The author helps redress the absence of serious theological thinking on the biblical and church doctrine of hell and indirectly contradicts current mythological caricatures. He first evaluates diverse views from history up through the twentieth century. He then argues that an orthodox contemporary theology could understand hell as the eternally loving presence of God, Christ, angels, saints, animals, vegetation, and material creation to the damned, the eternally obdurate, whose obstinate use of their freedom has rendered them incapable of receiving and responding to this loving presence.