In memory of David L. Riggs, 1967-2022: “The glory of God is a human being fully alive..and the life of the human is the vision of God  ”; (1)

and for all who are haunted by others’ suffering

“What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since…children have already been tortured?...And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price.” (2) The great nineteenth-century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky puts these challenges in the mouth of Ivan Karamazov, a soldier confronting his younger brother Alyosha. Alyosha, idealistically pious, seeks the monastic life. His assertions that divine justice saves some and damns others ring hollow for Ivan, whose litany of the horrors that children, animals, and vulnerable others endure at the hands of those supposed to be their moral guardians quickly flusters both the young novice as well as many of Dostoevsky’s readers. 

Grappling with hell finds us caught between the two brothers. In the midst of the agony of the cross, we wonder: is Alyosha’s adherence to the status quo correct—are hellish torments the tragically necessary corollary of divine justice? Or should we, with Ivan, reject the prospect that eternal bliss for some requires the condemnation of others? This essay suggests that alongside the Karamazov brothers, we need guidance from a wise older sister, the fourteenth-century English anchorite Julian of Norwich. Unflinchingly contemplating plague, spiritual turmoil, and political and ecclesial corruption during a grave illness, Julian is no stranger to the despair Ivan expresses. Her writing includes many references to debilitating fear. (3) After pleading for divine succor—“[w]ho is there to teach me and tell me what I need to know, if all the while I may not see it in you?”—her visions lead her to insist that “all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” (4) Rather than a vacuous platitude, Julian’s affirmation redirects our thinking on two main issues: whether Scripture mandates belief in hell, and how to determine the character of divine justice.

1. Scripture does not compel belief in hell. Ivan’s complaints expose the hypocrisy of Christians who characterize their impositions of terror as enforcing God’s standards. (5) Why should they merit heaven while a suffering child outside the church warrants damnation? Faced with Ivan’s continued questioning, Alyosha’s defense falters. But Ivan keeps pushing. If God can eventually resolve all tortures, why can’t—why doesn’t—God do so for all, here and now? Does our wrongdoing thwart divine purposes? If so, how could God ever finally rescue anyone? Does the Almighty need our suffering (now) in order to grant (some) forgiveness later? What kind of God would that be? Alyosha’s deity ends up imprisoning itself with all of creation beneath endless layers of violence. 

Many Christians, however, assume that faithfulness to Scripture demands this understanding. The biblical passages most often marshaled in support include Gospel accounts of being thrown into Gehenna or the Valley of Hinnom (see Mark 9, Luke 12, and so on), Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus (see Luke 16:19-31), and Revelation 20. Other texts, where Jesus refers to punishment for one’s deeds (such as Matthew 5:26, Luke 12:59, Matthew 18:34, and Mark 9:49-50), are often read in line with the assumption that references to Hinnom/Gehenna indicate a future location of eternal torment. Yet, as biblical scholar and Episcopal priest Wil Gafney points out, these names describe an actual valley near Jerusalem where people engaged in child sacrifice or burned refuse (see Jeremiah 7:31, 2 Chronicles 28:3, and 2 Chronicles 33:6). The location eventually becomes shorthand for terrible actions of disposal or forsakenness, similar to how we today may use ‘Auschwitz’ or ‘Guantanamo.’ (6) Thus, both Gafney and theologian David Bentley Hart remind readers that these terms hold multiple connotations. At times, they refer to the annihilation of evil deeds; at other times, they describe a purgatorial or temporary setting where sinners repay their debts by being changed themselves. (7) This ambiguity leads Hart to comment, “[t]he texts of the gospels simply make no obvious claim about a place or state of endless suffering.” (8) 

What about Revelation’s description of an endless lake of fire? Interpretation requires attending to its allegorical genre as well as to its understanding of time. (9) Historian Ilaria L.E. Ramelli’s work with David Konstan notes at least two different Greco-Roman terms for time: aiōnios versus aïdios. (10) English translations often simply render both as ‘eternity/eternal’ or ‘age.’ Ramelli argues that aiōnios means time bound to creaturely materiality and historicity, while aïdios refers to the eternality of the timeless salvation to which creation is called. The second death of Revelation 20:10’s fiery lake lasts for “the ages of the ages”: tous aiōnas tōn aiōnōn. Yet even this seems superseded by the final and full peace chapters 21-22 describe, which ends all death and pain. Revelation’s conclusion that “nothing accursed will be found there [in the city of God] anymore” (22:3) may therefore mean not that all who have sinned will be forbidden entry—for who would then be found worthy?—but that all sins have been burned away. Those who have sinned have ceased being sinners.

Scripture thus leaves us with at least some ambiguity on hell, as well as tantalizing hints of a mercy wider than the boundaries we normally recognize. Hart boldly declares, “the only hell that could possibly exist is…the hatred within each of us that turns the love of others—of God and neighbor—into torment.” (11) But if eternal torment does not follow from divine justice, what does? Part Two of this essay proposes an alternative grounded in Revelation 22:3: restoration. 

1. The quote is a paraphrased loose translation of Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 4.20.7, which David often employed as a shorthand introducing undergraduates to early Christian theology. Problems with adopting this common paraphrase lifted out of its context, as well as an explanation of the full quote in its context, can be found in this blogpost well worth one’s time: https://theologish.wordpress.com/2018/05/11/theological-misquotes-irenaeus-and-the-man-fully-alive/.

2. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, Book V/Chapter 4; trans. Constance Garnett, rev. Ralph E. Matlaw (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1976), 226. All other citations refer to this edition.

3. I use John Skinner’s translation, Revelation of Love (New York: Doubleday/Image Books, 1996).

4. Revelation chapters 50 (Skinner 99) and 27 (Skinner 55).

5. I recommend reading chapters “Rebellion” and “The Grand Inquisitor” of The Brothers Karamazov in their entirety; note, however, that they include descriptions of abuse. Make no mistake: these accounts in a work of fiction are founded in actual events. We do all these things, and worse, to one another and to the created world.

6. Rev. Wil Gafney, Ph.D., is The Rt. Rev. Sam B. Hulsey Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University. I refer to her Womanists Wading in the Word, “Evolution of Hell,” May 22, 2014 blogpost, https://www.wilgafney.com/2014/05/22/evolution-of-hell/, accessed 10/3/2022. Theologian David Bentley Hart sounds a more cautious historical note, mentioning the lack of corroborating archaeological evidence for exactly how the valley became associated with destruction. Nevertheless, he agrees with Gafney that it accrued these meanings. See Hart, That All Shall be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019), 111-20.

7. See Gafney, “Evolution of Hell,” as well as Hart, That All Shall be Saved, 110-6.

8. Hart, That All Shall be Saved, 118.

9. See Hart, That All Shall be Saved, 106-9.

10. See Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, A Larger Hope? Universal Salvation from Christian Beginnings to Julian of Norwich (Eugene, OR: Cascade/Wipf & Stock, 2019), 215-21. Hart similarly contrasts aiōnios and chronos, where the former refers to the beyond history of the fullness of divine intent, while the latter entails uni-directional history, which does come to an end. See Hart, That All Shall be Saved, 120-9. My purpose here does not require exhaustively settling the terminology questions; rather, I simply point out that since different senses of time appear in the salvation narratives, we should attend to their potential theological implications.

11. Hart, That All Shall be Saved, 27. Numerous Scriptural passages substantiate this reading, yet we often rush past them because of our predilection for torment. See That All Shall be Saved, 95-102, where the list includes Romans 5:18-19, 1 Corinthians 15:22, 2 Corinthians 5:14, Romans 11:32, 1 Timothy 2:3-6, Titus 2:11, 2 Corinthians 5:19, Ephesians 1:9-10, Colossians 1:27-28, John 12:32, Hebrews 2:9, John 17:2, John 4:42, John 12:47, 1 John 4:14, 2 Peter 3:9, Matthew 18:14, Philippians 2:9-11, Colossians 1:19-20, 1 John 2:2, John 3:17, Luke 16:16, and 1 Timothy 4:10. See also Ramelli’s impressive compilation of Hebrew Bible citations in A Larger Hope, 9-20.