Topic

Hell

What happens to those who are finally separated from God: whether their punishment is everlasting, whether they cease to exist, or whether all will in the end be saved.

Three main positions are discussed today. Eternal Conscious Torment has been the majority teaching of the Western churches since Augustine. Annihilationism, or conditional immortality, holds that the lost are finally destroyed. Christian Universalism holds, or hopes, that God will reconcile everyone. The debate grew sharper among evangelicals after John Stott cautiously endorsed annihilationism in 1988, and reached a wide audience with Rob Bell’s book Love Wins in 2011. It belongs to the wider topic of Last Things.