After publishing my article on Eleonore Stump and her free-will vision of hell, it was my intention to follow-up with a piece addressing the oft-stated claim that because of human freedom, God permits the everlasting suffering of the damned. But I’m finding that I presently lack the energy to do the reading I need to do to write something substantive. So readers will need to be content with a few ruminations, which will hopefully provoke thought and good discussion.
God permits evil. The word permits is crucial. It is typically invoked in discussions of theodicy. Its intent is to reduce divine responsibility. But it only works if a promise of future redemption, deliverance, healing and transformation is implied. There must be a point where the permission runs out and is replaced by eschatological realization of abundant life and ecstatic joy: the victims of violence and evil must be made whole. Let’s call this the grammar of divine permission. God permits the horror of Auschwitz, the philosopher calmly states, but this permission can only be justified if
- the evil doers are judged for their crimes;
- the victims are healed and transformed in such a way that even they can say, “All is well and glorious”; and
- the terrible historical consequences are redemptively dealt with.
If the terrible wounds are never healed, if both the sin and suffering are not redeemed and transfigured, then the assertion of divine permission is just empty words.
Now note what happens when the discussion turns to the last judgment. The divine consignment to hell is itself an eschatological and final event. The damned have no salvation to look forward to that would justify the claim that God permits their interminable agonies. By definition their sufferings are irredeemable. The horrific sufferings that occur in history await Paschal transfiguration and healing; but not so for the sufferings of the damned. Their torment cannot be justified by the possibility of future redemption; there is no salvation, only interminable pain. The grammar of divine permission, therefore, no longer obtains. For the wicked hell is the eschatological conclusion of the salvific narrative. Precisely at this point the choice model of hell collapses into the retributive punishment model. When the the final chapter is written, continued, limitless, everlasting suffering is necessarily ordained by the divine author. Nor does it matter if, according to the theologians, the reprobate have “chosen” their fate. In the eschaton, God underwrites, confirms, and eternally sustains their choices and their suffering. St Bonaventure states the axiom: “God cannot permit any misery to exist in us except as a punishment of sin” (Brev. III.5.3).
Eclectic Orthodoxy 
The eschatological foreclosure on redemption makes evil final and everlasting, and thus as you say, part of divine intent. Kicking the proverbial can down the street with the free-will model of eternal damnation does not address, not even by one iota, divine culpability. What a horrendous vision of God’s moral character that is. It makes the Gospel ring very hollow.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Unbelievers have a tough enough time with logical defenses of evil.
Confronted with a free will defense of hell, un/believers SHOULD reject such a half-God.
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive. ~ Emerson
LikeLiked by 2 people
“When the the final chapter is written, continued, limitless, everlasting suffering is necessarily ordained by the divine author.”
The existence of worldly suffering is often used as defense of the permission of eternal suffering, as though they are somehow analogous. Since a good God permits excruciating, often horrifying suffering in this life, then a good God just might allow something like this forever.
Thus, the problem of evil and the stark absence of any compelling theodicy figures heavily into defenses of eternal suffering for some.
But this-world suffering and supposed “eternal suffering” are entirely different species. Beyond the obvious incommensurability of limited versus everlasting suffering, the nature and conditions of the suffering are distinct.
In life, the occurrence of great suffering is often random and occurs to the innocent. That is part of what makes it so tragic, but also what makes it apparent that it is not connected to judgement, punishment, or even reform.
Is the child born with spina bifida or epidermolysis bullosa being punished for their choices? Were the 228,000 people who drowned in the 2004 tsunami all specially selected because their families all needed to be punished with tormenting grief for their transgressions? Did my father have a long battle with terminal cancer because if choices he made? Did his family suffer in helplessly watching his decline because of choices we made?
The perennial question: “why do the evil thrive and the good suffer” demonstrates that suffering is often disconnected from one’s moral character. Some of most moral, compassionate people I have ever known were also the ones that had the greatest misery in life. They certainly weren’t rewarded for their kindness any more than “wicked” people are punished with suffering. Suffering in the world doesn’t work that way.
So, if there is continuity between suffering in life and an after-life, then the same dynamic would inhere—suffering would be largely random, and heaped on the innocent.
LikeLiked by 1 person
As Brian Moore recently wrote on another thread:
LikeLike
The question immediately arises, devil’s advocate that I am, is to what extent and by which criteria, can we use the status via as a guide to the eschatological. We can’t chuck it wholesale, there’s got to be some strand of persistence and endurance between the now and the then, so it seems to me. Otherwise we haven’t a basis for eschatological knowledge whatsoever. Participation seems to be the operative, which lands us of course in the lap of Plato.
LikeLiked by 1 person
D’accord! When in theo-doubt or confronted w/ambiguity, consistent w/my affirmation of connaturality, natural law, imago Dei, etc, my default stance is to trust our consensus evaluative dispositions, aesthetic sensibilities & moral intuitions.
So, I only accept eschatological mysterian appeals to the upside (such are the things prepared).
And I definitely reject infernalism’s eschatological ignosticism.
I recently came across a “double effect reasoning” analysis of Milton’s Paradise Lost, which was confused in some elements but not this one:
As Nagel says, “the essence of evil is that it should repel us”; ergo, “if something is evil, our actions should be guided […] toward its elimination rather than towards its maintenance.” ~Haj’jari
Stump’s account thus also fails the moral modal collapse test. We can see THAT from this side of our eschato-horizon. Also, per double effect, an eternal punishment for a finite subjective evil fails the proportionality criterion. Not to mention that we sufficiently see Abba’s character thanks to that special revelation in Jesus!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robert,
Of course, there is analogical purchase and the flourishing excess of divinized nature is both completion and surprise. Nonetheless, it appears to me that the sort of arrested development that Eleanor Stump suggests as an infernal end point amounts to a radical impairment of the cosmos. This for several reasons: 1) she substantially misses the wholeness of Being, allowing for individuals who are permanently cut off from the integral coherence of well being. 2) Stump fails to reckon upon the vitalism of life in Christ upon which every so-called “object” of intentionality is also alive with the face of Christ. The notion that one can have relations to an inert object as a kind of standing reserve is alienated from eschatological actuality. 3) Just as she has truncated the “surplus reserve” of grace from the cosmos, she has also failed to properly reckon upon the nature of person. Since there is no genuine “buffered self,” there is also no autonomous individual — that is an idol of nihilist will-to-power. The person who is capable of decision is always already a receptive being whose deepest center is God. Hence, as David Hart has speculated, Spirit in the New Testament refers identically to divinized humanity and the third Person of the Trinity, because ultimately the entire cosmos is destined to attain the fullness of what it means to be person.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Agreed Brian – indeed it is a impoverished view of the human person, and indeed of all of creation. Can person be viewed as discrete wholly other to, and thus fundamentally independent from, God? Is it even rational and coherent to see creation without terminus? Can it forever be suspended in a state where its final cause, its rationale, is nothing but itself (as the hell of freewill would have it)? I think not. Such an understanding truncates not only creation, but as it turns out, also the Creator.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“When the the final chapter is written, continued, limitless, everlasting suffering is necessarily ordained by the divine author.”
Would God still be guilty if the ‘non-heaven’ eschatological option were conceived not as a hell of self-chosen torment, but rather as a relatively happy quarantine? So some resist God forever, but not in the sense that they consciously choose to abandon God entirely, but instead opt to live a good but non-perfect afterlife? Such that they live in eternity doing good deeds and being kind overall – even praising God to some extent – but do not manage to completely free themselves from sin. Something like the ‘natural happiness’ that was supposed to be available to virtuous pagans and the unborn in limbo etc.
Now I don’t think this is metaphysically possible – the will is ultimately orientated towards God, there is nothing in principle that should stop God getting what God wants, this would still be a failure for God, there’s no reason why this choice to avoid union with God should be irrevocable, etc. But I am still interested in whether – per impossible – it would be immoral to consent to creation under those terms. i.e. it would be wrong to create if this risked eternal torment or annihilation, but what if the risk were only that some people choose to be only reasonably happy forever, rather than perfectly happy?
LikeLike
Meditation Three in TASBS: Their absence is also the absence of much of who you are. It really must be everyone or it can be no one.
LikeLike
In a way similar to the Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination, which the recently deceased Vietnamese Zen monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, called interbeing?
LikeLike
That’s a somewhat emollient take on pratitya-samutpada–literally interdependent co-origination–which is actually a metaphysical principle that tends to reduce personal identity to phenomenal coalescences of disparate forces. I like Thich Nhat Hanh, but that’s a sugar-coated reading of a very grim doctrine.
No, I mean, as I say, what I describe in the third Meditation of TASBS: that persons are constituted as who they are by complex relations of love, devotion, and reciprocity.
LikeLike
Do you consider non-human living beings a necessary constituent of the complex relations that make-up persons?
LikeLike
Of course. All living beings are part of the relations that make us persons. In the absence of all the pets I’ve loved over the years, I’m not completely myself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks DBH. You’re right of course: even if those in hell were relatively happy, nobody could truly be said to be in heaven when eternally separated from their fellow creatures.
Still, I can reframe my question to imagine, per impossible, God created in the knowledge that *nobody* would reach eschatological perfection – however, in return, *everybody* would have the kind of afterlife set out above (comfortable, happy, even relatively virtuous, just not in full union with God). Nobody is absolutely separated from one another, and everyone lives like a relatively virtuous person today, only in much more comfortable material conditions. Would it be immoral for such a god to create on these terms?
(yes I know such a god would really be a demiurge, but I think it is helpful to reflect on whether the moral argument establishes universalism conclusively, or whether more is needed. Basically, does Meditation 1 conclusively prove universalism on its own? Or does it only rule out eternal conscious torment and annihilationism, but still theoretically leaves room for the kind of loophole of ‘eternal relative happiness’ I’ve proposed? And thus if we want airtight absolute proof we need to wait for Meditation 4 to show how it is metaphysically impossible, given the transcendental orientation of the will, for any soul to failure to achieve union with God if prompted for long enough?
LikeLike
I don’t see how we can speak of “material conditions” here; analogies with the comforts of this life will not take you very far.
LikeLike
I agree that the eschatological future is unimaginable relative to the current ‘material conditions’ of this life – I don’t think the afterlife will be just a slightly improved version of our earthly existence.
But I’m just setting up a thought experiment. It would be wrong for God to create if the cost was ECT or annihilation. But would it be wrong for God to create if the cost was that no soul reached true perfection – but instead everyone lived forever with something like a prosperous and happy and kind life, but was still subject to a mild degree of sin? i.e. basically this world but where everyone is wealthy, no major crimes are committed, and nobody ever dies.
Now I don’t think that’s what will happen – God’s purposes cannot ultimately be thwarted and human nature is orientated towards the Good – but I still think it’s a moral question worth thinking about.
LikeLike
David,
Yes it would be wrong because He wouldn’t be Himself if his creative act is left incomplete; and furthermore, it would then also be incoherent for God to be All in all. How can He be in them but not quite like Him with a remainder of sin, ignorance, darkness? So no, this doesn’t fly.
LikeLike
Hi Robert! I think I’m not being clear. I agree that God not fulfilling his creative purpose would be incoherent and is foreign to orthodoxy – as you say, it would prevent God being all in all and it would mean God wasn’t himself.
I’m merely imagining that – per impossible – god were good but not the Good (i.e. a demiurge) who could choose to either 1) give rise to a world where everybody is reasonably happy and lives forever (albeit the stain of sin is not completely removed) ; or 2) have no world at all.
It’s not obvious to me that it would be immoral to consent to creation if those were the terms – or at least I don’t see how your objections show that it would be wrong.
Of course I agree with you that my proposal “wouldn’t fly” because my proposal is obviously incompatible with traditional claims about God’s nature – God cannot fail to achieve his creative purpose – but this objection is more one about power rather than morality. Yes it is metaphysically impossible for God not to achieve his creative purpose, and therefore he obviously will do so. But I’m asking whether – per impossible – God were not able to achieve his creative purpose, but could still guarantee everybody lived forever in relative (but incomplete) happiness, would it actually be a moral problem to create on those conditions?
LikeLike
It would not be immoral to create such conditions if one were to have limited power and means – imperfection is morally neutral; however, to create such when no impositions and limitations are present, then yes it would be immoral, it would mean to have desired less than the Good, and it would mean to be less than the Good.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Also, David, I agree with your conclusions re the demiurge scenario – that it would be morally defensible to create a mostly good & happy everlasting world. Your scenario has an implicit double effect moral calculus with proportionate reasons to create. I just disagree that that renders Meditation #1 insufficient. The necessary God – World relationship was already asserted there.
LikeLike
Thanks Robert. It sounds then like you’d hold that Meditation 1 is insufficient to prove universalism on it own – it rules out ECT or annihilation but it does not show it would be intrinsically wrong to create a good but imperfect world along the lines I described. Meditation 4 seals the deal however because it shows that God *does* have the power to achieve his purposes (because the structure of the will is necessarily orientated towards the good)
LikeLike
Yes that raises the stakes, doesn’t it? Intuitively this is known, and also why the problem of evil is such an abiding problem (who cares what the gods are up to!). The silver lining is that we are speaking about the God who has no equal.
LikeLike
David, I enjoyed your thought experiments & have wondered about those scenarios, too, over the years.
Meditation #1, in my understanding, suffices. While our relative goodness finitely reflects God as Absolute Goodness & Infinite Being (beyond being), and our final telos refers to divine potencies that are infinite, since “the moral destiny of creation and the moral nature of God are absolutely inseparable” (TASBS), that radical finitude must be distinguished from peccability. Any degree of sin requires purgation as all refusals to cooperate with grace involve evil parasitic existences or privations of goodness.
On its own terms, universalism might distinguish venial & grave sins and recognize some parvity of matter for certain offenses, but “mortal sin” would not successfully refer.
So, in my view, universalism refers, soteriologically, to sin, death & the beatific vision and that we’ll all be impeccable, raised to eternal well being & partake of the very same enjoyment that the Persons of the Trinity have as Each loves Each Other as well as Oneself. Hell refers, then, to the purgation of precisely those moral imperfections to which you refer.
That’s just my take.
LikeLike
Thanks John. I agree with you inasmuch that meditation 1 assumes a classical picture of God – and these classical attributes imply God ultimately gets what He wants (His purposes can be frustrated provisionally but not in the ultimate / eschatological sense)
However I’m not sure that this is particularly obvious – so, while it may in some sense be implicit in meditation 1, I’m not sure we can say that Meditation 1 alone suffices to prove universalism if we don’t include an explicit argument regarding the necessity of God achieving his ultimate purposes.
Of course you also get open theists and others who have abandoned classical theism – and, while I believe their vision is wrongheaded, it is good to see that the bulk of the argument would still hold up even to those operating on these alternative understandings of the divine.
LikeLike
Germane to the topic of this article is DBH’s recent article “Natural Evil, Moral Evil, and Universalism.” Fr Rooney has responded on his Facebook page.
LikeLike
Rooney again? Surely not. At least, if he quoted at length or in any way circulated an article issued behind a paywall, protected by copyright and not susceptible of any but the most stringent fair-use allowances, he would be committing theft of intellectual property and could be sued. How did he gain access to the article? From whom did he receive a copy? He himself is not a subscriber to the newsletter. I’d hate to think he would be so cavalier in his disregard for the law and common decency.
Alack.
LikeLike
Perhaps he’s thinking, “hey, all will be saved, so who cares about some copyright laws anyways?” 😉 Perhaps more likely just not thinking about it at all.
At first his continued retorts were amusing, now it’s gotten old, way old. I don’t think he’s getting the key issues. Is God responsible for it all, in the final end, yes or no? Is an endless suffering in an eternally abiding evil coherent while God is good and the good? Yes or no? It is that plain and simple, really.
LikeLike
Yes, it’s that simple. But that’s religion for you, I suppose. Even the obvious isn’t obvious if you’re told all your life that getting it wrongs means endless misery.
LikeLike
Yes, quite right, that’s religion for you.
I know it’s a bit of a cliché observation, but while there is obvious overlap, religion is in many ways rather distinct from what one may call “spirituality.”
How can anyone in such a tradition truly feel free to genuinely explore other ideas and cultural expressions when, as you say, “getting it wrong means endless misery.”
Nothing fosters curiosity and exploration like the ever-looming threat of eternal torture!
LikeLike
Ah, I see that Rooney has had a bit of a tantrum over the matter. He seems to think the article is about him, though he’s mentioned only once in passing, and all the article says about him is that he has failed to master the book’s arguments or his own responses. I feel now I should have said something vicious.
Al, I know that Rooney is sort of a convenient figure for universalists, because he argues very badly and doesn’t grasp how horrifying some of what he says must seem to a healthily developed mind. He makes a kind of compelling case for universalism sub contrario. But I also think one has to be careful. As more than one of the commentators here has noted, there’s something wrong with him–or with the way he sees reality and the way he behaves. I’ve asked in private but now I’ll ask here: please consider not constantly linking to him or engaging him here. There are others worth arguing with. Invite an intellectually and temperamentally competent defender of hellfire to make a case; I’m sure Jerry Walls would be willing to oblige.
With Rooney, it comes too close to the exploitation of someone’s personality rather than a debate. He’s had his fifteen minutes, and I don’t think they were very good for him.
LikeLike
David, you know my reasons why I cannot make any such promises. Please don’t ask again.
LikeLike
No I don’t know at all. But I won’t ask again. I still think it’s more of a psychological tar-pit than I can quite convey. But maybe my apprehensions are exaggerated.
LikeLike
Apparently I’ve transgressed in some way by pointing out what looked like a blatant violation of Fair Use, but if this offended your sense of decorum, please believe that offense was unintentional, Fr. Kimel.
I regretted the snarky last one at once. Since I don’t know how to reach you for a private appeal, I couldn’t ask you to pitch it.
LikeLiked by 1 person