Andy May’s hard-hitting piece addressed to Evangelical Christians who really believe in Hell
If You Believe in Eternal Conscious Torment, Take Off the Fig Leaves
Say it plainly. Stand openly in what you claim to believe about God. Do not hide behind theological terminology, appeals to sovereignty, or assurances that you are simply honoring Scripture. Follow your interpretation to its conclusion and tell us what it requires you to believe about the character and purpose of the Creator.
God creates a person, knowing before creation everything that person will do and the final outcome of their existence. He creates them anyway, within a world He chose to create, under conditions He permits, knowing He possesses the power to intervene. That person lives seventy or eighty years—or far fewer—and then, according to the doctrine of eternal conscious torment, remains conscious in suffering forever. Not for a million years. Forever. No restoration. No reconciliation still to come. No end to the suffering.
Whether you understand the fire literally or figuratively does not change the central claim: God knowingly creates people whose suffering He will never bring to an end. That is the proposition you must defend.
If your answer is that the creature chooses this outcome, explain what that choice establishes. God created the chooser, knew the outcome before creating them, chose the world in which their choices would occur, and retains the power to intervene. You may argue that human freedom changes the moral character of God’s responsibility. Fine. Make that argument. But the creature’s choice does not, by itself, explain why the Creator knowingly brings about and perpetually sustains a reality in which suffering never ends.
Nor is choosing sin necessarily the same as knowingly choosing every consequence someone attaches to it. Do people understand that they are choosing eternal torment? Or do they choose sin, with God assigning endless suffering as its consequence? Those are different claims. Defend the justice of that consequence rather than pretending it is simply identical to the choice.
Consider a human analogy. A man establishes a situation in which he knows a child will make a disastrous choice. The consequence is unending agony. The man can stop it at any moment but never does. Saying, “The child chose,” does not, by itself, answer the question of the man’s responsibility.
If that comparison fails when applied to God, explain why. What morally relevant difference makes endless suffering consistent with perfect goodness?
And if your answer is that God cannot be judged by human standards, be precise. Are you saying our understanding of goodness is limited, or are you saying that whatever God does is good simply because He does it? The first acknowledges the limits of human understanding. The second raises a question about what we mean when we call God good. An appeal to sovereignty does not resolve that distinction.
If your theology teaches that God decrees the final damnation of some, the question becomes even more direct. Whether you distinguish between actively ordaining their condemnation and passing them over, you must still explain why God knowingly creates people whose final destiny is suffering without end.
Do not invoke the Potter and the clay as though God’s authority settles the question of His ultimate purpose. Authority answers, “Who has the right?” It does not, by itself, answer, “To what end?”
And do not stop at the vessels of wrath in Romans 9 without following Paul’s argument into Romans 11:32: “For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.”
You may dispute the scope of “all.” Then explain your interpretation. But do not treat divine authority as though it has already answered the question of divine intention. The Potter is still the Potter. The vessels are still His. What does He purpose to accomplish with them? Is their endless suffering itself the final expression of His purpose? Does some greater good require that their suffering never end? Or does judgment serve a purpose beyond itself?
That question becomes even more urgent when we look at Jesus.
In Christ, God does not remain at a safe distance from the suffering of His creatures. He enters it. He becomes human, endures betrayal and violence, and submits to death. From the cross comes the prayer, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
This is the Christ through whom and for whom all things were created. And Paul declares God’s purpose through His cross:
“And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven” (Colossians 1:20, KJV).
Paul also writes, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22, KJV). He carries that argument toward the destruction of the last enemy, death itself, until God becomes “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:26–28).
I know ECT defenders distinguish resurrection from salvation, reconciliation from willing communion, and universal subjection from universal restoration. Those distinctions must be examined. But they must be established from Scripture, not simply assumed because a prior doctrine requires them. The same obligation applies to my interpretation. I must account for the passages concerning punishment, exclusion, and judgment.
The question is which interpretation best accounts for the whole: the severity of judgment, the victory of Christ, the destruction of death, and God’s declared purpose to reconcile all things.
My contention is that judgment belongs within God’s reconciling purpose, not that reconciliation must remain forever incomplete because judgment never ends.
I believe judgment is real. I believe wrath is real. There is much in us that must be exposed, confronted, and burned away. I do not want a salvation that leaves evil intact or asks victims to pretend that nothing happened. I welcome the fire that destroys what destroys us.
But I do not believe the fire must burn forever to accomplish its purpose.
A defender of ECT may answer that punishment is not intended to correct or restore. Its purpose is retribution, to satisfy justice, uphold holiness, or manifest God’s glory. Then defend that position plainly. Explain why perfect justice requires punishment that never reaches completion, why no possible restoration could satisfy that justice, and why the creature must remain conscious in misery forever.
If endless suffering is necessary to manifest God’s glory, explain why. What good requires the suffering of God’s creatures to continue without end?
If the answer is that the condemned continue sinning forever, explain why their alienation must remain permanent and why God’s ultimate victory takes the form of eternally containing evil rather than finally overcoming it.
You may have an answer. But merely asserting that endless suffering glorifies God is not the same as demonstrating why it must be so.
The God revealed in Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, washes the feet of His betrayer, prays for His murderers, enters death itself, and, according to Paul, abolishes death.
Which ultimate outcome are you asking us to believe is the triumph of this God?
A creation in which God eternally sustains the conscious suffering of some of His creatures, with no end and no possibility of restoration? Or a creation in which God judges, exposes, refines, and reconciles until His declared purpose is accomplished?
I know you may sincerely believe the first interpretation is biblical. But sincerity is not proof, and quoting Scripture does not relieve you of the responsibility to examine what your interpretation says about the God Scripture reveals.
So take off the fig leaves.
If you believe God knowingly creates people whose final outcome is endless conscious torment, say it plainly. If you believe their choices make God blameless despite His foreknowledge, creative agency, and continuing power, explain how. If you believe endless suffering is essential to divine justice, explain why that justice can never reach completion.
Do not tell me you believe it while refusing to state its implications. Do not demand that others accept your doctrine while treating honest questions about God’s character as offenses against Scripture.
If you believe it, say it. And if you cannot bring yourself to state plainly what your doctrine requires you to believe about God, stop demanding that the rest of us accept it without question.
What exactly are you defending: the revelation of God through Christ, or your need to protect a theological position from the implications of what it teaches?
I am not asking you to abandon Scripture. I am asking you to follow your interpretation all the way to its conclusion and look honestly at the God it presents.
I will not confuse the defense of a doctrine with the defense of God’s character. I will not confuse the process with the purpose. And I will not accept an interpretation of the middle as the final word on the end.
The question remains: To what end?
The answer I find in Christ is that God reconciles all things through Christ, abolishes death, and becomes all in all.
Not all in some. Not all in the fortunate portion of creation while another portion remains forever beyond the reach of the good He purposes.
All in all.
And I believe God knows exactly what He is doing.
– Andy May, used here with his kind permission