This evening (perhaps yesterday evening depending on how quick I am to write this blog entry) I moderated a very interesting discussion. I had three very competent thinkers on theological matters discussing hell. The topic was formulated as ”Helvetet – vad ska man tro?” (Hell – what should one beleive?) The three trying to answer that question were Eskil Selander, Stefan Swärd, and Torsten Åhman and I will not try to describe their different positions. But I will say a few things.
I asked all three about if you can be a Christian without believing in hell and if you can be a Christian and believe in hell. And I am happy to say that they all said yes to both questions.
One question from the audience concerned if dead people can communicate with the living. I don't think that it happens, and unlike the question about hell it is not a question outside of experience.
People are of course free to believe what ever they want, and concerning hell there is not possible to know anything empirically about it, so it is all a matter of faith. That implies that “what people should believe about hell” can be discussed for a very, very long time. (We discussed it for exactly two hours.) But the question about communication with the other side is either supported by empirical data or it is not, once the existing evidence has been weighted the discussion is over. (Though to be realistic it is unlikely that people will agree about the evaluation of the data.)
A lot more can be said on the issue of testable claims, and even more about faith, but I leave that for some other time.
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