Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

How Christian is the Doctrine of Hell?

The traditional doctrine of hell appears to be a consequence of two assumptions, the first  of which is arguably unbiblical.

Geddes MacGregor: ". . . the doctrine of hell, with its attendant horrors, is intended as the logical development of the notion that, since man is intrinsically immortal, and some men turn out badly, they cannot enjoy the presence of God." (Reincarnation in Christianity, Quest Books, 1978, 121)

1) We are naturally, and intrinsically, immortal.

2) Some of us, by our evil behavior, have freely and forever excluded  ourselves from the divine presence.

MacGregor: "Having permanently deprived themselves of the capacity to enjoy that presence [the presence of God] , they must forever endure the sense of its loss, the poena damni, as the medieval theologians called it." (Ibid.)

Therefore

3) There must be some state or condition, some 'place,' for these immortal souls, and that 'place' is hell. They will remain there either for all eternity or else everlastingly.

According to MacGregor, premise (1) is false because it has no foundation in biblical teaching. (Ibid.) St. Paul, says MacGregor, subscribes to conditional immortality.  This is "immortality that is dependent on one's being 'raised up' to victory over death through the resurrection of Christ." (op. cit., 119)   It follows that the medieval doctrine of hell  is un-Christian.

The choice we face is not between heaven and hell but between heaven and utter extinction which, for MacGregor, is worse than everlasting torment.

Two issues: Would extinction of the  person be worse than everlasting torment? That is not my sense of things. I would prefer extinction, for Epicurean reasons. The other issue is whether the Pauline texts and the rest of the Bible support conditional immortality.  I have no fixed opinion on that question.  

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36 responses to “How Christian is the Doctrine of Hell?”

  1. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    Bill,
    Although I have not read MacGregor’s book, I am familiar with the argument that there is no biblical foundation for the belief that hell is eternal, and however much I might desire that this argument be true, the textual evidence of both the Old and the New Testament decisively prove that it is not. For those interested in a brief, but rigorous, orthodox appraisal of the relevant texts, I recommend “Part 5. Scripture doesn’t really teach eternal damnation” of Edward Feser’s “A Hartless God” (https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-hartless-god.html). Like Feser, I simply do not find a biblical foundation for the belief in either the impermanence of hell or for annihilationism, although, like you, I would certainly prefer the latter to unending suffering. One is free to reject the mass of biblical texts on this matter, but not to distort their evident meaning. As for the Pauline texts, these are certainly somewhat more ambiguous, and some might seem to favor universalism or annihilationism, but others can be read to show that Paul believed in a form of eternal suffering (see, for example, Gal 1:8-9, 2 Thess 1:8-10, Rom 2:5, 8).
    Vito

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  2. Joe Odegaard Avatar
    Joe Odegaard

    Here is Dante: The Inferno, Canto III. As medieval as it gets. As Christian as it gets:
    Per me se va ne la citta dolente,
    per me si va nel l’eterno dolore,
    per me st va tra la perduta gente.
    Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore;
    fecemi la divina podestate,
    la somma sapienza e’l primo amore.
    Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create
    se non etterns, e io etterrna duro
    Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.
    • • • 
    Through me you enter into the city of woes,
    Through me you enter into eternal pain,
    Through me you enter the population of loss.
    Justice moved my high maker, in power divine,
    Wisdom supreme, love primal.
    No things were before me not eternal; eternal I remain.
    Abandon all hope, you who enter here.
    (Translation of Robert Pinsky)

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  3. Bill V Avatar
    Bill V

    Vito,
    Helpful comment. I was eager to read what Feser has to say, but apparently the post to which you link has been removed. When did you last access it? The title gives me a clue as to why it was removed, but I won’t speculate ‘out loud.’
    GALATIANS 1: 8-9
    8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!
    How does this support eternal suffering, Vito? The divine curse could take the form of extinction or annihilation.
    2 Thessalonians 1:8-10
    New International Version
    8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
    This helps your case somewhat via the phrase “everlasting destruction.” But this phrase could be taken to mean that the annihilation is never reversed. Suppose that upon bodily death, C. Hitchens is annihilated or destroyed irrevocably and thus permanently. His destruction would be everlasting — which is not to say that he would continue to exist and be tormented everlastingly.
    Romans 2:5-8
    New International Version
    5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”[a] 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.
    Again, Vito, I see in this passage no unequivocal support for eternal or everlasting punishment. The divine wrath could take the form of annihilation, and thus permanent exclusion from the ultimate felicity that he intends for every human creature. The demands of retributive justice could be satisfied by annihilation.
    So as far as I can see, the Pauline texts you cite are consistent with the doctrine of conditional immortality.
    But of course there is a lot more to the Bible than the letters of Paul!
    Thanks for the excellent comment.

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  4. BV Avatar
    BV

    Joe,
    While I appreciate the Dante quotation, and the opportunity to bone up on my Italian, you didn’t address the issue I raised, namely, whether Paul subscribes to the doctrine of conditional immortality. If he does, then the medieval hell doctrine is unsustainable.
    Vito, by contrast, shows how a good comment is written. He went straight to the issue, took a position on it, and — this is important — adduced evidence for his position by citing three Pauline passages. He didn’t just oppose the conditional immortality doctrine; he argued against it, and this only after demonstrating that he understood it.
    I then argued that those passages do not support his position. But of course that does not settle the matter. But a little progress has been made, if not toward a solution, at least toward an understanding of the question and what it entails.
    That is how a serious discussion is conducted.

    Reply
  5. DaveB Avatar
    DaveB

    This work helped me many years ago. Still valuable..
    Four Views on Hell: Second Edition (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology)
    Contributors and views include:
    Denny Burk – representing a principle of Eternal Conscious Torment
    John Stackhouse – representing a principle of Annihilationism (Conditional Immortality)
    Robin Parry – representing a principle of Universalism (Ultimate Reconciliation)
    Jerry Walls – representing a principle of Purgatory
    Preston Sprinkle concludes the discussion by evaluating each view, noting significant points of exchange between the essayists. The interactive nature of the volume allows the reader to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of each view and come to an informed conclusion.

    Reply
  6. BV Avatar
    BV

    Thanks, Dave. You’re the man! I just ordered it. Under ten semolians. Arrives tomorrow. Could an outfit like Amazon exist in a commie craphole?
    Books before bread. That’s what I always say. Man does not live by bread alone, or, pace Hefner, by bed alone.
    Zondervan has come out with some good stuff. Did you buy the Fives Views on Inerrancy volume?

    Reply
  7. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    I just tried the link by copying it and pasting it onto Google search, and it worked. If I simply press on the link in your comments section, the same link does not work, which is strange.
    https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-hartless-god.html
    As for the texts of Paul that I cite, I am following the analysis of the exegete James E. Rosscup in his “Paul’s Concept of Eternal Punishment” (https://tms.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/tmsj9h.pdf).
    On Thess 1:810, for instance, he argues:
    “Thomas* has shown in this issue that ap_leian is widely used of a state that continues on. Besides this term, Paul has another word for ‘destruction,’ _λεθρoς (olethros). … [In] …Thess 1:9. Paul defines the span of destruction … by the adjective eternal [your everlasting].”
    He ties this into Rom 2:6 [“God ‘will repay each person according to what they have done”] as follows:
    “Paul expects punishment for all the unsaved. It is to ‘pay the penalty of eternal destruction,’ a reality that is stark and certain, like his phrase ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Rom 6:23), i.e., the wages that sin will pay to the unsaved. All who reject God’s free gift must face this eternal death as they depend on their own works and fall liable to God’s righteous judgment without having Christ’s righteousness to be their surety.
    ‘Eternal destruction’ is, without a definite article, _λεθρov α_ώvιov (olethron ai_nion). Paul’s use is the only NT instance which combines this word for ‘destruction’ with the adjective ‘eternal.’ Olethros has various usages. In secular Greek, it depicts ‘destruction’ in corruption of physical death. The term also can denote a loss of money, being ‘wiped out’ or ‘reduced to ruin” {and this is the sense in which Rosscup understands it in Paul].
    *Robert L. Thomas, “Jesus’ View of Eternal Punishement” also cf. Robert Peterson, Hell on Trial (Phillipsburg, N. J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1995)
    Vito

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  8. trudy vavndermolen Avatar
    trudy vavndermolen

    “whether the Pauline texts and THE REST OF THE BIBLE support conditional immortality.” How about Jesus’ statement in Matthew 25:41-46 which gives two opposite outcomes, and a perhaps more ambiguous statement in Mark 9:43-48.

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  9. DaveB Avatar
    DaveB

    Bill – The 5 views on inerrancy book is in here somewhere. Well done if I remember correctly.

    Reply
  10. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    Bill,
    I don’t want to leave the impression that the Pauline texts do not present challenges for the notion that hell is eternal; they do. As I stated in my initial comment, “these are certainly somewhat more ambiguous, and some might seem to favor universalism or annihilationism,” and rereading it now, I think that it would have been wise to leave out the adverb “somewhat.” In saying this, I still hold that there are justified reasons for taking portions of Tess 1 or Rom 2 as indicating some form of endless punishment, but I also must admit that the evidence, which hangs on the understanding of a few Greek words, is not very strong. I have always found Paul’s prose annoyingly serpentine and obscure, and this may perhaps account for some of the uncertainty regarding his view of hell, but perhaps not. In the end, I think that the relevant NT texts cited by Feser, to which could be added such passages as Lk 16: 19-31 (The rich man and Lazarus), Lk 10:15 (“brought down to Hades”), Jn 5:28-28 (more obscurely, “those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned”), and more emphatically Revelation 20:10 (if we take John as it author ), show that the authors of the three Synoptic Gospels certainly, the author of the Fourth Gospel and Revelation most likely, and Paul perhaps believed in some form of eternal suffering in hell.
    Vito

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  11. trudy vandermolen Avatar
    trudy vandermolen

    I just thought of Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and what transpired after they died, found in Luke 16:19-31

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  12. BV Avatar
    BV

    Trudy,
    That passage does speak against conditional immortality in the NT as a whole. I am reminded of the Lazarus reference in Jack Elliot’s Tramp on the Street:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHMKoRGh6AI

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  13. BV Avatar
    BV

    Vito,
    What do you make of Romans 6:23? New International Version
    23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[a] Christ Jesus our Lord.”
    For MacGregor, that settles the matter. >> Paul certainly taught that “the wages paid by sin is death.” (Rom 6:23) The unredeemed, therefore, die. That is the end of them. . . . . Clearly, according to Paul, annihilation by death is the only expectation the unredeemed may entertain. << (117-118)

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  14. BV Avatar
    BV

    Trudy rightly points to MT 25:41 ff.
    41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
    An important text, but not relevant to the specific question whether Paul subscribes to conditional immortality.
    >>I was a stranger and you did not invite me in<< Good-hearted, but squishy-headed, open border types love this line. Welcome the stranger! Even when he comes to rape your daughter?

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  15. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    Bill,
    Again, as often, Paul’s language is ambiguous, but I think the question turns on whether we understand “death” as physical death or spiritual death, and given that the first clause of the sentence is counterposed to the second that speaks of “eternal life,” meaning eternal spiritual life, it appears reasonable to take the first as referring to spiritual death, a state if everlasting estrangement from God, especially if we recall that Paul speaks of “eternal destruction” in Thess 1:9, which hints at an enduring, ongoing state of undoing or ruin.
    Vito

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  16. BV Avatar
    BV

    Vito,
    Your suggestion is that we read ‘death’ in Romans 6:23 as referring to spiritual death, not physical death. Accordingly, the wages of sin is spiritual death. But what is that? Your suggestion seems to be that after bodily death we continue to exist as disembodied spirits in a state of everlasting estrangement from God. And that is what hell is.
    But how does this comport with the resurrection of the body, which is surely a cardinal teaching of Xianity, one that distinguishes it from Platonism/gnosticism? Do you mean to say that only the redeemed, the saved, are resurrected, and that those who go to hell do not acquire resurrection bodies?
    If so, how can those in hell suffer physical torments? How can the rich man in the Lazarus story suffer thirst?
    Welcome to the aporetics of soteriology!

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  17. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    Bill,
    The interpretation that I offer of Rom 6:23 refers to the intermediate, disembodied and hence incomplete state of souls, saved and damned, before the general resurrection of the dead. In that great eschatological event, I assume that the damned would rise along with the saved so that each person would again become a soul/body composite.
    The philosopher Michael Potts (“Aquinas, Hell, and Resurrection”*) offers a defense of Aquinas’ thinking on this question and perhaps it is worth quoting him here:
    “The resurrection of the damned restores the good of the human species, and in this way God restores as much good to human nature as possible, even to the damned. The continuance in being of the resurrected damned, therefore, is a metaphysical good, correcting the metaphysical horror of death and restoring the order of nature lost at the Fall. The damned have the fullness of their nature and are capable of knowing in the properly human way, by means of phantasms. They can also feel passions, an important aspect of a distinctively human life. God is graciously giving them the most being that they can possibly have, given the disordered nature of their wills. They conform to Christ as much as they are capable, since they have the full, embodied nature of the human species. Hell, especially after the resurrection, is a gracious gift, reflecting the love of God and His desire for creatures to join with Him as much as possible….
    Much of the harm the damned suffer is due to their own evil wills. There is also a pain of sense. Aquinas believes this to be a literal fire, but Geach has convincingly argued that it can be reinterpreted as the inevitable pain resulting from evil people attempting to exploit and abuse a reconstituted natural world. The torment Geach describes might be physical (e.g., much of our suffering in this life results from our pollution of nature) or psychological, since nature will not yield to the wills of those who are evil. Since nature will obey God and not the damned, nature will torment them as they try to make use of it.” As for the eternity of hell, [Stump argues that since the damned have made evil their “second” nature, it is reasonable to hold that they will never choose their ultimate end, God.”” They can, however, live the best life they are capable of living in their twisted state, and this God mercifully allows them to do.”
    Like you, I don’t know if this theological reflection on the final state of the damned is true, and I instinctively resist these sorts of speculations on matters that exceed our rational abilities, but it does allow for the compatibility of a physical resurrection and the eternity of hell, if only as an intellectual construct.
    * https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1702&context=faithandphilosophy
    Vito

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  18. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Thanks, Bill. This is a very interesting topic, and you raised two crucial questions. The first is this:
    >>Would extinction of the person be worse than everlasting torment?<< It seems this question can be plausibly interpreted in different ways. For example: 1. Would extinction of the person be worse for that person than everlasting torment would be for that person? 2. Would extinction of the person be worse for the world as such than everlasting torment of that person would be for the world as such? 3. Would extinction of the person be worse for the society of all persons than everlasting torment of that person would be for the society of all persons?

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  19. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Bill,
    With respect to the Pauline texts, Romans 5:18 is worthy of consideration. “Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.”
    This verse doesn’t settle the question of whether or not the Pauline texts support conditional immortality. But the verse, and its preceding passage back to verse 12, seems to count in favor of universalism and, moreover, seems inconsistent with 2 Thess. 1:9.

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  20. BV Avatar
    BV

    Hi Elliot,
    I’m happy you checked in. Yes, those are three interestingly different questions.
    Ad (1). The answer here will depend on the person. For MacGregor, to be utterly annihilated is worse than everlasting torment. But for me everlasting torment is worse. In fact, I would prefer annihilation + retroactive erasure from the roster of being to everlasting torment — not that this is metaphysically possible. It is, however, conceivable. Suppose God has the power to make it the case that a certain person who did exist never existed. Call that ROE: retroactive ontological erasure. So not only does he annihilate me, he ROEs me. He makes it the case that I never was. Now God’s power can’t extend that far — how do I know? — but if it did so extend, I would prefer that super-annihilation (to give it a name) to everlasting torment.
    Here we touch upon the fascinating question of SENSE OF LIFE which is different for different people. Argument comes way too late for this difference in sense or sensibility.
    Ad(2). This question hadn’t occurred to me. One answer here would be that the world would not know whether a given person was annihilated or condemned to everlasting torment. A person’s being annihilated would make impossible any praeternatural communication between him and anyone alive in the world.
    Ad(3). It now looks like what you meant by (2) was different from what I took you to mean. Perhaps what you are getting at with (2) is the question whether the sum total of value in the world (the totality of what exists) is greater or less if ECT (everlasting conscious torment) holds or annihilation. Given the hedonic calculus of a utilitarian, I suppose one would have to say that annihilation is better than ECT. But it might go the other way if one took a deontological line.

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  21. BV Avatar
    BV

    Elliot,
    Your comment @ 4:27 raises the question whether we are going to get anywhere with ‘proof-texting.’ The Scriptures are not self-interpreting. You need a philosophical framework, and that comes from Athens. Remember Brian Bosse? I had lunch with him last Sunday. He’s a Calvinist. I was trying to convince him that there is no theology in the Scriptures themselves, that theology arises only when Greek philosophical conceptuality is brought to bear. Accordingly, theology is applied philosophy: philosophy applied to the data of revelation. Brian wasn’t buying it!
    There are three main mutually exclusive options re: hell. And passages can be found in support of each.
    ETERNAL TORMENT: Matt 25:45; 2 Thess 1:6-9; Rev 14:11; 20:10-15
    ANNIHILATION: Matt 7:13; 10:28; John 3:16, Rom 6:23; Heb 10:39
    UNIVERSALISM: Rom 5:18, 11:32; 1 Cor 15:22; Phil 2:11; Col 1:20

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  22. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Bill,
    You referred to “retroactive ontological erasure/super-annihilation.” That’s a fascinating concept! It’s quite interesting to think about how the world might have been had people who existed never existed at all.
    You are right that I was getting at “the question whether the sum total of value in the world (the totality of what exists) is greater or less if ECT (everlasting conscious torment) holds or annihilation.”
    Yes, utilitarian and deontological intuitions seem to differ on this question.
    Suppose worlds are bearers of value, which they must be if possible worlds can be compared axiologically, which seems to be what philosophers do when they speak of the ‘best possible world.’ And suppose that retributive justice is an intrinsic good. What if, in some cases, everlasting punishment (rather than annihilation) is what retribution requires?
    Now, everlasting punishment seems to violate retributive justice because the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, since the punishment is too harsh. But what if those in hell are forever free to accept God and enter into his presence, but continue freely to reject him forever? It seems that in such cases everlasting punishment is what justice requires.
    I find it hard to believe that any human being could freely (and knowingly) reject God forever. For that would mean that a finite mind and will, with finite intellect and willpower, would continually and forever overpower the perfect mind and will of the Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent One.

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  23. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Bill, I do remember Brian. I hope he’s well, and I hope to see him again sometime.
    I agree with you that proof-texting does not work, and that theology is philosophical thinking applied to the data of revelation. The theology is not in the scriptures themselves. The theology is a philosophical framework brought to bear on the scriptural data. We use the framework to interpret the data. And we must interpret the data. It does not interpret itself. The writings of Paul are a good example. Some of his passages seem inconsistent with some of his other passages. We need a framework that can resolve the apparent inconsistencies.

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  24. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    Bill,
    On this question, I think that it is useful to segregate the synoptic gospels from the other NT texts. In the synoptics, 7 verses clearly speak of eternal torment: specifically, Mark, 1 verse (9:43-48); Matthew, 5 verses (5:21-26, 13: 36-43, 13: 47–52, and 25:31-46); and Luke, I verse (16: 19-31) [along with, as you point out, the much later Rev 14:11 and 20:10-15]. This leaves the 2 verses of Matthew (7:13, 10:28) that seem to support annihilationism, if we take the noun “destruction” in the first and the verb “to destroy” in the second as referring the termination of existence. The problem here, of course, is to explain how the author of this gospel so evidently contradicts himself in explicitly affirming eternal torment in five verses but annihilationism in two. For me, it makes more sense to hold that our understanding of his meaning when he speaks of destruction is faulty, rather than that he contradicts himself. As importantly, taken together, the three synoptic gospels strongly favor eternal torment. Turning to the Gospel of John, I agree that 5:28-28 supports an annihilationist view, but against it, one must place Jn 5:28-28 (“those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned”), which at least rules out any immediate elimination of souls and leaves open their final state after judgement. I grant that the Pauline texts, that you cite, with perhaps the exception of 2 Thessalonians 1:8-10, incline toward annihilationism or universalism, although this understanding of this writings, with much painstaking quibbling over wording and context, is contested by orthodox biblical scholars.
    Vito

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  25. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Bill, regarding the question of universalism, I think you’d appreciate reading Universal Salvation: The Current Debate. (Eerdmans Publishing, 2003, eds. Robin Parry and Christopher Partridge)
    In Part 1, philosopher Thomas Talbott makes a case for universalism. He uses the method of the inconsistent triad, which I think you’d like.
    Here are the propositions:
    1. God’s redemptive love extends to all human sinners equally in the sense that he sincerely wills or desires the redemption of each one of them.
    2. Because no one can finally defeat God’s redemptive love or resist it forever, God will triumph in the end and successfully accomplish the redemption of everyone whose redemption he sincerely wills or desires.
    3. Some human sinners will never be redeemed but will instead be separated from God forever.
    As Talbott notes, universalists accept (1) and (2) and thus deny (3). Augustinians accept (2) and (3) and hence deny (1). Arminians accept (1) and (3) and so deny (2).

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  26. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    Bill,
    After further reflection and biblical research, I now believe that we can reject the claim that Paul believed in universalism. Specifically, those who hold that Rom 5:18 (“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men”) supports universalism, wrongly take “all” as referring to humanity as a whole. In doing this, they ignore Paul’s foundational belief that humanity is divided into two: on the one hand, as Rom 5:17 makes clear, “those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one-man Jesus Christ;” and, on the other hand, those who do not accept and respond to this gift through faith,” i.e. those who are “wicked and evil men; for not all have faith (2 Thess. 3:2). Likewise, in 1 Cor 15:22; (“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”) refers only to believers, since as Paul proclaims in 1 Cor 15:18, just before this verse (“who have fallen asleep in Christ’) and just after it in 1 Cor 15:23 (“ But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ”), his “all” refers to faithful Christians.
    With regard to Phil 2:11 (“[S]o that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”), it is important to remember that the “bow[ing] down to Jesus takes place when he appears in a glorious state, one so overwhelming that all, believers, willingly out of faith, and sinners, for other less meritorious motives, such as fear, acknowledge his lordship. So, it is an unjustified assumption that the text speaks of universal salvation. The same can be said of Col 1:20 (“[A]nd through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross”), since “all things” most likely includes the demons of which Paul refers in Col 2:15 (“He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him”), and thus to sinfully deformed, sinful beings.
    Rom 11:32 is seemingly more problematical (“For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all”), but to read this verse, part of a longer meditation on the salvation of the gentiles and the Jews, as supporting universalism, one would have to ignore (1) Rom 9:2-4 “that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by race,” which indicates Paul’s belief that not all of his kinsmen will be saved and (2) the overall thrust of his theology of humanity’s division into those of faith and those without.
    Vito

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  27. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    Bill,
    Maybe I have said too much and a further comment is not welcome, but I am so interested in this subject that I purchased and read Four Views on Hell. While the essays in favor of “Eternal Conscious Torment” and “Terminal Punishment” are decidedly the most strongly supported by NT texts, I ultimately found the entire discussion, one between Protestant exegetes or theologians, unsatisfying and rather inefficacious. Only when I put the book down did I really grasp the wisdom of the observation that you made in your response to Elliott, “Your comment @ 4:27 raises the question whether we are going to get anywhere with ‘proof-texting.’ The Scriptures are not self-interpreting. You need a philosophical framework, and that comes from Athens….there is no theology in the Scriptures themselves, that theology arises only when Greek philosophical conceptuality is brought to bear.” Raised in the Catholic intellectual tradition, I should have realized that I was falling–as my comments indicate–into the very, endless circular ‘proof-texting’ trap that you decry. In the end, my conclusion is that early recognition by the Church of the need for Athens and hence its embrace of philosophy is precisely what allowed for the groundbreaking theological reflections on the great questions, including our final destinies, by Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, the Scholastics, and so on. (Benedict XVI saw very clearly in his early Introduction to Christianity.) Whatever its faults, the resulting intellectual tradition towers above the sort of sterile argumentation, one divorced from philosophical concepts and reasoning, that is found in Four Views. So, thank you for your very helpful comment and for raising this issue of hell, which allowed me to think more deeply.
    Vito

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  28. DaveB Avatar
    DaveB

    The strength of Four Views was not its philosophical profundity, but rather the drawing of attention to the fact that there are….4….views. It is up to the reader to determine how profound he will sound upon further analysis.
    A question is: does our understanding of hell determine how we conceptualize God, or vice-versa?

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  29. BV Avatar
    BV

    Thanks again for recommending it, Dave.
    I’d say the two conceptualizations go hand-in-hand.

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  30. BV Avatar
    BV

    Vito,
    Your comments are always welcome here! (Especially when you agree with me, as you do in your latest.) I am not decrying proof-texting so much as expressing skepticism about it. I seriously doubt that we will arrive at any one Biblical view on any theological topic (e.g. Trinity) by sifting through the OT and NT texts. Just as there is ecclesiolatry, there is Bibliolatry. The RCC arguably succumbs to the first, Protestant denominations to the second. If the RCC slights the Bible, as it does, the Prots tend to excesses in the other direction, even if it is not fair to accuse them of Bibliolatry.
    It may be that some texts simply contradict others. Of course, God will not and and indeed cannot contradict himself. Some will agree with that and then say that since the Bible is the Word of God, it must be inerrant, and cannot contain any contradictions, and so there must be one true answer — God’s answer –to every question.
    I don’t buy it. The divine transmitter sends a pure signal to us. Be we are crappy receivers: the signal arrives mixed with noise. And it may be that the signal-to-noise ratio varies from book to book and from text to text. Separating the signal from the noise is bound to be difficult.
    The inspired individuals who took down divine dictation were our moral and spiritual superiors, no doubt, but still human-all-too-human with all sorts of personal foibles and cultural biases. The magnificent Psalms, for example, are dripping with God-on-our-side tribalism. One has to dig deep to get to the pure message.
    I am not denying the possibility or the actuality of divine revelation. But if you think of it along the lines I have sketched, with an impeccable transmitter and faulty receivers, then it becomes difficult if not impossible to believe that the Bible is inerrant and free of contradiction. If so, you will never be able to establish by citation of texts that hell — to take just one theological topic — is to be understood along eternalist or annihilationist or universalist lines.
    Note that I am not denying that the Christian Bible is the Word of God. I am assuming that God exists and has revealed himself to man. One way he did this was via the Scriptures. He communicated to man truths that he could not have known by his own efforts. What exactly these truths are, however, cannot be established by reading Bible texts, even if one reads them thoughtfully, prayerfully, with an open mind and heart.
    One of these truths is that one will have to answer for his wrongdoing after death, that one will face judgment, that justice in the end will prevail and that one will face retribution. But what form will it take? Eternal conscious torment? A period of punishment followed by annihilation? A period of punishment that will lead eventually to the eternal bliss of all? Proof-texting won’t help us answer these questions. We will have to think for ourselves.

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  31. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    Bill,
    Thank you for this astute comment on biblical inerrancy, with which I essentially agree. Indeed, it is hard to find fault with your general observation that “The divine transmitter sends a pure signal to us. Be we are crappy receivers: the signal arrives mixed with noise. And it may be that the signal-to-noise ratio varies from book to book and from text to text.”
    However, I would like to modify it to account for those biblical texts—in particular, the Synoptic Gospels, and perhaps (this is more controversial) some of the Gospel of John—that were the products of a different mode of transmission, one in which the human creators were not “receivers” of divine messages, with the suggested distortions that such transmission entails, but rather reporters of the words and actions of a being, Jesus of Nazareth, who received or intuitively knew such messages in an unadulterated form. In arguing this I do not claim that every gospel passage of Jesus’ speech is a verbatim report, although some or parts of some may well be, but merely that they faithfully present the sense and meaning of his utterances. If this is so, and of course for it to be so one would have to accept the notion of the Incarnation, however understood, since it would offer an alternative to the normal conveyance of divine truths to human minds. We would have instead the knowledge of the divine by a person with two natures one of which natures is divine. I am here not arguing for the truth of the Incarnation, in which I believe, but simply how it might be seen as an alternative explanation of the inerrancy of the writings of the Evangelists. This assertion does not, of course insist that (1) every detail (dates, settings, order of events) of each gospel conforms precisely to the others (2) or that the words and actions of Jesus in one are precisely replicated in the others, although one must admit in reading the gospels in parallel, the doubling, tripling, and less often quadrupling of passages is evident, but that the sense and meaning of these words and actions is preserved.
    Vito

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  32. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    Bill,
    One sentence of the above comment is incomplete; corrected here: “If this is so, and of course for it to be so one would have to accept the notion of the Incarnation, however understood, since it would offer an alternative to the normal conveyance of divine truths to human minds, the transmission model objection could be overcome.”
    Vito

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  33. BV Avatar
    BV

    Vito,
    You are quite right about what you say @ 5:34. I believe it supplements and completes what I wrote, and is therefore consistent with it. God reveals himself to man in more than one way. One way is through the Scriptures, another is through the physical universe (its existence, beauty, and intelligibility point to a divine Source of same), and a third is through the man Jesus of Nazareth. The transmitter-receiver model does not comport well with the second type of revelation.
    Further questions we might discuss:
    Does God reveal himself in other scriptures such as the Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita? There are passages in Plato that read to me like divine revelation.
    Is Jesus the only man in whom God has incarnationally revealed himself?
    Is it plausible to maintain that Christian claims to the effect that their Bible alone is the Word of God, and Jesus alone a son of God, perhaps just expressions of one religious sect’s tribalism?
    Some say that Jesus never claimed to be one with the Father in the way that was hammered out at Chalcedon (one person, two natures). Could Jesus be the best teacher of humanity ever, the most godlike man without being literally identical to God?
    Could one’s salvation depend on accepting some abstruse metaphysical account of incarnation?
    Could torturing someone to death for not accepting it ever be justified?

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  34. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    Bill,
    Thank you for your astute response, which indicates the further questions that arise from the receiver/reporter notion of divine truth transmission.
    I and your other readers would profit from your thoughts on one or more of the big questions that you raise in it, since they would certainly get us thinking more deeply and most likely produce some good exchanges in the comment section. I have what I consider to be rational beliefs regarding the first four, but I would love for you at some point to take the lead on these and the others, if you are so inclined.
    Vito

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  35. BV Avatar
    BV

    More to come, Vito, on hell and purgatory too.
    Do you have Ratzinger’s ESCHATOLOGY: DEATH AND ETERNAL LIFE? He has a nice short chapter on hell, purgatory, and heaven.

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  36. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    No, Bill, I don’t have it, but will now look for it on Amazon.
    Vito

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