What is Inclusion? It comes from the Latin inclusio -onis (a shutting up, confinement), along with the verb includo, -cludere (to shut in, enclose). In Latin there is also exclusio -onis (a shutting out, exclusion) and excludo, -cludere (to shut out, exclude). Within Latin these both stem from cludo, cludere, which essentially means to shut. And yet the modern connotation is that the English “inclusion” signifies something being open to everyone. Yet for the language English inherits it from, inclusio and exclusio both signify a shutting. They are two sides of the same coin—when something is shut without, this means everything else in the universe is shut within. Perhaps they are antonyms insofar as shutting within is the opposite as shutting without, but they could refer to the same phenomenon; if someone tries a strict regimen for weight loss, they will shut out food like cake and shut in better habits like working out. In learning mathematics, one’s mind accepts (shuts in) facts like 2+2=4 and rejects (shuts out) falsehoods like 2+2=3. More fundamentally, when a door is locked, usually some objects are shut inside it and some are shut outside it. This raises another question: Is this phenomenon the case for Christianity?
Ultimately, Christians believe that God loves everyone. Really, He loves all He has created, since He loves everything which is good, and all of creation is good insofar as it was created by the God who is Goodness Itself. Yet He loves every last human being even more than all the other physical things, as they bear a particular resemblance to Him; He was pleased to grant humans the honor of bearing His image and likeness. Then, after humanity had fallen into sin, God continued to love us, and won our salvation through the death of Jesus Christ. Christians believe this because the Bible elucidates not only that the Suffering, Death, and Resurrection of Christ have allowed for redemption (cf. Colossians 1:12-14), but also that God has made this possible for everyone (cf. 1 John 2:2). Saint John the Evangelist is so bold as to say “Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God” (1 John 3:2–Douay Rheims). Through Christ we have the honor of being in a sense adopted children of God the Father (cf. Romans 8:15), even being told by Christ Himself to call God “Our Father”. Yet where there are rights, there are also responsibilities.
God’s love for humans may include all of us, but so does His command to follow Him; these two components must never be separated. For he declared “whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). Is this call to be His disciple really for everyone? Well, later in this chapter He uses a short allegory of salt, saying that if “salt shall lose its savour, [it] shall be cast out’ (Luke 14:34-35). He is really speaking of Hell, and He uses this language a lot, equating refusal to be His disciple with such condemnation (cf. Matthew 25:46, in which He includes those who had been faithful to Him in the glory of heaven and excludes those who had not). Yet since He loves everyone, He does not want anyone condemned to Hell; thus, He wants every person to be one of His disciples. Here the inclusio starts to become an exclusio; since Jesus claimed to be God, following Him would ultimately mean worshipping Him as God, which excludes worshipping anything else. The Jews and Christians must have seemed odd to the ancient Greeks and Romans (and all the other ancient polytheistic cultures) for worshipping one God exclusively, whereas a Greek could have without shame chosen to worship Poseidon, or Hera, or Ares, or (like the Pythagoreans) mathematics, or all four. Yet this exclusio also comes from God’s love for us, commanding us to shut out of our lives all that would hurt us. There is another command that acts as a beneficial exclusio for those who heed it, although it operates to expand the inclusio of salvation: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” (Matthew 28:19)
There is a notable caveat relating to this discussion of inclusion: the heresy known as universalism, which proclaims that all human beings will go to heaven. Christians do not believe this, since “many…shall seek to enter, and shall not be able”; yet God still loves everyone. (Luke 13:24) There is a tension in reconciling these two truths; since some people go to Hell and God is Omnipotent, does that mean God willed them to go to Hell even though He loves them? Herein lies a major difference among Christians: the question of predestination (destino -are in Latin means “to make fast, fix down”). Predestination means that God chose that a particular person would be saved from before the world began (cf Ephesians 1:4), and thus incorporated into the inclusio of Heavenly Paradise. One Christian view which would stand against predestination is Arminianism, so called after Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609). Arminians are Christians who focus more on the responsibility of man to provide the faith himself which will lead him to salvation, which God brings about because of man’s belief. Predestination focuses on God’s choice: “You have not chosen me: but I have chosen you;” (John 15:16).
Yet there is still the major distinction between single predestination and double predestination. Double predestination holds that God chooses both who will be saved and who will be damned preemptively; thus, even though God loves the condemned, He does not show mercy on them because He is not obliged to. Single predestination holds that, per Ephesians 1:4, God has chosen some from the foundation of the world to be saved, yet He does not will that anyone should go to hell, since His Love for them is incompatible with willing them to be damned–at least, not primarily. Along this line, God is understood to have a Perfect Will, by which He desires that everyone might achieve salvation, and a Permissive Will, which acts a posteriori with regard to people’s sins, and allows them to be damned insofar as this is the natural consequence of their sins. (Using the terminology we have developed, universalism entails merely an inclusio of the saved, arminianism entails neither an inclusio of the saved nor an exclusio of the damned, double predestination entails just an exclusio, single predestination entails both). Single predestination is particularly associated with Catholics, as they are obliged to hold to it, yet this raises another point. The Catholic Church, what with its long-standing intellectual heritage, has a care for theological precision; when Catholics talk about Matthew 28:19, it is often about how they want people to become Catholic specifically (herein lies another exclusio, against ideas incompatible with their own).
Anyway, inclusion is a complex issue; but regardless, Christians believe there will be a day when that phenomenon aforementioned occurs, and the door will be locked: “Then two shall be in the field; one shall be taken, and one shall be left.” The Second Coming shall act as an inclusio for the first, but an exclusio for the second. (Matthew 24:40). Would that you might be found in the inclusio so that, after “[t]eaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you”, the One Exclusive God may say to you, “and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” (Matthew 28:20) So I ask again: What is Inclusion?
Works Cited
Bible Verses about Christian Responsibility. https://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/library/verses/id/3454/christian-responsibility-verses.htm. Accessed 22 Feb. 2026.
Cassell’s Latin Dictionary: Latin-English, English-Latin. With D. P. Simpson, Cassell ; New York : Macmillan, 1977.
Pergamum. “God loves everybody-John Calvin.” Puritanboard.Com, https://puritanboard.com/threads/god-loves-everybody-john-calvin.65804/.
Piper, John. “Is Double Predestination Biblical?” Desiringgod.Org, https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/is-double-predestination-biblical.
———. “Watershed Differences Between Calvinists and Arminians.” Desiringgod.Org, 11 Aug. 2015, https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/watershed-differences-between-calvinists-and-arminians.
The Holy Bible. Douay-Rheims Version. Baronius Press, 2008.
“What Is Arminianism, and Is It Biblical?” GotQuestions.Org, https://www.gotquestions.org/arminianism.html. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.
Williams, Jr., Horace. 7 Remarkable Verses about God’s Unconditional Love. Feb. 2019.
“John Calvin.” Wikipedia, 25 Jan. 2026. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Calvin&oldid=1334685707.