Surveying the evangelical landscape regarding hell
Earlier this year, Zondervan released a new volume in their Counterpoint series. This volume was unique in that it was a topic addressed in an earlier volume, now being published with a new editor (Preston Sprinkle) and four new contributors - Four Views on Hell.
With the publication of Rob Bell's book, Love Wins, new questions had arisen, and the public firestorm which that book created caused people to ask questions, reopen the discussion, and read frequently ignored books advocating for something other than what was assumed to be the evangelical position on the subject. So a new volume was created to bring the conversation up to date.
Although one of the four positions wasn't really a position on hell (Jerry Walls' essay advocating a protestant acceptance of purgatory), it has become clear that an openness to discussing all three main positions on the subject of hell are less faux pas than some might think, and the conversation is not as straightforward as we may have been led to believe.
I've been tasked with providing a short summary of the positions and some thoughts on the development of the conversation.
Eternal conscious torment
Most theologians, historically and presently, affirm that those not in Christ will punished through unending suffering. There are various opinions as to what this torment will consist of, since the biblical images are somewhat mixed (fire, outer darkness, weeping, gnashing of teeth, perishing, etc.). But what is agreed on is that the punishment will be experienced without end.
At judgement all of humanity will be separated into those who enter the eternal bliss of heaven, and the rest will be condemned to the "eternal fire" of hell which is usually understood to be a real place where sinners receive just retribution for their sin through never ending punishment.
God, being holy and just, cannot leave sin unpunished, and many argue that a sin against an eternal God must be met with an eternal corporeal punishment.
This position's greatest strength is probably the fact that it does hold the majority ground, and has since the time of Augustine. In fact, it is often referred to as the "traditional view" because the vast majority of the theological tradition has assumed this to be the orthodox position.
But many do ask very real questions. Why do we assume God's punishment must be corporeal punishment? Can the punishments of God not be restorative or perhaps capital punishment as annihilationists argue? Does the biblical language of “eternal fire” and “eternal punishment” (e.g. Matt. 25:41-46, Rev. 14:10-11) necessarily mean eternal conscious torment?
In a Greek-speaking Jewish context, the word aionios can mean everlasting or belonging to the age to come, so does that mean the phrase can speak of when the punishment comes rather than how long it lasts? Isn't it unjust to punish a +/- 70 years of sin with unending torment? What about the language of destruction and death?
Conditional immortality/annihilation
Conditional immortality is the belief that Scripture teaches that only those in Christ receive immortality and eternal life, since immortality is a trait which is inherent to God alone (1 Tim. 6:15-16), and eternal life is therefore a gift from God (e.g. Rom. 6:23, 2 Tim. 1:10, 1 John 5:11-12).
Advocates of ECT tend to assume that all people will exist forever, whether because of an inherently immortal soul (a concept not found in Scripture, but very prevalent in the Hellenistic philosophical tradition) or that through resurrection, immortality is given to all (never made explicit in Scripture).
Annihilationism is the belief that those not in Christ will be completely and irreversibly dead or destroyed after judgement (e.g. Matt. 7:13-14, 10:28, Phil. 3:18-19, 2 Thess. 1:5-10, 2 Pet. 3:7). The two concepts thus interrelate in that death, mortality, and corruptability is that from which Christ delivers people, and eternal life is offered in the Gospel.
The strength of this position is that it does bring together the language of destruction which is frequent throughout Scripture, and the Gospel message of Christ's victory over death (see 1 Cor. 15).
Although a minority position, conditionalism does find support in the Early Church Fathers (Ignatius, Irenaeus, Theophilus of Antioch, Arnobius of Sicca, and probably Athanasius of Alexandria to name a few) and has gained support among several notable thinkers in the reformation (e.g. The Particular Baptist preacher Samuel Richardson who called the notion of hell as a place of everlasting torment a “blasphemy”), 19th century (e.g. R. F. Weymouth, Henry Constable), and recent and current scholars like John Stott, Basil Atkinson, John Wenham, Clark Pinnock, Philip E. Hughes, E. Earl Ellis, Stephen Travis, Anthony Thiselton, R. T. France, and John Stackhouse, and has been accepted as within the orthodox conversation by the Evangelical Alliance.[i]
Universal reconciliation
If God desires the salvation of all (1 Tim. 2:4, 2 Pet. 3:9), and some, or perhaps even most of humanity never receives salvation, does that not mean God does not get his way? If innumerable human beings are cast into hell to suffer torments forever, or to be irrevocably destroyed, does that not mean God's victory over sin and death is less that complete?
For most people the notion of universalism is a "liberal" notion which doesn't take sin seriously, and tries to soften the judgement of God. But there is a strand of universalism which is rooted firmly in Scripture, affirms the severity of sin and its consequences, but insists that Gospel narrative which runs through Scripture holds out the hope and possibility that God's victory over sin and death will be made complete, so that all will ultimately receive mercy.
These affirm that when Paul argues that Christ died for all (2 Cor. 5:14), that as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive (Rom. 5:12-17), that all things are being made new (Rev. 21:5), or that all things will be restored (Acts 3:21), all means all without exception.
This does not preclude the possibility of severe punishment, but that these eschatalogical punishments are not punitive but restorative; that is, they bring about repentance and ultimately healing, so that even the most stubborn sinner can be made right and enter the eternal life of the Age to Come through Christ.
The destruction of judgment day is a penultimate event, not final; after “the second death”, they argue, can come resurrection. Although often maligned as heterodox, there has been a small, but strong contingent of recognized orthodox theologians within the Church who preserve this notion (e.g. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, Isaac the Syrian, and several more recent thinkers; George MacDonald, Robin Parry, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Brad Jersak, and possibly even Karl Barth).
Where the conversation is going
When the first Four Views on Hell book was published, two conservative evangelical scholars presented variations of eternal torment (one literal and one metaphorical), the sometimes maligned, but always passionate Clark Pinnock argued the conditionalist position, which had created considerable controversy, especially when a man of the stature of John Stott advocated for it, and he was almost removed from the Evangelical Theological Society for doing so in the 1980s.
A specific type of universalism, a Catholic, purgatorial view was also included. The notion of an evangelical scholar arguing for universalism was almost completely unthinkable. But in this new edition, Robin Parry, who broke a conversation open with his book, The Evangelical Universalist, has presented a condensed case for seeing universalism as a legitimate evangelical option, a notion so contentious that The Evangelical Universalist was published under the pen name Gregory MacDonald as recently as a decade ago.
But things seem to be shifting. Edward Fudge's book, The Fire that Consumes, perhaps the most in depth, book length presentation of the annihilationist position, is now in a third edition. The first edition, now over 30 years old, received a boost of legitimacy when notable evangelical scholar F. F. Bruce wrote the foreward, in which he stated that, though not convinced one way or the other, Fudge had brought a compelling, biblical case for his position. The third edition features an additional foreward by Richard Bauckham.
I am part of the Rethinking Hell project, which now has two books in print, and has just hosted its third conference. The second edition of The Evangelical Universalist featured endorsements by Joel Green and Oliver Crisp. Though some may passionately object, and denounce conditionalism and universalism as unbiblical, heterodox, or at least not evangelical, the reality is that the table is broader than some are prepared to recognize.
This means that the conversation needs to continue to shift from labels of heresy or exclusion from the evangelical world to discussing the actual merits of the three positions. Gone are the days when anything but eternal torment is on the fringe, or perhaps even outside of christian orthodoxy. To this, I say, good riddance.
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[i] Evangelical Alliance Commision on Unity and Truth among Evangelicals (ACUTE). The Nature of Hell: A Report by the Evangelical Alliance Commission on Unity and Truth Among Evangelicals ACUTE. London: The Evangelical Alliance, 2000.
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