What will happen in Hell? Will it be...
Since 1987, I've been studying a question: During afterlife, what will happen in Hell (will it be Restoration or Annihilation, or Eternal Misery?) and what will be the final state of unbelievers? Recently, beginning in 2014, I've been writing web-pages to describe three common views (so you'll know what each view does & doesn't propose, to avoid misunderstandings) and help you understand the biblical evidence so you can logically evaluate it. {my most-thorough page is intended mainly for believers, and another page is mainly for unbelievers.}
What do I think? Based on my 34 years of carefully studying what the Bible teaches us about what will happen in hell, I'm extremely confident that God will not cause Eternal Misery, He will not cause sin to exist forever. The other two views, God will eliminate sin by causing Restoration or Annihilation; both of these views are consistent with biblically taught Conditional Immortality, with God giving immortality to only people who are saved, because His if-then condition for immortality is “IF saved, then immortal.” These two views, each with strong biblical support, claim that people who were unsaved-in-Life will have a period of unpleasant suffering in Hell, ending with a final result of either Annihilation or Restoration.
I'm hopeful and optimistic (about 90% confident)* that God will produce the best possible outcome with Universal Restoration, with a happy ending for everyone. I'm hopeful that Restoration will happen, and am rationally optimistic (but not certain) that it will happen. {* my rough estimates are 90% Restoration, 10% Annihilation, 0% Eternal Torment.}
some personal history: I've been studying questions-about-hell since 1987. From 1995 to 2010 (before I began seriously studying Universal Reconciliation in 2014) I wrote papers comparing only two views, comparing Annihilation — which at that time I mistakenly called Conditional Immortality because I had not yet realized that Conditionalism logically includes both Annihilation and Reconciliation, excluding only Eternal Tormenting — with Eternal Misery. Based on a careful study of what is taught in the Bible, I concluded that God will not Eternally Torment, instead He will Annihilate all people who were unsaved-during-Life. Here are the final versions (from 2010) of my papers that compare 2 of the 3 main views:
• 1-page summary (in HTML WebPage or PDF) that was written to condense the ideas in my...
• full-length paper (in HTML Web-Page or PDF) with 18 pages, and a 14-page Appendix; it's
also in Word (if you want to reformat or change fonts) with 2 columns (as in PDF) or 1 column,
and 4 Diagrams (from 2000) to describe 3 Views.
And you can learn from other authors.
my personal timeline:
In 1987, I began to carefully study “what will happen in hell” as it's described in the Bible, with lots of researching in books & online & in libraries in 4 states, WA WI CA NC. I began writing in 1996, making three versions of the long paper (1997, 2000, 2010) plus the one-page summary in 2010.
Beginning in 2014, I've been learning more about Christian Universal Reconciliation, and becoming more impressed with its biblical support. Because all of us should rejoice whenever a person becomes reconciled with God, I'm hoping He does this for all people — or at least more people than those who “say yes to God” during Life — by giving people who are unsaved-in-Life another chance in Afterlife. This view has strong biblical support, but so does Annihilation.