Well, okay, so maybe it's not the last word on hell, but this post represents the final remarks by both Chris Date and Jerry Shepherd. I want to extend my thanks to both contributors for their tireless attention to the biblical text and, most of all, their devotion to the Author of the text. I've learned much from this dialogue and have appreciated the cordial, yet direct, tone in which it was handled. 

This is Chris Date's second rebuttal to Jerry Shepherd's presentation of eternal conscious torment. Here are Jerry's FIRST, SECOND, and THIRD posts. Chris's first two posts can be found HERE and HERE. We'll wrap things up next week with a short conclusion by both Chris and Jerry. ABUSING THE ANALOGY OF FAITH Jerry leaves unaddressed the vast majority of the texts

Chris Date continues our dialogue on the duration of hell by responding to Jerry Shepherd's initial post, which argued for eternal conscious torment. 

Eternal, immortal, resurrected life—albeit in torment. This is how most Christians have thought of the final fate of the unsaved, from second-century Tatian to the Reformation’s Belgic Confession and through to today’s theologians like Wayne Grudem. This now-traditional view of hell is not one of disembodied spirits, but of resurrected, living people whom God has rendered immortal so as to endure physical and emotional torment for all eternity.

As many of you know, I’ve been wrestling with the concept of hell for quite some time. It started back in 2011, when Francis Chan and I wrote Erasing Hell, which explored and defended the traditional view that hell is irreversible.