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Course 10 · Lesson 7.2

Hell: eternal torment, annihilationism and universal hope

13 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 10 outline

Module 1: Sin and Human Nature

  1. Human beings in the image of God
  2. The fall in Scripture: Genesis 3 and Romans 5
  3. Original sin in Augustine and the Western tradition
  4. Ancestral sin and mortality in the Eastern tradition

Module 2: Grace and Free Will

  1. Pelagius and Augustine
  2. The church responds: semi-Pelagianism and the Council of Orange
  3. Luther and Erasmus on the bondage of the will
  4. Monergism and synergism across the traditions

Module 3: Justification and Sanctification

  1. Justification in Paul and James
  2. Justification by faith alone in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions
  3. The Catholic teaching and the Council of Trent
  4. Sanctification, holiness and theosis
  5. Recent ecumenical discussion of justification

Module 4: Predestination and Election

  1. Election and predestination in Scripture
  2. Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin on predestination
  3. Arminius, Wesley and conditional election
  4. Eastern and Catholic views on election and foreknowledge

Module 5: Atonement, Redemption and Adoption

  1. Atonement and its extent: for whom did Christ die?
  2. Redemption: the images of ransom, freedom and return
  3. Adoption: sons and daughters of God
  4. The order of salvation across the traditions

Module 6: Death, Resurrection and Judgment

  1. Death and the intermediate state
  2. The resurrection of the dead in Scripture and the creeds
  3. The final judgment: Christ the judge
  4. Purgatory, the Orthodox practice of praying for the dead, and the Protestant objection

Module 7: Heaven, Hell and the New Creation

  1. Heaven and the vision of God
  2. Hell: eternal torment, annihilationism and universal hope
  3. The fate of those who have not heard the gospel
  4. The new heavens and the new earth

Module 8: The Millennium and Christian Eschatological Traditions

  1. Revelation and apocalyptic literature
  2. Premillennial views, historic and dispensational
  3. Amillennial and postmillennial views
  4. Preterist, historicist and futurist approaches
  5. What the traditions hold in common about the end

All courses

Program / Course 10: Salvation and Eschatology / Lesson 7.2

What you will learn

  • Read the main biblical texts on final judgment and the fate of the lost.
  • State the three major Christian views of hell: eternal conscious punishment, conditional immortality and universal hope.
  • Describe what the Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed and Arminian churches officially teach.
  • Distinguish a hope for the salvation of all from a dogmatic claim that all will be saved.

The big idea

Christians agree that rejecting God has real and terrible consequences, that Christ is the judge and that God is just and merciful. They have understood the final state of the lost in three main ways. The majority view in history is that the lost suffer everlasting conscious punishment. A second view holds that the lost are finally destroyed and cease to exist. A third holds out hope that, in the end, God’s love will win all, though most who hold it do not assert it as certain. Each view appeals to Scripture, and each deserves to be stated as its holders state it.

Key terms

Hell
In English Bibles it translates several words: Sheol and Hades (the realm of the dead), Gehenna (a valley outside Jerusalem used as an image of judgment) and Tartarus (2 Peter 2:4). In doctrine it means the final state of separation from God.
Eternal conscious punishment (traditionalism)
The view that the lost exist forever and are consciously punished.
Annihilationism / conditional immortality
The view that the lost are ultimately destroyed. ‘Conditional immortality’ means that immortality is God’s gift to the saved, not a natural property of the soul.
Universalism
The doctrine that all will finally be saved. Some hold it as a hope, others as a certainty.
Apokatastasis
A Greek term (from Acts 3:21) for the restoration of all things. Origen taught it, and the church condemned certain forms.
Gehenna
The valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem, once linked with child sacrifice, which Jesus uses as an image for the place of judgment.
Aeonian (aionios)
The Greek adjective used of the punishment and the life in Matthew 25:46. It is rendered ‘eternal’ or ‘everlasting’ in most translations. Its exact sense is debated.

Background

Few topics cause more pain than hell, and few have been the subject of more careful thought. Jesus speaks of it more than any other New Testament figure, with images of fire, darkness and weeping, and also with warnings to the hearers to turn in time. The Old Testament speaks of Sheol as a shadowy realm of the dead, and the book of Daniel speaks of an awakening of some to everlasting contempt (Daniel 12:2). Over time Jewish and Christian writers developed a picture of final judgment with differing outcomes.

This lesson does not argue for one view. It states each as its supporters state it, and it separates what the churches officially teach from what individual theologians have proposed. It is also worth stating at the start that every view in this lesson affirms a real judgment, the reality of human freedom and the justice and love of God.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The texts

Several texts speak of lasting punishment. Matthew 25:41 and 25:46 speak of “everlasting fire” and of those who “shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” Mark 9:43-48 speaks of Gehenna, “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” Second Thessalonians 1:9 speaks of “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.” Revelation 14:11 says the smoke of torment ascends forever, and Revelation 20:10 describes the devil, the beast and the false prophet tormented day and night forever and ever, with 20:14-15 speaking of the second death.

Other texts speak of destruction. Matthew 10:28 speaks of One able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Philippians 3:19 says that the end of the enemies of the cross is destruction. Still others speak of God’s will to save all: 1 Timothy 2:4, Romans 5:18, 1 Corinthians 15:22-28, Colossians 1:20 and Philippians 2:10-11, which says that every knee shall bow. Interpreters read these in different ways.

Step 2: Eternal conscious punishment

This is the view of Augustine, who argued at length in the City of God (Book 21) against those who thought punishment could not be eternal. It is the view of Aquinas, Calvin and the confessions of the Reformation, and of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which teaches that hell is eternal fire and that the principal punishment is eternal separation from God. The Westminster Confession says that the wicked are cast into outer darkness to be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. The Augsburg Confession rejects those who teach that the punishment of the devils and the damned will have an end.

Supporters argue that the plain sense of the texts, especially Matthew 25:46, which uses the same word for the life and the punishment, supports it. They argue that sin against an infinite God has infinite weight, and that human freedom, which makes love possible, also makes final refusal possible. C. S. Lewis described hell as locked from the inside. Many Orthodox writers describe the experience of hell as the soul’s encounter with the same love of God, felt as pain by those who reject it.

Step 3: Annihilationism

The second view holds that the lost are finally destroyed. Its supporters appeal to the language of death, destruction and perishing (John 3:16, Romans 6:23, Matthew 10:28, Malachi 4:1-3), and argue that the fire of Gehenna consumes. They hold that the soul is not immortal by nature but only by God’s gift, and that unending torment is out of proportion to finite sin and hard to reconcile with God’s justice.

Some early writers have been cited for it, though scholars disagree about the interpretation. In the twentieth century, the Anglican John Stott said, tentatively, that he found it a possible reading of the Bible. Seventh-day Adventists and some other groups teach conditional immortality. Critics reply that the texts about unending punishment are clear, that the tradition has overwhelmingly rejected the view, and that Revelation speaks of torment without end.

Step 4: Universal hope and universalism

Origen, in the third century, suggested that in the end all rational creatures would be restored to God. Gregory of Nyssa held a similar hope. The church later condemned Origenist teaching: the emperor Justinian had a local synod at Constantinople condemn Origen’s views in 543, and the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 is traditionally linked with anathemas against Origenism. Historians still debate which anathemas the council itself issued and whether they concerned Origen himself or later followers.

Neither the Catholic nor the Orthodox Church has defined that any particular person is in hell, and both have rejected a doctrine that all will certainly be saved. Within these limits, some theologians hope for universal salvation. Isaac of Nineveh in the Syriac tradition, Sergius Bulgakov in modern Orthodoxy and Hans Urs von Balthasar, a Catholic, are named. Balthasar argued that Christians may hope, though not assert, that all will be saved. Critics reply that Scripture and tradition speak of real, final loss and that hope must not blunt the warnings of Jesus.

Step 5: How to weigh the views

The student can ask four questions of each view: How does it read the texts about the duration of punishment? How does it understand human freedom? How does it understand God’s justice and love? And how does it deal with the warnings of Jesus, which all agree are to be taken with full seriousness? The question of which texts control the others is the center of the debate.

  1. How should the same Greek word aionios in Matthew 25:46 be read, given that it modifies both life and punishment?
  2. What does human freedom mean if a person can finally refuse God?
  3. Is it right to hope for the salvation of all? What would it mean to assert it?
  4. Why might the New Testament use images of fire, darkness and weeping, and how literally?
  5. How do the warnings of Jesus fit with a hope for all?
  6. What does each view say about the justice of God, and what difficulties does each face?

Examples

Lewis’s picture

C. S. Lewis wrote that the doors of hell are locked on the inside. He imagined that those who remain in hell choose it, preferring their own way to God’s. A reader who accepts this picture may still ask whether anyone could finally reject love forever. Lewis himself left the question to God. The picture is one among many used to explain eternal punishment.

A funeral sermon

A pastor at a funeral for a young man who had left the church says that he does not know the state of the man’s soul and that he commits it to God’s mercy. A parishioner asks whether it was proper to say so. The pastor answers that the church teaches that God is judge, and that he can say nothing certain beyond Scripture. Traditions differ in how they would answer. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Catechism teaches that hell exists, that it is eternal, and that those who die in mortal sin without repentance go there. God predestines no one to hell, and the damned choose it by turning from him. The Church teaches that the souls of those who die in mortal sin descend at once to hell. It prays that all be saved, and no individual is declared damned.

Orthodox

The Orthodox Church teaches that hell is real and eternal, understood by many as the experience of God’s love by those who refuse it. It has not defined its details. A minority of Orthodox writers hope for universal restoration, citing Gregory of Nyssa and Isaac of Nineveh, while the Church rejects it as a dogma.

Lutheran

The Augsburg Confession teaches that Christ will come to judge and that the ungodly will be condemned to eternal torment, rejecting the view that the punishment will end. Lutheran churches have taught eternal damnation as the fate of unbelievers while maintaining that God desires the salvation of all.

Reformed

The Westminster Confession and other Reformed confessions teach that the wicked are cast into hell, to be punished with everlasting destruction. Reformed teachers hold that this displays God’s justice and that the elect owe their salvation to mercy alone. Reformed pastors urge repentance with great seriousness.

Arminian and Wesleyan

Wesley preached eternal punishment for the finally impenitent, stressing that God desires all to be saved and that the lost are lost by their own refusal of grace. Most Wesleyan and Methodist churches have maintained this teaching, though some members and writers hold annihilationist views.

Evangelical scholars

Within evangelical scholarship there is an open debate, with defenders of traditional teaching, and others who hold conditional immortality. Some deny that this is a threat to orthodoxy, while others say it is a departure from the church’s teaching.

Why it matters

Teaching on hell shapes how Christians speak of evangelism, justice and mercy. It also tests how a student handles a painful topic: with courage to read the texts and honesty about the weight of the traditions. Knowing the three views allows a reader to avoid caricature, and to see why people of deep faith have held each. It is also a case study in separating what the churches have defined from what remains open.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The Bible has one clear picture of hell.

Correction: It has several images, including fire, darkness, destruction and the second death, and interpreters disagree on how they fit together.

Misunderstanding: Catholic and Orthodox churches condemn everyone who hopes for universal salvation.

Correction: They reject the doctrine that all will certainly be saved, but they allow theologians to hope and to pray for all. They have condemned certain forms of Origenism.

Misunderstanding: Annihilationism is not Christian.

Correction: It has been held by Christians who affirm the creeds, but it is a minority view that most churches have rejected. Its status is disputed.

Misunderstanding: The church teaches that God sends people to hell.

Correction: Catholic teaching says God predestines no one to hell. Most traditions hold that the lost are lost by their own refusal. Calvinists hold that God passes by the non-elect, and place the blame on their sin.

Knowledge check

What are the three main views on the fate of the lost?

The first is eternal conscious punishment, held by the majority of Christians through history. The second is conditional immortality or annihilationism, in which the lost are finally destroyed. The third is universal hope or universalism, in which God’s love in the end restores all, held by some as a hope and by a few as a certainty.

Which texts do traditionalists cite most often?

They cite Matthew 25:41 and 46, Mark 9:43-48, 2 Thessalonians 1:9 and Revelation 14:11 and 20:10. Matthew 25:46 is central, since the same Greek word describes the life of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked. They argue that the plain reading of these passages supports unending punishment.

What was the church’s response to Origen’s idea of apokatastasis?

A local synod under Justinian condemned Origen’s views in 543, and the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 is linked with anathemas against Origenist teaching. Historians debate which of these the council itself issued. Both East and West have rejected the doctrine that all will certainly be saved, while allowing a hope for all.

What does ‘conditional immortality’ mean?

It means that immortality is not a natural property of the human soul but God’s gift to those who are saved. Those who finally reject God are not kept alive forever but are destroyed. Its supporters cite biblical language of death and destruction. Critics cite texts of everlasting punishment and the tradition’s long rejection of the view.

Think it through

  1. Which of these views do you find most faithful to the Bible, and what would change your mind?
  2. How can a person speak about hell with both honesty and compassion?
  3. What is the difference between hoping that all will be saved and asserting that all will be?

Independent assignment

Three views, three texts

In your notebook, write 500 to 700 words. For each of the three views, write a paragraph presenting it as its supporters would, with two biblical texts they would cite. Then write a paragraph naming the text you think is hardest for each view to explain, and why. Do not choose a view. Say which question you would most want to examine further.

Further study