Four Views on Hell by Gundry, Stanley and William Crockett Book Review

The literal, purgatorial, metaphorical, and conditional views of hell as described by John Walvoord, Zachary Hayes, William Crockett, and Clark Pinnock respectively differ greatly from one another in that they can be seen to originate from differing conceptions of God, salvation, and the Christian experience. The work Four Views on Hell gives all four views of hell, each from a distinguished professor [1] , and in this regard readers can see the views unfold in both their contrasts and in their similarities. From a careful investigation of the text a person can conclude that a person's own view of hell fundamentally is oriented around a person's own understanding of eternal salvation.

Brief Summary

For Walvoord in his literal view of hell, the suffering of the wicked will continue forever [2] , but for Crockett, hell is a much milder place than what a literal understanding could account for as he argues that the maggots of Mark 9:48, the gnashing of teeth, and the fire and darkness should not be understood literally [3] . Next in the reading, Hayes introduces the idea of purgatory as rooted in the redemptive work of Christ [4] as this view promotes the tendency to reduce the population of hell by keeping masses of people in the outer court of heaven until they are able to enter in [5] . Lastly, for Pinnock, an infinite suffering in hell to punish a finite amount of sin is inconceivable [6] , and as a result Pinnock believes that the wicked people, death, devils, and evil must go into oblivion in order for Christ to have a complete victory [7] . Overall, the views come about as Walvoord in his literal view of hell favors eternal suffering in keeping with the strictest reading of scripture, Crockett favors the metaphorical view of hell as this would make for a milder and more loving God, Hayes is for the purgatorial view as this would give Christ more opportunity to work redemption, and Pinnock is for the conditional view as this eventually eliminates hell altogether under a completely sovereign and victorious God.

The literal view of hell, as often seen as traditional, shows itself to be the view that the other three views are most wildly against, and one can thus speculate that the alternative views to the traditional view arise out of a reaction or even a rejection to the traditional view. Pinnock for example describes Edwards as promoting a view of hell that shows hell being like a cat trapped in a microwave oven that is watched for delight by the heavenly saints [8] , and Pinnock uses this example to show how perverse that the saints and perhaps even God would be if such a hell as the traditional hell really exists. Crockett even more sharply points out that many early theologians taught that heavenly saints would see the torture and suffering of the dammed and would have increased pleasure and greater heavenly bliss [9] , and this gives good reference to how opposed that Crockett is to the literal view of hell as it would appear to be a extremely perverse teaching in such a context. Clearly, The Four Views of Hell needed to be written in order to show the views of hell that have emerged over time as a response to the traditional view, and the strength in the work is that it shows how various views of God's justice that fundamentally circumscribe man's salvation can differ among Christians.

Critical interaction with author's work

Among many reviews that exist for the Four Views of Hell, one author has reviewed the work and has commented that, "What needs to be borne in mind is that this is not a debate about the reality of hell but about the nature of hell." [10] The same author then follows along with another powerful statement in saying that, "The idea of taking the Bible literally means different things to different people." [11] The main truth in what the review writer is commenting about is that the Four Views of Hell is written about hell from people that start with the belief that hell is a very real place as these same authors would then go on to make a huge issue over biblical interpretation and the nature of theological knowledge to support each of their diverging views.

What is clear is that among the four authors of the text, each author has a different conception of how and why God administers justice. Hayes, for example, believes so strongly that God structures justice in favor of almost all people [12] that he uses almost all of his writing to elaborate upon purgatory as like an attempt to explain away hell. A person could thus see that Hayes has adopted a view that would support the idea that as many as possible would be saved, and in this regard not just a few saints are saved in the works based salvation that the concept of purgatory would derive from. Works based salvation would need a place known of as purgatory in order to populate heaven, and in Hayes own words, "...some sort of cleansing process is postulated between death and the entrance into haven." [13] Purgatory gives such a intermediate prison for justice.

Pinnock points out the harsh nature of the non-elect suffering from everlasting destruction as noted by the Westminster Confession as he makes a special point to mention that the doctrine is hard to defend especially when explained in a presentation that mentions predestination [14] . For Pinnock annihilationism and free will are both much better views [15] , and these two views together would be assumed to give a much better conception of God. Instead of God choosing the damned to suffer for all eternity in hell prior to their conception, Pinnock would rather believe that God would have mercy on the damned by removing them from existence at some point. Salvation for Pinnock would thus be free from any experience of the damned ever again because they would simply not exist anymore, and thus heaven under this view would be a much better place as a result.

For Walvoord he points out clearly that punishment in hell is administered by degrees, and he also supports the idea of damnation being eternal [16] . For Walvoord the literal view thus takes into account fair justice for various levels of offense against God, but the fact that damnation is eternal could mean that the damned will always have to suffer. A person could perhaps argue from this perspective that election to eternal damnation would be a fair and just action by God because the damned are saved from worse punishment depending upon the degree of their offense. In other words the saved would enjoy the bliss of heaven while the damned would only suffer as much as their sins warranted while this suffering would be however be eternal.

For Crockett his entire mission is to reduce the horror of hell by showing that metaphor is applied to the concept when hell appears in scripture. Crockett for example references Lewis in making the case that eternal damnation is simply just complete separation from God such that the damned suffer as a result of not being with God and they thus contemplate what could have been [17] . In this regard the damned would be saved from the horrifying tortures that the language of the Bible suggests such as fire and darkness, but they would yet be tortured in a very real way by God withdrawing himself while the evil of themselves would sort of eat away at themselves perhaps like a really bad case of depression.

A pastor could perhaps appropriate the knowledge regarding the views of hell as expressed in the Four Views of Hell best by the pastor explaining doctrines of hell along with doctrines of eternal salvation in order to show clearly how God administers both realms of justice. In this regard the people under the care of a pastor could see the consistency of God's work, and as a result their belief in God would be much more developed and sound. Overall, the views of hell and the reasoning regarding hell allow for God's work to be better defined and more understandable as well as trustworthy when worshipers need not see hell as a mystery to be afraid of.

Conclusion

The Four Views of Hell gives not just a description of what hell is like from a isolated research project just conducted on the subject of hell, but instead the text shows hell interpreted through the 'lenses' of professors that have well developed systematic approaches to Christian theology that are derived from different theological backgrounds. Each of the four views of the work show God working justice on the damned much differently, and a person could see that the concept of God is much different in each view. Overall, with the literal view a person would see God as very unsympathetic to the pain of the damned, with the metaphorical view a person could see a caring God as over emphasizing the danger of hell in his Word by way of powerful metaphor, with the purgatorial view one would see God as a God of self improvement that makes every effort to provide a system of purification in order to give the sinner the maximum potential for arriving at heaven, and the conditional view shows God as being a loving God that eventually will eliminate all the damned from reality completely.

Bibliography:

Burge, David. "A Summary And Review Of 'Four Views of Hell' Edited By William Crockett FDTL Iss 28." http://www.afterlife.co.nz/2010/uncategorized/four-views-of-hell/.

Crockett, William. "The Metaphorical View." In Four Views on Hell, ed. Stanley Gundry and William Crockett, 43-76. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1996.

Gundry, Stanley and William Crockett. Four Views on Hell. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1996.

Hays, Zachary. "The Purgatorial View." In Four Views on Hell, ed. Stanley Gundry and William Crockett, 91-118. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1996.

Pinnock, Clark. "The Conditional View." In Four Views on Hell, ed. Stanley Gundry and William Crockett, 135-66. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1996.

Walvoord, John. "The Literal View." In Four Views on Hell, ed. Stanley Gundry and William Crockett, 11-28. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1996.

[1] Gundry, 7.

[2] Walvoord, 17.

[3] Crockett, 60.

[4] Hayes, 94.

[5] Hayes, 97.

[6] Pinnock, 152.

[7] Pinnock, 155.

[8] Pinnock, 140.

[9] Crockett, 47.

[10] David Burge, "A Summary And Review Of 'Four Views of Hell' Edited By William Crockett FDTL Iss 28," http://www.afterlife.co.nz/2010/uncategorized/four-views-of-hell/

[11] Ibid.

[12] Hayes, 99.

[13] Ibid, 99.

[14] Pinnock, 136.

[15] Ibid., 142.

[16] Walvoord, 21.

[17] Crockett, 62.