Wonderful write up as always, Ben! It's especially fun to see your perspective developments/shifts since you wrote the first article :)
When I was still a devout Christian I came to realize that the doctrine of ECT was not only immoral but both counter to the vast majority of the Bible and a latter invention of the church that was a pragmatic means of asserting power over believers. Universalism is *antecedent* to any doctrine of Hell; it's more logical, and more in keeping with the scriptures. Once I renounced my faith, the doctrine of ECT became even more repugnant, obviously.
You probably have better things to do... but as I spent a couple years digging into this stuff I just wanted to share the following: The single best (breadth and depth) look into this matter I came across was a book called "An Analytical Study of Words" by Louis Abbott, published through Tentmaker Publishing, which still exists much to my surprise and delight! [Virtually all Christians I know (there is only one exception) have turned into the most un-Christian Trump-worshippers. Seeing that Tentmaker still exists gives me hope that there is still wisdom, compassion, and reason alive in the church today.] The entire text of Abbott's is available for free here:
There are MANY other books available for free on their website. I would hope any Christian that rightly doubts the doctrine of ECT would find their way to that treasure trove. Thank you for the article, and all the best!
It's interesting that you don't look at Judaism, considering that Jesus was a Jew and very little of what he was talking about was new. To be fair, you did title the post "The Doctrine of Hell", which is what you discussed. I've always found it interesting how Doctrines and Creeds never match what the many authors of the Bible are discussing.
Suddenly you lack knowledge...or don't want to add to an article that has already passed the the "reasonable" length threshold (what is another 20 pages to 200? :)) That's suspicious...well... I appreciate your art of deflecting from the rabid elephant in the room... good luck!
A doctrine of progressive revelation is needed instead of the assumption that by some miracle beyond miracles foolish, sinful human beings managed to totally get it all right thousands of years ago. I view it as a type of arrogance to take every single line in the bible as necessarily valid and would say the only reliable epistemological guide is experience of the Person spoken of rather than the agreement of men who have little or nothing of such a real connection. All revelation is inherently synergistic. The Divine contributes the revelation, and humanity tries its damnedest to twist that into our own self-image. It takes time and the work of many to sort out the human BS from the Divine message.
A system that ordains eternal, purposeless suffering reveals, by its very nature, a trajectory toward dysfunction—an ethical dead-end serving neither justice nor growth. As you’ve rightly pointed out, punishment severed from the possibility of restoration collapses any coherent notion of divine love or moral order. In The Harbor, I argue that any system—whether cosmic or human—that perpetuates behavior without regard for alignment to the values it claims to recognize exposes its own incoherence with reality. Such systems must either correct course or inevitably decay into dysfunction.
I appreciate how clearly you’ve framed this—not merely as a theological dispute, but as a deeper moral reckoning, one that confronts both secular nihilists and traditional Christians alike. The defense of ECT, even at the expense of justice and goodness, reflects a broader human impulse: the need to sanctify chaos through certainty. It’s a retreat into dogma that strips individuals of the will to embody the integrity they claim reality demands—preferring submission to inherited absolutes over the harder task of principled alignment.
It leads to a question I often return to: How do we cultivate frameworks—religious or secular—that are not preserved by fear, authority, or nostalgia, but are continuously tested against the evolving demands of coherence, purpose, and value? Frameworks capable of offering true resistance to the ever-present uncertainty and entropy that shape human existence.
This is very well put thank you! To your question, I think the only way is to be as intellectually honest as possible. It's hard, sometimes even impossible, but being brutal with one's own ideas is the only way forward.
Well put. I have the following priority system as sort of a global 're-alignment of alignment' framework.
1. Be honest with yourself.
2. Be kind to yourself.
3. Believe in your strength.
4. Be honest to others.
5. Be kind to others.
6. Believe in others strength.
Very approachable, intuitive, and easy to get into. But it can be applied more generally to systems via the clear definition of the terms involved:
Honesty: The system must maintain internal models that reliably map the conditions it is embedded within and as. If the system models incorrectly, it cannot make an action that will move it reliably toward some value. Honesty is the recursive implementation of information — the structural fidelity of possibility within perspective- inductive truths that define one's circumstance, desires, and implemented behavior.
Kindness: The system must possess internally prioritized structures that can evaluate simulations and select among them. Value is the recursive implementation of function — that which defines relevance, direction, and configuration for coherent operation towards one's known and unknown goals.
Strength: The system must be capable and willing to instantiate its evaluations into action. This includes not only capacity, but consistency — the internal structural discipline to carry out what its honesty and value have determined. Strength is the recursive implementation of action — a system’s ability to realize what it has defined.
Nope, not at all. My framework does not subscribe to objectivity outside of the base fact that there is 'something' existing. But even what I just stated is not a descriptive fact; it is text on a screen we apes use to have an entirely isolated experience that is made of concepts words may not convey. Basically there are experiences we have that cannot be described, therefore we cannot operate on them with the tool of language. IE- 'describe a color to a colorblind person'.
I made an entire YouTube series covering the metaphysics, up to just before those six rules. Planning on returning to video creation sometime in the next year and will hopefully get the six rules derived on video. Otherwise I am currently putting together a master document that outlines it as clearly as I have time for that will be posted sometime soon.
I listened in full to your non-duality video. These are well done. This must have taken considerable time.
1. Would you agree that "I think, therefore, I am" begs the question since the assertion of individuation is baked into the premise and restated in the conclusion without the argument breaking its own plane?
2. Then again, I hear you're assertion that there is no individuation or seperation of parts, but that seemed to be a predication of the timeless universe itself and not so much in relation to the subject/agent, perhaps still leaving room for a subject/ agent. So that leads me back to 1 above.
3. Since this appears to be a monistic metaphysic, I wonder how you would distinguish between a) experience itself and b) the external reality being experienced if there is a way to vindicate your foundational premise in 1 above and it's attempt to establish the integrity of the agent.
4. If the experience itself cannot be differentied from the reality being experienced, then I wonder how this monism can be experentially relevant, since we all (assuming distinctions in agents) experience change all the time.
5. I think it is fascinating that you assert that the essentially "one" reality would have to have something relevant within itself for comparison's sake so as to make distinctions. Since such distinctions do not exist, we're left with some linguistic conventions to build models with. In Christian Theism, we would assert that God is transcedent and His mastery over creation allows for the recognition of uniformity intracreation, while our finitude and analogical, correlative relation to God allows for recognizable distinctions, which are really real. Basically He is the entity that is essentially one and unchanging and as such He is the vindication from being otherwise trapped in the dialogical tension of pure rationalism (i.e. determinism) and irrationalism (i.e. pure chance and chaos).
Fully agreed. Cogito ergo sum is a classic case of circular reasoning—presupposing individuation to prove individuation. When I made that video, I hadn’t yet unpacked the baggage tied to that phrase. The framework doesn’t anchor itself in a perspectival subject but in the only "certainty" we can even gesture at: existence itself.
Of course, even calling it "certainty" is generous—language collapses the moment we try to describe what existence "is." We aren’t starting from knowledge, but from the unavoidable fact that something is happening—an indescribable presence we pretend can be labeled ‘existence.’ Anything prior to that is inaccessible, and even that label is a convenience, not a truth.
2. On Time and the Agent:
The next video in the series addresses this with the "timeless reality" concept. If existence were contingent on time, you'd quickly find that your definition of time resolves into... existence itself. Whether you view time as containing existence, or existence as flowing through time, you’re left with existence as the primary trait.
This is why I reject chasing linguistic tails trying to pin down "the base." Language is a tool—not a window into metaphysical bedrock. The video “It’s a Tool, Not an Objective Description” dives into this further.
Regarding agency—the rejection of individuation applies universally, including to the "self." What we call agency is just a patterned flow—a functional emergence within the informational totality. The subject isn’t granted metaphysical exception; it’s as transient and illusory in its distinctness as any other conceptual boundary we draw.
3 & 4. Experience vs. Reality & The Relevance of Monism:
The supposed problem of distinguishing "experience" from "external reality" evaporates once you stop insisting on their separateness. In a monistic frame, both are simply relational descriptions arising within undivided existence. Change, difference, dynamics—these aren’t threats to monism; they’re inevitable expressions of relational information referencing itself.
If no relational contrast existed, there would be nothing describable—no distinction, no perception, no "something." But that doesn’t imply separable parts; it implies internal relationality within a singular whole. The mistake is imagining those relations as gaps rather than as structural features of one continuous existence.
5. On Transcendence and Theism:
Placing a transcendent entity outside the system to resolve the tension between determinism and chaos is elegant—I'll grant that. But elegance isn’t explanation. Invoking God as the guarantor of order and distinction doesn’t illuminate how distinctions arise; it just assigns authorship to a category that, by definition, defies reference.
If "God" contains all, plus something beyond category, then language fails before it begins. You’re left with an experiential assertion—not a metaphysical solution. I don’t deny the experience of transcendence—but that only reinforces my point: experience happens within existence, and that’s where my framework begins and ends.
There’s no utility in leaning on external guarantors when no meaningful description—or predictive function—can be derived from them. If something cannot be operationalized or referenced beyond personal conviction, it’s outside the scope of the kind of constructive metaphysical model I set out to discover.
In Short:
Where your model invokes a transcendent arbiter to bridge the gaps, mine recognizes that such invocations are linguistically hollow beyond shared experiential resonance. So I don’t bother describing what cannot be described. I start with the only unavoidable hypothetical—existence—and build from there, using language as a tool to navigate relational structures within that frame.
Appreciate your thoughts and engagement, hope I helped to clarify your doubts.
Here is a helpful take on the Colossians 1:16 text from Dr. Bruce Ware.
"Colossians 1:20 is especially important because it shows two things clearly: 1) the universal scope of the reconciliation wrought by Christ(“all things,” “things in earth and things in heaven”), and 2) that this reconciliation is accomplished by the atoning death of Christ (“through the blood of his cross”).That this does not entail universalism is clear because in the very context Paul warns that these believers will one day be holy and blameless only if they continue in the faith (1:23). So, the reconciliation of Col. 1:20 is one in which their rebellion is over, yet God’s conquered foes do not share in his glory. In this sense, all those in hell stand reconciled to God, i.e., they are no longer rebels and their sinful disregard for God has been crushed and is ended".
Per your section on Romans Romans 5:18-19:
"This passage is making the same parallel as the Corinthians passage and seems to clearly state that all people will be justified through Christ’s saving work."
I think if we give Paul the courtesy of understanding in him in light of all of what he has said, we'll conclude that faith is clearly the prerequisite for justification, without which one is not saved. Per Romans 5:1, NET] 1 Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Per your section on 1 Corinthians 15:22, what would have to be demonstrated is that the reference and distribution of 'all' (with respect to those who died and those who are made alive) is identical. The reference and distribution has to be defined by the broader scope of the letter and his writings as a whole. If we just read a little further, we see that the reference of "all will be made alive" in 1 Cor 15:22 is "those who belong to him" in 15:23. Plus, this eschatological climax to history clearly has Christ defeating enemies, those who are not justified, by definition: "put all his enemies under his feet", per vs. 25. Again, If we give Paul the courtesy of understanding him in light of all of what he has said, we'd conclude that he would not contradict himself in a matter of 2 verses.
"23 But each in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits; then when Christ comes, those who belong to him. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he has brought to an end all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
We see as well 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9, where Jesus returns to inflict vengeance, clearly indicating that Paul did not think everyone was to be saved.
Per your section on Matthew 25:46, you are exactly right about the symmetry between eternal heaven and eternal hell. The reason why Revelation 21:8 does not imply annialation is because the author, in a couple places just before Revelation 21:8, states that damnation goes on forever and in the presence of the Lamb:
[Rev 14:10 NASB20] 10 he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
[Rev 20:10 NASB20] 10 And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet [are] also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Keep in mind that the cup of God's wrath is mentioned many times in the Old Testament, and if (as Christians who affirm the unity of the Scripture and progressive revelation believe) there is continuity in the Scripture, the forever-ness of God's wrath is connected in some fashion to texts like Psalm 75:8, Isaiah 51:17, Jeremiah 25:15-16. See especially Daniel 12:2:
“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”.
In Isaiah 66:24 we read, "And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” Jesus quotes this in Mark 9:48 to speak of eternal punishment
Libertarian free will has been heavily critiqued. I cannot do better than Jonathan Edwards in his " On the Freedom of the Will", or Martin Luther's "The Bondage of the Will", or more recently Dr. Gilloume Bignon's "Excusing Sinners and Blaming God". Calvinist's tend to be compatibilists: "in contrast to Libertarian free will, teaches that people are free, but defines freedom differently. Compatibilism claims that every person chooses according to his or her greatest desire. In other words, people will always choose what they want-- and what they want is determined by (and consistent with) their moral nature. Man freely makes choices, but those choices are determined by the condition of his heart and mind (i.e. his moral nature). Libertarian free will maintains that for any choice made, one could always equally have chosen otherwise, or not chosen at all".
Per the alleged incompatibility of the premises: God is infinitely good and just; God punishes people for eternity for finite sins. The reason why Hell is forever is that God is infinitely holy. The sentencing is based on the offended party and this is intuitive to our own justice systems. Attacking a cop has a greater offense than attacking a civilian. Assassinating the President is more serious than a local mayor. We would not give someone jail time for 10 mins just because it only took them 10 mins to rob the store, for an example that shows the absurdity that the temporal element of a punishment has to match the time it took to commit the crime.
I would affirm that hell is God’s active, retributive punishment. Jonathan Edwards put it in a chilling fashion that makes me tremble: Excerpt from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
“The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood ... There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God—by the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty ...The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked... you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours ... You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up".
The justification of God for "why does eternal suffering exist" is Romans 9:
21 Or does the potter not have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one object for honorable use, and another for common use? 22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with great patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And [He did so] to make known the riches of His glory upon objects of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 [namely] us, whom He also called, not only from among Jews, but also from among Gentiles
Thanks Ben, I will read in detail and with delight this dismemberment of the concept at the core of Christian ideology (we should stop calling these religions... spiritual transformation by religion is like calling a car mechanic to perform brain surgery with a size 16 wrench). It is exactly like the value trapped in diamonds, those abundant rocks that are kept in artificial scarcity to increase their value. While the comparison of religion to a diamond is overrated for religion, it is still a valid one, or maybe it's like the drop-by-drop "love" given to a partner by a psychopathic manipulative spouse. This is organized religion, a forever unsatisfying self-pleasuring on a Sears catalogue instead of the real thing.
The belief one holds about the after life speaks more to their current anxieties than any kind of divinely revealed knowledge. Doctrines about hell are only useful social/political commentaries on collective anxieties of the time.
One dynamic that I think is lost here is that the original intent of the scripture was that of an apocalyptic eschatology. They didn’t believe in heaven as Christians conceive of it today, but thought God/Jesus would come back and overthrow the ruling powers and establish a new kingdom. That’s how the whole “age” and aeon thing gets lost in translation. So, I don’t disagree with your conclusions, it’s just that there needs to be an accomodation for the fact that the Christians of the first century had a different conception of “heaven” (and thus Hell) than contemporary ones. I personally don’t think scripture supports eternal conscious torment, though likely annihilationism. Having said that, that doesn’t mean that it’s the right interpretation. In light of other beliefs the Christian tradition has about God, one could extrapolate that universalism makes the most sense. As a nonbeliever, I don’t have a dog in that fight.
Just food for thought. I am of the school of thought that believes Jesus inaugurated his Kingdom just as He said He would in his opening message (Matthew 1:17; Mark 1:14). The Old Testament's Temple and Sacrificial systems were all types and shadows pointing to Christ's Priesthood and a heavenly tabernacle, as was the Davidic Throne a type of Christ's Kingship and heavenly throne. Acts 2 makes it very clear in Peter's sermon that Jesus has ascended the throne of David in his ascension to Heaven. Daniel 2 makes it clear that God's Kingdom would over throw all Kingdoms this side of eternity. Jesus said His Kingdom would expand gradually (Matthew 13) and Psalm 110:1 (the most oft quoted Bible verse in the NT) has the Son seated at His father's right hand until all His enemies are made a footstool.
really interesting read, theres a lot to unpack here. grew up in the church, and i'm at a place where I can confidently say I have no clue what I believe, so I appreciate anyone who can present objective arguments of biblical text.
The element I was always taught regarding hell is that God is holy, and his ways are beyond our understanding. I wrestle with this idea a lot. It's a great statement to get people to blindly follow an ideology. And yet, I cant help but wonder sometimes, what if that is true?
Thanks for your honest reflection! I tried to get at this in the article but to expand, I think it's important to figure out what one means when they say God is "holy". Classical theism usually takes the line that the attributes of God are analogous to our human concepts, and some mystics like Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite go one step further by saying we have to affirm the negations of our affirmations. He would say that God is not holy if by holy we mean something like our human concept of holiness. I'm inclined to say that although language about an infinite being is of course limited, it must mean something. When in John's gospel we read that "God is love", that can't mean God is evil. There are limits to how much we destroy concepts to preserve God's transcendence. I would ask anyone who thinks God can be all-loving and condemn people to ECT, what would you think if a human did the same? God is not above morality, but the source of it (according to theists anyways), and so we absolutely can judge God by revealed moral standards. "Love your enemies" doesn't sound very much like torture them for eternity!
"When in John's gospel we read that "God is love", that can't mean God is evil. There are limits to how much we destroy concepts to preserve God's transcendence."
^^this is very true, concepts of "goodness" and "love" were born from God and evil came from the fall of satan - this is all according to the fundamentals of christianity, which is in itself to be questioned. I'm fully aware my fear comes from years of indoctrination and i'm purely in this place of not wanting to definitively say I know the answers. But this article presented a lot for me to think about, so thank you for sharing!
I did not know C.S Lewis was a universalist, and to be honest, I was not aware of this concept at all, so I'm excited to be able to dive into this more.
Hell is fire. Fire is life. Hell is eternal life. Burn bright until the end of time. 🔥
I wrote an article covering pretty much the same thing from the perspective of finite vs infinite value: https://briantheloslitler.substack.com/p/afterlife-math?r=59q3ez
Wonderful write up as always, Ben! It's especially fun to see your perspective developments/shifts since you wrote the first article :)
When I was still a devout Christian I came to realize that the doctrine of ECT was not only immoral but both counter to the vast majority of the Bible and a latter invention of the church that was a pragmatic means of asserting power over believers. Universalism is *antecedent* to any doctrine of Hell; it's more logical, and more in keeping with the scriptures. Once I renounced my faith, the doctrine of ECT became even more repugnant, obviously.
You probably have better things to do... but as I spent a couple years digging into this stuff I just wanted to share the following: The single best (breadth and depth) look into this matter I came across was a book called "An Analytical Study of Words" by Louis Abbott, published through Tentmaker Publishing, which still exists much to my surprise and delight! [Virtually all Christians I know (there is only one exception) have turned into the most un-Christian Trump-worshippers. Seeing that Tentmaker still exists gives me hope that there is still wisdom, compassion, and reason alive in the church today.] The entire text of Abbott's is available for free here:
https://tentmaker.org/books/asw/asw.html
There are MANY other books available for free on their website. I would hope any Christian that rightly doubts the doctrine of ECT would find their way to that treasure trove. Thank you for the article, and all the best!
I will check it out! Thanks for your kind words and perspective as always Lance :)
It's interesting that you don't look at Judaism, considering that Jesus was a Jew and very little of what he was talking about was new. To be fair, you did title the post "The Doctrine of Hell", which is what you discussed. I've always found it interesting how Doctrines and Creeds never match what the many authors of the Bible are discussing.
I only really missed it out because of lack of knowledge and wishing to keep to article a reasonable length 😅
Thankfully, I don't imagine you'll stop writing any time soon. Questions always take us to where it all started—myth, math & monsters.
Suddenly you lack knowledge...or don't want to add to an article that has already passed the the "reasonable" length threshold (what is another 20 pages to 200? :)) That's suspicious...well... I appreciate your art of deflecting from the rabid elephant in the room... good luck!
A doctrine of progressive revelation is needed instead of the assumption that by some miracle beyond miracles foolish, sinful human beings managed to totally get it all right thousands of years ago. I view it as a type of arrogance to take every single line in the bible as necessarily valid and would say the only reliable epistemological guide is experience of the Person spoken of rather than the agreement of men who have little or nothing of such a real connection. All revelation is inherently synergistic. The Divine contributes the revelation, and humanity tries its damnedest to twist that into our own self-image. It takes time and the work of many to sort out the human BS from the Divine message.
I completely agree with this (if Christianity were true of course)!
pffffft
A system that ordains eternal, purposeless suffering reveals, by its very nature, a trajectory toward dysfunction—an ethical dead-end serving neither justice nor growth. As you’ve rightly pointed out, punishment severed from the possibility of restoration collapses any coherent notion of divine love or moral order. In The Harbor, I argue that any system—whether cosmic or human—that perpetuates behavior without regard for alignment to the values it claims to recognize exposes its own incoherence with reality. Such systems must either correct course or inevitably decay into dysfunction.
I appreciate how clearly you’ve framed this—not merely as a theological dispute, but as a deeper moral reckoning, one that confronts both secular nihilists and traditional Christians alike. The defense of ECT, even at the expense of justice and goodness, reflects a broader human impulse: the need to sanctify chaos through certainty. It’s a retreat into dogma that strips individuals of the will to embody the integrity they claim reality demands—preferring submission to inherited absolutes over the harder task of principled alignment.
It leads to a question I often return to: How do we cultivate frameworks—religious or secular—that are not preserved by fear, authority, or nostalgia, but are continuously tested against the evolving demands of coherence, purpose, and value? Frameworks capable of offering true resistance to the ever-present uncertainty and entropy that shape human existence.
Enjoyed reading this, thank you for sharing it.
This is very well put thank you! To your question, I think the only way is to be as intellectually honest as possible. It's hard, sometimes even impossible, but being brutal with one's own ideas is the only way forward.
Well put. I have the following priority system as sort of a global 're-alignment of alignment' framework.
1. Be honest with yourself.
2. Be kind to yourself.
3. Believe in your strength.
4. Be honest to others.
5. Be kind to others.
6. Believe in others strength.
Very approachable, intuitive, and easy to get into. But it can be applied more generally to systems via the clear definition of the terms involved:
Honesty: The system must maintain internal models that reliably map the conditions it is embedded within and as. If the system models incorrectly, it cannot make an action that will move it reliably toward some value. Honesty is the recursive implementation of information — the structural fidelity of possibility within perspective- inductive truths that define one's circumstance, desires, and implemented behavior.
Kindness: The system must possess internally prioritized structures that can evaluate simulations and select among them. Value is the recursive implementation of function — that which defines relevance, direction, and configuration for coherent operation towards one's known and unknown goals.
Strength: The system must be capable and willing to instantiate its evaluations into action. This includes not only capacity, but consistency — the internal structural discipline to carry out what its honesty and value have determined. Strength is the recursive implementation of action — a system’s ability to realize what it has defined.
This is excellent, thanks for sharing!
Hello!
Must we have these values? In other words, is your system objectively true? From whence do the values and system come?
Best
Nope, not at all. My framework does not subscribe to objectivity outside of the base fact that there is 'something' existing. But even what I just stated is not a descriptive fact; it is text on a screen we apes use to have an entirely isolated experience that is made of concepts words may not convey. Basically there are experiences we have that cannot be described, therefore we cannot operate on them with the tool of language. IE- 'describe a color to a colorblind person'.
I made an entire YouTube series covering the metaphysics, up to just before those six rules. Planning on returning to video creation sometime in the next year and will hopefully get the six rules derived on video. Otherwise I am currently putting together a master document that outlines it as clearly as I have time for that will be posted sometime soon.
First video in the series (Metaphysics): https://youtu.be/moaV5HNs3w8
Obligatory 'its a tool not an objective description': https://youtu.be/I8okwTihxXM
Basics of 'information': https://youtu.be/vlZw3Lyu_bk
Honesty, Value, Strength derivation: https://youtu.be/gNwoj4xbxPc
I listened in full to your non-duality video. These are well done. This must have taken considerable time.
1. Would you agree that "I think, therefore, I am" begs the question since the assertion of individuation is baked into the premise and restated in the conclusion without the argument breaking its own plane?
2. Then again, I hear you're assertion that there is no individuation or seperation of parts, but that seemed to be a predication of the timeless universe itself and not so much in relation to the subject/agent, perhaps still leaving room for a subject/ agent. So that leads me back to 1 above.
3. Since this appears to be a monistic metaphysic, I wonder how you would distinguish between a) experience itself and b) the external reality being experienced if there is a way to vindicate your foundational premise in 1 above and it's attempt to establish the integrity of the agent.
4. If the experience itself cannot be differentied from the reality being experienced, then I wonder how this monism can be experentially relevant, since we all (assuming distinctions in agents) experience change all the time.
5. I think it is fascinating that you assert that the essentially "one" reality would have to have something relevant within itself for comparison's sake so as to make distinctions. Since such distinctions do not exist, we're left with some linguistic conventions to build models with. In Christian Theism, we would assert that God is transcedent and His mastery over creation allows for the recognition of uniformity intracreation, while our finitude and analogical, correlative relation to God allows for recognizable distinctions, which are really real. Basically He is the entity that is essentially one and unchanging and as such He is the vindication from being otherwise trapped in the dialogical tension of pure rationalism (i.e. determinism) and irrationalism (i.e. pure chance and chaos).
Appreciate the thoughtful engagement—rare to get this level of critique outside of pure academic circles, so credit where it’s due.
If you’re interested in the granular, up-to-date articulation of the framework, here’s a working draft outlining it more formally:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Wge23KnnFfpZ8FWOqa2fvNNkXBIEwGHbr4eM288ZETE/edit?usp=sharing
Point by point:
1. On Descartes:
Fully agreed. Cogito ergo sum is a classic case of circular reasoning—presupposing individuation to prove individuation. When I made that video, I hadn’t yet unpacked the baggage tied to that phrase. The framework doesn’t anchor itself in a perspectival subject but in the only "certainty" we can even gesture at: existence itself.
Of course, even calling it "certainty" is generous—language collapses the moment we try to describe what existence "is." We aren’t starting from knowledge, but from the unavoidable fact that something is happening—an indescribable presence we pretend can be labeled ‘existence.’ Anything prior to that is inaccessible, and even that label is a convenience, not a truth.
2. On Time and the Agent:
The next video in the series addresses this with the "timeless reality" concept. If existence were contingent on time, you'd quickly find that your definition of time resolves into... existence itself. Whether you view time as containing existence, or existence as flowing through time, you’re left with existence as the primary trait.
This is why I reject chasing linguistic tails trying to pin down "the base." Language is a tool—not a window into metaphysical bedrock. The video “It’s a Tool, Not an Objective Description” dives into this further.
Regarding agency—the rejection of individuation applies universally, including to the "self." What we call agency is just a patterned flow—a functional emergence within the informational totality. The subject isn’t granted metaphysical exception; it’s as transient and illusory in its distinctness as any other conceptual boundary we draw.
3 & 4. Experience vs. Reality & The Relevance of Monism:
The supposed problem of distinguishing "experience" from "external reality" evaporates once you stop insisting on their separateness. In a monistic frame, both are simply relational descriptions arising within undivided existence. Change, difference, dynamics—these aren’t threats to monism; they’re inevitable expressions of relational information referencing itself.
If no relational contrast existed, there would be nothing describable—no distinction, no perception, no "something." But that doesn’t imply separable parts; it implies internal relationality within a singular whole. The mistake is imagining those relations as gaps rather than as structural features of one continuous existence.
5. On Transcendence and Theism:
Placing a transcendent entity outside the system to resolve the tension between determinism and chaos is elegant—I'll grant that. But elegance isn’t explanation. Invoking God as the guarantor of order and distinction doesn’t illuminate how distinctions arise; it just assigns authorship to a category that, by definition, defies reference.
If "God" contains all, plus something beyond category, then language fails before it begins. You’re left with an experiential assertion—not a metaphysical solution. I don’t deny the experience of transcendence—but that only reinforces my point: experience happens within existence, and that’s where my framework begins and ends.
There’s no utility in leaning on external guarantors when no meaningful description—or predictive function—can be derived from them. If something cannot be operationalized or referenced beyond personal conviction, it’s outside the scope of the kind of constructive metaphysical model I set out to discover.
In Short:
Where your model invokes a transcendent arbiter to bridge the gaps, mine recognizes that such invocations are linguistically hollow beyond shared experiential resonance. So I don’t bother describing what cannot be described. I start with the only unavoidable hypothetical—existence—and build from there, using language as a tool to navigate relational structures within that frame.
Appreciate your thoughts and engagement, hope I helped to clarify your doubts.
Here is a helpful take on the Colossians 1:16 text from Dr. Bruce Ware.
"Colossians 1:20 is especially important because it shows two things clearly: 1) the universal scope of the reconciliation wrought by Christ(“all things,” “things in earth and things in heaven”), and 2) that this reconciliation is accomplished by the atoning death of Christ (“through the blood of his cross”).That this does not entail universalism is clear because in the very context Paul warns that these believers will one day be holy and blameless only if they continue in the faith (1:23). So, the reconciliation of Col. 1:20 is one in which their rebellion is over, yet God’s conquered foes do not share in his glory. In this sense, all those in hell stand reconciled to God, i.e., they are no longer rebels and their sinful disregard for God has been crushed and is ended".
Per your section on Romans Romans 5:18-19:
"This passage is making the same parallel as the Corinthians passage and seems to clearly state that all people will be justified through Christ’s saving work."
I think if we give Paul the courtesy of understanding in him in light of all of what he has said, we'll conclude that faith is clearly the prerequisite for justification, without which one is not saved. Per Romans 5:1, NET] 1 Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Per your section on 1 Corinthians 15:22, what would have to be demonstrated is that the reference and distribution of 'all' (with respect to those who died and those who are made alive) is identical. The reference and distribution has to be defined by the broader scope of the letter and his writings as a whole. If we just read a little further, we see that the reference of "all will be made alive" in 1 Cor 15:22 is "those who belong to him" in 15:23. Plus, this eschatological climax to history clearly has Christ defeating enemies, those who are not justified, by definition: "put all his enemies under his feet", per vs. 25. Again, If we give Paul the courtesy of understanding him in light of all of what he has said, we'd conclude that he would not contradict himself in a matter of 2 verses.
"23 But each in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits; then when Christ comes, those who belong to him. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he has brought to an end all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
We see as well 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9, where Jesus returns to inflict vengeance, clearly indicating that Paul did not think everyone was to be saved.
Per your section on Matthew 25:46, you are exactly right about the symmetry between eternal heaven and eternal hell. The reason why Revelation 21:8 does not imply annialation is because the author, in a couple places just before Revelation 21:8, states that damnation goes on forever and in the presence of the Lamb:
[Rev 14:10 NASB20] 10 he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
[Rev 20:10 NASB20] 10 And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet [are] also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Keep in mind that the cup of God's wrath is mentioned many times in the Old Testament, and if (as Christians who affirm the unity of the Scripture and progressive revelation believe) there is continuity in the Scripture, the forever-ness of God's wrath is connected in some fashion to texts like Psalm 75:8, Isaiah 51:17, Jeremiah 25:15-16. See especially Daniel 12:2:
“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”.
In Isaiah 66:24 we read, "And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” Jesus quotes this in Mark 9:48 to speak of eternal punishment
Libertarian free will has been heavily critiqued. I cannot do better than Jonathan Edwards in his " On the Freedom of the Will", or Martin Luther's "The Bondage of the Will", or more recently Dr. Gilloume Bignon's "Excusing Sinners and Blaming God". Calvinist's tend to be compatibilists: "in contrast to Libertarian free will, teaches that people are free, but defines freedom differently. Compatibilism claims that every person chooses according to his or her greatest desire. In other words, people will always choose what they want-- and what they want is determined by (and consistent with) their moral nature. Man freely makes choices, but those choices are determined by the condition of his heart and mind (i.e. his moral nature). Libertarian free will maintains that for any choice made, one could always equally have chosen otherwise, or not chosen at all".
Per the alleged incompatibility of the premises: God is infinitely good and just; God punishes people for eternity for finite sins. The reason why Hell is forever is that God is infinitely holy. The sentencing is based on the offended party and this is intuitive to our own justice systems. Attacking a cop has a greater offense than attacking a civilian. Assassinating the President is more serious than a local mayor. We would not give someone jail time for 10 mins just because it only took them 10 mins to rob the store, for an example that shows the absurdity that the temporal element of a punishment has to match the time it took to commit the crime.
I would affirm that hell is God’s active, retributive punishment. Jonathan Edwards put it in a chilling fashion that makes me tremble: Excerpt from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
“The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood ... There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God—by the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty ...The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked... you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours ... You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up".
The justification of God for "why does eternal suffering exist" is Romans 9:
21 Or does the potter not have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one object for honorable use, and another for common use? 22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with great patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And [He did so] to make known the riches of His glory upon objects of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 [namely] us, whom He also called, not only from among Jews, but also from among Gentiles
Thank you for your lengthy comment! I don't have any responses per se, only to thank you for raising these points and I will look into it further 😁
Thanks Ben, I will read in detail and with delight this dismemberment of the concept at the core of Christian ideology (we should stop calling these religions... spiritual transformation by religion is like calling a car mechanic to perform brain surgery with a size 16 wrench). It is exactly like the value trapped in diamonds, those abundant rocks that are kept in artificial scarcity to increase their value. While the comparison of religion to a diamond is overrated for religion, it is still a valid one, or maybe it's like the drop-by-drop "love" given to a partner by a psychopathic manipulative spouse. This is organized religion, a forever unsatisfying self-pleasuring on a Sears catalogue instead of the real thing.
The belief one holds about the after life speaks more to their current anxieties than any kind of divinely revealed knowledge. Doctrines about hell are only useful social/political commentaries on collective anxieties of the time.
This may be true!
One dynamic that I think is lost here is that the original intent of the scripture was that of an apocalyptic eschatology. They didn’t believe in heaven as Christians conceive of it today, but thought God/Jesus would come back and overthrow the ruling powers and establish a new kingdom. That’s how the whole “age” and aeon thing gets lost in translation. So, I don’t disagree with your conclusions, it’s just that there needs to be an accomodation for the fact that the Christians of the first century had a different conception of “heaven” (and thus Hell) than contemporary ones. I personally don’t think scripture supports eternal conscious torment, though likely annihilationism. Having said that, that doesn’t mean that it’s the right interpretation. In light of other beliefs the Christian tradition has about God, one could extrapolate that universalism makes the most sense. As a nonbeliever, I don’t have a dog in that fight.
Good point, thanks your raising it!
Just food for thought. I am of the school of thought that believes Jesus inaugurated his Kingdom just as He said He would in his opening message (Matthew 1:17; Mark 1:14). The Old Testament's Temple and Sacrificial systems were all types and shadows pointing to Christ's Priesthood and a heavenly tabernacle, as was the Davidic Throne a type of Christ's Kingship and heavenly throne. Acts 2 makes it very clear in Peter's sermon that Jesus has ascended the throne of David in his ascension to Heaven. Daniel 2 makes it clear that God's Kingdom would over throw all Kingdoms this side of eternity. Jesus said His Kingdom would expand gradually (Matthew 13) and Psalm 110:1 (the most oft quoted Bible verse in the NT) has the Son seated at His father's right hand until all His enemies are made a footstool.
really interesting read, theres a lot to unpack here. grew up in the church, and i'm at a place where I can confidently say I have no clue what I believe, so I appreciate anyone who can present objective arguments of biblical text.
The element I was always taught regarding hell is that God is holy, and his ways are beyond our understanding. I wrestle with this idea a lot. It's a great statement to get people to blindly follow an ideology. And yet, I cant help but wonder sometimes, what if that is true?
Thanks for your honest reflection! I tried to get at this in the article but to expand, I think it's important to figure out what one means when they say God is "holy". Classical theism usually takes the line that the attributes of God are analogous to our human concepts, and some mystics like Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite go one step further by saying we have to affirm the negations of our affirmations. He would say that God is not holy if by holy we mean something like our human concept of holiness. I'm inclined to say that although language about an infinite being is of course limited, it must mean something. When in John's gospel we read that "God is love", that can't mean God is evil. There are limits to how much we destroy concepts to preserve God's transcendence. I would ask anyone who thinks God can be all-loving and condemn people to ECT, what would you think if a human did the same? God is not above morality, but the source of it (according to theists anyways), and so we absolutely can judge God by revealed moral standards. "Love your enemies" doesn't sound very much like torture them for eternity!
"When in John's gospel we read that "God is love", that can't mean God is evil. There are limits to how much we destroy concepts to preserve God's transcendence."
^^this is very true, concepts of "goodness" and "love" were born from God and evil came from the fall of satan - this is all according to the fundamentals of christianity, which is in itself to be questioned. I'm fully aware my fear comes from years of indoctrination and i'm purely in this place of not wanting to definitively say I know the answers. But this article presented a lot for me to think about, so thank you for sharing!
I did not know C.S Lewis was a universalist, and to be honest, I was not aware of this concept at all, so I'm excited to be able to dive into this more.
Glad to hear it helped :) To clarify, CS Lewis wasn't a universalist, he just thought that St Paul was!
Thanks for your perspective!