Eli Ayala Is Hell a Problem for Apologetics

Revealed Apologetics

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Well, getting us launched out today is

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Eli Ayala. And he has an MDiv and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Liberty University.

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That's right. I said it, Liberty University. So take that. He teaches Bible and logic classes, and they're

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Christian middle school students. I was talking to him, and I said, can you explain some of this to like normal people?

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And he said, I teach middle school. I was like, okay, you can probably pull this off of teaching thick topics to people in the streets.

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He teaches Bible, I'm sorry, he's the creator of PresuppU, short for Presuppositional University, an online resource for learning presuppositional apologetics.

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He maintains the website, revealedapologetics .com, and he's the host of Revealed Apologetics' YouTube channel.

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I love it when guys get out there and dare to be out in the real public square on YouTube. I love that more and more people are doing that.

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So Ayala, please take the stage and everybody give him a hand. All right, everybody.

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All right. Everyone can hear me okay? I'm very impressed. Most people butcher my name.

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My full name is Elias Ayala. If you say it five times fast, it sounds like you're speaking in tongues.

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If you say it 10 times fast, it sounds like a Muslim war cry. So that's what I've been told.

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So yeah, my name is Eli Ayala. I just want to first express that it is a pleasure and an honor to be able to be speaking at this conference and sharing the platform with such awesome apologists, theologians, and speakers.

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And I've just been greatly enjoying the talks as well as the fellowship. I'm very happy. Brother Mark almost didn't make it.

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How many people enjoyed Mark's talk? Yeah. Well, he almost didn't make it.

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Braxton Hunter had picked us up from the hotel and out of his great excitement for seeing some of us, he was like, man, this is so exciting.

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And then he drives away and brother Mark is not even all the way in the car yet. So he basically almost died.

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It was terrible. But by God's grace, he was spared and by God's mercy, Braxton was forgiven and everything was able to move along just very nicely.

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All right. Well, with that out of the way, I just want to tell you a little bit about myself. My primary focus in my study is apologetic methodology.

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I love theology. I love apologetics. And there are certain areas of theology that I'm very well versed in and other areas where I want to be well versed in because I understand that it's very important.

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Okay. Some people might think of the topic of hell as like, well, what's the big deal? Well, listen, if theology finds its root and the soil out of which it springs out is the word of God, it's important, right?

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And so whether we are holding to a traditional view or a non -traditional view, these are important issues.

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And I always try to encourage my students and those who I speak with to make the very important distinction between what we call essential doctrine and non -essential doctrine.

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And there's often a common misunderstanding that non -essential doctrine is kind of like calling the doctrine unimportant.

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And we know that that's not necessarily the case, right? Non -essential doctrine is important. It's just not definitional as to what makes us a

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Christian. And unfortunately, people will divide over these non -essentials and define people out of the kingdom because they don't hold to the conventional views of the church.

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And I think that is completely ridiculous and inappropriate. And I think being here with such a wide variety of views,

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I think this is an excellent step in opening up lines of communication, arguing rigorously and vigorously, but in the spirit of Christian unity.

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And so it is a great honor and a pleasure to be able to be speaking to such a diverse audience over this very, very interesting topic.

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Now at heart, I am a Christian apologist. And so I really like to connect things with apologetics because apologetics and evangelism is a very practical thing for the church.

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The church needs it. It deals with our everyday interactions as we are existing in the world and trying to fulfill the mandate of the

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Great Commission, that we are to go out and preach the gospel. And as 1 Peter 3, verse 15 famously says, we're to always be ready to give a reason for the hope that's within us.

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And so when we're talking about theology, doctrine, or any difficult concept to talk about, both internally within the church and externally without the church, we need to always be ready to engage those topics with gentleness and respect, but with vigor, intellectual skill and maneuvering as we're arguing our points and building our case.

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I think this is very, very important. So the specific question that I'm going to be dealing with today is, is hell a problem for apologetics?

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Now I'm just going to show my hand real quick, both my hands. I actually, I don't know if you guys know this, I actually used to be a magician.

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So I'm very good at being deceptive, but not when we're talking about theology. I won't be deceptive with you guys here.

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I hold it to the traditional view. Okay? I hold to the view, eternal conscious torment.

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And I am very, very open to hearing other perspectives. As I said before, this is not an area that I've dove,

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I've dived in as deep as I would like. So I hold to the traditional view, then I'm very open to hearing other perspectives.

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But to show my hand, this is my view. But the question that I'm going to be asking and addressing today,

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I think all views can benefit from. So for example, the title of my talk is, is hell a problem for apologetics?

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Defending the faith in light of difficult doctrines. You could just as well replace hell with some other theological concept.

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We could title this talk, is predestination a problem for apologetics? Is Calvinism a problem for apologetics?

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I'm a low down dirty Calvinist, right? Sometimes when someone hears that I'm a Calvinist, if it's a theologically informed atheist, his ears perk up and he's like, oh,

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I've got a whole set of questions that I'm going to ask you, you low down dirty Calvinist. So theological topics can be very difficult and really, in some sense, problematic when we're defending the faith.

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There just are certain topics that are difficult to talk about. But because we hold to the scriptures as the authoritative word of God, 2nd

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Timothy 3 .16 tells us that all scripture is inspired, we should embrace those difficult doctrines, stand firm on the authority of God's word, and to the best of our ability, represent what

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God is telling us and speak boldly out into the world with no apologies. So to that end, let me begin by defining my position.

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Again, I hold to the ECT perspective. Chris Date, being an editor, has pointed out some deficiencies in my spacing.

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I do apologize. But that's the position I hold. The traditional view of hell is a view of the nature of the eternal state.

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And for me, hell is a place of eternal conscious torment for the unregenerate. And hell involves final separation, spiritual death, as I understand it, as a separation from God's mercy, from God's people, an unending experience of divine judgment and just retribution for sin.

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Now again, there are different perspectives, as we obviously know. And here's what I want to point out. Whether you hold to a traditional view or the conditional immortality view or annihilational view, it's very easy to conclude that regardless of the nature of hell, it's terrible.

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Whether I'm speaking with an unbeliever about eternal punishment from a traditional perspective or a non -traditional perspective, either way, it can be very, very uncomfortable to talk about these topics.

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So I'm just going to define my view. I've defined my view there. And so I want to kind of define a couple of terms, many terms you guys are going to be familiar with.

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But for those who are listening, I want to make it very simple. So when we ask the question, is hell a problem for apologetics, we need to define our terms.

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So by hell, I include both my own position and any position that can be very uncomfortable to talk about with unbelievers and with believers.

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And by apologetics, I mean a couple of things. So I want to define apologetics simply and then kind of give a different definition that I think captures the apologetical situation, which does,

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I think, a very important job in informing us how to navigate conversations about hell, about predestination, or any other theological topic that we might have to deal with.

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All right? So apologetics, the very dumbed -down, simple definition is simply it's a rational defense of the

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Christian faith, okay? Christians believe that the Christian worldview is a defensible worldview, right?

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Anyone who is doing apologetics, you know that the Christian faith is not something that is based upon a blind commitment that is not grounded in reality.

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So from a very simple and basic perspective, we believe that we are to rationally defend the faith.

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Okay? 1 Peter 3, verse 15, very popular verse that anyone who does apologetics, you hear ad nauseam.

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But I don't care. It's there, and it's a super helpful verse to inform us as to the basics, as to what

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God has commanded us to do as we interact with the unbelieving world. And not just the unbelieving world.

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You have the believing world, in which you have to also sometimes do internal apologetics and correcting false teachings.

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So it's very applicable both internally and externally. So 1 Peter 3, verse 15 tells us to set apart

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Christ, always being ready to make a defense, always being ready to give an answer. And one of my favorite verses on apologetics is

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Jude, chapter 1, verse 3, where Jude tells us that he found it necessary that we contend earnestly for the faith, check this out, once for all delivered, okay?

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So we are defending something. We are defending a body of Christian truth that includes a wide range of theological teachings.

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Some of which are clear -cut, and I will die for these specific doctrines.

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And some of those doctrines are not as clear -cut, maybe somewhat clear -cut, but debatable, and we have these interesting and fun internal arguments with each other about.

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But they still are incorporated within that body of Christian truth. And so, we are called to contend earnestly for those.

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So within the context of hell, if you hold to a traditional view, and you are convinced that this is what the

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Bible teaches, then you need to be ready to contend earnestly for that position when called upon to defend the faith, especially within the context of defending theological positions.

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You have to understand, apologetics is not always just done with atheists, right?

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Apologetics is going to require us also to know our theology. And so, you are going to have to be able to defend your theological positions, and those theological positions sometimes are black and white, others, you have some differences there.

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And so, you really need to count the cost in which positions you affirm, because you are going to have to speak up for them when they come up in certain various contexts.

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Alright? Well, what is apologetics more specifically? I really enjoy this definition that was given by the

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Christian theologian and philosopher Cornelius Van Til. He says this with respect to what apologetics is.

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He says, apologetics is the vindication of the Christian worldview over against the non -Christian worldview.

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Now, the reason why I like this definition is that it places the dispute between the believer and the unbeliever within the context of antithesis of worldview systems.

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So that we are not simply defending the faith based upon individual data points, or individual pieces of evidence, or facts, rather we are defending an entire system of thought, a system that gives meaning and context to the individual data points and facts that we discuss.

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For example, when we speak of things like righteousness, or justice, or good, evil, heaven, or hell, these topics are not floating out there in some platonic abstract realm in which they have no broader worldview context.

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We understand these categories of heaven, hell, righteousness, justice, and sin within a broader worldview perspective.

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And it is vitally important that when we're engaging in apologetics, we have one foot in the individual facts and another foot in the worldview context in which those facts are given their meaning.

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And when we talk about, say, the topic of hell, it's no different. So we need to understand and have contact with the broader worldview perspective in which we are coming from, in which we're arguing for our specific positions.

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Now you do have different flavors of apologetics, and I'm going to go really quickly through this but I think it's important.

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Apologetics is sort of like ice cream. You can get your strawberry flavor, your vanilla flavor, there are different traditions.

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And unlike some presuppositional brothers, I'm a presuppositionalist, but unlike some of them, I actually really appreciate the wide tradition within the church history in terms of how apologetics has been done.

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I definitely have my specific commitments, but I have learned so much from people who hold to a different tradition than myself.

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I've spent hours talking with Dr. Hunter there about apologetic methodology, and I have to say that while I'm firm in my convictions,

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I've appreciated the strength and power of, say, a classical approach or an evidential approach or anything along those lines.

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So be that as it may, I'm just going to kind of run through this. Well, first, let's talk a little bit about the classical approach, then we're going to talk a little bit about the evidential and presuppositional, and then

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I want to make the connection between worldview context and the idea of hell and whether or not it's actually a problem when we're doing apologetics.

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Now when I think of classical apologetics, I think of an old man with a sweater vest, someone that looks like William Lane Craig or someone that's bald and looks like James White but definitely is not

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James White. So I kind of have these caricatures in my mind. But in terms of just a method of doing apologetics,

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I define the classical approach as kind of a one -two punch approach, okay? I'm black belt in karate movies, and while I don't actually fight,

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I do know a little bit about self -defense and things like that. There's this one -two punch in boxing where you kind of, you know, you jab, you follow with a hook.

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Classical apologetics is very much like that. It follows a two -step approach. The first approach is to demonstrate the truth of theism, that God exists, and this is typically done through various arguments and the traditional arguments, they're wide -ranging and they have various applications to different fields, but you have arguments like the cosmological argument or the teleological argument or the moral argument or the argument from religious experience or the ontological argument, all of these fancy philosophical and theological arguments that have a very strong basis in rational, deductive forms of argumentation.

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These are meant to demonstrate that a God exists. And then the hook, so to speak, of the classical approach is to narrow down that focus from theism to Christian theism, and that's typically done through a presentation of the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, which as a presuppositionalist,

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I wholeheartedly agree, there's crazy evidence for the resurrection, okay? So this is the traditional approach of the classical method, and of course you have variation within that.

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Now there's something I want you to keep in mind about the classical method, and it's very similar with the evidential method that you'll see in just a moment,

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I would define or categorize the classical approach as a bottom -up approach. It's an approach that seeks to argue for Christian theism from the ground up, giving arguments that lead to a conclusion, therefore,

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God exists, okay? So I want you to keep that in mind, it is a bottom -up approach. Now we come to the evidential methodology, and the evidential approach tends to present positive evidence in favor of Christianity through fields like archaeology, a very, very important field.

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It's definitely not an area of my focus, but this requires us to have a lot of historical background in ancient

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Near East, or in the Second Temple Judaism, and things like that, evidence for the Old Testament events and people, and the

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New Testament events and people, and so this approach typically gives us evidences from fields of archaeology.

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Another aspect of apologetics that I think is very, very, I think we need to make more use of this.

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If you take a look, for example, apologetics in the New Testament really dealt heavily with fulfilled prophecy.

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What did the Apostle Paul do when he went to a new city? He would go into the synagogues, and he would reason with the religious leaders there, showing that the

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Christ, what? He fulfilled the scriptures, right? So the evidential apologetic approach will often make use of fulfilled messianic prophecies.

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Of course, we have arguments from miracles, and of course, we have the centerpiece of the Christian faith, the resurrection of Jesus himself.

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Again, like the classical approach, I would say that the evidential approach is a bottom -up approach, okay?

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Working your way up to the conclusion that God exists. And then you have the wonderful, highly unpopular view, okay?

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The presuppositional approach. Admittedly, this approach to apologetics is not widely held.

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It's typically held within reformed circles for reasons that I can't go into, but the presuppositional approach is very different than some of those other approaches, but I think have a lot to learn and benefit from those other approaches.

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So, presuppositional approach begins with the truth of the Christian position and argues down from there, and something along the lines of if one does not begin with God and his revelation, one loses the foundation for things like science, history, philosophy, logic, knowledge, and intelligible experience itself.

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And to use the technical terminology to kind of summarize that line of reasoning, presuppositionalists tend to use an argument along transcendental lines.

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We use something called a transcendental argument in which you try to prove the truth of something by the impossibility of the contrary.

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Now, this is not the point of my talk. I just wanted to kind of survey the playing field, so to speak, but what

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I appreciate about the presuppositional approach is that it is not a bottom -up approach. It is a top -down approach.

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We begin with the self -attesting authority of God and his revelation, and we argue from that authority.

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But relevant to our talk here and the topic for today, whether you are a presuppositionalist or you're a classicalist or you're an evidentialist,

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I think all of us can agree that the discussion of our worldviews is very important, okay?

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This I think is a very, this is one of the good aspects of a presuppositional approach.

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It tends to emphasize worldview issues, I think a little more than some of those other perspectives, although it's a mixed bag depending on who we're talking about.

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So worldview discussion is vitally important, okay? And they allow us to address the attacks that are coming from the outside.

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There are various and sundry challenges to apologetics that come in the form of scientific objections. We all know the famous creation -evolution debates, both between believers and unbelievers and believers versus believers of different stripes, right?

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You have the young earth creationist, the old earth creationist, the progressive creationist, the theistic creationist, and it's just a fun time, right?

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You want to start a fight, talk about eschatology, Calvinism and creation and politics, and then you're off running, someone is going to die, okay?

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So that's normally how these things go, and we do it lovingly, right? We stomp on the theological throats of our opponents while smiling and saying gentleness and respect, but you don't agree with me, so that's there.

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So and again, I'm joking, but I'm not. I think Christians need to do a better job in talking about their differences, okay?

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And not equating our opponent's position with other positions that they don't hold, okay?

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So for example, when I used to hear the word annihilationism, I automatically thought of the

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Jehovah's Witnesses. And so I automatically thought that if you were an annihilationist, you were either a

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Jehovah's Witness or you were very sympathetic to those sorts of arguments. And then of course, when you bring this topic to your friend who's theologically inclined, and he says, well, you know, they're not really

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Jehovah's Witnesses, but we need to be careful that if you adopt this view, all of these other things must necessarily follow.

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And that's not necessarily true too. We don't want to commit the slippery slope fallacy, right?

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And we want to understand that in its proper light, there are important implications of our views, but we want to be careful what we say about what is necessitated from a specific view.

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I get this all the time as a Calvinist, you're a Calvinist, well, you believe A, B, and C. And then I look at A, B, and C, and I'm just like,

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I don't believe any of that, right? I'm not properly represented when we try to draw those connections when there isn't a necessary connection there.

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And I think that's still relevant to our discussion on hell. Now, we have these various challenges to the apologetic task coming from science, coming from history.

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This is why I very much appreciate Michael Jones' ministry. If you haven't subscribed, I highly recommend you do.

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He covers a lot of topics regarding the Old Testament and the ancient

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Near East. And I think this is a very, very important topic that we all need to be aware of. Regardless of the positions you hold, we must understand the historical context of our texts.

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Not only does that inform and give a more robust understanding of the text for our own personal study, but with respect to defending the faith, it's vitally important to know that context.

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So we have challenges from science, history, philosophy, and of course we have challenges from theology when there is an attempted criticism of the

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Christian faith. We get the famous questions, if God is all loving, why does he send people to hell?

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If God is all loving, why is there evil in the world? These are questions that in order to adequately and apologetically respond to them, it is going to require both philosophical astuteness and a firm grounding in biblical theology.

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What saith the Bible? We need to know what the Bible says. And so apologetics requires us to know what our faith is.

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And that includes the black and white issues, and that includes the issues under which Christians differ. Alright?

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Now, all of that out of the way, let's get to our question. Is hell, my view specifically, but views in general, is hell a problem for apologetics?

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Now I want you to remember what I said at the beginning. You could have replaced this with any doctrine. You could talk about creationism or whatever view that you hold.

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Is it a problem? And we need to kind of define what we mean by a problem. Okay? Things can be a problem in many senses, some senses that aren't that important, and other senses in which they're pretty darn important.

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And so we need to ask the question, in what sense is hell specifically, regardless of the view, in what sense is it a problem for us as Christians engaging in apologetics?

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And I've identified two ways in which that can feasibly be a problem. Number one, we have an intellectual problem.

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And if I remember correctly, I think Michael, you're going to cover the question of how can a loving God send people to hell, and I think he could address it from this logical approach as well as the next version of the problem as well.

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But I think it's relevant here. Is there an intellectual problem with the belief that there is a loving

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God who sends people to hell, whether it's for eternity or annihilation, both are terrible, right?

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People might find both of those a hard pill to swallow. Maybe one of those pills are harder to swallow than the other, but they're hard pills to swallow nonetheless.

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Is there an intellectual problem? Is there a logical inconsistency within the Christian perspective between these ideas?

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And then we have the emotional problem, the existential problem. And that, I don't know about you, if anyone has shared their faith before, you often have to find that balance between identifying whether the objection that's being raised to you is an intellectual objection or an emotional objection.

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And guess what? When you find it's not an intellectual objection, you're like, whoo, well, it's just an emotional problem.

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That's still a really difficult hurdle to jump over when you're sharing your faith.

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So we need to be very careful. When we think of the intellectual problem of a theological position,

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I think that's a more difficult, and well, not so much difficult, I think it's the more important version of the problem, in that logical problems try to do a refutation on our position.

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For if the idea of a loving God, which the Bible teaches, and the idea of eternal punishment in some sense is true, and there's a logical incompatibility with what the

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Bible teaches, then that would be a successful, what we would call an internal critique of our position.

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So one aspect of the problem is dealing with the truth of our position, while another is dealing with the emotions surrounding the question.

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And both can be very, very difficult to navigate. So how might we respond to, sorry, there we go.

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How might we respond to the intellectual problem? There are many ways we could respond to this.

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And I want to remind you of what I've discussed at the beginning. Remember, when someone brings up hell, or predestination, or creation, or eschatology, or whatever, you want to keep in mind that you are not discussing an isolated theological topic disconnected from the broader system of Christian truth.

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And that's just a fancy way of saying, remember, when we're talking with unbelievers or with anyone, we are talking about worldviews.

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Christianity is a worldview. It is not simply a conglomeration of individual, not necessarily connected beliefs.

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A worldview, if I can define my terms real quick, there is a super easy definition, which is like rocket science.

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It's like, what's a worldview? And I'm like, it is a view of the world. They're like, ah, okay, yeah, that's the simple definition.

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But then we can define worldview in the more technical definition, which I actually think is, while more complicated, is actually much more helpful and useful in understanding what in fact a worldview is.

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A worldview can be defined as a network of presuppositions in terms of which all reality is interpreted.

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Notice that a worldview is a network of presuppositions. And that highlights the interconnectedness of our beliefs.

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What I believe about data point over here is connected with what I believe about other things over here.

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When I teach worldview to my students, I say, close your eyes, and I want you to think of something. Think of an ice cream cone. And they close their eye, and I say, you got the ice cream cone?

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Do you got the color of the ice cream cone? Is there sprinkles? What color are the sprinkles? Put some whipped cream on that bad boy.

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Now, I challenge anyone in this class to tell me something meaningful about an ice cream cone without assuming other ideas that you have.

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Now, of course, that's impossible. The very moment they open their mouth, they're assuming the connection between the idea in their mind and the fact that language is an adequate mechanism to communicate.

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Okay? So, in other words, all of our beliefs, all of our presuppositions are networks.

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They are connected with one another. And all that to say, our theological beliefs are connected to other beliefs.

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And that relationship gives meaning and context to those individual data points of theology, of which hell is one of them.

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So we want to remember our worldview. We want to remember that the nature of the dispute between the unbeliever is one of worldview systems.

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Also, if the idea of worldview is key here, I would also point out from my perspective that there are no neutral facts or ideas.

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As I said before, the idea of justice, the idea of righteousness, the idea of sin, the idea of heaven, the idea of hell is not a neutral category.

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Those ideas have meanings given their context. Now, this is very important because if you forget the context in which your idea of hell exists, if you forget the context in which your idea of justice exists, you might run into the problem of talking about these categories independent of that broader context and the unbeliever can often sneak in their subjective opinions of what justice should be, critique your view of justice, and fault it for not meeting the standard that he has created in his mind.

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Does that make sense? Okay. That's very important. And when that happens, you talk past each other.

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That's why when we define these categories, we want to be consistent with our presuppositions.

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So there are no neutral facts or ideas, and that includes there are no neutral concepts of heaven or hell.

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They are existing within a broader context. Now, there are two things I want to mention here that I think are helpful with whoever we might be, whatever position we hold, when we're navigating the discussion of hell as to whether it's a problem, whether intellectually or emotionally.

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And this is the idea of internal versus external critiques of worldviews. So if we define worldviews as kind of like a pair of shades, okay, some of us have really weird worldviews.

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That's why even when we put the shades on, things look very strange, right? We have a worldview. These are the lens through which we filter reality.

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They inform our views of metaphysics, our theory of reality. They inform our epistemology, our theory of knowledge or ethics, our theory of how we should live our lives.

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And everyone is wearing these specific shades. I have my fundamental commitments. You have your fundamental commitments.

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The unbeliever has his fundamental commitments. And if they're consistent with their fundamental commitments, every data point you throw at them will be filtered through their lens.

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I know Braxton. I know Michael. I know Chris. When you've spoken with atheists or unbelievers, you realize very quick that they will often throw over their shoulder very good arguments and evidences that you give for your position.

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And much of the time, it could be due to the fact that maybe they're bad arguments, right? That could be it.

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Or it could also be that they're rejecting your data points, your arguments, because they're viewing them through a different lens.

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Isn't that right? They often view what you're giving them from a different presuppositional starting point.

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And oftentimes when they critique your view, they engage in what we call an external critique.

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So before I expand on that, let's define our terms. An internal critique is when we hypothetically grant the truth of a position that we're critiquing to show that on its own basis, it has logical incoherencies.

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There are problems with the perspective given the truth of the perspective. And that's the kind of critique

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I think is appropriate. For example, if someone were to ask the question, how could a loving

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God send people to hell? I often hear apologists respond, well, or let's do this, because I don't want to piggyback on your topic.

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Someone says, how can a loving God permit evil in the world? And of course, many apologists might respond, and maybe this is coming to your mind.

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Well, if atheism is true, evil doesn't even exist. There's no objective standard of evil.

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But that's a terrible answer to that question. And the reason why it's a terrible answer is because the question is coming from an appropriate foundation, namely, if I hypothetically grant the truth of your own position, how can the loving

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God that you tell me about in your word allow evil in the world? You don't do anything by saying, well, if God didn't exist, evil doesn't exist.

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The atheist can say, okay, but that doesn't solve the problem for you. Let's say

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God does exist. How can a loving God be such a jerk from their perspective, right?

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Allowing these things to happen, okay? And that is an appropriate internal critique.

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And as Christians, we need to know what the Bible says about God, how he relates to evil, and how we navigate all of those questions.

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Some of us come from different theological perspectives. You might be a Molinist and answer it from a Molinist perspective.

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You might be a Calvinist and answer it from a Calvinist perspective. But if you're convinced that the Bible teaches one or the other, you need to know your position.

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You need to understand your system and answer in a way that is consistent with those foundations, okay?

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Very important. Then we have the external critique. And an external critique is when we critique a view, not on the basis of the worldview or the position we're critiquing, but on the basis of the other person's presuppositions.

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So sometimes I'll have atheists criticize my view with their presuppositions that I already reject, okay?

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And that's a problem as well. So every time someone brings an external critique, I'm like, actually,

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I hold to a Christian worldview that believes A, B, and C. I reject the presuppositions and the foundation of your question, right?

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Now he can continue to critique my perspective externally, but it's really not going to touch my position because he's not really dealing with my worldview, okay?

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Now this is important because criticisms of our beliefs about hell, right, given that broader context in which we're believing it, we have to defend our position consistent with our worldview and the unbeliever must critique our perspective while properly representing what we believe about hell.

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And in as much as they don't do that, then their counter -arguments to our position are going to fall flat.

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Now why is this important? This is not just relevant to the topic of hell. This is relevant to every belief that we have as Christians.

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If we hold to a theological belief, right, we want to be able to defend it consistently with our foundations and also point out when our beliefs are not being properly represented.

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So we want to make a distinction, navigate that relationship between internal critiques and external critiques.

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If you're going to give me an external critique of my view of hell, it's not going to work because I have a whole system of, a worldview system in which

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I make sense of my position and you need to deal with that position. So we want to make a distinction between whether we're getting an external critique of our view of hell or an appropriate internal critique of our view of hell.

34:44

Now what about the emotional problem? I think the emotional problem is not as important as the intellectual problem, but it can be more difficult sometimes to navigate the emotional problem.

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And one of the reasons for that is I think we resonate with the emotional problem, don't we?

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Right? I can talk about hell and eternal conscious torment, it's like, listen, you know, you don't want to experience the wrath of God, the judgment of God.

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And when someone's like, well, how can your God do this? And they can bring up various examples. And even as Christians, sometimes we have a difficult time swallowing that pill, right?

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Why does God do what he does? It seems so harsh. It seems so unfair, okay?

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People ask various questions. How will I enjoy heaven knowing my spouse, my child, family member, or friend is experiencing eternal conscious torment in hell?

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Okay? That's an emotionally loaded question. It's very difficult to grapple with. How can

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I worship and love a God who sends people to hell in the first place? And are you saying that my grandmother, the nicest lady in the world, how many people have a nice grandmother?

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Yeah, I have nice grandmothers. My grandmother on my mother's side, she was nice, but got a little saucy sometimes.

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But the other grandmother, an angel. Okay, now, someone says, are you saying that my grandmother, the nicest lady in the world, is in hell because she didn't believe in Jesus?

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Okay, now we have apologetic answers to this that are from the Bible. We have consistent answers. But it's difficult emotionally, right?

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You can't just spit out like a computer this dry, emotionalist response. When you're doing apologetics and you're speaking about theological topics such as hell, we need to deal with the person's mind and the person, right?

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We want to be careful how we navigate these issues, okay? And so we want to be very careful how we navigate the emotional problem.

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But here's the thing. And here's why the emotional problem doesn't pack as much of a punch that many people think it does.

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While the intellectual problem deals with whether our position is coherent and true, the emotional problem doesn't really deal with whether our position is true or not.

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And what I found in conversations, not to sidestep the difficult issues, I tend to communicate that when

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I'm speaking with people. Well, I can't think that God can possibly be this way. And I oftentimes, as respectfully as I can, say, well, truth really isn't determined about how we feel.

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If this is what the Bible says, we need to come to grips with it if it's true. And sometimes, sometimes, that diffuses the emotion and we can begin to talk about whether Christianity is true.

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And of course, for our purposes of our disagreements here amongst our brothers, that might even further, a further conversation as to, are our conceptions of hell accurate?

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Because if we believe the Bible's the word of God, we want to believe what the Bible teaches. And that's the same for me.

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I know there are people who might be frowning upon the fact that I'm even here. I tend to be seen by my audience as super ultra conservative, reformed, presuppositionalist that stands on the authority of the self -attesting scripture and then like, yeah, what are you doing this weekend?

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I'm speaking at the Rethinking Hell Conference. Are you going to that place where all them

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Jehovah's Witnesses go? Like, no, I'm not, right? Or you be careful with that Chris Date fella, right?

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It's like, listen, I know Chris, we've spoken, and I trust his friendship more than a random person on the internet who thinks they can make all these connections with all the things that he believes.

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I'm willing to come here and listen to speakers that I don't necessarily agree with but have lots of useful things to say.

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And I admit that this is specifically an era that I can grow a lot. And so I want to know what the

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Bible teaches. Now, I'll tell you one thing that I've learned very quickly, and I'm sure when Chris shares his perspective, you have the traditionalist side, you have the conditional immortality side and the annihilation side.

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I'm going to say this right now, that you guys win automatically, hands down, on better PowerPoints.

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How many people, how many people enjoyed last, listen. Even if I strongly disagree with conditional immortality, the

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PowerPoint with the scales, the scales. I'm like, there are so many scriptures, he just transferred them, like visually, it's very compelling, right?

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So I'll give you that, even though we have our sharp disagreements. But I think the rhetorical power of how we communicate is also part of how we make our case.

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I trust that Brother Mark, who barely made it here, praise God, Braxton, we all told the story.

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Okay, we all forgive you, it's okay. I'm glad that he's dealing with the text.

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Isn't that what we always argue about? Well, you're just telling me your theological belief, why don't you exegete that scripture and walk us through?

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And while we might disagree on these key issues, at least the other side is walking through the text and what more can we ask of our brothers?

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Even if you eventually land on the traditional side and say, I can never accept the immortal, the conditional immortality view, but you can't fault them for doing what we're supposed to be doing, walking through the text of scripture.

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And if you don't like their case, then you need to walk through the scripture in the same way and have meaningful interactions and be willing to lay down your traditions.

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Now tradition can be a pejorative term, but tradition doesn't necessarily mean that your view is false, right?

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You can hold to a tradition and it's true. There's a reason why the traditional view of hell has been held for a long time.

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Doesn't mean it's automatically true, but we should look into some of the strongest arguments in favor of the traditional view.

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And like fashion, not everyone who holds to an annihilation view is trying to sidestep scripture and nefariously sneak in these ideas so that they can destroy the church.

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That's not always the case. Now when you actually meet some of these people, it's easy to talk about this, but when you are standing behind the mystery of the screen and you have no idea that these people have families, they have relationships with the

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Lord, they actually love God, they're into missions, they're into apologetics, they're into evangelism, right? You don't know that stuff.

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This person is just a face you see and automatically you insert all of these, you know, these things you think they're trying to do.

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And we need to stop that as Christians if we're going to have meaningful conversation. Well at any rate, now when we deal with the emotional problem or the intellectual problem of hell, there are a couple of apologetics pitfalls that I think we need to avoid, okay?

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And this again comes up many times, but in my discussions on hell, it tends to come up a lot more.

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Number one, we don't want to water down the truth, alright? Hell is an ugly topic regardless of your position.

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I don't know about you, but annihilation is petrifying. I'm scared if that's the case. And eternal conscious torment,

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I'm still scared. The point is, hell stinks for anyone who experiences it, okay?

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So we need to both, regardless of our position, swallow the pill of the difficulty of this doctrine and not water it down.

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We do not shape and mold the scriptures to accommodate unbelievers or anyone who has a problem with what the scriptures teach.

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We want to be truthful with what the Bible says even when it is difficult.

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In Acts chapter 20, verses 26 through 27, we're told, Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

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Let it never be the case that we are not willing to defend the whole counsel of God, to tell people what all of scripture has to say about any given topic.

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And if you're convinced of a particular position that is an important yet non -essential position, we need to be able to include those if it comes up in discussion.

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Do not be intimidated, right? Don't be intimidated by others, whether it's your theological friends who say,

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You better not take that position because we're going to put you in this other category where you don't want to be, right?

42:31

You're the heretic, you're the unorthodox dude, right? Okay, we don't want to be intimidated.

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We want to go where the truth of scripture leads us. And we need to be willing to lay aside those traditions if we have them.

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Number three, we don't want to downplay the seriousness of sin. I think for me, hell is not so much this, the way

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I think of it, I don't think of hell as just this terrible place where people go forever. From my perspective,

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I do understand it along those traditional lines. But for me, when I think of hell, I tend to think of the seriousness of sin.

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If hell is so bad, then there must be a really serious element to our sin.

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I always ask my students when they ask these sorts of questions, think about this with me. Is it the case that a

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God who executes judgment, is it the case that He is just a big meanie? Or is it the case that we don't take our sin seriously enough?

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And I think, I don't know about you, I think it's the latter. And when I speak to atheists or any unbeliever, they'll say,

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Well, it's not a big deal. Why is God getting so angry for A, B, and C? You don't understand the holiness of God.

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And it's because we don't understand that, that we're able to look at our sin as not a big deal.

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We don't want to downplay the seriousness of our sin because it is in fact serious. Hell is serious because sin is serious.

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Hell is serious because God is holy. When we speak of hell in whatever version of it we understand it, it should bring us to understand that the

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God we serve is holy. It's always interesting to me when someone says, How can a loving

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God do fill in the blank? And the simple answer, if I was Jonathan Pritchett, he'd be like,

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That's dumb. Because God is not just love. He's also holy. He's also just.

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He's also wrathful. Those are biblical characteristics of God as well. And we don't have an imbalanced view of God in which everything is just sunshine and rainbows and in heaven we're going to be riding on unicorns and running on a rainbow.

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We have these imbalanced perspectives of who God is and that's where the contradictions in our theology come from.

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It's not that the Bible is contradicting itself in these categories, but we often create a God in our image instead of taking

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God as he has revealed himself. So we need to understand that hell is serious because God is holy.

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Hell is serious because God is righteous. His own righteous character.

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This is so important. God will act in ways that are consistent with who he is.

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Hell, in whatever position you hold to, and I know some people might differ here, hell is an expression of God's consistent justice.

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Now, we disagree as to the nature of how that's executed, and I understand that. But a God who does not execute justice, is he just?

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Is he just? In Islam, God could just forgive you and say, Whatever. Okay, if I want you to go to paradise, you can go to paradise.

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He could do that if he wanted to. He's not restrained by that. But God will always act in accordance with his character.

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And his goodness and justiceness demands judgment. And at the same time, that serious, weighty aspect of God, we also hold the beauty of his grace and his mercy.

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Now, I want you to think about this. When we think of God, the omnipotent one, when we think of what it means for an omnipotent

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God to be loving, an omnipotent love, right? So this crazy idea of love, the same power with which

46:11

God loves, imagine the magnitude of his wrath. That God hates evil, and he will deal with it.

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Now, if you think about it, God always loses, doesn't he? Right? If God is so loving, right, why do bad things happen?

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And then God does something about it. If God is so loving, why is he so mean to the people who do evil? It's like, you lose either way, right?

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If God executes judgment, he's a big meanie. If he doesn't execute judgment, where is God? He's hidden, right?

46:35

It's a losing battle, right? That's why I think we need to come to grips with what the scriptures teach and present it as the scriptures present it with no apologies.

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We don't need to apologize to people because God is going to judge the world. We need to warn the world that a righteous

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God will judge the world. Call people to repentance. This is why hell is such a serious topic.

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God is righteous. Hell is serious because God is just. And you take all of this into connection with the human predicament.

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And we've said this before. There were some scriptures mentioned last night. In Romans chapter 3, verse 23, the

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Bible says, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Romans 6, 23, the wages of sin is death.

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Think of that logically. If all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death, it seems to logically follow that we all deserve death because we all sin.

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Regardless of the nature of that death, we all deserve it. And this is why it's important to understand that the judgment of God and the way that it's manifested in hell and judgment, whatever that means, is an important message to stand on and preach with conviction alongside all of those other wonderful gospel truths that we also include.

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We're not just talking fire and brimstone. There's another side of that coin, isn't there? We serve a merciful

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God. We serve a gracious God. We serve a loving God whose attributes we can only understand with just a thumbnail -size understanding.

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God is greater than all that we can comprehend. And that is a beautiful message, but it is also a scary message, right?

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The perfectly loving God is the most loving being in all of existence, and he is also the most dangerous being in all of existence.

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And that is the consistent picture throughout both the Old and the New Testament. People sometimes ask, why does

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God look so different? In the Old Testament, he doesn't. The Old Testament says, his love endures forever.

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The New Testament says, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Same God. Same God.

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While in the Old Testament, people just drop dead. New Testament, too. Read the book of Acts. It's the same God. God is consistent.

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He's consistently loving and merciful and gracious. He's also consistent in executing his justice. No one ever thanks him for the grace by prolonging that judgment that we all deserve.

48:51

I think that's an interesting thing to point out. So what is the final analysis here? We have people who have different perspectives here, okay?

48:59

And again, this is an area that I am going to really try my best to take the time to look into and to come to firm conclusions, because I think it's possible.

49:09

I don't think it's so ambiguous that it's impossible that we just have to be agnostic about it. But I don't think it's as clear -cut as we would like, and I'm willing to hear the other side.

49:18

Brother Mark, I thought your talk was excellent. It's given me a lot to think about. I screenshotted one of the scripture references you use, and I'm like,

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I'm going to look into that. That's an interesting verse. I'm going to look into it. And I'm sure Chris, knowing his

49:31

PowerPoints, yours was good. I mean, this guy, he's got some... Okay, I got to see, because you've got moving parts.

49:38

There'll be a guy over here, and you'll be like, he'll move across the screen. And there's all sorts of things going on in your slides. But I'm looking forward to hearing your case.

49:46

But what's the final analysis? What's the takeaway from this? Is hell a problem for apologetics?

49:52

I don't think so, in the important sense. I don't think there's any logical incompatibility with the idea of a loving, just God, who executes his justice, and some experience his love, okay?

50:03

Now, regardless of the position you hold on the nature of hell and the eternal state, let us all feel the weight and the seriousness of God's justice, and allow it to motivate us to preach the gospel with urgency, speaking the truth in love.

50:18

Now, if you think that sounds cliche, in the famous words of Jonathan Pritchett, I don't care. That's dumb, okay?

50:25

By the way, you've been a wonderful host, okay? Apparently, there is nowhere good to eat in Evansville.

50:32

Nowhere, absolutely nothing. But I've been greatly enjoying your sense of humor and your company.

50:38

But I'm just joking around. It might sound cliche, but it's true. Regardless of where you land on this issue, we must learn to feel the weight and seriousness of the justice of God, however it is manifested.

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And may this seriousness move us to share the gospel, proclaim the gospel, and most importantly, live the gospel, right?

50:59

We all know that the words of our mouth must also be consistent with the actions of our hands. And that is true, not just to the unbelieving world, but to those who theologically we disagree with.

51:09

It is not God, and don't give me this garbage. It blows my mind. Well, Jesus tipped over the table.

51:16

Listen, not the same thing, bro, okay? There are ways to address issues of disagreement, and especially in the world of online theology and apologetics, the

51:27

Christian church is failing miserably in large respects, and of course, not in every respect. Braxton has the channel, right?

51:34

We love atheists, right? I've never seen Braxton lose his cool. But I'm just kidding.

51:42

But it's very important that we're able to navigate these discussions in brotherly love, okay?

51:48

Well, with that said, I will conclude my talk here, and I'll be open to any questions that folks might have.

51:55

I'll try my best to answer them to the best of my ability. Thank you so much for your attention. I appreciate it. All right.

52:05

Hopefully, those of you who are watching online know the drill, but we will bring up the link that you hit is go to slash questions, and you can send them in.

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RethinkingHellConference .com slash questions. You can send them in, and then also we have live in the room. My coaching, again, will be to those who are live in the room.

52:25

Speak directly into the microphone and also speak close to it, especially for the sake of those who are watching online so they can hear you.

52:33

So here we go. Yes. My question for you is, as I understand, you like to sing, yes?

52:40

I like what? To sing. I do like to sing, yeah. Well, today is his birthday, James Gadd.

52:46

So in the spirit of conscious torment, would you lead us in singing happy birthday to James?

52:53

To James. All right. Well, let's do it, right? Happy birthday to you.

53:00

Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to James.

53:09

Happy birthday to you. That's a first.

53:16

I've never been asked to sing happy birthday at a conference before, but it's a first. 2022, anything's possible. So this is true.

53:24

This is very true. Now, I do have a question. Talk about when we're in discussions with nonbelievers and they bring up the emotional issues with the doctrine of hell.

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How do you navigate that kind of conversation when, as far as they're sincere?

53:44

How do you know if they're being sincere when they talk, bring up maybe their grandmother, friend, you know what I mean? Or just trying to use that as a rhetorical trick to just come down hard on you so that they don't have to deal with the issue.

53:56

Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you navigate that? Well, I think in the final analysis, I can't read a person's mind, right?

54:02

So I think it's simple, but I think asking questions and seeing where they're from, kind of asking questions to see.

54:10

When we define apologetics as kind of like an art and a science, there's a way we should do apologetics along biblical categories, and there is an art to it in the sense that we also need to know how to navigate people.

54:23

So I don't know about you, but when I speak to someone face -to -face, I tend to get a sense. I don't know for sure, but I tend to get a sense of a person, and that actually informs how

54:33

I will speak to them. There are people who like to just talk about the issues flat out, and there are other people you need to kind of navigate softly and to talk about those issues.

54:40

So I think the artistic side of apologetics is to train yourself through practice, train yourself to get a sense of people, how to read people, and allow that to inform the route you might take.

54:53

But in terms of content, I can't know if they're being disingenuous or not. I just try to ask questions and get as much information that I can about that person to see if I can pinpoint some deeper issue.

55:04

Now, ultimately, theologically, I do think that there is a deeper issue. I think that there is a very strong sense, according to Romans 1, that all men suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

55:14

So I do think that even a person who's asking these questions and are genuinely asking these questions, there is a suppressed knowledge of God that is being held down, of which some of their arguments and comments are ways in which they suppress that truth.

55:26

And so it really depends on the person I'm talking to, but I try to kind of expose that if the situation calls for it.

55:32

Otherwise, I'll just ask questions to get more information to see a better way to kind of approach that individual. I have now officially switched to eternal conscious torment,

55:42

Jonathan. I'll let you know that. No, if this is too far afield, you did touch on it a little bit, but if it's too far afield,

55:50

I totally understand. Believe me, I have a black belt in saying I don't know. So close to the mic. Closer? Okay. Yeah, thank you.

55:56

I'm hearing echo back. That's why I was concerned. All right. So you talked about the different sort of methodologies of apologetics.

56:03

And my limited sort of reading of Bantill and Bonson and others like that, they tend to be very strongly critical of St.

56:13

Thomas Aquinas. Yes. And they tend to see the sort of classical approach as sort of like looking at it from a neutral territory and everything.

56:21

I think that's a misreading. Would you talk about that, why you believe that, or if you do, why you see it as sort of like looking at classical apologetics as sort of treating it as a neutral territory rather than trying to reach down?

56:38

Because I think all apologetics has to reach, and you could understand that maybe in sort of a neutralness, but it is firmly grounded within its own presuppositional worldviews,

56:47

I would say. Yes. So you do have a mixed bag as to what to do with Thomas Aquinas and certain Reformed Baptist circles.

56:53

There's some barroom brawling going on today. But when you speak of Thomas Aquinas, it's typically related to issues of like natural theology and things like that.

57:03

Now, I want to make a distinction between the affirmation of autonomy and neutral categories and whether someone doesn't affirm it, but it seems to be inserted secretly and hidden unbeknownst to the person in the way that they engage in natural theology.

57:17

So for example, when Bantill criticized proponents of the traditional proofs, Bantill even said, he's like,

57:23

I'm not against the traditional proofs. I just wish that you would formulate it in ways that are consistent with Christian presuppositions.

57:30

So the people that he was criticizing weren't necessarily saying, yes, we need to be neutral. Yes, we need to reason autonomously.

57:37

Bantill just, whether correctly or incorrectly, thought that the way they did that seemed to give over to these categories of neutral facts and autonomous human reasoning.

57:47

So if I'm not an expert in Thomas Aquinas, but I'm not sure from a personal perspective, but it may be the case that some have identified neutral and autonomous categories embedded in his methodology, or some people might think he kind of just affirms it and then that's incorrect from the criticism.

58:05

Within the presuppositional sort of approach, is an appeal to natural theology...

58:11

Can you say that again? Is an appeal to natural theology considered a neutral territory?

58:17

Not necessarily. This is kind of like how we talk about evidences. So when I first learned different apologetic methodologies,

58:25

I was torn because I was born and raised apologetically, born and raised at the feet of the vest sweater wearing

58:32

William Lane Craig. And of course, if you know, William Lane Craig with the beard, right? That's very, very convincing.

58:39

If there were theologian and apologetic trading cards, I would trade the beardless for the beard anytime. Okay, he's got better stats.

58:44

Anyway, I was born and raised apologetically speaking from a classical approach.

58:50

And an evidential approach. And when I became attracted to the presuppositional method, I kind of thought like, well, wait a minute.

58:57

I really think this method is, it's grounded in scripture. I'm convinced the scriptural arguments, I know that there are disagreements there.

59:03

But I really like these other arguments as well. Like, if I become a presuppositionalist, do I need to throw out these other arguments?

59:09

And that really tore me to pieces because I've used presuppositional and traditional proofs in my apologetic interactions.

59:17

And if you read Bonson, for example, Bonson did reject the cosmological argument.

59:23

But what I learned is that a rejection of some of these natural theological arguments is not an essential feature to the presuppositional approach.

59:31

You can affirm the traditional arguments and just think that some of them are bad arguments. And so you could reject them on that basis.

59:38

What I've learned is that to use evidences as a presuppositionalist is not to cease to be a presuppositionalist, but it's to take evidence and put it within a consistent presuppositional framework.

59:49

And I think that you can do that with natural theological arguments. If we can do it in a way that is consistent with some of those core presuppositional elements like no neutrality and non -autonomous reasoning,

01:00:01

I think that we can make very good use of those arguments. So would you, sorry, last question. That's okay. Would you say then that a classical approach to apologetics can do that?

01:00:12

Or can't? Well, I have to see it. I mean, it's hard because I understand that when you see a classical apologist argue, there are a lot, if you were to walk into a room and you were to see, you know,

01:00:24

Braxton Hunter or Frank Turek or something like that reasoning with an unbeliever, and then you see me in the room and I'm reasoning with an unbeliever, we might be saying many of like similar things.

01:00:36

But the real question is, what is the foundation? Sometimes that foundation comes out, and what we say, sometimes we don't have an opportunity or it's not appropriate to necessarily talk about our presuppositions every time, right?

01:00:47

I remember in a message correspondence with John Frame, he told me something, he's a noted presuppositionalist.

01:00:53

He says, you know, I wish that presuppositionalists can argue without giving the unbeliever a history lesson on epistemology.

01:00:59

It's like, I'm like, yeah. If someone were to ask me, hey Eli, Mr. Presuppositional guy, Mr. Revealed Apologetics, what's the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus?

01:01:08

Well, let me tell you, how do we understand evidence? No, I'm going to give them the data, but I will do so in a way with one foot in the data, knowing that the discussion can't stay there necessarily.

01:01:19

Because eventually when you dig deep enough, we're going to have to go into the other realm of what is undergirding and giving meaning to those data points.

01:01:27

Sometimes it comes up, sometimes it doesn't. That's the artistic aspect. You need to know when to emphasize those things.

01:01:33

But I still think that we can use it consistently. And when a classicalist is doing it consistently,

01:01:39

I'm not going to shoot, you know, my shot's fired. I think he's just being consistently presuppositionalist while calling himself a classicalist.

01:01:47

I had no comment on that one. Hey Eli, so if someone you were evangelizing, so this is an unbeliever and you're evangelizing them, witnessing to them, and this comes up as something they're very concerned about, and they say,

01:02:05

I think the conditional immortality view kind of makes sense to me of what's going on here theologically, and ECT doesn't.

01:02:14

How do you think traditionalists should react to something like that? Yeah, so when you speak of traditionalists, you're going to have a wide variety of people who hold to certain commitments within that paradigm.

01:02:24

So there are traditionalists who hold to a traditional view, but they also see from their perspective, these necessary connections of that view to other doctrines.

01:02:33

So for example, if I were a traditionalist who rejected flat out the conditional immortality view, I might reject that view because I see in them necessary connections to other doctrines that are very, very important that I don't want to compromise on.

01:02:45

So if you're that kind of traditionalist, I might, you know, I'm going to give them the gospel. I'm not going to debate the person that I'm sharing the gospel with on hell necessarily, if that's the issue that they're discussing.

01:02:55

But for me personally, I have not seen the necessary connection between conditional immortality and some essential doctrine.

01:03:02

So if that's what they hold, and I express my disagreement, I'd say, well, here's the gospel, right?

01:03:08

If that's how you feel, here's my advice as a Christian or someone who wants to become a Christian, is that our beliefs, what we believe about God, what we believe about what he's revealed is very important.

01:03:18

And so the reason why you're holding to that position, I just want to, I want to encourage you, make sure that your reasons are grounded in scripture as opposed to what is more emotionally acceptable to us.

01:03:29

Now, if the person says, well, I think the scriptural arguments are fine, then yeah, that's just the nature of the Christian life. We're not going to always disagree on those various topics.

01:03:36

But if I've identified something in the person in the sense that the reason why they're holding to this is because emotionally it's more satisfying, which

01:03:43

I don't see how that's the case necessarily because both are terrible, but some people think it's more satisfying, then

01:03:49

I would just caution that person that we want to allow the word of God to speak for itself when making informed decisions about our theological positions.

01:03:56

All right. Thanks. Thank you. Hi. When you were talking about the emotional objections to hell, one of them was, how are we going to enjoy heaven knowing that our loved ones are being tormented?

01:04:13

I was wondering if you think it's fair for some of us to move that into an intellectual objection to eternal conscious torment?

01:04:20

For me, the way I think of it is I really am going to have a hard time in heaven if I know my loved ones are being tormented, especially if I see the smoke rising up and it's reminded and so forth.

01:04:31

I don't base that on the emotion I'm feeling right now, but as the emotion I will be feeling even after God wipes every tear from my eyes.

01:04:39

For me, that's more of an intellectual objection to eternal conscious torment. Do you think that's fair to move it into an intellectual objection?

01:04:46

Well, if you mean intellectual objection, something along the lines of like a logical objection, then

01:04:51

I would just simply ask to see the argument that demonstrate that there's a logical incompatibility of someone being in heaven, in some sense, being distraught about knowing about their family members suffering in hell.

01:05:02

I don't see that. I mean, yeah, it's emotionally, I can relate to that, but I don't see the logical connection necessarily.

01:05:09

And I tell people this all the time, the Bible tells us enough about hell that we don't want to go there or whatever the case it is, whatever nature it is, and enough about heaven that we want to go there.

01:05:19

So when we speak of say, what does it mean for someone to be resurrected with a glorified body and not to be pulled this way or that by an inherent internal sin nature?

01:05:29

How are people like that going to think? Will I see the justice in God's justice and glorify

01:05:35

God when I'm fully removed from the hindrances of my sinful aspects and ways of looking at life?

01:05:41

It may be the case that in heaven, in our glorified bodies and our renewed minds, we will look at God's justice.

01:05:47

And even as we can't even fathom how we would respond to the idea of a family member in hell, it may be the case that we will see things through the eyes of God and understand and give him great praise for that.

01:05:57

I know that's difficult to swallow, but again, with God, all things are possible if I'm going to be stereotypical there, right?

01:06:04

Or generic there. I think it's true that if we're going to see things through God's perspective, I'm sure that we will see that situation through redeemed eyes.

01:06:13

Well, I'm going to represent the online audience and say they were remarkably quiet.

01:06:19

We know you're out there, but they have not sent anything in. And what I was going to do was fill in a question, but it was going to be that one.

01:06:26

So the people in the room are apparently covering it so well that the people online are just like, hey, they've got me covered.

01:06:33

And so... Well, it's early. Maybe they didn't have their coffee yet. So going once, going twice. So thank you very much.