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).
I took you to be arguing against the infinite badness of rejecting God at this point, the acceptance of which would seem to defeat the intuition.
People who accept the existence of Hell could coherently accept the intuition that they'd find the realization you describe appalling. But people who believe that rejecting God is infinitely bad could not. (At least assuming that they find horrific crimes against many humans in the mortal sphere only finitely bad.)
> 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.
This is kinda like a deontologist refuting utilitarianism by saying "but suppose that killing Dylan is wrong regardless of the consequences". Then utilitarianism is wrong!
Yes, but you can't just assume the contrary of general postulation (A) to refute (B) you gotta have some sorta argumentation for (A).
Definitely doesn't "destroy all credibility", the other arguments are pretty airtight. Hell is obviously an evil concept. But this one argument doesn't work.
Mr. Bulldog, please explain to me how you can "conceive" of an infalliable diety that is also falliable. I suppose anyone can dream up a contradiction in terms, but if that was a valid basis for argumentation, argument would be quite absurd.
I very much cannot imagine there being a good reason for a being that does not condemn true believers to hell to condemn true believers to hell. The whole point is that the infinite suffering of hell is a product of going against god.
Now I’m going to assume that “primer number” is a typo for prime number and not some bespoke type of number I don’t know about. If that’s the case, then the whole point of the proof by contradiction is that what we try to imagine is absurd nonsense.
So your argument, at best, shows that if it were logically possible for god to send an undeserving person to hell, then a view of god would have problems. This is not very remarkable.
Does "infernalism" denote only a belief within Christianity? Buddhism traditionally includes a belief in hell realms but not a belief in a creator god.
Buddhist hell realms are not traditionally regarded as eternal, so presumably this would not count as a form of infernalism. But that doesn't mean infernalism is exclusively Christian; most Muslims are infernalists, though there are exceptions in the tradition (such as Ibn Taymiyyah).
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.
Thanks for considering my view intellectually credible!
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).
Just because they could deny it, doesn't mean it's question begging. It appeals to a very plausible and widely held intuition!
Yes, a very plausible intuition that people only have because they hold the belief that you're using the intuition to support.
But I think even people who accept hell would be uncomfortable accepting this. It can help to draw out why the belief in hell is so appalling.
I took you to be arguing against the infinite badness of rejecting God at this point, the acceptance of which would seem to defeat the intuition.
People who accept the existence of Hell could coherently accept the intuition that they'd find the realization you describe appalling. But people who believe that rejecting God is infinitely bad could not. (At least assuming that they find horrific crimes against many humans in the mortal sphere only finitely bad.)
> 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.
This is a thought experiment that is obviously conceivable.
This is kinda like a deontologist refuting utilitarianism by saying "but suppose that killing Dylan is wrong regardless of the consequences". Then utilitarianism is wrong!
Yes, but you can't just assume the contrary of general postulation (A) to refute (B) you gotta have some sorta argumentation for (A).
Definitely doesn't "destroy all credibility", the other arguments are pretty airtight. Hell is obviously an evil concept. But this one argument doesn't work.
Ghkk
Mr. Bulldog, please explain to me how you can "conceive" of an infalliable diety that is also falliable. I suppose anyone can dream up a contradiction in terms, but if that was a valid basis for argumentation, argument would be quite absurd.
You could imagine the being having a good reason to condemn a true believer in hell.
It's just like imagining that there are finite prime numbers to prove there are infinite primer numbers.
I very much cannot imagine there being a good reason for a being that does not condemn true believers to hell to condemn true believers to hell. The whole point is that the infinite suffering of hell is a product of going against god.
Now I’m going to assume that “primer number” is a typo for prime number and not some bespoke type of number I don’t know about. If that’s the case, then the whole point of the proof by contradiction is that what we try to imagine is absurd nonsense.
So your argument, at best, shows that if it were logically possible for god to send an undeserving person to hell, then a view of god would have problems. This is not very remarkable.
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.
Buddhist hell realms are not traditionally regarded as eternal, so presumably this would not count as a form of infernalism. But that doesn't mean infernalism is exclusively Christian; most Muslims are infernalists, though there are exceptions in the tradition (such as Ibn Taymiyyah).
Naraka is not eternal, and also Buddhism seems neutral at best about souls ending up in Naraka.