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[(Everything New : Reimagining Heaven and Hell)] [By (author) Jeff Cook] published on
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March 5, 2026
A PHILOSOPHER AND A CHRISTIAN PASTOR OFFERS SOME CREATIVE THOUGHTS
Jeff Cook teaches philosophy at the university of Northern Colorado; he is also the pastor of Atlas Church.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2015 book, “A lot of good people, people I think heroic and virtuous, do not believe in God. They are my friends, my students, my colleagues. One of the latter said he thought you had to be crazy, literally nuts, to believe in a God---which doesn’t make my chances at tenure look very promising. He may be right. I teach philosophy at a state university, exploring the works of writers like Russell, Hume and Nietzsche. Such thinkers give me all kinds of reasons to bail God-belief...l but I don’t find such arguments satisfying. Strong? Sure. Emotionally compelling? Absolutely. I gave up God-belief during my graduate studies when I realized the religious views I had defended since high school were insufficient. But recently that has changed. When I get serious about that is real and what the best possible life looks like, I choose to believe---even after a church I worked for fell apart, even after my son was born with autism, despite the arguments and the long season in which I felt confident a God was not there. I now choose to believe not only in a God, but in a very specific God. This is what that path has looked like.” (Pg. 13-14)
He recalls that after a neighbor died of cancer, “I recognized that I was deceiving myself if I didn’t play out the real and gripping consequences of death… it seemed clear to me that nothing I did would produce for me either a life of freedom or lasting significance. On the face of it, everything I cared about eventually turned to chaos. My journey back to belief in God began here. I kept coming back to this spot where I had to recognize that the only hope for myself, my wife, my sons, my friends, or my culture to escape the ramifications of death and bondage to the chemicals within us was HELP---help from something immaterial, help from something separate from the degenerating natural order… the overwhelming conclusion I hit over and again was that I required rescue. What other option is there? Yet the only thing that can rescue me is a supernatural being with both the ABILITY to rescue me, and the DESIRE. And that sounded like a God to me. If there is no God, I thought, I will die like all other common things---and meaning, along with everything else I care for, will die with me.” (Pg. 27-28)
He summarizes, “I lose nothing by seeking a God who cares for me, but I will lose everything I care for if God is not there.” (Pg. 32)
He acknowledges, “The best arguments I discovered both for and against God’s existence---the ones I found most persuasive---really weren’t ‘reasons’ at all. They were appeals to my emotions, and this makes sense because when it came down to it, emotions selected my glasses. At the end of the day, desire decided whether I believed in a God or not. My desire for meaning and m lack of freedom were good reasons to re-consider God, but I took off the agnostic glasses and replaced them with God belied because of evil. This move was an emotional decision to be sure, but this was a new and decisive point of my path back to God belief.” (Pg. 46)
He notes, “In Jesus, I see a man touching those who, because of sickness, had not been touched in years. I see a man speaking to those who had not been spoken to with kindness all their lives. I see a man pushing back evil and leading the world to a new future. I had thought that if God was real he would look more like Zeus coming on the clouds with thunder in his voice and lightning in his hands, but then I see this man. Jesus has repainted the image of deity for me.” (Pg. 68-69)
He asks, “What other option is there? It seems something must either be eternal on its own or unite with the eternal in order to survive. And this is precisely what Jesus taught.” (Pg. 82)
He explains, “God’s care for someone like you and me is vital. If there is no God to open avenues for us to connect with an eternal kind of life, we will be in desperate trouble. If a God does not create ways for us to experience his kind of life, the problems of death and determinism will consume us. On a basic level, we might call this kind of connection to God ‘heaven,’ and the absence of connection ‘hell.’” (Pg. 97)
He asserts, “There are two realities: one in which the world becomes more alive, more ordered, more connected with the intentions of the creator, more resurrected out of darkness into the fresh life of the future; and another sphere in which what was once structured slips back into chaos, back into the void, dust returning to dust. As such, we should think of our world this way: HEAVEN: all that is ordered. HELL: All that is disordered & dying or already dead. All that exists is tethered to either heaven or hell. Some of the most broken places in our world have set their trajectory toward repair, and some things that appear everlasting are actually wasting away. Where heaven orchestrates the ‘palingenesia,’ the second birth, the early Christians described hell in an opposite fashion as ‘the second death.’” (Pg. 100)
He continues, “Where many have pointed to hell as a sphere of eternal conscious torment, it seems to me a better way to understand the language of the Bible and the rationality of damnation is to see hell first and foremost as ‘a raging fire that will consume.’ Once separated from the source and sustainer of life, everything wed to the darkness outside cannot fail to evaporate.” (Pg. 100)
He observes, “I find it fascinating that hell-as-annihilation parallels what most of my atheist friends and colleagues have always claimed is the destiny of everything and everybody. For everybody knows that death---what Jesus called ‘hades’---is eating away all we care for… There is nothing more obvious to human beings than their impending death and the disintegration of everything we see.” (Pg. 100-101)
He suggests, “Failures happen in the growth process and are forgivable, but hearts irreversibly tethered to these destructive behaviors---who refuse forgiveness and restoration persistently clutching such sins as though a bride---are not. There can be no restoration for those who refuse to be remade, who prefer the annihilation of their souls to reality itself… God could allow such dead souls to continue living into eternity like zombies, continuing to war against his world and themselves---and thus allowing evil to continue its domination of some---but God, being good, does not allow evil to continue its mastery anywhere… when Jesus describes wickedness… he is describing an execution many of us intuitively desire more than anything else. This is the end of evil. It’s what many believers pray for. It is what many skeptics accuse God of not doing quickly enough… It seems that the only real difference between viewing the world without a God and the perspective of Jesus, is that for Jesus the death of all we see is NOT the only option.” (Pg. 104-105)
He argues, “Thus, hell is best seen as an ordered soul returning to disorder… The images and phrases Jesus and others used to paint hell---perishing, death, destruction---all imply extinction. We see the annihilation of a human in the earliest chapters of Genesis. After Adam and his wife chose to leash themselves to self-destruction, God said, ‘[The man] must not be allowed to … live forever.’ Apparently, God thinks it would be very bad for those who choose to separate themselves from his kind of life to go on living eternally. Thus right at the outset, God removes humanity from the source of immortality and, in his mercy, allows them to die… Entering the grave was, for Adam, the end. But it need not be the end of all.” (Pg. 111-112)
He notes, “In Jesus, I see a new kind of God---one who has taken what was most foul and disgusting in the whole world---the crucified man—and through it has announced to everyone his intention and ability to make everything new.” (Pg. 143)
He concludes, “It is mysterious how the mind and soul interact with the physical brain. It is mysterious why human beings have a unique value over and above other living things. It is mysterious why love is more than chemical events in our skulls. It is mysterious why we exist and what purposes our lives have. Mystery is where life takes place, and it matters very little what glasses you put on, you’ll find the mysteries in the reality you choose to see…. Becoming a Christian has not answered life’s mysteries for me. That would be far too easy. Jesus’ death and resurrection give shape to them so that the mysteries are no longer terrifying … When I consider it all, I choose to believe because of both the tragedy and the beauty.” (Pg. 159-160)
This book may interest those seeking a Christian’s ‘philosophical’ interpretation of Heaven, Hell, life’s purpose, and so on.
Jeff Cook teaches philosophy at the university of Northern Colorado; he is also the pastor of Atlas Church.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2015 book, “A lot of good people, people I think heroic and virtuous, do not believe in God. They are my friends, my students, my colleagues. One of the latter said he thought you had to be crazy, literally nuts, to believe in a God---which doesn’t make my chances at tenure look very promising. He may be right. I teach philosophy at a state university, exploring the works of writers like Russell, Hume and Nietzsche. Such thinkers give me all kinds of reasons to bail God-belief...l but I don’t find such arguments satisfying. Strong? Sure. Emotionally compelling? Absolutely. I gave up God-belief during my graduate studies when I realized the religious views I had defended since high school were insufficient. But recently that has changed. When I get serious about that is real and what the best possible life looks like, I choose to believe---even after a church I worked for fell apart, even after my son was born with autism, despite the arguments and the long season in which I felt confident a God was not there. I now choose to believe not only in a God, but in a very specific God. This is what that path has looked like.” (Pg. 13-14)
He recalls that after a neighbor died of cancer, “I recognized that I was deceiving myself if I didn’t play out the real and gripping consequences of death… it seemed clear to me that nothing I did would produce for me either a life of freedom or lasting significance. On the face of it, everything I cared about eventually turned to chaos. My journey back to belief in God began here. I kept coming back to this spot where I had to recognize that the only hope for myself, my wife, my sons, my friends, or my culture to escape the ramifications of death and bondage to the chemicals within us was HELP---help from something immaterial, help from something separate from the degenerating natural order… the overwhelming conclusion I hit over and again was that I required rescue. What other option is there? Yet the only thing that can rescue me is a supernatural being with both the ABILITY to rescue me, and the DESIRE. And that sounded like a God to me. If there is no God, I thought, I will die like all other common things---and meaning, along with everything else I care for, will die with me.” (Pg. 27-28)
He summarizes, “I lose nothing by seeking a God who cares for me, but I will lose everything I care for if God is not there.” (Pg. 32)
He acknowledges, “The best arguments I discovered both for and against God’s existence---the ones I found most persuasive---really weren’t ‘reasons’ at all. They were appeals to my emotions, and this makes sense because when it came down to it, emotions selected my glasses. At the end of the day, desire decided whether I believed in a God or not. My desire for meaning and m lack of freedom were good reasons to re-consider God, but I took off the agnostic glasses and replaced them with God belied because of evil. This move was an emotional decision to be sure, but this was a new and decisive point of my path back to God belief.” (Pg. 46)
He notes, “In Jesus, I see a man touching those who, because of sickness, had not been touched in years. I see a man speaking to those who had not been spoken to with kindness all their lives. I see a man pushing back evil and leading the world to a new future. I had thought that if God was real he would look more like Zeus coming on the clouds with thunder in his voice and lightning in his hands, but then I see this man. Jesus has repainted the image of deity for me.” (Pg. 68-69)
He asks, “What other option is there? It seems something must either be eternal on its own or unite with the eternal in order to survive. And this is precisely what Jesus taught.” (Pg. 82)
He explains, “God’s care for someone like you and me is vital. If there is no God to open avenues for us to connect with an eternal kind of life, we will be in desperate trouble. If a God does not create ways for us to experience his kind of life, the problems of death and determinism will consume us. On a basic level, we might call this kind of connection to God ‘heaven,’ and the absence of connection ‘hell.’” (Pg. 97)
He asserts, “There are two realities: one in which the world becomes more alive, more ordered, more connected with the intentions of the creator, more resurrected out of darkness into the fresh life of the future; and another sphere in which what was once structured slips back into chaos, back into the void, dust returning to dust. As such, we should think of our world this way: HEAVEN: all that is ordered. HELL: All that is disordered & dying or already dead. All that exists is tethered to either heaven or hell. Some of the most broken places in our world have set their trajectory toward repair, and some things that appear everlasting are actually wasting away. Where heaven orchestrates the ‘palingenesia,’ the second birth, the early Christians described hell in an opposite fashion as ‘the second death.’” (Pg. 100)
He continues, “Where many have pointed to hell as a sphere of eternal conscious torment, it seems to me a better way to understand the language of the Bible and the rationality of damnation is to see hell first and foremost as ‘a raging fire that will consume.’ Once separated from the source and sustainer of life, everything wed to the darkness outside cannot fail to evaporate.” (Pg. 100)
He observes, “I find it fascinating that hell-as-annihilation parallels what most of my atheist friends and colleagues have always claimed is the destiny of everything and everybody. For everybody knows that death---what Jesus called ‘hades’---is eating away all we care for… There is nothing more obvious to human beings than their impending death and the disintegration of everything we see.” (Pg. 100-101)
He suggests, “Failures happen in the growth process and are forgivable, but hearts irreversibly tethered to these destructive behaviors---who refuse forgiveness and restoration persistently clutching such sins as though a bride---are not. There can be no restoration for those who refuse to be remade, who prefer the annihilation of their souls to reality itself… God could allow such dead souls to continue living into eternity like zombies, continuing to war against his world and themselves---and thus allowing evil to continue its domination of some---but God, being good, does not allow evil to continue its mastery anywhere… when Jesus describes wickedness… he is describing an execution many of us intuitively desire more than anything else. This is the end of evil. It’s what many believers pray for. It is what many skeptics accuse God of not doing quickly enough… It seems that the only real difference between viewing the world without a God and the perspective of Jesus, is that for Jesus the death of all we see is NOT the only option.” (Pg. 104-105)
He argues, “Thus, hell is best seen as an ordered soul returning to disorder… The images and phrases Jesus and others used to paint hell---perishing, death, destruction---all imply extinction. We see the annihilation of a human in the earliest chapters of Genesis. After Adam and his wife chose to leash themselves to self-destruction, God said, ‘[The man] must not be allowed to … live forever.’ Apparently, God thinks it would be very bad for those who choose to separate themselves from his kind of life to go on living eternally. Thus right at the outset, God removes humanity from the source of immortality and, in his mercy, allows them to die… Entering the grave was, for Adam, the end. But it need not be the end of all.” (Pg. 111-112)
He notes, “In Jesus, I see a new kind of God---one who has taken what was most foul and disgusting in the whole world---the crucified man—and through it has announced to everyone his intention and ability to make everything new.” (Pg. 143)
He concludes, “It is mysterious how the mind and soul interact with the physical brain. It is mysterious why human beings have a unique value over and above other living things. It is mysterious why love is more than chemical events in our skulls. It is mysterious why we exist and what purposes our lives have. Mystery is where life takes place, and it matters very little what glasses you put on, you’ll find the mysteries in the reality you choose to see…. Becoming a Christian has not answered life’s mysteries for me. That would be far too easy. Jesus’ death and resurrection give shape to them so that the mysteries are no longer terrifying … When I consider it all, I choose to believe because of both the tragedy and the beauty.” (Pg. 159-160)
This book may interest those seeking a Christian’s ‘philosophical’ interpretation of Heaven, Hell, life’s purpose, and so on.
Displaying 1 of 1 review