Below is a comment I posted on Eric Wilson’s web site, Beroean Pickets. In his video titled, Is the Doctrine of Hellfire Blasphemous? Eric teaches it is blasphemous. This is how I answered that charge against Christians:

Unless you accept that Christ is God (but he doesn’t) then it is a contradiction to believe that if someone accepts/teaches Christ throws humans into a state of eternal torment then they are blaspheming God. Why? Because Christ is the one the Bible claims does that, not the Father. Bible teachers teaching that know the scriptures teach it is Christ who judges all people. And that Christ has life in himself, just as the Father does. Christ holds our lives. The Father judges no one, so the Father does not decide what happens to us eternally. Do you see the contradiction in your idea? Unless those believing in hell fire pin the blame on the Father they could not be blaspheming him. But they don’t. They claim Christ takes that action against sinners. So unless you believe they speak of Christ as God, and that they are correct, they could not be blaspheming God. That would be like you blaming me for something you did.

Also, since Christ is the one that spoke of eternal torment for Christians it doesn’t make any sense to believe a Christian blasphemes if he takes Christ’s words literally while accepting alternative understandings to scriptures you present in defense of your position. Your position is that scriptures you present must be literally understood, while scriptures that record Christ’s own words must be taken figuratively. For instance, “The soul that is sinning will die.” If Christ’s words are literal then we can be sure that “die” in that sentence does not mean what you teach it means. If Christ’s words are literal your understanding of “die” in that scripture must be wrong. Right? As an example: scriptures teach there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. That shows the wicked were dead for a time, but not for all time. So your scripture speaking about the soul dying could very well be speaking of that time of death before the resurrection.

Another hole in your argument is that you teach Christ’s words are figurative, while you define that figurative meaning. If those words are figurative how can you definitively know what those words mean? You cannot. That would be impossible without an explanation from the author of those words. But Christ never defined those words he spoke about eternal torment. A counter argument to your reasoning is that eternal torment, hell fire, and maggots could denote a state of consciousness in some deprived state that is different than the state you definitively claim.

Whether consciousness continues for the wicked after they are judged by Christ I don’t know. But I do know Christ is judging no one based on their interpretation of his story of the rich man and Lazarus. But Christ did say we will be judged based on our judgment of others.