Universalism and Hell as Inner Torment: A Reflection on David B. Hart’s Understanding

In recent years, the Russian Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart (*1965) has renewed the thesis of universalism (final restoration, apocatastasis). His arguments are two-fold. First, a human being in true freedom cannot resist God's love eternally. Second, God is not a good God, and creation is not good if only one soul falls into eternal damnation. Therefore, God will receive all people into the kingdom of glory. Hell, then, according to Hart---in this, he follows Isaac of Nineveh (c. 640 -- c. 700)---can only mean the inner torment that one experiences while already being in heaven. I will argue that it is not convincing that a human being in true freedom cannot resist God's love eternally. On the contrary, one must be free to decide in favour of or against something. Hart's second argument does not pay attention to God's justice and holiness. Furthermore, the argument makes God's goodness dependent on God's deeds for human beings. I conclude that universalism over-emphasizes God's mercy and disrespects God's justice, which leads to aporia. Mercy and hell, thus, still have significance and cannot be undervalued.