To Hell and Back -- History & Deconstructing Hell

The book edited by Chad Bahl, Deconstructing Hell: Open and Relational Responses to the Doctrine of Eternal Conscious Torment, is now available from SacraSage Press. It offers a variety of responses to the doctrine of Hell that has been an important element of the Christian message, though there have always been dissenters. That is more true today than probably ever before. I was asked to contribute an essay laying out the history of the idea, which I decided to undertake. It was a challenging effort, but worthwhile.  

One thing to note here is that there is a diversity of perspectives in the book though all of the writers embrace some form of Open and Relational Theology. Some come from the more evangelical Open Theism perspective while others operate out of a Process perspective. Others of us fit in there somewhere, but all of us are committed to deconstructing this idea that eternal punishment is of divine authorization.

Below you will find a few excerpts from my essay. It's just a taste of what is a rather lengthy essay. I invite to ponder these excerpts and then check out the book for yourself. You may or may not agree with the sentiments of any or all of the writers. I expect that we the contributors don't agree with one another at every point. After all, some of the authors embrace what is called conditional immortality/annihilationism while others lean toward universal salvation. 

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So take a read:

 Even today a large percentage of Christians believe that upon our deaths, we will face judgment leading either to eternal life in heaven/paradise or eternal punishment/suffering in hell. While growing numbers of Christians are rejecting this view, it remains prevalent. So, how did we get here? What is the way forward, especially in the context of an “open and relational theology”? For my part, my focus will be on the prior question, but as we all have our own views of such things, I will mention my own perspective as an addendum to the end of the article. To provide an answer to how we got here, we need to go back to the roots of the Christian movement and trace the development of these ideas forward. Those roots include ancient Judaism (both in the Old Testament and extra-canonical texts) and Greco-Roman understandings of the afterlife. These questions form part of the theological category of eschatology.[1]

            It is helpful if we start with a definition of hell so that we are on the same page. Alan Bernstein defines hell as “a divinely sanctioned place of eternal torment for the wicked. It is ‘divinely sanctioned’ because the God (or, the gods) who established it could have refrained from creating it and could at any time demolish it. Its existence depends on some divinely established purpose.”[2] The question that will arise as time passes concerns the nature of that divinely established purpose.

[1] For more see Robert D. Cornwall and Ronald J. Allen, Second Thoughts about the Second Coming: A Guide to the Many Ways Christians Interpret the Second Coming of Jesus, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2023).

 [2] Alan E. Bernstein, The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 3. 

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While there is little evidence in the Bible for eternal punishment, there is enough material here that could be developed further in conversation with Hellenistic thought. As Christianity moved into a Hellenistic world, it imbibed those ideas, including the idea of the immortal soul, and incorporate them into its interpretation of biblical references to judgment.

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The Reformers carried with them many of the earlier views of the nature and purpose of hell, especially those laid out by Augustine. Thus, they didn’t differ much from their Roman Catholic co-religionists. It was understood that hell was a place created by God for the eternal punishment of the wicked. Where early Protestants differed from Catholics was in their rejection of purgatory. Thus, starting with Martin Luther, there were two possible post-death destinations: heaven and hell. While hell played a role in the theology of the Reformers, it wasn’t a central concern. For the Reformers, the existence of hell served as a warning of the dangers of sin to one’s eternal destiny.

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