One of the most famous speeches of all time is a sermon about hell, namely, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards. Its fame is due largely to its literary qualities, particularly its graphic language. It is rich with passages like the following.
“That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is Hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is nothing between you and Hell but the air; tis only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.”
Countless students of American literature have experienced, through Edwards’s sermon “as vivid a glimpse into Hell as the imagination of man has been able to conceive.”
The sermon is also noteworthy because of the impact it had on those who originally heard it. As Edwards enlarged on God’s wrath and the precarious position of sinners on the brink of hell, his congregation was visibly affected. Many persons cried out, sensing that they were right then slipping to their doom. At one point, the cries were so loud that Edwards had to pause before going on with his sermon. And this took place, we recall, not at a wilderness tent meeting, but in a proper church in New England. And the preacher was not an unlettered itinerant, but one of the greatest theologians America has produced. Hell was a fact of life in Edwards’s day for most persons in Christian countries. It was a significant item in their store of beliefs, and was, accordingly, a conviction which gave shape to their lives. Edwards reports that most of the converted in his day were “frequently exercised with scruples and fears concerning their condition. They generally have an awful apprehension of the dreadful nature of a false hope.”
By contrast, fear of hell is totally foreign to most modern persons, including Christians. Those who read Edwards’s sermon today are more likely to be amused than terrified. It may evoke from them a sort of fear, not unlike the fear inspired by fictional horror stories. Such fear is oddly pleasant, for it poses no real threat since its only basis is fantasy and imagination. Genuine concern about hell seems to be lost in our past, along with powdered wigs and witch trials.
It may not be easy for the modern believer to give proper respect to the doctrine of hell, even if he wants to. As an article published in 1977 put it:
“How can you take it seriously? Hell has become so trivialized that it has even lost its force as a curse. ‘Go to hell’ is a suggestion friends share. The hell it is’ is an exclamation of surprise and incredulity. ‘Dammit’ is something we utter when we stub our toes, not an eternal sentence.”
The author goes on to record the following relevant statistics: only one in eight who believe in hell believes it is a threat to him; and among Roman Catholics, only about one third even believe in hell.
While such developments seem more pronounced in recent years, they are not entirely new. Belief in eternal hell was so commonly forsaken in the early decades of the twentieth century that Bertrand Russell was willing to concede in his 1927 lecture “Why I am Not a Christian,” that those who claimed the Christian faith did not have to believe the doctrine. As he remarked elsewhere, with at least a bit of sarcasm: “Hell is neither so certain nor as hot as it used to be.”
Moreover, this trend away from belief in hell holds not only among laymen, but also among clergy and theologians. As Richard Bauckham summarizes the shift:
“Until the nineteenth century almost all Christian theologians taught the reality of eternal torment in hell…. Since 1800 this situation has entirely changed, and no traditional Christian doctrine has been so widely abandoned as that of eternal punishment…. Among the less conservative, universal salvation, either as hope or as dogma, is now so widely accepted that many theologians assume it virtually without argument.”
According to a 1981 theology faculty survey—which included questions on a wide variety of moral, social, and religious issues—50 percent of those who teach on faculties of theology reject belief in a place of eternal torment. The doctrine was most widely rejected by liberal Protestant theologians and least widely rejected by Roman Catholics—66 percent of the former and 39 percent of the latter, denied the doctrine.
More recent statistics complicate the picture, however. In a 1990 Gallup poll, 60 percent of Americans professed belief in hell, which is more than affirmed the doctrine four decades earlier. The article which cites these statistics claims “that hell is undergoing something of a revival in American religious thought,” even among theologians.
Now it might be thought that the movement away from belief in eternal hell—to whatever degree—and the corresponding move toward universalism is confined to liberal Christians. It may be assumed that belief in eternal damnation is rejected only by those who have given up other traditional doctrines. Surely this is true in many cases. That is, the traditional doctrine of hell is often repudiated as part of a larger theological package which is no longer accepted. However, a number of theologians and philosophers, who are otherwise orthodox, are suggesting and defending alternatives to the traditional view of hell. These persons accept traditional views of revelation and they argue their case on biblical as well as philosophical grounds. Their views can hardly be dismissed by other believers as mere concessions to liberal theology.
Why then have so many theologians abandoned the traditional doctrine of hell? The answer to this is straightforward: the doctrine is widely regarded to be morally indefensible. As such, the doctrine is an integral part of the most serious difficulty posed for traditional theism, namely, the problem of evil.
In his biography of David Hume, Ernest Campbell Mossner tells of an encounter between the famous philosopher and the Reverend John Warden. In the course of their conversation, Warden happened to mention a sermon by Jonathan Edwards entitled “The Usefulness of Sin.” At this point, Hume put politeness aside and went on the attack, remarking that Edwards must have accepted Leibniz’s view that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. Then, Mossner reports, he burst out, “But what the devil does the fellow make of hell and damnation?”
This incident is a striking illustration of the fact that the doctrine of hell engages us at the emotional level as well as the intellectual. Nothing could be more dreadful than eternal torment, and emotional reactions are altogether appropriate when contemplating the very idea of it. It is an existential issue of the highest order, and if one takes it seriously at all he cannot rationally be indifferent toward it.
This incident is also an illustration of how the doctrine of hell compounds the problem of evil. Indeed, hell is arguably the most severe aspect of the problem. J. E. Barnhart, a philosopher who is a skeptic with respect to Christianity, flatly remarks concerning evil: “If it is a problem, it is the problem of those in hell.” And in the same vein, the Roman Catholic philosopher Alfred Freddoso has written:
“there is ample reason for thinking that ultimately the most troublesome form which the problem of evil can take for the orthodox Christian is just this: How is the existence of a benevolent and almighty God to be reconciled with even the possibility of someone’s going to hell (whether this is thought to involve simple annihilation or the pain of everlasting separation from God)?”
The fact that philosophers who otherwise disagree so sharply can agree on this point indicates that the doctrine is indeed deeply problematic for the Christian faith.
It is not only the case that many who accept Christian faith struggle with the doctrine of hell, but also that many who reject the faith do so because they find that doctrine repugnant. Indeed, popular author Robert Short makes the rather extreme charge that the massive departure from belief in Christ can be largely traced to the doctrine of hell.
“It is almost impossible for anyone to conceive of the trouble this idea has wreaked on the world…. At the root of Christendom’s turning away from Christ lies the teaching of ‘eternal torment.’ Therefore, ‘hell’ is not only the cause of most of the world’s unbelief, but also the cause of most of the widespread and deep miseries that unbelief and false belief leave in their wake.”
Among those who have rejected Christianity on moral grounds involving the doctrine of hell, one of the better known is James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill. In his Autobiography, Mill reports that his father believed that
“all ages and nations have represented their gods as wicked, in a constantly increasing progression… till they reached the most perfect conception of wickedness which the human mind can devise, and have called this God, and prostrated themselves before it.”
This perfect conception of wickedness, he believed, was embodied in the creed of Christianity since it taught that God created the human race knowing that the vast majority would eventually be consigned to hell. The same sentiments were expressed by Mill himself in his essay on “Utility of Religion.”
“Is there any moral enormity which might not be justified by imitation of such a Deity? And is it possible to adore such a one without a frightful distortion of the standard of right and wrong? Any other of the outrages to the most ordinary justice and humanity involved in the common christian conception of the moral character of God, sinks into insignificance beside this dreadful idealization of wickedness.”
For Mill, then, the other moral problems of Christianity are insignificant compared to the outrage of hell.
Similar thoughts were echoed a century later by Bertrand Russell: “There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.”
Obviously then, the traditional doctrine of hell puts a particularly sharp edge on the already prickly problem of evil. Perhaps it is not surprising that so many theologians have simply dropped the doctrine. Sometimes this has been done explicitly and aggressively. More often, however, it seems the notion has been abandoned quietly and without much fuss. We have gotten along well without it, and few seem anxious to bring up past grievances. The problem of evil is bad enough without the complication of hell, and it seems best to let it lie.
II
Some have insisted, however, that the doctrine of hell cannot be so easily eliminated. Peter Geach, for instance, has argued that
“We cannot be Christians, followers of Christ, we cannot even know what it is to be a Christian unless the Gospels give at least an approximately correct account of Christ’s teaching. And if the Gospel account is even approximately correct, then it is perfectly clear that according to that teaching many men are irretrievably lost…. It is less clear, I admit, that the fate of the lost according to that teaching is to be endless misery rather than ultimate destruction. But universalism is not a live option for a Christian.”
Geach’s argument, essentially, is that there is an insurmountable epistemological problem for those who want to be Christians, but deny that many persons are irretrievably lost.
This argument represents, I think, the ultimate reason why many Christians are unwilling to give up the doctrine of hell; they feel they cannot do so while remaining Christians. They believe the doctrine is inextricably connected to the very foundations of their faith. It is on an epistemic par with the very beliefs which make it possible for one to be a Christian. Consequently, one cannot deny the doctrine without unsettling the foundations of his belief.
There is another reason, besides the epistemological one, why the doctrine of hell cannot be easily excised from the body of Christian beliefs. To remove the doctrine of hell may give Christianity a distinctly new shape. It may significantly alter the character of what it means to believe the Christian faith.
At first glance, this may seem like an exaggeration. After all, the doctrine of hell certainly is not central to the faith in the way the Incarnation and Trinity are. It is not explicitly affirmed in either the Apostles’ or the Nicene Creed. It appears to be a peripheral matter which is isolated from the main body of Christian teaching and could be lopped off without changing much of anything.
A little reflection reveals, however, that the doctrine of hell is closer to the heart of traditional Christian belief than we may initially think. This is most evident when we recall that Christianity is primarily a scheme of salvation. Its main thrust is a message of how we can be saved from our sins and receive eternal life. Salvation, however, is not inevitable. One may choose to remain in sin and resist God’s offer of salvation. Here is where hell comes in: it is the alternative to salvation.
The reality of this alternative has traditionally lent a sense of urgency and moral seriousness to the quest for salvation. It has also highlighted the majesty and glory of God’s work to save his fallen children. This traditional picture of what is at stake makes clear that Christianity is not commonplace or trivial.
But if hell is not perceived to be a serious threat, it is hard to see how salvation can have the same meaning it used to. Not surprisingly, salvation is less and less conceived as a matter of eternal life, and more and more as a matter of personal fulfillment in this life. Thus, salvation comes to sound increasingly like a means of dealing with psychological problems, gaining in positive self-image, developing a better outlook on life, liberation from oppression, and so on. I think this represents quite a change in what it means to experience salvation.
If Christianity is indeed primarily about salvation, and if salvation comes to mean something very different when hell drops out of sight, then the doctrine of hell is an important part of Christianity. Indeed, it may be essential, at least in some form, if Christianity is to avoid trivialization.
The fact that hell cannot be easily extricated from other theistic beliefs can also be illustrated by considering the generic belief in God which has been prevalent in American culture. It is this generic belief in God which is appealed to by those who wish to return prayer to public schools. This can be done, it is argued, without endorsing any particular religion. It is important to do so in order to restore the moral values we have lost, for it was belief in God which undergirded the moral values which gave cohesion to American society. Those moral values have eroded as faith in God has declined and so both must be renewed in order to preserve our society. This, at least, is the common claim.
It is not so simple, however, to restore a generic belief in God which is morally relevant. So argues historian Martin E. Marty in an article tellingly entitled “Hell Disappeared. No One Noticed. A Civic Argument.” Marty shows that the belief that God punishes evil behavior both here and hereafter is a key ingredient in what he calls “the deistic-theistic synthesis in public education and civic life.” That is to say, the doctrine of hell in one form or another was essential to the moral pedagogy of not only the orthodox Puritans but also the deistic founding fathers. Consequently, a case can be made that those who urge that God must be returned to our schools to undergird morality must also revive the doctrine of hell if the belief in God is to serve as a moral warrant in the same way as it has in the past. This is not practical however, Marty maintains, for the doctrine of hell is culturally unavailable for us.
“I am contending that, if God is restored substantively to the schools and if there is to be anything said beyond the syllable, the concept must have to do with rewards and punishments, now and/or hereafter, apart from soteriological or evangelical proclamation and nurture. Yet if there were to be such a restoration, we would be asking the public schools to make available what is not available in the culture at large, something that has either atrophied or entirely disappeared in the vocabulary and doctrinal repository of most churches.”
If this is correct, the fading out of hell is highly relevant due to the fact that the doctrine lends substance or moral import to other vital religious concepts.
Marty goes on to cite the opinion of his colleague Arthur Mann who has suggested “that the disappearance of hell from the Catholic imagination may be the most neglected and most important event after Vatican II.” This is a rather strong statement, and if it is so, it must be the case that hell is a matter of more than peripheral significance in Catholic thought. It is, moreover, another indication that hell cannot be extinguished without substantially altering the beliefs with which it is connected.
III
Apparently then, the doctrine of hell is rather tenacious and cannot be easily and cleanly extracted from the body of religious beliefs which have traditionally given it life. And if the doctrine is as problematic as its critics have maintained, this creates some serious dilemmas, particularly for adherents of the Christian faith.
The dilemma is perhaps sharpest for the Christian if both Geach, on the one hand, and Mill and Russell, on the other hand, are correct in their claims. Putting the problem most baldly, if both are correct, a Christian cannot avoid being committed to a moral absurdity. For Geach’s argument is that one cannot deny the doctrine of hell without giving up his right to claim to know the very things which make it possible for one to be a Christian. And if Mill and Russell are correct that it is a moral defect to believe in hell, then one cannot be a Christian without being morally defective.
A problem also seems to be generated, though it is not as severe, if both Geach and Marty are right. In this case, Christians must believe something which is culturally unavailable. A belief is culturally unavailable, I take it, if it is not commonly assumed, understood, discussed, and so on, and furthermore is such that what is assumed in the culture at large makes it difficult, if not impossible, to take the belief seriously.
This is a genuine difficulty, but I think it is easily exaggerated. It seems an overstatement to say a concept is unavailable simply because it has passed out of common discourse or lost its grip on the public imagination. Such concepts may be revived, refurbished, and reintroduced into public discourse. What is culturally available in Marty’s sense is no doubt constantly changing, due to ever fluctuating social trends. Indeed, as we noted above, the doctrine of hell seems to be making something of a comeback as we enter the last decade of the twentieth century. Moreover, the idea of cultural availability is itself rather vague and elastic so it can hardly serve as a decisive difficulty for the concept of hell.
The other dilemma I mentioned cannot be so easily disposed of, however. It reiterates for us Hume’s impatient question: what the devil is to be made of hell and damnation?
While hell has been largely ignored in recent times, there have been some recent efforts to come to terms with it. Two basic strategies have been followed. The first is to argue that the doctrine of hell is not in fact morally objectionable as its critics have maintained. The second strategy agrees with the critics that hell is a morally repugnant doctrine, but argues that Christians are not in fact required to believe in it. To execute this strategy, it must be shown either that Christians are not obliged to accept everything that Christ and the authors of the New Testament clearly taught, or else that Christ and the authors of the New Testament did not clearly teach the doctrine of hell, at least not as traditionally understood. It is hard to see how the former could be considered a Christian option. And the latter, of course, would require that the words of Christ, as well as several other apparently clear New Testament passages, be plausibly interpreted in ways which do not support the traditional doctrine of hell.
There is a whole spectrum of views on the doctrine of hell which represent one or the other of these two strategies or some combination of the two. There is, in other words, no single doctrine of hell. Up to this point, for the sake of simplicity, I have spoken rather loosely of “the doctrine of hell” or “the traditional doctrine of hell,” but now we need to be more precise. So let us consider something of the range of positions on the doctrine of hell, beginning with the traditional view. What follows, of course, is nothing more than a sketch of the various views. My concern now is primarily to highlight the diversity of opinions and the fact that there is no consensus in sight….
The complication begins as soon as we attempt to state the traditional view with any degree of precision. This can be clearly seen by a look at the well-known debate over hell between F. W. Farrar and E. B. Pusey, which occurred in the nineteenth century. The controversy was precipitated by Farrar’s attack on what he took to be the prevailing conception of hell. He made it clear that he did not intend to deny the doctrine, but only certain ways of understanding it. The essence of the true view of hell, he believed, is
“That there is terrible retribution upon impenitent sin both here and hereafter; that without holiness no man can see the Lord; that sin cannot be forgiven till it is forsaken and repented of; that the doom which falls on sin is both merciful and just.”
Farrar’s complaint was against what he called accretions to the true doctrine which are supported by neither scripture nor the dogmatic sanction of the church. He distinguished four such accretions: (1) The notion that hell involves physical torments or material agonies; (2) the assumption that the punishment of hell is necessarily eternal for all who incur it; (3) the opinion that the great majority of people will be doomed to hell; and (4) the notion that the sentence of eternal damnation is passed irreversibly at the instant of death on all who die in sin.
Although Farrar insisted that he could not endorse dogmatic universalism or conditional immortality—the view that those who do not receive salvation are annihilated—his book was widely read as supporting universalism. Because of the influence the book was having, Pusey, who was Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, undertook to rebut it. In a volume of detailed biblical and historical scholarship, he sought to defend the church’s doctrine of eternal punishment, and to show that Farrar had misrepresented it.
His response to Farrar’s four “accretions” is particularly interesting. With regard to the first, he maintains that the idea of physical punishment is not an integral part of the doctrine of hell. On the matter of the suffering of the damned, he writes: “Holy Scripture warns us of them and of their intensity; it does not define their quality.” He also denies that the third is an essential part of the doctrine, and insists that scripture “says nothing about the proportion of the saved or the lost.” The fourth point is not denied, but Pusey attempts to remove much of its sting by drawing a distinction between dying in a state of imperfection and unworthiness (i.e., in sin) on the one hand, and dying outside of a state of grace, on the other. He argues that Farrar assumes that all persons who are imperfect at the time of their death, or who have not repented of all their sins, are not in a state of grace and are thus damned. And since it seems obvious that the vast majority are not perfect or have not repented at the time of their death, the vast majority must be damned.
Pusey counters that we cannot tell by empirical observation who is, and who is not, in a state of grace at the time of their death. “What God does for the soul, when the eye is turned up in death and shrouded, the frame stiffened, every limb motionless, every power of expression gone is one of the secrets of the Divine compassion.”
Similar considerations apply to the heathen and others who have never heard the gospel. Pusey emphasizes that the merits of Christ reach to every soul, whether or not they knew him in this life.
“God the Holy Ghost visits every soul which God has created, and each soul will be judged as it responded or did not respond to the degree of light which He bestowed on it, not by our maxims, but by the wisdom and love of Almighty God.”
The upshot of this is that none will be lost except those who obstinately refuse God’s grace. None will be lost whom God can save without destroying the gift of freedom which he has given them.
Pusey readily allows that persons who died in a state of imperfection will require further purification and spiritual development after death. He insists, however, that our time of probation ends at death. Only those who are in a state of grace at the time of death are saved. But this is mitigated, as we have seen, by his claim that God saves all he can, and that we cannot know who is or is not in a state of grace at the time of death. So then, Pusey agrees with Farrar that physical torment is not essential to the doctrine of hell; he also agrees with Farrar in disputing the popular notion that the vast majority of people will be lost; and, while he maintains against Farrar that it is a part of the true doctrine that our fate is sealed at death, he argues that Farrar has distorted this point with his assumption that we know most persons are not in a state of grace at death.
The point of sharpest disagreement, however, concerns the question of whether hell is eternal for all those who are sentenced to it. In Farrar’s view, this is an accretion on the true doctrine of hell. Pusey flatly disagrees and he gives a major portion of his book to showing that hell is indeed eternal. Much of the argument here is exegetical in nature. It involves in the first place several passages of scripture which seem to support universalism. Pusey, of course, argued that such passages, when properly interpreted, do not teach universalism.
Another much controverted issue concerns the meaning of the Greek word aionios, which has traditionally been translated “eternal” in such key passages as Matthew 25:46, which speaks of both eternal punishment and eternal life. Advocates of universalism have held that the word does not mean eternal, and that it is used to describe the quality of the punishment rather than its duration. In their view, the fires of hell refer to a temporary, purifying punishment. Pusey argued just the opposite.
With this background, let us sketch out a variety of views which have been held about hell. Let us call the view which Farrar attacked the traditional popular view. This is the view that hell is God’s eternal punishment which falls irreversibly on all who die in a state of sin. The punishment includes corporeal or physical distress and it will be the fate of the great majority of the human race. This understanding of hell has been held not only by many ordinary believers, but also by a number of theologians.
Next, let us call the view defended by Pusey the traditional orthodox view. The essence of this view is that hell is God’s eternal punishment of all who obstinately refuse his grace to the end of life. We cannot know the proportion of the saved to the lost nor do we know the nature of God’s punishment, though it could include physical pain.
A third view which must be distinguished from the previous two is the traditional Calvinistic view. What distinguishes this view from the previous two is the belief that God has chosen who will be saved and who will be damned. The accent here is not on human freedom to reject God’s grace, but upon God’s sovereign right to damn whomever he will.
The fourth view I will call the modified orthodox view. On this view, our eternal destiny is not sealed at death; rather, God continues to offer grace after death, so there is no end to the opportunity to receive salvation. Nevertheless, some will forever reject God’s grace and experience the corresponding pain of being forever separated from God. This is how hell is depicted by C. S. Lewis in The Great Divorce. An interesting question is whether anyone would be saved on this view who would be lost on the traditional orthodox view. The answer is not clear. It may be argued that those who die outside of grace on the traditional view would continue forever to resist that grace. So the change of circumstance after death would not change anyone’s response to grace.
The next position on the spectrum is the hopeful universalist view. This is the position of those who find support for universalism in scripture and from general theological considerations but do not think universalism can be dogmatically defended. While they hope universalism is true, they also recognize considerations which weigh against it. Besides scriptural evidence against universalism, and the general tradition of the church, there is the factor of free will. As Farrar put it, “it is impossible for us to estimate the hardening effect of obstinate persistence in evil, and the power of the human will to resist the law and reject the love of God.” John Hick conveys the spirit of hopeful universalism by depicting God as a divine therapist who has perfect understanding of each human heart, perfect love for all, and unlimited time to devote to each patient. While it remains logically possible that some will resist God forever, Hick takes it as practically certain that all persons will eventually come to salvation.
The final position I will distinguish is the convinced universalist view. Those who hold this view believe that the idea of eternal punishment is morally unacceptable and, holding to the absolute teaching authority of Christ, they accordingly deny that Christ taught it. They interpret the biblical passages in question much the same way the hopeful universalists do. The difference is that they are certain that the universalist interpretation must be correct. Thomas Talbott, for instance, has recently argued that nonuniversalist versions of Christian theism are implicitly contradictory, and therefore cannot be true. Talbott’s view is motivated not only by moral considerations, but also by the further claim that the idea of eternal hell finally involves a meaningless notion. In particular, he rejects as unintelligible the idea that evil can be decisively chosen by free beings. The only account of Christian theism which is even possibly true, he maintains, is the universalist one. This is perhaps the strongest form the convinced universalist view can take.
It should be emphasized that universalists such as Talbott need not deny that there may be a finite period of existence after death that involves severe punishment. Such punishment, however, is on their view motivated by love, is of limited duration, and its goal is the purification and redemption of those who receive it.
Jerry Walls, Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), excerpts from the Introduction.