Universalism has a reputation problem. For a lot of Christians, the word sounds like moral surrender. Everyone gets saved, no matter what they’ve done. No consequences and certainly no justice. Just a cosmic shrug from God while the victims are told to move on.
That version of universalism deserves the criticism it gets.
Because if the world contains monsters like Donald Trump—a man credibly accused of sexual violence who have shown absolutely zero evidence of repentance—then any theology worth taking seriously must account for that reality. The suffering left behind cannot simply be waved away in the name of divine love. The cries of victims matter too much for that.
So, when people ask me how I can be a universalist, my answer surprises them.
My universalism requires hell.
Justice Matters
The traditional doctrine of hell says the wicked will suffer conscious torment forever. Endless punishment for finite crimes. The flames never die. The screaming never stops.
But eternal torture not only doesn’t solve the problem of evil, but multiplies it. A God who keeps people alive forever just to torment them begins to look less like the Father Jesus talked about and more like the worst tyrants in human history. Infinite cruelty does not become holy simply because God is the one doing it.
Others try to avoid that problem with annihilationism. God eventually erases the wicked from existence. Problem solved.
At first glance, that seems reasonable. It fits our instincts about punishment. You destroy lives, so God destroys you. An eye for an eye. But annihilation leaves a serious question unanswered. What exactly disappears? Does the trauma disappear? Do the memories of the victims vanish? Does the damage inflicted on bodies, families, and communities suddenly evaporate?
Of course not. The suffering remains.
Erasing the perpetrator does not heal the world they broke. It simply removes them from the story. Justice requires something more than disappearance. It requires confrontation, exposure, and ultimately transformation.
The Fire Paul Talks About
The apostle Paul describes something interesting in his first letter to the Corinthians. It’s a passage that rarely shows up in sermons about hell:
“Each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire… If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss, but the builder will be saved, though as through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:13–15)
Paul imagines every human life passing through fire. What we have built will be tested. The cheap materials—wood, hay, and straw—burn away. Only what is real survives.
That is a terrifying image if your life has been built on lies, exploitation, and cruelty. For someone like Epstein, the fire would burn through a mountain of wood and straw. For someone like Trump, it would incinerate decades of narcissism, deception, racism, cruelty, and harm. Everything constructed to protect their ego would collapse. Every lie they told themselves would be stripped away.
That experience would not be pleasant. It would feel like hell. Because it is hell.
But notice what Paul actually says: the person is saved, though as through fire.
The fire destroys the false structure of the self so that something real can remain.
The Image of God Buried Under the Wreckage
Christians believe that every human being bears the image of God. I take that seriously. Even when that image is buried beneath layers of cruelty and self-deception, it is still there. The problem is that some people spend their entire lives constructing elaborate systems designed to protect the worst parts of themselves. Power, wealth, manipulation, and propaganda become the scaffolding that keeps the illusion standing.
If someone like that is ever going to experience the kingdom of God, those structures must collapse. The wood, hay, and straw must burn. That collapse will not be gentle. It will involve facing the full weight of the suffering they caused. It will mean seeing clearly what they spent their lives trying to avoid. It will feel like judgment because it is judgment.
But the purpose of the fire is not sadistic punishment. The purpose of the fire is truth.
Restoration Doesn’t Mean Forced Reconciliation
Whenever people hear the phrase “restorative justice,” they often imagine victims being pressured to forgive their abusers and reconcile with them. That idea has done enormous damage in Christian spaces.
Restoration does not require victims to welcome their victimizers back into their lives. The healing of the wounded does not depend on emotional reunions with the people who harmed them. Justice must center the victim.
If someone spends centuries confronting the evil they committed and being stripped of the illusions that allowed them to commit it, that process does not obligate their victims to embrace them. Survivors are free to move forward. They are free to live in peace. They are free to build a future that does not revolve around the person who hurt them.
Transformation belongs to the wrongdoer. Healing belongs to the victim.
Why Universalism Makes the Most Sense
Eternal torment turns God into a monster. Annihilation removes the sinner from existence but leaves the deeper wounds of the world untouched.
Restorative universalism does something far more difficult. It insists that evil must be confronted completely. Every lie exposed. Every act of cruelty brought into the light. The fire does not let anyone hide from what they have done.
At the same time, it refuses to believe that evil has the final word about any human life.
The image of God remains. Buried perhaps. Distorted. Nearly suffocated. But not destroyed.
If God is committed to healing creation, then even the worst among us must eventually pass through the fire that burns away everything false. Only then can the truth of who they were created to be finally emerge.
For some people, that process will be unimaginably painful. It may take longer than we can conceive. For those who built their lives on domination and abuse, it will feel like hell itself.
But if justice means the healing of the world rather than endless revenge, then that fire is not cruelty.
It is mercy that refuses to pretend evil never happened.
If you’re navigating faith after certainty, loving Jesus but not the empire, or trying to hold on to hope in a burning world, you’re not alone. I explore these themes weekly on the Heretic Happy Hour podcast.
You can also explore my books—including Heretic!, The Wisdom of Hobbits, and others—right here: https://quoir.com/authors/matthew-j-distefano/
Thanks for reading. Thanks for thinking. And thanks for refusing to settle for easy answers.
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