You Will All Burn in Hell

Of course you won’t all burn in hell, I just like controversial titles. However a thought that has been running round in my head recently, probably as a result of dissertation discussions happening around campus, is this: can we appeal against hell on emotional grounds? I begin this post (to be honest, it will probably end up as a series of posts) with a significant problem with the doctrine of eternal conscious torment (ECT), though that problem is primarily emotional there are philosphical considerations also. To start with I’ll address the emotional problems that I have and why they really don’t matter and I think I’ll do so in the form of some sort of prayer…

I hate the idea of ECT, especially the literal view that flesh will burn for eternity, the physical bodies of friends who choose to turn away will will literally be in unending torment. No. End. Not only does that absolutely terrify me, not only does it make me feel sick to my stomach but it makes me look at God and think, why? Why did you create these people? This man did nothing but love people, he did nothing but selflessly help others but because he was a Buddhist he is condemned to eternal torture? God, that makes no sense… He clearly saw something of the divine, maybe he misunderstood it! Can you really blame him? As fallen, fallible human beings we all struggle with things and we all misinterpret what we see around us… He’s seriously going to have all his flesh burnt either literally or metaphorically despite all the incredible good he did for the people around him? That seems abhorrent to me.

But God, I think you understand that… I think you understand how I feel, I don’t think that if hell does exist as neverending torment that you made it so that your children would rejoice at it’s existence, I think you made it so we would grieve. I grieve, I grieve at the possibility of this end for people, I grieve at the possibility of it’s existence and I suppose I grieve because it may well be true that this is compatible with your character. Your holy, perfect, just and righteous character.

God, I know you hate sin, I can see that from how you respond to it in scripture but what I simply cannot fathom is that you are willing to send people that you created, that you willed from the start to exist and that you desire to be in relationship with you to hell. I don’t understand it… I pray that hell doesn’t exist, I know some people will call that heresy God but as I said I think you understand my plea and my petition. I think you’re maybe more sympathetic than many people think.

But God, if hell does exist, then please end their torment, end their torture one day. Don’t continue their existence just to be tortured, I grieve and I weep for those souls Lord, I grieve for them. Give them one last chance, please! I would suffer death to see them saved, all the souls in hell now and tomorrow, I would die for them. But didn’t Jesus already do this? Jesus already suffered death for these people, why is it ineffectual!! I suppose it isn’t, they just chose not to believe… but what of the people who had no chance to hear the gospel message through no fault of their own? I pray and I hope that through your mercy O God that you saw their plight, you saw their lives and you gave them life, you gave them mercy and you swept them up into your arms.

Thankyou that you are God, you are merciful and you are good, you are just and you are loving. You are worthy of my praise and adoration. I am a fallible human being made clean through the life-giving blood of Jesus, the Christ and I bow down and surrender everything I am to you, O God.

Glen Leach
@Confess_Life

(I know this wasn’t a particularly ‘normal’ post, but standard service will be resumed tomorrow when I will lay out my philosophical problems with the doctrine of ECT)