{"id":107,"date":"2008-12-29T11:34:04","date_gmt":"2008-12-29T11:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/the-pragmatics-of-belief-in-he.html"},"modified":"2008-12-29T11:34:04","modified_gmt":"2008-12-29T11:34:04","slug":"the-pragmatics-of-belief-in-he","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/the-pragmatics-of-belief-in-he.html","title":{"rendered":"The Pragmatics of Belief in Hell (Keith DeRose)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m Keith DeRose. I’m a philosopher who blogs a bit on the side.
\nRather than giving any more introduction to myself here, I’ll just send
\nthose who are interested in reading about me to my web page<\/a>, where I have a good deal of information posted, including links to some of my previous blog posts.<\/p>\n

Tony thought it would be interesting for me to post some of my thoughts
\nabout the pragmatics of believing in what we might as well call
\ntraditional Christian doctrines of hell, so that’s what I’ll be doing
\nin the next few days. I should say right upfront that I have little
\nidea of what Tony thinks about such matters, or even whether he has
\nvery specific views here. I’ll just be speaking for myself here.<\/p>\n

By the “pragmatics” of the belief, I mean the effects of holding the
\nbelief — what holding such a belief can do to and through the one who
\nholds it.  So I don’t foresee myself discussing whether such a belief
\nis true, or discussing Scriptural grounds for and against such a
\ndoctrine in this series of posts. I’ve engaged in such discussions in
\nthe past, and no doubt will again in the future. And I suspect I’ll
\nhave occasion in this series of posts to refer to some of my past
\nengagements in the debate over the truth of such doctrines, as
\nbackground for the current discussion, which, again, will be about the
\npragmatics of the belief.<\/p>\n

Why even bother with the pragmatics of hell? I’ll take that up in a
\nsubsequent post.  (Sorry for the teaser.) But to hopefully forestall
\ncertain misguided comments: My current focus on the pragmatics of the
\nbelief is not due to any general neglect on my part of the issue of the
\ntruth of such a doctrine and the Scriptural case for and against it.
\nIn fact, I’ve engaged in scriptural investigaions\/discussions\/debates
\nof such issues quite extensively in the past, and this will be one of
\nvery few times that I’ve ever gotten around to writing anything about
\nthe pragmatics of the issue. It’s just that this seems to be the time
\nto finally write out some of my thoughts about the pragmatics of hell.
\nAnd, again, I hope to have some things to say about why the pragmatics
\nare important.<\/p>\n

For those interested in an on-line discussion of the Scriptural case
\nfor and against traditional doctrines of hell: I have a reference for
\nyou.  This summer, Real Live Preacher<\/a>
\nannounced that he would be taking careful critical Scriptural look at
\nthe traditional doctrine of hell, and asked for e-mail input from
\nreaders concerning what the relevant texts were, especially any that
\nsupport the traditional doctrine. That was in this post<\/a>,
\nwhich includes a description of what he meant by the “traditional
\ndoctrine” — which is basically how I use that phrase, too. (I was one
\nof the many who wrote him, suggesting what I took to be by far the
\nstrongest text for the support of key elements of the traditional
\ndoctrine.) He reported the results of his study in a series of video
\nposts in October here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here.<\/a>
\nI certainly don’t endorse everything RLP had to say — in certain ways,
\nI think the case for the traditional doctrine can be made more
\nconvincing than is the way he construes it. But I thought it was a
\nvery nice study, and well worth recommending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m Keith DeRose. I’m a philosopher who blogs a bit on the side. Rather than giving any more introduction to myself here, I’ll just send those who are interested in reading about me to my web page, where I have a good deal of information posted, including links to some of my previous blog posts.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":348,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Pragmatics of Belief in Hell (Keith DeRose) - The New Christians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/the-pragmatics-of-belief-in-he.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Pragmatics of Belief in Hell (Keith DeRose) - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’m Keith DeRose. 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