On Choosing Hell

Seymour, Charles

doi:10.1017/s0034412597003880

Cited by 9 publications

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“…My view sketched above differs from the one endorsed by Seymour (1997Seymour ( , 1998. He advocates the eternal punishment because sinners will wreak havoc in the afterlife (Seymour, 1998, pp.…”

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confidence: 59%

The fairness of Hell

Hershenov¹

2019

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The Christian conception of Hell as everlasting punishment for past sins is confronted with two charges of unfairness.The first is the inequity of an eternal punishment. The neverending punishment seems disproportionate to the finite sin (Kershnar, Lewis, Adams). A second and related problem is that the boundary between sins that send one for all eternity to Hell and those sins that are slightly less bad that are compatible with an eternity in Heaven is arbitrary and thus it is unfair that sinners so alike are treated differently (Sider). Hell, as traditionally conceived, is then claimed to be incompatible with God's traditional attributes such as his commitment to justice, omniscience and omnipotence. The unfairness can be avoided by appealing to God's foreknowledge and a debt/ atonement theory of punishment. My view is analogous to refusing to parole the unrepentant. If a wrongdoer is eternally defiant, then he can never be released from Hell for his debt won't ever be paid if he isn't reformed and reconciled with the wronged. So it doesn't matter that his initial sin was a finite wrong not deserving of infinite punishment nor a sin no worse than that of the penitent in Heaven. K E Y W O R D Satonement, debt, fairness, forgiveness, Hell, Purgatory

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confidence: 59%

The fairness of Hell

Hershenov¹

2019

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“…My conception of Hell has it serving not to prevent future mischief in the afterlife (Seymour (1997) ) but as the location for the never-completed punishment for the original sin(s) on earth. Punishment in Hell need not involve unbearable suffering for that may not be compatible with God's loving character.…”

Section: Determinism Manipulation and Punishmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Healthy functioning as the key to fairness in a divinely determined world

Hershenov

2018

Rel. Stud.

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Defending a traditional conception of Hell against the charge of unfairness is difficult for any theorist. It would seem to be even more difficult for the Christian semi-compatibilist who believes we can be responsible when determined. If God determined the wrongdoer's choices, then it seems unfair that he is punished for his actions that were manipulated rather than autonomous. I'll argue that healthy mental functioning can explain how some causally determined actions are manipulative while others are under our control. I'll also argue that God can punish even if He lacks the standing to blame.

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The Argument from Evil

Goetz

2009

The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology

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The argument from or problem of evil concludes that the existence of evil is, in one way or another, incompatible with the existence of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient being (God). 1 For anyone who is a student of or familiar with modern philosophical orthodoxy in metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of action (I will simply refer to the three together as "modern philosophical orthodoxy"), the problem of evil can be likened to the skeletal remains of dinosaurs that are housed in the back room of a museum and occasionally brought out for reexamination and public viewing. This is the case for four reasons.First, the problem of evil is fundamentally, in the words of C. S. Lewis, the problem of pain (Lewis 1962), where an experience of pain is an irreducible, conscious feeling or quale that hurts. The occurrence of such a psychological event is, however, vigorously contested by many adherents of modern philosophical orthodoxy. Given the seemingly outlandish nature of their position, some defenders of this orthodoxy vehemently insist they do not deny that we experience pain. Nevertheless, when one reads their accounts of pain, one cannot help but be suspicious. Almost invariably, they talk about the "functional role" of pain, which is cashed out in terms of pain's extrinsic or relational features in the form of causal inputs and outputs. And these defenders of modern philosophical orthodoxy make clear that this functional role exhausts what pain is. The problem here is that while no one who is sane will deny that an experience of pain has certain relational features (e.g. other things being equal, one who is experiencing pain will act for the purpose that the pain be mitigated), no one who is sane will hold that an experience of pain is nothing more than its relational features. After all, pain feels a certain way. It has an intrinsic nature for which the only adequate description is that it hurts. And it is precisely because pain has this kind of intrinsic nature that it also has the relational features that it has. It is this irreducible, intrinsic qualitative nature of pain that modern philosophical orthodoxy is intent on either 1. The meanings of these concepts are widely debated, but I will assume that sense can be made of them.

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On Choosing Hell

Cited by 9 publications

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The fairness of Hell

The fairness of Hell

Healthy functioning as the key to fairness in a divinely determined world

The Argument from Evil

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