What I appreciate here is that hell is not treated like a place we point toward other people. It becomes something closer, more honest, more dangerous: the state of the heart when it meets love and cannot receive it.
That feels very real to me on the path of remembrance. The same mercy that softens one heart can burn another place in us because the nafs still wants control, separation, superiority, or revenge.
The Hakuin story says it plainly. Hell opens in the flash of rage. Heaven opens in the moment of return. That does not make judgment less serious. It makes it immediate. The question becomes not “who else is going where?” but “what is my own heart becoming capable of receiving before Allah?”
The Hakuin and Nobushige exchange might be the cleanest demonstration of something I keep circling: that the gate to hell and the gate to heaven aren't two separate destinations reached by two separate roads. They're the same threshold, crossed twice in one conversation, met first with rage and then with recognition. Nothing about the location changed between those two moments. Only what was meeting it did.
This is a great essay. I've thought about this a lot over the years. I have seen the reality of hell in this life, both in myself and others, and find it plausible that after death there might be some corresponding state. I find the details of Buddhist hells cartoonish, unjust and implausible, however, and I find the "eternal conscious torment" version of Christian hell a moral monstrosity and totally incompatible with the rest of Christian theology, as well as that of its Jewish parent. You are probably aware that there is a surge of "universalist" Christian theological writing right now (which holds that all souls will ultimately be saved)-- if you haven't checked out Fr. Aiden Kimmel's work, I recommend it. In any case, I think there are hellish states in this life and beyond, but also believe that they can be escaped through metanoia, teshuva, waking up. Call on Kuan Yin, call on Jesus, turn towards the light, and I think any soul can escape, even if hard work is involved. I also think that the picture of some being who would mercilessly entrap people in hell for their accidental sins, ignorance, failures, or even things they've repented of, but not enough, is an accurate image of Satan, not God.
One more scriptural thought: I think the New Testament passages used to defend "hell" generally seem to refer to destruction, not eternal conscious torment. We forget what happens when you're thrown into a lake of fire or burned in unquenchable flame-- you burn up, you're destroyed. This was also a Rabbinic view-- that souls beyond redemption-- a minority of souls-- would simply have the gift of life revoked. The idea that God would keep these souls alive forever to torture them instead-- or to let them torture themselves forever, perhaps-- seems much less palatable than the view that such souls die, not being allowed to eat from "the tree of life."
Thank you, Matthew. Another contemporary Christian writer exploring universalism is the Orthodox scholar and, well, polemicist, David Bentley Hart. "That All Shall be Saved" is something of a tour de force...
I love Hart! His Tao Teh Ching is excellent, and I have the book you mention waiting on my bookshelf. Have you read "The Light of Tabor" his recent "monistic christology"? The theology there is informed by nondual traditions and is the most compelling Christology I've read, I think.
What I appreciate here is that hell is not treated like a place we point toward other people. It becomes something closer, more honest, more dangerous: the state of the heart when it meets love and cannot receive it.
That feels very real to me on the path of remembrance. The same mercy that softens one heart can burn another place in us because the nafs still wants control, separation, superiority, or revenge.
The Hakuin story says it plainly. Hell opens in the flash of rage. Heaven opens in the moment of return. That does not make judgment less serious. It makes it immediate. The question becomes not “who else is going where?” but “what is my own heart becoming capable of receiving before Allah?”
The Hakuin and Nobushige exchange might be the cleanest demonstration of something I keep circling: that the gate to hell and the gate to heaven aren't two separate destinations reached by two separate roads. They're the same threshold, crossed twice in one conversation, met first with rage and then with recognition. Nothing about the location changed between those two moments. Only what was meeting it did.
This is a great essay. I've thought about this a lot over the years. I have seen the reality of hell in this life, both in myself and others, and find it plausible that after death there might be some corresponding state. I find the details of Buddhist hells cartoonish, unjust and implausible, however, and I find the "eternal conscious torment" version of Christian hell a moral monstrosity and totally incompatible with the rest of Christian theology, as well as that of its Jewish parent. You are probably aware that there is a surge of "universalist" Christian theological writing right now (which holds that all souls will ultimately be saved)-- if you haven't checked out Fr. Aiden Kimmel's work, I recommend it. In any case, I think there are hellish states in this life and beyond, but also believe that they can be escaped through metanoia, teshuva, waking up. Call on Kuan Yin, call on Jesus, turn towards the light, and I think any soul can escape, even if hard work is involved. I also think that the picture of some being who would mercilessly entrap people in hell for their accidental sins, ignorance, failures, or even things they've repented of, but not enough, is an accurate image of Satan, not God.
One more scriptural thought: I think the New Testament passages used to defend "hell" generally seem to refer to destruction, not eternal conscious torment. We forget what happens when you're thrown into a lake of fire or burned in unquenchable flame-- you burn up, you're destroyed. This was also a Rabbinic view-- that souls beyond redemption-- a minority of souls-- would simply have the gift of life revoked. The idea that God would keep these souls alive forever to torture them instead-- or to let them torture themselves forever, perhaps-- seems much less palatable than the view that such souls die, not being allowed to eat from "the tree of life."
Thank you, Matthew. Another contemporary Christian writer exploring universalism is the Orthodox scholar and, well, polemicist, David Bentley Hart. "That All Shall be Saved" is something of a tour de force...
I love Hart! His Tao Teh Ching is excellent, and I have the book you mention waiting on my bookshelf. Have you read "The Light of Tabor" his recent "monistic christology"? The theology there is informed by nondual traditions and is the most compelling Christology I've read, I think.
Heaven and hell are none of my business. My business is living as deeply and authentically as I can this very moment.