Christians who defend the doctrine of hell as eternal conscious torment often accuse critics of the doctrine of “modern sentimentalism”.
What, like the “sentimental” ideas that slavery and torture are wrong? That animal suffering is morally significant? That armies in military conflicts shouldn’t target non-combatants? That prisons should seek to reform and not merely to punish?
Those are all “modern” ideas. Yet, that is no argument against them. And to call them “sentimental” would be diminished as retrograde, foolish ignorance. The moral censure of eternal conscious torment is drawn from the same well as the modern stance on all these other varied topics. If we do not dismiss the latter as mere sentimentalism, why do so in the case of eternal conscious torment?
