Do
sinners go to hell? God told Adam that if he disobeyed he would come under
a penalty of death—not eternal life in another state or place.Yet
many people through the ages have believed that the penalty for unrepentant
sinners is to suffer forever in the fires of hell.
The 18th-century Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards struck fear into the hearts
of many who heard his sermons in which he raged against sin
and threatened sinners with an eternity spent in an ever-burning hellfire:
"The pit is prepared. The fire is made ready. The furnace is now hot,
ready to receive them. The flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword
is whet, and held over them, and the pit has opened her mouth
under them . . . O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in."
Many religious people now reject this view of hell. Polls show that comparatively
few believe that God will send sinners to a place of eternal fiery torment
as punishment for their sins.
Some still believe in hell, but, when questioned about its nature, they fall
back on concepts such as "separation from God" or "an anguished
