Publication Details

Abstract

The paper first depictures the hell according to the traditional doctrines of churches as a place of eternal reprobation. Then it points out that many contemporary Christian believers question the doctrine of eternal tortures to be in accordance with the unconditioned divine love, proclaimed by Jesus of the Gospels. The author’s question is: What was the role the ideas of the hell, included also into the New Testament (mainly under the influence of Enoch) played for Jesus himself? His answer is as follows: The Christians have no reason to take the ideas of the hell, widespread in Jesus’ time, as a Revelation, even not if Jesus himself would have shared them. They were nothing more than the ideas resulting from the prevailing picture of the ancient world. Jesus did not teach the doctrine of the hell, he instead showed the people the true way of life. According to the author we should accept the Nietzschean critique of Christianity. This critique might lead us to the rediscovery of God as a totality of our possibilities.