That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation

by David Bentley Hart

The great fourth-century church father Basil of Caesarea once observed that, in his time, most Christians believed that hell was not everlasting, and that all would eventually attain salvation. But today, this view is no longer prevalent within Christian communities.
 
In this momentous book, David Bentley Hart makes the case that nearly two millennia of dogmatic tradition have misled readers on the crucial matter of universal salvation. On the basis of the earliest Christian writings, theological tradition, scripture, and logic, Hart argues that if God is the good creator of all, he is the savior of all, without fail. And if he is not the savior of all, the Kingdom is only a dream, and creation something considerably worse than a nightmare. But it is not so. There is no such thing as eternal damnation; all will be saved. With great rhetorical power, wit, and emotional range, Hart offers a new perspective on one of Christianity’s most important themes.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Christianity, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Christian, Spirituality

232 pages, Hardcover

First published September 24, 2019

About the author

David Bentley Hart, an Eastern Orthodox scholar of religion and a philosopher, writer, and cultural commentator, is a fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. He lives in South Bend, IN.

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of Heads and Brick Walls

I like David Bentley Hart’s Christianity. He gets rid of much of the faded superstition and residual clericalism that pervades most discussion of the religion by its protagonists. But it is certainly David Bentley Hart’s Christianity, not anything like an interpretation that sticks with orthodox views. One is compelled to the conclusion that Hart is trying to change Christianity, or at least the Eastern Orthodox segment of it, from within. This leads to an i\important question: Why on Earth bother?

That All Shall Be Saved is a repudiation of an ancient and consistently held Christian doctrine: Some will be saved and some will be damned forever in eternal torment. There has never been a serious deviation from this principle throughout dogmatic history. It is one of those ‘tensions’ or contradictions in the teaching of Jesus that no one has ever been able to unravel. How his life ‘shed for all’ and ‘redeeming all of creation’ excludes some portion of humanity is one of the Christianity’s arcane mysteries, the secret of which is known only to theologians.

And according to most Christians, that portion of the damned is indeterminately large. The Jehovah’s Witnesses reckon only 144,000 will make it to the heavenly promised land. Catholics are a bit more generous but are still sure that unbaptised folk are doomed; and even those officially licensed into the club will have to measure up to behavioural standards. Some theologians like to stretch the point by including ‘anonymous Christians,’ that is, folk who act as if they were even though they’re not, in the final tally. But still, entry into the Kingdom is conditional upon getting rid of the stain of one’s sins here on Earth. Mormons are more into outreach and like the idea of baptising the dead retrospectively one by one as long as they can get their names on file. And certainly very few Christians will admit to wanting to encounter Hitler, Caligula, or Charles Manson on the other side.

Hart doesn’t agree with any of this. He thinks that all this stuff about Jesus’s unconditional love and infinite divine mercy means what it says on the tin: we’re all bound for glory. But he’s got a problem beyond dogmatic tradition. The originary documents of Christianity are pretty clear about the matter. The gospels hint strongly at the doom that awaits the stiff-necked. Pauline fire and brimstone has been the foundation for much of the later interpretations. And the mysterious but almost pornographic description of the everlasting torments of unbelievers in the Apocalypse is very clear (as is the limit on the number of the saved to 144,000).

And, of course, Hart has an even bigger problem when it comes to that mighty figure of the God of the Old Testament, purported to be the loving father of Jesus. This vengeful psychopath blows hot and cold on the whole idea of Creation as well as his decision to allow the existence of self-conscious beings capable of independent thought and action. This is a deity who demands only one thing - absolute obedience. And if he doesn’t get it, he is not averse to wholesale, indiscriminate slaughter. While the intellectual breakthrough to the concept of eternal damnation hadn’t been made by the ancient Hebrews, it was there in nuce waiting to grow into Christian fruition.

Hart does his best to bob and weave through this quagmire of theological principles and scriptural sources. But he knows that his is not just a minority view, it is also probably heretical. He acknowledges this explicitly: “I find it a very curious feeling, I admit, to write a book that is at odds with a body of received opinion so invincibly well-established that I know I cannot reasonably expect to persuade anyone of anything, except perhaps of my sincerity.” Then why the effort and sufferance of the expected criticism in writing such a book?

The answer seems to be that Hart is desperately trying to square the circle of Christianity. The infliction of punishment, eternal or not, is not a consistent part of the job description of the God of the Beatitudes. If virtue is its own reward, why is not evil it’s own penalty? If an omnipotent, omniscient, divine entity intended to either create or re-create a world with fewer design flaws, why has this God proven so consistently incompetent? Reasonable questions from any reasonable person. Mostly they are answered with platitudes or an appeal to divine inscrutability.

But there is a rather broader issue that Hart implicitly raises but dare not touch. If, in his considered opinion, Christianity has been distorted by the doctrines of punishment and damnation, what other traditions and interpretations have been similarly distorted and so similarly “have created in the minds of most of us a fundamentally misleading picture of a great many of the claims made in Christian scripture?” What is the real ‘content’ of Christianity after it has been stripped of its political, mythical, and fictional elements? Indeed how are these elements even to be distinguished in the historical melange of Christian thought?

As a doctrinal system of belief, once one element in that system is removed the entire structure of Christian belief shatters. The system does not offer a buffet from which to choose at random. It is, of course, possible to select elements to which one is amenable - heretics, reformers, and dissidents have done so since the religion’s inception. But such selection then involves the creation of a new dogmatic system, a sect, which is equally vulnerable to heresy, abuse, and dissent as the original.

As I said: why on Earth bother?

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

August 31, 2023 - Just finished a reread and I am more convinced than ever. This book is brilliant and one of the most impactful I’ve ever read.

2019- Well, I'm like 95% convinced.

Its odd to think that about a decade ago Rob Bell's Love Wins caused a tremendous stir for just suggesting the possibility that all shall be saved. As yet, it doesn't seem Hart's book is stirring up as much. This is certainly because he is a theologians and not a megachurch pastor, so less well-known to the general public. That said, because he is a world-class theologian, he won't be as easy to "farewell" as Bell was for some. Plus, unlike Bell who just suggested the idea, Hart argues that only universal salvation preserves the love of God.

After a long-ish introduction in which Hart essentially clears his throat, he goes on to offer four meditations. The best thing about Hart is he is unafraid to just speak the truth. Honestly, that's where this whole debate is really moving: can we just call things what they are. One of Hart's issues, after all, is that he doesn't think most Christians actually believe in eternal conscious torment ("infernalism"). They say they do, and feel like they have to, but do they really? I mean, if you really believed your friends and family faced trillions upon trillions of years of pain, would you not do all you can to save them from that? For Hart, to believe in hell as eternal conscious torment and to go about your day and job and life is simply cruel.

Hart wants us to take seriously all that hell entails. The first meditation asks, what is God like? Christians say God is love, but Hart argues that unending torture is a contradiction to God's love. Here there is discussion on analogical versus equivocal language. To say a God of love would create an unending hell is to posit that the word "love" when applied to God means nothing the same as when applied to humans (it is equivocal). This leads to a failure to lose language because if we can't use terms at least similarly (analogically) when we speak of humans and God, then talk of God is meaningless.

I think of it this way. I have two kids whom I love more than anything. Were my kids to grow up and end up in hell, the sheer idea of them suffering a few hours, let alone trillions of years (which, in infinite time, is still just the beginning) would crush me in lament and sorrow. Yet, if I am in heaven I am to praise and worship God as loving My lament and sorrow for my kid's eternal damnation is LESS LOVING than what God is. Or, to flip it, once I just let it go and forgot about their suffering, I'd somehow be more loving. But if to be like God is to care less for those who suffer, the whole idea of "love" is meaningless.

I mean, is it possible for me to be more loving than God? A God who creates a cosmos with a hell that lasts forever is a God of power perhaps, but not of love. Of course, I know plenty of Christians who argue God is a balance of love and justice so I suspect most will not be convinced by Hart here (and he has no hopes of convincing anyone, he says). Just worship God because you are not in hell, they say. Your children and loved ones, well they got justice.

Hart, of course, argues it is sheer insanity to think some finite level of disobedience could ever deserve infinite punishment. To posit that is again to use a totally foreign and hopeless definition of "justice" which is nothing like how we use it.

The second meditation covers the surprisingly many passages in scripture that point to universal salvation. Hart argues we have been conditioned to gloss over or explain away such passages. So the passages that may point to some unending torture are taken literally while any that do not support that are ignored. Somehow a word like "all" means every human in one line (all die in Adam) then all of a sudden changes meaning to a group of humans (all rise in Christ). Hart laments that Augustine's view of a final division between two cities won out over Gregory of Nyssa's view of a wholly saved total humanity. This victory by Augustine (and his lack of understanding Greek) shaped Christianity to this day.

The third meditation examines what it means to be human. I know I've asked, and been asked, how we can be happy in heaven when our loved ones are in hell. One answer is that we'll simply praise God as we see their sufferings. This callous view had more traction in a harsher age though. Now some say we will have no memory of our loved ones. To Hart, this is a creation of whole new persons. None of us are mere individuals, we are the other people we are connected to. To be saved somehow with no memory or knowledge of these others means it is not us who are saved. God will essentially have to create whole new people. In the end, Hart argues for even one person to be saved, all will have to be saved.

Finally, the fourth meditation tackles the idea of what it means to be free. Is it possible for free beings to make finite choices with eternal implications? Further, all the choices we make are geared towards what we perceive as an ultimate good. We may be wrong about this good, but we aim for it. Some even reject God in the name of seeking something better, but this good IS God. I understand it as essentially our life gives us blindspots and sicknesses and, well, sin. Due to these forces, we sometimes (often) choose wrongly. But if this is all removed, we cannot help but choose the Good which is God. No one runs into a burning building just for the joy of burning. We would call that person insane. No one, with full knowledge of hell and heaven, would choose hell. We were created in God's image, with an inherent orientation to the good, and in the end, we will all return to that good. In other words, we will freely choose what is most satisfying and good for us, which is the ultimate of love and beauty.

Overall, I have to say, I am sold. There are obviously a lot of things Hart did not cover in a 200 page book. Christian universalists still believe in hell, but hell as a cleansing or purgation, which Hart does not really get into. Thus, I may still recommend Brad Jersak's book Her Gates Will Never Be Shut as the best summary of Christian universalism. Speaking of that, it is worth repeating over and over that the universalism Hart (and many others) is a Christ-centered one. It is rooted in the early days of the faith and connected to the orthodox teachings of God as Trinity, Jesus as fully man and fully God, and Jesus' atoning death and resurrection. This Christian universalism is a far cry from a sort of pluralistic universalism. One primary difference is the foundation in the truth of who Jesus is and what God has done in Jesus. Its not just, in other words, live and let live.

I feel like thinking about hell has consumed my adult life. I grew up in a church and first believed so I could know I'd go to heaven when I died. Then as a teen I attended an evangelistic play that scared the hell out of me (Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames) and got me to "recommit" my life to Jesus. But it wasn't long after that when I began to question the whole thing. For a time I settled into the idea that people in hell choose it themselves (as CS Lewis said, the gates are closed from within). Then I moved to believe in annihilation: souls apart from God will cease to exist. These ideas were better, but not ultimately satisfying. The hope that God is more loving than I ever imagined and will not stop till all his children are safe at home is satisfying to the point of bringing tears to my eyes. Is it possible God is that loving? Yes.

That said, I am uncomfortable. I know as more people learn what I really think, there will be questions. Questions I can handle. There will be assumptions that I am a sell out or falling away. I only hope I can be gracious and Christ-like. Recently I was chatting about this and the person asked what motivation I have to follow Christ if all are ultimately saved. I responded by asking why we need others to suffer forever and ever for our faith to mean anything. I mean, honestly, if you need that negative threat of others being hurt, then what sort of faith do you even have? Further, what sort of God would accept such a self-centered faith that cares only for yourself?

In the end, I am convinced there are really only a few options. If God is love, then universalism is true. If God is power, then some form of Calvinism is true: God chose to save some and punish the rest. This God is loving to some, but not the rest. Is our God one defined by LOVE or by POWER? I suppose a third option would be there is no God (with a fourth and others being different religions being true). But for Christians, its a question of LOVE or POWER. If our God is defined through Jesus, love must be the option.

[Paul H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

First of all, it's worth noting that literally every good argument in this book is borrowed from either von Balthasar or Ramelli (to be fair, Hart does briefly mention both texts), while all of the weaker arguments and nonsense were added by Hart. Von Balthasar's book is far superior to Hart's -- and has the added bonus of aligning with Orthodox/Catholic magisterial teaching, for those who are a fan of that sort of thing -- and I suggest starting there.

In any event, That All Shall Be Saved is very convincing upon a first reading, and I really can't give less than 3 stars given how brilliant most of this book is . . . but when you really dive into the arguments, it becomes clear that Hart is being a bit disingenuous, using his rhetorical power (a friend of mine compared him to Cicero, which is actually fair) to somewhat blind the reader to weaknesses in his reasoning.

Among many other issues, his hand-waving regarding the issue of needing footnotes/endnotes is really troubling insofar as he is making a very radical claim; he thinks that his arguments are solid enough that he doesn't need to refer to critiques of universalism, but this is just sloppy, imo. Also Hart provides eight pages of scriptural citations in his defense but does not list the hundreds of passages that can be argued to NOT support his views; and most of the passages that he lists are not convincing and do not support his claims . . . e.g., the word 'all' in St. Paul can mean quite a few things ('all of the saved', etc.), and also these passages are from Hart's own translation, and he stated in print (in 2017) that he wanted his NT to be known as "The Universalist Translation," so we can't trust this, clearly.

Probably the most annoying thing about the book is the fact that Hart refers to everyone who disagrees with him as a psychopath (literally!), or deigns to add that maybe we just don't know what we don't know, that none of us really believes what we profess to believe, because we would be monsters if we believed it. I'm sure this would come as a surprise to the thousands of saints who disagree with him? Somehow the fact that the doctrine of eternal hell has been taught by almost every Orthodox theologian (including quite a few saints) for the past 1,400 years is irrelevant because the Bible, in Hart's creative translation, 'clearly' teaches univeralism; given his heterodoxy on other issues, it makes one wonder if Hart is still an Anglican (his childhood faith) who never quite became fully Orthodox.

In short, if you're making a bonkers argument that goes against almost all Church traditions, you can't just publish it as an extended footnote from your NT translation and breezily condemn anyone who disagrees with you as a monster; you need to cite waaaaaaaaay more scripture, theology, Church Fathers -- i.e., beyond Hart's usual "late Augustine bad; Gregory of Nyssa good!" -- Council documents (Denzinger), lives of the saints, etc. I get that Hart is just trying to make a rhetorical case and didn't want to get into the weeds of citing actual sources? But this doesn't exactly help his argument.

Also anyone in the Orthodox or Catholic traditions should be very wary of someone who says (on p. 208) that he would not be a Christian if it requires "a belief in a hell of eternal torment," i.e., if there were a new ecumenical council where this was stated, Hart would leave the Church; for a theologian to say "if the magisterium doesn't agree with my arguments, I'm right and the magisterium is wrong" is just radical Protestantism.

On that note, I'm assuming that Hart is already aware of this and has some slippery way of getting around it, but the ninth anathema against Origenism issued by the Council of Constaninople in 543 A.D. is quite clear on the topic: "If anyone says there will be a complete restoration [apokatastasis] of the demons and of impious men, let him be anathema." If only they'd invited Hart to the Council, I'm sure he would have convinced them otherwise via his snarky, rapier-like wit!

In all seriousness, though, I understand where Hart is coming from -- I think every reasonable Christian has, at some point, been a bit concerned about the topic (I mean beyond getting over the vague, false cultural image of God as an insane tyrant who enjoys the suffering of the damned): a God of infinite love and power allows his creation to reject him and suffer eternally? Yes, free choice is infinitely important, and yes, God still loves the sinner and Hell is just = the fact that his love is perceived as a purifying/burning fire by the sinful (see Kalomiros on the topic, which Hart also mentions early on), and yes, we can be reasonably confident that Hell will be nearly empty, etc., but it's understandably a bit odd, or at least rather mysterious, to have humanity be permanently removed from God at the end of time. There are ways to justify this -- C. S. Lewis's idea that the doors of Hell are closed from the inside, that people choose to be there, etc., or the idea that evil causes the soul to not 'exist' in the full sense, etc. -- and both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches maintain that we should pray for all to be redeemed, and that universal salvation is a hope and a possibility, which has always seemed sufficient to me; the afterlife is mysterious and we can't really claim to understand everything about it, but we can certainly strongly hope for universal salvation.

But the problem is that Hart is using his completely fallible this-worldly conscience -- where this word, crucially, does not mean actual conscience as Newman understands it, but rather "feelings" or "vague moral intuition that I've held since age 8" -- as his guide and then desperately lining up one-sided arguments to make his feelings "true," because he rejects God understood in any other sense (a priori). He is Ivan Karamazov and doesn't seem to realize it (which is hilarious given his Doors of the Sea book). He also presumes that his own particular this-worldly (and weirdly Platonist) logic/analogy/intuitions can 100% infallibly apply to an afterlife state that we cannot comprehend.

Hart is completely correct on the creepiness of the Calvinist/Jansenist versions of infernalism, but he projects this onto all of the other versions and paints them with a Calvinist brush. He's also correct in his rejection of Dante's specific version of Hell, and in many other individual points he is brilliant as always -- how we must use language about God analogically in SOME way, his rejection of the modern-rationalist understanding of 'pure' will, the two eschatological 'frames' in the NT, his refutation of the positions of doctrinaire Thomists at Notre Dame, the creepiness of Aquinas's position on the suffering of the damned, etc. -- but the argumentation seems to fall apart at many of the most crucial junctures, as the more perceptive reviewers have noted.

Angelic knowledge is one of the big issues; Hart brings this up very briefly early on, and just hand-waves the issue away, but according to most of the tradition angels have perfect knowledge conditions and still choose to reject God, which seems like a crippling blow to Hart's idea that in the afterlife we will inevitably be drawn to 'choose' God once our earthly knowledge conditions are no longer an issue. Hart very briefly addressed this in a blog comment on Eclectic Orthodoxy a few weeks ago, but simply said "well, then fallen angels didn't really understand the Good," but this (1) begs the question -- Hart is literally saying, "I don't agree with the majority of Church tradition regarding angelic knowledge because it invalidates my argument" -- and also (2) assumes a particular Platonist metaphysics (i.e. that to know the Good is to necessarily desire it; Platonists didn't have a concept of will) that is not simply = the Christian tradition. You can argue for this metaphysical framework, certainly, but Hart -- unlike the rest of us poor benighted souls! -- is completely certain that his own metaphysical framework is beyond question or doubt, because reasons.

Hart also addresses time in the afterlife but keeps making the curious mistake of referring to "trillions of years of suffering," where obviously the Christian afterlife is not of infinite sequential time/duration -- this would just be, like, Hegel, rather than aevum or the other patristic/scholastic ways to explain 'heavenly time,' which is going to be quite different than earthly time, in a way that we cannot fully comprehend with our current knowledge conditions. Hart states that only God can be completely outside time -- this is certainly true! -- but, again, seems to conceive of the afterlife as indefinitely extended historical time where God slowly convinces sinners of their error, which makes the whole drama of salvation sort of meaningless. If 99.99999% of the salvation/conversion of sinners takes place after death, why would Christ need to be incarnated at all? Why did St. Paul choose to endure so many trials for decades -- tortured, beaten, imprisoned, etc., while evangelizing -- if salvation is 100% certain for everyone? (Also Hart curtly dismisses, with zero attempt at explanation or argumentation, the position -- held by the vast majority of orthodox theologians for a variety of very compelling reasons -- that we can no longer meaningfully 'choose' between God and sin after the end of our earthly existence.)

Hart's argument also makes God a monster, frankly, because why did He allow the Fall to happen in the first place, if He can so easily checkmate our mere earthly reason? Couldn't He have been an infinitely loving Father -- Hart stretches this analogy into pure univocity, apparently -- way back before the Fall? Or maybe, just maybe, there's more to the picture than Hart's reduction of the drama and depth of sin to dispassionate reasoning about moral ends. Hart leaves out the entire monastic/Orthodox tradition of writings on the heart (as the seat of the will), which can remain irrational (contra Plato and Hart). The argument that Hart offers here is ultimately more rationalist than Garrigou-Lagrange or whoever, frankly; this is a philosophical argument rather than a theological one, clearly trespassing beyond the inherent limitations of reason.

Anyway; with all that said, Hart is a brilliant thinker, and when I was actually reading the book, I was 90% convinced . . . I would like nothing more than for him to be correct (it would be great news, certainly!), but I may have just been falling under his rhetorical spell, and while I'm not quite smart enough to fully formulate a response (I haven't read everything that Hart has read), I think there are definitely some problems with this book.


* * *


Helpful critical reviews include:

https://livingchurch.org/covenant/201...
https://credomag.com/article/shall-al...
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-all...
https://spectrummagazine.org/arts-ess...

Manoussakis has also written a very perceptive review, which can be found here: https://www.academia.edu/40052533/SAV.... His best points:

Hart’s question how could a good God (“the Good itself”) be rejected by man—insofar as “to see the good and know it truly is to desire it insatiably” (p. 79) finds a surprising answer by one of Hart’s intellectual allies, Origen. Origen’s answer is boredom (κόρος, De Principiis, II, 8.2). The answer is surprising because it is neither ontological or epistemological—the only two possibilities for Greek metaphysics grounded upon the twin pillars of knowledge and being. Rather the answer is—recalling that Origen’s boredom is what we would call today ennui—existential. Indeed, Origen seems to warn Hart that, even if you know the good and even if you desire it, you could still reject it, for man can do and often does what he doesn’t want and therefore he does not have to follow what he desires (see Romans 7:15-20). . . .

Neither opprobrium nor approbation is always explained. In certain instances, the reasons of Hart's pronouncements are entirely mystifying as, for example, when the author declares Gregory of Nyssa to be the “more comprehensive, more coherent,” and “more rigorously faithful” reader of the New Testament than any other exegete of the Scriptures. Or, even more so, when the author assures us that the New Testament, “read in light of the proper tradition,” contains nothing that would support the notion of an eternal hell. One is left to wonder which mortal can claim for himself that extraordinary authority (historically restricted only to synodal proclamations of the Church) of knowing the proper and improper readings of the Scriptures and so to be able to judge which of the Church Fathers read it faithfully or not? And yet, is the author himself a faithful reader of those classical texts that he invokes in support of his arguments? . . .

Even though Hart is convinced that all shall be saved and, therefore, there is no hell, he graciously entertains the possibility of some kind of hell, but only on the condition that such a hell should not be understood as eternal. As Hart explains, the Greek adjective aionios comes from aeon which, in its classical Greek understanding, does not signify what we understand today as “eternity” and, thus, to translate aionios as “eternal” is misleading. . . . the author concludes that an aeon “persists only so long,” and that it is possible to conceive that “one heavenly Age will succeed another.” What such a succession of aeons, however, would be if not a form of change—that is, that very characteristic which is supposed to differentiate it from chronos?

. . . Hart fails to raise that single most important question upon which the entire discussion of eschatology rests (as he himself, unknowingly perhaps, admits), namely the question of protology. Why is there any difference between temporal or historical time, between the end and the beginning? That is, why is there time? David Bentley Hart’s God, who rushes to proclaim that all is good now, that we all shall be saved, and who, in his unfathomable generosity, has decided not to punish us anymore, is a God who does too little too late. Am I supposed to burst in praise for that God because he doesn’t punish me in eternity after he has punished me, or allowed me to be punished, in life? Why doesn’t God save us all at the beginning? Why didn’t he confer upon us whatever perfection eschatological salvation implies when he created us? Why the wait, God? It is usually at this point that one begins to mumble the trite excuse of human freedom, agency, and free will. But Hart does not allow us recourse to this, as he writes, “God can so order all conditions, circumstances, and contingencies among created things as to bring about everything he wills for his creatures while still not in any way violating the autonomy of secondary causality...including free will.” If he could, and he is not impeded by anything, he ought to have already done so.

In conclusion, I just want to say that for Catholic/Orthodox readers (i.e., likely the typical reader of Hart), this is ultimately a simple choice -- do you want the eternal fate of your soul to depend on (1) the consistent Magisterial teaching of all bishops, synods, and councils going back to the time of the Apostles, even if certain elements of this eschatology seem a bit problematic when considered using our fallen, this-worldly powers of understanding, or (2) the fevered imaginations of Alvin Kimel, D. B. Hart, and a handful of quirky heterodox academics who, incidentally, have not even remotely proven that Gregory of Nyssa or George MacDonald or whoever else would actually agree with them? The stakes could not be higher, and God will certainly not fault anyone for following the Magisterial teaching, even if this teaching was, somehow, impossibly, in need of correction by (of all people) D. B. Hart.

It should also be kept in mind that God is infinitely good and quite literally cannot create a final/eschatological state of affairs that is evil or wrong or deficient in any way; whether Hart is correct or the Magisterium is correct cannot be comprehensively understood by us with our current knowledge conditions, but in the afterlife the debate will be irrelevant. If an eternal hell exists, then we will understand (in the end) why this is maximally just and good, as its existence could not occur otherwise; and similarly, if an eternal hell does not exist, then we will understand why this is maximally just and good (necessarily).

[Nemo · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Bentley Hart argues, among other things, that the traditional doctrine of eternal punishment, of which Augustine is a main expounder, is immoral and unjust. As an armchair Augustinian, I’m sorely tempted to respond to this charge, to meet my accuser face to face, so to speak, and, if I know anything about Augustine, he would welcome constructive criticisms with open arms.

Hart is evidently an erudite scholar and facile writer, and he is very lucid in explaining some of the important concepts in classical theism, such as freedom of rational being, the relational nature of personhood, and the transcendence of God. I’m also grateful to him for challenging his readers to think more deeply about Christianity — he has certainly achieved one of his stated goals for writing the book.

However, I’m disappointed by the perfunctory manner in which he treats points of contention between him and those whom he criticizes, viz. the majority of Christians throughout history. I’m not sure that he fully understands their views or that he even cares enough to understand them. By his own admission, Hart has made up his mind and is not interested in any further dialogue. I had expected more from an influential philosopher.

What is more troublesome, is that Hart repeatedly makes matter-of-fact statements, e.g., asserting that something is “absolutely correct”, which in fact are only his personal interpretations and perspectives. Some of these things fall within my knowledge, and I can tell that Hart is not giving the whole picture. It makes me suspicious of his statements about those things that are outside of my knowledge, and renders his book a far less valuable scholarly resource than it could be otherwise.

It is almost as if Hart cannot distinguish between his personal opinion and objective fact, between his perspective and divine perspective. The whole thesis of his book, reduced to its bare bones, is that his personal vision of the good and rational is also the divine vision, and therefore irrefutable.

I. Justice

Hart argues that any notion of divine justice that is contrary to our common understanding of justice is unjust, and that punishment should be proportional to the offense. This is reasonable, and acceptable as a common ground for dialogue. However, Hart goes on to assert that the sin of man is finite, and therefore eternal punishment is unjust, without giving any argument to demonstrate sin is finite, or man is finite, for that matter.

In most legal systems, if a man commits a heinous crime, he is subject to the death penalty, or life imprisonment without parole. A crime that a man commits in the blink of an eye, or, if it is premeditated, in a short period of time, deserves punishment that lasts as long as he lives. Isn't it justice then that if a man lives forever, and doesn't repent of his sin, he should suffer for eternity? By contrast, Hart's notion of universal salvation, which proposes the same happy ending for Hitler and the victims of the Holocaust, is an outrage to all notions of justice known to men.

II. The Problem of Evil

By failing to demonstrate that eternal punishment is unjust, Hart's argument, stripped of all rhetorical verbiage, becomes nothing more than an emotional appeal against suffering, with the implicit presumption that suffering in itself is evil, and therefore not compatible with the goodness of God. In other words, the problem of evil, which is a common argument against the existence of God, is also Hart's argument against the doctrine of eternal punishment

Hart attempts to circumvent this problem by asserting that evil is transient and only serves as a "necessary means" to achieve an end that is good for all men. But, this contradicts his own argument that God, being perfectly good and self-sufficient, has no need of anything outside of Himself to execute his will. It is a logical absurdity to argue that God needs evil, as a necessary means, to fulfill his purpose for man, i.e., to transform man into His image, which is Good.

(Read full review at Nemo's Library.)

[Ross Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would not recommend this as someone's first book on the subject of universal salvation; not because it's too difficult, but because Hart's blitheness and hostility to common defenses of the traditional view of hell would likely be offputting to someone who isn't at least half-convinced of his premises.

But, as someone who's read several books on the subject, BOY was that blitheness refreshing, and it lets him take his arguments places that others wouldn't normally go for fear of offending or making a doctrinal misstep. This book was both a fun read and a challenging one; I frequently had to go back and make sure I'd read this or that passage right just because the implications of some of his arguments were too mind-blowing to take in on the first go. This book has a very unique place in its field, and I'd recommend it to anyone who's decently versed in the conversation and wants something unlike the typical rhetoric.

[Billie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe that it was Brad Jersak whom I first heard say that this book marks a turning point in Christian conversations about hell at least insofar as no responsible author will be able to write on the topic without referencing "That All Shall Be Saved". I entirely agree. For my own part, I picked up the book as something of a "hopeful inclusivist" willing (even wanting) to be convinced but also aware enough of that desire that I was rather skeptical of Hart's characteristic claim that his arguments are ultimately unanswerable and incontrovertible. I finished the book as a convinced universalist (probably the most accurate term would be "ultimate reconciliation-ist"). Hart shifted me with his arguments on the nature of human freedom and the implausibility of a sane psychology which could eternally choose misery over joy.

[Christian Barrett]

To say that David Bentley Hart isn't an intellectual giant would be an arrogant statement, and only a fool would argue against his intellectual prowess. I was constantly looking up definitions of words, and was pushed more by this work than any other book that I have ever read. I appreciate his honesty in recognizing that some will not change their mind because of his argument. Also, I value his desires for intellectual honesty.

While the book can be frustrating at times there is an aspect of logic that is helpful and correlates to what the early church has taught regarding universal salvation. It is also important to note that he does deal with over 20 passages from Scripture, despite that it is frustrating at times in regards to how he deals with these texts. The emotional and witty comments about those who disagree is frustrating at times, and probably hurt his overall argument as it makes him off putting, but it is helpful to note that this is just Hart’s style.

[Justin Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

It must be nice to be so well known and such a good writer that you just can piss on everyone and they'll cheer you on. This is a fabulous piece of clear thinking about the worst aspects of the Christian tradition. In short, if you want to say:

i) God created everything, He is our Father;
ii) God is love; and
iii) God will send most people to hell for eternal punishment

you should probably take a good long hard look at the definitions of 'father' and 'created' and 'love' and 'eternal' and 'people' and 'punishment.' Because there is no way you can use those words, in the normal ways, and hold all three of those things to be true.

Hart would be a better atheist than the New Atheists, because he actually knows what he's talking about, and can use things like 'logic'. When confronted with three statements that can't all be consistent, you only have to choose one to drop. He chooses to drop by far the least plausible of them, (iii), (the New Atheists would of course drop all three) and to accept the plain and clear sense of most new testament passages about damnation, which is that if there is a hell, it will be purgatorial and not eternal. At one point, he just quotes the bible for seven pages to make that point. It's all very enjoyable and convincing. If Christianity is to mean anything, it must mean that all will be saved, together. Hart doesn't spell it out too much, but that clearly means that the whole mythology of individuals dying and 'going to' heaven can get thrown out. Despite their disagreements on bible translation, Hart's work here seems to fit very nicely with Wright's attempt to convince people that just maybe the bible means what it says.

Holy hell is this well written.

[Scriptor Ignotus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was probably not the best choice for my “introduction” to the debate between Universalism—the belief that all souls will in the end be “saved” and reconciled with God—and what Hart calls “Infernalism”: the contrary belief that some (or most) will be (or in some sense already are) eternally damned for their recalcitrance. Hart is even more blisteringly abrasive in this work than he usually is, and that’s no mean feat. But this is a testament to the intensity of his moral conviction on the subject: he contends that it is not enough for us merely to hope, as Balthasar does, that all will be saved, but rather that universal reconciliation is in fact the only morally tenable option.

It’s easy to reject the Calvinist view—that God created the better part of the human race for the sole purpose of demonstrating the fullness of His sovereignty by condemning them to an eternal torment that somehow makes the beatitude of the saved more salient—as a deranged, barbaric, blasphemous, and spiritually degrading mockery of the Gospel; but Hart doesn’t think that the more common and superficially humane argument that the souls in Hell deserve to be there forever because they have (supposedly) freely chosen to reject God is ultimately much better. Any eschatological scheme that even leaves open the possibility of eternal estrangement would seem to make that estrangement part of God’s eternal nature, and to impede God’s becoming “All in All” through the subordination of all of creation to Christ.

More to the point, Hart contends that the argument from free will relies on a “libertarian” understanding of freedom that is at odds with the classical, Biblical, and early patristic conception. The libertarian model views freedom as the ability to make spontaneous, self-generated choices; the classical understanding, by contrast, entails the ability of things to flourish unimpeded according to their nature. Since God is the ground of our nature and union with God is the fundamental object of our natural will, we are thus only free to the extent that we recognize God—and the goodness that God is—as the true object of our desire. Seen in this light, the notion that one can freely reject God becomes incoherent. One might reject what one thinks God is, but to reject the good as the good would be no less absurd than to affirm what is false because it is false. Needless to say, a misapprehension of the good on the part of a finite being would hardly seem to be a fitting justification for an eternity of torment.

Hart accepts that there is much language in scripture that speaks of judgment and wrath, but he sees this as temporary and remedial in nature, whereas eternal punishment, precisely because of its eternality, could only be gratuitous and cruel. In Hart’s view, there are two eschatological horizons: the first being the judgment and condemnation of this world, and another, final horizon in which all is reconciled to God. He analogizes this distinction to that between the crucifixion and resurrection, in which the former is the verdict on human history while the latter is the verdict upon God’s purposes in creation.

Is Hart right? I am far too poorly acquainted with the terms of the debate to know for sure, so I’ll have to suspend judgment. But this book is still a valuable exposition of the universalist position from the perspective of a scholar with extensive knowledge of both scripture and the patristic tradition.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The main argument feels to me like Dostoevsky's argument from “The Brothers Karamazov” - but on steroids. Hart categorically rejects hell understood as eternal suffering, predestination, absolute punishment and retribution, and so on. They may be pragmatic tools to keep people in fear and in line, theological arguments that point to God's omnipotence and as required by His lese-majeste, as legal and theological principles required by men's “responsibility” and “freedom to choose”, as errors so deeply embedded in our tradition that we uncritically and directly take them as obvious truths, or even as products of psychotic and deranged persons who maintain such convictions – as Hart characterizes some of this opponents. But they all miss the fundamental essence of God, Christ, and Christianity; that is love, mercy, and a never ending possibility for redemption and eventual union with God.
Hart points fingers, calls names, and offends. He turns against most of the last thousand years of Christian theology – especially the Calvinist tradition. He goes directly to the Bible - as he translated the entire New Testament from original Greek and made a point in staying within the original meaning and intent, and not as required by some literary criteria or modern understanding. He uses early Christian theology and history along with ontology and philosophical arguments. However, his main argument is not a systematic, logical, or Biblical one. Like in Dostoevsky's case, it is a personal revelation of God, Christ, and Christianity's fundamental truth as centered on love; and consequently it is only our corrupted, temporary, and limited nature and understanding that are missing this fundamental point. Also like Dostoevsky, Hart seems to be willing to go even farther; that is if God, Christ, and Christianity are not truly and essentially centered on love and mercy, then we should be in the right to reject or even to rebel against God and His world.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here is Hart’s defence of universalism delivered with all the bombast that is at once pugnacious and argumentative, and forceful as one might expect from this author.

But there are two great weaknesses: the first is that the treatment of the biblical text is fairly poor and one-sided, largely focused on the apostle Paul’s “big statements“ concerning the extensive nature of God’s purpose and His grace; the second is that the underlying premise is that it ought to contravene our moral sense to believe that God might create beings knowing that those very same beings would suffer eternal punishment for their sin.

This is not to say that this book is shallow or thoughtless-rather there are moments of great persuasiveness as one feels the pull of the authors desire that all men will be saved. However for all of this, in the end the argument fails the exegetical test of scripture and the theological perspective of the church since the early centuries.

[Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made me a universalist. Completely airtight logically, philosophically, and patristically. For Christians, I think a few open questions remain about how we can integrate the Old Testament’s vision(s) of God into Hart’s employment of entirely New Testament references. But the burden of proof, in my mind, is now more squarely on traditionalists to prove why a belief in eternal hell isn’t—in Hart’s language—“morally repugnant, prima facie absurd, and logically obtuse.”

[matthew harding · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Hart is to come to terms with your own ignorance, your own inability to clearly think through the various flawed premises that have for centuries supported an entirely irrational conclusion: Namely that a God that is the ground of all love and kindness, a God who has promised to remake and restore both heaven and earth, a God who promises to make His home with us forever is also the sadistic ringmaster of a Boschian hell where souls, who lived for a finite number of years, now writhe and groan in extreme agony for an eternity--think "trillions and trillions of years" and you're still not even close.

Their crime? Not loving this God.

And why does this God allow such torment? "The better to show his glory,"say the faithful few.
Hart's argument against the "infernalists" (the name that he ascribes to Christians who believe the above) is grounded in Eastern Christianity's early theological understanding of scripture and the nature of God. The cosmic shift in perspectives between East and West are laid at the feet of one man. Western Christianity's thinking on hell, damnation and predestination got its start because a towering genius of a man (Augustine) could not read Greek and so based his theological model on flawed Latin texts.

What follows for the next millennia and beyond is a theological model that makes so many insanely contorted moves to keep itself upright that Houdini himself would have smiled in admiration before revealing the whole edifice for what it is--if he had the theological chops, that is.

Following an interesting and very personal introduction, Hart's book is a polemic against the doctrine of eternal damnation and it is broken down into four meditations:
1. Who is God?
Hart examines the moral meaning of what Ex Nihilo means when we think about the Goodness of God. Hart takes on Reformed tradition's (and every tradition that places an emphasis on an eternal hell) focus on the sovereignty of God at the expense of the Goodness of God and other predicates. He asserts that focusing all attention on sovereignty as "pure inscrutable power" is to render all other predicates --like loving, truthful and merciful-- as not just ambiguous, but finally meaningless. If the doctrine of an Ex Nihilo creation is true and the doctrine of eternal damnation is true, then it is Hell itself that is the heart of heaven: If, when God stood ready to create the cosmos, He foresaw that the end of things would result in the damnation and extreme suffering of so many of his creation then why would He even begin? And if He did know this and continued anyway, then what is the cross but a really bad day?)

2. What is Judgment?
In this section, Hart's abilities as a translator of biblical texts really shines through as he reveals the Universalist thread that is woven through scripture and he also points out the three or four ambiguous verses that the infernalists hang their beliefs upon.


3. What is a Person?
Here, Hart draws from theologians, philosophers and scripture to argue that the charity that God extends to each of us should be reciprocated by each of us to each other and that this --what Cornelius Plantigna Jr. refers to as "Shalom" in his breviary of Sin--is what a fully restored world looks like; hell is an incomplete restoration of this world.

4. What is Freedom?
Hart takes on the thinking that each human is endowed with the freedom of choice and so your eternal destination is your own choosing. Hart's argument here is that a rational being that has freely tasted of the truth of Goodness will forever pursue it and a rational being that denies such Goodness has never fully or freely experienced it. To consign such a being to eternal torment is not something that a gracious God would do. Although Hart examines scripture here, his argument is primarily a metaphysical and logical one: can a finite human being ever really resist the will of an omnipotent and omniscient God? I don't know, can you resist gravity? And God, our eternal source, the fullness of being, the transcendental horizon of reality whose power animates all in all, immensely supersedes the pull and force of gravity. If God is in fact God, then our lives are always/already caught up within the immensity of His being and there is no vacuum of space where your will is actually quite your own. At the end of it all, God is the Good that gives your rational will its existence.

The book ends with a chapter titled "Final Remarks" in which Hart revisits Christian traditions on hell to again ask the two simple questions that began this entire work:
1. Does it lie within the power of any finite rational creature to "freely" (my quotes because Hart spends some length with this idea of freedom) reject God, "and to do so with eternal finality (think not years, here, but "trillions and trillions" of years)? And, 2. Could a God who could create a world in which the eternal torment of rational spirits is even a possibility be considered a "good" God let alone the "transcendent Good"? Of course, Hart's answer on both counts is "no".

If you haven't done so already, I would suggest reading Alice K. Turner's book, A History of Hell before heading into Hart's text. Not only is it a deliciously entertaining reading of the development of this netherworld, but understanding the socially constructed nature of this place we call Hell makes it less imposing and opens your mind to alternatives in thinking.

I'd also recommend Ted Chiang's short speculative fiction, "Hell is the Absence of God" which follows the doctrine of Hell to its absurd conclusions.

[Kevin Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the filmmaker behind "Hellbound?", I've trod this ground many, many times over the past decade. While David's book does an excellent job of summarizing and then dispensing with the arguments in favor of hell as a place of eternal torment, he also brings something new to the table in terms of his Eastern Orthodox perspective, his rich knowledge of the original languages and the Bible's "translational" history, and his unrelentingly acerbic wit. Highly recommended to anyone who dares to hope that universal salvation might be a possibility (and David urges you to do far more than that) as well as those who are just beginning to think that the notion of eternal torment in hell is impossible to reconcile with the idea of a loving God.

[Harley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not convinced of anything (yet), but this was a really good book. I need to meditate and study more on this subject. Some reviewers are put off by Hart’s “punchy” writing style, but that’s half of why it’s such a good book. He actually has strong opinions. How refreshing.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Challenging. Possibly the most thought-provoking book I’ve read in the last year. I like David Bentley Hart’s hard-hitting rhetorical style; but I wonder how much is rhetoric, and how much one ought to rely on appeals to emotion with regard to this issue. If y’all were expecting a short review of this book, nuh-uh.

Here are some things I’m considering.

A. Hart says most “infernalists” are really universalists at heart, so to speak, as evidenced by their lack of desperate evangelization. Ouch.

B. Universalism is not necessarily free of punishment. Sinners may still be punished; but Christ wins them.

C. Universalism is ultimately determinist. While Hart probably denies Calvinist irresistible grace, he definitely believes in irresistible love. If love is irresistible, is it love?

D. Universalism is more philosophically than scripturally grounded.

E. Hart has an unnerving tendency to set up a false dichotomy between universalism and conscious eternal torment. Rather than some Lewisian Great-Divorce-sort-of-torment, Hart often seems to consider Flames and Bodily Torment as the only alternative to the universalism he propounds.

F. Hart insists more than once that CET is just immoral, and that’s that, without giving any moral reasoning beyond a blanket “conscience” judgment.

G. If God treats us like a father his sons, CET doesn’t make sense. A father’s job is to correct his sons. Any paternal punishment serves some ameliorative purpose, and never endures forever.

H. Hart is not correct that there is no mention of everlasting destruction in the Pauline corpus, and in general he assumes little mention of everlasting destruction in Scripture. There is little discussion of the Scriptures, which Hart admits accord better with annihilationism than CET; after all, his case is philosophical rather than scriptural (D.).

I. However, there is surprisingly little mention of hell in Paul’s writings. Imagine an evangelist today preaching whole sermons without once mentioning hell.

J. Hart takes a minority view when it comes to his definition of freedom/ free will (not quite the same thing, but close enough). His argument seems to be framed primarily in Thomistic/Aristotelian terms. We have traditionally said that God respects human free will, and some humans elect hell. But for Hart, freedom is not the ability to choose randomly between options, but the ability of a creature to choose what is good for it. This is radically different than how most people think about free will. It’s not the ability to make a random choice, but the ability to select the option that’s good for you. This kind of choice can be predetermined. On this definition, the choice of hell is a choice of self-harm, and therefore is not a free choice. If someone chose hell, he would not be responsible for his decision, since he would be obviously deranged. What complicates this is that I’m not sure his definition is wrong; it is, I think, a classical Thomist definition. We evangelical-adjacents have this idea that humans possess some sort of randomness or unpredictability in their very nature, on the order of a random number generator, and that this arbitrarity is called free will. But is that view realistic?

K. If even one soul suffers in hell for eternity, doesn’t his suffering outweigh the suffering of Christ? Christ’s suffering becomes negligible and insignificant, almost nothing, on CET, at least a Flames and Bodily Torment version of CET (cf. point E.).

L. How can finite sin merit infinite punishment? If it is because offense against infinite God merits infinite punishment, doesn’t that treat God as merely a being among beings? (I might not be representing Hart’s rebuttal well, but at any rate Hart strongly rebuts these arguments of proportionality. I listened to the audiobook of this, and I’d like to sit down with a print version and digest this point.)

M. Hell is a very ambiguous word—a lonely image of Flames and Bodily Torment, and/or a Dante-like picture of creative torment, and/or separation from God, and/or the self-absorbed nothing-becoming Lewisian Great Divorce picture of hell. We need to be clear what version of hell we mean.

N. Does the separation-from-God version of hell violate God’s omnipresence? Will God ever be all in all, if He loses some of the all to hell? Will God ever attain victory, if He loses?

As I said previously, I want to take more time with a print version of this book; I don’t think the audiobook gave me time to understand the arguments. I’ll be considering these points for a long time. Shout-out to Copper Good for articulately challenging me on CET, and for recommending to me this book. I think I’ll forgive you for it.

[Benni Lück]

Es fällt mir gar nicht so leicht das Buch zu bewerten. Auf der einen Seite spricht er viel an was mich an der klassischen Lesart über Hölle und Gericht stört, auf der anderen Seite fühlt man sich nach dem Lesen etwas erschlagen und fragt sich wie solide die Argumente jetzt wirklich sind, er ist halt rhetorisch sehr stark und ziemlich provokant.
Für Hart ist die Vorstellung davon ewige Qualen als Gerechtigkeit aus der Bibel zu lesen sowohl komplett absurd wie auch moralisch verwerflich. Er malt dadurch gut vor Augen, was eine solche Lehre über die Hölle eigentlich bedeutet. 
Seine Argumente sind jetzt nicht ganz neu: Gott als Liebe, Gott als Schöpfer, Ebenbildlichkeit und Personsein, Entkräftigung von Argumenten die über den Freien Willen zum Doppelten Ausgang kommen wollen, Ablehnung von zu individuellen Interpretation von Sünde Gericht und Errettung, fälschliche/schlechte Übersetzungen aus dem Griechischen usw. Seine Begründungen waren aber spannend und haben den Argumenten die man viel hört deutlich mehr Gehalt gegeben. Er kommt viel über Kirchenväter (vor allem Gregor von Nyssa vs. Augustinus) und Metaphysik. Ihm ist dabei manchmal etwas schwer zu folgen, denn er schreibt mit kaum Verweisen etc., teilw. glaub ich auch recht eigenwillige Interpretationen. 
Seine Polemik gegen ungefähr jede westliche Tradition seit Augustinus ist zwar amüsant und zielt denke ich oft auf die richtigen Probleme, aber es stellt sich dann schon die Frage ob man so leicht die Theologiegeschichte beiseite schieben kann und sollte....
Das Buch hat mir jedenfalls gezeigt, dass ich mit dem Thema noch nicht durch bin, und es gute Gründe gibt die "klassische" Position zu hinterfragen - Ob man Hart jetzt so ganz folgen sollte wag ich aber zu bezweifeln, produktiver ist es wohl sich einzelne Kritikpunkte von Hart zu nehmen und damit dann weiterzudenken. Es ist halt kein Buch für eine ausgewogene Auseinandersetzung, sondern eine ziemlich strikte und provokante Gegenposition, aber grade damit einer sehr interessante Stimme, in diesem Sinne würde ich es auch weiterempfehlen.

(Einige der Reviews hier zeigen ganz gut die inhaltlichen Stärken und Schwächen von Harts Argumentation)

[Kaleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

05/15/2025 Reread

Reread. Not much to add besides I loved the wit and moral outrage. DBH is pretty upset at the infernalist position and makes it clear.


Original
David Bentley Hart is a universalist. We are all saved; no one is condemned to eternal conscious torment or an eternal hell in any sense of the word. The core of the argument is simple: an all-loving and all-just God would ultimately redeem all of his creation, and no rational person could ever "freely" reject God. Everyone's first thought when they first learn about hell is that it is morally and logically insane and that no God could ever possibly allow this. In fact, it would render so many other aspects of Christian theology totally meaningless. How on Earth does God "love" those whom he condemns to hell for all of eternity? What rational or moral sense does any of that make?

The argument is more complex, of course, philosophizing from what classical theism says about God's nature to analyzing the Bible. All these arguments are quite strong, but ultimately, Hart does a great job of keeping in mind how deranged the infernalist (the belief in eternal conscious torment) view is.

What is becoming a more common view is that God does not send anyone to hell. Instead, we freely choose hell and God respects our choice to reject Him. Hart rejects this as totally inconsistent with any conception of freedom. Freedom is not merely choosing whatever you want with no rhyme or reason behind it. Freedom is acting according to reasons; anyone who rejects God is doing so out of ignorance. It would be like saying a starving person "rationally" rejects food; this person is acting completely irrationally. Like Augustine says, we are made for God, every desire is ultimately oriented towards God. Once a person receives full knowledge of the Truth, they will eventually be reconciled with God; no one can reject God freely or eternally (although they may temporarily).

Hart is quite horrified at how common the infernalist view has been through history. It reminds me of one of Nietzsche's arguments in the Genealogy: that even though Christianity claims to be a religion of love, the doctrine of hell means it's really just a religion rooted in resentment and a desire for revenge. I assume Hart has read Nietzsche because he addresses the two examples of this Nietzsche raises, Aquinas and Tertullian. Aquinas says that the blessed will look down on the suffering of the damned and it will be pleasurable for them. Tertullian goes one step further and says that the torture of the damned will be a spectacle for the blessed to enjoy for all of eternity. Many other important church figures have some pretty nightmarish views on hell. Augustine thought that unbaptized infants went to hell, Luther thought the blessed will rejoice to see their loved ones being tortured in hell, and don't even get me started on Calvin. To believe this and also believe that God is Love is ridiculous, and Hart rightfully tears apart those views morally and logically.

Frankly, I am in complete agreement with Hart and partial agreement with Nietzsche. Universalism is the only logical endpoint of the Christian faith; anything else renders the Gospel meaningless at best and horrifying at worst. Although universalism is a minority view now, it was once very common; many of the early Church fathers (Origin, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa) believed it. Side note, Hart has a very biting, polemical style which made this book quite fun to read.

Quotes

I mean only that, if Christianity taken as a whole is indeed an entirely coherent and credible system of belief, then the universalist understanding of its message is the only one possible. And, quite imprudently, I say that without the least hesitation or qualification.

Hell appears in the shadow of the cross as what has always already been conquered, as what Easter leaves in ruins, to which we may flee from the transfiguring light of God if we so wish, but where we can never finally come to rest—for, being only a shadow, it provides nothing to cling to (as Gregory of Nyssa so acutely observes). Hell exists, so long as it exists, only as the last terrible residue of a fallen creation’s enmity to God, the lingering effects of a condition of slavery that God has conquered universally in Christ and will ultimately conquer individually in every soul. This age has passed away already, however long it lingers on in its own aftermath, and thus in the Age to come, and beyond all ages, all shall come home to the Kingdom prepared for them from before the foundation of the world.

I am convinced that practically no one who holds firmly to the majority tradition regarding the doctrine of hell ultimately does so for any reason other than an obstinate, if largely unconscious, resolve to do so, prompted by the unshakable conviction that faith absolutely requires it. There are, I admit—unfortunately, I have met some of them—those Christians who are earnestly attached to the idea of an eternal hell not just because they feel they must be, but also because it is what they want to believe

[Corey Wozniak · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We are doomed to happiness.”

DBH quenching eternal hell fires like 🧑🏻‍🚒⬇️

🔥💦🔥💦🔥💦🔥💦🔥💦🔥💦🔥💦🔥💧

Theology shouldn’t be so dang fun to read! This was a riot.


#####
vv these are my messy, top-of-mind scribbles-- "retrieval practice"-- after reading the book. This is not a "review", and unedited/ not elegant.

- “Infernalist” argument is metaphysically incoherent and morally repugnant for several reasons:
- It is impossible for a finite person to do anything to warrant an eternal punishment.
- A punishment that is not rehabilitative or remedial, only punitive, is morally repugnant.
- It is impossible for a mortal person to have a perfectly pellucid understanding of The Good or understanding of the stakes— and it is immoral to not consider the clarity of mind/depth of understanding of a person before determining their guilt. The argument that a punishment is just that considers the ‘dignity’ of the person offended, and God being perfectly dignified thus is justified in punishing a person to an eternal torment, is nonsense. A person with a limited understanding (all of our understandings are limited) can never deserve an unlimited punishment.
- It would make God a monster if he created us ex nihilo, knowing the likelihood— even the chance— of eternal suffering for finite creatures. This is because the end of a decision is constituted in the beginning of that decision.
- The “freedom” defense of the ‘infernalist’ argument is incoherent. The “freedom” argument says that hell is a necessary condition of true freedom— God made us free, cannot compel us to love him, must provide an alternative to Himself in order to preserve conditions of freedom. But (1) No finite creatures in this life has total freedom, impinged as we are by biology, circumstance, accident, nurture. It is not fair to give an eternal judgement for decisions made with partial freedom. (2) True “freedom” is sanity; true freedom means sanely seeking what is in one’s own best interest; one cannot freely choose against what is in one’s own best interest— that is insanity and unfreedom; “freedom” always consists in choosing God; “the truth will make you free”— which is to say, you can only be truly free when you have knowledge of the Truth, or knowledge of God; you cannot know God as The Source of Fulfillment— as the only end towards which you were created and the only end in which you can find peace, rest, fulfillment— and choose against him;
- Scriptural case for hell very tenuous— all metaphors that point in different, contradictory directions— why do we recognize that scripture is written metaphorically and allegorically but accept at face value the highly literary and stylized descriptions of hell? Several of these metaphors better suggest annihilation rather than eternal suffering.
- Lots of passages in NT that point to Universalism
- Should be wary of reading into Revelations about hell— we’re too far removed to get anything from Revelation, actually. But some passages in Rev, if you’re going to use them, imply universalism. The opening of the gate and the allowing of those outside to come in, etc.
- Several words translated into English as “hell”: Tartarus, Sheol, Gahenna— each of these means something different, none of which mean a fiery hell presided over by Satan. Some of these metaphors (like Gahenna) may have several different meanings. Gahenna: site of child sacrifice to Moloch? Burial grounds? Refuse and charnal pits?
- Idea of. God’s sovereignty a function of 16th century ideas of monarchy and class
- Idea that saved will take pleasure in the damned (Tertulian, Aquinas, Lombard, Luther) is repulsive— implies that union to God is somehow deficient, and that pleasure could be “added” by this sadistic spectatorship;
- One of my favorite arguments: Our personalities/personhood is composed of ALL of our relationships— if ANYONE is in hell, we are somehow not quite ourselves— because we are inseparable from our loves, our histories, our social connections— cannot believe that God would ‘lobotomize’ us by making us forget that these loved ones ever existed— but neither can we cease loving them, or take delight in their sufferings, and remain ourselves in any meaningful sense
- “Instead, he will veil the sufferings of the damned from their eyes. Think of it as a kind of heavenly lobotomy… a surrender of a piece of the mind, for peace of mind.”
- IOW, we ourselves AER other people— our memories of, and attachments to others. If heaven means we forget the damned, we are not ourselves
- “It is as reasonable to say that God allows his children to damn themselves out of respect for our freedom as it would be to say a father allows his child to thrust herself face first into the fire in order to respect her freedom”

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a great fan of Hart's writings in general, I admit it. I'm no where near his level of education or intelligence nor am I personally into or trained in philosophy or the classics to appreciate his writings. Personally, I also think he has a huge ego which he unapologetically allows to get in the way of his arguments. But I did largely appreciate and learn from his arguments in this book. I admit that I agree with his conclusions as well as his criticisms of Christianity, so I was not constantly reacting against what he writes but rather was buoyed by them. It is true that at times his arguments go far beyond my interests or knowledge, and there is some overkill at times when he is making a point, so my eyes glaze over as he continues to trounce a thought he opposes long past my interest. Still he argues brilliantly on behalf of his thesis. It gives me joy and comfort to read his arguments in favor of ideas that have seemed true to me.

[Maria Copeland · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Bentley Hart’s fierce case in favor of universalism, constructed primarily from arguments about the nature of created personhood and the goodness of God, is a moving read. One can hardly help wanting to buy in on his reimagining of creation and eschatology, which confronts the thorniest parts of heaven-and-hell debates with a throughline drawn from 1 Corinthians 15:28’s account of the world’s future full subjection to Christ, when God will be “all in all.” Hart’s vision of the Lord gathering all people to Himself at the end of all ages as the consummation of the transcendent Good is gloriously stirring. Rendered in Hart’s elegant prose, such a reality feels close at hand.

I would offer, though, a reservation or two about the helpfulness of this book, regarding Hart’s rhetorical approach and its consequences. As a rhetorician, Hart can be extremely successful, even seductive. He goes with a perceptive alertness and lucidity to the precise things that make a Christian reader uneasy when contemplating the prospect of Hell and names discomfort at these points of vagueness or apparent contradiction as confirmation of right moral intuition. He points out appropriately the unhelpful ways in which “love,” “justice,” and “mercy” are sometimes recast in mysterious ways to balance the weight of warring definitions. He does well at winning the reader in a paragraph or two of high stakes—the grand moral drama anticipating and in the end of all things. But he also habitually positions himself waiting in courageous, contemptuous judgment over the Western tradition. This renders him his own persuasion’s worst enemy. He will offer a paragraph of extraordinary theological beauty and then immediately follow it up with a casual dismissal of Hans Urs von Balthasar or Aquinas. Some of the self-assured shaking-down of whole centuries of orthodox teaching eases as the text goes on, but no part of it is markedly absent of smug asides.

Hart also divides people categorically into acceptable camps: Gregory of Nyssa and Origen are gentlemen and scholars, while Augustine and Aquinas are mistaken and foolish and have been misleading people for centuries, so no one should trust them on eschatology unless content to risk one’s soul. He is surprisingly dismissive of von Balthasar, who to my knowledge is probably one of the best resources a “small-o orthodox” Christian (particularly with Catholic sensibility or sympathies, but not pre-requisitely!) would want to consult or find useful and encouraging. My sense is that von Balthasar would be a better starting-point, and one could then turn to Hart to test-run his propositions without having to, in effect, wholly embrace universalism first.

On the merits of Hart’s arguments, there’s some very good stuff in these meditations. His argument for the connectedness of humanity is compelling: “Each person, as God elects him or her from before the ages, is indispensable, for the humanity God eternally wills could never come to fruition in the absence of any member of that body, any facet of that beauty. Apart from the one who is lost, humanity as God wills it could never be complete,” he writes. We ought to regard with extreme seriousness what it must do to us if we are content to look unflinchingly upon the prospect of a neighbor condemned to eternal suffering. (Although, I think the scope of his argument for personhood as such defuses his casual claims that annihilationism is an acceptable alternative to eternal conscious torment on the one hand and universalism on the other. Being is Gift, and non-Being inconceivable horror!!) He offers a beautifully teleological account in which God, “both as the end of history and that eternal source and end of beings who transcend history, be all in all. For God, as scripture says, is a consuming fire, and he must finally consume everything.”

I’m a bit less convinced by his account of the impossibility of a rational being rejecting God. The free will arguments tie themselves into knots by the end, and the reader with them. Man’s rational will gets elevated to divine heights. Much as in Hart’s arguments for moral intuitions, great credit is attributed to human beings’ capacity as comparable to God’s own. Hart’s protological narrative effectively erases any rational explanation for the occasion of the Fall, and he sweeps quickly over atonement theology, apart from a jab at penal substitutionary atonement and a thoroughgoing rejection of anything remotely Calvinist or Augustinian. He counts very much on the word “all” to do a lot of heavy interpretive lifting (re: 1 Corinthians 15:28, one could easily interpret this as “God will be all in all whom he ultimately chooses to call to himself” or some variation), and he uses his own translations of the Greek as the basis for his New Testament exegesis.

All of this said: The fundamentals of Hart’s case remain appealing and ought to, even when he makes it a bit harder than it has to be to get legitimately to an orthodox appraisal of universalism. I am right now not bold enough to wholly reject the clarity of the Augustinian tradition. I don’t know what we are to make of some of the New Testament passages about Hell, or how to treat the significance of Christ’s harrowing of Hell if we render it in the vague metaphysical terms about evil that Hart employs. And the weight of centuries of theological teaching is not something that for me can be dismissed readily by a wave of Hart’s hand. I “dare to hope,” nonetheless, that he is right—maybe not necessarily in some of his specific conceptions of protology or human rationality, but in the final accounting of things. To hope, in any eschatological context, is to anticipate with total assuredness the coming, complete revelation of the goodness of God. To hope that all of humanity’s salvation is encompassed therein is abundantly more than defensible.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

okay, i'll stan DBH on main

[Marshall Hess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this finally, not because of any problem with the book, but only my lack of time. Having finished it, I want to read it again immediately. I experienced it like refining fire that affords a welcome relief. In this book, judgement is a mercy and condemnation brings freedom.

Hart writes like the Old Testament prophets who feared little of the implication of their claims or the potential for rebuff. He cuts and slices with a holy viciousness and mocks the gods who have brought us down in chains, cutting ourselves and foaming at the mouth.

I loved this book and laughed at the goodness and simplicity of the gospel it presents. Of course it won’t be received well. “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem. You who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you. How often would I have gathered you like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not.” We humans hate good news. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. He that doesn’t will hear anyway, because God is Good.

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't enjoyed a book on biblical theology this much since reading Donald Harman Akenson's Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus in 2002. David Bentley Hart, like Akenson, is not only a trenchant scholar but an excellent writer. Passion and intellect, logic and moral commitment, race side by side through arguments that snap and sing. Some readers may be put off by his certainty (I found it bracing and sometimes comical) but as he acknowledges at the start, there is no reason to pull punches. "I find it a very curious feeling to write a book that is at odds with a body of received opinion so invincibly well-established that I know I cannot reasonably expect to persuade anyone of anything, except perhaps of my sincerity."

In my case, well… although I was raised a fervent evangelical, I long ago lost the faith, at least as evangelicals understand it. On the other hand, I am constituted by this tradition, like it or not, and it's impossible to appreciate much of western culture without understanding, in imagination if not by confession, the Christian story. That imagination captivates me. Which is probably why I picked up this book. (Even when I was a Christian I could not conceive of hell as anything more than a metaphor. Does anyone? If they do, like Hart, I couldn't help but regard them as some sort of moral monster, and double that for their loathsome deity.)

Hart constructs his argument through a series of meditations. The argument demands a degree of patience; Hart proceeds clause by clause but is never less than lucid, and sometimes sharp as steel. One sentence, plucked from context, will provide a sense of what you'll find: "Submission to a morally unintelligible narrative of God's dealings with his creatures would be a kind of epistemic nihilism, reducing the act of fidelity to God to a brutishly obstinate infidelity to reason." As for the idea that "the notion of an eternal hell is explicitly and unremittingly advanced in the New Testament" we find that "when we go looking for it in the actual pages of the text, it proves remarkably elusive." For those who demand proof texts for the universalist gospel, Hart trots them out in the second meditation, and concludes "Nowhere is there any description of a kingdom of perpetual cruelty presided over by Satan, as though he were a kind of chthonian god."

As I admitted, I'm probably not the audience he means to reach. I don't have skin in the game. Theologically I find him convincing, but I can't accept the basic premise on which the whole thing depends. Still, at a time when evangelicals have traded away whatever shreds of integrity they might once have had, it's exhilarating to hear a Christian sound like a Christian.

[Gideon Yutzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is indispensable--especially for people who are in their 30s and because of their secret horror at the existence of Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT) Hell have always had trouble going the whole way and saying that God and the universe are fundamentally good.

That was the case for me, although I had been suspecting for years already that the idea of an ECT hell was a fabricated mutation from the "faith once delivered to the saints." David Bentley Hart delivers a methodical and eloquent gem here to show that hell as it has been portrayed by so many Christian theological constructs from Augustine and beyond is a lie and a dangerous one at that.

Every conceivable counterargument, whether from scripture or reason, is demolished and I was amazed at how thoroughly. Not one demon is left whimpering. When Paul the Apostle wrote, multiple times, that all things in heaven and earth will be brought under Jesus' feet that's exactly what he meant.

And speaking of Paul, DBH points out that he never once mentions an ECT hell in all his epistles. How did we miss that?! The only times Paul mentions fire is in the context of it purifying all people, even those who built on a foundation of straw, but all people will emerge as saved (1 Cor. 3:12-15--go read it for yourself); and also that fire will accompany Jesus at his return (2 Thess. 1). The remaining NT works that are in the genre of teaching (Peter, James, the Didache later) also do not make any mention of ECT. What about Revelation and Jesus? Read the book. You will wonder how anyone could ever have interpreted their words about hell (an English word that is used for 4 different Greek and Hebrew words) in the way so many post-Augustinian Christians have.

As for the arguments from reason for why there could not be an ECT hell based on reason, it is hard to see how anyone can walk away from the book and fail to see the light. What about Hitler and Stalin? DBH actually addresses that question. He also dares to verbalize what so many of us have seen as problematic with ECT, issues such as, If God is all-knowing, how could he have created beings that he knew would fry forever? Or, if we're all saved by grace, why would that grace not extend to everyone? I mean grace is grace for everyone, isn't it? If you have other arguments as to why one should believe in ECT, you can be almost certain that he will address them and in a comprehensive manner.

Finally, I want to say by all means buy this book and read it but be forewarned that 1) in the great tradition of Christian theology, it is quite polemical and 2) perhaps you will want a dictionary at your side since the author's vocabulary is truly astounding, though I found his writing style to be a treat, not "indulgent" as another reviewer described it.

[Josh Issa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sorry Balthasar and Barth, but I might have to be more dogmatic in my universalism.

Hart approaches the topic quite fantastically from all angles: philosophically, theologically, Scripturally, and historically. He addresses issues of atonement, he responds to Catholic and Reformed concerns. He all-round paints the picture.

There is too much here to break down but if I had to bullet point some major themes:
- The claim that people would freely reject God eternally and that in love God wouldn’t transgress that makes little sense. True freedom is choosing God, to not choose God is an act of slavery. As the source of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty God is attractive by definition and we are ordered towards Him.
- It makes no sense to say that moral faults are attributed according to the honour of the one faulted. You cannot incur an infinite debt (sorry Anselm!).
- Scripture by and large affirms universal salvation, and there are actually very little texts to prove otherwise.

Hart paints a picture he takes from St. Gregory of Nyssa and Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 of Christ as the redeemer of all mankind, drawing all into Himself so that God may be all in all.

“Hell exists, so long as it exists, only as the last terrible residue of a fallen creation's enmity to God, the lingering effects of a condition of slavery that God has conquered universally in Christ and will ultimately conquer individually in every soul.”

[Reid Belew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mac Sandlin once wrote in a review of another DBH book that he/his writing was “delightfully pretentious” and I can think of no other description that would be more accurate.

As always, his writing is dense, flowery, and a bit too peacocky sometimes, but more than anything, just a fun. I feel so much smarter than I am after I finally understand what he is saying.

Once in the rhythm of his writing, reading happens much faster. I have read almost every book on universal salvation I could get my hands on, and this one is a whole separate animal. He covers all the usual arguments: those of the inescapable love of God, Greek and Hebrew translations, and definitions of free will, and then adds arguments that I found to be the most compelling I have ever read, all entirely new to me.

This book also serves as a wildly entertaining, highlight reel, WWE-style take down of Calvinism and original sin, which was just stunning.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hart is a clear thinker (4⭐️) but his tone is insufferable (2 ⭐️).

The best part is his examination of the extent to which parts of the traditional theology of hell come from cultural influences external to Scripture. He’s right that this is overdue, though he leans on fairly few theologians to make his points. His view is universalism, but the point that he is arguing against is almost exclusively the eternality of punishment in the traditional view, so the annihilationist won’t find much to disagree with here.

What arrogance to not be open to engagement with anyone with a different view and to so thoroughly condemn the traditional viewpoint (along with its adherents)! And his exclusive usage of his own New Testament translation seemed questionable. However, his tone grew on me in time, as it was at least clear that he wasn’t pretending to be fair to other views without being so.

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Bentley Hart argues, and argues brilliantly, that in the end, God shall be "all in all;" that is, humankind will universally be saved. Through four meditations on the definition of God, judgement, personhood, and freedom (free will) respectively, Hart posits two exigent arguments; first, a God who is truly good, Goodness itself, is incapable of sending a finite being to infinite punishment. Second, a person with complete rational consciousness would never and COULD never willingly choose eternal punishment over God, for whom we are made and our souls long. "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you." I want to shout out my brother Matthew for recommending this book that surely strengthened my faith and renewed my belief that we are all "wrapped up in each other's salvation."

[JD Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’re looking for an argument for universalism based on Greek Metaphysics, this is the best one you’ll find.

If you’re looking for an exegetically driven argument that incorporates the entire scope of the Biblical witness along with the best of the Christian tradition, I would look elsewhere.

In Toto, this is classic DBH. Provocative, scandalous, entertaining, frustrating, and rather enjoyable—even if you disagree with his argument.