The After-Life: An Argument for Ignorance, Part VII

Last week I addressed one of the verses that the idea of eternal, conscious, punishment may come from. This week, I address the other two (or maybe three). One is Revelation 20, where John envisions a great and final judgment: “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life…And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was throw into the lake of fire” (vv. 12, 15).

The Evangelical Hell Doctrine (EHD), we may remember, says that those who do not believe in the Gospel will suffer eternal, conscious, torment, and apparently, this text is supposed to offer support. There are two important reasons that it does not. The first is that only a few verses later, John mentions which individuals are not in the book of life: “…the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable,…murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars…” (21:8). This list does not refer (at least exclusively) to those who have prayed the sinner’s prayer, as the EHD would have us expect (I have blogged about the relevance of character in another series, ‘A Theology of Love’). Thus, Revelations 20 and 21 cannot be used to support the EHD.

The second is that the result of being thrown in the lake of fire is frequently and simply referred to as “death” (v. 14). And since the text nowhere says or implies that those thrown in the lake of fire suffer eternal, conscious, torment, it would be quite a leap to believe that John meant to say that they experience eternal, conscious, torment, but just never got around to saying it. Such a detail is too important to leave out.

John actually does mention some who will experience eternal, conscious, torment, namely, the worshippers of the beast: “And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshippers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name” (14:11). There are three others mentioned in chapter 20: “the devil…was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (v. 10). Thus, John specifically mentions that the devil, the beast, the worshippers of the beast, and the false prophet will suffer eternal, conscious, torment. And so are we to believe that John forgot to mention that detail just 5 verses later when describing the fate of those not in the book of life?

I want to emphasize that there are several other passages (in addition to Rev. 20) that imply that those who are not reconciled to God die, or perish, or are destroyed, in contrast to being tormented. I will consider those passages next week.

The After-Life: An Argument for Ignorance, Part VI

In part III of this series, I pointed out that the Evangelical Hell Doctrine (EHD) does not actually come from any passage of Scripture. But let’s focus mainly on the origin of the idea of eternal, conscious, torment. It seems that it comes from two passages. The first is Luke 16: 19-31, where Jesus tells the parable of an unnamed rich man and Lazarus, an extremely poor man. As the passage goes, after they both die, Lazarus goes to heaven, and the rich man goes to Hades, where he is “in anguish in this flame” (v. 24). To be sure, this passage is haunting, but two observations will show that this passage does not support the EHD.

First, we need to ask why the rich man ended up in torment, while Lazarus ended up ‘in Abraham’s bosom.’ The passage does not say, but it is obvious that we are meant to reflect on the contrast between Lazarus’ poverty and the rich man’s lack of sympathy for him (vv. 19-22). Then in v. 25, Abraham says to the rich man “remember that you in your life received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.”

The passage ends by Abraham explaining that the rich man’s relatives may avoid the place of torment by listening to ‘Moses and the prophets’ and repenting. So what, exactly, do Moses and the prophets say that would cause someone to repent? Well certainly there is much in the Jewish scriptures about taking care of the poor, and since that is the relevant transgression here, it is possible to believe that this is the important thing that Moses and the prophets would have said. But while the passage never says explicitly, we can be sure that Abraham wasn’t referring to the Gospel, because Moses and the prophets don’t talk about that. That means that Luke 16 cannot be used to support the EHD.

Second, it is very difficult to believe that this passage is supposed to be taken literally, for in the passage, the rich man is in the fire, looks up, sees Abraham, and starts a dialogue with him. Furthermore, he asks that Abraham send Lazarus down to put his wet finger on this tongue – a request that seems reasonable to him. It is odd to believe that any after-life really works that way (on anybody’s theology), leading us to the more reasonable belief that this passage was simply meant as a vivid reminder of how much God cares about our attitude toward the poor.

The After-Life: An Argument for Ignorance, Part V

Last week, I argued that ignorance is actually often a good thing, because knowledge – when that knowledge is useless – can do nothing but make us arrogant. For my money, this makes sense of why the Evangelical Hell Doctrine (EHD) is not actually in the Bible even once. I sometimes have this same conversation with Creationists. They say that Gen 1 (or Gen 2) must be a science lesson, because if it wasn’t a science lesson, it must be a waste of time, and God wouldn’t include anything in the Bible that was a waste of time.

This reasoning is not very good, because the first three chapters of Genesis tell us many, many important things that help us live godly lives. So even if there is no science there (as I believe), it is still certainly valuable. It is useful practical information for us to know, for example, that we humans have a responsibility to care for the earth, or that not trusting God leads to pain, etc, etc. The point is, a deep knowledge of Genesis 1-3 helps us order our lives. But how exactly would it make a difference in your life if the universe is 6000 years old or if it is 13 billion? What does that change? What are you going to do differently if one is true and the other is false? And since it is useless practical information, we should not expect God to tell us how old the universe is. As I said last week, I believe that God puts us on a need-to-know plan, and there are many things we do not need to know.

But some argue that knowledge of the EHD is actually important, because without such knowledge, there would be no evangelism. That is, it is helpful to know that some people might experience eternal, conscience torment, because that motivates us to share the Gospel. Honestly, I feel sorry for people like that. It seems clear from nearly any passage of Scripture that God intends to improve our earthly lives. I am not saying that there are no plans for an eternal life, but it is not possible to believe that the goodness of this life is unimportant to God.

Thus, it would be incredible for someone to say something like, “Well, I’m not going to share the gospel with that person unless I can be certain that she is going to experience eternal, conscious, torment if I do not.” When the matter is put that way, we may even wonder if that person even understands what it means to be a Christian.