Christian Justifications For Hell Make Absolutely No Sense
But I don't blame them - it's really hard to defend the most evil thing imaginable.
A few nights ago, I was scrolling Twitter when a neat little video came across my screen. It was a short AI-generated clip of what Hell was supposedly like - personally, I thought it was cool in a horror movie sort of way, especially since the AI jankiness added a whole new layer of sinister unreality. But it also got me thinking about the concept of Hell and eternal conscious torment in the first place, so I dashed off a little tweet about how hideous the whole doctrine was and how absurd Christians sound when they try to defend it. I honestly didn’t think it would be that controversial in my little corner of the internet, so I just hit send and went to bed.
Boy was I wrong! Apparently, it’s still very controversial to say a perfect being wouldn’t torture billions of people forever with no hope of redemption, because I woke up to literally hundreds of responses from Christians attempting to explain where I went wrong in my reasoning. I tried responding to a few, but the conversations usually went nowhere, and soon replies were piling up faster than I could possibly engage with them. So instead, I decided I’d take a break from my series on jhana meditation and just write a little blog post on the most common arguments in defense of eternal conscious torment - ECT from here on out - and why they utterly fail.
1: The Bible doesn’t even teach that Hell exists - the Catholic Church just invented it to keep people in line!
By far the most common response I received was just a flat denial that Hell exists at all, or that the Bible even teaches it. Ironically, this view was expressed by equal numbers of Christians and atheists, with the Christians mostly arguing it was a doctrinal distortion to be blamed on whatever denomination they didn’t happen to be a member of and the atheists overwhelmingly blaming Catholicism and Dante’s Inferno. Either way, they’re obviously right to point out that cultural depictions of Hell throughout history play a big role in how we conceive of it today. But the idea that Hell itself is somehow absent from the Bible, or that the cultural depictions we see come out of nowhere, is absurd!
The Bible has a huge number of passages that directly address the fate of unbelievers after death and/or judgment. In fact, as a youth pastor once helpfully informed me, Jesus himself actually spends more time talking about Hell than he does about Heaven! I’m not sure what he thought I was going to take from that little factoid, but regardless: The Gospels, the epistles, and Revelation are all very clear that Hell exists as a miserable place of intense agony (Matthew 13:49–50, Luke 16:19-31) where soul and body are destroyed (Matthew 10:28) and at least Satan and his demons are eternally tormented (Revelation 20:10) in a burning sulfurous pit (Revelation 19:20, Revelation 21:8) that cannot be escaped (2 Thessalonians 1:9–10). Are there verses about little red guys with pitchforks and all sorts of intricate machines doling out goofy ironic punishments? Of course not. But even someone who did hold that Saturday morning cartoon view of Hell would be much, much closer to the Biblical picture than those who talk about postmortem judgment in entirely existential terms or even deny its existence entirely.
Now, there are admittedly complexities here - which word you use to translate gehenna, how you interpret the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, what distinction you make between Hades and the Lake of Fire, all that - and it’s not impossible to construct an interpretive framework that just so happens to avoid ECT. There are definitely annihilationists like Edward Fudge and Chris Date, or biblical universalists like David Bentley Hart and Stan Patton, who I respect (even if I think they’re a little… optimistic). But the vast majority of those who argue that “the Bible doesn’t teach Hell” aren’t making their argument from a position of scholarly commitment to the true meaning of the text; they just recognize the traditional conception of Hell is totally indefensible and absolutely radioactive when it comes to winning converts in a secular age. And while I totally understand why someone would want to avoid endorsing such a hideous position, intellectual honesty requires admitting what the texts clearly say.
2: God doesn’t send anyone to Hell - everyone who ends up there made a choice to reject God!
Coming in second behind the Hell denialists were the Hell revisionists. On this view, God doesn’t really “send” people to Hell, so much as he lets them go there if they really want to; some respondents seemed to think sinners could actually leave Hell if they got tired of the whole “endless excruciating fiery torture” thing at any point, while others insisted that the choice you made on earth really locks you in for eternity. But either way, God isn’t at fault - he’s just respecting your free choice to reject him and letting you deal with the consequences.
I’m going to spend a little more time on this one because, to be honest, it enrages me.
Here’s the first reason it enrages me: It’s obviously not true! Nowhere in the Bible do any authors even hint at the idea that Hell is “locked from the inside,” as C. S. Lewis once said. It’s just not there. The author of Revelation says the wicked are thrown into the lake of fire. Paul says those who reject Christianity are shut out from God’s presence. Jesus says the people he casts out will be weeping and agonizing. I’m begging you guys to just read the text. Here’s the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, for example - does this really strike you as the story of someone who could leave at any time?
There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’
But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house— for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’
But here’s the second reason this argument enrages me: Even if it were true that every resident of Hell was there by their own volition, it would still be insanely immoral to let them make that choice. This would be immediately, embarrassingly obvious in any other situation - if someone’s child was about to drink bleach, or leap off a tall building, or set themselves on fire, an observing parent who refused to intervene would be a moral monster! But drinking bleach, leaping off tall buildings, and self-mutilating are all infinitely less bad than eternity in Hell, so God’s decision to tolerate a sinner’s rebellion in the name of “respecting free will” is even more bizarre. I really don’t see a way around this point; the axiological calculus needed to make unrestrained human freedom more important than avoiding infinite suffering is just totally incompatible with all sorts of basic moral judgments we make in our daily lives.
Moreover, while overriding free will would be more than justified to avoid the worst possible outcome imaginable, God shouldn’t even need to do that! He should be able to instantly demonstrate his goodness to any rational creature with zero effort! I mean, come on - he’s an infinitely powerful being of pure love and perfection, and you’re telling me he will utterly fail to convince billions of people to choose eternal joy over endless misery? We’re talking about the easiest decision you could possibly make, infinitely easier than the choice between a five-course meal and a pile of broken glass mixed with dog shit. And I’m supposed to believe the greatest intellect in the universe can’t figure out a way to sell it? It’s just absurd, and legitimately offensive; the entire excuse only works if you assume atheists (and all non-Christians) are absolutely antirational, such that they not only desire to make the worst possible choice but are capable of resisting the greatest possible intellect’s attempts to convince them otherwise.
But hey, maybe I’m missing something and atheists like me really are gripped by a completely impenetrable psychological dysfunction that follows us into Hell and makes any course correction fundamentally impossible. Fair enough, I guess, but then it’s unclear why we would even be morally responsible in the first place - we’re infinitely more insane than the most hopeless psych patient, after all. More importantly, there’s an extremely obvious solution here: God could simply correct our psychological processes, at which point we would immediately come to understand his goodness and reject the torments of Hell. How could this be impermissible? If you knew someone in your own life who was an unrepentant psychopath, and you knew there was a pill you could slip them that would morally transform them such that they themselves would be unimaginably grateful for your intervention, what justification could you possibly have to not only let them continue in their psychopathy, but actively punish them for it? It just boggles the mind how hideous that would be. But if you believe in ECT, that’s the God you worship!
3: Hell is needed for justice - otherwise, truly evil people would never experience the consequences they deserve!
Apart from the Hell denialists and the Hell defenders, there was a third group of people who seemed to be legitimately pro-Hell - like, they really got behind it. It was difficult to tell how many of these people were defending an explicitly Christian conception of Hell, and how many were just talking about their general folk beliefs around the afterlife, but either way they seemed very convinced that some people should be tortured forever and that it would be actively bad for God to avoid that. Plenty of people brought up famous dictators like Hitler, or serial killers like Ted Bundy, as good examples of truly evil human beings who would be let off too easy without a solid dose of ECT.
The most obvious response here is that most people who the Bible condemns to Hell are not even remotely like Hitler or Ted Bundy; they’re just normal people like you or me who happen to not believe that an apocalyptic Jewish preacher who lived in Palestine 2,000 years ago was actually the son of God. Of course, they’ve definitely done some bad things in their lives, like we all have. But it is morally insane to believe the sins of the median sinner warrant endless torment of the worst possible kind. Go look at some morally unremarkable person in your life right now - a coworker maybe, or someone in your extended family - and ask yourself if you think they deserve one week of brutal, unrelenting torture for all the ethical failings that have accumulated over their life. I am 100% sure you don’t. But that punishment, which you rightfully consider repugnant, is infinitely less bad than an eternity in Hell. This is why belief in ECT is not only jaw-droppingly nihilistic and cruel; it’s also totally disfiguring to any practical sense of justice in the here-and-now.
But even if Hell were reserved only for people like Hitler or Ted Bundy, it still makes no sense for God to punish them eternally. And this isn’t just because their sins, no matter how immense, were ultimately finite (although that’s true). It’s also because God has the means to morally perfect and restore both them and their victims, which makes punishment of any kind pointless. In this imperfect world, we resort to punishment in situations where restitution or rehabilitation are impossible. But with God, all things are possible! With a snap of his fingers, he could give infinite joy, peace, and freedom to every person who was ever harmed as a result of Hitler’s barbarism, such that they would welcome him with open arms in Heaven - such that they would be the first to abhor his torment! Are we really supposed to believe that it would be better to entrench their killer in his moral depravity and just torture him forever instead while the victims watch from above (or, in this case, burn alongside him)? I can’t imagine a more dismal and nihilistic worldview.
Normally, I try to strike an irenic tone on this blog when dealing with Christianity. I don’t want to come across as the stereotypical Angry Atheist, barreling into a subject I don’t understand and calling everyone who disagrees with me a moron. But on this one particular topic… I just can’t pretend that I don’t find it repulsive. The idea that all creation rests on the whims of a being who has decreed for countless human beings to suffer in utter terror and unimaginable pain for endless millions of millions of years is just so fundamentally evil to me that I really struggle to understand how anyone accepts it. There could not possibly be a worse belief! If you are a Christian, you should adopt a view that doesn’t require you accept this; if you think the doctrine is essential, then you should stop being a Christian. But no one should ever be expected to show respect or care for a worldview that promises infinite suffering across all time and dares to claim that it constitutes perfection. Sometimes I’m glad no God exists; if he did, I’m sure it would break his heart to know that this is how so many people see him.
I think universalism is the most biblically defensible view by far.
Another trouble with the, "You send yourself to Hell and God is just allowing you to make your free decision," view is that God doesn't allow you to make the free decision to leave Hell. Supposedly, once you're there, it's impossible to escape for all of eternity. But if God is just allowing you to choose Hell out of your own free will, surely he would allow you to leave as well.
There are two common ways that people respond to this. One is the, "Hell is locked from the inside," defense. You *could* leave Hell any time you wanted to, but everyone in Hell just chooses not to. But it's very hard to see how this could be the case given Christianity's other commitments. According to Christianity (or at least, according to the versions of Christianity that use the free will argument to justify Hell), anyone can repent at any time, at least during life. Even Hitler could have gone to Heaven if he had repented before dying. But if this is the case, people should be able to repent in Hell as well. It can't be that everyone who's gone to Hell is just so corrupt that there's no chance they'll ever choose to change, since Christianity holds that no one is that corrupt, not even the worst people on Earth. And most of the people in Hell are much less corrupt than Hitler! It simply doesn't make sense to say that there's always a chance for someone to change before they're dead, but after they're dead, it's absolutely set in stone that they'll stay the same way forever: What changed about them when they died? Did they lose their free will after dying? If they did, then using the importance of free will to defend Hell makes no sense.
The other problem about this view is that it implies that Hell must not actually be that bad. Hell is so nice, in fact, that every single person who goes there chooses to stay there for eternity. Now, some Christians who hold a revisionary view of Hell might see this as a good thing - it makes the doctrine more defensible. And that's true: If Hell is simply a less good place than Heaven, or a place where people who are somehow not able to enjoy the fruits of Heaven can live out their best (after)lives regardless, then its existence becomes a lot more defensible. But this is meant to be a defense of the ECT view, and on that view, it's by definition impossible for anyone to enjoy their time in Hell. It's literally the worst experience possible, such that no one could possibly want to be there.
The second defense is that Hell is outside of time, so it's not that people choose at the moment they die to go there and then are stuck there forever - rather, they are there timelessly, so there's never a time when they could choose to reverse that choice. But this view also seems to require some revisions of standard Christian doctrines. After all, it implies that Hell is not really ECT, but timeless conscious torment, and it would presumably imply the same thing about heaven - it's not eternal life, but timeless life. But Christianity is entirely built on the promise of eternal life! Now, maybe this was just a metaphor - when we talk about eternal life, we really just mean that it doesn't end because it's outside of time altogether, not that it doesn't end because it lasts infinitely long. But this either doesn't work, or doesn't save the free will defense of Hell from this counterargument.
To see why it doesn't work, consider what it is that makes the idea of Heaven so appealing. Part of it is the fact that you will get to experience joy forever. But in timeless heaven, you won't experience joy for an infinitely long time - in fact, you won't experience it for any time at all. What's so great about "eternal bliss" that doesn't even last a single Planck time?
The second part is that neither you, nor the people you love, are ever really gone. No one has to face oblivion because you'll never die in heaven - there's always just more of the future for you. But not so in a timeless Heaven! There is no *after*-life, just this one timeless "moment" (even calling it a moment is too much because that would give you a single instant in time) where you still exist. But that's it. No matter how you slice it, either death or one timeless point after death is when your consciousness will cease to exist: Depending on how your psychological states across time and non-time are linked, either death is really the end in exactly the same way naturalists think it is - the "lights go out" and you never have any experiences or sensations ever again - or your subjective experience of time ends with that timeless bit - basically, it feels to you like the timeless bit happens "after" the part that's in time, just as a time traveler could experience the year 1924 "after" he experienced 2024. But even in that latter possibility, your timeline still ends with the timeless "moment". You've just moved oblivion back by one infinitesimal point.
The third thing that make Heaven appealing is the idea that you'll get to see your dead loved ones again. And I guess this could technically be sort of true in a timeless Heaven. But you'd only see them for an interval of zero time. In other words, you wouldn't actually have time to do anything meaningful with them. You couldn't even tell them how much you missed them or what happened after they died. And after that, nothing. You get the change to see your loved ones one more time, but that's it, and you can't even do anything with it. You would need at least some non-zero interval if time to make this promise meaningful.
The same is true about the promise of uniting with God. Sure, it sounds pretty nice, but who really cares if it's just for a single non-instant, shorter (infinitely shorter, in fact) than the time it takes to blink an eye? Some would say that even that would be pretty significant - the experience of being united with God is so profound that just one instant of it would change my life. Except... there's no life left to change! I'm already dead, and aside from this one instant, there's nothing at all left for me.
Now, there is a workaround to all of these challenges. One could hold that, while Heaven is timeless, it's still infinite in some meaningful sense that makes it as if you had an infinite amount of time to experience joy, avoid oblivion, see your loved ones again, and unite with God. Perhaps it lacks literal physical time, but has some other aspect that's similar enough to be metaphorically treated as time, and that we can experience in a similar way. Perhaps it contains infinitely many conscious experiences that are linked in such a way that we feel a subjective time just like we do in the physical realm. This solves all the problems with a timeless Heaven above and makes the promise of eternal life seem meaningful again. It's no longer an empty promise but at worst a useful metaphor for what really happens. But this also destroys the defense that Hell is outside of time. We're now right back where we started: It may not have physical time, but it contains some aspect that's metaphorically enough like time to allow us to experience eternal bliss, do meaningful things with our loved ones and God, and never have an "end" to our experience. But if this is so, people in Hell will not have an "end" to their experiences or their ability to make choices after they choose Hell. There will always be metaphorical time left for them to change their mind, and always infinitely many metaphorical future hellish experiences that they can avoid by doing so.