Themelios Article: Hell for a Single Sin
I am thankful to Themelios for publishing my friendly critique of Robert Golding’s excellent article on hell last year. The introduction is below. Please follow the link to read the full article.
“It was refreshing to read Robert Golding’s recent article in Themelios on eternal punishment. In a sea of compromise around this topic, his commitment to the doctrine of hell is commendable, and he has surely accomplished his goal of strengthening the resolve of pastors to preach on eternal damnation. In particular, his explanation of sin as privation leading to the loss of the goodness or the full humanness of the reprobate in hell is crucial to answering one of the greatest objections to the biblical doctrine of eternal punishment—that the torment of those we love will mar our everlasting felicity. As Golding points out, what we love in unbelievers now is of God and will no longer be expressed in the lake of fire. The saints will not pine eternally over the loss of their loved ones but will look in horror upon what they have become, and have chosen to be, without God.
In spite of the article’s many strengths, this response offers a friendly critique to one of its central aspects—the asymptotic nature of sin and sinners in hell. Using Jonathan Edward’s views on the eternal and progressive increase of the saints towards God in heaven, Golding argues for a correlative move away from God—a never-ending increase of sinfulness of the reprobate in hell. Moreover, the article posits that this eternal regression from God explains the merit of eternal punishment, answering possible objections regarding divine justice towards sins that are finite in duration and/or proportion.
I will respond to this theory in two ways. Firstly, it will be demonstrated that the final judgment is presented in Scripture as a monumental interposition in the lives of the wicked. I will make use of the views of Henri Blocher to argue that this fact undermines Golding’s construal of a continual, progressive, or asymptotic state of sinning by the reprobate and I will suggest a synthesis of Blocher’s and Golding’s thoughts on sin in hell. Secondly, it will be shown that Golding’s theory is unnecessary to defend the eternal punishment of the wicked, and that the logic of both Scripture and reason demand eternal retribution in hell as punishment for even a single sin. Three scriptural passages will be briefly considered in addition to Anselm’s proof in Cur Deus Homo. In conclusion, it will be argued that this more traditional ‘hell for a single sin’ view not only magnifies the grievousness and debt of sin, it also more greatly magnifies the work and atonement of our Lord Jesus.”
Response 3 to a Conditionalist Critical Review
This is the third in a series of responses to the extensive review of Is There Anything Good About Hell? by the conditionalist, David Jukobovic. As stated previously, the reviewer is erudite and congenial, both welcome attributes in a reviewer. I will be dealing exclusively in this installment with the reviewer’s response to chapter 8, Infinite Honour and Infinite Sin. By way of introduction and summary, I will be arguing that Jukobovic has somewhat missed (or ignored) the center of the chapter’s thesis, and perhaps of Anselm’s theory as well.
Response 2 to a Conditionalist Critical Review
In part one of my response to David Jakubovic’s review of Is There Anything Good About Hell (AGAH), I introduced a few small matters concerning my intentions with this series of articles and the constraints and goals of my book, before finally arguing that there is a strong theological tradition concerning the word “evil” (eg. Aquinas) that does not bleed into moral evil and that hell is an evil in this general sense. In this sense too, a conditionalist would be constrained to view the annihilation of the wicked as an evil. The fascinating question which arises in consideration of comparing these two “evils” (eternal punishment vs. extinction) is which one constitutes the greatest punishment?
This question lies near the centre of the larger debate, as far as I can figure, and certainly is quite significant to Jakubovic’s critical review of my book. It crops up again and again, and I will give a few examples before arguing that there is an exceptionally strong biblical and experiential case for the greater punishment of eternal torment.
Before I do, however, I point out that the reviewer quotes extensively from other sources and that this approach presents both advantages and disadvantages. Jakubovic is certainly well-read, and his breadth in citations looks impressive—indeed, in a certain sense it is impressive. There is a commensurate weakness to this approach, however. Firstly, the reviewer doesn’t often state his own case in disagreeing with the book and I find it difficult at certain points to ascertain the precise nature of the critique and the reviewer’s own thoughts. Secondly, there are times that those he quotes seem to disagree among themselves. No doubt these other authors are marshalled for particular purposes at certain times, but in concert with the paucity of his own clear conclusions and statements, the critique is left ambiguous in many places. These weaknesses (not inherently wrong in approach), plays into the central challenge I will be addressing in this second response.
The crux of this second article is that the reviewer states, in principle, his support for hell not only as retribution, but as a punishment of the wicked that is more serious/severe than the traditional, endless suffering, viewpoint. This is my best understanding of Jakubovic’s position, one which I have a hard time nailing down because, in all honesty, it seems to me to be discordantly expressed throughout the entirety of the review. More than this, however, I think that this discordance is a function of a basic incoherence. I hope I will make that case by the end of the article.
Hell Isn’t a “Mystery”
This agnostic method of sapping the doctrine of endless retribution is not only wanting in frank and open dealing in an argument, but is chargeable with falsifying divine revelation. To say that the Bible “veils the subject of endless punishment in mystery” and that it is “reticent upon the subject of the future life,” in the face of such an eschatology as the Son of God presents in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, to say nothing of the great mass of similar teaching in other parts of the divine word, is an assumption and assurance that is contradicted by the well-nigh unanimous verdict of all readers and students of Scripture in all time.
William Greenough Thayer Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, ed. Alan W. Gomes, 3rd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Pub., 2003), 933–934.
Wealth and the Need for Eternal Retribution
Response 1 to a Conditionalist Critical Review
Several weeks ago, I was contacted by a friendly annihilationist who had written a critical review of the book that was both impressive and erudite . It begins by stating, “This is the most coherent philosophical/theological defence of Eternal Conscious Torment that I have seen. Author Dirks doesn’t just go for the usual ‘low-hanging fruit’ that we have all heard before. His 10 chapters are lucidly expressed & scripturally researched.”
The kind introduction, especially so given the expertise of the reviewer, is followed by a number of significant criticisms, which is to be expected from someone with such a radically different viewpoint. I am thankful for David Jakubovic contacting me and for interacting with the book. This is the first in what will be several responses to the review. I make no promises that they will all follow quickly, and due to my other responsibilities it is quite likely that I will not engage further after these initial articles.
In this initial response, I want to address a few more general concerns expressed in the review, the sorts of arguments I intend to engage, and to deal with one of them that the reviewer emphasizes multiple times. I then plan to deal more significantly with the philosophical matters and questions in the next article. Continue reading
Cyril of Alexandria on the Motivation of Hell
Part of my morning exercises over the last year is reading through Cyril of Alexandria’s commentary on John (not that I always get to it daily). Cyril, like most other Early Church Fathers, was quick to speak about eternal punishment. In his commentary on John 8:21, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin,” Cyril notes that Jesus is speaking warning here in order to graciously turn people away from hell.
Brooks on Hell: Oh, bless Christ! Oh, kiss Christ!
Thomas Brooks is one of the greatest theologians of hell in Christian history. He remarks in “The Golden Key to Open Hidden Treasures,” that contemplating hell results in a greater love and appreciation for Christ:
If there be a hell, then, Christians, spend your days in admiring and in being greatly affected with the transcendent love of Christ, in undergoing hellish punishments in our steads. Oh pray, pray hard that you ‘may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of that love of Christ which passeth knowledge,’ Eph. 3:18, 19,—of that love of Christ that put him upon these corporeal and spiritual sufferings which were so exceeding great, acute, extreme, universal and continual, and all to save us from wrath to come, 1 Thes. 1:10. Christ’s outward and inward miseries, sorrows, and sufferings are not to be paralleled, and therefore Christians have the more cause to lose themselves in the contemplation of his matchless love. Oh, bless Christ! oh, kiss Christ! oh, embrace Christ! oh, welcome Christ! oh, cleave to Christ! oh, follow Christ! oh, walk with Christ! oh, long for Christ! who for your sakes hath undergone insupportable wrath and most hellish torments,Continue reading
