Annihilation, everlasting torment, and divine justice

Abstract

A major source of disagreement among proponents of the traditionalist and conditionalist views of hell regards the proportionality criterion, according to which the justice of a punishment must match the severity of the offense. Conditionalists often argue that eternal conscious torment is too severe, given that the sins of any human being are finite. Traditionalists, however, typically insist that the perfect moral status of God requires infinite punishment for the damned. The discussion usually proceeds on the assumption that eternal conscious torment is a more extreme punishment than annihilation. Here I challenge this assumption by identifying reasons to believe annihilation is actually a more severe punishment than eternal conscious torment.