David Bentley Hart in 2011: "the devil is probably eerily similar to Donald Trump—though perhaps just a little nicer."

David Bentley Hart, Eastern Orthodox Theologian

From 2003 to 2020, the Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart wrote a column for First Things magazine.  

In 2011, Hart ended one of his columns with a comment on Donald Trump.  Hart continues to hold his low view of the former President. The essay ends with a 46-word sentence comparing The Donald to The Devil.   

By the way, First Things magazine now leads the worship of Trump for conservative Catholics.  

Here is Hart on Trump:

... Donald Trump... You know the fellow: developer, speculator, television personality, hotelier, political dilettante, conspiracy theorist, and grand croupier—the one with that canopy of hennaed hair jutting out over his eyes like a shelf of limestone.

In particular, I recalled how, back in 1993, when Trump decided he wanted to build special limousine parking lots around his Atlantic City casino and hotel, he had used all his influence to get the state of New Jersey to steal the home of an elderly widow named Vera Coking by declaring “eminent domain” over her property, as well as over a nearby pawn shop and a small family-run Italian restaurant.

She had declined to sell, having lived there for thirty-five years. Moreover, the state offered her only one-fourth what she had been offered for the same house some years before, and Trump could then buy it at a bargain rate. The affair involved the poor woman in an exhausting legal battle, which, happily, she won, with the assistance of the Institute for Justice.

How obvious it seems to me now. Cold, grasping, bleak, graceless, and dull; unctuous, sleek, pitiless, and crass; a pallid vulgarian floating through life on clouds of acrid cologne and trailed by a vanguard of fawning divorce lawyers, the devil is probably eerily similar to Donald Trump—though perhaps just a little nicer.

 

Eternal Hell Does Not Exist: Says David Bentley Hart and I Agree

 

In the book That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell and Eternal Salvation, the Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart asserts that there is no eternal Hell. 

I had an odd accumulation of ideas on the topic of an eternal Hell, but never doubted that Hell existed, even early in my life when I was not sure that God existed. Some of the loveliest poetry ever written is a travelogue of journey down through Hell, up Mount Purgatory and into Heaven itself by Dante Aligheri. 

Earlier this year I re-read Inferno and was repelled by the way Dante and Virgil his guide happily torment those already in Hell.  

Reading Hart showed my why I was so uncomfortable and gave me clear reasons that eternal Hell does not exist.  The best of these reasons is that God is going to somehow keep all of the souls that have ever been born. Hart says that was the whole intent of creation: to eventually bring everyone into eternity.  

Hart deals with the objections head on. What about Hitler? I could do not justice to his reasoning, but Hart shows the problems with believing that even Hitler will somehow be tormented eternally.  

My belief for many years was that Hell existed, but everyone in Hell chose to be there. I got this from CS Lewis' novel The Great Divorce. Hart mocks the idea that we could choose Hell and asks how anyone could take the limited information even the most brilliant person has and choose eternal Hell? He's right. We are all mostly ignorant and bound by time and space.

Earlier this year, I read That All Shall Be Saved twice. The Kindle version has more than fifty highlighted passages. I read the book with my friend Cliff and am hoping to have a larger discussion about the book in the future.  

The book is written by a Christian for Christians, but many Jews and others believe Hell exists. Some of us have quite a list of people we think should spend eternity there. For anyone who believes an eternal Hell exists, Hart's book is eye-opening. 

Since October 7, I would have happily consigned every member of HAMAS to Hell along with every Nazi and a host of other criminals. But I now believe, with Hart, that even the worst people who ever lived will not be in eternal Hell, because the kind of god who would put limited beings in an eternal Hell is not the God of Israel.