1 of 3
Reflective people of all walks of life find themselves, from time to time, pondering what I refer to as "dark thoughts." What makes these thoughts "dark" is not that they are particularly macabre or especially sinister. Rather, it's that for most of us of post-college age, the activities of daily life—working, caring for children or aging parents—occupy the preponderance of our time during the light of day, and it's only when the lights go out—when our heads make contact with our pillows in the dark of night—that a space opens between our ears wide enough to accommodate them. The sorts of thoughts I have in mind are these: Is the life I am now living a meaningful one? Do I really believe that mom's multiple sclerosis has come to her from God's fatherly, providential hand? Given the religious pluralism that surrounds me, and the devout and sincere believers of other faiths that I know personally, is it really rational for me to continue to believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation? Except for people like me, who get paid to ponder and explore such questions in the light of day, these are thoughts that typically pay us a visit under the darkness of night, when we slip under our covers and wait patiently for sleep to come and usher us off to temporary rest.
The dark thought that I want to explore here is this: Could it be that God's saving love is so radical that, eventually, all human creatures are saved? For me this thought was most recently occasioned by the death of my best friend from college. Sam and I met at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) in 1987. We were enrolled in the same philosophy course with a professor who would become our favorite—Stephen Vicchio—and with whom we would take many more courses. After graduating from UMBC I went on to do graduate work while Sam eventually made his way into computer programming. I loved Sam. He was raised Jewish, although his pilgrimage of honest and sincere truth-seeking led him to embrace more characteristically Eastern forms of belief. Sam was a kind soul, and he leaned into life with the kind of childlike openness that inspires. He was, indeed, a dear friend. Over the course of 17 years Sam and I talked for countless hours about God, the Christian faith, and other matters of fundamental human concern. Shortly before Christmas last year, Sam called from the hospital and left a message on my answering machine. He told me that the doctors were going to have a look at his brain in order to figure out the source of a persistent headache. They found it—an inoperable brain tumor. Nine months later I helped to bury him.
Sam, so far as I know, did not die in Christ. Is he damned? Forever? It's a question that pricks the heart when someone you know and love—someone who, so far as you know, did not embrace Christ—dies. It's an important question, one that I tell my students ought to keep them awake at least a few nights of their life.
Many of us who were raised in the church have come to understand hell in the terms bequeathed us by Dante, as a place of unremitting torture and horrible agony. Such, we believe, is the eternal destiny of unbelievers. There is biblical evidence for the doctrine of eternal damnation. For example, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, "They shall suffer punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might." Now, depending on whether your theological sensibilities incline you toward a tough-minded, double predestinationist view, or toward a kinder-gentler picture of God, the doctrine of eternal damnation will either sit comfortably in your bosom or make you squirm. Okay, perhaps it makes all of us squirm; or at least it should!
share this page
RSS Feed
