Flipped through it a little and Holy Ship. Dr. Baker uses Mandaean texts to arrive at some of my exact same conclusions.

After I had the realization that Jesus was re-enacting the water ablution savior of humanity traditions, then Marduk made sense, but there was one more figure in the direct Mesopotamian line, and that is Nabu. And then durr, Nbu is a name that Mandaean (recap: John the Baptist's followers) texts have for Jesus.

So I began looking up Nabu traits, and that day I found mention of this book online. Dr. Robin Baker is a colleague and collaborator with Dr. Simo Parpola, the prominent Assyriologist who wrote the Ezekiel to Jesus book.

So Dr. Baker explains why they call Jesus by the names of both Nabu and Mercury, because in the First Century Mesopotamian region, Nabu had been interpretio'd as Mercury. It looks like such an intelligent and deeply cited read.

I actually recognize quite a lot in what you say here. Hope without guarantee, seriousness without fear preaching, and taking God’s mercy seriously are not foreign to my own theology at all.

Tjalling said
... I still would not call it merely a relatively informal video, because it was presented as a course on a subject that can matter enormously to people.

I agree. Perhaps I was more referring to Bart's generally casual style, but I have never taken a formal course from him. From what I've heard from you about this lecture, it does sound like at the very end Bart quickly threw together some genuinely big ideas: Fear, universalism as a hopeful sign, healthy developments, eternal conscious torment, etc. Each of these ideas could be thoughtfully and thoroughly treated in a semester-long course and still leave many open questions worthy of life-long personal reflection.

I also need to give more weight to something Bart actually says in that closing section. He explicitly acknowledges that fear of not existing is “a real fear too,” but says that it is not the fear he is addressing there. He then distinguishes destruction from eternal torment. I heard those words, but I did not allow them enough weight in my interpretation of the conclusion.

On the one hand, I'm glad to hear that Bart was not being too careless in his conclusion, but on the other hand it is abundantly clear that, not having access to the course or lecture, I am completely unable to speak to the particulars of the event.

That was not brilliant.

As a long-time member of this club, it's comforting to know that we have many unknown members out there, and we need not fear that our treasury is at risk due to a lack of membership dues. 

I think I can now see more clearly what remains of my concern, and yes, it is much more personal than the argument I was trying to make before. Bart tells us very clearly what annihilation means. In the Q&A he could hardly be clearer: the person is destroyed, annihilated, and no longer exists. What still catches me is that, on Bart’s own historical reconstruction, Jesus actually warned people of that fate. The ending of the lecture, however, lands strongly on relief: a healthy trend, mercy, universalism as a hopeful sign, and finally “What Have We to Fear?” ... So I think you are also right about the specifically Christian element in the gravity I attach to this. If I take seriously the possibility that Jesus really warned of judgment and irreversible loss, I find it difficult to treat that merely as one historical detail left standing after ECT has been removed. That is my Christian reaction to Bart’s reconstruction, not a conclusion his historical argument requires everyone else to share.

Not to long ago a theologian elevated to the position of Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church popularized the thoughtful idea that even if Hell were real, it is nonetheless his Christian hope that Hell is empty. Going a step further, even as a Christian, I was perfectly fine with imagining that a first-century Jewish apocalyptic prophet could have been wrong about many things. Whose to say that fire and brimstone should not just function as an historically conditioned metaphor for what we today might call alienation, the consequences of social injustice, racism, and thermonuclear annihilation of whole cities? I realize such as attitude would probably seem blasphemous to some Christians, but it is standard fare among many with some theological experience. From this perspective, even as a believing Christian I would welcome hearing of other believers being open to focus more on God's mercy, critique eternal conscious torment, perhaps considering  universalism. I would welcome these as healthy and hopeful signs of open minds and hearts to reflect on mysteries that are beyond our limited human capacity. Just as we consider the limited human capacities of Jesus, if we truly believe he was fully human.

But none of that is not a denial of the reality of judgment.

“I think that in the end God is merciful.”
Yes, I agree. That matters enormously. But if Jesus really warned people of irreversible destruction, as Bart’s own reconstruction says he did, and as I believe he did, God’s mercy does not make that warning something I can simply put aside.

Judgment ideally requires open and thoughtful communication from both the one doing the judging and the one being judged. If I may, even as an unbeliever, be allowed to quote St Paul:

They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, as their own conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God through Christ Jesus judges the secret thoughts of all.

I think that is probably where the two of us can leave this particular discussion?
Having said all that, I doubt I will lose my sensitivity to historical conclusions sliding into positions or assumptions that the historical argument itself does not establish. I suspect that will remain part of how I read and respond to things for as long as I am around here, and I will try to apply the same standard regardless of whose conclusions are involved. Thank you, Robert, for your patience, your honesty, and the brotherly way you have engaged with me throughout this.

Sure, I think we understand each other rather well. Thank you also for your patience, etc, in this exchange.

First, I think you are right about something important. I have probably placed too much analytical weight on the closing minutes of the course. I still would not call it merely a relatively informal video, because it was presented as a course on a subject that can matter enormously to people. But I take your larger point. No presentation can anticipate every inference every listener may draw, and I think at times I was asking the closing section to carry more precision than a spoken presentation can reasonably be expected to carry. I also need to give more weight to something Bart actually says in that closing section. He explicitly acknowledges that fear of not existing is “a real fear too,” but says that it is not the fear he is addressing there. He then distinguishes destruction from eternal torment. I heard those words, but I did not allow them enough weight in my interpretation of the conclusion. That was not brilliant.

On universalism, I don’t think we actually disagree. I have never thought Bart was trying to convert anyone to universalism, nor that he argued that because Jesus did not teach ECT, universalism therefore follows. He clearly marks those remarks as his own evaluation. And I have not objected to the reassurance itself. If Bart is right that Jesus did not teach eternal conscious torment, then that is genuinely good news for people who have lived in terror of it. I said that in my first post, but perhaps it became less visible as the discussion went on.

I think I can now see more clearly what remains of my concern, and yes, it is much more personal than the argument I was trying to make before. Bart tells us very clearly what annihilation means. In the Q&A he could hardly be clearer: the person is destroyed, annihilated, and no longer exists. What still catches me is that, on Bart’s own historical reconstruction, Jesus actually warned people of that fate. The ending of the lecture, however, lands strongly on relief: a healthy trend, mercy, universalism as a hopeful sign, and finally “What Have We to Fear?”

Some listeners plainly kept the distinction between ECT and annihilation perfectly well. Others moved toward much broader questions about whether there is hell at all, what salvation is for, and what remains of the significance of the cross. I now agree with you that those reactions cannot by themselves be turned into evidence that Bart communicated badly. People bring their own histories, beliefs and fears to a lecture, and different listeners will take different things away from it. So I think you are also right about the specifically Christian element in the gravity I attach to this. If I take seriously the possibility that Jesus really warned of judgment and irreversible loss, I find it difficult to treat that merely as one historical detail left standing after ECT has been removed. That is my Christian reaction to Bart’s reconstruction, not a conclusion his historical argument requires everyone else to share.

“I think that in the end God is merciful.”
Yes, I agree. That matters enormously. But if Jesus really warned people of irreversible destruction, as Bart’s own reconstruction says he did, and as I believe he did, God’s mercy does not make that warning something I can simply put aside.

And I should make one thing especially clear. I am not asking for fear preaching, although judgment is a real part of the New Testament. I have no wish to put back the terror that the historical argument against eternal conscious torment may rightly remove. For me the Christian answer to judgment is not more fear. The New Testament is good news. The Jesus who warns is also the Jesus who tells of a shepherd searching for the lost sheep, a woman searching until she finds what she has lost, and a father running toward his returning son.

Perhaps that is what I was really trying to protect throughout this discussion: not fear, but seriousness. I overstated the case when I turned that concern into an argument that Bart’s conclusion had not been sufficiently delimited. He did delimit it more clearly than I allowed. What remains is largely a difference in how much existential weight I, as a Christian listener, give to the warning that still remains in his reconstruction. I think that is probably where the two of us can leave this particular discussion?

Having said all that, I doubt I will lose my sensitivity to historical conclusions sliding into positions or assumptions that the historical argument itself does not establish. I suspect that will remain part of how I read and respond to things for as long as I am around here, and I will try to apply the same standard regardless of whose conclusions are involved. Thank you, Robert, for your patience, your honesty, and the brotherly way you have engaged with me throughout this.

Tjalling said
Something else you said earlier has stayed with me too. When I was still arguing that the transition itself had not been marked, you thought the kind of distinction I was asking for would probably be “decidedly less successful.” I corrected that criticism afterwards: Bart did mark his own evaluations. But it left me wondering about the word successful itself. What exactly do you mean by it, and how should we measure it?

I was only speaking very generally with respect to Bart's ability to reach a very wide audience with his writing and speaking style, several NYT bestsellers, a blog that has raised well over $3 million for the poor, very well attended courses at a rather expensive platform, etc.

But if reaching a broad non-specialist audience is part of the success, shouldn't what that audience actually comes away thinking has been established count as part of the success too? I mean that as a genuine question, Robert. Perhaps you mean something different by successful.

Theoretically, sure, absolutely. But in common practice how many of us communicate perfectly with no possibility for our audiences not to come away with multiple and quite varied reactions.

The listener I have in mind is not hypothetical. I watched this particular lecture with two other people. Afterwards I asked each of them separately what they thought the conclusion had been. Both answered: “Hell does not exist.” I then asked, “So what is there?” After a pause, both gave the same answer: “Heaven.” That may simply have been their own simplification. I cannot know. But was it completely arbitrary, or is it understandable given the final slide and the way the conclusion moves?

Were these people Christians, perhaps with at least some assurance of their own status as saved? Perhaps already with a tendency toward universalism or at least against eternal conscious torment?

Bart's own reconstruction still contained judgment, exclusion and irreversible destruction. They are not the basis of my concern, any more than the Q&A was. They are simply one reason I don't think the reception question is hypothetical.

I don't think it is hypothetical, but I do think it is the result of a very long-winded analysis that an relatively informal video may not have merited. No disrespect intended, but Bart has a more casual style. When pressed with specific questions he can and will address finer points but that depends on audience interaction.

The questions submitted during the course made me wonder about the same thing. One participant asked, “If there is no hell doesn’t that negate the significance of the cross? Also what happens to the need for salvation?” Another wrote, “If he is not saving me from hell, what am I missing?”

Were these questions directly addressed to Bart? Did he have an opportunity to address them specifically? Or were they perhaps part of a multitude chat-like comments to which the online platform and format did not allow for substantive interaction? 

Again, that does not prove Bart caused those inferences. But it does show that listeners were already taking the historical discussion into questions about the cross, salvation and their own faith.

That can be one way of measuring success. The audience succeeded in internalizing some of the content resulting in questions about what it means for them personally. Even in this discussion of a video course I did not see, I've been moved to imagine how this might have affected me personally:

You wrote that, if you were still a Christian, you could look at that same outcome and describe it, at least compared with ECT, as God mercifully putting you out of your misery. I don’t think your response is illegitimate at all. It just shows that the historical reconstruction does not by itself tell us what we should make of that outcome. The same reconstructed outcome can then be evaluated as the worst imaginable outcome or as a merciful end. There is another step there, between reconstructing what Jesus taught and deciding what it means for us.

The speaker and every member of the audience may internalize and take away so many different amounts and depth of the content presented and discussed, perhaps as many and varied as every individual participating. If the presenter tries to anticipate too many of these he may lose his audience with way to much minutiae that engages hardly anyone. I find it better to consider every presentation or conversation as merely an invitation to reflect further for a continuing, hopefully even an everlasting dialogue. That's one of the most attractive things about the idea of eternal life. How much would I love the opportunities to question Jesus while learning the nuances of his colloquial Aramaic, to discuss the fine points and apparent difficulties of Paul's theology in ever more perfect Koine Greek, learn to play the tunes and sing the Provençal songs of Medieval troubadours with St Francis, study philosophy in Latin with Baruch Spinoza, to have more engineering discussions with my Dad, getting to know my deceased sister better, etc, etc, etc. Alas, such opportunities may only be as a hope never to be realized. In the end, only so much can be presented, explained, and analyzed in a given presentation.

This is not only about this lecture for me. The concern I raised in a blog comment about the word invented was not just fussing over language. It didn't happen is not just my semantic irritation. And What Have We to Fear? is not just one slide that happened to bother me. They all raise the same question: what does a non-specialist come away thinking has actually been established, and how much of that is really carried by the historical argument?
That is why words and framing matter so much to me. I apply the same standard to my evangelical and apologetic friends. A conclusion may be true, or may seem very plausible, and still not follow from the argument being offered for it. I don't think that standard should change depending on whether I like the conclusion. I am not asking Bart to protect anyone's faith from evidence. If the evidence requires a Christian to give something up, then so be it.
And perhaps that is the best answer I can give to your word gravity. Some of the more personal conversations on this forum have made me think even more seriously about what can be at stake when an anchor someone has trusted for a long time comes loose. I don't think an anchor should be protected from evidence. If the evidence really requires it to move, then it may have to move. But I have learned not to treat that lightly. I just do not want someone's anchor loosened by a conclusion broader than the evidence has earned.

Sentiments worth of James IV of Scotland, Protector et Defensor Fidei Christianae. Well done!

Everything you mention in your previous post really does matter. None of it is a diversion, and none of it is nonsense. I can see very well why you give this less weight than I do. Bart is openly an atheist. He is not trying to make anyone a universalist. The removal of eternal conscious torment can genuinely be reassuring. And annihilation can certainly be seen, especially compared with ECT, as much less terrible. I agree with all of that.

But I think it still leaves the thing I am actually worried about largely untouched. Once the historical case has established what Jesus probably did and did not teach, what follows from that case, and what requires a further evaluation?

Something in your own response actually helps to make this clearer. Bart calls the annihilation he attributes to Jesus “the worst outcome you can possibly imagine.” You wrote that, if you were still a Christian, you could look at that same outcome and describe it, at least compared with ECT, as God mercifully putting you out of your misery. I don’t think your response is illegitimate at all. It just shows that the historical reconstruction does not by itself tell us what we should make of that outcome. The same reconstructed outcome can then be evaluated as the worst imaginable outcome or as a merciful end. There is another step there, between reconstructing what Jesus taught and deciding what it means for us.

That is why the final slide matters to me. What Have We to Fear? is not a passing remark. It is the question of the concluding section, on its own slide: IN THE END: What Have We to Fear? The historical case can certainly give us a real reason for relief about ECT. My question is what takes us from that specific relief to the broader question on the slide.

I can see why Bart's atheism matters as context, but I don't think it settles my concern. He does not answer the final question by saying: there is no God, no judgment and no afterlife, so there is nothing to fear. That is not the argument he gives. He stays with the material he has presented about the Hebrew Bible, Jesus, judgment, annihilation and the development of Hell. And, to be fair to him, he does mark his own evaluations: “in my view,” “to me,” “I think that God is in the end merciful.” So my concern is not that he hides the fact that he is giving his own view. He doesn't. My question is how the historical findings and the reassurance that follows are connected.

When Bart says that “it really doesn’t make sense” and “it almost certainly is not true,” he means ECT. I am not disputing that either. What I am asking is what the listener hears while the much broader question IN THE END: What Have We to Fear? is on the screen. Bart does not then return to the things that remain in his own reconstruction of Jesus: judgment, exclusion, irreversible destruction, “a horrible death in fire,” and what he himself had called “the worst outcome you can possibly imagine.” The conclusion moves toward reassurance.

Something else you said earlier has stayed with me too. When I was still arguing that the transition itself had not been marked, you thought the kind of distinction I was asking for would probably be “decidedly less successful.” I corrected that criticism afterwards: Bart did mark his own evaluations. But it left me wondering about the word successful itself. What exactly do you mean by it, and how should we measure it?

This course was publicly promoted on YouTube, and Bart also advertised it on his blog as a free course. His own invitation there was: “Anyone can come. There’s zero cost.” So this was clearly meant to reach beyond specialists or people who already knew his work well. I am not saying those people don't know Bart is an atheist. I have no basis for saying that.

But if reaching a broad non-specialist audience is part of the success, shouldn't what that audience actually comes away thinking has been established count as part of the success too? I mean that as a genuine question, Robert. Perhaps you mean something different by successful.

The listener I have in mind is not hypothetical. I watched this particular lecture with two other people. Afterwards I asked each of them separately what they thought the conclusion had been. Both answered: “Hell does not exist.” I then asked, “So what is there?” After a pause, both gave the same answer: “Heaven.” That may simply have been their own simplification. I cannot know. But was it completely arbitrary, or is it understandable given the final slide and the way the conclusion moves? Bart's own reconstruction still contained judgment, exclusion and irreversible destruction. They are not the basis of my concern, any more than the Q&A was. They are simply one reason I don't think the reception question is hypothetical.

The questions submitted during the course made me wonder about the same thing. One participant asked, “If there is no hell doesn’t that negate the significance of the cross? Also what happens to the need for salvation?” Another wrote, “If he is not saving me from hell, what am I missing?” Again, that does not prove Bart caused those inferences. But it does show that listeners were already taking the historical discussion into questions about the cross, salvation and their own faith.

This is not only about this lecture for me. The concern I raised in a blog comment about the word invented was not just fussing over language. It didn't happen is not just my semantic irritation. And What Have We to Fear? is not just one slide that happened to bother me. They all raise the same question: what does a non-specialist come away thinking has actually been established, and how much of that is really carried by the historical argument?

That is why words and framing matter so much to me. I apply the same standard to my evangelical and apologetic friends. A conclusion may be true, or may seem very plausible, and still not follow from the argument being offered for it. I don't think that standard should change depending on whether I like the conclusion. I am not asking Bart to protect anyone's faith from evidence. If the evidence requires a Christian to give something up, then so be it.

And perhaps that is the best answer I can give to your word gravity. Some of the more personal conversations on this forum have made me think even more seriously about what can be at stake when an anchor someone has trusted for a long time comes loose. I don't think an anchor should be protected from evidence. If the evidence really requires it to move, then it may have to move. But I have learned not to treat that lightly. I just do not want someone's anchor loosened by a conclusion broader than the evidence has earned.

Tjalling said
... The question is what remains once eternal conscious torment has been excluded from Jesus’ teaching, and whether the concluding reassurance is as carefully limited as the historical case itself.

Just so we're clear, what exactly was Bart's concluding reassurance? Thank you for your restatement of this here:

==========
Bart’s own reconstruction leaves something extraordinarily severe in place. When he turns specifically to what he believes Jesus taught about the fate of those excluded from God’s Kingdom, he says that Jesus warned of:
“the worst outcome you can possibly imagine”;
people who are “really upset they’re not allowed into God’s kingdom” and are then destroyed;
people who “cease to exist” and are “burned to nothing”;
“If you’re not on God’s side, you’re destroyed”;
and “a horrible death in fire” after which they are “never brought back.”
These formulations have now been checked directly against the audio.
Bart also speaks of exclusion from the Kingdom, darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, destruction at God’s judgment, eternal punishment because it is never reversed, and never returning to life to enjoy God’s Kingdom.
His summary is unambiguous: “He himself believed in eternal annihilation, not eternal torment.”
This is not Dante’s Inferno. It is not eternal conscious torture. But it is hardly nothing to fear: Bart himself calls it “the worst outcome you can possibly imagine.”
==========
Near the end, Bart describes the growing interest in universalism as “a hopeful sign” and says:
“I think that God is in the end merciful.”
The concluding slide then reads, exactly:
IN THE END
What Have We to Fear?
The phrase “in the end” appears in both places, and that matters. The course was introduced as Jesus’ teachings on the afterlife. It has moved from the rejection of eternal conscious torment, through the judgment and irreversible destruction Bart attributes to Jesus, to universalism, “God is in the end merciful,” and finally, “in the end What Have We to Fear?”
Bart then says that understanding where the idea of hell came from can mitigate fear. He concludes:
“If you just use your reason enough, you realize this isn’t the original form of Christianity. And you probably realize it really doesn’t make sense. It almost certainly is not true.”
Every part of this closing passage has now been checked directly against the audio.
I am not claiming that Bart explicitly argues: Jesus did not teach eternal conscious torment; therefore universalism is true. He does not formulate that syllogism. But the broader movement is nevertheless present in the structure and cadence of the webinar, and it is one that a listener can reasonably hear.
The rhetorical scope of the conclusion is broader than the evidential scope of the historical argument.
==========
My strongest point here does not depend on a dictionary definition of merciful. It depends on the pragmatic meaning the word acquires in this particular closing passage.
Surrounded by universalism, punishment, penalty, fear, and the slide in the end What Have We to Fear?, “God is in the end merciful” is naturally heard as more than a statement that God has compassionate feelings. It suggests that, in the end, mercy has the final word.
That creates a dilemma.
If irreversible destruction, described as being “burned to nothing,” suffering “a horrible death in fire,” and being “never brought back,” is compatible with God’s final mercy, then something terrible remains to be feared, and the appeal to mercy does not by itself support universalism.
If final mercy excludes irreversible destruction, then the reassurance depends on a further judgment: that the destruction Bart attributes to the historical Jesus will not in fact occur.
Bart is entitled to hold that judgment. But it requires an additional philosophical or theological argument. The historical case that Jesus taught annihilation rather than eternal torment does not itself provide one.
==========
The appeal to reason is therefore important. The objection is not that Bart reasons or invites others to reason. The difficulty is that he associates sufficient use of the listener’s reason with a probable outcome matching his own further judgment:
“If you just use your reason enough…”
“You probably realize…”
A listener unable to assess every historical, exegetical and philosophical step independently may defer to an amiable, eloquent and highly respected scholar. Another may wonder whether failure to reach the conclusion shows that he has not used his reason enough.
The issue is therefore not only what a listener could isolate as the strict logical conclusion after careful analysis. It is also what the webinar as a whole was likely to leave as its practical and existential takeaway.
The audience Q&A record shows that broader inferences were genuinely available. Listeners asked:
“If there is no hell doesn’t that negate the significance of the cross? Also what happens to the need for salvation?”
“If he is not saving me from hell, what am I missing?”
Another thanked Bart for emphasizing “that this fear of hell is unfounded.”
These questions did not create my concern, prove causation, or show superficial listening. They show that the movement was available. No speaker controls every inference, but an expert addressing a general audience whose backgrounds he cannot know bears a responsibility to guard against foreseeable and avoidable inferential slides beyond what the evidence establishes.
==========
So what do I fear?
As a Christian, I fear that Jesus’ warnings may be real. I also fear that imprecise argument can blur the distinction between rejecting eternal conscious torment and rejecting judgment itself, while the importance of the matter could hardly be greater.
What is ultimately at stake for me is the listener’s anchor, especially the anchor of a listener who may not be able, in real time, to keep historical reconstruction, personal judgment, and broader implication sharply distinguished.
I am not arguing that a religious or naturalistic anchor should be protected against evidence. Evidence may require us to reconsider even our deepest convictions. But the responsibility runs in both directions: an anchor should not be loosened by imprecision or by an inference the evidence has not earned, but neither should it be held in place by fear, coercion, or claims the evidence cannot support.
An anchor deserves careful handling, even when it belongs to someone else’s boat.
Nor do I want to return to fire-and-brimstone preaching, to believers being made afraid that they are unworthy of God’s grace, or to centuries in which hell was used as a whip over human consciences. We need not choose between a divine torture chamber and a world in which judgment, salvation, the cross, and the fate of human beings no longer matter.
Eternal conscious torment has been removed from the teaching of the historical Jesus. But the historical Jesus as Bart reconstructs him still leaves “the worst outcome you can possibly imagine” in place.
I do not see gratitude to Bart and concern for his listeners as competing obligations. Taking his work seriously includes examining critically what an audience may reasonably take from it.
No one owes me agreement or a response, and I am not asking anyone to choose between loyalty to Bart and engagement with my argument. Individual details may of course be challenged, and where correction is needed I will accept it. I hope only that disagreement over a secondary point will not displace the central question.
==========
My central question remains:
How is a listener expected to keep the final reassurance strictly limited to eternal conscious torment when the closing sequence has moved through universalism, “God is in the end merciful,” and “in the end What Have We to Fear?”, while the historical Jesus as Bart reconstructs him still leaves “the worst outcome you can possibly imagine” in place?

I may be dense but I'm still missing the gravity of concern you seem to be expressing at some length here. I think Bart's audience generally knows that he is not a Christian and is in fact an atheist. He certainly is not encouraging or proselytizing anyone to believe in Universalism or even any form of afterlife involving any alternative to the traditional Christian view of Hell. If I were still a Christian believer (instead of merely an admirer of Jesus and agnostic), I would be certainly reassured to know that Jesus himself did not threaten us with eternal conscious torment. And some form of judgement and subsequent annihilation is not really 'the worst outcome I can possibly imagine', but rather God mercifully putting me out of my misery, certainly better than eternal conscious torment in the fires of Hell, don't you think?

Tjalling said
Robert, one final note on the terminology, hoping that we can set it aside.
Two philosophical reference works provide direct examples of the classificatory usage I had in mind. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry “Hell” says that, in philosophy and theology, the word “hell,” in its most general sense, refers to “some kind of bad post-mortem state.” Under the heading “The Nature of Hell,” it then discusses the Traditional View, Annihilationism, the Free Will View, and Universalism under separate subheadings.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry “Heaven and Hell in Christian Thought” states that permanent separation from God is “equally consistent with many different conceptions of hell,” and gives everlasting torment and annihilation among its examples.
The second edition of Four Views on Hell (Zondervan, ed. Sprinkle) likewise treats Eternal Conscious Torment, Annihilationism (Conditional Immortality), Universalism (Ultimate Reconciliation), and Purgatory as its four views.
These examples do not establish that this usage is universal, dominant, or specifically Catholic. Nor do they establish how the word is ordinarily understood in everyday speech. They establish only that, in at least some philosophical and theological literature, sharply different accounts of final judgment are classified together under the heading of hell.
That is all I am claiming here about the classificatory usage. I suggest that we leave the terminological question there.

I still have a couple of observations about terminology, which I hope you will appreciate.

I will concede that one can discuss various different and wide ranging ideas of hell from a very general perspective of the philosophy of religions, and in such discussions "hell" might be best used and understood as an uncapitalized common noun, and the focus of such discussions often often entail differentiating the traditional Christian view of Hell from various alternative views.

For example, in the context of the entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it says clearly in the introduction: "On the traditional Christian model of hell, articulated by some of the West’s most historically significant philosophers and theologians, hell involves permanent, conscious suffering for the purpose of punishing human sin." The author is here distinguishing the traditional Christian understanding of Hell from previously mentioned views derived from some Eastern religions. Then he goes on to distinguish this traditional Christian view of Hell from annihilationism and universalism. So even in a most general philosophical discussion of various views of the afterlife, it is still important to be clear about what the traditional Christian model of Hell is and what it is not. I suspect Bart was very specifically speaking about the traditional Christian idea of Hell, a specific case that may best be capitalized with an uppercase letter as a proper noun for a very specific singular place.

Sorry for my extended absence from the forum, I made your requested addition to your initial post but am still reflecting on your more important intended focus of this thread.

And yes, I would be happy to join such a thread.

Excellent. Let me give it a little thought first.  Hopefully, I'll start it in the next day or so.

And I don't say that from any height. I've spent, and am still spending, a long time testing my own faith against the hardest objections I could find, and I know how thin the line can be. I would very much like to hear how you, and perhaps others, think about these things if you feel it is a topic worth exploring on its own.

Bruce, I would be glad to talk about my position one day, but I don’t think that is the right place to start. I would rather not begin with the different negative pictures of the afterlife, eternal torment, annihilation, or whatever else. I think we first need to ask what judgment is actually an answer to...

Thanks for the response.

P.S. I sometimes wonder whether many in this house are more like the sheep that got lost along the way, for reasons that were real and serious, than like the younger son who consciously walked away from home.

Your P.S. brings up several things that seem worth discussing.  However, doing so here would only take away from the topic at hand. Let me me know if you'd be interested in talking with me (and others) about it. If so, I'll create a new thread.

Tjalling said:

David, I think I’ve reached the point where this exchange is becoming too one-sided for me. I’ve tried to answer your questions at some length, explain what I mean, and show where I am uncertain. What tends to come back is another series of very short questions. I don’t think I can keep doing that indefinitely.

Tjalling, if you're not aware, as the ** you do not have permission to see this link ** you can request posts be removed that you don't think are contributing to the discussion.

My answer is that I don't want to limit the hope. I can hope that God's seeking love reaches people and places I cannot see. What I cannot do is turn that hope into knowledge that no one can finally be lost. That is not because I think God's love stops at the perpetrator. I don't. Nor do I think judgment has to be punishment for punishment's sake. But neither of those things tells me that final judgment must be remedial, or that correction necessarily continues until every person is restored.

And 1 Corinthians 15:22 matters enormously to me. So do the other texts with a universal reach. But Jesus also speaks with extraordinary seriousness about judgment, exclusion and loss, and Bart, having set eternal conscious torment aside, still takes those warnings seriously in his reconstruction, rightly I think. Those warnings do not disappear once eternal conscious torment is gone. But I do not know that I am entitled to read them as necessarily temporary. That would come too close, for me, to deciding beforehand what the outcome must be. I would rather let both sets of texts trouble me.

So I think I can hope for all, but I cannot say that I know all will be saved. Hell has no grandstand from which I can point at other people, but neither do I think I have been given a view from which I can declare it empty.

What gives me hope is not a theory that guarantees the outcome. It is the God I meet in Luke 15, and the Christian claim that Christ himself entered even the darkness we are talking about. That does not tell me who is finally lost, or allow me to declare that no one is. But it changes where I look. I do not first look for other people to put there. I look at Christ.

That is why I wrote that my hope is not the guarantee that no one is lost. It is the hope that the God who seeks reaches further than I can see.

If that is roughly the question your questions have been moving toward, then that is my answer.

"There I do not want to begin with the discipline of a son who is already loved, but with the evil that has been done, the injustice that would otherwise have the last word, and the suffering that cries out to be answered"
Are perpetrators of "suffering that cries out to be answered" themselves loved?

"1 Corinthians 15:22... the disagreement... is about what “all” in the second half means in context. That has long been read in more than one way"
What are some of those ways?

"Setting those readings against each other would simply reopen the universalism debate, and that is the debate I have said a few times now I would rather not open in this thread"
Oh.
Anybody reading my questions is welcome to answer whichever of them he or she wishes to.

"I am trying to keep that prior question in view: what is judgment an answer to?"
I imagine that different judgments "answer" different things.

"on his own reconstruction there is still judgment, exclusion, and irreversible loss"
What specific statement(s) are you looking at?

Proverbs 3 speaks about discipline, musar, the correction of a child who is being formed. That is not quite the same as judgment. And it puts discipline in a frame far removed from punishment for its own sake, which I value. But the question I was asking is a step before both: what is judgment an answer to? There I do not want to begin with the discipline of a son who is already loved, but with the evil that has been done, the injustice that would otherwise have the last word, and the suffering that cries out to be answered. That is the question I want to keep in view first. What the purpose of judgment then is, and how far correction reaches, is a further question, and one I would rather not fold into this one just yet.

And 1 Corinthians 15:22 is a text I hold dear. I see the universalist reading you are pointing toward. But of course the disagreement in the wider discussion is not with the verse. It is about what "all" in the second half means in context. That has long been read in more than one way, and conditionalists as well as defenders of eternal conscious torment do not take it as establishing universal salvation. Setting those readings against each other would simply reopen the universalism debate, and that is the debate I have said a few times now I would rather not open in this thread. Not because I have no view, and not because the text does not matter, but because I am trying to keep that prior question in view: what is judgment an answer to? I would rather stay there for now.

What I have been trying to do since the start of this thread is point to a real reason to take this life, and what lies beyond it, seriously. That reason was in Bart's lecture itself, in Jesus' own words: on his own reconstruction there is still judgment, exclusion, and irreversible loss. What I hesitated over, and where I push back, is the closing. Not because Bart is wrong to reject eternal conscious torment. I think he is right about that. But the ending, "it doesn't make sense, it almost certainly is not true," could leave a listener hearing something broader: that there is simply nothing to fear. That would be a wider conclusion than his own reconstruction supports, because within it judgment and loss remain.

So I am not pushing back to defend a torture chamber. I am pushing back to keep in view something I find real: that there is something between God and us that cannot simply be waved away. We are not forced. But we are sought, and awaited. That is the thread I have wanted to keep running through this discussion from the start, and it is why I keep steering away from settling the afterlife maps.