Chapter 30
I have been putting off this chapter.
Not because I have nothing to say. I have too much to say, and not enough certainty to say it with the kind of confidence I have brought to the rest of this book. Throughout these pages, I have argued with conviction that the divine presence model of hell is the most biblically faithful, theologically coherent, and historically grounded account of judgment available. I have argued that God is love—not just occasionally loving, but love at the core of His being. I have argued that hell is not a torture chamber designed by an angry deity, but the experience of that very love by hearts that have hardened against it. I have argued that the same fire purifies the willing and consumes the resistant. I have argued that this model recovers the earliest Christian understanding of hell, preserved for centuries in the East and now being rediscovered in the West.
I still believe all of that. Firmly.
But there is one question the divine presence model leaves genuinely open, and it is the question that keeps me up at night. It is the question I wrestle with more than any other in my theological life. Here it is, stated as plainly as I can: What happens in the end?
Does God’s purifying fire eventually win every heart? Or does it consume those who refuse it forever—reducing them, body and soul, to nothing?
This is the question of conditional immortality versus universal reconciliation. CI says that those who finally and irrevocably reject God, even in the full blaze of His revealed love, are destroyed. They perish. The second death is real and final. UR says that God’s love is so powerful, so relentless, so inescapable, that no finite creature can hold out against it forever. Eventually, every knee bows—not by coercion, but by the slow, patient, overwhelming victory of love over rebellion.
Both positions have strong biblical support. Both fit within the divine presence model. Both take God’s character seriously. And both have been held by sincere, orthodox Christians throughout the history of the church.1
In this chapter, I am going to do something unusual for this book. I am going to lay my cards on the table—all of them—and let you see the hand I have been dealt. I will present the strongest possible case for conditional immortality within the divine presence model. Then I will present the strongest possible case for universal reconciliation within the same model. Then I will tell you where I land, and why. And I will tell you why I hold that position with open hands rather than clenched fists.
If you have been reading this book hoping for a neat, tidy answer to the question of hell’s duration, I am afraid this chapter will disappoint you. What I can offer is something I think is more valuable than false certainty: an honest wrestling with the hardest question in the theology of hell, conducted in the light of the character of God as we have come to understand it.
You deserve my honesty here. So here it is.
The case for conditional immortality begins with a simple observation: the Bible talks about the destruction of the wicked. A lot. Not their eternal torment—we dealt with that reading in earlier chapters. Their destruction.2
Jesus himself says in Matthew 10:28, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” Notice the word. Not “torment.” Not “preserve alive in suffering.” Destroy. And not just the body. Soul and body. The whole person.3
John 3:16—the most famous verse in the Bible—draws a contrast between eternal life and perishing. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The word for “perish” is apollymi in Greek, and it means just what it sounds like: to be destroyed, to be ruined, to come to an end.4 The contrast is not between two kinds of eternal existence—one happy and one miserable. The contrast is between life and death. Existence and non-existence. Salvation and destruction.
Paul uses similar language. Second Thessalonians 1:9 speaks of those who “will pay the penalty of eternal destruction.” The word olethros (destruction) does not mean ongoing torment. It means ruin. Devastation. The end of something.5 And as we showed in Chapter 25, the phrase “from the presence of the Lord” in the same verse likely indicates the source of that destruction, not separation from it. The destruction comes from God’s presence—the very fire of His love.6
Revelation 20:14 calls the final fate of the wicked “the second death.” Death. Not second life. Not eternal dying. Death. The lake of fire is the second death.7 And Malachi 4:1–3 paints a vivid picture of the day of judgment: the wicked will be burned to ashes—literally, “you will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet.”8
Across the biblical witness, the language is remarkably consistent. The final fate of the unrepentant is described as destruction, perishing, death, and being consumed by fire. Not eternal preservation in agony. And not eventual rescue from judgment. Destruction.
A crucial theological foundation for CI is the doctrine of conditional immortality itself—the teaching that the human soul is not inherently, naturally immortal. Only God has immortality in Himself. Paul states this explicitly in 1 Timothy 6:16: God “alone possesses immortality.” And in 2 Timothy 1:10, Paul says that Christ “has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”9 Immortality is not something we possess by nature. It is a gift, brought to us through Christ. If you reject the Giver, you do not receive the gift.
This matters enormously for the question before us. The traditional doctrine of ECT requires an immortal soul—one that must exist forever, whether in bliss or in torment. But the Bible never teaches that the soul is inherently indestructible. Jesus explicitly says that God can destroy it (Matt. 10:28). If the soul is not naturally immortal—if it depends on God’s sustaining power for its continued existence—then it follows that God could allow a soul to go out of existence. He could, in His mercy, end a soul’s existence rather than preserving it in an eternal state of misery.10
I affirmed this view of conditional immortality back in Chapter 6, where we discussed the nature of the soul. We believe in substance dualism—the soul is real, immaterial, and survives the death of the body. But we do not believe the soul is inherently immortal in the way that Plato taught. The soul exists because God sustains it. Immortality is God’s gift to those who are united to Christ. For those who finally reject Christ, that sustaining power could be withdrawn—and the soul would simply cease to be.11
What makes CI particularly compelling within the divine presence model is the account it gives of how destruction happens. On the traditional CI view, the mechanism of destruction is often left unclear. Does God actively destroy the wicked? Does He withdraw His sustaining power? Is it a punishment or a natural consequence?12
The divine presence model answers these questions beautifully. And the best illustration of that answer comes from Sharon Baker’s powerful character, Otto.
In Razing Hell, Baker tells the story of Otto—a fictional character who represents the worst of human wickedness. Otto approaches the throne of God on the Day of Judgment. He expects hatred. He expects condemnation. He expects the wrath of an angry judge. Instead, he encounters love. Pure, overwhelming, incandescent love. God offers forgiveness. God offers restoration. God shows Otto what his sins have done to others, and Otto is brought to remorse. The fire of God’s presence burns away the wickedness, and Otto is purified and reconciled.13
That is one possible ending to Otto’s story. But Baker does not stop there. She honestly acknowledges another possibility.
What if Otto does not accept God’s offer? What if, even in the full blaze of divine love, Otto continues to reject the One who made him? Baker writes: “The possibility exists, however, that Otto does not accept God’s offer of restoration, or that after the testing by fire nothing remains of him at all. Nothing.” She continues: “In order to preserve human freedom, which God gave to us at creation, we must allow for the possibility that some people will still reject God. The fire does not eliminate the gift of human freedom.”14
Think about what Baker is saying. The fire of God’s presence tests everything. It burns away what is impure. But what if a person has nothing pure left? What if the self-deception has gone so deep, the hardening so complete, that there is nothing in Otto that can receive love? Then the fire consumes all of him. Not because God wills his destruction. Not because God takes vengeance. But because a soul made entirely of resistance cannot survive contact with perfect Love.15
As Manis observes, Baker’s account produces a hybrid of the divine presence model and annihilationism. The destruction of the wicked is not a punishment inflicted from outside. It is the natural consequence of a hardened heart encountering the unveiled presence of God.16 The fire does not change. The Love does not change. What changes is the capacity of the soul to receive it. And when that capacity has been destroyed by a lifetime—and perhaps an afterlife—of willful self-deception, the fire has nothing left to purify. It can only consume.
The strongest philosophical argument for CI within the divine presence model is the argument from human freedom. If love must be freely chosen to be genuine, then the possibility of final rejection must be real. A love that cannot be refused is not love. It is coercion.17
Throughout this book, we have insisted that God respects human freedom absolutely. He does not override the will. He does not force conversion. He pursues, He invites, He convicts, He reveals—but He does not compel. This is why God remains partially hidden during this life: to preserve the freedom of our response. This is why the divine presence model emphasizes self-deception so heavily: the road to hell is paved not with God’s cruelty but with our own stubborn refusal to see the truth.18
If this commitment to freedom is genuine—and I believe it must be—then we must accept its logical consequence: some people might refuse God forever. Not because they are making a calm, well-informed decision. Not because they have weighed the options and chosen misery. But because self-deception has so thoroughly corrupted their ability to perceive reality that they cannot—or, more precisely, will not—receive the love being offered.
Manis puts this powerfully. He argues that self-deception has cumulative effects. A person who hardens their heart repeatedly develops a vicious character that progressively distorts their moral and spiritual perception. The more wicked a person becomes, the less clearly they can see the truth. Eventually, a person’s perception of reality is so warped that they genuinely experience God’s love as an attack, God’s presence as an intrusion, God’s offer of forgiveness as an insult. The evil person is not blind because they lack information. They are blind because they are evil. And their blindness is culpable, because it was produced by their own repeated acts of willful self-deception.19
On this view, the destruction of the finally impenitent is not a failure of God’s love. It is the ultimate expression of God’s respect for human freedom. God does not force anyone into paradise. And He does not preserve anyone in eternal misery. Those who finally reject Him are consumed by the very love they refuse—and that consumption is merciful, because the alternative would be an eternal existence of self-inflicted torment in the presence of a Love they can never escape and will never accept.20
I want to be clear about something here. When I say God “respects our freedom,” I do not mean He is passive. I do not mean He shrugs His shoulders and walks away when we reject Him. The God of the Bible is a pursuing God, a God who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one lost sheep, a God who runs down the road to meet His prodigal son. He pursues. He pleads. He sends prophets and preachers and ultimately His own Son. In the intermediate state, I believe He continues to offer the gospel through the work of Christ in Hades—as we discussed in Chapters 27 and 28. Even at the final judgment, the unveiling of His love is itself an invitation. God does not give up easily. But there comes a point—perhaps after every possible invitation has been extended, every opportunity given, every appeal made—where God honors the creature’s decision. Not eagerly. Not coldly. But with the grief of a Father who has done everything He can and watches His child walk into the darkness anyway.
There is another argument for CI that I find weighty, and it has to do with the biblical language of finality. The Bible does not merely describe the judgment of the wicked. It describes their end. The second death. Destruction. Ashes underfoot. Being consumed. These images do not suggest a process that is still ongoing, a fire that is still burning with the hope that the person within it might eventually emerge purified. They suggest an end. A conclusion. A point of no return.21
Matthew 25:46 is often cited in this discussion: “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Whatever we make of the word aionios—and we discussed that word at length in Chapter 21—the parallel structure of the verse suggests that the punishment is as lasting as the life. If the life is truly eternal, the punishment is truly eternal. But notice: Jesus says “eternal punishment,” not “eternal punishing.” The punishment itself—destruction, the second death—is permanent. Its effects are irreversible. That does not require ongoing conscious suffering. A building that has been demolished has suffered permanent destruction even though the act of demolishing it took only a few moments.22
Revelation 20:10–15 describes the final judgment in vivid terms. Death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire. Anyone whose name is not found in the book of life is thrown into the lake of fire. The language is final. Decisive. There is no hint that this is a purifying process from which the damned might eventually emerge. The lake of fire is the second death.23
For all of these reasons, I find the case for conditional immortality within the divine presence model to be strong. It takes the biblical language of destruction seriously. It honors the conditional nature of human immortality. It preserves the absolute freedom of the human will. It provides a clear mechanism for how destruction happens—not as divine punishment, but as the natural consequence of a hardened heart encountering the fire of God’s love. And it does all of this without making God into a torturer or a cosmic sadist.
On this view, God’s love is not diminished by the destruction of the finally impenitent. It is the very love that consumes them. The fire that purifies the willing consumes the resistant. The difference is not in the fire. The difference is in what it touches.
And now we turn the coin over. Because for every text that speaks of destruction and finality, there is another text that speaks of the universal scope of God’s saving work—and these texts are not easy to dismiss.
Consider Colossians 1:19–20: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” The scope of this text is breathtaking. All things. Not some things. Not the elect. All things. And the means of reconciliation is the blood of the cross—the supreme act of divine love.24
Or consider 1 Corinthians 15:22: “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” The parallel is exact. The “all” who die in Adam is every human being who has ever lived. If the “all” who are made alive in Christ is a smaller group—only believers—then the parallel collapses. The natural reading of the text is that the scope of redemption is as wide as the scope of the fall.25
And the climax of that same passage, 1 Corinthians 15:28: “When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” All in all. That is a staggering phrase. If God is truly “all in all” at the end of history, what room is left for souls that have been destroyed? What room is left for a pocket of non-existence where redeemed creatures should have been?26
First Timothy 2:3–4 states plainly: “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” Does God get what God wants? Is the God who spoke the universe into existence unable to accomplish His stated desire? The universalist presses this point: either God wants all to be saved and will eventually accomplish it, or God wants all to be saved and will ultimately fail to accomplish it. Which sounds more like the God of the Bible?27
Romans 5:18 draws another sweeping parallel: “Just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.” Again, the “all” is identical in both clauses. If Adam’s trespass truly condemned every human being, then Christ’s righteous act truly brings justification to every human being.28
And Philippians 2:10–11: “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” The universalist asks: is this a forced confession, wrung from the lips of the damned as they are dragged to destruction? Or is it the joyful acknowledgment of a truth they have finally come to see—that Jesus is Lord, and His lordship is good?29
When you gather these texts together, the cumulative weight is formidable. The New Testament authors seem to envision a conclusion to history in which God’s saving work is complete, in which all things are reconciled, in which every creature bows in worship, in which God is all in all. This is not a marginal theme in the New Testament. It is woven through some of its most central texts.
The hope of universal reconciliation is not a modern invention. It has ancient roots. Among its most important advocates is Gregory of Nyssa—one of the great Cappadocian Fathers, a towering figure of fourth-century orthodoxy, and one of the architects of the Nicene faith.30
Gregory taught apokatastasis—the restoration of all things. He believed that God’s purifying fire would eventually cleanse every soul, and that at the end of all things, every creature would be reconciled to God. In his great work On the Soul and the Resurrection, Gregory argued that evil is a kind of disease of the soul, and that God’s fire is the medicine that cures it. Just as a doctor uses painful procedures to heal the body, God uses the painful fire of His love to heal the soul. And the healing is complete. No soul is beyond the reach of the divine Physician.31
This matters for two reasons. First, it shows that universal reconciliation is not a modern, liberal idea. It was held by one of the most orthodox, creedally faithful theologians in the history of the church—a man who helped define what orthodox Christianity is. If Gregory of Nyssa could believe in universal reconciliation while affirming the Nicene Creed without qualification, then the idea cannot be dismissed as unorthodox on its face.32
Second, Gregory’s understanding of the restorative purpose of fire fits perfectly within the divine presence model. On both views, the fire is God’s love. On both views, the fire purifies. On both views, the suffering of the wicked is not an end in itself but a consequence of encountering divine Love with a hardened heart. The only difference is the question of whether the fire always succeeds in breaking through the hardness—or whether some hearts resist it forever.
Gregory was not alone in his hope. Ilaria Ramelli’s monumental study, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis, documents a far wider stream of universalist hope in the early church than is usually acknowledged. Clement of Alexandria, Origen (whose broader theology was controversial but whose universalist hope was shared by others who were not), Gregory of Nazianzus, and many others expressed some version of the hope that God’s restorative fire would eventually purify all souls. The universalist reading of the Church Fathers was not marginal. It was a significant strand of early Christian thought—especially among the Greek-speaking Fathers who had direct access to the language of the New Testament.
This is not to say that the early church was unanimously universalist. It was not. Augustine, Jerome, and many Latin Fathers held views closer to what we now call ECT. The early church was genuinely divided on this question. But the fact that both CI and UR were live options in the earliest centuries of the church should give us pause before we declare either position out of bounds for orthodox Christians today.
Thomas Talbott, in The Inescapable Love of God, presents what may be the most powerful philosophical argument for universal reconciliation. The argument, in its simplest form, goes like this: God is perfectly loving. God is perfectly sovereign. A perfectly loving God desires the salvation of every person. A perfectly sovereign God is able to accomplish what He desires. Therefore, all will be saved.33
Manis summarizes the universalist’s argument honestly: anti-universalists face a dilemma. Either they compromise divine love (by saying God doesn’t truly want all to be saved), or they compromise divine sovereignty (by saying God wants all to be saved but cannot accomplish it). Neither option is theologically attractive. The universalist claims to be the only one who takes both God’s love and God’s power with full seriousness.34
Talbott adds a particularly moving argument about the nature of love. If I truly love my daughter, he writes, I cannot be happy knowing she is suffering or lost—unless I can believe that all will eventually be well for her. If she is lost to me forever, my own happiness can never be complete, no matter what other joys I might experience. Love binds us together in such a way that one person’s loss is everyone’s loss. If this is true of human love, how much more of divine love? Can God be fully happy, fully “all in all,” if even one of His creatures has been destroyed?35
David Bentley Hart, in That All Shall Be Saved, presses the argument even further. Hart argues that a God who creates beings He knows will be finally lost is not a good God. The act of creation, if it terminates in the permanent destruction or damnation of any creature, is an act of cosmic injustice. A truly good God would not bring into existence a being whose final destiny is annihilation or eternal suffering. The only way creation can be justified is if every creature is finally redeemed.36
These are not lightweight arguments. They come from serious philosophers and theologians who take Scripture, tradition, and reason with utmost seriousness. And they point to a deep tension within the anti-universalist position: if God truly loves every person, and if God is truly sovereign, and if God truly desires all to be saved—then the permanent loss of even one person seems to represent a defeat for God. Not just a defeat for the lost person, but a defeat for God Himself. And the God of the Bible does not lose.
Within the divine presence model, universal reconciliation takes on a distinctive shape. Hell is real. The fire is real. The suffering is real. But the fire is purifying, not punitive. And the purification has an end point: the moment when the last shred of resistance in the human heart finally breaks, and the soul yields to the Love it has been fighting.37
On this view, the divine presence model becomes a kind of purgatorial universalism. Every person will eventually stand in the full, unveiled presence of God. For some, that encounter will be immediately joyful. For others, it will be excruciating—the fire of God’s love burning away layers of self-deception, rebellion, and sin. The process may be long. It may be agonizing. But it will be successful. Because God’s love is infinite, and human resistance is finite. And the infinite always outlasts the finite.
Gerry Beauchemin captures this hope in Hope Beyond Hell. He argues that God’s judgments are always remedial—always aimed at restoration, never at mere destruction. The fire of hell, on this view, is the corrective application of God’s laws and purposes. Christ will draw all people to Himself (John 12:32). He will reign until every enemy is under His feet (1 Cor. 15:25). And the final result will be that God is “all in all”—not all in some, not all in most, but all in all.38
Michael Phillips, in What If Hell Is God’s, Not the Devil’s?, makes a related argument. He asks whether we truly believe that the blood of Christ is powerful enough to accomplish what the Father sent it to accomplish. Colossians 1:19–20 says it pleased the Father to reconcile all things through the blood of the cross. Phillips presses: dare we place limits on what the blood of the cross has achieved? Was it not the Father’s purpose from the beginning to reconcile all to Himself?39
Baker herself hints at this possibility in Razing Hell. In one of her alternative endings to the Otto story, she imagines that the fire of God’s presence burns away everything impure in Otto. What remains—whatever good was in him, however deeply buried—naturally turns toward God. A purified Otto would freely choose life with God, because the only thing that made him reject God was the impurity that the fire has now destroyed. Baker writes: “Because the fire destroyed death in Otto, only life, God’s life, would remain.” She adds: “This view of the lake of fire and of judgment respects human freedom, yet at the same time it sees God’s will to save all people fulfilled.”40
What I find fascinating is that the divine presence model produces a kind of convergence among positions that are usually treated as opposites. Manis observes that Talbott himself, in the second edition of The Inescapable Love of God, develops what amounts to a hybrid version of universalism and the divine presence model. Talbott envisions the lake of fire as the experience of God’s unveiled presence, where the wicked are refined and purified by the encounter with divine love. He also envisions an “outer darkness” as a kind of way station for those who flee God’s presence—but even this is only a temporary stop on the road to final reconciliation.41
Even Eleonore Stump, who is generally associated with the choice model, has written that the fire of God’s love can be experienced as wild and exhilarating or as harsh and hateful, depending on the state of the person experiencing it. She speaks of God’s love encompassing even those who never cease resisting it—but encompassing them in the only way their rejection allows.42
What this tells me is that serious thinkers from very different traditions are converging on a common insight: hell is fundamentally about the encounter between human hearts and divine love. Where they differ is on the question of whether that encounter always eventually succeeds in breaking through. But the model itself—the divine presence model—is the framework within which both CI and UR make sense.
So here we are. Two powerful cases. Two sets of biblical texts. Two theological visions, both built on the same foundation: God is love, His fire is that love, and hell is the experience of that love by hearts that resist it.
The CI advocate says: genuine freedom requires the possibility of final refusal. If God guarantees that every person will eventually be saved, then the “freedom” of the human will is an illusion. The game is rigged from the start. Love that cannot be finally refused is not love. It is inevitability dressed up as romance.43
The UR advocate says: infinite love must eventually triumph over finite resistance. If God’s love truly has no limit, and if human resistance is the product of finite creatures acting out of self-deception and spiritual blindness, then it is unthinkable that the finite should ultimately defeat the infinite. God’s love is patient. It does not give up. It “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). A love that endures all things surely endures the resistance of every creature, for as long as it takes.44
Both sides have a point. Both sides are pressing on something real and important.
The CI advocate is pressing on the reality of human agency. If our choices are genuinely free, then they must be genuinely consequential—even eternally consequential. A freedom that cannot produce irreversible results is a freedom that does not matter. And the Bible seems to teach that some choices do have final consequences. The “blasphemy against the Spirit” that will not be forgiven (Matt. 12:31–32). The second death from which there is no recorded resurrection. The destruction that is called “eternal.”
The UR advocate is pressing on the reality of divine love. If God’s love is truly infinite—truly without limit, without end, without conditions—then how can it be finally defeated by the rebellion of finite creatures? Are we really saying that a human being, acting out of self-deception and spiritual blindness, can hold out against the God who made the stars? Can the creature outmatch the Creator? Can sin, which is a parasite on the good, ultimately triumph over the Good itself?
Kvanvig captures the tension well in The Problem of Hell. He observes that the universalist must contend with the problem of fundamental depravity—the possibility that some persons have a basic desire to pursue self-exaltation over everything else, including God. If such a person exists, God could remove the effects of sinful habits, but removing the fundamental depravity itself would amount to overriding the will rather than freeing it. The only way to remove fundamental depravity without overriding the will is for the person to give it up voluntarily—which is precisely what the fundamentally depraved person will not do.45
Manis presses this point in his response to Talbott. Even on the divine presence model, where God’s presence is fully unveiled at the final judgment, the self-deceived may experience that unveiled presence as torment rather than invitation. The unveiling of truth does not guarantee a positive response. A person who has spent a lifetime (and perhaps longer) building a fortress of self-deception may experience the demolition of that fortress not as liberation but as annihilation of everything they are. And they may resist it with every fiber of their being—not because they are making a rational choice, but because their irrationality is itself the product of their own freely chosen wickedness.46
Think of the addict. The addict knows the drug is destroying him. He has been told. He has seen the evidence. Perhaps he has experienced the terrible consequences firsthand. And yet he cannot stop. Not because he lacks information. Not because he does not understand the stakes. But because the addiction has so thoroughly rewired his desires that the pull of the drug is stronger than the pull of life itself. Knowledge does not automatically produce change. And if this is true of earthly addictions, might it also be true of the deepest addiction of all—the addiction to self, the refusal to bow before a Love that demands the surrender of everything?47
The universalist has a response: God can cure addiction. God can break through self-deception. God is not limited by the walls we build against Him. If the addict cannot free himself, God can free the addict. That is, after all, what grace means.
And the conditionalist counters: but if God breaks through by force, is the resulting “conversion” genuine? Or is it coercion? If God overrides the sinner’s self-deception without the sinner’s cooperation, He is doing to the soul something that the soul has not chosen. And if salvation requires a free act of the will—as both sides agree it does—then a salvation that is forced upon an unwilling soul is no salvation at all.48
We are going in circles. And that is precisely the point. This question does not have a clean answer. Both sides are holding onto something true. And that is why I believe this is a genuinely open question—one that humble Christians can disagree about without breaking fellowship.
What strikes me most about this debate is how different it feels from the debate over ECT. When I examine eternal conscious torment, I find a view that makes God into something other than love—a cosmic torturer who preserves the wicked alive for the sole purpose of tormenting them forever. That view I reject with confidence. But the debate between CI and UR is a different kind of debate entirely. It is not a debate between a God of love and a God of cruelty. It is a debate between two different visions of how love operates in the face of radical, persistent rejection. Does love eventually overwhelm all resistance? Or does love honor the beloved’s freedom so absolutely that it accepts the possibility of final loss? Both answers are grounded in love. Both take God’s character seriously. Both deserve to be treated with the respect that comes from recognizing the depth and difficulty of the question.
You have been patient with me. You deserve to know where I land.
I lean toward conditional immortality. Let me tell you why—and then let me tell you why I hold that position with humility rather than certainty.
I lean toward CI for three reasons.
First, I take human freedom very seriously. If our choices are genuinely free, then they must be genuinely consequential. I believe that the God who made us in His image respects our freedom so absolutely that He will not override it—even to save us from ourselves. This means that the possibility of final refusal must be real, not merely theoretical. And if final refusal is real, then the destruction that follows is real.
Second, I find the biblical language of finality very difficult to harmonize with universalism. The “second death” in Revelation. The “eternal destruction” in 2 Thessalonians. The ashes underfoot in Malachi. The destruction of soul and body in Matthew 10:28. These texts do not read like descriptions of a painful but temporary process that will eventually lead to restoration. They read like descriptions of an end.49
Third, I believe the divine presence model provides the strongest possible account of how final destruction works. The wicked are not tortured by God. They are consumed by the very love they have spent their existence rejecting. The fire does not change. The Love does not change. But a soul that has made itself entirely of resistance has nothing left for the fire to purify. It can only consume. This is not cruelty. It is the natural consequence of a free creature’s decision to oppose the only source of life and being in the universe.50
There is one more reason I lean toward CI, and it is perhaps the most personal one. Throughout this book, I have insisted that we take the postmortem opportunity seriously—the belief that God gives every person, including those who never heard the gospel in this life, a genuine chance to respond to Christ before the final judgment. If this is true, then the people who are finally lost are not ignorant victims who never had a chance. They are people who have been confronted with the full truth of God’s love—in this life, in the intermediate state, and at the final judgment itself—and have said “no” at every turn. They have been given every possible opportunity. They have been pursued by a God who will not let them go easily. And still they refuse. If this is the case, then the destruction that follows is not the failure of a God who did not try hard enough. It is the tragic conclusion to a story in which the creature was given every chance and chose death over life at every juncture.
But I hold this position with open hands for three reasons.
First, the universal scope texts are real. Colossians 1:19–20. First Corinthians 15:22, 28. First Timothy 2:4. Romans 5:18. Philippians 2:10–11. These are not obscure proof texts. They are among the most sweeping, exalted statements in the New Testament. They envision a future in which God’s reconciling work is complete, in which every creature is gathered up in Christ, in which God is all in all. I cannot dismiss these texts. I can try to qualify them, to limit their scope, to argue that the “all” does not really mean “all.” But I am not entirely comfortable doing so. And that discomfort keeps me humble.
Second, the argument from God’s sovereignty is genuinely powerful. If God truly wants all to be saved (and Scripture says He does), and if God is truly able to accomplish what He wants (and Scripture says He is), then the permanent loss of any creature seems to represent a genuine defeat for God. I do not believe that God is defeated in the end. But I am not certain that I have resolved the tension between God’s desire for universal salvation and the possibility that some will be finally lost. Manis himself acknowledges that this tension is real and that anti-universalism implies that God’s purposes are, to some degree, “finally thwarted”—a conclusion he rightly describes as a “fundamental problem” for the conditionalist position.51
Third, the witness of Gregory of Nyssa and other early Fathers who held to apokatastasis reminds me that this is an ancient debate, not a modern one. If one of the architects of Nicene orthodoxy could hope for the salvation of all without surrendering his commitment to the faith once delivered, then I have no right to pronounce that hope heretical. I may disagree with Gregory. But I will not condemn him. And I will not condemn those who follow in his footsteps today.52
Here is what I want you to see. The divine presence model settles the most important question about hell. It settles the question of what kind of God we serve.
On the divine presence model, God does not torture. God does not take vengeance. God does not design elaborate machines of eternal suffering. God does not create the vast majority of the human race for the express purpose of tormenting them forever. God does not punish finite sins with infinite punishment. God does not operate a cosmic concentration camp. Every version of these horrors is swept away by the divine presence model. And that is no small thing.53
What the divine presence model does not settle is the question of the final outcome. Does God’s love eventually win every heart, or does it consume those who refuse it forever? The model is compatible with both answers. If CI is true, the fire of God’s love consumes those who have made themselves utterly resistant to it—and this is not punishment but the natural consequence of choosing darkness in the presence of infinite Light. If UR is true, the same fire eventually breaks through every barrier, and every soul is finally reconciled to the Love that made it—and this is not coercion but the inevitable victory of infinite Love over finite resistance.
Either way, the character of God is preserved. Either way, God is love. Either way, His fire is aimed at purification, not punishment. Either way, hell is not a torture chamber but the painful encounter between human rebellion and divine Love.54
I believe this matters more than the question of the final outcome. Because the question that has tortured the church for centuries is not really “How long does hell last?” The real question is: “What kind of God do we serve?” Is our God a God of love—truly, unfailingly, unconditionally? Or is He a God who puts on a show of love for a few decades and then reveals His true face as an eternal torturer?
The divine presence model answers that question decisively. God is love. All the way down. All the way through. His fire is His love. And His love never changes, no matter what.
Someone might object that a model which cannot determine the final outcome of the wicked is incomplete—that it leaves the most important question unanswered. I understand this concern. But I think it gets the priority wrong.
The most important question about hell is not its duration. It is its nature. What kind of thing is hell? Is it divine punishment? Is it the absence of God? Is it a freely chosen state? Or is it the experience of God’s unveiled love by hearts that cannot bear it? The divine presence model answers this question. And that answer changes everything about how we think about God, judgment, and the fate of the wicked—regardless of whether the final outcome is destruction or restoration.55
Consider a medical analogy. Suppose a patient has a serious disease. The doctor identifies the disease, explains its mechanism, and prescribes a treatment. The treatment will either cure the patient or ease their suffering until the end. The doctor does not know which outcome will occur. Is the doctor’s diagnosis and treatment plan inadequate because it cannot predict the final outcome? Of course not. The diagnosis is sound. The treatment is appropriate. The uncertainty about the outcome does not invalidate the model.
In the same way, the divine presence model gives us a comprehensive account of what hell is, how it works, and why it is consistent with God’s character. The question of whether the fire always eventually succeeds in purifying (UR) or sometimes consumes entirely (CI) is a genuinely difficult question that depends on deep questions about human freedom, divine sovereignty, and the power of self-deception. I see no shame in acknowledging that I do not have a definitive answer to one of the hardest questions in all of theology.
Not at all. On the CI reading of the divine presence model, God’s love is not diminished. It is the very love that consumes those who cannot bear it. The destruction of the finally impenitent is not an act of anger, vengeance, or cruelty. It is the natural consequence of a free creature’s decision to oppose the only source of life in the universe. And it may even be an act of mercy—because the alternative, on this model, would be an eternal existence of self-inflicted agony in the presence of a Love that can never be escaped and will never be accepted.56
The destruction of the wicked on the CI model is not God saying, “I have given up on you.” It is the recognition that some creatures have so thoroughly destroyed their capacity to receive love that love can no longer sustain them. A plant that has been uprooted and refused water for too long will eventually die. Not because the sun stops shining. Not because the rain stops falling. But because the plant has no roots left to receive what is being offered. The sun and the rain are not diminished by the plant’s death. Neither is God’s love diminished by the destruction of those who have cut themselves off from it entirely.
I am sympathetic to this impulse. Who would not prefer a universe in which every creature is finally reconciled? But I do not think we should choose our theology based on what we prefer. We should choose it based on what Scripture and reason, illuminated by the Spirit, actually teach.
The UR advocate’s strongest argument is not an appeal to our preferences. It is an appeal to the character of God and the universal scope of His saving work. And that argument is strong. But it must be weighed against the biblical language of finality, the reality of human freedom, and the possibility that some creatures may freely choose to resist God beyond the point of no return. Wishing that UR is true does not make it true. And it would be intellectually dishonest of me to affirm UR with more confidence than the evidence allows.
What I will say is this: the hope of universal reconciliation is a hope, not a heresy. It is a hope grounded in the character of God and the scope of Christ’s saving work. It is a hope that has been held by some of the finest theological minds in the history of the church. And it is a hope that I will not condemn, even though I do not share it with full confidence.57
Maybe I am. But I would rather sit on the fence than jump to the wrong side of it. And I am in good company. Manis himself, after one of the most rigorous philosophical treatments of the problem of hell ever written, remains agnostic on the question of whether the damned suffer eternally, are annihilated, or are eventually restored. He presents the divine presence model as compatible with all three outcomes (though he argues convincingly against ECT).58
Hans Urs von Balthasar, one of the great Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, famously argued that we may hope that all will be saved, without asserting it as dogma. This seems to me the wisest possible position. We hope. We do not presume. We trust God’s character. We acknowledge the limits of our understanding. And we hold our conclusions with the kind of humility that becomes those who are dealing with the most profound mysteries of the faith.59
I began this chapter by admitting that I have been putting it off. Now that I have written it, I think I understand why.
The question of CI versus UR is the question I care about most in this entire book. It is the question that touches the deepest places in my heart. When I think about the billions of people who have lived and died without ever hearing the name of Jesus—when I think about children who never had a chance, about victims of abuse who never knew what love was, about human beings made in the image of God whose lives were crushed before they could even begin—I want universal reconciliation to be true. I want it with an ache that I cannot express.
But I am a man under Scripture. And Scripture speaks with more than one voice on this question. It speaks of universal reconciliation in the grandest terms: all things reconciled, every knee bowing, God all in all. And it speaks of final destruction in the starkest terms: the second death, eternal destruction, ashes underfoot. I cannot silence either voice. I can only listen to both and do my best to understand what the whole of Scripture teaches.
What I am sure of is this: whatever the final outcome, the character of God does not change. God is love. His fire is love. His judgment is love. His justice is love. If the wicked are destroyed, they are destroyed by love—a love that consumes what cannot receive it. If the wicked are restored, they are restored by love—a love that patiently, relentlessly, breaks through every wall of self-deception until the last rebellious heart finally yields.
The fire is the same. The love is the same. The God is the same.
And that, I believe, is what matters most.60
I want to say one more thing before we close this chapter. If you are reading this and you find yourself drawn to universal reconciliation, I want you to know that I understand. I feel the pull of it too. There is something deeply beautiful about the idea that God’s love will eventually win every single heart, that no one will be finally lost, that the story of creation will end with every creature gathered home in joy. That vision makes my heart sing in a way that conditional immortality, for all its strengths, does not. And if it turns out, on the other side of eternity, that the universalists were right all along—that God’s love was indeed more powerful and more patient than any of us dared to believe—I will be the first to fall on my face in gratitude and worship.
But I am also a man who believes that truth matters more than comfort. And until I am more convinced by the universalist case than I currently am, I will hold to the view that best fits the whole counsel of Scripture as I understand it—while keeping my hands open to the possibility that I might be wrong. I serve a God who is bigger than my theology. And I trust Him with the questions I cannot answer.
In the next chapter, we will dig deeper into the philosophical and theological question that lies at the root of this debate: Can anyone truly choose hell forever? Is permanent rejection of God even possible for a creature made in His image? That is the question that will determine whether CI or UR has the final word. And it is a question, I must warn you, that does not have an easy answer.
↑ 1. For a helpful overview of the history of these positions within Christian theology, see Robin Parry, “A Universalist View,” in Four Views on Hell, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016); and Edward Fudge, “The Case for Conditionalism,” in Two Views of Hell (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000).
↑ 2. For a thorough survey of the destruction language in Scripture, see Edward William Fudge, The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment, 3rd ed. (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2011). See also the discussion in Chapter 12 of this book.
↑ 3. The Greek word here is apollymi, which means to destroy utterly, to bring to ruin. See our detailed exegesis of this verse in Chapter 22.
↑ 4. Apollymi and its cognates appear throughout the New Testament in contexts of destruction and perishing. See Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, for a comprehensive treatment.
↑ 5. The Greek olethros appears in 1 Thessalonians 5:3; 2 Thessalonians 1:9; 1 Timothy 6:9; and 1 Corinthians 5:5. In each case, the word denotes ruin or destruction, not ongoing torment. See the discussion in Chapter 25.
↑ 6. The Greek apo prosopou tou kyriou in 2 Thessalonians 1:9 can be rendered “from the face of the Lord,” indicating the source of the destruction. See Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Apocalyptic visions”; and Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 113–115. See our treatment of this passage in Chapter 25.
↑ 7. The identification of the lake of fire with “the second death” (Rev. 20:14; 21:8) is significant. Death is the cessation of life, not the continuation of life in a state of suffering. See our discussion in Chapter 26.
↑ 8. Malachi 4:1–3 (NRSV). The imagery is vivid: the wicked are not preserved alive in fire but reduced to ashes. This is the language of annihilation, not eternal torment.
↑ 9. On the conditional nature of human immortality, see John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000); and our discussion in Chapter 6.
↑ 10. The view that the soul depends on God’s sustaining power for its continued existence is consistent with substance dualism as I have defended it in this book. The soul is real and immaterial, but it is not self-sustaining. See Chapter 6 for the full argument.
↑ 11. This is the position of “conditional immortality” as defended by Edward Fudge, John Stott, Clark Pinnock, and more recently by Chris Date and the Rethinking Hell project. See Fudge, “The Case for Conditionalism,” in Two Views of Hell; and Christopher M. Date, Gregory G. Stump, and Joshua W. Anderson, eds., Rethinking Hell: Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014).
↑ 12. Manis identifies this ambiguity in the CI position. CI tells us what happens (the wicked are destroyed) but not how or why. The divine presence model supplies the missing mechanism. See Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 309–312.
↑ 13. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 113–117. Baker’s telling of the Otto story is one of the most creative and theologically rich illustrations in the contemporary literature on hell. For Manis’s analysis, see Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 309–311.
↑ 14. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 117.
↑ 15. Baker explores two variations. In one, the lake of fire is separate from God, and Otto is annihilated when thrown into it. In the other, the lake of fire is the fire of God’s presence, and Otto is consumed because “what if Otto has no good at all in him? The fire would burn all of him. It would completely destroy him.” Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 143–145.
↑ 16. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 311–312. Manis describes Baker’s view as “a hybrid of the divine presence model and annihilationism” and notes that it is “suggestive of the lines along which a rigorous hybrid model of this type might be constructed.”
↑ 17. This is the central argument of the “free will argument against universalism.” See Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, Parts III–IV; Walls, Hell: The Logic of Damnation, chap. 5.
↑ 18. On divine hiddenness and its role in preserving genuine freedom, see Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Hiddenness on the divine presence model.”
↑ 19. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Answering the universalist’s objection, part I.” Manis’s analysis of self-deception draws on Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death and its account of how sin becomes constitutive of personal identity. See also Chapter 18 of this book.
↑ 20. This argument is mine, but it builds on Baker’s insight that the fire of God’s presence both purifies and consumes (Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 113–120), and Manis’s argument that the suffering of hell is a natural consequence of the soul’s condition, not a punishment imposed from outside (Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 247–260).
↑ 21. See our discussion of the finality language in Chapters 22 and 26. The imagery of ashes (Mal. 4:1–3), the second death (Rev. 20:14), and destruction of both soul and body (Matt. 10:28) all point toward an end rather than an ongoing process.
↑ 22. For the distinction between “eternal punishment” (a permanent result) and “eternal punishing” (an ongoing process), see Fudge, “The Case for Conditionalism,” in Two Views of Hell. The analogy is commonly used by CI advocates: “eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12) does not mean God is eternally redeeming us but that the redemption is permanent. Similarly, “eternal punishment” may mean the punishment (destruction) is permanent in its effects.
↑ 23. The language of Revelation 20:10–15 is among the most difficult for universalists to account for. The imagery of being “thrown into” the lake of fire and the identification of this as “the second death” suggest finality. See our treatment in Chapter 26.
↑ 24. Colossians 1:19–20 (NIV). The phrase “all things” (ta panta) is the same phrase used in verse 16 to describe everything that was created. The scope of reconciliation matches the scope of creation. See our detailed exegesis in Chapter 25.
↑ 25. For a universalist interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:22, see Thomas Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, 2nd ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014), pp. 84–90. For the counter-argument, see Denny Burk, “Eternal Conscious Torment,” in Four Views on Hell, 2nd ed.
↑ 26. The phrase “God will be all in all” (panta en pasin) in 1 Corinthians 15:28 is one of the most debated eschatological texts in the New Testament. Universalists take it as a promise of universal restoration. CI advocates argue it refers to God’s uncontested sovereignty over all that remains after the destruction of the wicked.
↑ 27. 1 Timothy 2:3–4 (NIV). See also 2 Peter 3:9: God is “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” The universalist presses: does God get what He wants? See Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, ch. 4.
↑ 28. Romans 5:18 (NIV). The parallel is striking: one trespass led to condemnation for all; one righteous act led to justification and life for all. For a universalist reading, see Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, ch. 5.
↑ 29. The Greek word exomologeo in Philippians 2:11 means “to confess, to acknowledge.” Phillips argues that this confession must be sincere, not coerced, because it is done “to the glory of God the Father.” Coerced confession does not glorify God. See Phillips, What If Hell Is God’s, Not the Devil’s?, the chapter on Philippians 2:10–11. For a defense of the universalist reading, see Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, pp. 97–100.
↑ 30. Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335–395) was the younger brother of Basil the Great and a key participant in the Council of Constantinople (381), which ratified the Nicene Creed in its final form. His orthodoxy has never been seriously questioned by any major Christian tradition.
↑ 31. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection. For a modern assessment, see Ilaria Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena (Leiden: Brill, 2013). For a more accessible treatment, see Robin Parry, “A Universalist View,” in Four Views on Hell, 2nd ed.
↑ 32. On the question of whether universalism was condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553), see Gregory MacDonald, ed., “All Shall Be Well”: Explorations in Universal Salvation and Christian Theology, from Origen to Moltmann (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011), pp. 2–13. The historical evidence is far less clear-cut than many assume.
↑ 33. Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, ch. 4, especially p. 103 for a summary statement. See also Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 107–108.
↑ 34. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 106–108. Manis calls this “the problem of sovereignty” and describes it as “a fundamental problem for anti-universalism and, conversely, a powerful argument for universalism.”
↑ 35. Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, as cited in Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 108–109. Talbott calls this “the inclusive nature of love.”
↑ 36. David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019). Hart’s argument is theologically sophisticated but controversial; for a critical engagement, see Michael McClymond, The Devil’s Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018).
↑ 37. This is the view sometimes called “purgatorial universalism.” See Parry, “A Universalist View,” in Four Views on Hell, 2nd ed.; and Walls, Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, for a treatment of purgatorial theology from a Protestant perspective.
↑ 38. Beauchemin, Hope Beyond Hell: The Righteous Purpose of God’s Judgment (Olmito, TX: Malista Press, 2007), chaps. 1–5. Beauchemin argues that judgment in Scripture is always remedial and corrective, never merely retributive. Whether one agrees with his conclusions, his compilation of relevant texts is valuable.
↑ 39. Phillips, What If Hell Is God’s, Not the Devil’s?, the discussion of Colossians 1:19–20. Phillips asks whether we dare place limits on what the blood of Christ has achieved.
↑ 40. Baker, Razing Hell, pp. 144–145. This is the second of Baker’s two possible endings for Otto’s story. Baker writes: “This view of the lake of fire and of judgment respects human freedom, yet at the same time it sees God’s will to save all people fulfilled.”
↑ 41. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 320–329. Manis describes the section in Talbott’s second edition as “the clearest and most detailed example of a hybrid version of the divine presence model to be found anywhere in the contemporary philosophical literature.”
↑ 42. Eleonore Stump, as cited in Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 319–320, n69.
↑ 43. This is the core of the “free will argument against universalism.” See Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, Parts III–IV; Walls, Hell: The Logic of Damnation, chap. 5; Kvanvig, The Problem of Hell, chap. 4.
↑ 44. See Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God, ch. 8, for the fullest development of this argument.
↑ 45. Kvanvig, The Problem of Hell, chap. 4. Kvanvig argues that “even though God can eliminate interfering factors, doing so provides no guarantee that a person will thereby come to choose the good.” The problem of “fundamental depravity”—a basic desire for self-exaltation over all else—cannot be removed by God without overriding the will entirely.
↑ 46. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Answering the universalist’s objection, parts I and II.” Manis argues that the evil person is blind not because they lack information but because their character is vicious; a person’s ability to perceive moral and spiritual truth is a function of their character.
↑ 47. The addiction analogy is imperfect but useful. See also Talbott’s discussion of the person who would thrust their hand into a raging fire if they believed it was necessary to save their child; as Manis notes, if the motive is strong enough, resistance to God remains possible regardless of how painful the experience. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 205–206, n2.
↑ 48. Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “Answering the universalist’s objection, part II.” Manis argues that “a process of reforming a soul without any contribution of its free will would not be a process of soul-making—at least, not of the type that’s required for human salvation.”
↑ 49. For the CI reading of these texts, see Fudge, The Fire That Consumes; Peterson, in Two Views of Hell; and our exegetical treatments in Chapters 22, 25, and 26.
↑ 50. This is the central argument of this book. The fire is God’s love. The love is the same for all. The response determines the outcome. See the discussion in Chapters 14–17.
↑ 51. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, p. 107. Manis writes: “Insofar as God genuinely desires, wills, and intends the salvation of every person, anti-universalism implies that the end of history is one in which God’s purposes for creation are, to some degree, finally thwarted. This is a fundamental problem for anti-universalism.”
↑ 52. On the patristic diversity regarding the duration of hell, see Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis; and John Wesley Hanson, Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years (Boston: Universalist Publishing, 1899). See also Chapter 8 of this book.
↑ 53. See Chapters 9–10 for our full critique of ECT, and Chapters 14–17 for the presentation of the divine presence model.
↑ 54. This is one of the great strengths of the divine presence model: it does not depend on the CI/UR question for its core identity. The model is about the nature of hell (the experience of God’s love by those who resist it), not its duration.
↑ 55. Manis makes a similar point. His presentation of the divine presence model in Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God is largely neutral on the CI/UR question, focusing instead on the mechanism and nature of hell.
↑ 56. The idea that annihilation might be an act of mercy for those who cannot endure the presence of God is explored in Kvanvig, The Problem of Hell, and in Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, pp. 311–312.
↑ 57. The language of “hope” is important here. As Hans Urs von Balthasar argued, there is a difference between asserting that all will be saved and hoping that all will be saved. The former is a dogmatic claim; the latter is a prayer. See Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved”? (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988).
↑ 58. Manis, Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God. Manis presents the divine presence model as compatible with multiple views on the final outcome and does not commit himself to any single position on the CI/UR question.
↑ 59. Balthasar, Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved”? This position—hoping without asserting—seems to me the wisest approach to the question. It takes the universalist texts seriously without overriding the finality texts. It trusts God’s character without presuming on His decisions.
↑ 60. This is the thesis of the entire book: God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29), and that fire is love. See Chapter 14 for the foundational presentation of this claim; see also Isaac the Syrian, Homily 84, and Kalomiros, The River of Fire, section X.