The Word in Focus with Dr Larry Taylor

The horrific idea that a good and loving God would consign people to never-ending conscious torture has led many to either embrace a form of Epicureanism, which speculates that there is no life beyond this life (when you’re dead, you’re dead; game over), or a form of universalism that assumes God will simply shrug and let everyone off the hook for everything. (“God will forgive me; that’s his job.” – Heinrich Heine [1797–1856]) The doctrine of eternal conscious torment has caused many a person to want nothing to do with Christianity. Even sadder is the fact that there are not a few Christians (especially in American evangelical churches) who seem to be fine with the idea.

While it is ludicrous to think that a God who is Love would torture people forever, it is equally ludicrous to think that Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler will simply hear God say, “Hey, forget about it.” If there is justice in the universe, people must be held to account for evil. But does that justice necessarily look like the picture of hell with which many Americans grew up?

Augustine of Hippo (354—430), Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274), and John Calvin (1509–1564) were instrumental in bringing the idea of hell as a place of eternal torment from paganism into Christian theology.

All three were brilliant God-fearing men who contributed a great deal to Christian theology. Aquinas continued the work and thought of Augustine; Calvin continued the work and thought of both Augustine and Aquinas. All did deep dives into reconciling Platonist philosophy with Christian theology. And that’s the problem.

Biblical theology, as opposed to Platonic-informed philosophical theology, begins, not with ancient Greece, but with the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, looking at them in the context of ancient Hebrew Near Eastern culture. Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin began with philosophic questions and wound up creating systems of thought that were in some instances contrary to the flow of the biblical metanarrative. 

In ancient Near Eastern thought, Sheol (Hebrew) or Hades (Greek) was the abode of the souls of all the dead. It wasn’t a terrible place, nor a terrific place; it was a shadowy, gray, misty, alive-but-not-quite-human place. Toward the end of the period in which the Hebrew Scriptures were written and redacted (roughly around 200 BC), Jewish scholars came to believe that Sheol/Hades was temporary and that God would physically resurrect everyone at the end of time, then separate the righteous from the unrighteous. We see this view in Daniel, in Martha’s comment to Jesus that she knew her dead brother would be resurrected eventually, and in Jesus’ parable about separating the sheep from the goats. All Christian theology affirms that every human will be physically resurrected at the appearing of Christ. What exactly is to become of the unrighteous is not spelled out.

The valley outside Jerusalem that became a place of sacrificing live children to pagan gods was called gêʾ ben-hinnōm in Hebrew (e.g., Jer. 7:32), which means Valley of the son(s) of Hinnom. In the Second Temple period, that was translated into Aramaic as Gehinnam or Gehinnom, then later transliterated into the Greek New Testament as Gehenna (γέεννα). By the time of Christ, it may have been a garbage dump and/or a place where Roman soldiers threw the bodies of crucified Jews. Whether or not that was the case, Gehenna was (and is) a real valley and symbolized abhorrent violence, idolatry, wickedness, cruelty, and death.

Much of the New Testament passages dealing with Gehenna (e.g., Luke 13, 21; Mt. 5:21-22, 24, 25; Mk. 13) are referring to the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans in 70 A.D., not about an afterlife. Jesus’ point was that slaughter was coming at the hands of the Romans to those who rejected God’s Messiah.

The common idea of hell as eternal conscious torment arose in the Middle Ages and was taken from pre-Christian paganism. It was one of many efforts in the Middle Ages to blend paganism with Christianity and was seized upon as a helpful way to manipulate illiterate people into towing the line and departing with what little money they had. 

Jesus, and the authors of the New Testament use metaphors to describe the fate of those who adamantly do not want to reflect God’s love to others. The metaphors are mixed, which indicates that the authors and speakers are saying, “It’s kind of like this.” Those metaphors include: a lake of fire, outer darkness, being bound and tossed into the street by bouncers at a party, wailing, grinding one’s teeth in anger, not being let into the house, and separated like sheep from goats. The very fact that so many metaphors are used tells us that we can’t take any one of them with wooden literalness. 

The New Testament is clearly using metaphorical language regarding Gehenna – it is not possible to simultaneously be in a lake of fire and outer darkness.

So, what happens to those who consistently reject the Source of love and want nothing to do with bearing the divine image? To choose to not reflect the nature of God is to choose to be less than human.

What doesn’t happen is eternal conscious torture. Perhaps Gehenna is more like the original meaning of Purgatory. Christian universalists do not deny the need for judgment. They simply speculate that God will continue working on humans long after death to woo them towards repentance.

Others speculate that God may annihilate those who refuse to either forgive or be forgiven. The whole flow of the biblical story, however, is towards renewal, not destruction. 

Still others think that perhaps those who steadfastly insist upon being their own gods will continue living eternally in a diminished state as something less than human. That’s the view C. S. Lewis takes in The Great Divorce.

Whatever hell is, it is reserved for those who trample Jesus underfoot and despise the blood of Christ (Heb. 10:29) —those who purposely, knowingly, and consistently, over an entire lifetime, tell God to go away. Why would anyone do that? God is Perfect Love.

One thing is certain: Follow Jesus as your Lord, love God, others, yourself, and creation with all your heart, and you will live with God in perfect harmony forever. When you die, you will be with Jesus (2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23). When Jesus comes again, your body will be resurrected (1 Cor. 15).

In John 14:1-2, Jesus said: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.  In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” 

The word translated “dwelling places” specifically means a temporary resting place, kind of like a hotel. There, safe with Jesus, we await the resurrection of our bodies and the renewal of all creation.