Faithful Christians who read the same Bible do disagree about hell, but the disagreement is narrower and more serious than most people assume. It is not about whether hell is real. It is about what hell is: unending conscious torment, a final death, or a judgment that ends with everyone reconciled to God. Dr. Preston Sprinkle edited Four Views on Hell, a book in which a defender of each view makes its own case. He now leans toward the second view, and he insists that all three are argued from Scripture.
The question underneath this one is usually personal. Lisa Fields, founder of the Jude 3 Project, described college friends from campus ministry who left the faith over this single doctrine, because “they couldn’t wrap their mind around a loving God sending people there.” Sprinkle reports the same pattern from the other direction. He hears from Christians who have followed Jesus for 40, 50 and 60 years and say the idea of hell is the thing they struggle with most. For many readers, then, the question is not academic. It is whether the God they were taught to trust can be trusted.
That is why the shape of the debate matters. If the only choices were the hell someone grew up hearing about or no hell at all, a person troubled by the first might feel forced into the second. Sprinkle’s work shows that this is not the real choice.
What Do the Views Share Before They Divide?
The common ground comes first, because it is easy to miss. Sprinkle says that none of the contributors in the book deny hell’s existence, and he states the shared ground plainly: “We all affirm the existence of hell. We affirm that there’s punishment in hell. We affirm hell’s a place to avoid.” The dispute, in his words, is that “the nature of hell is what’s on the table for debate.”
He also traces where the word comes from. Sprinkle explains that the Greek word translated “hell” in the Gospels is gehenna, a name drawn from a real valley outside Jerusalem. By his account, Israelites sacrificed children to Molech there in the seventh century BC, and the prophet Jeremiah announced that God would judge the people in the same valley where they had committed that evil (see Jeremiah 7:31–32). Sprinkle notes that the Hebrew Bible does not spell out an afterlife picture there. In the period between the Hebrew Bible and the time of Jesus, the valley’s name came to stand for God’s future judgment. When Jesus uses the word, Sprinkle argues, he is speaking in that Jewish sense: a punishment that follows the return of the judge.
So all three positions start from the same place. Judgment is real, it follows the return of Christ, and it is to be avoided. They part ways over what the judgment finally consists of and how long it lasts.
The book’s fourth essay, on purgatory, is what Sprinkle calls a step sideways. Its author, Jerry Walls, whom Sprinkle describes as a Protestant philosopher, argues for purgatory as a further sanctifying process for believers who die before they are fully made holy. Walls affirms the traditional view of hell rather than arguing a new one. Sprinkle finds the biblical evidence for purgatory meager, but he credits Walls with separating his view from the older claim that believers’ suffering adds to Christ’s atonement. Because that essay concerns believers rather than the fate of unbelievers, the real contest over hell is among three views. Sprinkle adds that some thinkers, including C. S. Lewis and N. T. Wright, hold views that do not fit neatly into any of the three. He mentions that he has been told the Eastern Orthodox view does not fit either, though he says he has not researched it himself.
Why Has Unending Torment Been the Majority View?
The traditional view, eternal conscious torment, holds that unbelievers are kept in hell forever in conscious suffering. Sprinkle does not treat it as a relic. He points to its long pedigree: “The majority of Christian theologians throughout the last at least 1500 years have embraced eternal conscious torment.” That is a real weight of testimony, and any alternative has to explain why so many careful readers saw it this way.
The view also has texts. Paul writes of those “Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). Jesus ends his account of the sheep and the goats with a matched pair:
“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal” (Matthew 25:46).
The KJV says everlasting in one clause and eternal in the other, and many other translations render both with the same English word. Sprinkle states the traditional reasoning from that verse clearly: “If the life is never ending, then the punishment also must be never ending.” Defenders also draw on passages in Revelation 14 and 20, which Sprinkle notes are among the most vivid in the Bible.
This is the strongest form of the case. It does not rest on church tradition alone or on fear. It rests on a sentence from Jesus that seems to set the two destinies side by side with the same measure of time.
What Is the Case That the End Is Death?
Sprinkle did not start out leaning toward annihilation. When he and Francis Chan wrote Erasing Hell in 2011, he says, they leaned toward eternal conscious torment, but “the Bible didn’t seem nearly as clear on that as we had originally thought.” Years of further study moved him toward what is called annihilation, conditional immortality or terminal punishment. On this view, Sprinkle explains, “the punishment after judgment day is death.” Some who hold it allow a period of suffering before that death. Others say the death itself is the punishment.
His argument is cumulative. Sprinkle says there are more than 100 passages about the final fate of the unbeliever, and that they use language of death, destruction and the end of the wicked. He starts with Paul:
“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
Sprinkle draws out what Paul did not write: “Paul doesn’t say the wages of sin is ongoing torment forever, but the free gift is eternal life. He says the wages of sin is death.”
He then turns to Jesus: “fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). And to John 3:16, where the alternative to everlasting life is that a person would “perish.” Sprinkle says that word suggests some sort of finality to whatever punishment comes. His reading is that the language describing the end of the unbeliever most often points to an ending.
He is candid about how far he has moved. Having weighed the traditional replies, he says, “I’m not really compelled by those responses,” and he describes the textual case for annihilation this way: “It seems to be just really overwhelming, if I could be quite honest.” That is a statement of where Sprinkle stands, not a verdict the evidence forces on every reader. Its real weight lies in his method. He counts the dominant pattern of the language rather than building on a single verse.
What Is the Case That Judgment Ends in Reconciliation?
The third view, often called universalism, appears in the book under the name Robin Parry uses for it: ultimate reconciliation. It holds that all people will finally be reconciled to God. Sprinkle explains that its defenders still affirm judgment. Their key observation is that in Scripture, especially in the Hebrew Bible, “you often see restoration on the other side of judgment.” Israel’s exile to Babylon is the classic case. The prophets called it God’s judgment, and then promised a return.
The view also has its own verses. Sprinkle lists Romans 5:18, Romans 11:32 and passages in Colossians 1, Philippians 2 and 1 Corinthians 15. The KJV of Romans 5:18 reads:
“Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Romans 5:18).
And 1 Corinthians 15:22 reads, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Sprinkle grants the force of these texts with unusual honesty: “If you’re on a desert island in Romans 5:18 washed up on shore, we would all be universalist.”
He does not read them that way, and he gives his reasons. Sprinkle says that in Scripture “all doesn’t always mean all.” Often it means all kinds of people. In Romans, he argues, Paul is pressing the point that Jews as well as Gentiles stand under sin and that God saves both. In his reading, the point of Romans 5 is that even the Jewish reader is part of Adam and needs rescue, not a statement about the final count of the saved. He then makes a point both sides can accept: “We need more evidence than just a verse here, verse there.” The question has to be settled by the broad themes of Scripture.
That is where Sprinkle’s own position shuts this door for him. If the language of death and destruction means what it seems to mean, there is no one left to be reconciled. So he puts the burden on the other side: “I would need the universalists to show me why death doesn’t mean the cessation of life, why destruction doesn’t mean to destroy.”
He disagrees, but he does not condemn. Sprinkle considers some versions of this view to be within the evangelical camp. He calls Parry a friend and says of Parry’s book The Evangelical Universalist that “he presents a very solid biblical case for it.” Because Parry holds to Scripture and to the unique work of Christ, Sprinkle treats him as a brother in Christ. His summary to readers in that camp is simple: “I don’t think you’re a heretic.”
Where Exactly Do the Views Collide?
Set side by side, the three positions agree on more than their labels suggest. All three affirm that judgment is real and that people should flee it. All three appeal to Scripture as the authority that settles the matter. Sprinkle’s central editorial point is that no contributor chose a view because it felt kinder: “They’re not going on emotions or sentimentality.” Instead, he says, “they are drawing their view from scripture, which forces the reader to say, okay, I need to lay out these biblical arguments and see which one makes the most sense.”
The divisions are real, and they come down to two questions about words:
- Experienced or irreversible? When Jesus places “everlasting punishment” beside “life eternal” (Matthew 25:46), does the phrase describe a punishment that is experienced without end, or a punishment whose result can never be undone? The traditional view takes the first reading. Annihilation needs the second.
- An end or a stage? When Scripture says the wicked die, perish and are destroyed, do those words describe an end, as Sprinkle reads them, or a stage that judgment can pass through, as the restoration pattern suggests to universalists?
Each view has a verse it finds hard. Matthew 25:46 presses on annihilation. The many passages about destruction press on both the traditional view and universalism. Romans 5:18 and 1 Corinthians 15:22 press on anyone who is not a universalist. A reader who wants to weigh these views fairly should notice which texts each side explains and which ones it has to explain away.
The Jude 3 Project has not taken a single position on the nature and duration of hell. As Sprinkle’s book shows, faithful Christians hold different views here. The historic majority has held to conscious eternal judgment. Sprinkle’s lean toward annihilation is his own conclusion, which he argues from the texts.
If Hell Is Not Endless Torment, Why Accept Christ?
Fields raised the sharpest practical objection, and it came from the same friends who left the faith. As she described their reasoning, Christianity only works if the traditional hell exists. If unbelievers simply cease to exist, some would accept that outcome. And if everyone is saved in the end, what is the point of accepting Christ now?
Sprinkle’s first move is to put the questions in order. The primary question is still what the Bible says. The practical consequences come second, and they cannot decide the first question. Then he answers each half.
Against the idea that annihilation is a soft hell, he says the view holds that “God will execute capital punishment on those who rebel against him.” Death at the hands of the judge of all the earth is not a mild outcome, and he says it is a mistake to treat it as too small a punishment to fear.
His second point reaches further. Sprinkle observes that the apostles’ sermons in Acts do not lead with the worst possible afterlife. He finds no mention of the word hell in them. In Acts 17, he says, Paul does mention judgment, but it is not his main point. The sermons center on the resurrection and lordship of Jesus. In his reading, the apostles were “drawing people in by the goodness of Jesus.” He corrects himself on how the church should do the same: “Not ramping up, but just revealing and unleashing the goodness of Jesus.” If he is right, then a gospel that only works when hell is as frightening as possible has misplaced its center.
On universalism, Sprinkle concedes more. He calls the question of why anyone would preach if everyone gets endless chances a very valid pushback. He is careful to say he is not a universalist and is only answering on their behalf. Their reply, he thinks, would be that “the gospel gives people life, it produces human flourishing,” so there is every reason to enter that life now. He does not press the reply further than that, and neither should a fair reader.
Is “Would a Loving God” the Right Place to Start?
The title question pits God’s love against his judgment and asks which one wins. Sprinkle’s approach turns the question around. The problem many people have with hell may come less from the Bible than from the picture they absorbed before ever studying it. Sprinkle and Chan wrote their first book on hell because, as he tells it, both men realized they held strong assumptions about what the Bible says on the subject and had never actually studied it. Fields made the same admission about her own reading: people tend to read what they were taught into the text instead of letting the text and its context shape what they believe.
That does not make the moral question go away. It does change where a troubled reader should look first. Someone who has left the faith over a doctrine they were never shown the evidence for has rejected one reading, not necessarily the Bible. Sprinkle’s last charge is to “try to study what the Bible says without reading our presuppositions into it,” and then to go where the text leads, rather than holding a view out of fear or avoiding a teaching you dislike. His reason is theological. If God is good and Scripture is his life-giving word, then following the text is safe even when it unsettles you.
If questions about hell stir up grief over someone you love or fear about your own standing with God, you do not have to carry that alone. A pastor or a trusted counselor can sit with those questions and help you work through the texts.
Quick Answers
Do the views disagree about whether hell exists? No. Sprinkle says every view in the book affirms that hell exists, that there is punishment in it and that it is a place to avoid. The debate is about its nature and duration.
What is annihilation, or conditional immortality? It is the view that the final punishment after judgment day is death rather than unending torment. Sprinkle now leans toward it, based on what he counts as more than 100 passages that describe the end of the unbeliever in terms of death or destruction.
Which view has the most history behind it? Eternal conscious torment. Sprinkle says most Christian theologians for at least the last 1,500 years have held it, and it draws on texts such as Matthew 25:46 and 2 Thessalonians 1:9.
Does Sprinkle think universalists are heretics? No. He disagrees with ultimate reconciliation, but he regards some versions of it, such as Robin Parry’s, as held by brothers in Christ who argue from Scripture and affirm the unique work of Jesus.
Is purgatory a fourth view of hell? Not really. In the essay Sprinkle describes, purgatory concerns believers who are still being sanctified, and its author affirms the traditional view of hell.