Volume 24, Issue 4, October 2007
Eric Reitan
Pages 413-432
A GUARANTEE OF UNIVERSAL SALVATION?
Recent defenders of the Christian doctrine of eternal damnation have appealed to what I call the “No Guarantee Doctrine” (NG)—the doctrine that not even
God can ensure both (a) that every person who is saved freely chooses to be saved and (b) that all are saved. Thomas Talbott challenges NG on the grounds
that anyone who is truly free will have no motive to reject God and will infallibly choose salvation. In response to critics of Talbott , I argue that in order to
avoid Talbott ’s critique of NG, its defenders must adopt a view of human freedom in which there is a random element in choice. And if free choice involves
such an element, then it is within God’s power to achieve a mathematical guarantee of freely chosen salvation for all. Thus, NG must be rejected.