www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Hell is un-Biblical

I am of the opinion that the early Christians invented the idea of hell as a place of eternal punishment, and that this concept was foreign to Jesus and his fellow Jews of the Biblical era. Leading Jewish scholars such as Rabbi Stuart Federow, state that "the the idea of a God who eternally condemns in the next life, for the sins one commits in this life, which is the true definition of Hell, is unJewish, unBiblical, but
very pagan. While Judaism always believed in an afterlife, and in a punishment in the next life for the sins committed in this life, that
punishment was never eternal, and therefore Judaism, by definition, never
believed in any Hell."

Wow! What a hot topic!

Granted, Dante's _Inferno_ came later but I wouldn't say that the concept of eternal punishment after death was foreign to the Jews of Christ's time or to the Lord himself.

Jesus gave the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Yes, it's a parable but all parables are based on realities. If eternal punishment after death was such a foreign concept to the Jews of that era then why the imagery in that parable? Why did Jesus speak of the goats going into eternal punishment in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats? Why did Jesus speak of punishment after death as "there is where the weeping and gnashing of teeth will be"? That implies a continuing sadness.

David Ignatius DTBrown@aol.com

How about Mark 9? "And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: 44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." It seems that Jesus believed in Hell, so it wasn't something the Church made up after His time, unless you take the stance that the Church modified the Bible to suit their needs. Is that what you're saying?

Maybe I am...I wonder how Jesus, a practising Jew would have come up with these ideas? Could they have been added later? Could we be interpreting them wrongly. Its my view that a loving God would never allow such a thing as eternal punishment...I guess that I not a traditional Christian, but so be it. By-the-way, this was one of the views of the Congregationalist Church (The church of the Philgrims)...a concept of universal salvation.

Dear Reader Andy,

Well, because in addition to being a practising Jew, He is also God and Omnisciencent.

Jesus would have full knowledge of all things, including the existance of Hell.

Yours in Christ,

Brendan

As people of God and members of His Church we look at any issue through the eyes of Holy Tradition, the early Church Fathers. Outside of this it becomes secular speculation.

Gideon

Dear Andy,

Here's another take on hell that I heard in a class and have liked ever since.

Hell is a manifestation of the love and mercy of God.

According to the Presbyterian minister who taught the class in question, there is something (in philosophy, probably, or maybe theology), that says that existence is always better than non-existence. And we exist because God always "remembers" us. Because of our sins, God is within His rights to wipe us out of existence, but instead, we go to hell...he keeps us in memory, always "remembering" us, even if, because of our choice, we have chosen separation from Him. We cannot understand this, because we cannot fathom non-existence, and would think that it is better to die than to suffer, but death and non-existence are two different things, and it is better to suffer eternally but exist than to not exist entirely.

I didn't understand it too well at first, so I had to think about it, but when I understood it, it made sense. I don't know if it jives with Catholic/Orthodox theology, but I've always liked it.

Dear Mor,

This is the frame-work which I was told the prayer for "Memory eternal" at Byzantine funerals, memorial services, etc., comes in. Of course that is what the priest says but people don't seem to hear and understand it. We ask God to remember the departed forever.

Tony

On the subject of a just and merciful God and the idea of hell....

I found this essay by an Orthodox writer quite fascinating. I hesitate to post the link because it assumes there is only one Catholic view and presents it as negatively as it can. I believe the essential idea of this lecture can be a valid Catholic view. (In fact, if one reads the CCC on hell it avoids the "juridical" concept that this article claims is the Catholic view.) Ignoring this weakness in the presentation--focus on the positive presentation in it.

http://www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm

David Ignatius DTBrown@aol.com

Dear Andy,

Hell may be unmetaphysical, unnew age, unmodernist, but unBiblical?? No way my cyber friend.

Paul

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Dear CopticOrthodox,

Thanks for placing a Coptic icon on the forum.

Paul

Dear friends,

I have been mulling over this topic which is a very difficult one. I am reminded of the Russian cosmonauts who, upon entering space remarked that they saw neither God nor heaven.

Classic Christian belief has held that "heaven" and "hell" are not so much places as "states of being". If heaven is the presence of God, then hell will entail His absence. Sacred Scripture tells us that hell was never meant for human beings but was designated the abode of those angelic beings who rebelled against God. Likewise, those human persons who choose not to live in God's eternal presence would find his light and love (which are described as holy and consuming) unbearable eternally.

I have been meditating upon the high priestly prayer of our Lord in John Chapter 17. Parts of that prayer state "this is enternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ ... I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours ... they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world."

Of course, this is not some Calvinist predestination. God has known His own from all eternity. And the "world" is not the physical cosmos, always beloved of God. So it seems that there will be those who choose to "belong to the world", that system that rejects the mercy and salvation offered by God, who will ultimately reject life in eternity with Him.

May our Lenten journey keep us close to our Lord, always relying upon His grace and love for us.

Khrystyna

Dear Andy,

The devil you say!

But our faith is based on the united witness of Scripture, Tradition, the Canons and the Dogmatic pronouncements etc.

Are you saying, "to hell with it all?"

Alex

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I wouldn�t go so far as to say that the early Church �invented� Hell � the idea that there is such a thing/place is certainly scriptural � but I must admit to having a great deal of sympathy for those who question whether it is eternal. Which is to say, I am at least agnostic about the idea of apokatastasis, the restitution of all things/universalism. It is something I think we should all be agnostic about.

Gideon said: �As people of God and members of His Church we look at any issue through the eyes of Holy Tradition, the early Church Fathers. Outside of this it becomes secular speculation.� I will therefore try to keep my comments within these parameters.

Was apokatastasis actually condemned as a heresy by the Church? The scholarship has shown, I believe, that the doctrine was not actually condemned by the 2nd Council at Constantinople (5th Oecumenical, 533) but at a "home synod" under the Patriarch Mennas and at the behest of the Emperor Justinian in 541. As one historian has written, �even this �home synod,� though under court influence it condemned some of Origen's views, would not consent to condemn the
doctrine of Restitution, in spite of the Emperor's express requirement that this doctrine should be anathematized.�

Is the eternity of Hell mentioned in the Nicene Creed? No. �We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.�

I agree that there are significant scriptural obstacles to apokatastasis. See, e.g., Matthew 7:13�14, 21�23; 8:12�13; 13:41�42; 22:13�14, 49�50; 25:31�46; Mark 9; and Luke 13:23�28, in which passages Jesus says that few will be saved, describes the punishment of the reprobate, and portrays Himself as personally rejecting them. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is particularly difficult to square with the universal restitution of all things.

Are there not other passages, however, that speak directly to the possibility of universal restoration and reconciliation � e.g., 1 Cor. 15.21-28: � For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam ALL die, so also in Christ shall ALL... When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one.� Eph. 1.10, 23: �...as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth...� and �the fulness of him who fills all in all.� The Johanine affirmation that "God is love" (1 Jn. 4.8) also seems to support the idea of apokatastasis.

Likewise, the Fathers seem to at least be agnostic about the issue. Thus Clement of Alexandria: �So I think it is demonstrated that the God being good, and the Lord powerful, they save with a righteousness and equality which extend to all that turn to Him, whether here or elsewhere. For it is not here alone that the active power of God is beforehand, but it is everywhere and is always at work... What then? Did not the same dispensation obtain in Hades, so that even there, all the souls, on hearing the proclamation, might either exhibit repentance, or confess that their punishment was just, because they believed not?� (Stromata, VI.6)

Origen: �The last enemy, moreover, who is called death, is said on this account to be destroyed, that there may not be anything left of a mournful kind when death does not exist, nor anything that is adverse when there is no enemy. The destruction of the last enemy, indeed, is to be understood, not as if its substance, which was formed by God, is to perish, but because its mind and hostile will, which came not from God, but from itself, are to be destroyed. Its destruction, therefore, will not be its non-existence, but its ceasing to be an enemy, and (to be) death. For nothing is impossible to the Omnipotent, nor is anything incapable of restoration to its Creator: for He made all things that they might exist, and those things which were made for existence cannot cease to be� (Peri Archon III.6.5)

Nyssa: �But He that becomes �all� things will be �in all� things too; and herein it appears to me that Scripture teaches the complete annihilation of evil. If, that is, God will be �in all� existing things, evil; plainly, will not then be amongst them; for if any one was to assume that it did exist then, how will the belief that God will be �in all� be kept intact? The excepting of that one thing, evil, mars the comprehensiveness of the term �all.� But He that will be "in all" will never be in that which does not exist.� (On the Soul and the Resurrection)

The idea of universal restoration is also implied by Didymus the Blind, Nazianzen, and Chrysostom.

As I wrote in an earlier post, it seems to me that universal restoration � more as a hope than a dogma, but at least as a theologoumenon � is fully consistent with Orthodoxy and its educative rather than punitive understanding of Divine Justice.

In Christ,
Theophilos