Category Archives: Hell

Is hell self-chosen?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

I must admit that for quite a long while I have been sympathetic to the view that hell is self-chosen.  That is, rather than being sent there by God, people make their own choice, and live (or, rather, exist) with the consequences.

Perhaps the most celebrated exponent of this view is C.S. Lewis, who wrote:

‘[a] man can’t be taken to hell or sent to hell: you can only get there on your own steam’; ‘the doors of hell are locked from the inside’; ‘[t]here are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.”‘

…

Judgment according to works

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Recent re-thinking about the doctrine of justification throws up a related question about the final judgment:-

Are we warranted to say that we are justified by faith, but are judged by works?  The very idea seems to undermine the grace of God and to take away with one hand what has so freely been given with the other.

N.T. Wright on ‘Justification by Works’

‘Here [in Rom 2:1-16] is the first statement about justification in Romans, and lo and behold it affirms justification according to works!

…

The case for conditional immortality

Walking With Giants Posted on by

A number of evangelical scholars, including John Stott, Phillip Edgecumbe Hughes, and Stephen Travis, have favoured a doctrine of ‘conditional immortality’ over that of ‘eternal punishment’.

According to Travis, the doctrine of eternal punishment depends on a belief in the immortaility of the soul, as well as the ‘apparently explicit’ teaching of texts such as Mt 25:34,41,46; Mk 9:42f; 2 Thess 1:9; and Rev 14:11; 19:3; 20:10.

The case for conditional immortality, on the other hand, can be summarised as follows:-

1. …

“Sinners in the hands of an angry God”

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In this famous sermon – a negative icon of everything that people perceive to be wrong with Puritan evangelism – Jonathan Edwards describes the state of his hearers who are outside of Christ:-

That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

…

Eternal torment

Walking With Giants Posted on by

This is a hard post to write.  If there is one aspect of revealed truth that both saints and sinners wish was not there, it would be the doctrine of the eternal punishment of the wicked.  Christians – including evangelical Christians – have become almost completely silent on this point, sometimes from misplaced humility (‘Who am I to speak of such things?’), sometimes from fear of what unbelievers will think (‘Non-Christians have a low enough opinion of Christianity, without alienating them even more with this talk of hell and judgment’), and sometimes from actual doubt as to whether Scripture does actually teach which it appears to teach.…

The ‘Evangelical Universalist’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

I’ve been listening to some episodes of the Unbelievable podcast from Premier Christian Radio.

I really like the show.  It’s all about getting a discussion going – often between a Christian and a non-Christian – on a particular aspect of belief.  The host, Justin Brierley, is a calm and even-handed moderator, and the guests usually behave themselves with courtesy and thoughtfulness.

I appreciated the discussion of ‘The Evangelical Universalist’ between Robin Parry and Laurence M. Blanchard. …