Universalism: "Why bother praying, or going to Church, or paying any attention to God at all? Everyone's going to heaven anyway, right?"

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian witnesses and writers in reflecting on life, encounters, and various situations, in a desire to enhance our understanding of what it means to be a missionary disciple of Jesus Christ at the service of the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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The Last Judgement, 1865-1866, wood engraving by Gustave Dore

Let's be honest here... you have either heard this or you have thought it, at one time or another, right? "Why bother praying, or going to Church, or paying any attention to God at all? Everyone's going to heaven anyway, right?" True confession: I have leaned strongly in that direction at one time or another, and more than once; especially in adolescence. 

These days, I'm having to face it: for decades I found myself surrounded by this very way of thinking. It became clear that we had, as a society, gone through a gate of some kind, or passed a boundary; when I noticed at funerals how just about everyone was thinking their beloved departed was now in a better place, now in heaven with their parents, siblings, and grandparents, and friends, and, yes, with God. These assumptions are actually presumptions: in effect, such beliefs pass judgement on God and often appear in poetic form on bookmark memory cards printed by funeral directors on the back of a photo of the dearly departed. 

Then, on vacation, a few bricks hit my glass wall. First, last year, when I came across the book "Hell A Final Word: The Surprising Truths I Found in the Bible" by Edward William Fudge (2012). Among other questions, he searched the Bible and Protestant
Bible commentators to find a consensus on whether after death and judgement unrepentant sinners are annihilated and "destroyed forever", or whether they are punished and "tormented forever". The author had a view, but he honestly admitted that opinions on the issue are apparently divided among interpretations of the Sacred Scriptures in the Reformed perspective.

This summer, another book came to my attention, "The Hell There Is: An Exploration of an Often-Rejected Doctrine of the Church" written by Msgr. Charles Pope, published in 2025. Here, this author addresses the world outlook called "universalism", whereby people believe that God is too good to send anyone to hell; such that they believe hell is empty except perhaps for Hitler and a few other megalomanicacal mass murderers. 

Pope successfully and eloquently explains that this view denies Jesus' clear and repeated warnings about hell and eternal damnation, and the ways in which people who either rebel blatantly against God, or else, are so attached to favourite sins that they in effect turn away from God. Believing such things about God is in effect creating a god different than our Creator; as He has made Himself known through the Sacred Scriptures. Such views are in effect idolatry. 

He further explains that God only created hell when Lucifer and his rebel angels turned away from God. They being "pure spirits" and not enfleshed as we are, but rather immortal beings; their choice to turn away from God was immediately final and irrevocable. Since they wanted nothing to do with God and his plan for creation and humanity, and because God still loved them as his creatures; God created a "space" for them where - for all eternity - their wish would be honoured and they could be "far away from God". This is hell.

We human beings, Pope further explains, are enfleshed. While we are an immortal soul, we are also mortal in the flesh. This means that our choices in time are not yet final or irrevocable; we continue to have both the freedom and opportunity to repent. Still, it is risky to wait, because with time and practice, our sinful ways become more entrenched and repentance becomes more difficult; even unlikely. 

In principle, we can choose daily to turn away from anything that would turn us away from God and his heaven and put us in the direction of hell. It is at the death of our mortal body, once our soul loses this "tool" or "arena" for repentance, that our "dying wish" or choice either for God or for our favourite sins will be finalized and become irrevocable. It is like a clay pot taken from the potter's wheel and put in the kiln; where it is baked at high temperature and can no longer be corrected or changed. Unlike Earth, though, in hell there is no hint of enjoyment, however imperfect it was here.

Should we be repentant but still attached to sins, or bad habits, or addictions, and struggle with letting them go; if our clear desire is to obey and love God, in his mercy, God will provide us the opportunity to be "purged" or purified of all that cannot be admitted into God's Presence in heaven. That opportunity is called "Purgatory". We will suffer by not yet being able to be with God, but it will be with the hope of being with Him once we have been purged of our mortal attachments. 

On the other hand, those who remain selfish, self-obsessed, incapable and unwilling to care for or love others or make room for God's will... Jesus made it clear in a number of parables that these will have such horror of God that they will voluntarily go to join Satan and his demons in hell... as far away from God as they can get. Hell, then, is final and without any hope.

Now, after all these years, I finally understand why so many people no longer go to worship God in church on Sunday, no longer pray, no longer care about spiritual things, and have no use or patience with others who are different or have nothing to offer them. Since they don't believe the reality of hell, and are oblivious to their risk of ending up in that hell misery with demons for eternity; they don't see their need to be saved. They don't see their need for God's mercy and forgiveness; nor their need to change and repent. They neither want to change nor to be told what to do. God will grant their final wish.

God, our loving Father, is willing and ready, even eager to extend his mercy to them and forgive them, restore his friendship with them. The tragedy is that they don't care, don't want, don't ask. God will leave them here, perhaps undistinguishable, among human society as weeds remained among the wheat in Jesus' parable until the harvest. Then, God's angels will come and root them out and cast them into the eternal lake of fire with the devil and his demons for all eternity. They didn't want God on Earth; God will not impose Himself on them in eternity, but because He still loves them, He will honour their final wish and choice.

Please feel free to pass this on to family, friends, neighbours, co-workers, fellow students... to all and to anyone... so that the Holy Spirit might use these words to wake up those who are asleep on the assembly line leading to a perilous drop into the abyss of hell.

Lord, have mercy on us and on all of humanity. 

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My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian witnesses and writers in reflecting on life, encounters, and various situations, in a desire to enhance our understanding of what it means to be a missionary disciple of Jesus Christ at the service of the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2026 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2026 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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Anxiety over the faith or lack of faith in people we love or know

In my life as a Catholic Christian and ministry as a R.C. priest, I have had many conversations with any number of people of all ages, and not surprisingly, the practice of the faith or variations on that theme comes up the most frequently. This prompts me to reflect on many things.

Over the years, I have found the greatest anxiety seems to be felt by parents and grandparents, and about what they perceive to be the state of the faith, or lack of it, in their own children and grandchildren. This also comes up in the course of ministering to people, even when I meet them at the Tribunal, would you believe, but also in the confessional. I believe it is the Lord, the Holy Spirit, who has consistently inspired me with a particular response, which I'd like to share with you, and which I hope you will share widely among your family and friends.

One teaching of our Church which received considerable treatment while I was in seminary was what sounds something like this: "Outside of the Church, there is no salvation." It has prompted many to draw the conclusion: "You have to keep the commandments, go to church on Sunday, and pray every day, or you will go to hell." This teaching has also prompted people to think that unless one is baptized in the Catholic Church, or at least baptized somewhere, they too will go to hell.

Here are the thoughts that I believe the Holy Spirit has prompted me to share with those suffering from the above mentioned anxiety.

First, Jesus gave us a very clear instruction about how the judgement will go when we leave our body behind and find ourselves in the radiant and awesome Presence of the Most Holy Trinity. You know it well. It is Jesus' parable about what it will be like when the Son of Man comes on the clouds and gathers the nations together, separating people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. It's in Matthew chapter 25.

We could translate this into plain English this way: we are on Earth to become fully human, and the ultimate test of this is how we treat others. That's it. There will be no grueling test on our church attendance or our prayers, or our fasting and penances. God our Creator loves all his creatures, especially human beings, and He hopes that we will come to love them in the same way, and as much as He does himself. "Love one another as I have loved you." Jesus means what He said. Saint John put it this way: we have no love of God whom we cannot see if we don't love the people we can see. That's in 1 John 4:20. 

On that score, attending church and saying prayers won't make any difference; remember how Jesus criticized the Pharisees, Sadducees, Priests, and Scribes. He called them hypocrites; they were extremely religious, but still hypocrites, because they had no authentic love, compassion, or caring for their fellow man. Their faith and religious practice did them no good; moreover, it even caused them to try to prevent people from coming to Jesus. Sadly, today we can be just like them and also prevent people from freely coming to Jesus.

This prompts another question. Well, in that case, what difference does being baptized, going to church, doing penances, and praying make?

It makes a big difference, the same difference between loving someone and being devoted to them. We can love our parents by calling and visiting them, but we can do more; we can be devoted to them and assist them in their need, especially when they are sick or elderly, and "give until it hurts" as Saint Mother Teresa used to say. We can go beyond loving and being devoted to family and do that for strangers and even enemies.

As I shared with someone today, God our Creator loves all his human children. Our Church taught at the Second Vatican Council that all human beings can be saved by passing the same test we will all face, based on the quality of our love for others, which includes enemies. The difference that baptism first makes is the divine adoption: God the Most Holy Trinity incorporates us into the communion which the Father and the Son have in the Holy Spirit. We are drawn into the circle of the divine life and love.

The "rub" is that this adoption requires our participation and wholehearted development. If we do learn to know God personally and love Him, in addition to loving our neighbour and even our enemies, then we actually participate in the divine work of salvation in the world. This work of the Holy Trinity in the depths of human souls is very mysterious, and only God can see into human souls. We have no idea what is really going on in other souls; even our own soul remains mysterious to us, and we cannot even judge ourselves, as Saint Paul wrote in his letters.

So, what we need to look for, first in ourselves, and then in others, is this: am I getting to really know God personally? Do I have a relationship with Jesus as my Lord, Master, and Friend? Has Jesus begun to bring me to the Father and reveal Him to me? Have I begun to allow myself to become aware of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit within me? Am I bearing the fruit of the presence and action of God within me? In other words, am I doing the works which Jesus did? When I am at prayer and someone needs me, do I quickly arise to eagerly and gladly attend to them? When I come back from church, am I so radiant with the love of God that others come to be warmed from the warm glow of God's love radiating from me?

The faith can never be transmitted by coercion, but only by divine infection. Even then, how and when others come to discover that God is real, and that He loves them, it all remains so very mysterious because of the extreme degree to which God respects human freedom and gives us as much time as possible to come freely to know and love Him. Whenever we employ other methods to try to drag people to God, not only does it not work, but it often achieves the opposite effect. We only succeed in portraying a false or distorted image or representation of God, which turn others off and pushes them farther away from God or the Church or both, and into the peripheries; as Pope Francis called the shadows.

If we really want to help others come to know and love God, we need to pay the price, which is expensive: much persevering prayer, fasting, and personal sacrifices joyfully offered. We cannot show people we do this, unless they ask about it. The gift must be hidden, freely given, and not become and exaction, pressure, or coercion. Our devotion to the Father, to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit, and to our Blessed Mother Mary and the saints must pass the test of our authentic love of neighbour, especially those we find most difficult to love, and loving them "until it hurts". If I truly love Jesus for the passion He endured for me and all of humanity; then this love will bring me to love others as He does, even to the point of eagerly accepting sufferings for the sake of love, as the saints did and do. 

There will be many "degrees" of intensity of joy and happiness in Heaven. At the lower end, we would find those who gave a little, in the middle, those who gave a lot, and at the upper end, we will find those who gave everything. 250622 I received a very insightful and precise question on this very statement. The reader doesn't think that God has "levels" of love, which would be very disturbing, and that my statement as it is does not show full communion. I appreciate the observation and question and try to answer it below in green. I hope that this will make this post and reflection better and more useful to the reader.

Dear Reader, you can feel quite free to reject this as a personal opinion on my part. Truthfully, it is the result of all my years of life, faith, learning, ministry, searching, and God's mercy. Call it an intuition. You are quite right to say that God hasn't levels of love... the Most Holy Trinity are perfect and infinite in their divine persons and in their giving of Self to us. There are, nonetheless, limitations, or levels, or degrees, as you may prefer, but they are entirely in us. 

Consider how different have been the saints, and how varied in the degrees or "intensity" of "intimacy" or "communion" they experienced with God; which also had to do with how far they gave of themselves, without any thought for themselves, in service to and love of others. Loving care and forgiveness and mercy to enemies does expand the soul. Saint Augustine taught that it is by exercising holy desire that our "capacity to receive from God" grows, which is why, he taught, that God allows us to wait for good things and blessings. While we wait and hope and trust, we "exercise our desire", and God stretches the limits of our soul, our "container"; until there is enough room to take in and receive what it is that God wants to give us.

Jesus did say to the Apostles that there are many rooms or mansions in the Father's house. There is diversity in Heaven, rather than uniformity. Souls are unique. It makes perfect sense that God would completely fill souls with divine presence, communion, and love in eternity. It also makes sense that the "volume" of our containers, our souls, varies. We can see that plainly in everyday life, in our relations with others. This is not a judgement or unfair; it is plainly the truth. We see in creation limitless variety of substance, size, colour, texture, fragrance, and so on; even in the very same variety of a thing. It is not a curse or injustice, but rather all to the glory of God. In Heaven, no one will be disappointed or discontented, because they will all experience fullness of life, communion, and joy together and in God, entirely filling their "container", their dynamic and living soul.

I hope this helps. I cannot think of a specific source for this perspective... it is a cumulative intuition after 76 years of living and faith.... Thank you, Reader, for your astute question and for responding, rather than remaining passive. May others be inspired to do the same. 

There's a saying: "Give a little, it costs a lot. Give a lot, it costs a little. Give everything, it costs nothing at all." — Archbishop Raya, Madonna House Apostolate (RIP 2005). Pope Saint John Paul II referred to Jesus' command to love as "the law of the gift"... God loves us by giving his own Self in what can be called a "divine transfusion" in his own Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament, bestowing upon us a participation in the divine life; which is why to love as God loves, we must also give of ourself. 

Blessed days in the glow of the Most Holy Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament, and on Friday, Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests, and on Saturday, the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Blessings to you and your families.