As part of some on-going thinking theologically with a friend, hell has come up in passing a couple of times. So I want to reflect a bit more intently on it. What follows is less a fully-developed theology of hell as some scribbles. Take them as such. 1. What is "hell"? It can't be known as Dinge-an-sich . As a negative to a positive, hell can only be known and named in relation to heaven . Heaven is life-with-God, therefore hell is existence-without-God. 2. Or, more accurately, because "God is love", hell is lovelessness . At its essence, hell can't be hot. It is, as Dante said, cold -- ice cold. Or if, with most of Christian tradition, hell be aflame, "Yet from those flames / No light, but rather darkness visible" (Milton, Paradise Lost , 1.62-63). In this way, hell may be something experienced here, in life, even as it may experienced after death. 3. The opposite of love is ...
A "restless" theologian in service to the church of Jesus Christ