Three Views on Hell and Hermeneutical Principles

Here are three views on hell:

1. Everlasting punishment.  Some people are punished forever.
2. Annihilationism: No one is punished forever but some are annihilated.
3. Universalism: (it comes in different varieties but here is the most plausible view by my lights) Some people are punished in hell for a finite time, then are saved and go to heaven.

My study of what the Scriptures say on the issue (and Biblical scholarship) suggests to me that 1 and 3 have perhaps a slight edge over 2 but that 1 and 3 have equally strong cases to be made.  By a study of "what the Scriptures say on the issue" I mean what they say fairly explicitly on the matter without taking everything said in the Bible and drawing lots of inferences (e.g. that God is loving, loving in the Scriptures entails this and that, etc.)

So what to think?  Well one could be agnostic on the matter.  The Bible just isn't clear so, who knows. But perhaps we can do better.

Here are some alternative ways one might come down on one side of the issue:
1. As I previously alluded to, consider what the Bible says as a whole about other things (love, justice, God's nature, etc.) and derive some probabilistic conclusions from premises from what else we know from Scripture.
2. Take into account what we know about God through personal experience.
3. Consider philosophical arguments about the nature of God, perfect justice, perfect love, punishment, etc.  In short, invoke perfect being theology.
4. Consider the weight of tradition and the fact that the Church is the "pillar and ground of truth" [this might be a species of 1 and 3 so for this post I'll ignore it]

It appears that options 2 and 3 are off the table (and perhaps 1 as well) for my friend Preston Sprinkle.  In a recent series of posts on the issue of hell he says:

Animal Euthanasia and Annihilationism

If my dog would've lived another minute or two, I would have euthanized him.  "Big Dread" (or The Clean Cut Artist Formerly Known as Big Dread) points out that there is a seeming conflict between thinking one can euthanize one's dog out of love and an argument I gave against annihilationism here.

Whereas I see no formal contradiction, Big Dread aptly points out a tension.  If euthanizing one's dog who is suffering can be a loving action, then why think that God's annihilating someone cannot also be an act of love? 

Here is, then, an argument that annihilation can be a loving action:

1. Killing a dog is bringing about the dog's nonexistence.
2. Bringing about something's nonexistence is relevantly similar to annihilation such that there's no moral difference.
3. Loving is a moral action.
4. Killing a dog can be a loving action.
5. Thus, annihilating can be a loving action.

I accept 1.  A dog cannot survive death except by resurrection.  If a dog is resurrected it will have a "gappy" existence.  I also accept 2 and 3.  4 is the questionable premise.

Can I love my dog by killing my dog?

A Short Argument Against Annihilationism from the Death of Infants

1. Infants who die aren't annihilated. (premise)
2. Thus, probably no one who dies is annihilated. (induction)

Of course there may be other reasons that raise the probability for annihilation of some over infants (who have no faith); but if annihilation can be good for someone and an act of justice, love, and mercy, and infants have done nothing to merit an eternal reward and they lack faith, one wonders why there is so much confidence that 1 is true.

7th Day Adventist Spambot and Blog Statistics

In the two and a half months of this humble blog's existence, it has received 3691 page views--not bad at all, but I'm nowhere near being able to take over the world.

My guess from all the statistics provided is that there have been anywhere between 150-200 unique visitors and there are probably about 50-60 regular visitors.

There have been 67 comments (probably 1/2 of which are my own).

Most interesting statistic: Of the four people who I don't know that have commented, three of them have been against my annihilationism posts (some making it to my Gmail but not making it to the blog and one just last night)!

How do these people keep finding this blog?!  (Look, I'm happy to have them visit, but I'm just curious how they are finding it!!)

Another Argument For Annihilationism

Here is an argument for Annihilationism which might be used to try to avoid denying the following love principle:

L:  Any action of God's towards someone S who can be loved must be consistent with that act being an act of love towards S.

And the argument also tries to avoid the problems I've mentioned in the previous posts with annihilation being an unloving [non-loving] action towards someone (by adopting premise 7 below).

1. There is someone S who God knows would forever reject him.
2. If God knows S would forever reject him, at some point S becomes incapable of receiving God's love.
3. If 2 and 3, then at some point S can in no way be loved by God.
4. Thus, at some point S can in no way be loved by God. [from 1, 2, 3]
5. But if at some point S can in no way be loved by God, then God could act towards S in a way that is unloving.
6. Thus God could act towards S in a way that is unloving. [from 4, 5]
7. The annihilation of S would be an action towards S that is unloving.
8. Thus God could annihilate S. [from 6,7]

The first thing to say about the argument is that it doesn't go on to say that God would annihilate S.  One could argue that God would because he does on Scriptural grounds, but I find the Scriptural arguments for annihilationism no stronger than arguments for either universal salvation or the traditional view of everlasting punishment.  And I'm not interested in debating that here.

One might be able to get to the "would" from the "could" on utilitarian grounds, but utilitarianism is false, and I don't want to argue about that either.

I think probably the thing to say is that justice simply demands it, but I wouldn't know how to argue for that in such a way as to rule out the live possibility of both universalism and the traditional view without giving up the above argument.  (Of course one could also reject 7 in the argument, but I've previously said why I think that is incoherent).  So let me just talk about the two premises that I find problematic.

Why think 2 is true?  It seems to confuse the temporal with the modal.  For why couldn't it be the case that someone forever freely chooses to reject God all the while being capable of accepting God?

Premise 3 is also highly suspect.  Why think a deep, unrequited love is not possible?  

C.S. Lewis's Annihilationism

In C.S. Lewis's Great Divorce (as well as other writings) Lewis seems to entertain a kind of annihilationism.  But the occupation of hell and the sort of annihilation which occurs, according to Lewis is voluntary:

There are only two kinds of people – those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done’ to God or those to whom God in the end says, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell choose it… No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.’

As Lewis sees things (or at least as the "narrator" of The Great Divorce sees things), hell is a place of punishment where people ultimately choose to go.  And out of God's grace, God allows people to continue to do their own will after they die.  The punishment is a natural result of refusing to submit one's own will to the will of God. The illustrations he presents are meant to show that doing our own will apart from God's leads to a road of destruction.  And it is we who willfully bring that destruction upon ourselves.

The road to destruction comes in degrees.  Lewis, it would seem, has in mind man as a "rational animal"--humans are animals with a capacity of reason having both an intellect and a will to choose among various ends.  But the rational element is something that can not only gradually be lost but completely lost, leaving behind the mere animal.  The following illustration of a lady who "grumbles" captures the view nicely:

     "Aye, but ye misunderstand me. The question is whether she is a grumbler, or only a grumble. If there is a real woman-even the least trace of one-still there inside the grumbling, it can be brought to life again. If there's one wee spark under all those ashes, we'll blow it till the whole pile is red and clear. But if there's nothing but ashes we'll not go on blowing them in our own eyes forever. They must be swept up."
     "But how can there be a grumble without a grumbler?"
     "The whole difficulty of understanding Hell is that the thing to be understood is so nearly Nothing. But ye'll have had experiences . . . it begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps criticising it. And yourself, in a dark hour, may will that mood, embrace it. Ye can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticise the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine." 

On this account there is the person (let's call her), Nancy, and through habitual grumbling, grumbling becomes her sole pursuit.  Through years of succumbing to her desire to grumble, her one and only end becomes to grumble.  But then with only one end (Lewis seems to be suggesting), there is nothing else to choose and all she can do is fulfill her animalistic impulse to grumble.  

Thus spoke Lewis.  But what exactly are we to make of Nancy?  I'll assume Nancy was once a person and that the animal that remains is not a person.  So Nancy was a person, and a person presumably has an ability to choose to act on desires other than merely animalistic ones.  Did she cease to exist or is she now a mere animal?  Lewis seems to leave us with the following options w/respect to what we should think of Nancy:
1. Nancy ceases to be and all that remains is an animal not identical to Nancy or 
2. Nancy (the once rational- animal) becomes a mere animal.  

This raises numerous questions.  Here are six:  (a) Is a change of this sort possible? (b) Even if it is possible for this kind of change to occur (say, by God), do I have the kind of nature such that it's possible that I could annihilate myself?  (c) If this is possible, would God allow it?  (d) Is Lewis committing himself to the view that animals are basically machines?  (e) Why would the "grumble itself going on forever like a machine" not be "mercy-killed"?  Why would it go on forever?  (f) Is it the nature of a (mere) animal to live forever (Aquinas thought not) or does it take a special miracle for it to live forever?

Here I will briefly pursue only the first question and will not come down on a definitive answer.

Adopting 2 has the following consequence: If a human is a rational-animal, then Nancy would not be essentially human, for Nancy could become an animal with no capacity for reason or free choice.  We will thus have to adopt one of the following neither of which is intuitively plausible:
3. One can have a human nature while not having any capacity for rationality 
4. Kinds of things such as I am are not essentially human 

Adopting 1, though, also has a theoretical cost, for we will have to adopt one of the following:
5. Nancy was never a living organism (and thus not an animal) in the first place, for Nancy ceases to be but the organism remains (she was a person with psychological properties not identical with all of the properties of the organism) .
6. Nancy was an organism but one which was once co-located with the animal organism that continues to exist after she ceases to be. 

Out of those possibilities 3 and 5 seem to me more plausible than 4 and 6.  But perhaps the best option would be to reject the view of annihilationism that Lewis was entertaining.  Or perhaps there are other options I haven't pondered.

An Argument for Annihilationism

In the previous post I offered an argument against annihilationism.

In an email conversation, a friend called into question my premise two, and in its place offered the following argument (all the premises of which he did not fully endorse):

1.  The finally unrepentant are hopelessly lost, because they have irrevocably rejected God.
2.  God is the ultimate source of flourishing.  

2*  If y loves x, then (among other things) either y promotes x's flourishing or acts to prevent x's languishing.

3.  The finally unrepentant thus have no chance of flourishing in a robust sense.  (That is, apart from merely existing and (perhaps) possessing free will, they are profoundly languishing.)
4.  From 2*, if God loves the unrepentant and knows that they cannot possibly flourish in a robust sense, then God will act to prevent their languishing.
5.  There are two ways to prevent this languishing: (1) Remove their free will and force them to love him, or (2) annihilate them.
6.  Losing one's free will is a fate worse than annihilation.
7.  So, God annihilates the finally unrepentant.

This argument in some ways brings to mind ideas that C.S. Lewis entertains in The Great Divorce.  But more on that in a future post on the subject.

I find premise 5 initially problematic.  Perhaps one could be forced to love someone with a defective kind of love, but not with the perfect kind of love which Christianity teaches is a constituent of the human end.  (Moreover, if one could remove the free will to prevent languishing, presumably one could prevent the person from ever reaching such a hopeless state in the first place calling into question premise 1.)

Sub-conclusion 3 is also suspect, at least as "robust flourishing" is parenthetically cashed out.  Perhaps hell consists in some flourishing beyond the mere possessing of free will (perhaps it consists in exercising free will for some finite goods, knowledge of God, playing a role in God's just plan for the world, having some desires satisfied even if other desires are not, etc.).  I expect to say about this in a future post.

Premise 6 might be incoherent.  It seems to presume that annihilation is an action I can undergo being done to me--an action that can be "enjoyed" by me (relative to suffering).  But my annihilation is not something that happens to me just as the ex nihilo creation of the universe is not something that happens to the universe.  The universe does not change or have anything good or bad done to it when it is created ex nihilo. It simply comes into being.  Similarly with annihilation.  I do not change when annihilated--perhaps the universe changes from having me in it to not having me in it, but I neither acquire nor lose any properties if annihilated.  I simply cease to exist.  So annihilation can be neither good nor bad for me.  But since it cannot be a good for me it cannot be an action of love toward me.  

For that reason in rejecting 6 I also reject 2*.  One can only love someone by preventing his languishing if the languishing for that person is replaced by something positively good for that person.  

But suppose I'm the communist, Stalin.  Might the act of annihilating me be an act of love towards someone else such that God might do it?

Having few Calvinist bones in my body (i.e. zero), I believe God treats none of his creatures as mere means (nor would he).  But God would not be using me as a mere means if he annihilated me, so that line of response won't work.

We can admit that surely someone else's ceasing to experience the pain I'm causing them and instead experiencing tranquility would be good for them.  I think the proper thing to say is that God could just as well isolate me from the ones I'm harming while still willing what is good for me as well.  And it is surely plausible that it would not only be good for them but also good for me to be isolated from them (for it would be good for me do something other than hurting them).  Suffice it to say for now that I think God's nature is such that he wills only what is good for each of his creatures, so annihilating any of them is not a viable option for God.  Whatever hell amounts to, though unpleasant, it must be a product of not only divine justice but divine love for its inhabitant.  But it would be good to have an argument for these latter claims.

An Argument Against Annihilationism

I recently tried this argument out against the view that the ultimately unrepentant are annihilated.  I take for granted in the first premise that God in a deep sense is love and as such all of his actions must be understood as loving ones.

1. Any action of God's towards some x (who can be an object of love) must be consistent with God's loving x.

2. If y loves x (among other things) y promotes some good G for x (e.g. desires G for x/intends G for x/brings about G for x, etc).

3. One cannot promote any goods for x if x does not exist.

4. If x is annihilated then x does not exist.

5. If x does not exist, then there are no goods for x for y to promote for x.

6. Thus, annihilating x is inconsistent with loving x.
7. Thus, God would not annihilate x.

I think probably the initial reaction will be to reject 5: An action of removing your pain, suffering, or languishing is consistent with loving you and annihilating you would do the trick. Annihilation, in such a case, would be a good for me.

Reply: It is only good for me to have my pain removed if I PERSIST through the pain being removed from me.  There is no good FOR ME being promoted at time T if my pain and I both go out of existence simultaneously at T. My annihilation is not a good for me, for I cease to exist simultaneously with my being annihilated.  Just as it makes no sense to think that there are any goods for me to be promoted before I exist, so too it makes no sense to think that there are goods for me when I cease to exist.  And the annihilation of me is my ceasing to exist.  (I assume that my existence is not vague and there is no process I undergo of being annihilated.  Annihilation is an action taken such that I no longer exist, it's not a process I could "enjoy"  undergoing.)

I'm not fully satisfied with this response.  If I go out of existence, it could be argued that my legacy is something which is a good for me, and one could promote my legacy even if I went out of existence.  ("That Tully sure was a great guy!")  Further, one could honor me with a proper burial of my body, if, say, I went out of existence at death.  Still, perhaps we should think that in such cases these actions are in no way goods in my life, and one who believed I truly went out of existence should not think that these actions are really goods for me.  These actions are not actions of loving me (I don't exist), but they are actions done out of love for the memory of me.  People could no longer love me---since there is no me to love--but they could love their memory of me.  Or perhaps such actions are done out of love for my family or loved ones.  Or perhaps they are done out of love for me in one's mind, but they are not loving actions of the extra-mental me (who has ceased to exist).