Not a Hope in Hell
It is frequently claimed that an all-loving and good God cannot permit anyone to end up in hell. In this book, the author shows that this issue of God's permission of hell has an intimate connection with age-old questions regarding why God would permit sin. Indeed, focus on why an all-loving and good God would permit hell is the best lens through which to explain sin.
Many arguments against the possibility of hell require affirming that God permits sin because God could not achieve goods for us without allowing sin. The author argues that we have independent philosophical reasons to reject that sin is necessary for us in any way, and, further, we have similar reasons to hold that hell is necessarily possible if the God of classical theism exists. In the end, understanding why an all-loving and good God would permit hell reveals that there is always hope for us, even when things appear most hopeless.
The book will appeal to those working in metaphysics, theology, philosophy of religion, and medieval philosophy.
James Dominic Rooney is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Hong Kong Baptist University, a fellow of the Angelicum Thomistic Institute (Rome, Italy), and research fellow of the HKBU Centre for Sino-Christian Studies. A Dominican friar of the Province of St. Albert the Great (Chicago, IL), he works primarily in metaphysics, medieval philosophy, and Chinese philosophy. He also has significant research interests in philosophy of religion and political philosophy. His most recent book is Beyond Classical Liberalism: Freedom and the Good (2024, co-edited with Patrick Zoll).