Brilliant and challenging. I can't claim to have fully understood every arguement he makes here -- that's going to require a lot more thought and another reading -- but I find what I do get extremely compelling. ( )

It must be nice to be so well known and such a good writer that you just can piss on everyone and they'll cheer you on. This is a fabulous piece of clear thinking about the worst aspects of the Christian tradition. In short, if you want to say:

i) God created everything, He is our Father;
ii) God is love; and
iii) God will send most people to hell for eternal punishment

you should probably take a good long hard look at the definitions of 'father' and 'created' and 'love' and 'eternal' and 'people' and 'punishment.' Because there is no way you can use those words, in the normal ways, and hold all three of those things to be true.

Hart would be a better atheist than the New Atheists, because he actually knows what he's talking about, and can use things like 'logic'. When confronted with three statements that can't all be consistent, you only have to choose one to drop. He chooses to drop by far the least plausible of them, (iii), (the New Atheists would of course drop all three) and to accept the plain and clear sense of most new testament passages about damnation, which is that if there is a hell, it will be purgatorial and not eternal. At one point, he just quotes the bible for seven pages to make that point. It's all very enjoyable and convincing. If Christianity is to mean anything, it must mean that all will be saved, together. Hart doesn't spell it out too much, but that clearly means that the whole mythology of individuals dying and 'going to' heaven can get thrown out. Despite their disagreements on bible translation, Hart's work here seems to fit very nicely with Wright's attempt to convince people that just maybe the bible means what it says.

Holy hell is this well written. ( )

I was excited about this book, but I was a bit disappointed by the argumentative / fight approach of the writing style. I understand this is typical in Philosophy writing, but I don't care much for arguing. After all, Heaven doesn't really argue or fight with Hell (those are Hell's methods ;). I was hoping/expecting this book to be more from the heart, speaking to those that believe in or open to the belief that Heaven is our home, everyone's home. Whether you take the short path home, or the long one, with a detour to Hell, that's where we're all going. Though I did laugh at his cleverly calling people that believe in the eternal aspect of hell "infernalists." I should have expected a Philosophical argument, as it's published by Oxford, and such an academic press. Still, I think there is still a hole left to be filled with a book on this topic, but not from an argumentative / fighting stance, and more from the heart.

Trust me, this is not my inability to keep up with advanced topics in philosophy and theology, or finding this book to be too intellectually challenging. I have read many many dense, cerebral texts on philosophy and theology. This is the pacifist in me not caring for such fighting words. I was not expecting Chicken Noodle Soup for the Universalist's Soul.

These truths should lift the heart and fill it with joy. It did not. It brought me down with its sheer brutalism. A beautiful truth expressed with such mean-spiritedness attempts to mar the very beautiful truth expressed.

Rather than fight with the "infernalists," I'm craving a book that speaks to the heart of *why* Hell is not permanent. That God craves our unification with Him, that there's only One in the entire universe, and in the end Hell will be abolished/sublimated/transmuted. What does this idea say about our inherent worth, our inherent and unbreakable divinity? And what does the counter viewpoint (the infernalist one) demean about our inherent worth? What does the counter viewpoint mis-communciate about God and God's nature, and our relationship?

I don't really need to be convinced, and I'm not keen on arguing. I already believe in the only temporary nature of hell, and our collective destination is ultimately Heaven. I want to read insight into that belief, it's power, and it's, nuances, its implications, and feed my heart with that.

I've heard that The Inescapable Love of God by Thomas Talbott to be much more in that desired vein. ( )