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Hell and the God of Justice1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Marilyn McCord Adams
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Los Angeles

Extract

Christians have often held that on the day of judgment God will condemn some persons who have disobeyed him to a hell of everlasting torment and total unhappiness from which there is no hope of escape, as a punishment for their deeds up to that time. This is not the only way that hell has been or could be conceived of, but it has been the predominant conception in the Christian church throughout much of its history and it is the one on which I shall focus in this paper.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

page 433 note 2 Christians have, especially recently, conceived of hell in a number of other ways. (a) One could maintain, for example, that men retain their stature as moral agents in the next life and that some men will be forever punished, not because their deeds on earth deserve everlasting torment, but because after death they continue to offend God in small ways and to suffer a succession of light penalties as a consequence. (b) Again, one might say that God does not subject sinners to total unhappiness forever after death, but that he merely perpetuates whatever (vicious) state of character they have when they die. (c) Or hell might consist in God's simply leaving the sinner to his own devices and paying no further attention to him. (d) Alternatively, it might be claimed that hell consists in separation from God itself and that God allows some people to be eternally separated from him, not as retribution for evil deeds, but out of respect for their freedom. Some people freely reject God in this life, preferring to persist in sinful patterns of behaviour. It is conceivable that some people should resist God forever and hence remain eternally separated from him. It might be argued that (a) and (d) are compatible with God's justice and even that (d) is compatible with God's love. But I shall not pursue these lines of argument here or examine what else could be said for or against such alternative conceptions of hell.

page 433 note 3 Translations of Anselm are from Deane's, S. N.St. Anselm: Basic Writings, La Salle, Illinois, 1962.Google Scholar Page numbers refer to that volume. This quotation is from pp. 205–6.

page 434 note 1 Evil and the God of Love, Harper and Rowe, 1966, p. 98.Google Scholar See also pp. 113–20, 183, 377–81.

page 435 note 1 Although (iii) is needed to sustain an argument for the traditional doctrine of hell from God's justice, it is difficult to reconcile (iii) with other aspects of Christian doctrine. When Anselm argues in Cur Deus Homo that no punishment is too great for one who offends against God, he is interested in establishing not only the doctrine of hell, but also the necessity of the Incarnation. After insisting that God cannot simply forgive sinners who deserve to go to hell because to do so would be contrary to his perfect justice, Anselm maintains that God can forgive sinners because of Christ's suffering—which would be to treat sinners better than they deserve. Anselm struggles with this apparent inconsistency in Proslogion, chapters 8–11, and seems to conclude that it is just for God to save sinners, because whatever God wills or does is just—i.e. because the standard of justice is not something distinct from God's will or deeds against which the must be measured, but rather is God's will itself (ch. II). In adopting this position, Anselm would obviously have to forfeit the argument of the Cur Deus Homo.

Defenders of the argument would presumably accept (ii), but there is some doubt about whether they could consistently accept (i) as a partial analysis of ‘justice’. For although both Augustine and Anselm maintain that all men deserve to go to hell, they also claim that God saves some men and not others. Hence, it seems on the face of it, that he does not treat like cases alike. For present purposes, it does not matter whether this apparent inconsistency can be resolved. For (i) is not needed to sustain the argument for the doctrine of hell from God's justice—only (iii) is. Nor is it necessary for showing the version of the doctrine of hell under consideration to be contrary to God's perfect justice—only (ii) is.

page 435 note 2 Plato, , Republic I, 334–5.Google Scholar

page 436 note 1 This objection was raised by Nelson Pike.

page 437 note 1 This example was suggested to me by Robert Merrihew Adams.

page 441 note 1 If one prefers to say that these descriptions are not descriptions of the same act but of different acts, then the question is, which of the actions that Smith will be doing if he knocks out one of Jones';s teeth, will be the morally relevant actions to consider.

page 442 note 2 Aquinas clearly supposes that we do know how to calculate quantities of harm in Summa Theologica, Prima Secundae, q. 87, a. 4.

page 443 note 1 In considering the question of whether for sin one would deserve a punishment that is infinite in quantity, Aquinas cites an argument that makes the historical background explicit. ‘2. Further, the quantity of punishment corresponds to the quantity of guilt, according to what is said in Deut. 25: 2: “The number of blows will correspond even to the measure of the sin”. But sin which is committed against God is infinite. For the sin is the more serious, as the person against whom one sins is the greater. For example, it is a more serious sin to kill a prince than to kill a private citizen. But the greatness of God is infinite. Therefore, one deserves infinite punishment for a sin that is committed against God.’ (Summa Theologica, Prima Secundae, q. 87, a. 4, arg. 2) Aquinas's comment is that ‘the argument holds good where sins of turning away [from the good] are concerned. For this is the way in which a man sins against God.’ (Ibid.)

page 444 note 1 Bourke's, Vernon J. translation in On the Truth of the Catholic Faith, Book III, Part II, Garden City: 1956, pp. 215–16.Google Scholar

page 445 note 1 Abelard takes this line in his Ethics, Book I.