Space For Doubt

This is a tough one.

In a previous post I mentioned how I’d get into our impaired human capacity to choose God. This was never something I had ever considered prior to just a few months ago but is now quite obvious.

Imagine you are a young child of a radicalized terrorist and live in a radicalized community. You are fed a steady diet of propaganda and live under a strict fear based culture where any behavior out of bounds could be the death of you.

Do you have free will in this scenario?

One could argue that in your mind, you always have free will. No one else can control your thoughts, but your thoughts are, to a large degree, usually a byproduct of what you experience in life. Brainwashing and thought control cults have historically worked for a reason.

Let’s step back a little from that extreme example.

Imagine you are a single mother, limited income, limited support, and essentially no free time. Your kid(s) take every ounce of energy you have beyond your work. Your physical and mental health are starting to take a dive from the chronic stress and sleep deprivation.

You are tapped out. There is no mental bandwidth left for anything. You are just trying to survive. On the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, you are near the bottom.

Do you have the mental wherewithal to make good choices? To rationally think clearly and truly choose God?

I had my own unfortunate experience this year with a short but poorly timed anesthesia induced mental breakdown, on top of a terrible bout of depression. It left me in a state of extremely low decision making capacity for a few days. After the fact my wife, having seen/heard it all, mentioned “How could you have made a good decision in a state like that?”.

The short answer is…I really couldn’t….and I didn’t. She mentioned how that is why she’s a universalist. In that moment, I became one too.

Some people are not born with a full deck of cards upstairs. For them it’s just that simple. There has been medical research done on psychopaths that shows actual structural brain differences in them vs a normal person. If their brain is messed up, how can we expect them to make sound decisions? How could a fair God hold them to account for a defective mind?

How could the Christian God hold a radicalized terrorist to the same “to-do list for salvation” as a typical protestant Christian?

How could a loving God fairly hold His creation to account for choices made under the influence of flaws He himself knows about?

I may be way off here, probably in the minority, but I don’t think He will.

Universalism is still a hard concept to fully embrace for me. Maybe it’s the decades of ingrained thought? I think though, I’ve come to this conclusion. I will live as if it is true. I will love as if the God I serve will save everyone, no matter what. I would much rather err on the side of that mistake than the other.

Peace.