Master’s Thesis (One Year) Spring Term 2021
The Meaning of Hell
Exploring the meaning of life through the lens of the afterlife
Author: Henry Englund Supervisor: Mikael Stenmark
ABSTRACT
In this thesis, I take a closer look at the meaning of life from an eschatological point of view.
More precisely, the question at hand is whether and in what sense the existence of Hell would impact the meaning of life. The thesis primarily makes use of Joshua Seachris’s theories on what ‘the meaning of life’ denotes, dividing ‘meaning’ up into the subcategories of
‘intelligibility’, ‘purpose’, and ‘significance’. Three different answers to the research question are proposed, which crystallizes three different positions: Hell-optimism, which denotes the view that the existence of Hell would contribute to the meaning of life; Hell-neutralism, which denotes the view that the existence of Hell would have no effect on the meaning of life; and Hell-pessimism, which denotes the view that the existence of Hell would detract from the meaning of life. Arguments are given for each position, most appropriated from the broader meaning of life-discourse. On the basis of the evaluation of each argument, Hell-pessimism is considered the most probable of the three.
KEYWORDS: eschatology, hell, meaning, life, intelligibility, purpose, significance.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION ... 1
1.1 BACKGROUND ... 1
1.2 PURPOSE ... 2
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION ... 3
1.4 DELIMITATIONS... 3
1.5 THEORY ... 5
1.5.1 OPTIMISM, NEUTRALISM, AND PESSIMISM ... 5
1.5.2 THE TRI-OMNI-PERSPECTIVE ... 5
1.5.3 THE MEANING TRIAD ... 8
1.6 METHOD... 12
1.7 PREVIOUS RESEARCH ... 15
2. ANALYSIS ... 17
2.1 HELL-NEUTRALISM ... 17
2.1.1 GRATUITOUS EVIL ... 18
2.1.2 WHAT ABOUT A GRATUITOUS HELL? ... 21
2.2 HELL-OPTIMISM... 23
2.2.1 MORAL ACCOUNTABILITY ... 23
2.2.2 MORAL MOTIVATION ... 25
2.2.3 FREE WILL ... 28
2.3 HELL-PESSIMISM ... 31
2.3.1 PURPOSE AND SUCCESS ... 32
3. CONCLUDING REMARKS ... 36
3.1 DISCUSSION ... 36
3.2 CONCLUSION ... 38
4. BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 39
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
What is the meaning of life? This is perhaps the most fundamental question in the field of Philosophy; perhaps, even, the most fundamental and profound question one could ask, period.
Even though the question is rightly regarded by many as notoriously multi-faceted and vague, modern attempts within the analytic tradition to pin down and analyze the so-called (lower case) meaning of (upper case) Meaning have been somewhat successful. For example, many contemporary analytical scholars have opted to primarily treat the question of the meaning of life as a question regarding meaning in life – what are the inherent conditions that make a life meaningful? The modern (and perhaps existentialist) insistence that meaning in life is something that one can, and indeed must, subjectively define for oneself, could be said to be a branch in this line of thinking. Others, still, argue that a case can be made for the existence of objective meaning in life (such as, for example, Susan Wolf and Robert Audi).
Another (according to me) successfully confined approach lies within the field of Philosophy of Religion. Scholars of this bend are often engaged in discussions about the implications of theism on the meaning of life – is it necessary for God to exist if there is to be any objective meaning to life? What does, or could, God add to the equation? Unlike the more exclusively immanent approach mentioned above, philosophers of religion have a stronger tendency to treat the question of the meaning of life as regarding over-arching and cosmic meaning, and furthermore to view said meaning as being contingent upon the existence of God. Indeed, it seems to be the very question of life’s meaning that drives many people into religious faith to begin with. Christian philosopher William Lane Craig has argued that without God, life lacks both meaning, value and purpose.1 For him, not only the existence of God but also the broader Christian narrative provides a viable way to make sense of meaning, value and purpose in life. But what is it about Christianity that satisfies this seemingly universal human craving for cosmic meaning? And could it be that, after carefully disserting the conditions for cosmic meaning-making, not all Christian ideas are found to be satisfactory in this regard?
1 Craig, William L. ‘The Absurdity of Life without God’. In: Seachris, Joshua W. (ed.): Exploring the Meaning of Life: An Anthology and Guide. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012, pp. 153-172.
T.J. Mawson mentions, in his survey of recent work on meaning of life-questions within the philosophy of religion, that there seems to be reason to question whether variants of theism that hold to the traditional doctrine of Hell can be said to positively influence the meaning of life.2 Even though the prospect of salvation is often mentioned in, for example, the formulation of theodicies,3 many theologians and philosophers fail to adequately consider the prospect of damnation. The suffering of a Jew in Auschwitz whose life culminates in eternal misery is difficult, it would seem, to characterize as meaningful. A life that starts with despair, progresses in despair, and ends in eternal despair seems no more meaningful (and certainly not more valuable) than a life that ends with the naturalistic ‘nothingness of death’. Perhaps, then, there is a case to be made that the truth of theism, combined with the truth of the doctrine of Hell, detracts from the overall meaning of life.
The reader who sympathizes with this sentiment might be surprised to learn that there are thinkers, including the aforementioned William Lane Craig, who argue that the existence of Hell, far from detracting from the meaning of life, substantially contributes to it. According to Craig, the existence of Hell is a necessary condition for the significance of our choices, in that it guarantees final justice for right- and wrongdoers. I believe that these two plainly contradictory proposals call for further investigation, and it is indeed my intention to contribute to this largely untouched academic soil.
1.2 PURPOSE
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the implications of the existence of Hell, understood as a place of eternal misery and separation from God, on the meaning of life. More specifically, the question of whether a Hell of neutral impact is acceptable from a Christian standpoint will first be considered. The proposition that the existence of Hell would have a positive impact on the meaning of life will subsequently be put under scrutiny, in order to lastly assess the case for an understanding of the existence of Hell as detrimental to the meaning of life.
2 Mawson, T. J. ‘Recent Work on the Meaning of Life and Philosophy of Religion’, Philosophy Compass, Vol. 8, No.
12, 2013, p. 1142.
3 Take, for example, John Hick’s soul-making theodicy, postulating that the purpose of suffering is the cultivation of moral virtues.
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION
• Would the existence of Hell, in its traditionalist interpretation, have a positive, neutral, or negative impact on the overall meaning of life?
Note that I do not use the term ‘Hell’ without reservation. Most Christians, even universalist ones, believe in the existence of some type of Hell; it is the eternity of it, the impossibility of post-mortem salvation, that signifies the type of Hell that is being contemplated in this thesis. Christians who ascribe to a belief in this type of Hell are commonly called traditionalists,4 and can be contrasted to universalists (believing that the lost will ultimately be saved) and annihilationists (believing that the lost will ultimately be annihilated). Furthermore, my stipulative definition of Hell includes the proposition that it is a place of profound discomfort and/or dissatisfaction. As vague as that definition might be regarding the more precise condition of the damned in Hell, I find it perfectly adequate for the purposes of this thesis.
The reader may also rest assured that what is really meant by ‘the meaning of life’ will be thoroughly analyzed in the sections to come. Based on some key elements presented in the section on theory (1.5), three further analysis questions will be formulated, dealing with three different aspects of what ‘meaning’ denotes.
Another clarification that must be made is that my research question is agnostic as to whose
‘meaning of life’ is or is not affected by the existence of Hell. It might be that the existence of Hell is only detrimental to the meaning of some lives. It might also be that the impact is applicable, although perhaps in different manners, to all of humanity. This question will be dealt with in the analysis.
1.4 DELIMITATIONS
Delimiting this thesis is, I would argue, no easy feat. Meaning of life-studies is an area which, as I mentioned earlier, is notoriously ubiquitous. In order to make my task a feasible one, delimitations have been made on four different levels.
First and foremost, this thesis will exclusively treat the concept of ‘meaning’ as pertaining to objective meaning. What I mean by this is that meaning should, if not otherwise indicated, be
4 The term ‘traditionalist’ can also be used to describe those who believe in a Hell of eternal retributive punishment, as opposed to a more C.S. Lewis-inspired view of Hell as a free and continuous (and ultimately eternal) choice.
understood as independent from any subjective point of view. A case could, of course, be made for the subjective implications of any reality, be it Hell or something as banal as a grocery store.
Nevertheless, a subjectively valid answer to my research question strikes me as no more helpful than no answer at all. If the existence of Hell is hereby shown, in any respect, to contribute to or detract from the meaning of life, it will be in an objective sense, detached from anyone’s personal psychology.
Secondly, the existence of Hell will, in this thesis, be treated as a genuine possibility (as indicated by the research question). It is entirely possible to argue that a belief in Hell can have consequences for a subjective sense of meaning – but, as I have made clear, this thesis is primarily focused on meaning in the objective sense. The presupposition that Hell is a genuine possibility is founded upon the broader presupposition that God exists.5 It may seem that my thesis will therefore be of primary interest to a Christian theist audience, but that would be a somewhat ambiguous conclusion. The results will, for example, be relevant to any religion whose eschatology involves some concept akin to Hell (most notably Islam). Furthermore, if the existence of Hell is shown to be detrimental to the meaning of life, this could be used as a case against Christianity as a whole, in favor of an otherwise religious or even naturalist worldview.
Nevertheless, the material that I have chosen in order to answer my research question is clearly theistic, and in the Christian sense at that.
The thesis will, furthermore, primarily focus on the relationship between Hell and the meaning of life, and not on the ‘meaning of Hell’, as it were. Whereas, in examining the meaning of Hell, one might ask ‘does Hell serve a purpose?’, this thesis will be interested in questions of the type
‘does Hell make our lives purposeful?’. It will become evident, though, that questions about the meaning of Hell, and questions about the impact of Hell on meaning, are not easily divorced. More on that in section 2.
Lastly, the thesis has been delimited to primarily make use of certain perspectives on what ‘the meaning of life’ really denotes which are by no means a cause of consensus amongst scholars. The theories will be presented in full in section 1.5. For now, I simply wish to underline that there are many theories and perspectives which are of interest to my research question but, for the sake of delimitation, I have chosen to exclude. My hope is to make a strong case based on the theories I find most convincing and useful, in order to make possible further reflection in the broader academic discourse.
5 By ‘God’ I am referring to the tri-omni-God of classical theism, being omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent.
The God-concept will be further demarcated in section 1.5.
1.5 THEORY
As I hope to have made clear above, whichever of the three alternatives mentioned in the research question is shown to be true (or more probable than the others) will only be so in some sense.
Many of the presumptions that are necessary to make in order to give room for a satisfyingly meticulous analysis of the question at hand are highly controversial. Due to the highly controversial and obscure nature of the field, extra effort will be put into carefully articulating my theoretical outset.
1.5.1 OPTIMISM, NEUTRALISM, AND PESSIMISM
To begin with, T.J. Mawson draws a helpful distinction between three views on the relation between the existence of God and the meaning of life: optimism, which is the view that the existence of God contributes to the meaning of life; neutralism, which is the view that the existence of God has no effect on the meaning of life; and pessimism, which is the view that the existence of God detracts from the meaning of life.6 I will utilize Mawson’s triad, and apply it to the Hell- debate: Hell-optimism will denote the view that the existence of Hell would contribute to the meaning of life; Hell-neutralism will denote the view that the existence of Hell would have no effect on the meaning of life; and Hell-pessimism will denote the view that the existence of Hell would detract from the meaning of life.
A further distinction should be made between hard and soft instances of Hell-optimism and Hell-pessimism.7 According to hard Hell-optimism, Hell is necessary for life to be meaningful, whereas, according to soft Hell-optimism, Hell substantially contributes to life being meaningful.
The same goes for hard and soft Hell-pessimism, respectively: according to hard Hell-pessimism, the existence of Hell makes life completely meaningless, whereas, according to soft Hell- pessimism, Hell substantially detracts from the meaning of life.
1.5.2 THE TRI-OMNI-PERSPECTIVE
Now, in order to accurately evaluate any impact on meaning, I must first clearly define what constitutes meaning. To begin with, it should be noted (as was hinted in my background) that when
6 Ibid., p. 1138.
7 The same distinction is not necessary for Hell-neutralism; ‘no effect’ should be understood as an absolute lack of impact.
I talk about meaning, I talk about what might be called cosmic (or over-arching) meaning. Cosmic, in this context, interposes upon ‘meaning’ what might be called a certain perspective from which meaning is viewed. The ‘cosmic’ perspective should be understood as synonymous with the sub specie aeternitatis (hereafter SSA) perspective – which roughly translates to ‘the eternal perspective’ – an expression first coined by Baruch Spinoza in the 1600s. The SSA perspective is commonly contrasted with the sub specie humanitatis (hereafter SSH) perspective, which views the meaning of life through the lens of human values, cares, and concerns.8
According to Joshua Seachris, SSA includes four main components, these being:
1. Time component: a perspective from the temporal vastness of the universe.
2. Spatial component: a perspective from the spatial vastness of the universe.
3. Modal component: a perspective from which our lives appear to be radically contingent.
4. OntologicalNormative component: a perspective from what is ultimately real, especially vis- à-vis normativity.9
Note that, for the purposes of this essay, the above components do not suffice. This is because Seachris’s definition of SSA is naturalist in its outset; it presupposes that the eternal perspective is still confined within space and time. A further distinction must thus be made between a naturalist SSA perspective, which tends to emphasize the material characteristics of our universe as we know it, and a theist SSA perspective, which might be described as ‘seeing things from God’s perspective’ (to the extent that such an exercise is possible). Given a classical understanding of God, according to which God’s fundamental attributes are omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence, the theist SSA perspective might also be called the ‘tri-omni-perspective’.
Adopting a tri-omni-perspective allows us to take into consideration not only what is the case, but, perhaps more importantly, what should/must be the case given the existence of God. This includes being able to take eschatological issues, such as the existence or non-existence of Hell, into account. The tri-omni-perspective also presupposes that, insofar as humanity is purposefully created by God, there is some apriori meaning to our existence. It might be possible to argue that theism is compatible with meaning nihilism but, given my understanding of the components that grant meaning to circumstance (see section 1.5.3), I find it highly unlikely.
8 Although they share similarities, and are often integrated with each other, SSH should not be seen as wholly synonymous with a subjectivist view on the meaning of life. There are thinkers, such as Susan Wolf, who argues for what might be called an ‘objective meaning SSH’ (see Wolf, Susan. ‘The Meanings of Lives’. In: Seachris, Exploring the Meaning of Life, pp. 304-318.)
9Seachris, Joshua W. ‘The Sub Specie Aeternitatis Perspective and Normative Evaluations of Life’s Meaningfulness:
A Closer Look’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2013, p. 608.
I have, for the purposes of this thesis, chosen to adopt a tri-omni-perspective when analyzing the correlation between Hell and the meaning of life, since it is my contention that such a perspective is the most common among theists, laymen and scholars alike. This perspective is also undertaken, tacitly or explicitly, by the material upon which my analysis is built. It would certainly be interesting to see whether a theist SSH perspective could yield different results than a theist SSA perspective, but I am afraid that the size of this thesis does not allow for such a multifaceted analysis.
Furthermore, I have chosen to include within the tri-omni-perspective a view of God’s providence which aligns with that of Molinism. According to Molinism, God’s knowledge can be divided up into three different logical moments (not to be confused with temporal/chronological moments). The most basic of these three is God’s natural knowledge, according to which God has knowledge about every necessary truth.10 In other words, God knows the content of every possible world – He knows, for example, in which possible world Jones freely chooses to accept the gift of salvation, and in which possible world he does not. God’s natural knowledge is essential to God’s nature, and is logically prior to His creative decree.
If, by His natural knowledge, God knows all necessary truths, then by His middle knowledge God knows all contingently true subjunctive conditionals (or counterfactuals).11 In other words, God knows, for example, all counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, such as ‘if Jones were in circumstances C, then Jones would accept the gift of salvation’. This truth is not necessary inasmuch as it is dependent upon the choices of a free agent – but God does, nevertheless, have knowledge about what Jones would freely choose under any given circumstance.
Lastly, God inherits free knowledge. God’s free knowledge is logically posterior to his creative decree, and includes knowledge about matters of fact (such as the actual number of persons on earth at any given time), as well as knowledge about future contingents (that is, what free creatures will, in the actual world, choose to do).12
The reason for why I have chosen to assume Molinism is partly because it is adopted by my primary ‘optimist’ interlocutor, William Lane Craig, but perhaps most importantly because I find presupposing Molinism indispensable to my ambition with this thesis. If, for example, I where to presuppose process theism, according to which God does not possess knowledge about actual or
10 McFarland, Ian A. et al. (ed.). ‘Middle Knowledge’, The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 314.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid, p. 315.
possible future events (because, allegedly, there is no such future to know anything about),13 then the existence of a future Hell cannot be known or rationally defended by referring to any truths about God’s will or capacities. You could, of course, argue that even though a future Hell might surprise God, it is still within His power to put an end to it when it has been actualized. You could also argue that, after being faced with the existence of Hell, God concludes that it produces an overall net gain, and allows it to proceed for all eternity. But neither of these possibilities give us any reason to draw conclusions about the existence of Hell here and now. I would (given process theism) have to conclude that regardless of who is correct, both traditionalists and universalists are not within their bounds to neither affirm nor deny the existence of Hell, since the facts of the future would be anyone’s guess. Conclusions could still be drawn about whether Hell-neutralism, Hell-optimism or Hell-pessimism is more probable, but such findings would have little practical use, since Hell would be an accidental outcome. Craig could claim that the existence of Hell is necessary for there to be meaning to life, but so what? If God has no control over the future existence of Hell, then none of its effects can be used as a reason for affirming it. The same can be said about the Hell-pessimist – regardless of the detrimental effects Hell has on the meaning of life, we might just be that unlucky. A process theist perspective could, as mentioned, still yield results when answering my research question, and could perhaps be a good focus for future work.
The question of whether the existence of Hell has a neutral, positive or negative impact on the meaning of life is, after all, independent of whether God has any control over its coming into existence. Nevertheless, I feel that the considerations above, paired with the need to delimit my work, is reason enough to exclude such alternative views on the nature of God’s knowledge. My hope is, after all, that my findings will contribute something of value to the broader worldview debate, in that it gives further reasons for affirming or denying certain eschatological viewpoints.
1.5.3 THE MEANING TRIAD
Now that I have laid out some key-terms and carefully demarcated my perspective, it is time to dive into the more precise meaning of ‘Meaning’. What is it that we ask for when we inquire about the meaning of life? What is it that makes something more, or less, meaningful? Answering this question is vital to my thesis; without a solid definition of what constitutes meaning, my research question can hardly be answered. Naturally, what constitutes meaning is a question to which there exists a plethora of different answers. However, I believe that Seachris successfully marks off
13 Viney, Donald. ‘Process Theism’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2020 Edition), Edward N.
Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/process-theism/>, section 7.
three broad categories of meaning-making to which most can subscribe. These three categories make up what Seachris calls ‘the meaning triad’.
The image above14 is a helpful visualization of the components that jointly make up the meaning triad, these being intelligibility (I-MEANING), purpose (P-MEANING) and significance (S-MEANING). A few words should be said about each, respectively.
I-MEANING revolves around what might be called sense-making. When we ask if circumstance C has I-MEANING, we ask whether and in what way circumstance C makes sense, whether it is intelligible in a broader context. A good way to exemplify this is by considering the age-old
‘paradox of the stone’: could God create a stone so heavy that even He could not lift it? According to C.S. Lewis, among many others, this question is meaningless – as meaningless as referring to a
‘square circle’ (a famous contradiction of terms).15 What Lewis is trying to say is that asking whether God could create such a rock is meaningless in the I-MEANING sense of the word; it makes no sense. Asking whether God could create such a rock is meaningless because, in the broader context of God being omnipotent, it is nonsensical. To borrow from the lingo of one of the most popular games of the 21st century, The Sims, it is much like saying ‘benzi chibna looble bazebni gweb!’
In the same way, asking for the I-MEANING of life is asking in what way our existence fits into the broader context of our universe. Do we make sense? For some, pondering over this question
14 The image is borrowed from Seachris, Joshua W. ‘From the meaning triad to meaning holism: Unifying life’s meaning’, Human Affairs, Vol. 29, No. 4, 2019, p. 364.
15 Lewis, C. S. The Problem of Pain. New York City, NY: HarperCollins, 2012, p. 18.
leads to the conclusion that our existence, with our deep-seated desire for meaning, purpose, love and justice, is simply unintelligible from a naturalistic SSA perspective.16 Archibald MacLeish might be said to capture this disturbing sentiment in his poem ‘The End Of The World’:
Quite unexpectedly, as Vasserot The armless ambidextrian was lighting A match between his great and second toe, And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb Quite unexpectedly to top blew off:
And there, there overhead, there, there hung over Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes, There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover, There with vast wings across the cancelled skies, There in the sudden blackness the black pall Of nothing, nothing, nothing -- nothing at all.
In relation to the existence of Hell, asking for its impact on I-MEANING is, I believe, in parity with asking whether its existence is intelligible within the broader Christian narrative. This means that many traditional arguments against the existence of Hell – most notably those whose aim is to point out incoherence between the existence of Hell and God’s loving nature – can be said to essentially question the effect that Hell has on the intelligibility of the Christian metanarrative (that is, the I-MEANING of life).17 The focal point of these arguments is, after all, to question whether Hell ‘makes sense’ when considering other central Christian doctrines. Another way to put it is that, in asking for the I-MEANING of life, we are asking for nothing less than a worldview, a way to make sense of our lives and the world we inhabit. If the way we make sense of the world is via the Christian worldview, then an attack on the validity of Christianity is automatically an attack on the I-MEANING of life.
Because many arguments (that at first sight might seem to be wholly unrelated to questions about meaning) fit within this category, I-MEANING is in many ways the central measuring rod when examining the impact that Hell has on the meaning of life. There are, after all, many disparate
16 Seachris, ‘The Sub Specie Aeternitatis Perspective’, pp. 607-608.
17 See, for example: Talbott, Thomas. The Inescapable Love of God (Second Edition). Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014. Also: Hart, David B. That All Shall Be Saved. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019.
ways in which one could argue that the existence of Hell is in one way or another incompatible with other central Christian doctrines; I have, myself, undertaken such projects before. However, in order that the scope of this thesis not be too large, I will pay limited attention to said arguments, and focus on matters that relate more directly to questions about meaning.
Lastly, I should mention that Seachris regards truth to be a necessary condition for I-MEANING; an explanation that makes sense of a circumstance does not grant meaning if it is false, although it might generate a sense of meaning.18
P-MEANING is concerned with purpose – what is the purpose of circumstance C? What is it trying to accomplish? This type of meaning is in some ways interrelated with I-MEANING, as what makes something intelligible is often in part its purpose. When explaining how something we or someone else did ‘makes sense’, we often refer to the intention behind the action. As Seachris puts it:
‘though not all requests for meaning are requests for P-MEANING, all requests for P-MEANING presuppose a more basic request for I-MEANING.’19 Even though intelligibility and purpose can be interwoven in this manner, understanding the purpose of our lives is essential for understanding the meaning of our lives, and therefore deserves careful deliberation on its own.
Accordingly, when asking about the effect that the existence of Hell has for the P-MEANING of life, we are essentially asking whether it makes our lives more or less purposeful. Does a life that ends in eternal damnation serve any purpose for the afflicted person? If not, does it at least serve a purpose for a third party? These are the type of questions that will be deliberated when examining the impact that Hell has on the P-MEANING of life.
Lastly, we have S-MEANING. This category of meaning is concerned with significance or value.
We might say, for example, that spending a whole day watching TV is meaningless in the S-
MEANING sense of the word. This is because we make no noticeable impact in the world; our actions are inconsequential. In the same way, resolving world hunger is perceived by many as a meaningful enterprise, in that it adds something of value to the world – what we did mattered. Our lives are perceived as meaningful partly in relation to the significance of our earthly actions.
Seachris points out that significance is often dependent upon perspective.20 From a naturalist SSA perspective, for example, our actions may seem ultimately pointless – they will bear no lasting fruit as we move closer to the inevitable heat-death of the universe. From the tri-omni-perspective, on the other hand, according to which there exists an eternal afterlife, it is possible that events have eternal significance. One might, for example, argue that the existence of Hell makes life
18 Seachris, ‘From the meaning triad to meaning holism’, p. 366.
19 Ibid, p. 367.
20 Ibid, p. 369.
highly significant, in that it determines our eternal post-mortem destination. On the other hand, it might be that the eternal damnation of one person could have a negative impact on another person.
One must then take a stand as to whether cases of negative significance (whether one is the afflicted or the afflicter) contribute to, or detracts from, the S-MEANING of life. This is the third genre of issues that will be dealt with in the analysis.
The meaning triad – the content of which I have summarized above – will serve as a theoretical outset when answering my research question. Moving forward, its three components will be helpful in properly defining the manner in which the term ‘meaning’ is being used. I will now extrapolate on my method for answering my research question, as well as formulate some analysis questions that will be of help in the analysis to come.
1.6 METHOD
As should be clear by now, this thesis is not only challenged with the task of answering the research question but, perhaps more importantly, confronted with serious hermeneutical difficulties. A large part of the method is thus utilizing a concept analysis in order to properly understand what the phrase ‘the meaning of life’ is trying to convey (a concept analysis is, in short terms, preoccupied with figuring out the proper understanding of words and phrases).21 This has to a large degree already been done in the section above, where the word ‘meaning’ has been analysed and put in relation to adjacent words, such as ‘purpose’, ‘significance’, and ‘intelligibility’.
Moving forward, I have chosen to deploy an argumentative analysis as my primary method. An argumentative analysis is, I feel, the best way of discriminating between different arguments in the way that is necessary for answering my research question.22 The arguments for each of the three positions (Hell-neutralism, Hell-optimism, and Hell-pessimism) will be clearly articulated by specifying all relevant explicit and tacit premises and their conclusions. The premises will, in turn, be critically examined to see whether any of the arguments are based on doubtful or false assumptions, and I will also see whether the conclusions do indeed result from the premises. In more formal terms, the logical validity and soundness of made deductions will be put under
21 Hansson, Sven Ove. Verktygslära för filosofer (Fourth Edition). Stockholm: Thales, 2014, p. 48.
22 One might take issue with such a blunt approach to an otherwise intricate, and for many very personal, subject.
Even though I sympathize with the sentiment that the meaning of life is in no way an easy topic to tackle, I stand firm in my conviction that, when we talk about the meaning of life, we often do express understandable and disputable truth-claims. Charges of rationalizing the unrationalizable is commonplace within both theology and philosophy, and just like most philosophers of religion pay no mind to this when investigating the epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical status of many other religious ideas, I believe it is in perfect order to invite the meaning of life into the well- established field of analytical philosophy of religion.
scrutiny. For example, one might imagine an argument of the standard form ‘If P then Q, P, therefore Q’. This argument is sound if and only if all premises (i.e. ‘If P then Q’ and ‘P’) are true, and it is valid if and only if the conclusion (i.e. ‘Q’) follows from the premises. In this case, we can see that the conclusion follows from the premises via the logical form of modus ponens.
Whether or not the argument is sound is dependent upon the content of the premises. If, for example, we propose that ‘P’ is a placeholder for ‘the earth is flat’, then we can conclude, with some certainty, that the argument is unsound (though still logically valid).23
In the broader context of the analysis at large, my method will be threefold: first, I will put forth and critically examine the arguments for adopting Hell-neutralism; secondly, I will put forth and critically examine the arguments for adopting Hell-optimism; and lastly, I will put forth and critically examine the arguments for adopting Hell-pessimism. Since there exists little material which explicitly argues for any of these three views (other than, in part, the previously mentioned essay by Craig),24 many of the arguments will be appropriated from the broader meaning of life- debate and applied, to the extent that they can be applied, to ‘the meaning of Hell-debate’. Since we already have an adequate understanding of what Hell is (see section 1.3), arguing about its impact on the meaning of life is largely a matter of examining whether its characteristics can be said to contribute to or detract from the intelligibility, purposefulness, and significance of life (in accordance with the theory laid out in the previous section). In order that this process be as transparent as possible, I find it suitable to deploy a couple of analysis questions, which will serve as a guiding raster:
1. Would the existence of Hell contribute to, or detract from, the I-MEANING of life?
2. Would the existence of Hell contribute to, or detract from, the P-MEANING of life?
3. Would the existence of Hell contribute to, or detract from, the S-MEANING of life?
Immediately, though, we encounter a mereological difficulty with using these questions to answer the broader research question – they have no explicit order of priority. Regardless of how any of these questions are answered, there must be a way of determining their impact, since all three components (I-MEANING, P-MEANING, and S-MEANING) figure in the definition of the word ‘meaning’, as used in the research question:
23 Hansson, Verktygslära för filosofer, pp. 81-83.
24 Craig, op. cit.
• Would the existence of Hell, in its traditionalist interpretation, have a positive, neutral, or negative impact on the meaning of life?
If the existence of Hell contributes to the intelligibility of life, and detracts from its significance, for example, then how is the research question to be answered? Is that a case for Hell-optimism or Hell-pessimism?
Two options immediately spring to mind: either all three meaning-components are logically necessary for there to be any meaning to life (that is, if one is compromised, then so is the totality, so the above would be a case for Hell-pessimism), or they are weighed differently (so if, for example, intelligibility where to be seen as the dominant characteristic of meaning, then the above would be a case for Hell-optimism).
The answer lies, I believe, somewhere in between these two options. It is helpful here to distinguish between what is called an amalgam (sometimes aggregative or additive) approach, and a holistic approach. According to the amalgam approach, asking for the meaning of life is not asking for one, but many disparate things.25 According to this view, I-MEANING, P-MEANING, and S-
MEANING should be viewed as three independent categories. The amalgam approach makes it difficult to answer the research question, since any answer would be in need of extensive reservation.
The holistic approach, on the other hand, treats ‘the meaning of life’ as a single and intelligible phenomenon. Seachris himself argues for a holistic approach to the meaning triad, according to which intelligibility is the most foundational component.26 Purpose is, as I have previously mentioned, an aspect of intelligibility, and significance is a way of ‘making sense of purpose’ (in that the purpose of an action is intelligible if it has some possible impact). However hard we try, it seems that ‘making sense of things’ is an essential and indispensable part of what constitutes
‘meaning’.
I find Seachris’s case for prioritizing intelligibility convincing, and I will therefore assume his position in this thesis. In cases like the example above (if the existence of Hell contributes to the intelligibility of life, and detracts from its significance, then how is the research question to be answered?), the answer would be that detracting from the significance of life is in itself an instance of detracting from the intelligibility of life, and so the latter (Hell detracts from significance) would be a reason for questioning the former (Hell contributes to intelligibility). An assessment of the weight of the arguments for each proposition must thus be made – and this is a task for the analysis.
25 Seachris, ‘From the meaning triad to meaning holism’, p. 375.
26 Ibid.
1.7 PREVIOUS RESEARCH
Since the topic of Hell’s impact on the meaning of life is largely uncharted territory, previous research is primarily research done on the broader question of the meaning of life and its relation to a theistic worldview.
David Cooper has developed (partly based on the work of Robert Nozick) an interesting theory of meaning, different from that of this thesis, which stipulates that for an aspect of one’s life to be meaningful, it must on its part be related to an external meaningful something, and that to another.
In order to ground objective meaning and avoid an infinite regress, Cooper suggests that meaning must ultimately trace back to ‘the ineffable’ (what we call God).27 Nozick has also, apart from laying the ground for Coopers argument, contributed to the discussion about which ‘purpose’ is really purposeful in his book Philosophical Explanations.28 According to him, simply being ascribed any purpose by God is not sufficient – an idea this thesis will partly make use of.
Joshua Seachris has (apart from the work of his that my theory is based upon) contributed to the meaning of life-debate by introducing the concept of ‘meta-narrative’. In his paper ‘Death, futility, and the proleptic power of narrative ending’, Seachris argues that the way in which our lives end is highly relevant to whether we consider a life meaningful or futile.29 A ‘good’ ending colors, so to speak, the entirety of a life. The meta-narrative theory is, it would seem, an excellent theoretical outlook from which one could investigate the ‘narrative meaning-implications’ of Hell.
That would perhaps be a good topic for future research.
Susan Wolf is a naturalist who claims that, even though life might be meaningless sub specie aeternitatis, it can be meaningful sub specie humanitatis, by engaging in projects of positive value.30 As opposed to thinkers like Cooper, Wolf maintains that there are ways of objectively differentiating between what is valuable, and thus meaningful, or not, without assuming the existence of any sort of deity or transcendent reality. How it is that objective value can exist within a naturalist universe is unclear, but she explicitly rules out the possibility of positive value being understood as positive subjective value.31 In other work of hers, Wolf characterizes a meaningful
27 Cooper, David. ‘Life and Meaning’, Ratio, Vol. 18, 2005.
28 Nozick, Robert. Philosophical Explanations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.
29 Seachris, Joshua W. ‘Death, futility, and the proleptic power of narrative ending’, Religious Studies, Vol. 47, No.
2, 2011, pp. 141-163.
30 Wolf, op. cit., p. 308.
31 Ibid, p. 309.
life as a life spent ‘loving what is worth loving’ (once again alluding to some sort of objective scale of lovableness).32
Another recent contribution to the field, which in many ways relates to the topic of this thesis, is Martin Hägglund’s book This Life.33 In his book, Hägglund argues that the very existence of an afterlife negates the meaning of life. This is because, according to Hägglund, a life that does not end cannot sustain significance – if we have all the time in the world, we have no reason to do anything. Death makes our lives matter because it makes our time count. It gives us a necessary incitement to care for and nurture other people, and the world we inhabit, here and now. Because if we will spend an eternity in Heaven, why even bother? This, of course, brings up questions about whether the existence of Hell could act as said incitement to be virtuous here and now.
These are some examples of the research that has been done within the field of the meaning of life as of late. Hopefully, they have shed some light on the fact that the field is still young and highly unexplored, and that a topic as specific as the one of this thesis is constantly accompanied by a demand for high transparency.
32 Wolf, Susan. ‘The True, the Good, and the Lovable: Frankfurt’s Avoidance of Objectivity’. In: Buss, Sarah (ed.):
The Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002, pp. 227- 244.
33 Hägglund, Martin. This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom. New York City, NY: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2020.
2. ANALYSIS
In the following analysis, I realize that some confusion might arise in regard to the actual difference between Hell-neutralism and Hell-optimism. These difficulties arise, I believe, because of a differentiation I make between what can be called meaning-impact and inherent meaning.
Meaning-impact is the impact that something has on the meaning of life, whereas inherent meaning is the meaning of the thing itself. Hell-neutralism lack meaning-impact and therefore lack inherent meaning, whereas Hell-optimism has meaning-impact but, in virtue of its impact being negative, also lack inherent meaning. This is a consequence of the basic assumption that a circumstance can only be inherently meaningful if it positively contributes to meaning. The reason for this is that, from the tri-omni-perspective, according to which the world is created and sustained by an omnibenevolent creator, a negative meaning-impact cannot make sense (and is thus void of the most fundamental I-MEANING). For God, there could be no (inherent) meaning to a Hell that has no loving purpose. In order that the analysis be as transparent as possible, the reader might do well to keep the following diagram in mind:
Hell-neutralism Hell-optimism Hell-pessimism Inherent meaning Meaningless Meaningful Meaningless
Meaning-impact No impact Positive impact Negative impact
2.1 HELL-NEUTRALISM
In a way, Hell-neutralism seems quite uninteresting in light of my task, since it posits a Hell that completely lacks meaning-impact. Hell simply is, and it would not have mattered if it were not; it is self-admittedly nonsensical. I do, though, find it interesting to delve into the possibility of a Hell that aligns with the truth of Hell-neutralism. Could there even exist such a Hell? If its existence is shown to be an impossibility, then that would show that its existence would, if it existed, significantly detract from (if not make impossible) the I-MEANING of life, since it would make the universe (and our lives within it) nonsensical; there would be a completely absurd aspect to reality (i.e. Hell). Along with the shown impossibility of the Hell of Hell-pessimism (more on that later), it would also give us reason to conclude that, in order for Hell to exist, Hell-optimism must be true. This would helpfully delimit the possible results and conclusions of my analysis.
If Hell has no impact on our lives, then it follows that Hell is in itself meaningless; it serves no purpose, has no significance, and subsequently (I would argue) makes no sense. Questioning whether it is possible that there exists a Hell that has no impact on the meaning of life is comparable, then, to questioning whether it is possible that there exists a Hell the existence of which is strictly meaningless. One might object that Hell could serve some other purpose, unrelated to our lives (the sufferings of the lost might, for example, serve as an amusing TV- spectacle for an alien race in some far-off galaxy). But this would imply that God uses human suffering as means to some other end – something I deem to be incompatible with his loving nature. This is a key assumption in the following analysis, and so it is worth spelling out clearly:
Hell cannot be meaningful in a way that utilizes a person’s suffering as a means to any other end than that which is ultimately profitable to the person.
I believe that a Hell of neutral impact is an evil of neutral impact, and so the question ‘is it possible for Hell to be meaningless?’ is in many ways analogous to the question ‘is it possible for evil to be gratuitous?’.34 In order to take a stand on whether a meaningless Hell, understood as a great evil, is compatible with the existence of a loving God, we need only examine whether gratuitous evil is compatible with the existence of a loving God – and, on that topic, much has been written.
2.1.1 GRATUITOUS EVIL
What is gratuitous evil, and how would a neutral Hell fit into its definition? According to Klaas J.
Kraay, there are two distinct conceptions of what ‘gratuitous evil’ denotes:
GE1: Any instance of evil the occurrence of which is not necessary for the occurrence of some greater good.
GE2: Any instance of evil that God, if God exists, antecedently knows it to be certain or probable that he could prevent in a way that would make the world overall better than it would otherwise be.35
I think it is safe to say that a Hell of neural impact exhibits both of these two components. If Hell were necessary for some greater good (i.e. it serves a good purpose), then its impact would be positive, not neutral, and so it is an instance of GE1. It is also reasonable to suppose, in accordance
34 I understand Hell to be a case of evil insofar as suffering is a case of evil. Whether or not Hell would be a moral evil, say, from God’s part, is not being deliberated here. I also use the words gratuitous and meaningless interchangeably.
35 Kraay, Klaas J. ‘God and gratuitous evil (Part I)’, Philosophy Compass, Vol. 11, No. 12, 2016, p. 906.
with GE2, that God could prevent the evil of a neutral Hell in a way that would make the world an overall better place (presupposing that the world would be better without a dedicated place of eternal torment – I am all right with leaving that assumption undefended).
At first glance, it would seem that the existence of an evil which instantiates any of these two components – much more so both – would be incompatible with the existence of an omnibenevolent God. Affirming the incompatibility of gratuitous evil and the existence of God and focusing, instead, on refuting the claim that gratuitous evil ever occurs, is indeed the most common theist response to ‘the Problem of Evil’ (that is, the problem of reconciling an all-loving God with what seems to be an excess of gratuitous evil in the world).36 Fewer are the theologians and philosophers who deny that the existence of gratuitous evil is a problem for the theist – but, alas, they are a sizeable minority. I believe that the best way of taking a stand on whether a meaningless Hell is compatible with the existence of God, is by considering the most prominent defenses of the compatibility of gratuitous evil and the existence of God. For the purposes of this thesis, two examples will suffice.
In his book Evil and the Christian God, Michael Peterson puts forth three lines of argument in favor of the compatibility between God and GE1. Kraay summarizes these three arguments as follows:37
a. Significant moral freedom includes having the power to perform moral GME1, and so it is logically impossible for God to completely prevent or eliminate GME1 without severely diminishing moral freedom. It is permissible, then, for God to allow GME1 for the sake of the outweighing good of significant moral freedom.
b. The existence of a regular natural order is required for the existence of creaturely free will, and such an order cannot exist without the possibility of GNE1. It is permissible, then, for God to permit GNE1 for the sake of the outweighing good of creaturely free will.
c. ‘God’s primary purpose in creation is to bring forth mature moral and rational creatures,’
and achieving this goal requires both the actuality and possibility of GME1 and GNE1.
Accordingly, it is permissible for God to allow GME1 and GNE1 for the sake of the outweighing good of achieving his primary purpose in creation.38
36 Ibid.
37 Note that Kraay uses ‘N’ and ‘M’ in addition to the acronyms in order to indicate whether it is talk of natural or moral evil. Moral evil is evil caused by the free will of an agent; natural evil is not.
38 Kraay, op. cit., pp. 906-907.
As Kraay points out, the use of justifications such as ‘for the sake of the outweighing good…’
seems paradoxical – is not the use-value of gratuitous evil contrary to its gratuitousness?39 The answer lies in the differentiation between tokens of evil, and types of evil. Tokens of evil are specific instances of evil. For example, we might imagine a person stubbing one’s toe – this would be a token of evil, in that it is an occurrence of pain. Was this specific incident necessary in order to actualize some greater good? Perhaps not, but we can reasonably concede that the type of evil that is ‘the stubbing one’s toe’ is the natural consequence of the existence of a physical universe, the laws of nature, and human free will. Another token of evil could have done the trick, and so it is an instance of GNE1 (albeit justified by the reasoning of (a) and (b), which leaves God off the hook, as it where).
Before considering the applicability of Peterson’s argument on a neutral Hell, let us consider an argument in defense of the existence of GE2, as well. This time I will consider a couple of arguments put forth by William Hasker, once again helpfully encapsulated by Kraay in the following deduction:
(a) If God prevents all GE2, this fact is known or reasonably believed by us.
(b) If we know or reasonably believe that God prevents all GME2, then our motivation to behave morally is undermined.
(c) If we know or reasonably believe that God prevents all GNE2, then our motivation to acquire or develop various goods (g1…gn) in response to natural evil is undermined.
(d) If God prevents all GE2, then the motivations mentioned in (b) and (c) are undermined.
(e) God’s plan for creation includes ensuring that the motivations mentioned in (b) and (c) are not undermined.
Therefore,
(f) It’s not the case that God prevents all GE2.40
39 Ibid, p. 907.
40Kraay, Klaas J. ‘God and gratuitous evil (Part II)’, Philosophy Compass, Vol. 11, No. 12, 2016, pp. 914-915.
In short, then, Hasker makes the case that the existence of GE2 is necessary for our moral growth.
We need to believe that what we do can truly be inexcusably, pointlessly evil. If we know that all of our actions, good and evil alike, serve a good purpose, then, according to Hasker, we lose the incentive to act morally; and it is unworthy of God to withhold such knowledge from us.41 Therefore, God must allow the existence of GE2.
2.1.2 WHAT ABOUT A GRATUITOUS HELL?
We now have two different lines of argument which, together, proposedly prove that the existence of GE1 and GE2 is compatible with the existence of God. Do we have a satisfactory case, then, for the compatibility of God and a neutral Hell?
First, let us consider the distinction between token and type. It is conceivable that there exists a plethora of possible ‘Hells’, all belonging to what might be called a Hell-type of evil. It might be, then, that God allows for the existence of at least one Hell, gratuitous qua token, in order to actualize some greater good that is made realizable by the existence of Hell-type evil. We might imagine, for example, that Hell-type evil is necessary in order to guarantee that we are free to deny God indefinitely (this would be the classical ‘Free Will Defense’ of Hell, put forward by thinkers such as C.S. Lewis and Alvin Plantinga). But then the Hell-type of evil would not be gratuitous, only the individual token. Is not the distinction between token and type, then, just a way of ‘moving the goal post’?
Think of it like this: for Hell to have a truly neutral impact on meaning, no rationale could possibly justify its coming into- or out of existence. If we were to ask God ‘what is the meaning of the existence of Hell? Why is it there?’ God’s answer would be ‘there is no reason; it just is’.
Arguing in the manner of which Peterson and Hasker does becomes otiose, because any case that makes the existence of a neutral Hell intelligible in a wider context by referring to gains such as
‘free will’ contradicts its neutrality. This is because ‘meaning’ (which a neutral Hell proposedly lack) is consistent of the subcategories intelligibility, purpose, and significance, intelligibility being the dominant component. If Hell is intelligible (whether it is in virtue of having some significance, or serving some purpose) then, by definition, it is not truly meaningless, neutral, or gratuitous (whichever word one prefers).
It all boils down to the fact that Hell-neutralism posits a Hell that is gratuitous in a stronger sense than the gratuitous evil that Peterson are Hasker are talking about; a Hell that is gratuitous both as token and as type (we may call this stronger gratuitousness ‘complete gratuitousness’). If
41 Ibid, p. 914.
