I have to say this is something that I’ve never really felt the need to have a position on. Taking an definitive stance on either side (i.e. positively affirming that everyone will be saved or that not everyone will be saved) seems underdetermined by the evidence.

There are more or less plausible theological arguments one can make, of course, such as “A God of love would not allow anyone to be consigned to hell” or “God won’t force anyone to love him,” etc. But none of them seem really convincing to me. The New Testament seems ambiguous on the matter. There are definitely universalist sounding passages in Paul’s letters, but, on the other hand, Jesus certainly talks about Hell as a real possibility. (Ironically, this is a place where the stereotype of mean old Paul versus easygoing Jesus seems to cut in the other direction!)

I like what Lutheran theologian Gerhard Forde said about universalism, and think it applies to anti-universalism as well. He called it “an attempt to tie God’s hands with an abstraction.” He thought that abstract arguments about something called “universalism” actually distract us from the concrete proclmation of the Gospel to specific people, which is what the church should be about. God doesn’t save people in general, he saves them through particular acts – baptism, the preaching of the word, etc. The church is the place where those acts happen and its job is to perform them, not propound theories about whether or not God is obliged to save everyone. But we also aren’t privy to how God may deal with people outside of the work the church has been entrusted with.