Clare: I seem to sit somewhere among the third or fourth groups, though I'm not quite sure which!

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Rowland Croucher wrote:

3. The third group - I'll call them *progressive* Christians - believe that yes, there is a hell, but we mustn't take literalistic black and white (or cold/hot) categories of existence into the spirit-world. Hell and heaven are an eternal experiencing of the attitudes we've cultivated in this life. Richard Rohr ('Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality') seems to hold a view roughly like this.

4. *Universalists* believe God's love and grace can't be finally conquered by unbelief or rebellion. All will be saved. 'As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive' (1 Corinthians 15:22) is their text. Every human dies; every human is loved unconditionally by God and will experience bliss forever. (However, moving to an 'ultra-liberal' extreme, I know a Christian minister who doesn't believe in the after-life; I know another who affirms reincarnation).

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Clare's response:

For me, I can't imagine any kind of a loving god who would a) condemn people to hell, or b) be comfortable with the idea of people suffering that much torment. In fact, given how much torment it is to me to watch something hurting (even if there's a good reason for the hurt to occur), I have to imagine that the torment level for a loving god would be infinitely greater. And it doesn't make sense to have an infinitely suffering god in a blissful heaven. So I don't believe in hell as a place of eternal torment/suffering. (I reserve judgement on whether there's a heaven, but if there is...keep reading.)

Supposing there's a heaven, then it makes sense that those who had lived appropriately loving lives would be admitted more or less immediately. And if there is a god who is judge-over-all, then it also makes sense that at the point of death, one's soul would come face to face with that being, and be challenged to confront all the hurt and damage one had caused others during one's life. And, just as awful and aweful moments on earth can seem to last a lifetime, it makes sense that such an encounter would seem to encompass one's entire being and existence for as long as it lasted. And I imagine it would last until one fully comprehended, acknowledged and "repented of" the hurt one had caused. And when one got to that point, one would be fit to enter heaven.

So I believe in a hell that lies in the full realisation of one's most hurtful and damaging actions during life, lasting for as long as it takes to comprehend, integrate and be appropriately ashamed of them, followed by joyful admittance to heaven. So the only ones who *remain* in hell are those who refuse to process their own lives and therefore can't experience the true freedom of conscience that would be a pre-requisite of such a heaven.

Clare Pascoe

May 9, 2008