Loved this post! You are totally right about the problem with hell. I don't think God plans to send people to a place to be tormented forever. But he is seeking people who would like to be in relationship with him, and those who would like to be free from the awful corruption that plagues us. You mentioned those who were supportive of Hitler, and those who gleefully celebrate the torment of souls in hell. I'm glad you recognize the evil in those people. Matthew, you're probably one of the most sweet, thoughtful, and moral people I know. But I know that corruption lurks inside you as well. Have you found that corruption in yourself yet?
I think infernalism is a more-or-less entirely unserious option. The only real alternative to universalism is annihilationism, which (though I think it's false) is at least intellectually credible: on annihilationism, God isn't tormenting those who reject him, he simply declines to reward them with eternal life.
It also raises some interesting puzzles about how we relate to speech.
For instance, usually people try and define hate speech (by which I mean the informal concept of speech we see as awful enough in a certain way to deserve social ostracism) in terms of asserting horrible/demeaning/etc statements about some identity group, e.g., a religion. But if that definition were correct than we should regard any infernalist religion as inherently expressing the most extreme form of hate speech imaginable. After all, if asserting that "polytheists deserve to die" is bad than isn't asserting that they deserve to spend an eternity in torment even worse?
Obviously, the answer is that what we see as hateful speech isn't really just about the literal content but noticing that is important.
"Finding out that your child is the most prolific criminal in American history shouldn’t come as good news. But on this account, finding this out does decrease the odds that they’ll reject God, which is a crime infinitely worse than merely torturing, killing, and raping 5,000 people. So you should be all things considered relieved. But clearly you shouldn’t be."
Introducing intuitions like your last sentence as premises is clearly question-begging. If I suppose that rejecting God really is infinitely bad, then it's intuitively clear that I ought to feel relieved. Of course, I have the same intuition as you do, and clearly the reason I have it is precisely that rejecting God isn't infinitely bad (in fact, it's usually very good).
> Suppose additionally that a particular acceptor of Jesus will be wrongly sentenced to hell.
lol what. This is an utterly insane statement. In my mind it destroys your credibility. The whole point is they it is utterly impossible for someone to be “wrongly” sentenced to hell.
Does "infernalism" denote only a belief within Christianity? Buddhism traditionally includes a belief in hell realms but not a belief in a creator god.
Loved this post! You are totally right about the problem with hell. I don't think God plans to send people to a place to be tormented forever. But he is seeking people who would like to be in relationship with him, and those who would like to be free from the awful corruption that plagues us. You mentioned those who were supportive of Hitler, and those who gleefully celebrate the torment of souls in hell. I'm glad you recognize the evil in those people. Matthew, you're probably one of the most sweet, thoughtful, and moral people I know. But I know that corruption lurks inside you as well. Have you found that corruption in yourself yet?
I think infernalism is a more-or-less entirely unserious option. The only real alternative to universalism is annihilationism, which (though I think it's false) is at least intellectually credible: on annihilationism, God isn't tormenting those who reject him, he simply declines to reward them with eternal life.
It also raises some interesting puzzles about how we relate to speech.
For instance, usually people try and define hate speech (by which I mean the informal concept of speech we see as awful enough in a certain way to deserve social ostracism) in terms of asserting horrible/demeaning/etc statements about some identity group, e.g., a religion. But if that definition were correct than we should regard any infernalist religion as inherently expressing the most extreme form of hate speech imaginable. After all, if asserting that "polytheists deserve to die" is bad than isn't asserting that they deserve to spend an eternity in torment even worse?
Obviously, the answer is that what we see as hateful speech isn't really just about the literal content but noticing that is important.
"Finding out that your child is the most prolific criminal in American history shouldn’t come as good news. But on this account, finding this out does decrease the odds that they’ll reject God, which is a crime infinitely worse than merely torturing, killing, and raping 5,000 people. So you should be all things considered relieved. But clearly you shouldn’t be."
Introducing intuitions like your last sentence as premises is clearly question-begging. If I suppose that rejecting God really is infinitely bad, then it's intuitively clear that I ought to feel relieved. Of course, I have the same intuition as you do, and clearly the reason I have it is precisely that rejecting God isn't infinitely bad (in fact, it's usually very good).
> Suppose additionally that a particular acceptor of Jesus will be wrongly sentenced to hell.
lol what. This is an utterly insane statement. In my mind it destroys your credibility. The whole point is they it is utterly impossible for someone to be “wrongly” sentenced to hell.
Does "infernalism" denote only a belief within Christianity? Buddhism traditionally includes a belief in hell realms but not a belief in a creator god.
Does "infernalism" denote only a belief within Christianity? Buddhism traditionally includes a belief in hell realms not a belief in a creator god.