Abstract
Recently, Eric Yang and Stephen Davis have defended what they call the separationist view of hell against an objection leveled by Jeremy Gwiazda by invoking the concept of hard-heartedness as an account of why some would eternally choose to remain in hell. Gwiazda’s objection to the separationist view of hell is an instance of a broader strategy of objection invoked by other universalists to argue that God could guarantee universal salvation while respecting libertarian freedom—an objection that Kronen and I have dubbed the Infinite Opportunity Argument. Yang’s and Davis’s reply to Gwiazda thus amounts to a response to the Infinite Opportunity Argument, and the merits of their reply bear on the feasibility of the freedom-respecting version of universalism that the argument supports. I argue that the kind of hard-heartedness that must be posited in order to derail the Infinite Opportunity Argument—the kind of absolute hard-heartedness that Yang and Davis explicitly invoke—suffers significant problems that prevent it from posing a serious challenge to freedom-respecting universalism.
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Notes
For those interested, the assumption is one I have defended in earlier works (Reitan, 2007, 420–422; Kronen & Reitan, 2011, 158–160). Arguably, Yang and Davis do not consider the merits of this assumption because their response makes the question of whether free choices are amenable to the laws of probability irrelevant. As they put it (2015, 219), if the probability of someone continuing to reject God is 1, infinite opportunity has no effect on probabilities, thereby ‘showing the irrelevance of the probabilistic model to our case.’ If my argument here is sound, then they are mistaken about this irrelevance.
Kronen and Reitan (2011, 22–24) spell out variants of both the classical and liberal doctrines and also identify a via media between the classical and liberal doctrines that combines the liberal view that the damned are in hell solely because they have freely chosen to be (not because God has placed them there) with the classical view that God heaps punishments on the damned above and beyond what naturally accompanies separation. Since these variations and alternatives to not impact my arguments here, I will not explore them.
I should note that, even if separationists like Davis explain hell by reference to human choices as opposed to a divine decision to cast some persons into hell, they must nevertheless account for the divine choice to permit some to damn themselves. Generally, separationists account for this by holding that divine respect for freedom is an expression of divine love, and it is of such importance that God is prepared to honor the choice to say no to God even if the result is hell. See, for example, Walls (1992, 136–137).
Walls thus stresses that his case for hell rests on ‘a strong commitment to the value of libertarian freedom’ (1992, 136).
For a full development of this line of thought, see Kronen and Reitan (2011, 160).
Absent this premise, the probabilistic argument sketched out by Gwiazda still does entail that no one will remain in hell eternally. It just does not preclude their returning to hell once saved.
What distinguishes Yang and Davis’s view here from versions of the classical doctrine where the damned’s God-rejecting character becomes fixed at death is this: on the latter view, God (or the nature of the human post-mortem condition as determined by God’s creative choices) hardens the hearts of the damned; whereas on Yang and Davis’s view, the damned harden their own hearts through their free choices.
And it is worth noting that Davis invokes it in the earlier essay to which Gwiazda responds (Davis, 1990, 179).
Yang and Davis provide no indication that they reject this theological idea, and so I will assume here and throughout that they accept it. Those who reject this idea may find some of the arguments that follow unconvincing. But if the only way for Yang and Davis to sustain their response to IOA is by rejecting the assumption that human beings are oriented towards union with God and can find true satisfaction only through such union, that is a significant conclusion.
For a full discussion of this disparity, see Reitan (2007, 427–429).
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Reitan, E. Eternally Choosing Hell: Can Hard-Heartedness Explain Why Some Remain in Hell Forever?. SOPHIA 61, 365–382 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-021-00874-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-021-00874-0