On the Metaphysics of Hell: How Can Evil Exist and What is Hell?

            Evil is mysterious. Since the Edenic world was perfect, as an out-flowing impulse of the perfect Creator, whence evil? Satan is not the answer. If that answer is given, the next question refutes it—whence Satan? The most ingenious answer to the question of the origin of evil comes from Augustine of Hippo who argued that evil is simply privatio boni—the absence of good. Evil was not a creation of God or Satan. Rather, evil exists when good doesn’t. For example, it isn’t evil for me to not have wings, but if I go to the beach and rip the wings off of a seagull, that is evil. The seagull should have wings, according to God’s creation, and the removal of that good creation is the substantiation of evil. 

            This is how I understand hell—it is a place where all goodness is absent. It is not a chamber of lost souls who long for good things, only to be repressed under the burden of God’s angry fire, or doused in the literal flames of the infernal lake. Rather, it is the receptacle of all those who reject the goodness of God, consigned to an eternal existence apart from it. There will be no laugher, joy, fellowship, embrace, hope, love, peace, kindness, or goodness of any kind. Instead, it will be a place of eternal depression, existence apart from enjoyment. The desire to die without the ability to experience the good that is death (1 Cor 15:54). It will be darkness filled not with the sounds of joy but weeping. Yet not weeping that hopes for later rejoicing but weeping that gives way to angry gnashing of teeth, such a great anger that one would rather jump into an engulfing ocean of fire than feel the fiery anger arising from within.

            If this is hell, and hell is the absence of all goodness, how then can people exist there? Existence is a good thing. How can people exist in hell if hell is the absence of all good things, existence included? On the one hand, people don’t truly exist in hell. True existence is only possible in covenantal communion with God, the Father of lights, from whom all blessings of life flow. Those who exist in hell, when compared to those in heaven, aren’t truly human. They were human. But now they are much closer to demons and those in heaven are much closer to gods (glorified sons of God, to be exact), when compared to their this-worldly counterparts. This is why the New Testament sometimes sounds like eternal death is to be annihilated. Hell is an ex-human type existence because “John Smith” in hell is so different from John Smith in this life that they are essentially two different creatures. But, John Smith still exists in hell. How can he exist in a world devoid of all good if existence is a good thing?  

            The answer is that the privation of existence isn’t the lack of existence. If it were, it would be evil that an elephant doesn’t exist in the parking lot out my window. Furthermore, if mere lack of existence were evil, it would be evil that unicorns don’t exist at all. But, of course, the elephant-free parking lot and unicorn-free animal kingdom aren’t evil things, as if the advent of elephants and unicorns would somehow make these things pure or righteous. Rather, as noted above, the absence of something that should be present (like wings on a seagull) is evil. The absence of tusks on a live elephant is evil when a poacher cuts them off. Perhaps, even, the absence of unicorns at a girl’s birthday is evil when the father promises that they will be there. 

            In other words, there must be an elephant and a unicorn for the evil of poaching and promise breaking to exist. In the same way, people must exist for the evil of hell to be possible. Therefore, the people who exist in hell participate in pure evil because they reject every scintilla of goodness, that is, God (James 1:17). They are more demonic than human. In this way, Augustine’s notion of the privatio boni fits with hell as a place of pure privatio boni. This is because the pure lack of all goodness isn’t empty space but creatures who don’t have what they should. 

            We were created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever in a love-covenant of eternal praise. But, those in hell reject God in hate and fill their mouths with His curses rather than praises. This is how they are purely evil—they are filled with the emptiness of sin by being devoid of the fullness of God in every possible way. They have no goodness yet they have existence. The lack of existence isn’t evil (like the lack of the elephant in the parking lot isn’t evil). But, the lack of a good in an existing person is evil (like the lack of the tusks on the elephant). Therefore, the lack of all good in the existing people in hell is pure evil.  

Yet, it is a good thing that these people exist in hell because they are required to manifest the eternal justice of God to His people. God is most glorious when both His wrath and mercy are displayed. He cannot display His wrath without there existing worthy recipients of said wrath (Rom 9:22-23). Therefore, in God’s almighty wisdom, there exists a place of pure evil that is a good. It is pure evil from the perspective of the people in hell. They receive nothing good from it. But, it is pure good from the perspective of God. He is not harmed by it in any way and it rather glorifies Him. 

This conception of hell helps us understand how it is fair that people exist there eternally. That is, they exist in the state they want to exist in—apart from God’s goodness. God is not torturing them for eternity. Rather, they are existing in the torture of hateful rejection. Secondly, this helps us understand how it is a good thing that God allows these people to exist in such a state. That is, this place of pure evil brings out the perfect justice of God who not only hates what should be hated (which, incidentally, even Aristotle noted was essential for goodness) but who also endured this horrifying evil so that you and I would not have to. 

This doctrine should produce two things in us. First, we should praise God for His perfect judgement, abhorrence of evil, and sovereign grace. Second, we should tell others to repent and flee the wrath to come by sprinting to the open arms of Christ, who is mighty to save. 

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:33–36).