiences) God will produce intimate spiritual relationships with the person in a baptism of fire in The Lake of Fire.  During these experiences, God will produce conviction (along with comforting) that leads to sorrowful repentance — so the person (with a truly freed will) truly wants to be purified from their sinful nature — so they have an authentic desire to let God beneficially transform them.  The result will be a purifying destruction of their sinful nature, an educational corrective healing that transforms them so they become totally healthy (they become totally sanctified as a whole person in their feeling-and-thinking & actions), so they become the righteous person that God always wanted them to be, and is now helping them to be.

more  –  {of course, divine knowledge-and-power would be required for the “time traveling” in life-review videos}  {more about purgative Ultimate Restoration}   /   Earlier I describe a process of sanctification in afterlife, and ask "compared with the process for saved people, in what ways might the process for unsaved people be similar, and different?"  Maybe... there will be a difference in the ratio of divine convicting-of-sin and divine comforting-of-person (as described by Jesus in John 16:7-8), with less convicting and more comforting for people who were saved during Life.

Intrinsic Cause-and-Effect Justice:  Maybe... all of these thoughts-and-feelings (while watching life-review videos) will cause a deep sadness, an intensely emotional sorrow, with the person suffering in ways that are personally customized for them, because the sorrows they receive in Afterlife will depend on the sorrows they caused in Life.

Mutual Empathies produced by watching Life-Review Videos of Other People:  Maybe... every person – both unsaved & saved – will be able to experience the life-review videos of other people, including their sorrowful repentance for their sins, to develop mutual empathies.*

Total Reconciliation? not with FA:  One major problem with Final Annihilation (FA) is that with annihilation of most people (of all who remain unsaved because they were not traveling the narrow path during Life and God will not save them during Afterlife) a Total Reconciling could never occur, because — as described in my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life — "Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole."   If any person "isn't around" because God has killed them during Afterlife, this will "leave an awful hole" and this will eliminate the heartfelt interpersonal reconciliation that occurs when this person forgives (as a victim) and (as an offender) is forgiven.  Thus, with FA the complex web of personal interactions could not be totally healed.  In fact, there could not be a Total Reconciling for any single person because each of us has interpersonal interactions (that have not been totally healed during Life) with many people who are saved-in-Life, and also with many people who were unsaved-in-Life so (with FA) they will be annihilated.     {or... if God allows an Unsaved-in-Life person to remain alive in Afterlife until they have repented of their offenses, so all of their victim-and-offender interactions have been healed, but then — after this person has repented for all of their offending sins and has forgiven all who offended them, after they have moved further down the road to sanctification than most Christians have moved during their Life — this person is annihilated, does that seem like divine justice-with-love?     {Empathy in Relationships - for a Wonderful Life with Kindness & Golden Rule}

* Maybe... our repenting will be verbal — if we can talk with each other, to remember and cry & laugh together, to hug and reconcile — plus a deep feeling-and-understanding (in other ways) of the repenting & forgiving & reconciling.  Together, all of these experiences would combine to produce thoughts-and-feelings that are deeper and more meaningful, compared with the interpersonal communication we can achieve with just words.

Free Will and universal Ultimate Restoration (UR)
or semi-universal Ultimate Restoration (semi-UR)

an option:  You can first read a short overview of this section in theTable of Contents.

Universalists claim that in hell unsaved people CAN repent, and all DO repent.  But if humans have free will, how can we know that all will repent, that none will continue resisting in their Afterlife, like they did in their Life?  Here are two responses by defenders of purgatorial Ultimate Restoration (UR), and a semi-UR possibility:

    • Maybe... in the Bible, God has told us that He will save all people — that ultimately "in Christ all will be made alive" because God wants to "show mercy to all" so from the beginning His plan was for Jesus "to save the world" by serving as "the atoning sacrifice... for the sins of the whole world" in order to produce "justification of life to all men," to "take away the sin of the world," to be "the Savior of the world," and this divine goal ultimately will be actualized when He "reconciles all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross" at the time when "every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" — so Bible-believers know how “the grand story” will end, with God saving all people. 
    • Maybe... because God wants all to repent, and He has the creativity-and-power that is necessary to make this happen, He will sovereignly decide to make it happen.*  How?  He would design persuasive hell-experiences so skillfully that each unsaved person will freely decide to believe-and-repent.  God could give each unsaved person more information, and a different perspective that eventually (thru a painful process in The Lake of Fire) will let them have a freeD will, so their will is freed from the slavery to sin (Romans 6) that hindered their hearts-and-minds during Life,* so in pUR-Hell they are able to make a wise decision and they do “say YES to God.”     {* in The Great Divorce, a fictional depiction of a possible afterlife by C.S. Lewis, unsaved people are allowed to repent in afterlife, and some do, but most don't.  Instead of this semi-UR, his afterlife scenario would become total-UR with one change:  if God is willing to use His creativity-and-power to get what He wants, the result will be UR.  This would happen if God decides that He does not want an unsaved person to keep the un-freed will that in Life was enslaved by their spiritually insane mind,  so in Afterlife they are given divinely designed experiences (including interactions with God) that produce a freed will, and they freely choose to believe-and-repent. }     /     * a God-given freed will in Afterlife would be similar to Calvinism's claim that God-given regeneration in Life allows a person to overcome their sinful Total Inability (in TULIP it's the T that is caused by an enslaved unfreed will) so they can-and-do believe in God and they do repent;  and the IP of TULIP could guarantee that all shall be saved (either in Life or in Afterlife) if the L is rejected as in 4-Point Calvinism.

 semi-universal Ultimate Restoration:  Maybe... in their Afterlife some unsaved sinners will believe-and-repent — if God graciously gives them a second chance for salvation — but others will refuse, and eventually God will accept their “no” and will let them perish, thus making their own death pay their own penalty for sin instead of letting Jesus pay their penalty with His substitutionary death.  These permanent deaths would occur because some people, with their free will, continue saying NO to God, instead of the YES that He wants.  Or maybe God will not accept the repentance of some people – because of their thoughts-and-actions in Life, or how they respond in Afterlife.     {a semi-UR view is a combination of UR-and-FA that is similar to UR (or FA) in some ways, but different in other ways} 

 the results of sin:  if God will do FA, every person who is unsaved during Life will be annihilated;  if God will do semi-UR, every person who is unsaved during Afterlife will be annihilated. 

 Free Will and different Semi-Universalism Hybrids - a little more and much more. 

Isolated Hell-Verses in the Bible

an option:  You can first read a short overview of this section in the Table of Contents.

the whole and its parts:  Important whole-Bible principles — about The Character of God and Conditional Immortality & The Death Penalty — provide strong support against a doctrine of Eternal Misery.  And many Bible verses, strengthened by their whole-Bible context, provide support for Final Annihilation and for Ultimate Restoration.  By contrast, defenders of EM typically point to a few “hell verses” that are isolated (are not connected with whole-Bible themes) and they say “look at these.”  But when we do look at their verses carefully, we should not be impressed because...

    • a verse about suffering – as in "weeping and gnashing" – does not support EM because all views (EM, FA, UR) agree that unsaved people will suffer in hell.  But the views disagree about time (will people suffer eternally with EM, or temporarily with FA or UR?), and timing (will God allow belief-and-repentance only in Life, or also in Afterlife as with UR or semi-UR?), and final result (will it be misery, non-existence, or reconciliation?).
    • different interpretations of a verse — by considering alternative translations (or meanings) of key words, and in other ways — can seem to support EM and/or FA and/or UR.  Defenders of Eternal Misery claim to have "hell verses" that teach EM, but if you study them carefully you'll see that these are not “[eternal misery] hell verses” but instead they probably are “[final annihilation] hell verses” or “[ultimate restoration] hell verses.”  Why?   Because each of the views proposes that “hell will happen” for unsaved people, but two views have concluded (based on evaluating the biblical evidence) that it won't be a hell of eternal torment with God causing eternal misery.
    • the translation of a Greek word (or phrase) can be biased when translators assume EM and think they should teach EM with their translation, so they choose (from the options available) an English word that will provide support for EM, and in this way their translation includes their interpretation.*

translations are not inerrant:  All statements about biblical inerrancy claim that the Bible is without error only in the original language, due to the possibility that in another language a translation can be inaccurate (with error) due to human error or human bias.  Here is an example of extremely influential...

Bias in Translating from Greek into English

* How are translations biased to favor a doctrine of Eternal Misery?

One example of misleading translation is the narrow road.  Why?  Because commonly used grammatically-incorrect translations tell us that “few will find the narrow gate leading to salvation” either now during Life (all views agree about this) or later during Afterlife (as claimed by FA & EM, but not UR).  Instead, grammatically-correct translations tell us that “few are finding the narrow gate” now during Life.

Another example of influential bias (because it occurs in one of the three verses that typically are used to defend EM) is how the apparent evidence-for-EM we get from our interpretation of Matthew 25:46 — when Jesus said "these [who ignored the poor-and-needy, the hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, in prison] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous [who helped the poor-and-needy] into eternal life" — is affected by important decisions about translation.  How?  Here are two examples, for translations from Greek words {aionios & kolasin} into English words {eternal & punishment}:

• The Greek word aionios (or aionian) can mean "eternal" or "everlasting" or — more literally because aion means age (like aeon or eon in English) — “occuring in a future age” or “associated with a future age” or “age-related” or “age-ish”.  When translators choose "eternal" it seems to provide support for EM or FA. (or, as explained below, maybe not)   But this apparent support would vanish if they chose to translate aionios in one of the more-literal ways, so instead of "eternal punishment" we would be reading “punishment in a future age” (or “age-associated punishment” or...) that will occur with EM or FA, or UR.  In terms of the question being answered, instead of “how long will it last?” we would see the answer to “when will it occur?” *   /   In my introductory summary of reasons for Bible-believers to reject Eternal Misery, I claim that hell-verses "often are mis-translated" in a way that is mis-leading.  Why?   Because in Matthew 25:46 (using this key “hell verse” as an example of mistranslation), aionios certainly means "occuring in a future age" (and this would happen with any of the views);  by contrast, it might mean "eternal" but only if Hell will cause Eternal Torment or Final Annihilation, so it will not cause Ultimate Restoration;  therefore it's a mis-translation (it's an inaccurate translation that misleads a reader into thinking the verse definitely is teaching a doctrine it might not be teaching) to choose a word that might be correct instead of a phrase that certainly is correct and is closer to the literal meaning of aionios.  When a translation tells us "eternal" instead of "occurring in a future age" it is declaring that “EM (or FA) will happen” and this converts a weak ambiguous statement (that does not tell us which view correct, because hell will "occur in a future age" with EM or FA or UR) into a strong conclusive statement (it's unambigous because it declares that either EM or FA is correct, but UR is incorrect).     { Here I'm using a correspondence definition of truth so a view is "correct" if it's true because it will happen, and a view is incorrect if it's untrue (is false) because it will not happen. }   { I say "seems to" because although eternal seems to have the same meaning as eternally lasting or everlasting, maybe the meanings are different. }

    * the logic of parallels:  If "eternal punishment" (for unbelievers) does not last eternally but is only temporary, is "eternal life" (for believers) also temporary?   No.  Why?  Because even if aionios means “occurring in a future age” so it answers the question of “when?” instead of “how long?” in this verse, believers can be confident about receiving eternal life from God, due to God's promises in other parts of the Bible, with the resurrection of Christ and in other ways.   {more - should Christians love our neighbors in the ways we love ourselves?}   {more - why we can be confident about everlasting life for many reasons - biblical, logical, linguistic, ethical}

• The Greek word kolasin is usually translated as "punishment" that would be retributive (with EM, FA, UR) and (with UR) also could be corrective.  But if translators wanted to emphasize the corrective function, kolasin could be translated as “corrective pruning” (its meaning in Classical Greek, and probably here in New Testament Greek) that would provide support for UR.

• We see a similarly biased translation, that obscures our understanding of what God will do to us and for us, in Revelation 14:10 and 20:10 where the Greek word usually translated as being "tormented" (or even"tortured") — probably for the purpose of apparently supporting a doctrine of Eternal Misery-with-Torment — is basanizo whose primary meaning (quoting from BibleStudyTools.com) is "to test (metals) by the touchstone, which is a black siliceous stone used to test the purity of gold or silver by the colour of the streak produced on it by rubbing it with either metal."  To provide further support for a divinely-intended meaning of “testing for purity”, the "basanizo" will be done by using "fire and sulfur" that (in the time of the New Testament) was a common method of chemically purifying gold, with "basanizo" using "fire and sulfur" possibly symbolizing a divinely caused purifying-from-sin in God's lake of fire.  The primary meaning of basanizo – to "test the purity" – is very different than the word "torment" chosen by translators who mislead us because they want us to believe that these verses do apparently support EM, even though (with a more-literally-accurate translation) they don't actually support EM.

{more about Matthew 25:46, re: eternal and punishment}

Or support for EM can seem justifiable due to misinterpretation.  How?

One example is when Jesus describes unquenchable fire, i.e. fire that cannot be quenched.  Defenders of EM misinterpret this to mean the fire will continue forever so it requires “human fuel” (with humans being burned forever, to provide fuel that keeps the fire burning forever), but this conclusion is not logically justifiable.  Instead the correct meaning is (as claimed by FA & UR) that the fire will continue doing what God wants it to do;  His fire cannot be quenched (cannot be stopped by those who are being affected by His fire) until His goal is achieved.

Another example is EM's overly rigid interpretation of punishment.  Because ‘kolasin’ is a noun, it's translated as "punishment" (noun) instead of “punishing” (verb).  This is important because with FA an eternally lasting punishment-result (eternally lasting non-existence) would not require — as implied in a misinterpretation by defenders of EM — an eternally lasting punishing-process with EM.  Another similarity, for EM and FA, is that "eternal life" and "eternal punishment" can have a parallel contrast-of-meaning with either EM (with life forever, and a Process-of-Punishing that lasts forever) or FA (with a Result-of-Punishment that lasts forever, causing dead forever instead of alive forever) and also with UR because...

if the punishment is retributive AND corrective, if it's "eternal [retributive-and-corrective] punishment" or (in a different translation of kolasin) is "eternal corrective pruning" there is a Result-of-CorrectivePruning that lasts forever, causing reconciled forever (with UR) instead of miserable forever (with EM) or dead forever (with FA);  with UR the result-of-correction (of making a person correct, of making them the way God always wanted them to be) is an everlasting reconciliation.  When we examine the effects of translating aionios, "although eternal [a choice that seems to eliminate the possibility of UR] seems to have the same meaning as eternally lasting or everlasting, maybe the meanings are different," because UR would produce an eternally lasting result of everlasting reconciliation.

a summary:  The 3 kinds of Hell (EM, FA, UR) would produce either an everlasting process-of-punishment (EM), or an everlasting result-of-punishment (FA, UR) with everlasting death (FA) or everlasting reconciliation (UR).

{more about biased translating – in Matthew 25 and elsewhere – illustrated with biased translation-choices for important words: eternal, punishment, torment, death}   {an example of bias-for-EM:  in the NIV & some other translations, why do we read "away from" instead of “coming from” or – with less interpretation, making only the claim that is justifiable in an accurately literal translation – “from” ?}

{more about hell-verses — Matthew 25:46 (eternal punishment) & 25:41 (eternal fire), Luke 16:19-31 (Lazarus & The Rich Man, who are not in Hell), Revelation 14:9-11 (the smoke of their torment rises forever) & 20:10 (two creatures tormented forever) — briefly and in detail}   {the emphasis on social justice (and sins of omission) in Matthew 25 & Luke 16}

Parallels and Logic-plus-Ethics

A “parallels argument” claims that IF in Matthew 25:46 the “punishment in a future age” isn't everlasting punishment (with annihilation or torment), THEN “life in a future age” isn't everlasting life.  This argument is much weaker than it superficially seems, for reasons that are logical and ethical.

bible-based logical reasoning:

Believers can be confident that God will give us everlasting life, due to God's promises in other parts of the Bible, with the resurrection of Christ and in other ways.  Our confidence that God will give us Eternal Joy does not depend on Matthew 25:46.   /   Also, the words that people usually read – "eternal punishment" and "eternal life" – are misleading, because they are a result of biased translating because with a more-literal translation we could be reading “corrective discipline [to transform a person, making them better] that happens in a future age” and “life that happens in a future age” and our conclusions (about the results of Hell) probably would be different.

bible-based ethical motivation:

This argument – based on “the parallel between goats and sheep” – makes an emotional appeal to Christians, by saying “if you think this verse doesn't threaten some people (non-Christians?) with everlasting punishment, then other people (including you) won't get everlasting life,” and “you don't want to lose your everlasting life, do you?”  It appeals to our greedy self-interest, assuming that Christians should love ourselves more than we love others, that we should want to have our Eternal Joy, even if this means most people will have Eternal Misery.  Is this assumption true for you?  If you truly "love your neighbor as you love yourself" as we're commanded by Jesus, would you (if in Afterlife you are saved) be willing to give up your everlasting joy to prevent the everlasting misery of an unsaved person?  I would, because I love my sister.  IF she was unsaved at death, and IF she therefore would have to endure the infinite horror of Eternal Misery in Hell, and IF God will give me Eternal Joy in heaven, I would gladly “make a deal with God” so I could say to her “this is my farewell gift for you,” then she says “thank you, brother,” we say farewell, cry, hug, and die together.

Fortunately, this decision and self-sacrifice will never be necessary, because Jesus paid my sister's penalty for sin when He self-sacrificially died for her, and for every other person.*  We have strong biblical reasons to believe that Eternal Misery won't happen and Ultimate Restoration will happen.  Therefore, I have strong biblical reasons to believe that God will reconcile my sister with Him and with me, so ultimately she and I can say hello, cry, hug, and live together.  This is the way it should be, and the way all of us should hope it will be.

* But... imagine that “making the deal” is necessary, and is allowed.  In this sad situation, would you be willing to give up your Eternal Joy if this would prevent Eternal Misery for another person?  would you do it for someone you love?  for a stranger?  for a thousand strangers? {re: this 1000-person deal, think about “the greatest good for the greatest number” and use the Golden Rule by asking “what would I want others to do for me, if our situations were reversed?”}   What if instead of 1000, it was every person who ever lived;  would you do whatever was necessary to prevent Eternal Misery for all of them?   /   For the final question, God clearly tells us (in Genesis 3:22) that He already has made the decision that He will prevent Eternal Misery, that because He is merciful He will not let any person live forever in a state of sin.  This divine decision was actualized when He prevented Eternal Sinful Life in Genesis 3, by removing His "tree of life" so sinners would not live forever.  Later, with His self-sacrificing crucifixion and victorious resurrection, Jesus earned salvation – with Eternal Joy we can keep – for some of us (if FA) or (if UR) for all of us.     {more}

an option:  You can first read a short overview of this section in theTable of Contents.

Divine Fire

Throughout the Bible, fire often symbolizes God's divine presence-and-power and actions.  A few examples of divine fire are the burning bush (Exodus 3), pillar of fire (Exodus 13), burning of sacrifices (Leviticus 9, 1 Kings 18), river of fire (Daniel 7), refining furnace (Malachi 3-4), Jesus baptizing with fire (Matthew 3, Luke 3), "everyone will be salted with fire" (Mark 9), Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2), testing & destroying works (1 Corinthians 3), consuming fire (Hebrews 12, Deuteronomy 4), and "the lake of fire" (Revelation 20).

The Lake of Fire that is The Second Death

What will be done to an unbeliever (i.e. WWJD?) in "the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:11-15) that "is the second death" ?

If this "fire" is divine presence-and-power in action, God could eliminate sin — why would He do this?  because He hates sin and what it does to us — in two ways, either by using His divine power/fire to consume sinners (to kill them, producing Annihilation) or to consume sin within sinners (to purify them, producing Restoration).    /    Can fire be used to purify?  Yes.  Ancient metal-technologies used fire to purify precious metals, so the Greek word for fire (πῦρ, transliterated as pur or pyr) is used in derived words like purify, as when making pure by using fire.  We see the purifying power of God's divine fire in Malachi 3:2-3:  "Who can endure the day of His coming?  And who can stand when He appears?  He is like a refiner's fire, and like launderer's soap.  He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness."

In each view, what is The Second Death?

    • in Final Annihilation (FA) it's a “total death” annihilation of body-and-soul that is permanent, with no possibility of resurrection in the future,
    • in Ultimate Restoration (UR) it's a “purifying death” that has a loving purpose because this death is necessary for new life as in the death-with-Christ (symbolized by baptism) of Romans 6,
    • in Eternal Misery (EM) it's a “living death” with people forced to continue living in sin, even though this forced misery would be un-biblical because God tells us that sinners "must not... live forever."

or we can ask:  in the Second Death, what is destroyed?

    • with FA it's the sinner's existence, so their sin is eliminated,
    • with UR it's the sinner's sinful nature, so their sin is eliminated,
    • with EM it's the sinner's quality of life, but their sin is preserved.
In different ways, both FA and UR eliminate sinning & sinners.  But EM maintains sinning & sinners with universal unconditional immortality that would be unbiblical.     {among the many biblical reasons to reject EM is because "with EM... sin is preserved"}
    Basically, FA & UR & EM propose that God – when He uses The Lake of Fire – will destroy sinner & sin & joy, using fire whose purpose is to kill & purify & torment.   In each kind of Second Death, the "fire" of God will continue doing what God wants;  His fire cannot be quenched (cannot be stopped by those who are being affected by His fire) until His goal is achieved. (although with EM it seems that no worthy goal is ever achieved)

If you want a quick preview or review of the main ideas,

the sections above & below are summarized in the Table of Contents.

a “big picture” view of Fire and Death and Baptism

As explained above, Second Death in The Lake of Fire could be:   total death (if Final Annihilation, FA);   or (if purgatorial Ultimate Restoration, pUR) the death-of-sin that is symbolized by death-with-Christ during baptism, as in Romans 6;   or (if Eternal Misery, EM) a living death.   These would end the sinner's existence or sinful nature or quality of life, using fire that kills or purifies or torments. 

There are strong biblical reasons to reject EM so I'll focus on FA and pUR in this section, when looking at Fire and Death and Baptism, beginning with...

Fire that Consumes:

When we're comparing FA and pUR, we can imagine two ways for a divine consuming fire (in the lake of fire) to destroy, to annihilate.  Throughout the Bible, fire often symbolizes the divine presence-and-power & action of God, often manifested in a consuming fire that...   would be a person-damaging hurtful fire of God if He uses The Lake of Fire to consume a sinner, to annihilate the person;   would be a person-improving helpful fire of God if He uses The Lake of Fire to consume sin within a person, to annihilate their sin, to purify the person and produce repentance-and-restoration during their educating-correcting-healing process of purgatorial pUR-Hell that God does for them in The Lake of Fire.

also:  Jesus tells us (Mark 8:35) that "whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever will lose his life for the sake of Me and the good-news will save it."  Here the Greek word for lose [apollymi] also can mean destroy, so does salvation require a destroying – during Life and/or Afterlife – of all that is non-essential in the person's life, where essential means living for Christ, living to serve God?  This kind of destruction is described by Paul when he warns us (in 1 Corinthians 3:15-20) that "each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done" and some of a person's works will be "burned up" so they "will suffer loss" although the person "will be saved, but only as through fire."  And in Mark 9:49 Jesus tells us that "everyone will be salted with fire."     {what are the biblical meanings of Greek-apollymi & English-destruction?}   {in some of the many web-resources I've found, videos by Michael Webber describe how God could produce UR in a Baptism by Fire (and brimstone) to purify-from-sin in The Lake of Fire that is The Second Death.}

Romans 12:2 – Is "being transformed by the renewing of your mind" a process that begins in Life for Christians, and will be completed in Afterlife for only them? or will God do this for everyone?

Death producing Life:

How can death lead to life?  In Romans 6:1-14, Paul connects our death-to-sin with the death-of-Jesus (in His crucifixion) and the death of our old life, and he connects our re-birth to a new life with the re-birth of Jesus (in His resurrection).  Paul explains that "all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death ..... our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;  for the one who has died is freed from sin" but "if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection ..... we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life."  This is a way to describe the process of becoming a born-again Christian:  a person's old sinful nature must die (analogous to the death of Christ)* so they can be transformed by God (as in the resurrection of Christ) to "walk in newness of life." 

When describing this process, Paul uses the symbolism of baptism.  Although he doesn't split the baptismal process into immersion and un-immersion, it seems “symbolically logical” to think about the process in this way:  a person's old life (enslaved by sin, living in sin) is washed away by immersion in water, so with un-immersion they can arise with a new life (with old sins forgiven, and with God supplying His spiritual power to help them overcome their human tendency to feel-think-behave in sinful ways).  Using this symbolism,...

For a born-again Christian, the new life begins during their Life — symbolized by their Baptism With Water that combines Death-of-Old and Birth-of-New, in a Baptismal Death (with immersion symbolizing their Death-to-Sin in their Death-with-Christ) followed by their Baptismal ReBirth (with un-immersion symbolizing their Victory-over-Sin in their new Life-with-Christ) — before their Biological Life ends in their First Death, in their Biological Death.  But with purgatorial Ultimate Restoration (pUR) for a person who was unsaved-during-Life (i.e. unsaved before their First Death), their process of becoming born-again would begin during their Afterlife with a Second Death, with a Baptismal Death that (as explained below) is a Baptism With Fire.

In pUR the Second Death of an unsaved person would be their unpleasant educational corrective-and-healing experience in Hell (with beneficial guiding and empowering by the Holy Spirit) that causes their spiritual death (of old) and rebirth (of new) so they can become totally sanctified (personally) and (interpersonally) totally reconciled with people & with God, by fully loving people & God.

How can death lead to life?  In Romans 6:1-14, Paul connects our death-to-sin with the death-of-Jesus (in His crucifixion) and the death of our old life, and he connects our re-birth to a new life with the re-birth of Jesus (in His resurrection).  Paul explains [using the symbolism of baptism] that "{.....} we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life."  This is a way to describe the process of becoming a born-again Christian:  a person's old sinful nature must die (analogous to the death of Christ) so they can be transformed by God (as in the resurrection of Christ) to "walk in newness of life."   {.....}   In pUR the Second Death of an unsaved person would be their unpleasant educational corrective-and-healing experience in Hell (with beneficial guiding & empowering by the Holy Spirit) that causes their spiritual death (of old) and rebirth (of new) so they can become totally sanctified (personally) and (interpersonally) totally reconciled with people & with God, by fully loving people & God.

* A similar claim, but without the symbolism of baptism, is Galatians 5:24, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires," analogous to His death by crucifixion.

Baptism with Fire:

In the typical biblical baptism, a person is immersed in water.  When during Life a person is thrown into a lake of water their experience is immersion in water as in a baptism with water.  By analogy, when during Afterlife a person is thrown into the Lake of Fire their experience might be immersion in fire as in a baptism with fire.  As explained above in "Death producing Life," a person's old life-of-sin can be washed away (symbolically) by immersion in water during Life, or burned away (actually) by immersion in fire during Afterlife.   John the Baptist, in Matthew 3:11-12 (and Luke 3:16-17), prophesies that — by contrast with John himself, who baptized with only water — Jesus "will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."  Maybe this divine baptism with fire will occur (for unbelievers) in The Lake of Fire, as claimed by pUR.  This would produce a result — Jesus "will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" — that provides support for pUR because wheat and chaff are parts of the same plant, so they may symbolize parts of the same person.  During a divine baptism with fire in The Lake of Fire, Jesus could "burn up" a person's chaff (the evil parts of their character) so He can "gather His wheat [only the good parts of this person's character] into the barn," as described above and below.

You can see relationships (between passages

examined above and below) in this diagram:

• some relational connections between Fire & Baptism & Death, in Matthew 3 and Revelation 20 and Romans 6:   if God — with grace motivated by a divine desire for justice-AND-love — will cause purgatorial Ultimate Restoration, probably His process of salvation-with-sanctification will use baptism with fire (Matthew 3) to purify an unsaved person with Second Death in The Lake of Fire (Revelation 20) by burning up the evil "chaff" within them (Matthew 3) so all that remains is their good "wheat" after they have been transformed by God into the totally purified righteous person He always wanted them to be.   In this way their Second Death would be a total death-of-sin, analogous to the partial death-of-sin ...

     that is symbolized by death-with-Christ in baptism using water (Romans 6) for a saved Christian whose purifying process begins in Life when God is producing healing restorations (transforming them into a partly purified person who becomes “born again” after God raises them from a symbolic death-with-Christ in their water baptism, before their First Death);   and ...
     this might occur by death-with-Christ in baptism using fire (Revelation 20) for an unsaved person whose purifying process occurs in Afterlife when God produces healing restorations (transforming them into a totally purified person who becomes “born again” after God raises them from a symbolic death-with-Christ in their fire baptism that is their Second Death).

• some questions about sanctification:  My speculations about what might happen in UR-Hell are preceded by asking "how will saved people be radically transformed so we are not still sinful, so we are sanctified and are suitable for Afterlife in Heaven?" (this question is important-and-difficult for any view of Hell, with UR or FA or EM) and (with UR) "in what ways might the process for unsaved people be similar, and different?"

The fire/baptism/death diagram shows fire that "burns works" (as discussed briefly above) and "burns weeds" (as examined in detail below).

In the lake of fire that is hell, will the fire burn up the entire person, or only their evil character?

Wheat and Weeds

One kind of support claimed for FA (or EM) is parables in which FA claims that Jesus is saying “there are two kinds of people, and one kind will be killed by God.”  For example, in Matthew 13 (24-30 & 36-43) Jesus tells a parable about wheat & weeds — symbolizing good people & evil people {or saved people & unsaved people}* in FA's interpretation — and "at the end of the age" the "weeds" will be "burned with fire" in "the furnace of fire" where there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth."  But pUR has a strong counter-argument by claiming that instead of the wheat & weeds being good people & evil people (as in FA), they are (in pUR) the good & evil within one person,* and in "the furnace of fire" the person's evil (their sinful evil character that leads to sinful feelings-thoughts-decisions-actions) will be "burned with fire" so "then [after their evil sin is burned away by divine fire in The Lake of Fire with a process that will be unpleasant for them so they will “weep and gnash” but will be beneficial for them] the righteous [the people whose character previously included both good & evil, but now is only good] will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father."  We can think of this transformative purification as spiritual surgery (done skillfully by divine HolySpirit-fire) that corrects-and-heals a person during their purgatorial experiences in UR-Hell.

* Instead of defining wheat & weeds as people who are good & evil, we have biblical reasons to define them as people who are saved & unsaved, because Revelation 20:15 says "anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life [who was not saved] was thrown into the lake of fire" and (Matthew 13) "weeds" will be thrown into "the furnace of fire."  This interpretation (with "weeds" = unsaved people who will be thrown into a lake/furnace of fire) is the doctrine of Protestants (and Catholics) proposing that only unsaved people will be in "the lake of fire" (and "the furnace of fire") because saved people will be saved from hell (i.e. saved from this effect of our sins) in addition to being saved from our sins when we have become sinless, after God has sanctified us in a radical transformation that doesn't require throwing us into the lake/furnace of fire.  {but HOW will God sanctify us?  the Bible doesn't clearly explain the details, so I ask "compared with the process for saved people, what will be the similarities & differences for unsaved people, if God will cause pUR?" in the middle of an 8-paragraph blue section about HOW-WHAT-WHY that describes biblical principles and speculates about a transformation-process that seems consistent with these principles.}   /   also:  I'm describing the wheat & chaff as being good & evil, but of course this is an exaggerated oversimplification.  In reality, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) so we all have evil character.  Therefore it's difficult to imagine how God could achieve genuine justice by using binary justice in which all outcomes-for-persons will be either Eternal Joy or Eternal Non-Existence (or, seeming much more unfair, Eternal Misery), apparently because this achieves genuine justice for people who are either good (totally?) or evil (totally?);  or who (based on the personal merit of their own heart-and-mind, their own goodness-and-wisdom?) decided to save themself or to not save themself;  or who God decided to save or to not-save.

* Jesus tells us that "all causes of sin" (the evil character that causes sinful feelings-thoughts-decisions-actions) and "all who do evil" (evil people who have evil character) will be thrown into "the furnace of fire."  This combo-action (of evil character and evil people being thrown into the furnace) is compatible with pUR, because FA and pUR both propose that evil people (and thus the evil character that's a part of “what they are”) will be thrown into the fire.  The entire person, including their evil character, will be thrown into the fire.   /   But with pUR all evil people {unsaved people} will be radically transformed in the furnace — in the lake of fire that is pUR-Hell that "burns up" their evil character — so they will emerge from it as good people because their evil character has been burned out of them.  At this time ("then" after God has sin-purified them with His divine fire) they have become "righteous" so they "will shine forth as the sun [with only good character] in the kingdom of their Father," in His Ultimate Restoration.    {a cause-effect relationship between seeds in two parables would support a claim that weeds are evil character, but could the weeds be evil people?}

Although “burning up” a person's evil character could occur with FA (or EM), this would not achieve any useful purpose for them;  being purified (so they have no evil in their feelings-thoughts-actions) would provide no lasting benefit for the persons who will be killed (with FA) or will never escape from hell (with EM).   {what is God's purpose for resurrecting unsaved people?}

Because weeds are both evil people and evil character, pUR is a plausible result of what will happen in "the furnace of fire."  But it isn't proof because FA can propose that when the evil person is "burned up" (with FA) their evil character is "burned up," so God eliminates person-and-character in the same burning.  The differing result is that a divine fire-that-consumes could annihilate a person (with FA) or (with pUR) annihilate their sin to purify the person.}    {this is one of the many examples of biblical ambiguity that makes it difficult to confidently conclude either “UR will happen” or “FA will happen”}

This parable is one of many biblical passages describing “two kinds of people” (in this case, wheat & weeds) that sometimes is claimed as evidence for FA (or EM) and against UR.  But these claims are not logically justifiable, because pUR agrees with FA (and EM) by proposing that there ARE two kinds of people {saved & unsaved, wheat & weeds} during some periods of time.  But pUR proposes that this distinction between "two kinds" won't last forever, because ultimately God will transform unsaved people into saved people so there will be one kind of person {saved wheat} in the Ultimate Restoration of God's Kingdom. 

seeds in two parables:  Jesus tells us about seeds in His two major parables of Matthew 13, described and explained first in 1-9 and 18-23 {parable of The Sower}, and then {parable of The Wheat & Weeds} in 24-30 and 36-43.

word-seed and son-seed:  Jesus tells us that "the seed" is "the word of the kingdom" {in Sower Parable} and {in Wheat Parable} He "sows the good seed" that is "the sons of the kingdom."  The relationship between word-seed and son-seed seems to support a pUR-interpretation of The Wheat Parable.  Why?  Because there is a cause-effect relationship IF — when "word of the kingdom" {Sower Parable} is actualized in the life of a person — this causes "sons of the kingdom" {Wheat Parable} that is good character, is good feelings-thoughts-decisions-actions.  This actualization in living (with "word of the kingdom" causing "sons of the kingdom") occurs when a person lets Jesus be their King (so they are a loyal subject of His kingdom) so they let His words “abide in their mind-and-heart” as described in His promise (John 15:7) that "if you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you."     /     Each kind of seed – His word-seed (in Sower Parable) and the good son-seed character caused by His word (in Wheat Parable) – is beneficial, spiritually and practically.  These seeds are mutually supportive, with "word of the kingdom" spiritually causing "sons of the kingdom" that are practical spiritual fruits of the kingdom, and these beneficial fruits showing people how "the word of the kingdom" is fruitful in practical ways.     /     also:  Using analogy-logic, if "word of the kingdom" {seed in Sower Parable} is not-people, maybe "sons of the kingdom" {seed in Wheat Parable} also is not-people.

good sons and evil sons:  In the Sower Parable, "weeds" are described as "stumbling blocks" (evil character) and "sons of the evil one."  If there is a cause-effect relationship between the seeds, with "word of the kingdom" (seed in Sower Parable) being actualized-in-living so they cause "sons of the kingdom" (good seed in Wheat Parable) with good feelings-thoughts-decisions-actions,  maybe "sons of the evil one" (bad seed in Wheat Parable) occur when words of the non-kingdom (that oppose God's kingdom) are actualized-in-living to cause "sons of the evil one" with evil feelings-thoughts-decisions-actions.  This basic idea – with two cause-effect relationships (one causing good, the other causing evil) – is consistent with Jesus telling us in John 8:44 that "the devil" is "the father of lies" so lies are sons of the devil.  These lies could be words of the non-kingdom that oppose "word of the kingdom" (in Sower Parable) so (in Wheat Parable) "the weeds" that are "sons of the evil one" could be the result of evil "lies" (as in John 8) that are harmful when (in Wheat Parable) the devil's lies deceive a person and influence them to damage their own character by growing their evil character-weeds (evil feelings-thoughts-decisions-actions) even though these evil weeds are harmful for the person who is being deceived by the devil's lies.   /   a summary:  With this interpretation, in the Wheat Parable a person's wheat-character ("sons of the kingdom") is good, and their weed-character ("sons of the evil one") is evil.

baptism with water and baptism with fire:  Logical connections between fire & baptism & death seem to support a claim that death of sin leads to new life during Life and also Afterlife, based on analogy between baptism with water (as when a person is immersed in a lake of water) during Life, and baptism with fire (when a person is immersed in "the lake of fire" if this will be pUR-Hell) during AfterLife.  If this fire-baptism fulfills the prophecy of John the Baptist (in Matthew 3) when he told us that Jesus will baptize "with the Holy Spirit and fire," there would be analogy between...

wheat/chaff and wheat/weeds:  This analogy – made by comparing wheat & chaff (in Matthew 3) with wheat & weeds (in Matthew 13) – supports pUR because wheat & chaff are parts of the same plant, so maybe wheat & weeds are parts of the same person, are the good & evil parts of a person's character.  Both passages are describing the same process — when the divine baptizing-fire of Jesus burns up only the chaff (but not the wheat) in Matthew 3 — IF in Matthew 13 this divine baptizing-fire burns up only a person's evil sinfulness (weeds), so the person is purified-from-sin and restored (with UR) instead of (with FA) burning up the entire evil person, killing them with fire.  In this way, God would distinguish between a person who HAS evil character (that causes them to DO evil actions) and a person who IS evil.  With purgatorial UR in pUR-Hell, Jesus will baptize an unsaved person with Holy Spirit, baptizing them with divine fire (pur is the Greek word for fire) that purifies the person whose character includes both wheat & chaff (both wheat & weeds, good & evil) by burning up their evil (their "chaff", their "weeds").  After this sanctifying purification-from-sin, He will (as prophesied by John the Baptist in Matthew 3) "gather His wheat [the totally-good person, who now has been purified so they have no evil] into the barn," as the same process is described in Matthew 13, the person will "then" (after God has transformed them into "righteous" wheat-without-weeds) "shine forth like the sun."  We expect a baptism by Jesus to provide benefits for the person who is being baptized, and His fire-baptism is beneficial with pUR, but with FA (or EM) it's damaging.

You can read LESS in summary-overviews of the closely related
concepts in this “big picture” overview of fire & death & baptism,
and even MORE about Second Death in The Lake of [Divine] Fire
and the overall process (immersion plus un-immersion) of baptism.

The Narrow Way  —  is it narrow only Now, or both Now and Later?

Now:  IF God will cause Eternal Misery, it's difficult to imagine how any binary justice (with God causing either Eternal Misery or Eternal Joy in Afterlife) could be fair, especially if only a few people will be saved, as implied by Jesus (Matthew 7:13-14) telling us "the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.  For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. {NASB}"  The "few" seem to be very few because Jesus was saying this to Jewish people, and most of them were at least trying to follow God with their Bible-based religion of Judaism.  But the overwhelming majority of people, now and in the past, lived in cultures where most people don't even try to follow the biblical God — e.g. because they haven't heard The Gospel, or they are devoted to another religion, or to no religion — so the "few" seem to be an extremely small fraction of all people created by God.  Will all other people (the extremely large fraction) be forced to experience an eternity of misery?   {even though they were never given a chance to decide rationally – by having essential information about God's “rules for the game” – whether or not they wanted to play The Game of Life-and-Afterlife}

Later:  In most of our translations-into-English, Jesus seems to be telling us that “only a few will be saved.”  So is He saying “Ultimate Restoration won't happen”?  No.  Why not?  Because the original Greek indicates that only a few are being saved NOW, that "few are the ones finding {DLNT}" the narrow road.  In the Disciples' Literal New Testament (DLNT) we see "finding" (to describe what is happening Now),* by contrast with most modern translations — even those that usually are more-literal, like NASB, ESV, KJV, NRSV — that say "find" (to state that “only a few” will ever be saved, either Now or Later, including both Now AND Later) even though this interpretative implication about present-AND-future is not justified by the original text in Greek.  These biased non-literal translations (implying that “only a few” will be saved, either now in Life or later in Afterlife) are not justified by the Greek wording, so it's another example of how biased translations are misleading, to definitely cause confusion & possibly cause error.    There is a MAJOR difference-in-meaning between finding (the correct translation of Greek into English) and find (as implied by the common mis-translations).     {two clarifications:  1) the pUR-view I'm describing agrees that only a "few" are being saved Now, and that it's wrong to claim “all roads lead to God” because Jesus offers the only way to be saved.   2) If UR (or semi-UR) is correct because it will happen, even though only a few are being saved now during Life, many more will be saved later during Afterlife.  But if either EM or FA is correct in its claim that God will not save anyone during Afterlife, then the only people who will be saved are "the few" that are now being saved during Life. }     /     * As in DLNT and (more important) in Greek language, Young's Literal Translation – written by Robert Young, author of the famous Young's Analytical Concordance – uses the present-continuous tense, to say "many are those going in [now during Life] through it."     {in most literal translations it's present-continuous tense, so the meaning is “are finding” instead of “will find”}

The Narrow Way with EM or FA, and with UR:  If the Bible teaches us that "few are the ones finding [now during Life]" the road leading to salvation,  then Bible-believers should reject (as I do) a pluralistic claim that “all roads lead to God, and to salvation.”   IF you believe (as I do) that the Bible teaches a strong exclusivism so only Jesus offers salvation and explicit belief in Jesus is required for salvation, then...

    all views (UR, FA, EM) agree that only a "few" are finding (now during Life) the road to salvation;
    IF God will not save anyone later during Afterlife (as claimed by EM and FA),  then only a few will find salvation, and most people will not be saved, instead God will cause most people to have permanent misery (with EM) or permanent non-existence (with FA);   but...
    IF God will save people later during Afterlife (as claimed by UR),  then all people can be saved, and will be saved.     {or if semi-UR happens, more people will be saved than during Life.}

Therefore, the “narrow way” teaching of Jesus is compatible with the final results-of-Hell proposed by all three views (by EM, FA, UR),  so eventually the final results could be that a few are saved (if God will cause EM or FA) or all are saved (if God will cause UR).

Two Kinds of People – Temporarily

This long paragraph explains (more thoroughly than in a summary) why even though verses describing few people traveling the narrow road and two kinds of people {saved & unsaved} may seem to be evidence-against-UR, this evidence is weakened (maybe even eliminated) if God can-and-will save people during Afterlife.  To see why, think about the distinction between not-yet-final states and the final state.  With pUR, in not-yet-final states there are now (in Life) and will be (in early stages after the end of Life) two kinds of people {saved & unsaved} as described in these verses, agreeing with FA & EM.  But although with UR there are two kinds of persons {already-saved & temporarily not-yet-saved} for awhile, eventually instead of {saved & unsaved} there will be only one kind of person {saved} in the ultimate final state.   /   If God will produce UR, here are the timings (not-yet-final and final) for a person who is unsaved when they die:  during Life this person is one of the many (all except those on the narrow road of salvation) who are unsaved;  after this person dies, they remain unsaved during several stages (from their death until they are bodily resurrected, and when they are being judged by God, and in their semi-final penultimate state of purgatorial UR-Hell);  then after God eventually saves them, they become a saved person in their final ultimate state of Eternal Joy, after they become personally-restored (internally) so they can become interpersonally-restored (externally) by being relationally reconciled with other people and with God, so they can fully love people and God.  With UR, in the ultimate state all unsaved persons have been saved by God.

In other words, pUR proposes that there will be two kinds of people {saved & unsaved} during Life and during some later stages, as described in the “two kinds of people” verses.  Therefore if these verses are describing the not-yet-final stages, but not the final stage of Ultimate Afterlife, they are not evidence-against-UR.  For example, Revelation 20:15 tells us that "anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life [so they are unsaved] was thrown into the lake of fire."  This verse is compatible with pUR (so it isn't evidence-against-pUR) if this "lake of fire" is pUR-Hell that God will use in a painful-yet-beneficial process of educational correction to produce healings of all persons and all relationships.

also:  When we're comparing pUR with FA, in Matthew 13:36-43 we can ask whether the wheat & weeds are two kinds of people {saved & unsaved} and/or two kinds of character {good & evil} within a person.  But with either meaning, or with both meanings, this parable is compatible with pUR if Jesus is describing how in "the furnace of fire" (in "the lake of fire" that is pUR-Hell) a person's "weeds" (the evil sinfulness in their character) will be "burned away" so "then [after their evil sin is burned away] the righteous [the people whose character previously included both good & evil, but now is only good] will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."

  Ultimate Restoration and Ambiguity —  

  Reasons for Optimism-without-Confidence  

an option:  You can first read a short overview of this section in theTable of Contents.

In the second stage of my evaluation — when comparing FA with UR — why is there no clear winner?  I'll give you two answers, by responding to these two why-questions:

    WHY is my process of evaluation-and-conclusion difficult and inconclusive?
    WHY hasn't God made “the answer” clear in His Bible, so the process would be easy?

Why is the process of evaluation difficult, with ambiguous conclusion?

In evaluations of FA versus EM, whole-Bible principles (the character of God plus Conditional Immortality and the related Death Penalty for Sin) strongly support FA;  and isolated hell-verses are not conclusive.

In evaluations of FA versus UR, whole-Bible principles seem consistent with either FA or UR;  and we can find different verses that provide support for FA or for UR.   In the Bible as a whole and in its parts,

    we see strong support for FA, but UR has strong counter-arguments, and
    we see strong support for UR, but FA has strong counter-arguments.

For example, when we ask “will God allow unsaved people to believe-and-repent in their Afterlife?” — an extremely important question because a “yes” would weaken most biblical objections to UR — the Bible doesn't explicitly say “yes” or “no”.

Why has God allowed this ambiguity?

Certainly our uncertainty is allowed by God.  And probably it's caused by God, maybe to avoid “proof” so – during our Education With Life – we can develop skills in living by faith, so during Life we can show God “what's in our hearts” because, with our responses to Jesus and what He commands us to do, "the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.* (Luke 2:35)"

I think this is the main reason.  But maybe it's also...

    to restrain humans from “running wild” during Life, because without fear-based motivation some people — if they expect UR instead of FA (or expect FA instead of EM) in Afterlife — might run wild;*  or
    to produce temporary psychological suffering in hell if people think their hell-experience might end (with the death of FA) or might not end (if they'll get EM), even if they eventually will get UR.

Or maybe the answer actually IS clear in the Bible, and we (including me) are just not seeing what should be clear.

But this seems unlikely, because devout intelligent Bible-believing Christians – after carefully studying the questions – have reached differing conclusions about what the Bible teaches, so there are some advocates for each doctrine, for FA and UR plus semi-UR (the 3 doctrine-views I think are plausible), and even for biblically-implausible EM.  So evidently most of us — all except those who are now advocating the doctrine that correctly describes what will happen, and probably this is a minority because the majority now believe EM but this probably won't happen — are missing the clarity.

* The biblical ambiguity (about whether God will cause Annihilation or Restoration, or even Eternal Misery) is one reason for our overall uncertainty — due to an absence of strong divine persuasion for most people during Life — that seems to be intentionally caused by God, that is an “evangelistic responsibility” argument against EM and for UR.

*I.O.U. – Soon (maybe late-January 2021) I'll say more about the educational utility of ambiguity, with analogies to the human method of “inquiry learning” that is summarized earlier.

logically defining Conditional Immortality  —  Part 3

Of course, this Part 3 builds on Part 1 and Part 2 and these build on the basics (before Part 1 and before Part 2) of why Conditional Immortality (CI) is taught in The Bible, why it's important, how it's related to the divine penalty of death (not long-term suffering), and how Conditional Immortality would happen with either Final Annihilation (FA) or Ultimate Restoration (UR), but not if God will cause Eternal Misery (EM).

Part 3 has two parts (re: the Condition and Timing of Immortality) that explain why our thinking will be more productive, and our communication will be more accurate, if we logically define a system of terms to describe our concepts about the final results of Hell, and we consistently use these terms in our thinking and communication.     {note: for logical coherence in Part 3A, you'll see some “duplicated content” from Part 2}

Part 3A – The Condition of Immortality

In Part 1 we see how immortality would satisfy God's if-then Condition — if (and only if) saved, then immortal — with 2 of the 3 views, with Final Annihilation (FA) because all unsaved people would be gone, or with Ultimate Restoration (UR) because all people would be saved.*  Therefore the logical conclusion is that Conditional Immortality is “either FA or UR” instead of the “only FA” that is claimed whenever a person refers to Annihilation as Conditional Immortality.  I think we should be logical (instead of just traditional) in our defining of Conditional Immortality.  What do you think?

What is the logical definition?  Because all immortal people would satisfy the divine if-then Condition of “only if saved, then immortal” with either FA or UR, it seems obvious that “Conditional Immortality is FA-or-UR” should be the logical conclusion.  This logic could be over-ruled by other reasons (traditional and/or personal), but should it be overruled?

I.O.U. – soon (maybe March 27) I'll combine two sections (here and in Part 2) that have very similar content.   /   A person can conclude that “UR will happen” in two different ways, by starting with either dependent conditional immortality or intrinsic universal immortality:   1) A proponent of UR should begin with dependent conditional immortality — because the Bible teaches us that a person's continuing existence is dependent on God (it's not intrinsic), and is conditional — so the result of Afterlife-Hell will be either UR or FA;  then they evaluate UR-versus-FA and conclude “it will be UR” so they also conclude “it will be universal immortality.”   2) But a proponent of UR could begin by assuming unbiblical intrinsic universal immortality so “everyone will be immortal” with UR or EM;  then they evaluate UR-versus-EM and conclude “it will be UR.”   In other words, universal immortality could be either a final conclusion (using biblical process #1) or (using unbiblical process #2) an initial assumption.     /     a summary:  There is no logical reason for a proponent of UR to begin with an initial assumption of universal immortality {so it's UR-or-EM} and then conclude “it's UR (not EM),”  instead they can begin by assuming it's Conditional Immortality {so it's UR-or-FA}* and then finally conclude “it's UR (not FA)” so their final conclusion includes universal immortality.     {* When a person bases their evaluations on a careful study of the Bible (as they should), this initial assumption is actually an initial conclusion.}

* An important outcome of Conditional Immortality is that CI produces a Final State in which sin has been eliminated by God.  UR and FA both produce a sinless Final State;  this similarity-of-outcomes occurs because both are CI, so we should define CI as UR-or-FA.  A similar Final State (without sin) would be produced by either form of CI, although with UR this is achieved by eliminating sin-within-people, and with FA it's achieved by eliminating people, so with FA there are fewer people in The Final State.     /     By contrast, EM is not-CI.  Therefore, EM would produce a very different Final State in which sin is being maintained by God, forever, and this unbiblical outcome is one biblical reason (among many biblical reasons) to reject EM.

defining a system-of-terms logically:

To promote thinking that is more logical, and communicating that is less confusing, every term (in a system of related terms) should have only one meaning.  Consistent with this principle, we should carefully define the adjective-terms we use to describe immortality.   I think these terms should include:  unbiblical intrinsic immortality (with continuing existence independent from God) contrasts with biblical dependent immortality (with continuing existence dependent on God);  biblical conditional immortality contrasts with unbiblical unconditional immortality that is not the same as possibly-biblical universal immortality because...

universal immortality could be produced in two ways:  by God's universal salvation of all (in a UR-result that is biblically possible because it would be consistent with conditional immortality);  or by God's forcing of unconditional immortality on unsaved people (in an EM-result that seems biblically impossible because it would violate conditional immortality).

All of these adjective-terms (plus other terms) form a "system of related terms" with interactions between concepts that are related-yet-different.  For example, when we compare dependent immortality with conditional immortality, we see that...

dependent allows conditional, because if (as Bible-believers should believe) life depends on God, then (as Bible-believers should believe) God is able to make conditional decisions about life and death.  Do humans have intrinsically-immortal souls?  No.  When we read The Bible carefully, we see that it doesn't teach an intrinsically universal Unconditional Soul-Immortality, even though this typically is assumed by those who propose the Unconditional Soul/Body Immortality required by Eternal Misery.  Instead, The Bible does teach a Dependent Existence (for awhile or forever) that allows the Divine Control of Life wanted by God, so He can produce a Conditional Immortality of Body-and-Soul.*   Thus, God's Condition-Based Decisions (when He uses His if-then Condition to decide who lives) require Dependence (with God being able to decide who lives) but go beyond it.  Dependence is necessary for Condition-Based Deciding, but Dependence is not sufficient for determining who will be given life by God, in the life-or-death decisions made by God.     /     We should try to think-and-communicate in ways that are clear, not sloppy.  Unfortunately, some people use conditional with two different meanings — to describe God's decisions-about-life based on His if-then condition, and also how the giving-of-life depends on God — and they imply that both of these are conditional.  In an effort to reduce confusion and increase clarity, I'm proposing that we should use two words to describe the two meanings:  we should use dependent for dependent existence, so (to clarify the intended meaning) we can use conditional only for conditional existence.     /     * In the Bible, in Genesis & Revelation "the tree of life" is God's way of describing His divinely supernatural giving-of-life by preventing death.

Part 3B – The Timing of Immortality

In contrast with failed attempts (made by proponents of FA) trying to logically justify their claim that “CI is only-FA”, here we'll examine an argument that is biblically-logically justifiable.

If God will cause UR, when does a person's immortality begin?  For a person who was saved-in-Life, their immortality begins immediately when they are resurrected with indestructible bodies.  For a person who was unsaved-in-life, proponents of “CI is only-FA” claim that “with Conditional Immortality this person cannot be immediately given an indestructible body because they are not yet saved, but this mis-timing (with indestructible body before salvation) would occur with UR.”  Their objection is biblically-logical, but a proponent of UR can respond in two biblically-logical ways:

    1) When we ask “what kind of body for the unsaved?” the situation is similar for FA and UR.  In either scenario for Afterlife, a person who was unsaved-in-Life will be given a body for awhile, until God is finished with the temporary “phases of afterlife” that He wants them to have.  With FA these phases include a time period for The Judgment of God, and maybe a time period when they are being punished for their sins (so they will have different degrees of suffering) and certainly a time period when they are dying and become dead.  With UR these phases include a time period for The Judgment of God, and the person's time period in UR-Hell that causes their belief-and-repentance, that transforms them so they become restored (so they will be the righteous person He always wanted them to be) and become reconciled (with other people and with God);  then after they have been saved, God will give them an indestructible body, and this timing (with salvation before indestructible body) is consistent with The Condition of Conditional Immortality.     /     a review:  With either FA or UR, a temporary body (given immediately at resurrection) must allow the continuing existence of an unsaved person "for awhile" so they can experience the required phases of their afterlife, whether this lasts for a short time or a long time;  the divinely-decided length of required time (for FA, or for UR) is not specified in scripture, so it could be a short time or a long time.  With UR we can think of this temporary body as a “probationary body” that will be transformed into an indestructible “immortal body” after they have been saved by God, and this timing is compatible with Conditional Immortality.
    2) If God decides to do UR and causes UR, God knows with certainty (by divine foreknowledge) that an unsaved person eventually will be saved by Him.  Therefore, even if He immediately gives them an indestructible body (to be used during their temporary time in UR-Hell), in the long run this immediately-indestructible “immortal body” will not violate The Condition of Conditional Immortality.   It will not violate God's decision about CI — with His decree in Genesis 3:22 stating that a sinner "must not... live forever" — because the previously-unsaved person will be saved before they live forever, so they will live forever as a saved person, not (as with EM) while they remain an unsaved person.

 

Logically Defining Terms that have Related-yet-Different Meanings

{more about defining Conditional Immortality}

MORE about Dependent Existence  –  {and MORE about assumptions of soul-immortality that influenced acceptance of EM are in Sections 7.1c & 7.5 & A1-A4 of my paper about EM-vs-FA}

and MORE about Conditional Immortality  –  {A Problem-Solving Perspective:  Two Human Problems (Spiritual Sinning + Physical Mortality/Death) and Two Divine Solutions (Salvation-and-Sanctification + Conditional Immortality)}   {can Eternal Misery be biblically defended by re-defining death?}   {Why should Conditional Immortality mean “either Annihilation or Reconciliation” instead of “only Annihilation”?}

an option:  You can first read a short overview of this section in theTable of Contents.

Effects on Relationships

Even though the views are almost identical in other ways, their differences (in the final state of unsaved humans) make a big difference in our relationships with God and people, as in...

my relationships with unbelievers:

I'm less eager to share The Gospel when I must argue against the common assumption that The Good News includes both Good News (of God giving Eternal Joy) and Bad News (of God causing Eternal Misery).     {more – evangelism with mixed news (good+bad) and mixed motivations (love+fear) and my mixed feelings about the tensions of conflicting responsibilities – and why does UR promote an us-and-us feeling instead of the us-and-them that tends to occur with FA & EM?

my relationships with believers:

How do I feel?  I'm disappointed by the many Christians who (in the past) made Eternal Misery “the traditional belief” — despite its biblical weakness — and now (in the present) are continuing to support this choice, mainly because they are assuming instead of studying.  And I'm sad because when fellow Christians say “God will cause Eternal Misery for most of the people He created” I think they are saying untrue-and-harmful things about the character of God.  I feel disappointed and sad about what they're doing, and this makes it more difficult for me to feel a deep fellowship with other Christians.   {yes, I know this attitude is a sinful flaw, and with God's help I'm trying to change it, but the disappointment & sadness are very real in my heart and mind}

How do they feel?  This varies widely, and responses can occur on two levels, personal & professional.  Based on the second-hand experiences of others, responses by fellow Christians are sometimes moderately hostile personally (but can be very hostile professionally) toward a person proposing FA, and typically — based on stories I've heard [from George W Sarris & Alex Smith & others] but not my limited personal experience)* — are often more hostile toward a person proposing UR, or even describing it as a biblically-plausible possibility.   {iou - later, I'll write more about this.}

Pressures – Personal and Professional

Pressures can be felt in different ways, at different levels:

members of a church can feel personal social pressures to conform, and

people in ministries (of a church, organization, or school) can feel professional institutional pressures to conform:

    What?  The "pressures to conform" are pressures to accept EM, or (more commonly) to at least not speak against it.   {reasons for caution and reasons for action}
    Why?  There is pressure because:  EM is included in many statements of “What We Believe”, instead of a humbly neutral statement (as in the Apostle's Creed or Nicene Creed) that is compatible with all views, with EM & FA & UR;   typically, EM is “assumed” in Christian culture & general culture;   and if this assumption is challenged, or even questioned, some people inside a church (and outside it) will vigorously defend EM, and will personally attack those who challenge EM.
    How?  Many pastors (and members) are worried that “challenging EM” would lead to controversy, with interpersonal conflicts and professional problems.  If a leader is worried about the effects — pastorally (if their church is negatively affected) and/or personally (if they lose respect from some members of their congregation and from other pastors) and/or professionally (if they lose their job & their family's income, and lose future opportunities due to “blackballing”) — this internal perception of threat can lead them to self-censor themselves, even if there is no external threat by their institution.  And maybe the internally perceived threats are justified because externally actualized penalties really are likely, and an institution would cause damage (personally & professionally) to a person who is challenging the institution's official doctrine of EM.

I.O.U. – Soon, maybe late-March 2021, somewhere in this section (probably above "Pressures - Personal and Professional") I'll write a short introduction that describes the personal motivation of wanting to reduce the internal conflict (the unpleasant cognitive dissonance) that usually occurs when someone says “you've been wrong,” that is a non-biblical factor affecting our evaluations of claims about “what will happen in hell.”  This intro will be short, and will link to a paragraph about the cognitive dissonance that is one of the reasons for Christians to have mixed feelings about hoping for Ultimate Restoration, even though all Christians should hope for UR because it would be the best possible ending for the grand story of what God is doing with us and for us.

I.O.U. – And soon I'll write a short introduction that puts this section into the context of wanting to avoid external conflict, which is a non-biblical factor affecting our evaluations of claims about “what will happen in hell.”

Why do traditions — one that did happen, another that didn't — often make it seem wise to avoid saying “God is more-good if He won't cause Eternal Misery” ?

an unfortunate tradition:   In some situations, our thoughts-and-actions are heavily influenced by the powerful inertia of tradition enforced by the powerful psychology-sociology of conformity, as in pressures (personal and/or professional) to affirm a “traditional” doctrine of Eternal Misery.  I think this is unfortunate because it's pressuring Christians who love God to say untrue-and-harmful things about His character.     {options: you can read more, in a question (can Christians have mixed feelings about hoping for all to be saved?) or alternative history (wishing the tradition was different-and-better)}

a better tradition:   Imagine that instead of most people assuming EM, very few believe it.  In this cultural context, it would be more difficult (compared with now) to claim “our loving Father will cause Eternal Misery.”  And it would be easier to proclaim “our loving Father will not cause Eternal Misery” (because He will either Annihilate or Reconcile) and this freedom would be much better.  We should be able to freely proclaim the goodness of God, by saying “He will do good with love-in-action instead of causing infinite harm.”  Ideally, we should not have to feel afraid that saying “God is less-bad, is more-good” might endanger a church and its leaders.  But currently we must feel afraid because of pressures to imply “God is bad” by saying “God will cause infinite misery for most of the people that He caused to exist in Life-and-Afterlife.”     /     accepting reality:  Ideally, we shouldn't have to feel afraid, but...  with our actual unfortunate tradition, often the wise-and-loving decision (as explained in the next section, My Reasons for Caution) is to avoid citicizing a view claiming that God will cause Eternal Misery.

* my experiences:  So far, my own sharing-of-ideas with fellow Christians (individually and in small groups) has gone well.  Their responses have been gracious and loving.  But I'm still being cautious, moving slowly, although I've done some actions on a small scale:  since 1987, I've been thinking-reading-writing about these ideas;   in 1996, I began writing the ideas into word-documents;   these were converted into pdf-files that (after a revision in 2000) were made publicly available on the internet, but without trying to get my ideas widely read;   since 2010, I've been talking with some people by email & in person;   in 2014, I began writing web-pages (mainly this one) about all of the three major views, including UR;   in January 2018, I made a public commitment to action by putting a link for this page – "What will happen in Hell? (eternal misery, death, or healing?)" – into my bio-pages about "life on a road less traveled."  {update: I removed these links in June 2020, due to caution, for the interpersonal reasons described below.}

My Reasons for Caution

I'm confident about the Conditional Immortality (CI) that would occur with either purgatorial Ultimate Restoration (pUR) or Final Annihilation (FA), but not with Eternal Misery (EM).  I'm hopeful-and-optimistic about pUR.   But when I'm wondering whether to share my views with others, "I'm still being cautious, moving slowly" for two kinds of reasons, interpersonal and functional.

Interpersonal Reasons  {asking “how would it affect people in a church?”}

• Reasons for Caution:  I'm mainly concerned about other people, re: my effects on them, because...

    I don't know how a church (its members & leaders) would be affected by discussing “what will happen in hell?”, especially if the discussion is favorable to CI so it challenges the “traditional” assuming-of-EM.
    I think most members (and pastors) of most churches would respond well, either neutrally — saying “I don't care much” or, with humility, “I don't know enough about hell to be confident in claiming any view” and “I don't want to invest time in studying it,” or maybe “I think this is important, I'm curious and want to learn more” — or favorably because they prefer a non-EM view, they think EM would not achieve justice and the ethical character of God is better if He will not cause EM.  But I think a few church members (and a few people outside the church) would respond unfavorably by vigorously defending the tradition of EM for a variety of biblical & extra-biblical reasons in ways that might be vigorously vocal (maybe even nasty), causing trouble for the church and for its leaders.
    The leaders of a church – its pastor & others – would have more reasons, compared with me, for interpersonal concerns (plus professional institutional pressures),  more reasons to be cautious by avoiding discussions about hell.   Probably they don't want to invite controversy, so I don't want to (and I will not) “invite controversy for them” by trying to start a discussion without their permission and cooperation.

• Reasons for Action:  If there is no discussion, many people will continue to believe — without carefully studying what the Bible actually teaches — that God will cause Eternal Misery.  This makes me sad because when people say “God will cause Eternal Misery” I think they are saying untrue-and-harmful things about the character of God so I'm hoping they will stop saying these things.  A productive discussion (with love & respect) could lead more people to ask “what will happen in hell?”, to search for truth by carefully studying the Bible, and hopefully find truth.

Functional Reasons  {evangelistic responsibilities and practical effects}

Evangelistic Responsibilities:  Christians should try to avoid giving False Hope and the Bad Surprise that would occur if during Life a person expects pUR (purgatorial Ultimate Restoration) but in Afterlife they get FA (Final Annihilation) or EM (Eternal Misery),  or if they expect FA but get EM.  We also should try to avoid causing False Fear if we proclaim “EM” but FA or UR will happen, or if we proclaim “FA” and UR will happen.  Due to biblical ambiguity about The Final Results of Hell, these two conflicting responsibilities — to avoid causing False Hope or False Fear — produce a tough dilemma.

Practical Effects:  A person's beliefs about Hell will affect their motivations (fear-based & love-based) to repent and live by faith.  A belief in EM-Hell will increase fear motives — due to fearing the infinite horror of Eternal Misery, instead of thinking {with FA} “death wouldn't be so bad” or {with pUR} “even if I now say NO, later I can say YES and (after a non-infinite time in UR-Hell) then I'll be fine” — but it tends to decrease love motives due to not respecting the character of a God who is believed to be an EM-causer, and unfortunately this makes it much more difficult to fully respect and trust and love Him.  Many people have a pragmatic concern about society — they are worried that if there is no fear of EM, sinners will “run wild”, causing great harm to themselves and to others — because EM seems to be pragmatically useful in its fear-based restraining of sin.  But... the fearing of EM has some beneficial practical effects, AND some detrimental practical effects to (again) produce a tough dilemma.     /     This worry about “sinners running wild” was common in the early church (its first few centuries) when pUR was commonly believed, but was less commonly proclaimed because leaders were self-restrained by their doctrine of reserve, as explained by J.W. Hanson in Chapter 4 of his book (1899) about the history of Universal Restoration.

Conflicting Factors:   In each of these reasons for being cautious — for not discussing “what will happen in hell” and not claiming “I think CI (or UR or FA) probably will happen, and EM won't happen” — the caution (the not-discussing & not-claiming, with non-action) produces some good effects AND some bad effects:  discussing hell in church could lead to controversy, BUT it could help us discover biblical truth;   we should avoid causing false hope AND false fear;   believing EM usually increases one motive (due to fear of EM) for conversion-and-discipleship, BUT it usually decreases a more important motive (when fear makes it more difficult to fully love an EM-causing God);   a fear of EM produces beneficial effects AND detrimental effects.   Due to these conflicting factors, each reason for caution is closely related to a reason for action, so I (and we) have a tough dilemma.

Biblical Ambiguity:   There are strong arguments (and counter-arguments) for (and against) two views* — so it's difficult to be confident about which view is correct {is true because it will happen} — and this ambiguity adds to the dilemma.     {* I think we find strong biblical support for the two CI-views (for FA and UR) but not for EM.}

Action with Caution:   In principle, I already have decided that action is best, in the long run.  But in each specific short-term situation, I want to use wise caution, and so far I usually have been deciding to not discuss and not claim.

My Feelings about Caution:  I'm very sad, when thinking about the situations in most churches.  I think it's sad, for God's people in His church, that (due to the unfortunate tradition of Eternal Misery) usually caution seems wise.  But I will continue to acknowledge the reality of situations as they really are — not how I think they should be — when I'm deciding how to wisely control my actions.

• my relationship with God:

Here are my responses to what I think (with appropriate humility – not too little, not too much) is the basic justice and character of God with each view:

    if I try to imagine – contrary to what I believe – that God will cause Eternal Misery, the horror of EM makes it extremely difficult for me to imagine being able to fully love God (with my whole heart, soul, and mind),* but...
    when I imagine the mercy of FA, it's much easier to love God more fully, and...
    when I imagine the grace of UR, it's even easier (compared with FA) to most fully love God, and to proudly proclaim “what God will do for unbelievers in hell” because, with UR, God can produce restorative justice for victims, and for offenders He will do retributive justice that rehabilitates-and-heals, so everyone can forgive everyone, with a total healing of all persons and all relationships.

Also, I'm frustrated by the biblical ambiguity when we're evaluating FA-versus-UR, so I find myself asking “why don't You make it more clear?”  But I believe there are now (and will be later) good answers for this question and for other tough questions, so ultimately everyone will be satisfied and will say "God is good, and I'm glad He created me."

* Can we honor God by defending EM, and also by criticizing EM?

Relationships of Other People (Believers & Unbelievers) with Each Other and with God:

Soon I will begin asking others “what do you think?” to discover how they feel.  Do they respond like me, or do they find it equally easy, when they imagine each view, to fully love people and God.     {more about relationships}

our attitudes toward other Christians and God — Principles

for Discussing Doctrines Respectfully, with Christian Love:

Jesus commanded us (in John 13:34 and elsewhere) to "love one another," and Paul tells us to "take delight in honoring each other."  To help us love-and-honor each other more effectively — as individuals, and as a whole body of believers — useful principles are "in essentials unity, in non-essentials diversity, in all things charity."   {who said this and why?}    

How can we decide if a doctrine is essential, instead of non-essential?*  We should look at its importance-and-certainty by asking, "is it theologically important, AND is it taught with certainty in the Bible?"

In my opinion:  our doctrinal response when we ask “what is the ultimate fate of unsaved people?” is important (because it affects our thinking-and-actions) but is not important enough to be considered essential for Christian faith;  AND the doctrine that is correct (is true because it matches the reality of what actually will happen in afterlife) is not taught with certainty, so it cannot be known with certainty.

* When answering these questions about importance and certainty, to decide if a doctrine is essential or non-essential,...

    a Christian should have appropriate humility — not too much (by declaring that no doctrine is important-and-certain) and not too little (by declaring that every doctrine they propose is important-and-certain) — so we can avoid the rigid arrogances of extreme mushy relativism or extreme unjustifiable dogmatism.
    a useful perspective comes fromthe early history of the Christian church.  In biblical sermons and letters, early leaders of the church (Peter, John, James, Paul) never mentioned eternally lasting torment, probably because they didn't believe it, and if they did (very unlikely) they didn't think it was important enough to mention.  Later, all major views of Hell (proposing that it will produce Reconciliation, Annihilation, or Eternal Misery) were common among prominent church leaders.  In the early church, all views were acceptable options that were respected in theological discussions among Christians, and our major statements of belief – as in the Apostle's Creed and Nicene Creed – say nothing about UR or FA or EM, so all views can affirm these two classic creeds.  And all views now can affirm the modern “fundamentals” of Christian faith.  The early church did not consider "the ultimate fate of unsaved people" to be an essential doctrine, so diversity was allowed.
    {more – what students learned, from my favorite teacher, about Accurate Understanding and Respectful Attitudes}

This section combines ideas from above and below, about relationships with fellow Christians andwith God.  Below, I describe what I think-and-feel about the character of God when I imagine that He will cause Eternal Misery, or Annihilation, or Reconciliation.  Although some people claim that people have no right to do this kind of thinking-and-feeling, it seems unavoidable, and I'm confident that — when it's done with appropriate humility (not too little and not too much) — it's an essential part of our relationship with God.  I think...

• unbelievers will be affected by a doctrine of Eternal Misery:  When an unbeliever is deciding whether they will “say YES to God,” what they think about hell will affect their minds-and-hearts when they are wondering “can I trust God, and love Him?”  In our current culture, most unbelievers are assuming — due to commonly shared “beliefs in their culture,” reinforced by what they typically hear from Christians — that God will cause Eternal Misery.  BECAUSE they think God will do EM, many unbelievers feel & think, in their hearts & minds that this would be unfair and they don't like the character of this EM-God (who will cause Eternal Misery) so they cannot trust God and love Him, and they will not say YES.  This is a reason for Christians to feel sadness.

• devout believers can honorably defend a doctrine of Eternal Misery:  I think defenders of EM "are saying untrue-and-harmful things about the character of God."  But I also think they defend EM with sincere motivations.  They love God, and want to honor Him, so — BECAUSE they think the Bible teaches EM, so God will cause EM — they want to defend His character by defending the ethics of causing Eternal Misery.  For similar reasons,...

• devout believers can honorably criticize a doctrine of Eternal Misery:  I think the biblical evidence against EM is strong.*  Therefore, when I'm trying to imagine “how I would feel IF God will cause Eternal Misery for most of the people He created,” my if-then thinking is that “this would be horrible IF it happened, but it won't.”  I don't think God will cause EM, so when I question the ethics of EM I'm not criticizing the character of “who I believe God actually is” BECAUSE I don't think He is the EM-causing God that I'm criticizing.     *{the character of God – when we ask "What Will Jesus Do?" – is one of three Bible-based reasons to reject EM}

IF and BECAUSE:  These related concepts are important.  Why?  When we're trying to imagine the character of God IF He will cause EM, some devout God-honoring Christians think “YES, this IF will happen,” but others think “NO, this IF won't happen.”  After a person decides YES or NO, they now are thinking that either “BECAUSE God will cause EM,     ” or “BECAUSE God won't cause EM,     ”.   They are thinking that...

    “BECAUSE Eternal Misery will happen,     ” and they fill the blank by defending the ethics of EM, so their response will honor God, or

    “BECAUSE Eternal Misery won't happen,     ” and they fill the blank by criticizing the ethics of EM, so their response will honor God.

With either conclusion about "BECAUSE", devout Bible-believing Christians can defend God's character by saying what they think-and-feel about what they have concluded He will do, or He won't do.  Here is why:

    When a person who (unlike me) thinks "God will cause EM" defends this divine decision, they are not giving a general defense of everyone who intentionally causes long-term misery.  They are only saying that, in this specific situation, “I trust God, so I have faith that BECAUSE God will do this, He must have ethically justifiable reasons for doing it.”     {if a Christian thinks God will cause EM, should they “hope against what God wants” by hoping for FA or UR?  yes, because in reality they “hope against what [they think] God wants” – although they are justified in wanting to praise God for whatever He does – they should humbly hope they are wrong about God wanting to cause EM, so they are hoping that God will not cause EM.}
    When a person who (like me) thinks "God won't cause EM" explains why causing EM would be unethical, we are not criticizing the actual character of God BECAUSE we think He will not cause EM in the actual afterlife-reality.  Instead we are only criticizing a concept — another person's claim about God — because it's a claim we think is not taught in the Bible, so we think it's not the way God actually is.     { "criticizing a concept" is not "criticizing the actual character of God" because a Theory-about-Afterlife (leading to a humanly constructed Theory-about-God that is a "claim about God") is not the Reality-of-Afterlife or the Reality-of-God. }  {more - what Realities are affected (and not affected) by our Theories about Afterlife, or God, or Planets?}

Do you see how each way of thinking, and therefore each response — by either defending or criticizing the ethics of a God who would cause Eternal Misery — can be motivated by loving God and wanting to honor Him?   And in the community of Christians, we can "take delight in honoring each other" by recognizing (in our thinking and communicating) that proponents for each of the views can be motivated by a sincere desire to honor God.

Evangelism — Motives for Becoming (and Remaining) a Follower of Christ

an option:  You can first read a short overview of this section in theTable of Contents.

The Whole News  ( is it Good News + Bad News ? )

Three descriptions of The Gospel (The Good News) — using EM, FA, UR — propose the same afterlife end-state for believers (it's Eternal Joy), but disagree about the end-state for unbelievers:

    • if we assume Eternal Misery (EM) we can tell non-believers The Whole News,* which includes The Good News (that "God loves you and offers a Wonderful Plan for Your Life") plus The Bad News (that if you die without believing, then God hates you and has a Terrible Plan for Your Afterlife, for Your Zillions Of Years In Hell – and then, as in the song Amazing Grace, "when you've been there ten thousand years,... you've no less days... than when you first began");  and this Bad News will happen to most people.     {* In fact, Christians don't have to "tell non-believers... The Bad News" because for everyone the assumed-belief is that “if God exists, He will cause Eternal Misery in Hell” because this is an intrinsic part of Western Culture.}
    • with Final Annihilation (FA) we can explain The Good News that God offers a very good Life now, and a better Afterlife later, but (with Semi-Bad News) you must “say YES to God” during your Life, or you will lose both opportunities, because if you “say NO to God” throughout your Life, after your temporary First Death you will be resurrected to a temporary Afterlife of suffering that leads to your permanent Second Death.
    • with Ultimate Restoration (UR) The Good News remains the same, but for an unbeliever The Bad News becomes Semi-Good News because, after temporarily unsatisfactory relationships with God (now in Life, and later in Afterlife) eventually they will have a wonderfully satisfying relationship with God.   {but everyone should say YES now}   /   Also,semi-UR proposes that for people who are unsaved at the end of their Life, God graciously gives additional opportunities to repent during their Afterlife in Hell.  But anyone who continues “saying NO to God” is mercifully given FA with Death, instead of unbiblical sinful immortality with Misery.

What is the most “evangelical” view of Hell?  The dictionary meaning of evangel (Greek) is (in English) "the good tidings of the redemption of the world through Jesus Christ."  It seems obvious that the most evangelical view is UR, and the least is EM.  But if it's truly evangelical a view must be good-AND-true.  Seeking truth is important so I'm encouraging you (and challenging you) to carefully study the Bible instead of assuming you already know.  Since 1987 I've invested lots of time in carefully studying, and my current conclusion is that EM is extremely bad and is false,  FA is better than bad and is possibly true,  UR is extremely good and is possibly true.  And the more I study UR (by reading & listening, and thinking), the more optimistic I'm becoming about its truth.

an option:  You can first read a short overview of this section in theTable of Contents.

Can we praise God for His Hell?

I'm asking about "His Hell" because God is sovereign, so what will happen in Hell is what the sovereign God decides will happen and wants to happen, and will cause to happen (or at least will allow to happen, if God self-limits the actualizing of His sovereign control by allowing the thinking-and-actions of people to actually determine what will occur).

When a person “says YES to God” they will want to obey God's Two Great Commandments by fully loving God and loving people.

    As one part of fully loving God, Christians should praise God for everything He does, including what He will do to unsaved people in Hell.
    As one part of fully loving people, we should tell them what God will do TO (and maybe FOR) unsaved people in Hell.

With the Good News of Ultimate Restoration (UR), we can proudly proclaim "what God will do" FOR unsaved sinners in UR-Hell — when He transforms them into the totally righteous people He always wanted them to be — and we can enthusiastically praise God (fully with heart, soul, and mind) in our private thinking, and our fellowship with other Christians, and our conversations with non-Christians.  But this is more difficult with FinalAnnihilation-Hell, and is extremely difficult with EternalMisery-Hell.  Why?

In all three views, the process of judgment-and-hell will be very unpleasant for unsaved people.

In two views, the results also will be very unpleasant.  For unsaved people, the results of judgment-and-hell are permanently unproductive with both FA (permanent death) and EM (permanent misery).

But with UR we can proudly proclaim that the results will be permanently productive for everyone, because God will achieve justice-by-restoration.  With UR the experience in Hell can be just and also loving because it produces retributive justice for sinners (when they reap in Afterlife what they sowed in Life) and restorative justice for their victims (with a healing of wounds), plus corrective restoration for sinners (who are corrected & healed, are liberated from their slavery to sin, to achieve reconciliations with God and with people) so the results are beneficial for everyone.     { With UR, could we see a return of “hellfire and brimstone” sermons, but instead of simply threatening sinners we also would be praising God for the beneficial results He will produce in UR-Hell? }

A Personal Perspective:  When I'm thinking about songs praising the everlasting love of God (clearly taught in the Bible) — by singing "Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not, as Thou has been, Thou forever will be" and "Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me [but does it fail others, giving up on them?]" and "old things have passed away, Your love has stayed the same" — I'm wondering “how do fellow Christians make these claims about loving that doesn't change, IF they believe that What Jesus Will Do is to cause Eternal Torment for many people (in Afterlife) that (during Life) He once loved?”  Compared with me, they must be much more skilled at compartmentalizing their beliefs, if they claim WJWD is Eternal Torment and also "as You have been [in Life], You forever will be [in Afterlife]" for all of the children He created, not just for those He saved in Life.   I think it's much easier to praise God if WJWD for the Unsaved-in-Life is Conditional Immortality (resulting in Reconciliation or Annihilation) instead of Unconditional Immortality (resulting in Eternal Misery);  and I'm not thinking “God will cause Eternal Misery” so I don't need to compartmentalize my beliefs, because I'm confident that Unconditional Immortality (with God causing Sinful Immortality for most people) is not taught in the Bible, so I don't have to struggle with how to praise God for His unchanging love and also for His causing of Eternal Misery.

an option:  You can first read a short overview of this section in theTable of Contents.

Motivations for “Saying YES to God” — for Repenting and Living by Faith

When a person is thinking about The Whole News and deciding whether to say YES or NO, their Total Motivation for Saying Yes is a blending of many motivations, including these:

    • wanting better intrinsic Life-Process  —  In this Life, they want to get more true joy by more fully loving God & people, because they believe that God deserves to be loved-and-served, and they believe that God can help them overcome their own self-centered sinfulness so they can more effectively love-and-serve other people.     {loving God & people: what-and-how, why}
    • wanting better extrinsic Afterlife-Results  —  In their Afterlife, they want to get joy in Heaven and avoid misery in Hell.  They hope for Heaven, and fear Hell.

Although I'm calling these motivations intrinsic (doing life-process) and extrinsic (receiving afterlife-results), all motives are internal because all contribute to how a person internally thinks about “getting what they want” in their whole life (and possibly whole afterlife) as a whole person.

* A person can say YES to God (in a big decision) and then, many times each day in their everyday living, they will choose (in small decisions) whether to live by faith, whether they will say yes to God — because they are trusting Him — instead of saying no.

How are these motives (extrinsic or intrinsic, love-based or fear-based or joy-seeking) affected by a personal belief in UR, FA, or EM?

• An extrinsic fear-based motivation for Afterlife — due to fearing Hell — is greatest with EM, and least with UR.

• An extrinsic joy-seeking motivation for Afterlife — by hoping for Heaven — is similar with all views.

• Is an intrinsic love-based motivation during Life — by wanting to love God so He can help you love people more effectively — also similar for all views?  Or could there be a difference for some people? for most people?

    In principle, a motivation to love-and-serve should be similar for all views, but...
    in practice, I think most non-Christians will find it easiest to imagine fully loving God with their mind & heart (in their thinking & feeling) and “saying YES to God” if they think He will do UR, and most difficult if they think He will do EM.  In fact, some non-Christians say NO because they decide that “if God will do EM (as described in the “Good News + Bad News” Gospel of EM) by causing Eternal Misery for some people – perhaps most people – then I could not sincerely trust Him and love Him.”  And for Christians, I think EM makes it more difficult to fully love God, to trust Him and live by faith.   {but UR has the least fear-incentive to persevere, so would believing UR make it easier to “abandon the faith” when living-by-faith gets tough?  maybe, at least if a person's main motive for persevering is fear-of-God rather than love-for-God.}

Motives for Living by Faith, with Love

Love-Based Motives:  A person can more effectively become a devoted follower of Christ, a dedicated disciple who is living obediently by faith, if their main motives are intrinsic and loving, if with sincere repentance (wanting to change so they will become a better person) their heart's desire is to improve their Life-process now by more fully loving-and-serving God so they can more effectively love-and-serve people.

Fear-Based Motives:  By contrast, a threat of Eternal Misery is extrinsic and fearing, because a person wants to avoid horrifying Afterlife-results later.  This motive is totally focused on self, so it will be a much less effective motivator for “loving their neighbor as they love themself.”

The ratio of LoveMotive/FearMotive is highest with UR, lowest with EM.

Should we fear God?  Throughout the Bible, a spiritually healthy fear of God is different than the common meaning of fear, as we see in The Amplified Bible's clarifications-of-meaning [inside brackets] in Proverbs 9:10a {"The [reverent] fear of the Lord [that is, worshiping Him and regarding Him as truly awesome]* is the beginning and the preeminent part of wisdom [its starting point and its essence]."} and in 1 John 4:18 {"There is no fear in love [dread does not exist].  But perfect (complete, full-grown) love drives out fear, because fear involves [the expectation of divine] punishment, so the one who is afraid [of God’s judgment] is not perfected in love [has not grown into a sufficient understanding of God’s love]" or, in The Living Bible, "We need have no fear of someone who loves us perfectly;  his perfect love for us eliminates all dread of what he might do to us.  If we are afraid, it is for fear of what he might do to us and shows that we are not fully convinced that he really loves us."     {* In the minds of most people, a God who is "truly awesome" must be powerful AND good, but causing Eternal Misery doesn't seem good. }

Bribes and Threats:  We can think about the similarities between conversion-motivations that are...

    due to an extrinsic bribe, as when an impoverished “rice Christian” tells a missionary that they have decided to follow Christ, even though a major motivation is their greedy desire to gain material rewards;
    due to an extrinsic threat, as when a person tells themself that they have decided to follow Christ mainly due to sincere repentance (i.e. wanting to change their sinful thoughts-and-actions so they can more fully love God & people), even though a major motivation is their desire to avoid Eternal Misery.

Because these people have been motivated by a bribe (so they will get food) or threat (so they won't get hell), we can wonder if their faith is a solid foundation for authentic discipleship, for living by faith, for building a Christ-Centered Life in The Kingdom of God.

consider this analogy:  Imagine that a man proposes by saying “we will have a wonderful life together if you marry me, but if you don't I will put you in my dungeon and will torture you for the rest of your life.”  She says yes, but... is she marrying him because of love (for him and the wonderful life they will have together) or due to fear, or a mixture of love-and-fear?  How will this kind of proposal affect her?  Will she ever love him in the same ways that she would have IF instead he had just said “we will have a wonderful life together if you marry me”?

love and praise:  If we believe pUR, we would be able to love God more fully (with our whole hearts & minds) and enthusiastically praise Him because of what He will do for people in UR-Hell.     /     By contrast, it seems more difficult to imagine praising God for what He will do to people in FA-Hell or EM-Hell.

The Purpose of Salvation:  What are the main benefits of salvation by God?  What is a person “saved from” and “saved to”?  [[ iou - soon, maybe in late-March 2021 here i'll describe similarities & differences in views-of-salvation {re: what are we saved from, and saved to} with UR, FA, EM, and this subsection will be greatly improved}]]   In addition to being saved from the penalty of death, are you saved from eternal misery in hell (and thus saved from God who would make you eternally miserable) or are you saved from the slavery of sin (saved by God who gives the wisdom-strength-love we need to reduce our sinful thinking & actions) so you are saved to being able to live free from slavery to sin?  Of course, defenders of EM say “both”, but which motive is more powerful for a person who justifiably feels terrorized by a threat of everlasting misery in hell?  Is this person placing a higher value on escaping hell or overcoming sin?  Do they want to be saved from the damage they are doing (to self & others) by their own sinning in Life, or just be saved from the anger of God in Afterlife?  Do they view salvation as their fire insurance, or as the beginning of their life of discipleship?     {does God save us from God?}

Your Life is Your Gift:  When God asks “what did you do with the life I gave you?”, the way you lived will be your gift to God.  Which kind of motive, love-based or fear-based, is more likely to motivate a life that will bring glory to God, and will please Him?     {abilities and opportunities in hell-education and hell-justice}

an option:  You can first read a short overview of this section in theTable of Contents.

Practical Effects for Living

Our decisions-and-actions are affected by what we believe, so we should ask:

• generally  –  What are the practical effects on living, for Christians and non-Christians, of thinking that UR (or FA) is true, or even might be true?  If people don't believe in EM-Hell, will they just say “we can do whatever we want, and we will” because their sinful desires are not restrained by a fear of Eternal Misery?   Is EM useful, or even necessary, for controlling people in a society? (and if yes, is this a sufficient reason to promote it?)     { But there are better reasons for people, both believers & non-believers, to be loving and kind.  Also, the strength of a deterrent depends on its unpleasantness AND our confidence that it will happen, so for many people a plausible UR-Hell (or FA-Hell) could be a stronger deterrent than an implausible EM-Hell.  For example, if you're a Christian you probably have no fears about Allah forcing you into an Islam-Hell that you think doesn't exist;  because the threat of Islamic-Hell seems implausible, it doesn't motivate you by fear, it doesn't make you want to convert to Islam.}   {more}   {more: This section ends with questions about some practical effects of a grace-based gospel message.}

• specifically  –  Defenders of EM claim that non-Christians will not seriously consider The Gospel without the fear-based threat of EM-Hell.*  Instead they will just think (with UR) “even if I now say NO, later I can say YES and then I'll be fine” or (with FA) “death wouldn't be so bad.”     { But people can say NO either because they DON'T believe in Eternal Misery, or because they DO.  And a “belief” caused by fear is not a solid foundation for loving God, and living by faith.  There are better reasons to say YES, so Christians should strongly emphasize (in their conversations with non-Christians) the wisdom of making a commitment-decision now;  we should explain why if they “say yes to God” NOW,  their Life will be much better now, and later their Afterlife will be much better, so at all times (during Life & Afterlife) their living will be much better.    /   * Defenders of EM usually claim that effective evangelism requires the “infinitely big stick” of Eternal Misery, because this terrifying threat is necessary for effective “carrots and sticks” motivation.

• specifically  –  Will a Christian do evangelism if they think non-Christians “will be fine” (with UR) or (with FA) “will just die”?     { But compared with the fear-threat of EM, there are better reasons to tell people about the love of God.  In fact, it would be easier for me to share the Good News if I didn't have to explain why The Good News is not Extremely Bad News for most people. }     /     Also, we can explain why UR-Hell or FA-Hell should be avoided.  We have reasons to expect that:  UR-Hell would be an extremely unpleasant experience, even though a person "will be fine" eventually;  or in FA-Hell a person would think “oops, if I had made different decisions in Life, now in Afterlife I would be receiving Eternal Life with Joy, instead of Death,” with psychological anticipation of non-existence that would be extremely unpleasant and frightening.    /    a bottom-line summary:  every Christian should strongly emphasize that — whether the final result of Hell will be EM or FA or UR — when anyone “says yes to God” NOW, at all times (during Life & Afterlife) their living will be much better.

[[ iou - ideas to be developed later:  EM positive for morality (but fear-based motives, @ rice) -- EM negative for living by faith with changed heart/mind, true Chtn life ]]

There are no simple answers about how a person WILL respond to claims for UR (or FA or EM) because each person will be affected differently, and the complex effects — the influences on thinking, deciding, and doing in all areas of life — will vary from one person to another.*  Believing any view (UR, FA, EM) will affect our thoughts-and-actions, producing some good effects and some bad effects, for us and for others.  For example, believing EM will influence some people to say YES due to fear-threats, but will influence others to say NO because they are thinking-and-feeling that IF God will cause EM this would be unfair (it would not be justice) and they wouldn't like His character so they could not love God and trust Him.     {also:  A belief in Eternal Misery can lead to bad psychological effects in many ways, including anxiety-producing thoughts about “what it would be like” if you – or the neighbors (your family, friends, colleagues, strangers) that you should be loving, that God commands you to love – were living eternally in hell. }     {* These "complex effects" that "vary" are only one factor among many complex factors to consider when Christians are deciding a strategy for “what should we tell people about hell?” and every strategy will have positive & negative effects that vary from one listener to another, and vary from one situation to another.  You can see a verbal-visual description of this complexity in a table showing different combinations of strategy-and-reality.}

And after a person says YES, I think belief-in-EM makes it more difficult to fully love God, to trust Him and live by faith.

But there is a simple conclusion about how a rational person SHOULD respond:

    When describing Bible-based Ultimate Restoration, all Christians (whether or not we think UR is likely to be true) can agree about the way people should respond to UR, so all of us should emphasize that even if UR is true, a person's overall experience (in Life and in Afterlife) will be much better if they “say YES to God” now, ASAP.
    Why?   Think about two possibilities for the afterlife-reality of an unsaved person:  either UR will happen, or it won't happen.*
        • If UR will happen, saying YES will let a person be saved from the power of sin and enjoy life-with-God NOW.  And LATER they will avoid the unbeliever's pain in UR-hell that — although it won't be eternal, and will eventually lead to salvation — will be very unpleasant, and should be avoided.     {actually, Jesus warned everyone about the unpleasant consequences of sin - now in Life, and later in Afterlife}
        • But maybe UR won't happen.  Therefore, another reason to say YES now is to avoid an unpleasant surprise LATER if the afterlife-reality will be Eternal Death (with FA) or Eternal Misery (with EM).     {if there will be an unpleasant surprise later, I think it's far more likely to be FA than EM}

* Or we can think about the analogous possibilities for FA;  either FA will happen, or FA won't happen.   For each possibility, a rational person should “say YES” now, ASAP, because either way they certainly will "enjoy life-with-God" now, and later will avoid Hell (whether the result-of-Hell will be UR, FA, or EM).  And if FA will happen, a YES avoids the extreme disappointment (in Afterlife) of knowing that (in Life) they missed their opportunity for Eternal Joy, and they'll get Eternal Death.  A YES-in-Life also avoids the possibility (which I think is unlikely but not impossible) of an extremely unpleasant surprise — and extremely unpleasant experience — with Eternal Misery.

Practical Concerns about a Gospel of Grace

After explaining God's gospel of grace, Paul anticipates (in Romans 6:1) a sinful response by sinful humans who will tend to think, after they accept God's offer of grace, "Should we continue to live in sin so that God's grace will increase?"  Paul answers "certainly not!" because "we know that our old being has been put to death with Christ on his cross, in order that the power of the sinful self might be destroyed, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin."

A born-again person is no longer a "slave of sin."  But the process of gaining total freedom doesn't happen instantly or automatically.  If you want to live in ways that are more free from the slavery of sin, you must WANT to live less sinfully.  In another page I describe the process, and a limiting factor:

    When you are wanting to live a Christ-Directed Life — when "Christ is in the life and on the throne;  self is yielding to Christ;  interests are directed by Christ, resulting in harmony with God's plan" — you are making Christ your King, so "you are participating in The Kingdom of God as an individual."  You gradually are gaining freedom from sin when you "are not conforming yourselves to the standards of this world, but are letting God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind."  But "becoming the person God wants you to be, so you can think-and-do in the ways wanted by God, requires an attitude of wanting to be personally transformed in the ways wanted by God."  Unfortunately, "I've self-observed that in a supplying of love and wisdom from God to me, too often the limiting factor is my lack of cooperation... when I'm not totally willing to let God 'transform' me."   {quotations are from The Four Spiritual Laws, and me, Paul, and me}

Even more unfortunately, I've observed that "too often" other Christians (not just me) also are not totally willing to let God transform them.  Why?  One reason is because the Gospel has a biblical foundation of Forgiving Grace, so it's easy to think “God will forgive me for everything I've done in the past, and for what I'm doing now, so instead of doing what God wants — e.g. by consistently loving my neighbor in the way I love myself in all of my thoughts, words, and actions — instead I will do what I want, even if it's sinful and it isn't what God wants, because... I'm saved, so God will forgive me.”

In this way and others, a gospel-of-grace can be abused by believers, but God knows this, and despite this he gives His grace to us.  Because the Bible teaches salvation by grace, we should continue preaching grace, despite its potential for abuse.

a humble disclaimer:  What I say in this section is oversimplified.  The relationships between faith & works are complex, and are debated by Christians;  biblically based arguments can support a wide range of views, so doctrines of salvation-and-sanctification differ in the major branches of Christianity (Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant) and within each branch, and among individual Christians.  There is general agreement about the most important doctrines, but disagreement about some important details.  Even among devout Bible-believing Protestants, we see intensely vigorous debates  —  with “easy believism (minimal works required)” versus “lordship salvation (more works expected)” and “once saved, always saved” versus “perseverance required” plus other perspectives on these questions & others;   e.g., monergistic Calvinism (with salvation depending only on the sovereign decisions-and-actions of God) versus synergistic Arminianism (with salvation viewed as a cooperative combining of God's actions & human actions);   and differing views when we ask “what will happen in Hell, and what will be the ultimate results?”;   plus other tough questions that are important, yet are controversial  —  and during these debates among fellow Christians, sometimes we see actions that are not lovingly respectful.  This problem is discussed (but is not solved, of course) inour attitudes toward other Christians and God – Principles for Discussing Doctrines Respectfully, with Christian Love.

Effects of Afterlife-Doctrines

for Decreasing Sinful Actions

pragmatic questions:  If evangelical Christians want to reduce motivations-for-sinning and actions-of-sinning — by believers & nonbelievers — what are the best doctrines about salvation and afterlife?   How pragmatically effective is the traditional doctrine of Eternal Misery?  Is maintaining this doctrine, by rejecting the alternatives, our best pragmatic strategy?

the bottom line:  I strongly think – as explained in Tips for Studying – that Bible-believing Christians should carefully study the Bible so we can determine what it teaches, and then we should believe (and teach) what the Bible teaches. 

pragmatic arguments:  Bible-believing defenders of Eternal Misery often use non-biblical pragmatic arguments against Final Annihilation and (especially) Ultimate Restoration.  They ask “what are the pragmatic effects of your doctrine about afterlife?  how will it affect the thinking-and-actions of people?” and they claim that a non-EM view will cause a decrease in converting and increase of sinning.   But a Bible-believing defender of FA or UR also can use pragmatic arguments, because "believing any view (UR, FA, EM) will affect our thoughts-and-actions, producing some good effects and some bad effects, for us and for others; ... believing EM will influence some people to say YES due to fear-threats, but will influence others to say NO because they are thinking-and-feeling that if God will cause EM... they could not love God and trust Him."

some observations:  The common evangelical doctrines (of salvation-by-grace and afterlife-with-EM)* don't seem to be maximally effective as pragmatic strategies to reduce sinful actions, either for believers — as explained above in Practical Concerns about a Gospel of Grace where I conclude that "we should continue preaching grace, despite its potential for abuse" that can reduce its pragmatic effectiveness if we define our practical goal as reducing sinful behaviors — or for non-believers, as explained below.     {* I think we should keep salvation-by-grace, but reject afterlife-with-EM.}

If we want to make our doctrines-about-afterlife maximally effective for the pragmatic purpose of reducing sinful behaviors in society,

• Should we try to motivate people by producing maximum fear-of-Hell or maximum love-for-God?

• Should we try to produce maximum fear by preaching Eternal Misery, instead of Final Annihilation or Ultimate Restoration?

• Should we try to produce maximum fear by constantly preaching (both inside church & outside) the infinite horrors of Eternal Misery?  If a Christian preaches about Hell less often, are they contributing to an increase of sinful thinking and actions?

• Should we try to produce maximum fear by describing Hell in ways that are maximally horrible so the fearing-of-Hell will be maximally terrifying and thus maximally effective?  In modern times there has been an increasing tendency to “air condition” hell, to describe it in ways that are less frightening.  For example, now the pain of Hell is often described as mainly a separation from God, but without flames (in The Lake of Fire) that burn flesh.  The modern focus is on psychological horrors, but without the physical horrors — as in having your entire body burned in the worst way you have experienced (either personally or in reports from others) over & over for eternity, with the nerves in your fire-damaged flesh being miraculously regenerated so you can feel the intense pain over & over — that were typical in classical descriptions of Hell.  When a Christian describes a less terrifying kind of Hell, are they contributing to an increase of sinful thinking and actions?

• Should we try to increase conversions by telling an unsaved person that when God decides their eternal fate, He won't care about their behavior?  Should we say “you can't be saved by being good” and “if you remain unsaved when you die, you will get the same final bad result (Eternal Misery or Eternal Death) whether your sins are a little or a lot, are minor or major, whether your actions have been kindly altruistic or criminally sadistic”?  This information might motivate them to make a fear-based decision to be saved.  But if we tell them that “when God decides your eternal fate, He won't care how much you have sinned,” this won't motivate them to live less sinfully (with a better pragmatic result for society) while they remain unsaved.   Or should we say, with UR, that “you can't be saved by being good” but “if you remain unsaved when you die, your experience in UR-Hell (yes, even with UR you will go to Hell) will be much better if you live a better life, because

• Or... if we want to motivate more people to more fully love God (with their hearts & minds) so they will want to serve the God they love, they will want to be less sinful in their thinking & actions, should we preach Ultimate Restoration – instead of Final Annihilation or Eternal Misery – so more people can more enthusiastically praise God (with their hearts & minds) for the beneficial transformations He will produce in UR-Hell?

• Should we tell everyone, both inside church & outside, that God will provide transformative afterlife-experiences for everyone (for the saved and unsaved) for the purpose of sanctifying people so they will be suitable for Afterlife in Heaven?

• Should we tell everyone that the intensity of these "transformative afterlife-experiences for everyone (for the saved and unsaved)" will depend on a person's actions during Life?  It's common in evangelical Protestantism to de-emphasize the importance of “works” for salvation, with “faith alone, by grace alone” being sufficient for salvation, without a need for good works;  although good works should be a result of living by faith after salvation, they are not “counted by God” when He makes a yes-or-no decision about salvation.*  Although I agree that salvation is graciously given by God based on faith, I also think Protestants should place more emphasis on “faith leading to works” when we're living by faith, and on the importance of our works-during-Life affecting our experiences-during-Afterlife.     /     * yes, what I've said here is oversimplified, but I think it's basically accurate;  also, when we compare doctrines of salvation we find that the doctrines of Orthodox and Catholic place more emphasis (compared with Protestant) on the value of works, although all three place their strongest emphasis on faith, not works.     /     Here are some extra comments about two rival sub-theologies within Protestantism:   when a person hears the claims of a Calvinist, they could think "why should I bother being good?" because "God already has decided my eternal fate and it doesn't depend on anything I do," even though this valid logic is somehow (in ways I cannot understand) disputed by Calvinists;   even though an Arminian claims that salvation doesn't depend on merit, their requirement — a person must decide to accept (not reject) God's gracious offer of salvation — does depend on having a good heart and wise mind, so salvation does depend on merit.

the bottom line:  As I emphasized earlier, "Bible-believing Christians should carefully study the Bible so we can determine what it teaches, and then we should believe (and teach) what the Bible teaches" instead of using pragmatic criteria.

My Feelings about My Views

Because we cannot be certain about what will happen in Afterlife, I have mixed feelings about two tough challenges for UR:

    First, people do have rational reasons for why they SHOULD respond by “saying yes to God now, ASAP during Life” even if (with UR) they will be saved eventually in Afterlife.  But when we're thinking about how people WILL respond if we tell them “theTotally Good News of Ultimate Restoration might happen (or will happen),” there are no simple answers, because each person will be affected differently, and the complex effects — the influences on thinking, deciding, and doing in all areas of Life — will vary from one person to another.
    Second, Christians have a responsibility to avoid giving false hope (that would occur if we declare “UR will happen” but UR won't happen) or causing false fear (if we declare “UR won't happen” but UR will happen).   /   These two responsibilities are conflicting.  And due to biblical ambiguity about what will & won't happen in Afterlife, it's impossible to be certain we're not "giving false hope" or "causing false fear."  What should we do?  Maybe... and this is what I'm now doing, we should respond humbly (by not claiming the certainty of “answers”) by explaining what does and doesn't seem clear in the Bible, and why.  For me, this means explaining why I'm confident that Eternal Misery won't happen, but I'm not confident in claiming that either Final Annihilation or Ultimate Restoration will happen, instead I think either of these might happen.

But these are also tough challenges for the non-UR views, for FA and EM, when we ask “what are the practical effects for living?”

I also have mixed feelings about fellow Christians that include negative feelings of disappointment and sadness.

an option:  You can first read a short overview of this section in theTable of Contents.

Our Evangelistic Responsibilities

Christians should try to...

accurately describe what the Bible teaches by carefully studying the Bible as a whole, asking “what is the Biblical evidence for and against each view?” so we can estimate the probability that each view is true.

share The Good News because it's good, and because Jesus commanded His followers to "go and make disciples of [people in] all nations."