Christian hell is a morally abhorrent concept

I find the topic of hell unusually interesting. I find myself in the odd position of agreeing with Pro - at least with a few qualifications. I agree that there are versions of hell found within the Christian tradition that are morally abhorrent and I have actually argued for that conclusion in the past here. But the rub is I think there are versions of hell within the Christian tradition that are not morally abhorrent, and it is those versions I will defend. To the lay my cards on the table: I am a Christian universalist. [1] Universalists of my stripe emphatically believe in hell - they just don't believe that it is eternal. While hell it may serve some retributive aims, it also serves the aims to remediate, reconcile, restore, and rehabilitate sinners. Or in essence, all will be saved eventually. Some just have to go through hell (literally and figuratively) to attain salvation. Needless to say speaking as a universalist I don't agree that the bible teaches a hell of eternal duration. Now, I don't think that Pro wants to end up having this debate turn into a one of mostly exegesis - that is, a matter of how to correctly interpret and make sense specific biblical texts - because the debate resolution is primarily a moral and ethical resolution and me endeavoring to show universalism from the bible wouldn't necessarily mitigate all of Pro's concerns about the notion of hell. Some brief general comments are in order though. For one, the word translated as "eternal" (aion in many of the passages listed by Pro has significant translational difficulties with it:"Aion, transliterated aeon, is a period of longer or shorter duration, having a beginning and an end, and complete in itself. Aristotle (peri ouravou, i. 9, 15) said, “The period which includes the whole time of one’s life is called the aeon of each one. ” Hence, it often means the life of a man, as in Homer, where one’s life (aion) is said to leave him or to consume away (Il v.685; Od v.160). It is not, however, limited to human life. It signifies any period in the course of the millennium, the mythological period before the beginnings of history. The word has not “a stationary and mechanical value” (De Quincey). It does not mean a period of a fixed length for all cases. There are as many aeons as entities, the respective durations of which are fixed by the normal conditions of the several entities. There is one aeon of a human life, another of the life of a nation, another of a crow’s life, another of an oak’s life. The length of the aeon depends on the subject to which it is attached. …The adjective aionious in like manner carries the idea of time. Neither the noun nor the adjective, in themselves, carry the sense of endless or everlasting. They may acquire that sense by their connotation…. Aionios means “enduring through” or “pertaining to a period of time. ” Both the noun and the adjective are applied to limited periods…. Out of the 150 instances in LXX, [Greek Old Testament] four-fifths imply limited duration. For a few instances, see Gen. xlviii. 4; Num. x. 8; xv. 15; Prov. xxii. 28; Jonah ii.6; Hab. iii. 6; Isa lxi. 17.4" [2]For two, there seem to be passages in the bible that teach that all will be saved. Romans 5:18: "Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. "; 1 Corinthians 15:22: "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. "; Colossians 1:20: "and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. "; Philippians 2:9-11: Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name; (10) that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven,those on earth, and those under the earth, (11) and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, etc. So, I will assume from now on that the notion of "Christian hell" here is not eternal unless I need to argue further otherwise. TortureOne could still insist, with Pro, that even on the universalist understanding of hell as temporary is still depicts God as a being who tortures sinners into heaven as it were; that he tortures them into "accepting" his offer of grace. That is still a serious charge that should be answered. Hell is typically thought of a clear manifestation of divine wrath. But what exactly constitutes divine wrath? In Romans 1:18-32 it is said that God's wrath simply is him withdrawing his protections and letting people experience the natural and self-destructive consequences of their sins. [3] So on this understanding of the divine wrath God does not torture people into insincerely accepting his offter to heaven - he simply lets the natural consequences of sin take it's course and eventually when the painful reality of the sins consequences "hit home" and the sinner can't delude themselves into thinking that a life apart from God is worthwhile they will gladly accept God's offer of salvation. To think of a relevant analogy it's like when an alcoholic or drug abuser hits "rock bottom" - at that point they simply cannot convince themselves that their destructive addictions and habits aren't, well destructive. And at that point is when they are susceptible to offers of help. In essence, God let's them experience the painful reality of what an existence apart from God actually entails, and once sinners clearly see this, any rational person would clearly see God's gracious and loving offer for what it is. So, in that sense hell is restorative, reformative, remedial, educative, and reconcillatory. I believe that negates Pro's main point about torture and his secondary point about being in heaven residing with a morally abhorrent torturer. It doesn't solve the problem? With regards to Pro's last point about hell "not solving the problem", I believe that can also be answered quite adequately from the universalist perspective. I think a quote from George Macdonald is appropriate here: he asks us to imagine a thief who stole a mans watch and he asks whether just having the man punished does justice to the man whos watch was stolen. Macdonald clearly thinks otherwise:"[My watch] is gone, and I remain a man wronged. Who has done me the wrong? The thief. Who can set right the wrong? The thief, and only the thief; nobody but the man that did the wrong. God may be able to move the man to right the wrong, but God himself cannot right it without the man. Suppose my watch is found and restored, is the account settled between me and the thief? I may forgive him, but is the wrong removed? By no means. But suppose the thief to bethink himself, to repent. .. Should I not feel that he had gone far to make atonement—done more to make up for the injury he had inflicted upon me, than the mere restoration of the watch, even by himself, could reach to? .. . He who commits the offence can make up for it—and he alone. One thing must surely be plain—that the punishment of the wrong-doer makes no atonement for the wrong done. How could it make up to me for the stealing of my watch that the man was punished? The wrong would be there all the same. I am not saying the man ought not to be punished—far from it; I am only saying that the punishment nowise makes up to the man wronged. .. Would it set anything right? Would it anyway atone? . .. Punishment may do good to the man who does the wrong, but that is a thing as different as important. "Here, I think, this clearly answers pro's argument. The notion of justice here crucially involves reconciliation and restitution. In this sense, it does actually reslove the problem and true justice is done. Sources[1] . http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] . http://www.hopebeyondhell.net...;[3] . http://www.biblegateway.com...;