A metaphysical treatise in seven parts. Wherein g-zombies are procured.
Yeah I know, this strikes me as a strange topic too during a global meltdown. But you know what, venturing into certain familiar realms of analytic philosophy feels oddly comforting to me at the moment. So without further ado:
Let me start by pointing out that although I’m a convinced atheist, I can’t see how anything important hinges on the mere fact of whether or not one believes in God. But what I do object to are the many ways in which derivative theistic beliefs often interfere with our physical, moral, emotional, and intellectual well being as humans.
Amongst the chief of sinners in this regard is the belief in hell. A belief which tormented me personally as a child and into young adulthood, and which often creates huge epistemic barriers of fear and paralysis that are difficult to overcome. I’ve broached the subject before in various ways: humorous, poetic, or otherwise. And now for any who might find this valuable, I’ll try an analytic deconstruction of hell.
**Introductory housekeeping note #1: I apologize beforehand for the occasional lapses in academic tone, particularly as the essay approaches nearer to g-zombies (more on them later). I’ll try my best, hoping that what this essay sometimes lacks in academic tone, it generally makes up for in academic rigor.
**Introductory housekeeping note #2: Although the discussion to follow is primarily through the lens of Christian tradition, I should note that belief in hell doesn’t have anything to do with Christianity per se. Hell has been the majority position for most of Christian history, but there were a number of prominent universalists in the early church, there’s a growing number of contemporary annihilationists and univeralists in conservative Christian circles, and it seems to me that modern/liberal currents of Christianity have every bit as much right to claim the term “Christian” as do more traditional currents. What follows is intended as a deconstruction simply of hell itself, and any reference to “a traditional Christian view” certainly isn’t meant to imply that that’s a monolithic entity.
1. Definitions and (visceral) stage setting
So, by hell I mean eternal conscious torment. A fate to be suffered by many (most?) humans, whether as a direct punishment from God, or an abandonment by God, or some combination of both. And by God I mean the morally perfect omnimax being of traditional monotheism.
I think it’s important to start by painting a vivid picture of the subject at hand. It’s too easy for discussions like this to become overly abstracted; the subject obscured behind layers of cool remove, distance-born-of-familiarity, euphemistic language, institutional/academic jargon. By a general lack of an emotional engagement with the subject. I’m not at all saying that our emotional response ought to be the entirety of the matter, but let’s be clear that it’s a critically important and unavoidable starting point to any moral evaluation. So let’s face it squarely and then reflect very critically upon it, rather than pretending it away and remaining blind to how it’s affecting our thinking.
So, to try to cut through those layers of abstraction and offer a visceral sense of the immense horror of hell–and because it’s directly relevant in several other ways to the discussion at hand–I submit to you the case of Robert-François Damiens. Executed in Paris in 1757 for an attempted assassination of King Louis XV. A laughably half-assed attempt, and from the available details one wonders whether he was of sound mind. Whatever the case, his execution was a haunting public spectacle. Over four hours of the most gruesome sadism imaginable, Damiens conscious and shrieking for nearly the duration, a bloodthirsty crowd–travelers from near and far, best seats reserved for the highest bidders–reveling in the entire sordid ordeal.
I won’t recount the specifics, which you can read here, and which unfortunately can’t afterwards be un-read. An episode widely cited by philosophers and other commentators, including Thomas Paine, and likely a direct inspiration for the prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishments codified into the US Constitution.
Of course it doesn’t make much sense to try to imagine an eternity of one’s body being ripped to shreds, so I don’t offer that as a literal picture of hell. Metaphor is all we can attempt here, but whatever the reality of hell might be thought to be, the common metaphors are quite clear in painting it as excruciating, relentless pain. In every way: physical, emotional, psychological.
And even if one does reject the common metaphors such as the lake of fire, in favor of alternate visions such as the grey skies of C. S. Lewis’ imagination, one nevertheless is contemplating an infinite expanse of isolation, grief, self harm, self destruction. So in whatever form it takes, hell is a concept of unending despair and pain, which demands a justification in light of a perfect God.
I take it as uncontroversial amongst philosophers and laypeople alike that God always acts (insofar as God can be said to act) so as to maximize the good. That if God enacts or permits something which appears to be evil, either 1) that thing isn’t actually evil at all, though we might be too epistemically limited to recognize that fact, or 2) it’s a necessary lesser evil which is required in order to achieve a greater corresponding good.
So any justification for hell will have to follow either 1) or 2) from the preceding paragraph, or borrow haphazardly from both. And although I can’t exhaust or even imagine every nuance of the entire possibility space, I’ll do my best to quickly explore the major contours of traditional (especially Western) Christian belief on the matter.
2. The goodness of hell?
I’ve commonly heard the following sentiment: “We don’t adequately understand the justice of hell because we don’t adequately hate sin, the way God hates sin.”
There’s so much to say in response, but I’ll try to move quickly.
First, and this is a damning problem for theism in general, but it’s especially poignant in this case: This leads to deep and crippling moral skepticism. If the “true” morality is one of which we’re profoundly ignorant, and we don’t have a detailed map for overcoming that ignorance, then ethical reflection becomes altogether impossible.
And if hell is real, then that ignorance does indeed run deep. Even in the most extreme, emotionally loaded example I can think of, and assuming retributive justice for the sake of argument: for how long need Hitler suffer the torments of Damiens before even that becomes an exercise in pointless sadism?
But that’s the least of the problems here. What about Hitler’s victims? Those people his sufferings might be thought to avenge? On a traditional Christian view, many (most?) of them will be right next to Hitler, suffering the same unimaginable, endless torments. What respectable human court would possibly condemn Anne Frank to eternally suffer the torments of Damiens? And on what possible charges?
A common reply is that even the slightest sin becomes an infinite offense when committed against an infinite God, and therefore deserving of an infinite punishment. The French authorities appealed to this type of reasoning in Damiens’ case: he had attacked The King, so his offense had been one of near-infinite proportions.
Do you buy that? Is it even a question whether we should re-institute Damiens-style punishments in certain circumstances? I trust that you don’t buy that, so I won’t linger here. Because in any event, whatever purchase that rationale might have, it falls completely apart when applied to God. If God truly is infinite, perfectly self-contained, without any external dependence whatsoever, then it’s impossible for God qua God to be harmed in the slightest. Any offenses in play here must be finite in scope and directed squarely against finite creatures, who actually can suffer harm and loss. If it makes any sense at all to speak of an offense against God, that can only be in an indirect, derivative manner, mediated entirely through the sufferings of one of God’s finite creatures.
And claiming that offenses are committed against some sort of platonic ideal form, Justice, is even more incoherent.
But at the end of the day, on a traditional Christian view none of that actually matters. The goodness of hell–as bizarre and grotesque as that is–can be granted for the sake of argument. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are thought to have somehow overcome the consequences of hell and met the demands of justice, which all humans would otherwise have to face. It’s not remotely clear, in light of Jesus, what’s left to punish. Either Jesus’ sacrifice was effective, or else it wasn’t.
So where do Christians go from here? A number of ways.
3. Unlimited atonement
For Christians who claim that Jesus’ redemptive work was unlimited in scope–accomplished on behalf of all people, and offered to all–then it’s flatly nonsensical if they also claim that hell nevertheless awaits as punishment for those people who reject God. There’s nothing left to punish, if it’s all been paid for already.
Many Christians might say that hell isn’t a punishment so much as an inevitable consequence of human freedom. (Let’s grant libertarian free will for the sake of argument.) That love can’t be forced, so if one rejects God, God allows that person to suffer the unfortunate and terrible consequences of an existence cut off from God. But several major problems here.
First, it’s not at all clear in such a case why death acts as a point of no return, as traditional Protestants, at least, would have it. Is human freedom lost in the afterlife? If so, that free will rationale unravels and hell is simply punitive and nonsensical after all.
Some Christians do make room for postmortem reconciliation. That God still provides an opportunity for salvation, even for those suffering the pains of hell. But here’s the next problem. If hell is nevertheless eternal, for at least some people (ie, those who never turn from their rejection of God), it’s not at all clear why God would continue to sustain them in a state of eternal conscious suffering. Especially if God can see their eternal destiny from the outset. That they’ll never be reconciled.
Some might say that souls are eternal, so God doesn’t have a choice other than to allow such people to suffer eternally. But even if that’s the case, surely our pre-birth souls weren’t conscious. Or at least, I certainly don’t remember my pre-birth state. Do you? So why must post-death souls remain forever conscious?
Some could hold (eg, open theists) that the future is ontologically indeterminate. That even God can’t see the future other than as branching possibilities, and so God sustains the souls of those suffering hell in order to sustain their opportunities for reconciliation. And unfortunately, for some people this will result in eternal suffering, because they will never choose to reconcile. But for how long need one suffer in deepening defiance before it becomes clear that their prospects for reconciliation are vanishingly low, and the merciful course of action is to allow them to lapse out of existence/consciousness?
In short, I can’t see any route along this general path that makes the slightest sense of eternal conscious torment.
4. Limited atonement
Many Calvinist Christians take a different path. They typically deny libertarian free will, and claim that reconciliation with God happens in an irresistible, unconditional way. So in such a case, why then isn’t everyone saved? Because, they claim, Jesus’ atoning work was only efficacious for the salvation of a limited subset of humans. God could have saved everyone, but has chosen not to. The damned suffer in hell punitively, because their sins have not been atoned for.
To the objections I’ve already raised about the justice of a retributive, punitive hell, I’ll add another in this case: Retributive justice makes no sense in the absence of libertarian free will. (Even if we want to sin, on such a model we don’t get to choose the content of our desires in the first place.)
But never mind, let’s grant all that. So, if God could have saved everyone, why is it that God has chosen not to do so? The standard response is that the damnation of some is necessary for the sake of God’s glory. That if everyone were saved, the full expression of God’s justice, wrath, mercy, and love would be impossible.
Again, much to say. I’ll try to brief. And my repeated apologies for any lapses in academic tone.
The first thing I’d say in response is that that appears to belittle Jesus’ redemptive work. Why are Jesus’ sufferings on the cross insufficient to express God’s glory? (And if the saved in heaven need reminders of God’s wrath and mercy, perhaps Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ could play on endless heavenly repeat?)
Next, remember that God’s ontological status can’t in any way be harmed or lessened. So, claiming that hell is necessary for the sake of God’s glory is not a claim about God’s ontology, but rather is a claim about human epistemology. That in order for humans to adequately apprehend God’s glory, some people must suffer hell. That the saved wouldn’t fully understand the extent of God’s justice, and mercy, if the damned weren’t made into object lessons. The sufferings of the damned, in other words, are required for the benefit of the saved. And if you can’t presently fathom drawing satisfaction–even pleasure–at the thought of watching fellow humans (perhaps even your own children) writhe in the torments of hell, that’s because you’re as of yet very spiritually immature.
I’m not drawing uncharitable conclusions here, and it’s not only Calvinists who have made these kinds of claims–anyone who holds a primarily punitive model of hell is susceptible to this kind of thinking. There’s quite a list of prominent thinkers throughout Christian history, anticipating their delight in watching the torments of the damned. Tertullian, Thomas Aquinas, Isaac Watts, Jonathan Edwards, the list goes on. Here’s Edwards on the subject, in his essay The end of the wicked contemplated by the righteous:
Divine justice in the destruction of the wicked will then appear [to the righteous in heaven] as light without darkness, and will shine as the sun without clouds, and on this account will they sing joyful songs of praise to God, as we see the saints and angels do, when God pours the vials of his wrath upon antichrist.
Are we actually to suppose that these voices illumine a great leap forward in human moral reasoning and apprehension? Or, that this is a leap in the opposite direction, characteristic of those who purchased front row seats to Damiens’ torture and dismemberment? I vote the latter, and if the former then we’re deeply awash in moral skepticism, as previously discussed.
5. P-zombies? G-zombies?
But you know what? Once again, it doesn’t matter. Even such grotesqueries can be granted for the sake of argument. Let’s consider for a moment the possibility of philosophical zombies. P-zombies, if you will. A p-zombie is a hypothetical entity that’s outwardly indistinguishable from a real person (in every way: speech, behavior, expressions of joy and pain, etc), but without consciousness; without the inner fire of actual first-person experiences.
So, if the torments of the damned are required in order that the saved might experience the full expression of God’s glory, why must the damned be actual people? Why not p-zombies? From the vantage point of the saved, these p-zombies would express God’s glory in a manner indistinguishable from that of actual humans. There could even be a Hitler p-zombie, and a Stalin p-zombie, if there’s something important for the saved about recognizing specific faces amongst the damned.
But perhaps there might be theists who–contra David Chalmers–hold that P-zombies are conceptually incoherent or metaphysically impossible? We’re getting into awfully deep and murky territory here in the philosophy of mind (well over my pay grade, and I’m not sure whether this could square comfortably with theism) but I tend to suspect that the appearance of that inner fire can’t be faked. It requires the presence of an actual inner fire.
So, I submit for your consideration the long-promised (and this *might* actually be my own novel contribution to philosophy) possibility of God zombies. G-zombies, if you will. God provides that inner-zombie fire, in order to express God’s glory via the torments of hell. This could dovetail nicely with the cross: God somehow takes the sufferings of hell upon Godself, sparing humans of our just deserts.
Once again, in short, I can’t see any route along this general path that makes the slightest sense of eternal conscious torment.
6. Miscellaneous considerations
Isn’t the threat of hell necessary to curb antisocial behavior in this life? That’s a directly empirical claim which appears to be overwhelmingly falsified by the actual data. Human moral progress is a real thing, which we can track with solid data (eg, rates of homicide, violence, xenophobia, etc), and which correlates in a strong positive direction with economic development (and incidentally, with growing secularism), and in a negative direction with belief in hell. Yes that’s correlational data, but anyone making a claim that goes strongly against the grain of that data has their work cut seriously out for them. Onus is on them to find the immensely powerful yet hidden confounding variable(s) at work. And in any event, that drifts mighty close to an argument from consequence, if it isn’t simply that.
Didn’t Jesus teach that hell is real? It seems to me that–even if we take the gospels at face value–Jesus wouldn’t even recognize traditional Christian eschatogology, let alone agree with it. But rather than wandering into those weeds, I’ll simply say this: The gospels are nothing like literal, historical-by-modern-standards accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings. Even if we assume that God raised Jesus from the dead (in other words, this has nothing to do with naturalistic presuppositions), it’s a near certainty, for example, that Jesus wasn’t virginally conceived, and that he never said anything resembling the great commission (I’ll have to save a discussion of that latter example for a later date). Even if Jesus actually did teach that eternal conscious torment is real, and we have good reason to trust him as an authority on the subject, we’re still left awash in profound moral skepticism as a result, and we have to reject the claim.
7. Closing thoughts
What if I’ve simply missed something? Overlooked a compelling rationale, or critically botched the reasoning somewhere along the line? Whether regarding specifically Christian beliefs about hell, or regarding non-Christian beliefs about hell?
That’s always a possibility, even if sometimes a remote one. Are we better off adopting Pascal’s Wager just in case?
I see it the other way around. Hell is an incredibly destructive belief, and almost certainly a false one. It exacts immense losses (not only for those who believe it seriously, but also for those around them), and it’s almost certain to offer vanishingly small benefits, if any at all.
I’ll leave you with a discussion I had with my son Graham, when he was 10 years old. He was asking about hell–he’s exposed to a wide variety of religious beliefs–and I try not to be overbearing with my kids about my own beliefs, but rather engage in Socratic discussions with them. (I’m far less concerned that they agree with me–I’ve been wrong plenty of times in my life–and far more concerned that they learn to reason carefully and compassionately. So that I can learn a thing, or two, or many, from them as well.)
I was walking through some of these very same questions and considerations with him, as I’ve presented in this essay, and he was following along with them to varying degrees, his demeanor serious and his brow often furrowed. Then I finally asked him:
What’s more likely? That the perfectly good and loving creator of the universe will allow lots of people to be tortured forever? Or that the Christian church increasingly latched onto this idea so that it could bilk terrified people out of LOTS OF MONEY!! (in my best George Carlin voice).
He laughed hysterically. Not just because of the funny voice, but (I think) because it was a bright moment of insight and clarity for him. He knew the answer. Deeply, intuitively.
