The Concept of Hell

Robert Arp, Benjamin McCraw, Robert Arp, Benjamin McCraw, Robert Arp, Benjamin McCraw

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137455710
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy of Religion

What is the nature of Hell? What role(s) may Hell play in religious, political, or ethical thought? Can Hell be justified? This edited volume addresses these questions and others; drawing philosophers from many approaches and traditions to analyze and examine Hell.

Part I

The Nature of Hell

1

Choosing Hell

Randall M. Jensen

How can the world be filled with evil and suffering if there is a God who is all-powerful and perfectly good? The problem of evil, as it is usually called, is one of the biggest philosophical problems there is, leading some to abandon belief in God altogether and provoking others to reflect on and to rethink their faith. It is a very old problem, aptly posed by Epicurus and fiercely discussed ever since; and a highly complex problem as well, one that takes many shapes.¹ Defeat one version and – like a hydra – two more spring up in its place. In this essay I will wrangle with one of the particularly nasty heads of this monster of a problem. Our world offers plenty of examples of evil and suffering, but arguably none that compare with the plight of the damned in Hell. The problem of Hell is the problem of evil at its very worst.

Any problem of evil, including the problem of Hell, is created by the tension between a set of beliefs about God and a set of beliefs about evil in general or Hell in particular. For example, consider the following propositions:

G:		God exists and is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.
E:		Evil exists.
H:		Hell exists.

The logical problem of evil (or Hell) asserts that G and E (or H) are logically inconsistent, due to the initially plausible implicit assumption that no omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being would cause or allow any evil (or Hell) to exist. The evidential problem of evil grants that there may be some clever way to argue that G and E (or H) are logically consistent, but maintains that E (or H) is nonetheless very compelling evidence against G, just as a certain piece of evidence might make it unlikely that a defendant in a court case is innocent, so that a jury might decide that guilt is beyond any reasonable doubt, even though some farfetched story might be concocted to explain how innocence is logically possible.

Most of the many attempts to solve these problems (theodicies, as they are often called) involve rethinking our beliefs about God (thus revising G) or about evil and Hell (thus revising E and/or H) or both. After a quick survey of several such proposed revisions, I will explore in more depth the paradoxical theodicy that Hell is something the damned choose for themselves, inspired in part by the work of Christian writers C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams.

1 The divine attributes

One obvious opening move a theist could make in constructing a theodicy of evil or Hell would be to give up on one of the divine attributes, thus rejecting G. Perhaps God is not omnipotent, and thus cannot prevent all damnation and evil. Some even speak here of the weakness of God. Or perhaps we should not think of God as perfectly good. Perhaps God transcends such evaluative categories and we should refrain from conceiving of God in our own moral terms. If we abandon the idea that God has all power and/or all goodness, the problem of evil (or Hell), as it is traditionally understood, will simply not arise.

However, most Christian theists are not tempted by such radically revisionary theodicies, for these divine attributes are traditionally seen as part of the very nature of God, so that any being who lacks one of these attributes would not be God at all and would also perhaps not be worthy of worship. From this point of view, to give up the claim that God is omnipotent or perfectly good is tantamount to rejecting traditional Christian belief altogether. In the following discussion, then, I mean to stay within the bounds of what C.S. Lewis (2007, pp. 5–11) calls “mere Christianity,” although of course opinions will vary on what counts as “mere.”

The move a Christian theist is more likely to make would be to analyze and clarify the three divine attributes included in G instead of rejecting any of them. For example, rather than being the power to do anything whatsoever, omnipotence is typically defined as the power to do anything that is logically possible. If X is logically necessary for Y, then not even God can bring about Y without X. This clarification reveals no lack of power in God; it rather shows that in our confusion we might expect God to do a thing that is not really a thing, such as to create a round square or to produce a married bachelor.²

To see an example of this initial clarificatory move in action, consider one of the most familiar attempts to show how G and E or H are compatible and thus to (try to) solve the problem of evil: the free will theodicy. Why is there evil in the world? Because God chose to create free creatures and it is not logically possible for God to create a world with free creatures and no evil. Although God is omnipotent, God cannot provide a creature a genuine choice between good and evil and yet guarantee that the creature will not choose evil. Further, some argue, creatures cannot really be free without the possibility of Hell. Without this clarification of omnipotence, the free will theodicy cannot get off the ground, for we will simply ask why an omnipotent God did not create a world full of free creatures and with no evil or why God does not simply do away with Hell. For God can do anything, right?

To say that this free will theodicy can get off the ground is not to say that it will succeed. For it must be established, and not merely suggested, that it is after all not logically possible for God to create free creatures and yet to ensure that there will be no evil. The usual tack to take here is to adopt a libertarian definition of human free will, on which human freedom is incompatible with divine determination of human action. At the core of the libertarian notion of freedom is the idea that freedom requires “the power to do otherwise.” Although unpacking what exactly this might mean is a tricky business, it is not too difficult to see why it is often held that it is logically impossible for God to give a creature this power and yet to determine the outcome of that creature’s choices. Thus, those who defend a libertarian conception of human freedom as the power to do otherwise and accept the clarification of omnipotence as the power to do whatever is logically possible are poised to begin work on a free will theodicy.³

Yes, our world contains evil. But this evil may now potentially be seen as logically required for our presence in the world (and for the presence of whatever other free creatures there may be). God could have created a world with no evil, but such a world would have had no free creatures, either. Arguably, this explains why even an omnipotent and perfectly good God might create a world with some evil in it. Can it also explain why there is a Hell? We will return to that question soon.

Why would God choose to create such a world? Well, perhaps as Leibniz believes God must create the best of all possible worlds and this is it. Or perhaps God has no interest in creating the best world and this is one among a wide variety of good worlds God could have created. Why this one, then? Perhaps simply because God chose it as a matter of divine freedom. Or perhaps the answer to this question might be found by reflecting further on the third divine attribute.

G speaks of the omnibenevolence of God. Those who are less enamored of continuing the trend of “omni” attributes might instead speak of God’s perfect goodness. Just as God is maximally powerful and maximally knowledgeable, where what is maximal is understood as outlined above, God is maximally good. What does this mean? I suppose one could say that it simply means that God is as good as it is logically possible to be. Does this clarification help in the way the others have? Perhaps, not. Here our issue is not so much with the contours of the divine attribute but with its content. In what way is God good? What is goodness, anyway?

God is good, to be sure. In fact, following in the Platonically steeped medieval tradition, God is the Good itself. God is the beginning and the end. God is the Creator of all things other than Godself and the goal toward which all things tend. This puts God right at the center of our metaphysics of value. But it does not seem to tell us as much about God’s character. How is God’s metaphysical role connected to God’s moral attributes and to how God views and treats those God has created? This is no easy question to answer. I will succumb to one observation, however. If God simply is the Good, then God need do nothing to preserve this status. It is not as if God could lose it in the way a human being might lose her good reputation. God is free to behave as we think no divine being ought to behave – cue the Incarnation! – and yet remain God.

In any case, let us turn from metaphysics to moral theory as our guide. Should we understand the goodness of God in utilitarian terms, so that God’s concern is to maximize the utility of all the creatures God has created? This would perhaps help us to explain why some evils exist, since God might sacrifice some creatures for the greater good (although such measures would be needed by God far less than by us). Or is divine goodness to be understood in strictly deontological terms, in which case divine goodness would be a matter of fulfilling divine obligations, including meeting the demands of justice? This account too might assist us in showing how some evils exist, as deserved punishment for human sins. Even Hell might possibly be justified as a matter of justice.

I want to recommend another path, beginning with the robust Christian doctrine that God is love. Within Christian traditions, God is a Trinity of persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, eternally united in mutual loving relationship to one another. God loves us too. God created human beings, male and female, in God’s own image. Remarkably, God even became a human being, a man named Jesus of Nazareth, and lived among us. Jesus tells us stories about God’s love, about how God loves those who seem least deserving of love and about the extraordinary lengths to which God will go to find and save each of those who are lost. Jesus’ love for us is most dramatically exemplified in his horrific and humiliating execution on the cross, a sacrifice that according to Christian doctrine is how God saves us from sin and death. God loves us even though we killed the Son of God.

Crucial to Christian theology is the idea that God’s love is not a response to anything we do. God loves us not at our best but even in our darkest moments (Romans 5:8). If we manage to love someone in our own feeble way, it is because of God’s love (1 John 4:19). The love of God is unconditional. Sometimes we say that our love for another person is unconditional, meaning that we strive to love that person come what may, but God’s love is unconditional in a more radical way. While our love can tragically fall short, God can no more stop loving than a fire can cease to be hot. Love is who God is and what God does.

I also propose that although many images can be helpful in depicting the relationship between God and humanity, the relationship of a parent to a child ought to be placed foremost among them. One way to put it is that the claim that God loves us as a parent loves a child will function here as what Nicholas Wolterstorff (1988) long ago called a “control belief.” Think of how a loving parent regards her several children. She loves and wants to be good to each of them. She does not impersonally aggregate their welfare. In the spirit of John Rawls, she regards her children as separate persons. If she is forced to choose among them, or to sacrifice one for another in some kind of Sophie’s Choice predicament, it is a horror to her and such a decision cannot fulfill her love for her children but can only defeat it. She also does not see her efforts to know and help her children as a matter of obligation. Love rather than utility or obligation is what drives her.⁴

God’s goodness is thus to be understood as God’s love for God’s creatures and God’s desire to be good to each of them rather than as God’s ambition to actualize the best possible world or to satisfy the demands of justice.⁵ God is just, but divine justice is more a matter of God’s faithfulness to creatures than of balancing the cosmic scales. In the end, God is a parent more than a world-builder or a judge.

2 Hell

How can we reconcile this beautiful story of a God who loves us as a parent loves her children with the horrors of Hell? For in addition to its beatific vision of a life in Heaven for the saved, Christian tradition also includes a place of eternal conscious torment for the damned. How is it that the God who goes out into the dark to find that one lost sheep, who is willing to put on flesh and die on a cross to save us, will consign so many people to so awful a fate?

Damnation is a damnably difficult doctrine. H says very simply that Hell exists. This general idea can be articulated in many different ways. On a traditional rendition of H, Hell is a place where many people consciously experience horrible torment for all eternity. And it is this rendition that is most obviously difficult to square with G. If God is good and loves the people God has created, then surely God does not want any of them to be subjected to everlasting torture. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, especially if God is seen as sovereign over all of creation, then it seems hard to see how God would be unable to prevent this. And yet Hell is a well-entrenched part of Christian tradition.

Once again, the project of theodicy is fueled by careful and creative reflection on theological doctrine. Keeping in mind our earlier discussion of how to understand G and its divine attributes, I will quickly canvass several other theodicies of Hell before considering the theodicy that Hell is something its denizens choose for themselves.

Encouraged by certain passages of Scripture, some might claim that God loves only the righteous. God does save each of those whom God loves, then. But since God hates the wicked, and thus desires to punish them, his wrath is satisfied only by their horrible eternal suffering. Hell can thus be seen as the place into which God casts his enemies. If God loves some and hates others, then a traditional theology of Heaven and Hell is no surprise at all. However, as we discussed above, a God who hates anyone is not a God whose very nature is love and whose desire is to rescue the lost rather than see them suffer.

Next, consider the traditional idea that Hell is a place of punishment for those who deserve it. It seems possible to think that God loves a person but nonetheless must see her punished. God does not hate the wicked; they are not enemies of God. But like a judge God must mete out punishment to those who deserve it. The damned have sinned. As Anselm reminds us, any sin against an infinite God demands an infinite punishment. Thus, Hell must exist as a place of judgment. Human beings choose to sin and the wages of such sin is Hell. Notice here the frequent use of the word “must.” This will require elaboration. Perhaps there is something logically incoherent about a free creature who sins against God but escapes punishment altogether? Or perhaps damnation is what divine justice requires?

A complementary maneuver would be to draw a distinction in the divine will between God’s antecedent will and God’s consequent will. When speaking of God’s antecedent will, we can say that God loves all creatures and does not want any of them to be damned, thereby trying to uphold the idea that God is love. But while God may antecedently will that no one loved by God ought to be damned, His consequent will is that, given ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• Part I  The Nature of Hell
• Part II  Justifying Hell?
• Part III  Hell and Others
• Bibliography
• Index