In this video Patton makes a few points: (1) Hell is not a doctrine that is easy to understand or affirm. (2) We don’t have a vote in truth; therefore, if hell is real this doesn’t change whether or not we like it. (3) Hell seems to be a place that is eternal, so this doesn’t leave much room for the idea that it is a place of purification (like a purgatory) or merely temporal.
This is not much different that much of what I wrote yesterday (see here), except that he is less agnostic about his interpretation of texts that describe hell whereas I am willing to say there is a lot that I simply cannot know about hell and the “eternality” of God’s punishment. What are your thoughts on Patton’s take?
the archives near Emmaus 
Interesting that so much of the reformed gospel begins with hell…I find this sad.
For instance, point 2 says, “We don’t have a vote in truth; therefore, if hell is real this doesn’t change whether or not we like it.” The exact opposite could have been said also, if hell isn’t real it doesn’t change it…
The more this discussion goes on around the blogsphere the more I find myself agreeing with Rob Bell’s word in the video clip. Where is the good news? Where is the talk about grace and love – where is the talk of reconciliation and redemption (as the starting point in the discussion not the end of the discussion)?
As I said before, I think most of the people who have reacted so strongly to Bell’s video have done so because he has questioned their world view.
@Mark: I agree that the fervency of the reaction is based on their world-view being challenged. I don’t know if this is good or bad. If someone told me to my face that they thought my wife was a fool it may be that they find out that I have plucked out their eyes! In the same sense, if these people feel like hell is something that God has revealed to us, and that denial of hell is to call God a liar, then I can somewhat understand their reaction. My reaction is different, because as I wrote yesterday, my epistemology is not as foundational and I am not as confident in my own interpretation of Scripture as they appear to be theirs.
On another note, we must ask where wrath does enter the conversation. Maybe it is not at the beginning, I don’t know. For Paul it was introduced right after he provides a Christological foundation in his Epistle to the Romans, so I am not opposed to warning about God’s wrath. Where my concern lies is when people feel obligated to fight for a particular view of “hell” or “the wrath to come”. The fact that it exists, even though we only see it in part, bothers me enough. I don’t need to meditate on the temperature of the flames!
Mark,
You could become an Evangelical Calvinist, and hold to universal atonement but not universal salvation.
Federal Calvinists start, de facto, with Law (even though they would assert the opposite — nevertheless their covenant of works serves as the ground for their covenant of grace, so they end up emphasizing Law cloaked as Grace); their view, anecdotally captured by the TULIP starts with man’s total depravity, so it only makes sense that judgment and a juridical frame serves as the lens they think this through with.
They should simply start with Christ, as God’s gracious movement externalized for us in the Incarnation. And assume that the ground of God’s love isn’t juridical conditions being met, but instead that his Triune life of grace and love is. I think this must be the frame wherein the hell discussion takes place.
But I agree, classic Calvinists must start where they do; yet, not all do. Evangelical Calvinists, or if you like, Scottish Calvinists don’t!
*I should’ve said . . . the ground of God’s salvation isn’t juridical . . .
@Bobby: As I read this I thought that this sounds like where most of the Greek Fathers began. They began with Adam created to worship and love God and move closer and closer to being like their Creator for all eternity, but Adam rebelled. The beginning is not the rebellion, but the intention to know and love and be like God.
@Brian,
Yes, there are definitely notes of Athanasius, Irenaeus et al here.
I think my “efriend,” Darren has provided good perspective on this whole issue and the Bell vid. that spawned this whole topic of discussion. http://via–crucis.blogspot.com/2011/03/question-of-universalism-why-rob-bell.html
@Bobby: I did appreciate his angle. Thanks for sharing.
@Brian,
Yeah, I liked it too; glad you appreciate it as well.
My comment re: Patton on hell: “Magnificato, the canvas is too small.”
I heard that Reverend Mississippi John Hurt once preached on hell and an old woman came up and said to him: “Bishop, day ain’t enough coal in hell to burn eternally.” He said ma’am: Ya’ all brings yawr own.”
That is my point, lives chosen to be lived without God because they perceive his grace as fairy dust, opiate, or a fabricated crutch construct their own realities of Nietzschian recurrence- their eternal ground hog day-and live in that construct forever. God gives the hellion exactly only what the hellion wanted all along, eternity without Him except that, that construct is indeed eternal with the knowledge of that fact that they could have lived and still live as they were intended ‘to be’ by their Creator. This is the gnawing fire that is never quenched, the worm that eats and never dies. All the habits of sin that never fills the abyss of an empty soul, speaking for ever more into the cavernous and finding the cries of despair coming back with only the empty voice of the self in eternal existential despair or perhaps mere Levinasian monotony. There is no evil to be purged from de anima of glorified-life-eternal for no reflection of His eternal image was ever permitted to be lived. Alas, the name that was born with the potential to be kept was blotted out and what was left were the works-habits tearing open the gulf of Dionysian terror. This is the taste of death that lingers in the mouth of my body of death, and that except for the grace of God, opens its jaws to consume me forever. It is what places the pangs of pain in my heart for those who dance in those jaws and don’t give a … as well as a thankfulness that from those same jaws, I was snatched.
@Jerome: Would you say that theoretically anyone who is in hell is there solely because they choose to remain there or put another way that they could leave hell by finally telling God “your will be done”, but that this will never actually happen?
@ Jerome – All I can say is, “Thank goodness you are not God!”
@Bobby – I too like where you are heading. I will ponder these things…
@Mark: What didn’t you like about Jerome’s take? It sounds a lot like C.S. Lewis’ argument that hell is locked from the inside.
Well, I do not like Lewis one iota (just cant get into him) and I think what he said lacks grace and begins from the wrong place.
I like Barth’s take on this – well, his starting point. (please don’t ask me to explain today I have a sermon to write! 😉
@Mark: I will pray for you regarding your dislike of C.S. Lewis. I don’t think this approach lacks grace though. It depicts grace as God not forcing himself upon humans. It is similar to the critique of some hard-like forms of Calvinism where God seems to be forcing himself upon people. It has weak points, sure, but I don’t see it as lacking gracefulness.
So, where does Barth begin? 🙂
@Brian,
Jesus 😉 .
@Mark,
Good 🙂 !
@Bobby: On this subject I may find that answer relieving!
@Brian,
I know, I love Him too! He is Good News! for our broken hearts.
I assume you are both referring to me right? 😉
No, the referent is a Jewish man, not an Aussie man — although I’m sure you believe that you live in the promised Land 😉 !
Sorry to let you down, Mark 🙂 . . . hehe
RE: Mark-Back at you… “except for the grace of God”
RE-Brian: My construct has similarities Lewis’ “locked from the outside notion” without the eloquence but even more Lewis’ idea of personal narratives attached to it. The hell bound write their story but it is not part of His salvific story. A loving God is there, they just can’t perceive Him in their story. The hellion writes no story of life in God, participates in no narrative that ‘has life,’ and thus is not part of His Book of Life. My problem with spacial objectification that so often ascribed to Hell, is that it misses the relational story and views Hell ‘only’ as a punishment. I sense there is more to eternal life living and damned than that. Now I too must complete my sermon 😉
ps- I am curious what Mark thinks grace is and since I am wanting what he thinks I might do so I unlike Lewis my construct may become suffused with it..seriously…now I go;-)
@Jerome: Thank you for “gracing” us with your presence, contra Mark’s cold reception! 😉 I do think you make important points in the tradition of Lewis that are similar to some things I hinted at in my post on hell yesterday. Whatever hell may be it is not something outside of the love of God.
Cold! I apologise I didnt mean to be rude but I can see how I was
brash. I do disagree but i was joking in my response. I apologise
Brian i still dont like lewis though! 😉
@Mark: You are enacting an unrepentant heart right now. Go read Mere Christianity.