It’s only reasonable that those who are separated from God’s grace in hell become more hardened in their hearts as time goes on. They continually sin in hell and keep getting more punishment. Moreover, it also seems reasonable that the harder their hearts become the less they see and experience how horrible their punishment is. From the perspective of those in eternal bliss hell is quite horrible. But from the perspective of evil in hell it’s not so horrible. Part of the misery of hell is the sad fact that those who are in hell for awhile don’t realize how miserable their condition has become because they lose the capacity to appreciate genuine happiness after they are in hell for awhile.
Cole, ALL of this is conjecture. Not only is Hell ambiguous to begin with, but to add all this speculation on top of it is really over the top. There is a strong part of me that doesn’t think you believe this, or want to believe it, but are hoping we can refute it. I don’t know what to think in your case, but you do appear to be troubled by this. Whether I am correct or not regarding this, I think it is fair to say this conversation is over, isn’t it? You seem to have your mind made up and in all fairness, all of us have our minds made up on this particular issue… I am pretty sure I have heard every argument as to why it is just for God to torture people, or allow people to waste away with an eternal disease and I just am not buying it and you do… Can we really come to agreement? Probably not. We best agree to disagree on this matter. 
Gabe,
This isn’t about me but the truth of a holy God who justly punishes those whose are evil and who’s hearts have been hardened. Not speculation at all. But, I’ll let it go for now. 
The more I study scripture the more I think Annihilationism is true. It makes sense that all things being made new in heaven and earth as referring to the new heavens and earth. Humans outside the new creation in the eternal fire experience total destruction both body and soul. This is the second death. The eternal fire was created for Satan and his angels. They are supernatural beings and in a completely different category than humans. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever in the eternal fire. In this way the glory of God’s justice will shine forever. Destroying the wicked humans is an act of God’s mercy and punishment mixed. This is His severe mercy. Some experience God’s mercy as everlasting destruction others as everlasting life. All flesh will worship and confess Christ to the glory of the Father because the unbelieving humans in the Lake of Fire are dead. As it tells us in Isaiah the gates of the city are opened so that the redeemed can go out to look on the dead bodies.
The really good news for those who cling to this myth of an endless torturous fire chamber after death is that at least they’ll be able to talk to their loved ones who just didn’t make the grade as they writhe in perpetual pain just across the way… it says as much right here:
Believers won’t be able to pass over to aid their “evil” loved ones; but at least they themselves being in the very presence of the Lamb will be able to bid them best wishes, eternally… oh joy!! 
Those in the “holding tank” in Hades are in torment before “The Lake Of Fire” (the second death) where God has mercy on those in the “Lake Of Fire” by annihilating them. God will have mercy on all. Those in the Lake Of Fire receive His severe form of mercy as they are destroyed forever. Those who are in eternal life receive His saving grace or mercy. Christ’s presence takes different forms.
As so it seems do the shifting sands of your arguments. 
I’m learning Davo. I noticed you didn’t deal with what I said though.
Those in hell remain unrepentant forever. Those in hell sin - God punishes - they sin - God punishes - they sin and the cycle goes on forever.
Where do you get this from Cole?
Steve,
I’ve changed my view. See above.
The more I study scripture the more I think Annihilationism is true. It makes sense that all things being made new in heaven and earth as referring to the new heavens and earth. Humans outside the new creation in the eternal fire experience total destruction both body and soul. This is the second death.
Annihilation may be true and UR may be true and some hybrid model may be true. What strikes me is that this “Lake of Fire” is in fact pictured as a Lake and a lake is something you can walk out of. The gates of New Jerusalem are open all the time which may be for folks in the LOF to walk through when they are able to. Lastly in Rev 22.17 , five verses from the end of the bible “the Bride and the Spirit” invite anyone to drink from the water of life. That may be an allusion to UR or something close to it.
The way I see it, you cannot force someone to love. So to say we must keep going through some refining fire until we finally come to see things God’s way, would be just that-forced. We must first choose to be with God, then let His Holy Spirit and His Word guide us. If you love someone set them free. If they come back to you, then it will be true love.
Well quite apart from “forced” it simply isn’t true… this notion of post-mortem refining through fire, supposedly “the lake of fire”, is TOTALLY reading theology back into the text of Scripture, i.e., eisegesis.
I think the bible speaks mostly about what is happening on Earth, and the spirits that are inside of our physical bodies. This is what we must focus on and for good reason, because no one on Earth knows what is going on in heaven until we get there. God doesn’t spend too much time talking about it because it would be like trying to explain calculus to a 3 year-old.
This thread has to have the record for sheer number of theological turnarounds for Cole so far… 
No theologian is totally wise or correct. There never has been a single strand of thought on the fate of the damned in all of the history of the Church. Lewis was inconsistent as Jason pointed out. Paul was overwhelmingly universalist, and the only heresies he really got angry about were gnosticism because they hate the flesh and think Christ couldn’t be wholly God or wholly flesh, let alone both, and he got upset about people trying to impose THEIR legalistic interpretations on God’s grace.
Another patently obvious issue is that if God is only going to show mercy to those who repent, who has any hope at all? God could arbitrarily show no mercy to me, and thus i don’t repent, and thus i never get the mercy…so i’m damned into a Calvinistic vortex of hopeless doom. Well, sod that for a laugh…i think i’ll follow Jesus, the Lord of just mercy and triumphant love, who NEVER EVER gives up on a single being, and will not stop til this broken universe is healed. Not a single atom will remain unredeemed, and thus there CANNOT be any corner of the universe, no matter how small, where God is not found, therefore this “hell” Lewis couldn’t bring himself to disbelieve in will not exist anywhere, locked from the inside or not.
If Lewis is a “great teacher” or “thinker” etc, would it not be wise to follow his example? he saw MacDonald as his teacher…and MacDonald WAS wise enough to throw hell away. Lewis wanted to, but couldn’t overcome the doctrinal baggage. Maybe if he knew what we know now about the translations, and the Church fathers…maybe he wouldn’t come round. Well, he’s a universalist now, that’s all i can say!
Yep. I can’t figure the doctrine of hell out. Best to leave it alone for now.
Yep. I can’t figure the doctrine of hell out. Best to leave it alone for now.
It’s perfectly OK to be undecided Cole.
Thank you Steve. I really appreciate that.
ACHOO!! sniffle. head cold recently. trying to catch up on the thread now.
Also, you asked me a while back to remind you about the mood swings if they happened, and to check if a sudden reversal on principles you once accepted is happening with a seasonal change. I’m far from the most empathetic person on Earth, so I expect I handled that badly – sorry if so. 
To recap my points from here:
1.) In the same work Timothy Keller was quoting (which TK should have recalled since it’s one of the few times Lewis wrote strongly in favor of divine persistence to save), Lewis first repeatedly argued and stressed that as Christians we should not expect God to give up on saving sinners. But then later, in the portion quoted, Lewis decided this meant God is forced to give up by the sinner, being defeated by the sinner on His purpose to save them from sin.
1.1.) It’s rather amazing that TK (the Calvinist Presbyterian, not the Arminianistic Cumberland Presbyterian 
) would quote that since Calv theology is absolutely against the idea that God is defeated by sinners in saving them from sin; much less that God would simply choose to give up even though He would succeed if He kept trying. Calvs explain final perdition on the ground that God never chose to save some sinners from sin at all. When he says (as in the headline for his website) “you are more sinful and flawed than you ever dared believe, but more accepted and loved than you ever dared hope,” he means all-of-you-inclusively for the sin and flaws, but then switches immediately to only addressing the elect in the second half of his sentence, those whom God has chosen to save from their sins. That isn’t necessarily “you”, it’s only ‘maybe you’. Lewis was the opposite of that: he definitely meant “you” both ways, but didn’t really mean “you” were more loved by God than “you” ever dared hope. Otherwise he would have at least dared to hope that all “you” would be saved. But he didn’t.
(Or rather, they both do mean all inclusively in both ways sometimes, but not consistently so – or they’d be, or would have been, Christian universalists. But part of their appeal is that they do both apparently promote the gospel assurance of total scope and also the gospel assurance of original and victorious divine persistence.)
1.2.) But this also runs against the thrust of Lewis’ argument earlier about divine persistence, which was that we should expect from God’s nature both that He would act to save everyone and also that He would persist until He gets it done. Nor was it a question of God being “obligated” to do so by moral appeal to a standard higher than God: Lewis based it (though admittedly not very clearly) on God’s trinitarian characteristics. This is why Lewis thought God was forced to quit; but in doing so he still ended up disavowing his own principles about why we could expect God to keep at it. He should have concluded, if God never saved some sinners, that God still keeps at it in a never-ending stalemate. Though even that would run against his emphatic insistence elsewhere that God is competent to win the chess match, an analogy which doesn’t obviate the free will of the opponent at all.
1.3.) Despite Lewis’ insistence there that God sadly quitting and letting sinners lock themselves into annihilation (more or less) had the authority of scripture behind it, there is nothing in scripture about God sadly quitting. Timothy Keller on his theology ought to be even more strongly against that; and Lewis shows elsewhere he does know better than that: God actively punishes sinners so long as they remain impenitent. (You yourself were quoting scriptures showing God’s active punishment of sinners.) Similarly, sinners can’t annihilate themselves: if any are annihilated, God actively chooses to do that, by choosing to withdraw His ongoing action by which they have continued to exist up to that point.
2.) You (or whoever you were reading, be it Lewis or Keller or whoever) were appealing to the principle of accepting whichever soteriology involves the most fairness. (“What could be more fair than that?” etc.)
I am 1000% in favor of that approach. Which is why, on that principle, I reject Lewis’ notion (per soft Arminianism) of a final victory of unfair people insisting on being and remaining unfair and never coming to be fair.
I also on the same principle reject the harder Arminian notion of God deciding to authorize final unfairness by choosing to give up empowering and leading unfair people into being fair people.
I also on the same principle reject the Calvinistic notion that God chooses never to empower (much less lead) some unfair persons to being fair, but instead actually creates them unfair and by His choice ensures they remain forever unfair (until He annihilates them or not).
What glorifies God more? For some sinners never to come to glorify God by their triumphant choice? For some sinners never to come to glorify God by God’s authoritative choice? For some sinners to come to falsely glorify God, while remaining rebels in their hearts, by God’s authoritative choice? Or for all sinners to come to truly glorify God, in cooperation with God’s choice?
Even if some unjust/unfair people never come to do justice, and never come to properly glorify God, no one anywhere in any way can coherently argue that that results in the most conceivable fairness, justice, and glory to God. The moment authors appeal to that to supposedly bolster their argument for final perdition, you should recognize they’re making at least one highly important and inconsistent mistake somewhere.
This is aside from any discussion of the scriptures you cited, which I and others have discussed in much more detail elsewhere (and which at the time you agreed with the results of those more in-depth discussions about). At the very least, they do not describe the hell of C. S. Lewis. Which was a main reason why I always had at least a few nagging problems with his approaches and arguments on that topic.