Chapter 16

The Philosophical Case—Manis and the Logic of Divine Presence

A. Thesis and Context

We have arrived at the philosophical backbone of this book. In the previous two chapters, we introduced the divine presence model and explored the deep roots it has in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. We saw that the model is not some modern invention dreamed up to make hell more comfortable. It is the recovery of an ancient Christian understanding—one that stretches back to the earliest centuries of the church. Now we need to ask a different kind of question. Not “Is this view old?” but “Is this view true?” Not “Did the Fathers believe it?” but “Does it actually make sense?”

That is what this chapter is about. We are going to walk through the philosophical case for the divine presence model, as developed by R. Zachary Manis in his landmark work Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God: An Essay on the Problem of Hell and in his more accessible book Thinking Through the Problem of Hell: The Divine Presence Model. Manis is a philosopher, and he writes with the precision and rigor that philosophers bring to hard questions. But his arguments are not just clever. They are powerful. And they show, step by step, that the divine presence model handles the problem of hell better than any of its competitors.

I want to be honest with you from the start. Some of what we cover in this chapter will feel more technical than what we have dealt with so far. Manis is doing careful philosophical work, and even though I am going to translate his arguments into everyday language, some of the ideas are big. They take a little time to sink in. That is okay. Take your time with this chapter. Read a section, then stop and think about it for a moment. The ideas here are worth wrestling with, because they form the logical skeleton of everything else we are building in this book.¹

Here is what we will cover. First, we will look at the criteria Manis sets out for any good solution to the problem of hell—and why the divine presence model meets those criteria better than the alternatives. Second, we will explore how the model serves as a “middle way” between two other views, borrowing the best of each while avoiding their worst problems. Third, we will dig into the idea that hell is a natural consequence of encountering God’s love with a hardened heart, not an arbitrary punishment God inflicts from the outside. Fourth, we will tackle the fascinating issue of divine hiddenness—why God remains hidden during this life, and what happens when that hiddenness ends. Fifth, we will face the disturbing reality of self-deception and what it does to the human soul. Sixth, we will look at how the model handles the retributive language that fills the Bible’s descriptions of judgment. And seventh, we will preview Manis’s response to the universalist objection—the claim that a truly loving God would eventually save everyone.

By the end of this chapter, I hope you will see what I saw when I first encountered Manis’s work: that the divine presence model is not just a beautiful theological idea. It is a philosophically rigorous, logically coherent, and deeply satisfying answer to one of the hardest questions in all of Christian theology.

B. The Case

1. What Counts as a Good Answer? Manis’s Criteria

Before you can solve a problem, you need to know what a good solution looks like. Imagine you are a doctor trying to figure out what is wrong with a patient. You would not just pick the first diagnosis that popped into your head. You would run tests. You would check the diagnosis against the symptoms. You would ask, “Does this explanation fit all the evidence, or just some of it?”

Manis does something similar with the problem of hell. Early in Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, he lays out a list of criteria that any adequate solution must meet. These are not arbitrary rules he made up. They are the basic standards that any serious Christian thinker should accept when evaluating a doctrine of hell.² And they are demanding. Manis is not looking for something that merely might be true. He wants a view that is strong enough to count as what philosophers call a “theodicy”—a plausible explanation of why a good and loving God would allow something as terrible as hell to exist.³

Here are the criteria, translated into plain language.

First, it must fit Scripture. Any view of hell that ignores large portions of what the Bible says, or that has to twist the plain meaning of texts to make them fit, is not good enough. The divine presence model must accord with the full witness of the Bible—not just the passages that are convenient for it.⁴

Second, it must accord with the best of the Christian tradition. A view of hell that no Christian in the history of the church has ever held should make us suspicious. Novelty is not automatically a virtue in theology. A good solution should be one that, at least in its basic outlines, has been accepted by a significant portion of the church.⁵

Third, it must be consistent with the idea that God is the greatest possible being. This is what philosophers call “perfect being theology.” God’s goodness, justice, and love are as great as they can possibly be. Any view of hell that forces us to lower our view of God’s goodness, or to say, “Well, God is loving, but…” has a serious problem.⁶

Fourth, and most importantly, it must not weaken divine love. Manis insists that an adequate solution must understand God’s love (agape, the Greek word for self-giving, sacrificial love) in such a way that it extends to every person without exception, and includes God’s willing the highest good of every person He has made, as far as He is able.⁷

Think about how demanding that last criterion is. It means you cannot say, “God loves the saved but hates the damned.” You cannot say, “God loves everyone during their earthly lives but stops loving the lost after the Day of Judgment.” You cannot say, “God’s love for the damned is expressed by tormenting them forever.” Any view that requires you to carve out an exception to God’s love fails this test.

And here is the key point: Manis argues that the divine presence model meets all of these criteria in a way that none of the four standard options can match. Traditionalism (eternal conscious torment) compromises divine love and goodness.⁸ Universalism, while honoring God’s love, diverges too far from the Christian tradition and struggles with biblical texts about finality.⁹ Annihilationism avoids eternal torment but introduces other problems, depending on how it is developed. And the choice model, which says the damned freely choose hell, cannot explain why none of the damned are simply annihilated, and it struggles to account for the Bible’s retributive language about judgment.¹⁰

The divine presence model, Manis contends, handles all of these concerns. It fits the full range of biblical data. It has deep roots in the patristic tradition. It upholds the highest possible view of God’s goodness, justice, and love. And it does not require us to weaken or qualify divine love in any way. God wills the highest good of every person, including the damned, forever.¹¹

2. The Middle Way: Between Traditionalism and the Choice Model

One of the most brilliant things about the divine presence model is where it sits on the map of views about hell. To understand this, think about the two main views that say hell involves eternal suffering: traditionalism and the choice model.

Traditionalism says hell is a retributive punishment—God actively inflicts suffering on the wicked because they deserve it. The punishment is handed down from the outside, like a judge sentencing a criminal. The big advantage of this view is that it takes seriously all the biblical language about God’s wrath, judgment, vengeance, and punishment. The big disadvantage is that it makes God look like an eternal torturer who has given up on the people He created.¹²

The choice model, made famous by C. S. Lewis, says hell is a self-chosen state. The damned are in hell because they freely chose it. God respects their freedom and lets them go. The big advantage of this view is that it protects God’s love—God is not torturing anyone; He is simply honoring human choices. The big disadvantage is that it struggles to account for all the biblical language about God actively judging, punishing, and pouring out wrath. On the choice model, God is essentially passive—and the Bible does not describe Him that way when it comes to judgment.¹³

Manis argues that the divine presence model stands right between these two views. It shares key features with both but avoids the worst problems of each.¹⁴

Like the choice model, the divine presence model says that hell is ultimately a natural consequence of the sinner’s own choices, not an arbitrary punishment inflicted from the outside. God does not torture. God does not take revenge. The suffering of hell is what happens when a heart that is hardened against love encounters perfect Love face to face. Like a person with a severe eye disease who cannot bear the light of the sun, the wicked cannot bear the light of God’s presence—not because the light is cruel, but because their eyes are diseased.¹⁵

But like traditionalism, the divine presence model can account for the Bible’s retributive language. On the Day of Judgment, it is God who reveals Himself in glory. It is God who opens the books. It is God whose presence fills all things. The damned do not wander into hell on their own. They are brought into the full blaze of divine glory whether they like it or not.¹⁶ From the perspective of the damned, this feels like a retributive punishment. It feels like divine wrath. It feels like vengeance. And so the Bible is not wrong to describe it that way. But from God’s perspective, it is love. It is the same love that the saints experience as paradise. The difference is not in God. The difference is in the human heart.

Manis puts the point this way: hell on the divine presence model functions as something in between a natural punishment and a retributive punishment. It looks retributive from the perspective of the damned—and the Bible often speaks from that perspective. But it is natural in its deeper logic. The only thing that makes it painful is the condition of the sinner’s own soul. God’s intent is not to cause suffering. God’s intent is to bring human flourishing to its fulfillment. He eternally wills the highest good of every person, even those who experience His love as torment.¹⁷

This is enormously important. It means the divine presence model can read all the biblical data with a straight face. It does not have to ignore the wrath passages the way the choice model sometimes does. And it does not have to ignore the love passages the way traditionalism sometimes does. It reads both sets of texts as describing the same event—God’s full self-revelation—from two different perspectives.

3. Hell as Natural Consequence: Not Inflicted, but Encountered

Let me spend a little more time on this idea, because it is absolutely central to the entire model.

When most people hear the word “punishment,” they think of something that is done to you by someone else. A parent grounds a child. A judge sentences a criminal to prison. A teacher gives detention. In each case, the punishment is what philosophers call an artificial consequence—it is imposed from the outside by an authority figure.¹⁸

But there is another kind of consequence that we deal with every single day: natural consequences. If you stay up until three in the morning, you feel terrible the next day. Nobody imposed that on you. It is just what happens. If you eat nothing but junk food for years, your body breaks down. If you refuse to practice the piano, you never learn to play. These are not punishments handed down by a judge. They are the natural results of your own choices.¹⁹

Manis argues that hell, on the divine presence model, is a natural consequence of sin—not an artificial punishment that God inflicts on people from the outside. Here is how it works.

Human beings are made for communion with God. That is our purpose. That is what we are designed for. When we live in a way that draws us closer to God—when we practice love, forgiveness, humility, gratitude, and honesty—we become more and more the kind of people who can receive God’s love joyfully. The soul-making process, as Manis calls it, goes well. Our character grows. Our heart softens. Our capacity for joy expands.²⁰

But when we persist in sin—when we choose selfishness, pride, cruelty, dishonesty, and hatred over and over again—our character hardens. We form habits that become deeply ingrained. Over time, those habits become character traits, and those character traits shape who we are at the deepest level. The wicked person does not just do bad things. They become a bad person. Their desires become twisted. Their thinking becomes darkened. Their capacity to receive love shrivels.²¹

Now imagine what happens when a person like that stands in the full presence of a God who is love. Everything in God’s presence is oriented toward communion, toward self-giving, toward union. But the wicked person has spent a lifetime (or longer) forming themselves into the opposite of everything God is. Every fiber of their being recoils from what God offers. The love of God does not feel like love to them. It feels like an assault. Like a hostile takeover. Like the most painful thing they have ever experienced.²²

And here is the critical philosophical point: God does not intend this suffering. God intends His presence to be the greatest joy any creature could ever experience. And for the righteous, it is exactly that. But for the wicked, the very same presence that is paradise for the saints is hell. God’s love has not changed. God has not switched from love to wrath. What has changed is the condition of the human heart.²³

Manis explains this through what philosophers call the doctrine of double effect. This is a well-known principle in ethics that says you can morally perform an action that has a foreseen bad side effect, as long as the bad effect is not what you intend and the good you are aiming at is important enough. A doctor who gives a cancer patient strong medication knows that the side effects will be painful. But the doctor does not intend the pain. The doctor intends to fight the cancer. The pain is foreseen but not desired.²⁴

In the same way, God fully reveals Himself on the Day of Judgment knowing that some will experience it as torment. But He does not intend the torment. He intends the very thing for which He created every human being—communion with Himself, the fulfillment of human nature, the highest possible joy. The suffering of the wicked is foreseen but never desired. God wills the highest good of every single person He has made, including those who end up in hell.²⁵

4. Divine Hiddenness: Why God Stays Hidden—and What Happens When He Doesn’t

If you have been following the argument carefully, you might have noticed an obvious question: If God’s presence is that overwhelming for sinners, why does He not just show Himself to everyone right now? Wouldn’t that be the quickest way to get people to repent?

This brings us to one of Manis’s most fascinating contributions: his explanation of divine hiddenness. Philosophers have long puzzled over the question of why God seems hidden. If God exists and loves us, why is He not more obvious? Why doesn’t He write messages in the sky? Why doesn’t He appear to everyone in a vision?²⁶

The standard answers are not bad, but Manis shows that they are incomplete. Some theologians say God stays hidden to protect our freedom—if God showed up in undeniable glory, we would be scared into obeying, and that is not genuine love. Others say divine hiddenness is a natural consequence of sin—our spiritual eyes have been damaged by the Fall, and that is why we cannot see God clearly.²⁷

Manis takes these ideas seriously, but he argues that neither one goes far enough on its own. The “protection of freedom” argument works well for views of hell where God punishes people from the outside. If hell is a retributive punishment, then sure—revealing God in all His terrifying glory would scare people into obedience, and that would not be genuine love or genuine faith. But on a non-retributive view of hell—one where God is not going to punish you from the outside—it is not at all obvious why divine disclosure would be coercive. If God showed up and simply loved you, why would that take away your freedom?²⁸

The “sin damaged our eyes” argument has its own problems. If the issue is just that sin broke our spiritual perception, then God could fix it. He is omnipotent. And a loving father who saw that his children’s broken glasses were going to lead them off a cliff would not sit back and say, “Well, they broke the glasses themselves.” He would intervene.²⁹

The divine presence model provides the missing piece. The reason God remains hidden is not just to protect our freedom, and not just because sin has damaged our perception. The reason is far more startling: for sinners, the full presence of God would be hell.³⁰

Think about what this means. If God revealed Himself fully to every human being right now, every person who has not yet been redeemed and sanctified would immediately be plunged into the experience of damnation. That is not love. That is the opposite of love. Divine hiddenness, on this model, is an act of mercy. God hides Himself so that we have time to be saved. He conceals the full blaze of His glory so that the soul-making process can take place—so that we can repent, be forgiven, grow in holiness, and become the kind of people who can receive His love as joy rather than torment.³¹

As Manis puts it in Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, divine hiddenness is “one of the requirements of an environment in which soul-making can take place in a fallen world.” By remaining partially hidden, God is creating the conditions that make it as possible for everyone to be saved. He takes a personally tailored approach to each individual, which is why He does not reveal Himself to exactly the same degree or in exactly the same way to everyone.³²

And here is where the model gets really elegant. It explains not just why God is hidden now, but what will happen when the hiddenness ends. On the Day of Judgment—what Manis calls the “apocalypse” in its literal sense of apokalypsis (unveiling)—God will fully reveal Himself. The veil of hiddenness will be removed forever. At that point, God will be “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). There will be no more hiding. No more partial glimpses. Every human being, resurrected and standing before the throne, will experience the full, unmitigated presence of God.³³

For those who have been redeemed and sanctified, this will be the most glorious moment in the history of the universe. It is the beatific vision—the direct, unfiltered experience of God’s infinite love and beauty. This is what Christians have always called heaven.

For those who have hardened their hearts against God, refusing every offer of grace, it will be the most terrible. The same God, the same love, the same fire—but experienced as damnation. This is what the Bible calls the lake of fire.

Same fire. Same God. Two completely different experiences. The difference is not in the fire. The difference is in the heart.

5. The Devastating Power of Self-Deception

There is a question that haunts every discussion of hell: Can a person really reject God forever? If God is as good and as loving as the Bible says, would anyone actually refuse Him once they saw Him clearly?

Manis takes this question very seriously, and his answer draws on one of the most important—and most frightening—realities of human psychology: self-deception.³⁴

We all know what self-deception looks like from the outside. We have all watched someone ruin their life while insisting that everything is fine. The alcoholic who says he can stop any time. The spouse in an abusive relationship who keeps making excuses for the abuser. The business partner who ignores every red flag because the money is too good. From the outside, the problem is obvious. But the self-deceived person genuinely cannot see it. That is what makes self-deception so terrifying. It hides itself from the person who is doing it.³⁵

Manis argues that self-deception plays a central role in the process of damnation. When a person persists in sin, they do not just develop bad habits. They develop a distorted way of seeing reality. They use their intelligence not to seek the truth, but to construct arguments and excuses that justify their selfishness and wickedness. Over time, their entire system of beliefs gets twisted. They call good evil and evil good (Isa. 5:20). They convince themselves that their rebellion against God is actually noble, or necessary, or even righteous.³⁶

This is not just a moral failure. It is a cognitive failure. The self-deceived person’s mind has been corrupted along with their will. They are not just choosing badly—they are seeing badly. And because they are the ones doing the deceiving, they do not realize their vision is impaired.³⁷

Now, here is the devastating part. The universalist argues that if God simply reveals Himself to sinners, the sheer beauty and goodness of God will melt their resistance. Nobody, the universalist says, could see God clearly and still choose to reject Him. But Manis points out that this argument assumes something it cannot prove: that seeing God clearly will automatically produce a positive response in every person.³⁸

Think about it this way. An addict knows, at some level, that the substance is killing them. The evidence is right in front of their face. But knowing that something is destroying you and being willing to stop are two completely different things. Knowledge alone does not produce change. You have to be willing to let the knowledge change you. And the deeper a person sinks into self-deception, the less capable they become of that kind of willingness.³⁹

On the divine presence model, the Day of Judgment is the ultimate revelation of truth. Everything is laid bare. Every secret is exposed. Every self-deception is stripped away in the piercing light of God’s presence. Manis calls this the “judgment of transparency”—the moment when the deepest moral and spiritual truth about every person is finally and fully revealed.⁴⁰

For the righteous, this is liberation. They have spent their lives imperfectly seeking truth, and now truth is fully given. For the wicked, this is devastation. The truth about who they really are—the ugliness they have been hiding from themselves and others—is suddenly exposed in the most intense light imaginable. And instead of producing repentance, this exposure can actually entrench their resistance. The humiliation is too great. The truth is too painful. Rather than falling to their knees in surrender, they double down on their rebellion. They hate the light because it exposes what they have become.⁴¹

This is one of the places where the divine presence model is genuinely terrifying. It does not make hell softer. In some ways, it makes hell more horrifying than the traditional view. Because on this model, the damned are not suffering because God has dreamed up clever tortures for them. They are suffering because they are standing in the presence of infinite Love, and every atom of their being is screaming in rebellion against it. They are self-made prisoners. They have formed themselves, choice by choice, into beings who cannot bear the very thing for which they were created.

6. Reclaiming the Retributive Language

One of the biggest challenges for any non-traditional view of hell is accounting for the Bible’s retributive language. Scripture does not only speak of hell as a natural consequence of sin. It also speaks of God actively judging, punishing, pouring out wrath, and taking vengeance. If hell is just a natural consequence, what do we do with all those passages?

The choice model has a hard time with this. If God is purely passive—just stepping back and respecting human freedom—then it is difficult to explain why the Bible describes Him as actively involved in judgment. Many defenders of the choice model end up treating the retributive language as merely metaphorical or phenomenological—just the way things appear from the human side, not the way they actually are. But that feels like explaining away the text rather than explaining it.⁴²

The divine presence model has a much stronger answer. Manis argues that on this view, the retributive elements are real—but they are real in a very specific way.⁴³

Here is the logic. On the Day of Judgment, God does not passively step back. He actively and deliberately reveals Himself in all His glory. This is a divine act—something God does, not something that just happens. And when this divine act brings about suffering in the wicked, the suffering is genuinely experienced as a punishment. It is imposed on them by God’s action, against their will. They did not ask for God to reveal Himself. They would have preferred to stay hidden. But God’s glory fills all things, and there is no escape.

So from the perspective of the damned, hell is a retributive punishment. It feels like divine wrath. It feels like God’s vengeance. And the Bible, which often describes things from the human experiential perspective, speaks in exactly these terms. The language of wrath, judgment, and punishment is not a mistake. It is an accurate description of how the damned experience the presence of God.⁴⁴

But—and this is crucial—from God’s perspective, the purpose of His self-revelation is not to punish anyone. The purpose is to bring all of creation to its fulfillment. God reveals Himself because that is what creation is for. The end of the story is God being “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28), every corner of the new creation filled with His glory and His love. The suffering of the wicked is a foreseen but unintended consequence of this glorious act.⁴⁵

Manis sums it up beautifully: “Hell on the divine presence model functions as something in between a natural punishment and a retributive punishment. Phenomenologically, it is similar to the latter, and Scripture often speaks in these terms. … But ontologically, hell on the divine presence model is closer to a natural punishment; in fact, the only feature lacking which would be needed to qualify hell as a natural punishment in the full, ordinary sense, is that of divine intent to punish.”⁴⁶

This is one of the most important philosophical moves in the entire divine presence model. It allows us to take the Bible’s retributive language seriously without having to say that God’s purpose is to inflict suffering. The biblical language is true. It is accurate to the experience of the damned. But it is not the deepest truth. The deepest truth is that God’s purpose is always love, always aimed at restoration, always willing the highest good of every creature. The fire is real. The wrath is real. But the fire is love, and the wrath is the way that love is experienced by those who have made themselves into enemies of love.

7. The Universalist Objection: Can God’s Love Be Defeated?

We cannot walk through the philosophical case for the divine presence model without addressing the strongest objection it faces: the universalist argument.

The universalist says something like this: “If God’s love is truly infinite and inescapable, and if God truly wills the highest good of every person, then how can any finite creature resist that love forever? Finite resistance cannot hold out against infinite love. Eventually, every knee will bow—not because God forces anyone, but because love wins. Always. No exceptions.”⁴⁷

This is a powerful argument. I feel its pull myself, and I have been honest about that throughout this book. The universalist hope is a beautiful thing. And there is real biblical support for it—texts like Colossians 1:19–20, 1 Corinthians 15:22 and 28, and 1 Timothy 2:4 seem to point in a universalist direction. We will look at those texts in detail in later chapters.⁴⁸

Manis, however, raises serious questions about whether the universalist can guarantee the outcome they hope for without undermining human freedom. His argument, developed across Parts III and IV of Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, runs like this.

The universalist needs to explain how God ensures that every person eventually repents. There are really only a few options. Option one: God overrides the free will of those who refuse to repent and simply makes them repent. But this is coercion, not love. Genuine repentance must be free, or it is not repentance at all.⁴⁹

Option two: God simply waits. He keeps the offer of grace open forever, and eventually every person freely chooses to say yes. But Manis argues that there is no guarantee this will happen. If a person has libertarian freedom—genuine, undetermined freedom of choice—then it is always possible for them to say no one more time. No matter how long God waits, no matter how many chances He gives, the stubborn sinner can always hold out a little longer. You cannot guarantee a free choice.⁵⁰

Option three: the universalist appeals to the natural consequences of sin. The argument goes like this: “God does not need to override anyone’s freedom. He just needs to let them experience the full misery of their own choices. Eventually, the pain of rebellion will become so unbearable that every person will turn to God of their own free will. Misery is a hard teacher, but an effective one.”⁵¹

Manis thinks this is the strongest universalist strategy, but he identifies a devastating problem with it. The argument assumes that misery will teach the sinner the right lesson. But self-deception makes this far from certain. Just because a person is utterly miserable does not mean they will correctly identify why they are miserable. The self-deceived person can always blame someone else for their suffering. They can blame God. They can blame circumstances. They can blame the universe. Knowing that you are miserable does not automatically tell you why you are miserable—and self-deception is precisely the mechanism by which people avoid seeing the true cause of their misery.⁵²

Thomas Talbott, one of the most sophisticated defenders of universalism, argues that no illusion can endure forever—that eventually, the misery of hell will shatter every sinner’s self-deception. But Jerry Walls responds that this amounts to saying God uses ever-increasing pressure to force repentance. And there is a limit to how much pressure freedom can bear. If God turns up the suffering until the sinner cracks, the resulting “repentance” is not genuinely free. It is a confession extracted under torture.⁵³

Manis is careful not to overstate his case. He does not claim to have proven that universalism is false. He does not deny that universal reconciliation is possible. What he argues is that universalism cannot be guaranteed without compromising either human freedom or the genuineness of repentance.⁵⁴ And this is an important distinction. If you believe, as I do, that genuine freedom is a necessary ingredient in genuine love, then you must accept that the possibility of final refusal is built into the system. Love requires freedom. Freedom entails the possibility of “no.” And a “no” that is sustained long enough may become permanent—not because God gives up, but because the sinner has formed themselves into someone who cannot say “yes.”

C. Objections and Responses

Objection 1: “This is too speculative. There is not enough biblical support.”

This is a fair concern, and Manis himself is upfront about it. He acknowledges that his formal training is in philosophy, not biblical studies, and he describes his scriptural case as that of “a layperson.”⁵⁵ But he also notes that the divine presence model finds significant support in the broader Christian tradition—particularly in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, where it has been the dominant understanding of hell for centuries. And as we will see in the biblical chapters of this book, the scriptural case for the divine presence model is actually very strong. Fire in the Bible is consistently associated with God’s presence, not with a separate torture chamber. The judgment passages describe an encounter with God, not a banishment from God. Manis has laid the philosophical foundation; the biblical case builds on it.⁵⁶

Objection 2: “Doesn’t this model lead inevitably to universalism?”

It might seem that way at first. If God’s presence is inescapable, and if God’s love is aimed at restoration, then won’t everyone eventually be restored? But as we just saw, the universalist conclusion requires an additional premise that the model does not provide: that every person will eventually respond positively to God’s love. The divine presence model is compatible with universalism—but it is also compatible with conditional immortality. On CI, some hearts harden irrevocably, and the fire of God’s love eventually consumes them completely. On UR, every heart eventually yields. The model works either way. Which outcome actually occurs depends on a question about human freedom that neither philosophy nor theology can settle with certainty.⁵⁷

Objection 3: “If God does not intend to punish, why does the Bible say He does?”

This was addressed in detail above, but it bears repeating. The Bible describes hell from two perspectives. From the divine perspective, God’s purpose is always love and restoration. From the human perspective, the experience of the wicked in God’s presence is terrifying, painful, and feels like punishment. Both perspectives are true. The language of wrath and punishment accurately describes the experience of the damned. The language of love and purpose accurately describes the intention of God. The divine presence model holds both together without contradiction.⁵⁸

Objection 4: “The model depends on the idea that God’s presence comes in degrees. Is that really coherent?”

This is a sharp philosophical question. If God is omnipresent—present everywhere at all times—how can He be “more present” in some situations than others? Manis admits that this is “a puzzling idea,” but he also points out that it is deeply embedded in Scripture and the broader Christian tradition. The concept of the Shekinah—God’s glory “dwelling” in the tabernacle, in the temple, in the burning bush—suggests that God can be present in different ways and to different degrees, even though His power and knowledge extend everywhere. The divine presence model employs this concept as a primitive—a basic building block that draws on the rich meaning of these terms in Scripture.⁵⁹

Objection 5: “What about God’s presence being life-giving? If the damned are in God’s full presence, wouldn’t they be healed, not hurt?”

Manis actually develops this point in a fascinating direction. He suggests that the very presence of God is life-giving. Where God is fully present, death is fully absent. This is why, on the “pure” version of the divine presence model, the damned are not annihilated. In the new creation, God will be “all in all.” There will be no corner of existence that is not filled with His life-giving presence. This means there will be no death—and therefore no annihilation. The damned are sustained in existence by the very presence that torments them.⁶⁰ I should note, though, that Manis also explores “hybrid” versions of the model that combine it with annihilationism or universalism. On the hybrid annihilationist view, the fire of God’s presence actually does destroy the wicked—it “burns them up” completely. This is a view I find compelling, and it is the direction we lean in this book.⁶¹

Objection 6: “This all sounds very philosophical. Does it matter for real people?”

It matters enormously. The traditional view of hell—God as eternal torturer—has driven countless people away from the faith. It has produced a distorted picture of God’s character that makes Him look worse than the worst human tyrant. The divine presence model does not weaken the seriousness of hell. If anything, it intensifies it: hell is what happens when you stand in the presence of infinite Love and cannot receive it. But it does something the traditional view cannot do. It preserves the character of God. It shows that God is love—consistently, eternally, without exception. And that means the gospel really is good news, not just for the saved, but about the God who saves.⁶²

D. Conclusion and Connection

We have covered a lot of ground in this chapter. We have seen that Manis sets out demanding criteria for any adequate view of hell—and shows that the divine presence model meets them. We have seen how the model occupies a brilliant middle position between traditionalism and the choice model, borrowing the strengths of each while avoiding their weaknesses. We have explored the natural consequence logic at the heart of the model: hell is not an arbitrary punishment but the result of encountering perfect Love with a heart deformed by sin. We have grappled with the problem of divine hiddenness and seen how the model explains it beautifully—God hides Himself out of mercy, to give us time to be saved. We have faced the terrifying reality of self-deception and what it does to the soul’s capacity to receive love. We have seen how the model handles the Bible’s retributive language without making God a torturer. And we have engaged the universalist objection honestly, acknowledging its power while showing that it cannot guarantee its hoped-for outcome without compromising human freedom.

Manis is careful to hold all of this with epistemic humility. He presents his model not as certain truth, but as a plausible and compelling theodicy—a view that he believes “has many advantages and on the whole is preferable to its major competitors.”⁶³ I share that assessment. In fact, I go further: I believe the divine presence model is the most biblically faithful, theologically coherent, and philosophically rigorous account of hell available to us today. It is not a modern invention. It is the echo of an ancient idea in a contemporary discussion.⁶⁴

In the next chapter, we will turn to Sharon Baker’s Razing Hell and explore how she develops the divine presence model from a theological and pastoral angle. Where Manis builds with the precision of a philosopher, Baker builds with the warmth of a storyteller. Together, they give us a picture of hell that is both intellectually serious and deeply humane. And it is a picture in which the character of God remains unsullied—a God whose fire is love, whose judgment is aimed at restoration, and whose presence is both the greatest joy and the most fearful reality in the universe.

That is the God we serve. And that is the God the divine presence model reveals.