Introduction

The problem of evil is the most serious obstacle to belief in God. If God is all-powerful and all-loving then why does he allow evil? After all God has both the power and motive to prevent it. In response to this, theologians offer what are called theodicies or justifications of divine action showing why God is not unjust in allowing evil. Often these theodicies are concerned with the origin of evil in the past or the problem of ongoing suffering in the present. Our purpose here is not to pursue these elements of theodicy per se but to explore some of the theodicy questions that are specific to the future and the area of eschatology.

Theodicy Questions for Eschatology

Eschatology is very important to the area of theodicy.¹ Eschatology is often seen as the ultimate and final means of answering the problems of evil.² Evil and suffering made have emerged in the past and continue in the present but hope is held out that eschatologically in the future everything will be made right by God.³ Eschatology is therefore often called upon to solve a series of theodicy-related questions that are of great relevance to believers and non-believers. Examples of these pressing questions include the following: 1) What is the final eternal fate of unrepentant sinners? Is it an eternal hell? 2) What happens to those who die having never heard the gospel? (This is also known as the question of ‘the fate of the unevangelised’). 3) What happens to believers whose lives are manifestly imperfect or sinful at death? How can they enter heaven after death or see God? 4) If someone is eternally lost then hasn’t God ultimately failed? 5) What happens to children who die in infancy? To the mentally ill? 6) How can we be sure that evil and suffering will not arise again? Will God succeed? Finally, 7) what do all of these answers say about God? Is God just, merciful, fair?

Theologians have felt keenly the force of these questions and have put forward a wide range of eschatological doctrines in response. Some of them are bold and speculative but all claim to represent something in harmony with Scripture. This paper will seek to lay out how different eschatologically responses to these questions and contrast those answers with Seventh-day Adventist eschatology. This survey is introductory and representative but not exhaustive.

Lack of Eschatological Consensus and Binary Options

A survey of the field of eschatology reveals a wide variety of answers and a lack of consensus. One reason for this diversity is the complexity of the task. Eschatology must be consistent with all previous doctrinal decisions. In addition, when forming eschatological answers, theologians must choose between multiple binary options. It is helpful to see what these binary options are.

A first binary option asks if the offer of salvation is ‘exclusive’ or ‘inclusive.’ That is, is salvation only possible through an explicit offer of the Gospel (exclusivism) or is it possible for God to offer salvation even though an explicit presentation of the Gospel has not been made (inclusivism). Often this is seen as people living up to the light of revelation, usually found in creation and conscience, that they have received. A second binary option follows on from this and concerns the issue of pre-mortem versus post-mortem opportunities for salvation. Is opportunity for salvation available in this life only or also in the afterlife? This is a question about ‘when’ salvation is available? A third binary option involves the question of purgatory. Does the afterlife include a purification process for sinful human beings or not?⁴ A fourth binary option concerns the question of cosmic dualism. Will suffering and evil exist forever or will they be completely eliminated? Will God’s victory be manifest in the elimination of rebellion or in a continual triumphing over it? The fifth binary option is the question of universalism. Will all eventually be saved or will some refuse the offer of salvation? A sixth and final binary option that all eschatologies must make is that of anthropology. In a sense this is logically the most foundational and first of these binary choices but here it is placed last as the climactic question. The anthropological issue is whether human beings are naturally immortal with undying eternal souls or whether they are naturally mortal and only receive immortality on the condition that God grants them eternal life through resurrection? The former position is known as dualism, in which a person is a composite of mortal body and an immortal soul. The latter position is known as wholism and teaches that a person is an indivisible unity of the physical and spiritual. This means there is no element of the person which is capable of surviving after death apart from all the other elements. A person is mortal and can only live again if God reconstitutes the whole person.

Obviously these six binary options are capable of many different combinations. The field of eschatology reveals that theologians have indeed attempted to recombine these options in the hope of providing the best answers to the theodicy questions that were raised earlier on. With an awareness of these options I want to briefly outline some of the main ways theologians have attempted to construct eschatologies which answer some of our deepest questions of theodicy concerning death and the afterlife. I will not critique these eschatologies in this section.

Eternal Heaven and Eternal Hell

The traditional and historically predominant answer that Christianity has given is that heaven awaits believers while an eternal burning hell is the destiny of unbelievers. Opportunity for salvation is restricted to those who have been exposed to the explicit claims of the Gospel in this life alone. This view claims to be faithful to Scripture and to the claims of justice.⁵

Reconciliationism

Strong criticisms have been made of the doctrine of an eternal torment in hell for sinners. Many traditionalists feel keenly the problem of hell. A recent creative attempt to soften the problem of hell is found in a teaching called ‘reconciliationism.’ This teaching denies that hell consists of eternal sinners railing in hate against God. Instead it claims that in hell the occupants see the justness of their punishment and are cognitively reconciled to their fate and do not eternally sin or engage in evil.⁶ This is a ‘sinless hell.’ This has the advantages of rejecting the presence of eternal evil in the universe and of affirming a final universalism of sorts without claiming all are saved.

Catholic Purgatory

The Catholic eschatological position seeks to combine the traditional view of hell with a number of softening features. One feature is the Catholic church’s adoption of a board version of inclusivism.⁷ The other distinctive feature of the Catholic position is purgatory. While Catholicism teaches that opportunity for salvation is only in this life,⁸ nevertheless, believers who are still unholy and imperfect may experience a post-mortem but non-salvic purification process.⁹

Catholic doctrine asserts that “sin has a double consequence.”¹⁰ Sin, especially grave sin, separates us from God and requires “eternal punishment.” The second consequence of sin is that it entails an unhealthly attachment to creatures and deforms us.¹¹ The first effect of sin is an eternal debt we cannot make satisfaction for. Absolution for this sin is found only in Christ’s death. The second consequence of sin and its corruption necessitates a debt of “temporal punishment.” This temporal punishment can be worked off either in this life or in the afterlife state of purgatory.¹²

Protestant Purgatory

In more recent times Protestants have argued for a different form of purgatory more in keeping with ‘protestant’ theology.’¹³ It is claimed that the Catholic purgatory is a satisfaction model and is something which Protestants cannot accept. However, it is argued that a sanctification model of purgatory is acceptable to protestant theology.¹⁴ The main differences between the models is that in the Catholic theology salvation grants full pardon from sin’s eternal penalty but not its temporal penalty (this distinction opens the way for its sacramental system). In contrast the protestant sanctification model of purgatory affirms that justification brings full pardon from all of sins debt and penalty. It is only the remaining ‘power’ or disposition to sin that needs to be completed in a sanctifying afterlife.¹⁵ Purgatory is seen as a merciful way God can save and prepare imperfect believers for eternity.

Annihilationism

The last pre-mortem salvation view is that of annihilationism. In this view people are not inherently immortal. The wicked cease to exist after God’s judgment while the righteous are resurrected to enjoy eternal life. This means there is no eternal torment in Hell. Sin and evil are permanently eliminated.¹⁶

Last Chance (ad-Mortem) or Second Chance (Postmortem) Theologies

Eschatologies which focus on offers of salvation that are at death or after death are here termed last chance and second chance eschatologies. What I am calling ‘last chance’ theologies believe that salvation is only available in this life. However, some theologians suggest that if someone has not received an opportunity to hear the Gospel during their lifetime they will all get a final or last chance either before¹⁷ or at the moment of death.¹⁸ How this happens is not clear. God may send an angel or grant a dream.¹⁹

What are known as ‘second chance’ theologies look to some form of after-death or ‘post-mortem’ opportunity for sinners to accept salvation.²⁰ How this happens is also unclear. Often a new creative form of purgatory is proposed.²¹ In the afterlife further opportunities for salvation are given and purification of character is possible. Not all will accept the offers of salvation in this or the afterlife but the opportunity is there especially for those who did not receive opportunity in this life.

Universalism

The last view is a post-mortem eschatology which asserts that not only will there be ongoing opportunities for salvation in the afterlife but that eventually everyone will be saved.²² It is claimed that no one is able to eternally hold out against the relentless efforts of divine love. Even Satan will finally be reconciled back to God. Cosmic history goes through a grand cycle that turns back to the beginning in which all were at one with God. This is a profoundly optimistic albeit controversial view. Obviously, it has great appeal when dealing with issues of theodicy.

Reflections on Dualistic Eschatology

Before looking at the Seventh-day Adventist alternative I want to make several observations about these positions. First, all of these positions, except that of annihilationism, are based on anthropological dualism and its idea of an immortal soul. Anthropology is the defining issue. A wholistic anthropology appears to give rise to a simpler eschatology. It is characterised by less speculation. Conversely, dualistic anthropology seems to give rise to considerable speculation and very diverse even contradictory opinions.

A second observation is that in dualistic views death is the key transition point, not the Second Coming. In Scripture the opposite appears to be the case. From the divine perspective death is a metaphorical sleep that will be defeated by Christ at his return. From the human perspective Scripture pictures death as our enemy. It is the end to our life and our hopes. Only God can break its power. But in both human and divine perspectives Scripture presents death as an end not as a transition. Only the life-giving resurrecting action of Christ at the Second Coming transitions us to a new stage of life. Death may end suffering but it does transition to another stage. Hope is only in the Advent of Christ. Only wholistic anthropology preserves this dynamic. In contrast, dualism reduces the significance of the Second Coming by making it virtually redundant to one’s destiny. In dualistic views destiny is either decided at death or in some post-mortem event or process. The Second Coming is reduced to rewards and connecting bodies back to souls but not a great deal more.

From this we can note a third observation that all of these dualistic eschatologies have an individualistic focus on the journey of the soul/spirit. We shall return to this later on when we will see that the Adventist perspective only sees the individual within the collective-communal which itself is within the larger cosmic activity of Christ.²³

The Seventh-day Adventist Position: More than Annihilationism

What then is the Seventh-day Adventist eschatological response to our theodicy questions? An initial answer is that Adventists are annihilationists.²⁴ This is true. But so are some other Christians. Annihilationism is an essential part of a bigger answer. But it is only part of a bigger answer and on its own does not yet say all that a biblical doctrine of judgment and eschatology needs to say in the face of challenging theodicy questions.

Seventh-day Adventist theology places annihilationism and its accompanying wholistic doctrine of anthropology, within a much wider theological framework. The wider framework is twofold. The first framework is the history of God as a narrative of God working out his eternal purposes in the face of a cosmic war waged against those purposes by Satan. This is also known as the Great Controversy.²⁵ Due to this understanding, eschatology must address cosmic ideological challenges to God which threaten his eternal purposes and not simply the fate of sinners. There is need for a ‘salvation worldview’ to be placed into a bigger ‘cosmic controversy worldview.’²⁶ The second framework is that the disclosure of God’s plan to redeem creation is revealed in the Old Testament Sanctuary or Temple and its services.²⁷ Seventh-day Adventists understand that the biblical information on the sanctuary reveals one unified integrated picture of God’s work in atonement and judgment. Instead of theology seeking to patch together separate models and metaphors of salvation and judgment, the sanctuary is seen as a divinely revealed unifying framework for all biblically based metaphors or models of atonement.²⁸ God’s process of salvation is based in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ, and then continues in his heavenly work as interceding High Priest, final Judge and returning King.²⁹ This is one unbroken unified work by Christ.

For Seventh-day Adventists if a salvation model, theory of judgment, or eschatological speculation does not take account of the cosmic controversy and does not fit within the sanctuary service then it is not an adequate representation of God’s revealed plan. Eschatology must be sanctuary eschatology for it to be a fully biblical eschatology. Any eschatologies that are only concerned with creaturely salvation and not also divine cosmic governance or that reduce the saving work of God to one element of the wider process are incomplete.

Outlining Sanctuary Judgment Eschatology

We will not outline the entire salvation and judgment process the sanctuary doctrine and Scripture reveals. In Scripture judgment is a process that leads to the simultaneous salvation/deliverance of God’s people and judgment/destruction on God’s enemies.³⁰ Salvation and judgment are intimately linked.³¹ Our focus here is not on the incarnation, cross and resurrection, although everything is built on these atoning realities. Here we will focus on the final eschatological elements of the work of Christ.³² Before doing so we need to understand that God’s final judgment follows the pattern of divine judgment found throughout Scripture. Before God judges a collective group or period he engages in an investigative judgment, this is then followed by the execution or implementation of the decisions of judgment. The biblical pattern is investigation/evaluation followed by execution. This pattern can be seen in the very first judgments in Scripture related to Adam and Eve, Cain, the Flood, Babel and Sodom. The pattern continues through the Pentateuch and into the Prophets on to the climatic judgment of Judah and the fall of Jerusalem.³³ After each process of judgment is completed, an end comes to a historical period or for a group of people. In a greater way the final investigative and executive judgment brings all of human fallen history to end.

While many passages of Scripture and classical prophecy mention the Day of the Lord and the final judgment, it is the apocalyptic prophecies which show an interest in the sequencing, timing, and order of the final judgment.³⁴ The picture that emerges when we put together the apocalyptic descriptions of final judgment looks like the following. Daniel 7 reveals a heavenly judgment which happens after four world kingdoms and during the continuing history of the little horn kingdom.³⁵ This judgment happens while history continues and before the arrival of Christ’s kingdom. It is a Pre-Advent Judgment.³⁶ When this judgment ends, earthly kingdoms end and are replaced by the final heavenly kingdom.

After the Second Advent of Christ another heavenly judgment takes places that parallels that of Daniel 7. This new judgment is the Millennial or Post-Advent Judgment (Rev 20).³⁷ It shares a number of striking similarities to Daniel 7. Both feature the setting up of thrones (plural), the examining of books, and the involvement of creatures with God in judgment (angels in Daniel 7:10 and the saints in Revelation 20:4-6). This post-millennial executive judgment³⁸ also ends in a way that is striking similar to the Second Coming. We could justly call this the ‘Third Coming of Christ.’ Both the Second and Third Advents of Christ take place on earth and involve resurrections, a dominant divine throne, the giving of eternal life or eternal death, and a fire that destroys evil.³⁹

The final judgment process by God is orderly and logical. Peter tells us that God first judges his people before he judges unbelievers (1 Pet 4:12). We can see this sequence in the final judgment. God judges his people in the Pre-Advent Judgment (Dan 7). God does this by distinguishing the true and the false from among his people. Christ then returns to resurrect and reward the righteous.⁴⁰ The wicked (angelic and human) are then judged by Christ and the saints (1 Cor 6:2,3) in a heavenly Post-Advent judgment during the millennium. God gives his people and the universe a long period of time to survey all of history and gain a full understanding of the story of sin and God’s saving response. When this judgment is finished the wicked are resurrected to experience an earthly execution as a ‘reward’ according to their works. In this final moment of judgment after the second resurrection the wicked (angelic and human) see all that God has done for them. It is this revelation of the evidence of God’s comprehensive mercy and their culpability that causes the wicked to freely confess the righteousness of God (Phil 2:10,11). Figure 2 brings out the symmetry, structure, logic and order of the final judgment in the Adventist perspective.⁴¹ The two heavenly works of Pre and Post-Advent judgment parallel each other. The second millennial work builds on, furthers, and completes the first pre-advent judgment. The same can be seen with the two earthly executive judgments of Christ. They parallel but also progress God’s work in dealing with sin. The heavenly works also prepare and make possible the ensuing earthly work. God’s executive actions issue from heavenly judgment and complete themselves in earthly elimination of evil. Heavenly vindication moves to earthly cleansing.

Individualistic versus Collective Visions

Once this Adventist vision of eschatological judgment is laid out, it is easier to see the contrast with the other eschatological alternatives. The two diagrams (figures 1 and 2) reveal to very different pictures. The first picture is highly individualistic and focuses on the fate of the individual disembodied soul or spirit. There is also a noticeable preference and tendency to significant speculation. In contrast the Adventist eschatological vision is of a vast unified, cosmic, collective, open, integrated, judgment process by God which leads to a definitive, complete and final resolution of sin. This vision subsumes the individual within the corporate.⁴²

In the Adventist position eschatological judgment deals through one connected sequential process with all of angelic and human history as a totality. It is comprehensive and collective. In the investigative judgments people and events are seen in the light of other people and events and their total impact in history. Sin is a cosmic controversy and problem that God judgment deals with as a whole. It is not the isolated acts of individual souls at separate points of time. People live in a web of relationships and the final judgment takes in the entire web of humanity and even the angelic and heavenly world. Its scope is the entirety of cosmic history. God’s dealings with sin tell a dual story, that of creaturely culpability and divine mercy. Only in the light of the end of this history can the whole be understood.

In dualistic eschatology judgment at death is atomistic and individualistic. Dualism splits judgment itself into a particular judgment of the lone individual soul that happens immediately after death followed by a general judgment of all people at the end of history. Particular Judgment does not take place in the revealed light of a completed and unified history. Individuals are judged without their full legacy playing out. Additionally, this splitting of particular and general judgment forces us to ask ‘what is the point of the final judgment?’ After all, no new decisions are made, no new outcomes eventuate in the general judgment. What happens is that souls are connected to bodies and the already decided heavenly or hellish fates are intensified as bodily experiences.

Multiplying Places and States Versus a Unified Creation

The individualism of dualism and its fragmented account of human nature appears to be manifested in the multiple and conflicting speculative eschatological outcomes proposed for the post-mortem soul. After death individual souls exist in an intermediate state in numerous possible places. Some are in heaven. Some in hell. Some in purgatory. Some with second chances. Some without second chances. Some progressing in purification and others not. This is a picture of cosmological and judicial fragmentation arising from dualism that is not found in wholistic approaches.

If we take each different dualistic eschatological position on its own terms we still see dualism’s diverse fragmenting effects. For example, all eschatologies, except universalism, cannot escape the problem of cosmic dualism. In cosmic dualism evil never ends. It is permanent. Hell preserves an eternal domain in which sin never stops. God’s universe is eternally fragmented. Even in reconciliationism’s ‘sinless hell’ separation from God remains along with endless suffering and pain. Creations wounds are never healed. In contrast wholism allows for the full, final and permanent elimination of evil through the annihilation of sin. The judgment process that God undertakes which involves the participation of all creatures, human and angel, fallen and unfallen, means that a genuine universal reconciliation and confession of God’s justice occurs.

In purgatorial eschatologies either satisfaction or sanctification take place in the afterlife. Dualism’s fragmenting effects are revealed in multiple states and places in the afterlife. Consider the issue of existent states. Embodied imperfect people die and become disembodied imperfect spirits who spiritually progress to disembodied perfected spirits which will eventually become reembodied perfected persons when the resurrection takes place. Here are no less than three to four different states. These multiple states multiply the number of post-mortem places. Redeemed immortal souls or spirits move from an earthly realm to a purgatorial realm and then eventually to a heavenly life. Here are three different places. But if we add hell and a new earth distinct from heaven we have five places.⁴³ In contrast, wholistic anthropology affirms that a person only exists in the one state of bodily existence or not at all. Death is not a state. It is the loss of existence. Re-existence to bodily existence only takes place through resurrection. For all of this there is only one interconnected place – the created cosmos. The cosmos has a heaven and an earth but they exist as spaces within the one place. Hell is not a place and neither is purgatory. In summing up this section, we can see that dualism multiplies places and states in the afterlife and leaves the cosmos a permanently fragmented place. Adventism’s wholistic view of judgment ends with a perfectly unified creation. A wholistic anthropology underlies a wholistic eschatology.

Splitting Salvation

Another split dualistic eschatology introduces into theology is fragmenting the process and way of salvation. Dualism splits off the where, when and how of salvation from this world, its history, and from its necessarily embodied existence. Salvation is reimagined as a post-mortem possibility in a disembodied otherworldly afterlife, abstracted from earthly history and the body. Salvation and sanctification are conceived of as pre- and post-mortem possibilities but the two worlds are vastly different and virtually opposites. This is highly speculative and stands in tension with the whole tenor of Scripture and its descriptions of sanctification and the Gospel.

Scripture reveals the good news of salvation as taking place in this world by the work of Christ and his Spirit in history. Today is the day of opportunity. Christ acts in creation and conscience, in type, shadow and fulfilment, and in proclamation as the saving light which lights every man that comes into this world (John 1:9). Scripture reveals nothing of a salvation that operates outside of this world and this life. What would a salvation offer (or sanctification process) even look like in the disembodied realms of dualism?⁴⁴ And who would resist an offer without the passions and lust of the ‘flesh’, without the lure of the ‘world’, without the temptations of the devil, and without the cares of life? These post-mortem speculations are not even remotely like the salvation offer revealed in Scripture.⁴⁵

Investigative Judgments versus Non-Investigative Judgments

It has become clear that dualistic based judgments are not investigative. Usually the argument is that God knows who will be saved and so there is no need for investigation.⁴⁶ Judgment is primarily either declarative and punitive (Hell, Reconciliationism, satisfaction-based Purgatory) or if it involves a second stage or chance at salvation or sanctification then it is also purifying (post-mortem, sanctification-based purgatory, universalism). The focus is on the fate of the individual soul and its salvation status. Individual souls that do not progress to salvation remain condemned to eternal punishment. In this way the universe is eternally split between the souls who are saved and the souls who are not. God’s main concern in judgment in these cases is not investigation but salvation or punishment.

For Adventism judgment is first investigative. What this means is that while judgment is declarative it is primarily an exercise in revelation, disclosure, instruction and learning for the universe.⁴⁷ In it Christ reveals the hidden things of man and of God. Because God involves others it is irreducibly corporate and communal. It is not that creatures are in the place of God as judges. Not at all. Christ alone decides everyone’s fate. However, God involves his created beings in judgment so that may understand God’s character and wisdom in a deeper way. Judgment leads to reflection and discovery. The clarity brought about by a revelatory investigative judgment is not only the basis of final declaration and vindication, it is also a public, cosmic sized reaffirmation and celebration of Christ’s work on the cross which we now experience by faith.

Only once the deeper revelation found in investigative judgment is finished does the execution of reward or punishment. Punishment is not endlessly retributive but eliminative. Judgment ends evil. There is no need for an ongoing hell as a deterrent to sin. The full revelation of Christ’s saving work disclosed in judgment achieves that. The universe is not permanently split in cosmic dualism because the focus is not the salvation of individual souls. Instead the focus is on the restoration of all of creation (individual salvation being a part of this) to God and freedom from sin. Elimination of sinners only takes place after the investigative process. Investigative judgment is a theodicy-resolving judgment. Not just our restricted theodicy-question for this paper but all potential theodicy questions will be answered by the investigative judgments.

We should note what this means for reconciliation. Apart from universalism, dualistic eschatologies do not end with a universe reconciled to God.⁴⁸ Contrast this with the Adventist teaching. At the end of the Millennium all of the wicked are judged by all of their works recorded in the books (Rev 20:12-13). This divine review highlights to the wicked all that God had done for them. In view of this tangible evidence they freely confess that God is just and Christ is Lord (Phil 2:9-11). This is a genuine form of unforced reconciliation and it is universal. All, even Satan, are of one opinion that God is just and they are without excuse. However, unlike reconciliationism, the Adventist millennial doctrine also makes clear that while the wicked freely admit this with the evidence in front of them, it is only temporary, and the insanity of rebellion returns and they still,

despite having acknowledged God’s justice, violently revolt against God and attack the Holy City (Rev 20:7-9). God then eliminates sinners as it is apparent to all that there is now no other option. The justness of execution is a universally acknowledged truth and appreciated by the righteous as righteous.⁴⁹ This is a biblical version of reconciliationism and universalism.

Creaturely Psychology and Sociology

The final point we will note about the investigative judgment is that it is empirically in harmony with psychologically and sociologically understandings of individual and corporate human nature. People and communities need time to make decisions, learn and come to terms with difficult questions like the issue of theodicy. The Pre-Advent and Millennial judgments are all about giving angels and the redeemed time to talk, reflect and learn. People also need evidence and data and the ability to ask questions and study answers. In response to these the investigative judgments are communal events which have ‘books’ or records, as well as participants and eye-witnesses, available as evidence. Their availability and freedom to talk indicates openness and transparency on Gods part. With this kind of open judgment, truth is not locked away in the inaccessible reaches of God’s mind nor are people final fates due to some hidden inscrutable divine decree. The millennium is thus a truly biblical ‘purgatory.’ It is not the purifying of the redeemed from sinfulness but rather it is a thousand years that allows the collective universe to purify their minds from any ignorance, doubts, previously fallen ideologies or patterns of thought that would provide a platform for future falling away or any potential misunderstanding of God.

There are additional reasons why dualistic afterlife states seem psychologically problematic. How could any being or soul psychologically and mentally survive eternal suffering and torment? In this life human beings eventually break down physically and psychologically when subjected to enough mental distress or torture.⁵⁰ Hell’s horrors infinitely exceed anything that happens in this life. In an eternal Hell (and Reconciliationism) the created mind would surely break down with the occupants becoming psychologically incapable and ‘mad.’ What then would be the point of tormenting the incapable? The alternative is that God endlessly sustains the reprobate’s mental faculties but only in order that they might suffer. But what kind of a God would do such a thing?⁵¹

Conclusion

In conclusion, this article would like to advance that the Adventist eschatological vision of investigative judgments, based in a wholistic anthropology, offers a singular unified response to theodicy issues that reveals a biblical version of second chances, purgatory, hell, eschatological reconciliation and universalism. Present probationary existence is the time for first, second, third, fourth and last chances. If someone can be saved, God is capable of saving them in this life by the extensive work of Christ and the Spirit. This life is also the ‘purgatorial’ time for a sanctification model of suffering and spiritual growth. The investigative judgments (Pre and Post Advent/Millennial) offer a broader more biblical doctrine of ‘purgatory.’⁵² Here God does not work to remove the penalty, power or presence of sin. That is accomplished in the cross, new birth, sanctification, and resurrection. Instead, God removes the very potential for sin. In particular the millennial investigative judgment is where the corporate mind of the created community is fully informed and purified of any area of ignorance or misunderstanding that may be due to past sin or the previous perverse accusations of Satan against God.⁵³ Creaturely appreciation of God is eternally and infinitely deepened.⁵⁴ Additionally, the last act of God at the end of this judgment process reveals a truly biblical doctrine of reconciliation and universalism. All the cosmos is reconciled to the truth about God and freely acknowledges his righteousness. This then leads to the biblical doctrine of hell as an event of annihilation rather than an eternal place of suffering, sin and rebellion.

This view of eschatology has a number of theodicy-resolving advantages over dualistic eschatologies. Due to the process God undertakes (and especially its open, investigative, evidential, revealing nature) the entire universe answers the theodicy question in God’s favour! All are reconciled to the truthfulness of the truth by a free universal confession.⁵⁵

The Adventist view of wholistic anthropology aligns with what we know about the psychologically of human beings. We see this in the need for time, evidence and conversation to learn, heal and affirm. This view also avoids the incoherence of eternal suffering without psychological breakdown. The suspect psychology of universalism in regards to freedom, character, will and love, is also avoided.

This eschatological vision is less speculative. It follows the biblical pattern of investigation and execution. Individualistic eschatology is avoided. It does not multiply existent states and cosmic places to cater for individual immortal souls. There is one God dealing with one creation by one process. The individual is dealt with within the corporate. Nor does it divide the possibility of salvation between vastly different pre-mortem and post-mortem worlds. Above all, the universe is not left in a divided unhealed condition. God completely resolves the issue of sin and eliminates evil. The universe is not eternally fragmented, marred or polluted by perpetual suffering and sin. There is no cosmic dualism. In this eschatology, theodicy becomes final reality.