Why Universalism Is Hard to Realize: Civilizational Differences, Theological Ideals, and the Cost of Order

1. Universalism Is Not a Simple Slogan of Goodwill

I can say with considerable confidence that, from the perspectives of civilizational development, political order, and human conflict, universalism is unlikely to be fully realizable in practice.

By universalism here I do not mean only the “universal values” of modern human-rights discourse, nor only Christian theology’s “universal salvation.” It points more broadly to an ideal in which humanity is expected to transcend ethnic, national, class, denominational, and civilizational boundaries to enter a shared order, submit to a common set of principles, and perhaps eventually reach something like “all-under-heaven harmony.”

This ideal emerged very early. The Cynics and Stoics in ancient Greece already advanced the idea of “cosmopolitanism,” arguing that one is not merely a citizen of a city-state but can be understood as a member of a cosmic order. Later, Christianity, with ideas such as equality before God, the universal church, and the gathering of all nations, carried universalism into theological and civilizational terms. Afterwards, the Enlightenment, liberalism, human-rights politics, international law, and modern globalism translated that same ideal into secular political language.

Yet although universalism is old and has come close to success many times, it has almost never fully and stably fulfilled its own promise. Each time it tries to eliminate old conflicts, it often creates new ones; each time it tries to transcend old boundaries, it tends to form new boundaries.

2. Several Roots of Universalism

1. The Greek Cosmopolitan Idea

From the standpoint of the history of thought, a major source of universalism is the cosmopolitan idea of the late Greek world.

“Cosmopolitanism” was not a modern invention. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains cosmopolitanism as the idea of understanding all people as members of a single community regardless of which city-state, nation, or political unit they belong to. This idea appeared against the background of the decline of city-state politics and the expansion of imperial order, and therefore already carried a tendency to transcend local communities.

The strength of this view is clear: it seeks to liberate human dignity from narrow civic, bloodline, and local identities, giving humans a higher ethical status.

But the problem is exactly here: once a person is abstracted as “the universal human,” the concrete language, religion, family, custom, historical memory, and local responsibilities attached to that person are easily treated as secondary. The more universalism emphasizes abstract humanity, the more it can weaken concrete communities.

2. Christianity’s Universal Church and Universal Redemption

Christianity also provided a powerful source for universalism.

Christianity holds that salvation is not meant for only one nation or one city-state, but is oriented toward all peoples. This is quite different from many ancient local, city-based, or ethnic religions. Christianity’s ecclesiology itself is trans-ethnic, trans-imperial, and trans-local.

More specifically, in theology Christian Universalism usually refers to “universal redemption” or “final reconciliation”: namely, that everyone may eventually be saved and reconciled with God. Britannica defines Universalism as the belief that all souls will ultimately be saved; this belief has recurred repeatedly in Christian history, especially as a counter to strict predestinarian tendencies that imply only a few elect are saved while most are forever condemned.

From within faith, this has emotional force and legitimacy. If God is love, is it reasonable that only a few are saved and most are forever lost? That question itself drives theology toward some form of universalism.

But Christian history also shows that universal faith does not automatically eliminate division. Even among those who confess one God, one Bible, and one salvation narrative, doctrinal disputes, denominational schisms, and orthodoxy-versus-heresy struggles still occur within the church. What you think to be the replacement of old civic and ethnic conflicts may simply be the substitution of new doctrinal, institutional, and interpretive conflicts.

3. The Enlightenment and Modern Political Universalism

By the Enlightenment, universalism increasingly shifted from theological language into secular language.

Modern political universalism often takes this shape: human rights are universal, reason is universal, principles of law should apply to all, and human dignity should not be denied on the basis of nationality, race, class, or religion. These ideas played an important role in opposing slavery, aristocratic privilege, and theocratic absolutism, and in promoting modern rule of law.

This is why universalism cannot be dismissed as a mere hypocritical slogan. It has provided real emancipatory power and has corrected many cruelties and inequalities within traditional orders.

The problem is that when a universal principle becomes a ruling instrument rather than a critical one, it changes. It is no longer only about protecting the weak and limiting power; it can become a new civilizational tribunal: whoever does not accept these principles is seen as backward, barbaric, uncivilized, needing reform.

At that point, universalism shifts from “universal ethics” to a “universal civilizing project.”

3. The Practical Difficulties of Universalism

1. It Cannot Truly Eliminate Conflict; It Only Changes Its Form

The largest illusion of universalism is the belief that once we find principles that are correct, benevolent, and rational enough, human conflict will be greatly reduced, perhaps disappear entirely.

Historical experience is the opposite. Human conflict does not stem only from misunderstanding or from backward institutions. It comes from interests, resources, dignity, interpretive authority, identity boundaries, and communal loyalties. As long as humans continue to live in different communities, conflict does not vanish.

Universalism can suppress some old conflicts, but it often heightens new ones. For example, religious universalism may reduce tribal conflict while producing sectarian conflict; nationalist universalism may reduce feudal status conflict while producing ethnonational boundary conflict; modern human-rights universalism may reduce traditional hierarchy conflict while producing value-conflict and institutional-export conflict.

So the issue is not whether universalism is kind, but whether it can acknowledge the irreducibility of conflict. If it does not, it easily treats opponents as evil, ignorant, or people who simply need to be educated.

2. It Tends to Treat Difference as Backwardness

Civilizational vitality comes from difference. Language, ritual, religion, kinship systems, local order, aesthetic taste, and historical memory are not decorations that can be deleted at will.

Universalism often looks down on these differences from above, treating them as obstacles to a unified order. It says: your local form is too particular, your tradition too closed, your religion too exclusionary, your family ethics too backward, your community too un-modern.

Some such criticism is legitimate. Tradition is not inherently true, and local communities can be harsh. But if universalism only knows how to dismantle difference and cannot understand why difference exists, the world it produces becomes monotonous, impoverished, and fragile.

A civilizational system without difference may seem peaceful, but it may lose its capacity for self-renewal. New orders, new ethics, and new creativity often arise not from perfectly smooth uniform structures, but from the friction, competition, and boundaries among different traditions.

3. It Depends on Power to Be Implemented

Though universalism speaks in the name of all humanity, its actual spread usually requires some concrete power to carry it out.

Religious universalism needs churches, missionary networks, and imperial routes; modern political universalism needs states, international organizations, legal systems, media networks, universities, and capital networks. Without organized force, universalism stays on paper and the pulpit; once organized force appears, it inevitably carries the color of power.

This creates a paradox: the more universalism claims to represent all humanity, the more it requires some partial power to speak for all humanity. Who defines universal principles? Who interprets civilizational progress? Who decides whether a tradition is backward? Who determines the methods and costs of reform?

Once these questions arise, universalism is no longer merely a moral ideal; it becomes part of power competition.

4. Tenderness and Danger in Theological Faith

1. The Tenderness of Universal Redemption

From a theological perspective, universal redemption is moving because it addresses a sharp question: if God is wholly good, wholly loving, and all-powerful, is it reasonable to abandon some souls eternally?

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, discussing heaven and hell, notes that universalist critiques of eternal separation often begin from divine saving love, arguing that God’s love for all should not ultimately fail. This is not shallow “goodness,” but a long-running serious theological dispute.

So universalism in religion is not merely political correctness. It genuinely touches the core theological questions about love, judgment, redemption, and free will.

2. The Danger of Universal Redemption

Yet once universal redemption becomes real-world order, it can become dangerous.

If a faith system believes it possesses universal truth, it can easily regard other faiths, customs, and ways of life as incomplete, unsaved, or not yet in the light. Then salvation can turn into reform, love can become control, and the Gospel can become civilizational expansion.

This is not only about Christianity. Any universalist ideology carries a similar danger. Religion can do this. So can Enlightenment rationalism, nationalism, and revolutionary ideology.

So skepticism toward universalism is not skepticism toward love, peace, or human commonality. It is caution against a condition in which, once a kind of commonality is absolutized, it can erase concrete persons, concrete communities, and concrete historical experience.

5. Civilizations Need Difference, and Also Limited Common Rules

Of course, complete anti-universalism can move toward the opposite extreme.

If all common principles are denied, the world is left with bare power asymmetries, local custom, and everyone defending their own interests. That cannot sustain stable order either. The modern world does need some minimum shared rules—for diplomacy, basic humanitarian principles, rules of international trade, constraints of laws of war, and cross-border communication mechanisms, to name a few.

The issue is that such shared rules should be limited, restrained, and negotiable, rather than expanded into an all-encompassing, ultimate civilizational creed.

What I can accept is a qualified universalism: one that acknowledges certain minimum common needs and minimum common thresholds among humans, but does not imagine eliminating civilizational differences; that recognizes peace as valuable but does not imagine a world with no conflict at all; that accepts universal principles as necessary but does not allow them to swallow local traditions, historical memory, and concrete communities.

6. Conclusion: The Failure of Universalism Is Not the Failure of Human Commonality

The real problem of universalism is not that it is entirely wrong, but that it often overestimates itself.

It overestimates the ability of rational principles to overpower historical differences; it overestimates the ability of shared belief to eliminate internal conflict; and it overestimates the purity of goodwill within power structures.

Human beings do need commonality. Without it, the world is left with hatred and war. But humans also need difference. Without difference, civilization becomes monotonous, impoverished, and may lose its capacity to continue growing.

Therefore, the greatest danger of universalism is not its pursuit of peace, but how cheaply it imagines peace. It is not its pursuit of shared human values, but its frequent forgetfulness that civilizational difference itself is also part of value.

A system that is perfectly happy, perfectly peaceful, and perfectly unified may not be a self-sustaining system, nor one that can continuously generate new orders while preserving freedom and creativity. Civilizational vitality and development have never come without cost. Local pain, conflict, and boundaries are sometimes the price of preserving complexity.

For further discussion, see Nanyang Technological University Philosophy of Religion Course Notes.

FAQ

Which religious tradition is discussed in this article?

You can refer to the specific explanations in the main text. The religion section of this site covers multiple traditions, including Christianity (Catholicism, Protestantism, Pentecostalism), Eastern religions, and mysticism, with each article presenting different perspectives and positions.

Is this a religious promotional piece or an academic discussion?

Articles on this site primarily focus on cultural observation and academic introduction. They do not represent a specific religious stance and do not constitute religious proselytizing. Readers should engage with them using their own faith background and critical thinking.

How can I deepen my understanding of the religious topics discussed?

It is recommended to consult the original works, academic papers, and course resources listed in the “References” section at the end of the article. Readers interested in intersections of Eastern religion and divination culture may also explore the site’s I Ching Divination Tool as a cultural entry point.

Where are related series mentioned in the article?

The religion section has multiple series, including the “Yu Bin Spiritual Realm Series” (nine articles), which can be browsed on the blog category pages.

References

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Cosmopolitanism
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Universalism
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Unitarianism and Universalism
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Heaven and Hell in Christian Thought
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Stoicism
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Cosmopolitanism