More on infinite chances at salvation

Yesterday, I offered a Toy Model of how God could give infinite chances to someone and they could still reject him. The crucial assumption of the model was that it might take multiple good choices to dig oneself out of the moral hole that one’s wickedness got one into.

But one can also have a model without that assumption. Suppose that every day I make a choice for or against God. If I choose for God, I am saved and God makes me virtuous. If I choose against God, I become habituated into a bit more vice. How much more? Well, we can measure a person’s virtue by how likely they are to choose for God. So let’s suppose that there is some number β strictly between 0 and 1 such that each time I choose against God, my goodness—as measured by the probability of my next choice being for God—is multiplied by β. We can think of β as a kind of wicked habituation constant.

What is the probability that I will always reject God? Suppose my initial level of goodness is α. Then the probability that I will reject God on day 1 is 1 − α. If I do that, then on day 2 my level of goodness will be αβ, and the probability that I will reject God will be 1 − αβ. And if I do that, then on day 3 my level of goodness will be αβ², and the probability that I will reject God will be 1 − αβ². So the probability that I will always reject God is:

• P(R_∞) = (1−α)(1−βα)(1−β²α)....

Easy mathematical fact: as long as α < 1 (i.e., I am not maximally good on day 1) and β < 1 (the bad choice does decrease my goodness), P(R_∞) is bigger than zero. In other words, on this model, I have infinite chances, and each choice has the possibility of resulting in my complete redemption, and yet I have a non-zero probability of choosing badly for eternity.

Let’s make up some conservative numbers. Suppose the infinite chances regimen starts with death, and that β = 0.99: one gets 1% worse each time one chooses against God—and that’s 1% of my previous level of goodness, rather than an absolute 1%. Presumably people die with various levels of goodness between 0 and 1. Suppose one in a thousand people dies with a goodness level α ≤ 0.1. Now if one has goodness level α = 0.1 when one starts the infinite chances regimen at death, and β = 0.99, it turns out (or so Mathematica calculates QPochhammer[.1,.99]) that the probability of damnation is about 0.000035. So with 8 billion people, there would be 8 million dying with goodness level at most 0.1, and so we might well expect at least 8, 000, 000 × 0.000035 = 280 of them to be damned even if they got the infinite chances regimen. So on this toy model, we would expect some people now alive to be damned.

Now it seems plausible that it is compatible with God’s goodness that he would allow one in a thousand people to die with a goodness level of 0.1, and that he would allow a character deterioration of at least 1% per posthumous choice against God—this would give people a real ability to affect their character, while yet being very generous with redemptiveness. In other words, even on an infinite chances model, it is compatible with God’s goodness that hundreds of people be forever separated from God. But if hundreds of people damned is compatible with God’s goodness on an infinite chances model, why wouldn’t hundreds of people damned also be compatible with God’s goodness apart from an infinite chances model, as long as it was also a model where God is very generous in redemptiveness and gives people a real ability to affect their character?

Infinite chances and a Molinist defense of damnation

Let’s start with a line of thought that doesn’t require Molinism. Let Infinite Chances be the thesis that God never definitively damns someone: even if on some day you have chosen against God, you will still have choices on future days that can get you back to the path of virtue and hence to God.

One might think that Infinite Chances would all but guarantee that everyone is saved in the end. There is no such guarantee, however. Consider this Toy Model. On each future day n, I have level V_n of virtue, negative if I am on balance vicious and positive if I am on balance virtuous. On each day, I make a free choice. The choice will either be good or bad, and will respectively increase or decrease your virtue by one unit. The more virtuous I am, the more likely the choice will be for good, and the more vicious I am, the more likely that it will be for bad, but no matter how vicious I am, there is a non-zero probability that I will choose for good. I also assume that if I am on-balance vicious, the probability that I will choose for good is less than 1/2. Suppose for simplicity that there is some level S > 0 of virtue at which I become definitively saved.

This story is consistent with Infinite Chances. For no matter how vicious I am, there is also a non-zero probability that I will choose the good, thereby decreasing my level of vice by one unit, and the next day choose the good again, and so on, until I reach level S. So I will always have a chance to dig myself out of my vice. But at the same time, it is a mathematical fact that under the above circumstances if I am in fact vicious on day n (i.e., V_n < 0), then there is a non-zero probability that even over an infinite future I will never be better than I am on day n. My next day’s choice might be bad, and then I might bounce up and down, but never dig myself out. Remember that once my level of vice is  − m units, it would take m steps to get back to neutral.

Next, note that the Toy Model seems consistent with God’s goodness. It allows our actions to have genuine effects on our character, and it allows us genuine freedom to mold that character. Yet on this toy model there is a non-zero probability of my being damned. Thus we get a first conclusion:

1. It is consistent with God’s goodness that not everyone is saved.

This isn’t a defense of hell or damnation as it stands, though it is a defense of non-univeralism. I take it (perhaps pace C. S. Lewis) that it is a part of the doctrine of damnation that once one is damned, one doesn’t have a chance to get out of hell. In other words, the doctrine of hell implies a denial of Infinite Chances, why my toy model implies Infinite Chances.

However, given Molinism (I wish Molinism were true, but alas I think it’s not) one can turn this into a defense of damnation. Let’s imagine that God has created a bunch of people in a situation where the Toy Model is true, while with his middle knowledge God knew that given the infinite chances that the Toy Model posits, all but one—let’s call him “Judas”—would eventually be saved. This is compatible with God’s goodness by something like the line of thought that led to (1).

But now imagine that God decided to create this bunch of people, while knowing with his middle knowledge that given the infinite chances of the Toy Model they would be saved except for Judas, but hadn’t yet decided whether to give the people the infinite chances of the Toy Model. Among the things that God middle-knew is that, if he made the Toy Model true, there would a day n on which Judas will have a level of vice which he would never do better than—the next day he would choose badly, and while he might bounce back up a little, he would never be better than V_n. And so God decided that he would freeze Judas morally at the level V_n achieved on day n, taking away Judas’ freedom of choice on subsequent days. As a result, Judas was irredeemably damned on day n, as the doctrine of hell holds.

Would this be compatible with God’s goodness? Yes! Here is why. We have granted that giving Judas the infinite chances of the Toy Model would be compatible with God’s goodness, even if Judas is never saved. But freezing Judas’ moral level seems a better thing to do. For God knows that if Judas’ moral level is frozen at V_n, then Judas won’t get worse, while if Judas had the infinite choices, then he would still never be better than level V_n, and he would be worse than that on at least day n + 1 (since we have supposed that after day n, Judas is never better than V_n, so V_n + 1 is not greater than V_n, and hence it must be less, as it was assumed that all choices either improve or make worse). Since one’s level of virtue or vice is a primary constituent of human wellbeing, this freezing seems a good thing.

I wonder if there is any way to rescue this argument in the absence of Molinism? Maybe. For there may come a time when the probability of Judas ever digging himself out of his vice has gotten so small, while the probability of his digging himself deeper is pretty high, and so it even absent Molinism it might be a mercy not to give Judas more chances.

A reason why God might not give second chances

Jones definitively rejects God in this life. He dies. Should God give Jones a second chance at salvation? While an endless--or just extremely long--sequence of second chances might damage Jones' freedom to decide his ultimate destiny, a single second chance seems to be clearly a good thing.

Not necessarily! By giving Jones a second chance to choose God, God would also be giving Jones a chance to reject God all over again. But it is much worse to do wrong than to have bad things merely happen to one, at least when the wrong and the bad are proportionate. And rejecting God is among the worst of all wrongs--maybe even the worst of all wrongs. So there is definitely a risk of further gravely harming Jones by giving him a second chance.

This risk was already present when God gave Jones a first choice for salvation. But once one has done something terrible, doing it again is easier. If Jones has once rejected God's overtures, rejecting them again will be more probable, other things being equal. So, normally, the risk increases. Granted, God could decrease this risk to the level of the first-chance risk by changing Jones' character, but in doing so, God would be overriding Jones' freedom to decide on his character.

None of these considerations show that God shouldn't give a second chance. God could override character or take the risk of letting Jones reject him all over again. But what the considerations do show is that God could be acting reasonably and lovingly towards Jones in not giving Jones a second chance.

This argument depends on theologically incompatibilist simple foreknowledge or open theism: it doesn't work given theological compatibilism or Molinist.

Might the damned design their hell?

In my Death and Afterlife class, we were reading about whether immortality is worth having. The following has become clear to me: it is not easy to design an eternal life that isn't in some way hellish. An eternal life of fixed capabilities would involve the boredom of infinite repetition, and we could easily get bored with a life of growing capabilities, too, as things become too easy. To have a good infinite life, a human being needs something utterly exceeding our ordinary life--like the beatific union with an infinite God--or a very carefully fine-tuned life, say a life where our capabilities grow without bounds but the problems set for these capabilities grow in such a way as to neither be too frustrating or too easy.

This makes plausible the model of hell on which the life of the damned is just a life they designed for themselves. For the damned would be designing a life apart from God, and yet being wicked would not be able to wisely fine-tune such a life.

But I don't think we should embrace without restriction the model on which the damned design their eternal life. For some clever but still wicked people could design an eternal life of infinite recurrence and great sensory pleasure, with amnesia between the recurrences. Such a life, while nightmarish from the perspective of an outsider who knows that all the pleasures are a cycle of repetition and forgetting, could be blissful from the inside. Likewise, a wicked person could design an eternal life at the level of a contented pig. Again, to the outsider it would be nightmarish, but from the inside the wallowing would be delightful. However, I think the biblical picture of hell makes hell not only miserable from the outside but also from the inside.

Perhaps we should have this model of hell: The damned design their own eternal life subject to the constraint that there is no longer room for self-deceit, forgetting, drunken stupor or the like. On this model, God imposes suffering on the damned, but he does it by means of bestowing three good things: (a) ensuring the damned are no longer capable of self-deceit, deadening of the intellect or the like; (b) giving the damned autonomy over their own infinite lives; and (c) ensuring that the life does not end. In fact, God could simply bestow these three good things on damned and blessed alike.

The combination view of hell

There are four possible views on suffering in hell:

1. Traditional View (TV): Some people have everlasting suffering in hell.
2. Weak Universalism (WU): Everyone lives forever and nobody has everlasting suffering in hell.
3. Annihilationism: Nobody has any suffering in hell but some are annihilated.
4. Combination View (CV): Some suffer in hell and then are annihilated.

I called (2) Weak Universalism, since it's compatible with the idea that some people go to hell for a finite amount of time and with the idea that some people stay forever in hell but only suffer for a finite amount of time. In this post I want to examine and reject the Combination View.

In principle, CV could be motivated over and against TV by claiming that TV is too lenient—hell is too good for some people. Such a view is rare, I think, and I won't argue against it. Instead, I want to argue against those versions of CV on which TV is too harsh.

Those who accept CV presumably think that punishment is primarily retributive in nature—otherwise it's hard to see why CV is more appealing than straight Annihilationism. For if punishment is there to protect the innocent, Annihilationism seems to work even better than CV. And if punishment is there to reform the wicked, then either all the wicked are reformed by the punishment, and hence should not be annihilated at the completion of it, or else some of the wicked are not reformed. If some of the wicked are not reformed by the punishment, why shouldn't God prolong it, hoping for results? (And if there must be a cut-off, then why shouldn't that cut-off be at death instead?)

So suppose that punishment is primarily retributive. But now I worry that WU is a better view than CV. The CVer thinks that everlasting suffering in hell is too harsh, but that nonetheless some people deserve some post-death suffering in hell. Well, wouldn't it be better for God to keep those people in hell until their total punishment is sufficient to pay the penalty, and then once their penalty has been paid, give them a life that is neither heavenly nor hellish? I suppose one could insist on this odd view: no finite amount of post-death suffering in hell is sufficient penalty but an infinite amount of post-death suffering in hell is too harsh a penalty, and CV manages to produce a punishment that is in between, but this just does not seem very plausible.

I expect that the motivation for CV is often a hybrid of theological and philosophical reasoning. For reasons of Scripture and Christian tradion, WU and Annihilationism are rejected, and I think rightly so. For philosophical reasons, however, TV is rejected. CV is not philosophically superior to WU and Annihilationism but maybe in terms of Scripture and tradition it is superior. Still, I think CV is not a stable position. And if one really thinks a finite amount of suffering in hell is better, why not just hold to the traditional Christian view that hell is forever, but tweak it so that the total amount of suffering is finite? I am not defending that modified view, but it seems superior to CV in terms of conformity to Scripture and tradition, and philosophically no worse.

Sharp cutoffs in the moral life

Ted Sider apparently has an argument (I reporting second-hand) that there is a continuum in the degree of sinfulness, but there is no continuum in the heaven-hell welfare spectrum, since there is a sharp jump in welfare as one moves from an eternity of suffering to an eternity of joy. Therefore, he concludes, divine judgment cannot be just if the outcomes are heaven or hell.

Now one way to answer this is to say that there really are sharp cutoffs in the moral life, such as that between those in a state of mortal sin and those not in a state of mortal sin. The cutoffs would not be defined by some kind of a moral arithmetic[note 1], but by a qualitative fact about the state of the person's will. Thus, Aquinas defines the state of mortal sin in terms of the lack of charity. Now, charity is a fairly sharply defined state of friendship with God (which state is always the fruit of grace). The mortal sinner lacks charity entirely, though the charity will be restored in repentance and forgiveness. Now, there might be a continuum in the degree of charity, say from zero to a hundred, but the difference between zero charity and even the tiniest bit of charity is deeply significant. Even a tiny bit of charity makes one fit for eternity with God (but the more charity there is, the more blissful that eternity will be). But a complete lack of charity makes one fit for damnation.

Is it plausible that there should be such sharp cutoffs in the moral life? Well, what led me to this reflection was watching the excellent 1953 film Pickup on South Street. The central character, Candy (Jean Peters), is a woman who has lived somewhat on the wrong side of the law, and is now trying to leave that life behind, but has one last task of greyish legality. However, she finds that she is enmeshed in a situation of Soviet espionage. And then it becomes clear that she sees a yawning gulf between mere crime and treason, and she assumes, perhaps wrongly, that other people living on the wrong side of the law see it this way, too. It is one thing, in her mind to be a pickpocket (though she is not one herself), and quite a different to work for the Reds. The film makes it plausible that there is indeed a sharp cutoff between other crimes and treason. It's almost as if treason were an allegory for mortal sin. See the film—it is really good. (If you have Netflix, it's available from their Watch Instantly section—that's how I watched it.)