Defending damnation: a response to Hill

Abstract Scott Hill has recently published a response to the ‘Master Argument against Universalism,’ defended at length in James Dominic Rooney’s ( Not a Hope in Hell, Routledge, 2025). Hill relies on his own summaries or interpretations of that argument which involve fundamental misconceptions about it and the reasons given in the book for affirming its premises. Further, he ignores the responses or qualifications made in the book to objections that resemble those made by Hill. For this reason, the article focuses on reviewing the Master Argument. In addition, I will pose further potential objections in the spirit of Hill’s criticisms and show the way that these objections entail a denial of the assumption (made in the book) that classical theism is true. Since the argument was only intended to show that universalism requires denying classical theism, I show that the objections fall prey to the dilemma posed, and that the Master Argument is sound, if classical theism is true. While Hill is nonchalant about denying classical theism, as are many others, I conclude by laying out the dialectical costs of affirming universalism and denying classical theism, especially for those interested in maintaining a ‘patristic universalism.’