On one of the roads leading into my small city a billboard has recently appeared. It is part of a larger campaign by a nationally known evangelist who is to have a revival in Knoxville. The sign is simple. In very large bright yellow letters (all caps), the sign says: HELL IS REAL. In small letters beneath it, in white, that can be read as your car nears the sign is the statement: so is heaven. Like the small bulliten boards outside of many Southern churches, this sign belongs to a part of our culture that has been with us a long time. But everytime I see this sign, my mind turns to the subject of ontology (the study of the nature of being). Thus I offer today some very basic thoughts on the subject of being – a classical part of Christian theology.
The first thing I will note is that you cannot say Hell is real and Heaven is real and the word real mean the same thing in both sentences. Whatever the reality of Heaven, Hell does not have such reality. Whatever the reality of Hell, Heaven is far beyond such reality.
St. Athanasius in his De Incarnatione, sees sin (and thus hell) as a movement towards “non-being.” The created universe was made out of nothing – thus as it moves away from God it is moving away from the gift of existence and towards its original state – non-existence. God is good, and does not begrudge existence to anything, thus the most creation can do is move towards non-being.
I’m certain that the intent of the billboard was to suggest that hell is not imaginary or just a folk-tale. It is certainly neither of those things. But in Orthodox spiritual terms I would say that hell is a massive state of delusion, maybe the ultimate state of delusion. It is delusional in the sense that (in Orthodox understanding) the “fire” of hell is not a material fire, but itself nothing other than the fire of the Living God (Hebrews 12:29). For those who love God, His fire is light and life, purification and all good things. For those who hate God, His fire is torment, though it be love.
And these are not simply picky issues about the afterlife – they are very germane issues for the present life. Christ Himself gave this “definition” of hell: “And this is condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).
It is of critical importance for us to understand that being, reality, life, goodness, beauty, happiness, truth are all synonymous with reality as it is gifted to us by God. Many things that we experience in our currently damaged condition (I speak of our fallen state) which we describe with words such as “being, reality, life, goodness, beauty, happiness, truth, etc.”, are, in fact, only relatively so and are only so inasmuch as they have a participation or a relationship with the fullness of being, reality, life, etc.
Tragically in our world, many live in some state of delusion (even most of us live in some state of delusion). Christ said, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” We are not pure in heart, and thus we do not see God, nor do we see anything in the fullness of its truth. Our delusion makes many mistakes about reality. The most serious delusion is that described by Christ, when we prefer darkness to light because our deeds are evil.
I have in my own life known what moments in such darkness are like – and I have seen such darkness in the hearts and lives of others many times. The whole of our ministry and life as Christians is to move from such darkness and into the light of Christ. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship (communion) one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1John 1:7)
Is hell real? Only for those who prefer to see the Light of God as darkness.
Is heaven real? Yes, indeed, and everything else is only real as it relates to that reality. God give us grace to walk in the Light.
End of ontology lesson.
Comments
122 responses to “Is Hell Real?”
irishanglican,
It has no place in Orthodox thought. God does not begrudge us existence and does not take that gift away.
St. Isaac of Syria is the most important Father to hold to a notion that end the end, the mercy of God will find a way for all.
But, as I’ve noted in my posting, the difficulty with hell is its delusional aspect. In a sense, the only fate that awaits any of us is eternity with God. It’s just that some find that to be a torment. What more can you do than love someone? If they hate that very love it’s quite problematic.
Father Stephen, Neochalcedonian,
I agree that the Scriptures do contain the doctrine of the Trinity. My point though was that one could never find this out by using the grammatical-historical method of interpretation.
(I tried to post this last night, but apparently that post got lost in the electronic ether. Oh well.)
One more point, notice that neither Christ nor the Apostles ever used the grammatical-historical method in their explanation of the OT.
I have tried to be patient and listen, question and look, and even expose myself a bit here. It needs to be noted, that with secular or just nasy so-called Christian bloggers, this would not even be such. So thank you. I have overall enjoyed this time. But this is an Orthodox Blog. And I have not brought my house with me either. Many of my Reformational and Reformed brethren are much more harh than I appear I can asssure you! lol I think we have exhausted ourselves, at least on this subject, and a few others. lol I would love to continue, but I sense we have spent ourselves, and we don’t want to go round and round. I would like to chat more on hermeneutics, but perhaps another time. This blog seems full? Yes? Ya let me know?
Sincerely In Christ,
Fr. Robert
Dear Fr. Robert,
I was gone for two days and WOW! I appreciate your irenic tone among the many voices here. Regarding Scripture, if I may be shamelessly self promoting, may I point you to http://www.ourlifeinchrist.com and click on the audio archives where you will find a four part series on sola scriptura (and program notes). Many of the comments and replies in this discussion are dealt with in some depth in those four programs. They may not “convert” you, but they will give you an Orthodox perspective on the place and authority of Scripture and Tradition.
s-p Thank you for the kind words. It has been a bit of a ride lol, but a thinking one I hope. I will look at the site, promise. God bless
Thank you, Father Stephen, for this thought provoking piece. It is evident from the number of comments that many people are interested in this topic. You are right to tackle it from ontology. I’d like to draw 2 parallels.
Hell is to Heaven as darkness is to the Light. Hell is the absence of Heaven as darknesss is the absence of light.
Hell is to Heaven as the blood of animals is to the Blood of the Incarnate Word. The sacrifice of the Divine Liturgy is bloodless because the Blood of Christ IS present; no other blood may be present, since bloods can’t be mixed. So, according to the oldest priest manuals, if a priest accidently cuts himself while at the altar, he must leave. Hell testifies to the perfection that remains beyond our reach, save for God’s mercy received by faith in Jesus Christ.
Steven Robinson
Forgive me I was a bit confused with you and the other priest Steven. I like your Web site. For us Western minded, it is both more approachable and understandable. I can see that the self-governing aspect for Orthodoxy can be broader than I realized. I must confess I am not comfortable with what some of the lay people say and think. Certainly their right, but from a cetechesis standpoint can be questionable. I am not sure sometimes what the Ortodox believe on certain subjects? As I quoted Alexander Schmemann in the last subject about the nature of evil, etc. Schmemann does not seem to place all his argument on ontology. And he agrees that evil is somehow personified. Least the way I am reading hm? Did I miss something?
Your right as to Bullinger, he is one of my major exegetes. Though I cannot always follow him. However his love for the text, and his ability in Greek word studies is profound to me. I was taught years ago that the rector must read his Greek NT! And for me preaching and teaching are almost sacramental or “royal”! … “laboring in word (preaching) and teaching” (1 Tim. 5: 17) There is a certain theological desposit or background, or should be, in the mind of every preacher. And it simply must be biblically sought! (Titus 1: 9)
Are you on the left or right in the picture? I am glad to chat with someone closer to my age..lol. I am 58. I look back at my life, seems like I did not know much until my 40’s? lol Both of my son’s were born in my 40’s.
Well thanks again.
Reading the “River of Fire” represented a major turning point in my own journey out of fundamentalist Christianity and into the Eastern Orthodox Church. What has mystified me in retrospect is not that a fundamentalist might come up with a vision of hell from reading the Bible which amounts to an eternal torture chamber created by God for vengeance upon those who don’t accept his free gift of salvation, but the attachment many keep to this vision of hell when far more tenable ideas (equally biblical if not more so) are presented to them which don’t make God out to be evil. Many an anti-Christian has been created by the fundamentalist vision of hell.
I have to thank Fr. Stephen for turning me on to the writing of David Bentley Hart, a name which strangely eluded me over the last 2.5 years of reading Orthodox writers. His vision of evil in “The Doors of the Sea” emphasizes the necessity of not giving it an existence of its own because that would of necessity make God the author of evil. If the movement Godward is the movement toward Reality itself, then it is not very hard to think of hell as a movement toward shadow and unreality. We can throw Bible verses back and forth until Judgment Day and it won’t change the fact that if you don’t get that idea you maintain a very strange idea of God.
Isaac . . . . “The River of Fire” was key in my conversion to Orthodoxy, too, in exactly the same way (though I was never all the way in the Fundamentalist camp). Many, if not most, evangelicals think in largely the same way as the Fundamentalists on this, except that it is a little more soft-peddled, and there are various nuanced positions. I never heard even a hint of the Orthodox insight on this issue in my background. The closest was C.S. Lewis’ statements to the effect that hell is God’s loving provision for those who do not want heaven (which makes absolutely no sense if you believe hell is God willfully torturing the unrepentant) and, of course, his fleshing out of this idea in “The Great Divorce.” I also just finished underlining some of my favorite parts of “The Doors of the Sea” (virtually the first non-Bible I have underlined in since university!). Here is one line I love (regarding theologies that insist that the truth of God’s Sovereignty must mean that He wills evil, suffering, and death):
“It is a strange thing indeed to seek peace in a universe rendered morally intelligible at the cost of a God rendered morally loathesome.”
There’s also a very good podcast by Clark Carlson at http://www.ancientfaithradio.com, called “Hell: A Modest Proposal” that is very helpful for those struggling to make sense of what the Bible says about this important topic.
Fr. Robert–thanks, and cheers!
Theodicy, is no unreal thing seeking to defend the goodness of God and omnipotence of God in the face of suffering and evil of the world. The problem of evil and its reality now, are no little subject. I sadly have seen some evil in war myself, death and dying…and being an instrument thereof. This drove me into some monastic time myself. And today seeing many people both old and young revaged by alcohol, drugs and sex. Yes, evil is real! The theorems and theoretical are hard also in the face of this reality! So I am driven to more real answers. I too love the ontological ideas of both God and man, but ultimately I am taken back to the place of God and His revelation and word. Only here can I have any answers!
Here however, is one of my favorite statements about the only lasting answer I have found: “I have often wondered whether we might not say that the Christian doctrine of the Atonement just meant in Christ God took the responsibility of evil upon Himself, and somehow subsumed evil under good.” (Letters of Principal James Denny to his Family and Friends, p. 187) Denny was an Anglican theologian and evangelical.
I don’t have all the answers, but God in Christ does..and here I fall!
I am leary of any easy answers or supposed theology that does not work and pray, and in some sense suffer! Even my own theological choice in a certain evangelical place, must be tried over and over! We as Christians can never escape being ourselves some kind of ‘Alien Settlement’ in a fallen world. (1 Peter 1:1) A sort of monastic or place “called” apart for God, but then pressed back into the world. And here the love of Christ must be our only real compel, and nothing else! (See 2 Cor. 5: 14)
Karen,
I am very happy to hear all of that. I have heard Dr. Carlton’s podcast. Trust me when I say I have scrounged nearly every last scrap of material I can find on Orthodox eschatology – especially as it relates to final judgment. This is another helpful essay in the spirit of “River.”
a href=Heaven and Hell According to the Bible
Oops, not sure what happened there. Here is the url:
http://aggreen.net/beliefs/heaven_hell.html
What is the mainthrust in the Orthodox eschatology? Only as it relates to final judgment? Or is it mystical reality? Is it Christology? All of this combined? I am finding it hard to get a mental picture here!
Karen,
Thanks for the site, I also heard some nice music. I was a cantor years ago as a Roman. Like music..thanks again.
Orthodox eschatology is probably largely described as “realized” eschatology or “mystical” or liturgical, though we do indeed believe that Christ will come again at the time of the last judgment and the general resurrection. But it’s somewhat afield from the present article.
I do have a copy of Ultimate Things, etc. S. Rose. I noted now of late books that are somewhat, shall we say Apocalyptic, etc. I was a bit surprised. And one on Anti-Christ, etc. again
I find S. Rose’s work on eschatology or apocalyptic to be more protestant than classically Orthodox. It is not a topic that is generally treated in such a manner. As social commentary of our present culture, it has a usefulness. As speculation about the “religion of the future,” etc., I just find it mostly American.
I have a posting on the topic of eschatology.
I have turned off comments on this topic. Over 100 ceases to be very productive.
[…] Is Hell Real? […]
[…] what the zen student “seeks”. Only through god’s spirit living in us do we exist. God made the journey from the very origin of existence and utter being toward the arc of non-being, … So if god had to empty himself of himself to become one of us then what does that make us? […]