Hope Greater than Hell

In addition to other sources, this post owes a great debt to a fantastic article by Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware.

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“There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than the doctrine of hell, if it lay in my power,” wrote C.S. Lewis. There are few if any beliefs held by Christians as difficult to swallow as that of human beings suffering for all eternity in hell.  The seeming hopelessness and injustice of hell has caused many to walk away from the Christian faith and torments many others who stay.   

If that sounds familiar, if you left or if you are still struggling, if the destiny of those in hell is a gut-wrenching obstacle to your faith, this post is for you.

At this point, some Christian readers are probably rolling their eyes, grumbling, and already sure they know and strongly disagree with what I’m about to say. They might be right.

The following is a suggestion that hell may not have the last word.  

It is an argument for the real possibility of a universal reconciliation between God and all of humanity, one in which salvation through Christ is extended to all people and hell is left empty in the end.   

Let me be clear, however: I am not talking about a universalism where all religions are the same and Jesus doesn’t matter.  The possibility of universal salvation is only through the person and work of Jesus and the acceptance of his loving gift of life.  When he said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:8), he meant it, and so do I.

The Christian message has historically been referred to as “the gospel”. The English word “gospel” comes from the Old English translation of the Greek wordevangelion, meaning “good news”.  In other words, the Christian message is meant to be a joyous proclamation.

As the prophet Isaiah (52:7) wrote, 

How lovely on the mountains
   Are the feet of him who brings good news,
Who announces peace
   And brings good news of happiness,
Who announces salvation,
   And says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

The gospel is often presented as something like this: “All people have done bad things.  To be just, God has to sentence them to an eternity suffering in hell, but he sent Jesus to die in our place and take our punishment.  If we accept his sacrifice, we are saved and can have eternal life with God.”  While the language of this formulation and some of its theological details belong to modern American Evangelicalism, the rough outline of punishment and salvation through Jesus are and have been held in common by most Christians around the world and throughout history. 

But the other side of the coin, “The vast majority of the people who have ever lived will suffer in hell for all eternity,” doesn’t sound like good news at all. It sounds like devastatingly terrible news, even if we’re being offered an escape.

Ware quotes Fr Sophrony, who wrote the following in his biography of St Silouan the Athonite:

It was particularly characteristic of Staretz Silouan to pray for the dead suffering in the hell of separation from God... He could not bear to think that anyone would languish in “outer darkness.” I remember a conversation between him and a certain hermit, who declared with evident satisfaction, “God will punish all atheists. They will burn in everlasting fire.” 

Obviously upset, the Staretz said, “Tell me, supposing you went to paradise, and there looked down and saw somebody burning in hell-fire—would you feel happy?” 

“It can’t be helped. It would be their own fault,” said the hermit.

The Staretz answered him with a sorrowful countenance. “Love could not bear that,” he said. “We must pray for all.”

“Love could not bear that.”

If “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and loves infinitely more powerfully than any other being, can that greatest of love bear to see the eternal torment of those in hell?  1 Timothy 2:4 says that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” and the sacrifice of his only Son suggests he is willing to go to the greatest of lengths to do so.  And yet our God-given free will allows us to reject him.

There are two sets of passages regarding the matter in the New Testament, some that talk about judgement and hell and others that speak to the salvation of all people.  We have a tendency to give precedence to the former and qualify the latter.  

In the Gospel of Luke (16:26), Jesus tells a parable in which Abraham says to a man in hell begging for mercy, 

“Between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.”

In Mark 9:43-48, he says,

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.  And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

The word translated here as “hell” is Gehenna, a valley outside Jerusalem where the city’s trash was dumped and burned, hence the imagery of fire and the “worm [that] does not die.” This is the word most commonly translated as “hell” in English bibles.  Other imagery used in the New Testament includes “outer darkness” and a “lake of fire.” 

These pictures are most likely meant to be evocative rather than literally descriptive of what one might experience in the afterlife.  Indeed, theologians have variously theorized that the true suffering in hell comes from things such as complete separation from God, the confrontation of one’s true self, or even the experience of God’s love itself.  For example, the seventh-century ascetic and theologian, St Isaac the Syrian, writes:

I also maintain that those who are punished in Gehenna are scourged by the scourge of love.  Nay, what is so bitter and vehement as the torment of love?  I mean that those who have become conscious that they have sinned against love suffer greater torment from this than from any fear of punishment. For the sorrow caused in the heart by sin against love is more poignant than any torment.  It would be improper for a man to think that sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the love of God.  Love is the offspring of knowledge of the truth which, as is commonly confessed, is given to all.  The power of love works in two ways. It torments sinners, even as happens here when a friend suffers from a friend.  But it becomes a source of joy for those who have observed its duties.  Thus I say that this is the torment of Gehenna: bitter regret.  But love inebriates the souls of the sons of Heaven by its delectability.

In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus describes humanity’s final judgement based on how they treated others, which he describes as their treatment of God himself. The first half describes the actions of the righteous and their consequences, the second (41-46) describes those of the wicked and their consequences:

Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”  Then they also will answer, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?”  Then he will answer them, saying, “Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

It should be noted that the Greek word translated as “eternal” in this passage and elsewhere, aionios, does not necessarily mean forever, but rather “lasting for an aion” (where we get the English word “eon”) or “age”, potentially a finite rather than infinite period.  Indeed, New Testament writers use aionto refer to both the present world as “this age” and what comes afterword as “the age to come”.  In the final verse of this passage, however, both life as well as punishment are described as “age-long”.  This would seem to suggest that, at least in this case, both are of equal eternal duration, and this may be the case, although theologian Thomas Talbott argues that aionioshere carries a connotation of quality rather than duration, pointing instead to their source in the eternal nature of God.  In any case, aionios, can be used in ambiguous ways, and we should be open to the idea that the eternity of hell may not be as certain as we think.

A second set of texts speaks of the extension of salvation to all people.

Perhaps the simplest of these is 1 Corinthians 15:22:

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

“In Adam all die,” while understood somewhat differently by Eastern and Western Christians, is a statement of an original sin whose effects are decidedly universal.  It is generally argued that “all [being] made alive” is merely a potentiality, not a fact that will certainly be accomplished, but Paul does not say “all maybe made alive,” but “all shallbe made alive.”  And why should “all” in the second part of the sentence be any different than it is in the first?  However one balances it with other passages, the verse is decidedly universalistic in tone.

We read similar statements in Paul’s letter to the Romans.  For instance, Romans 5:18-19 says, 

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousnessleads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.  

And Romans 11:32 says, 

For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

This last verse comes at the end of a series of difficult chapters (9-11) that describe God “hardening the hearts” of certain people and groups of people so that they will not accept him.  These chapters have been frequently used by Calvinists to argue against the idea of free will in salvation and that God will irresistibly choose some people for salvation and others for damnation apart from any volition on their part.  

Seen in the context of Romans 11:23 through a universalistic lens, however, chapters 9-11 take on a significantly different character.  If God must temporarily harden the hearts if certain individuals, how much greater will their reward and forgiveness be at the end of all things?  They are not consigned to eternal punishment against their will, but only temporarily held back for a greater purpose.  Who knows if even a temporary hell is their destination at all?

Other verses speak of universalistic ideas in the language of reconciliation and union.  For example, Colossians 1:19-20 says,

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Likewise, 1 Corinthians 15:28, a key text for patristic theologians like Origen and St Gregory of Nyssa, says,

When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

If these passages are to be taken at face value, then what of hell?  

The doctrine that God punishes wrongdoers is firm, but to what end?  The standard answer is justice: a person who has done wrong must pay for what they have done.  (Though we might here ask what justice it is for a finite crime to receive infinite punishment?)  But what has been gained?  Does a loving and merciful God derive satisfaction from taking vengeance upon those he loves?  Would he not rather be reconciled with his wayward loves?

We often see justice this way, merely as recompense, but the Bible speaks of God as a sort of cosmic parent, so let’s consider a parent punishing their child: A good parent doesn’t punish to give a child “what they deserve” but to correct them and make them a better person. Change is the object.  Beyond recompense, justice is also a state in which all things have been made right.  George MacDonald suggests that, “Punishment…is not the thing required of God, but the absolute destruction of sin.”  Like Origen, Isaac, Gregory, and others, MacDonald sees God as a kind of ultimate physician, allowing a punishment that at its core is corrective rather that retributive.

The Bible says again and again that God passionately loves the whole world. If there was a way to rescue all, even the dead, would an infinitely loving God not do so?  If we agree with St Isaac the Syrian and others like him that the torment of hell is one of self-reflection and the overwhelming guilt of rejecting the very source of love or even the experience of rejected love itself (this is a common view amongst Eastern Orthodox Christians), why might God not allow those individuals the chance to change their minds?   

C.S. Lewis, though not a universalist himself, imagines such a scenario in his book, The Great Divorce, in which those in hell are allowed to visit heaven where they are constantly bid to stay, even though many refuse.  Nevertheless the offer remains, and the bidding never ceases.

The Bible itself suggests that death may not be the end of God’s eternally loving invitation through Jesus, with 1 Peter 3:18-20:

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah…

This is otherwise described in Ephesians 4:8-10:

Therefore it is said,

“When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;
          he gave gifts to his people.”

When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?  He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.

While Christ’s descent and ministry to the “spirits in prison”, traditionally referred to as the “Harrowing of Hell”, is generally seen as the rescue of the faithful who died before Jesus’s ministry and death, those who were disobedient in the time of Noah hardly represent God’s faithful before Christ. It’s possible that this preaching was not meant to be salvific in nature, but I see no reason to prefer such an interpretation.  As Psalm 139:8 says, even “if I make my bed [amongst the dead], you are there!”

Nonetheless, free will allows us to say, “No.”

This is what kept C.S. Lewis from adopting the universalism of George MacDonald, whom he greatly admired and was greatly influenced by.  It is certainly possible that free will shall prevent an eventual emptying of hell, but perhaps love wins.  In his book, In the End God, J.A.T. Robinson suggests that perhaps love itself may win over even the hardest hearts:

Everyone may point to instances in which he has been constrained to thankful response by the overmastering power of love. And yet, under this strange compulsion, has anyone ever felt his freedom infringed or his personality violated? Is it not precisely at these moments that he becomes conscious, perhaps only for a fleeting space, of being himself in a way he never knew before, of attaining a fullness and integration of life which is inextricably bound up with the decision drawn from him by another’s love? Moreover, this is true however strong be the constraint laid upon him: or, rather, it is truer the stronger it is. Under the constraint of the love of God in Christ this sense of self-fulfillment is at its maximum. The testimony of generations is that here, as nowhere else, service is perfect freedom.

Perhaps this is not so.  It may be that the universal reconciliation between God and humanity is only a hope, but we must hope for it.

In the end, we must ask ourselves, “Does God win?”  If so, what does that mean?  If his will is that “all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4), is the eternal presence of persons in hell not a defeat?  Can God’s purposes be frustrated forever?

A Christ-centered universalism seems to me to be the only way in which God truly wins and his purposes are fulfilled.  In my mind, it is the purest triumph of love.

But can I say any of this with absolute certainty?  No, I cannot.  But do I believe it and hope for it?  Yes, I do, and it fills me with such joy and hope as no other Christian idea does.  This is truly good news.

I have great hope to affirm with Julian of Norwich that, in the end,

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

                                                      

For ease of both reading and writing, I have not given the detailed citations that I would in an academic publication.  If you want more information on the sources for anything I have written, leave a comment below or message me directly, and I will get back to you as soon as I can.