I agree with you, that universalism speaks to an intuition, a “common sense” within most people. I’ve also been thinking about this in terms of parents … I think that for many (most?) people, becoming a parent makes a belief in a vengeful Father God more problematic. We look at our children and yes, several times a day they may make us want to send them to Alcatraz … but ultimately we acknowledge that no matter what they do, we would still love them. So then, we ask ourselves, how could God be less loving than we?

I think it a very instinctive thing to try to apply what we know about ourselves to our vision of God … and to not believe in universalism requires the greater, more difficult, leap of faith.