Is God a Black Hole Sun?

On my vacation this summer I bought a book at a Christian bookstore in Yarmouth Nova Scotia called "Erasing Hell" by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle.  I brought it home and my son Charlie noticed it.  He asked if he could take it back with him to university (he's got an internship this summer at Dalhousie). A week or so later he writes back these observations:

Interesting stuff. I especially enjoyed argument against a line used to advocate universalism which says that God wants everyone to accept Jesus or something; It says that it's important to differentiate between things that please God but that he leaves people to possibly do, and the things he makes sure happen.

Sounds like an argument from freedom is used to preclude universal salvation.  Although God might like universal salvation, God also likes freedom and builds it into us.  As finite imperfect creatures we must inevitably abuse this freedom to some extent and choose evil, so, in the end and to God's regret, universal salvation cannot occur.

I wrote back that I suspected that the book was conservative evangelical propaganda, but that it is good to consider what one's opponents have to say about an important debate such as the debate about universalism.  Which got me thinking about my views on universalism. I wrote back to Charlie this observation:

My position is that we are stuck in thinking only in terms of salvation of whole persons, which pushes us into "either or" thinking. For example, "I'm saved and you are not" and "I'm entirely saved or I'm entirely damned."  Instead I see God as a singularity that/who only draws good into his/her/its event horizon...leaving evil in this finite universe to be destroyed when it ends.

"I'm saved and you are not" beliefs are the result of thinking "either I am right or I am wrong, and if I am right then I am saved and therefore anyone who disagrees with me must not be saved."  The common denominator in all such thinking is that the salvation of individuals is something that can only be distinguished at the level of physical individuals judged at a particular time. Could the entire problem of universalism versus limited atonement boil down to a difference in, to use a computer metaphor, the "resolution" at which we typically view God's judgment versus the resolution that God can view that judgement?

Since we find ourselves typically thinking of people only as discrete physical individuals judged at a particular time, those units must be dropped down the garbage chute of final judgement if any part is found to be truly faulty, regardless of whether other parts are good or have manifested goodness in the past. But clearly this is ridiculous and unscriptural. There are numerous biblical references of God being able to put "new hearts" into us and to God being a "refining fire" who can purify us of our wrongdoings.  But again, these references tend to be read in regards to individuals considered only at particular times. God refines people  away from their former bad lives to entirely new lives (total conversion). Or God refines good people away from bad people (exoduses). Or God refines the saved from damned (the final judgement). Metaphors like that of sheep and goats seem to push us in such a direction. Some people are sheep and some are goats:

Matthew 25:31-46

‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’

Jesus teaches in parables, which by definition require that we move beyond simple literalism to seek their proper metaphorical/metaphysical meaning. One can very easily take away from this passage an extremely literal meaning that "bad" people are cast into the lake of fire to suffer some form of eternal punishment (a Dante like hell), and "good" people (believers) are granted eternal life.

Such interpretations seem to overlook is the lack of symmetry between the concepts of "eternal life" and "eternal punishment." Clearly eternal punishment, if it involves the Dantesque torture of bad individuals is also a form of eternal life, for one must be alive to be punished if punishment takes the form of harming. It is so easy to succumb to human maliciousness and self righteousness and "fill in" (or read back in the light of Dante's influence) the missing details----God eternally harms bad people (my enemies) and provides (me) with eternal "club med" with my family and friends.  How this attractive and easy move is to be reconciled with other biblical statements like "the wages of sin is death" I don't know, but it is undoubtedly possible and frequent. The mind of the malicious self righteous person can easily invent any number of ways to get back to the notion of the Dantesque eternal torture of his or her perceived foes. Death only refers to our physical death. So the phrase the wages of sin is death only means "behaving badly" can have the natural consequence of leading to an early death. So the phrase now lacks any metaphysical implications and becomes instead simply an iteration of the parental warning to "play safe." Why the concept of "eternal punishment" cannot be understood as "extinguishment" or "death" in its more usual sense, which is to say, the loss of the opportunity of life and why this cannot be understood in terms of aspects of lives, rather than physical individuals considered at particular times, is beyond me.

What I find interesting in this parable is its focus on specific "moments" of care, nurture and mercy (good aspects of individuals lives, such as visiting someone in prison). Clearly any human life considered as a whole will involve some such moments.  Even the worst people will manifest some such moments. And clearly the best people (saints/the elect) will fail in some such moments (only God can be morally perfect). But if this is the case, then how does God weigh such moments in the final judgement? If one's lifetime is constituted of 50/50 of successes and failures in such moments, then hell?  50 + 1, then heaven? Now that we live in a modern age with concepts like film and virtual reality, why cannot we move to a notion that God can perfectly preserve the good "moments" and let the bad ones fall to the cutting room floor?  Pushing further with the metaphor, why cannot one imagine the moments (celluloid is notoriously flammable) that fall to the floor being gathered up and burned--effectively making them to cease to exist ("death" as final "erasing" of all the bad aspects of life)?

What then would the preservation of our lives mean? Well conceivably preservation would mean God eternally preserving and revisiting those truly good aspects of life. What would such revisiting be like? Clearly God's revisiting would not be a pale flickering representation but a full blown reconstitution of that moment in perfect fidelity to the original. We would "live again" (resurrection versus disembodied souls). And if God is eternal then our lives at least in terms of the truly good moments, would also "live eternally" with God. Why cannot eternal punishment be understood as the "second death" of those aspects of ourselves (moments) that will never be allowed to exist again?

Revelation 2.11:
Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Whoever conquers will not be harmed by the second death.
Revelation 20.6:
Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.
Revelation 20.14:
Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire;
Revelation 21.8:
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.

The prophet Malachi prophesied that “all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up” (Malachi 4:1).  Paul's discussions of corruption putting on incorruption and of the distinction between bodies and "spiritual bodies" point to possible interpretations of the nature of resurrection that move beyond understanding ourselves only as discrete physical beings judged at a particular moment. Jesus' comments in Matthew 22 about how our lives in resurrection are like that of the angels in heaven (consisting only of freely chosen good moments) and beyond temporal categories such as "being a wife of x" (i.e. transcending titles only indexed to specific time frames) also point in this direction.

To return to my computer metaphor about resolution, it is like we are inclined to talk about ourselves and others only in terms of a single screenshot taken at the instant of our death (the widow who had been married seven times when she died), when God's understanding and judgement occurs at the level of pixels and the entire process of animation that has occurred over the course of our lives. Are all saved? That would depend on whether there might be some human beings whose lives could provide not even a single pixel worth preserving. I don't know if this is possible. The Calvinist in me tells me that such knowledge can only be God's. Therefore, my position on the issue of universal salvation is that it would be wrong to either endorse or reject it. It is a mystery. Is atonement limited (a traditional Calvinist doctrine)? Certainly, but not certainly in the sense of physical individuals looked at atemporally (the elect versus the damned), but only regarding the obvious fact that vast swaths of the pixels that make up individual lives as temporal-physical totalities will have to be "erased" in the judgement of a perfectly just and merciful God. In other words, nobody will achieve the preservation of the entirety of themselves and it is unclear how much participation in eternity (if any) any might be granted by a perfectly just and merciful God. All atonement will be partial in the sense of being perfectly tailored to every individual in terms of their unjust decisions and meaningless sufferings.

The problem is that we can find passages that seem to suggest that the burning of the wicked as discrete individuals is an eternal and ongoing affair. For example, Revelation 14:11 reads “And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.” Such a passage seems to suggest that a finite group of wicked are eternally tortured. However, this is only an implication if one assumes that this finite World/Universe is the only creation God ever makes. In other words, we can only be supported in interpreting this passage as implying the idea of eternal torture if we assume that there is only one world and that the eternity of the torment can only refer to a finite group of the wicked individuals from this world. But if God creates other worlds or time periods beyond this one (eaons, often translated in English as "eternal" as in Matthew 25:46, but lacking this clear implication in Greek and its Hebrew equivalent olam), then the eternity of the torment of judgement might only refer to the torment of new legions of sinners as they face and truly understand the wrongness of their acts (evil moments) and the eternal destruction of the evil parts of themselves and their meaningless sufferings.

If God's creation re/creation of finite imperfect beings is something that never stops then there will be a need for an eternal "lake of fire" to burn up the eternal dross of wickedness. Conservative evangelical critics will undoubtedly say that I am inventing here and that I am moving beyond plain scripture. But the Bible does speak provocatively of "new heavens" and a "new earth" and of multiple worlds or eons:

Isaiah 65.17: For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.

Isaiah 66.22: For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your descendants and your name remain.

2 Peter 3.13: But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

Revelation 21.1: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

Heb 1:2: but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.

The Bible also speaks of the renewal and refreshment of creation such as when it is stated in 2 Peter 3:10-12:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire?

Also, in a very real sense conservative evangelicals already assert the reality of the eternal creation of finite imperfect individuals. Clearly if individuals are being eternally burned in a lake of fire they must also be eternally recreated. Or if they are simply maintained in eternal torment, then God is involved in an act of the eternal maintenance of otherwise finite beings, for no finite/mortal being can be eternal unless its mortality is somehow overcome by an act of maintenance. But if such finite evil beings are being maintained in their physical totality at the point of judgement, then clearly their  recollection of their evil deeds are also being maintained. And since God is all-knowing, God will be privy to their minds and the meaning of their recollections. So God will have to be continuously revisiting (in the act of recreation or maintenance of their physical totality) their depraved acts. So a record or memory of their depraved acts will, in a sense, exist eternally as a by-product of God's continual act of recreating/maintaining mortal sinners. But this makes no sense. Why would God preserve eternally any recollection of depraved acts or the meaningless sufferings of innocents? But one could say that God either does not know such thoughts (lacks or makes him/herself unaware of the recollection of such acts) or that God obliterates depraved memories (and thus is punishing mere bodies that have no actual ongoing mental connection with specific wrong acts).

We seem to come to a reductio ad absurdum here. It might be better to conclude along with more liberal readings of scriptures that the punishment of sin is recognition of one's wrongdoing and then eternal obliteration of that wrongdoing and its unredeemable effects on innocents. Black Hole Sun, please come and wash away the rain. Amen.