Chapter 19
“The very fire which purifies gold, also consumes wood. Precious metals shine in it like the sun, rubbish burns with black smoke.”
—Alexandre Kalomiros, The River of Fire
Imagine a man who has lived in total darkness his entire life. He has never seen the sun. One day, someone carries him out of his cave and sets him in the middle of a wide-open field at noon. The sun does not change because he has arrived. It has been shining the whole time. It does not bear any grudge against him. It does not aim its rays at him with special fury. It simply is what it is—a blazing ball of light and warmth. But his eyes, having never adjusted to light, are overwhelmed. The light that gives life to everything around him—the same light that makes the flowers bloom and the birds sing—is for him a source of agony. He cries out in pain. He covers his face. He begs to go back to the darkness.
Who is punishing him? Nobody. The sun is doing what the sun always does: shining. The man’s suffering is real, intense, and terrible. But it is not inflicted on him by the sun. It is the natural consequence of his damaged eyes meeting a light they were never prepared to receive.
This is the key insight at the heart of this chapter—and, in many ways, at the heart of the entire divine presence model. Hell is not a punishment that God inflicts. It is not a sentence handed down from a divine courtroom. It is not a torture chamber designed by an angry deity. Hell is the natural consequence of a sin-hardened heart encountering the fullness of divine love. The suffering is real. The agony is devastating. But its source is not God’s intention to harm. Its source is the condition of the human soul when it stands, at last, in the unveiled presence of the One who is Love itself.
In the previous chapter, we explored how the human heart hardens against God through self-deception and the progressive entrenchment of sin. We saw how people do not choose hell with open eyes—they stumble into it because sin has distorted their ability to see clearly. Now we need to take the next step. Once we understand how the heart hardens, we need to understand what happens when that hardened heart encounters the living God. The answer is both simple and profound: it breaks. Or, more precisely, it is broken by the weight of a love it cannot bear.
This chapter develops what R. Zachary Manis calls the “natural consequence model of hell”—the argument that the suffering of the damned is not an artificial or arbitrary punishment selected by God but the inevitable result of a sinful character meeting perfect holiness.1 We will draw on Manis’s careful philosophical work, Sharon Baker’s powerful theological narrative, and the witness of the Eastern Church Fathers—especially Isaac the Syrian, Basil the Great, and Irenaeus of Lyon—to show that this idea is not a modern invention. It is, in fact, one of the oldest and most deeply rooted convictions of the Christian faith: God does not punish. Sin does. God does not destroy the wicked. The wicked are destroyed by their own refusal to receive the love that holds all things in existence.
The claim I want to defend in this chapter is this: On the divine presence model, the suffering of hell flows naturally from the condition of the soul, not from any punitive action on God’s part. God’s love is the same toward all. The difference between heaven and hell is not in God. It is in us.
To understand why the divine presence model sees hell as a natural consequence rather than a punishment, we need to start with a basic distinction. Manis draws our attention to the difference between what philosophers call natural consequences and artificial consequences.2
A natural consequence is something that happens because of the way reality works. If you drive recklessly, you might lose control of your car and crash. That is a natural consequence—it follows from the laws of physics. Nobody imposed it on you. It happened because of the nature of the act itself.
An artificial consequence is something imposed by another person or authority. If you drive recklessly and a police officer pulls you over and gives you a ticket, that fine is an artificial consequence. A judge decided on it. A different judge might have given a different penalty. The fine has no natural connection to the act of speeding—it was chosen by someone with authority and could have been something else entirely.
Here is why this matters so much for how we think about hell. Traditional views of eternal conscious torment almost always treat hell as an artificial punishment. In the traditional Western framework, God looks at your sin, consults the scales of justice, and selects an appropriate penalty. The penalty He selects is eternal suffering in a place called hell. He could have chosen something else. He could have imposed a lesser sentence. But He chose this one, because His justice demands it.3
The problems with this picture are devastating, as we have explored in earlier chapters. If God freely selects the punishment of hell from among a range of options, then we are forced to ask: Why did He choose the worst possible option? Why eternal suffering rather than something less? And if His love is as great as the Bible says, why didn’t He choose a penalty that would still serve justice but without infinite agony? The whole picture starts to look like a God who wants people to suffer, and that is not the God of the Bible.4
The divine presence model cuts through this entire problem by insisting that hell is not an artificial consequence at all. Nobody selected it. Nobody designed it. Nobody imposed it from the outside. The suffering of hell is the natural result of what happens when a soul shaped by hatred encounters a God who is Love.5
As Manis puts it in Thinking Through the Problem of Hell: the suffering of hell is a natural consequence of the character a person forms by persisting in sin. Suffering is the way that the wicked necessarily experience the presence of God. There is nothing artificial about it. And there is nothing arbitrary about it. God does not freely select the punishment of hell from among a range of possible options. The way in which the damned suffer is the inevitable outcome of an encounter between a sinful creature and a holy, loving God.6
Think about that for a moment. On this model, there is no action God takes, other than the action of being fully revealed, that causes the damned to suffer. God does not flip a switch. He does not open a trapdoor. He does not ignite a furnace. He simply shows up. He allows His love to fill all things, as Scripture promises it will (1 Cor. 15:28; Eph. 1:23). And for those whose hearts have been shaped by love, this is paradise. For those whose hearts have been shaped by hatred, it is hell.
How does this actually work? How can love itself become the source of suffering? We need to think carefully about this, because it is the theological and philosophical heart of the whole model.
Start with something we all know from ordinary experience. Love is wonderful when it is received. A child running into a parent’s arms feels the warmth of love and is flooded with joy. But love can also be painful—even agonizing—when it is resisted. Think of the estranged son who refuses to come home. His mother’s love does not stop because he left. If anything, her love intensifies. But for him, every reminder of her love is a knife in the chest, because he knows he has wronged her and he is too proud, too ashamed, or too angry to receive what she offers. Her love is the same. But his experience of it is torment.
Now multiply that by infinity. The God who is Love itself—not love as a sentiment or an emotion, but Love as the foundational reality of the universe—reveals Himself fully to every human being. The person who has spent a lifetime cultivating love, humility, and openness to God experiences this revelation as the consummation of everything they have ever longed for. They fall into the arms of perfect Love and are made whole. This is heaven.
But the person who has spent a lifetime cultivating hatred, pride, and self-worship experiences this same revelation as unbearable exposure. The light that brings joy to the saints penetrates every dark corner of the hardened soul. Every lie they told themselves is exposed. Every act of cruelty is laid bare. Every justification for their rebellion crumbles to dust. They stand naked before a Love they cannot receive, a Truth they cannot deny, and a Goodness they have spent their whole life opposing.7
This is hell. Not because God is doing something to them. But because they have become something that cannot coexist peacefully with Love.
Manis develops this idea with great philosophical care. He argues that the suffering of hell does not have a reformative function—it does not bring the damned to repentance or otherwise promote their moral improvement. If God intended this everlasting suffering, it would bring into question God’s love for the damned. That would compromise the doctrine that God is perfectly loving toward all persons.8 The crucial point is that causing unrepentant sinners to suffer is the “foreseen but unintended consequence” of Christ’s being fully revealed in glory.9 God foresees the outcome. He knows that some will experience His presence as torment. But He does not intend it. His intention in fully manifesting His presence is the highest good of every person—communion, restoration, joy. The suffering of the damned is the tragic result of free creatures who have made themselves incapable of receiving what God offers.
Think about what this means. God is not torn between love and justice, deciding reluctantly to punish. God is not a judge who personally wishes He could let the defendant off but is bound by the law to impose a sentence. On the divine presence model, God’s intention is always and only restoration. He wills the salvation of every single person. He does everything in His power to bring every person to repentance.10 The suffering of hell exists because some creatures have so thoroughly destroyed their capacity to receive love that when Love comes in its fullness, they cannot endure it. The suffering is self-inflicted, in the deepest possible sense. They have built the prison. They have forged the chains. And when the light of God’s presence floods every corner of creation, there is no shadow left to hide in.
I want to pause here and note an important subtlety in Manis’s argument, because getting this right matters. Manis does not say that hell is a “natural punishment.” He says it is close to a natural punishment, but not exactly one. The distinction is philosophically precise and theologically important.11
A natural punishment, as Manis defines it, occurs when a parent intentionally allows a child to experience the painful natural consequences of disobedience in order to teach them a lesson. The parent has the power to intervene. The parent chooses not to intervene. And the parent does this for the child’s moral good.12
On the divine presence model, hell does not fit this pattern perfectly, because a crucial element is missing. It is God’s presence that causes the damned to experience the full natural consequences of their sinful character. But it is not God’s intention to bring about this suffering. God does not withhold intervention “for their good” in the way a parent might, because the suffering of hell does not serve a reformative purpose—it does not lead to repentance or moral improvement. If God intended the suffering, it would make Him responsible for purposeless torment, and that would compromise His perfect love.13
So what is hell, exactly, on this model? Manis’s conclusion is beautifully precise: hell functions as something close to a natural punishment and close to a retributive punishment, without exactly being either. In terms of the way it is experienced by the damned, it feels like retribution. It feels like divine wrath. It feels like vengeance. But in terms of God’s purpose and intention, there is no retribution at all. God’s purpose in being fully revealed is to bring glory to Jesus, to restore creation, and to consummate the union between humanity and God.14 The suffering of the damned is the tragic side-effect of the greatest act of love in the history of the cosmos.
This is why the biblical language works on the divine presence model. Scripture says that the wrath of God is revealed. It says that God will repay the wicked. It says that vengeance belongs to the Lord. All of this language is, as Manis puts it, phenomenological—it describes the first-person, subjective experience of the damned.15 Being in hell feels like punishment. It feels like wrath. But the source of the suffering is not an angry God imposing a sentence. The source is a loving God whose unveiled presence reveals the true condition of the human heart—and for the wicked, that revelation is devastating.
This insight did not originate in a modern philosopher’s office. It has been the consistent teaching of the Eastern Church Fathers for nearly two thousand years. The Greek-speaking church understood, from very early on, that God is not the author of evil, the inflicter of suffering, or the source of damnation. God is Life. God is Light. God is Love. And the suffering of the wicked comes not from God but from the condition of the wicked themselves when they encounter the God who is all of these things.
Basil the Great, one of the most revered Fathers of the fourth century, wrote an entire treatise titled That God Is Not the Cause of Evils. The title alone tells us where he stands. Basil’s argument is direct: God does not cause evil. God does not inflict suffering as punishment. When Scripture speaks of God sending plagues or judgments, the language is accommodated to human understanding—what is really happening is that God is allowing the natural consequences of human sin to unfold. The withdrawal of God’s protection, which sin itself causes, is what leads to destruction. God does not need to do anything punitive. Sin is its own punishment. Separation from the source of life is, by definition, death.16
Irenaeus of Lyon, writing even earlier in the second century, expressed the same idea. For Irenaeus, death is not a punishment imposed by God but the natural result of turning away from the One who is Life. Just as a lamp that is disconnected from its power source goes dark—not because someone turned it off in anger, but because it is no longer connected to the source of energy—so the human soul that turns away from God begins to die. Not because God kills it, but because it has cut itself off from the only source of life that exists.17
Athanasius, the great champion of Nicene orthodoxy, carried this further. He taught that God created human beings for communion with Himself, and that this communion is what sustains us in existence. When humanity fell into sin, the natural trajectory was dissolution and death—not as a punishment from God, but as the inevitable consequence of turning away from the source of being. God’s response was not to impose further punishment but to send His Son to restore what sin had broken.18
Do you see the pattern? For the earliest Christian theologians, God does not punish the way a human judge punishes. God does not need to balance the scales. God does not need satisfaction or appeasement. The consequences of sin are built into the fabric of reality itself, because sin is, at its root, a turning away from the source of everything good. You do not need a judge to sentence you to darkness if you have gouged out your own eyes.
No voice in the Christian tradition speaks more powerfully to this point than Isaac the Syrian, the seventh-century ascetic and mystic whose writings on God’s love have shaped Eastern Christian theology for over a thousand years. Isaac’s vision of God is breathtaking in its consistency: God is love, always and only love, and everything God does flows from that love—including what we call “punishment.”
In his Homily 73, Isaac makes a remarkable argument that goes to the very heart of our chapter. He asks: Why does God punish? And his answer overturns everything the Western tradition has assumed. God does not punish to defend Himself. God does not punish to satisfy His honor. God does not punish to balance the cosmic books. God punishes with love and for the sake of the one being punished.19
But here is the crucial move. Isaac draws a sharp line between punishment in this life and what happens after the resurrection. In this life, God’s “punishments” are pedagogical—they are corrective, designed to teach and to turn us back toward Him. A parent disciplines a child not out of hatred but out of love, hoping the child will learn and grow. In the same way, the sufferings that come from sin in this life are God’s way of calling us back to Himself. They serve a purpose. They have a goal: our restoration.20
But after the resurrection, Isaac says, the situation changes profoundly. If a person has passed through death, through the intermediate state, through the final judgment, and still remains unrepentant—if even the full unveiling of God’s presence at the last day has not broken through the walls of self-deception and hatred—then what possible purpose could further punishment serve? No more change is possible. The character is fixed. The heart is hardened beyond recovery.
And this is where Isaac’s logic becomes devastating for the traditional view. If no further moral change is possible after the resurrection, then any punishment God imposed at that point would be purely vengeful. It would not be corrective, because correction is no longer possible. It would not be pedagogical, because no lesson can be learned. It would not serve the good of the one punished, because no good can come from it. The only possible purpose would be retribution for its own sake—vengeance. And vengeance, Isaac insists, is utterly impossible for the God who is Love.21
This is exactly what the divine presence model teaches. The suffering of hell is not from God. It is from the sinful condition of the soul encountering perfect Love. God’s love does not change. God’s disposition toward the wicked does not change. He loves them with the same infinite, unconditional, self-giving love with which He loves the saints. But that love, when it meets a heart formed by hatred, produces agony—not because love is cruel, but because hatred cannot coexist peacefully with love. The fire does not change. What it touches determines the result.
I want us to sit with this for a moment, because Isaac’s insight changes the way we pray, the way we preach, and the way we relate to God. If God does not take vengeance, then we never need to be afraid of God in the way a criminal is afraid of a judge. Our fear of God should be like the awe of a child standing before the ocean—overwhelmed by something vast and beautiful and far beyond our comprehension, not cowering before something that wants to hurt us. The “fear of the Lord” in the Bible is not terror in the face of cruelty. It is reverence in the face of a holiness so pure and a love so consuming that it exposes every shadow in the human heart.56
And if the suffering of hell is not from God but from the sinful condition of the soul, then the most urgent thing we can do is not run from God’s presence but run toward it. Not after we have cleaned ourselves up. Not after we have fixed all our problems. Now. Today. Because the cure for the disease is the very Presence that the disease makes us want to avoid. The alcoholic who avoids the intervention is avoiding the one thing that could save him. The patient who refuses the surgeon’s knife is choosing to let the disease run its course. And the sinner who hides from God’s love is choosing, day by day, to let the hardening continue—to let the spiritual scar tissue build up until the heart can no longer feel anything at all.
This is why the gospel is such urgently good news. It is not the announcement that a scary God is coming to judge you and you had better get right or else. It is the announcement that the God who is Love has already come to you in Christ, and His love is the fire that can heal you before the Day when that same fire will be inescapable. Repentance is not cowering before an angry deity. Repentance is turning your face toward the sun while your eyes can still adjust. It is submitting to the surgery while healing is still possible. It is opening the door to Love while your heart can still be softened.
Alexandre Kalomiros brings all of these threads together in his powerful essay The River of Fire, which has been a touchstone for this book from the beginning. Kalomiros draws on the Orthodox iconographic tradition of the Last Judgment, in which a river of fire flows from the throne of Christ. In Western art, this river is usually depicted as a weapon—a stream of destruction aimed at God’s enemies. But in Orthodox iconography, the river of fire is something quite different. It is the outpouring of God’s love for His creatures.22
Kalomiros writes that this river of fire is the same river that flowed out of Eden to water the garden of paradise (Gen. 2:10). It is the river of God’s grace that has irrigated His saints from the beginning. Love is fire. God is Love. Therefore God is Fire. And fire consumes all those who are not fire themselves, and renders bright and shining all those who are fire themselves.23
The image is stunning. The same fire. The same love. The same divine energy pouring out from the throne of Christ. For those who have made themselves into vessels of love, this fire is glory. For those who have made themselves into vessels of hatred, this fire is torment. Not because God aims His fire differently at different people. He does not. The difference, Kalomiros insists, is entirely in the recipients. “The sun shines on healthy and diseased eyes alike, without any distinction. Healthy eyes enjoy light and because of it see clearly the beauty which surrounds them. Diseased eyes feel pain, they hurt, suffer, and want to hide from this same light which brings such great happiness to those who have healthy eyes.”24
And then comes the line that seals the argument: “But alas, there is no longer any possibility of escaping God’s light.”25 In this life, people can hide from God. They can distract themselves. They can build walls of self-deception and pretend that God does not exist. But in the new creation, after the resurrection, God will be everywhere and in everything. His light and love will embrace all. There will be no place hidden from God. The kingdom of darkness will be overthrown, and God will take full possession of His creation. Love will wrap everything in its sacred fire. And that same river of love—for those who have hate in their hearts—will suffocate and burn.26
Kalomiros then quotes one of the most important patristic passages for our argument. It compares God’s fire to a furnace: the very fire which purifies gold also consumes wood. Precious metals shine in it like the sun. Rubbish burns with black smoke. All are in the same fire of Love. Some shine and others become black and dark. In the same furnace, steel shines like the sun, whereas clay turns dark and is hardened like stone.27
The difference, Kalomiros concludes, is in the person, not in God. The difference is conditioned by the free choice of the person, which God respects absolutely. God’s judgment is the revelation of the reality which is already in the human heart.28
Sharon Baker approaches the same truth from a different angle—less philosophical, more pastoral and imaginative, but no less powerful. Baker’s entire project in Razing Hell is built on the conviction that the image of God matters. If we get the image of God wrong—if we portray Him as a cosmic torturer who delights in punishing His enemies—then everything else in our theology goes wrong too. Justice becomes vengeance. Forgiveness becomes a transaction. And hell becomes a monument to divine cruelty rather than a testimony to the seriousness of sin.29
Baker’s central insight for this chapter is simple but revolutionary: God does not need to punish, because sin is self-destructive. When a person gives themselves over to hatred, greed, pride, and cruelty, they do not need an external force to make them miserable. They are already destroying themselves from the inside out. Sin eats away at the capacity for joy, for love, for peace, for beauty. The liar can no longer trust anyone. The greedy person can never have enough. The proud person can never rest, because they are always comparing themselves to others. The cruel person is haunted by fear, because they assume everyone is as cruel as they are.30
Sin is, in Baker’s view, a spiritual cancer. You do not need a judge to sentence a cancer patient to suffer. The cancer does the work itself. All you need is time for it to run its course. And what happens when a soul riddled with the cancer of sin is suddenly placed in the presence of the Great Physician—the One whose love exposes every disease, every wound, every hidden corruption? The encounter is devastating. Not because the Physician is cruel, but because the disease is that far advanced.
This is what Baker illustrates through her vivid story of Otto, the fictional character who represents history’s worst sinners. When Otto approaches the throne of God, he expects hatred. He expects condemnation. He expects punishment. Instead, he encounters love—overwhelming, incomprehensible, extravagant love. And that love is the most devastating thing that has ever happened to him. It forces him to see his sin as God sees it. It forces him to feel the pain he has caused others. It strips away every excuse and every lie. As Baker writes, God’s incomprehensible love faces off with Otto’s incomprehensible sin, and the love, in the sheer extravagance of its force, acts as judgment against the total excessiveness of his evil.31
Otto is not let off the hook. He is not given a pass. He burns in God’s eternal fire. But the fire is not a torture designed by an angry God. The fire is God’s love, and it burns because Otto’s soul is made of the kind of material that love consumes. If Otto yields to the fire—if he allows it to burn away his wickedness—he is purified and restored. If he does not—if he hardens against the fire even further—then the fire consumes everything, and nothing of Otto remains. This, Baker argues, is the mechanism of conditional immortality within the divine presence framework: the person who finally and fully rejects God is not tortured forever but is consumed by the very love they refuse to receive.32
Baker and Manis arrive at the same destination from different starting points. Manis gets there through philosophical precision. Baker gets there through theological imagination. But the conclusion is identical: God does not punish the wicked. The wicked are destroyed by their own resistance to a love they cannot escape.
Because this idea is so central to the divine presence model, let me offer a few more analogies that help make it concrete. I find that when we are dealing with realities this profound, analogies are not a shortcut around careful thinking—they are a doorway into it.
Consider the analogy of the allergic reaction. A person with a severe peanut allergy does not need anyone to poison them. The peanut itself—which is harmless and even nutritious for most people—becomes deadly for the allergic person. The problem is not in the peanut. The problem is in the body’s distorted reaction to something that is, in itself, good. In a similar way, the love of God, which is the most life-giving reality in the universe, becomes deadly for the soul that has formed itself into the spiritual equivalent of an allergic reaction to love. God does not need to do anything hostile. His love, in contact with a soul that has become allergic to love, produces a catastrophic reaction.
Or think about the analogy of music. Imagine a symphony orchestra playing the most beautiful piece of music ever composed. For a person who loves music, the experience is transcendent—tears of joy, a heart overflowing, a sense of being caught up in something infinitely larger than yourself. But for a person who hates music—who finds every note grating, every harmony offensive, every crescendo a personal assault—the same symphony is torture. The orchestra does not change what it plays for different listeners. The beauty of the music is constant. What changes is the listener. The lover of music is in paradise. The hater of music is in agony. Same room. Same concert. Two radically different experiences.57
Or consider the simplest analogy of all: the embrace. When someone who loves you wraps their arms around you, you feel safe, warm, and cherished. But when someone you despise—someone whose very existence fills you with rage and resentment—wraps their arms around you, the same physical act feels suffocating, invasive, unbearable. You push them away. You struggle. You scream. The embrace has not changed. What has changed is the heart of the one being embraced.
Every one of these analogies is imperfect, of course. No human analogy can fully capture what it means for a finite creature to encounter the infinite God. But they all point in the same direction: the source of suffering in hell is not a change in God’s disposition. God’s disposition is always love. The source of suffering is the condition of the creature encountering that love. And this is the natural-consequence model in a nutshell.
Is there biblical support for this natural-consequence understanding of hell? Emphatically, yes. The theme of reaping what you sow runs through the entire Bible like a golden thread.
Consider Galatians 6:7–8: “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” Notice: Paul does not say, “God will punish those who sow to the flesh.” He says they will reap corruption—the natural harvest of what they have planted. The metaphor is agricultural, not judicial. You do not need a judge to condemn a bad crop. The crop condemns itself by what it produces.33
Or consider Romans 1:18–32, one of the most important passages for understanding God’s wrath. Paul says that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness.” But how is this wrath expressed? Not by God hurling thunderbolts from the sky. Three times in the passage, Paul uses the same devastating phrase: “God gave them over.” God gave them over to the lusts of their hearts (v. 24). God gave them over to degrading passions (v. 26). God gave them over to a debased mind (v. 28). The “wrath” of God in this passage is not God actively punishing. It is God stepping back and allowing the natural consequences of sin to unfold. God’s wrath is His decision to respect human freedom so completely that He allows people to experience the full weight of what they have chosen.34
Jeremiah expresses the same idea with haunting directness: “Your own wickedness will correct you, and your apostasies will reprove you. Know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God” (Jer. 2:19). God does not need to step in and impose punishment. The wickedness itself does the correcting. The apostasy itself does the reproving. Sin carries its own consequences.35
Hosea 13:9 states it with startling economy: “He destroys himself, O Israel, for he is against Me, against his help” (NASB marginal reading). The destruction comes not from God but from the creature’s opposition to the One who is his only source of life and help.36
Proverbs 8:36 puts it most simply of all: “All those who hate me love death.” Wisdom—which in the Christian tradition is identified with Christ Himself—does not need to sentence the foolish to death. Those who hate Wisdom are already in love with death. They are already on the path that leads to destruction. The path itself is the punishment.37
And then there is Isaiah 33:14–15, which may be the single most revealing passage for the divine presence model: “The sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling grips the godless: ‘Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?’ Those who walk righteously and speak what is right.” Notice: the consuming fire and everlasting burning are not in some distant location called hell. They are in Zion—the dwelling place of God. And the question is not “who will be thrown into the fire?” but “who can dwell with the fire?” The righteous can dwell with it. The sinners cannot. The fire is the same. The difference is in the people.38
Here is what makes the divine presence model different from—and, I believe, superior to—every other natural-consequence model of hell, including the choice model popularized by C. S. Lewis.
On the choice model, the suffering of hell is entirely self-chosen. The damned are in hell because they prefer it. As Lewis famously put it in The Great Divorce, the doors of hell are locked from the inside.39 The appeal of this model is real—it gets God off the hook, so to speak, because God is simply respecting human freedom. But as Manis has argued at length, the choice model has a fatal weakness: it cannot do justice to the biblical language of divine wrath, judgment, vengeance, and punishment. On the choice model, God is passive. God watches. God respects. But Scripture portrays something far more active: God reveals, God judges, God renders the verdict. The choice model turns God into a bystander, and that is not the God of the Bible.40
The divine presence model solves this problem by incorporating the key insight of the choice model—that hell is a natural consequence of sin, not an artificial punishment—while adding something the choice model lacks: the active role of God’s presence in the experience of damnation. On the divine presence model, the suffering of the damned is not simply a matter of sin running its natural course like a spiritual disease. It is the combination of the sickness of the soul and exposure to the presence of God that brings about the state of damnation.41
This combination is what accounts for the full range of biblical language. God does judge. The judgment is real. It is the revelation of Christ in glory, the unveiling of divine presence, the moment when every heart is exposed to the light of absolute truth and love. God is not passive. He acts. He reveals Himself. He reclaims creation. But the suffering that results from this act is not His intention. It is the foreseen but unintended consequence of the greatest act of love in history.42
This is why Scripture can say both that God is love and that God judges. Both are true. God’s judgment is His love, fully unveiled. For the righteous, that judgment is salvation. For the wicked, it is destruction. The same act. The same fire. Two radically different experiences, determined entirely by the condition of the human heart.
We need to pause and feel the weight of what we are saying, because it changes everything about how we relate to God.
If hell is an artificial punishment imposed by God, then at some level, God is our enemy. He is the one who designed the torture. He is the one who sustains it. He is the one who could stop it but chooses not to. However much we dress it up in the language of justice and holiness, the bottom line is terrifying: the God who says He loves us is also the God who will inflict unimaginable suffering on those who fail to meet His conditions. That is the God of the traditional Western view, and it is a God that many thoughtful believers have rightly struggled to reconcile with the Father revealed in Jesus Christ.43
But if hell is the natural consequence of a sin-hardened heart encountering divine love, then the picture is entirely different. God is not the source of the suffering. God is doing what God has always done: loving. Shining. Being Himself. The suffering comes from what sin has done to the human soul. It comes from the disease, not from the Doctor. It comes from the darkness, not from the Light. God is not the enemy. Sin is the enemy. Self-deception is the enemy. The refusal to receive love is the enemy.
And this means that salvation is not about being rescued from God. It is about being rescued for God. It is about having our hearts healed so that we can receive the love that has been pouring toward us all along. It is about having the cancer of sin removed so that the light of God’s presence becomes joy instead of agony.
This is the God of the Bible. This is the God who runs to embrace the prodigal son, not the God who stands at the gate demanding payment. This is the God who searches for the lost sheep, not the God who slams the gate behind the wanderers. This is the God who weeps over Jerusalem, not the God who designs its destruction. This is the God who says, through the prophet Ezekiel, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live” (Ezek. 33:11).44
On the divine presence model, we can take that verse at face value. God really does take no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He is not the one killing them. They are dying because they have cut themselves off from Life itself. And God’s posture toward them, even as they perish, is one of love, grief, and the heartbroken willingness to respect a freedom He gave them—even when they use that freedom to destroy themselves.
This is perhaps the most natural objection, and it deserves a careful answer. If God knows in advance that revealing His presence will cause the wicked to suffer, and He reveals His presence anyway, is He not morally responsible for their suffering?
Manis addresses this directly. The answer hinges on the moral distinction between intended consequences and foreseen-but-unintended consequences. This distinction is well established in moral philosophy and is commonly known as the principle of double effect. A surgeon who amputates a cancerous limb foresees that the patient will suffer. But the surgeon does not intend the suffering. The suffering is a foreseen-but-unintended consequence of an act aimed at a greater good: saving the patient’s life.45
On the divine presence model, God’s act of fully revealing Christ in glory is aimed at the greatest possible good: the restoration of creation, the glorification of Christ, and the consummation of human communion with God. This is the purpose. The suffering of the damned is a foreseen side-effect of this act, but it is not the purpose. God does not reveal Himself in order to make the wicked suffer. He reveals Himself in order to bring about the final restoration of all things. The suffering results not from God’s action but from the condition of those who encounter that action with hearts hardened against love.46
Furthermore, God has done everything in His power, throughout all of history, to prevent this outcome. He has sent prophets. He has given His law. He has come in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. He has poured out His Spirit. He has provided the church, the sacraments, and the Scriptures. He has offered a genuine postmortem opportunity to those who never heard the gospel in this life. He has delayed the final judgment for centuries, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). God has moved heaven and earth to save every single person. If, after all of that, some still harden their hearts beyond the point of no return, the responsibility lies with them, not with God.47
This objection gets things exactly backwards, and it is important to say so clearly. The divine presence model does not make hell milder. It makes hell worse. Far worse. It makes hell so terrible that it does not require a torturer to maintain it.
Think about it. On the traditional view, hell is bad because an external force is inflicting pain on you. That is terrible, but it is the kind of suffering you can, in a twisted way, be defiant about. You can shake your fist at the torturer. You can tell yourself that you are a victim of cosmic injustice. You can maintain your pride even in the flames.
But on the divine presence model, hell is bad because you are the problem. The fire is Love. The source of your agony is the most beautiful thing in the universe. And the reason you are suffering is not because someone is doing something terrible to you, but because you have become something terrible. You cannot blame God. You cannot rage against an unjust torturer. You can only come face-to-face with the devastating truth about what you have done to your own soul. That is not a milder hell. That is a far more devastating one.48
Baker drives this point home through Otto’s story. Otto does not get off easy. He burns. He weeps. He gnashes his teeth. He feels every ounce of pain he has inflicted on others. The fire of God’s love devours his wickedness, and the experience is excruciating. This is not soft on sin. This is the most terrifying judgment imaginable: standing naked before perfect Love with nothing to hide behind and nowhere to run.49
No—and this is precisely where the divine presence model differs from a purely secular or naturalistic account of sin and consequences. On the divine presence model, God is not irrelevant to hell. God’s presence is what makes hell what it is. Without the unveiling of God’s presence, the wicked would simply continue in their sin, in the dim twilight of self-deception, never fully confronted with the truth about themselves. It is the light of God that makes hell unbearable, because it is the light that strips away every illusion.
Manis makes this point explicitly: the suffering of the damned is not simply a matter of sin running its natural course as a spiritual disease. It is the combination of this sickness of the soul and exposure to the presence of God that brings about the state of damnation.50 Sin alone might produce a dull misery. But sin in the presence of absolute holiness, absolute truth, and absolute love produces an agony beyond description. The light does not create the disease. But it reveals it. And for the one who is consumed by the disease, the revelation is devastating.
So God is not irrelevant. God is central. His presence is the fire. His love is the furnace. The difference is that the fire does not come from God’s anger. It comes from God’s nature. God does not need to be angry to produce this effect. He only needs to be Himself. “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29)—not because He is angry, but because He is Love, and Love consumes everything that is opposed to it.51
It does say that. And the divine presence model does not deny it. What the model does is reframe how we understand that language.
Manis argues that the scriptural language of punishment is phenomenological—it describes the first-person experience of the damned. From the perspective of the person in hell, it feels like punishment. It feels like wrath. It feels like God is actively inflicting suffering. And so Scripture, which often speaks in accommodated language that meets us at the level of human experience, uses the language of punishment, wrath, and vengeance to describe what happens to the wicked.52
But we have already seen (in Chapter 7) that the “wrath of God” in Scripture is consistently described not as God actively attacking people but as God “giving them over” to the consequences of their choices. Romans 1 is the clearest example, but the pattern runs throughout the Bible. Basil the Great and John Damascene both explained that when Scripture attributes harsh actions to God, it is using human language to describe divine realities that exceed our comprehension. God accommodates His revelation to our limited understanding—He speaks our language so we can grasp what is happening, even if the full reality is deeper than the words suggest.53
On the divine presence model, the scriptural language of punishment is true. Hell is a punishment. It is experienced as divine wrath. It is the fearful judgment of a holy God. All of that language is perfectly accurate as a description of the experience. What the divine presence model adds is the deeper explanation: the punishment is not God’s intended purpose. It is the inevitable outcome of encountering divine love with a heart that hates love. The language of punishment is the surface level. The natural-consequence model is the depth.54
We have covered a lot of ground in this chapter, so let me draw the threads together.
The divine presence model teaches that hell is a natural consequence, not an artificial punishment. The suffering of the damned is not something God selects, designs, or imposes. It is the inevitable result of a sin-hardened heart encountering the fullness of divine love. This understanding is rooted in the earliest Christian tradition—in the witness of Irenaeus, Basil, Athanasius, and Isaac the Syrian, all of whom taught that God does not cause evil, that death is the natural result of turning away from Life, and that the suffering of the wicked comes from within, not from without.
Manis has given this ancient insight rigorous philosophical shape. He has shown that on the divine presence model, the suffering of hell is foreseen but unintended by God. God’s purpose in fully revealing Himself is restoration, not retribution. The suffering of the damned is a tragic consequence of free creatures who have made themselves incapable of receiving what God offers. Baker has given this insight a human face through the story of Otto, showing how God’s love is the most devastating judgment imaginable—not because love is cruel, but because sin has made the human heart incapable of receiving it. And Kalomiros has shown that this understanding is not a modern invention but the living tradition of the Eastern church, preserved in its iconography, its liturgy, and its theology for nearly two millennia.
The implications are enormous. If hell is a natural consequence, then God’s character is vindicated. God is not a torturer. He is not a sadist. He is not an angry judge who designed a punishment far worse than any crime. He is the Father who runs to embrace the prodigal, the Shepherd who searches for the lost, the Physician who came to heal the sick. His fire is His love. His judgment is His presence. And the difference between heaven and hell is not in Him. It is in us.55
This brings us to a question that has been building throughout these chapters on the divine presence model. If this is how hell works—if hell is the experience of God’s love by those who hate Him—then we need to ask: What are the strongest objections to this model? Are there passages of Scripture, philosophical arguments, or theological traditions that challenge it? And can the divine presence model survive those challenges? That is the question we take up in the next chapter, where we face the critics head-on.
But before we turn the page, I want to leave you with one thought. The natural-consequence model is not a way of making hell less real. It is a way of making God more real. It is a way of saying that the God who created the universe out of love, who sustains every atom in existence by the word of His power, who came in the flesh and died on a cross to save us—that God does not change His nature when it comes to judgment. He does not suddenly become a different kind of God on the Day of Judgment. He is love on Monday and love on Tuesday and love on the last day and love forever. His fire is always love. And the only question that matters—the only question that has ever mattered—is what kind of heart will you bring to the fire?
Because the fire is coming. It is already here. And it is not going out.
↑ 1. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Developing a natural consequence model of hell.” See also Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 246–292.
↑ 2. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Developing a natural consequence model of hell.” The distinction between natural and artificial consequences is foundational to the entire argument of the divine presence model.
↑ 3. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 248–249. Manis notes that both traditionalism and retributive versions of annihilationism construe the punishment of hell in artificial terms: it is a punishment that bears no natural connection to the wicked actions performed, but is instead arbitrarily selected and imposed by God.
↑ 4. See the extended critique of ECT in Chapters 9–10 of this book. See also Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 3–17.
↑ 5. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Developing a natural consequence model of hell.”
↑ 6. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Heaven and hell on the divine presence model.”
↑ 7. Kalomiros, The River of Fire, section XIV. Available at https://glory2godforallthings.com/the-river-of-fire-kalomiros/. Kalomiros writes that on the Day of Judgment, hearts will be opened by the penetrating light of God, and what is in those hearts will be revealed.
↑ 8. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Developing a natural consequence model of hell.”
↑ 9. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Heaven and hell on the divine presence model.” This philosophical distinction between foreseen and intended consequences is crucial to the entire model.
↑ 10. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Heaven and hell on the divine presence model.” Manis writes that it is a crucial feature of the divine presence model that God does everything in His power to save everyone.
↑ 11. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 286–288.
↑ 12. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Developing a natural consequence model of hell.” Manis defines natural punishment as a situation where an authority figure intentionally allows someone under their authority to experience the painful natural consequences of their misbehavior for a moral good.
↑ 13. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Developing a natural consequence model of hell.” Manis writes that on the divine presence model, the suffering of hell is not a natural punishment because a crucial element is missing: it is not God’s intention to bring about this suffering.
↑ 14. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Heaven and hell on the divine presence model.” Manis identifies three purposes of Christ’s being fully revealed: to bring glory to God, to restore creation, and to consummate the union between humanity and divinity.
↑ 15. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Developing a natural consequence model of hell.” The language of eternal punishment in Scripture is phenomenological: it describes the first-person, subjective experience of the damned.
↑ 16. Basil the Great, That God Is Not the Cause of Evils (Homily 9). For a discussion of Basil’s argument, see also Kalomiros, The River of Fire, section XII.
↑ 17. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, V.27.2. Irenaeus teaches that separation from God is death, and that this death is not a punishment inflicted by God but the natural result of turning away from the source of life.
↑ 18. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, chaps. 4–6. Athanasius argues that humanity was created for incorruption through communion with God, and that the turn to sin brought corruption and death as a natural consequence of alienation from Life.
↑ 19. Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies, Homily 73. For Isaac, all of God’s dealings with humanity flow from love, including what we call punishment.
↑ 20. Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies, Homily 73. See also Homilies 60 and 81 for Isaac’s extended treatment of God’s pedagogical purposes in suffering.
↑ 21. Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies, Homily 73. Isaac’s reasoning is straightforward: if punishment cannot reform, it can only avenge; and vengeance is incompatible with a God whose nature is love. See also the discussion in Kalomiros, The River of Fire, section XIII.
↑ 22. Kalomiros, The River of Fire, section XVII. Available at https://glory2godforallthings.com/the-river-of-fire-kalomiros/.
↑ 23. Kalomiros, The River of Fire, section XVII. As cited in Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 252–253.
↑ 24. Kalomiros, The River of Fire, section XVII. As cited in Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, p. 253.
↑ 25. Kalomiros, The River of Fire, section XVII.
↑ 26. Kalomiros, The River of Fire, section XVII. As cited in Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, p. 253.
↑ 27. Kalomiros, The River of Fire, section XVII. As cited in Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 253–254.
↑ 28. Kalomiros, The River of Fire, section XVII. As cited in Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, p. 254.
↑ 29. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 19–29 (chap. 2, “The Image of God”) and pp. 69–79 (chap. 6, “Rethinking the Image of God”).
↑ 30. Baker, Razing Hell, chaps. 7–8. Baker argues that God’s justice is restorative rather than retributive, and that genuine forgiveness does not require payback or punishment.
↑ 31. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 140–141.
↑ 32. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 117–118, 144–145. Baker presents two possible outcomes for Otto: purification and restoration (if he yields to the fire) or annihilation (if nothing good remains after the fire has done its work). See also Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 309–312, for a careful philosophical analysis of Baker’s account.
↑ 33. Galatians 6:7–8 (ESV). The agricultural metaphor of sowing and reaping is a natural-consequence image, not a judicial one.
↑ 34. Romans 1:18, 24, 26, 28 (ESV). For a full exegesis of this passage, see Chapter 7 of this book. See also Baker, Razing Hell, chap. 5.
↑ 35. Jeremiah 2:19 (ESV).
↑ 36. Hosea 13:9 (NASB marginal reading). Some translations render this differently, but the sense is clear: Israel’s destruction comes from opposition to God, not from God’s opposition to Israel.
↑ 37. Proverbs 8:36 (ESV). In the context of Proverbs 8, Wisdom is personified as the principle through whom God created the world. The New Testament identifies Christ as the Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24, 30; Col. 2:3).
↑ 38. Isaiah 33:14–15 (NIV). The full exegesis of this passage is provided in Chapter 22. Here the passage is cited for its clear connection between the consuming fire and the presence of God in Zion.
↑ 39. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 130: “I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.”
↑ 40. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 235–245. Manis argues that the choice model fails to accommodate the scriptural language of divine wrath, judgment, and punishment because it makes God entirely passive in the process of damnation. See also the evaluation in Chapter 11 of this book.
↑ 41. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Developing a natural consequence model of hell.” Manis writes that the suffering of the damned is not simply a matter of sin running its natural course as a spiritual disease; it is the combination of this sickness of the soul and exposure to the presence of God that brings about the state of damnation.
↑ 42. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 289–291.
↑ 43. Kalomiros, The River of Fire, sections I–III. Kalomiros argues that Western theology’s distortion of God’s character is the root cause of atheism in the modern world. See also Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 154–155.
↑ 44. Ezekiel 33:11 (NIV). See also 2 Peter 3:9 and 1 Timothy 2:4.
↑ 45. The principle of double effect is a well-established concept in moral philosophy, with roots in Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 64, Art. 7. For a discussion of its application to the divine presence model, see Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 286–291.
↑ 46. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 289–291. Manis writes that insofar as the suffering of the damned is not an artificial or arbitrary punishment imposed by God, insofar as God does not intend this suffering at all, and insofar as God does everything in His power to spare each person from it, there is no basis for objecting that God’s treatment of the damned is unfair or unjust.
↑ 47. 2 Peter 3:9 (ESV). See also 1 Timothy 2:4; Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11. For the postmortem opportunity, see Chapter 28 of this book.
↑ 48. This point is made powerfully by C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), where Lewis writes that God is the only comfort but also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. As cited in Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 313–314.
↑ 49. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 115–118.
↑ 50. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Developing a natural consequence model of hell.”
↑ 51. Hebrews 12:29 (ESV). See also Deuteronomy 4:24. The full exegesis of the fire passages is provided in Chapter 22.
↑ 52. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Developing a natural consequence model of hell.”
↑ 53. Basil the Great, That God Is Not the Cause of Evils (Homily 9). John Damascene, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, I.11. See also the discussion in Chapter 7 of this book.
↑ 54. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 286–288. Manis concludes that hell functions as something close to a natural punishment and close to a retributive punishment, without exactly being either. In terms of its experience by the damned, it is more like a retributive punishment. In terms of God’s purpose and intention, it is not.
↑ 55. Kalomiros, The River of Fire, section XVII. See also Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies, Homily 84, where Isaac writes that those who are suffering in hell are suffering from being scourged by love.
↑ 56. Proverbs 1:7; 9:10; Psalm 111:10. The “fear of the Lord” (yir’at YHWH) in the Hebrew Bible is not terror before a cruel tyrant but reverent awe before the Holy One. See also Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 274–278, for a discussion of the fear of the Lord on the divine presence model.
↑ 57. The music analogy is my own, but the underlying principle is found throughout the Fathers. Peter the Damascene (Philokalia, vol. 3) writes that God’s fire makes some soft like beeswax and others hard like stone—the same energy, two different responses. Maximus the Confessor similarly teaches that the same divine energy produces different effects depending on the disposition of the receiver.