Yet Bell wants to push this thought further. He reminds us that we are not static beings. We are dynamic. We change. Perhaps we do not have simply one lifetime to change. Perhaps we have eternity. On page 105 Bell wonders whether we can imagine people who choose evil in such a dedicated and persistent way that the image of God in them is extinguished and they cease to exist as persons. Bell goes on to cite Martin Luther who did not doubt that God is able to have arranged it so that people would be able to turn to God after death.
Billions of people wanting to be restored but being forever damned does not bring glory to God. Bell asks (p. 109) "Which is stronger and more powerful, the hardness of the human heart of God's unrelenting, infinite, expansive love? Thousands through the years have answered that question with the resounding response, 'God's love, of course.'" Bell reminds us several times in this chapter that over the centuries various Christian writers have answered the questions about eternal damnation in a variety of ways.
Bell makes an important claim on page 110: Some stories are better than others. A story about God inflicting unrelenting punishment on people because they did not manage to do or say some particular thing in their brief lives is not a very good story. Conversely Bell says, "Everybody enjoying God's good world together with no disgrace or shame, justice being served and all the wrongs being made right is a better story." Even if one disagrees with the truth of that latter story, it is proper and Christian to long for it to be true."
Bell moves on to consider the last book of the Bible, Revelation. Although there is much violent and outlandish imagery in the opening chapters of this book, the ending vision is a picture of a future in which the nations are healed and there is peace on earth and no more tears. There is no place in this vision for murder or destruction or cruelty. Those who would continue those activities are not allowed in. God says, "Not here you won't!"
Bell returns to the paradox on page 113: "Love demands freedom. It always has, and it always will. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against God's ways for us. We can have all the hell we want." That is one of the reasons why the gates of the new city that comes into being are always open: we are free to enter and we are free to leave.
"Will everyone be saved," Bell asks. The answer is not an answer: "Those are questions, or more accurately, those are tensions we are free to leave fully intact. We don't need to resolve them or answer them because we can't, and so we simply respect them, creating space for the freedom that love requires."
God may or may not get what God wants, according to this chapter, but we get what we want.
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