The Evolution of Hell—Part 2

When the USA was founded, most Americans leaned towards the Protestant concept of hell. They believed that hell was necessary as a deterrent against serious crime, as a way to keep citizens on the straight and narrow. If there was any doubt about the issue, the US introduced the death penalty as an additional threat to those who might contemplate committing major crimes.

But the trend on the part of some people to defang the threat of hell continued. Newer religions—Mormons and Adventists—brought some shades of gray back in. They advocated for the existence of several layers of hell—allowing one to escape everlasting damnation for the less serious sins.

America's involvement in major wars—the Civil War, two world wars, and Vietnam—convinced some of its citizens that we humans are able to create a kind of hell right here on Earth. In the wake of the two world wars many people around the world were very discouraged at the human propensity to create misery. Some of them even began to maintain that hell was not really a “place” at all that we go to after death, but is more a metaphor for the torment that we create in this life.

Evangelicals, however, have held fast to an eternal, single hell... there are no shades of gray. Yet surveys show that fewer and fewer Americans subscribe to this depiction of hell. In recent polls about three quarters of Americans do believe in God, but only about half of them believe in hell.

So we have a significant divide in America, not only in politics, but also about the nature of hell. Some say it's not real; that we make our own personal hell in this life. Others say that hell does exist and that we need it as a deterrent against human atrocities, or at least to induce people to lead a moral life. Those who believe hell may not be an actual place lean toward an interpretation of God as a loving and forgiving being. Those who take the second position believe that hell is necessary to keep people on the straight and narrow—in fact, some of them do so to literally frighten people into holding to their belief of hell.

I think it is important to remember that no one has died, experienced some kind of afterlife, and returned to tell us about it. Some people believe that they have gotten a glimpse of the afterlife, but we have no real evidence. Thus the very existence of an afterlife—let alone the reality of heaven or hell—remains a belief... pure and simple. And that belief, as I've described, has evolved over time. The truth of the matter is beyond the purview of science, so that discipline cannot help. It is the realm of faith, of religious doctrine. No doubt human views on the existence (or not) of hell will likely continue to evolve and change. Stay tuned.