The Paradox of Hell

I will refrain from refuting my opponent's arguments until round 3, as per the debate rules. Sorry for any miscommunication but you're free to start knocking my arguments down as of round 2. I'll largely reiterate here so it shouldn't make much difference. In other words, hell is not a geographic place but a self-manifested state. You'll get no argument from me. I prefer to keep my theology and vulcanology separate. Saint John-Paul II defined hell as: "a state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed" (1) The view of Hell as the state of self-exclusion from God as a result of our exercise of free-will makes a lot more sense than the caricature fiery lake tended by a guy with a pointy tail and pitchfork. It is a negative punishment This doesn't change the fact that it's a punishment. The implications of this is that God did not create hell... No, but He did create all of the circumstances that lead to Hell with full knowledge of what would happen. P1: Occupation of hell is a result of one's free will While my opponent's first premise may be true, it doesn't correspond well with an all-loving God. The individual may choose Hell but it is God who set out the consequence. Hell is ultimate and eternal suffering and that seems a wee bit extreme. We are left with three obvious questions: - Why ultimate suffering? An omnipotent and all-loving God ought to have been able to arrange for a less drastic consequence. - Why eternal suffering? I would expect that most damned souls would be more than willing to embrace God after the briefest instant in Hell so the lack of a second chance speaks against either omnipotence or omnibenevolence. - Why Hell? As I mentioned in round 2, there are more humane alternatives. Annihilation of souls rather than damnation is one alternative. Reincarnation so that a soul that might otherwise be damned has another chance is another. P2: A wholly-good God would allow us the consequences of our free will This premise has a few problems: - There are biblical examples where God interferes with free will. The most memorable example is the plagues that God visits upon Egypt (Exodus 7 through 10) wherein God 'hardened Pharaoh's heart' so that He might show the Israelites his wonders, leading to the death of all the first-born of Egypt. If God can suspend Pharaoh's free will to show off then he should be able to suspend ours to keep us from damnation. - Why make people who choose Hell? With roughly 100 billion of us having lived and died, God ought to have a decent idea of the sort of people that will choose Him and the sort that will choose damnation. Add omniscience into the equation and it becomes difficult to understand why God would ever create a person who would make the wrong choice. - Why allow the choice at all? Free will is restricted by the physical laws of our universe. We can't levitate, teleport or create matter no matter how much we might will it to be so. That's just the way our universe is built. It shouldn't have been difficult for God to have created the universe so that rejection of Him was as impossible the spontaneous genesis of gold. Free will would still function, with the soul exception of self-damnation. - Accepting the consequences of our actions implies an understanding of the choices. If a soldier steps on a hidden mine killing his entire squad we don't blame the soldier. It was his choice to step where he did but he had no knowledge of the mine. We cannot comprehend the infinite. Our mortal minds reduce God, Heaven and Hell to caricatures because we can't comprehend them. Worse, what information we do have is garbled. A variety of different religions claim to have The Truth and if you don't follow Their Way then you're going to Hell. Even within Christianity (or any of the religions) you can find different denominations that will claim that you're still going to Hell because you aren't of their particular variety of Christianity. We're faced with a choice for consequences we can't comprehend based on information that all the theologians in history haven't been able to figure out. What all-loving God would hold you responsible for your actions under those circumstances? The often-used analogy of handing a loaded gun to a toddler fails here. The toddler can see you and can see the gun, the toddler might get lucky and only blow a hole in the wall, and in the absolute worst-case scenario the toddler only suffers death. Hell Hath no Purpose Hell has a function and it's solely punitive. Eternal and ultimate suffering. Hell has no purpose because that suffering doesn't actually do anything. Other than make the damned suffer. If there were an escape clause then Hell could serve a redemptive function, albeit a cruel and unusual one. But there's no getting out of Hell. Hell is Empty And all the devils are a bad joke. Since burden of proof is shared it falls to me to show that the population of Hell is non-zero. That should seem pretty trivial what with some of the more hell-worthy figures our race has produced, but given the vagaries involving the qualification process we can't know for sure. Instead I'll simply state that even an empty Hell would be contradictory to an all-loving God. A Hell to which nobody is ever consigned is simply a vicious threat. The Paradox of Heaven Ironically, the paradox of Hell is most evident when viewed from Heaven. What sort of paradise is it when you will spend the rest of eternity knowing that everybody who isn't present is suffering ultimate torment in Hell? God Could Settle the Question Just one personal appearance by The All-Mighty is all it would take. There's plenty of precedents. God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden, hung out with Abraham and Moses and led the entire Israelite nation out of Egypt as a pillar of fire. Sure, there would likely still be a few obdurate individuals who would continue to deny God but they'd be few and far between. This would pretty significantly diminish the number of Hell-bound souls yet God hasn't put in a public appearance in several millennia. Conclusions - There are more humane alternatives to Hell and there are simple but effective measures that would reduce the suffering produced by Hell. That God does not appear to employ any of these is in contradiction to an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity. - The view of Hell as a self-imposed separation from God based on free will hinges on a choice made by a mortal mind for infinite stakes based on incomplete and conflicting information. To hold a soul responsible for making the wrong choice under those circumstances is contrary to an all-loving God.