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All You Want to Know About Hell: Three Christian Views of God?s Final Solution to the Problem of Sin?
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For anyone contemplating views of Hell, I highly recommend "All You Want to Know About Hell" by Steve Gregg. It gives an overview of the three main views of hell, the arguments for and against each view, and each view's rebuttals to those arguments.
The argument that really pushed me away from Eternal Conscious Torment is the mismatch between the punishment for sin and the severity of the sin. I simply cannot reconcile the idea of an infinite punishment for a finite crime with the concept of a just God.
I'm so glad it could help! I remember being flabbergasted the first time I heard this way of putting things together.
This book by Steve Gregg was very helpful for me in thinking through the Bible-based for and against cases for the popular belief about hell ("eternal conscious torment") and two other Christian beliefs: "annihilation" (the belief that those who go to hell eventually cease to exist) and "reconciliation" (the belief that those who go to hell eventually are reconciled to God through Christ). It even has a helpful summary guide of key Scriptures in the back and how each "side" responds to various challenges.
I'm somewhere in between Reconciliationism (Christian Universalism) and Annihilationism (Conditional Immortality). I hope that everyone will be saved, but baring that I think scripture and logic support an annihilatory hell over an eternal hell. I found the book All You Want to Know About Hell by Steve Gregg to be a helpful resource when looking into the different views on hell. Gregg provides the arguments for each view, the arguments against each view, and that view's rebuttals to those arguments. It's a really good book for understanding the differing viewpoints on hell.
Yeah, MacDonald was a universalist, and I concur.
There are some great books going into arguments for/against Christian Universalism.
https://www.amazon.com/All-Want-Know-About-Hell-ebook/dp/B00EQE3FJE https://www.amazon.com/Four-Views-Hell-Counterpoints-Theology/dp/0310516463 https://www.amazon.com/Evangelical-Universalist-Second-Gregory-MacDonald/dp/1620322390
I have the 'annihilationism' position about hell, and the beliefs that a soul is finite by default, and immortality is conditional, for reasons similar to this list by Greg Boyd, instead of the popular 'eternal torment' belief about hell, and the popular belief that every soul will have infinite existence, and it's then a matter of where you spend all that time.
This page gives verses that those with the 'eternal torment' belief consider supportive of their position. But those with the annihilationist position interpret some of those verses differently, and don't consider those verses a 'slam dunk' in support of 'eternal torment'.
If you're interested in this topic, I highly recommend this book by Steve Gregg which discusses the verses and arguments for and against different beliefs about hell, in a fairly even-handed way.
I suggest these additions to the sidebar:
a link to the Steve Gregg book at Amazon and at Christianbook.com (for people who don't like to support Amazon)
links to the Wikipedia articles about conditional immortality, annihilationism, and about intermediate state beliefs
a link to this list by Greg Boyd which I think is a good summary of reasons.
I am also posting this as an apologetic resource for you to use.
Why Christianity?
Why suffering?
https://youtu.be/v6Gl4ao8IzA?t=9m6s
Evolution? Genesis?
Part 1
https://youtu.be/qMU1soRrtJk?t=26
Part 2
https://youtu.be/HZrxogY9Pnc?t=26
Part 3:
https://youtu.be/G7HQzhi8UPM?t=26
Part 4:
https://youtu.be/_3R0bh9LtSc?t=26
Part 5:
https://youtu.be/KJ3IgGYf29k?t=26
Part 6:
https://youtu.be/KCxWhKe1AMg?t=26
Part 7:
https://youtu.be/AyQY5Z3GeG4?t=26
Part 8:
https://youtu.be/eOwA9L0IY3I?t=26
Did Jesus exist?
Jesus claimed to be God?
Trinity?
The good news?
Homosexuality?
• A sin to exist?
• A call to love?
https://youtu.be/nPYRXop7aPA?t=9s
Hell?
All You Want to Know About Hell: Three Christian Views of God's Final Solution to the Problem of Sin
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EQE3FJE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_.o7HCb3HS6NG3
Never heard of Jesus?
Part 1
Part 2
Where did God come from?
https://youtu.be/RVzeojdXbpQ?t=9s
You might also enjoy these reads below,
Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?: What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQFWQHD/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_QfzpCbWNBDNS2
The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LUJDNE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_QizpCbDR7WP0G
Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MYP99J3/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_UoApCbAY8N4YN
Jesus Among Secular Gods: The Countercultural Claims of Christ
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F1UD66I/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_u6wsCbDS1XXHR
Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004EPYPY4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_3WypCbW728FHK
> the bible does not say anything about hell being finite
I have the positions of "conditional immortality" and "annihilationism" for reasons such as these listed by Greg Boyd.
Those with the 'universal reconciliation' position also believe that each person's actual time in hell is finite.
If any reader wants to learn more, I recommend this book by Steve Gregg.
To answer the part about annihilationism (and related to it is the position of 'conditional immortality'), here's a copy-and-paste of what I told another redditor:
> I guess I've held the conditional immortality view for several years now. I did not grow up with a Christian upbringing; I became a Christian as an adult, and as far as I recall, I didn't think much about possibilities about hell, during my first several years as a Christian, nor hold any particular position about it other than "people should avoid hell".
> I'm a fan of Bible teacher Steve Gregg who has a Q&A radio show on weekdays, which I've listened to for many years. It was probably from his replies to callers that I learned about the various ideas about hell years ago. As you may know, Steve Gregg eventually chose to write a book which gives the arguments for and against various positions that he was aware of, and that book was published in 2013. I had heard him talk about it on the radio sometime before he chose to put the book together.
> But I also may have learned of non-ECT possibilities as part of AMAs in r/Christianity during my first couple years on reddit, around 2011 or so.
I'll add that at some point after I had arrived at the positions of annihilationism and conditional immortality, I found this list of reasons by Greg Boyd which is a good summary of reasons toward those positions.
As for partial reconciliation, I had learned of the 'universal reconciliation' position similarly via Steve Gregg,
but I'm just not sure that everyone in hell is going to be willing and/or wise enough to ask God for mercy.
I considered a scenario where there were two men who died at the age of 80, with roughly equal sins during their lives, and suppose that considering their sins, each received a duration of ten "years" in hell before they are annihilated. Possibly one man will wise up in that time and ask God for mercy, while the other will continue to "shake his fist" at God until his annihilation. As a result of those individual choices, in the end, only some percentage of all the people sent to hell will be reconciled with God.
I love talking about UR. Happy to respond. And if you thought your answer was long...
I should explain I grew up believing in the popular notion of hell, could uphold it with Scripture, etc. It wasn't until my late 20's that my brother challenged some of my assumptions. A few important conversations and this very even-handed book, combined of course with Scripture, has led me to abandon the popular notion of hell altogether. Overall, I embrace an agnostic view of hell which is very hopeful in the goodness and mercy of God. I am hopefully expectant of universal reconciliation, but am open to hell being a place of annihilation.
UR begins not with an engagement with texts about hell – which are rare! (and that rarity is itself may be telling). Instead, it begins with God. In particular, it takes into view two dominant understandings of God, seen in the OT but fully revealed in the NT. Namely: God's will is absolutely sovereign, and God's love embraces the whole cosmos. On the first point, I probably don't need much Scripture to prove my point, but my favorite is the simple profession of Job: "No purpose of yours can be thwarted." On the second, I take John 3:16 quite literally: "For God so loved the world." That doesn't prove a universal salvation, though. Instead, we have Peter's testimony that "The Lord ... is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance." Paul says the same to Timothy: "God our Savior ... desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."
Traditionally, these twin truths about God have seen impossible to reconcile in light of the popular notion of hell. So two compromised options have emerged.
One refuses to compromise God's sovereignty, and so re-reads the understanding of his loving will to save all of his creation. Somehow, God either denies love to some (the condemned) or by allowing their eternal damnation, this is a mysterious reflection of his love. He could save everyone (he is absolutely sovereign), but his will is not to save everyone. Otherwise, we would see that he does, and of course many march to their graves still enemies of God.
The other refuses to compromise the love of God, and so re-reads the understanding of his sovereign will to rule all of his creation. God wants everyone to be saved, but because he is "a perfect gentleman" he lets us have our way. This has a modern comfort to it, but if you take two steps back, you see God as able to intervene and prevent an eternal disaster, and he is content not to for the sake of preserving the integrity of our free will. The objection is of a parent watching a child walk into traffic. Surely the child's desire is immature and incomplete, and the parent has a responsibility to intervene. To respect the child's wishes is to be guilty of the worst neglect.
But those, really, are our only two paths. If, that is, hell is designed for everlasting torment.
URs say – what if God really does want everyone (and everything) to be saved, and he really will accomplish his purposes as the Sovereign of creation? What would that look like? So it begins with a high view of Scripture that constructs, I'd argue, a higher view of God than the other paths. And then, committed to that Biblical vision of God, it determines to walk with it through Scripture, to reassess what may need reassessing, and to notice what may have been ignored.
Broadly, I'd say there are three things URs bring up about Scripture that are vitally important for anyone grappling with God's final judgment.
1) Hell may well not be eternal. "Eternal" in Greek comes from eon, or age. In some contexts, it absolutely means "forever." In some contexts, it absolutely does not – in Jude, for example, the fire on Sodom is called "eternal," though of course Sodom is no longer smoldering. The safest consistent reading would be "a very long time," and this can be modified to fit the context. More technically, it can mean "belonging to an age." So, in perhaps the prooftext for a forever hell of torment, Jesus assigns some to "eon-ic" life and "eon-ic" punishment. Perhaps these are forever. Perhaps this simply speaks of the life and punishment of the age to come, however those work out. (And perhaps, as a third way reads it, the punishment is eternal but the punishing is not – that is, you burn up in hell, which is an everlasting condition, but not one experienced forever.) In fact, finding texts to suggest people are everlastingly suffering are very, very hard to find. Revelation provides one or two – and, in my opinion, woe betide the person who builds too much theology on the esoterica that is the visions of Revelation. ;)
What is hell for, then? For URs, it is for fulfilling justice – that is, paying for sins – and also for correction. The vast majority of God's punishing, even in the OT, is for a redemptive purpose. He exiles Israel to save it. Etc. Why can't hell be an extension of that purpose? (And, in light of that possibility, a lot of the troubling judgment in the OT becomes something along the lines of, "I'll deal with you later.")
2) God's salvation is cosmic – it has in view the entire cosmos, and all humanity within it. This is clearest in Paul's writing, and once you see it, it becomes very hard to walk away from it. Romans 5:12-21 is particularly interesting, as it pairs the universal curse from the first Adam to a universal salvation from the second Adam – using exactly parallel language (esp 5:15, 18). Perhaps the coolest verse, and one which lends its name to this view of hell, is Colossians 1:20: "Through [Christ] God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross." There are many others, not all as explicit. URs look at these verses and note that it seems very silly to say that God has "reconciled to himself all things" if for all eternity the balance of his image bearers are suffering forever in eternal rebellion against him. Rather, it takes the path put profoundly by Abraham Lincoln to a vindictive Northerner near the end of the Civil War: "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" For me, that resonates powerfully with the gospel.
This understanding of the inevitability of salvation also would explain how rarely hell makes an appearance in the teaching and preaching of the apostles. They don't call people to repent to avoid some unfathomably horrible punishment. Instead, they call people to repent because Jesus has made himself known as Lord. Judgment is often in view, an explicit hell almost never. Why not?
3) URs do not minimize hell. Most do not deny hell will be the experience for many – probably most – maybe, even, all. Though rare, there are some odd passages in the NT referring to the judgment to come. It will be very, very bad, and should be avoided at all costs. Jesus says "all will be salted with fire" – whatever that means! More famously, Paul says there will be some who make into heaven, but after a fire of some kind has burned off what is unworthy.
Most compellingly for me, though, is the famous Philippians passage about Jesus's exaltation. It says that every knee will bow, and explicitly this includes every knee "under the earth" – and "every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." This is Paul, who uses exactly that formula to describe the path of salvation: "Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord" is half of Romans 10:9, and it is hard to imagine that in the resurrection any will not "believe that God raised Christ from the dead." So Paul says there will come a day when everyone under the Earth has... done what is necessary for salvation. They have died once, and faced the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). That is not negated. What is explored is – what then?
Hope that helps! Happy to keep talking.
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