Introduction to the Special Issue “On the Problem of Hell: Comparative Historical and Philosophical Perspectives”

In the Christian tradition, numerous questions emerge with the possibility of hell. What happens to the wicked when they die? Is there a chance of forgiveness or redemption in the afterlife? If God loves everyone equally, why would some end up suffering forever without any hope of redemption? If people are suffering in hell forever, how can their loved ones in heaven experience the joyful bliss free from all sorrow that God promises to give to the saved? If some people did not accept salvation through Jesus Christ simply because they never heard of it or lived in a morally corrupt environment that pressured them to do evil rather than good, how is it just to punish them? If the damned are so wicked that no matter what environment they live in or how much knowledge they have of the Good or how many chances to repent they are given, they will always choose evil and damnation, why would God have created such people in the first place? What is the greater good—freedom to choose evil or the attainment of the ultimate good that is God? Such puzzling questions flow from the discussion of the problem of hell.

In the Christian tradition, philosophers have usually framed the problem of hell, like the closely related Problem of Evil, as a logical contradiction resulting from the assertion that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good and loving, which is pitted against the claim that evil beings will be condemned to hell for all eternity (Adams 1993, pp. 301–2). This is because an all-knowing God would know what is necessary to bring each person to salvation, and an all-powerful God could make it happen. Likewise, an omnibenevolent and loving God certainly would do this. Therefore, no one should be damned eternally. This contradiction challenges traditional theological conceptions based on certain Biblical passages from both the Old and New Testaments, such as the words of the prophet in Isaiah 66:24 describing how at the end, the righteous “shall go out and look at the dead bodies of the people who have rebelled against me [God]; for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh,” or Matthew 25:46, in which Jesus says of the goats who failed to help the needy and the sheep who gave aid, “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Holy Bible 1989).

Those who uphold the validity of this contradiction suggest possible alternative views to an eternal hell. Escapism posits that those in hell do not necessarily stay there forever, and at any time, sinners can repent and be released or perhaps be released after being purged or punished sufficiently (Buckareff and Plug 2005). Annihilationism posits that the damned are not eternally existing in a state of suffering, but rather that hell is simply eternal death, or non-existence. Not existing, after all, may seem a more just and fitting punishment for a finite life of sin, compared with an infinite time-span of pain in hell (Kvanvig 1993, pp. 138–44). Universalism, on the other hand, posits that the best way to avoid the problem of hell is to assert that God will certainly bring all souls to heaven eventually, even if some must spend some time in hell first (Adams 1993, Talbott 1990). This is a stronger position than escapism, which merely asserts that those in hell can possibly escape, not that they all will. Many proponents of these three alternatives to an eternal hell use philosophical arguments and sometimes cite scriptural verses or writings from the Church Fathers to justify their positions as both rational and orthodox. For example, universalists may interpret aionios, the original Greek word for “eternal” in the aforementioned passage from Matthew, as meaning “of the Age” instead of everlasting (Hart 2019, p. 123), while also martialing arguments about how indifference to suffering in hell robs one of both personhood and the kind of love that one should have in heaven (Hart 2019, p. 149).

But those defending the traditional view of eternal hell have also put forth a set of defenses against the problem of hell. Some assert that free will, interpreted as a libertarian freedom that cannot be coerced by any external force, is of the utmost value to human beings, and therefore, God must preserve the absolute freedom that we have to choose between salvation and damnation, even if that means that some will be damned forever (Craig 1991, pp. 301–2, Swinburne 1983, pp. 48–50). Others assert that hell, rather than being an eternal torture chamber where sinners suffer punishment against their will, is in fact simply God giving the damned what they want, and that what keeps people in hell is their own will (Lewis 1946, p. 127). This freely willed hell can come in the form of a transformed human nature oriented towards only lesser goods that one desires, while one was unable to attain the ultimate good that was never desired, that is, God (Stump 1986, p. 197). Or perhaps it could come in the form of some kind of alternate reality where people can do whatever they want without the possibility of others being harmed by it (Sterba 2020, pp. 185–87).

While the philosophical debates between these different positions seem to go on interminably, a significant amount of historical research has also been carried out on the development of the idea of hell in multiple religions. In the Christian tradition, both Eastern and Western, the history of the universalist vision of salvation, or apokatastasis (the restoration of all things), that competed with eternal hellfire has been meticulously described by Ilaria Ramelli, from its origins in Stoic ideas and certain Biblical texts to the patristic synthesis of Origen and medieval reception by Eriugena (Ramelli 2013). Alan Bernstein has also charted the development of the idea of eternal hell in the Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—noting how alternatives, such as a neutral underworld, had previously been common but were eclipsed by the moral hell of punishment due to both political circumstances and spiritual needs (Bernstein 2017). Likewise, Paul Katz has described the basic changes in Chinese religious views of the afterlife in Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions, emphasizing the rise of a moral underworld with punishments for the wicked that in some ways mirrored the justice of the imperial bureaucracy on earth (Bernstein and Katz 2010, pp. 225–43).

The problem is that the philosophical discussion tends to ignore outside perspectives from other religions and historical contexts. If one assumes that the philosophy of religion operates on a separate plane, dealing solely with logical propositions rather than historical realities or real-world complexity, the separation between these two discourses seems justified. However, the premises that form the basis of philosophical arguments are often assumed to be true only because of limited knowledge of reasonable alternative views from other periods or geographically distant religious and intellectual traditions. Likewise, the acceptability or unacceptability of conclusions of philosophical arguments is also often conditioned by the cultural context of the person making the argument. Exposure to completely alien worldviews, from the remote past or distant regions, can challenge these philosophical assumptions and presuppositions, thereby opening the door to new possibilities that could be fruitful for philosophical discussion of the problem of hell. This Special Issue hopes to bring to bear the views of chronologically and geographically diverse religious traditions on this issue, with the aim of transferring the problem of hell from the realm of contemporary Western philosophy of religion into a more holistic context. It is the hope of the authors and Guest Editors that such a recontextualization will raise new questions, challenge old assumptions, and suggest new paradigms and lines of thought for all involved in this philosophical debate. To this end, each of the contributors to this volume presents valuable insights.

Emmanuel Ofuasia’s work on West African Yoruba religion reveals how the fusion of traditional African religions and monotheistic faiths, such as Christianity and Islam, has introduced Abrahamic ideas of heaven and hell into traditional religion during the modern period and warns scholars seeking to understand these traditions not to anachronistically place such ideas into the past. In examining the linguistic evidence from Yoruba religion’s ritual traditions, recorded in the Ifa corpus, Ofuasia shows how ideas of God as a limited deity, the interconnectedness of the spiritual and earthly realms, and reincarnation were key to Yoruba conceptions of the afterlife and rule out the idea of an eternal place of punishment after death, highlighting the Abrahamic assumptions grounding the idea of hell. At the same time, this study raises some key questions about what is authentic or authoritative in a religious tradition. If ideas that are introduced later in a religion’s history are considered inauthentic expressions or interpretations, the same might be the case for the Jewish and Christian traditions, in which the certainty of an eternal hell of punishment was absent in early writings, instead replaced by a mixture of different concepts of neutral and moral afterlives.

Ada Agada and Bruno Yammeluan Ikuli continue the discussion of African Traditional Religion’s view of the afterlife, showing how, even amidst a diversity of beliefs and interpretations of these, African traditions generally argue for temporary punishment, either in this life or afterwards, which avoids the problem of hell, even if one concedes that some forms of African Traditional Religion adhere to perfect being theology. Together with Ofuasia’s paper, this discussion of African theology challenges the idea that the justice of God, whether omnipotent and omnibenevolent or not, would require something like hell. Such a challenge presents an alternative to the Anselmian view of sinners deserving eternal punishment for dishonoring an infinite Being that is often assumed in defenses of hell.

Even in the Western tradition, the idea of hell has not always been the norm. Nie Duluo’s investigation into early Greek understandings of the afterlife puts the diversity of ancient views and their evolution over time on full display. According to Nie, concerns about the necessity of divine justice caused a shift from Homer’s underworld as a shadowy morally neutral world of the dead towards Solon’s idea of divine punishment being visited on future generations for the sins of their ancestors. Later on, discomfort with this intergenerational justice led to ideas of the transmigration of souls and a hell of punishment. This historical survey lays bare how many arguments about hell assume that moral responsibility is personal and individual rather than shared or inherited. Yet, as Hart’s work points out, persons do not exist in isolation but in connection to all other persons (Hart 2019, p. 149). And as Bernstein’s work shows, ideas of hell are often combined with ideas of intercession of transferring merit from one to another to help those in hell or purgatory (Bernstein 2017, pp. 139–67, 195–98). Thus, ancient Greek ideas of intergenerational punishment may also have some bearing on the Christian theological debate.

Contributing to the long-running debate over free will theodicy as it applies to the problem of hell, Ho Pao-shen argues against Thomas Talbott’s universalist position that it is irrational for someone with free will to reject God. Pointing out the differences between substantive and structural rationality and how Talbott equivocates when employing the term rationality, Ho argues that it may be possible for a completely free person to rationally choose to reject God, even if God is the source of their happiness, provided that their happiness is incoherent. This complicates defenses of and challenges to free will theodicy by revealing multiple kinds of rational choices that a free being can make in pursuit of the Good.

Renowned historian of the afterlife, Alan E. Bernstein, offers a similar barrier-breaking interpretation of the traditional Western Christian view of hell in his investigation into Dante. Following the Italian poet’s descent through the levels of hell and his subsequent ascent into purgatory and heaven, Bernstein notes the prominence of the notion of first entering and delving into the depths of hell while alive in order to escape it after death. This hell that is encountered by the living is neither eternal nor inescapable. This idea of an inner hell or inner death in Dante has parallels in early medieval Western monastic spirituality. In Dante, there seems to be a blurring of the line separating the living and the dead and a redemptive liberation that comes from the crossing of that line. Such historical and literary investigation prompts scholars to contemplate the not necessarily mutually exclusive levels of meaning and valences of the idea of hell which have existed in the past and still exist today, warning us not to oversimplify hell and its uses, whether in terms of God’s justice or the individual’s spiritual fate.

David Andrew Porter’s commentary and translation of part of the sixteenth-century protestant theologian and poet Thomas Naogeorgus’ satirical description of Satan’s fall into hell points out the tension between freedom and perdition. This literary description parallels philosophical discussions about the importance of free will to God and whether, if it leads to damnation, such a freedom is really freedom at all. Here, we are confronted again with the difference between libertarian free will and a different vision of freedom to pursue and attain the Good.

Turning to Asian religions, Bony Schachter, in his study of the Daoist Scripture of the Three Offices, notes the fundamental beliefs about hell within this tradition that make an eternal inescapable hell of punishment impossible. Although there are divine judges and places of punishment in Daoism, through accurate knowledge of ritual and its meaning, an accurate understanding of the self, and repentance, beings in hell can not only escape, but perhaps gain power over divine judges and transform hells into paradises. This emphasis on the subjective nature of hell as a product of ignorance and lack of awareness has some interesting connections with the Western problem of hell, resonating with universalist arguments about the necessity of perfect knowledge to make a free will decision to reject God and Eastern Orthodox views of hell as objectively the same as heaven, with the suffering being a product of the individual’s subjective perception of God’s presence as painful due to a rejection of God’s love.

Similarly focusing on Pre-Qin Chinese thought, especially Ruism (Confucianism), Jordan Martin notes that the absence of a strong concept of hell is due to Ruist interpretations of ancestor veneration, which emphasize individual self-cultivation, punishment in this life by ghosts, and the lack of immortality of the soul. These observations can lead scholars to consider to what degree the problem of hell results mainly from the contradiction between a perfect God and eternal suffering, and whether other considerations about the nature of the soul and its moral progress should instead be taken as central.

Focusing on a similar time period and school of thought, Yunwoo Song notes that Confucian scholars’ condemnation of tyrannical monarchs, such as King Zhou, the last ruler of the Shang dynasty, despite their simultaneous recognition that their evil nature was a matter of birth and not choice, raises the possibility that human free will is not a key component in moral responsibility and therefore just punishment, but instead is culturally conditioned. This has implications for the problem of hell, especially for those objecting to punishment in hell on the grounds that those who choose evil do not do so freely but are influenced by their environment or bad moral luck.

Han Rui’s paper on hell in Buddhism, drawing from Pali sources, is an interesting contrast to the philosophical debates focusing on Western Christianity. While Buddhism does not have an omnipotent, all-loving God whose existence threatens to pose a logical contradiction to eternal suffering in hell, the nature of hell in Buddhist theology raises another equally puzzling contradiction. If individuals are punished in the next life based on their bad kamma (karma in Sanskrit), hell’s existence seems to depend on the existence of persons who are free agents and responsible for their own actions. And yet, another central teaching of Buddhism is that there is no real “self,” but that selfhood is simply an illusion. This seems to undermine individual responsibility, karma, and, therefore, the need for hell. This raises questions for philosophers positing a temporary or escapable hell in Christianity, since even with a finite suffering as punishment for finite sin, one might still question to what degree individuals are even responsible for such sins, when taking the influence of environment and luck or the impermanence of the self into account.

Jun-Hyeok Kwak and Mengxiao Huang, in their investigation into the Korean novelist Yi Kwangsu’s views on divine retribution and eternal damnation, offer fascinating analyses of the way in which Christian ideas introduced during the colonial period were adapted, transformed, and interwoven into local ideas. The search for an individuality that is free from traditional legalistic moral conformity is placed at the center of Yi’s view of modernization, challenging the usefulness of both Confucian virtues and Christian eschatology in creating liberated human beings. This raises some questions about the validity of hell and the fear of it as a deterrent for sinners, given the importance of individual free will for human flourishing.

Meanwhile, Xu Shuang and Ni Yicai’s study on Su Shi, the Song dynasty poet and intellectual, reveals a strikingly different take on the afterlife. Su Shi’s thought asserts that through one’s dispositions and self-cultivation, one can break down the barrier between the living and dead, the finite and infinite, thus merging the two worlds and, in a sense, dissolving hell. Very much like Schachter’s and Bernstein’s papers and those on traditional African conceptions, life and death seem part of a more fluid framework, in which subjectivity plays an important role.

Together, these papers, from diverse disciplines such as literature, history, philosophy, and religious studies, provide new perspectives on the problem of hell. We sincerely hope that philosophers debating these issues can draw inspiration from the many religious traditions of the world to investigate new solutions to this problem. Some possible avenues of research suggested by these papers are the fluidity of the boundary between the living and the dead, the role of subjectivity in a person’s experience of hell, the meaning of freedom and how its limits relate to responsibility for sin, the possibility of hell being experienced in life as an escape from it after death, and the possibility of punishment for sins being justly inflicted on others besides the sinner in this world rather than on the sinner in the next. While many of these ideas may be foreign to the Christian tradition as interpreted today, they may nonetheless provide new ways of interpreting the doctrine of hell that may alleviate some of the apparent contradictions.