Hell

Lisa Miller, who has a recent book on heaven, maintains that 80% of Americans believe in heaven, but belief in hell is plummeting. She argues that this phenomenon is attributable to the rise in the view that there are many paths to the same God. Not only are vastly fewer people believing in hell, she says that those people who do believe in hell do not believe that hell is their destination. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2010/03/27/VI2010032703846.html

In the Catholic tradition, there are three views of hell that I know about: The view that hell is permanent conscious separation from God; the view that hell is permanent suffering in fire; and the view that hell is death. I think the first view is the one most widely held by leaders of the Church; the second is a metaphor. The third draws support from two sources. First, if one believes in a loving God, the first two seem disproportionate (though a standard response is that hell is chosen and that the disproportionate idea misconceives the gravity of offending God). Second, the frequent biblical references to fire are references to trash burning in a constant fire around Jerusalem. The fire is constant, but the trash does not burn forever. On this theory, the reference to fire is a metaphor for death. In any event, it is not a metaphor for eternal suffering.   

Comments

[Robert Hockett]

Very interesting, Gents, many thanks. An anecdote: My roommate/housemate for three undergraduate years had been raised in a traditional Southern Baptist family. In most ways, he did not by any stretch conform to the stereotypes one finds associated with that tradition (I've no idea what if any percentage do). While he was a regular Baptist church-goer and Scripture-reader, he was also a warm, kindly, seemingly ever 'tolerant' sort of chap. Well, once during our senior year one of our conversations turned to the subject of Hell. I said something like, 'I can't seem to see any noble *purpose* that this doctrine might serve, unless it's a metaphor for profound estrangement from our sisters and brothers and God. I think Hell must be a *principle.*' I expected that my friend would probably nod and agree, perhaps adding a few nuances of his own. Instead he grew suddenly very disturbed, saying, more or less, 'oh no, no, Hell is *real,* very real, no, it's a place, it's a hot burning place.' Then he retrieved his Bible from his bedroom and began reading certain passages to me by way of proof. It struck me then that for some, even very 'open'-seeming folk, Hell's just as important as Heaven. Perhaps there's some Manichean sensibility behind such symmetry -- although, come to think of it, I don't seem to find myself much if any more worked up about Heaven than I do about Hell, so perhaps I'm a Manichean in this sense as well, only a 'soft' one. I suppose my own tendencies lie very much in the Rabi-a direction so nicely instanced here by Patrick. It's not so much that I have trouble believing the doctrines -- I seem to be able to believe just about anything -- it's rather that I don't see any laudable *point* in believing in some of them. For it seems to me that practicing a faith with a view to gaining rewards or avoiding punishments is a bit like embracing the role of a sort of metaphysical lab rat, punching a lever for food pellets or electic-shock-avoidance. (Not that we're better than that; but isn't God?) And yet there remnains the puzzle of my roommate, who was, again, so very loving and caring and open a fellow, all the while holding fast, as if to a moral not metaphysical imperative, to the traditional doctrine of Hell.

Thanks again, Fellows,
Bob

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Regarding Kant and God, please see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-religion/
and: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-religion/

[Steve Shiffrin]

Patrick, very interesting. Did Kant argue the same thing? Or did Kant just argue that a certain belief in God would get in the way of morality? Both? Neither? I do know that the priests of my childhood were firm believers that hell was a great motivator.

Susan Muller Okun described the doctrine of hell as a form of child abuse. Hans Kung also had stirringly negative things to say about the doctrine. In recent years, I think priest and ministers in Catholic and mainline Protestant churches have downplayed the concept..

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

While the spiritual states of hope and fear are important to Sufi mystics and Muslims generally, the two posts on Heaven and Hell brought to mind the following prayer from one of Islam's (if not the) earliest exponents and dramatic exemplars of "love-mysticism," Rabi`a al-`Adawiyya al-Qaysiyya (95 or 99—185 AH/714 or 717-8—801 AD):

"Oh my Lord, if I worship Thee from fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship Thee from hope of Paradise, exclude me thence, but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake then withhold not from me Thine Eternal Beauty."

For Rabi`a, disinterested love of God means the obedient servant is ideally motivated by neither hope for eternal reward (Paradise), nor fear of eternal punishment (Hell). In an Islamic variant of Euthyphro’s question, Rabi`a asks, "Even if Heaven or Hell were not, does it not behove us to obey Him?"

For an introduction to Rabi`a, please see Margaret Smith's Muslim Women Mystics: The Life and Work of Rābi`a and Other Women Mystics in Islam. Oxford, UK: Oneworld, 2001 (1928).