Department of Studies in and Worldviews D2, 15.0 c Master’s Thesis (One Year) Spring Term 2021

The Meaning of Exploring the meaning of life through the lens of the

Author: Henry Englund Supervisor: Mikael Stenmark

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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: , hell, meaning, life, intelligibility, purpose, significance.

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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 ...... 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

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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 . Scholars of this bend are often engaged in discussions about the implications of on the meaning of life – is it necessary for 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 . Indeed, it seems to be the very question of life’s meaning that drives many people into religious to begin with. Christian philosopher 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.

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T.J. Mawson mentions, in his survey of recent work on meaning of life-questions within the , 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 ,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, ’s -making , postulating that the purpose of suffering is the cultivation of moral virtues.

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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 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.

4 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.

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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 lack of impact.

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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 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 , 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.) 9 Seachris, 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.

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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 . 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 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 314. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid, p. 315.

8 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 = , section 7.

9 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 ‘ 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.

10 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.

11 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.

12 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.

13 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.

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• 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.

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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 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.

16 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 , 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.

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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.

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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.

19 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 ’ (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; is not. 38 Kraay, op. cit., pp. 906-907.

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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. 40 Kraay, Klaas J. ‘God and gratuitous evil (Part II)’, Philosophy Compass, Vol. 11, No. 12, 2016, pp. 914-915.

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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 ‘’, 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 ). 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.

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Peterson, or Hasker, or both are right, then that would be a case for Hell-optimism. It would prove that some Hell is necessary for there to be free will, or, in Haskers case, for us to be able to develop such-and-such goods, and would therefore make Hell a significant (read: S-MEANING) part of the Christian worldview. And if there is no conceivable way of arguing for the compatibility of a neutral Hell and an all-loving God which does not generate some contradiction, then that would mean that the alleged incompatibility stands firm. An obvious objection would be that wholly dismissing the other side of the debate (the ‘compatibilists’, if you will) based on the arguments of only two thinkers is far too flippant – but the observant reader will have noticed that my argument is applicable to any conceivable argument to the contrary. The moment one starts rationalizing the existence of a neutral Hell, one automatically concedes that there is some I- MEANING to Hell. You cannot excuse God, without giving God an excuse. For maximum clarity, I will summarize my argument in deductive form:

(1) Hell exists.

(2) If Hell-neutralism is true, then Hell is a completely gratuitous evil.

(3) If God exists, then no completely gratuitous evil exists.

(4) God exists.

Therefore,

(5) Hell-neutralism is false.

As it stands, I see no feasible defeater of (3). As I hope to have shown, standard objections to the charge of incompatibility between God and gratuitous evil, when applied to the question of a neutral Hell, fall into the trap of interposing some meaning to the existence of Hell. I see no palpable way of evading this difficulty, since any argument for the possibility of a neutral Hell would be reliant on some type of sense-making. Arguing for the existence of a neutral Hell is, when having a closer look, indistinguishable from arguing for the existence of the optimist Hell – but only the latter is logically coherent. Since Hell-neutralism posits a Hell that strictly cannot exist, Hell-neutralism is incompatible with safekeeping the I-MEANING of life. If a neutral Hell existed, the Christian worldview would be, in some respect, nonsensical. In accordance with my reasoning in regard to Hell-neutralism, it is my firm conviction that the existence of a completely gratuitous evil is incompatible with the existence of an omnibenevolent God. Since Hell-pessimism posits a Hell which is not only unintelligible in its own right, but also

23 detracts from the intelligibility of our own lives, it will be subject to the same logic. If Hell- pessimism is shown to be true, then this would also show that the existence of Hell is an impossibility. This would, in the same manner as Hell-neutralism, prove that Hell-pessimism diminishes the I-MEANING of life. The only possible way for Hell to exist, is in the shape of Hell- optimism.

2.2 HELL-OPTIMISM

Claiming that there is a lack of material that explicitly deal with the positive impact Hell has on life’s meaning would be an understatement. For many theists, the existence of Hell is simply not put into the equation when highlighting the positive effects that a Christian worldview has on the meaning of life. This is not to say that there are no theists who defend the existence of Hell based on some theodicy (for example by referring to our free will) but, in my experience, those types of arguments are often just that – theodicies, brought forth by external critique. Fewer are those who, unprovoked, declare the profits of everlasting damnation. But, as I have argued above, Hell must have some positive meaning in order for its existence to be rationally justifiable. The Christian who affirms the traditionalist doctrine of Hell must, in other words, be a Hell-optimist. So what are some possible reasons for assuming that the existence of Hell contributes to, or is necessary for, meaning in life?

2.2.1 MORAL ACCOUNTABILITY

In his essay The Absurdity of Life without God, William Lane Craig puts forth a threefold case for why theism is to be preferred over , due to its meaning-inducing capabilities.42 According to Craig, the atheist worldview is void of both meaning, value, and purpose. The ambiguity which haunts the meaning of life-field is clearly displayed in the discrepancy between Craig’s understanding of ‘meaning’, and mine. This thesis operates from the assumption that ‘value’ and ‘purpose’ fit within the broader category of ‘meaning’, whereas Craig seems to use the word ‘meaning’ as synonymous with ‘significance’ (which, according to my theoretical outlook, is a constituent of ‘value’). The important part to note is that Craig’s case for Hell-optimism figures under the category of ‘value’ which, in this case, translates to the S-MEANING of life. According to Craig, the atheist is confronted with the problem that ‘if God does exist and there is no immortality, then all the evil acts of men go unpunished and all the sacrifices of good men

42 Craig, op. cit.

24 go unrewarded.’43 In other words, without ‘the double outcome’ (Heaven and Hell), our actions in life lack some necessary moral significance. If there is no punishment for evil, and no reward for good, then, ultimately, the way we choose to live our lives is of no consequence; and thus we need Hell (and Heaven) in order to safekeep the S-MEANING of life. Insisting that the existence of Hell is necessary for our moral choices to be of significance is, as far as I can tell, a common way of arguing for Hell-optimism. Mawson expresses a similar idea in his research overview, questioning whether everyone going to Heaven in the end would make our suffering more or less meaningful.44 In a documentary on doctrines of Hell within the Christian tradition called Hellbound?, atheist story consultant Robert McKee claimed that if Hell does not exist, then we have no reason to act right. ‘By eliminating Hell,’ he utters, ‘these people [universalists] are sucking the meaning out of life’ (my emphasis). We can summarize the sentiment of these thinkers in the following ‘moral accountability thesis’ (keep in mind that this thesis is only meant to help in performing an unambiguous analysis; I make no claim as to whether it captures the complete view of any one thinker):

(AT) For any person S that performs moral action A, S’s life has S-MEANING iff A is of consequence to S’s eternal fate.

Is there any merit to the suggestion that the existence of Hell is necessary for life to have S- MEANING? I would like to cast doubt on two aspects of this proposal. To begin with, one could question whether this really should be a case of equivalence. In other words: is moral accountability really a good argument for hard Hell-optimism? I can think of other possible ways of ensuring the S-MEANING of life. For example, one might derive S-MEANING from positively impacting the world in a finite manner – say, by curing cancer. Our amoral choices can also have temporal consequences, such as a guilty conscience, or the externally imposed punishment of imprisonment. If one wishes to argue for hard Hell-optimism based on Hell’s actualization of moral accountability, then one needs to assume that S-MEANING can only arise if our actions are of eternal consequence, and that is a controversial claim (though clearly not unheard of). Of course, this difficulty can easily be avoided by opting for mere soft Hell-optimism, and substitute the equivalence in the moral accountability thesis for an implication (if instead of iff). It might be that, even though our lives can be meaningful nevertheless, the existence of Hell does substantially contribute to the S-MEANING of life by making moral accountability a reality.

43 Ibid, p. 166. 44 Mawson, op. cit., p. 1142.

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Secondly, even if we concede that eternal (moral) consequence is a necessary condition for S- MEANING to subsist, it still does not convincingly show that eternal consequence must be retributive in the way that Hell is. Craig (and others) seems to presuppose that our actions must not only be of eternal consequence, but also result in at least two different eternal outcomes (Heaven and Hell). The Universalist, for example, could agree with (AT) that, for our lives to have S-MEANING, our actions must be of eternal consequence, but insist that the only consequence which will ultimately be achieved by all is the eternal bliss of Heaven (even if Hell is, modally, a possible fate). The Universalist might even concede that there exists a temporal place, akin to Hell, where wrongdoers receive whatever punishment is justified based on their actions in life. Thaddeus Metz interjects that, for the purposes of maintaining moral accountability, ‘something like Karma would be sufficient to apportion the relevant reparations, penalties, and rewards or otherwise achieve moral perfection.’45 I see no prima facie reason for assuming that there must exist a fate as terrible as the traditionalist Hell, and neither Craig nor any other proponent of this view that I have stumbled upon give any further reason for believing that this is the case. One could, perhaps, argue that some crimes (take the horrors of the holocaust) make the perpetrator eligible to nothing less than an eternity in Hell, although I would combat such an intuition. It seems far from obvious that any finite crime could ever justify an eternal punishment. As it stands, (AT) is consistent with the inexistence of Hell; in order to counterargue this fact, one would need to supplement the thesis with the proposition that at least two different fates (one of which consists of some sort of eternal dissatisfaction) must be actualized in order for S-MEANING to subsist, or else stick to a soft version of the argument.

2.2.2 MORAL MOTIVATION

An argument for Hell-optimism, which is closely related to the moral accountability argument, is the argument from moral motivation. This argument is mainly appropriated from . In his book Responsibility and Atonement, Swinburne writes:

While to avoid the pains of Hell is always a good reason for doing anything at all, including worshipping God or giving to the poor, there are other good and often better reasons for doing the latter things. But if it is very difficult to get yourself to give out of love for the poor, it is good to remind yourself that by giving you avoid the pains of Hell (if you so believe). That will make giving come more easily. The miserly desire for possession, being vanquished on several occasions, will not have such strength in future. That will make it easier to give out of love for the poor on a future occasion; and having done it once, it becomes easier to

45 Metz, Thaddeus. ‘New Developments in the Meaning of Life’, Philosophy Compass, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2007, p. 198.

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do it again. Threats are a useful spur to virtue, not because they immediately produce virtuous action, but because they weaken the power of desires which inhibit the pursuit of virtue.46

At first glance, this seems to be an argument in favor of a positive inherent meaning to Hell – Hell serves a purpose in that it motivates moral behavior. The connection to the meaning of our lives is not as easily spotted. But as I have made clear elsewhere, I believe positive meaning-impact and positive inherent meaning to be interdependent (recall the diagram at the beginning of section 2), and so the shown inherent meaningfulness of Hell also proves its positive meaning-impact. The argument from moral motivation could also be said to imply that the existence of Hell contributes to the I-MEANING of life in that it makes our moral actions more sensible. If we add the auxiliary hypothesis that the Christian worldview contains the notion that the P-MEANING of our lives partly (or wholly) consists of a strive for moral progress, then the argument from moral motivation also contributes to the P-MEANING of life. If the fear of Hell makes us achieve our purpose, then it makes our lives more purposeful. In the same as with the moral accountability argument, we can summarize the argument in a ‘moral motivation thesis’:

(MT) For any person S that performs moral action A, A has I-MEANING if A is motivated by fear of Hell, and fear of Hell contributes to the P-MEANING of S’s life if fear of Hell contributes to S’s moral progress.47

This thesis strikes me as reasonable. It does make sense that a moral action, especially a self- emptying one, could be motivated by fear of punishment, thus making moral behavior meaningful in the I-MEANING sense of the word (which then makes morality, and thus our lives within its sphere, more intelligible). Fear of Hell adds some (although it is unclear how much) intelligibility to the phenomenon of moral, selfless action. It also seems reasonable to assume that a fear of Hell, if it successfully aids the strife for moral progress (such progress being a constituent of the P-MEANING of life), also contributes to the P-MEANING of life. I do, though, have some critical remarks. First of all: even if motivation by fear makes sense, both of specific moral actions and of the existence of Hell itself, I cannot help but to feel that its total impact on the I-MEANING of life would be negligible. I have no reliable way of acquiring such data, of course, but I would wager that most of the moral behavior in the world is not motivated by fear. Even if it were so motivated, it would probably be by the fear of human authorities; the fear of imprisonment, fines, public defamation

46 Swinburne, Richard. Responsibility and Atonement. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, p. 168. 47 I assume that any contribution to the intelligibility of moral action also contributes to the intelligibility of life (that of which moral behavior and consideration play a large part).

27 and the like. Surely there exist people who do good in order that they may escape the anguish of Hell, but they seem to be a minority, even among Christians. And so even if the argument from moral motivation is sound (in regard to I-MEANING), it is only proof of a very weak form of soft Hell-optimism. On its own, its prospects are not promising. Furthermore, I wish to cast doubt on Swinburne’s claim that ‘to avoid the pains of Hell is always a good reason for doing anything at all.’48 That fear-as-motivation is always a ‘useful spur to virtue’ is not obvious to me. To quote John Cottingham:

Whether or not such an afterlife [Heaven or Hell] awaits us is beyond the boundaries of the knowable; but what can be said is that anyone who pursued virtue solely in expectation of a personal reward at some future date would thereby automatically have misunderstood the nature of virtue – and indeed would by definition not be acting in a truly virtuous manner.49

Now Swinburne might object that he is only claiming that fear is a means for achieving true virtue, and that Cottingham is right in that pursuing virtue solely for the purpose of reaping future reward (or avoiding punishment) is highly inadequate. My problem is that motivation by fear strikes me as positively unvirtuous, ineffective, and often times counterproductive. Consider a young boy, raised in a household where fear of punishment is the predominant motivator for what is considered desirable behavior. When the boy misbehaves, he is beaten bloody, cursed at, whipped over his fingers; if the offence is great enough, his father might burn his hand on the scorching hot stove. He is brought up under constant fear of punishment, always minding his step, doing his very best to avoid the wrath of his parents. This example might seem extreme, but keep in mind that we are talking about eternal damnation; a condition the despair of which we probably cannot even accurately imagine. What might become of this boy? Learning from such young age the tools of fear and domination, he is not unlikely to bully and harass his fellow schoolmates. He will, most likely, grow to hate his parents, and, knowing all too well the effectiveness of violence, he is well suited for a criminal career path. Perhaps one day he will have children of his own – children he can terrorize as he sees fit, just as his parents terrorized him. Whatever the result might be, teaching children to fear their parents strikes me as an outdated, perverse, and ultimately poor way of raising virtuous individuals. In the same way, the threat of Hell could never, I believe, cultivate proper virtue. If anything, fear is a spur to ; it is the very antithesis of love. It teaches us to be mistrusting, anxious, violent

48 Swinburne, op. cit. 49 Cottingham, John. On the Meaning of Life. London: Routledge, 2003, p. 74.

28 and self-centered. To quote scripture, ‘There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.’50 We cannot act out of fear, and expect love to result. Swinburne’s view is a common but, I would say, mistaken assessment of the effectiveness of fear as a motivator (although it is possible that my intuitions deceive me). Lastly, we have the issue of success. Recall that I claimed that motivation by fear could contribute to the P-MEANING of life if it aids us in achieving our purpose of becoming virtuous (or, in more religious terms, sanctified) individuals. A prerequisite for the infusion of P-MEANING is therefore the successfulness of fear-as-motivation. Now, as we have seen above, there is reason to question whether the fear of Hell could ever successfully help in cultivating virtue, and so there is also reason to question whether the fear of Hell could ever contribute to the P-MEANING of life. But even if we concede that such help does occur, we still have the issue of reprobates. Hell does not seem to add any purposefulness to the lives of those who do not achieve their purpose by its help. For the man who winds up in Hell regardless of its horrendous and fear-infusing reality, Hell lacks the type of P-MEANING-impact that the argument from moral motivation suggests it has. So, even if Hell contributes to meaning in that it helps us achieve our purpose, this is only true of those who ultimately escape its torments. For the rest of humanity, fear of Hell has no meaning. For these reasons, I find the argument from moral motivation unconvincing. Even if, as with the case of moral accountability, the argument from moral motivation could be used in favor of some type of soft Hell-optimism, it hardly makes Hell-optimism a comfortable position.

2.2.3 FREE WILL

Let us consider one last argument for Hell-optimism – the free will argument. There exists a plethora of scholars who argue over free will and its implications within the philosophy of religion. For example, Alvin Plantingas ‘free will defense’ of theism is one of the most well-known theodicies to date, arguing that there exists no logical contradiction between the existence of God and the existence of evil and suffering.51 The free will defense is also frequently used when defending the existence of Hell: people go to Hell because God cannot make them do otherwise without undermining their free will, or so the reasoning goes. In the words of C.S. Lewis:

50 1 John 4:18 (NIV) 51 See Plantinga, Alvin. God, Freedom, and Evil. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989.

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There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.52

Now, we are not primarily concerned with whether free will could excuse Hell (we are not making a theodicy), but rather whether the existence of Hell would contribute to free will, thus making our existence as free creatures more intelligible and, therefore, our lives more meaningful in the I- MEANING sense of the word. Once again, we must keep in mind the distinction between soft and hard Hell-optimism: either Hell is necessary for there to be free will, or it substantially contributes to our having free will. I believe that the most plausible form of the free will argument is that in favor of hard Hell- optimism, since its soft form would be of little use to the Hell-optimist; if Hell is not necessary for there to be free will, then it strikes me as a great price to pay for some limited contribution to our freedom of choice. A soft form of the argument would say little more than that Hell is an additional choice to be made – and if that was the argument, then it would seem to me as convincing as claiming that the existence of flying saucers would grant our lives I-MEANING, since that would give us an additional mode of transport to freely choose. It is also my conviction that most theists who use the free will argument do so thinking of Hell as nothing less than a logical necessity (given some tacit assumptions about the components of a Christian worldview). The free will argument might be summarized in the following ‘free will thesis’:

(FT) For any person S that goes to Heaven, S is free iff S goes there on S’s own volition.

It does seem reasonable to stipulate that God could not force us to go to Heaven, and so the existence of Hell (understood as not-Heaven, separation from the presence of God) would be the unfortunate result of our free will.53 If Hell does not exist then, in the words of Lewis, our (free) will, will not be done. But is that really so? The free will argument is founded upon the mere possibility, not necessity, of one or more persons choosing everlasting damnation. It is entirely reasonable to propose that, even though it is strictly possible for one to deny God and the bliss of Heaven, no one actually will. As I have already made clear, this thesis rests upon a Molinist understanding of God’s

52 Lewis, C. S. The Great Divorce. New York City, NY: HarperCollins, 2012, p. 327 53 I here take for granted the immortality of the human person. One might suggest that God could annihilate the damned instead of letting them suffer eternally (in accordance with Annihilationism), but I do not see much difference in undesirableness between these two options; not enough, at least, to consider annihilation a successful middle ground.

30 knowledge, which makes clear that God knows all ‘counterfactuals of creaturely freedom’; God knows what you will freely do, before you freely do it. And so it lies within God’s power to only create people that God knows will freely choose salvation. Therefore, free will seems not to be dependent upon the actual existence of Hell, and so the free will argument fails. It is possible to agree with (FT) without agreeing with Hell-optimism. Craig, who happens to be a Molinist Hell-optimist, objects to this argument by introducing the concept of a transworld reprobate.54 A transworld reprobate is a person who in all possible worlds reject God.55 According to Craig, it is possible that ‘God has actualized a world containing an optimal balance between saved and unsaved, and those who are unsaved suffer from transworld damnation.’56 It might be, in other words, that there either exists no possible world in which all people are saved, or that God prefers a world in which x amount of people are saved, with the unfortunate consequence that x amount of ‘transworld reprobates’ are eternally damned. As to the latter, it does not strike me as a genuine possibility. This is because it implies that the meaning of life (both its intelligibility, purpose, and significance) for the transworld reprobate is to make possible the salvation of others, which contradicts my previous insistence that ‘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.’57 It would, so to speak, be a violation of Kant’s second categorical imperative, which I believe is a standard that can be reasonably ascribed to God. I could, of course, be wrong in my judgement. Perhaps God could be justified in allowing such instrumental suffering for the sake of an ‘optimal balance’. But this still, I argue, would not entail that the lives of the transworld reprobates were meaningful. This is because I agree with John Kekes that life is not meaningful just because it serves any old purpose – it must be somewhat good for us. Pondering over the struggling Sisyphus, carrying his rock up the hill over and over, Kekes writes:

Why would it make Sisyphus’s life meaningful if he knew that the rocks he is rolling help to construct a monument for the glory of the ? He knows that he is part of a plan, that his endless drudgery has a purpose, but neither the plan nor the purpose is his own. He is, in effect, enslaved by the gods.58

54 Bear in mind that this objection is brought forth in a different context than the one of this thesis. What Craig originally argues for is that the possibility of transworld reprobates disproves that there exists a logical contradiction between the existence of a loving God and the existence of Hell. 55 Craig, William L. ‘“No Other Name”: A Middle Knowledge Perspective on the Exclusivity of Salvation Through Christ’, Faith and Philosophy, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1989, p. 184. 56 Ibid. 57 See section 2.1. 58 Kekes, John. ‘The Meaning of Life’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2000, p. 25.

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The situation for the transworld reprobates does not seem to differ much from that of Sisyphus – their existence (and suffering) serves the interest of others. One could, of course, combat my (and Kekes) intuitions, and claim that a life lived only for the sake of others is meaningful for the person living it. That being said, it seems to me highly unlikely. As to the former, I find it highly improbable (although not impossible) that there exists no possible world in which all people (however many they may be) are saved. Surely God could manage to create a world of, say, five people, all of which freely accept salvation? That such would be an impossibility strikes me as unintuitive, to say the least. Even if it were impossible for God to create a world in which all people are saved, and that the existence of Hell is therefore justified, this would most probably entail a (free will) Hell-optimism applicable only to the lives of those who are saved. For the transworld reprobate, life would appear a meaningless horror show. The most important thing to note is that Craigs interjections does not actually go any way in defending hard Hell-optimism on the basis of free will. The mere possibility of a transworld reprobate, or an optimal balance, still does not do away with the problem that (FT) does not necessarily imply Hell-optimism. All it proves is that it is possible that free will necessitates Hell, and that renders the argument quite moot. One would need to prove that Craigs suggestions are actually true in order to subsequently claim that free will requires the existence of Hell (and therefore that the existence Hell is necessary in order to safekeep the I-MEANING of life). To summarize, the free will argument for hard Hell-optimism appears to require some questionable assumptions. Even if we allow that Craigs proposals are in fact true, the free will argument still only achieves partial success; coupled with the fact that it is unclear whether it is in accordance with God’s loving nature that God creates any person only for the benefit of another, I regard the free will argument to be quite ambiguous and unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, the free will argument can be utilized (although scarcely), and coupled with the argument from moral accountability and the argument from moral motivation, there might be a satisfactory case for Hell-optimism. Before moving to the comparison and subsequent conclusion of this thesis, I will consider what I take to be the strongest argument for Hell-pessimism.

2.3 HELL-PESSIMISM

The reasons for why one should opt for Hell-pessimism have, in some way, already been brought forth in the previous analysis. If both Hell-neutralism and Hell-optimism are false, then this necessarily implies that Hell-pessimism is true – and we have been given good reason to suspect

32 that both other options are indeed false. Arguing for Hell-neutralism is doomed to end in contradiction, and what I consider to be the most promising arguments for Hell-optimism have been shown to be, if not completely unsuccessful, then at the very least highly questionable. On the basis of this analysis, we already have a case for the probability of Hell-pessimism over Hell- optimism. Even so, there is a positive case for the truth of Hell-pessimism that is worth considering. I will only consider this one argument, since I find that it relates, in one way or another, to many of the issues brought up in my critique of the arguments for Hell-optimism. It addresses, in other words, what I experience to be the great ‘Achilles heel’ of Hell as meaning-contributing.

2.3.1 PURPOSE AND SUCCESS

Recall the point I made at the end of section 2.2.2, about the necessity of fear of Hell being successful in its attempt to, so to speak, ‘scare one into submission.’ Further consideration exhibits a similar difficulty with all three arguments for Hell-optimism. In order for Hell to be necessary for, or contribute to, a meaningful life, Hell must be successful in its enterprise: it must actually make us morally accountable; it must actually make us motivated to act morally; and it must actually enable free will. Success is, so to speak, interwoven in the very fundamental characteristics of meaning – where there is no success, there is no ultimate intelligibility. And, given the tri-omni-perspective, it seems difficult to excuse Hell’s failure, since God would know of any deficiencies before its creation. John Cottingham gives a striking example:

Consider David, a millionaire architect, who makes it his life’s work to build a hospital in an area where medical facilities are sorely needed. He struggles against great odds to get the project completed, single- mindedly pursing this goal to the point of bankrupting himself, not to mention the neglect of many other rewarding activities that might have engaged his attention. But on the day the hospital is due to be opened, a meteorite hurtles to earth and vaporises the hospital’s oil storage tanks; the whole building complex is engulfed in a fireball and razed to the ground, with terrible loss of life. David now bitterly declares that his entire effort was pointless – a tragic and futile waste of energy and resources.59

We have, then, sketched out a first proposition for the argument from success, which stipulates that an activity is only purposeful inasmuch as it succeeds in bringing about its purpose. This strikes me as quite plausibly true. If it were not, then the implication would be that purposefulness were somehow located in the intention of an activity or circumstance. And so you could say, for

59 Cottingham, op. cit., p. 66.

33 example, that Sisyphus’s struggle to indefinitely carry rocks up a hill to no end is meaningful as long as he has clear intentions with his pursuit (perhaps he is trying to build himself a house with a good view). Such a notion appears to me absurd. I have previously talked about the purposefulness of Hell, but let us take a step back and once again consider the purpose of life as a whole (recall the end of section 2.2.2). What is the purpose of life, according to the Christian worldview? Consensus on this topic among theologians is perhaps impossible to reach, but it is not unreasonable to stipulate that the properly Christian life principally revolves around the cultivation of virtue and the obtainment of salvation (in what order these goods are thought to come differ between ; some think that virtue is a consequence of salvation (commonly Evangelical Christians), others that salvation results from the process of deification (commonly Orthodox Christians)). A few additional words should be said about what I mean, more specifically, by ‘cultivation of virtue’. The purpose of our existence is intimately related to that which brought us into existence – God. The Christian purpose of life is thus properly understood in the light of the existence of God, and so it is in ‘our purpose from the tri-omni-perspective’. So, why did God create us? I believe that the most uncontroversial answer to this question is that God created us for His pleasure, so that He might enjoy our relationship with Him. He created us, ultimately, out of love for us. And so the Christian purpose of life is achieving communion with God, for this is what God intended for us. How does communion with God relate to the cultivation of virtue? In basic terms, it is my understanding that communion with God cannot be divorced from salvation (which, in essence, is the process or point in which we step into said communion), and that salvation cannot, in its turn, be divorced from virtue. It is impossible for an evil person to enjoy full communion with God, for being an evil person is (according to most Christians) the same as being ‘far away from God’ – thus the popular-cultural expression ‘Y’all need Jesus!’ (highlighting the equivalence between a virtuous life and a life lived in close communion with God). And, so, Heaven is in its turn the ultimate satisfaction of God’s purpose with us. From these two partly interrelated components, we can define a (suitably minimal) stipulative definition of ‘the Christian purpose of life’:

(CPoL) The Christian purpose of life consists in the cultivation of virtue and the obtainment of salvation.

In other words, the meaning of life is, in principle, to get to/become eligible for Heaven. Coupled with the assumption that an activity is only purposeful inasmuch as it succeeds in bringing about

34 its purpose (life here being understood as an activity of sorts), we have an argument for Hell- pessimism on account of the eternally damned. The argument goes something like this:

(1) An activity is only purposeful inasmuch as it succeeds in bringing about its purpose.

(2) The purpose of life, understood as an activity, is the cultivation of virtue and the obtainment of salvation.

(3) (from (1) through (2)) For any person S that fails to cultivate virtue and obtain salvation, S’s life lack purpose.

(4) If Hell exists, then there is at least one person S whose life lacks purpose.

(5) If (4), then Hell-pessimism is true.

Therefore,

(6) Hell-pessimism is true.

As I said, this is an argument for Hell-pessimism on account of the eternally damned; the Hell- goers, if you will. I find that the argument is strong, in that it rests upon two quite plausible premises (that of the necessity of purpose having success, as well as my minimal understanding of the purpose of life according to Christianity). But since the argument is only applicable to a certain group of people, it is somewhat limited. The most pressing matter seems to be whether the limited Hell-pessimism of the argument from success is compatible with the limited Hell-optimism of some of the previously examined arguments. Is it possible that both Hell-pessimism and Hell-optimism is true, if only in their limited form? Could it be that Hell contributes to the meaning of the lives of the saved, and detracts from the ones of the lost? I would argue that it is possible, but highly implausible. If the argument from success is sound, then the lives of the damned are without proper purpose in and of themselves – but, given that the damned are willfully created by God, their existence cannot be completely unintelligible. There must be some point to their existence, or else it would be inexplicable (and indeed wicked) for God to create them. The only plausible reason that I see God having for creating people that are destined (in a Molinist sense) for damnation is the type of rationale that was exemplified by Craig in section 2.2.3. But then that would once again bring up issues about the possibility of God utilizing a person’s suffering as a means to any other end than that which is ultimately profitable to the person, as well as the meaningfulness of pursuits that are not ultimately in our own interest.

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These considerations bring me to the conclusion that, whereas a limited argument for Hell- pessimism is sufficient for accepting Hell-optimism as a whole, a limited argument for Hell- optimism is not. For Hell-pessimism to be true, proving that the existence of Hell would be detrimental to the life of a single person seems to suffice; for Hell-optimism to be true, stricter criteria seems to apply. This is, of course, based on my personal evaluation of the issues that I have brought forth. I see no logically forcing reason to agree with my conclusion, and I could also be wrong in my assessment of the strength of the argument from success. Nevertheless, I believe that my analysis thus far points in the general direction of Hell-pessimism. It remains only to cogently summarize my thoughts in my concluding remarks.

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3. CONCLUDING REMARKS

3.1 DISCUSSION

Recall that this thesis started off with the ambition of discerning what impact the existence of Hell would have on the meaning of life. Now that some of the most prominent arguments for each position (Hell-optimism, Hell-neutralism, and Hell-pessimism) have been scrutinized, I believe we are in a good position to take a stand on which position is more plausible. Before taking a stand, however, the argumentation thus far should be summarized. Hell-neutralism was originally found to be inconsequential in regard to the meaning-impact of Hell, and from that followed its inherent meaninglessness. It posited, in other words, a Hell which, by definition, has no point (no impact), and thus a Hell without meaning (in any sense of the word) in and of itself. This led to the conundrum of explaining how an omnibenevolent God could allow the existence of a completely gratuitous Hell. In order to test the claim that God could not, Hell was defined as a gratuitous evil, and some common arguments for the compatibility of the existence of God and gratuitous evil were subject to analysis. The analysis showed that all considered arguments, and more importantly all possible arguments, necessarily infuse the existence of Hell with some type of meaning. It was concluded that Hell-neutralism could not possibly be true, since a Hell that could not possibly exist is in effect a Hell that would subtract from the I-MEANING of life if it existed, which implies that Hell-neutralism is a logical contradiction. The veracity of Hell-optimism was analysed by taking a closer look at three (according to me most promising) arguments for it. All three arguments were summarized in simpler theses, which were then put under careful scrutiny. First, I took a look at the argument from moral accountability, brought forth by William Lane Craig. According to this argument, the inexistence of Hell would imply that our choices lack significance (S-MEANING), since we would not be held accountable for our earthly actions (good or bad). The thrust of this argument was doubted for two reasons. To begin with, it was left unclear why moral accountability must necessarily be eternal in scope; it should suffice that our moral actions have some limited consequence, be it a small earthly fine or a thousand years in Hell. It was also concluded that even if the consequences of our actions must be eternal, there seems to be no prima facie reason to assume that said consequence must, at least in part (that is, for some people), be of a retributive kind. It might as well be that the final eternal consequence of the actions of every person will be Heaven. A soft form of the argument seemed to avoid these challenges.

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Secondly, the argument from moral motivation was considered. This argument was appropriated from Richard Swinburne, and its claim was twofold: it proposed that the existence of Hell grant our moral actions I-MEANING, and that it helps us in achieving moral progress, which in turn grants P-MEANING. As to the former, I claimed that any I-MEANING the existence of Hell would grant our moral actions would be negligible, since most of our moral actions are not motivated by fear and, when they are, we commonly fear other things than Hell – most notably state-imposed punishment. The second proposal was doubted on the grounds that it is far from clear that fear could ever spur virtue. If it did, our everyday experience seem to imply that it is a highly ineffective way of doing so. It was also pointed out that if the existence of Hell makes our lives more meaningful in that it helps us in cultivating virtue, this would only apply to those who are actually successful in such a pursuit. For those who fail to become virtuous individuals, the argument from moral motivation seems bankrupt. The argument is therefore, given that we concede that fear could ever spur virtue, only partially effective. Lastly, there was the argument from free will. According to this argument, the existence of Hell is a necessary condition for there to be free will, since God cannot (given free will) force anyone to enter Heaven. I objected that the argument does not rule out the possibility that all people go to Heaven freely, and so it does not necessarily imply Hell-optimism. In order to circumvent this problem, one would need to presuppose that there exists no possible world in which all people freely choose salvation, and so God could not possibly have made Heaven without Hell. I can see no convincing reason to hold such a view, and so the argument from free will appear rather weak. In the last part of my analysis, I took a closer look at an argument for Hell-pessimism: the argument from success. This argument postulates that an activity is only purposeful inasmuch as it succeeds in bringing about its purpose, and that the ‘activity of life’ has as its purpose the cultivation of virtue and the obtainment of salvation. Given these two propositions, the existence Hell seems to contradict purpose in that it asserts the failure of some group of people. If Hell exists, then that implies that some people will not achieve their purpose, and so their lives will not have been purposeful. In addition to this, I proposed that it is unlikely that there exist any such people, since their existence would be intelligible only as a means to some other end than that which is ultimately profitable to themselves; and this I deem incompatible with God’s loving nature. To summarize, I believe that Hell-pessimism has, as of now, the strongest case. This is because the arguments for Hell-optimism appear rather weak, and the argument from success strikes me as true. I also weigh in the fact that, given the gravity of the issue of eternal damnation, the Hell- optimist seems to have a larger burden of proof than the Hell-pessimist – a burden I do not perceive

38 as adequately met. The answer to my research question, then, is that we have good reason to suspect that the existence of Hell would have a negative impact on the meaning of life. Given the ambiguous and in many cases yet unexplored nature of the field, it is only natural that my work has, in some sense, asked more questions than it has answered. I do not, in other words, suffer any illusions about the ambiguity of parts of my argumentation. In order to combat my conclusion, a good place to start would be to question whether success is really a necessary condition for an activity to be purposeful. The issue of success seems to be one of the most prominent subjects which has surfaced in the writing of this thesis, and would be a very interesting topic for future research. Another recurrent issue is that of whether God could utilize the suffering of the damned to any other end than that which is ultimately profitable to themselves – once again, a topic for future research. It would also be interesting to see whether taking a step back and altering the theoretical outlook, or even altering the entire framing of the thesis, could yield different results. For example, this thesis has primarily dealt with what I have called meaning-impact, but it would be just as interesting to investigate whether and in what sense there is any inherent meaning to Hell. It would also be interesting to see if adopting a different theory on meaning (perhaps an amalgam approach to life’s different meaning-categories) would alter the conclusion in any way. My hope is that, although it has not given any entirely conclusive statements about the meaning- impact of Hell, my work has taken a good leap forward in the more general task of clarifying the relation between and the meaning of life.

3.2 CONCLUSION

In this thesis, I have analysed the impact that the existence of Hell would have on the meaning of life. After extrapolating what is meant by ‘the meaning of life’ by way of conceptual analysis, three different positions on the meaning-impact of Hell were defined: Hell-neutralism, Hell- optimism, and Hell-pessimism. An argumentative analysis was then carried through on the arguments for each position. Hell-neutralism was initially ruled out, and the weakness of the arguments for Hell-optimism – in combination with the strength of the argument for Hell- pessimism – led to the conclusion that the evidence points in the direction of Hell-pessimism. It would seem that the existence of Hell, were it to exist, would probably detract from the meaning of life.

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4. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Seachris, 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, pp. 605-620. Swinburne, Richard. Responsibility and Atonement. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Talbott, Thomas. The Inescapable Love of God (Second Edition). Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014. Viney, Donald. ‘Process Theism’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = . 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.