Does Hell Exist?

A bland notes post. I want to record here some of the ideas presented by the theologian Arthur Lunn, who is quoted frequently in William F. Buckley’s book, Nearer, My God. His argument on the nature of hell is as follows:

(1) I object to God being represented as a torturer. (2) I object to any form of punishment which is eternal. (3)I object to the fact that a man’s eternal destiny depends less on “striking a due balance between his virtues and his sins than on the pure accident of what takes place during the last moments of his life.”

Later on, Lunn is portrayed as being open to the concept of heaven as a place where few people go, but still establishes a divide between the idea of eternal punishment and soul annihilation. He further notes that man was not born to love God, and thus God cannot demand love of himself as a prerequisite to being redeemed. So God can insist on obedience, but not love, which is enjoyed by only a few. Hence Lunn is against the idea of hell because it is irrational in his outlook on the spiritual world. (pp. 68-72)