In a couple of previous posts, I queried whether God's grace might be so overpowering as to redeem the entire creation—Hitlers, Stalins and Amins included. In a Systematic Theology lecture I listened to today, I found a rather illuminating outline point in the notes. "God's love is universal, Christ's act is universal, and the atonement is universal, but some resist this love. That is the mystery of sin and evil."
I still won't discount the pleasant thought of God redeeming everyone, but this helped me to make sense of that austere nagging in the back of my mind, saying, "There's no way everybody gets in." (Not that nagging in my broken mind is the source of truth or anything.) It seems to me that God isn't stopping anybody from "getting in." Perhaps it's our hardness of heart rejecting God.
That opens a whole new can of worms about how free we really are. The professor of this course said early on that "the Bible has no place for free will." He laughed a bit and said, "Maybe I'll have the TA explain that to you later." He sounded dead serious, but I have a really (really) hard time believing that.
No mysteries will be solved at this hour, I'm sure. I've got a bit more reading to do, then off to bed!
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