When it comes to the Christian doctrine of hell, there is no lack of critics. One critique, espoused by David Bentley Hart, is that hell necessarily entails punishment without reform, which seemingly would be contrary to God’s goodness. In his book That All Shall Be Saved, he writes,
From the perspective of Christian belief, the very notion of a punishment that is not intended ultimately to be remedial is morally dubious (and, I submit, anyone who doubts this has never understood Christian teaching at all) (p. 44).
Is Hart right here? Does the Christian doctrine of hell entail a notion of punishment that’s not remedial?
It would seem Hart is correct, because the souls in hell aren’t able to reform themselves. Given the fixity of their wills, they can’t repent.
St. Thomas Aquinas dealt with this very objection in his Summa Contra Gentiles (3.144). One response he gave was that the punishment of hell can be remedial for others, giving rise to a fear of eternal punishment that thereby inspires them to refrain from sin.
Such a notion is supported by the Bible. Consider, for example, Proverbs 19:25: “Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence.” Proverbs 22:10 is another: “Drive out a scoffer, and strife will go out, and quarreling and abuse will cease.”
Now, Hart might counter here and say that remediation for others is not enough. Punishment, he might argue, needs to be ordered to the remediation of the sinner himself.
Well, I think Aquinas’s other response to the objection can be helpful.
Aquinas targets the reason behind the objection made by his contemporaries—namely, punishment without the aim of remediation entails punishment for its own sake, which in turn entails delight in punishment for its own sake, both of which are contrary to the divine goodness.
Aquinas argues that this doesn’t apply to God when he punishes the damned in hell because he punishes “on account of the order that must be imposed on creatures, in which order the good of the universe consists” (SCG 3.144). For Aquinas, such an order involves the proportion between a sin and its due punishment, just as “rewards correspond proportionally to acts of virtue.” And this “shows forth [God’s] wisdom.”
Aquinas elsewhere calls this order the “order of justice” (Summa Theologiae I:21:4). In particular, it’s an order of justice for human beings. It’s called an order (or plan) of justice because in it, God gives to rational creatures what is due to them insofar as they are rational creatures, and God stipulates what is due to himself from rational creatures insofar as he is their Creator.
So what is it about God’s order of justice for human beings that makes punishment for sin fitting?
Consider that God has ordained that there exists a natural relationship between pleasure and pain and good and bad behavior. Feelings of delight and well-being are meant to naturally flow from good behavior, because good and virtuous behavior perfects us as human beings, which constitutes authentic human happiness. Feelings of shame and disgust are meant to naturally flow from bad behavior because such behavior is not perfective of our human nature, which is the opposite of our human happiness. This is the natural way by which God directs us to him as our ultimate end.
The pleasures and pains associated with our good and bad behavior are not essential to good and bad behavior. Nevertheless, they flow from it. This is why some philosophers refer to them as “proper accidents” of good and bad behavior.
But proper accidents can be blocked. Take a dog, for example. A dog is supposed to have four legs, which is a proper accident for a dog. (The number of legs is not essential to what it means to be a dog, but flows from it.) But a dog may end up having only three legs due to injury or genetic defect.
Just as a proper accident for a dog can be blocked, so too the proper accidents of good and bad behavior, the feelings of pleasure and pain, can be blocked. The pleasure that we normally experience when we do good can be blocked by circumstances or psychological harm. In some cases, unpleasantness is the actual result of the good behavior.
Like pleasure, the displeasure that’s naturally supposed to result from bad behavior can be blocked, too. For example, a person might try to rationalize his recreational sex in order to explain away the shame and guilt that naturally accompanies his sin. He might look to others who engage in it and say, “See? They do it. So it can’t be that bad.”
When a sinner doesn’t experience unpleasant feelings for bad behavior, but takes delight in it, or when a sinner experiences unpleasant feelings in doing good behavior, there is a real defect in nature, and things aren’t functioning the way they should. In the words of Pope St. Paul VI, there is “a perturbation in the universal order established by God” (Indulgentiarum Doctrina 2).
This breach of order can’t be left alone, since the things of divine providence can’t be left in disorder. The glory of the divine order ultimately can’t be diminished. So out of justice to himself as the universal governor of the divine order that he established, and for the sake of manifesting the true nature of sin, God wills to set things right and restore back to order what is disordered.
The way this is done is for the sinner to undergo what is contrary to the pleasure received in the immoral behavior—namely, pain. In other words, the sinner is punished, thereby mending the breach of order.
Through sin, the sinner puts himself outside the “order of justice” spoken of above. Punishment, and particularly the punishment of hell, puts the sinner back into the “order of justice,” the order that exists between sin and displeasure. The sinner is “put in his place,” so to speak. And as Aquinas states, this “shows forth the wisdom of God.”
Putting the sinner back into this “order of justice,” through the punishment of hell, is in fact a form of remediation. We can see this in a few ways.
First, prior to everlasting punishment, the sinner is under the willful illusion that he can be happy by committing mortal sin. With the punishment of hell, the damned sinner is disabused of that illusion, and his mind thereby conforms to the truth that such human behavior cannot provide the happiness that he naturally seeks. That’s remediation.
Secondly, as a corollary of the first, the punishment of hell forces the mind of the damned sinner to consider the true nature of the mortal sin committed. Prior to everlasting punishment, the evil of mortal sin is willfully neglected for whatever good is perceived in the behavior. But in the everlasting punishment of hell, the evil of the sin is perfectly manifest, such that the mind can’t help but behold it for the rest of time.
Thirdly, prior to everlasting punishment, the sinner voluntarily directs his mind to consider other things besides God’s wisdom manifest in the “order of justice.” With the punishment of hell, the damned sinner cannot help but have his mind set on God’s wisdom manifest in such order.
Unlike the blessed in heaven, however, for whom God’s order gives joy and happiness, the damned sinner experiences torment by having his mind fixed on the truth of this order. This rectification of the disordered mind, again, is remediation.
So the punishment of hell is not entirely without remediation. It’s not the kind of remediation we like to think about in this life, where a sinner discovers his sin, repents, and gains heaven by his change of heart. That is to say, it doesn’t bring reform in the will of the damned. But God gives us many, many opportunities in life to turn back to him! A belief in hell certainly doesn’t discount that; in fact, believing in an eternal hell can deepen our appreciation for the unlimited opportunities God in his mercy provides sinners to change their ways while they yet live.
But every train has to come to a stop sometime. And so, for the sinner so intent on savoring his sin that all the opportunities in the world won’t dissuade him in life, there is hell. That’s where the mind can no longer deny what it ought to focus on—namely, the truth of God’s design for human behavior and happiness, or the “order of justice.” And the damned will forever be re-minded of this truth.
***This article was originally published by Catholic Answers Magazine Online on March 6, 2024.