The Not-So-Traditional View: Does Your Particular Belief About Hell Really Have Church History On Its Side? (Part 4)

It has been a while since I initially published Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the series “The Not-So-Traditional View: Does Your Particular Belief About Hell Really Have Church History On Its Side?” I intentionally structured it such that Parts 1-3 made a full, complete narrative, and yet it could also be expanded upon later. Not surprisingly, this topic has only become more relevant as time has gone by.

I began this series in order to tackle the modern, metaphorical view of eternal conscious hell, i.e. the variations that attempt to remove the most uncomfortable elements of the traditional view of hell without sacrificing its eternal, conscious nature. I have no good things to say about this collection of views (see notes below for more on that). ¹ For a detailed case against the modern, metaphorical view, see “The Many and Varied Problems with the Modern, Metaphorical View of Eternal Conscious Hell“. For more on the version increasingly held in Eastern Orthodox circles, where both righteous and wicked are in heaven with God and his love (“love” used very loosely) torments the wicked because they hate him, see Part 3 of this series. See also “The Modern Eastern Orthodox View and the Hellfire of God’s Love“. None whatsoever.

And yet, now more than ever, this modern, metaphorical view has gained traction, and we are told by adherents of the eternal conscious hell view that “hell is not a torture chamber” and the like. ² For example, see J.P. Moreland, “Objection #6: A Loving God Would Never Torture People in Hell,” The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel (Zondervan, 2000), 173. Meanwhile, extrabiblical reasons like the historical dominance (but not unanimity) of eternal conscious hell are also increasingly used to argue that we shouldn’t even take annihilationism seriously. And yet, by saying things like “hell is not a torture chamber,” you necessarily sacrifice most of the force held by the strongest argument for eternal conscious hell: church history.

The following list is largely a follow-up to Part 2, giving even more examples of respected theologians from various eras and various Christian traditions who, when they talked about eternal conscious hell, described it as a place of torture and wrath and (usually) literal fire. Not all of them are equally gratuitous, but nevertheless. they don’t shy away from those harder, more gruesome teachings.

Therefore, I cannot emphasize this enough: You don’t get to say that you have Christian tradition on your side if your view of eternal conscious hell is radically different from theologians across the ages.

More Examples of the Actually-Traditional View

Marcus Minucius Felix (Early Church Father/Apologist)

Nor is there either measure or termination to these torments. There the intelligent fire burns the limbs and restores them, feeds on them and nourishes them. As the fires of the thunderbolts strike upon the bodies, and do not consume them; as the fires of Mount Ætna and of Mount Vesuvius, and of burning lands everywhere, glow, but are not wasted; so that penal fire is not fed by the waste of those who burn, but is nourished by the unexhausted eating away of their bodies. ³ Marcus Minucius Felix, “Octavius,” trans. Robert Ernest Wallis, Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325, eds. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe (Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1905.), 4:195. Reproduced at Google Books,  https://books.google.com/books?id=7_7a5aqz3osC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed on November 30, 2025).

Early church apologist Marcus Minucius Felix is noteworthy because he is one of the earliest Christian writers to explicitly express belief in eternal conscious hell (having died around 250 AD and therefore written and taught before then). ⁴ “Marcus Minucius Felix,” Britannica, n.d., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marcus-Minucius-Felix (accessed November 30, 2025). Here, he makes clear that the fire isn’t some metaphor for unfulfilled desires or something like that. Rather, it is a fire that burns and tortures the body.

In fact, it is the fire of hell itself that both tortures the body and also keeps the body intact so it can be tortured forever. If this idea of what hell’s flames are like sounds absurd, that’s because it is. But you have to get creative when your doctrine of hell depends on humans somehow burning enough to suffer incredible pain while also never quite burning enough to die. ⁵ For more on this view of hellfire actually sustaining the wicked, and later theologians following suit, Ronnie Demler, “Strange Fire: Distorting A Biblical Symbol“.

Catherine of Sienna (Roman Catholic Mystic and Saint)

Over the centuries, in the medieval church and the early renaissance leading up to the Protestant reformation, you had great academic scholars of the faith like Thomas Aquinas and Peter Lombard affirming that hell was a place of literal fire and torment (see Part 2). And then, on the other side of that coin, you had many mystics affirming their teachings by claiming visions of the same thing.

Mileage may vary with such visions, and needless to say I reject any that teach eternal torment. Nevertheless, some of these mystics have been canonized as saints with significant influence on Christianity broadly and on Catholicism more specifically. One of those saints is Catherine of Sienna.

Catherine of Sienna is noteworthy for our discussion here because the Roman Catholic Church is not going to bestow the highest honor onto a teacher, known first and foremost for her divine visions, if they think those visions are not legitimate and, worse, that they teach false doctrines.

Among Catherine of Sienna’s visions, she recounts meeting the Lord and being told about hell. This includes the following point, spoken to her by God:

The fourth torment that they have is the fire. This fire burns and does not consume, for the being of the soul cannot be consumed, because it is not a material thing that fire can consume. But I, by Divine justice, have permitted the fire to burn them with torments, so that it torments them, without consuming them, with the greatest pains in diverse ways according to the diversity of their sins, to some more, and to some less, according to the gravity of their fault. ⁶ Catherine of Sienna, The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Sienna (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., LTD., 1896), 87. Reproduced at The Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/seraphicvirginca00cathuoft/page/86/mode/2up?q=torments (accessed November 3, 2025).

John Huss (Early Reformer)

John Huss may not be quite as much of a household name as reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin, but he walked so that they could run. Few church figures are as significant to the development of Protestantism as John Huss. Not surprisingly, he held the standard view of those who held to eternal conscious hell:

Therefore, beloved, look to these things that are eternal and imperishable. For there are two alternatives, condemnation and life eternal. Condemnation means perpetual fire, darkness, terrible torture and everlasting burning in company with devils. In life eternal there is perfect joy and light, without pain or torture, and there is communion with God Himself and His angels. ⁷ John Huss, The Letters of John Huss:  Letters, with Introductions and Explanatory Notes by Herbert B. Workman, M.A. Principal of Westminster Training College, Author of “The Age of Wyclif ” and “The Age of Hus ” and R. Martin Pope, M.A. (Hodder and Stoughton, 1904), 29. Reproduced at The Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/lettersofjohnhus00husjuoft/mode/2up (accessed November 12, 2025).

Menno Simons (Early Anabaptist)

Although some early Anabaptists did ruffle some feathers by denying eternal torment (as noted in the Augsburg Confession, Article XVII), not all of them rejected the traditional doctrine. ⁸ See The Augsburg Confession, Article XVII, found in The Book of Concord (Solomon D. Henkel and Brothers, 1851), 25. Reproduced at Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=SN9_lA3qDnkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed November 10, 2025). One of the most prominent of those who affirmed eternal conscious hell was Menno Simons, who had this to say about it:

Again, If he remain impenitent, and his life be taken, one would do nothing else but unmercifully rob him of the time of repentance, of which, in case his life were spared, he might yet avail himself; do nothing but tyrannically olTer [sic] his poor soul, which was purchased with such a precious treasure, unto the devil of hell, under the intolerable judgment, punishment and wrath of God, so that he would forever have to suffer and bear the tortures of the unquenchable burning, the consuming fire, eternal pain, woe and death. ⁹Menno Simon, “An Epistle to Martin Micron,” found in The Complete Works of Menno Simons (John F. Funk and Brother, 1871), 408. Reproduced at The Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/completeworksofm00menn/page/n7/mode/2up (accessed November 4, 2025).

Martin Von Cochem (17th Century German Catholic Theologian)

The writings on hell by the highly influential 17th century Catholic theologian Martin Von Cochem provide an embarrassment of riches for a series like this. The only difficulty with it is that he devotes such a considerable length to discussing the lurid, fiery tortures of hell that it can be hard to pick a brief, pithy quote. His seminal work on the afterlife called The Last Four Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell is public domain and available online for greater context.

For now, consider his words about the fires of hell:

The rack, the wheel, amputation of a man’s limbs, are all terrible torture, but they are not to be compared to the pain of burning. If one does but touch a red-hot iron, what exquisite pain it occasions! In a moment the skin is off, the raw flesh protrudes, blood and matter exude from the wound, and the pain goes to the very marrow of our bones. One cannot refrain from crying out and screaming as if one had lost one’s senses. Now if momentary contact with the red-hot iron causes such acute pain, what would it be if one had to hold a red-hot iron for any length of time!

…Now consider, O Christian, if the action of earthly fire causes such intolerable agony, what will be the torture of Hell- fire, the heat of which is incomparably more intense and more searching than that of any fire where with we are familiar. ¹⁰ Martin Von Cochem, The Last Four Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell (Benziger Brothers 1899), 117. Reproduced at The Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/thefourlastthing00martuoft (accessed November 27, 2025).

Benjamin Keach (Early Reformed Baptist, 17th Century England)

Benjamin Keach was a prominent English Baptist minister, hymn-writer, and one of the signatories on the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. ¹¹ “The London Baptist Confession of Faith”, [Confession], London, UK, 1689. Reproduced at The 1689 Confession, https://www.the1689confession.com/1689/signatories (accessed October 22, 2025).

Not only did he believe in flames of wrath and physical torture, but he also addressed a well-debunked argument against literal hellfire, i.e. that fire and darkness cannot co-exist: ¹² For more on the argument that fire and darkness cannot co-exist in hell, and historical answers thereof, see Ronnie Demler, “Yes, Fire and Darkness and Co-Exist,” Consuming Fire [blog], posted July 11, 2016, https://conditionalism.net/blog/2016/07/11/yes-fire-and-darkness-can-coexist/ (accessed November 29, 2025).

God sometimes hath brought Darkness upon a people, as a great judgement, for sin and rebellion against him: so God in just judgment will cast the wicked into Darkness, into a burning furnace of fire, but such fire as shall give no light, therefore called Utter Darkness…And to increase the horror and amazement of the damned, this fire shall not only torment them, not give them any light, but they shall be cast out into Utter Darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ¹³ Benjamin Keach, Tropologia (William Hill Collinridge, City Press, 1851), 970-971. Reproduced at The Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/MN41603ucmf_0/page/n12/mode/2up (November 27, 2025).

Elsewhere in this same treatment, he speaks of the torments of hell pertaining to “both body and soul” ¹⁴ Ibid, 970. that, whatever the nature of the flames, they are “the fire of God’s wrath,” ¹⁵ Ibid. and that “the least torture in Hell, exceeds the greatest that can be devised by all the men on earth.” ¹⁶ Ibid, 969.

Evidently, he had no qualms calling eternal conscious hell “torture” like so many do now.

Thomas Boston (Scottish Presbyterian Preacher and Author)

Thomas Boston was a Scottish preacher and divine with significant influence in Reformed theology. According to Sinclair Ferguson, his treatise Human Nature in Its Fourfold State “became virtually synonymous with the evangelical tradition in Scotland and could be found in many homes along with a family Bible, the Shorter Catechism, and a copy of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.” ¹⁷ Sinclair Ferguson, The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance—Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (Crossway, 2016), 29. Jonathan Edwards also famously called him a “truly great divine.” ¹⁸ Jonathan Edwards, “Letter 2. Edwards to Gillespie,” The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Ed. John E. Smith (Yale University Press, 2009), 2:489. Reproduced at The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xOjc6Mi53amVv (accessed November 30, 2055).

Like Edwards, Boston did not hold back when preaching about the everlasting, bodily torment in real, everlasting flames. For example:

As to the second point proposed, namely, the properties of the fiery torments in hell–
(a) They will be universal torments, every part of the creature being tormented in that flame. When one is cast into a fiery furnace, the fire makes its way into the very heart, and leaves no member untouched.

What part, then, can have ease, when the damned ‘swim’ in a lake of fire, burning with brimstone? There will their bodies be tormented and scorched forever. ¹⁹ Thomas Boston, “Hell” [Sermon], n.d. Reproduced at Sermon Index, https://www.sermonindex.net/sermons/sAZXm8oieF6uFqWe (accessed November 6, 2025).

Most notably, Boston sheds light on why he believes Jesus warned of “Gehenna” in the Gospels when warning of damnation. Why call what we think of as hell “Gehenna“? Because – like Edwards – he believed it was a reference to the torment of the young children being burned to death as sacrifices to Molech. ²⁰ For Edwards’s similar but even more graphic comments about the connection between the valley of Hinnom and hell, see Jonathan Edwards, “The Torments of Hell Are Exceeding Great,” The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Ed. Kenneth P. Minkema (Yale University Press, 1997), 14:316. Reproduced at http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xMzoxNS53amVv (accessed November 30, 2025).

The word used for hell (Matt 5:22), and in various other places of the New Testament, properly denotes the valley of Hinnom, the name being taken from the valley of the children of Hinnom, in which was Tophet (2 Kings 23:10), where idolaters offered their children to Moloch. This is said to have been a great bronze idol, with arms like a man’s– which being heated by fire within it, the child was set in the burning arms of the idol. And, that the parent might not hear the shrieks of the child burning to death, they beat drums in the time of the horrible sacrifice; whence the place had the name of Tophet.

Thus the intenseness of the torments in hell are pointed out to us. ²¹ Ibid.

Annihilationists like myself might be inclined to think that Jesus spoke of final punishment occurring in the valley of Hinnom to allude to the judgment that God brought on the Israelites there, where he turned it into “the valley of slaughter” (Jeremiah 7:32) – a holy judgment of God being foreshadowed by a previous holy judgment of God.

According to Thomas Boston and others, however, Jesus referred to the state of the damned as “Gehenna” because God wanted us to think of the children being burned alive as a sacrifice to Molech when we think of what God does to the wicked in hell.

George Whitfield (Revivalist Preacher, First Great Awakening)

If you’ve ever heard of the first great awakening, you’ve heard of George Whitfield. A long-time friend of Charles and John Wesley, and one of the founders of Methodism (despite being Calvinist), Whitfield was one of the key players in the first Great Awakening. Though not as fire-and-brimstone as a Jonathan Edwards, the topic of hell did come up:

O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death! O foolish mortal that I was, thus to bring myself into these never-ceasing tortures, for the transitory enjoyment of a few short-lived pleasures, which scarcely afforded me any satisfaction, even when I most indulged myself in them…But must I live for ever tormented in these flames? Must this body of mine, which not long since lay in state, was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day, must it be here eternally confined, and made the mockery of insulting devils? ²² George Whitfield, “The Eternity of Hell – Torments” [Sermon], London, 1738. Reproduced at Blue Letter Bible https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/whitefield_george/Sermons/witf_026.cfm (accessed November 29, 2025).

Elsewhere in that same sermon, Whitfield repeatedly refers to the fires of hell without any indication that they are symbolic.

…shall the Son of Man say to them on his left hand, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Where we find that impenitent sinners are to be cast into the same everlasting fire, with the devil and his angels; and that too very justly. ²³ Ibid.

James McGready (Revivalist, Second Great Awakening)

James McGready, most famous for leading the revival of 1800, warned of the following regarding hell:

In hell, you will feel all the punishment of loss—loss of heaven, loss of God and Christ, hope, and all possibility of mercy. You shall feel, too, the punishment of sense. The eternal, uninterrupted communications of Jehovah’s pure, unmixed wrath, will forever prey upon the soul, inflicting keener pain and torture than Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace, seven times heated, could inflict upon a natural body. While the one hand of enraged Omnipotence supports the sinner in being, and enlarges his capacity for suffering, with the other he tortures him with all the miseries and pains which infinite wisdom can invent, or Almighty Power inflict. Oh, how dreadful must be the torments of HELL! ²⁴ James McGready, “The Sinner’s Guide to Hell,” The Posthumous Works of the Reverend and Pious James M’gready, Late Minister of the Gospel in Henderson, Ky: Two Volumes in One (J. Smith’s Steam Press, 1837), 157. Reproduced at The Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/posthumousworkso00mcgr/page/n3/mode/2up (accessed November 27, 2025).

Adam Clarke (Methodist Bible Scholar)

Not only is Adam Clarke one of the most influential theologians in the history of Methodism, but it is worth citing him here as a reminder that seeing eternal conscious hell as fiery torture and God’s active wrath is not just a Reformed/Calvinist thing.

For example, regarding Matthew 25:41, he writes:

Into everlasting fire — This is the punishment of sense. Ye shall not only be separated from me, but ye shall be tormented, awfully, everlastingly tormented in that place of separation. ²⁵ Adam Clarke, “Commentary on Matthew 25“. Clarke’s Commentary on the Holy Bible. Reproduced at Study Light, https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/acc/matthew-25.html (accessed November 27, 2025).

It is as if Clarke had a crystal ball and wanted to make sure that future generations understood that hell involving separation from God (as many have historically believed) did not negate the physical torment in fire.

Elsewhere, when commenting on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16, he notes several different ways in which hell is terrible. Among them:

The torments which a soul endures in the hell of fire will form, through all eternity, a continual present source of indescribable wo. Actual torment in the flames of the bottomless pit forms a fourth circumstance in the punishment of the lost. I am tormented in this flame, Luke 16:24. ²⁶ Adam Clarke, “Commentary on Luke 16,” Clarke’s Commentary on the Holy Bible. Reproduced at Study Light, https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/acc/luke-16.html#google_vignette (accessed November 27, 2025).

Consider also his comments on Mark 9:49, and what he writes was a common view of his time. He reports that, like Marcus Minucius Felix, many believed that the fires of hell tormented the body while preserving it.

It is generally supposed that our Lord means, that as salt preserves the flesh with which it is connected from corruption, so this everlasting fire, το πυρ το ασβεστον, this inconsumable fire, will have the property, not only of assimilating all things cast into it to its own nature, but of making them inconsumable like itself. ²⁷ Adam Clarke, “Commentary on Mark 9,” Clarke’s Commentary on the Holy Bible. Reproduced at Study Light, https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/acc/mark-9.html (accessed November 27, 2025).

Clarke does not fully commit to a particular interpretation. Nevertheless, he does at least grant the viability of the common view he referred to – certainly not something he would say if he was sure that “hell is not a torture chamber”:

If this passage be taken according to the common meaning, it is awful indeed! Here may be seen the greatness, multiplicity, and eternity, of the pains of the damned. They suffer without being able to die; they are burned without being consumed; they are sacrificed without being sanctified – are salted with the fire of hell, as eternal victims of the Divine Justice. ²⁸ Ibid.

R.A. Torrey (American Fundamentalist/Evangelical)

Although Ruben Archer Torrey is relatively recent in church history, living from 1856 to 1928, ²⁹ Warren Wiersbe, 50 People Every Christian Should Know: Learning from Spiritual Giants of the Faith (Baker Books, 2009), 234. he is noteworthy due to his influence on fundamentalism, on American Protestantism more broadly, and on Biola University specifically.

The fact that he is so influential to Biola University, so much so that he has completely overshadowed its actual founders, is especially noteworthy and ironic given how much Biola has popularized the adoption of the air-conditioned, C.S. Lewis view by otherwise biblically conservative Christians. ³⁰ Several of the examples of this view who were cited all the way back in Part 1 have ties to Biola – J.P. Moreland, William Lane Craig, and J. Warner Wallace – as well as other notable figures. For example, see Sean McDowell, “The Quarantine as A Metaphor for Hell” seanmcdowell.org [blog], posted on May 9, 2020, https://seanmcdowell.org/blog/the-quarantine-as-a-metaphor-for-hell (Accessed October 21, 2025). And yet he affirmed eternal conscious burning in literal flames, not just the flames of a restless heart without God.

From these plain and definite words of our Lord it is plain as day that in the future life we are to have bodies, and that the bodies of the lost are to have a place in a literal physical hell of fire. While the bodily torments of hell fire are not the most appalling feature of hell, while the mental agony, the agony of remorse, the agony of shame, and the agony of despair, is worse, immeasurably worse; nevertheless, physical suffering, a physical suffering to which no pain on earth is anything in comparison, is a feature of hell. ³¹ R.A. Torrey, The Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Faith (George H. Doran Company, 1918), 296. Reproduced at The Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/fundamentaldoctr00torr_0/page/n5/mode/2up.

Additional Points To Consider

Lack of Historical Evidence of the Modern, Metaphorical View (So Far, Anyway)

I am not a professional church historian by any means. And I am sure that someone, somewhere in church history before the 20th century, has taught that not only are the fires of hell metaphorical (as we know John Calvin and some others did post-reformation), but that hell is either passive separation from God (like C.S. Lewis and many other Protestant apologists have taught), or a metaphor for God’s love for those who hate him (the divine presence/modern Eastern Orthodox view). But I haven’t found any clear examples.

In the age of the internet, it is easy to find all kinds of examples of Christians affirming traditional fire and brimstone doctrine throughout church history (especially after Augustine). It is shockingly difficult to find the C.S. Lewis view, both through searching and through dialogue. As is the case when you ask Eastern Orthodox Christians for ancient/historical examples of their novel, metaphorical view, the norm is to either be given very poor examples, or to get crickets (see Part 3 for more on this).

It is not as though I have found a variety of views among those who historically have held to eternal conscious hell, and I am just leaving out those that go against my thesis. Rather, some fit my thesis directly (and have been included thus far or may be in the future), and others do nothing to counter my thesis.

These others either don’t talk about hell much at all, or they say enough to where they probably believed in the traditional view of fiery torture because that’s how it sounds at face value, but they aren’t quite explicit enough for me to include.

For an example of the latter, consider 19th century revivalist Charles Finney. He would often quote New Testament passages about fire without additional context. He speaks of things like “the burning abyss” ³² Charles Finney, “False Comfort For Sinners,” Lectures on Revivals of Religion (Leavitt, Lord, and CO., 1835), 331. Reproduced at Google Books, https://www.gospeltruth.net/1868Lect_on_Rev_of_Rel/68revlec17.htm (accessed November 3, 2025). and how the wicked man will “kindle up to the tortures of hell in his bosom.” ³³ Ibid, 314. By default, one would think he was just speaking the language of hell that everyone of the time was already familiar with, and being an evangelist and not a theologian, didn’t give a further breakdown of the details.

There are a lot of situations like Charles Finney in the surviving writings of many influential Christian leaders from throughout most of history. There just do not seem to be many who have held the modern, metaphorical view who are not also pretty modern themselves.

If A Given View Is Dominant, We Would Expect Many to Just Take It For Granted

If I am correct, and the various theologians and church fathers shown here are representative of what eternal conscious hell normally meant, then we would expect that many would just take that view for granted and mention hell without much added detail.

This would explain why some notable church traditionalists don’t go into much detail. If everyone is familiar (or at least expected to be familiar) with hell as fire and torture, then many will not feel the need to elaborate on it the way we would have liked them to.

Mystics and The Medieval (and Renaissance) Era

Other than the occasional, random youth pastor on Youtube, pretty much everyone acknowledges that the idea of literal fire and extreme tortures in hell forever was really common during the medieval era (which usually includes part of the Renaissance).

I daresay, the medieval period is one giant embarrassment for many Christians, in large part because of hell. Dante is written off as a maniac, Aquinas’s hell statements are treated as non-existent (see Part 2), and all those gruesome paintings and artworks over the centuries were “caricatures” of Christianity (albeit by Christians…).

Of course, as noted above, this was also the age of the mystics. Many claimed harrowing visions of eternal conscious hell, describing events like in Dante’s Inferno, or like in the modern day visions of Bill Wiese and Mary Kay Baxter. Various such mystics were affirmed by the church at the time (some to the point of sainthood in traditions that recognize sainthood). Even the idea of demons with pitchforks, perhaps the most ridiculed and lampooned image of hell in our time, didn’t originate on a box of hot cinnamon candy or with an atheist mocking Christians. It arose among these mystic visions. ³⁴ Eileen Gardiner, ed., “Tundale’s Vision,” Visions of Heaven and Hell before Dante (Ithica Press, 1989), 157.

I point this out because, while I have cited several theologians and saints from this period, common agreement about the medieval period already helps to establish that a big chunk of church history entailed widespread embrace of the fiery torture chamber view of hell.

Spiritual Fire Does Not Negate Physical Burning and Torture

If one wants to establish the modern metaphorical view, it is not enough to simply establish that the fires of hell are structurally different from earthly fire. Many who speak of fire in hell having some difference at a fundamental, ontological level compared to fire on earth also make these comments while describing how it will physically torment the wicked the way that earthly fire does – except even worse and without ever dying out. Thomas Boston addresses this in his sermon I cited above, for example.

Pointing out that the fire is vaguely spiritual or otherwise not the same as earthly fire is largely equivalent to a torturer who uses various tools to torment their victims, and who says that instead of being made of steel, the tools are made of a newly discovered metal found on Mars that is durable and never needs sharpening. A difference may exist, but it matters little to the person who is locked in their dungeon.

Spiritual Torment Does Not Negate Physical Torture

It is a false dichotomy to think that if a teacher speaks of internal anguish or separation from God that, therefore, the fire is metaphorical and C.S. Lewis was on the right track. Many of those cited here and in other parts of this series do speak of spiritual anguish in some way. R.A Torrey was a very explicit example, as was Martin Luther back in Part 3 . Spiritual anguish and physical torture are not mutually exclusive.

Now, one may raise the objection that if someone is in the unimaginable pain of being engulfed in flames continuously, without actually being consumed or burning up, then they wouldn’t be able to think about anything else. I bring this up mainly as an aside, although I am at least sympathetic to that view. It seems odd to think that people who are on fire would be thinking or having any meaningful internal experience at all. That said, I imagine many who affirm both kinds of suffering would posit that God can and will increase a person’s capacity for both physical and emotional suffering in hell. The idea of God increasing the damned’s capacity to suffer is certainly not unheard of.

Conclusion to Part 4

I cannot say that Part 4 necessarily had a specific theme, but it does help drive the point home that if you want to claim that your view has the power of tradition behind it, then you have to actually hold to the tradition in a meaningful way.

Of course, there are so many church fathers and notable theologians in the history of Christianity that no number of citations could be anything but a drop in the ocean if we think in terms of brute numbers and percentages. I don’t expect to be able to prove that no one ever held the modern, metaphorical view until some late date in church history.

Nevertheless, as we look at more and more notable fathers and teachers and doctors of the broad, historical Christian church, and show examples of the most influential teachers across the ages and Christian traditions, it shows us a pretty good representation of what the norm was – notwithstanding the presence of annihilationists (and universalists) too, of course. ³⁵ For more on representation of annihilationism and universalism in the early church, see “Introduction to Evangelical Conditionalism: The Doctrine of Eternal Torment Was Not Universal in the Early Church“.

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