For centuries, the Augustinian-Calvinist interpretation of hell, known as Eternal Conscious Torment (a place where, allegedly, God sadistically tortures people forever), has been defended on the grounds of free will. The popular argument of many fundamentalist evangelists goes something like this: “God doesn’t send people to hell; they choose it by rejecting Him.” But is this really a choice? Or is it actually the worst form of coercion?

If free will is exercised under the threat of eternal torment, then it is not free at all. A choice made under existential fear is a forced choice, no different from an abuser telling their captive, “If you don’t love me, I’ll burn you—but it’s your choice.”

The False Choice: Love or Eternal Suffering

Imagine a parent saying to their child, “Love me, or I’ll cast you into a pit of fire where you will scream in agony forever.” Would we call that parent loving? Would we say the child has genuine free will?

Of course not. Because love, by definition, must be freely and unconditionally given—not extorted through terror!

Yet, fundamentalist theology tells us that God, the supposed source of perfect love, presents humanity with the very same ultimatum: Worship me, or I’ll burn you forever! The mere fact that rejecting God comes with an infinite penalty makes the choice fundamentally illegitimate.

No religious faith that relies on existential fear of eternal punishment can be called just or loving. A choice made under the threat of eternal damnation is not a choice—it’s coercion.

Even in the Torah, Punishment Was Not Eternal

Even in the Old Testament, the harshest punishment prescribed for severe sins was the death penalty—not eternal torture. Those who committed grievous crimes were executed, but their punishment did not extend beyond this life. It was only a “game over” in this world, not an everlasting torment in the next.

If eternal punishment were truly just, wouldn’t God have implemented it in the Torah? Instead, we find a legal system that punishes within human limits, recognizing that justice must be proportionate.

Moreover, history shows us that many individuals who committed sins deserving of death according to Mosaic Law—Moses (who murdered an Egyptian), King David (who arranged a murder), and Paul the Apostle (who persecuted Christians)—all found redemption and are now seen as saints in heaven.

This raises a critical question: If God’s justice graciously allowed for redemption even after severe sins, why would He suddenly become more punitive in eternity?

Would a God who forgave David and Paul suddenly become merciless in the afterlife? If so, will it not contradict His own words?

For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. (Lamentations 3:31-32)

Would a Loving Parent Act This Way?

Christians often use the analogy of God as a loving father. But let’s put this to the test.

A good parent teaches, nurtures, and corrects their child. Even if the child rebels, a loving parent does not abuse them by burning them in the fire or cast them into a torture chamber to suffer forever. If God is truly a better father than any human (Matthew 7:11), why would He operate by standards we would find abusive in any human relationship?

Suppose we, as flawed human beings, would never burn our own children alive for disobedience (unless sadistic psychopaths). How can we believe that a loving God of infinite love and mercy would do something infinitely worse?

Fear-Based Love is Not Love

The Bible repeatedly tells us that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Yet, fundamentalist theology depends on fear. The entire premise of hellfire theology is rooted in existential terror, not love.

Love does not require threats. If God truly desires a loving relationship with us, why would He construct a system where fear is the primary motivator? A love given under the threat of hellfire is not love at all—it’s survival at best.

Free Will Without True Alternatives is Meaningless

For a choice to be truly free, it must have genuine alternatives—not just one “right” option and one unbearably horrific option.

Imagine a person being forced to sign a contract with a gun to their head. Can we honestly say they made a “free” choice? No, they made a choice to avoid suffering. Love has nothing to do with it. That’s exactly what hellfire theology does—it places a gun to the soul and calls it “free will.”

If rejecting God means eternal torment, then there is no real alternative—only forced submission.

Fundamentalism’s Deeply Flawed Logic

Fundamentalists argue that God is both infinitely just and infinitely merciful. But infinite punishment for finite sins is neither just nor merciful. No crime committed in a human lifespan can deserve infinite, unending torture—that is not justice; it is sadism. And if the Augustinian-Calvinist version of hellfire exists, then it overrides mercy entirely—for mercy means offering redemption, restoration, and forgiveness, not eternal abusive suffering with no possibility of change.

How Free Is Our Mind, Really?

For God’s judgment to be completely just, our minds would have to be totally free—unbiased, unclouded, unaffected by anything or anyone. But that is impossible for us. We are shaped by every experience, every influence, every wound, every fear, every voice that has ever spoken into our lives. Human beings cannot achieve perfect objectivity or perfect clarity. Only God can.

We live in an era where ideas are traded like currency: tweets on Twitter, deep dives on podcasts, endless controversial paragraphs in social media feeds. Culture encourages us to “think out loud,” to share reactions freely and boldly, to broadcast interpretations and flood the world with personal and collective opinions. Yet how much of these thoughts and feelings truly belong to us? Psychologist Jordan Peterson often cites psychiatrist Carl Jung’s observation: “People don’t have ideas—ideas have people.” According to Peterson, 95% of what we think and say doesn’t originate from our true self. Most of what runs through our minds comes from thought and emotional patterns implanted from the outside. It’s the voice of the world—not our own. When we think, feel, or say “we,” it’s often someone else’s voice speaking through us:

Most of what you think and most of what you say are the opinions of other people. There are things you’ve read and things people have told you. That’s a benefit in some ways because you get all those thoughts that other people have spent a long time formulating, but it’s a disadvantage in that it’s not exactly you.

(Jordan Peterson)

If human judgment is this fragile—shaped by wounds we didn’t choose, fears we never asked for, malevolent spiritual forces we cannot control, cultures we didn’t design, ideas that often “have us” more than we have them—then for God to punish anyone with eternal, infinite torment would be monstrously unjust. How could a perfectly good God condemn people forever for thoughts and choices that were never fully their own? For reactions formed by trauma? For beliefs shaped by upbringing, genetics, personality, pressures, or the thousand invisible influences that make us who we are? If our minds are not free in the fullest sense, then no verdict of infinite punishment could ever be fair. Eternal hellfire would require perfect clarity, perfect freedom, perfect objectivity—and we do not possess these. Only God does. Therefore, if God is truly just, He cannot hold finite, conditioned creatures eternally accountable for decisions made with limited knowledge, limited freedom, and limited agency. The logic is inescapable: a God of perfect justice could not—would not—burn confused, wounded, influence-shaped humans forever.

A Theology of Love, Not Fear

If God is truly love, then His actions should reflect a love greater than human love—not less.

A truly loving God would:
✔ Offer endless opportunities for reconciliation, even in the age-to-come.
✔ Bring healing, not endless pain.
✔ Desire genuine love, not forced compliance.
✔ Never create a religious system based on terror, coercion, and eternal suffering.

Conclusion: Free Will Is Not a Justification for Hellfire

The idea that people “choose” hell is nothing more than an illusion created to excuse a religion built on fear. Decisions based on existential fear are not free choices, no matter how you look at it.

If Christianity is to reflect a God of love, then it must abandon the abusive framework of the Augustinian-Calvinist hellfire and embrace the true God of Israel as portrayed by Jesus’s transformative power of grace.

“But Eitan,” you may ask—”what about Revelation’s Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:14-15), or Jesus’ warnings about people being cast into Gehenna (Matthew 5:22, Mark 9:43), outer darkness (Matthew 8:12, 22:13), or the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth (Luke 13:28)? And what about these punishments described as ‘eternal’? Aren’t you compromising God’s Word and His justice and holiness?!”

I’m so glad you asked! If you truly want to understand the original context and true meaning of all the “hellfire verses” in the Bible, I invite you to check out my new book. I promise—it will challenge, inform, and maybe even transform your perspective on God. You won’t be disappointed!