I heard from another teacher that the early Christians held different views on hell, Gehenna. Some believed in universal salvation, for example, Origen and Clement of Alexandria. Some believed in annihilation, for example, Irenaeus, and others in never-ending punishment, for example, Tertullian. Was the third view the most commonly held one? And were there others who believed in annihilation or universal salvation? Okay. This was an excellent question, Richard. I assume are you the one on the screen I'm seeing?
Of course, you can't see what I'm seeing. Different Richard. Richard. Okay. He might be here, but not the one with the video on. Yeah, he's here. Richard Earhart is here. Okay, well, Richard, I had to wonder if you had hacked into my computer. It's interesting. I prepared a message on that exact topic. It must have been three or four years ago. I don't remember if I recorded it. I think I got it recorded. And then I was testing the waters a little bit with different friends.
And I saw that this was going to be hugely controversial. And I get wrapped up in enough controversy. And so I thought, you know, I might just shelve that one. I don't know if the fallout's going to be worth what people will gain. And I may still publish it yet. I don't know. I wish people could discuss subjects like that without getting so upset. But your question is right on. I mean, you've totally identified exactly what it is.
And I would say probably 80% of the early Christian writers seem to have had the view of eternal conscious torment. Now, I realize I need to go back and read them because they may not be saying that. They may only be saying that the fire will be eternal. And I'm going to examine those quotes again, but that was the impression I got from reading them. Particularly the Latin writers seem to all hold to that view.
Origen is fairly unique in that he believed in torment, but he didn't believe it was going to be anything literal in the way of torture produced by God. He felt the torture would be coming from the fact that we are cut off from heaven and that realization that because of our sins, that we are cut off from God and that we are going to be living in that state and the focus on what we have done. But he also felt like he and Clement of Alexandria that God's punishments are never for retribution's sake.
They are to correct us. And so he held out non-dogmatically that perhaps God would be able to win everyone back over many thousands of years that people would repent and come back to him. And eventually you'd have restoration of everyone. He's accused of saying Satan will be restored, and he very vehemently denied that he ever taught that. So that was his view. It was definitely a very small minority view.
Although a lot in the Eastern Orthodox, a lot of the Eastern Christians after him would have followed his view that it's not literal torment. Whether they not very many picked up the universal restoration aspect, but the fact that it's not literal torment that God does not do that. Origen made the statement which certainly should give us all food for thought. He said, " People believe things about God that they wouldn't believe about the worst human being.
" And yeah, I think we need to reflect on that when we think about hell. And then the third view would be that there will be punishment, but that it will lead to the eventual annihilation of the sinner. That they will be consciously punished, but not eternal. The fire is eternal in the sense that their annihilation will be eternal. Irenaeus seems to say that it's not always clear. You can read this passage and he seems to definitely be saying that. And then somewhere else, he seems to be saying something different.
So I would not be dogmatic that that is what Irenaeus taught, but certain things he says lends itself to that. Theophilus in his work to Autolycus, he expressed the view, if I'm remembering correctly, I'm having to go by memory on a lot of this, that he said the Spirit is eternal, the flesh is not, and the soul is somewhere in between. It's neither immortal nor mortal. And so he had the view that it could be annihilated and would eventually be annihilated.
And it's interesting, he was from the east, would represent like Syrian, the view east of, say, the middle of what we know as the Middle East, east of Israel. And the whole Far Eastern church, the Church of the East that is still around today, that would be their view. They do not hold to eternal conscious torment. But at some point, the punishment ends in eternal annihilation.
And those who have been very wicked will be punished for a longer period and differently than those who have sinned more in ignorance, but yet did not come to salvation. So I don't know of a fourth view beyond those. Your question nailed it perfectly. There were those three views, and the majority was the conscious eternal punishment, or at least I think that's what they are saying. And reading Jesus, it would be easy to come to that conclusion. I think that would be a natural reading.
And yet, I think the only place in the Scriptures where it talks about being tormented forever and ever is Satan and his demons. They're in Revelation. The others are thrown into the lake of fire, which is the second death, which will never be extinguished. But whether their torment is eternal or not is open to question. I'm somewhat agnostic on it. Those are the three views. What will happen is going to be what will happen.
If the eternal conscious torment stumbles you, then there were those other views that were not viewed as heretical by the early church, but there never was a doctrinal statement of the early church about eternal punishment. The apostle's creed only requires us to believe in eternal life for the righteous and to believe that there will be a day of judgment, but it does not require one to believe in eternal conscious punishment. But it doesn't forbid the belief in it either. So anyway.
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