The Decline of Hell

In the third century C.E. the heretical Greek Father, Origen, proposed a scheme for the eventual salvation of humankind. But no more overt attacks on the eternity of hell appeared until the seventeenth century. This book, originally published in 1985, explores the reasons for the long survival of the doctrine and for its hold beginning to weaken about 300 years ago. The chief reason for its breakdown, the author suggests, was a gradual change in the attitude to other people’s suffering, and, connected with this, a weakening of the principle of vindictive justice, and an evolution of the attributes of God, in whom Love slowly gained ground over Justice. The thinkers discussed range from members of heretical sects, such as the Socinians or the English and German Philadelphians, through several groups of English Platonists, including Henry More and Peter Sterry, to figures such as Pierre Bayle and Leibniz.