Hell: Getting What'S Good My Own Way
HELL: GETTING WHAT'S GOOD MY OWN WAY
Stewart Goetz
Consider one way people think about the doctrine of hell. They assume the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth found in Deut 19:21 and look for an immoral deed or deeds for which the proportionate and just punishment is hell.1 To illustrate the idea they have in mind, suppose that there is a man named “Smith” who makes another individual named “Jones” unhappy for every moment of the latter's 70-year life and that Jones never “gets even” with Smith, who lives out his years with more than his fair share of happiness. On the eye-for-an-eye principle, God should make Smith unhappy to the same degree and for as long as Jones was unhappy, which was for 70 years. Suppose now that Smith not only made Jones unhappy for 70 years but also made a million other people unhappy for various lengths of time. On the eye-for-an-eye principle, God should sum up the years of unhappiness caused by Smith and make him unhappy to the same degree as everyone else and for the same cumulative amount of time.
I will leave it to the reader to consider other examples like the one I have just elaborated. Some believe that a problem with thinking of hell in accordance with the eye-for-an-eye principle is that no matter how much unhappiness Smith causes it will always be finite in amount and he will deserve to be unhappy for only a finite period of time. There seems to be no way to make sense out of the idea of someone's going to hell forever if it is thought of in terms of the eye-for-an-eye principle. This implication has led to thought about whether the eye-for-an-eye principle is itself a principle of punishment that is second-best in nature. After all, even in this life there is no way of guaranteeing that the person whose punishment is the loss of an eye or a foot will be deprived of the same amount of good as his victim who lost an eye or foot. Eyes and feet are sources of pleasure, and it is questionable to think that the amount of pleasure one person gets from his intact eyes and feet equals the amount of pleasure that another gets from his. Even if there were some way to ascertain how much pleasure the victim would lose from the loss of his eyes and feet, we have no way of making sure that we could produce an equal amount of loss of pleasure in the person being punished. Moreover, there is no evidence of the literal application of the eye-for-an-eye principle in the Old Testament except in the form of life for life, and many biblical scholars believe that the Israelites used the eye-for-an-eye principle to express the abstract idea of commensurability and to discourage abuses of justice. If these scholars are right, the eye-for-an-eye principle is not the perfect principle of justice in the literal sense of its application but rather a good way of limiting injustice in a world where there never is or can be perfect justice.
Are there principles other than “an eye for an eye” in terms of which to think about the doctrine of hell? Some have suggested that what a person deserves for wrongdoing is a function of the offended party's worthiness of honor.2 Because God is infinite, He is worthy of infinite honor (whatever that might mean), where God's honor consists in His creatures being subject to Him or to His will. A person incurs infinite guilt by a single act of refusing to be subject to God or to His will. But could such an act justify God's consigning someone to hell forever? It is hard to see how it could. Surely one such act or some finite number of such acts could not rob God of an infinite amount of honor.
Does the idea of hell become any more intelligible if we think of it in terms of God's happiness instead of His honor? It is hard to see how it does. After all, while a creature's wrongdoing might make God unhappy, it is difficult to believe that it can produce in Him an infinite amount of unhappiness such that the creature deserves to be sent to hell to suffer an infinite number of years of unhappiness. Moreover, many believe that it is impossible for a creature to make God unhappy because He is not subject to changes of passion of any kind (God, it is said, is impassible).3 Hence, no one could be sent to hell for making God unhappy.
Is hell, then, not something a person deserves because of any amount of harm that is actually done to other fellow creatures or to God but something that is deserved because of what a person intends (or tries) to do? But what might a person intend to do that would deserve an eternity of hell? Can a person intend to make someone else (another human being or God) unhappy forever? It is difficult to understand what a person might be thinking who believed that this was within the scope of his power. After all, a person can only intend to do what he believes he can do, and given he understands that he cannot prevent someone else from choosing to lay hold of perfect happiness, he likewise understands that he cannot intend to make someone else unhappy forever.
Is there any principle in terms of which hell is just? I believe there is, and while my purpose in this chapter is not to reconstruct C. S. Lewis's position on hell, I will at many points draw on his insights into the matter in developing my own account of hell. Christians sometimes ask me who I think was closest to getting it right about issues that are important to the Christian faith. I always answer “C. S. Lewis,” and I have found his treatment of the doctrine of hell more persuasive than that of anyone else.
When Lewis put pen to paper about hell, he said that he detested the doctrine from the bottom of his heart. He also stated that he believed it. His reasons for doing so were deeply rooted in Western philosophy and Christian thought about the concepts of what is good, freedom of the will, and the meaning or purpose of life. I begin with the idea of what is good.