Chapter 28
Does Saving All Make Heaven Unsafe?
Michael McClymond named his whole two-volume history of universalism The Devil's Redemption. That title is not just a label. It is an argument. It is the charge that universalism, followed to its logical end, must save the devil himself. And if that is where the logic goes, then the whole project is absurd.1
It is only fair to face this objection under its own name. I want to handle it carefully, because the honest answer has two parts, and one of them is "I do not know."
The charge runs like this. If God's love is so great that He will bring every rebel home, there is no principled stopping point at the human race. The same arguments that save a human sinner should save a fallen angel. The same logic that rescues the worst human monster should rescue Satan. And since that conclusion strikes most Christians as absurd (even blasphemous), the premise that generates it must be false. Universalism falls by its own weight.2
James De Young sharpens the worry from a different angle. If a will once fixed in evil (the devil's) can still be turned to good, then a will once fixed in good (the redeemed) can still fall back into evil. Universalism, on this view, makes heaven itself unsafe. The door that swings open for the damned also swings open for the saved, and we get an endless cycle of fall, repentance, and fall again.3
McClymond's Title Thesis
McClymond's massive work traces a recurring pattern across the centuries: universalism, when pressed to its logical conclusion, tends toward the claim that even Satan must be saved. He writes that in the ancient Origenist debates, the salvation of the devil was already the point that scandalized the orthodox. Epiphanius challenged Origen for teaching "that the devil will once more be what he at one time was, that he will return to his former dignity." The synod convened under Theophilus of Alexandria accused Origen of teaching "that the devil will be saved and will finally submit to God." McClymond sees this pattern repeated in thinker after thinker, from Origen through the Russian sophiologists to the present day. The logic of universal restoration, in his account, does not stop at the human race.4
Michael J. McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, Vol. 1
That is a real argument, and it deserves a real answer. Let me give one. But let me also be honest about the places where the answer becomes a confession of ignorance rather than a proof.
This is not a fringe worry. It is load-bearing. If McClymond is right that there is no principled stopping point, then the universalist faces a stark choice: either accept the salvation of the devil, or give up on universalism entirely. Most Christians find the first option repugnant. So the second follows. The reductio (a proof by showing the conclusion is absurd, from the Latin reductio ad absurdum, "reduction to the absurd") has real teeth.5
De Young's companion worry hits even harder in a pastoral sense. If the restored can fall again, then heaven is not safe. It is not the final rest Scripture promises. It is just a temporary pause before the next round of chaos. De Young lays out the consequences plainly:
De Young's "Heaven Made Unsafe"
De Young argues that if the fallen angels can repent and enter heaven, nothing prevents them from rebelling again. He writes: "Heaven is not a place or state of final peace, rest, and security. The possibility of fallen-then-repentant angels rebelling again makes heaven a scary, insecure place. Strife and war may break out again." He presses the point further: if there can be a second rebellion, there can be a third, a fourth, and an unlimited number. This cycle, he contends, strips heaven of all meaning. A second rebellion also implies the need for a second Redeemer who must die again. But the book of Hebrews insists that Jesus died "once for all for all time." Universalism, in De Young's view, "cannot affirm" that the restored are confirmed in their choice, because it has already denied that the fallen are confirmed in theirs.6
James B. De Young, Exposing Universalism, ch. 5
I feel the force of both charges. I have argued across this book that God's love is relentless, His knowledge is perfect, and His grace never runs out (Chapter 4, Chapter 14, Chapter 15). The critic asks: If that is true, why would those arguments stop at the human race? And if the restored can fall again, what have we really gained?
These are fair questions. But I believe they both rest on a hidden premise, and when the premise is examined, the objection loses most of its force. Let me show you.
Let me be precise about the two objections I am answering, because they are distinct.
McClymond's charge is a reductio. It has the form: (1) If universalism is true, then all rational creatures, including Satan, must be saved. (2) The salvation of Satan is absurd. (3) Therefore universalism is false. The first premise does the work. McClymond supports it by showing that many universalists, from Origen to Bulgakov, have in fact embraced the salvation of the devil. The pattern, he argues, is not accidental. It follows from the inner logic of the position.7
De Young's charge is a stability objection. It has the form: (1) Universalism claims that beings fixed in evil can freely turn to good. (2) If beings can shift from one fixed state to another, then no state is truly fixed. (3) Therefore the redeemed can fall again, and heaven is unstable.8
Both objections target the scope and the stability of the hope. I will answer them in turn.
I want to begin with a distinction this book has carried since Chapter 1. The hope I defend is for all humans. Every human person, I believe, will in the end freely come to saving faith in Jesus Christ and be reconciled to God. That is my confident thesis. I have built the case for it across twenty-seven chapters, and I will weigh the whole of it in Chapter 29.
But the fate of the non-human fallen powers is a different question. It is genuinely open. I do not claim to have settled it, and I will not pretend otherwise.9
Why the difference? Because the arguments in this book were built for human persons. They depend on features of human life: human embodiment, human finitude, human susceptibility to deception and bondage, human growth through time and experience, and the human need for healing before a free response to God becomes possible. Middle knowledge (God's knowledge of what each person would freely do in any situation; Chapter 14) applies to human choices made under human conditions. Optimal grace (the best possible appeal fitted to each heart; Chapter 15) presupposes a person who can learn, change, and grow. The rationality-of-rejection argument (Chapter 17) asked whether a human being, fully healed and fully seeing God, could still refuse Him forever.10
None of these arguments automatically transfers to angelic beings. Angels, as traditionally understood, are not embodied in the way humans are. They do not grow through time in the same way. Their knowledge may be immediate and full, not acquired through experience. If that is so, then the devil's fall was not a fall from ignorance or deception but a fall in full light. And that may make it categorically different from any human sin.11
The Human Scope of This Book's Hope
This book defends the restoration of all human persons to God through free faith in Christ. Its arguments rest on human freedom, human finitude, human capacity for healing, and God's perfect knowledge of human hearts. Whether those arguments extend to non-human fallen powers is a separate question. The book's confident thesis does not depend on answering it.
Eric Reitan and John Kronen, in their comparative philosophical case for universalism, take a similar position. They call it "soteriological agnosticism" (the view that we simply do not know the fate of certain classes of beings, from the Greek sōtērion, "salvation," and agnōstos, "unknown"). They argue that universalism is the most reasonable position for the classical theist with respect to human beings, while remaining genuinely open about non-human rational creatures whose nature and conditions of freedom may differ from ours.12
I find that honest. And the reason for that honesty matters. This book's case for universal salvation rests on a specific cluster of claims: that God knows every human heart perfectly, that He can present the best possible appeal to each person, that healing removes the ignorance and bondage that block a free response, and that eternity gives the offer all the time it needs. These claims are about human persons in human conditions. They may well apply more broadly. But "may well" is not "must," and the difference matters.
I would rather say "I do not know" about the devil's fate than force a confident answer where the evidence does not support one. The restraint here is not evasion. It is intellectual honesty. And it means McClymond's first premise (that universalism logically must save Satan) is not established. A universalist may hold the human hope with conviction while leaving the demonic question to God.
But the critic will press: "There is no principled line. If love saves one rebel, it must save every rebel. To draw a line at the human race is ad hoc. It is special pleading."13
This is the strongest version of the charge, and I want to meet it head-on. Here is my answer: there may be a principled line, and it runs through the nature of the fall itself.
Consider the difference between a child who picks up a loaded gun, not knowing what it does, and pulls the trigger, and an expert marksman who fires at a target he sees clearly. Both do the same physical act. But the conditions are completely different. The child acted from ignorance. The marksman acted from knowledge.14
If the traditional understanding of the angelic fall is even approximately right, the devil's rebellion was not a fall from ignorance. The angels are traditionally understood to have possessed immediate and full knowledge of God. Their choice was not made under deception. It was not made in bondage to a sinful nature they inherited. It was not made in the fog of finite, embodied life. It was a choice in full light.15
Human sin, by contrast, always involves some mixture of ignorance, deception, weakness, and inherited damage. That is not to excuse human sin. It is to say that the conditions of human rebellion differ from the conditions of angelic rebellion in ways that may be morally and metaphysically significant.
If they differ, then the arguments I have built for human restoration do not automatically extend to angelic restoration. The case for human salvation rests on the claim that God can heal what is broken, remove what deceives, and present Himself clearly to a will that has never yet seen Him face to face. But if the devil's will rejected God while already seeing Him face to face, the case changes. Not because God's love is weaker there, but because the conditions of the refusal are fundamentally different.16
So the line is not ad hoc. It follows from the differences in the conditions of the fall. A universalist can draw it without embarrassment.
A Principled Distinction
The difference between human and angelic falls may be the difference between a choice made under ignorance, deception, and inherited bondage, and a choice made with immediate, full knowledge. Arguments that work for healing the first kind of fall do not automatically apply to the second. The line between the two is drawn by the nature of the agents, not by arbitrary convenience.
Let me be candid, though. This distinction does not prove that the devil cannot be saved. It only shows that the argument for human salvation does not require it. A universalist who wanted to hope for the restoration of all rational creatures, including the fallen angels, could do so without contradicting anything I have argued. I simply decline to assert it, because I do not think we have enough information to speak with confidence about the nature of angelic freedom and the conditions of the angelic fall.17
Gregory of Nyssa, one of the greatest of the early universalist fathers, extended the hope to all rational creatures, including the devil. Origen did the same, though with more hesitation than is often noticed. Sergei Bulgakov, the Russian sophiologist, argued that the devil's very existence as a creature of God is "an ontological proof of the inevitability of his future salvation."18 I respect these voices. But I do not share their confidence on this point. I hold the human hope and leave the rest to God.
Now to De Young's second charge. Even if we set the devil aside, what about heaven? If a will once fixed in evil can be turned, why can't a will once fixed in good be turned back?
This is a serious question. But I believe the answer lies in a concept we have already met: the asymmetry between the fall and the restoration.19
Think about it this way. The first fall (whether human or angelic) came from a state of incomplete knowledge and immature love. Adam and Eve, in the traditional picture, had not yet been tested and confirmed. They were innocent, but innocent is not the same as mature. They knew God, but they had not yet known God through the full revelation of the cross, the resurrection, and the unveiled vision of His glory. Their knowledge of evil was purely theoretical. And that immaturity left room for the serpent's deception to take hold.20
The final restoration is different. In Chapter 17, I argued that a person fully healed and fully seeing God would have no remaining fuel for refusal. The ignorance is gone. The deception is gone. The bondage to sin is gone. What remains is a will that finally sees God as He is and freely rests in Him. Not because freedom has been taken away, but because freedom, at last fully exercised, finds nothing in rebellion worth wanting.21
This asymmetry is the key. The fall came from immaturity and deception. The restoration comes from full healing and full sight. The two states are not symmetrical. And that is why the restored do not cycle back into rebellion.
The Asymmetry of Fall and Restoration
The first fall came from incomplete knowledge. The final restoration comes from the full, unveiled vision of God. A healed will, seeing clearly, has no reason to choose rebellion. Heaven is stable, not because freedom is removed, but because the conditions that made the fall possible (ignorance, deception, immaturity) no longer exist.
Thomas Aquinas made a similar point about the confirmed saints. He argued that happiness, by its nature, includes not only the possession of the good but also the confidence that one will continue to possess it. The blessed in heaven, on Aquinas's view, are "confirmed in good" precisely because they see God directly. The beatific vision (the face-to-face encounter with God; Latin visio beatifica) removes every motive for turning away.22
I want to make a stronger point, though. It is not just that the motive for rebellion is gone. It is that the door the redeemed shut is the door into joy, not out of it. A person who has come through the fire of judgment, been healed of every deception, and now sees the face of the God who loved them through it all, does not want to leave. Could they, in the bare logical sense? Yes. Libertarian freedom means the power to choose otherwise remains. But would they? Not if they are sane, not if they are healed, and not if they finally see clearly. The asymmetry holds.23
So De Young's worry is answered. He is right that if falling and rising were perfectly symmetrical, heaven would be unstable. But they are not symmetrical. The first fall was possible because knowledge was incomplete. The final rest is stable because knowledge is complete. Freedom is not taken away. It is finally exercised in full light, and in full light no one wants the dark.24
Think of it this way. A person who has never tasted water might be persuaded that poison is a fine drink. But a person who has tasted pure water, and who knows exactly what the poison will do, will never choose the poison over the water. Not because she cannot pick up the poisoned cup. She can. But because she sees clearly, and seeing clearly, she does not want to. That is the condition of the redeemed. They have tasted the goodness of God. They know exactly what rebellion costs. And they freely, joyfully, permanently choose the water of life.
Eric Reitan's recent work on the problem of heavenly grief presses a related insight from the other direction. If some are lost forever, the blessed in heaven who love them would grieve for them eternally. That grief, Reitan argues, would permanently mar the perfect blessedness that heaven promises, because the morally perfected blessed cannot simply stop caring about those they love. The solution that best preserves heavenly joy, on Reitan's analysis, is universalism itself: if all are finally saved, no grief permanently mars the joy of heaven. Heaven is stable and complete precisely because no one is left behind.25
Let me now state plainly what I am saying and what I am not saying.
I am saying that every human person will, in the end, freely and finally come home to God through saving faith in Jesus Christ. I am saying that they will stay home, because the healed will, fully seeing God, freely rests in Him. I am saying that heaven is safe, stable, and permanent, not because freedom is destroyed but because freedom, fully informed and fully healed, finds nothing in rebellion worth choosing.
I am not saying that the devil will be saved. I do not know. The arguments I have built for human restoration depend on features of human life that may not extend to angelic beings. If someone else wants to extend the hope further, the tradition has room for that. Origen hoped for it. Gregory of Nyssa taught it. But I will not assert what I cannot defend.
I am not saying that I have proven the devil's fate one way or the other. I am saying that the question of the devil's fate is not the same question as the fate of the human race, and confusing the two is the hidden premise in McClymond's reductio.26
Here is another way to see the point. De Young argues that the fallen angels "cannot ever be restored" because "the Bible offers no atonement, no forgiveness, no hope, no reconciliation for the fallen angels and for Satan." He notes that Christ "became human to save people; he did not become angelic to save angels" (Hebrews 2:16). He concludes: "There is no Savior, no redeemer, no reconciler for them."26b Now, I do not accept De Young's certainty on this point. Colossians 1:20 speaks of reconciling "all things." But his observation about Hebrews 2:16 does strengthen the scope distinction I am drawing. If the incarnation was specifically human, then the arguments built on it are specifically human too. And a universalist can hold the human hope with full confidence while confessing ignorance about the rest.
The restraint here is not a weakness in the argument. It is a feature of it. I would rather hold one clear thesis with confidence (that all humans will be saved) than overreach into territory where the evidence does not take me. And I would rather leave the devil's fate to God than pretend I know what God has not told me.
Paul wrote to the Colossians that through Christ God was pleased "to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:20).27 That "all things" is sweeping. It may extend further than I have argued. But the book of Hebrews also notes that Christ took on human nature, not angelic nature, in order to save: "It is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants" (Hebrews 2:16).28 The scope of Christ's redemptive work for non-human beings is a question the New Testament raises but does not settle. I follow the text in leaving it open.
Where do the major figures land on this question?
McClymond, as we have seen, treats the devil's redemption as the natural endpoint of all universalism. His two-volume work traces the idea from Origen through Jakob Böhme, through the Russian thinkers (Bulgakov especially), and into the modern period. He sees a recurring pattern: any theology that teaches the restoration of all rational creatures tends, sooner or later, to extend the hope to the demons. And he thinks this tendency reveals something deep about universalism's inner logic: it is a theology of nature, not of grace, and nature does not discriminate between human and demonic.29
I agree with McClymond that many universalisms have extended the hope to the demons. That is a historical fact. I agree that some of them did so on premises that traded away grace for nature. That is also true. Where I part company is on the inference. The fact that some universalists have reached a conclusion does not mean the conclusion follows from every form of universalism. The biblical, creedal hope I defend in this book rests on grace, not nature. It keeps the cross at the center. And it is built for human persons, not for every conceivable rational creature.30
De Young argues that the angels are already confirmed in their choice. Evangelicals, he notes, traditionally believe that "the fallen angels cannot ever change their destiny of destruction." They made their choice, and it was final. He views this as a comfort: "All humanity is relieved by this doctrine." Universalism, in his reading, denies this comfort by reopening a question that should be closed.31
I respect De Young's concern, but the comfort he identifies is exactly what I have argued heaven provides on universalist grounds. The redeemed are confirmed in their joy, not by the removal of freedom, but by the completion of healing and the fullness of sight. The question is not whether confirmation happens. It is what confirms. And I have argued that what confirms is the beatific vision, the full and unveiled encounter with God (Chapter 17).
It is worth noting that non-universalist philosophers agree on this very point. Jerry Walls (who does not hold universal salvation) argues that the redeemed find sin impossible not because their freedom has been removed but because their character has been formed through clear knowledge and free response to God's grace. Walls writes that those who have responded to God in this way "can be said to have perfected their moral freedom." They see with clarity that God is the source of happiness. Their stability comes from completed character, not from the removal of choice. James Beilby (who likewise does not hold universal salvation) adds a further point: if the reason the redeemed cannot fall is their fully informed character, then the reason the angels could fall must be something different about the conditions of their freedom. These non-universalist voices confirm the two pillars of my reply: the asymmetry of fall and restoration, and the principled difference between human and angelic conditions of choice.31b
Robin Parry, writing as Gregory MacDonald in The Evangelical Universalist, takes a position close to mine. He defends the restoration of all humans through Christ while treating the demonic question as genuinely secondary. Parry insists that the universalist's core claim is about human beings and about the work of Christ on the cross for them. The question of the fallen angels is a distinct theological puzzle. It is interesting, but it is not the hill the universalist must die on.32
Thomas Talbott, whose inconsistent triad has been the backbone of the affirmative case (Chapter 5), focuses his arguments on human persons and human freedom. His account of what makes eternal rejection irrational is built around human psychology: the way ignorance and controlling affective states distort our choices, and the way the removal of these distortions would leave no rational ground for refusing God. Whether the same analysis applies to beings of a fundamentally different nature is a question Talbott does not need to answer in order to make his case for human salvation.33
Andrew Hronich, in Once Loved Always Loved, draws a similar conclusion by a different route. He argues that grace does not diminish freedom but enhances it. To illustrate the point, he asks what we would think of a man who, famished after three days without water, came upon a fresh stream and refused to drink. We would not call him free. We would suspect deception or delusion. True freedom, Hronich contends, is "not simply the ability to choose; it is when the creature has chosen well, when it is unhindered in its pursuit of the divine." Grace removes the deceptions that block a clear choice. That analysis works for human persons, because human rebellion always involves some mixture of ignorance, bondage, and inherited damage. Whether it transfers to angelic beings who may have fallen in full light is a different question.33a
Reitan and Kronen, in God's Final Victory, take the most explicit stance on the scope question. Their comparative defense asks which is more plausible: the doctrine of hell, or the doctrine of universal salvation? They conclude that universalism wins the comparison for human persons. But they frame their conclusion carefully. The argument works because of features specific to human freedom: the role of ignorance, the capacity for growth, and the possibility of God extending efficacious grace without violating autonomy. They do not claim that the comparison settles the question for every conceivable rational creature. That is the source of the "soteriological agnosticism" I mentioned above.33b
Reitan has pressed the case further in his recent Troubled Paradise. There he argues that if limited salvation is true, the blessed in heaven would grieve eternally for the lost, and that grief would be fitting because the morally perfect cannot simply stop loving those they have loved. The only clean solution, he contends, is universalism: save all, and the grief disappears. This matters for our chapter because it shows that the question of heaven's safety cuts both ways. It is not only the universalist who faces a stability problem. The traditionalist faces one too: a heaven in which the blessed grieve forever is not the perfect blessedness Scripture promises.33c
A critic will say: "You are dodging the question. Your own arguments about God's endless, optimal appeals to free creatures (Chapter 15, Chapter 21) apply to any free creature, not just human ones. If God's love never stops and His appeals are perfect, why wouldn't the same logic save the devil?"34
Fair point. And I do not rule out the devil's salvation. I only decline to assert it. The arguments that work for humans rest on specific features of human freedom: the role of ignorance, the bondage to inherited sin, the healing that comes through growth and experience. Whether those same features apply to angelic beings is something I genuinely do not know. Perhaps they do. Perhaps the devil is also in bondage and also capable of healing. If so, then perhaps God's love will reach even there. I do not deny the possibility. I simply lack the confidence to assert it.
Honest agnosticism is not a dodge. It is the proper response to a question that exceeds our evidence. I would rather be honest about my limits than over-reach into claims I cannot support.35
But Isn't Your Own Logic Universal?
If God never stops offering grace, the same logic should apply to any free creature. But the conditions of that logic (ignorance, inherited bondage, growth through time) may not apply to angelic beings. The argument works for beings who can be healed. Whether all fallen creatures can be healed in the same way is an open question. Honest agnosticism about that question is not evasion.
A different critic will object: "You say the saved could leave but won't. That sounds like you are saying a rational will, fully seeing God, cannot refuse Him. But that is exactly David Bentley Hart's position, the position you parted from in Chapter 13. You have quietly smuggled necessity in through the back door."36
No. The distinction holds. Hart argues that a rational will cannot finally refuse God because reason, by its very nature, must choose the Good. That is a claim about what is metaphysically possible. I argue something different: that a healed will, fully seeing God, will not refuse Him, because the conditions that made refusal attractive (ignorance, deception, bondage) have been removed. That is a claim about what is practically certain given the conditions. The difference matters.37
On Hart's view, the bare possibility of refusal does not exist. On mine, it does. I keep libertarian freedom, which means the bare logical power to choose otherwise remains. But I hold that this power will never be exercised, because no one who sees God clearly will want to exercise it. Stable-because-satisfied is not the same as unable-to-choose. The former is compatible with libertarian freedom. The latter is not.38
Which Universalism Is This?
This chapter has answered two charges: that universalism must save the devil, and that it makes heaven unsafe. The universalism I defend does neither. It holds the restoration of all human persons through Christ, by grace, through faith. It leaves the devil's fate to God. And it holds heaven's stability, not on the removal of freedom, but on the completion of healing and the fullness of sight. This is the biblical, creedal hope, not a necessitarian metaphysics. It does not claim what it cannot prove. And it does not concede what it does not owe.
McClymond's reductio is the sharpest version of a charge the universalist must face honestly. He is right that many universalisms across history have extended the hope to the demons. He is right that some of them did so on premises that eclipsed grace. I concede those points gladly. Where I part from him is on the inference. The fact that some universalists have over-reached does not mean the hope itself must over-reach. The biblical universalism I defend is built for human persons, rests on the work of Christ, and does not require the salvation of the devil to stand.39
De Young's stability worry is real, but the asymmetry answers it. The fall came from incomplete knowledge. The restoration comes from complete knowledge. The first state was vulnerable. The second is not. Not because freedom has ended, but because freedom, for the first time, operates in full light. Heaven is safe because those who dwell there finally see what they are choosing, and what they see is the face of the God who loved them through everything.
The book of Revelation paints a picture that holds both openness and stability together: "Its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there" (Revelation 21:25). The gates of the heavenly city stand open. Yet "nothing unclean will enter it" (Revelation 21:27). The gates never close, because they do not need to. Nothing that would harm the city wants in. And nothing inside the city wants out. That is the image of a heaven kept safe not by locked doors but by the radiance of God's own presence.39b
I said at the beginning that the honest answer to this chapter has two parts, and one of them is "I do not know." Now you have both parts. The first: every human being will come home, and will stay home, because the healed will freely rests in God. The second: the devil's fate is beyond my reach. I leave it where it belongs, in the hands of the God whose justice and mercy alike exceed anything I can calculate.
That is not evasion. That is trust. And trust in a God whose final word is love, not wrath, is the thread that runs through this entire book.
In Chapter 29, I will gather every thread. Every argument. Every objection answered. And I will weigh the whole case at once, to ask: is the hope reasonable? Is it enough to ground conviction?
I believe it is. But let me show you how it all comes together.
↑ 1. Michael J. McClymond, The Devil's Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018). The title itself encapsulates McClymond's thesis: universalism, when followed to its logical end, must extend salvation even to the devil. See esp. the introduction, §0.1–0.10, and the genealogy that traces the pattern from Origen to the present.
↑ 2. The reductio ad absurdum is a standard form of philosophical argument: assume the opponent's premise, show that it leads to an absurd conclusion, and infer that the premise must be false. McClymond's version: universalism → the devil is saved → absurd → universalism is false.
↑ 3. James B. De Young, Exposing Universalism (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock / Resource Publications, 2018), ch. 5 and excursus; see also pp. 53, 71–98, 204, 241, 247. De Young's "heaven made unsafe" argument is developed most fully in his discussion of the consequences of universalism for the stability of the eternal state.
↑ 4. McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 1, pp. 262–63, 277–78, 305. Epiphanius's challenge is quoted at V 1, p. 304; the accusations of the synod under Theophilus at V 1, p. 305. McClymond's point is that the salvation of the devil was the scandal that the early church identified as the reductio of Origenist universalism.
↑ 5. The Latin reductio ad absurdum literally means "reduction to the absurd." The strategy is to assume a premise, derive a conclusion so extreme that no reasonable person would accept it, and conclude that the original premise must be false. McClymond's use of this strategy is deliberate: the title of his book is itself the allegedly absurd conclusion.
↑ 6. De Young, Exposing Universalism, ch. 5. The seven consequences De Young lists include: heaven is no longer a place of peace; a second rebellion would be more devastating than the first; Christ's work at the cross and at His second coming becomes impotent; and the inhabitants of heaven are held hostage by the possibility of renewed angelic rebellion. See also his "De Young's Wager" section, which frames universalism as "playing the devil's hand."
↑ 7. On Origen's teaching regarding the salvation of demons, see McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 1, pp. 261–63. Origen writes: "The destruction of the last enemy must be understood in this way, not that its substance which was made by God shall perish, but that the hostile purpose and will which proceeded not from God but from itself will come to an end. It will be destroyed, therefore, not in the sense of ceasing to exist, but of being no longer an enemy and no longer death. For to the Almighty nothing is impossible, nor is anything beyond the reach of cure by its Maker." See Origen, On First Principles 3.6.5; cited in McClymond, V 1, p. 262. McClymond argues that the pattern of extending the hope to demons was not accidental in the tradition but followed from the inner logic of universalism itself.
↑ 8. De Young, Exposing Universalism, ch. 5, pp. 71–98. The symmetry argument is the heart of De Young's case: "Universalism already rejects the existing evangelical belief that fallen angels are already confirmed in their choice, and cannot repent. Rather universalism affirms that they can repent. And if this is so they cannot be confirmed in their choice. Thus by the doctrine of universalism they can and will repent; and they may make the choice again to rebel at some future time."
↑ 9. On the scope of the hope as human, see the discussion at §2.14 of the master thesis of this book: the scope is the human race redeemed in Christ. Whether the hope extends to the non-human fallen powers is treated as a distinct and far more open question.
↑ 10. The load-bearing chapters for this cluster of arguments: Chapter 14 (middle knowledge), Chapter 15 (optimal grace), Chapter 17 (the rationality of rejection). Each is built on features specific to human persons: finite knowledge, susceptibility to deception, growth through time.
↑ 11. On the traditional understanding of angelic knowledge, see Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I, q. 58, aa. 1–4: angels know by species infused directly by God, not by abstraction from sensory experience as humans do. Their knowledge is immediate and intuitive. If this is correct, then their fall cannot be attributed to the kinds of ignorance and deception that characterize human sin. McClymond discusses Aquinas's sharp rejection of Origen's claim that humans and angels belong to a single "rational nature." Aquinas argued that "in incorporeal substances there cannot be diversity of number without diversity of species and inequality of nature," so that "humans and angels thus belong to different species." This Thomistic distinction directly supports the principled line drawn in the text: arguments built for human persons do not automatically transfer to beings of a fundamentally different species. See McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 1, p. 388. James Beilby (who is not a universalist) makes a closely related point: "the Christian tradition has been nearly universal in affirming that Satan and the demons are not candidates for salvation—largely because it is nearly impossible to find any hint of optimism in Scripture with respect to the eternal destiny of Satan and the demons." Beilby traces the reasoning: "Based in part on the idea that there is no hint of angels continuing to fall (or be saved), it is possible to speculate that angelic freedom consists in a once-for-all choice for or against God. Furthermore, the once-for-all nature of this choice makes sense given the fact that angels had face-to-face experience with God in heaven. Contrary to humans who walk by faith, not sight (Heb 11:1), angels possessed a clear vision of God." This means that any proposal to save the demons must answer a sharp question: "What information, experience, or realization could be given to them that they didn't already have before their rebellion?" See James Beilby, Postmortem Opportunity: A Biblical and Theological Assessment of Salvation After Death (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021), pp. 308–9.
↑ 12. Eric Reitan and John Kronen, God's Final Victory: A Comparative Philosophical Case for Universalism (New York: Continuum, 2011), §9.2, "Annihilationism and Soteriological Agnosticism," pp. 179–81. Reitan and Kronen argue that their comparative defense of universalism establishes the plausibility of universal salvation for human persons, while leaving open the question of non-human rational creatures.
↑ 13. This is the strongest form of McClymond's objection: the claim that there is no principled stopping point. If God's love and omniscience ground the salvation of all humans, the same attributes ground the salvation of all rational creatures without exception. The line at the human race, on this view, is arbitrary.
↑ 14. The thought experiment is designed to make concrete a distinction that applies to the angelic case: the moral significance of the conditions under which a choice is made. A choice made in ignorance differs in kind from a choice made in full knowledge, even when the outward act is the same.
↑ 15. This is the traditional Thomistic view: the angels' first act of will was made with full intellectual apprehension of God, so their rejection was not attributable to ignorance or deception. See Aquinas, Summa Theologica I, q. 63, a. 1; q. 64, a. 2. Whether this traditional understanding is correct is itself debatable; the point is that if it is, it provides a principled basis for distinguishing human and angelic falls. McClymond records Aquinas's explicit response to Origen: "It was Origen's opinion that every will of the creature can by reason of free-will be inclined to good and evil." Aquinas objected that "such a statement deprives angels and saints of true beatitude, because everlasting stability is of the very nature of true beatitude," and concluded that "according to Catholic Faith, it must be held firmly both that the will of the good angels is confirmed in good, and that the will of the demons is obstinate in evil." See McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 1, p. 388.
↑ 16. The distinction between human and angelic conditions of freedom is not original to this book. Jonathan Kvanvig notes in The Problem of Hell (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) that any adequate theory of damnation must attend to the specific conditions under which a creature exercises its freedom. The nature of the agent matters.
↑ 17. This agnostic posture is itself a principled position. It is the same posture the book takes on any question that exceeds its evidence (see Chapter 2 on the distinction between conviction and metaphysical necessity). The honest scholar asserts what the evidence supports and confesses ignorance about the rest.
↑ 18. On Gregory of Nyssa, see Ilaria Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis (Leiden: Brill, 2013), chs. 7–8. On Origen's hesitation, see McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 1, pp. 261–63. Origen writes in On First Principles 1.6 that "whether there are some who will one day in the ages to come succeed in turning to goodness by reason of the power of free-will which is in them, or whether if it be true that long-continued and deep-rooted wickedness turns at last from a habit into a kind of nature, you, reader, must judge" (cited by McClymond, V 1, p. 262). On Bulgakov, see McClymond, V 2, p. 743: Bulgakov states that "Satan's very being, his createdness by the omniscient God, is, so to speak, an ontological proof of the inevitability of his future salvation." George Sidney Hurd surveys several early fathers who extended the hope: Clement of Alexandria taught that God "saves all universally; but some as converted by punishments, others by voluntary submission"; Jerome wrote that "in the restoration of all things, when the true physician, Jesus Christ, has come to heal the body of the whole church, every being will receive his due place." See George Sidney Hurd, A Defense of Biblical Universalism (independently published), ch. 2. Andrew Hronich notes that Jerome, in his Commentary on Ephesians 4:16, proclaimed a "universal restoration" in which even "the fallen angel will begin to be what it was created to be." Jerome also attested in his Commentary on Jonah 3 to the widespread belief in his own time: "I know that most people interpret the story of Nineveh and its king as a reference to the eventual forgiveness of the devil and of all logika." Basil the Great likewise testified in his De Asceticis that "the mass of men [Christians] say there is to be an end to punishment and to those who are punished." The pattern is real. The question is whether the present book's arguments require it. See Andrew Hronich, Once Loved Always Loved: The Logic of Apokatastasis (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2023), ch. 7.
↑ 19. The asymmetry argument draws on the fuller treatment in Chapter 17. There I argued that a fully healed person, seeing God face to face, would have no remaining reason to refuse Him. The present chapter applies that conclusion to the stability of heaven itself.
↑ 20. The distinction between innocence and maturity is traditional. Irenaeus of Lyon taught that Adam and Eve were created as "infants" in a spiritual sense, needing growth before they could fully receive God's gifts. See Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.38.1–3. The fall, on this view, came from a state of moral and spiritual immaturity.
↑ 21. See the full argument in Chapter 17. Thomas Talbott argues that freedom, properly understood, requires the removal of ignorance, deception, and controlling affective states. Once these are removed, the rational agent will see union with God as the only genuinely desirable option. See Talbott, "Towards a Better Understanding of Universalism," in Universal Salvation? The Current Debate, ed. Robin A. Parry and Christopher H. Partridge (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 2003), 3–14. Robin Parry frames the point sharply: "if God is our loving creator, then he wills for us exactly what, at the most fundamental level, we want for ourselves . . . So if that is true, if God wills the very thing we really want for ourselves, whether we know it or not, . . . what might qualify as a motive for someone making a fully informed decision to reject God?" Parry notes that Talbott held that "the very idea of a freedom-removing revelation rests on a mistake, as does the idea that we are free only for as long as God keeps us in the bondage to ignorance." Talbott insists that knowledge of the truth, "even when it renders certain actions psychologically impossible, in any way restricts one's freedom to perform such actions—as if those in possession of the beatific vision are no longer free agents." See Robin Parry [Gregory MacDonald], The Evangelical Universalist, 3rd ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012), pp. 29–31, quoting Talbott, "Craig on the Possibility of Eternal Damnation," 502. Hronich summarizes the principle: "Sheer choice in and of itself does not equate true freedom. Rather, true freedom is not simply the ability to choose; it is when the creature has chosen well, when it is unhindered in its pursuit of the divine." See Andrew Hronich, Once Loved Always Loved (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2023), ch. 2.
↑ 22. Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II, q. 5, a. 4: "Since happiness is a perfect and sufficient good, it excludes every evil and fulfils every desire." Aquinas argues that the blessed are confirmed in good by the vision of God, which leaves no possible motive for turning away. Augustine makes a related point in The City of God 22.30. Jerry Walls (who is not a universalist) develops a congruent account of why the redeemed cannot sin: "The redeemed in heaven find sin impossible not because they lack the constitutional strength necessary to sin, but because their character, shaped by the clear knowledge that God is the source of happiness, will not permit it." Walls argues that "absolute clarity of vision is only achieved as we progressively respond with trust and love to God's self-revelation. Absolute clarity comes when we have responded to God's gracious initiatives and have allowed Him to form in us a character that is holy, like His own character." See Jerry L. Walls, Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), ch. 5; and Walls, "A Hell of a Choice: Reply to Talbott," Religious Studies 40, no. 2 (2004): 210. This is exactly the asymmetry the present chapter relies on: not the destruction of freedom, but the completion of character. The universalist and the non-universalist free-will theist agree on this point, even if they disagree about how many are finally confirmed.
↑ 23. This is the "stable-because-satisfied" model. It is distinct from Hart's "unable-to-choose" model. In Hart's view, the rational will cannot finally refuse God because reason, by nature, tends toward the Good. In my view, the healed will will not finally refuse God because healing has removed every impediment to a clear choice. The logical possibility of refusal remains; its practical likelihood does not. See Chapter 13 for the full distinction. Timothy Pawl and Kevin Timpe offer the most precise philosophical formulation of how the redeemed can be both free and unable to sin: "One can be free in heaven but unable to sin in virtue of having a moral character that one has previously freely formed. . . . While an agent must have alternative possibilities open to her at some time in order to be free, the agent need not always have alternative possibilities open to her. She may freely form her character such that she can't choose not to perform some particular action at a later time, and nevertheless do the latter action freely." James Beilby applies this principle to the postmortem context and draws out two key points: the reason humans cannot sin in heaven lies in something intrinsic to them (their formed character and the fullness of sight), not in external divine restraint. See Beilby, Postmortem Opportunity (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021), pp. 239–40, citing Pawl and Timpe. This is exactly the model the present chapter uses: freedom completed, not freedom removed.
↑ 24. McClymond himself notes that Augustine regarded the stability of heavenly happiness as essential. Augustine argued that "the happiness of heaven implies stability in blessedness with God." See McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 1, p. 278. The universalist can agree with Augustine here: heaven is stable. The question is what secures the stability: the removal of freedom, or the completion of healing.
↑ 25. Eric Reitan, Troubled Paradise: Limited Salvation and the Problem of Heavenly Grief (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024), chs. 4–7. Reitan argues that the blessed, perfected in love, would fittingly grieve for anyone permanently lost. That grief would permanently mar heavenly blessedness. The most natural solution, he contends, is universalism: if all are saved, the problem of heavenly grief does not arise. This analysis strengthens the heaven's-safety argument from a different angle: it is not only the restored who benefit from universal salvation but also the already-blessed, whose joy is completed only when no one is left behind.
↑ 26. The hidden premise in McClymond's reductio is that there is no relevant difference between human and angelic creatures with respect to the arguments for universal salvation. If this premise is false (and I have argued it may well be), the reductio fails, because the conclusion (the devil's salvation) does not follow from the human premise.
↑ 26b. De Young, Exposing Universalism, ch. 5. De Young writes: "Jesus became human to save people; he did not become angelic to save angels (Heb 2:16). He died to save people by becoming the God-man. He did not die to save angels by becoming the God-angel. There is no Savior, no redeemer, no reconciler for them. They are lost forever." Hurd responds that Hebrews 2:14–18 "focuses only upon what Christ did to rescue mankind from Satan's power" and "neither denies nor affirms that His death will ultimately provide a way for the restoration of all of creation as well," since "the other restoration passages, and particularly Colossians 1:16–20, are not at all ambiguous." See George Sidney Hurd, A Defense of Biblical Universalism, ch. 2. While I do not share De Young's certainty about the finality of the angelic fate, his observation about the specifically human shape of the incarnation supports the scope distinction drawn in the text.
↑ 27. Colossians 1:20. The scope of "all things" (ta panta) in this verse has been debated throughout Christian history. Some interpreters take it as referring to the entire cosmos, including all rational creatures; others limit it to the reconciliation of the created order in a more general sense. George Sidney Hurd argues that the "all things" of verse 20 must be read in parallel with verses 16–17: "One can't argue that Paul is referring to all things in vv. 16–18 but only to believers in v. 20." Since verse 16 includes "invisible thrones, dominions, principalities and powers," Hurd contends this necessarily encompasses angelic powers. See Hurd, A Defense of Biblical Universalism, ch. 2. Burnfield likewise reads Colossians 1:20 as "Christ reconciling all things to himself" without limitation, noting the parallel with Ephesians 1:10 on "the summing up of all things in Christ." See David Burnfield, Patristic Universalism, 2nd ed. The verse is cited here not to settle the question but to show that the universal scope of Christ's reconciling work is a biblical datum, not a philosophical invention.
↑ 28. Hebrews 2:16. The verse emphasizes the human focus of Christ's redemptive work: He took on human nature, not angelic nature. This text is directly relevant to the scope question: it at least suggests that the saving work of the incarnation is tailored to human beings, not to every rational creature.
↑ 29. McClymond traces this pattern through Origen, Böhme, the Russian sophiologists (esp. Bulgakov), and into modern universalism. See The Devil's Redemption, V 1, chs. 2–4 (Origen and the gnostic-esoteric tradition), V 1, ch. 5 (Böhme), V 2, ch. 8 (Russian thinkers). The "nature not grace" theme is the spine of his "eclipse of grace" thesis, §0.10 and ch. 12. For the formal condemnation of the Origenist claim that all rational creatures belonged to a single original "henad," see the 553 anathemas: "If anyone says that the sun, the moon and the stars, belonging themselves to the same henad of rational beings, became what they are through turning to what is worse, let him be anathema" (Anathema 3). These anathemas targeted precisely the collapsing of the angelic-human distinction that this chapter's argument resists. For the text, see Hunter Coates, Grace Abounds: A Holistic Case for Universal Salvation (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2024), ch. 10, which reproduces the anathemas with discussion.
↑ 30. This is the distinction the whole book has drawn between the biblical, creedal universalism it defends and the counterfeits it refuses. See Chapter 1 and Appendix B.
↑ 31. De Young, Exposing Universalism, ch. 5. De Young writes: "Evangelicals believe that the fallen angels cannot ever change their destiny of destruction, of hell. They made their choice, as did the 'good angels,' and this choice is irreversible. All humanity is relieved by this doctrine." Hurd counters that De Young's confidence about the finality of the angelic fate requires ignoring Colossians 1:16–20, where Paul explicitly includes "invisible thrones, dominions, principalities and powers" in the scope of Christ's reconciling work. See George Sidney Hurd, A Defense of Biblical Universalism, ch. 2: "When Paul includes invisible thrones, dominions, principalities and powers in the reconciliation, he clearly means to include them as well, since there are no invisible thrones, dominions, principalities or powers in need of reconciliation apart from Satan and the fallen angels."
↑ 31b. See Jerry L. Walls, Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), ch. 5; and Walls, "A Hell of a Choice: Reply to Talbott," Religious Studies 40, no. 2 (2004): 209–13. Walls argues that "absolute clarity of vision is only achieved as we progressively respond with trust and love to God's self-revelation. Absolute clarity comes when we have responded to God's gracious initiatives and have allowed Him to form in us a character that is holy, like His own character." The redeemed thus "have lost all motivation to do evil," not through the removal of freedom but through the perfection of moral character. Walls does not hold universal salvation; he allows for the possibility that some may permanently resist God's grace and pervert their moral freedom to the point where they lose all motivation to love God. But his account of how the redeemed are confirmed in good is exactly the account this chapter uses to answer De Young's stability objection. R. Zachary Manis (also not a universalist) develops a similar insight: clarity of moral vision is "conditioned by the will," and "there are certain truths that can be apprehended only by those with a virtuous character, a love of truth, and a purity of heart to will only the good." See R. Zachary Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God: An Essay on the Problem of Hell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), following Kierkegaard. Beilby adds that the unevangelized and pseudoevangelized may receive a postmortem opportunity, but those who receive the beatific vision and enter glory have their characters sealed. See James Beilby, Postmortem Opportunity (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021), pp. 239–41. These non-universalist voices confirm the two pillars: the asymmetry between fall and restoration, and the principled distinction between human and angelic conditions of freedom.
↑ 32. Robin Parry [Gregory MacDonald], The Evangelical Universalist, 3rd ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012). Parry treats the demonic question at length when discussing Revelation 20:10 and the "lake of fire." He acknowledges that "that is certainly what 20:10 seems to say," and notes that "it is for this reason that universalists often play it safe and limit universal salvation to humans while denying, or remaining agnostic about, the salvation of the devil." Yet Parry himself attempts a tentative reconciliation with Colossians 1:15–22, which "seems to speak very clearly of the ultimate reconciliation of all created things, and this presumably must include the Lucifer." He offers two proposals: one treating the devil as a personification of evil rather than a personal being, and a more striking suggestion that "the devil, like the 'flesh,' must be destroyed forever, because creation has no place for him. But he dies, and Lucifer is reborn as a redeemed angel." Parry explicitly notes that this "goes beyond anything taught in Revelation" and offers it only tentatively as a way to reconcile the texts. See ch. 6 (pp. 139–40). This restraint mirrors the position taken in this chapter: the core universalist case is about human salvation; the demonic question, however handled, is secondary. McClymond himself acknowledges that Parry's work represents "the most ambitious attempt at a complete, canonical reading of the Bible," rivaling all its predecessors (The Devil's Redemption, V 2, p. 960). McClymond nonetheless considers Parry's biblical argument to show "the perils" of universalist interpretation (V 2, p. 964). Parry responds in the 3rd edition that he finds McClymond's "brief arguments against my biblical exegesis (DR, 960–64) to be inadequate and unpersuasive," while conceding that "Scripture can be interpreted in the way he reads it" (appendix, p. 303). The exchange illustrates exactly the honest engagement this book has tried to model throughout.
↑ 33. Thomas Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, 2nd ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014). Talbott's analysis is built around human psychology: the way ignorance and controlling affective states distort our choices, and the way the removal of these distortions would leave no rational ground for refusing God. Parry notes that even William Lane Craig "more or less concedes" the central point when Craig objects that "it may well be the case that for some people the degree of revelation that would have to be imparted to them in order to secure their salvation would have to be so stunning that their freedom to disobey would be effectively removed." Parry comments: "Epistemic distance may play an important role in God's economy, but only as a temporary measure. By so revealing himself, God is not forcing an agent to act against their will but simply clarifying the situation in such a way that the will changes." See Robin Parry [Gregory MacDonald], The Evangelical Universalist, 3rd ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012), pp. 30–31, citing Craig, "Talbott's Universalism," 300. Whether the same analysis applies to beings of a fundamentally different nature is a question Talbott does not need to answer in order to make his case for human salvation. Kirk MacGregor notes in Molinist Philosophical and Theological Ventures (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2022), ch. 8, that what Talbott and Parry call a "fully informed decision" presupposes epistemically compelling awareness. MacGregor contends that such full information "only occurs when one experiences the beatific vision," which further underlines the human scope of the argument, since the beatific vision as traditionally understood belongs to the destiny of human persons in Christ.
↑ 33a. Andrew Hronich, Once Loved Always Loved: The Logic of Apokatastasis (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2023), ch. 2. Hronich summarizes Reitan's formulation of Talbott's position: "If ignorance or deception entails that one chooses based on misrepresentations of the alternatives . . . then one's freedom is impeded; and if controlling affective states entail that an agent is determined to choose one option even if informed deliberation would come down in favor of another, then the agent is 'in bondage to desire' and, again, not truly free. However, if someone is 'freed from all ignorance, deception and bondage to desire,' the agent's choice is free even if all motives converge on a single option, thereby making the choice of that option inevitable." See Reitan and Kronen, God's Final Victory, 134, as cited in Hronich. Hronich's water analogy is his own, drawn from the logic of the point: a person acting under deception is not free in any meaningful sense, and grace removes the deception. The human scope of this argument is built into its premises: it works for beings who can be deceived and healed. Whether it works for beings who may have fallen without deception is the open question the chapter honestly faces.
↑ 33b. Reitan and Kronen, God's Final Victory, §9.1–9.2, pp. 178–81. Their summary: "Our comparative defence of DU is thus essentially complete," meaning they have shown that universal salvation is more plausible than eternal damnation for human persons. The soteriological agnosticism of §9.2 explicitly preserves openness about non-human rational creatures. MacGregor observes that "if libertarian human freedom is true, then Molinism is the only way universalism can succeed," because only middle knowledge can furnish the guarantee that all actual libertarian persons will eventually be freely saved. This observation is directly relevant to the scope question: the Molinist guarantee, as MacGregor frames it, works through God's knowledge of human counterfactuals of freedom, not angelic ones. See Kirk MacGregor, Molinist Philosophical and Theological Ventures (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2022), ch. 8.
↑ 33c. Eric Reitan, Troubled Paradise: Limited Salvation and the Problem of Heavenly Grief (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024), esp. chs. 5–8. Reitan's argument from heavenly grief complements the stability argument of this chapter: universalism does not merely secure the safety of heaven for the restored; it secures the joy of heaven for everyone, because no one is left behind to grieve over. See also Reitan's treatment of Schleiermacher's related worry about the sympathy of the blessed, ch. 3.
↑ 34. This is a natural extension of the objection: if the infinite-opportunity argument (Chapter 21) and optimal grace (Chapter 15) apply to any free creature, they should apply to the devil as well. The answer turns on whether the specific conditions assumed by those arguments (especially the role of ignorance, bondage, and the possibility of growth through time) apply to angelic beings.
↑ 35. Reitan and Kronen model this posture in God's Final Victory, §9.2, pp. 179–81. Their defense of universalism is comparative: they argue that DU (the doctrine of universalism) is more plausible than DH (the doctrine of hell) for human persons, while remaining genuinely agnostic about non-human rational creatures. Hronich's defense takes a similar shape. He argues that Reitan and Kronen's "argument from efficacious grace" (AEG) works through God's knowledge of human counterfactuals of freedom and the capacity of grace to bring "all the creature's motives into conformity with the choice of pursuing loving union with God above all things." But this capacity, as Hronich and his sources frame it, presupposes human conditions: susceptibility to ignorance, the possibility of growth, the removal of deception. Whether the same efficacious grace operates on beings who may have fallen in full light is the question the argument honestly leaves open. See Andrew Hronich, Once Loved Always Loved (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2023), ch. 2, summarizing Reitan and Kronen, God's Final Victory, 131–34.
↑ 36. David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019). Hart argues in his fourth meditation ("What Is Freedom? A Reflection on the Rational Will") that the rational will cannot finally choose against the Good: "No soul can relent in its deepest motives from the will's constant and consuming preoccupation with God." He reasons that to "reject God is still, however obscurely and uncomprehendingly, to seek God," because the will's motion toward the Good is not imposed from without but constitutes its deepest nature. Hart applies this to angels as well, arguing that "not even angels would have the power to condemn themselves to a condign eternity of suffering; as rational beings, they could never turn away from God entirely if they were not subject to some misapprehension regarding the Good." The distinction between Hart's necessity and the present book's conviction is developed fully in Chapter 13.
↑ 37. The distinction between "cannot" (metaphysical impossibility) and "will not" (practical certainty given the conditions) is the hinge of Chapter 2. Hart collapses the distinction. This book insists on preserving it, because the preservation of libertarian freedom depends on it.
↑ 38. The analogy is imperfect but illuminating: a person who has tasted food and found it perfect could throw it away, but a sane, healthy person will not. The logical possibility of doing so remains. The practical likelihood is zero. This is the "stable-because-satisfied" model. It preserves libertarian freedom while accounting for the reliability of heavenly joy. See also Chapter 18 on the compatibility of freedom and certainty.
↑ 39. McClymond's historical evidence is genuinely valuable. Many universalisms have extended the hope to the demons, and some of them did so on premises the present book refuses (esp. the gnostic-esoteric premise that the soul is a divine fragment that returns to God by nature). See McClymond, The Devil's Redemption, V 1, ch. 2. McClymond's genealogy traces the pattern through Origen (V 1, chs. 3–4), whose view that all rational creatures belonged to a single original "henad" led naturally to extending the hope universally, through Böhme (V 1, ch. 5), and into the Russian sophiologists (V 2, ch. 8), where Bulgakov's "all perish and are saved together" (V 2, p. 743) culminated the trend. The present book agrees that those nature-not-grace premises are false and says so. What it denies is that its own, grace-centered, creedal premises lead to the same conclusion.
↑ 39b. Revelation 21:25–27. The image of the open gates and the pure city is a powerful symbol of heaven's stability. The gates never shut, yet nothing unclean enters. This is not contradictory; it is a picture of a community made safe by the character of its members, not by external barriers. For the universalist, the picture is complete only when every creature has been healed and made ready to enter.