The Problem of Hell: A Thomistic Critique of David Bentley Hart’s NeceSsitarian Universalism

Abstract

AbstractDavid Bentley Hart has recently argued that universal salvation is a metaphysically necessary outcome of God’s act of creating rational beings. A crucial premise of Hart’s argument is a compatibilist view of free will, according to which God can determine human choices without taking away their freedom. This view constitutes common ground between Hart and the tradition of classical Thomism, which emphasizes the non‐competitive relation between human freedom and God’s universal causality. Unfortunately, Thomistic compatibilism undermines the so‐called Free Will Defense, which is often considered to be the only viable way of responding to contemporary criticism of the doctrine of hell. Can the existence of hell be reconciled with God’s goodness given a Thomistic conception of rational freedom? This question is of interest not only to followers of Aquinas but to anyone who rejects a ‘zero‐sum competition’ between freedom and grace, and who also believes that divine revelation confirms the possibility of perdition. The present article proposes an alternative to the Free Will Defense—called The Thomistic Autonomy Defense—which aims to block Hart’s arguments for the necessity of universal salvation.