Is the notion of hell as unending torture compatible with an all-loving God? Might hell have an end? Might the love of Christ be more powerful than anything that opposes it? Can a Catholic hold to this belief while also remaining faithful to the Church? These are some of the main questions of discussion going on in Catholic theology today and in Christian theology in general. Ever since David Bently Hart's 2019 book That All Shall Be Saved, the notion of hell as unending has been brought into question. It was not that Hart's view of Apokatastasis--the final restoration of all things in Christ, had been unheard of up until the release of his book, but rather that the rationale for the doctrine had been lost to the majority of Christians for the majority of Church history. It, in fact, was a very prevalent view among the early Christians, as Hart argues. Here, I am going to attempt to lay out the rationale for this doctrine. One vital question that I personally will not be discussing explicitly here is the question of whether or not a Catholic can hold to this view. I believe one can, and not only that one can, but that holding to this view fits rather well with other doctrines of the Faith. For two excellent treatments on this question, view Dr. Trent Pomplun's article here and Dr. Justin Coyle's article here. Both Dr. Pomplun and Dr. Coyle are faithful to the Church's Magisterium and, along with many others, are doing increbible work on this question that also leads to exploration in other areas, such as how we are to interpret Magisterial documents. (I would be remiss if I did not also mention here the work that Dr. Ilaria Ramelli and Dr. Jordan Daniel Wood are also doing on these questions) I, like all of the great thinkers above, love the Church, and desire to remain faithful to Her until death. I would not be exploring this question unless I thought there was room for it in serious Catholic theological conversation. With this necessary nuances now given, we can move on to the topic at hand--is an eternal hell even possible in view of God's Love?
I'd imagine that almost anyone with any affiliation to Christianity has pondered this question before. Can unending torment be reconciled with an all loving God? I'll now give the defenses often given by infernalists and show why I think they ultimately fail. The most prevalent one given is the free will defense: Hell is unending because humans are free, and freedom entails the possibility of an ultimate rejection of God. Though I'd agree wholeheartedly that freedom entails the possibility of rejecting God, I reject wholeheartedly that such a rejection could be ultimate. Here, it is necessary to explore two views of freedom and why the notion of an ultimate rejection of God is only compatible with a modern view of freedom, which is false. The modern libertarian view of freedom sees freedom as the mere ability to choose between alternatives, i.e. I am free because I can choose between 71 different types of cheese at the grocery store. The problem with this definition, along with so many other disastrous results of modernity, is that it has a false view of the nature of the human person. If this view of freedom is correct, then what are we free for? Freedom becomes just an accidental byproduct of evolution instead of the power of the human person made in God's likeness. Under this view of freedom, it seems possible, though not even remotely plausible, that a person could reject God forever. For, if freedom is merely the ability to choose, then it's at least logically possible that someone can endlessly choose to not love God. Even taking this view of freedom for granted, though, it does not seem like many would choose such a fate. Moreover, it opens new problems for those in heaven. Why wouldn't one be able to stop experiencing the beatific vision if he so chose? This also seems hugely implausible, but under the aforementioned view of freedom, it remains a possibility, and thus a problem to be addressed. The further defense of this relies on something known as the post-mortem fixity of the will; at death, the will has already chosen to not love God, and it cannot choose otherwise forever. The philosophical reasoning behind this idea, at least under a modern view of freedom, is remarkably poor, and it is a shame that many hold to this view without much philosophical reflection on why this should be the case (Interestingly enough, this view of the will's post-mortem fixity fits much better with the traditional notion of freedom than with the modern one). In summary, a view of freedom as the ability the choose between alternatives might allow the possibility for some to choose not to love God forever, but it causes larger problems for those in heaven and is a notion of freedom that is inherently anti-Christian.
The traditional view of freedom is that freedom consists in flourishing as the type of being that one is. For example, a blue jay that can fly is more free than one who cannot, because it flourishes as what it is supposed to be. A piano player who knows how to play Beethoven is freer than the random man on the street who has never played piano. The more one knows himself and the world around him, the easier it it to choose properly; the easier it becomes for someone to choose properly, the freer he becomes. Thus freedom is not merely the ability to choose between alternatives, but the knowledge of what to choose since choosing that good is conducive to one's nature. To be free is to limit one's choices in pursuit of the highest good. The saint who chooses the good in all things and is thus "constrained" under the modern view of freedom is freer than the psycho who chooses to run into a building or cause bodily harm to himself. We know this is true even intuitively. Yet, on the modern view of freedom, one would have to admit that the psycho is actually freer than the saint since he is not constrained and chooses between a wider range of options. This, of course, is patently absurd. As an illustration of freedom at work, think of a time when you've experienced great joy, beauty, or love. In those moments, you did not sit back and deliberate whether or not you should choose this experience, but rather you, in some sense, let this experience choose you. If one were to take a step back and decide whether or not to be overwhelmed by the beauty of the sunset upon the Grand Canyon, is this truly a free act? Does not the one who sits back and allows that beauty to be taken in without deliberation experience truer freedom? Who, upon the thought of such an experience of the beautiful, could not be reminded of the words of Christ in John's Gospel: It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you... It is in those moments when beauty chooses us that we experience true freedom, the freedom for which we were created. We can then give an answer to the question of whether or not our experiences of conversion, falling in love, and experiencing the beautiful are free acts: a resounding yes, they are the freest acts we can achieve. Therefore, to say that those in hell are there forever because they are free doesn't make any sense. To choose one's unending separation from one's ultimate desire is not only not a free act, but an impossibility. However, it is possible to choose with limited knowledge of one's telos--end, but not if one recognizes God for who He is; the fulfillment of all desire. It is literally inconceivable that a free creature who knows God as his heart's desire would choose not to accept Him. Thus, on the free will defense, one must say that one chooses to reject God with limited knowledge and that God then condemns one to unending punishment due to that limited knowledge. However, this raises more issues. Would an all loving God, moved to create out of sheer love for what His creation could be really eternally condemn those He desires to be completely united with Him? Is eternal condemnation a just sentence for one who, out of ignorance of God, chooses a lesser good? This then is the dilemma for the free will defense: one cannot say that one can freely and ultimately reject God, for that violates the nature of freedom; so then one has to say that one can ultimately reject God even though that rejection results from limited knowledge and limited freedom. The problem with this is that to punish someone infinitely for an unfree act committed out of ignorance would then turn God into a moral monster. Because of this, it seems to me that neither of the two options in the dilemma can be rationality defended and therefore the free will defense fails.
Another one of the main defenses for an eternal hell is from justice. One is condemned to hell forever because justice necessitates it. Those on earth have committed acts which merit punishment, and hell is that punishment. The claim is that under universalism, justice is not met. Unfortunately for the infernalist, a finite hell is the only way for justice to be met. The traditional definition of justice is rendering each his due. Justice is proportional to the act committed. All of our acts on earth are finite, therefore to punish someone infinitely for any finite act would be an absurd violation of justice. If, however, hell is finite, then justice can be proportional, and one can then go to Gehenna until he has paid the last penny. Infernalists will surely be quick to shout the common Anselmian retort that God is Infinite, therefore any act against Him merits infinite punishment. If you hit your brother, you will receive some punishment, if your parent, even more punishment, if the president of the United States, even more, and if God, the punishment would have to be infinite. The issue here is that punishment is given in the cases of the finite creatures because some amount of harm is caused to those who have been hit. With God however, an act against Him does no damage, it only causes harm to ourselves, and since we are finite, and justice is proportional, the punishment must also be finite. It would be a strange God who creates finite creatures knowing any act committed against Him would cause their eternal demise. This defense also collapses the distinction between mortal and venial sin, since under this understanding any sin is an act against God and would thus merit eternal punishment. Therefore, justice can only be justice if hell has a limit.
What about Christ in the Gospels? Does He not talk about an eternal hell? Yes... and no. In Greek, there are two main words used for eternal; aionios and aidios. Aionios refers to eternal in the sense of something lasting age to age, but with an ultimate end. Aidios, on the other hand, refers to eternal in a sense of unending duration. Hell is nowhere refered to in the Scriptures as aidios, but only as aionios. It is true however that one does not get a crystal clear picture of the nature of hell in the Gospel. Some verses can be interpreted from an infernalist reading, some from an anihilitionist reading (annihilationism is the belief that those who are "damned" simply pass out of existence at death), and others from a universalist reading. As most things in theology, a synthesis of the statements about hell in the New Testament is necessary, and the only way to rationally synthesize the different statements is by looking at them through a universalist lens. Take Gehenna for example: Christ speaks of Gehenna as a place of unquenchable fire. This is true, but that does not then mean that those sent there are there forever. Gehenna was an actual place in Israel known as the valley of Hinnom where things were thrown into fire to be consumed; they were not there eternally, but went there to be consumed by the flames. With this knowledge, a understanding of hell as a place where people are sent forever doesn't fit. The only two options are an anihilationist reading and a universalist reading, for a universalist can claim that a person is sent there until his former self is consumed and he is recreated in Christ through the destruction of that former self.
We also know from Scripture that God desires all to be saved; it is not the case that God predestines some to go to hell. He desires the salvation of all. The infernalist then faces another problem because he must say that God does not get His ultimate desire; the desire He had in mind before creation. God, on this view, desires all to be saved, but things external to Him cause it to be the case that He does not get His final end. The difficulty here is that if God eternally permits evil, then the distinction between divine permission and divine intent ultimately collapses at the eschatological horizon. This is because what God intends for creation would ultimately be usurped by His eternal permission of evil, then becoming his intent. Since God cannot intend evil, an eternal permission of evil would be an impossibility. This then turns the nature of evil as a parasite of goodness into an actual substance, which causes even greater philosophical and theological conundrums.
Now, let's return to Scripture. Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 gives the Christian view of the Eschaton--the final end of all things:
For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death... When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.
There is NO coherent way to read this declaration of Saint Paul except in light of universalism. Christ will ultimately subjugate all evil to the power of his Cross and claim his final and definitive victory. Elsewhere, Saint Paul claims that:
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There may for a time be separation, but this separation cannot endure forever. Christ's love will find each and every creature. He leaves the ninety-nine to find the one, no matter how far that one might wander. He can wonder to worlds as of yet unknown, and, even there, the Good Shepherd will follow. He can try to separate Himself for a long while, yet the love of the Shepherd never wearies, never ceases chasing down and calling out for that lost sheep to come home.
I'd imagine that anyone with an open mind to this issue will now have seen that universalism is the more logical and biblical of the views. But wait, there's more!
There is still another intriguing argument for universalism and it is from the nature of personhood. The only way for us to be saved as persons is with every other person. Who we are as persons is highly interconnected to our relationships we have with those we love. We, in a real sense, are our relations with others (the doctrine of the interpenetration of the Persons of the Trinity with each other in Perichoresis makes this clear and also applies to us as images of God). I would not be myself except with reference to those I love and those who love me. This causes a problem with people being in hell eternally. If someone I love is being eternally tortured, I have to either be happy with that (which is an incomprehensibly disgusting moral belief), for there is no sadness in heaven, or I simply have to forget that they ever existed. The problem with first option is obvious enough. The problem with saying that we are given a sort of divine amnesia is that since we are our relations with others, it wouldn't be us who would be saved, but rather a shell of ourselves. Would a mother whose children are suffering unending torments really be herself if she were forced to forget the existence of her beloved children? In some sense, a large part of her would be in hell as well. Therefore, the only way for us to be saved as persons is with every other person, for if even one were in hell, the body of Christ would not fully be saved and death would not be completely subject to Christ.
There are even more arguments for universalism such as its prevalence in the early Chruch (especially among monasteries and great spiritual masters), and from parenthood that will remain unexamined in this article. Perhaps if there is interest among the five or six people who read this article, we can explore these in detail in the future.
Christ loves all and desires all to accept that love and to embrace in their hearts His happy dominion. He will stop at nothing to achieve this end, even reaching out His saving hand to us in death. To wrap this up, I'll leave you with a simple yet profound universalist mantra with immense spiritual insights from Mother Julian of Norwich, a fourteenth century Saint and mystic whose writings about God's infinite love for all people has been a source of joy for so many.
All shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well