Musophobia

I’m going to do a running commentary on Randal Rauser’s tirade against hell:

http://randalrauser.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Must-Hitler-burn-forever1.pdf

Before commenting on the specifics, I’d like to make a general observation. For someone who waxes indignant over the “torments” of the damned, Rauser exhibits an unhealthy fascination with imagining the torments of the damned. It’s as if he’s an avid fan of slasher films. His outrage over hell would be a bit more convincing if his voyeuristic depiction of the damned didn’t give the lie to his pious protestations.

The first Bible I received as a child depicted a radiant, grinning Jesus framed with the faces of adoring children. That is the picture of Jesus that I recall from my youth. We sang “Jesus loves me” with vigor and prayed “in Jesus‟ name” before every meal. Jesus was the one you went to if you had a problem, always there to embrace you with open arms. That Jesus wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he could heal any hurt from a bruised knee to a broken heart. Conspicuously absent from view was the darker side of Jesus as the coming wrathful judge: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:12) I had no idea that gentle Jesus would one day divide the righteous from the sinners and send the latter packing with a “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matthew 25:41) Needless to say it was a shock to learn that Jesus had this decidedly darker side.

Okay, so what if Jesus says one thing, but Rauser disagrees? Who should we follow–Jesus or Rauser? Tough call, I know, but I’ll take my chances with Jesus.

Whatever you think of Furniss' preaching, there is an undeniable logic to it. If a fate as horrible as hell potentially awaits every human being, then why are we Christians not more diligent about warning our children of the danger?...Set against the fear of children being damned forever, Father Finniss’s revivalist preaching may not be that shocking after all.  Perhaps one reason Christians are not more intentional about scaring the hell out of our kids is that we don’t really believe God would consign children to such a horrendous fate.

i) I don’t think hell potentially awaits every human being.

ii) There’s a difference between teaching our children about hell and threatening them with hellfire for imaginary sins, or making them live in constant fear of hell.

iii) Let’s remember, too, that Christian parenting is already a spiritual allegory for young kids. An allegory of life in our Father’s house. When we’re young our parents are godlike figures who, to some extent, are proxies for God until we’re old enough to make the transition.

One of the best things you can do to lay a firm Christian foundation for your kids is to give them a happy childhood.

Well, maybe, and maybe not, though Christians are notoriously hazy on the so-called “age of accountability” (that ill-defined threshold between innocence and guilt after which God commands an account of sins committed).

I prefer “age of discretion” to “age of accountability.” And a child’s stage of cognitive development is not inconsequential to his capacity (or not) for personal sin.

Here too there are some cases that tend to be controversial. For instance, Christians will occasionally express doubts about the damnation of a “pious pagan” like Gandhi. Could that great Hindu peacenik really be damned or might he be exempted from the flames of damnation? 

From what I’ve read, there’s a chasm between Gandhi’s public image and his private life.

Father Finniss’s descriptions of a scorching floor and a smoking oven are embarrassingly vivid and shockingly concrete for our enlightened world. But they are no more so than the images one finds in the Bible. The earliest image we find in the Old Testament comes in Isaiah 66:24 where we read of the worm that will not die and the fire that will not be quenched. As disturbing as that is, hell really comes into its own with a string of unforgettable images in the New Testament including a fiery furnace, a smoking pit, and perhaps most shockingly, a lake of fire. (More on those nightmarish images in a moment.) Down through the history of the church most Christians, both lay people and academic theologians, have interpreted these images literally.

Sure about that? Turretin, for one, interprets the imagery figuratively.

With this disturbing picture in view, let’s introduce Hitler to the discussion. There he is over there, sitting on that bench, with a brand-spanking new resurrection body, a body finely- tuned to sense all the unspeakable agonies soon to be inflicted upon it. With his perishable body having taken on imperishability, it is time for that two-bit tyrant to receive his eternal comeuppance...Then something happens quite unexpectedly. As I think about the time that has lapsed – twelve billion years – I am surprised suddenly to sense a twinge of compassion. Even though Hitler was a genocidal monster I begin to wonder, what is the point of keeping him here in agony? From that daring thought I quickly proceed to one which is positively dangerous. Isn’t this much suffering enough? After all, long ago God set the universe to rights, and we don’t want to be vindictive, now do we? So why not put Hitler out of his misery and get on with the renewed creation? 

i) Is it always wrong to be “vindictive”? Where’s the argument?

ii) I, for one, don’t feel a twinge of compassion for Hitler.

iii) More to the point, Rauser’s feelings are irrelevant. He’s not God, and he’s not the victim.

We can all agree that Hitler’s crimes are utterly reprehensible. Consequently, if hell seems a cruel and unusual punishment when applied to the leading tyrant of the long and sordid history of humanity, how much more should it trouble us when it concerns the countless lesser specimens of human fallenness? What about that naughty child that Furniss believed could be sent to hell for sticking gum under the pew or smoking behind the rectory?

What reason is there to think that’s even sinful?

What about the lesser sinners we meet every day? We would even find it disturbing if Hitler alone were the only damned soul. But how much more horrifying is it to think of the millions of more modest transgressors? For generations Christians have been taught that the fate of all those not found in Christ is conscious torment, shut out forever from the glories of heaven. But how can this be? How could Christians accept a notion of divine punishment which seems so cruel and excessive that it creates sympathy even for Hitler? 

If Rauser is sympathetic for Hitler, that says a lot about Rauser’s spinning moral compass. But I daresay many others don’t share his misplaced sympathy.

However, in my defense it should be noted that such lurid accounts of the suffering of the damned are abundant in the Christian tradition (for a great example check out Dante’s literary masterpiece Inferno).

Of course, that’s fiction.

Does this elimination of physical torment remove the offense of hell? Initially it might seem to. But I suspect that this comfort is illusory and arises primarily from our failure to grasp the full horror of mental, emotional and spiritual torment. In her memoir on depression, Sally Brampton recalls speaking with one of her friends who also struggled with depression: “„Dying, he says, „feels like nothing against the fear of going through another episode of severe depression. I don’t think I could do it again.”5 As bad as the depression of Brampton’s friend may have been, one can be sure that it is simply not in the same category as the complete mental, emotional and spiritual breakdown of those facing an eternity in hell. The mind reels at trying to imagine the insufferable mental torture – hopelessness, anguish, depression, and debilitating hatred – that would consume a person facing eternal punishment.

Why should I be bothered by the prospect that Hitler will be eternally depressed? Hitler suffers a nervous breakdown in hell. Should I break out the Kleenex?

With that in mind, how satisfying is it really to say that Hitler’s flesh bubbling as his body writhes in the flames are “merely” symbols of an internal torment? Does this suddenly make it just and proper that he should suffer spiritually forever? So even if Hitler’s suffering is limited to the mental, emotional and/or spiritual realm, it would still be sufficiently horrific to give rise to feelings of compassion. 

i) Notice how Rauser keeps assuming what he needs to prove. Is this sufficient to make us feel compassion for Hitler? Randal keeps projecting his own twisted feelings onto his readers.

ii) What if Hitler’s punishment were dissatisfying to me? So what? I didn’t lose any of my loved ones in the death camps. Why should I have any say about his fate? Isn’t that between God, Hitler, and his victims?

What if Hitler’s victims find it satisfying to torment Hitler? Should I lose sleep over that?

Now back to a more basic question: what reason is there to think that the suffering of the damned will be limited to mental, emotional and/or spiritual anguish? Why think that Hitler’s suffering will not include physical torments? Even if biblical descriptions of hell are taken metaphorically, there is no reason to think that the corporeal images of suffering they describe will be limited to mental anguish.

 

Even if we cannot know exactly how Hitler will experience the pain of sense, we can be sure that it will be unimaginably horrible, a fitting complement to the equally unimaginable pain of loss.

That’s a non sequitur. To say infernal punishment may have a corporeal aspect doesn’t imply physical torment. Suppose I’m damned. Suppose I suffer from musophobia. Suppose God condemns me to spend eternity in a big bare room with a mouse. That punishment has a physical aspect: a physical room, with a physical mouse, sharing space with my embodied soul. The mouse never bites me. Indeed, as infernal rodents go, it’s a well-mannered mouse. Stays in one corner, nibbling on a chunk of renewable cheese. Yet, due to my fear of mice, it makes me miserable to spend eternity with only a mouse for company.

While the parable of Lazarus and the rich man leaves God’s role as judge implied, other texts are more explicit. At the close of Jesus’ parable of the ungrateful servant we read that the king turned his servant “over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.” (Mt. 18:34)  The word basanistes (the one who tortures) literally refers to an individual whose job is to inflict pain on another individual. (Today we might refer to the dungeon master.) Even if God is not the direct agent of torture here, he clearly is the proximate cause.

That’s inept. Rauser is confusing the storybook world of the parable with the real world which this in some way illustrates. The servant is “tortured” in the parable. In the imaginary jail of the parable. That doesn’t mean the damned are literally tortured in hell. That confuses fictitious picture language with whatever it was meant to illustrate.

Is Rauser that literalistic with parabolic imagery in general? What about the sheep and the goats? Or the virgins at midnight, with the door and the oil lamps?

Does it not follow that God is the primary agent of their suffering and that this is, indeed, torture? In order to settle this question once and for all, let’s open our Oxford English Dictionary and read the definition of “torture”: “infliction of severe bodily pain, esp. as a punishment or a means of persuasion.” 9 Hell certainly does involve God inflicting mental and physical pain on people as a means of punishment, and so based on the dictionary definition hell is God-inflicted torture. 

That doesn’t follow from Rauser’s argument:

i) He’s cited imagery which he himself admits is figurative.

ii) He’s referred to psychological states like depression, which don’t fall under the dictionary definition he just gave us: “severe bodily pain.”

iii) He’s said the imagery may have a physical counterpart, but that doesn’t mean figurative “torture” entails a literal counterpart. You might as well say that if Christ has a figurative bride, then he must have a literal bride.

iv) Incidentally, it’s ridiculous to use an English dictionary to define Greek words.

The conclusion is inescapable. God will resurrect that damned Austrian so that he may be subjected to a higher degree of mental and physical suffering than has ever been experienced by any human being in the history of the world.

The conclusion is not inescapable from Rauser’s premises. Rather, the conclusion is fallacious. It could still be true, but he didn’t derive the conclusion by valid principles of inference.

And the real kicker is that it will continue forever. What sort of reason could God possibly have for inflicting unimaginable torture upon a human being for all eternity?

i) Of course, that’s a trick question since it builds a tendentious assumption into the question (“unimaginable torture”).

ii) Retributive justice would be an obvious reason.

Christian theologians have identified a couple possible responses. The first response begins by conceding that the finite sins that a human being commits in their seventy or eighty years, even those committed by a scoundrel like Hitler, would be insufficient to warrant an eternity of torture...So the first argument says that even if a finite life of four score and ten cannot rack up an infinite sin deserving of an infinite punishment that may not matter if one has the opportunity to sin for eternity. 

i) I don’t concede the insufficiency of sinning in this life.

ii) That said, sinning in hell is a valid supplementary rationale.

If we accept this reasoning then every sinful action can be viewed as an infinite sin against an infinite God. One need not be a genocidaire to deserve hell. Even smoking behind the rectory or sticking a wad of gum under the pew could, on this view, constitute a damnable act of rebellion.

Which begs the question of whether that’s sinful.

While compassionate annihilation seems a more reasonable response to human sin than eternal suffering, the primary objection to this status argument is simply that the notion of a purely retributive punishment of torture is completely out of whack with modern notions of justice.

i) Depends on how you define “torture,” and who is doing it. If the victims are “torturing” the perpetrator, why isn’t that poetic justice?

ii) “Modern notions of justice” are often perverted by political correctness and academic fads.

iii) There’s no good reason to assume each of the damned must suffer the exact same punishment.

The idea of reintroducing punitive torture to contemporary jurisprudence is about as likely to find success as the reintroduction of slavery or wartime genocide.

Let’s take an example. In our system, disinterested third parties (judges and juries) assign guilt or innocence. And I think that’s a good policy, although it’s only as good as the judge or jury.

But suppose a man who kidnapped, raped, tortured, sodomized, and buried alive a 5-year-old girl is duly convicted, then turned over to the family of the victim to punish as they see fit. Frankly, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. Would you?

As a result, you can bet that significant cognitive dissonance arises when it is proposed that punitive torture is the premiere way that a God of infinite love deals with his rebellious subjects.

What about God’s “infinite love” for Hitler’s victims? How is letting Hitler off the hook loving to his victims?

And this leads us to the more basic issue for even if we conceded that justice is consistent with an enemy’s eternal torture, what about the infinite divine compassion?

And what about the infinite divine justice?

Unfortunately, this “out of sight, out of mind” approach to hell is really no solution at all. To begin with, it implies that heaven is only possible because its residents are kept unaware of the horrific suffering elsewhere in God’s great economy...How can we be in a state of knowing fully when we are at the same time blinded to the agonies of millions if not billions of damned sinners, perhaps including our parents, second child, and three of our grandchildren? This seems to reduce heaven to little more than a Precious Moments illusion. 

i) I don’t assume that each of the damned suffer the same type of punishment, or the same degree of punishment.

ii) There’s an obvious difference between knowing in the abstract that people are suffering, and knowing the fate of particular individuals. I know in the abstract that even here on earth you have who knows how many people suffering from one degree to another, but since I don’t know anything about them, or how they are suffering, or why they are suffering, that barely impinges on my consciousness.

God groups some people with other people in time and place. Those are the ones we’re most responsible for. If God wanted me to be responsible for another set of people, he’d put me with them. Our lives would intertwine.

It’s not as if Randal Rauser lies awake at night in anguish over the pain and suffering of total strangers in the New York City white pages.

Even more fundamentally, this ignorance view does not address the fact that God will both know about the suffering of the wicked, and indeed will be the primary cause of their torture, at least with respect to the pain of sense. Obviously God cannot be ignorant of the punishment he is exercising. But if he is at least aware of it, does he grieve over the punishment?

 

Ezekiel 18:23 would suggest as much: “„Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. „Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?” At the very least, it would seem that God takes no pleasure in their fate. So we must ask how much grief there can be before heaven is no longer heaven.

I disagree with his appeal to Ezk 18:23, as I’ve argued elsewhere:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/03/i-take-no-pleasure-in-death-of-wicked.html

Incredibly, there is good reason to think that the torturous punishment of hell actually will be a source of pleasure both for God and the redeemed saints. If hell represents God at last righting the scales of justice once and for all, then it could be that Christians will relish that judgment, much like a young boy would relish his burly older brother rendering a just judgment on the school bully that has long tormented him. Nor is this a mere speculation. In fact, one finds ample testimony in scripture for this theme of people delighting in the exercise of God’s judgment upon the wicked. Psalm 5:5 declares that God hates those who do wrong, and by implication that the righteous should hate them as well. Elsewhere the psalmist relishes the thought of God pouring out punishment upon his enemies. (See for instance Psalm 69:22-28 and 109:7-20.) This instance Psalm 69:22-28 and 109:7-20.) This same theme of the righteous rejoicing in the punishment of the wicked is present in Revelation:

 

“Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his

judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her

adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” And again they shouted:

“Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.” (19:1-3)

 

If the punishment of the “great prostitute” includes rebellious sinners, then the saints shall consider the judgment and wrath exercised by God upon the ungodly to be a cause for praise, with the “Hallelujah” roughly approximating a “Yahoo! Way to go God!” A similar picture is present in Revelation 6:9-10. (For further supporting biblical texts see Isaiah 66:24 and Revelation 14:9-11.)

 

We all wait for the day when the scales of justice are leveled and the world is put to rights. But does this righting mean that we will find it pleasurable to watch God inflict tortures on these wretches as they dance in the eternal flame? We are told that beholding the tortures of those damned to hell will be, for the saints, a wondrous, holy, and praiseworthy show. So why does it look just plain vindictive?

 

Could it really be that a perfected Christian will be one who delights in the suffering of the wicked?...Could it really be that one of those pleasures could be box seats to witness the torture of the damned? 

i) What’s the point of Rauser flinging these passages in the face of Christian readers? He seems to be prooftexting a position to then turn around and counterattack the very position he prooftexted. But where is that supposed to leave his readers? If the Bible teaches what he imputes to these passages, yet he finds that objectionable, then what?

Absent divine revelation, it’s not as if he has an alternative source of information for the nitty-griggy details of the afterlife.

ii) Rauser is citing passages which depict the Final Judgment. However, it’s not as if the Day of Judgment is how the saints spend eternity. That’s a particular event when Jesus returns. But after Judgment Day, the saints and the damned go their separate ways. Judgment Day is not an everlasting day. 

Even the Apocalypse doesn’t end on that note. After Rev 20 you have two more chapters.

iii) Likewise, the scenes in Revelation don’t portray the saints gloating over the fate of their lost loved ones. That’s so not the context. Rather, the saints take moral satisfaction in the just punishment of wicked men who cruelly persecuted the faithful–including their pious loved ones.

iv) If you stipulate that Christians can’t be happy in heaven knowing that one (or more) of their loved ones is damned, then, by definition, God will save your loved ones. So even at the hypothetical level, that’s a false dilemma.

At the same time, to say, ex hypothesi, that God will save all a  Christian’s loved ones doesn’t begin to mean that God will save everybody whatsoever, or that a Christian can’t be happy in heaven knowing that total strangers are damned.

v) In addition, loved ones won’t be very lovable in hell–assuming that happens to a Christian’s family or friends.

In this moment ivory tower speculations about the cruelest despots of history are a faint memory as you are consumed with agony over questions of your beloved Lizzie’s fate. Will she really be resurrected by God someday for the simple purpose of being subjected to an eternity of unimaginable torture? The question weighs heavily on your soul and your pastor’s lame assurance that God will always act justly is little comfort. One dark afternoon as you sit weeping for your lost daughter a friend quotes the promise of a time when every tear shall be wiped away. The friend meant well, but how can your tears ever be wiped away if your daughter really is subjected to unimaginable eternal agonies?

 

Needless to say the notion that you could delight in her damnation is too disgusting and horrifying to enter the horizon of your thoughts. And perhaps it is a good thing too. What doctrine could be so cruel as to drive such an unthinkable wedge between a parent and their beloved child?

i) I’ve already responded to this in one respect. Keep in mind, though, that a Christian parent can have conflicted feelings about his kids. Kids can go bad. Do terribly things.

Is that a justification to blackmail God? Salvation by emotional extortion?

ii) And for someone who keeps telling us that damnation is “unimaginable,” Rauser has a pretty vivid imagination.

Annihilationism has gained significant popularity in recent years, having been espoused by a growing number of respected theologians like Clark Pinnock and John Stott as well as the Church of England’s influential 1995 doctrinal commission.

i) There’s nothing respectable about Clark Pinnock. He was an intellectual bantamweight as well as a shameless blasphemer. I can’t think of any enduring contribution Pinnock made to Christian theology.

ii) Stott, of course, is in a different league than Pinnock. Stott was frequently an influence for good.  On the other hand, he’s conspicuous in large part because we have such low expectations for 20C Anglican theology. Like the way a tree stands apart on the Great Plains, when the same tree would be invisible in a forest.

iii) As far as the Church of England’s 1995 doctrinal commission is concerned, that’s just one more reason why we don’t look to the Church of England for moral or theological guidance.