It really surprises me that so many Christian leaders are holding firmly to the idea of eternal conscious torment in hell even though the Biblical text seems strongly weighted against it. I like your arguments for universalism. I would like to believe universalism, and there are some Bible passages that support it. But I also find many passages that speak about the destiny of the wicked in terms of death and destruction. What do you do with those passages? Also, I'm not a fan of the idea that the fire of hell is a refining or purifying process. Is there a version of universalism that doesn't believe we need a purifying fire? My problem with it is that I think Jesus was enough for all the purifying we would ever need: "By one sacrifice he made perfect forever those who are being made holy." Thanks!
A universalist should think that the purifying fire is what makes us ready to accept Jesus. Universalists think that there will be death and destruction in the sense that one's sinful nature will be destroyed. There are 13 verses in scripture that talk about this, linked in this article. One can think that as Jesus's love washes over one, they experience agony from their deep regret of their sins.
I guess you could also think that the fires of hell are for punishment. For those who reject Jesus maybe there could be a punishment needed before one can accept the grace of God. Not a view I find plausible, but not totally vil.
Are you suggesting it is merely the belief in those fires that does the work or the actuality of them? If the former why not just think God is lying about them? I mean if it's actually for our own good...
Honestly, I have a lot of trouble understanding retributivism as anything like morality. To the extent I have a grip on the meaning of the words 'good' and 'evil' punishment for its own sake is kinda the core of what I'd describe as evil.
But I get that's not universal so fair point. But would even a retributivist say it's better that someone who will do evil exist so they can be punished for them? If not, then god could just choose not to create (or make them soulless freewill lacking beings like animals) those people in the first place.
But I get that's just back to the other point I raised so it's not an independent response.
Also, free will isn't enough to explain why God creates beings who will choose to exercise that free will in ways which result in them going to hell. A OOO god would certainly be capable of only creating some people and putting them into their own reality bubbles where all the bad people don't actually have souls.
Ok, some people who aren't compatabilists about free will may feel that free will is incompatible with being able to predict what someone will do but this leads to some really odd conclusions. Not only can god not predict the future but that what choice you make in a tempting situation isn't even a function of your character or soul (god could then predict). Moreover, would it make sense to punish someone for mere chance rather than something which flows from who they are?
At the very least it would seem like you'd need to believe that God would only create the souls which are predisposed to make the right choices and place them in a reality which maximized the chances that they would do so. But then you run into a tension between the existence of hell and the usual doctrines about salvation (faith and for Catholics works) which seem to depend on factors that seem incompatible with saying God is giving everyone the best shot to be saved a OOO god could.
Two scriptural passages referenced in the video stood out to me: (1) the story of Jonah, who was angry at God for being compassionate toward the Ninevites who repented; Jonah would rather see them destroyed in judgment. (2) In the The Parable of the Lost Son, the older brother was unhappy that the younger brother's return to the family was being celebrated.
Jonah's and the other brother's reactions seemed similar to Christian's reaction to the possibility of universalism.
Luke 15:7 - "I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." So suppose that a mother is in heaven but her son is in hell. How much more happy she would be once her son eventually joins heaven!
"Gavin suggested that because scripture teaches clearly that hell is eternal." Gavin has also defended a local flood and has argued against young-earth creationism despite protests from other Christians who have asserted that scripture teaches clearly that the flood was global and that the earth is only about 6,000 years old.
So if Gavin is allowing science to inform our interpretations of scripture, then could it be that reason and revelation help as well? Christianity is built on interpreting the Hebrew scriptures differently than Orthodox Jews. Just something to keep in mind when talking to Gavin again.
I think this also raises the interesting question of why should one suppose that God doesn't lie to the faithful and tell them there is a hell for their own good even if it's not real (a la parents lying about Santa).
In other words, isn't there a tension between believing God is benevolent and believing that his revealed word is always truthful?
I don't think it's uncommon at all to talk about God, being transcendent and all, always having to be understood by finite creatures in limited ways that are "false" if taken as statements of unqualified truth, but that point in the direction of some deeper truth.
I think most people would object to the idea of God devising falsehoods to intentionally deceive people for a variety of reasons, but would not necessarily be outraged at the idea that the idea of God's holiness expressed in the book of Joshua, for instance, was not simply "the Truth" about God.
That's my sense too, the reason I raise it is to point out the inadequacy of scriptural arguments for the existence of hell. If you are willing to accept that, in principle, God might, say, use hell talk as a way of explaining that you'll regret choices to act against his plan/will (eg, even if that is merely realized as regret or sorrow over your choice once you fully come to understand its meaning) then scriptural appeals can no longer be used to support the existence of hell.
After all, if you don't reject the idea that hell talk in the scriptures might be analagous to the way we sometimes use technically false/metaphorical statements to help little kids understand things that they can't yet literally understand then you no longer have reason to believe that the scripture wouldn't talk about hell of it wasn't real.
I agree with that. There's obviously enough degrees of freedom on how to interpret something like the Bible that even if you claim it is totally authoritative, you can't establish one reading as the only defensible one in a way that overrides all other considerations, like whether your reading makes any moral sense, or matches what we can tell by scientific or archaeological means.
I think one of the main responses to that kind of thing, at least from the Calvinist angle, would be to insist that the truth is so totally incomprehensible to us that it is not actually possible to reason about it in the way we're attempting to do here. We can literally say nothing at all about God or morality or any of that except by first committing to accept everything the Bible seems to say, accepting no outside considerations to guide our interpretation.
If somebody is willing to go that far then there's not really much to discuss, but it seems like a common apologetic strategy.
Fair, but I don't believe there is anyone in the modern western world willing to actually just accept the bible in that way (if that even makes sense...I mean was the selection of canon at the council of Nicea or the Greek/Russian Orthodox/coptic equivalent an external influence?).
I mean at that point you can't be picking and choosing re: dietary rules, the various stoning rules etc etc
I don't know about that. The prevalence of things like young earth creationism seems to indicate that a lot of people at least want to approach things that way.
I agree they want to approach things that way but when you start getting into specifics -- especially the parts of the bible most people never read -- they seem to be picking and choosing like everyone else.
Just for starters the dietary laws. Yes yes, I know there are arguments that Jesus did away with that requirement but when you go read the text they are doing alot of interpretation to get there and it certainly isn't said in any clear form. Indeed, what is required to reach that result seems to be exactly the kind of informed reading that is being suggested one shouldn't do.
That's not to say that one can't have this view and have a relatively more literal reading but then you have to decide what side of the line this issue of hell goes on and the argument weakens.
Don't forget about George MacDonald for those who would be disappointed to find an infernalist God (also, another reason why the "we'll stop caring about the damned" defence is so discordant with the whole concept of Christianity):
"When once to a man the human face is the human face divine, and the hand of his neighbour is the hand of a brother, then will he understand what St Paul meant when he said, "I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren." But he will no longer understand those who, so far from feeling the love of their neighbour an essential of their being, expect to be set free from its law in the world to come. There, at least, for the glory of God, they may limit its expansive tendencies to the narrow circle of their heaven. On its battlements of safety, they will regard hell from afar, and say to each other, "Hark! Listen to their moans. But do not weep, for they are our neighbours no more." St Paul would be wretched before the throne of God, if he thought there was one man beyond the pale of his mercy, and that as much for God's glory as for the man's sake. And what shall we say of the man Christ Jesus? Who, that loves his brother, would not, upheld by the love of Christ, and with a dim hope that in the far-off time there might be some help for him, arise from the company of the blessed, and walk down into the dismal regions of despair, to sit with the last, the only unredeemed, the Judas of his race, and be himself more blessed in the pains of hell, than in the glories of heaven? Who, in the midst of the golden harps and the white wings, knowing that one of his kind, one miserable brother in the old-world-time when men were taught to love their neighbour as themselves, was howling unheeded far below in the vaults of the creation, who, I say, would not feel that he must arise, that he had no choice, that, awful as it was, he must gird his loins, and go down into the smoke and the darkness and the fire, travelling the weary and fearful road into the far country to find his brother?—who, I mean, that had the mind of Christ, that had the love of the Father? But it is a wild question. God is, and shall be, All in all. Father of our brothers and sisters! thou wilt not be less glorious than we, taught of Christ, are able to think thee. When thou goest into the wilderness to seek, thou wilt not come home until thou hast found. It is because we hope not for them in thee, not knowing thee, not knowing thy love, that we are so hard and so heartless to the brothers and sisters whom thou hast given us."
It is strange to me to see an argument in favor of the existence of hell, which is a metaphysical question regarding the nature of reality, resting on readings from the Bible. The Bible is not an authoritative source on anything regarding metaphysics, epistemics, or plain old physics! Even if you believe God is real.
The burden of proof shifts onto the person making these arguments to prove that the Bible was written by God. Failing that (outside of faith), why should we take scripture as a serious basis for anything being argued here?
Thanks for this article, I enjoyed it a lot. I think you should consider annihilationism (also known as conditionalism). This is the view that not all are saved, but the unsaved (potentially after a period of suffering) simply die. So it's the middle view between universalism and ECT.
The trouble ECT-ers have in debating universalists is that there is so little Biblical support for ECT specifically (literally just the few verses you pointed to). But there are many denials of universalism - they just aren't *also* endorsements of ECT. Literally the most famous verse in the Bible is, on its plain reading, an annihilationist one:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
There are many like this (see e.g. Matthew 10:28, Romans 6:23). There are also many texts that clearly present eternal life as for the saved alone - but that only makes sense on annihilationism, not on ECT. On ECT (and on universalism), everyone has eternal life. My experience is that ECT-ers are so familiar with the ECT vs. universalist dichotomy that they instinctively read texts that, on their plain reading, are clearly annihilationist, as ECT-supporting ones.
Annihilation also enjoys the same benefit as universalism in presenting eternity as one where all sad things are made untrue. And I think perhaps it is also a glorious narrative. All evil wastes away and is utterly *defeated*.
Yes, I'm not presenting John 3:16 as a knockdown argument in favour of annihilationism vs. universalism (though John 3:18 is more difficult from a universalist perspective), but simply showing how even the most famous text in the Bible fits more naturally with annihilationism than ECT.
Annihilationism has an advantage over universalism in dealing with the many texts that seem to explicitly present eternal life as only for some. As one random example, John 12:25: "Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
Universalists need to read this sort of text and say - yes, but in the end there is no one who will be in the first group in the above passage. That's not impossible, but it *is* weird. Why does the Bible keep warning that set X will have eternal life and set Y not, if set Y is going to be empty? Anyway - I'll leave it there, I mainly just wanted to bring annihilationism to your attention as (I think) a view that's more compatible with Scripture than ECT.
I think annihilationism is implausible on both moral and scriptural grounds. In various places in the scripture it describes one's death as being the destruction of their sinful nature. In contrast, there seem like many clear universalist proof texts.
"At other points, Gavin suggested that, given that most people in human history have been okay with hell, we should interpret our modern uneasiness as a byproduct of warped modern thinking, brought about by our modern conception of hell."
I think this is a clear indicator that interesting and fruitful arguments about hell must be functional. While I have nothing against moral arguments per se, it is noticeable how much baggage any moral argument brings with it in a theological context. You can make perfectly good claims like:
"Gavin suggested firstly that one could rationally act immorally. I don’t think this is true, but this gets us into more complicated and contentious issues."
but what follows are deep, fruitless dives into ancient scriptures, rather than asking simple sociological questions like "which rationality" or "whose rationality", which are the very same questions that also provide good starting points for making proper functional arguments about hell.
It really surprises me that so many Christian leaders are holding firmly to the idea of eternal conscious torment in hell even though the Biblical text seems strongly weighted against it. I like your arguments for universalism. I would like to believe universalism, and there are some Bible passages that support it. But I also find many passages that speak about the destiny of the wicked in terms of death and destruction. What do you do with those passages? Also, I'm not a fan of the idea that the fire of hell is a refining or purifying process. Is there a version of universalism that doesn't believe we need a purifying fire? My problem with it is that I think Jesus was enough for all the purifying we would ever need: "By one sacrifice he made perfect forever those who are being made holy." Thanks!
A universalist should think that the purifying fire is what makes us ready to accept Jesus. Universalists think that there will be death and destruction in the sense that one's sinful nature will be destroyed. There are 13 verses in scripture that talk about this, linked in this article. One can think that as Jesus's love washes over one, they experience agony from their deep regret of their sins.
I guess you could also think that the fires of hell are for punishment. For those who reject Jesus maybe there could be a punishment needed before one can accept the grace of God. Not a view I find plausible, but not totally vil.
Are you suggesting it is merely the belief in those fires that does the work or the actuality of them? If the former why not just think God is lying about them? I mean if it's actually for our own good...
You might be a retributivist and think people should be punished for sin.
Honestly, I have a lot of trouble understanding retributivism as anything like morality. To the extent I have a grip on the meaning of the words 'good' and 'evil' punishment for its own sake is kinda the core of what I'd describe as evil.
But I get that's not universal so fair point. But would even a retributivist say it's better that someone who will do evil exist so they can be punished for them? If not, then god could just choose not to create (or make them soulless freewill lacking beings like animals) those people in the first place.
But I get that's just back to the other point I raised so it's not an independent response.
I agree that retributvism is false. My point is if, like most people, you don't think that, then you might believe in a retributive hell.
Also, free will isn't enough to explain why God creates beings who will choose to exercise that free will in ways which result in them going to hell. A OOO god would certainly be capable of only creating some people and putting them into their own reality bubbles where all the bad people don't actually have souls.
Ok, some people who aren't compatabilists about free will may feel that free will is incompatible with being able to predict what someone will do but this leads to some really odd conclusions. Not only can god not predict the future but that what choice you make in a tempting situation isn't even a function of your character or soul (god could then predict). Moreover, would it make sense to punish someone for mere chance rather than something which flows from who they are?
At the very least it would seem like you'd need to believe that God would only create the souls which are predisposed to make the right choices and place them in a reality which maximized the chances that they would do so. But then you run into a tension between the existence of hell and the usual doctrines about salvation (faith and for Catholics works) which seem to depend on factors that seem incompatible with saying God is giving everyone the best shot to be saved a OOO god could.
The youtube video, DEBATE: Will all be saved? Emerson Green vs. John Buck, is an awesome discussion about universalism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejThab1x3lo&t=4772s
Two scriptural passages referenced in the video stood out to me: (1) the story of Jonah, who was angry at God for being compassionate toward the Ninevites who repented; Jonah would rather see them destroyed in judgment. (2) In the The Parable of the Lost Son, the older brother was unhappy that the younger brother's return to the family was being celebrated.
Jonah's and the other brother's reactions seemed similar to Christian's reaction to the possibility of universalism.
Luke 15:7 - "I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." So suppose that a mother is in heaven but her son is in hell. How much more happy she would be once her son eventually joins heaven!
"Gavin suggested that because scripture teaches clearly that hell is eternal." Gavin has also defended a local flood and has argued against young-earth creationism despite protests from other Christians who have asserted that scripture teaches clearly that the flood was global and that the earth is only about 6,000 years old.
So if Gavin is allowing science to inform our interpretations of scripture, then could it be that reason and revelation help as well? Christianity is built on interpreting the Hebrew scriptures differently than Orthodox Jews. Just something to keep in mind when talking to Gavin again.
I think this also raises the interesting question of why should one suppose that God doesn't lie to the faithful and tell them there is a hell for their own good even if it's not real (a la parents lying about Santa).
In other words, isn't there a tension between believing God is benevolent and believing that his revealed word is always truthful?
I don't think it's uncommon at all to talk about God, being transcendent and all, always having to be understood by finite creatures in limited ways that are "false" if taken as statements of unqualified truth, but that point in the direction of some deeper truth.
I think most people would object to the idea of God devising falsehoods to intentionally deceive people for a variety of reasons, but would not necessarily be outraged at the idea that the idea of God's holiness expressed in the book of Joshua, for instance, was not simply "the Truth" about God.
See, for example: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/joshua/0
That's my sense too, the reason I raise it is to point out the inadequacy of scriptural arguments for the existence of hell. If you are willing to accept that, in principle, God might, say, use hell talk as a way of explaining that you'll regret choices to act against his plan/will (eg, even if that is merely realized as regret or sorrow over your choice once you fully come to understand its meaning) then scriptural appeals can no longer be used to support the existence of hell.
After all, if you don't reject the idea that hell talk in the scriptures might be analagous to the way we sometimes use technically false/metaphorical statements to help little kids understand things that they can't yet literally understand then you no longer have reason to believe that the scripture wouldn't talk about hell of it wasn't real.
I agree with that. There's obviously enough degrees of freedom on how to interpret something like the Bible that even if you claim it is totally authoritative, you can't establish one reading as the only defensible one in a way that overrides all other considerations, like whether your reading makes any moral sense, or matches what we can tell by scientific or archaeological means.
I think one of the main responses to that kind of thing, at least from the Calvinist angle, would be to insist that the truth is so totally incomprehensible to us that it is not actually possible to reason about it in the way we're attempting to do here. We can literally say nothing at all about God or morality or any of that except by first committing to accept everything the Bible seems to say, accepting no outside considerations to guide our interpretation.
If somebody is willing to go that far then there's not really much to discuss, but it seems like a common apologetic strategy.
Fair, but I don't believe there is anyone in the modern western world willing to actually just accept the bible in that way (if that even makes sense...I mean was the selection of canon at the council of Nicea or the Greek/Russian Orthodox/coptic equivalent an external influence?).
I mean at that point you can't be picking and choosing re: dietary rules, the various stoning rules etc etc
I don't know about that. The prevalence of things like young earth creationism seems to indicate that a lot of people at least want to approach things that way.
See also: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/the-chicago-statement-on-biblical-inerrancy/
I agree they want to approach things that way but when you start getting into specifics -- especially the parts of the bible most people never read -- they seem to be picking and choosing like everyone else.
Just for starters the dietary laws. Yes yes, I know there are arguments that Jesus did away with that requirement but when you go read the text they are doing alot of interpretation to get there and it certainly isn't said in any clear form. Indeed, what is required to reach that result seems to be exactly the kind of informed reading that is being suggested one shouldn't do.
That's not to say that one can't have this view and have a relatively more literal reading but then you have to decide what side of the line this issue of hell goes on and the argument weakens.
Don't forget about George MacDonald for those who would be disappointed to find an infernalist God (also, another reason why the "we'll stop caring about the damned" defence is so discordant with the whole concept of Christianity):
"When once to a man the human face is the human face divine, and the hand of his neighbour is the hand of a brother, then will he understand what St Paul meant when he said, "I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren." But he will no longer understand those who, so far from feeling the love of their neighbour an essential of their being, expect to be set free from its law in the world to come. There, at least, for the glory of God, they may limit its expansive tendencies to the narrow circle of their heaven. On its battlements of safety, they will regard hell from afar, and say to each other, "Hark! Listen to their moans. But do not weep, for they are our neighbours no more." St Paul would be wretched before the throne of God, if he thought there was one man beyond the pale of his mercy, and that as much for God's glory as for the man's sake. And what shall we say of the man Christ Jesus? Who, that loves his brother, would not, upheld by the love of Christ, and with a dim hope that in the far-off time there might be some help for him, arise from the company of the blessed, and walk down into the dismal regions of despair, to sit with the last, the only unredeemed, the Judas of his race, and be himself more blessed in the pains of hell, than in the glories of heaven? Who, in the midst of the golden harps and the white wings, knowing that one of his kind, one miserable brother in the old-world-time when men were taught to love their neighbour as themselves, was howling unheeded far below in the vaults of the creation, who, I say, would not feel that he must arise, that he had no choice, that, awful as it was, he must gird his loins, and go down into the smoke and the darkness and the fire, travelling the weary and fearful road into the far country to find his brother?—who, I mean, that had the mind of Christ, that had the love of the Father? But it is a wild question. God is, and shall be, All in all. Father of our brothers and sisters! thou wilt not be less glorious than we, taught of Christ, are able to think thee. When thou goest into the wilderness to seek, thou wilt not come home until thou hast found. It is because we hope not for them in thee, not knowing thee, not knowing thy love, that we are so hard and so heartless to the brothers and sisters whom thou hast given us."
It is strange to me to see an argument in favor of the existence of hell, which is a metaphysical question regarding the nature of reality, resting on readings from the Bible. The Bible is not an authoritative source on anything regarding metaphysics, epistemics, or plain old physics! Even if you believe God is real.
The burden of proof shifts onto the person making these arguments to prove that the Bible was written by God. Failing that (outside of faith), why should we take scripture as a serious basis for anything being argued here?
Thanks for this article, I enjoyed it a lot. I think you should consider annihilationism (also known as conditionalism). This is the view that not all are saved, but the unsaved (potentially after a period of suffering) simply die. So it's the middle view between universalism and ECT.
The trouble ECT-ers have in debating universalists is that there is so little Biblical support for ECT specifically (literally just the few verses you pointed to). But there are many denials of universalism - they just aren't *also* endorsements of ECT. Literally the most famous verse in the Bible is, on its plain reading, an annihilationist one:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
There are many like this (see e.g. Matthew 10:28, Romans 6:23). There are also many texts that clearly present eternal life as for the saved alone - but that only makes sense on annihilationism, not on ECT. On ECT (and on universalism), everyone has eternal life. My experience is that ECT-ers are so familiar with the ECT vs. universalist dichotomy that they instinctively read texts that, on their plain reading, are clearly annihilationist, as ECT-supporting ones.
Annihilation also enjoys the same benefit as universalism in presenting eternity as one where all sad things are made untrue. And I think perhaps it is also a glorious narrative. All evil wastes away and is utterly *defeated*.
But universalists claim all will believe and come to Christ. I don't think God killing lots of people is a particularly grand notion.
Yes, I'm not presenting John 3:16 as a knockdown argument in favour of annihilationism vs. universalism (though John 3:18 is more difficult from a universalist perspective), but simply showing how even the most famous text in the Bible fits more naturally with annihilationism than ECT.
Annihilationism has an advantage over universalism in dealing with the many texts that seem to explicitly present eternal life as only for some. As one random example, John 12:25: "Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
Universalists need to read this sort of text and say - yes, but in the end there is no one who will be in the first group in the above passage. That's not impossible, but it *is* weird. Why does the Bible keep warning that set X will have eternal life and set Y not, if set Y is going to be empty? Anyway - I'll leave it there, I mainly just wanted to bring annihilationism to your attention as (I think) a view that's more compatible with Scripture than ECT.
I think annihilationism is implausible on both moral and scriptural grounds. In various places in the scripture it describes one's death as being the destruction of their sinful nature. In contrast, there seem like many clear universalist proof texts.
"At other points, Gavin suggested that, given that most people in human history have been okay with hell, we should interpret our modern uneasiness as a byproduct of warped modern thinking, brought about by our modern conception of hell."
I think this is a clear indicator that interesting and fruitful arguments about hell must be functional. While I have nothing against moral arguments per se, it is noticeable how much baggage any moral argument brings with it in a theological context. You can make perfectly good claims like:
"Gavin suggested firstly that one could rationally act immorally. I don’t think this is true, but this gets us into more complicated and contentious issues."
but what follows are deep, fruitless dives into ancient scriptures, rather than asking simple sociological questions like "which rationality" or "whose rationality", which are the very same questions that also provide good starting points for making proper functional arguments about hell.