John Wilkins on Hell

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15 responses to “John Wilkins on Hell”

1. 

   2006-07-23

   Pontifications

   Knowing Hell

   by Alvin Kimel
   In a recent article, the Questioning Christian critiques the traditional view of hell. He criticizes it not because he believes it contradicts the Christian understanding of the love of God but because he thinks it undemonstrable:
   …

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2. 

   2006-07-24

   Jackson

   For a much more thoughtful view of Hell, see this:
   http://ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/schall_hell_nov05.asp

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3. 

   2006-07-24

   Christopher Culver

   For a defence of the doctrine of hell from the world’s foremost philosopher of religion, see Richard Swinburne’s Responsibility and Atonement (Oxford University Press, 1989). Even if Hell can’t be displayed right to you, Swinburne shows that with what any man knows about the universe around him, Christian doctrine necessarily follows.
   This is one book in a set of series of five, all published by OUP (a sixth book on the infallibility of the Orthodox Church is reportedly on the way). Once you’ve read it and the following books, please do tell us what problems you have with Swinburne’s reasoning.

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4. 

   2006-07-24

   D. C.

   Christopher Culver, let me see if I understand you correctly. It seems you’re saying I should believe in Hell until I succeed in disproving Swinburne’s reasoning — which reasoning you don’t bother to summarize for me (or you can’t), but instead you tell me I must find the time to read and digest it for myself.
   Have I got that right? Are there any other doctrinal assertions you think I should believe until I can prove that someone else’s unspecified reasoning is wrong?
   Sorry, but life doesn’t work that way. If you’re going to assert that Hell exists, and that Christians must believe this assertion, then it’s incumbent on you to come up with some persuasive evidence of same.

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5. 

   2006-07-24

   Christopher Culver

   D.C., Swinburne’s work is vast and I couldn’t dare to summarize it. However, it is some of the most respected writing within the field of philosophy of religion, considered formidable even by some atheist philosophers. Anyone interested in Christian claims should be acquainted with it. I’m not trying to get you to read just my personal favourites among defence of Christian theology, but rather trying to draw attention to the basic writings in the field that others will assume you have a grounding in already.

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6. 

   2006-07-24

   D. C.

   Christopher —
   1. You need to recognize that you’re playing the role of a salesman here. You’re trying to sell me on the idea that I should invest some of my time — a scarce resource, as it is for all of us, and one on which my wife and teenagers keep making claims — to read Swinburne’s thinking about Hell.
   2. Like any customer, I’m free to walk away at any time if I don’t see the value proposition in “buying” that which you’re “selling.”
   3. Right now, you haven’t persuaded me that the benefit of reading Swinburne is worth the cost. Surely you can at least paraphrase Swinburne’s argument about Hell to whet my appetite?
   4. BTW, Amazon.com says that the Swinburne book to which you linked isn’t available.

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7. 

   2006-07-24

   D. C.

   Jackson, thanks for the link to the Schall article, but it’s simply another example of a scholar’s “reasoning” that (i) a particular logic chain makes sense to him, and therefore (ii) reality is necessarily that way. Humanity has long experience with the flaws in this reasoning.
   Here’s the heart of the Schall piece:

   The fact, of course, is that God did come up with such a world “in the beginning.” Hell was not first invented by God and then, later on, seeing the mess human beings made of things, He decided to send human beings and angels there for safe keeping. It was the other way around. God first intended and created a world in which Hell did not exist, except maybe potentially. But He did intend a world in which real, finite human beings and angels existed and were destined for eternal happiness if they so chose. [Ed: And Schall knows all this, how?]
   This situation of initially creating man for eternal life is that from whence God’s problems with human beings arose. He could not create free creatures who were called to participate in His inner life unless they were, at the same time, actually free so to choose Him. Otherwise, they would have been–not free human beings or angels–but automata. Heaven, if it existed (or Hell for that matter) was not designed as a place for robots. Such latter beings, for whatever their worth, are not really capable of loving God by virtue of their own inner understanding and freedom. [Ed: Same question as before.]
   Hell is simply the direct and necessary consequence of really free creatures refusing to choose God rather than themselves. They chose or preferred a world they thought they could make for themselves. Put in positive way, the doctrine of Hell is the guarantee of our individual and personal dignity. Without what it stands for–namely the basic seriousness and importance of our lives–we evaporate all concrete meaning from our existence. [Emphasis added.] How so?
   * * *
   Hell, in other words, is a philosophic response to our sense of violated justice, a sense we all have on the hypothesis that the wicked are not really punished and the good not rewarded. Without an ultimate reckoning, beyond this life, many, if not most, evils and crimes performed in this world by individuals on others would go unpunished. Rewards would be wrongly distributed. If this ultimate reestablishment of order, in the form of a Hell or a Heaven, is not in effect, the world is made in vain. [Emphasis added.] It is clear that there is a contradiction at the very heart of the world between what is right and what is carried out. So, without ever going into the question of religion on this topic, there is a case for Hell that flows from any basic insight into the human condition and its actual record over time. Not all crimes are punished, not all good deeds rewarded. The world, on this view, is simply unjust at its core.
   Let us take this argument a step further. Let us, for the sake of discussion, accept the proposition that there is no Hell. What follows from this denial? First, no ultimate requital of rewards and punishments in terms of deeds done takes place. What is wrong is not punished and what is right is not rewarded. Secondly, what follows, on the basis of this hypothesis that Hell does not exist, is that no human action really makes any difference for good or bad. The acts of the worst sinner or tyrant and the greatest saint become equivalent. Both end up the same way no matter what anyone does. Any effort to distinguish a noble and ignoble life falls apart if ultimately it makes no difference what we do. To be sure, we can introduce some taste criterion that would say that I prefer what are now called just deeds. But no ultimate reason exists why my deed or yours are preferable. Thus, in logic, the denial of Hell is not at all a neutral proposition.
   It is this consequence that inclines me to affirm that Hell is a very positive doctrine. More almost than any other teaching, it, indirectly perhaps, established the worth of my daily actions.

   In other words, because Schall doesn’t like the implications of a world without Hell, it follows (he says) that Hell must exist. That’s not exactly a persuasive argument; it’s more like living in a fantasy world. With that kind of reasoning, we could talk ourselves into believing almost anything.

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8. 

   2006-07-24

   Christopher Culver

   D.C. Sorry, I didn’t realize that this was a blog where people just bicker back and forth out of love for debate and don’t possess real interest in the topic. I assumed it would hold to the principles of intellectual discussion, one of which is that there’s no need to repeat an assertion or argument if you can cite it from an outside source anyone can get at their university library. One wonders why you even keep this enterprise going, when you’re clearly not really interested in the philosophy of religion, as if you were, Swinburne’s writings (as well as those of philosophers from other sides of the issue) would be a pleasure for you to read and “I just don’t have time” wouldn’t even come up.

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9. 

   2006-07-24

   Al Kimel

   I would recommend readomg Swinburne’s Revelation before reading his Responsibility and Atonement. If one doesn’t believe that there are truths of divine revelation, then the question of mechanisms of atonement is moot.

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10. 

    2006-07-25

    tarwater

    The central question of so-called ‘apologetics’ or ‘fundamental theology’ is, thus, the question of perceiving form – an aesthetic problem. To have ignored this fact has stunted the growth of this branch of theology over the past hundred years. For fundamental theology, the heart of the matter should be the question: ‘How does God’s revelation confront man in history? How is it perceived?’ But under the influence of a modern rationalistic concept of science, the question shifted ever more from its proper centre to the margin, to be re-stated in this manner: ‘Here we encounter a man who claims to be God, and who, on the basis of this claim, demands that we should believe many truths he utters which cannot be verified by reason. What basis acceptable to reason can we give to his authoritative claims?’ Anyone asking the question in this way has really already forfeited an answer, because he is at once enmeshed in an insoluble dilemma. On the one hand, he can believe on the basis of sufficient rational certainty; but then he is not believing on the basis of divine authority, and his faith is not Christian faith. Or, on the other hand, he can achieve faith by renouncing all rational certainty and believing on the basis of mere probability; but then his faith is not really rational. This is the kind of apologetics that distinguishes between a content to be believed which remains opaque to reason and the ’signs’ that plead for the rightness of this content, signs which, alas, prove either too much or too little.
    Hans Urs Von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, p. 173

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11. 

    2006-07-25

    shari

    The main reason traditional Christians accept the doctrine of Hell is because it is clear that Jesus believed in it. What the Gospels show is that Jesus clearly believed that death and cruicifixion was a preferable alternative than having us be condemned to Hell.
    The broader question, therefore, would appear to be “do you believe that Jesus Christ is actually God?” Because if Jesus is God, then presumably he would be a reasonable “expert witness” on the subject. If Jesus is simply a teacher like Hillel or Ghandi, then He might well have been mistaken.
    I did read your post on Pontifications. I too initially felt that the inconsistencies in the Gospel accounts cast doubt on the Christian myth. However upon further study, I have come to believe that the evidence in favor of a bodily resurection is overwhelming, and that therefore Jesus is God. If Jesus is God, then we should probably listen to what He had to say (even on Hell).
    ————————-
    The following essay is why I believe that Jesus was in fact Resurrected, and therefor is in fact God. [I replaced Shari’s extended essay with this link to her own blog to make it easier for readers to move to the next comment – Ed.]

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12. 

    2006-07-25

    D. C.

    Shari, if Jesus was indeed God, then yes, he’d certainly be a reasonable and indeed authoritative “expert witness.” Your essay arguing that point is very well done, but it doesn’t address some key points. Let me respond point by point to what I think is the crucial passage in this context:
    [Shari:] History supports, at the very least, an empty tomb.

    [D. C.:] Agreed, but I would argue that it’s more plausible that someone, quite possibly Joseph of Arimathea, quietly removed and reburied the body, as I propose in this posting.

    [Shari:] Could the disciples have been mistaken? The idea that more than 500 people in different times and places made an honest mistake about an individual that they had known and loved for years, and with whom they had worked closely, when faced at close hand with an imposter, who had no apparent motivation for his “joke”, is a priori unreasonable.

    [D. C.:] If I’m not mistaken, the only record suggesting that Jesus appeared to 500 people is Paul’s remark in 1 Cor. 15.6, which evidently is pure hearsay (and who knows how exaggerated).

    [Shari, after discussing the possibilities of hallucination or mass hysteria, drawing on her background as a neurologist:] If the disciples did not lie, and did not hallucinate, could they actually have encountered the risen Lord? Unbelievable as this may seem, I think it the least unlikely of the three possibilities. …

    [D. C.:] Agreed — but what exactly was the nature of their “encounters”? We don’t know; consequently, we don’t know whether those encounters are probative of Jesus’s divinity. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, there’s anecdotal evidence of other dead people appearing to their loved ones, but we don’t argue that those dead people are God incarnate. For example, both my mother and grandmother reportly saw (and in my grandmother’s case, heard) dead relatives who “visited” them. A best-seller from a few years ago recounts that, during World War II, a downed U.S. Navy flyer was executed by the Japanese; shortly afterwards, his mother saw him flying overhead waving an American flag, saying “Good bye, Mom,” which is curious because at that point, all she knew was that her son was missing in action, not that he was dead. (James Bradley, Flyboys: A True Story of Courage, Little, Brown & Co. 2003, p. 191.)
    We can speculate that Jesus, and other dead people, are alive in some other dimension, and that, for reasons we don’t understand, they can sometimes actually be seen and heard by people “here below.” But we understand almost nothing — yet — of the observed phenomena; although if history is any guide, we have reason to believe we will, someday.

    [Shari:] [T]he disciples are transformed. Immediately after the crucifixion these are frightened, demoralized men who (all but John) deny Jesus, and flee. Three days later they are courageous, invigorated, ebullient heroes who (all but John) will die, confessing their faith.

    [D. C.:] Much the same “argument from courage,” I submit, applies to other faiths and cults whose adherents have willingly suffered death: Muslim suicide bombers. The Branch Davidians who died at Waco. The Jonestown residents who drank the poisoned Kool-Aid. The Heaven’s Gate cultists who committed suicide so they could be picked up by a spaceship. Japanese kamikaze pilots in World War II. Medieval Jews who committed suicide, sometimes en masse, rather than convert to Christianity. So the argument from courage doesn’t seem specially probative of the Christian claims in particular.

    [Shari:] Sixty years later the disciples of Christ are an unbeatable force who, in peaceful fashion, and despite relentless and increasing persecution, grow large enough to damage Roman economy and society, emptying Roman temples, and eventually, well before they are handed the keys of the State machinery, transform the Roman Empire. There is nothing in history that is remotely similar.

    [D. C.:] I’m not sure your underlying premise is accurate. Sociologist Rodney Stark, in his book The Rise of Christianity, suggests that the church’s growth was likely slow and unspectacular until the reign of Constantine, some three centuries after the church’s beginnings. I think an argument can be made that the early growth of Islam and of the LDS church might be in the same general ballpark as the early growth of Christianity.

    Thanks for stopping by, Shari.

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13. 

    2006-07-25

    Vynette Holliday

    I posted a comment on the Pontifications Blog article ‘Knowing Hell’.
    It’s pretty controversial so I don’t know if it will get through. I’d like to repost it here. Is that OK?

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14. 

    2006-07-25

    D. C.

    Vynette, your comment at Pontifications did get through.

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15. 

    2006-07-31

    John Grandy

    A reply to the questions: (1) Is God really good? (2) Did God create hell?
    http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles6/KalomirosRiverFire.php

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