The reason I believe in the eventual salvation of all humanity is really quite simple. Many years ago, while I myself was still a believer in the popular doctrine of never-ending punishment for unbelievers, I encountered debates between other Christians who also believed the popular doctrine arguing with a seemingly strange group of people who believed Scripture actually teaches that all humanity will experience salvation because of what Christ accomplished.
Now, I was already quite familiar with the passages of Scripture typically used to defend the doctrine of never-ending punishment, having grown up learning and teaching them myself, so I found it unlikely that those who believed in the salvation of all humanity could possibly win the arguments. However, after watching them provide not only strong scriptural reasons for their own soteriological position, but also solid arguments demonstrating why the passages used to defend never-ending punishment were actually talking about something entirely different from what I’d always assumed they meant, while also proving that certain words I assumed should be interpreted literally were actually meant to be interpreted figuratively, I was forced to change my mind and accept that all humans indeed will eventually experience salvation, because those who believed the popular doctrine just didn’t seem to be able to counter any of the interpretations and arguments that those who believed in the salvation of all humanity were providing.
Simply put, I discovered that the only way to conclude the Bible teaches never-ending punishment is to not only ignore the actual context of the passages most people assume are teaching the doctrine (forgetting that a text read out of context is simply a pretext for a “proof text”), but also to ignore all the passages which would then make the Bible contradict itself if these supposed “proof texts” actually did teach never-ending punishment.
To demonstrate this, I’ve laid out scriptural interpretations of certain passages which I believe prove the eventual salvation of all humanity, as well as explained why I believe every argument for the idea of never-ending punishment I’ve ever encountered, be it a scriptural interpretation, a philosophical argument, or even an emotional attempt to defend their doctrine (and I took the time to research all the arguments for that position I could find before writing this, in case there were any I didn’t already know from my time believing the doctrine, although if I missed any, please let me know), and put them all together in one large Bible study. Thus far, despite many promises to do so over the years by some of the thousands of people to whom I’ve provided links to this information, nobody has sent me a refutation of the study yet (although literally every Bible believer I’m aware of who has actually read the whole study from beginning to end has come to believe in the salvation of all humanity themselves). That said, I welcome any and all attempts to refute the conclusions recorded in this Bible study, because if it somehow was the case that we’re wrong about this, I would definitely want to know (and I’d think you’d also want to show me where we went wrong), so here is the study for your consideration:
What the Bible really says about heaven, hell, judgement, death, sin, and salvation (This is a PDF; if you’d prefer a webpage version of this Bible study, you can read it by clicking here.)
Of course, based on my past experiences, most believers in the popular doctrine who are reading this are thinking of simply quoting one or more of those “proof texts” from the Bible to whoever sent them a link to this page (not realizing that simply quoting Bible verses on their own is not the way to win any scriptural disagreement), rather than taking the time to read the above Bible study to learn why someone might interpret the Bible differently than they do. The problem is, since those of us who have come to believe in the salvation of all humanity already believe and agree with those passages of Scripture (just as we do all passages of Scripture), but simply interpret them differently, if they ever want us to change our minds and believe as they do, they’re going to have to show us where we went wrong in our interpretations of Scripture. Because until they do, we have no reason at all to believe we are incorrect in our interpretations of the passages used to defend both soteriological positions, especially considering the fact that I haven’t been able to locate a single refutation of the arguments made in the above Bible study by anyone, and I’ve looked hard for one, because I wanted to make sure we weren’t mistaken (although, if you disagree, please point me to a refutation that does prove the arguments in this particular study wrong).