A tearful little boy approached Pope Francis last week with a question about his atheist dad who had recently died. Traditional Christian doctrine teaches that belief in God through Jesus is essential to life after death. But Pope Francis spoke a more personal truth about God to this distraught child, who was escorted up to the Pope after he could not speak his question into a microphone.
“Is Dad in heaven?” the boy asked the Pope, whispering in his ear.
With permission from the boy, the Pope told the audience his answer. “His father wasn’t a believer, but he had his children baptized. He had a good heart. The one who says who goes to heaven—is God. But what is God’s heart with a dad like that? What do you think?” The Pope continued, “God has a dad’s heart. And with a dad who was not a believer, but who baptized his children, do you think God would be able to leave him far from himself?”
The Pope then directed the question to the other children present. “But what is God’s heart with a man like that? Do you think God would be able to leave him far from himself?” Motioning to them with a smile, the Pope asked, “What do you think? Speak up, come on.”
The children answered, “No!”
“Does God abandon his children?”
“No!”
The pope then looked at the boy, “God was surely proud of your father because it is easier as a believer to baptize your children than to baptize them when you are not a believer. Surely this pleased God very much.”
Salvation, the idea we live beyond death, has been something of a cat and mouse game within much of Christianity—believe or else. Believe in God through Jesus and you will be saved from an eternity in hell.
A reasoning mind realizes this is not a true choice, but blackmail. The threat of torture does not yield a true decision. And further, why would a loving God/father devise a system of eternal torture for his non-believing children?
The Urantia Book teaches unequivocally that God’s love for every person on earth—and throughout the universe—is one of genuine parental affection.
“God loves not like a father but as a father.” 2:6.4
The text further says that Jesus taught his apostles that “my Father will ever respond to the faintest flicker of faith.” (155:6.17)
And then there’s this nugget. “We would rather assume the risk of a system rebellion than to court the hazard of depriving one struggling mortal from any evolutionary world of the eternal joy of pursuing the ascending career.” (112:5.8)
The passage goes on to say that each of us is “to experience one true opportunity to make one undoubted, self-conscious, and final choice….the soul of man must and will be given full and ample opportunity to reveal its true intent and real purpose.” (112:5.9)
A decision, it appears, that can be made on this or the other side of death.
The Urantia Book claims no hell, but cessation of existence for one who does not choose to go forward. And whether you live eternally or die, is your choice. Eternal life is not a game of fearful uncertainty. And the God we are choosing to follow, or not to follow, is a father of love. The sort of love we have for one of our own children.
So does an atheist wake up on the other side of death?
How would a good father handle this?