Questioning Eternal Hell Part 5: Where is the justice?
Over the past few weeks I have been inviting us to question the Doctrine of Eternal Hell. I have been using as my guide a book by David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved, trying to communicate the essence of some of the salient points he makes in the book. A question that some may be wondering at this point is: Is there any justice? Where is the justice? If the doctrine of eternal hell is potentially incorrect will the abusers, perpetrators and oppressors of this world ever be held to account, and if so how? In offering some perspectives on these questions, I would like to take us to what seems to be the framework in which most of the New Testament writers worked within. In this regard, David Bentley Hart writes that within in the New Testament you will find two seemingly contradictory lists of statements. On the one hand, you will find statements that seem to support the idea of eternal damnation. A sample of such verses include: • Matthew 25:46 “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” • Jude 13 [These people are] wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. • 2 Thessalonians 1:9 “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” On the other hand, you will find statements that seem to support the doctrine of universal salvation: • For as in Adam all die, so in Christ, shall all be made alive (1 Cor 15:22) • For when I am lifted up I will draw (or drag) all people to myself (John 12:32) • In Jesus Christ is “the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21) How do we resolve these seemingly contradictory viewpoints with two seemingly absolute statements being made on both sides? The way in which advocates of eternal damnation have resolved these statements has been by placing their emphasis on the word eternal as in eternal fire, eternal destruction, eternal punishment. While on the other hand they have had to do some re-interpreting of the meaning of the word ‘all’. And so when the Biblical writers mention the word ‘all’ advocates of eternal hell would say that the word ‘all’, doesn’t in fact mean ‘all’, it actually only means a few. When the New Testament writers use the word ‘all’ they suggest that these writers only mean ‘all’ of the elect… or ‘all’ of God’s chosen, despite the fact that the actual references in the New Testament do not in themselves contain any such qualification. But David Bentley Hart suggest that the reason that these two sets of statements seem to be contradictory is because for centuries, theologians have been relying on defective translations of the original Greek word aionios being translated to mean eternal, forever, infinite, unending. But David Bentley Hart suggests that even thought he word has a certain flexibility of meaning no-where in the ancient world was the word used in that way. Rather the word had the meaning of ‘an age’ denoting a period of time with a beginning and an end. Originally it was a word that described simply the life-span of a human being, but later came to be used to describe much longer periods of time. And in this sense the ancient Greek word aionios forms the root of our English word aeon, which although coveys the idea of an extremely long period of time is still a period of time that will come to an end. Some would suggest that by implication the word aionios could be interpreted to mean eternal or forever and ever, but that was certainly not the standard or normal understanding of that word in the ancient world. And with this, David Bentley Hart says these two seemingly contradictory perspectives in the New Testament no longer need to be contradictory. Instead he says the New Testament writers invites us to see the future as comprising two horizons. The first horizon points us to the end of the age. And within that horizon there is space to understand that there is a cosmic justice according to which all of us will have to give account and experience of the consequences of our actions done in this world. An accountability that will be experienced as a judgement. But the good news is that there is a second horizon to which the New Testament framework points that takes us beyond the first horizon to ‘the age beyond all ages’. And in that second horizon, there is the final promise of the complete healing and restoration of all things. David Bentley Hart would therefore suggest that all those passages in the New Testament that deal with punishment, judgement and consequences are referring to that first horizon and describe penultimate, but not the final state of affairs. While on the other hand, all the passages that point to the final reconciliation of all things, points to the second horizon, the age beyond all ages, when as the writer of Ephesians puts it God “will bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth” (1:10) and as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:28 God will be All and in all. What does the judgement and accountability of that first horizon look like? The judgement of the ‘end of the age’. The fact that the New Testament contains a variety of words, metaphors and images to speak of these things should alert us to the fact that they are ultimately beyond our full comprehension for those of us who in this world see as though through a glass darkly. But one of the primary images and the metaphors that is used in the Bible for this process of judgement, and accountability is the metaphor of fire. In Mark 9, Jesus is described as saying: Everyone will be salted with fire. The fire in this passage is the fire of Gehenna, one of the words that is usually translated as hell, but the reference to salt clearly suggests that this fire is a purifying and preserving fire that everyone will go through. We see this image of the purifying fire of Divine Love also near the end of the Book of Revelation. The Kings of the earth, in other words, those who have used power in this world in oppressive and violent ways pass through this fire before the final unveiling of the New Heaven and New Earth where we see them now entering the New Heavenly Jerusalem. David Bentley Hart writes that “...though Paul speaks on more than one occasion of the judgement to come, it seems worth noting that the only picture he actually provides of that final reckoning is the one found in 1 Cor 3:11-15, the last two verses of which identify only two classes of the judged: those saved in and through their works and those saved by way of the fiery destruction of their works”. If the work that someone has built endures, that one will receive a reward; if anyone’s work should be burned away, that one will suffer loss, yet shall be saved, even though as by fire. This reference to fire clearly suggests not the fire of eternal, infinite, unending punishment, but rather a potentially painful purification process for the final purpose of realising that second horizon of the complete restoration and reconciliation of all things. It is a process which Paul suggests will be more painful for some than for others, because it is a painful thing to have our darkness laid bare. And for those who have already entered fully into the grace of God made known in Christ, it will not be painful at all but simply and experience of the full light of Divine Love. And so the more we are able to do the painful work of honestly confronting our own darkness, selfishness, anger or greed in the here and now, (traditionally referred to as the word repentance) the less painful it will be later on. And in addition the more we will even now begin to feel and experience the Divine Love and Grace shining upon us and within us. (This is really the kind of work that we covered in our previous preaching series on the 12 Steps). I hope that this contrast has been helpful, between the judgement passages in the New Testament on the one hand and the universal salvation passages on the other hand? They don’t have to be contradictory or sit in opposition to each other. Instead of placing them side by side, Christian Universalists resolve them by placing them in sequential order, so that while there is indeed room for accountability and justice, however that may be conceived, God’s final word is not judgement and punishment and the unending torture of those who fall short. God’s final word is in fact love and the healing of all things where every tear will be wiped away. If Eternal Damnation is God’s final word, then God’s final word is pain, cruelty and torture… By contrast Paul reminds us that 3 things remain… three things endure… faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love. It suggests that God’s final word is Love. I end with a passage of scripture that if read in the light of these things can be understood to be pointing towards both horizons, the end of the age, and the age beyond all ages. 2 Peter 3:10-13 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. 11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.[b] That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. One of the questions some might ask: If all are assured of salvation in a Christian Universalist framework, then Why live righteous, holy and godly lives? But the Righteous is he heavenly life… it is to be in alignment with the wisdom of life and the wisdom and love of God and to be in alignment with our own true nature. The unrighteousness life by contrast is the hellish life. Unrighteousness us essentially to be out of alignment with the truth of our own being, to be out of alignment with God and the Wisdom of Life. The unrighteous life, the life of disharmony is the very life we are being saved from. By contrast, the righteous life, a life of love, wisdom compassion, goodness, is the life we are saved for… it is the heavenly life that we can already begin to taste here and now the more we open ourselves to the Divine Grace. There is so much more that could be said and so on the Sunday after Easter I would like to further explore these ideas a little further. Questioning Eternal Hell - (That All May Be Saved) - The Nature of Human Beings
I have often heard it said that when a mother gives birth to a child, her heart begins to live outside of her. The pain of the child from then on becomes the pain of the mother. The loss of the child becomes the loss of the mother. The distress of the child becomes the distress of the mother. And this is also true of joy and happiness, the joy of the child becomes the joy of the mother and the happiness of the child becomes the happiness of the mother. (I do believe that this would also be true of fathers also. One has a sense of this in the story of the Prodigal Son. The fathers happiness in the story is linked to the happiness of his two sons. When his younger son leaves home and squanders his wealth and his health on wild living, the father cannot rest. Day and night he remains vigilant, waiting for his lost son to come home. His heart lives outside of himself as he waits longingly for his son to return home. And when the older son refuses to join in the party, again, the father cannot rest. He goes outside to his son to urge him to come in. As long as the older son remains outside, a part of the heart of the father remains outside also.) But there is also something significant about the bond between a mother and a child, in light of the fact that a child lives inside the mother for 9 months. There is an emotional and a spiritual bond. Indeed there is an energetic bond. One of my aunts experienced this bond in a very powerful way. Her daughter, my cousin was pregnant. At the time they were living on different continents. When my cousin went into labour, my aunt already knew, even before the phone had rung to tell her, because she had felt things in her own body that told her that her daughter had gone into labour. Newtonian science is unable to explain that and would pooh pooh it as wives tales, but in the framework of Quantum Physics where everything is connected to everything else at the level of energy, such an experience is in fact not so surprising. Once to particles have been connected together at a quantum level what happens to one of them in one part of the universe affects the other immediately. If the one particle begins to turn in a different direction, the connected particle will simultaneously begin to turn in the same direction, even when separated by vast distances. Human beings are connected to one another in much deeper ways than we have been programmed to think by our materialist, Newtonian scientific world view. Over the past few weeks, we have been on a journey questioning the notion of Eternal Hell. One of the key arguments that David Bentley Hart uses against the notion of Eternal Hell is the nature of who we are as human beings – In the modern world, we have grown accustomed to thinking of ourselves as discrete individuals. We have come to understand ourselves as completely separate beings. But David Bentley Hart suggests that this view of our humanity and our personhood is in fact not accurate. He writes that the nature of our humanity is in fact deeply inter-connected. To be a person he says is to be in relationship. Personhood consists of relationships. And Mother’s Day should give us the clue… a mother’s happiness and well-being is deeply connected to the well-being of her children. And what is true of a mother should ultimately be true for each of us if we truly think about it. And it is precisely for this reason that David Bentley Hart believes that the notion of Eternal Hell is so questionable. The doctrine of Eternal Hell suggests that it is possible for some to be ‘saved’ in the afterlife, and to live some kind of heavenly blissful existence, while there is the potential for their family members and friends, who are ‘not saved’ to live in eternal torment and eternal suffering. He suggests that this formula doesn’t in fact add up. Would it be even possible for a mother to enjoy heavenly bliss while knowing that her child has been condemned to a life of eternal unending torment. For any among us who are mothers, I wonder if that could even be conceivable? If a mother’s heart lives outside of her (as indeed I believe would be true of most fathers too), could a mother ever be ‘saved’ to live a blissful life in heaven, if in the back of her mind she was even vaguely aware that her child had made a wrong choice and would forever more live in eternal torment. This would surely be true, even if her son was a serial murder. Surely such a mother’s happiness is ultimately dependent on on the complete reformation and salvation of her serial killer son, or she would never be able to experience eternal happiness herself? Some theologians who are believers in eternal hell and eternal damnation have tried to do some theological gymnastics to imagine how this might be possible. Some have suggested for example that God will cause the ‘saved’ to have the memory of their condemned loved one’s erased forever from their minds in a kind of spiritual lobotomy. But David Bentley Hart asks what this would really mean? Would a spiritual lobotomy of this kind not lead to a serious diminishing of the personhood of that mother? If a mother’s identity is bound up in her relationship with her children, what would happen to the fullness of her personhood if the memory of a child she had given birth to were just deleted from her memory bank? This would not be an enhanced life for such a mother. It would surely be a seriously diminished life. David Bentley Hart asks the question Is not the heavenly life meant to enhance our being and our happiness rather than diminishing it? Another way theologians have suggested coming to terms with the possibility of eternal hell is that those who are saved should have no sympathy for the damned simply because such pity is fruitless, just as it is forgivable to avert one’s eyes from a frightful accident on the roads from which one cannot rescue the victims, and to cease to think about it entirely. But David Bentley Hart invites us to ask: Is this also not in fact a diminished state of people who are unable to feel the pain of others? Again, this is surely true even if we were to think of the example of a serial killer. While most of us may not feel sympathy for the suffering of a serial killer, it is surely true that the murderers brother, mother, father, sister, child, wife or friend must think of him and must suffer grief at the thought of what he has become and the end he has reached. This means suggests David Bentley Hart that our indifference to his fate must also logically be an indifference to their sufferings as well. And when projected onto eternity this would amount to an eternity of indifference to the suffering of others. David Bentley Hart asks, Does not the state of hell consist of those who are incapable of showing or feeling sympathy or compassion towards other beings. If in order to experience the bliss of heaven, the saved are no longer able to feel compassion for those suffering, have they not in so doing become no different from those living in hell? And so David Bentley Hart writes ‘There is no way in which persons can be saved as persons, except in and with all other persons.’ He goes onto to suggest that ‘No soul is who or what it is in isolation; and so no soul’s sufferings can be ignored without the sufferings of potentially limitless number of souls being ignored as well. And so it seems, if we allow the possibility that even so much as a single soul might slip away into everlasting misery, the ethos of heaven turns out to be ‘every soul for itself’ – which is also curiously enough precisely the ethos of hell. While it might indeed lead us back into childish and simplistic anthropomorphisms, if the parable of the prodigal son is anything to go by, then God too would never be able to dwell in blissful happiness and contentment if even one of God’s creatures were to dwell in unending torment and suffering. And on Mother’s Day we remember also the analogy used by the prophet Isaiah who compares God to a mother who is unable to forget the child of her breast: “Can a mother forget the infant at her breast, and walk away from the baby she bore? But even if a mother could forget, I would never forget you—never. Look, I’ve written your names on the palms of my hands.” Would it ever be possible for God, the source of all mother-hood, to abandon the children of Her creation to an eternity of suffering and torment? Surely this would not be possible even for God, or perhaps, especially for God? I end with a few passages of scripture that invite us to continue to think more deeply on these things Matthew 18:11-14 – 12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.” 1 Timothy 2:4 – “It is the will of God our Saviour that all people should be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” “But God would not take away a life; He would devise plans so that the one banished from Him does not remain banished.” 2 Sam. 14:14 “With God nothing is impossible.” (Luke 1:37) “Love never fails.” (1 Cor. 13:8)
This week I cam across some rather funny misunderstandings: One person writes that when he was around 5 or 6, he was told to watch his baby cousin as she was laid on the couch. He watched her roll off the couch. Everyone was angry at him. He watched her roll right off the couch. Another tells how as a child his mother popped out while she was cooking. She was boiling some potatoes. She said to him “Watch the potatoes” as she left. He writes: I watched them. They burnt! But misunderstandings can sometimes be of a far more serious nature: This week, I learned the shocking information that a misunderstanding and a mistranslation led to the United States dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During World War II, when asked if Japan would surrender, the Japanese ruler used the word “mokusatsu” which meant “we withhold comment – pending discussion.” However, it was mistranslated to mean “We are treating your message with contempt” when sent to Washington. This mistake spread quickly through the media. Frustrated by what he thought was Japan's response, President Truman decided to use atomic bombs, causing the deaths, injuries, and radiation exposure of 150,000-250,000 people. It is tragic that a mistranslation of a Japanese word could have had such devastating consequences. Over the past two weeks I have been inviting us to question the notion of Eternal Hell. Most of the thoughts in these reflections are taken from a book by David Bentley Hart called “That All May Be Saved”. David Bentley Hart essentially believes that when the Church began to teach the notion of Eternal Hell or Eternal Damnation, the church began to take itself down a wrong path. He believes that traditional teachings on eternal hell undermine every other claim that Christians make about God, most especially the central idea that God is love. He writes that much of the teaching on eternal hell he believes is a misinterpretation or misunderstanding of how to read and translate Scripture. In the course of these early arguments in the book, David Bentley Hart examines the theology of John Calvin, one of the major theologians of the Reformation, who had a particularly strong influence on ‘subscribing’ Presbyterians (as opposed to non-subscribing Presbyterians). John Calvin's assertion was that God made some to be predestined to heaven and some to be predestined to eternal hell as an expression of God’s Power and Sovereignty. But David Bentley Hart writes, that such a position is based on what he describes as a notoriously confused reading of scripture, based on an inability to read Greek and relying on defective Latin translations. And so he describes the Calvinist account of predestination as unquestioningly the most terrifying and the most severe expressions of Christianity. To Calvin's credit, writes David Bentley Hart, Calvin makes no effort to deceive us as to his views. Calvin quite openly proclaims that God created some to be the object of God’s love and others to be the object of God’s hatred. For John Calvin, this predestination of some to be damned and to be the objects of his hatred is nothing more than sheer absolute power exercising itself for power’s sake and therefore comes across as a manifestation of boundless cruelty: that God, of God’s own free and sovereign will would create beings for torturous and unending suffering. What boundless cruelty says David Bentley Hart and goes on to say that Calvin at his worst produces a picture of God as resembling an omnipotent cruel and mad dictator. But he writes however that he does not hold Calvin necessarily accountable for this dismal and distorted theology, since in this matter he was the product of centuries of bad scriptural interpretation and even worse theological reasoning. Bentley Hart writes that Calvin differed little in this respect from many of his contemporaries, both Protestant and Catholic alike. Where in particular did Calvin go wrong? David Bentley Hart suggests that Calvin’s primary error is his misinterpretation of chapters 9-11 of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Like St Augustine a few centuries before him Calvin’s error came in treating chapters 9-11 as comprising a series of separate ideas with separate conclusions, instead of reading these chapters as a whole in which Paul is wrestling with a single question that had clearly haunted him for a long time. What preoccupies Paul from the beginning to end of these chapters is the agonizing mystery that the Messiah of Israel has come and yet so few of the house of Israel have accepted him, while on the other hand so many gentiles have. How can the promised messiah of Israel fail to be the saviour of the people of Israel? Has God abandoned his promises the people of Israel? In the process of wrestling with this question he begins by firstly trying to entertain the possibility that indeed God has abandoned the people of Israel. What if God has kept some people (namely Israel) solely for destruction in order to show just how glorious his salvation lavished on the people of his mercy. It is a terrible possibility, and horrifying to contemplate, but for a moment, Paul wonders if this is simply how things are. But he does not stop there, because he knows that this cannot be the correct answer. It is so obviously preposterous that he decides that a completely different solution must be found, one that makes sense and in which God remains faithful to God’s promises. And so writes David Bentley Hart, Paul spends the next two chapters unambiguously rejecting the initial provisional answer that he came to in the previous section, so that he reaches a completely different and far more glorious conclusion, that in the end through Christ, God will bless everyone. 32 God has given all people over over to their stubborn disobedient ways, so that God can show mercy to all. And having come to this glorious conclusion, Paul explodes with joy as he says: Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!... “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been God’s counsellor? For from God and through God and for God are all things. To God be the glory forever! Amen. You can almost feel Paul’s joy and his relief as he comes to the conclusion that all will be saved by God’s most amazing grace. But this is an answer that he already knew in his heart… For in his earlier letter to the Corinthians a few years before his letter to the Romans, he already came to this same conclusion when he wrote: 1 Cor 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. For Paul, God’s saving work in Christ will eventually completely undo the sin and death which all human beings participate in, symbolised in the person of Adam. And so, David Bentley Hart believes that Calvinism, makes a monster out of God, because of misreading Paul’s letter to the Romans and building his theology on an idea that Paul himself rejects in his own letter, namely, the idea that God has created some for salvation and some for destruction. David Bentley Hart suggests that if it is read correctly, then the story of God in the New Testament a story of infinite and universal love which suggests that God will never leave anyone in the mire of slavery to sin with all its destructive consequences. God’s intention is to save all. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. For those who might still be struggling to shake off the ideas of God who is a monster who predestines some to eternal torment, Bentley Hart suggests that sometimes childish imagery – even childish anthropomorphisms can help to bring clarity. And in this sense Christ instructs his followers to think of God, the Great Universal Intelligence of the Cosmos, using the analogy of a human father and in doing so Christ encourages his followers to feel safe in assuming that God’s actions toward them will display something like – but also something far greater than paternal love. In Matthew 7:9-11 Jesus says: 9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! David Bentley Hart suggests that at the very least, when Jesus refers to God in this way, we gain an idea of what NOT to expect from God. For instance, Jesus implies that God, the Universal Intelligence, will not be like a father who punishes his children for any purpose other than the child’s correction and moral improvement. Punishing simply as an arbitrary display of power over a child created as an object of hatred is not behaviour one would ever expect from a father worthy of the name and therefore should not be something we should expect from God either. In addition, Bentley Hart suggests that a father who surrenders his child to the fate of an eternal suffering is surely also not a truly loving father. He writes: It is surely the responsibility of a father [or parent] to continue to love their children in all conditions and to seek their well being and if need be their reformation and to use whatever natural powers they posses to save their children from ruin. He adds – what a happy circumstance if a father happens to possess infinite power to do these things and to carry them out. Questioning Eternal Hell (Part 2)
Last week We began a series of reflections in which I invite us to question the notion of Eternal Hell. Most of the thoughts in these sermons are taken from a book by David Bentley Hart called “That All May Be Saved”. David Bentley Hart believes that traditional teachings on eternal hell undermine every other claim that Christians make about God, most especially the central idea that God is love. David Bentley Hart not only critiques the teaching on Eternal Hell from a Biblical Perspective, he also tackles it from the perspective or moral philosophy. One of the moral arguments against the doctrine of eternal hell is that these teachings are psychologically damaging. Illustrating this in a very vivid way, David Bentley Hart tells the story of his friends’ son who was only around seven or eight years old at the time. It was just a year before this that the young boy had been diagnosed as having Asperger’s syndrome. He was an extremely intelligent child, shy, gentle and quiet, although on occasion he could be emotionally volatile – as tends to be the case with many children classified as being “on the spectrum”. David Bentley Hart reminds us that such children, are often intensely sensitive to, and largely defenceless against extreme experiences: crowds, loud noises, overwhelming sensory stimulation of any kind, but also pronounced imaginative, emotional and moral dissonances. And so writes David Bentley Hart, it should have surprised no-one when he fell into a state of panic for three days, and then into an extended period of depression, after attending the families local Roman Catholic Parish Church when a visiting priest happened to mention the eternity of hell in a sermon. His reaction however did surprise his parents who realised that up until that point, the little boy had never really absorbed the traditional Christian teaching on eternal damnation. But now having heard it preached explicitly in a sermon, the little boy had fallen into a deep anguish and despair. David Bentley Hart writes that “All at once he found himself imprisoned in a universe of absolute horror, and nothing could calm him down down until his father finally succeeded in convincing him that the visiting priest had been repeating lies for the sole purpose of terrorising people into submission.” This helped the little boy regain his composure, but not his willingness to go back to church. If his parents even so much as suggested the possibility to him, he would slip away into a narrow space where they could not reach him. Soon they came to see the whole matter from his perspective. And as a result they made the conscious decision to not go back to church except on odd occasions as guests to a few weddings. And since that time, as a result of coming to understand their son’s reasons for not wanting to go back to church, they too have long since lost any interest in doing so either. It should go without saying that such a story could have taken place in any number of different Protestant Churches. The teaching on eternal hell is by no means unique to Catholicism. In fact there are quite a number of Protestant Churches who seem to specialise in the subject, and many other’s who subscribe to the doctrine, but, because of the horror of its teaching, actually very seldom speak of it. David Bentley Hart writes that to him at least it seems obvious that this story is more than sufficient evidence of the spiritual bankruptcy of the traditional concept of eternal hell. He suggests that another description for a “spectrum” child’s “exaggerated emotional sensitivity” might simply be “acute moral intelligence”. It is precisely because a child on the spectrum lack’s strong emotional protection and coping mechanisms that such children may be unable to sufficiently shield themselves from the true horror of traditional teachings on eternal hell. Such a child’s response should be like the warning of a canary in a coal-mine that traditional teachings on eternal hell are leading us into morally and psychologically dangerous territory. And so one of the moral arguments against the doctrine of eternal hell is the potential it carries with it for real psychological harm: Belief in eternal hell can instil fear, guilt, and anxiety in individuals instilling deep within them the sense that the universe is a profoundly unsafe place and that the very source of life is profoundly dangerous. This deeply indoctrinated fear may lead to psychological distress which can be detrimental to a persons mental well-being. While I believe that such an underlying psychological distress is in fact experienced by many Christians, if not for themselves then for their loved one’s, I can only talk with authority from my own experience. In my early 20s I found myself sliding into a deep depression when confronted with the injustices of the Apartheid system in South Africa and the recognition that my relatively privileged life as a white South African had been built on the unjust treatment of the majority of the South African population. Recognising the depth of my own complicity in that system, I was faced with a crisis of faith. And at the root of that crisis of faith was a deep fear that God would disown me for all eternity. I have experienced first hand, the crippling psychological damage that belief in eternal hell can bring with it. The fear of eternal hell can also have a serious impact on moral development: The concept of eternal hell may hinder moral development by fostering a fear-based compliance rather than genuine moral understanding and empathy. Morality motivated solely by fear of punishment may lack real depth and authenticity. There is an enormous difference between being motivated to behave morally out of fear and being motivated to act morally out of genuine love. Moral action motivated by fear leads to outward compliance but quite often with an accompanying inner resentment or rebellion that seeps out in other unhealthy ways. Moral action motivated by love carries with it none of these secondary dangers. Getting back to David Bentley Hart’s story of that little boy, he writes that for most of those who hold onto a doctrine of eternal punishment, there is an utter failure in imagination, a failure to consider the utter horror of what they supposedly believe. He says it is an utter failure to really consider what the word eternal actually means: an eternity of punishment. An eternity of suffering… never ending. Going on for infinity to infinity. What purpose could such an infinity of suffering ever serve anyone? Surely if God were God, then, a more compassionate option would be for God to simply snuff out the lives of the damned, as the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, rather than keep them suffering to infinity (although that options also raises moral and theological questions). If one really thinks about it, the idea of eternal punishment is an absolutely morally reprehensible idea that makes the horror’s of the holocaust seem like child’s play by comparison. (And in putting it like that I in no way wish to diminish the true horror of the holocaust.) Closely related to the psychologically damaging idea that eternal hell can have on people is the fact that the concept of eternal hell does not match up to even very basic concepts of proportional justice. One of the most prominent moral arguments against eternal hell is that it involves infinite punishment for finite actions committed during a finite lifetime. It is completely morally disproportionate that the consequences of a limited number of actions or beliefs in a finite life-time would result in eternal torment. Infinite punishment for finite crimes committed during a finite lifetime. It is an outrageously disproportionate sense of justice. The only conclusion that one can come to that the very concept is completely devoid of any sense of justice at all. And so David Bentley Hart writes that it takes an almost heroic suspension of moral intelligence to believe that a soul can earn for itself a penalty that is both eternal and just. It requires a total failure to think through what the word eternal actually means. How can a finite being committing a finite temporary sin justly earn an infinite eternal, unending torment forever and ever and ever and ever… without ever ending. He says it defies even the basics of moral thinking of people who don’t even have a particularly advanced conscience. In Exodus 21 we read of how an ancient and a pretty violent Hebrew people were wrestling with questions of proportional justice towards even their enemies. It is a chapter that contains those well known words: An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth, which implies that if someone took your eye out, it would be completely disproportionate to kill the person and their family in response. Rather it should be proportionate – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If such an ancient and barbaric people, inspired by God’s Spirit, can believe in proportional justice, why should we expect less of God. I’d like to end again with a few passages of Scripture that will keep us thinking and that may help to pose some kind of biblical counter-point to what has just been shared: Psalm 30:5 For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favour lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning. Matthew 18:14 So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. 1 Timothy 4:10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe. (That is a very interesting verse. The original Greek doesn’t say, ‘only those who believe’, but ‘especially those who believe’. It suggests that faith and trust in God’s saving purposes is helpful and beneficial, but not essential to God’s saving love. ) John 12:32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. How would it change our thinking and our being in the world if we came to believe that God’s saving purposes embraced all people, even the very worst of humanity and in the end no-one would be left out? Next week we will continue this exploration as we question the inherited doctrine of eternal hell or eternal lost-ness. An Audio Recording of the Full Service... Questioning Eternal Hell - (Part 1) - That All May Be Saved.
I have recently been reading a book entitled: That All May Be Saved, Heaven, Hell and Universal Salvation. It is written by one of the USA’s leading theologians, David Bentley Hart who grew up as an Anglican in the Episcopal Church in America. As an adult he became a member of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. It is a book that suggests that at some point Christianity went astray when it began to preach and teach the concept of eternal hell and eternal damnation and in doing so created a depiction of God that was distorted and not in keeping with the teaching of Jesus and the New Testament as a whole. These misconceptions which he believes are rooted in a mistranslation of and incorrect reading of Scripture include Roman Catholics and Protestants as well as many in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. And so in the book, David Bentley Hart makes a number of arguments against the idea of Eternal Hell and Eternal Perdition which he believes undermines every other claim that Christians make about God, most especially the central claim that God is love. David Bentley Hart shares his journey and recounts a story from early Christianity. As a teenager within the Anglican tradition, he encountered the tale of Abba Macarius, a revered hermit known for his life of prayer in the desert. One day, while walking alone in the wilderness, Macarius stumbled upon a human skull. To his amazement, the skull began to speak when he moved it with his staff. The skull identified itself as a pagan high priest who once served the people of the area. It acknowledged Macarius as a holy figure whose prayers could alleviate the suffering of the damned. Upon hearing this, Macarius inquired about the suffering experienced by the damned. The skull described how they endured being engulfed in flames, packed tightly together day and night, suspended over a fiery abyss that stretched infinitely below them. Additionally, they were unable to make eye contact with one another, condemned to gaze at each other's backs for eternity. Despite their plight, the skull noted that whenever Macarius prayed for them, they briefly glimpsed each other's faces, bringing them immense gratitude as it provided a fleeting relief from their ceaseless torment. Upon hearing this, Macarius was overcome with sorrow and proclaimed that it would have been better if the unfortunate priest had never existed. He then inquired whether there were others in hell enduring even worse torments. The skull affirmed this, explaining that the suffering endured by him and his fellow pagans was relatively mild because they had never known the true God and thus never had the opportunity to choose to serve Him. The skull described the incomprehensibly more terrible punishments faced by those who had rejected God despite knowing Him. With a sense of dread, Macarius buried the skull and hurried on his way. David Bentley Hart, first read this story when he was just 14 years old. And, Interestingly, by coincidence, he heard the story again that same week in the sermon when he went to church that Sunday. He said the priest spoke with wonder and awe at how beautiful this story was in portraying the mercy and compassion of Abba Macarius extended even to the souls of the damned and how his prayers could bring momentary relief to their sufferings. But for David Bentley Hart what really stood out for him was that the mercy and compassion expressed by Macarius’s was far greater than that of God in the story, for the story implied that it was in fact God who had created hell as such a vicious and vindictive form of torture for the apparent sin of not knowing God. And this it seemed to him to be completely unjust and cruel. As a teenager, he reasoned that if God knows everything and knew beforehand that the high priest would suffer forever, then creating him was surely and act of limitless cruelty on the part of God. As a result of his distaste for Christian teachings on eternal hell, David Bentley Hart says that in his teenage years he began distance himself from Christianity… But quite early into his adult years, David Bentley Hart came to see that there were better Christian answers to these questions. He soon came to see that in the first 300-400 years of the existence of the church, the majority of Christians of that period did not believe in the concept of eternal hell, damnation and perdition (meaning utter destruction). The majority of Christians in these centuries believed in what is generally called universal salvation, that God’s saving purposes were universal, and all embracing, excluding none. This was the belief that Divine love is limitless and ultimately inescapable and that in God’s great compassion expressed in Christ, God would save all people from whatever the hellish sufferings they had created for themselves and that therefore, eventually, God would bring all of His lost children home, no matter how far they had strayed. And so these early Christians believed in Love’s final victory over sin and death and hell and that everyone without exception would be saved. And they held these convictions on the basis of verses of scripture like the following: 1 Corinthians 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. (There are no exceptions there, not ‘some will be made alive’, but ‘all will be made alive’). Over the next few weeks over this season of Lent, I hope to explore the arguments of David Bentley Hart further as we are invited to wrestle for ourselves whether the dominant inherited Christian framework, with it’s emphasis on Eternal Hell or Eternal Lost-ness accurately portrays the teaching and message of the New Testament, and whether the doctrine of Eternal Hell can stand up to a moral critique. Traditionally, possibly going back to as early as the 1700’s, but certainly back to the early 1800’s, many Non-Subscribing Presbyterians across Ireland had come to reject the idea of eternal hell based on their own sensitivity to the spirit of Christ’s teachings, and in their analysis of Scripture. Thus, these perspectives are not new to the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian tradition. I am simply re-stating a long standing position of many in this denomination. I end this reflection by reading a selection of verses from Luke’s Gospel, and in doing so I invite you to listen out for the word ‘all’ and it’s equivalents. Teachings on eternal hell suggest that not all will be saved. But these verses suggest the contrary - Luke 2:10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Luke 3:5-6 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Luke 16:16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. Luke 19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. An Audio Recording of the Full Service Step 12
We have come to the end of our journey exploring the 12 Steps as today we reflect on the final Step. Hopefully this has been a really helpful journey exploring a program that you may have heard about, but never really knew what it was about. The original 12 Step Program was written for Recovering Alcoholics, but over the decades, it usefulness in bringing change in people’s lives has been shown to be valuable in all sorts of other spheres. Today there are 12 step programs for people who experience drug addiction (Narcotics Anonymous), for those who struggle with cluttering and hoarding - (Clutterers Anonymous), for those who repeatedly get themselves into debt - (Debtors Anonymous), for those who struggle with finding themselves repeatedly in dysfunctional in relationships – (Co-dependents anonymous). For those who struggle with food, (Over-eaters Anonymous and Food-Addicts Anonymous) and also a 12 Step program for those who over-work - (Workaholics Anonymous). What really strikes one is how rigorous the 12 Step program is. One has to hold in high admiration anyone who has embarked on this program and those who have been able to see it through to the end. It is a program that takes an enormous amount of courage. If you know someone who has been through the 12 step program, hopefully you have a new appreciation and admiration for the rigorous journey that they have been through. Perhaps what has been missing is the recognition that the 12 Steps are best not done simply privately as individuals. It was designed to be done with the support of a mentor and also the support of a group. It is therefore not a self-help program. It is built on the premise that journey towards wholeness and recovery in all spheres of life is best done with the help of others… and with the help of God or some conception of a Higher Power. And so we come to Step 12 “Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practise these principles in all our affairs” What does it mean to have a spiritual awakening? It sounds awfully religious says Trevor. One gets the sense of an other-worldly vision, of strange lights and ethereal music. But Trevor says a spiritual awakening can be defined quite simply – It is about coming alive in some area of our life where previously there was a deadness. And the shape of this can be different for different people depending on the nature of their own circumstances. - For some it may be about coming to a deeper acceptance and humble awareness of who we really are with all of our gifts as well as our weaknesses. -For some it might be the joy of experiencing more positive emotions. -Or the discovery of a new found freedom in our capacity for choice, no longer feeling like hopeless victims trapped in our past mistakes, but joy of discovering the ability to move forward towards a more positive future. -Or the experience of new life in our relationships and a new found ability to relate to people more openly and freely. -Or simply a new found ability to appreciate the gift of life – As Trevor writes... to appreciate the sound of the wind in the trees, to smell the scent of a beautiful flower, to enjoy the taste of a good meal, to delight in the playfulness of a puppy. Our senses are alive and awake again because we have begun to see through the fog of negativity, guilt and shame that we may have lived with for so long. -For some perhaps a deeper sense of Divine Love, that Life is good and that each of us is deeply loved by something much greater than ourselves. Trevor asks: Can you identify with any of these? If you can, then you have had a spiritual awakening. And so what the 12 Step Program suggests is that a spiritual awakening is not just about some kind of supernatural experience (although for some it might include that), but is rooted in the ordinary reality of ordinary life and relationships. The second half of Step 12 is about sharing the positivity of what has been experienced with others: Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others… I find it interesting that this encouragement to carry this message to others only comes at the very end of a rigorous and testing process. It is one of the last parts of the 12 Step program not one of the first for good reason, because by the 12th step, all participants would have come to a far humbler and more mature view of themselves, with a far greater awareness of our common human frailties. And so with this in mind, some of the best advice I have heard about sharing any religious or spiritual message with others still comes from St Francis Assisi who is reported to have said: “Preach the Good News to all creatures – and if necessary use words” This is echoed by Richard Templar in his book the Rules of Life. Rule 1 of his Rules for life is “Keep it under your hat”. In introducing his rules for life he writes: You are about to discover ways to become positive, happier, more successful in everything you do. So there’s no need to say anything to anybody about it. Keep quiet. No-one likes a smart arse. First Rule: Keep it under your hat. There may well be times when you want to talk to other people about what you’re doing because, quite naturally you want to share it with somebody. Let them find out for themselves…. He says… if you tell them, they will shy away. And quite rightly so – we all hate being preached at. He says its a bit like when you give up smoking and suddenly find this new healthier way of living and you simply have to convert all your old smoking friends. Trouble is, they aren’t ready to quit yet. So the first rule says Richard Templar is quite simply, don’t preach, propagate, try to convert, shout from the roof-tops or even mention this. Richard Templar suggests that no-one really wants to know, so keep quiet. Perhaps Richard Templar’s approach is quite radical… but it should make all of us a little more cautious in trying to convert anyone too quickly. Let them first see something different within us and perhaps when they begin to ask why maybe that is the time to speak. Which is really what St Francis is saying when he said: Preach the Good News at all times, and only when necessary use words. Finally, just in case we think Step 12 is the end of the program, it reminds us to continue practising everything we have learned. “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” The last phrase of the 12 steps: keep practising these principles in all your affairs. In closing, Trevor Hudson writes: The Twelve Step Program contains wise principles that show us how to live well. If we put them into practice in all our affairs, we will experience tremendous benefits and blessings. We will experience a growing sense of sanity and serenity… We will begin to have small victories over those weaknesses that were once sabotaging our lives and relationships. We will move beyond being superficial in our relationships with others and with God. In the words of the last line of one of the short stories in the Big Book of AA: At last we will be at peace with ourselves. And with others. And with God. Amen. |
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