The Evolution of Hell—Part 1

I was recently pondering the nature of people's beliefs about the afterlife and its influence on their behavior while still alive. The central doctrine of Christianity (the main religion of America) is that, upon death, one is judged for one's summary behavior in life, and the tally determines one's everlasting assignment: either the bliss of heaven or the torment of hell. You get one or the other.

I came upon a recent article in Aeon Magazine that helped me clarify the issue a little better. It was an evaluation of the historical account of the evolving beliefs about what hell is and its influence on people's lives—sort of the evolution of our concept of hell and what it's meant to us.

Ancient peoples (say, longer ago than 2-3 millennia) viewed the afterlife as a kind of permanent existence—sort of an eternal condition of just being... there was nothing tormented or punishing about it. The Egyptians are an example of this belief. The ancients saw punishment and reward as things that are not awaiting us after death, but happen to us while alive.

As another example, the ancient Jews did not believe in heaven or hell following death. They were convinced that punishment or reward must happen in life. I've long believed that this is the source of much of the angst expressed in the psalms: How can one account for that fact that the guy next door is having a great life, when he's really a wicked dude? I, a good person, have toed the line all my life and my life is not nearly as good. It's just not fair!

In the third century CE Origen (a Christian scholar and theologian) taught that, since God was love, hell was not eternal damnation, it was not endless punishment for one's sins. It was only a temporary place to “reside,” where one might experience some provisional punishment for sins, but everyone would eventually go to heaven; would finally return to God, fully restored and healed.

Origen's teaching did not endure, however, as 100 years or so after him Augustine established the Christian church's foundational doctrine: death led to eternal existence in either heaven or hell. It is, he insisted, a binary situation after all. But Augustine took the edge off this permanent, black-or-white, heaven-or-hell situation by introducing the concept of purgatory—as a kind of temporary hell, from which one could still manage to get to heaven. He introduced a bit of a shade of gray into the black and white heaven or hell debate.

The Protestant Reformation, however, brought back the binary afterlife. It resulted in being a kind of dire warning to people. It even made life a little scary for protestants, since one could become doomed forever for his sins, with no chance of atonement. You get once chance and that's it!

Then the Enlightenment ushered in a time when science and human reason took center stage on the human scene. Many Enlightenment thinkers rebelled against the Protestant dogma—contending that God would not be so cruel and harsh as to condemn people to everlasting torment, especially for sins that are not all that evil. Some of these Enlightenment folks even went so far as to abolish hell altogether.

More on hell next time...