4 Introduction
I find it a very curious feeling, I admit, to write a book
that is at odds with a body of received opinion so invincibly
well-established that I know I cannot reasonably expect to per-
suade anyone of anything, except perhaps of my sincerity. The
whole endeavor may very well turn out to be pointless in the
end. I suspect that those who are already sympathetic to my
position will approve of my argument to the extent that they
think it successfully expresses their own views, or something
proximate to them, while those who disagree (by far the larger
party) will either dismiss it or (if they are very boring indeed)
try to refute it by reasserting the traditional majority position
in any number of very predictable, very shopworn manners.
Some, for instance, will claim that universalism clearly contra-
dicts the explicit language of scripture (it does not). Others will
argue that universalism was decisively condemned as hereti-
cal by the fifth Ecumenical Council (it was not). The more ad-
venturous will attempt what they take to be stronger versions
of those same philosophical defenses of the idea of an eternal
hell that I describe and reject in these pages. The most adven-
turous of all might attempt to come up with new arguments
of their own ( which is not advisable). There is no obvious way
of winning at this game, or even of significantly altering the
odds. Even so, I intend to play it to the end. And perhaps I
can derive a certain comfort from my situation. There is, at
the very least, something liberating about knowing that I have
probably lost the rhetorical contest before it has even begun.
It spares me the effort of feigning tentativeness or moderation
or judicious doubt, in the daintily and soberly ceremonious
way one is generally expected to do, and allows me instead to
advance my claims in as unconstrained a manner as possible,
and to see how far the line of reasoning they embody can be
pursued. For all I know, this in itself might make some kind of