Eleventh International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

I present a short summary of the traditional pagan and Christian legacy claiming that hell is above all a place of pain and the objections that have been addressed to it. Then I proceed to my main point: tracing a philosophical thread from Plato to Aristotle and then from Augustine to Aquinas, and citing a psychological experience of everyday life, I maintain that: 1) either there is no pain in hell, or 2) hell is not the worst thing that can happen to a human being. Then I present four possible objections to my thesis and attempt to counter them. In the last section, I point to some practical consequences on the pastoral level that could ensue from a different doctrine on the nature of hell.