Different Kinds of Moral Monsters: Responding to Hart’s Caricature of Catholics

Michie

Well-Known Member
Supporter
Feb 5, 2002
165,519
55,216
Woods
✟4,585,764.00
Country
United States
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
Recently, I read an article in which the author quoted David Bentley Hart’s perspective on the significance of believing in the existence of hell, that is, a place of eternal punishment for those who die estranged from God, without sanctifying grace. Hart concludes that either people do not really believe what they say they do or, if they believe it, they become moral monsters as a result. Let’s allow him to unfold his argument (if such it can be called):

I am quite sure, for instance, that a certain kind of soberly orthodox Christian thinker with which I am very familiar—say, a Catholic philosopher at a fine university, a devoted husband and father of five children—fervently believes that he believes the dominant doctrine of hell, and can provide very forceful and seemingly cogent arguments in its defense; I simply think he is deceiving himself. Then again, I may be the one who is deceived. My own, probably shameful prejudice—at least, most of the time—is that the whole question of hell is one whose answer should be immediately obvious to a properly functioning moral intelligence…

I cannot take the claims of this Catholic philosopher entirely seriously from any angle, for the simple reason that his actions so resplendently belie what he professes to believe. If he truly thought that our situation in this world were as horribly perilous as he claims, and that every mortal soul labored under the shadow of so dreadful a doom, and that the stakes were so high and the odds so poor for everyone—a mere three score and ten years to get it right if we are fortunate, and then an eternity of agony in which to rue the consequences if we get it wrong—he would never dare to bring a child into this world, let alone five children; nor would he be able to rest even for a moment, because he would be driven ceaselessly around the world in a desperate frenzy of evangelism, seeking to save as many souls from the eternal fire as possible.

Continued below.
Different Kinds of Moral Monsters: Responding to Hart’s Caricature of Catholics - OnePeterFive