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Loading...This will be my last post on the understandings of hell in early Christianity. There is a lot more to be said, of course, but for our purposes this is enough. I’ve been trying to show that there was a minority view held by some prominent thinkers – and possibly a lot of other Christian folk; there’s no way to tell – that said in the end everyone would be saved. The dominant view, though, was that for non-believers and sinners, there would be hell to pay. This would involve eternal torment.
Once Christianity became a massive and widespread phenomenon – when there was no more persecution, and when philosophically oriented intellectuals had positions of authority in the church — highly trained Christian thinkers could engage in reasoned and intellectual reflections on the fate of souls after death, and none did so more influentially than Augustine (354 -430 CE), the greatest theologian of Christian antiquity. Augustine chose to conclude his great work, The City of God, with three books describing how the reality of God manifest in this world would reveal itself in the world to come. The basic premise of the chapters stands in continuity with much that had been long believed in Christian circles: there will be eternal punishment, with real pain, for the wicked, matched by the real, tactile, joy of the saved. Unlike some of his predecessors, however, Augustine does not fill his account simply with detailed descriptions of the gore and the glory; he was a thinker, and he reflects deeply on what it might mean to be damned or saved.
In book 21 Augustine deals with the punishments of hell. Always the philosopher, he is especially interested, at the outset, with the conceptual problems involved. Is “eternal pain” even possible? Wouldn’t it …
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This has been a highly entertaining and fascinating thread. I can’t wait for that book!
Plato at least has a discussion of how punishment should always be for the benefit of the punished. The God of St. Augustine and others of his ilk just seems like he’s a sadist.
That’s the penal system, not hell. The Greeks believed in eternal punishment in the afterlife long before Christianity got to it.
And looking at what we’ve done with Plato’s suggestions with regards to prison improving people–how has that worked out?
“I’m locking you up with murderers and rapists because you sold marijuana or loose tobacco cigarettes–but it’s for your own good!”
At least Jesus said you had the choice of whether or not to leave your family to follow him. Plato said the Guardians would have to forcibly confiscate all small children from their parents to raise them properly. Yeah, that would have worked great.
Oh damn, we’re doing that now, aren’t we?
Well, I don’t think the President has read Plato. “Is that the Disney dog?”
The American penal system is quite retributive in nature. For systems more oriented toward benefiting society, look to Scandinavia, e.g. Norway, where the recidivism rate is less than a third of the USA’s.
Astakask: “The God of St. Augustine and others of his ilk just seems like he’s a sadist.”
Sadly, yes. Other early Fathers did see it as a temporary state, most notably Origen and possibly some before him though definitely some after him. And a good case can be made that this is the NT teaching as well (see my book Flirting with Universalism). Whether as a cleansing fire to purge out wickedness (Origen and his school) or as just punishment, it would no longer be unjust and certainly not sadistic.
I wonder if Augustine borrowed “passes all understanding” from Philippians 4:7. And that caused me to wonder if the phrase is original to Philippians or was a later addition. Can you shed any light on this?
That’s a great question — but I don’t know off hand. Maybe someone else on the blog does?
Ah, the “City of God”. I went to a Jesuit university on a 4-year academic scholarship. As such, I was expected to sign up for the Honors Program. One of the parts of that program was a great books discussion course (1 or 2 credit hours). We spent one semester on the City of God. The priest running that program kept it informal–we met off-campus at the apartment of one of the students in the evening.
My overall reaction was “what a waste of a great mind”. Yes, Augustine is considered to be the greatest theologian of early Christianity. But to spend his time thinking and writing about the afterlife and eternal punishment led him to produce such nonsense as noted in your post.
I felt the same about the professors in my theology classes (mandatory at my university). Most of them had several PhDs, could read/write/speak several languages, and had published books and technical papers on arcane theological issues of interest to nobody but their colleagues. Many of them could have made major contributions in fields that directly benefit society (medicine, natural science, engineering, history, economics). Again what a waste.
Ever occur to you some of them might have been saying the same about you?
Roman Catholicism has around 1.2 billion adherents. It has influence in almost every corner of the globe. Is it really such a bad thing that there are serious scholars and scientists in the ranks of its clergy? (And there are many scientists among them).
Damned if they value education, damned if they don’t. But don’t damn them for censoring science and history textbooks, as some other religions try to do. There was a time that happened, but now many of them could write good ones themselves, and only bring God into it if that’s the subject being examined.
All academic disciplines, without exception, produce quite a lot of material–most of it!–that is only of interest to themselves. Publish or perish, remember?
How exactly would speaking several languages help you write papers in medicine or engineering? You’d need to learn quite a bit else, I’d think. It’s not for you to tell them their true vocation, anymore than they could tell you yours.
Given that Satan is supposed to have been a super being in heaven and in God’s presence and still rebelled, as well many other angels, it seems being in heaven in god’s presence is not a guarantee of long term satisfaction. So maybe humans might get a bit restless too, eternity is a long time. I’m sure theologians have written why this could nver happen. But I’m not sure.
I agree! I’ve always made this argument with Christians and have never received anything close to a satisfactory answer.
epicurus 15ja19 “It seems being in heaven in god’s presence is not a guarantee of long term satisfaction. So maybe humans might get a bit restless too, eternity is a long time.”
Some modern theologians talk as though we will be free in heaven though with a freedom which will never turn away from God. I think it’s easier and probably more honest just to admit that the redeemed will have given up their freedom to choose against God (don’t we often make choices to give up future free choices in normal human experience?).
Origen thought we humans preexisted in God’s presence as well (mediated through the Logos) and that we all fell away (except for one human spirit, Jesus’).
Whether preexisting in heaven or just existing on earth, Satan and humans still had a choice. It’s only after making our final decision for or against God that our wills are no longer free. (Origen’s view was that the lost in hell—his temporary hell—are free to leave and eventually will do so. Not sure if he thought those in heaven are free.)
Greetings from México.
These are ancient ideas. The religion was develop by people that in our social educational standards , would be pointed as ignorants. A dream will inspire them .
Yes Dr. Ehrman . It makes no sense . I see very contradictorial the moral standars of the judeo-christian god. In Romans 5-13 “No law , no pushinment” And yet he punished before delivering the Law.
Victorsalazar 15ja19. You have no evidence that they were ignorant people, Victor, though it’s easy and common for people to make such claims. But claims which are stated without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Augustine’s views do not make sense but the Bible’s does. Romans 5.13 is not contradictory since Paul had earlier said that there is a moral law written in the hearts of all people (2.6–16) and this judges those who have no written law.
What most distinguishes Augustine’s worldview from that of Jesus and his early followers?
Augustine was a Roman citizen, and proud of it. Paul may have been a citizen as well (hard to be sure), but Paul clearly felt no loyalty to Rome, used his citizenship rights to promulgate a faith Rome then rejected and despised.
Augustine, living in an age when Rome had been converted to Christianity, and stood not only for social order, but the triumph of the true faith, felt quite differently about Rome–and like many other citizens, was deeply concerned about the future of that source of centralized authority and security. (The fall of which would have only pleased most Jews in Jesus’ time).
So how can order be preserved? Clearly man’s nature is corrupt. Augustine explains this through the infection of original sin. And only God’s grace, freely accepted, can bring man back to his proper pre-fall nature.
Augustine sees Rome as his model for God’s Kingdom on earth. Hierarchical, with ins and outs, those in favor, and those who are punished for their disobedience and disloyalty. That’s his City of God.
Jesus saw something very different. Based on different models, and much vaguer ones. He can’t get that specific about it, because only God could know what it would look like. He only knows who will inhabit it. Those who are without vanity, without selfishness, without cruelty, without hate, without fear. Those who live for others, not themselves.
In a word, the sheep, and I suppose that’s his model. And God sends a shepherd, the Son of Man, to make sure they are not molested or preyed upon. His disciples will be leaders of the flock, in the same way a herd has dominant members (often ewes) to make sure the herd doesn’t go astray.
Jesus probably never saw a great city other than Jerusalem, which he seems to have viewed with a countryman’s deep distrust of the urban landscape, and in any event, he may never have seen it until his ideas were already well-formed. Augustine was far more cosmopolitan, and on the whole preferred city life. So this all makes sense.
Eternal punishment doesn’t–except it’s hard to scare hardened city folk with a finite punishment.
“Eternal punishment comes for sins against an eternal God.”
This line of argument is common among conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists (on occasions when they attempt philosophical argumentation, rather than cite biblical proof-texts).
Has any theologian prior to the modern era attempted to refute Augustine’s argument for the justice of eternal punishment?
I’m sure there were, but I’m not familiar with the arguments of universalists after his day.
Hon Wai 15ja19: “Eternal punishment comes for sins against an eternal God.”
Contemporary evangelical universalists (restorationists) typically say that the argument just makes no sense. Most biblical theologies say all people are eternal people—unless one accepts some annihilationist theologies, and in that case the lost are not eternally tortured anyway, they’re annihilated. Should someone suffer more for attempting to assassinate a king than a common man? Some kings might think so but no absolute law of morality tells us so. When eternalists (those who accept eternal conscious torment of the lost, ECT) say an offense against an infinite God deserves infinite punishment, they also confuse two senses of “infinite.” God is traditionally understood to be infinite in the sense of being pure act or pure actuality. If understood in this way, it does not follow that punishment for infinite time is required. It is better simply to think of the biblical God as having absolute goodness, knowledge, and power. God can do and know all and only that which is logically possible to do and know. There is no evil in God. But again, an offense against such a God does not deserve punishment for infinite time.
Origen and his school answered the eternalists by saying that eventually everyone will freely choose the salvation God offers. It may be after many years of suffering in a kind of purgatory, but it will happen eventually. So even if they did deserve eternal punishment, that wasn’t a problem because no one gets it.
Jesus used the analogy of weeds being thrown in the fire, which suggests quick annihilation, and many other verses in the NT suggest destruction, not an eternal existence for the unbelievers (does John 3:16 even make sense if nobody perishes but everybody has eternal life?). I find it troubling that so many Christians from Augustine onward choose to believe in eternal torment in hell for those who fall outside their definition of the saved. But the alternative sounds like it’s not much better: spending eternity praising a god who thinks it is just to let people be in torment for eternity when they didn’t have the advantages of His favored ones, who got personal appearances, witnessed miracles, had direct communication from God, etc. He didn’t even leave us a book that would unite his followers rather than divide them. Funny how many people who believe in this scenario complain if the church service runs too long!
Ha!!
Hmm.
I’ve met many a nonbeliever in God who still loves the idea of hell–for people he/she doesn’t like.
That’s the real problem, right there. Hell as revenge. That wasn’t Jesus’ idea, it wasn’t how early Christians thought. But if you study history, you’ll see variants of this cropping up where Christianity is not the source. We get angry when people won’t agree with us, won’t behave as we think they ought, and we look for some way to punish them after death, if not before. (Frequently before.)
This idea was not originated by Christians, and would have occurred no matter what. And will recur, until we accept that idea about getting the log out of your own eye first.
Yes, if I condemn the one with a speck in his eye, where does that leave me with the log in mine?! I think Jesus’ point is that I should always see them with a speck and me with the log.
And there’s the downvote. Proving me right. Appreciate the help. 🙂
I gave you the down vote. I have been reading your posts for a long time and most of them are very good and thought provoking, until you have to get your jab in about atheists. If you don’t really have contempt for atheists then please stop writing comments that sound like you do.
I hadn’t seen this until now. I don’ t know if you’ll ever read my response, but what the hell.
1)By the standards of most Christians, I would be considered an atheist. I don’t consider myself one, in part because I have found most people who refer to themselves on the internet (in real life, it almost never comes up) as such to be quite narrow-minded, judgemental, and quite frankly, not that well informed about the subject of religion (and many other subjects besides). Also because when they get power, atheists tend not to behave so well, borrowing much from their theist enemies, which would be funny if it didn’t involve so much death and torture. I feel the same way about Christians who have that type of personality and approach to belief, and lots of them do. I look at the person, much more than the ideology, because I believe personalities matter more than belief systems. I do not believe all or most people who don’t believe in God are bad. Nor do I believe they are any smarter, on average than theists. Many who leave Christianity and similar faiths, as you must know, simply switch over to more personal but equally non-empirical belief systems.
2)I didn’t use the word atheist in my post. You inferred a hell of a lot from very little, which would imply I hit a nerve.
3)It is a fact–as I know from my own experience–that people who don’t believe in God often still cherish the idea of hell for those they hate. And that, as Bart is making clear, is because hell isn’t a specifically Christian idea, and Jesus probably never believed in it. It was adopted from outside sources after the majority of Christians were of pagan heritage. Impossible to say who came up with it first.
4)Since I continue to believe anonymous downvotes–or even downvotes with a name attached to them–are a rather unsatisfactory way of taking revenge on people who say something you don’t want to hear–I shall turn the other cheek. I don’t upvote much either, but since we are limited to three posts a day, I do sometimes make use of them to express agreement. Disagreement is more complex (what precisely are you dissenting from?), and just saying “I didn’t like that” doesn’t really say anything at all.
Hmm? What would someone like Augustine say about how he knows what he knows? Would he claim that he is being inspired by God? Or that he got all of this from the teachings of Jesus or from reading the Bible or from logical reason or as an answer to his prayers?
He sees his views based on a deep understanding of the Bible (and his personal relationship with God). His reflections on these things is found in his Confessions.
I’m with Isaac Asimov on this one : “The concept of an eternal hell is the drooling dream of a sadist, crudely affixed to an all merciful god.”
Do you think early Christians saw what an effective recruiting tool instilling a fear like this was in the listener and found it simply to powerful to give it up ?
Thanks Bart
Yes indeed. I’m thinking about writing about that as a chapter in my next book!
Asimov had some pretty wacky dreams himself, you know. I’ve read a lot of him, remain a fan–but of all my favorite SF authors, he’s one who hasn’t aged well.
In any event, the concept of a dismal unending afterlife existed long long before Christianity, as he should have known. It was not the invention of any one mind, but rather occurred independently to many, all over the world.
Rather than dismiss it, maybe we should try to understand it. That would be the scientific approach.
Augustine may have been a brilliant philosopher but he was still defining Heaven and Hell into existence! ????
The Christians created their own problems when it came to miscarriages and stillborn and they still haven’t resolved these problems. Limbo isn’t dogma and it really isn’t very comforting to a mother’s loss. It is still a separation from God. They basically state that they don’t know and depend on Gods mercy! For a religion that has ALL the answers, you’d think they’d come up with one?
Dr. Ehrman, when did limbo develop?
I’m afraid I don’t know. I should!!
Thank you Dr. Ehrman, this has been a very informative series. I have studied the views of modern Universal Salvation for a while in the past. A good resource is a site called Tentmaker.org. It’s founder Gary Amerault (RIP), seemed to be a gentle and loving person who out of his fundamentalist hell fire background, began studying scriptures and Greek and Hebrew, and came to the conclusion of Universal Salvation. It’s strange but even during my childhood in a Catholic school, I used to wonder why if Jesus died on the cross for us, was it only for believers or in my case Catholics? What about everyone else? My 5th grade mind thought of African tribes in the jungle, and Native Americans on the plains, and jeez China was so far away. Why would these people spend eternity in torture and fire? Needless to say, whenever I asked that question, the most common response was that it was my duty to pray for them. I also consider myself an agnostic atheist even though as recently as 10 years ago, I began investigating the theology of the Universalist. So what then kept me out of the doors of a Universalist church one may ask? Well, there are few of them only 1 within reasonable travel, and I live in New Jersey! But more importantly, they also believe the bible is the inspired word of G~d, they just interpret it differently than say Baptists. I also learned that like most Christian denominations there are several “sub species” of Universalist ranging from “All are eventually saved” to those that are not, are just annihilated…they either stay dead with no resurrection or they die ‘again’ after the GWT judgement I just do not see any hand but the hand (and mind) of man when studying religious texts such as the bible. Thanks to the talent and work of folks like Dr. Ehrman, these things become even clearer.
chixter 15ja19
“they [universalists] also believe the bible is the inspired word of G~d, they just interpret it differently than say Baptists.”
Most Christians accept what the Bible clearly states, the rest doesn’t matter that much. So maybe that’s why there is a lot of disagreement: the minor stuff doesn’t really matter. But difference in interpretation isn’t an arbitrary and subjective thing either. Some readings of vague or difficult passages are better than others but even then the better readings aren’t usually absolutely certain. Of course it does matter whether hell is eternal or if God has given us free will or has predestined us to sin or our final state. But if God is the ultimate source of the Bible, maybe God’s just saying take care of the really important stuff first and then you can try to figure out this other extraneous stuff. Maybe seeing it like that you might be able to see God’s hand in it again. BTW, I don’t think many Christian thinkers would today say people are lost just because they haven’t heard the gospel. Look at W. L. Craig’s claims for instance. He’s probably the most influential evangelical apologist around today. I think his most current view is that those who have not heard the gospel are lost or saved according to their response to the innate moral law they are aware of by nature.
Would this have first step towards indulgences?
Yup, it’s heading that direction.
Professor, is there a course in the schools of Theology about what to do when you have written yourself into a corner?
Maybe the answer is declare another miracle available only to those who don’t ask questions?
So once you’ve scared everyone with the thought of eternal hell if they are “bad” your pretty well stuck with promising eternal life to those who are “good”. (Although personally I cant see whats wrong with .. you get to go to sleep and not worry about all this..) But, then surely someone is going to say ‘I’ve been good, what is it going to be like?” So Augustine comes up with “spend eternity gazing on and adoring God” and “be perfectly and magnificently contented, [doing that] forever.” To which the reader cannot reply “well that sounds like an awful bore” without admitting to being unworthy in the first place….
No, but there should be!
It’s not a coincidence that the torments of Hell are so much more detailed than the pleasures of Heaven. There’s something called Pessimism Bias, which appears to be a human universal. We view losses as much worse than gains, even when they are objectively the same (so, we view the loss of $20 as much worse than the gain of $20). The evolutionary rationale seems to be that when you live on the edge of survival (which would be where we evolved), it is much more dangerous to lose a little than to gain a little. There’s a field called Positive Psychology which aims to find out what makes us happy rather than what makes us miserable, to find paths to health rather than paths to sickness. I think it’s worth inspecting.
Rick 15ja19 “So Augustine comes up with ‘spend eternity gazing on and adoring God’ and ‘be perfectly and magnificently contented, [doing that] forever.’ To which the reader cannot reply ‘well that sounds like an awful bore. . . .’ ”
But it’s not really an incoherent idea. If we are created to know God we won’t be complete until we do. Maybe not quite the idea of spending eternity orbiting and gazing upon the divine center like Dante imagined it; it could be more of a spiritual state of a continuous awareness of the divine beauty. Maybe it will even take some change in our current human nature but something like this is still quite conceivable.
Yes, a lot of early Christian leaders (Church Fathers) thought they couldn’t really tell people hell isn’t forever since that might make them to think it worth it and give them license to live as immorally as they want. The Bible itself gives a much more sane and less manipulative view. If we do evil, if we bring harm to others, we will receive as we deserve. Punishment corresponds to the evil we commit (Lk 12.42–48). But the beauty of the Christian message is that even this punishment can be removed and we can be reconciled to God if we repent of these sins and accept God’s sacrifice, the death of one who by so doing became our substitute. Theologians can sometimes paint themselves into a corner; I don’t think the biblical writers did.
Jesus got beat up, was spit upon, a crown of thorns stuck on his head, bled, nailed on a cross, dies according to plan and then a couple hours later is resurrected and ascends to heaven exactly as prophesied. Doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice!!! Couple hours discomfort in exchange for being seated at the Father’s right hand for eternity. Oi, oi, oi, such a deal!!!
If Jesus was truly a savior and died in the place of sinners than as savior/substitute, shouldn’t Jesus suffer eternal punishment like those for whom he is allegedly a savior?
I think the idea is that their earthly suffering was termporary too.
My thoughts exactly! And Jesus didn’t even suffer that much: he died so quickly on the cross that it surprised the romans. You’d expect that the process of suffering that is supposed to atone the sins of all of humanity would take a little longer…
Well, how long you survived on the cross depended on how hard you tried to keep propped up.
The idea that his suffering was what brought about redemption came much later. Based on what we know, he may have felt that all he had to do was accept death for the Kingdom to come to earth. A sacrifice–a lamb sacrificed in the temple isn’t made to suffer unnecessarily, after all. They would just cut its throat. Sometimes we’re crueller to our own species, or haven’t you noticed?
We can’t know for sure, but that seems closer to what he was saying.
So he’s hanging up there, nails pounded into him, slowly suffocating–waiting for some sign that he hasn’t done this for nothing–and God is silent. He asks why has he been forsaken–quoting scripture, but relevant to his precise situation.
He decides he has to go all the way through with it, and hope he wasn’t wrong. He lets go. Once you stopped trying to live, you died quickly. It still took hours. Every minute must have felt like an eternity.
I’m just guessing, of course. But see, I’m not thinking about a religious personage. I’m thinking about a person. Who probably didn’t want to die at all. But thought he had to. And wasn’t sure. But so many people were suffering in the world. And he thought he’d found the answer.
I’m sorry it wasn’t enough for you. Wasn’t enough for Mel Gibson either. Well, like I said–we do have a sadistic streak in us.
Leesal 15ja19. “Jesus got . . . nailed on a cross, [and] dies. . . . Doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice!!! Couple hours discomfort. . . .
“. . .shouldn’t Jesus suffer eternal punishment like those for whom he is allegedly a savior?”
I think the movie The Passion of the Christ may somewhat exaggerate the suffering Jesus endured, at least I hope it does. But no matter how it actually occurred, it was the most painful death the Romans could come up with at least without a lot of extra work. Watch the movie to get some idea of what he suffered. He could have been on the cross from about 10 or 11am to 3pm. Do you really think that was an easy death? (Also he wasn’t resurrected a couple of hours later but about 39 hours later.) And if the lost, those who knowingly reject God or God’s offer of salvation (even on just the possibility of God’s existence) are not said to suffer eternal punishment in the Bible, then why must Jesus do so? You have a good argument against the eternalists like Augustine, but not against the biblical account.
A nice turn of phrase, “varying levels of ecstatic forevers”.
Just curious, has there ever been anyone who thought Heaven was not eternal?
thx
I’m sure there has been!
A temporary heaven is common in Eastern religions such as Buddhism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%E1%B9%83s%C4%81ra_(Buddhism)#Realms_of_rebirth
According to Buddhism, all of the six Realms of Existence are temporary.
I wonder how much the modern churches reflect on the impact of development in thinking and teaching about Hell on the growth of Christianity/ its success in keeping people in the fold…
Here is a link to an article by Eastern Orthodox scholar David Bentley Hart. It is mostly anti-Augustine, but in the process it makes the case for universal salvation. His view is that Augustine, who never mastered Greek, was led astray by bad Latin translations. His “mistakes” persist in the Western thought (Catholic and Protestant) to this day (e.g., original sin, eternal punishment, predestination). It’s an interesting perspective. By the way, Hart is a great fan of Origen.
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/05/traditio-deformis
Thomas Talbott provides a similar exegesis of Romans. Shame God has let so many labour under a misapprehension for so many centuries, at great psychological cost I might add!
In this series of posts regarding the afterlife and salvation, did you provide one or more definitions of what is meant by “salvation” as used in the NT? Is it being saved from punishment for sins, or from the natural results of evil doing, or from wanting to do evil, or from actually doing evil in the first place, or what exactly are we to be saved from? Perhaps it varies depending on the particular author.
Yes, different authors use the term diffreently. For Paul, for example, it was none of the above. It meant being delivered from the wrath of God that was going to strike the planet in the impending apocalypse.
I suppose one has to admire the mental energy Augustine expends trying to make sense of these theological conundrums, given that he is trying to proceed logically from the original sin of Adam. However, he was smart enough to realize that time really has no meaning in eternity. He supposedly once said “if no one asks me what time is, I know, but if I am asked what it is, I know not”. 21st century physicists and philosophers are still trying to figure it out.
Does Augustine say what constructive purpose (if any) God would have for punishing people forever?
Constructive for the person being punished? No, I’m not sure he does. For Augustine the punishment is retributive, not redemptive. It does, though, preserve God’s justice intact, and important element for the well-being of the universe.
Dr. Ehrman. It’s not relevant to this post, but I’ve seen this video of Dr. Frank Turek where he is responding to Your books “misquoting Jesus” and the the academic one that you’ve written with Bruce Metzger. He said that you say one thing to general public and something else to academic world. Apparently, you came to two different conclusions in these two books regarding the new testament reliability. He accused You of lying to the public because it’s sensational topic and it allows You to sell more books and it can get You featured in tv. How do You respond to that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB18or8bJ10
I’m afraid he doesn’t know what I’m talking about — or at least what *he* is! I haven’t seen the video, but can you tell me one instance of what he sees as a contradiction between what I say? (Important to recall: most of the Metzger book is Metzger; I helped him edit it and I added a number of sections, but most of the wording is his. Even so, I don’t think there is a thing in there that I contradict in my own writing). One problem is that some critical readers seem completely unable to recognize nuance and subtlety, but are so black and white in their thinking that they see contradictions that in fact are not at *all* contradictions. THat’s true of a lot of fundamentalists. I don’t know who Turek is, but I suspect he would be in that camp.
Dr. Turek has said that there is no significant theological doctrine that is affected by manuscripts variants. He said that you admit it yourself, you’ve wrote misquoting jesus and the same year, you also wrote that one with Metzger. In the academic book you agreed with Metzger that the New Testament reliable and in misquoting jesus you are arguing that new testament is not reliable, although in the paperback version that came 2 years after the book there’s an interview on page 252 where you also state that new testament is reliable and “christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition”
Turek after quoting interview from page 252 he says “Why would You write misquoting jesus then?… Maybe the book should be called misquoting ehrman, because he doesn’t even agree with himself. So even ehrman when push comes to shove admits that we have accurate copies of the new testament”
Yes, it sounds like he *completely* misunderstands my argument in Misquoting Jesus. He hasn’t read it carefully, but has assumed I’m saying something I’m not at all saying. Fundamentalists do that a lot.
I heard the Augustine never fully mastered Greek, so everything he read and wrote was in Latin. Also, the Eastern (Greek speaking) Church rejected many of his ideas.
Do you think this language barrier affected his theology?
I”m afraid I’m not a trained Augustine scholar (it’s an entire field of scholarship! Entire academic societies devoted to it), and have never looked into the question. Wish I knew!
“highly trained Christian thinkers could engage in reasoned and intellectual reflections on the fate of souls after death”
Did Augustine ever explain the basis on which he reached his conclusions (for ex., that there will be varying degrees of pain in hell and bliss in heaven)? Are such notions based on passages in the Bible (perhaps Revelation), or does he acknowledge that he’s merely speculating based on what seems logical to him?
He’s trying to make sense of the righteousness of God: how can he be “just” when punishing sins, but not be “unjust” in how he does it.
HawksJ 16ja19 ”Did Augustine ever explain the basis on which he reached his conclusions (for ex., that there will be varying degrees of pain in hell and bliss in heaven)?”
It is biblical: Luke 12.42–48, 10.10–14; Rev 20.12; and I could name a few more. And it does seem reasonable that those who do greater evil deserve greater punishment. But variation in punishment could more easily be carried out by varying the amount of time the lost are in hell. Jesus’ parable of the unforgiving servant (Mt 18.21–35) indicates there is a time limit.
It amuses me when I hear fundies talk about the indescribable joy we will have in heaven. Ask them how say a parent of an unbelieving child or a spouse married to an unbeliever or one of another faith can experience such ecstasy knowing the soul of some one they so dearly loved is being tortured for eternity. The responses one will hear is more amusing than the concept itself.
chixter 17ja19. “Ask [a fundie] how . . . a parent of an unbelieving child . . . can experience such ecstasy knowing the soul of some one they so dearly loved is being tortured for eternity.”
Even the annihilationists have trouble with this one. How can God wipe away all our tears (Rev 21.4) if we must remember our lost loved ones are gone forever or suffering forever? Some will say God will erase our memory of them. So Paradise becomes essentially a place of deception and ignorance. Is that what Christians have to look forward to? Others have historically come up with the even more abominable idea that the redeemed will spend eternity enjoying observing the lost writhe in the flames, their closest loved ones included. It seems there is no limit to how much God’s good news can be perverted into something unimaginably horrible. Restorationist universalism is the only biblical and reasonable alternative for problems like this one.
As Mark Twain is reputed to have said, “Heaven for the climate, hell for the company.”
hankgillette 18ja19 “Heaven for the climate, hell for the company.”
So you wouldn’t really mind spending your days hobnobbing with Hitler and Bundy, Caligula and Kim Jong-il, child molesters and Grand Inquisitors?
“The classical Athenians were not as fond of eternal damnation as Christianity was to be, but they did consign to Hades those who had ill-treated their parents. In the Phaedo, the people who are immersed in the fire-blazing river Puriphlegethon in Hades are the people who “out of anger have done some act of violence against father or mother.”
Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity by William V. Harris. Part III. Intimate Rage, Chapter 12: Family and Friends, p. 286.
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What do you have to say about Christianity using this Platonic precedent for an afterlife of punishing fire?
Yup, it’s one of my arguments in the book. See the myth of Er at the end of the Republic, for example.
flshrP 15ja19: “Many of them [biblical & theological scholars] could have made major contributions in fields that directly benefit society (medicine, natural science, engineering, history, economics). Again what a waste.”
But how can it be a waste to contemplate and evaluated the possibility and evidence of other worlds and our possible existence in such worlds? From Augustine and other ancients came important philosophical concepts which are still with us today and are being used to answer our deepest philosophical and scientific questions. On the other hand we ought to question just what medical, engineering, etc. advances are not likewise just such a waste if this is our only life. Sure they can make life a little easier for us, but in the long run we’re all just walking dead men (and women) anyway. Many people have actually committed suicide from honestly confronting existential despair. It’s difficult to glibly think that “major contributions” to such fields are very much worth our time. The late atheist scientist and writer Victor Stenger used to say, “We’re all just frozen nothings.” What point is there in trying to do good for a nothing? On the other hand again (we must have three hands :-)), if there is an afterlife, one could be highly motivated to enter such fields on the prospect of doing good for other eternal creatures once we recognize their extreme value. Evidence and analysis concerning the afterlife deeply affects all of our lives. Yes, Augustine did come up with some pretty bad theology concerning the afterlife (as well as other doctrines like predestination), but there were other great theologians who corrected him by doing the same kind of hard thinking. We did need the great theologians and philosophical thinkers and always will.
I’m just now reading this. In your article you said a minority view of prominent Christian thinkers had the view of universalism. Did the early churches hold more to universalism, annihilation, or eternal hell? You may have addressed this in another post I just haven’t read yet.
I’ve been thinking that the doctrine of Hell has led a lot of people away from Christianity. And also led a lot of people to Christianity out of fear (so one could argue not a “real” relationship). Therefore, if Christianity was real, to me annihilation makes more sense. Because then there is an opportunity for genuine love. I think the doctrine of eternal hell kinda removes the opportunity for genuine love. At least it did for me. I felt like “love me or burn.” Not really how my husband got me to marry him. So it hasn’t made sense to me. But I could definitely see annihilation making more sense. I think I’m rambling at this point. Sorry!
Also, have you ever seen the idea from Martin Luther & maybe… Augustine? Idk it’s a few. Who speak about one of the joys of Heaven will be knowing that people are suffering in Hell, even family members, and basically how great it will be that justice is being served. SICK. My favorite was the weird comment by John Calvin about babies being in Hell.
Augustine definitely did not think this. But I’m going to have a full chapter on it in my scholarly book on journeys to heaven and hell, and have a bit on it in my book coming out in March for a general audience.
Depends which ealry church authors you’re referring to, but yes, eternal hell emerged as the dominant option. But it started out with annihilation (Jesus, Paul, Revelation) and soe held to universalism (but it never caught on widely). I’ll be giving full explanations in my book.
Okay thanks! Are you also writing a book on Revelation? I thought I saw that somewhere, but maybe not. Do you have any recommendations on information or books about revelation and explaining its symbolism in era it was written? Or maybe there isn’t because the writer as describing what he believed to be future events?
Yes, that’s the next trade book, after I finish the scholarly book I’m working on. Hopefully I’ll be in the thick of it next year at this time. One easy-access book on Revelation is Bruce Metzer. Breaking the Code.