Abstract
In response to the problem of Hell, Buckareff and Plug (Relig Stud 41:39–54, 2005; Relig Stud 45:63–72, 2009) have recently proposed and defended an ‘escapist’ conception of Hell. In short, they propose that the problem of Hell does not arise because God places an open-door policy on Hell. In this paper, I expose a fundamental problem with this conception of Hell—namely, that if there’s an open door policy on Hell, then there should be one on Heaven too. I argue that a coherent conception of Heaven cannot have such a policy. Hence, escapism is not an adequate response to the problem of Hell.
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Notes
In a footnote, Buckareff and Plug (2005, p. 54, n. 21) claim that a person’s will may become ‘settled’ so that it is only ‘metaphysically possible’ that they leave Hell. Given that their argument gains plausibility on the claim it is psychologically possible that persons in Hell can leave, this footnote seems like a problematic concession for reasons I discuss in “Direct and derivative freedom” section.
Buckareff and Plug (2005, p. 54, n. 21) hint towards endorsing such a distinction in their original presentation of their view. Indeed, Bucakreff and Plug (2009, p. 65) seem to make make such a move in response the problem of religious luck posed to them by Jones (2007). The terms I use to spell out the move they make will make this move a little clearer. Note, also, that my argument against this move also cast doubt on their response to problem of religious luck.
I assume that the dialectic context in which the problem of Hell arises is one in which theists must endorse such a libertarian conception of free will to avoid the problem of evil (that is, the apparent incompatibility between God and the existence of evil).
Kane ’s (1996) account of free will and moral responsibility, for example, requires that a person undergo one (or more) ‘self-forming actions’ in order to be morally responsible for her actions. An agent is thus directly free and responsible for the outcome of her self-forming action and then derivatively free and responsible for actions from stem from that self-forming action.
Nagasawa et al. (2004, pp. 108–113) also consider this sort of objection in response to their argument that persons in Heaven lack free will, though they respond to it in a different way than I have.
Cf. Fischer and Ravizza (1998, pp. 49–50).
This is a common distinction in the free will and moral responsibility literature, which has its roots in the work of Aristotle. See, for example, Fischer and Ravizza (1998).
Fischer and Ravizza (1998) hold that an agent can act freely without satisfying the epistemic condition on moral responsibility. Mele (2011), however, argues that this is false: there is no sense to be made of an agent acting freely and not satisfying the epistemic condition on moral responsibility. In effect, Mele argues that the epistemic condition is built into the free will condition. I follow Mele here. So, if Barry does not act freely then he also does not satisfy the epistemic condition.
This might cause further problems for escapism, of course. However, it certainly seems within God’s power to ensure that all persons have access to robust alternative possibilities for every decision they make.
References
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Buckareff, A., & Plug, A. (2005). Escaping hell: Divine motivation and the problem of hell. Religious Studies, 41(1), 39–54.
Buckareff, A., & Plug, A. (2009). Escapism, religious luck, and divine reasons for action. Religious Studies, 45(1), 63–72.
Fischer, J. M., & Ravizza, M. (1998). Responsibility and control: A theory of moral responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Mele, A. (2011). Moral responsibility for actions: Epistemic and freedom conditions. Philosophical Explorations, 13(2), 101–111.
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Acknowledgments
This paper was written for the Cluster Initiative on Death, Immortality and the Afterlife, led by David Cheetham and Yujin Nagasawa and made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, grant #15571 (“Analytic Theology”). The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Templeton Foundation. I would also like to thank Natalie Ashton, Yujin Nagasawa, and Larry Sock for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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Matheson, B. Escaping Heaven. Int J Philos Relig 75, 197–206 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-013-9432-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-013-9432-3