The Free Will Defense of Hell

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Below is a follow to

https://theologoumenon.substack.com/p/a-universalist-theological-anthropology

My theo-anthropology does not employ all or nothing & either-or accounts of human freedom or of sin. Neither does it substantialize evil, as if loving something that is 'not God' could ever mean loving something that is not, at least, a shadow, vestige, image or likeness of God. Annihilationism's incoherent, of course, precisely because every person's an image of God.

Because the realities of sin, knowledge & freedom and of viciousness & virtuosity present in degrees, they can all grow incrementally. In my view, then, they will all thus warrant responses that are proportionate, whether remedies, punishments or rewards.

It's precisely because both a Thomist predestination (to sainthood thru infused graces) & eschatological impeccability make a lot of sense to me that universalism similarly coheres, which is to say that it's not in the least repugnant to my notions of authentic human freedom (volitions vis a vis natural inclinations).

It follows, then, that we are 'sufficiently free' to have a 'morally significant' free will. We enjoy relative not Absolute perfections, relative not Absolute freedom, can sin venially as well as gravely, can only ever mask but never obliterate our goodness as an image of God. We simply don't - because one can't in principle - have sufficient knowledge to fully reject God.

Even a putative full embrace of evil wouldn't, by definition, entail a full rejection of God, for evil is but a subcontrary & nothingness - a reification. There's always some lesser good necessarily being in part embraced, by definition (evil being only parasitic). Only in a Manichean universe would such dualistic logics hold such that any realities could be equipotently placed in opposition to God. God did not look out over the chaosmos & decide to create Hell because reality was lacking in otherwise desirable Manichean attributes?

A free will defense of suffering & evil vis a vis creation's ends is not unreasonable. Initial epistemic distancing & incremental closures in the service of growing Creator - creature intimacies seems reasonable. That God can be responsible but not culpable makes sense, only if every wound can be healed, every ill consequence remedied. DBH's game theoretic analysis of the antecedent - consequent will distinction is irrefutable.

Addendum:

Hopeful Universalism - branding issues

To answer what grounds one's hope, we have to inquire into the precise nature of one's epistemic uncertainty.

1) Narrow Escape Universalism
Does one hope all will repent, but otherwise accept that hell remains a divinely ordained conditional necessity?

2) Trick or Treat Soft Universalism
Does one hope, rather, that God had always determined to predestine all & hell was only ever a metaphysical possibility (fooled you!)?

3) Heck If I Know Soft Universalism
Does one's hope ground itself in a more radical uncertainty that says we should be eschatologically ignostic, or at least agnostic, regarding both whether or not all repent as well as to whether or not it's a conditional necessity, e.g. doctrinal belief, or just a mere metaphysical possibility, e.g. anthropomorphic projection.

Analysis:

Narrow Escape Universalism - no objective evil but untenable due to subjective evil of God risking an unmitigated & infinite eternal loss

Trick or Treat Soft Universalism - no objective or subjective evil but not apposite if one accepts conditional necessity doctrinally and also untenable since God's character has been sufficiently revealed

Heck If I Know Soft Universalism - also untenable since God's character has been sufficiently revealed