Most contemporary Christians, while giving lip service to the doctrine of hell, prefer not to think about it. Few like to reflect on how God punishes the wicked.
The authors of Four Views on Hell meet this subject head on and propose different views of what the Scriptures say about hell. Many Christians still hold to a literal understanding of hell, that it is a place of eternal smoke and flames. John E Walvoord is a strong advocate of this view. William V. Crockett defends a metaphorical view, seeing hell as a place of eternal conscious punishment but not necessarily as being a literal fire. Clark H. Pinnock articulates the view of conditional immortality, that God eventually destroys the souls of the wicked rather than Punishing them endlessly. Finally, Zachary J. Hayes explains the thinking that undergirds the doctrine o f Purgatory. Evangelicals will have a greater appreciation for why this doctrine developed centuries a go in the church.
The authors interact with one another by responding to each other’s articles.