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A Case for Hell?
Tuesday, 26 April 2011 09:19 pmI mostly agree with the argument that Ross Douthat puts forth in his New York Times editorial, A Case for Hell, with two major exceptions:
1. Douthat writes:
And demonstrably, there are accounts of the reality of human choices which are open to atheists (and, I would argue, to universalist theists). Atheists are not all--or even mostly, or even signficantly--the fatalistic nihilists that sometimes theists might paint them as. Even if they don't believe that the world has intrinsic meaning (and it's hardly automatic that they would so disbelieve), that doesn't mean that our lives as lived are meaningless. Douthat even makes a feint towards recognizing this en passant: "Hell means the Holocaust, the suffering in Haiti, and all the ordinary 'hellmouths' (in the novelist Norman Rush’s resonant phrase) that can open up beneath our feet." But he then retreats to the tired trope (particularly beloved of conservative Catholics) that meaning simply can't exist in the absence of a particular religious doctrine (here, hell).
As they say in Joss Whedon's television show Angel (in the episode "Epiphany"):
2. Just because we are free to say no to paradise--and, assuming for the moment there is a paradise to say no to, I agree with Douthat that we are so free; grace is resistable--doesn't mean that anyone has actually chosen or will choose that option. It's a logical possibility, not a practical necessity. This is, as far as I can tell second-hand, the implicit argument behind Rob Bell's controversial Love Wins, and it's my position as well. To claim that Hell is empty is to step beyond our human knowledge and usurp the Judgment which is God's alone, but the same is true of saying that Hell isn't empty. No number of appeals to the depravity of a Hitler or--and this is Douthat's innovation--Tony Soprano is going to change that.
1. Douthat writes:
Atheists have license to scoff at damnation, but to believe in God and not in hell is ultimately to disbelieve in the reality of human choices. If there’s no possibility of saying no to paradise then none of our no’s have any real meaning either. They’re like home runs or strikeouts in a children’s game where nobody’s keeping score.I'm not quite sure where this special license for atheists "to scoff at damnation" comes from. If there being a God but no hell denies "the reality of human choices" then how exactly does disbelieving in God solve the problem? It would seem that any account of the reality of human choices open to the atheist should also be open to the theist.
And demonstrably, there are accounts of the reality of human choices which are open to atheists (and, I would argue, to universalist theists). Atheists are not all--or even mostly, or even signficantly--the fatalistic nihilists that sometimes theists might paint them as. Even if they don't believe that the world has intrinsic meaning (and it's hardly automatic that they would so disbelieve), that doesn't mean that our lives as lived are meaningless. Douthat even makes a feint towards recognizing this en passant: "Hell means the Holocaust, the suffering in Haiti, and all the ordinary 'hellmouths' (in the novelist Norman Rush’s resonant phrase) that can open up beneath our feet." But he then retreats to the tired trope (particularly beloved of conservative Catholics) that meaning simply can't exist in the absence of a particular religious doctrine (here, hell).
As they say in Joss Whedon's television show Angel (in the episode "Epiphany"):
Angel: Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters... , then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. I fought for so long, for redemption, for a reward, and finally just to beat the other guy, but I never got it.Or, to put it another way, just try telling the little children playing baseball that the fact that nobody's keeping score means their game doesn't matter.
Kate Lockley: And now you do?
Angel: Not all of it. All I wanna do is help. I wanna help because, I don't think people should suffer as they do. Because, if there's no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.
Kate Lockley: Yikes. It sounds like you've had an epiphany.
Angel: I keep saying that, but nobody's listening.
2. Just because we are free to say no to paradise--and, assuming for the moment there is a paradise to say no to, I agree with Douthat that we are so free; grace is resistable--doesn't mean that anyone has actually chosen or will choose that option. It's a logical possibility, not a practical necessity. This is, as far as I can tell second-hand, the implicit argument behind Rob Bell's controversial Love Wins, and it's my position as well. To claim that Hell is empty is to step beyond our human knowledge and usurp the Judgment which is God's alone, but the same is true of saying that Hell isn't empty. No number of appeals to the depravity of a Hitler or--and this is Douthat's innovation--Tony Soprano is going to change that.
