That was the title of the motion I was invited to defend earlier this year at the Oxford Union. With some trepidation (and prayer!) I accepted. This felt like too significant an opportunity to pass up.
As one of the world's most famous debating chambers, the Oxford Union has a longstanding reputation for championing free speech and critical thinking by hosting leading voices on often controversial subjects. But could I persuade the students present of something as controversial as the concept that Hell is a good thing?
I was paired with two Oxford undergraduates as fellow proposition speakers - Gareth Lim and Max Papaioannades. We faced a robust opposition bench in the form of atheist skeptics Michael Shermer and Todd Steifel, and well-known Jain activist Satish Kumar.
Selfie at the pre-debate dinner with fellow proposition and opposition speakers.
The style of debates at the Oxford Union is, admittedly, rather odd.
Each speaker gives a short prepared speech for or against the motion. However, there is little opportunity for rebuttal or cross examination thereafter (so not much 'debate' to speak of). Instead members of the audience can offer their own shorter arguments, objections and 'points of order' in response to the speeches.
It's also a fairly raucous and knockabout affair - there's plenty of opportunity for grandstanding and rhetoric as well as nuanced argument. Once the debate is over and the speakers have departed the chamber, the audience vote by exiting the chamber via either the 'Aye or the 'Noe' doors.
Speaking for the Motion at The Oxford Union
So, who won? You can find out at the end of this article! If you want to watch all of the speeches and contributions made from the floor, the full video is there too.
For now, here's the argument I made for why this house should hope that Hell exists…
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a privilege to be here, some 25 years since I myself was an undergraduate at Oxford University, and to be able to speak in this extraordinary debating chamber. Thank you.
However, as you can imagine, I agreed to being on this side of the motion with some trepidation.
I am a Christian, and much of my life has been spent trying to make an intellectual defence of Christian faith through argument and reason. Today I will be speaking about this subject from my convictions as a Christian.
However, defending the concept of Hell is not where I would naturally choose to begin most conversations on the subject of faith. After all, who would want to defend some antiquated idea of an everlasting torture chamber reserved for those who simply happen not to believe in the God I believe in?
To that end, I anticipate you will hear arguments from the other side against the traditional understanding of Hell that, quite rightly, raise questions about the morality of a place of eternal conscious torment, and how this can possibly align with the existence of a good and loving God.
However, that is not the conception of Hell that I will be defending tonight. In fact, I probably don’t believe in the version of Hell that many of you don’t believe in either!
Instead, this evening I ask you to set aside the medieval notions of fiery pits and torture chambers we often bring to this subject, because I don’t believe that is the picture of Hell we’re actually presented with in the Bible. Indeed, tonight I want to reframe the concept of Hell altogether... and that will mean doing a little bit of theology before we return to our main theme.
Jesus speaks more than anyone else in scripture about Hell - but he uses the Hebrew word 'Gehenna'. Gehenna was a valley used as a refuse tip outside Jerusalem and it was constantly burning the rubbish people brought there.
But the point of the image of 'burning' is that the fire consumes the detritus and refuse. There is a final end to that which is being burned up. I believe that this is in fact the way to understand all scriptural references to Hell.
Whether they be lakes of fire or other references, the Bible uses an enormous amount of images, especially in the book of Revelation, of pictorial imagery. We’re not necessarily meant to take it absolutely literally, anymore than when Jesus says ‘I am the Gate’, that we’re meant to assume he’s a physical gate! There are turns of phrase, metaphors and symbolic imagery used throughout the scriptures, and it’s no different with the concept of Hell. But what we do get from that symbolism is that Hell entails a final end to existence of all those who ultimately reject God. This view is sometimes known as 'annihilationism'.
But why would a good God assign anyone to such a fate? Why not simply welcome all into everlasting paradise? Well, this is where we also have to think hard about about the concept of Heaven.
In many people’s minds, Heaven is just a glorified retirement home where we’ll get to play heavenly golf for eternity as long as we’ve basically been good enough. Why would God not let everyone through the pearly gates if that’s what’s on offer? But again this is not the biblical vision of Heaven.
In fact the vision of the eternal future of those who choose God is not some ethereal eternity sitting on a cloud somewhere, it is something much earthier and real. It is a physical future reality - but a transformed, renewed and redeemed creation in which heaven and this earth are united. A place where death, pain, sorrow and suffering are no more and we see the return of humanity into a perfect relationship with God and each other.
Jesus called this the 'Kingdom of God' or the 'Kingdom of Heaven'. But what is the nature of a ‘Kingdom’? It has a King. And of course that King is Jesus. However, I don’t believe everyone will necessarily want to live under the rule and reign of that King.
There are many who in this life choose to be rulers of their own life. They don’t want any else to be in charge but themselves. I believe that desire can continue into the life to come. Tragically, when they stand before Jesus on the day of judgement, many will willingly choose a self-exile in Hell rather than to serve Christ in Heaven.
The brilliant Oxford thinker CS Lewis put it this way: ‘There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done”, and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek, find. To those who knock, it is opened.”
This also challenges the commonly-held assumption that Heaven and Hell are places of reward and punishment for good or bad behaviour. Again this is not the Biblical view.
Those who reject God are choosing for themselves the eternal consequences of being the centre of their own life - eternal separation from God. But in choosing to cut themselves off from the source of life (I believe) they cease to exist altogether.
But what about those who find themselves in the Kingdom of Heaven? Again they are not there as a reward for the good deeds they’ve done. No amount of our own effort could earn any of us a ticket to Heaven, because none of us could stand in the presence of a holy and just God by our own efforts.
Imagine I was on the beach trying to throw a stone into the Atlantic Ocean - I may be able to hurl it 50 to 100 feet. Then an athletic passerby picks up a similar stone and hurls it much further - perhaps 200 feet - before it hits the water. In a similar way some of us may imagine we lead more morally upright and virtuous lives than others - we throw our stone quite a long way. But, imagine that the aim of both myself and the athlete was to throw the stone to the East Coast of America on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. By that standard, neither of our efforts ever stood a chance of hitting the mark.
The same is true of us when we imagine we could live a good enough life to make us worthy of standing in the presence of God. We are laughably far from being able to hit the target.
But there is good news - one person did live that perfect, sinless life. They threw the stone all the way across the sea. That person was God in human flesh - Jesus. Christians believe that at the cross, he stood in our place to take on all the consequences of our sin, pride and rebellion upon himself. And that through his death and resurrection, he offers us forgiveness and a new start with God. And he offers that free gift of grace to anyone who wants it.
So anyone who find themselves in Hell can only say: "It’s because of me". And anyone who finds themself in Heaven must say: "It's because of him".
I’ve given you a somewhat theological response to the question of Hell so far. But, as has already been mentioned, there is larger ethical sense which should make us wish that there is a Hell - and that is the hope that there will be ultimate justice.
In the end, Heaven and Hell are the outworking of divine judgement. The very word ‘judgement’ can sound harsh and condemning - we tend to recoil from phrases that come loaded with religious baggage. But ‘judgement’ is actually for the purpose of something we all care about and feel very naturally - justice.
Justice is about making things fair. Evening the scales that have often been tipped in the direction of powerful oppressors. Divine judgement then is ultimately about cosmic justice - God having the final word in putting the world right.
For countless people over many generations this has been the source of great comfort and hope.
Think of a destitute widow in war-torn Sudan - poverty stricken, famished, abused, disease and death on her doorstep. The circumstances of her life have been shaped by injustice upon injustice. The rich, the powerful, the greedy have won, while she has spent her life at the bottom of the heap. She will die poor, forgotten, and broken.
Now consider… What hope of justice can be offered to that woman by those who sit opposite us? Who say there is no God, no Heaven, ‘no Hell below us, above us only sky’ to quote the John Lennon song?
I don’t believe my atheist humanist friends can offer any consolation. On their view life is a lottery in which some draw the shortest of straws. Survival of the fittest means that the ruthless and the powerful are often the ones who come out on top. It's just the way it is. There is no justice in the end.
But I don’t believe that is how the story ends. I believe that there is a God, and there is a Heaven and a Hell - by which I mean there will be a day of judgement and justice. And that may be the only hope that makes any sense for the woman in my story. Ultimate justice, divine justice beyond this life, is the only hope for her and any for whom the scales were tipped against them in this age.
On that final day we will all be called to give an account of our life - you, me and those whose actions have led to the worst injustice and terrors of this world. And I believe that the God who sees every thought, word and deed and who is able see into our very soul, will see that justice is done from the greatest to the least.
On that day I believe that those who have committed evil - when confronted with the reality of who they are and what they have done in the presence of a perfect God - will experience a kind of punishment that is not inflicted by fiery pits or eternal torture. It will simply be the consequence of being seen through and through. Being confronted with who they truly are in the presence of a holy and loving God, will strike terror and fear into those who have always lived life on their own terms.
However, for that widow who throws her hope and broken life upon the mercy of a holy and loving God, I believe she will experience restoration to a place of healing, honour, dignity and beauty in the life to come. For in that Kingdom, “the first shall be last and the last shall be first”. Justice will be done, the scales will be balanced, the world will be put to rights.
I would even go so far at to argue that historically, a belief in divine judgement - the hope of heaven and the fear of hell - has been a significant deterrent to the abuse of powers by rulers down the centuries. The idea that, for even a king, queen or emperor, there is in fact a higher power to whom they are answerable, may have done more then we will ever know to curb the human tendency to dominate and exploit those beneath us.
Indeed I would argue it is precisely when societies lose their belief in God, and the promise of Divine Justice, that we see the worst crimes of dictators and despots - from the killing fields of Polpot to the gulags of Stalin, the worst atrocities of the 20th century were carried out by officially atheist states.
So this is the framing of both Heaven and Hell that I believe you need to consider when we vote on the motion ‘This house hopes that Hell exists’.
Firstly, because is takes our human moral agency seriously. It offers us a choice - My will be done or Thy will be done. But secondly, because what we are actually voting about tonight, in the end, is not just the hope that Hell exists, but whether you hope that ultimate justice exists.
Thank you.
In all honesty, I never went into this debate expecting our side to win. Persuading a room of largely progressive, agnostic Oxford students that Hell is worth believing in was always going to be an uphill battle! And so the result proved as the opposition won the vote at the end of the night.
I've been unable to track down an exact tally of the Ayes and Noes, but it came out at something like 175 to 125 - a result that was closer than I anticipated it might be. Perhaps our side persuaded some of those present to rethink the concept of Hell, and perhaps even to hope for a world where, in the end, everything will be made right through God's merciful justice.
In the end, win or lose, I was glad to present the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection to a room full of bright, young students who will be the next generation of culture shapers. Whatever 'this house hopes', it is our hope in Christ that ultimately matters.
John Lennox & Milton Jones on The Podcast Stage
I'm delighted to be back as part of the Podcast Stage at this year's Big Church Festival. This year I'll be joined for live shows by Christian thinker Prof John Lennox and comedian Milton Jones.
Tickets: https://bigchurchfestival.com/tickets/
Become a regular Patreon Supporter.
Silver supporters get early access to new episodes and bonus content. Gold supporters also receive signed copies of my books and monthly catch ups with me.
A great way to make a one-off gift - thank you!
Tax-deductible giving from the USA
If you’d like to give in this way, we are partnering with Defenders Media to make this possible. Just follow the link.
“Hi Justin, I just wanted to say how grateful I am for the work you are doing with Uncommon Ground and the Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God podcast. The Uncommon Ground format is the best I've ever seen.
Having grown up with a faith, studied theology at university, and begun working in church ministry, I had a spiritual/meaning crisis after the birth of my son in 2024, and the challenges of new atheism played loudly in my thoughts. I began to fear I had brought a child into a meaningless existence.
Your podcasts and the guests you featured gave me the starting tools to begin to listen and learn of a far greater and more robust picture of God, his purposes and how faith in Christ holds all things together. Since that time I have been reading, listening, reflecting and writing and I know I too want to help people make some sense of faith and make sense of life by faith.”
Becky, show listener.
View the original newsletter here: Read More
