Claim #3: Hell doesn’t have nine descending circles, as Dante (“Hell’s true architect”) wrote.
Hell has nine descending circles. (That’s all Dante, hell’s true architect.)
I’ll admit that I don’t know a single Christian who thinks hell has nine descending circles or who takes Dante’s Inferno as gospel truth. So I’ll agree with Sweeney—I’m willing to bet hell doesn’t have nine descending circles!
But to call Dante “hell’s true architect” is ignoring the massive preponderance of biblical teaching on this serious topic. Sweeney also assumes that Inferno was written in a vacuum. Dante didn’t invent “hell” for his book; he was exploring a topic (granted, in unbiblical ways) that was already a well-understood teaching of God’s Word.
