The horrific picture of ECT is so plainly seen yet everyone around me is blinded to it.

For believers in ECT, I suppose the injunction to “Love thy neighbor as thyself” stops at the gates of heaven, and then the “elect” get to get their jollies watching other souls writhe in pools of boiling human excrement, and this is God’s great gift to the blessed. How very Christ-like no? Hart as always is the only sane voice in a sea of theological and soteriological insanity.

I would add that it is not ONLY our family, friends and acquaintances that make us who we are, but even our enemies.

Great explanation of how silly the belief in both a loving God and the possibility of eternal conscious torment. If we who are saved are to delight in the eternal sufferings of our beloved family & friends, we would cease to be the lovers, presumably a good God would seek to transform us to be.

What a devastating critique of ECT.

Superb analysis of the idiocy of ECT by Hart.

This reminds me of the concept of Ubuntu: I am because you/we are.

I didn't read 'That All Shall Be Saved' in order to be convinced - I've never been anything other than convinced - but for me this was the most persuasive part of his argument. It spoke to something about my life that I'd known but never articulated.

What was the point of the greatest of commmandments in practice loving one another as yourself, only to have it anesthetized post-mortem in favor of the infinite cosmic opiate for me alone. When you love someone truly, their hurts become compounded within you, their pain is felt in you. Not even the Buddhists whos goal is absolute annhilation of the self negates or ignores the suffering of others, what remains is loving-kindness for all sentient beings at their final destination.

I love these interviews, and I love the underscore - really adds to the vibe. I wanted to say that because I saw another comment saying it detracted, but it really doesn’t. Love your channel!

good stuff thank you!

This is truth that is so lacking in most of modern "Christianity". Much of Calvinistic teaching that I have heard is just as deviant as the mindset that a serial killer would have. I truly believe that those who hold on to and teach this will have to repent of this terrible evil before God can accept them into His eternal kingdom.

Excellent philisophical reasoning to steer away from ECT. I can plainly see in text destruction of the wicked. However, I am hopeful that universal salvation is what we all encounter in the end. If a person truly hates God then why wouldn't God mercifully keep the person from living with Him for all of eternity? If God wins over everyone's love and everyone is saved then all the better. I am not yet convinced in scripture but I hope to be.

the only way I can see this making any sense, is that in heaven I would have a kind of infinite compassion, love and sadness for those beings who are suffering in hell but that this compassion, love and sadness would itself be a kind of bliss in the heavenly kingdom. it would not be tormenting me, or else I would be in a kind of hell myself, but in the way that sadness can be beautiful, it would be an expression of divine love and compassion and therefore as beautiful as anything else that might be experienced in heaven. I still would not subscribe to the idea that hell is eternal, but that it exists as a form of purification to those who have not yet let go of their self-obsession, so in that beautiful sadness, I would constantly pray that those in hell would be saved and expect their salvation

I have his book, The Story of Christianity, sitting on my nightstand.

I'd like to know more about Aquinas coming to the conclusion that all of his writings were worth no more than straw, if that story is real.

Does anyone know what interview this is from?

I think CS Lewis's work the great divorce gives us insight into the problem of how can souls in heaven be happy if there is a hell. Basically it comes down to the idea that if there must be a hell better to have some be happy in spite of it than to let hell drag heaven down with it.

But what if it is not endless pleasure in seeing people suffer, but in seeing SIN suffer. After death, I believe that our sinful nature will be stripped away and burned. We WILL delight in that. We will lose "ourselves" (false self) and come into our true self. So yes, you might see the false self of your loved one burn away, but you will know that it is actually sin burning away, and you will rejoice with their true self. It isn't as simple as "you die as one whole person and continue to exist in heaven as one whole person." I believe we are stripped apart after death, purified, and only the good will remain.

What really clicks listening to DBH here; if being "saved" means being transformed into some... thing that could take endless pleasure in the endless torment of your former loved ones than what morally sane human being would even WANT to be "saved"?

The god of the picture of reality Hart describes here is not only not worth loving, he's worthy of nothing but contempt. If that's what god is like I think Satan must be the good guy.

The most unacceptable piece of theology I ever read. I recall finally isolating Aquinas' attempted reconciliation of bliss and knowledge of my family suffering in hell for eternity and thinking ," Wow," this has to be the low point of his vaunted intellectual prowess.