REVIEW: That All Shall Be Saved by David Bentley Hart (October 17, 2019)

David Bentley Hart's That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell & Universal Salvation (Yale University Press, 2019) is a popular new book by an outstanding Eastern Orthodox theologian on a locus that I'm passionate about—Christian Universalism! I'm pleased to say that I highly recommend it for its excellent defense of […]

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Friedrich Schleiermacher: Eternal Blessedness in Heaven is not possible while there is Eternal Torment in Hell (May 1, 2018)

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768—1834), the father of modern theology and liberal Protestantism was one of the first theologians to write that is it is not possible for people to be eternally blessed (in heaven) when they know that others are in eternal torment (in hell.) Before Schleiermacher theologians throughout church history […]

Related: christian faith, Eternal Blessedness, Eternal Conscious Torment, eternal punishment, Eternal Torment, Friedrich Schleiermacher, heaven, Hell, Schleiermacher

Jürgen Moltmann: The Annihilation of Hell by the Cosmic Christ Jesus (April 27, 2018)

This week, a celebrity pastor equated the love of Jesus with unending punishment in hell, and justified his comment with arguments such as counting the number of biblical references to Jesus (without any respect to author or intention, and as if the number of verses a word occurs in the […]

Related: Annihilation of Hell, Death, Hell, Jürgen Moltmann

Jürgen Moltmann: The Logic of Hell is Inhumane and Extremely Atheistic (December 18, 2017)

Jürgen Moltmann said that the logic of hell is inhumane and extremely atheistic and Pelagian in his essay "The Logic of Hell" included in God Will Be All In All: The Eschatology of Jurgen Moltmann (pp. 43-47). Proponents of hell (!) argue that God's love is extended to all people but anyone who […]

Related: Hell, Jürgen Moltmann, logic of hell, the logic of hell

Karl Barth: We Believe in Eternal Life, not in Eternal Hell (May 22, 2015)

The Apostles' Creed is among the oldest universally accepted symbols of the Christian faith. In Karl Barth's commentary on the Apsotles' Creed, he observes that there is no mention of Satan, Hell or Eternal Death in the Apostles' Creed, there is only mention of Eternal Life. And although this creed mentions […]

Related: Apostles Creed, Eternal Death, Eternal Hell, Faith of the Church, Hell, John Calvin, Karl Barth, Satan, The Faith of the Church: A Commentary on the Apostles' Creed according to Calvin's Catechism

John Calvin confessed Double Predestination is a Horrible and Dreadful Decree (May 31, 2014)

~ Updated and Revised: February 26th, 2019 ~ John Calvin confessed that the doctrine of Double Predestination was a horrible and dreadful decree in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvin believed that the scriptures taught that God made an "absolute decree" (latin. decretum absolutum) before the foundation of the world that […]

Related: Decretum Absolutum, doctrine of election, Double Predestination, dreadful, dreadful decree, election, heaven, Hell, horrible, Horrible Decree, institutes of the christian religion, John Calvin, Karl Barth, Universalism

Hans Urs Von Balthasar on Dare We Hope for Universal Salvation (April 16, 2014)

Hans Urs Von Balthasar Hans Urs Von Balthasar's short book, Dare We Hope: That All Men May Be Saved (With A Short Discourse On Hell), is an excellent introduction into the question Universal Salvation. Balthasar argues that Hell is a 'real possibility', however, there is good reason to hope that in the end, […]

Related: Dare We Hope, Dare We Hope: That All Men May Be Saved (With A Short Discourse On Hell, Eschatology of Hope, Fra Angelico, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Hell, Hypothetical Universalism, Michelangelo, The Last Judgment, Universalism

Augustine On Hell and Worms That Thrive In Fire (December 31, 2012)

Grand Prism Spring, Yellowstone National Park The Grand Prism Spring and many more massive boiling sulfur springs at Yellowstone National Park have brilliant colored bacteria, and the hotter the spring, the more vibrant the color of the bacterias, yielding rainbow ponds. This is the imagery behind Augustine's description of the worms […]

Related: Augustine, Augustine of Hippo, Extremophiles, Fire, Grand Prism Spring, Hell, The City of God, Worms