4 Reasons to Rethink Hell

In order to resist making terrible puns about eternal punishment, I’m going to dive right into this rather short blog post. Several others have already made some observations and I don’t claim to have read their posts. If there is overlap, that’s pretty cool actually. So here are 4 reasons why you should rethink hell.

1. The Bible does not teach the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious punishment. I feel like I could drop the mic and walk away from the computer now, but I should clarify. A great think the Reformation did was fan the flames and push us all back to Scripture. The problem is, well, we didn’t consistently adopt the mentality of “Scripture alone” and “always reforming.” So, Scripture does not teach the doctrine known to us as ECT.
   
2. You should rethink hell because other people are rethinking hell. They do this in the form of point 1, and are offering sophisticated arguments in favor of various interpretations of hell i.e., universalism. You should rethink hell in order to further nuance your perspective, or change your mind, or settle yourself more firmly. There is a veritable library of resources available to you. Either way, always be in the process of reforming yourself.
    
3. The mainstream media is in on the game, and this is a good thing. People are interested in hell. Think about it: that’s like getting kids being excited to eat their veggies. An example of this is Edward Fudge being interviewed by the New York Times. This could be a great opportunity to engage culture. Especially if one is into apologetics. Think about it: death is on the mind, we are in the midst of global unrest. Why not rethink hell and also heaven?
    
4. You should rethink hell because, as a Christian, you claim to speak for God. We speak about his character and we are to act accordingly. So, in the spirit of humility and Christian charity, you should rethink it afresh in order to determine what God has said in his word.

There’s also a really cool conference in Pasadena that I am helping to put on. Its called the Rethinking Hell Conference. Its about hell (obviously), and challenging universalism. Its under $100 to attend the three-day event (June 18-20), with some variety in prices and some incredible speakers: Oliver Crisp, Jerry Walls, David Instone-Brewer, and others. Please come rethink hell with us!

As an aside, I’m almost positive that someone has already used this title, or some form of it. But after a brief Google search, I couldn’t find much of anything related. So, I guess I’m ahead of the Internet curve for once? Either way, thanks for clicking the link.

NQ

Scot McKnight reviews Rethinking Hell

Dr. Scot McKnight has been going through our book Rethinking Hell: Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism, and its been a real honor to read his thoughts and commentary on our book. It is quite encouraging to see how well many seem to receive the text!

So here are the links:

McKnight on John Stackhouse.
McKnight on Glenn Peoples and the basic introduction to conditionalism. Check out the comments.
McKnight on "perish" and "destruction."
McKnight on Stephen Travis.
McKnight on the famous John Stott.
McKnight on Clark Pinnock.
McKnight on John Wenham.
McKnight on Ralph Bowles and Revelation 14:9-11.
McKnight on Harold Guillebaud and the trends in Scripture.
McKnight on Philip E. Hughes and "immortality."
McKnight on Christopher Marshall and 'restoration and judgment.'

Enjoy.

--Nick Quient

Vignettes About The Rethinking Hell 2014 Conference

It’s difficult to process the amount of sheer memory that has stored itself in my mind during this past week. Much of this is recounted now, and I have little doubt that my memory is a bit shaky, like the IRS.

As Greg, Aaron, William and I packed ourselves into a rental van for a 24 hour trip to Texas from southern California, the only things I were concerned about included the following:

Don’t drink a lot because you don’t want to be the guy who has to pull over and water the bushes.

Please please please allow the AC in our car to be awesome.

And, ultimately, don’t let us break down on one of the many hundred mile long isolated stretches of desert.

But beyond that, when the four of us made it to our destination in Houston, Texas, we settled into a rather comfy routine of running around like chickens with our heads cut off. In between registration, setting up books, driving people around and trying to find the time to eat, we more or less figured out everything 

Thursday. Well, mostly. We went through our individual schedules and prayed that Chris Date would make it to Houston on time.

But, by God’s grace, Greg and I collapsed in our respective beds just before early Friday morning. Maybe around 1ish.

Friday was the easy day. Well, should’ve been. I ate a peanut butter sandwich and drank a few things and slept until noon. I spoiled myself until noon when I got up and was shuttled to the Lanier Theological Library again to, well, finish up everything. The entire Rethinking Hell group was there and it was nice to meet and greet amidst the chaos.

Then Chris Date showed up and it became a party.

Well. We shook hands and danced in a circle and plotted to sneak out the first edition of the KJV from the library. Only one of those is true, really.

Then registration happened. In between getting a ten-minute downpour that would’ve embarrassed a Seattle native, a few others and I were responsible for registering 140 people. That was intense. I worked in a movie theater for three years and I was the only idiot they brought in one Christmas morning to work the entire concession stand. If you are one of the few people to don’t go see a movie Christmas morning, it’s like being the only literate one in a room full of screaming children.

But registration went fine and I got to shake hands with a few people before the chaos diminished and William and I just sat in the dining hall while John Stackhouse gave his much-lauded plenary. Despite spending 24 hours in the same car as William, we still found time to talk about awesome things, sometimes related to theology.

Then some stuff happened and we all went about finishing up everything. Greg Stump was the Best from the West, working everything out rather nicely. So major props to him. I don’t remember much from Friday night because, well, everyone was dog-tired and everything became a game of shuffle along until you manage to crash back into your bed at the hotel.

Then 7am rolled around faster than it had any right to do so, and we were all back at the Lanier library at 8 for the entire day of breakouts, conversation, lunches, more breakouts, Glenn People’s plenary and the much-anticipated panel of 5 ‘hellions.’

As a side note, apparently I unconsciously adopted both a Texas accent and an Australian accent. I said Pee-tah instead of, well, Peter. I say this to let Peter Grice know that it wasn’t intentional; its just he has a really cool accent.

Since I’ve been asked several times about how my paper went, and I can’t say much beyond this: I enjoyed presenting it, and I got some decent pushback from Tom Talbott. I don’t remember the singular details, and being somewhat tentative in speaking off the cuff, but overall it was helpful. I enjoyed talking to a few folks afterword, which allowed me to clarify.

Amazingly, I got no pushback about my view of human anthropology. I was highly prepared to respond to almost any question, but none of the responses included that. So maybe my view isn’t that crazy.

Then Daniel, William, Joey, Glenn, Wes, Ralph Bowles and I went to legit Tex Mex. Quite good. I got myself a fruity drink and a disapproving raised eyebrow from our awesome waiter when I ordered that. It was good, my Sopa de Tortilla.

So the rest of the day was spent listening to Ronnie Demler’s great presentation, and meandering around the inner light that is the Lanier library. I saw books on ancient Greek, fragments of manuscripts and early editions of Bibles. Very cool. Mark Lanier is a cool cat.

Saturday climaxed in several ways. First of firsts, Glenn Peoples delivered his plenary, which was great. Insightful, provocative and entertaining. It ended with some brief Q&A and then we were off to dinner.

I don’t remember dinner, so someone from RH will refresh my mind on that. Oh wait. Wes suggested Whataburger. So I had that. Decent. Above average.

Myself and Dr. John Stackhouse

Then it was the final evening, the showdown. J. Lanier Burns (DTS), Shawn Bawulski (LLC), and Thomas Talbott (Willamette) all showed up to dialogue with Edward Fudge and John Stackhouse. It was over 90 minutes of back and forth, and it was really cool. There were some rough patches, as is to be expected when there are as many passionate people in one spot, but overall the dialogue was cordial and friendly, with things getting downright giddy in some instances (I think Dr. Burns and Edward were chuckling to themselves several times).

And Saturday ended with the tear down of all the materials and the stumble back to the hotel lobby for some … drinks. The entire RH team crowded around a small table, sipping and laughing and about ready to collapse.

Then it came to an end with a sermon by Dr. Stackhouse at Edward’s church, and our 24-hour drive back to southern California.

It was wonderful to finally meet my online friends and colleagues, and to meet some new ones. Speaking to Tom Talbott and getting his signature was pretty cool. Sharing drinks with the rest of the guys was great. The standout moments for me with often when it was just myself and another sitting down and chatting.

Whether it was with Peter Grice in the gym at Edward’s church.

Whether it was with Daniel Sinclair in the dining hall.

Whether it was with everyone else. It was great and I am so glad to have been there and done that.

Blessings.

--Nick

Peter van Inwagen & the Resurrection of the Body

I'm quickly growing to love this topic. In preparing for my presentation at the Rethinking Hell conference I've shifted my thinking on many a Christian topic. Not in regards to anything that would contradict Scripture or the Creeds, but on more ancilarry items that affect how I regard a lot of secondary doctrines. 

But that's not why you clicked the link.

Peter van Inwagen is quite helpful in this area for me, and I count him as both a mentor and a bit of a guide in the dark in regards to philosophy; an area I am woefully untrained in. This was his unpublished paper and I present part of it for your viewing pleasure. 

Please read and enjoy.

Van Inwagen:

Most people in most cultures believe in a life beyond the grave. They tell stories about it. But not all cultures tell the same story. Some cultures tell stories of reincarnation or metempsychosis. In our western culture there is a tendency to tell stories of the sort we see in the movie Ghost (you may remember it: Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Swayze, and Demi Moore). 

In this movie, dead people rise from their corpses, and have a kind of diaphanous existence. They look like human beings (to anyone who can see them at all), but they are able to pass through living people and walls and other solid things. (Why don’t they fall through the floor, then? You may well ask.) And, of course, they are for the most part invisible to the living. Eventually, bright beings summon them to ascend a beam of light to heaven, or dark, gibbering creatures drag them screaming off to hell. This is, I am afraid, exactly the picture of the afterlife that is current among undergraduates at Notre Dame, although they might be willing to admit that the visual representation of disembodied souls in the movie was either symbolical or what might be called cinematic license. Most of them, every Sunday and major feast day, say the words, “I await the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” And every time they are present at the baptism of a child, they promise to help the parents and godparents of the newly baptized bring the child up in a faith one of whose tenets is (they say these words), “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” But these words mean nothing to them. They say them, but they are getting no more meaning out of them than a famous six-year-old did from another well- known text; reciting the Lord’s Prayer, he said, “And lead us not into Penn Station.” A few days ago, I heard a speech by the President of Notre Dame about the difficulties of teaching theology to Notre Dame undergraduates. President Malloy remarked sententiously that we cannot presuppose, as we once could, that our students will bring some degree of catechetical formation to the study of theology. I don’t think he knows the half of it. 

This picture of death and immortality, the Hollywood-and-Notre-Dame- undergraduate picture, is, I believe, very far from the biblical picture of death and immortality. According to the bible, God formed us out of the dust of the earth and breathed life into us. When, in punishment for our rebellion against him we die and return to the dust out which he raised our first parents, we’re just, well . . . dead. 

For the rest, enjoy it here. The paper is the first one beneath the label Philosophy of Religion.

--Nick

Rethinking Hell: A Review

Edward Fudge’s book “The Fire That Consumes” is a very strong case for conditional immortality (or annihilationism). Fudge's work has the bonus of also being the most comprehensive text on the subject, one that actually includes the relevant Old Testament backgrounds. This is missing from much of the debate on eternal punishment and it is to be commended.

This book has moved into the top tier in regards to the literature on the nature and duration of final punishment. The list of contributors Chris Date, Greg Stump and Josh Anderson have assembled is impressive, ranging from the ancient of days (early 20th century) to present day. They include:

E. Earle Ellis. Clark Pinnock. John Stott. John Wenham. Anthony Thiselton. There are plenty more, but this should wet your appetite. 

I will get the negatives out of the way first.

NEGATIVES:

There is some overlap, as is to be expected when you are dealing with biblical texts. Some may find this difficult to wade through, but perhaps a better way to see it as through and exhaustive. Almost every text is examined and every argument at least considered. This repetition illustrates the consistency of annihilationist exegesis.

This doesn’t reflect the book, but I would’ve enjoyed more interaction with universalism, especially within its current more evangelical form. But, safe to say, the book does just fine on it's own.

POSITIVES:

• The positives, I more or less mentioned in the beginning.
• It is exhaustive (E. Earle Ellis include early church fathers and the OT).
• It takes into account the Old Testament imagery and literature in a way that unites the testaments instead of dividing them (Ellis for example, including Fudge's JETS article).
• It presents a robust evangelical engagement with Scripture and esteems the authority of God’s word (most of the authors and contributors would be described under the umbrella of a generous orthodoxy).
• It is charitable (but certainly passionate c.f. Pinnock) in its disagreements with traditionalism. Too often we are prone to shrieks and scratching. Not so with this work.
• It includes scholars from around the spectrum: Pinnock (open theist), Swinburne (Orthodox), Philip E. Hughes (Reformed), Christopher Marshall (Pacifist), and British (ACUTE).
• And I’m mentioned in the acknowledgements. So that’s pretty cool too.

Stand out essays for me are E. Earle Ellis, "New Testament Teaching on Hell"; Ralph G. Bowles, "Does Revelation 14:11 Teach Eternal Torment?" (hint, no it doesn't); Kim G. Papaioannou, "The Development of Gehenna between the Old and New Testaments." All of the essays are helpful, but the level of exegetical and historical detail in these essays is above and beyond. 

For an ongoing review, see Scot McKnight's review of our book.

Rethink Hell. Start with Fudge and this. If you prefer the kindle version, we have that too.

4.5 out of 5.

--Nick

Three Views on Hell: An Annihilationist Response to Eternal Torment

Chris Date:

What follows is a point-by-point response to my esteemed debate opponent, T. Kurt Jaros, whose essay affirmed the traditional view of hell as a place of eternal, conscious separation from God. Each text or issue responded to appears in bold.

A more comprehensive response can be found here at Rethinking Hell.

INTRODUCTION

Jaros cites John 10:26-30 as a metaphorical use of fire, but fire and burning are not mentioned. The text indicates that only those who follow Jesus will be granted eternal life, and that those who do not will perish. Traditionalists, contrary to this text, teach that unbelievers will live forever and never die.

A REAL HELL

Numbers 16:30 is irrelevant. The ground opened up and the men fell alive into Sheol—the grave, the pit, or perhaps the conscious intermediate state of the dead. All mankind will one day come out of Sheol (or Hades), and Revelation 20:13-15 says it will be thrown empty into hell.

In Matthew 3:12 “unquenchable fire” means what it always does in the Bible: a fire which cannot be extinguished, and hence will irresistibly and completely consume (Eze. 20:47; Jer. 17:27). Jesus uses the word katakaiō, translated “burn up” by the NASB, which means to burn down completely. He says that unbelievers will be completely destroyed by a fire which cannot be prematurely put out.
Matthew 13:41-42 and 50 also use katakaiō, and Jesus says that as the chaff is burned down completely in a furnace of fire—hearkening to Malachi 4:1-3 in which the wicked are reduced to ashes—so, too, will the wicked.

Matthew 5:22 and 29-30 use the word Gehenna to refer to hell, which referred to the valley of the sons of Hinnom, otherwise known as Topheth, which was “the valley of slaughter” where scavenging creatures cannot be prevented from fully consuming dead corpses (Jer. 7:32). Isaiah 30:33 likens it to a funeral pyre. This in stark contrast with Jaros’ position which is that the bodies of the risen wicked will never die.

Matthew 18:8-9 refers to the place of “eternal fire” as Gehenna, and Jude 7 uses “eternal fire” to refer to the fire which came down from heaven and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, destroying them. Hence the parallel in 2 Peter 2:6 says Sodom and Gomorrah were reduced to ashes. Though perhaps a type or prefigure of hell, in Jaros’ metaphorical view, the anti-type that is hell, being neither brief nor involving fire, is in no way like the type. Eternal fire, therefore, refers to the fire of the eternal God which destroys, not to fire in which the wicked will consciously burn forever.

Matthew 25:41-46 says that “eternal punishment” is punishment by “eternal fire,” so we know what eternal punishment is: being destroyed, never to live again. The duration of capital punishment is measured, not in the time it takes to die, but in the time during which a criminal is no longer part of the living. Annihilation—the ultimate capital punishment—qualifies as an eternal punishment, as even Jonathan Edwards admitted.

Matthew 8:12 does not tell us how long the unredeemed will weep and gnash. Matthew 13 does, which, as we’ve seen, says the wicked will be completely destroyed. Weeping and gnashing will last only until the unsaved die in hell.

Revelation 14:9-11 is symbolic, apocalyptic imagery. It hearkens to Isaiah 34:8-10 which prophesies the destruction of Edom, whose buildings no one expects to burn forever. Though the harlot of Revelation 18 is tormented (vs. 7, 10, 15), and smoke rises forever from her torment (Rev. 19:3), the interpreting angel says in Revelation 18:21 that the city she represents will be destroyed. Smoke rising forever, then, hearkening to the smoke Abraham saw rising from the remains of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:28), symbolizes permanent destruction.

Revelation 20:10-15 is, again, imagery which symbolizes permanent destruction. Like the beast of Daniel 7, the fate of the beast in Revelation symbolizes the destruction of the city it represents. Death and Hades, despite being abstractions incapable of torment, are thrown into the fire, representing their permanent end. John interprets the imagery for us in Revelation 20:14, telling us plainly that it symbolizes the second death of the wicked. In Revelation 21:8, God also tells us that the lake of fire symbolizes the second death.

Finally, the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man is virtually irrelevant. It doesn’t speak of hell at all, but of Hades, the intermediate state.

ETERNAL DESTRUCTION

2 Peter 2:6 likens the destruction of the wicked to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; 2 Peter 3:7 likens the destruction of ungodly men to the destruction of the ungodly by Noah’s flood. The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, and those who perished in the flood, were all killed.

In the verses leading up to 2 Thessalonians 1:9, Paul refers back to Isaiah 66:15, whose chapter ends with the lifeless, stinking, rotting corpses of the wicked. This is the “eternal destruction” Paul says awaits the unsaved: being destroyed and rendered completely lifeless, never to live again.

Capital punishment is the penalty reserved for the most heinous of crimes, and therefore annihilation accounts for the severity of sin. Degrees of punishment can be accounted for either by degrees of shame in the wake of one’s annihilation, or in varying degrees of suffering during it.

CONCLUSION

Jaros introduced his essay by pointing to a passage which strongly implies that the wicked will not receive eternal life, and will instead perish. All but two of the texts he cites proved to be far better support for the final annihilation of the wicked, and the two which remain have nothing to do with final punishment in the first place. Jaros claimed that annihilationism is inconsistent with the character of God, and doesn’t account for the severity of sin or for degrees of punishment, none of which hold up to scrutiny. And when he very briefly addresses passages indicating that the risen wicked face destruction, he dismisses them by arbitrarily selecting one of a Greek’s words meanings from its semantic range and applying it where it doesn’t fit the context.

Glenn Peoples, "Isaiah, Worms and Fire"

Dr. Glenn Peoples was fairly instrumental to me in providing a compelling case for annihilationism. Here is his newest post on ReThinking Hell. Enjoy.

Peoples:

Imagine that you had never heard of “hell.” The eternal misery of the damned in dungeons of fire, Dante’s Inferno, Jonathan Edwards’ classic sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” you hadn’t heard of any of it. And now imagine that you were about to open a book that tells us what the judgement of God on his enemies will be like. You read this:

The LORD will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to pay back his anger in fury, and his rebuke in flames of fire.

For by fire will the LORD execute judgement, and by his sword, on all flesh; and those slain by the LORD will be many.

From new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, says the LORD.

And they shall go out and look at the dead bodies of the people who have rebelled against me; for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.

(Isaiah 66:15-16, 23-24)

It’s pretty fearsome stuff, granted, but beyond that, what would you make of it? Endless suffering? Torment forever in the fires of hell? Not likely. Such ideas would never even occur to you when reading a passage like this. Anyone able to read the above passage can see what it describes: Death. Any claim that Isaiah 66 contains anything that would lend support to the doctrine of the eternal torments of the damned in hell is indefensible, even laughable. You cannot find a doctrine like that in this text on the basis of any standard methods of responsible exegesis.

But things do not end there when it comes to this text in Isaiah 66. As those familiar with the evangelical discussion of final judgement are well aware, Jesus is said to have quoted this passage when teaching people to avoid sin. In the Gospel of Mark, this teaching of Jesus marks his first use of the word Gehenna, literally referring to the Valley of Hinnom (it is the Greek equivalent of Gehinnom, “valley of Hinnom” in Aramaic). Mark 9:47-48 reads,

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 their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

If all we knew about Jesus’ teaching on hell is that he said this and where he got it, there could be no doubt what he is saying. Sin is so serious that we would be better off without an eye that leads us into sin, than to lose not only our eye, but our entire self in Gehenna, ending up like those enemies of God in Isaiah 66 – dead and gone. Outside of disputes of the doctrine of hell, New Testament commentators apparently see this without difficulty. 

 For the link, enjoy it HERE. Beware, it's quite in-depth. Which is cool.

 --Nick