Christian views on Hell

In Christian theology, Hell is the place or state into which by God's definitive judgment unrepentant sinners pass either immediately after death (particular judgment) or in the general judgment. Its character is inferred from teaching in the biblical texts, some of which, interpreted literally, have given rise to the popular idea of hell.

Theologians today generally see hell as the logical consequence of using free will to reject union with God and, because God will not force conformity, not incompatible with God's justice and mercy. Calvinists, on the other hand, believe hell is a consequence of God's justice for man's sin, but reject the libertarian notion of free will.

Different Hebrew and Greek words are translated as "hell" in most English-language Bibles. They include:

In ancient Jewish belief, the dead were consigned to Sheol, a place to which all were sent indiscriminately (cf. Genesis 37:35; Numbers 16:30-33; Psalm 86:13; Ecclesiastes 9:10). Sheol was thought of as a place situated below the ground (cf. Ezek. 31:15), a place of darkness, silence and forgetfulness (cf. Job 10:21). By the third to second century BC, the idea had grown to encompass separate divisions in sheol for the righteous and wicked (cf. the Book of Enoch), and by the time of Jesus, some Jews had come to believe that those in Sheol awaited the resurrection of the dead either in comfort (in the bosom of Abraham) or in torment.

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