Theologians doubt hell

Originally posted on February 15, 2008 – by Andre Piet

Not far from where I live, a lecture was given last night for the Reformed CSFR disputation Panoplia by Dr. Wilko van Holten on “the question of hell.” Yesterday, the Reformatorisch Dagblad published an interview with him as a preview. I will give a few quotations.

I myself am a member of the Protestant Church, its middle stream, but for years I have not heard a good sermon about hell anymore. And my impression is that even on the right flank of Christian Netherlands, hell is being spoken about less and less explicitly.

… from my youth I remember that hell was spoken of above all with a certain reserve. Hell was rather tacitly assumed. And since then the embarrassment has only increased.

Indeed, the embarrassment surrounding “hell” is great. With the lips one confesses the doctrine, but in the hearts there lives nothing but doubt about it. It strikes me how in recent times, within orthodox-Christian circles, these doubts are increasingly being voiced aloud as well. Thus, recently in the Nederlands Dagblad a series of articles was devoted to this theme. This consisted, among other things, of an interview with Dr. van Ek, who put forward a cautious plea for “salvation universalism” (= all people are being saved). Naturally with many detours, vague terms and the necessary “ifs and buts.” After all, you are either a theologian or you are not… The same vagueness can be read in the aforementioned interview in the Reformatorisch Dagblad, where Dr. van Holten points in the direction of “salvation universalism.”

But… all that glitters is not gold. That the doctrine of hell is currently taking a severe beating within orthodoxy is a gain, for we are dealing here with the most demonic doctrine ever invented. But… I do add one caveat. The increasing doubt about hell in our time is not the result of Scriptural investigation or the rediscovery of Biblical truths. The theologians mentioned present ‘interesting’ expositions, but fail to show from Scripture how things actually stand. They say, in so many words, “how in our time of globalization various concepts and traditions should be connected with one another.” As if that makes us any wiser. Traditions should not be connected with one another, for the misery began precisely with those traditions! Traditions must be jettisoned, so that Scripture alone will speak. We become wiser only when it is demonstrated from Scripture, black on white, who GOD is and how, in an all-encompassing “plan of the eons,” He will bring every creature (through judgments) to where His love intends it to be.

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