The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Small Social "Experiment"

I went to a college bowl game this past week. 60,000 in attendance.

During the pre-game festivites (aka tailgating), I impulsively and on a whim decided to start asking random people who looked approachable “a quick question about God”. Generally, these were fast 1-2 minute conversations with people walking by our area. After they gave their answer, I did not seek to continue the conversation. I simply said, “Ok. Thanks for your answer. Enjoy the game!”

QUESTION:
Would you have a more favorable view of God if He was capable of saving the entire human race, all people, and that He has succeeded in this endeavor to save everyone, and one way or another, everyone eventually makes it to heaven?

4 no
2 would give me a less favorable view of God.
1 on the fence yes… This person initially said Yes. Then, after his friends answered No, he said it was a complicated question that couldn’t be answered in Yes or No because a simple Yes would mean Hell did not exist.
1 emphatic “Yes, of course! Wouldn’t this give everyone a more favorable view of God?”

The 1 emphatic yes was a homeless man.

It would be interesting to know what views of God these people already hold. Perhaps at least some of those who answered “no” think their view of God is already as favorable as possible.

Or maybe some of these people will change their minds as they give the question some thought

I wonder if someone has done a study where this question is asked. I would expect that those who already believe that there is or could be a god would be more likely to answer “yes”. And perhaps the question is meaningless to people who really believe there is no creator and that we are evolved.

Are you itching to ask about a 100 more people?

Kelli

Interesting response. I wonder how many people were already committed to a particular doctrinal position on hell and/or salvation? Also, I wonder if many interpreted your questions to be about pluralism or some sort of non-particularist inclusivism or universalism rather than Evangelical universalism.

Yes good points Kelli and pog.

This was by no means “scientific”. The 7/8 people I asked this question to were white males from 28-40. They were probably sports enthusiasts. So this was not any kind of representative sample of everyone.

No one said, “I don’t believe in God so it doesn’t matter to me.” No one said, “Yes. I already believe the scenario in your question is true and so my view of God cannot get any more favorable.”

@pog… about the possible pluralistic interpretation of my question… all I can say is that I twice said “God” in my quick dialogue with them. “Can I ask you a quick question about GOD?” “Would you have a more favorable view of GOD if…”

I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was surprised by the majority of negative responses. But, (and here’s the kicker) I was surprised by the coldness of the responses… what I perceived to be the scowl or apparent “dis-taste” of the possibility… ie the “hardness of heart”. The exception being the homeless man. If I may combine my “sixth-sense” perception with a bit of speculation, I felt like most (5-6/8) of the people I asked sort of puffed up their chest, thought about some bad people they knew of (Hitler, NJ school shooter etc), and said to themselves… “no, there are some really bad people in the world. I’m not as bad as them so I know I’m ok, but those bad people really need to suffer and if God doesn’t get them then God isn’t fair and I don’t like Him.” OR… “I’m really trying to be a good guy and it’s really hard sometimes. If those bad people I know get a free pass, then God isn’t fair and I won’t like that.”

If I may stretch the speculation even further… Now, I realize the negativity could simply be coming from the fact that I was “interrupting people” at an otherwise pleasant party atmosphere with a serious question and so they subconsciously voiced their displeasure in the negative. It could also be that the people I asked, 8 white males, 3-4 of them fairly athletically in-shape “work out” guys… are sort of the “top of the food chain” aspiring alpha males of American culture… really buying into the “rat race” and striving as hard as they can to “be good”, and “make it” the way success is defined in America. So the idea that some who don’t work hard to “make it”, get bliss just like they would, was disgusting to them.

This also hit me like a ton of bricks… People are never willing to give others a “free pass” and “let them off the hook” until they realize and bask in the joy of knowing they themselves have been given a “free pass” and have been “let off the hook”.

Hey, again.

We knew, of course, that you knew that you weren’t taking a scientific approach. Your recent post is interesting, because your intuition and reading of body language, etc. probably did pick up a lot of what was really behind the answers.

For most of us, mercy and humility come only after much suffering and realization of our own wrong doing. I have thought a lot about how so many of the important decisions we make are made when we are least equipped to make them. And the young, who have relatively little mercy and humility are the ones who have the confidence to take great risks and try new things. And we want young politicians when we really need older ones who have had more time to learn of their own need for forgiveness.

I think that at the judgment, those who already know they’re forgiven will have such a clear picture of how merciful God has been toward them that even if God were not inclined to forgive (which doesn’t seem possible) we would beg him to extend his mercy to everyone, and He would relent. We are Hitler, or as Sufjan Stevens sings of the mass murderer John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

Kelli