Content Warning: Emotional abuse, coercion, and imagery involving violence and manipulation within close relationships.
“…The sheer brutal banality of the idea of everlasting torment would still be morally unintelligible… No matter how exclusive we imagine the criteria for membership in the society of the damned to be, nothing can make the idea morally coherent.”
That All Shall Be Saved – David Bentley Hart
Introduction.
I wanted to start this post with a quote from one of my spiritual and philosophical heroes, Dr. Hart. He was the first individual that I read when my deconstruction started so many years ago. He is perhaps the only reason I clung to Christianity as long as I did. To have someone deeply involved in both academia and the faith come out and eloquently demolish the morality of Hell was refreshing, to say the least.
Alas, the immense weight of my grievances against the church, and more broadly Christianity, meant that I could not last much longer. Not too long after reading this book, I collapsed under the immense burden of my indignation. I declared to myself that there was likely no God; if there was, it certainly wasn’t to be found in the faith of Christianity.
A rather intense spiritual experience changed my course from the more extreme options. For a very short stint, I returned to church, but my deep bitterness remained against Christianity, and I was reminded why I left in the first place. I haven’t been back since, and frankly, I haven’t regretted it. I have felt freer than ever before to explore my humanity, the world, and my spirituality apart from an institution weighed down by millennia of hubris, hypocrisy, and corruption.
An Allegory.
I want you to imagine your father or mother. Hopefully, it brings images of a loving and safe home. If not, then imagine someone deeply close to you. Imagine someone who may know you better than yourself, your partner, perhaps. This love is likely reciprocal; you do things for each other out of an earnestness to protect and care for one another.
A beautiful image.
Now imagine them holding a gun to your head. Right between your eyes. They tell you to love them, and if you don’t, they are going to pull the trigger. You look into their eyes and you know they are telling the truth, and so you say that you do love them. To not do so means certain death.
You tell them that you love them with all of your heart, your soul, and your mind. You do it for so long that you eventually come to believe it. After so many years in this type of relationship, the firearm becomes a distant memory. But after so long, you begin to question the relationship again. Why did I ever love this person? But then you remember that gun. Out of necessity, you force your mind to forget that weapon, ever-present and ready to be used.
What other choice is there?
With Hell, Loving God is Impossible.
I would hope that this image causes utter revulsion. If it doesn’t, or if it sounds familiar, I encourage you to seek help. This is the relationship that all evangelical Christians have with their perception of God (If not all non-universalist salvation denominations).
It need not be said, but I’ll say it anyway, that no one can love this kind of God. It is emotional, spiritual, and violent abuse of incomprehensible magnitude.
If eternal hell exists, then God may be the greatest horror in all of existence. I can think of nothing more cruel than suspending mortals in eternal conscious torment. Especially when the vast and overwhelming majority of humans throughout all of history are destined to that horrid pit according to a fundamentalist understanding of God.
“As it happens, of course, the received view throughout most of Christian history has actually been that hell is the final destination not merely of the monsters among us, but of all sorts of lesser miscreants: the profligate, the wanton, the unbaptized, the unbelieving, the unelect… the unlucky.“
That All Shall be Saved, David Bentley Hart
The most infamous and vile human your mind can comprehend could not even hold a candle to the utter depravity of this kind of God. Who is to say that this human is even the same person after a quadrillion years of constant torture? Consider the innate value of this person when you think of an eternity in torture. Especially if the crime is simply being born to the wrong parents at the wrong time. Consider further the countless billions of souls that would be dwelling in this space. It is an unacceptable belief that cannot be reconciled.
I defy any honest Christian to try to defend these claims. You cannot love a monster. I know countless conservative Christians throughout my time on this earth who have looked me in the eyes and told me that if hell did not exist, they would be some kind of hedonist. Such a statement shows to me the many years of repressed humanity within them and the hollow nature of their relationship to the divine.
There is no such thing as unconditional love when there is a big, fiery condition of suffering the eternal consequences of rejecting said love. It is hypocrisy to say the least that God is not held to these same standards as we hold ourselves. It is the lowest possible bar for God to not be an eternal abuser.
I quote I read somewhere online that I think sums it up well: If you were a father, would you punish your child by placing their hand on a searing hot stove for even a second?
Good News! Hell Doesn’t Exist.
In the Old Testament or the Hebrew bible, if you have a King James Version bible or some other dishonest translation, you’ll likely see many references to hell, the grave, and rarely heaven. In the original Hebrew, they are all referring to one place called Sheol. It is the place where all souls go. It is believed to be a dark, murky, and mysterious place. It is the catch-all term to simply refer to “the grave.” In ancient Israel, they left food with the deceased so they could sustain themselves in this place. 1
In the Gospels, if you have those same dishonest Bibles, Jesus continually refers to Hell, or Hades. While Jesus, as portrayed in the gospels, did use the term Hades once or twice, it is still in reference to the place in which all souls go. Because of their proximity to Greek culture, it is a place they are all familiar with. The rest of the time, when he is referring to hell, he is actually using the word “Gehenna,” translated to mean “Valley of Hinnom.”
This is an actual location that is still in existence today. Some scholars say that this place was a trash heap in the days of Jesus, but others say there is no archeological evidence to support this claim. What is true, however, is that the valley of Hinnom was considered to be a deeply cursed place. Their legends held that in the ancient past of Israel, they were sacrificing children to gods other than the Lord. (Some suggest that they were sacrificing children to God himself). In response, God cursed the land.
So, if Jesus was in fact not preaching about everlasting torment in a metaphysical place, what was he talking about? Likely, he was speaking on the terrible real-world consequences of our selfish actions. Some suggest that he is prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. If he is in fact referring to spiritual torment, he certainly isn’t claiming eternity as most translations seem to say; according to Dr. Hart and the early Christians, it is an indeterminate, but limited, amount of time. Which still isn’t great, but makes a hell of a lot more sense than eternal punishment for finite crimes. Pun intended.
It is also worth noting that the word Hell comes from the Norse word “Hel,” The word for their underworld and goddess of death with the same name from that mythology. Except Hel is a cold place. We get the fire and brimstone version of hell primarily from Dante’s Inferno, a Renaissance story. The only thing we get in the bible that is close is the reference to the lake of fire in Revelation, which is said that Hades (not hell) will be cast into.
It’s Time to Abandon Hell.
There is little basis for a belief in an eternal hell. Even within the Old Testament, we have an evolution of the conceptions of what lies on the other side of death. Neither is there a single conception of heaven throughout the entire bible; it is all simply the manifestation of our hopes and fears for what lies beyond that unknowable door called death.
It can feel nice to believe that those we think are unjust are getting what’s coming to them in the afterlife. I often find myself hoping that hell does exist so the worst among us can truly be punished for their crimes.
But no matter how often we may truly desire justice, the belief in eternal hell often simply becomes a tool for controlling the earnest spiritual seeker and the vulnerable among us. To anyone who may say that without the threat of hell, everyone would sin constantly, has a paper-thin and cynical view of humanity. Nonbelievers and Atheists are doing just fine; often, they are some of the most loving and moral individuals I have ever met.
Do not let Hell become your dogma. It is the insurmountable wall that keeps you from the fullness of human experience, interconnectedness, and compassion. We are not merely individuals on planet earth; we are an interwoven community that depends upon each of us. To celebrate even one person, no matter how vile, going to the pit of hell for eternity is to deny the soul of all humanity. If I end up in heaven and even one person is burning in hell, I cannot help but be there with them also.
Parting Encouragement & Quote for the day.
Hell ain’t real, y’all. I can think of nothing more encouraging than that today. You are not destined for the fires; you are free! Experience the fullness of life! Be consumed by the radical empathy and compassion that this world dearly needs. We all go to the same place when we die. So be free to go on whatever journey you wish. Do not be concerned with your final destination; otherwise, you will always be a slave to your final days.
Wherever we end up, if anywhere at all, I think it’s going to be a profound and beautiful adventure. A personal spiritual experience showed me that there may indeed be something beyond the horizon of this material universe. I saw loved ones who had passed almost a decade ago, and it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced.
“[Eternal Conscious Torment] is not even conceivable… We may revere tradition or respect the sincerity of those who tell us all those venerable tales that we are asked to accept on faith. But there is only one path to true freedom, and so to God. In the end, we must love the Good.”
Final Paragraph, “So That All Shall be Saved” – David Bentley Hart
Resources
That All Shall be Saved – David Bentley Hart
Love Wins – Rob Bell
- Dan McClellan “Our concept of hell doesn’t have biblical origins” ↩︎
