When I was 9, my older sister told me that Hell was a place where you walked around in darkness, completely alone forever. The idea terrified me then and still terrifies me now. I don’t know how accurate a description it is, but I am sure that the reality of Hell will be at least as terrible as my imaginings.

And that troubles me. For as long as I have been a Christian, it has troubled me. I think I may have spent more time considering this doctrine than any other. The thought of any terrible punishment is dreadful; but a punishment that never ceases? No hope of respite, no hope of parole, no hope of peace, no hope of mercy - quite simply no hope. Words fail.

And so I completely understand John Stott when he wrote,

I find the concept of eternal conscious punishment in hell intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterising their feelings or cracking under the strain.

Stott resolved this “intolerable” strain by embracing annihilationism, the idea that the damned are completely destroyed after they die. I flirted with this belief for a long time, but Scripture kept calling me away from it.

So how do we cope with the horrific truth that is Hell? As happens so often, the writings of CS Lewis have helped. Lewis was also haunted by an ever-present vision of Hell, and he dealt with the subject in many of his books. One particular comment caught my attention -

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

I think he is on to something. All good gifts come from God (James 1), and we might fairly conclude that the damned will be stripped of these gifts. All love, all peace, all joy, all delight, all that is good or hopeful - all taken away. What is left will be “a horror and a corruption”, something evil beyond our comprehension, a dark and twisted thing, spewing out blasphemy and hatred. Something fit only for Hell. Perhaps the damned will no longer even be pitiable, they will only be damnable.

I’ve found these ideas helpful, but I suspect Hell will continue to bother me. Ultimately, I have to give this over to God. I may be very troubled by this issue, but I also trust the one who has shown Himself to be trustworthy in so many other things. In the end, God will be shown to have acted with perfect justice, even if I can’t quite see it yet. After all, will not the judge of the whole world do right?