The Coherence of Christian Theism
26
The Doctrine of Hell
It is often suggested that the Christian doctrine of Hell is morally unconscionable. Understanding this doctrine to entail that the nonbeliever is sent to a physical location where for his nonbelief he is burned for all eternity, the skeptic makes the obvious point that this is incompatible with the moral perfection of God: The claim that God is all loving and the claim that God punishes his creatures eternally for finite offences are irreconcilable. Christianity therefore entails an obvious contradiction and so should, concludes the skeptic, be dismissed out of hand. In what follows it will be my concern to show that this objection is based on a crude caricature of Hell that is quite different from what the Church actually teaches. And we shall see that when that doctrine is properly understood there are no indefeasible moral objections against it.
First, however, I will find it helpful to set Hell within its proper theological context by providing a brief overview of the Christian view of the afterlife.
Death and the End of the World
By now the relationship between divine hiddenness and moral liberty should be familiar. As we saw in Chapter 6 and again briefly in Chapter 17, moral self-determination requires a significant freedom of choice between good and bad actions. And since certain knowledge that a morally perfect being of unlimited power was watching us at all times would greatly curtail that freedom, so, Christians claim, God has situated himself at an epistemic distance so that we see him only, "through a glass, darkly." Divine hiddenness and free will together make it possible for us to become naturally good people fit for an eternal relationship with God but they also come at a high cost. The high cost is the moral and natural evil discussed in Chapter 5. “Creating humans,” as Swinburne puts it, “was taking a great risk." God therefore has reason to place sensible limits upon his "risky experiment" both by setting a limit on the duration of a human life (and so on the suffering that a human being can cause) and also by one day bringing the whole world to an end. [1] The Nicene Creed indeed affirms that, sooner or later, God the Son, “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”
Reflecting on the end of an individual human life and the end of the world raises the same obvious question; namely, how will a morally perfect and all powerful being deal with those who have become naturally good, those who have become incorrigibly bad and those who remain of an uncertain moral character?
The Fate of the Naturally Good
A person who exercises his free will to become a naturally good person will be a person who naturally wants to do the good: to reverence what is holy, to express gratitude to his benefactors and to grow in understanding and in admiration of beauty and truth while helping others to do the same. Such a person will be naturally happy in a state of loving communion with God and God, being morally perfect, will want to give that person the everlasting happiness of knowing and doing the good forever. Forever existing in loving communion with God and with others who are in loving communion with God without the impediments of suffering and hiddenness is just what being in Heaven would consist of.
Skeptics do not raise a moral objection against this feature of the doctrine; however, they do sometimes suggest that happiness of any sort would, if telescoped to infinity, eventually result in repetition, boredom and weariness. Any heaven that lasted for eternity, the argument goes, could end up being its own sort of hell.
The first thing to note about this objection is its doubtful assumption that a beatific vision of God is something of which one could grow tired. But there is a further problem with it that can be clearly demonstrated by reference to the difference between an actual and a potential infinity. This was something briefly discussed in Chapter 11. An actual infinity, you may recall, consists of an infinite number of discrete and simultaneously existent things: If the universe is infinite then there is, at this moment, an infinite number of stars. A potential infinity, on the other hand, is simply the lack of a limit on the increase of some finite quantity: A man who is given eternity to count to infinity will never actually arrive at infinity; rather, infinity is simply the limit that he forever approaches and never reaches. And because it is not possible to exhaust an infinite fund of things in a potentially infinite period of time, so God, being infinite, can forever unfold new novelties, new delights, and new facets of his infinite knowledge upon his creatures. [2] “Eye hath not seen,” the Bible tells us, “nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
The Fate of Those of a Mostly Good Moral Character
Many people on Earth seek to do good but at the end of their lives remain to various degrees unaware of which actions are good and which are bad. Given that such people may have a strong basic inclination to do good but in ignorance fail to satisfy all of their moral obligations, it is plausible to suppose that a morally perfect God would wish to be in loving communion with them also. He could, therefore, help such people to learn after death which actions are good (such as showing gratitude to and seeking forgiveness from God) and then, in virtue of their knowledge of what is in fact good, allow them to enter into loving communion with himself. Catholic doctrine teaches just such a view: That many of the dead whom God deems to have been sufficiently good to go to Heaven need preliminary purification in Purgatory. Paintings of Purgatory in the Western tradition portray it as a place of suffering but the doctrine includes some surprisingly agreeable features. For example, souls in Purgatory know they are destined for heaven, experience happiness and are in communion with God. And even the suffering itself is, according to Aquinas and others, voluntary: Given a vision of God souls willingly submit to a process that enables them to be in communion with him. What suffering there is consists in the fact that, as Swinburne puts it, “changing your behaviour, however good your intentions, can be a bit painful.” Thus Purgatory, properly classified, is a region of Heaven.
The doctrine of Purgatory may help to reconcile verses in the Bible which state that the only way to Heaven is through Jesus and the view of many great Christian thinkers that those outside the Church can attain Heaven—something which has been official Roman Catholic doctrine since the second Vatican Council in 1963-6. “I am the way, the truth and the life,” reads John 14:6. “No one cometh unto the Father, but by me.” If Jesus was God Incarnate his words are true by tautology: No one comes to God but through God. But it is not stipulated when one accepts God and so plausible to suppose that those of a basically good moral character who were nonculpably unable to accept God's offer of love in the person of Jesus during their earthly life may accept that offer post mortem in Purgatory.
The Fate of Those of Unformed Moral Character
By exercising our free will to choose between good and bad actions we slowly strengthen or weaken desires of various kinds to form a moral character. Because this process takes time many people die young with a moral character that is unformed or else die so young that they have no moral awareness at all. How will a morally perfect God deal with such people?
Swinburne suggests several possibilities. Firstly, God could simply give such people the benefit of the doubt and impose upon them a firmly good character. The Church teaches that such is the fate of baptised babies. And while this would allow that person to exist in blissful communion with God it would have the disadvantage of depriving them of moral self-determination. God may therefore put some into another world with such moral propensities as they have formed and let them complete there the task of character formation. Or he could, finally, give them a good afterlife but one that is suitable for those ignorant of moral sanctity and so not the life of Heaven as we are understanding it. The Church teaching on Limbo suggests that this third possibility exists for some—though it is held as an official theological hypothesis rather than a dogma. Those in Limbo would exist in a state of natural though not supernatural happiness; that is, they would have natural knowledge of God but would not enjoy the beatific vision. However, as recently as 2007, the Church has suggested that there are, “serious theological and liturgical grounds,” for the plausibility of the first mentioned possibility: That those of unformed moral character are simply saved. [3]
The Fate of the Incorrigibly Bad
We come at last to the fate of the incorrigibly bad. Let us first understand “incorrigibly bad” to describe a person who has exercised his free will to do evil to such a degree that he has finally developed an evil character. His natural desire is to perform bad and selfish actions and in particular to hurt and dominate others. It was noted earlier that God has good reason to allow moral evil while people form their moral character in this world. But there is no good reason for God to allow people to continue hurting others forever in another world after their moral character is already fully formed. In what follows I will briefly discuss two alternative views about the fate of the incorrigibly bad before defending, but carefully qualifying, the traditional teaching of the Church. My conclusion will be that while we may reasonably hope that Hell is empty its possible existence must be affirmed in view of human freedom.
Universalism It might be wondered: Why does God not simply force upon such people a good moral character? Some hold that God does just this—including Origen, an influential Church Father, and several contemporary theologians. This view, because it entails that all people go to Heaven, is called Universalism. But forcing a good moral character upon an evil person is forcing upon them a character which they have persistently and knowingly chosen not to have. And if God is to respect the free will of persons in choosing their own moral character he must finally respect the moral character they have chosen. To do otherwise would be to rescind the free will he had originally given: God would then be a sort of moral totalitarian who ensures that, in the end, whatever choices people make, they become the sort of people God wants them to be with no ultimate freedom to determine the sort of person they want to be.
We have seen that incorrigibly bad people are a possible outcome of any world in which all people enjoy significant moral self-determination; and we have seen that naturally good people will be naturally happy in loving communion with a morally perfect being. By contrast: Allowing oneself to become a collection of evil desires whose fulfilment is eternally frustrated by an all powerful being would be a deeply unhappy state. The question arises: If God will not force a good moral character upon such people, what is he likely to do with them?
Annihilationism Christian theology holds that all things are sustained in existence by God from one moment to the next. Each one of us therefore stands in the same relation to God as the piano sonata to the pianist: The moment God ceases to consciously and deliberately sustain us in existence is the moment we cease to exist. This doctrine helps to introduce a second view on the fate of the incorrigibly bad: Annihilationism. Annihilationism holds that at the end of the world God simply ceases to sustain the incorrigibly bad in existence; and the incorrigibly bad, as a result, simply cease to exist.
Proponents of this view suggest that Bible verses which speak of evildoers being thrown into a lake of fire in fact symbolize their annihilation. “If talk of fire is to be taken literally or even as an analogy for the destiny of the wicked,” Swinburne explains, “the consequence of putting the wicked in such a fire would be their speedy elimination.” We have just noted that having all ones desires frustrated by an all powerful being would be an inherently miserable state. And so perhaps God would eliminate evil people—particularly if that is what they wanted. It is this fate, annihilationists insist, that Jesus warned us to avoid in many places in the New Testament, such as Matthew 10:28,
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
|
However, others have objected to annihilationism on the grounds that, much like universalism, it puts God in the role of a moral totalitarian. God does not force a good moral character upon those who have freely chosen evil; rather, he refuses to allow them to exist at all. And so, in the end, whatever choices people make, they either become the sort of people God wants them to be or God destroys them.
Hell Let us consider finally the traditional teaching of the Church that the incorrigibly bad are in danger of Hell. How can we understand this idea in light of the moral perfection of God? We can begin to do so by first recognising that Hell is not a physical location to which people are sent and actively tormented by God. [4] It is, rather, an existential state that results from freely rejecting the divine love.
Consider now three operating assumptions. One: In Heaven naturally good people freely submit themselves to the will of God; two: God, being all loving, wishes for all people to be happy in so doing (happy in reverencing what is holy, loving those who were formerly enemies, selflessly cooperating with others—and so forth); and three: All people are given radical freedom in determining their own moral character. It follows from all this that at least some people may eternally resist the invitation to participate in the divine love—preferring instead to hate their enemies and the God who enjoins them to let go of that hatred and to freely and eternally ignore God's sincere heavenly welcome out of immortal spite or pride or self-pity. As Dallas Willard expresses it, for some people, "the fires of Heaven, we might suspect, are hotter than the fires of Hell." C. S. Lewis before him made a similar point. “The gates of Hell,” he wrote, “are locked on the inside.”
It should also be kept in mind here that any person who finds themselves in Hell was not thrust there suddenly upon death; Hell, rather, is the ultimate logical consequence of the pattern of choices an evil person made throughout his earthly life. God provides each of us with a conscience and countless opportunities to exercise our free will for good or evil. An incorrigibly bad person therefore owes his character to his prolonged and decisive refusal to heed the deliverances of the conscience which God gave him in preference for evil. Lewis understood this too. “There are only two kinds of people in the end,” he said. “Those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’” and those to whom God says in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”
Understood in this way, Hell has a surprising, ironic but entirely logical entailment: It pays deep respect to persons. Faced with the incorrigibly bad, God does not force upon them a good moral character and he does not destroy them. God accepts the person they have chosen to be and provides a place in his created order for them to live out the reality of being that person. Only in Hell can the free will and so the personhood of the incorrigibly bad be preserved. “Hell,” as Willard puts it, “is God’s best for some people.” And it was the unhappy possibility of finding ourselves forever in this state that Jesus is warning us of when he speaks of the eternal torments of Hell.
Conclusion
In discussing the possibility of Hell it is important to remember that it is no part of Christian doctrine that any particular person, or that any person at all, is actually in Hell. Not many people, I would think, allow themselves to become incorrigibly bad and the doctrines of Purgatory and Limbo would surely provide an all loving God with a wide range of options in dealing with those who are further up on the moral spectrum. Moreover, only God can know what transpires in a human heart in the final moments of life and in the first moments of the afterlife. A private moment of redemption in extremis or even in articulo mortis is always possible and no one knows what opportunities are available beyond that.
Reflections similar to these led the twentieth century Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar to say, “We may reasonably hope that all people will be saved.” Balthasar’s position thus draws right back from the deep pessimism of Aquinas and Augustine, who both held that the mass of humanity will be lost, without quite affirming the Universalism of Origen and others. Balthasar instead suggested that we entertain Universalism with a cautious optimism. Why?
The optimism was justified, Balthasar said, in view of the radical expression of divine love manifest in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus—that God should send his Son all the way to the limits of God-forsakenness in order to bring back into the divine life all those who had wandered far from it. But the caution was necessary in view of the radical freedom God entrusted us with—a freedom which, if it is to be honoured and upheld by God at all, must include at least the possibility of eternally rejecting God. The Catholic author and theologian Fr. Robert Barron agrees. A Catholic, he says, must accept the existence of Hell as a possibility because of human freedom. “But” he adds, “we may pray, and may even reasonably hope, that all people will be saved.”
Hell Let us consider finally the traditional teaching of the Church that the incorrigibly bad are in danger of Hell. How can we understand this idea in light of the moral perfection of God? We can begin to do so by first recognising that Hell is not a physical location to which people are sent and actively tormented by God. [4] It is, rather, an existential state that results from freely rejecting the divine love.
Consider now three operating assumptions. One: In Heaven naturally good people freely submit themselves to the will of God; two: God, being all loving, wishes for all people to be happy in so doing (happy in reverencing what is holy, loving those who were formerly enemies, selflessly cooperating with others—and so forth); and three: All people are given radical freedom in determining their own moral character. It follows from all this that at least some people may eternally resist the invitation to participate in the divine love—preferring instead to hate their enemies and the God who enjoins them to let go of that hatred and to freely and eternally ignore God's sincere heavenly welcome out of immortal spite or pride or self-pity. As Dallas Willard expresses it, for some people, "the fires of Heaven, we might suspect, are hotter than the fires of Hell." C. S. Lewis before him made a similar point. “The gates of Hell,” he wrote, “are locked on the inside.”
It should also be kept in mind here that any person who finds themselves in Hell was not thrust there suddenly upon death; Hell, rather, is the ultimate logical consequence of the pattern of choices an evil person made throughout his earthly life. God provides each of us with a conscience and countless opportunities to exercise our free will for good or evil. An incorrigibly bad person therefore owes his character to his prolonged and decisive refusal to heed the deliverances of the conscience which God gave him in preference for evil. Lewis understood this too. “There are only two kinds of people in the end,” he said. “Those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’” and those to whom God says in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”
Understood in this way, Hell has a surprising, ironic but entirely logical entailment: It pays deep respect to persons. Faced with the incorrigibly bad, God does not force upon them a good moral character and he does not destroy them. God accepts the person they have chosen to be and provides a place in his created order for them to live out the reality of being that person. Only in Hell can the free will and so the personhood of the incorrigibly bad be preserved. “Hell,” as Willard puts it, “is God’s best for some people.” And it was the unhappy possibility of finding ourselves forever in this state that Jesus is warning us of when he speaks of the eternal torments of Hell.
Conclusion
In discussing the possibility of Hell it is important to remember that it is no part of Christian doctrine that any particular person, or that any person at all, is actually in Hell. Not many people, I would think, allow themselves to become incorrigibly bad and the doctrines of Purgatory and Limbo would surely provide an all loving God with a wide range of options in dealing with those who are further up on the moral spectrum. Moreover, only God can know what transpires in a human heart in the final moments of life and in the first moments of the afterlife. A private moment of redemption in extremis or even in articulo mortis is always possible and no one knows what opportunities are available beyond that.
Reflections similar to these led the twentieth century Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar to say, “We may reasonably hope that all people will be saved.” Balthasar’s position thus draws right back from the deep pessimism of Aquinas and Augustine, who both held that the mass of humanity will be lost, without quite affirming the Universalism of Origen and others. Balthasar instead suggested that we entertain Universalism with a cautious optimism. Why?
The optimism was justified, Balthasar said, in view of the radical expression of divine love manifest in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus—that God should send his Son all the way to the limits of God-forsakenness in order to bring back into the divine life all those who had wandered far from it. But the caution was necessary in view of the radical freedom God entrusted us with—a freedom which, if it is to be honoured and upheld by God at all, must include at least the possibility of eternally rejecting God. The Catholic author and theologian Fr. Robert Barron agrees. A Catholic, he says, must accept the existence of Hell as a possibility because of human freedom. “But” he adds, “we may pray, and may even reasonably hope, that all people will be saved.”
[1] Christian doctrine claims that those who die before the end of the world enter into disembodied communion with God until the general resurrection of the dead when God will recreate the world and souls will be given an immortal resurrection body. Thus Christianity does not claim that the final fate of the blessed is a disembodied state in a heavenly realm—that is only a sort of holding pattern for those who die before the end of the world. Rather, the final fate of the blessed is physical embodiment on a reformed Earth. For this reason N. T. Wright refers to the Kingdom of God as, "Life after life after death."
[2] Catholics hold that God delights in letting those creatures with whom he is in loving communion cooperate with him in helping other creatures to themselves become fit for loving communion with him. It is for this reason that Catholics pray for the intercession of the saints and why Christians of all denominations recognise the duty to evangelise. Swinburne therefore suggests that one of the activities of the blessed in heaven will be helping others on Earth. And since there is no reason why God should limit himself to one universe (and since he may go on creating universes forever) there may be no end to the cooperation between God and those creatures already in loving communion with him in helping others to come into loving communion with him.
[3] The document was originally commission by Pope John Paul II and realised by the International Theological Commission on April 20, 2007. It states that, "the ordinary way of salvation is by the sacrament of baptism," while on the question of salvation outside that sacrament there are, "reasons for playful hope" though not, "sure knowledge." The tone is thus optimistic but cautious. Referring to John 16:12 it adds, "There is much that simply has not been revealed to us."
[4] Indeed, Augustine believed the suffering of Hell is compounded because God continues to love the sinner who is not able to return the love. According to the Church, whatever is the nature of the torments in Hell, "they are not imposed by a vindictive judge"
[2] Catholics hold that God delights in letting those creatures with whom he is in loving communion cooperate with him in helping other creatures to themselves become fit for loving communion with him. It is for this reason that Catholics pray for the intercession of the saints and why Christians of all denominations recognise the duty to evangelise. Swinburne therefore suggests that one of the activities of the blessed in heaven will be helping others on Earth. And since there is no reason why God should limit himself to one universe (and since he may go on creating universes forever) there may be no end to the cooperation between God and those creatures already in loving communion with him in helping others to come into loving communion with him.
[3] The document was originally commission by Pope John Paul II and realised by the International Theological Commission on April 20, 2007. It states that, "the ordinary way of salvation is by the sacrament of baptism," while on the question of salvation outside that sacrament there are, "reasons for playful hope" though not, "sure knowledge." The tone is thus optimistic but cautious. Referring to John 16:12 it adds, "There is much that simply has not been revealed to us."
[4] Indeed, Augustine believed the suffering of Hell is compounded because God continues to love the sinner who is not able to return the love. According to the Church, whatever is the nature of the torments in Hell, "they are not imposed by a vindictive judge"