Hell As Purgative?

Paulwat said:

There’s a growing case, both theologically and philosophically, that “hell” as an eternal state of torment doesn’t make sense within the logic of Eastern Orthodox theology itself. If God truly is love, and if His purpose is the restoration (ἀποκατάστασις) of all creation, then a permanent, unredeemed realm of suffering would contradict His nature and His victory over sin and death.


Thinkers like St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Isaac the Syrian, Sergius Bulgakov, and more recently David Bentley Hart, have all pointed out that God’s will is unchanging, and His will is to save all. If God’s will is perfect and omnipotent, then it follows that ultimately all will be reconciled to Him—perhaps after a painful purification, but not eternal damnation.


“Hell,” then, might best be understood not as a place of everlasting punishment, but as the experience of divine love by those still clinging to their sin—an experience that eventually purifies rather than annihilates. This view doesn’t deny justice; it fulfills it through healing rather than perpetual separation.


So yes, there’s good reason to believe that universal reconciliation (in some form) is not only compatible with Orthodoxy, but actually truer to its deepest understanding of God’s mercy and the cosmic scope of Christ’s resurrection.

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