The Afterlife: Hell

Ask Me Anything

Week 7: The Afterlife: Hell

What are the varying perspectives on heaven and hell? Are we truly deemed to one place for eternity?
What about people who aren't Christian but have never heard of Christianity?
I have SO many questions about heaven and hell but don’t know where to start.

Preface

Last week we talked about the idea of heaven and how our belief about the afterlife has evolved over time. This week, we are talking about hell. I want to start with the disclaimer that we don’t spend a lot of time talking about hell in this space. I believe that the idea of hell has been used to condemn and abuse far too many people. When we have conversations about hell, it is important to acknowledge the intense harm that has been done by instilling a fear of hell within people. Some spaces believe that the way to convert people to Christianity is by instilling them with a fear of hell, which causes a lot of psychological damage. Things like hell houses are used as a very extreme, explicit fear-based conversion tactic. That being said, I think it is still important to talk about it and discuss how our belief of hell has shifted and altered over time and how we can rethink it.

What do you believe about hell?

A pew research study found that 58% of Americans believe in hell, 34% don't believe, and 8% are unsure. This is interesting considering that the same study found that 72% believe in heaven. Just like with heaven, our beliefs around hell have evolved dramatically over the past 2,000 years. This evolution in belief is not a bad thing. It can feel challenging to learn that some of our core Christian beliefs have shifted over time, but I think this can actually enhance our faith. This is called progressive revelation, the idea that we continue to learn, evolve, and add to our beliefs about God.

Beliefs About Hell: How did we get here?

A lot of our thoughts around to afterlife come from Paul. He believed that Jesus would come back to earth any second to resurrect the dead, therefore people needed to keep life as simple as possible. It is by the end of the 1st century that we see a shift in belief of afterlife. Paul and many other early Christians begin to realize that Jesus might not come back in their lifetime and grapple with what that could mean. Paul starts to teach that Christ-followers can be in the presence of God spiritually before the final resurrection of the dead takes place. So instead of dying and just being dead (as Jews would've previously believed), they believed the soul would remain in heaven until Jesus's second coming.

Once the belief in heaven evolves, the belief in hell quickly follows. Eventually people begin to question "if I am destined for heaven, what about people who reject God?" This is where we see a divergence in belief. Some early church leaders such as Papias and Irenaeus believed there would be layers to heaven, whereas others began to form the belief of an underworld ruled by the devil. This has a lot of influence from Greek philosophic thought. Plato believed that the afterlife would have destinations for eternal punishment or reward. So these platonic beliefs begin merging with early Christian belief and we get heaven, a place for eternal reward, and hell, a place for eternal punishment.

In scripture, there are two primary words that are translated to Hades, and later, hell: She'ol and Gehenna. She'ol was the place/grave of the dead, it was a place of no return. There are a lot of different ways that this word has been understood historically: underworld, to a grave, pit, or oblivion. Last week we discussed the evolution of Jewish belief in the physical resurrection of the dead; it's important to note that there was a time when ancient Israelites didn't even believe this. Therefore She'ol would've been a place that everyone went when they died (Gen. 37:35, Num. 16:30-33, Ps. 86:13, Ecc. 9:10). In some places it can be understood as an underworld, but it wasn't until the second temple period when She'ol started to be viewed in a negative connotation or place of punishment.

The other word that was eventually translated to hell is Gehenna. Gehenna was a physical location outside of the Jerusalem city walls where they burned garbage and sent outcasts. It was a place associated with punishment, suffering, and uncleanliness. It is often mentioned as a place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth" and a place of fire. In the New Testament, when Jesus references hell the word Gehenna was used. He references it as a place where bodies are thrown. Burial grounds were a big deal, so for your body to be thrown in such a place of filth and suffering is significant.

What Scripture Says About the Afterlife for the Wicked:
The Apostle John - perishing, death, condemnation and judgement
Paul - wrathful, everlasting destruction
Hebrews - raging fire
2 Peter - destruction
Jude - eternal fire, blackest darkness
Revelation - lake of fire; burning sulfur; devil, beast and antichrist will be tortured there

It's important to note that a lot of what we have in scripture relating to the afterlife can be interpreted in different ways. Jesus talked a lot about coming back from She'ol, and resurrection of the dead. We also, get a lot of hell imagery from the book of Revelation. Many people view hell as a lake of fire, where people will be tortured for eternity. In the book, there is a lake of fire, but it is only the devil, the beast and the antichrist that are tortured in Revelation. In Revelation, all of the godless people are wiped out, they aren't tortured in the Lake of Fire. This isn't going to divulge into a lesson on the interpretations of Revelation, however, keep in mind that what interpretation you believe to be true about scripture, inherency, inspiration or infallibility, will also inform your reading of Revelation.

Augustine of Hippo (354-430 BCE) had a big influence on our beliefs of hell. Augustine introduced the idea of original sin, substitutionary atonement, children being born into sin, and unbelievers being condemned to eternal punishment. The idea of original sin has a massive impact on the way we talk about sin in relation to hell. Augustine believed that because Adam ate the apple in the Garden of Eden, all of humanity fell from grace and, therefore, lives in sin. This widens the net of people that Augustine would believe are deserving of hell. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 BCE), who was influenced by Augustine, also had a large impact on our view of hell. Aquinas believed that sinners had no intrinsic right to life, he also believed hell was divided into four parts: Gehenna, which is punishment for the damned; limbo for children, or those who hold no personal sin, but have original sin; limbo of the fathers, for the saints before us, which are now in heaven because they rose with Jesus; and Purgatory, which is for the righteous that still owe debts. More modern works such as Dante's Inferno and Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards have influenced a lot of our imagery. When we think of early theologians, this is where I believe it's important to revisit the idea of progressive revelation. I don't believe that Augustine and Aquinas or even Edwards were innately evil and corrupt. I think they were well intentioned and were trying to describe and understand God, so I think we can build upon, question, and renovate their thoughts. It can be really easy to cast blame on specific church leaders, but I think instead we need to hold the tension of the good, bad, and in-between thoughts of past theologians. In the Methodist church, we have continued to do this with some of Wesley's beliefs. For instance, John Wesley believed that Jesus would come again and there would be a physical resurrection of the dead, however that is not a maintained Methodist belief.

Beliefs About Hell: Where are we now?

Today, there is a wide range of beliefs about hell. Some Christians view it as metaphorical, or as moments of torment and consequence for sin while we are on earth. Some believe in annihilationism, which is the belief that instead of going to hell, those who don't believe in God will cease to exist. Universalism is the belief that everyone will be reconciled to God. In Methodist doctrine we believe that God is the ultimate judge, and will bring justice in His own way. We don't believe that humans have the authority to claim where any other human will end up in the afterlife. Wesley's sermons state that in the final judgement all of our thoughts, words, and deeds will be known and judged. The United Methodist Confession states that for those who reject God, there is judgement and endless condemnation (UM Confession).

In all of this, there is a lot of room for interpretation. We could talk in circles about what it means to "reject God", what sin is, what hell entails, what it means to be righteous, etc. There have always been a diverse range of ideas in Christian thought, and the afterlife isn't excluded from that. The baseline with the afterlife is an idea of justice, a longing for things to be made right. I think a lot of the things we've been taught are our human imaginings trying to make sense of what divine justice can look like. Belief is not clear cut, there is so much we don’t know and so much we've yet to learn and that can be liberating and exciting. I hope that if nothing else, this has made you realize that there is a multitude of ways to look at the afterlife. After all, "What we believe about our futures effects our lives from day to day, we live by our visions," (Methodist Doctrine: The Essentials).

Discussion Questions

What were you taught about hell growing up?
Does understanding how humanity’s beliefs about hell have evolved over time impact your views? If so, in what ways?
How would your relationship with God or to faith change if it wasn’t influenced by a fear of hell?