The Good News !   and also   The Bad News ?
What will happen in Hell?  –  Will it be
eternal misery, death, or healing?

Are you confident that God loves you?  and loves other people?   Do you believe that He always will love, both now and later, in Life and Afterlife?

I do.  I confidently believe that God exists and is lovingly good.  But I think we should ask “will God always love?” because I agree with the conscience-based thinking & feeling of many people (maybe you?) that we have a rational reason to doubt God's love IF we (incorrectly) think the Bible teaches us that the final fate of most people, including many people we love, will be Eternal Misery in Hell.  This misery-causing action doesn't seem like the loving action we would expect from a loving God who is good, so we have a logical reason to doubt God's existence if we cannot persuade ourselves that three commonly-assumed claims — God exists and is good AND will cause Eternal Misery — could all be true.

I'm writing this page mainly for non-Christians, for two reasons.  First, to show my empathy for your thinking-and-feeling that a divine causing of Eternal Misery would not be a lovingly good action.  And more important, I want to explain why Bible-believing Christians (including me) should believe that the IF-claim (about God causing Eternal Misery) is incorrect, is not true because it will not happen, instead it's a misunderstanding about God that unfortunately leads us to think His Good News (the true claim) is (by adding the false claim) a combination of Good News plus Bad News.  I'm very confident that the IF-claim is not justified because the Bible does not teach Eternal Misery,* so you can stop thinking “God is bad and He cannot be trusted, because His final use of total power will be to abuse it by causing the infinite misery of Eternal Misery for most people.”  Instead you can genuinely believe, in your mind & heart, that “God exists, and He is good, and I can trust Him.”  You can have personal confidence that God loves every person – both now and in their future, in their Life and Afterlife – so (if you want) you will be able to totally love God and enthusiastically say YES to God.     { feeling loved by God, and loving God }    { a personal context with my wonderful sister }

* Yes, we have strong Bible-based reasons to believe that for unsaved people the final result-of-afterlife won't be Eternal Misery but instead it will be either Eternal Joy or Non-Existence.  This is taught in the Bible.  How?  We see one strong teaching early in the Bible when God declares that a sinner "must not be allowed to... live forever" because God has decided to be merciful by preventing any person from living forever in a state of sin, with eternal sinful misery.  To prevent eternal misery for unsaved people, during their afterlife God either will let them die (so they won't be living forever) or – in a result everyone should hope will happen – He will save them (so they won't be in a state of sin, instead they will be living forever without sin, with eternal joy).   And there are other Bible-based reasons to reject Eternal Misery.

an elephant in the room  –  These comments are for everyone, but especially fellow Christians:  Unfortunately, the IF (of Eternal Misery) is assumed to be true by most people, both Christians & non-Christians.  Therefore when we remain silent – without explaining why “no, God won't cause Eternal Misery” – most people will continue believing that “yes, God will cause Infinite Misery for most people, for billions of us.”  If we say nothing, Eternal Misery is assumed.  This belief will affect the way people think about God (re: His character & actions) and their feelings about God (in their trusting & loving Him).  Although the usual response by Christians is to avoid talking about “what will happen in hell” the result of our silence is to let this terrifying belief-about-God remain unquestioned, along with its continuing negative effects on thinking & feeling, in minds & hearts.  If instead of ignoring this elephant in the room, we acknowledge it and openly discuss it, there would be significant benefits, but also complications, so we have reasons for action and reasons for caution.

My pages (this one and another) are being written by Craig Rusbult, during life on a road less traveled.

Below is a Table of Contents.  You can use it as an FAQ to get a “big picture” overview of the page, and to learn details.  When you read the ToC's section-summary and you want to learn more about this topic, click the link for "more" so you can read the full section.  I think every topic will be useful, will help you develop an understanding that is more thorough-and-accurate, but you can read the sections in any order you want.   /   In fact, the sequential order is slightly different for the section-summaries below (in the ToC) and later (for the full-length sections).

Some parts of the page — like my explanations of why Eternal Misery isn't biblically plausible, but two views of Hell (with it producing Restoration or Annihilation) are plausible,  or why Christians have reasons for action but also reasons for caution — will be interesting & relevant for some non-Christians, but “not so much” for others.  Of course all parts of the page are optional reading, so (if you want) for some parts you can just read the introductory overview, and then skim (or skip) the details.    /    And if you want to learn even more, my larger page for Christians has more-detailed explanations of more ideas.  {although some ideas are examined more thoroughly in this page}

Table of Contents

What will happen in Hell?  will the final result be misery, death, or healing?

    • These possibilities are proposed in three views — Eternal Misery {EM}, Final Annihilation {FA}, universal Ultimate Restoration {UR} — that have many important similarities (including each proposing “unsaved people will suffer in Hell”) and one major difference.  This section will help you understand what each view (especially the commonly misunderstood “universalist” biblical non-pluralistic exclusivist Christian UR) does propose, and does not.   {more}
    • For each result (with EM, FA, UR), what are the overall changes from a person's beginning to their ending, from Before Their Life to Their Final State In Afterlife?  For each result we can ask “is it fair?” (no, yes, yes) and “would you choose to be born?” and “would God cause you to be born?”   {more}

We can view Life-and-Afterlife as a Grand Story that is being created & directed by God, and we can imagine the story having...

    • a horrible ending for most people (because they are living in a horrible final state) IF God will cause most people to be tragically immortal, will cause them to experience the infinite misery of Eternal Misery, of living forever in a terrifying nightmare.  IF this is true, The Gospel is Mixed News;  for some people it's Good News – God can save you from sin during Life, and save you from God in Afterlife – but it's Bad News for most people, because most are not saved from either sin or God.   {more}
    • a wonderful ending for all people because all are living in their best possible final state) IF God will heal all people and heal all relationships, so every person can fully love themself and fully love other people and fully love God, so all of us can have Eternal Joy, and nobody will have Eternal Misery or even Annihilation.   {more}
    • a semi-wonderful ending with some people (but not all, IF God has let some die) having Eternal Joy, and nobody having Eternal Misery.  This ending would be fair, but sad.  Of course this would be sad for the people who are killed, but also sad for everyone who loves those who were living with us but now are gone.   {more}

The logic of "IF" is extremely important.  This page examines two kinds of IF (re: beliefs & reality) and four IF-questions (re: choice, reality, criticisms, logic).    /    note:  In this ToC, colors indicate the beliefs (conclusions) that I think are actually true or false because they seem to be logically correct or incorrect, personally wise or unwise.     {an introduction to IF-beliefs and IF-reality}

    • regarding choice,  How will you be affected (in your Life & Afterlife) IF you “say YES to God” or do not.  What will you choose to do?   {more}
    • regarding reality,  We can ask IF God actually will produce Eternal Misery, or will not.  To gain insight into this IF-question, we'll examine what the Bible tells us about Hell.   {more}  {my views}
    • regarding intentions,  We can ask IF a Christian does believe that God will cause Eternal Misery, or does not believe this.  Logically (and actually) this IF allows a Christian who loves God – and wants to honor God – either to defend the character of an EM-causing God, or to criticize it.  This logic-of-intention is important because it lets me criticize the false idea of an EM-causing God without criticizing God (because I believe that in reality He actually won't cause EM, so my intention is to honor God for what He actually will do) and without criticizing people (because I think their intention is to honor God even though I think they are saying untrue-and-harmful things about God).   {more}  {e.g. I'll compare the good character of Actual God versus the bad character of a hypothetical EM-Causing God who would be worse than Hitler IF He will use His power to cause infinite misery, but I'm very confident that in reality He won't cause EM}
    • regarding logic,  We can ask IF a person should logically conclude that God does exist (or doesn't exist),  IF they believe that God will cause Eternal Misery AND God is good.   {more}

I'm claiming that God will not cause Eternal Misery for anyone;  instead He will cause either Ultimate Restoration for everyone, or Final Annihilation for some.  This claim...

    • will be criticized by some Christians (IF they believe the Bible teaches Eternal Misery) because I'm challenging their belief.  Therefore we have reasons for caution.  But we also have reasons for action because acknowledging “the elephant in the room” will give us freedom, letting us explain how a person can rationally believe that God is good.   {more and more}

I'm claiming that IF God causes universal Ultimate Restoration, He will do this by using temporary negative experiences in UR-Hell.  So we can ask “why would God use a UR-Hell?”  Even though God would do this in order to transform people in ways that improve them, for the good purpose of ultimately producing permanent positive experiences in Heaven where everyone will have Eternal Joy, this claim...

    • will be criticized by some non-Christians (IF they think “God shouldn't judge people and change them”) because I'm proposing that God will use temporarily-unpleasant experiences during educational correction & healing in UR-Hell.  I think this concern is justifiable, so we should ask “is a UR-Hell necessary?”  Yes, I think divine correction IS necessary in order to transform people and produce justice – during His process of making all things (including all people & all relationships) the way they should be – so everyone can have permanently-pleasant experiences of Eternal Joy, in The Best Possible Ending for God's Grand Story.   {more}

Three Views  —  What will happen in Hell?

As explained in the page-introduction, I want to show you that "the Bible does not teach Eternal Misery" so you can stop thinking “God is bad because He will cause Eternal Misery,” instead you are free to think “God is good and I can trust Him” so "you will be able to fully love God and say YES to God."

But if the final result of Hell won't be Eternal Misery, what will happen?  Three views about “what will happen in Hell” were common in the early history of Christianity.  The views have many similarities (each is compatible with all essential beliefs of Bible-based Christian faith) but one difference (and this affects the way we think about God).

many similarities:  All three Bible-based views agree that...

• salvation requires belief plus repentance, with authentic mind-and-heart belief that leads to living by faith. 

• God is loving, and He wants justice & will achieve justice.

• God will give every person an Afterlife, at least for awhile;  He will give each of us a body, and we will face judgment by God, with two immediate results:

• previously-saved people (who “said YES to God” during Life) will live in Eternal Joy with God, and with other believers, in His physical heaven-kingdom, but

• previously-unsaved people (who did not “say YES” during Life) will suffer in Hell during their Afterlife.

one difference:  We see a difference only when asking

• “What is the final state of unsaved humans?” because...

    with Ultimate Restoration {UR} their suffering in Hell is a temporary experience that transforms them (with corrective purging-of-sin)* so they can fully love and persuades them to believe & repent;  the final result is that God graciously forgives them and saves them during their Afterlife (this is the most important difference between UR and the other two views) so they can "live in Eternal Joy with God, and with other believers, in His physical heaven-kingdom."     {* this educating-and-correcting is a purging purification, so UR is aka pUR – purgatorial Ultimate Restoration}   {or maybe only SOME believe and repent, producing a semi-universal Restoration}
    with Final Annihilation {FA} their suffering in Hell is temporary, lasting until they die, until they change from temporary Afterlife into permanent non-existence.
    with Eternal Misery {EM} their suffering in Hell lasts forever because God keeps them alive forever, but during all of this time He never helps them improve, and never ends their Misery with a merciful rescue (with Restoration or Annihilation) so they remain continually trapped in their sins forever.
    Notice that in two views (UR, FA) hell is temporary;  in these views, God will eliminate sin, but EM claims that God will preserve sin forever – and this result is one of the many biblical reasons to reject EM.   {more about the views}

This is the first section in the main page (after its Table of Contents overview) because accurate understanding of all views is a necessary foundation for logical evaluation.  It's especially important to understand what universal Ultimate Restoration does and doesn't propose, because “universalism” is commonly used to describe a wide range of views.  In my writing the single meaning of universalism (i.e. Ultimate Restoration) is a Bible-based Christian Universalism that rejects a religious pluralism claiming “all roads lead to God.”  Instead a Christian Universalism says “only one road (saying YES to God by following Jesus Christ) leads to salvation, but if a person is now on another road, God knows where they are, and eventually He will save them by guiding them onto His road.”    {so... why should you say YES to God now instead of waiting until "eventually"?}

Later, there are descriptions of “The Good News” with each view, IF The Final Result of Hell will be Eternal Misery or Ultimate Restoration or Final Annihilation.

Overall Changes and Basic Justice

What are the overall changes from beginning to ending, from Before Life to The Final State Of Afterlife, for the three views?

Each view proposes the same change for a saved person, who goes from Nothing (before Life) to Eternal Joy (in their Afterlife);  this change is wonderful.

But for an unsaved person, who is not saved during Life, we see big differences in the overall change:

    with Universal Reconciliation, it's from Nothing to Eternal Joy;  this change is wonderful.
    with Final Annihilation, it's from Nothing (before life) to Nothing (when their Afterlife ends in permanent death) with a neutral change “from dust to dust” that seems fair,* although it's sad because all of us should hope for everyone to be alive with joy, and these people will be gone forever.     {* in addition to the neutrality of a nothing-to-nothing overall change, it also seems fair because when God creates His Kingdom, He has the sovereign right - as The King - to decide who will and won't be included in His Kingdom.}
    with Eternal Misery, it's from Nothing to Everlasting Misery;  this change is not wonderful.   It's horrible, and it seems unfair, especially because this person never asked to be born (they could not choose whether to have Life-plus-Afterlife) and they didn't get to choose their initial situation-in-life (so perhaps they were “dealt a bad hand in life”) yet they will suffer forever because God forced them to have Life-and-Afterlife.

    an existential question:  If you had been asked before you were born, would you choose to be born?  (should you say “yes” if the Afterlife-for-unsaved will be UR?  if FA?  if EM?)    {more & more and my answers}

Biblical Evidence against Eternal Misery

I've written another page mainly for fellow Christians who (like me) believe the Bible.  In its Tips for Studying...

    I ask "in western societies for the past 1500 years [not 2000 years], why have most people (both believers and unbelievers) been assuming a doctrine of Eternal Misery – with God causing most people to have eternal life in hell – that the Bible doesn't seem to teach?"
    and I answer that "due to the powerful inertia of tradition and societal customs, most Christians simply assume that the Bible teaches Eternal Misery, so they should believe it,"
    and suggest that "instead of ASSUMING you already know what the Bible teaches, you can carefully STUDY the Bible with the goal of learning what it really does teach,"
    and explain how my page can help you "carefully study" more time-efficiently, so you can learn more in less time.  For example, before you read the Bible-based logic below, you should first read Understanding the Three Views because it will give you a solid foundation for your logic;  if you want to logically evaluate the different views of “what will happen in hell,” you must accurately understand what each view is and isn't, what it does and doesn't propose.

When we do "carefully study the Bible" we see that the Bible doesn't teach Eternal Misery.  There are many reasons for this biblically-logical conclusion, beginning with...

Conditional Immortality:  {an option: you can first read a brief summary of conditional immortality}   After the initial sins of Eve & Adam, God declares (in Genesis 3:22) that a sinner "must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever" so God removed the immortality that He would have given us if we had not become sinners;   but God also declares (in Revelation) that He will give back immortality in Afterlife – because He has defeated death {and during Afterlife He has eliminated sin} so He can {and will} give back "the tree of life" – but He will give immortality only to people who satisfy His IF-then condition,  that IF a person is saved, then He will give them immortality.  The divine penalty of death – sinners "must not ... live forever" – is merciful because God wants to prevent people from living forever in a state of sin, with eternal misery, and He can do this by eliminating either part of the unacceptable combination, either with Final Annihilation (by killing sinners) so they're not living forever, or with Ultimate Restoration (by transforming sinners) so they're not in a state of sin.  In either of these ways, God will be merciful by preventing eternal misery for any person;  and God will be gracious by giving eternal joy to every person who is alive.    /    By contrast, in order to produce Eternal Misery, God would have to decide that unsaved sinners “must not ... live forever” and He would have to cause their living forever, because God created people for immortality (that He will supernaturally provide through His "tree of life") but not with immortality.  People are not intrinsically immortal, so God has control over who lives, and He will make the ultimate life-or-death decisions.  How?  God tells us — at a pivotal point in human history, at the time of the first sin by a human — that sinners "must not be allowed to... live forever."  Instead, only non-sinners (who have been saved by God, and purified-from-sin by God) will live forever.  God will use the if-then condition that “if saved, then immortal” (this is the condition of conditional immortality) to make His ultimate life-or-death decisions.

The Penalty for Sin is Death:  Consistent with Conditional Immortality, throughout the Bible we see death (not the long-term suffering proposed by EM) as the penalty for sin.  We see merciful death – not long-term suffering – in God's most severe penalties (by removing His life-sustaining "tree of life" and then in The Flood, Sodom & Gomorrah, Levitical Law,...) and His prevention-rescues (Abraham with Isaac, The Passover), and His gifts of substitutionary atonement with death-atoning sacrifices in the OT {by a divinely designed system using sacrificial deaths of animals} and in the NT {by the divine self-sacrificing death of Jesus} when God sacrificed Himself to pay our death penalty, and then showed us {with His victorious resurrection} that He has conquered death so He can (and will) give us afterlife-without-death.     {FA and UR agree that the penalty is death, but when we ask “who will receive this death penalty?” the answer is “some” with FA, and “none” with UR.}

Achieving Elimination-of-Sin:   Throughout the Bible we see a central theme;  God hates sin so He wants to eliminate sin and eventually He will achieve this goal.  With UR or FA, sin would be eliminated so God would achieve His goal.  By contrast, EM would produce eternally lasting sin by causing sinners (and their sins) to remain alive forever;  this is a strong biblical reason to reject EM.  With the Conditional Immortality of UR or FA – but not with the Unconditional Immortality of EM – God would make everything right (without sin, the way He wants it to be, the way He always wanted it to be) with all persons & all relationships totally corrected-and-healed, with no sin.    /    The Bible tells us that God hates sin and loves people.  Is each view consistent with these essential attributes of God? (no, yes & yes)    no: EM is weak on sin (by letting it exist forever, by actually making it exist forever) but is tough on people (by tormenting them forever).    yes & yes: FA & UR are tough on sin (eliminating it by eliminating sinners, or eliminating sin-within-sinners) but are loving for people (with the blessed relief of FA, or the blessed slavation-with-restoration of UR).    {more about EM preserving sin forever}

Achieving Justice-with-Love:   Throughout the Bible, we see that God wants to achieve justice, and God is loving, with love shown in His forgiving and also His correcting, and in other ways.  I think UR would produce the best justice – a justice with love, achieved by making everything right (with no sin) for everyone, so it's the best possible final state – and EM would produce the worst justice because of EM's failure to eliminate sin.

Other Bible-based reasons to reject Eternal Misery are because of...

divine character:  There is a logical mis-match when we compare the biblically-revealed character of God (He is good) and the non-good actions of causing Infinite Misery;  believing EM requires believing that “God is good” AND “God will cause infinite misery” but this requires a radical re-defining of what “being good & doing good” means;

divine persuasion:  Why is God not maximally persuasive in showing us that He does exist, and is active in our world?  Our uncertainty (due to ambiguity in the Bible and in Life) seems to be an intentional divine choice, and the huge difference in final results for unsaved people – if their Afterlife will end with EM or FA or UR – is an ethical-and-logical argument against EM, and for UR.  {more about non-maximal divine persuasion}

weak support for EM:  The typical biblical support claimed for Eternal Misery — in a few isolated “hell verses” that sometimes have biased translating (as with both key words in Matthew 25:46) — is very weak, yet these verses are the main evidence claimed for EM.

church history:  In their biblical sermons & letters, apostles (Peter, John, Paul, James) never describe the duration-and-result of hell to be Eternal Misery, so probably they didn't believe it.  And in post-apostolic history, all 3 views were common in the early church, so the early creeds (Apostles' and Nicene) allow UR or FA, or EM.   {more about church history}   {why did things change, with EM becoming culturally dominant?  historically, this change happened due to:  philosophical influences from non-Biblical sources,  and the strong theological influence of pro-EM Augustine,  the practical political utility of fear-causing EM,  translation bias that favored EM,  the powerful inertia of tradition.  Yes, in the past (and present), the popularity of EM has been (and is) supported by non-biblical factors. }

divine ambiguity:  Why are we uncertain about the final results of hell?  When we ask “why is the biblical evidence ambiguous?” there are two why-questions:  WHY is there no obvious “answer” when we carefully examine all evidence in His Bible?  and  WHY hasn't God made “the correct answer” more clear?   {more about why & why}    {how much ambiguity?  I'm very confident that the Bible clearly teaches Conditional Immortality and thus “FA-or-UR instead of EM” but is ambiguous about FA-versus-UR.}

Biblical Evidence for Ultimate Restoration

Does the Bible teach universal Ultimate Restoration?  Maybe.  The biblical support for UR comes in two stages.

First, there is extremely strong support for Conditional Immortality and thus for UR-or-FA, for either universal Ultimate Restoration or Final Annihilation.

Second, in a comparison of UR-versus-FA, I'm becoming more optimistic (i.e. more confident) that God will produce Ultimate Restoration.  Why?  It's because I'm finding that more studying → more learning so I'm understanding that, compared with what I knew earlier, there is more evidence-for-UR (in verses telling us that God will save all people) and less evidence-against-UR as in verses that describe...

    suffering in Hell, e.g. weeping & gnashing {but pUR agrees that “yes, unsaved people will suffer in pUR-Hell”, so these are hell-verses that don't matter}, and
    an "eternal punishment" {but if the translating was less-biased and more-literal this would describe the “age-associated corrective pruning” that occurs in pUR-Hell with educating-and-correcting done for the purpose of achieving justice};  and
    two kinds of people, saved & unsaved {pUR agrees, by proposing two kinds in Life and early-Afterlife (during judgment & pUR-Hell) but one kind in late-Afterlife after everyone is saved},
    with few people now traveling “the narrow road” {although this “narrow road” verse is evidence against pluralism, Christian UR rejects pluralism} and {although this verse does limit the number of saved people to only "a few" IF God will cause EM (or FA) – but this is circular reasoning because the IF assumes the conclusion – it isn't limiting IF God will allow the salvation in Afterlife that makes UR possible-and-plausible, because the verse literally says "few" are finding it (with the verb in present tense) now during Life, but UR will happen if many find it later during Afterlife, and “many finding it later” is proposed by UR},
    and most people being thrown into fire {but this is consistent with a biblical “big picture” perspective – with pUR-supporting connections between Fire and Baptism and Death – showing us that God may use His "lake of fire" as a purgatorial UR-Hell where His divine fire burns away all things – all sinful character flaws – that prevent people from fully loving God and fully loving people};

    also...  a common claim is that “UR would not achieve justice” {but biblical justice is biblical righteousness;  in the Bible, the same word is used to mean justice and righteousness, i.e. God achieves justice by producing righteousness – by making things right (the way they should be, without sin) – and pUR-Hell would achieve biblical total justice when God uses “age-associated corrective pruning” to make all things – including all people & all relationships – totally right (without sin) in the best possible final state and this UR-justice seems more biblically satisfactory, compared with FA-justice (that would correct all persons, but maybe not all relationships) or EM-justice (that would cause eternal sinning, an eternal unrighteousness that is eternal injustice)};
    but...  a reason to think “maybe UR will occur” (with “maybe” instead of “certainly yes” or “definitely no”) is because if God will produce UR, salvation during Afterlife seems required, so UR seems possible (and becomes plausible) if God will save people during Afterlife.  {but the Bible doesn't clearly say “yes, God will do this” or “no, He won't”}
    And there is more.

We also can use the if-if-then logic that if God wants to save everyone (if He is all-loving, i.e. if He fully loves every person), and if God gets what God wants (if God uses His total power, i.e. if He is all-powerful not just in principle, but also in practice whenever He decides “I want to get what I want, so I will get it” and if He has made this decision for salvation), then God will save everyone.   {the majority of Christians claim God is all-loving, and a significant minority claim God uses His total power.}

Above I briefly summarize why some claims for evidence-against-UR are not actual evidence-against-UR, but the reasons are examined much more thoroughly in my other page.  By contrast, below the biblical evidence-for-UR is almost the same as what's in my other page;  it's included here only because some readers tend to not click links, and I want you to see that evidence-for-UR actually does exist.

Biblical Support for Universal Restoration:  In the Bible, God tells us (in some places) that He wants to save all people, and (in some places) that He will save all people (to produce Universal Restoration), that "as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22) because "as through one transgression [the sin of Adam] there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness [substitutionary atonement by Jesus] there resulted justification of life to all men" (Romans 5:18) and (Romans 11:32) "God has shut up all in disobedience [due to Adam] so that [through Christ] He may show mercy to all," with His loving "mercy to all" inspiring (in Romans 11:33-36 as Paul's logical conclusion for Chapters 9-11) our worship: "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! ... For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things.  To Him be the glory forever. Amen." *   The birth of Jesus was "good news of great joy which will be for all the people" (Luke 2:10) so we joyfully "have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe" (1 Timothy 4:10) because Jesus came "to save the world" (John 12:47) by becoming "the atoning sacrifice... for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2) so He "takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) and is "the Savior of the world" (1 John 4:14) in a process that will be actualized when (in Life or in Afterlife) God saves every person, because — like a good shepherd who loves all of his sheep and wants to find-and-save every sheep (or coin or son, as Jesus tells us in Luke 15 where the numbers remaining lost are 0-of-100, 0-of-10, 0-of-2) — God will "go after the one that is lost, until he finds it." (Luke 15:4)   If you have not "settled matters" with other people, "you may be thrown into prison... [and] you will not get out until you have paid the last penny" (Matthew 5:26) but ultimately – when "until" has happened for every person – God will (through Jesus Christ) "reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross" (Colossians 1:15-20) so (Philippians 2:11) "at the name of Jesus every knee will bow... [and] every tongue will confess [with sincerity and loving admiration] that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

more – Compared with this overview-summary the full section about biblical support for Ultimate Restoration has a lot more biblical information that will be useful for your careful studying.

logically, a decreasing belief in Infinite Misery
produces increasing belief in God's Existence:

IF we believe that God is good, THEN (with an evaluation that is purely logical) the more strongly we believe that God won't cause Infinite Misery, the more strongly we can believe that God exists.

Or, with questions:  Is it logical to conclude that God exists?  if you believe the claims that God is totally good AND He will cause Infinite Misery, how will this affect your logical evaluation of a claim that God exists?    {i.e. you're evaluating whether this God – defined in the claims as being good and also causing infinite misery – actually does exist}

This section examines two logical evaluations:  for three claims about Infinite Misery, and then for one claim about young-earth creation, with these narrow claims (about infinite misery, or a young earth) included within a broader claim that God exists.  In each case, when we claim “God exists” the narrow claims help to answer the question “what kind of God is being claimed, and therefore is being evaluated?”

a response that is logical – by rejecting a “misery causing” God:   Defenders of Eternal Misery claim that God exists and is all-powerful and is all-good and will cause infinite misery for most of the people He caused to be born into life-and-afterlife.  {all Christians should agree about the first three claims, and the "extra" final claim is added by EM}   When the last three claims (that God has power, is good, causes misery) are combined, they provide reasons for a logical person to respond by rejecting the first claim, that God exists.  Why?

• The main logical reason to reject a belief that a misery-causing God exists is the ethical conflict between two claims* – God is good, and God will cause Infinite Misery – because most people (using the moral conscience given to them by God) conclude that a good God would not cause Infinite Misery.  Although defenders of Eternal Misery try to find reasons for believing that a divine causing of Infinite Misery would be good, these reasons seem unjustifiable ethically, biblically, and logically.  I think this is recognized by Christians, unconsciously even if not consciously, and even though Infinite Misery is included in the doctrinal statements of “what we believe” in many Christian churches, this is not truly believed in the hearts-and-minds of most Christian people.    {* These two claims are usually assumed by non-Christians;  this fact is an elephant in the room that is ignored by most Christians, and most people will continue believing “EM is the claim of Christians because the Bible teaches EM” unless this assumption is challenged.}

• Another option is to accept “God will cause Infinite Misery” but (using the logic above) reject “God is good” to produce the terrifying proposal that we live in a world governed by a God who is all-powerful but is not-good so He will cause Infinite Misery.

• What about the fourth claim?  A person could reject “God is all-powerful” so they can accept “God is all-good” even though “God will cause infinite suffering” that they think is a not-good action.  In fact, this rejection is done (unintentionally) in a video where a defender of Eternal Misery proposes that EM-Hell is an inevitable result of “the way the world is” so we should accept the suffering of EM, just like we accept the suffering caused by gravity, e.g. when a person falls from a high roof and is badly injured but doesn't die.  This video assumes a semi-powerful God who is not responsible for whether hell exists, and for what happens in hell.  In this view, God must operate within a world-structure He cannot change, that includes these features:  every person who is born must be resurrected into Afterlife where they will exist forever, and God cannot prevent this automatic universal unconditional immortality;   if a person has not been “saved by God” during Life (before their Death), God cannot save them during Afterlife;   in Afterlife the experience of an unsaved person will be Misery that cannot be prevented by God.  The result of combining these limitations (universal unconditional immortality, no salvation in Afterlife, Misery for the unsaved) is unavoidable Eternal Misery that, because it happens for an infinite time, will be Infinite Misery.  But... this defense of God's ethics – by claiming “EM-Hell isn't the way God wants it to be, it's just the way things are” – requires limiting the power of God.  Instead, a Bible-believing Christian must replace every cannot with will not because every characteristic of Hell – who will be there, what will happen to them, and their final result – is decided by God (or at least is allowed by God) so Hell will be the way our all-powerful God wants it to be.

a response that is more logical – by rejecting the “misery causing” claim:   Christians who want to know truth (and who love God, want to honor Him) can study the Bible carefully and see why the Bible doesn't describe a divine causing of Infinite Misery, so we should reject a claim that “God will cause Eternal Misery and thus Infinite Misery.”  In this way we can affirm the biblically justifiable claims that God exists and is all-powerful and is all-good.    {there are strong biblical reasons to believe that God will not cause Eternal Misery, instead will cause either Final Annihilation or Ultimate Reconciliation}

a response that is logical – by rejecting a “young earth” God:   Most defenders of young-earth creation claim that “if the Bible is true, the earth is young” which is logically equivalent to saying “if the earth is not young, the Bible is not true.”  How will a logical person respond if they think the Bible declares that “the earth is young” but they examine the extremely strong scientific evidence for an old earth and conclude “the earth is not young”?  They also can logically conclude “the Bible is not true” (at least in its young-earth claims) and “because the Bible is wrong about the earth's age, maybe it's also wrong about other things,” so in their thinking the Bible's authority is weakened.  This may lead them to have a weaker faith in God, or to reject a belief in God.

a response that is more logical – by rejecting the “young earth” claim:   Christians who want to know truth (and who love God, want to honor Him) can study the Bible carefully and see why the Bible doesn't describe a young-earth process of creation so we should reject a claim that “if the Bible is true, the earth is young.”    {instead there are strong reasons to think the logical 6-day structure of Genesis forms a non-chronological topical framework to describe the overall results of what God created, as explained here}

What are my views?

Logically, by evaluating the 3 Views based on what we see in the Bible,

    I'm extremely confident (why?) – but of course cannot be certain – that God won't cause Eternal Misery in Afterlife, that instead He mercifully-and-graciously will give Conditional Immortality so the final result (for people who were not saved at the end of their Life) will be either Final Annihilation (FA) or Ultimate Restoration (UR).  But...
    I'm less confident about choosing between these two views;  I won't claim that either “Annihilation will happen” or “Reconciliation will happen,” so my view is FA-or-UR.  Why is it "or" without high confidence?  Because defenders of both views have strong arguments for their own view, and strong counter-arguments against the other view.

Emotionally, I'm hoping UR will happen because this would be a happy ending for more people, it would be the best possible ending for God's grand story.     {an ending with Ultimate Restoration would be wonderful, and although Final Annihilation would be fair and not-horrible, it would be sad}  {by contrast, Eternal Misery would be a horrible “bad news” ending}

Logically, I'm optimistic that UR will happen, because there is strong biblical support for UR – and the more I'm learning about UR, the more optimistic I'm becoming. {currently my very-rough estimate is 90% for the probability of UR happening, so I'm confident that UR will happen, but not certain}     {more about my views}

* conditional immortality:  in the Bible, God has declared that He will give eternal life only to saved people (not to unsaved people) because He will use an if-then condition:  IF a person is saved, then God will cause them to be immortal, He will give them eternal life with joy.  But IF a person is not-saved, they will remain not-immortal and eventually they will die.  God will not cause anyone to have eternal life with sinful misery, instead He will cause either eternal life with joy, or permanent annihilation.

My Feelings about My Views:  Like other Bible-believing Christians, I feel responsibilities that include wanting to accurately describe the character of God and to avoid giving false hope or causing false fear.  I also have mixed feelings about sharing my views with fellow Christians.

Your Choice

Above you can see what I think.  But of course what you think is more important for you.  Therefore,... what do you think about God, and about yourself?  What will you choose to do?

How will your decision affect you, in your Life & Afterlife?  Why should you “say YES to God” now?  What are the benefits?

If you “say YES to God” now, you can...

gain positives now:  If you say YES, the main benefit is that you will have a closer relationship with God, letting you more fully experience the loving of God.  You can love God, and feel loved by Him.  He also will help you live better by supplying what you need (love, joy, wisdom, strength, courage,...) in your daily living.  God doesn't promise that He always will make life easier for you, but He does promise to help you live better, and learn better, so you will become a better person.  When you are living by faith, He will help you be more healthy (spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically) so you can flourish, so you can grow in ways that are healthy for you, are important for you.  He will help you become liberated from the sinful thinking that harms you.  With personally customized guiding-and-empowering, God will help you actualize your whole-person potential, will help you be more effective in using everything He has given you (in your abilities, experiences, opportunities) so you can improve, so you can “do it better” in your living and loving.  God wants to help you achieve your true purposes in life (it's why He created you) by doing what He wants you to do with your life, what therefore will give you the greatest possible satisfaction.  If you believe that your life was given to you by God, you should thankfully acknowledge this by making Him the Lord of your life so He can help you achieve His purposes for you.  Later, when He asks “what did you do with the life I gave you?”, the way you lived will be your gift to God, and you will feel true joy if you're able to answer “I lived my life for You.”

gain positives later:  If you continue saying NO, and IF the final result of Hell will be a biblically plausible Final Annihilation (or implausible Eternal Misery), you will lose your opportunity for Eternal Joy in the physical Heaven-Kingdom of God.  This would be a huge loss.   /   But even if instead of FA or EM, God will produce universal Ultimate Restoration (UR) so eventually you will have Eternal Joy, if you're wise you should want to...

avoid negatives later:  Saying YES now (in Life) will save you from a later Hell (in Afterlife).  Even though Hell will not last forever with FA or UR – and ultimately it would have a happy ending with UR – it will be unpleasant, so Hell should be avoided, and “skipping this bad experience” is one reason to say YES now.

avoid negatives later:  Although based on my biblical evaluations I'm very confident that God won't cause Eternal Misery, I'm not certain.*  If you say YES now, you can avoid the horrible possibility of EM.    {* of course, you are evaluating-and-deciding for you, to help you make your choice}

gain positives & avoid negatives, now and later:  If you're a rational person who believes that God exists and He wants to give you salvation, you should respond by “saying YES to God” now, ASAP, because your Life will be better now – when you're loving God and feeling loved by Him – and later your Afterlife will be better, so at all times (during Life & Afterlife) your living will be better.

Here are two “extras” about honesty & humility, written mainly for non-Christians & Christians, respectively.

honesty:  This extra paragraph is included because I'm being honest about three reasons that depend on our uncertainty about what might happen later.  Even though I think we should be motivated by love (not fear) when we're deciding to serve God – by saying YES to be “born again” and then continuing to say YES for daily living-by-faith discipleship – and we should not cause false fear in an effort to motivate conversions, I'm being honest with you by admitting that (of course) I cannot be certain when we ask “what will be the final result of hell?”  And neither can you.  I know – and so do you – that a “bad surprise” is possible in Afterlife, that you could lose Eternal Joy (with FA that I estimate has a 10% chance of happening) or get Infinite Misery (with EM that I think is highly improbable, but not impossible).  Because of this uncertainty, "avoiding negatives later" might be a reason for you to say YES now.  I would like to tell you that I'm fairly certain UR (the best possible ending) will happen, but currently I cannot say this with honesty.     {if you want, you can see some of my thoughts for fellow Christians about evangelism & conversion & discipleship, love-and-fear as motivations for converting and for living by faith, practical effects of hell-views, evangelistic responsibilities to avoid causing either false hope or false fear – and even more}

humility:  Christians, including me, need to develop better explanations for why a non-Christian should say YES and live by faith as a Christian disciple, a dedicated follower of Jesus.  This is especially important, and valuable, when we shift our evangelistic emphasis from fear-based “fire escape” motives (of avoiding hell) to the love-based motives of gaining positives now so we can improve our living-and-loving.  Our promises (of benefits to be gained) must be biblically justifiable, and should be balanced by the high expectations of Jesus (to "lose your life for My sake" by living your life in service to Him) along with His promises of comfort and support, "My yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light" and "I am with you always."    /    All of this is complex, and doing it well is difficult.  It's an important responsibility, so I've tried to do my best in this section, which in the future will be revised & improved.  But it certainly isn't the best that could be done.  With humility, I realize that it should be done better by me, has been done better by others;  and I have realistic hopes that in the future, we (me & others) will do it better.

The Whole News in Three Views of Hell

Below, 3 sections describe 3 kinds of “Whole News” (summarized in the ToC) if the final result of Hell will be Eternal Misery (this would be Good News plus Bad News) or Ultimate Restoration (only Good News) or Final Annihilation (Good News but also Sad).

if Eternal Misery will be the final result of Hell,

The Good News (The Gospel of Jesus Christ) would be converted into a mixture of Good News (for a few people) plus Bad News (for most people).

    • Good News:  A modern summary of The Gospel explains that "God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life," and you can live this plan if you say YES to God now during your Life, and later God will give you Eternal Joy in Afterlife.  This is Good News.
    • Bad News:  But if God will cause Eternal Misery – because He seems to have different kinds of divine love now and later – The Whole News includes Bad News because if now you continue saying NO during your Life, so you die without being saved by God, then later God hates you and has a terrible plan for your Afterlife, for your zillions of years in hell, feeling misery that will never end.

Announcing the birth of Jesus, an angel said (Luke 2:10) "I bring good news to you – wonderful, joyous news for all people."  But would it be "good news" for someone who later (in Afterlife) is beginning to endure misery that they know will never end, who never asked to be born into Life-and-Afterlife, yet will be suffering forever?  It's impossible to imagine how this person could say “yes, God is good” and “I thank God for creating me.”  Earlier, during Life this person was loved, so for people who now (in Life) are thinking about them, will The Whole News of EM – it's The Mixed News that is Good News for a few, but Bad News for most – seem like Good News for someone who loved a person that already died and (almost certainly) was not saved before they died?  or probably will die without being saved?

IF Ultimate Restoration will be the final result of Hell,

The Good News (The Gospel of Jesus Christ) really is "good news... for all people" because we can declare that God will produce the greatest good (Eternal Joy) for the greatest number (for everyone).  This will be the best possible ending for God's grand story when He has used education-and-correction to radically transform all persons and all relationships so every person is free (mentally & spiritually) with no sin;  God has caused them to become the way He always wanted them to be, so they can fully love other people and fully love God, can be fully alive with Eternal Joy.  By ultimatelyproducing this Universal Restoration, God will finally achieve justice that is righteousness.  In the end, every person will say “I thank God for creating me” and “I'm satisfied with what God gave me (and others) in Life-and-Afterlife.”  Eventually (after all things are known, and all things are considered) all of us will agree that “God was wise and good.”

if Final Annihilation will be the result of Hell,

The Good News (The Gospel of Jesus Christ) is "good news... for all people" who will be alive.  For them the final state would be almost the same as with Ultimate Restoration,* after a "transforming of all persons and all relationships so they... can be fully alive with Eternal Joy."  The similarity occurs because UR and FA both satisfy God's if-then condition for conditional immortality that prevents sinners from living forever in a state of sin, that mercifully prevents their eternal misery.  But there is a major difference, so...

The final results are "almost the same" with FA and UR,* but are not the same.  Two differences are that...

With FA there would be fewer people;  those who were unsaved-at-death will be gone.  This is the most-sad part of my description of FA as being "fair yet sad."  The main reason for sadness is that during Life these people loved and were loved, but now they're gone forever.

With FA there would be another reason for sadness, due to the missing people;  their absence would prevent a total restoration of relationships.  Why?  Because during life every person has been a victim (hurt by others) and an offender (hurting others).  Both kinds of hurting must be healed, in a total restoring of relationships.  An essential part of emotional healing is forgiving;  many times, each of us has been a victim (who needs to forgive people) and an offender (who needs to be forgiven by people & by God).  How could these forgivings happen?  Maybe... in pUR-Hell, God will use Life-Review Videos for all events during our lives.  Maybe... everyone will see-hear-feel all videos (with sorrowful repentant responses from every other person) and the shared re-experiencing will produce powerful mutual empathies & compassions, so ultimately everyone will forgive everyone and all will be emotionally healed, to achieve a total reconciling of every person with all other persons.  But this could not occur with FA – if most of the "all other persons" have been annihilated – because for a total reconciling each of us needs to forgive everyone, and be forgiven by everyone.

{more – how a total restoring of all people and all relationships would be hindered if annihilation prevents a total reconciling of all people because "each man's life touches so many other lives; when he isn't around, he leaves an awful hole" whether an "isn't around" happens in my favorite movie or after FA hinders a divine process of total reconciling-and-restoring}

praising the actual character of God, and

criticizing an incorrect theory-about-God

In the Table of Contents my overview of this section describes its goals:  to show why I can "criticize the false idea of an EM-causing God without criticizing God (because I think He won't cause EM) and without criticizing people (because I think they are wanting to honor God even though I think they are saying untrue-and-harmful things about God)."  How is this possible?  First I'll explain why I'm not criticizing people, and then why I'm not criticizing God.

why I'm not criticizing people:

When we're trying to imagine the character of God IF He will cause EM, some devout God-loving Christians think “YES, this IF will happen,” but others think “NO, this IF won't happen.”  After a person decides YES or NO, they now are thinking that either “BECAUSE God will cause EM,     ” or “BECAUSE God won't cause EM,     ” and they fill the blank in a way that will honor God.  They either...

With either conclusion about IF (and thus BECAUSE) a devout Bible-believing Christian can defend the character of God by saying what they think-and-feel about what they have concluded He will do, or He won't do.

Why is this important?  Because in our current culture of hostility, some people will harshly criticize (with strong words & strong emotions) other people because these people either are defending the character of our God who (in their IF-thinking) will cause EM, or they are criticizing the character of our God who (in their IF-thinking) won't cause EM.  Therefore, I'm explaining why a harsh criticism (of either type) is not logically justifiable, so we can “agree to disagree” with civility, mutual respect, and Christian love.

why I'm not criticizing God when I criticize a causing-of-EM:

I want to defend the honor of God by showing (biblically) why God is not a causer of Eternal Misery.  I'm extremely confident that EM is biblically implausible for a variety of reasons.  The strongest reason is that in a careful studies of relevant biblical texts, we see strong support against EM, but very weak support for EM.  And in another kind of Bible-based evidence, we see a mis-match when we compare the biblically revealed character of our actual God with the character of a hypothetical EM-Causing God.  The Bible tells us that God is good and He does good things, but He would do bad things IF He causes EM.  This contrast between Actual God (with good character) and a hypothetical EM-causing God (with bad character) is strong evidence that The EM-Hypothesis – claiming “God will cause Eternal Misery for most of the people He caused to exist” – is incorrect.

* In the rest of this long section, I'm criticizing the character of "a hypothetical EM-Causing God" that is just an idea-about-God, it's just a humanly constructed theory about what God will do.  I'm extremely confident that it's an un-true theory about God (i.e. it's an incorrect theory about God, it's a mistaken speculation about Afterlife;  it's wrong, is not true because it doesn't match the reality of what really will happen) so I'll be criticizing only this false theory-about-God (that is only an idea, existing in the imaginations of some people) instead of the Actual God who actually exists in reality, who decides (and causes) what will happen in Hell.     {also, I'm not criticizing people who claim that God will cause EM}

Why am I writing criticisms that are extremely harsh, that compare a causing-of-EM (IF this will happen, but it won't)* with a torturing husband & threatening gunman and the evil actions of Hitler & Stalin?  It's because I want to let you know that I have empathy for what you're thinking & feeling, that I understand the rational reasons for your fear-and-disgust when you hear claims that an all-powerful God will use His power to cause infinite suffering with Eternal Misery.  I'm acknowledging this elephant (instead of ignoring it) and am telling you “God won't do this horrible thing” so you won't want to reject God because of your disgust, or decide to grudgingly “say yes (sort of)” partly due to a terrifying fear of Eternal Hell.  I want to help you fully trust God, so you can enthusiastically “say YES!” and fully love our fully-loving God.

* My criticisms are analogous to you criticizing the behavior of an actual child molester, in a situation where you also are defending your best friend (Jim, a respected leader in your community) who is being falsely accused of molesting children.  You will criticize the behavior of an actual child molester, and also explain why (based on the strong evidence that exists) you're able to confidently say “Jim has not been molesting children.”  You are criticizing a hypothetical person who does these evil actions, but you are not criticizing the actual person (Jim).  Instead you're explaining why the evidence shows that Jim did not do these evil actions, and why you believe that Jim is not the kind of person who would do these evil actions.  You are saying “IF Jim IS doing this it would be evil, BUT the evidence indicates that he IS NOT doing this.”

As explained above, "I'll be criticizing only this false theory-about-God [claiming that God will cause Infinite Misery], not the Actual God who actually exists in reality."  To symbolize the unreality of the imaginary EM-Causing God that I'm criticizing, most of what's below is inside a gray box.  This shadow-color is a reminder that I'm criticizing only an incorrect theory about God.  I'm not criticizing our Actual God who exists in reality.

praising the actual character of God:

When a person “says YES to God” they will want to obey God's Two Great Commandments by fully loving God and fully loving people.  When we fully believe that God is good, it's much easier to fully love God.

As one part of fully loving God we should praise God for everything He has done, is doing, and will do.*  I think most Christians have difficulty praising God for “what He will do to people in Hell” IF they think He will cause Eternal Misery.  Compared with this, praising is much easier IF we think He will cause Final Annihilation.  And it's easy to enthusiastically praise God IF we think about what God will do for people in UR-Hell, when He transforms all people and all relationships into what He always wanted them to be.

* Of course, we should "praise God for everything" in all areas of life, because (in a very brief summary of themes we see throughout the Bible) God is loving, and He wants justice.

A biblical example of enthusiastic praise is the end of Romans 9-11 when Paul ends his logic with a conclusion (11:32) that "God has shut up all in disobedience [due to Adam] so that [through Christ] He may show mercy to all," with His loving "mercy to all" inspiring (in Romans 11:33-36) our worship: "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! ... For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things.  To Him be the glory forever.  Amen."  Yes!

Now and Later – will God change?

Consider the wonderful praising in this classic hymn:

    Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
    there is no shadow of turning with Thee;
    Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not,
    as Thou has been, Thou forever will be.

Should we proclaim The Good News that God is Good ?

The page-intro ends with a reason for action:

   Unfortunately, the IF (of Eternal Misery) is assumed to be true by most people, both Christians & non-Christians.  Therefore when we remain silent – without explaining why “no, God won't cause Eternal Misery” – most people will continue believing that “yes, God will cause Eternal Misery for most people.”  This belief will affect the way people think about God (re: His character & actions) and their feelings about God (in their trusting & loving Him).  ...  If we say nothing, Eternal Misery is assumed.  ...  But if instead of ignoring this elephant in the room we acknowledge it and openly discuss it, there would be significant benefits, but also complications, so we have reasons for action [continued below] and [in the last half of this section] reasons for caution.

Here is more about this main reason for action:

There is an ugly elephant in the room.  It's the common belief that God will cause the infinite misery of Eternal Misery for most of the people He created, by resurrecting them, judging them, deciding they deserve to remain alive in misery, forever. (but why would God want to do this? what would be the purpose?)   This elephant in the room is an elephant in the mind that affects thinking whenever people ask “what is God like?” and answer “He is the kind of God who will cause Eternal Misery.”  Unfortunately, this kind of God is assumed by most people, both Christians & non-Christians, due to claims about EM (in the past & present) made by some Christians.

This claim is ugly.  It's an ugly elephant in the room — defined as "an obvious fact, especially one regarded as embarrassing or undesirable, that is being intentionally ignored, ... a serious problem that everyone is aware of ... that is obvious or of great importance, but is not discussed openly" — and it should not be ignored.  Instead this claim (and a contrasting claim) should be discussed openly.*  For this elephant the "obvious fact" is the logical mis-match between two claims being made by Christians;  all of us claim that God is good, yet many claim that God will do un-good actions.*  But when we study carefully we see that the Bible does not teach Eternal Misery.  Then after we recognize that in reality the "IF" of Eternal Misery won't happen, we are free to honor God (to affirm “yes, God is good”) by saying “no, God will not cause EM” and by empathetically acknowledging – consistent with the consciences of all people – that “causing Eternal Misery – IF in reality God will do this, but He won't do it – would not be a loving-and-good action”}

* an ugly elephant in the mind:  What happens when EM is not openly discussed?  EM is assumed.  Even when the ugly claim – that God will cause the infinite misery of Eternal Misery – is not made explicitly, this is implicitly assumed (by most people in our culture) to be The Christian Claim, so ignoring Eternal Misery lets it continue being The Christian Claim.  Because EM is dominant in the thinking of almost all people in modern western societies, when they're thinking about Hell (and thus about God) it's an ugly elephant in the mind, it's a horribly distorted way to think about who God is and what He will do.

Of course, for all Bible-believing Christians the foundation for our open discussion is asking “what do we see in the Bible?” so we should begin by carefully studying the Bible.  When we do this, we see very strong biblical reasons to conclude that the final result of hell will be permanent death or permanent correction-with-healing, not permanent sinful misery.  And we see that God is good.  Therefore it's biblically-logical for us to conclude (and to tell everyone) that “yes, God is good” and also “no, God will not do un-good actions” because “no, God will not cause Eternal Misery.”

a reason for action:

As described above, Christians can defend the honor of God by defending the goodness of God, by declaring that He won't do the bad actions of causing the infinite misery of Eternal Misery, by explaining why we should believe (based on what the Bible teaches) that God won't cause Eternal Misery.  But we also have...

reasons for caution:

These reasons are mainly important for fellow Christians.  But no matter what you believe, you might be wondering “why don't I hear this claim (that the Bible doesn't teach Eternal Misery) more often?”  The typical silence is partly due to the reasons for caution, but also because most Christians just assume the Bible teaches EM, instead of carefully studying the question for themself.

The many "reasons for caution" are too complex to briefly summarize.  Instead, here I'll just write a list of factors to consider, with links to my “page for Christians” where the ideas are described and examined.  If you have time for only a little more reading, I recommend the final section, about "my reasons for caution."

The sections begin by describing the basic situation and...  why I'm disappointed-and-sad about claims for Eternal Misery (EM) by other believers;   their responses to people (others & myself) who propose Final Annihilation (FA) or Ultimate Reconciliation (UR), and my own limited actions since 1987;   doing actions (in writing & conversation) with skill;   external pressures (personal and professional) to conform by not opposing EM, and internal pressures (because all of us want to avoid thinking “I was wrong” or “we were wrong”);*   two traditions (bad & better, that did & didn't happen) with many harmful effects caused by the inertia of tradition;   my personal experiences (mainly positive so far) and cautious attitude, limited actions;   my reasons for caution are interpersonal (with some concerns about myself, but mainly for church communities & their leaders) and functional (re: evangelistic responsibilities and practical effects) that are complicated due to conflicting factors and biblical ambiguity.

* a difficulty:  Due to our sinful human nature, we are motivated to avoid acknowledging (or even consciously recognizing) that we have been wrong, or are being wrong, in any of our thinking or actions.  We don't want to acknowledge an “oops” privately (to ourselves) or publicly (to others).  This human tendency (to reduce cognitive dissonance) will cause strong emotional reactions when a person's belief that “God will cause Eternal Misery” is challenged.  One challenge is explaining why I think the Bible doesn't teach EM.  Another kind of challenge, that could lead to stronger emotional responses, is my claim that IF God will cause EM (but I'm extremely confident that He won't), this causing of EM would be a non-good action, it isn't an action that a good God would do.

trying to decrease the difficulty:  In various ways – as in explaining our “IF and thus BECAUSE” logic – I want to help us discuss hell-issues honestly yet respectfully, by recognizing that Bible-believing Christians who love God (and want to honor Him) can either defend EM-doctrine or criticize EM-doctrine.  I'm a critic of EM, and I'm trying to reduce unproductive emotional reactions (while recognizing the unfortunate reality that some will occur) by explaining the logical reasons for why, when I criticize the actions of a hypothetical God who would cause EM, I'm not criticizing our actual God (who I think will not cause EM) and I'm not criticizing people who claim that God will cause EM.  Instead my purpose in making these criticisms (of a hypothetical non-real God who would cause EM) is to tell a reader that I have empathy for what they are thinking & feeling, that I understand the rational reasons for their fear-and-disgust when they hear claims that an all-powerful God will use His power to cause infinite suffering with Eternal Misery.  I'm acknowledging this EM-elephant (instead of ignoring it) and am telling them “God won't do this horrible action” because I want to help them avoid a decision to reject God because of their disgust, or to grudgingly say “yes (but not with their whole heart & mind)” because although their “yes” is motivated by their fear of Eternal Hell, but it's “not with their whole heart & mind” because they are terrified by God, instead of being in love with God.  I want to help these people fully trust God, so they can enthusiastically “say YES!” and fully love our fully-loving God.

Why would God use a UR-Hell?

(a possible purpose and process)

The table of contents describes this question:

I'm claiming that IF God causes universal Ultimate Restoration, He will do this by using temporary negative experiences in UR-Hell.  So we can ask “Why would God use a UR-Hell?”  Even though God would do this in order to transform people in ways that improve them, for the good purpose of ultimately producing permanent positive experiences in Heaven where everyone will have Eternal Joy, this claim...

    • will be criticized by some non-Christians (IF they think “God shouldn't judge people and change them”) because I'm proposing that God will use temporarily unpleasant experiences (during educational correction & healing in UR-Hell) because this correction is necessary to transform people and produce justice – to make all things (especially people & our relationships) the way they should be – so everyone can have permanently pleasant experiences of Eternal Joy, in The Best Possible Ending for God's Grand Story.     { it ends by linking to this section for "more" – and here it is: }

a beneficial purpose for purgatorial UR-Hell, as a way to

produce The Best Possible Ending for God's Grand Story

IF God will produce Ultimate Restoration,* the final result will be the best possible final state for all people.  Is this a divine goal worth achieving?  Yes.  In order to achieve this goal, will it be necessary for God to use a purgatorial UR-Hell?  Yes.

* I'm assuming the IF (of God producing Ultimate Restoration) in this section, and all conclusions – like the "best possible final state" and "Yes... Yes" above, or "people must be able to..." below – are my own thoughts.

In the best possible final state of UR, people must be able to fully love each other, and fully love God.  With people as-we-are now, this kind of effective loving isn't possible;  we cannot fully love, due to the weakness & sinfulness in our character.  Therefore, God must improve us – with a process-of-correction analogous to the “pruning” or “cutting” done by a skillful gardener or surgeon – to remove all of the character flaws that prevent us from fully loving.

In order for God to produce the best possible Final State, He must fully restore all persons and all relationships, so we can fully love.  When God does this with His UR, He will be producing total justice (i.e. producing total righteousness) by making everything be the way it should be, the way God always wanted it to be.  {more}

Currently many things are not right, they are not the way they should be, especially in the thinking-and-doing of all people.  Every person sometimes is a victim (who has been hurt by the sinful offenses of others) and sometimes is an offender (who hurts others).   These hurtings produce needs:  as victims, we need to forgive people, and we want to know that they have sorrowfully repented;   as offenders, we should want to repent-and-apologize, and we need to be forgiven by people & by God.  These forgivings – done by us for others, and by others for us – are an essential part of producing reconciliations that are “horizontal” (between people) and “vertical” (between people and God).  {more}

All of these hurtings are injustices that God wants to fix, to make right.  The Bible tells us that God is loving, AND God is just.  Is it possible to have love-without-justice?  No.  Why not?  God is the only all-powerful entity, so if the cosmos will ever have total justice, this must be produced by Him.  In an imaginary love-without-justice, God would use a “gentle bunny” approach, like an incompetent human judge saying “you're innocent” or “you're guilty, but free to walk away” for every crime.  Instead of this foolish love-without-justice “gentle bunny” leniency, God will (if He will produce UR) use UR-Hell to combine love with justice.    {do you think it's possible to have a best possible final state without having total justice?  and is it possible to have justice, with everything being the way it should be, unless every person is able to fully love?}   {in biblical Greek, the word for justice also means righteousness}  {by contrast, the final result of Eternal Misery would be very unrighteous, without justice, because God would be causing sinners-and-sinning to exist forever}

The three views-of-hell all agree that God will produce justice-with-love, but disagree when we ask “how will He do this?”   When we're thinking about love-with-justice, we should begin by...

avoiding a common misunderstanding:  Does universal-UR propose that everyone will be welcomed into Heaven “just as they are”?  No.  For example, will Hitler be able to enter Heaven as-he-was during his life?  No.  Before he can be part of the best possible final state (with UR), Hitler must be radically transformed (and a major part of this process will be his sorrowful repentance) so he can fully love, and so (as one aspect of healing all relationships) all of his victims can forgive him.  But... you and I – and every other person – also must be transformed so we can fully love.

But... HOW will God transform us?

A Process for UR-Hell

IF God will produce Ultimate Restoration – and thus "the best possible final state for all people" – He will have to radically transform every person so we can fully love.  He will do this by using a process of educational correcting-and-healing in UR-Hell.   {more}

a reminder:  In this section, I'm assuming the "IF" (of God producing Ultimate Restoration), and all conclusions – like "He will do this by..." above, and "the process of correction done by God" below – are my own thoughts.

In UR-Hell the process of correction (done by God) will be analogous to a corrective process of medical surgery (done by a human), although God's process will be done more skillfully than any human process.   /   For several reasons, it's useful to think about the correcting-by-God as being a purging-by-God.  Therefore this view of HOW God will achieve Ultimate Restoration (UR) is often called purgatorial Ultimate Restoration (pUR);  below you'll see both terms, as a reminder that UR-Hell is pUR-Hell where God will use His divine fire to purify people.

In each corrective process the purpose is to improve the person, and some suffering will occur.  But the suffering is not the goal, it's just an unfortunately-necessary part of the process that is required to achieve the goal of improving the person.  During the experiences of each person in pUR-Hell, God's goal is not to cause suffering;  instead He wants to improve the person, with divine corrective surgery that “cuts away” all of their sins, removing all of the sinful thinking-and-feeling that prevents them from fully loving.   /   And any temporary suffering in UR-Hell can be ethically justified because it later will produce permanent benefits in UR-Heaven.  Although the logic of “ends justifying means” can be abused when we use it for the purpose of rationalizing unethical huma n actions, it's a very useful ethical principle when we're considering the overall result of how minor temporary suffering in pUR-Hell (caused by God) produce major permanent benefits in UR-Heaven (also caused by God).

When we compare UR-Hell with FA-Hell or (especially) with EM-Hell, a major difference is that in pUR-Hell the process will be love-in-action that produces beneficial results for the person, with God lovingly correcting them so they become a better person.  By contrast, in FA-Hell any personal changes (beneficial or harmful) would vanish when the person dies;  and in EM-Hell the personal changes would harm the person, making them worse, more sinful, less loving.  This is one reason to think the quality of God's justice-with-love would be best if He uses UR-Hell, and worst if He causes EM-Hell.

I describe pUR-Hell as "a process of educational correcting-and-healing."  In human surgery or divine surgery, a “cutting away of bad things” (e.g. removing of cancer by humans, removing of un-loving character by God) is followed by healing, so the net result of the whole process (correcting + healing) is a person who is more healthy than before the surgery.

education in UR-Hell:  My definition of education is learning from experience;  a person's experience in pUR-Hell would improve their understanding of God (re: His existence, loving character, plan for achieving justice) and understanding of themself (re: what they are, and what they want) so – in a process analogous to salvation in Life – they will believe-and-repent, and be saved by God.

details of a process:  Jesus tells us "everything that is covered up will be revealed... what you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear."  This doesn't happen in Life, so (logically) it will happen in Afterlife.  MAYBE...* it will happen in Life-Review Videos that reveal the history of our feeling-and-thinking about people (ourselves & others) and about God, showing us the effects of our feelings-thoughts-actions.  These effects on others, and ourselves, are primary (when we affect people through our direct interactions with them) and secondary (when these people are changed by our interactions with them, and they continue interacting with others) in a wide-ranging interconnected web of interpersonal interactions.

* In this sub-section, an "if" or "maybe" is a reminder that the process I'm describing is just my speculative imagining, although this process does seem consistent with scripture (as in "everything... will be revealed") and with a divine goal of achieving justice by making everything the way it should be.  It also doesn't contradict anything in the Bible (afaik) because God doesn't tell us a lot of details – except for this “revealing of everything” – about HOW He will transform us into becoming the way we should be.

IF God will use life-review videos, maybe...  He will give each person multiple super-abilities — like more empathy & compassion (perhaps by viewing events from the perspectives of others), and self-responsibility (leading to sorrowful repentance with a desire to apologize, and to change), plus heightened physical senses (of seeing, hearing,...) — to make our re-experiencing of events more intense, to magnify our feelings of joy (for joy-producing things that happened to us, and good joy-causing things we did) and sorrow (for sorrow-producing things that happened to us, and bad sorrow-causing things we did, and good joy-causing things we could have done but didn't do), with all emotional responses helping to produce beneficial personal & interpersonal transformations because God will be correcting-and-healing all persons & all relationships.

How will God heal all relationships?  Maybe... all people will see/hear/feel all videos (that feature the sorrowful repentant responses of all others) and the shared re-experiencing will produce powerful mutual empathies & compassions, so ultimately everyone will forgive everyone and all will be emotionally healed, to achieve a total reconciling of all people with each other.

Almost certainly... during this process, God will provide divine guiding-and-empowering through intimate spiritual connections with each person, to help them learn more from their experiences.   /   For personal improving, God will help them improve by stimulating their conscience so they repent (i.e. they truly want to change, and decide to change) – because they want their un-loving thoughts & feelings to be eliminated – so they have an authentic desire to let God radically transform them, they want to cooperate with His purifying process, His removing of their sinful thinking-and-feeling.  They want to be radically transformed into being totally healthy (in their feeling-thinking & actions), so they will become the fully loving person that God always wanted them to be, and is now helping them to become.   /   For interpersonal improving, God will increase their empathy & compassion, so during their Videos they will feel sorrow for their sinful interactions with others during Life;  they will retain their compassionate empathy during the rest of their Afterlife, but after they are fully loving they won't do anything (in their feeling-thinking & actions) that will cause them to be sorrowful. 

Maybe... a major cause of suffering in pUR-Hell (but not the only cause) will be the intense sorrow a person feels during their Life-Review Videos, when the sorrowful suffering they caused in Life (what they sowed) leads to the sorrowful suffering they feel in Afterlife (what they are reaping), with the intrinsic justice of “what you sow, you reap.”  This aspect of pUR-Hell would produce personally-customized accountability for actions, because if more suffering caused in Life, then more suffering received in Afterlife.    /    a reminder:  in pUR-Hell the suffering (in sorrows during Life-Videos, and in other ways) is functional, it has the worthy purpose of improving the person's character, not causing pain for the purpose of simply inflicting pain;  instead it's collateral damage that occurs during the process of improving the person.  In pUR-Hell, God's main goal will be restorative, not retributive;  God doesn't merely get justice, instead He does justice.   {more}

I.O.U. – During 2022, I'll continue working on the ideas below, to revise-and-use them or cut them.

Speculations about HOW  —  a review:  if people will be educated and corrected-healed in purgatorial UR-Hell, how will this happen?    maybe...

• life-review videos for every person (with intense re-experiencing of events, viewed in detail from their own perspective and from the perspectives of others) → responses of repentance with sorrowful emotional suffering (that may produce physically felt suffering), and repentance-plus-belief → (as in Life) salvation thru Jesus?

does God want to achieve Justice with Love?   will this happen?   if yes, how?

maybe... God will produce Restorative Justice by using pUR to cause a healing of all persons, and healing of all relationships:

retributive justice versus restorative justice (with quality of restoring limited by human limitations, sinfulness)

(producing restorative righteousness-justice by sanctifying every person and healing every relationship)

defn of UR-Hell, place/time where process occurs {more}

MORE GENERALLY, if all-powerful & all-loving, why allow suffering?

ends justify means [e.g. dentist, surgeon] -- any theodicy, why suffering now? because beneficial later {more}

why life-challenges now? so we can learn now & later, like teacher with inquiry-struggles

if heaven with hitler as-he-was? [this is a misunderstanding, or intentional strawman-distortion] * purgatorial Universal Reconciliation does not propose that Hitler will enter Heaven as-he-was during Life.  Instead, during Educational Healing in Purgatorial UR-Hell every previously-unsaved sinner "will be radically transformed so they are not still sinful, so they are sanctified and are suitable for Afterlife in Heaven."  Because of this, the person entering Heaven will not be the horrible Hitler as-he-was, instead he will be "radically transformed" after repenting of his many sins, after being forgiven by people and by God.

{an excellent 6:43 video about restoring-for-offenders and justice-for-victims by Robin Parry}

JUSTICE

Here are two whole-Bible principles:

    God's justice is strongly emphasized throughout the Bible, and by Jesus;  God sets high standards for us, for what we think-and-do, and He will hold each of us accountable for our thoughts-and-actions. 
    God's loving is strongly emphasized throughout the Bible, and by Jesus;  when God forgives us, it's because He loves us.  And when God corrects us, it's because He loves us.

Justice-and-Love:  In the afterlife, will God forgive those who rejected Him during their lives?  The Bible teaches us that God wants His actions to achieve justice and (with merciful forgiving and in other ways) be loving.  Sometimes during our discussions of what would happen in hell (with EM, FA, UR) these two essential character traits are contrasted, so we're thinking about God's justice OR love.  Instead, we should think about how God could do justice-AND-love, to achieve justice in ways that also are loving.  (is it possible that God is, during Life-and-Afterlife, Always Totally Just AND Always Totally Loving?  can we praise God for what He will do to people in hell?)     {appropriate humility about the moral character of God} / with UR, everyone will say "thank you"

PRINCIPLES, based on biblical teachings:

[[ Overall Existence, with Experiences-plus-Changes:  We should hope for an eventual result that leads every person to say "this was fair" in life-plus-afterlife, and "thank you for creating me, and for all of my experiences." ]]

[[ Moral Luck:  if God uses a purgatory Afterlife-Hell, I think He will consider the Moral Luck of individuals in Life (re: their abilities, life-situations, and life-opportunities) so He can customize their experiences;  this seems consistent with biblical descriptions, by Jesus, of servants who knew a lot (and therefore are beaten with many stripes) and those who didn't know much;  during education in hell God could give special consideration to those with bad moral luck, to "even it out" and as part of the "differing degrees of sorrow" during a painful purging;  I'm speculatively imagining, in this way, how God could "give grace" to those who were unlucky in their life-situations and in their probability of saying YES to God in Life]]  [[iou - I will connect this with binary special situations re: moral luck and other kinds of luck]]   [[ here, I will describe Rawls "veil of ignorance" and empathy-plus-compassion, when we're making decisions about policies for society ]]

intro, toc,

a 3 views,

b biblical evidence & bur, c belief in god's existence, d my views,

e your choice, f news (em ur fa), g defending & criticizing,

h caution, i education