Hell Hath No Fury
With fire and brimstone out of fashion, modern thinking says the netherworld isn't so hot after all
That is not to say that no one thinks of hell as a place of literal fire and agony anymore. This is still, after all, the predominant view in evangelical Protestantism and in some conservative corners of Catholicism. "Hell isn't something we celebrate," says Mohler of the Southern Baptist seminary. "It's simply a fact of Scripture to which we must speak." To play down hell and other harsh doctrines of the Christian faith, adds the Rev. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, "does irreparable damage to our deepest comforts--our understanding of God's grace and love and of our human dignity and value to him. To preach the good news, we must [also] preach the bad."
At the same time, not all who believe in the reality of the fires of hell accept the view that hell's agonies are everlasting. A small but growing number of conservative theologians are promoting a third position: that the end of the wicked is destruction, not eternal suffering. Evangelical scholars such as Clark H. Pinnock, theology professor at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario; John R. W. Stott, founder of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity; and Philip E. Hughes, a noted Anglican clergyman and author, contend that those who ultimately reject God will simply be put out of existence in the "consuming fire" of hell.
Dead and gone. Proponents of this theory, called "annihilationism," argue that the traditional belief in unending torment is based more on pagan philosophy than on a correct understanding of Scripture. They base their belief on New Testament passages that warn of "eternal destruction" (2 Thessalonians 1:9) and "the second death" (Revelation 20:14) for those who reject God, and on the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel's admonition that "the soul that sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). They also raise ethical arguments. "How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness" as to inflict "everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been?" asks Pinnock in the Criswell Theological Review. A God who would do such a thing, Pinnock argues, is "more nearly like Satan than like God." Stott observes that in biblical imagery, fire's main function is to destroy and that while the fire of hell may be eternal and unquenchable, "it would be very odd if what is thrown into it proves indestructible." And Hughes argues that the traditional belief in unending punishment is linked to the Greek notion of the innate immortality of the soul--a belief he says is based more on Plato than on the Bible. "The immortality of which the Christian is assured is not inherent in himself or in his soul but is bestowed by God," says Hughes. He notes Jesus's admonition in Matthew 10:28 not to fear men, who can kill only the body, but rather God, "who can destroy both soul and body in hell."
Defenders of the traditional view disagree, citing biblical passages that refer to hell as a place of "everlasting punishment" where there will be be "weeping and gnashing of teeth." Those descriptions, says Prof. Robert A. Peterson of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, in his book Hell on Trial, signify "extreme suffering and remorse. . . . It is not possible for those annihilated to cry and grind their teeth."
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