The Last Judgement as the Resurrection itself, and it's implications for universalism
The last post was on how David Bentley Hart views the eternal conscious torment as a baptized type of sacrificial narrative that was rejected by the resurrection itself, and hence should be rejected by us.
This is not all to the story however. There is another way of seeing the resurrection which helps understand the Universalist position of hell as Pedadogy. This requires seeing the Last Judgement description in the book of Revelation as already happening in the resurrection of Christ. This is not a new view, but it's not a widely known one as far as I know. Let's look at another passage from Dr. Hart's book:
But, in a sense, the resurrection is every bit as much a disruption of “sacred history” and of eschatological expectation. History, it would seem, is not simply the time prepared for us before the final judgment, the occasion of moral labor before the appointed end. The judgment has already come, out of season; history’s great crisis has appeared now, in our midst, and has rendered all our certitudes concerning the cosmos and history untrustworthy. Time itself is fallen; its ultimate consummation is not simply the final expression of a truth it already possesses in potentia. Rather, it is enslaved to a “false story,” which leads—if left undisturbed—toward absurdity and nothingness. The history that God confirms as the path to his truth is the unique story of Christ, from the incarnation to the resurrection; this is the story he raises up, and seals with an eschatological verdict; and, in so doing, he also pronounces his final verdict upon the fabulous tales that humanity tells about itself, and upon the historical “logic” that leads to the building of crosses. Time is to be redeemed, it turns out, and so it must be invaded by God’s Logos, shattered and restored by the advent of God’s kingdom; the judgment of God will not be a final confirmation of history’s “total synthesis,” or even of our various moral positions before an omnipotent justice, but the event of an unmerited salvation. Our only hope now lies in the power of the Holy Spirit to integrate our lives into that one true story told in Christ; we hope that the final judgment already pronounced upon him will include us too in its ultimate determinations
The Hidden and the Manifest; Death, Final Judgement, and the meaning of life. Pg. 949-952
It is important to note that this theme is found in scripture. Paul says in several places that God's judgement (wrath, righteousness, favour) is revealed in the Christ event. Christ has spoiled the powers. This Judgement is then "Eschatologized" in the book of Revelation as "Death and Hades being thrown into the Lake of fire".
Christ IS the book of Life, and his resurrection is Hades "giving up it's dead", the Spirit that raised him up in Hades' territory IS the Lake of fire that Hades is thrown into, and all those in Hades, who are not "in the book" are engulfed by the same life giving flames. God's glorious Spirit will fill all things, even hell, and it will be destroyed.
Then what about those thrown in? If we believe that the fire is the Spirit, isn't it safe to conclude that all already in the book are in those flames, and those in the flames are there so they eventually accept their names to be written? The same spirit of life that is as live giving water to the redeemed is a consuming fire to the wicked; But He's also the Spirit of Love, and Love never fails, hence why many Universalists have interpret it not as malicious torment, but pedadogical chastisement.
I would recommend Fr. Aidan Kimmel's The Irresistible Truth of Final Judgement for more on this.