The Divine Presence Model of Hell (short version)

For centuries, the traditional Western Christian understanding of hell has depicted it as a place of eternal separation from God, where the damned suffer retributive punishment for their sins. This view, deeply embedded in both Catholic and Protestant theology, presents God as the active agent of torment, inflicting suffering upon those who have rejected Him. However, a revolutionary alternative understanding has emerged from Eastern Orthodox theology and is now being seriously engaged by Western scholars: the Divine Presence model of hell.

The Core Thesis: Hell is not the absence of God but the presence of God experienced by those who are spiritually unprepared or unwilling to receive divine love. What the righteous experience as warmth and light, the unrighteous experience as burning and torment—not because God changes His nature or withdraws His love, but because the spiritual state of the soul determines how it perceives the unchanging divine presence.

This comprehensive research report examines the Divine Presence model through multiple lenses: biblical exegesis, historical theology, contemporary scholarship, and philosophical analysis. We will explore how this model addresses the fundamental problems of traditional hell doctrine while maintaining orthodoxy and biblical fidelity. Most importantly, we will investigate what this means for questions of eternal destiny, postmortem salvation, and the ultimate fate of humanity.

The implications of this theological shift cannot be overstated. If hell is the experience of God’s love by those who reject it, rather than God’s punishment of those who disobey Him, then our entire understanding of divine justice, mercy, and the gospel message must be reconsidered. This report presents the evidence that such reconsideration is not only warranted but necessary for a coherent and biblically faithful theology of the afterlife.

Part I: Biblical Foundations of the Divine Presence Model

God as Consuming Fire

The biblical witness consistently presents God’s very nature as fire, not merely using fire as an instrument of punishment. This distinction proves crucial for understanding the Divine Presence model.

“For our God is a consuming fire.” – Hebrews 12:29 (NKJV)

This verse, quoting Deuteronomy 4:24, does not say God uses fire or sends fire, but that God IS fire. The Hebrew word ‘esh (????) and the Greek word pyr (p??) used in these passages denote the essential nature of the divine presence. Throughout Scripture, encounters with God are consistently described in terms of fire, light, and burning—from the burning bush to the pillar of fire, from the coals of Isaiah’s vision to the flames of Pentecost.

The prophet Malachi provides a particularly illuminating metaphor when he asks, “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire” (Malachi 3:2). The refiner’s fire does not destroy indiscriminately but purifies according to the nature of what it encounters. Gold is refined and purified; dross is consumed. The fire remains the same—only the material’s response differs.

The Apocalyptic Vision of Divine Fire

The apocalyptic literature of Scripture provides the most vivid depictions of the Divine Presence as fire. Daniel’s vision proves particularly significant:

“His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him.” – Daniel 7:9-10 (NKJV)

This river of fire flowing from God’s throne appears again in Revelation as the “lake of fire” (Revelation 19:20; 20:10, 14-15). Rather than understanding this as a separate location where God sends the wicked, the Divine Presence model recognizes this as the very presence of God Himself. The same divine presence that Isaiah experienced as purifying (Isaiah 6:6-7) becomes tormenting to those who oppose God.

Jesus Himself declared, “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49). This fire is not merely judgment but the very presence of divinity entering creation. When Christ returns in glory, Paul tells us that He will be “revealed from heaven in blazing fire” (2 Thessalonians 1:7), and the lawless one will be destroyed “by the splendor of his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8)—literally, “the appearance of His presence.”

Light and Darkness: The Dual Experience of Divine Presence

Scripture also presents God as light, providing another metaphor for how the same divine presence can be experienced differently:

“God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” – 1 John 1:5 (NKJV)

John’s Gospel elaborates on this theme extensively. Christ is “the true light that gives light to everyone” (John 1:9), yet “Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). The same light that illuminates and warms those who welcome it becomes exposing and painful to those who prefer darkness.

This principle appears throughout Jesus’ teaching. He speaks of the “outer darkness” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12; 22:13; 25:30). Paradoxically, this outer darkness exists in the presence of the Light of the World. How can this be? The Divine Presence model suggests that those who have oriented themselves toward darkness experience even divine light as darkness—a psychological and spiritual phenomenon where reality itself becomes inverted for those who reject truth.

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Part II: Comprehensive Biblical Verse Analysis

The following table presents 35 key biblical passages that support or illuminate the Divine Presence model of hell. Each entry includes the verse in the NKJV translation, an explanation of how it relates to the Divine Presence model, and how it fits with the possibility of postmortem salvation.

Reference	NKJV Text	Divine Presence Explanation & Postmortem Opportunity
Deuteronomy 4:24	“For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”	Divine Presence: God’s very essence is described as consuming fire, not merely using fire as a tool. Postmortem: The consuming nature of God’s presence continues beyond death, potentially purifying rather than merely punishing.
Exodus 3:2	“And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.”	Divine Presence: God’s fiery presence can be experienced without destruction when one is prepared to receive it. Postmortem: Suggests the possibility of encountering God’s fire in a way that transforms rather than destroys.
Psalm 68:2	“As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.”	Divine Presence: The wicked perish specifically “at the presence of God,” not from His absence. Postmortem: The melting of wax suggests transformation or purification rather than annihilation.
Revelation 22:14-15	“Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.”	Divine Presence: Even those “outside” exist somewhere in God’s creation, not in His absence. Postmortem: The gates remain open; the tree of life’s leaves are for “healing of the nations.”

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Part III: Orthodox Theological Development

The Eastern Orthodox Framework

The Eastern Orthodox understanding of hell represents a radical departure from Western Christianity’s juridical framework. Rather than viewing salvation and damnation through legal categories of guilt and punishment, Orthodoxy employs therapeutic metaphors of sickness and healing. This fundamental difference in approach leads to profoundly different conclusions about the nature of hell.

“Those who are tormented in hell are tormented by the invasion of love. What is there more bitter and violent than the pains of love? Those who feel they have sinned against love bear in themselves a damnation much heavier than the most dreaded punishments. The suffering with which sinning against love afflicts the heart is more keenly felt than any other torment. It is absurd to assume that the sinners in hell are deprived of God’s love. Love is offered impartially. But by its very power it acts in two ways. It torments sinners, as happens here on earth when we are tormented by the presence of a friend to whom we have been unfaithful. And it gives joy to those who have been faithful.”
– St. Isaac the Syrian, 7th century

This teaching from St. Isaac the Syrian, one of the most revered mystics in Orthodox tradition, encapsulates the essence of the Divine Presence model. Hell is not God’s absence but God’s love experienced as torment by those who have rejected it. The pain of hell is the pain of being loved when one is unable to love in return—a spiritual and psychological agony far exceeding any external punishment.

Conclusion: Final Outcomes and Theological Implications

The Transformative Power of the Divine Presence Model

This comprehensive examination of the Divine Presence model reveals a theological framework that fundamentally reconceptualizes our understanding of hell, divine justice, and ultimate human destiny. Rather than viewing hell as God’s retributive punishment or abandonment of the damned, we discover it to be the tragic experience of divine love by those spiritually unprepared to receive it.

The model’s power lies in its ability to preserve both divine justice and mercy without contradiction. God remains unchangingly love—it is the human response to this love that creates the divergent experiences of heaven and hell. As St. Isaac the Syrian profound stated, the torments of hell are the torments of being loved when one cannot love in return.

Key Theological Insights

1. God’s Character Preserved: The Divine Presence model maintains God’s essential nature as love (1 John 4:8) without resorting to divine schizophrenia where God loves some while tormenting others. Hell exists not because God creates it as a torture chamber, but because spiritual sickness causes some to experience divine love as torment.

2. Human Dignity Maintained: By grounding hell in human response rather than divine decree, the model preserves genuine human freedom and responsibility. People are not arbitrarily predestined to hell but shape their eternal experience through their spiritual choices and development.

3. Biblical Coherence Achieved: The extensive biblical analysis demonstrates how the Divine Presence model makes sense of seemingly contradictory passages. Verses about God’s universal salvific will harmonize with warnings about judgment when we understand both as describing encounters with the same divine reality.

4. Theological Problems Resolved: The model addresses classical problems like:

• How can a loving God permit eternal suffering? (He doesn’t cause it; it’s the natural result of rejecting love)

• How can hell exist if God is omnipresent? (Hell IS the experience of God’s presence by the unprepared)

• How is eternal punishment just for temporal sins? (It’s not punishment but the ongoing consequence of a fundamental orientation)

The Spectrum of Final Outcomes

Our investigation reveals three main positions on final outcomes within the Divine Presence framework:

1. Eternal Conscious Experience (Manis):
Some souls remain eternally in hell, experiencing God’s presence as torment. This preserves traditional orthodoxy while making it philosophically coherent. The damned are not abandoned by God but unable to receive His love as love.

2. Ultimate Restoration (Baker):
All souls are eventually restored through the purifying fire of divine love. Hell is real but temporary—a purgatorial process that ultimately succeeds in transforming every soul. God’s love proves stronger than human resistance.

3. Conditional Immortality (Rejected by Both):
Neither Manis nor Baker accepts annihilationism, seeing it as incompatible with human dignity and divine love. The annihilation of any soul would represent a permanent divine failure and eternal loss.

The Last Word: Love

In the final analysis, the Divine Presence model returns us to the central Christian confession: God is love. This love is not sentimental or weak but is a consuming fire that transforms everything it touches. It respects human freedom while never abandoning hope for any soul. It judges by revealing truth rather than imposing external punishments. It remains present even in the depths of hell, offering itself to those who experience it as torment.

Whether this love ultimately transforms all (universalism), sustains some in eternal resistance (eternal conscious experience), or must sadly let some cease to exist (annihilationism), the Divine Presence model insists that love—not wrath, not retribution, not abandonment—has the last word. Hell exists not because God’s love fails but because it is possible to experience perfect love as torment when one is not prepared to receive it.

The tragedy of hell, in this model, is not that God stops loving but that some may never learn to receive that love as love. The hope of heaven is not escape from divine presence but the joy of experiencing that presence as it truly is—infinite, transforming, all-consuming love that makes us fully who we were created to be.

Final Summary

This comprehensive research report has examined the Divine Presence model of hell through biblical, theological, historical, and philosophical lenses. We have seen how this model, deeply rooted in Eastern Orthodox tradition and increasingly engaged by Western scholars, offers a revolutionary reconceptualization of hell that preserves divine love while taking seriously the reality of judgment.

The extensive biblical analysis of 35 key passages demonstrates strong scriptural support for understanding hell as the experience of God’s presence rather than His absence. The comparison of contemporary scholars like Manis and Baker reveals sophisticated philosophical engagement with these questions, while the exploration of postmortem salvation and universalist perspectives shows the range of possible conclusions within this framework.

Most significantly, the Divine Presence model offers hope—not the false hope that sin doesn’t matter, but the genuine hope that God’s love never fails, never abandons, and never gives up on any soul. Whether that love ultimately saves all, sustains some in eternal resistance, or must allow some to cease existing, it remains love to the end.

As we continue to wrestle with these profound questions, may we do so with humility, courage, and above all, confidence in the God whose nature is love and whose mercies are new every morning, even in the depths of whatever hell may be.