Perhaps the strangest parable of the Bible is that of the rich man and Lazarus. Unique to the Gospel of Luke, the parable tells the story of man who lives lavishly and of a poor man, Lazarus (the only character to ever be named in one of Jesus’s parables), whose only desire is to eat the scraps from the rich man’s table. Both of the men die, and the poor man finds his way into some sort of heavenly paradise called Abraham’s bosom (and all of the Pharisees blush), while the rich man is condemned to anguish in hell. However, the rich man calls out to Abraham, beseeching him to send Lazarus with a drink of water. Abraham says that the rich man is getting what he deserves and, besides, to cross the chasm between them would be impossible. Unperturbed, the rich man beseeches Abraham again to send Lazarus to his still-living five brothers so that they might avoid a similar fate. To this Abraham responds, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”
This parable in the 16th chapter of Luke is odd for a number of reasons, but foremost of its peculiarities is the mythology it develops concerning the afterlife when that clearly has nothing to do with the parable’s message. Jesus’s story here is meant to describe the reversal of the weak and powerful and, more importantly, to act as a not-so-subtle jab against the Pharisees who, if they were too obtuse to understand the prophets, will certainly be unable to recognize the gospel of Christ’s work and his eventual resurrection.
Yet ten of the thirteen verses for this parable are spent discussing the afterlife and the story’s strange conceptions of heaven and hell. To begin, we are to assume that the rich man denies Lazarus his comforts and food, and so the punishment he receives might make sense. We are not told, however, anything particularly righteous that Lazarus does that earns him his place at Abraham’s side—it’s simply enough that he suffered in this life. The place where the rich man finds himself is labeled Hades in the text, the name of the underworld in Greek mythology. This term is used occasionally in the New Testament, but almost always as a neutral location, the place where souls go when they die, whether good or evil. This is the only time in the Bible where it is associated with some sort of torment. Also worth noting is that we are told that the rich man can see Abraham and Lazarus far off, which suggests the odd design of a hellish viewing gallery in heaven.
Volumes have been filled discussing the nuances of this parable, but let’s focus on the final exchange. Abraham (a surefire stand-in for God) tells the rich man that not even a visitation from the dead could convince his brothers. This, of all the claims in the story, seems the most troublesome. Is this exaggeration or does Abraham mean it? Because the result of such an encounter, between a man’s five brothers and a ghost from beyond, seems awfully important. Five human souls are at stake, and fiery torment is on the line. If there’s a chance a ghostly visit would work, isn’t it worth a try?
Hell is a fundamental Christian doctrine. Some form of it exists in almost every Christian tradition with very little variance. It’s even a central doctrine for some traditions—the National Association of Evangelicals’ statement of faith, covering the core of Christianity in less than 200 words, makes room to include damnation.
In its most traditional form, it’s viewed as a place of simultaneous darkness and fire. The souls of sinners are condemned to spend eternity there in torment, sometimes at the hands of demons. In popular culture, the Devil is in charge of the whole operation.
Many are uncomfortable with this blended biblical and medieval imagery and so opt for a revised understanding of eternal punishment. Some prefer something more social or psychological, something possibly similar to Earth but where everyone is sad and the sky is always gray. C. S. Lewis gives this view more theological nuance in his parable of The Great Divorce, envisioning a rainy hell in which people simply lose their being and substance the longer they are away from God. For others, the torment is bad, but the real problem is the eternity of it all. An easy solution to this is to erase the fixed chasm, treating hell like some sort of purgatory, where the punishment is temporary until one can finally join the Lord. Another solution that many find biblical evidence for is the doctrine of annihilation by which the sinner’s death is eternal—meaning you die, and you never wake up.
Beauty of the Infinite was published in 2003 by David Bentley Hart. A book on theological aesthetics, dealing with questions of beauty, sublimity, and being, it quickly established the budding theologian as a leading voice in the new millennia. Half a decade later, he soared to greater heights with the publication of Atheists Delusions, a book his publishers clearly saw as a refutation of the then-popular New Atheists and the bestseller, The God Delusion.
Across all of his work, Hart was recognized not only for his ingenious contributions to theology but also his razor wit. Worth checking out is his First Things essay in which he lambasts a New Yorker article and the idea that the religious debate has been long settled in favor of nonbelievers. While a typical sentence from Hart may warrant a half-dozen visits to the dictionary, his condescensions for such pseudo-intellectualism as well as his dry humor is unmistakable.
Hart’s next major book would not be finished until ten years after Atheist Delusions. This coming work was of such significance and delicacy that it warranted an entirely new translation of the New Testament published in 2017—no easy task. Yet even this radical reinterpretation of Christianity’s holy scriptures was received more readily than Hart’s next effort published two years later. Dealing with topics of hell and salvation, Hart released his third major book in 2019, That All Shall Be Saved. Though its prose was as skillful as Atheists Delusions and its theology as rigorous as Beauty of the Infinite, this newest work was rejected by many. Some alternative explanations for the book’s dismissal have been given, but whatever the reason, Hart was no longer viewed as the theological darling he once was.
Charles Dickens is not often considered for his religious expertise, but his holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, is perhaps the greatest biblical critique ever written. To be clear, its greatness is not in the weight of the blow it lands to the Bible but in its merit as a literary work. No other story has so dominated Christmas media for as long as it has; it’s better than How the Grinch Stole Christmas and maybe even “The Gift of the Magi.” And if you’re not convinced by one version, there’s a dozen other iteration for you to pick from. (I’m partial to the 1984 George C. Scott interpretation.)
It is odd to think that this classic tale is so clearly a refutation of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The dramatic last verse of Jesus’s parable—“…neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead”—is the exact premise that drives Dickens’s own parable. Yet his conclusion disagrees. People do have the power to change, and coincidentally, this power could be quickened by a timely visit from the dead.
To be clear, from what we can tell, Dickens did not have Luke 16 in mind when writing his novel and should not be viewed as a Victorian Era heretic. Also, Dickens is surely less concerned with the efficacy of ghosts than with his conviction that there is good in even the most curmudgeonly characters.
Still, let us consider his dramatic tale in our discussions of fate and what could be done to save a man. It seems to me that if I were visited by one ghost and three spirits in the span of a night, I might be moved to great change—especially in my later years. And in this small critique, we open a league of other issues for the afterlife.
David Bentley Hart was not the first religious figure to arouse others’ anger for writing on the topic he did. In fact, another book published less than a decade prior is probably more familiar to most readers: Love Wins by Rob Bell.
Bell first drew the attention of outsiders with the establishment of the Mars Hill Bible Church in 1999. In five years, he grew the congregation to an astounding 11,000 members, launching the congregation with a sermon series on Leviticus no less. His fame increased exponentially with the creation of the NOOMA videos which anyone who grew up in a Church between 2002 and 2009 has undoubtedly seen. Though maybe a little pretentious, the NOOMA videos were undeniably of a higher caliber—more thoughtful and better developed—than any young adult Christian media of the time. On top of this, he published multiple eye-catching titles, such as Velvet Elvis, Sex God, and Everything is Spiritual. He was even featured in Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world.
Everything changed for Bell in 2011 with his publication of Love Wins. Many turned against the popular minister, doing more than simply dismissing his book. In less than a year, he would be forced to leave the church he founded. While he still has many fans and followers, a massive segment of those who had once listened to his wisdom turned around to label him as a villain.
This reaction was telling of the American perception of anti-hell theology. Contrary to the thought that universal salvation is a selfish doctrine, fueled by one’s own desire for there to be no consequences, it was shown that most Western Christians wanted hell in their faith. Most of them may not give a second thought to themselves possibly going there, but they assuredly needed it in their religion as a possibility for others.
The doctrine of hell is relatively straightforward: life is a cosmic test, and those who live righteously are rewarded with heaven while those who live sinfully are punished with hell. A notable variation on this is that these eternal destinations are, more accurately, direct choices in themselves; one can choose community with God or one can choose independence and isolation. Somehow, though, this simple idea harbors in itself extensive complexities and implications that are worth exploring.
Consider God’s justice: By most any accepted understanding of proportionality or fairness, it is completely unjust to punish someone infinitely for a finite level of sin. Yet that is exactly what hell is. Even if you were the most evil person imaginable—and you managed to live a really long time—there would still come a time in the afterlife when you had suffered a just amount of punishment for your wrongdoing. And that’s not to mention those who just barely missed the threshold—they didn’t get baptized, they told one too many lies, they didn’t have a good enough attitude, whatever it may be—and now they suffer the greatest punishment imaginable. Another issue of fairness is beyond our scope here but involves determinism and free-will. Whether or not you accept determinism, its coherence as a philosophical option should cast doubts as to how much we can hold others accountable for their actions. History, environment, psychology, and biology are all factors in assessing someone’s behavior.
Consider next God’s mercy: This is perhaps the most common critique of hell. The Bible makes clear that it is in God’s nature that divine grace and mercy outweigh divine wrath (e.g Exodus 34:6). How then could it be that God’s wrath ultimately weighs more on a person in eternity than grace? It is for this reason that we see throughout Scripture that God’s punishments are often for a time. This is because the Lord always has redemption in mind. In the clearest biblical examples, God does not punish for punishment’s sake, but in order that something greater can come about. Foreign nations never plunder Israel because the chosen people have reached the limits of God’s grace, but because there is something greater in store. Similarly, it is silly to say that God’s mercy and power is subject to our freedom, as if the child’s stubbornness could thwart the will of the parent.
Lastly, consider God’s foreknowledge: The doctrine of hell portrays God as a poor gambler, and possibly even a foolish one. If Jesus’s words are to be taken in reference to ultimate salvation, then the broad way has filled the space of hell while only a few trickle in through the narrow gate into heaven’s embrace. And that generally lines up with a broad, statistical perspective: there are far fewer Christians than non-Christians who have ever lived (even if we make the adjustments for the righteous pagan while also keeping in mind those bad Christians). God knew these numbers—or if you don’t believe God knows the future, God could at least crunch the numbers and get a fairly accurate guess—yet this omniscient deity went through with the plan. God created out of a love a vast universe with 100 billion people on one planet that live and then die and then most of them spend eternity in hell. Sure, we know that God rejoices over the one sheep, but we would ridicule the shepherd if the other ninety-nine fell off a cliff.
There has been a doctrine, as old as the dogma of hell, that has never reached the same heights of acceptance, yet it has remained as a constant thread in the tapestry of our faith. Apocatastasis to the Church Fathers, perfect reconciliation for the Scholastics and Reformers, and universalism today—it has been a present hope tucked away in Christian theology.
Stripped down, it is the rejection of an eternal hell. For some, there is no eternal hell because of the bold claim that there is no hell. Others may begin at a more orthodox starting point, insisting instead that hell exists but that it is eventually emptied as all are reconciled to God.
And the reasons for this limitless redemption are manifold. Some lean on psychological motivation—if hell is indeed a choice, no free mind would ever choose it given all the information. Some rely instead on the power and mercy of God. God cannot be denied, and the Lord above desires that all life should be reconciled to divine love. Still others try to play by traditional rules, suggesting that boundless salvation is the natural consequence of Christ’s just sacrifice.
This view, while never the most popular, was always present. There have always been throughout the centuries a few dissenting voices, the voices of those crying out that there is hope.
We should probably take a moment to discuss epistemology and hermeneutics.
So the first big question worth wrestling with is, does the Bible trump all other knowledge? As Christians, we’re well-trained to think that it does. We might point to 1 Corinthians 1, “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men,” or Proverbs 16, “There is a way that seems right to a man, / but its end is the way to death.” The Bible represents divine knowledge and is therefore infallible and transcendent of human knowledge. We can assume if it’s in the Bible, it’s fact.
Yet we don’t always do this. In fact, we’re very experienced in circuitous readings to avoid the plain sense of biblical verses that make us uncomfortable. When Jesus commands us to turn the other cheek, we apply to it the hyperbole found in some earlier verses, even though the majority of the chapter is straight-forward teaching. When the author of Genesis speaks of firmaments or flood gates, we chalk it up to allegorical language, though little in the text suggests this and ancient readers would not read it as such. When Jesus and the apostles all denounce worldly wealth, we rationalize that it only applies to those who let wealth get in the way or to exorbitant amounts. Or in the final book, when a dragon swipes the stars of heaven—massive bodies of gas and fire—with its tail, we remind ourselves that its a symbolic book, though the reality of the revelation is meant to be coherent.
This should tell us that the Bible is already susceptible to other forms of knowledge, like what we know from science or our moral intuitions (or even other parts of the Bible). But let’s push a little harder. What happens if the Bible is is direct opposition to logic? Which one wins out?
Let’s start with a hypothetical: if a random verse in Proverbs insisted that 2 + 2 = 5, how would you read this? What if the context made clear that there was no linguistic trick going on, the Hebrew said just that, and there was no greater point being made than this mathematical fallacy? Do you reassess your knowledge of addition or of Proverb’s wisdom?
Maybe something less hypothetical might be more helpful. For readers that believe in biological and cosmological evolution, what if a biblical scholar and literary critic both told you that Genesis 1 was not some abstract, symbolic poem, but a stylized retelling of history—and in that way, contrary to evolution. The author of that first book indeed thought that the universe was created in seven 24-hour days. And what if, reading it yourself, you are convinced of their argument—science or scripture?
Perhaps a more universal example is applicable here. What if, in your daily Bible reading, you come across 2 Chronicles 36:9 and learn that Jehoiachin was 8 years old when he began to reign. This then reminds you of your reading earlier in the year of 2 Kings 24:8, which says that Jehoiachin was 18 years old—a difference of a decade. Logic tells you that x cannot equal not x; 8 cannot equal 18. So how old was Jehoiachin?
The point here is not to deal with trivial arithmetic or hypotheticals, but rather to arrive at a greater point regarding epistemology (how we know things). And that point is that the Bible is not revelation. The Bible contains revelation, but it itself is not revelation.
So let’s back-up and explain this a little more. There are a few ways that we know things: for examples, by our own sensory experience—touching something or seeing something—or by logic—being able to deduce something abstractly, like we do with math. Another possible way for us to know things is by someone telling us. However, people sometimes lie or are mistaken or we misunderstand them, and so word-of-mouth doesn’t carry the same weight as logic or even experience. But what if an infallible God told us something, in the process we call “revelation”? Well then we could be confident. A word from God is less fallible than our human logic (which currently is our least fallible method), so I guess we would have to believe the divine edict that 2 + 2 does in fact equal 5.
Yet unfortunately we don’t get that sort of revelation. Instead we have a document that contains a few excerpts of revelation but is mostly a testament to that revelation. We don’t hear the direct words of God; rather, we read in a different language a few different dudes’ take on what God may have said a few hundred years before them embedded in their own political and religious writings.
Now I don’t want to come off as too skeptical. For historiographical reasons as well as faith reasons, we have a fair amount of confidence in our holy scriptures. We believe in something called inspiration. But we are the proverbial fool to think that the biblical text can be taken at face value, always in agreement with or supersession over our own logical faculties. Yes, this means reading the Bible is going to be harder. The author of 2 Peter says it himself that hermeneutics is a hard task (2 Peter 3:16). But the Bible’s not a textbook; we can’t plug-and-chug. We have to reflect and think critically. And when something in the text seems in conflict with our own reasoning, well then it’s time to think a little harder.
Were the rich man’s brothers free? Did they have control over their own fate? I think that question is harder to answer than we may immediately presume. They certainly made choices—they chose to reject the prophets (though they may not have thought they were doing so). Yet can we say that they were free if their choices were all known ahead of time? Were they free if their lives were predetermined to destruction.
Alternatively, let us ask, was the fate of Ebenezer Scrooge unjust because he had otherworldly aid? Was it fair that he was able to turn his life around and avoid a lonely death because a ghost and three temporally-themed spirits performed an intervention? Forsaking for a moment A Christmas Carol’s total lack of concern for the Christian afterlife, how do you think Jacob Marley would feel waking up to an eternity of brimstone and discovering that his only equal in misery and cruelty had been afforded divine intervention and narrowly avoided the same fate?
And forgive me if I make light of his predicament, for hellish fire is the core of the issue—nothing less than eternity is on the line. On one hand we’re faced with injustice for salvation. If the fictional account of Scrooge doesn’t bother us, consider Saint Paul; we have no reason to believe his path would have been altered for the better had he not seen the Lord face to face. Each of us has an uncle or a friend from high school that could also use such an intervention, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to get one.
On the other hand, we’re faced with fairness—the rich man didn’t receive any undead warnings, and neither will his brothers—but their fate is almost certainly hell. Does that make us wish that everyone got unfair advantages and a visit from a spirit?
Bell and Hart are not the first universalists, nor the most renown voices to defend it. That title belongs to the Church Father, Origen of Alexandria.
Now, to start it’s important to note that no one can say they know the theology of Origen with absolute confidence. Though throughout Christian history most scholars have listed the Church Father among the most notable advocates of universal salvation, it is hard to be certain given the destruction of much of his work, the conflating of his thought with that of his followers, and his tendency to state clear but contradictory ideas across different works.
With that acknowledged, we can with some certainty identify the doctrine of apocatastasis in Origen’s work. From the Greek for reconstitution or restitution, apocatastasis is the idea that all things will be restored to their original condition—including the souls of humans. Though they would be purged of their sins, there is an expectation that all should eventually bend their knees to Christ. Jerome quoted Origen as saying, “after aeons and the one restoration of all things, the state of Gabriel will be the same as that of the Devil, Paul’s as that of Caiaphas, that of virgins as that of prostitutes,” (though notoriously Jerome lived over a hundred years later and was a fierce opponent of Origen).
Origen, in his time and afterward, would be known as the most influential Christian theologian since St. Paul and until the time of Thomas Aquinas. His ideas and wisdom and especially his work on hermeneutics would shape countless theologians after him, including Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, and even Jerome. Despite this early adoption and later revival, Origen’s work would become controversial in later centuries. It seems that for political reasons as well as misunderstandings regarding the work of his later followers, some of his theology would be deemed heretical (though not necessarily that on apocatastasis), and much of his writing would be destroyed.
Universal salvation has always been a controversial position. And sometimes the discourse against it takes up similar arguments. Its opponents may point to the Bible, suggesting that universalism is unscriptural. Or they may say that it negates the need to evangelize (which is not actually an argument, but still worth considering). And I can sympathize with both of those viewpoints. Universalism needs to be compared to the historical reading of the Bible and especially the words of Jesus. And this subject is deserving of a much longer discussion on the meaning and purpose of evangelism. Yet there is another argument that is frequently brought up that, while I sympathize with it, ought to be heartily rejected by Christians.
Probably the most common retort I’ve heard to universal salvation, most often by my friends and those who feel comfortable with me, is that some people simply deserve hell. And I get this sentiment—I really do. Some people have wronged us in such profound ways that there only seems one punishment deserving of them. Or even if you’ve never felt that level of attack, you’ve undoubtedly read about evils so visceral that you couldn’t help but feel sick inside. Surely hell is reserved for such wickedness?
This idea is simply a more extreme version of an attitude we all experience daily—the attitude that when others experience something good, they are undeserving. With jealousy we often look upon others and think to ourselves that they did not earn whatever good fortune came their way. Moreover, they actively worked against it! Yet we did what was desired of us, and some of that work was hard. We were good when we did not want to be good. We may have even suffered for righteousness. And still they receive the same reward.
In these instances, let us not forget one of Jesus’s most difficult parables, the story of the laborers in the vineyard. The master of the house goes out and there are some who immediately respond. They work all day, through the heat of the afternoon, and at the end, they are paid a denarius—a generous wage. Yet the same master goes out and finds laborers in the last hour of the day, those who had no interest in even working, and they too are paid a day’s wage.
A sizable segment of A Christmas Carol is spent revisiting Ebenezer’s younger years. In these flashbacks, we learn that Scrooge was not always the way he is; he once was a kind man, knowing love and joy.
So let’s try on another hypothetical: what if Scrooge had died then? What if one day in his youth he was crossing the street and was promptly crushed in a freak horse and buggy accident? It would seem some heavenly fate was in store for him. But the only difference between that and the vision shown him by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is the time and place of his death. Surely no one is arguing that the moment and location in which you finally bite the dust has some moral value.
So, if we believe in freedom—rejecting predestination—we are faced with the great inequality: time of death. This is ultimately the most important predictor of one’s eternal destination. It all depends on the totally arbitrary time at which someone dies.
So much of modern religion is spent reminding us that Christianity is not a system of credits and debits and it’s not about making sure we ask forgiveness for each sin. We’ve been told countless times that we don’t have to live in fear of fitting in that last prayer for forgiveness before we die. We opt instead for something more nebulous—our overall attitude or maybe even just the general state of having joined and maintained the faith. But if there is a point in someone’s life when they are saved and point afterward when they are damned, then the timing of our death becomes the most important factor in our salvation. Every second past belief becomes a risk of infinite consequences. One could maybe even make the case that if you could manage forgiveness for it, suicide after baptism would be the most optimal course of action.
For those wanting to maintain Christian freedom, time of death is the most serious threat to our understanding of justice and salvation. If the very fact that Ebenezer lived to have gray hair is what kept him from heaven, then we have a regrettably unjust system on our hands.
Maybe surprisingly some of those discussed above do not hold universalism as a doctrine. They embrace it, but they also maintain the distinction between dogma and hope.
This is the same distinction that many great theologians of the last hundred years have maintained—Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Barth, Richard John Neuhaus, none would hold universalism to be a Christian doctrine.
Rather they understand that it is a hope—it is not a teaching like the Trinity or the resurrection of Christ that we can hold Christians to. Rather we understand that there is room left for us to desire something greater: that all might be saved.
I think I disagreed with all but the last section (hyperbole); that section we can wholeheartedly agree upon. Questions and observations:
1) I want to see a shirt that says: “I lost my faith because of Jehoiachin” – but seriously, what are your thoughts on Biblical inerrancy of the original documents? I know there are other explanations for this seeming contradiction, but if some scribe made a typo, does that ruin Biblical inerrancy?
2) If no one deserves eternal damnation, doesn’t the same logic follow that no one deserves eternity with God? If souls are eternal, they must necessarily exist somewhere. So, is your beef with finality? Which leads to…
3) I disagree: time of death does have moral value, in that the future does not exist (can I be a Pelagian and an open-theist at the same time?). Because a person continues to exist until they don’t, the person is still becoming (Michelle Obama is still coming into her own), so it doesn’t make sense to compare young Scrooge to old Scrooge because old Scrooge is young Scrooge.
4) You asserted “most Western Christians wanted hell in their faith” – would it be more accurate to say: “most Western Christians viewed hell as an indispensable part of their coherent faith”?
5) I don’t understand “reasons for limitless redemption” paragraph, or perhaps I just disagree with every premise. “[I]f hell is indeed a choice, no free mind would ever choose it given all the information.” This is an impossible hurdle to jump (no one has all information, and you might disagree with me about freedom of the mind), but do you not agree that some people (maybe Satan himself?) are capable of outright rebellion in the presence of God? “God cannot be denied, and the Lord above desires that all life should be reconciled to divine love.” The second half is true, but the first half of that sentence goes against free-will and allowing God to enter into relationship with anyone – God, like anyone who experiences true love – can be denied. “Still others try to play by traditional rules, suggesting that boundless salvation is the natural consequence of Christ’s just sacrifice.” I agree, but within the parameters that salvation as a gift must be received and has the ability to be rejected. I have in my mind someone being dragged kicking and screaming into heaven; you respond with the argument that no one with complete knowledge would do that; and then we are back to the finality of death, which I believe is the source of your beef with Abraham’s bosom.
6) Let’s stick with the parable: could it be that Abraham is not saying only that he won’t send Lazarus because it won’t do any good, but that he is actually saying that he won’t send Lazarus because as a general rule, that’s not how things work AND his best guess is that it won’t do any good? My point being that, as you outlined, the purpose of the parable is to focus on the hardened hearts of those who don’t look after the poor (and who aren’t convinced by the risen Jesus), not to make a doctrinal point? I’m not even sure if we disagree about this.
7) I have a friend who will not be named that stated that one of the reasons she would not become a Christian was because the man who had raped her had become a Christian, and it was nonsensical to her that he could be forgiven for what he had done. I still hope that she will come to faith, but in order for her to do that, Volf would say that she has to hand vengeance over to the Lord. My point in bringing this up is that the idea that bad people deserve hell is complicated and not solely a Christian or religious idea. As much as God is perfectly merciful, loving, He is also perfectly just (can I say that He is perfectly angry?), which means that a perfect tension of these traits must exist, even if we don’t understand it. Let me also apologize here and anywhere else where I have leaned on arguments of “we just don’t understand” – even if it is true, it’s not very helpful for a productive discussion, in my view.
Glad we could come together on at least one thing.
1) I would buy that shirt. But regarding inerrancy, you know that I think inerrancy is a bad doctrine, unsupported from both a theological and textual vantage. Inerrancy of the original manuscripts is sensical but ultimately unhelpful. On one hand, you have no guarantee that you have access to that inerrancy in current manuscripts/translations; you must instead deal in probabilities and hopes. More importantly, we have good historical reason to believe that we’re pretty far removed from those original manuscripts.
2) No, no one deserving eternal reward does not follow from no one deserving eternal damnation. That said, no one does deserve eternal reward, but if both options are unfair, at least one is in keeping with several other divine virtues (e.g. love, grace). If I remember, I’ll discuss the contrast between justice and mercy below.
3) I don’t follow (though I appreciated the Michelle Obama reference). Are you simply saying we can’t deal in hypotheticals here? Because if we can’t, how are we any better than John Piper? We’re just assuming there is a way that someone will turn out to be. Or maybe I’m just misreading you. In any case, the importance of time of death becomes a real issue when we realize that if I were start killing babies or shooting people after they step out of the baptistry, I would guarantee more people go to heaven than hell than would otherwise happen.
4) That’s fine
5) Let’s look at the three ideas here:
(A) This idea I associate with Richard Beck; I’m not sure if any others would offer it. (For those unfamiliar, he teaches psychology.) A few premises or arguments are happening here. First, no one in heaven is leaving heaven. There could be a number of reasons for this—it could be a Black Angus situation—but most likely/easiest for our purposes is that there is something unique about being in the presence of God that makes you never want to turn back again. This can be something informative or psychological or something else. Second, you have the hell situation. For the traditional view, this doesn’t really work, but if you (a) think the time of death is arbitrary and real problem or (b) think of the afterlife as a continuation of our decision making, then hell is more open to change. There would be a possibility, no matter how astronomically small, that someone could turn toward the light instead of furthering in darkness. And third, there would be a threshold at some point at which there would be no turning back; so mathematically speaking, given infinite time, all would eventually choose God. Again, there are a few assumptions here, but they seem defendable. Also, let’s table the topic of Satan for another time.
(B) This is what Bell relies on most, but plenty of others would use this. I think it’s both possible for God to condescend to our free-will while also maintaining providence. A parent and child analogy is useful here. A child makes their own decision—and a good parent even encourages that—but a good parent also tries to steer the child in the right direction (even after the choice is made). God thus allows us to choose but is always steering us back, even after a million rejections. You would probably disagree with most of it (I think I do), but there is a whole system of theology (Process theology) built around the idea that God’s main power is in the divine ability to persuade. How I’ve just described it kinda bleeds into the previous model in which decisions are still made after death. I guess there could be a different version in which you go to heaven after you die, even having lived a life of rejection, and by perpetually being in the presence of God, you eventually come around to God.
(C) This one is similar to what I just described—going to heaven and then getting over it—but it reorients the discussion. It’s less about one’s will and the decision to join God, and more about what sins are covered. Rather than moral sins being forgivable but religious sins not (i.e. I can be forgiven for lying to someone but not for disbelief in God), all sin is forgiven. I like and dislike parts of this.
6) Yeah, we’re in agreement here. The parable has little to do with this subject, but rather its contrasts with A Christmas Carol are good conversation topics.
7) This one was my reminder to return to the topic of God’s virtue. I’ve talked about this before, but I think we can do better than to simply say that God holds the virtues of justice/holiness and love/mercy/grace in balance. If we define justice as “bestowing what’s deserved” and mercy as “not bestowing what’s deserved,” save a few nuances, these virtues are contradictory. We could chop it up to divine mystery, which isn’t the worst thing you could do, but I would push to view justice as a fundamental virtue and mercy as a higher virtue. God—and humans—demonstrates justice as an avenue to mercy.
2) I believe the logic is connected: if the punishment outweighing the crime is unjust, so is the reward outweighing the good. Now, to your point, salvation is not based on merit, it is based on grace. This doesn’t build an argument as much as it negates the math based eternal punishment injustice argument. (Interestingly, as I did some light reading on the subject, I saw that Kant’s answer is that sin against universal maxims is equivalent to infinite sin, therefore making the punishment just.)
3) My basic argument here is that your line of reasoning isn’t based in reality. Persons have entire lives – they have a beginning and an end. Even in the anti-Calvin world of God not knowing the future, reality exists and that is what judgement is based on. We might be talking past each other, but I suppose I need to build an argument that life>certainty. To me, this gets into why did God create us with free-will in the first place (more to come on that).
5) (a) No one in heaven is leaving heaven is only needed in a reality where choices exist after death. However, because the only evidence we have is our human existence, I think the evidence supports my side: the entire history of the world (and the supernatural) is that of people knowing God and rejecting Him. Aside from Satan, every iteration of knowing God ends with the rejection of God; my understanding is that God starts with perfect relationship, then takes it down a notch in different parts of history because of the rejection (God walks, God speaks directly, God speaks indirectly, God is silent), until He reveals Himself fully through the Incarnation. Sorry, long point to say that all of these are examples of the rejection of God – you might say that heaven is different, but that goes against the evidence.
(b) While I disagree with a lot of the conclusions and directions of process theology, I would agree with the general idea that God is in relationship with His people – Kierkegard type idea. I disagree that is contradicts His substance – He can remain God and be in relationship (which requires that God be changed). I remain me, yet I am constantly changed by my relationships; God does the same, but with a purer substance.
7) I contend that Justice is a higher value, or more appropriately, attributes of God cannot be put into higher or lower categories. They are either necessary to His character or they are subservient of His character (e.g., God is all-knowing, but that does not make Him God). I am not convinced that Justice is subservient to Mercy or Love. I think a fairly simple synergy here is that God is just AND (not but) He sent Himself to serve as the atonement (fairly standard orthodoxy).
8) Is free-will good? Are you glad (is it just) that God created human beings with free-will? Related, does “perfect knowledge” on the other side of eternity, whether in heaven or hell, negate free-will? I think the Bible is somewhat mixed here – my general impression is that after death, people seem to have the knowledge of God needed for salvation, even if they are in hell. However, the rich man in the parable is delusional in his knowledge – (as pointed out by Keller) the rich man continues to blame and offers no apology.
2) Forgive me, I was introducing a silly semantic argument regarding “deserving.” Now, I don’t think the need for grace negates the problem of infinite punishment. Rather it suggests that any consequence must be proportional to the action, and to get an infinite consequence (heaven), you must go beyond the bounds of justice (grace). (And in studying, you must have learned that Kant was a fool! He got that idea from Anselm which is notoriously hard to maintain. I make that joke but I’ll also say, I’m most interested in the arguments against hell (despite the length of section 5 below) yet I think this is the weakest of the three because of Anselm and other’s arguments.)
3) I think I understand what you’re saying, but arguments are based in a need to address the hypothetical. I’m offering a new reality: I’ll start killing infants so that they don’t run the risk of hell. (I hope no one screenshots this.)
5) (a) I’m not sure where your argument is pointed. If you’re arguing that there is no more choice in the afterlife, I get that. It’s much harder to defend. I would probably start by basing it in the (unbiblical) emphasis we put on freedom now. But it seems like you’re arguing that if there is choice, experience tells us that people would continue to reject God even in heaven. I think that’s problematic on two fronts: One, I think it begs the question. Two, you say that experience tells us that everyone rejects God—what about Christians? Apparently there’s some precedent for accepting God. And so the argument goes: what happens if everyone is given even more opportunity and more reason and more urging to accept God. For eternity.
(b) To be clear, I do not agree with Process Theology.
7) I mean, I feel like that puts them into higher/lower categories. But I get what you’re saying. What I’m arguing is closer to thinking of justice as a sub-virtue of mercy. And maybe mercy isn’t the broader virtue, maybe it should have a different name. (I typed a long analogy here about how justice is Wales and mercy and grace are England and Scotland in this greater virtue’s Great Britain, but I’m cutting it for coherence.) God displays a constellation of virtues in relationship—unique to God, though we strive for it. Justice describes some of the interactions in God’s relationships, though mostly in a way to show that God doesn’t punish people unreasonably. Mercy and grace, the harder to emulate characteristics, are demonstrated in many more of God’s relationships and dealings. All of these virtues are an extension of the character of God to not be cruel and to, moreover, be generous and loving—even for those undeserving.
8) It’s nice in my brain which caricatures the alternative. But it’s worth noting that many—Christian, pagan, and atheist—have argued convincingly that our freedom is extremely limited if present at all. And yeah, I think perfect knowledge may negate free-will, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It also may not, but if it doesn’t, there are other forces at work I think would bring all to a unanimous decision.
That makes me think of something interesting: what were the moments directly after that encounter? The rich man is fresh in hell, trying to figure things out, sees Lazarus, and continues to act pridefully toward him. His second request, while still vain, is more noble as he seeks the welfare of his family. What happens an hour from then? Does he eventually realize that maybe he shouldn’t talk to Lazarus like that? And an hour after that, maybe he should have been more righteous and listened to that Jesus guy?
Great article. Thank you for writing it! It is much longer than most of your articles, which did not take away from it pulling me in. 🙂
I find it interesting that you begin with the story of the rich man and Lazarus from Luke 16. Most experts of eschatology make a very big distinction between Hell and Hades. It appears that you consider them to be the same place. In no way do the Scriptures say they are the same place, nor did a single church father. For example, if they were the same place (as the KJV believed), then we must say that Jesus was once in Hell. In fact, the earliest doctrine of Hell and Hades believed that not a single person is in Hell right now, but all departed spirits are in Hades waiting for Judgment Day. I simply wanted to ask you to be careful how you think about Hell and Hades because they are VERY different places.
Are you include Apocatastasis to a rejection of an eternal hell? I don’t know you how define Apocatastasis, but I have not come across that word reading the earliest Christian writings. The whole idea of universal reconciliation (as you said: hell being eventually emptied) was very, very foreign to the church fathers (except for Origen as you pointed out). To be clear: the early Christians believed in the restoration of all things… but Hell being the exception since it is a place of ETERNAL punishment. That’s what they believed. As for Origen, he admitted that he was not with the rest of the church on this point, saying it was his opinion.
Regarding your overall question about Abraham’s statement to the rich man and the example of Scrooge, I believe the answer is that Abraham is not giving a universal rule. He’s not saying that if someone rises from the dead, that is never a cause for someone’s belief. Phrasing that way sure makes it sounds ridiculous right? After all, Jesus Himself rose from the dead and the whole of Christianity is based of believing because of that. Plus, Thomas explicitly said that his belief was based off someone rising from the dead and him seeing that person. Then it happened! As soon as Jesus appeared to Thomas, he believed. In short, the example of Thomas flies in the face of Abraham’s statement. This shows that Abraham isn’t trying to reveal a universal truth. Abraham is trying to make a point. Just as the Pharisees saw all of Jesus’ incredible miracles and still disbelieved, so would the rich man’s brothers. I think Abraham’s point is this: “A person’s faith is truly based on their dedication to God–miracles or not.”
Wow, if someone’s main reason to believe in Hell is because they believe people deserve it, then that speaks more to the nature of their selfish and self-righteous heart than it does to nature of Hell. As for me, I reject universal reconciliation because the Scriptures say that Hell is ETERNAL.
This was a very interesting read and interesting comment section as well! Thanks for sharing.