If ‘all’ accepted the choice it would not appear that it was a choice after all.
I have been wondering about this...and also the related question posed by some here have suggested that universal reconciliation would violate free choice. That is, what if someone just did not wish to be saved, wanted to hate God eternally, and God forced them to believe in spite of themselves?
I can see why some people might disbelieve, rebel and even adopt an attitude of hatred toward God, as they conceive Him, in this lifetime. This is because many people have difficulty believing in invisible, supernatural phenomena, feeling the there is not enough evidence, that the stories of Jesus sound too much like other religious myths that no one would believe, that the persons telling them about Jesus are the least credible people that they can imagine, that the message (which they have heard in a greatly distorted form) does not make any sense, etc. They may become angry at God because of great suffering or injustice which they do not know how to interpret in light of God's professed character. Or they might not even have heard of the God of the Bible at all. Or they may be deceived into thinking that the course of sin and selfishness provides the only comforts a person can find in this life, and the only protection against being exploited by other sinners. The reasons for disbelief may be myriad. All of these are instances of either ignorance or deception.
Even Eve's sin was not committed out of raw hatred for God, but as a result of being deceived. Likewise, we do not read that Adam hated God. He had a choice to make between his wife and God, and he made a foolish choice. However, to suggest that the rebellion in the hearts of men is such that, with the removal of every wrong assumption, of every deception, of the vail that keeps God invisible to us, we would find people still exercising their will in rebellion is a hard proposition to accept without biblical support.
If a group of people are swimming in the ocean and a man on a yacht approaches and announces to the group that they are in great danger and that they are welcome to board his ship and dine with him, some might doubt his words and ignore him, while others would possibly climb aboard. The ones who have rejected the offer do so either because they do not believe there to be significant danger, or because, believing there to be some danger, they do not have a liking for the yachtsman, or they think they can handle any dangers that might arise. They are all exercising their free will.
However, if they were then to notice the dorsal fins of great white sharks beginning to circle them, they might, of their own free will, be induced to change their minds. Many of those who have come to Christ already, of their own free will, have done so because they have become alarmed that their souls were in danger. Some have rejected the message, thinking themselves to be in no danger. It seems to me that those who find themselves in hell would be quickly disabused of any notions that they are safe from harm there. It would be their own free will that would cause them to repent—and for reasons not different in kind from those that led many to repent in this life.
Furthermore, if people have rejected Christ in this life out of sheer contempt or hatred toward Him, can it be thought that these people have adopted this attitude having seen Him as He really is? Do we think Christ to be so unlovable as to inspire hatred toward him in the hearts of people who are not strongly deluded? The Calvinist believes in total depravity, and thinks that men are so evil that, even when they see God as He is, face to face, they will still hate Him. They claim that unregenerate persons will despise God's holiness and goodness. This seems to be a serious insult to God! Many a callous mobster has nonetheless felt compassion for a child or has admired a good man. Millions of unconverted people admired Mother Theresa because of her attractive goodness—which was little other than Christlikeness. Can we imagine that seeing Jesus as He really is could fail to inspire such admiration? Do we not know a Jesus whom any sane person would love, were they to be stripped of all their prejudicial misconceptions about Him. Is it really God and Jesus that they hate, or a distorted impression of who they are? Would not the removal of all blinders, and the true vision of God as He is have the effect of persuading the ignorant, and even the rebellious, that God is good, and that Jesus is not the person that they thought they were objecting to?
I suppose I do not know enough about the hearts and motives of all men to answer these questions with certainty. However, I do not find it inconceivable that all men, when made fully aware of the truth that they lacked in this life, might, fully of their own free will, choose to love and serve God.
The question is whether they will or will not have a chance to make that choice after death, and whether God would accept it if they did. To the latter point I can only accept one answer. Of course God would accept genuine repentance from His creatures, at any time that they were capable of exhibiting it. It is also difficult, on biblical grounds, to make a convincing case that God, who desires that all men should repent, would deprive them of the opportunity to do so postmortem for the sole reason that they were unfortunate enough to die before all the truth could reach them or register properly on their consciousness. The question of whether all, given sufficient opportunity, would choose to repent is the remaining issue.
