Questioning Eternal Hell (Part 2)

Questioning Eternal Hell (Part 2) 

Last week We began a series of reflections in which I invite us to question the notion of Eternal Hell. 

Most of the thoughts in these sermons are taken from a book by David Bentley Hart called “That All May Be Saved”.  David Bentley Hart  believes that traditional teachings on eternal hell undermine every other claim that Christians make about God, most especially the central idea that God is love.  David Bentley Hart not only critiques the teaching on Eternal Hell from a Biblical Perspective, he also tackles it from the perspective or moral philosophy. 

One of the moral arguments against the doctrine of eternal hell is that these teachings are psychologically damaging.

Illustrating this in a very vivid way, David Bentley Hart tells the story of his friends’ son who  was only around seven or eight years old at the time.  It was just a year before this that the young boy had been diagnosed as having Asperger’s syndrome. He was an extremely intelligent child, shy,  gentle and quiet, although on occasion he could be emotionally volatile – as tends to be the case with many children classified as being “on the spectrum”.  David Bentley Hart reminds us that such children, are often intensely sensitive to, and largely defenceless against extreme experiences: crowds, loud noises, overwhelming sensory stimulation of any kind, but also pronounced imaginative, emotional and moral dissonances. 

And so writes David Bentley Hart, it should have surprised no-one when he fell into a state of panic for three days, and then into an extended period of depression, after attending the families local Roman Catholic Parish Church when a visiting priest happened to mention the eternity of hell in a sermon. 

His reaction however did surprise his parents who realised that up until that point, the little boy had never really absorbed the traditional Christian teaching on eternal damnation. But now having heard it preached explicitly in a sermon, the little boy had fallen into a deep anguish and despair. David Bentley Hart writes that “All at once he found himself imprisoned in a universe of absolute horror, and nothing could calm him down down until his father finally succeeded in convincing him that the visiting priest had been repeating lies  for the sole purpose of terrorising people into submission.” 

This helped the little boy regain his composure, but not his willingness to go back to church. If his parents even so much as suggested the possibility to him, he would slip away into a narrow space where they could not reach him.  Soon they came to see the whole matter from his perspective. And as a result they made the conscious decision to not go back to church except on odd occasions as guests to a few weddings. And since that time, as a result of coming to understand their son’s reasons for not wanting to go back to church, they too have long since lost any interest in doing so either.  

It should go without saying that such a story could have taken place in any number of different Protestant Churches.  The teaching on eternal hell is by no means unique to Catholicism. In fact there are quite a number of Protestant Churches who seem to specialise in the subject, and many other’s who subscribe to the doctrine, but, because of the horror of its teaching, actually very seldom speak of it. 

David Bentley Hart writes that to him at least it seems obvious that this story is more than sufficient evidence of the spiritual bankruptcy of the traditional concept of eternal hell.  He suggests that another description for a “spectrum” child’s “exaggerated emotional sensitivity” might simply be “acute moral intelligence”.  It is precisely because a child on the spectrum lack’s strong emotional protection and coping mechanisms that such children may be unable to sufficiently shield themselves from the true horror of traditional teachings on eternal hell.  Such a child’s response should be like the warning of a canary in a coal-mine that traditional teachings on eternal hell are leading us into morally and psychologically dangerous territory. 

And so one of the moral arguments against the doctrine of eternal hell is the potential it carries with it for real psychological harm: Belief in eternal hell can instil fear, guilt, and anxiety in individuals instilling deep within them the sense that the universe is a profoundly unsafe place and that the very source of life is profoundly dangerous. This deeply indoctrinated fear may lead to psychological distress which can be detrimental to a persons mental well-being.  While I believe that such an underlying psychological distress is in fact experienced by many Christians, if not for themselves then for their loved one’s, I can only talk with authority from my own experience.  In my early 20’s I found myself sliding into a deep depression when confronted with the injustices of the Apartheid system in South Africa and the recognition that my relatively privileged life as a white South African had been built on the unjust treatment of the majority of the South African population. Recognising the depth of my own complicity in that system, I was faced with a crisis of faith. And at the root of that crisis of faith was a deep fear that God would disown me for all eternity. 

I have experienced first hand, the crippling psychological damage that belief in eternal hell can bring with it.  The fear of eternal hell can also have a serious impact on moral development: The concept of eternal hell may hinder moral development by fostering a fear-based compliance rather than genuine moral understanding and empathy. Morality motivated solely by fear of punishment may lack real depth and authenticity. There is an enormous difference between being motivated to behave morally out of fear and being motivated to act morally out of genuine love.  Moral action motivated by fear leads to outward compliance but quite often with an accompanying inner resentment or rebellion that seeps out in other unhealthy ways. Moral action motivated by love carry’s with it none of these secondary dangers.  

Getting back to David Bentley Hart’s story of that little boy, he writes that for most of those who hold onto a doctrine of eternal punishment, there is an utter failure in imagination, a failure to consider the utter horror of what they supposedly believe.   He says it is an utter failure to really consider what the word eternal actually means: an eternity of punishment. An eternity of suffering… never ending. Going on for infinity to infinity.  What purpose could such an infinity of suffering ever serve anyone?  Surely if God were God, then, a more compassionate option would be for God to simply snuff out the lives of the damned, as the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, rather than keep them suffering to infinity (although that options also raises moral and theological questions).  If one really thinks about it, the idea of eternal punishment is an absolutely morally reprehensible idea that makes the horror’s of the holocaust seem like child’s play by comparison. (And in putting it like that I in no way wish to diminish the true horror of the holocaust.) 

Closely related to the psychologically damaging idea that eternal hell can have on people is the fact that the concept of eternal hell does not match up to even very basic concepts of proportional justice. 

One of the most prominent moral arguments against eternal hell is that it involves infinite punishment for finite actions committed during a finite lifetime. It is completely morally disproportionate that the consequences of a limited number of actions or beliefs in a finite life-time would result in eternal torment. Infinite punishment for finite crimes committed during a finite lifetime.  It is an outrageously disproportionate sense of justice. The only conclusion that one can come to that the very concept is completely devoid of any sense of justice at all. 

And so David Bentley Hart writes that it takes an almost heroic suspension of moral intelligence to believe that a soul can earn for itself a penalty that is both eternal and just. It requires a total failure to think through what the word eternal actually means. How can a finite being committing a finite temporary sin justly earn an infinite eternal, unending torment forever and ever and ever and ever… without ever ending. He says it defies even the basics of moral thinking of people who don’t even have a particularly advanced conscience. 

In Exodus 21 we read of how an ancient and a pretty violent Hebrew people were wrestling with questions of proportional justice towards even their enemies. It is a chapter that contains those well known words: An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth, which implies that if someone took your eye out, it would be completely disproportionate to kill the person and their family in response. Rather it should be proportionate – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If such an ancient and barbaric people, inspired by God’s Spirit, can believe in proportional justice, why should we expect less of God. 

I’d like to end again with a few passages of Scripture that will keep us thinking and that may help to pose some kind of biblical counter-point to what has just been shared: 

Psalm 30:5  For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favour lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.

Matthew 18:14 So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. 

1 Timothy 4:10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe. (That is a very interesting verse. The original Greek doesn’t say, ‘only those who believe’, but ‘especially those who believe’.  It suggests that faith and trust in God’s saving purposes is helpful and beneficial, but not essential to God’s saving love. )

John 12:32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

How would it change our thinking and our being in the world if we came to believe that God’s saving purposes embraced all people, even the very worst of humanity and in the end no-one would be left out?  

Next week we will continue this exploration as we question the inherited doctrine of eternal hell or eternal lost-ness.