Problem of Hell

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The problem of Hell is a variant of the problem of evil, aimed specifically at religions which hold both that:

  1. An omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnibenevolent (all-loving) God exists.
  2. Some people will be consigned to Hell forever, and will be eternally tortured.

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The debate

While Hell has traditionally been regarded as a punishment for wrong-doing or sin in life, the problem arises primarily from the severity of the punishment, if Hell is indeed seen as eternal torture. However, the view of hell as "punishment" is not universal. For example, the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics see it as a condition brought about by, and the natural consequence of, free rejection of God's love.

The debate mostly focuses on whether God would want to allow a situation where some people are consigned to Hell forever. There is also the question of why an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God would create souls foreknowing those souls would end up in Hell.

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Issues of Justice

Opponents of the doctrine of Hell claim that the punishment is disproportionate to any crimes that could be committed, an overkill. Humans can commit only a finite amount of sin, yet Hell is an infinite punishment, and common sense seems to suggest that few (if any) people deserve such punishment.

Against the alleged injustice of Hell, some theists have maintained that God is so infinitely great and that any transgression against him warrants an infinite punishment. On this view, the correct punishment for a crime is proportional to the status of the wronged individual. Opponents of this view reply that the correct punishment is also proportional to the intentions and understanding of the wrongdoer.

Some have observed (notably Jorge Luis Borges) that no transgression can warrant an infinite punishment, because there is no such thing like an "infinite transgression".

Some are of the belief that all human beings sometimes do things which are wrong. Christianity agrees with this view: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Epistle to the Romans, 3:23). Arguably, punishing humans for a situation which humans cannot avoid is unjust.

A separate suggestion that might justify Hell is this: although no one crime warrants eternal punishment, sinful behaviour can continue in Hell, thus warranting an "extension of the sentence" that an individual must serve - and such extensions can continue on forever with each new sin.

There is a counter to this argument: Those assigned to Hell are destined to suffer there forever. For this to be justified, it must be inevitable that they will continue sinning eternally and continue to deserve further punishment. Hell becomes a futile punishment which cannot serve to prevent sin. Furthermore, if the sinners in Hell cannot avoid further sin they cannot easily be seen as responsible for their actions once they enter Hell.

However it can be argued that the previous point is a red herring, that Hell is not a disincentive to sin, but instead a punishment for it, and so arguing that the punishment is futile as a disincentive could be interpreted as a misunderstanding of the reason Hell exists.

Finally, it could be argued that humans are incapable of defining "justice" and that God alone can define "justice" and judge things as being just or unjust. If such a definition of justice is to be taken, Hell is justified solely by the fact that God defines it as just. This argument is mostly associated with the Reformed branch of Christianity and with its founder Martin Luther.

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Hell as a choice

Mirroring similar discussions in the problem of evil, another argument goes that human beings have free will, and although a benevolent God would prefer to see everyone saved, he would also allow humans to control their own destinies. This view opens the possibility of seeing Hell not as retributive punishment, but rather as an option that God allows, so that people who do not wish to be with God are not forced to be. C. S. Lewis most famously proposed this view in his book The Great Divorce, saying: "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'" Some believe that the choice for God must be made by an individual before he dies, but others don't see death as the end of one's chances to accept salvation. On the latter view, which seems suggested by Lewis, those in hell can get to heaven if they choose to accept God. On this view, in Lewis's memorable phrase, to the extent that the doors out of hell are locked for a person, they are "locked from the inside" — by the person's own continuing, willful choice.

Opponents of this view (such as Marilyn McCord Adams) claim that, even if Hell is seen as a choice rather than as punishment, it would be unreasonable for God to give such flawed and ignorant creatures as ourselves the awesome responsibility of our eternal destinies. In the view of Adams, God giving humans this choice is like an adult giving a child a loaded shotgun.

Jonathan Kvanvig, in his book, The Problem of Hell, agrees that God would not allow one to be eternally damned by a decision made under the wrong circumstances. One should not always honor the choices of human beings, even when they are full adults, if, for instance, the choice is made while depressed or careless. On Kvanvig's view, God will abandon no person until they have made a settled, final decision, under favorable circumstances, to reject God. But God will respect a choice made under the right circumstances. Once a person finally and competently chooses to reject God, out of respect for the person's autonomy, God allows them to be annihilated.

A question some have asked of those who defend Hell by appealing to human choice is whether humans truly "choose" Hell - if an atheist believed there was no God, would this count as a choice, or merely an honest mistake? At any rate, to whatever degree the will is involved in such a belief, and consequently to whatever degree one can be said to have chosen not to believe in the existence of God and/or Hell, it's hard to see how someone who does not believe that hell exists can be truthfully described as having specifically chosen to go to Hell. Since Hell is everlasting and torturous, it seems implausible that any informed, rational person would deliberately choose to endure it. Rather than claiming that the damned choose hell, those who defend hell by appeal to choice might do better to say merely that the damned make choices that result in their being in hell, even though they never specifically chose to go to hell.

Naturally, the idea of Hell as a just result of choice depends on a strong account of the degree to which one controls one's beliefs. If a person's actions and choices are the products of genes and environment, neither of which the person can control, Hell seems profoundly unfair. This problem is magnified for religions which claim to be the only path to salvation, since it is clear that which religion a person subscribes to is largely a result of the culture they are born in. Suppose, for example, that one has to be Christian to avoid Hell. Given that very few people born in Iran to Muslim parents become Christians, Hell would seem to punish such people unfairly.

Separate from the suggestion that one chooses one's eternal fate in life, many fathers of the church believed that upon death a soul will fully understand the good and evil of all its acts during life, and (if sinful) will in fact go to Hell voluntarily because it will deem itself unworthy for Heaven. Still, this fails to answer the question why a loving God creates souls which he foreknows will end up in Hell.

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The argument from ignorance

As in the debate over the problem of evil, an option open to theists is to state that man is not perceptive enough to actually understand the "mind" of God, and cannot therefore conclude that the existence of Hell is unjust. The crux of this is that it is very possible that we do not understand the mind of God, and thus may not understand the reasons for the existence of Hell.

The plausibility of such arguments are however lower than in the problem of evil. With regard to the question "why is there evil in the world?" there are at least candidate reasons why evil might serve some sort of useful purpose - for example, it might be character forming, or give humans something to struggle against.

With Hell however, most such purposes fall away. Hell clearly does not serve any interests of its residents. While one can claim that God has some good reason for Hell that we cannot fathom, this is, of course, a very unsatisfying response, even if correct.

Of course, many believe that humans can reach a fairly good understanding of the nature of God. For example, through reading scripture, a Christian may come to believe that God is "just and right" (Deuteronomy 32:4). At the very least, reconciling this belief with the apparent injustice of Hell requires a fair degree of faith.

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Denying the assumptions

For those who believe the traditional doctrine of Hell is unconvincing, and believe that claims 1 and 2 are incompatible, the only course of action is to deny one or both of them.

The first claim can be denied by rejecting the existence of God (atheism), or of a God sufficiently powerful or loving to prevent people from being consigned to Hell.

The second claim can also be denied. Three possible ways to do this (while maintaining a belief in God) are the doctrines of Annihilationism, where Hell is seen only as oblivion without consciousness, Universalism, where everyone is saved, without exception, and the Second chance doctrine (or Escapism), where even after one has been sent to Hell, one can still accept God and be saved. Some also assert in denial of claim 2 that the only "torture" in Hell is that of separation from God — that separation from God is the embodiment of pain itself and hence that it constitutes infinite torture in a symbolic sense (cf. John 3:19-20).

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See also

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Bibliography

  • Marilyn McCord Adams: "The Problem of Hell: A Problem of Evil for Christians," in William Rowe (ed.): God and the Problem of Evil, ISBN 0631222200
  • Jonathan L. Kvanvig: The Problem of Hell, ISBN 019508487X
  • Charles Seymour: A Theodicy of Hell, ISBN 0792363647
  • Jerry Walls: Hell: The Logic of Damnation, ISBN 0268010951
  • C.S. Lewis: The Problem of Pain, ISBN 0060652969
  • Ted Sider. Hell and Vagueness, Faith and Philosophy 19 (2002): 58-68.
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External links

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