Graham Keith on Patristic Views on Hell (2 parts)

The following articles are now on-line in PDF:

Graham Keith, " Patristic Views on Hell - Part 1," The Evangelical Quarterly 71.3 (1999): 217-232.

Abstract:

In this period the doctrine of the last things was yet to be worked out in detail. Apart from the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment, no orthodox consensus was established. With such a climate Origen tried to extend the church’s teaching. He tied the traditional idea of a final judgment to God’s long-term strategy for the restoration of souls (or intelligences) after they had declined from the contemplation of God. In the process he produced a speculative and controversial pic­ture which revolved round the willing subjection of all things to God. All God’s judgments were essentially corrective. This meant that Origen at least considered the possible salvation of the devil and his an­gels. But his treatment did leave several inconsistencies. This was prob­ably of more use to the church than a systematised dogmatic statement, because it focussed the mind of the church on certain key issues on which it had to work out a biblical consensus.

Graham Keith, "Patristic Views on Hell - Part 2," The Evangelical Quarterly 71.4 (1999): 291-310.

Abstract:

In his approach to the doctrine of Hell Augustine was influenced in part by a desire to address pagan doubts about the scientific possibility (d a body being in a state of everlasting torment. But an even greater concern was prompted by various pleas within the church to tone down the Scriptural evidence for an eternal Hell. Augustine believed that if any of these pleas were accepted, dire pastoral consequences would be involved.

Alongside his response to the various critiques of Hell, Augustine laid much stress on the seriousness of Adam’s original sin. He also rejected the Platonist view, effectively endorsed by Origen, that all divine punishments are essentially corrective. Augustine felt no need to give a detailed rationale for God’s justice, which he saw as a datum of revelation and a matter of faith for the believer. It was, however, a weak­ness in Augustine (and the patristic period generally) that he was content to work with a model of divine anger which stripped it of any passionate element. This foreclosed the possibility of tying God’s wrath more closely to the outworking of God’s justice.