"The scriptural traditions of the great monotheistic religions say little about how we should address the modal issues raised by questions regarding whether God’s goodness is an essential or non-essential property of His. Moreover, the authors were, no doubt, not working with the sophisticated modal notions we associate with discussions about essential and accidental properties of persons and things. So, in light of the ambiguities, the sense of ‘perfect’ is a point of dispute among many theistic philosophers and theologians, especially when it comes to questions regarding God’s moral character...

It is contrary to the evidence regarding God’s character that He would punish persons forever... God’s desire for a restored relationship with us, His estranged children, should lead God to adopt policies in the eschaton that would reflect such a desire and other pro-attitudes. God’s soteriological policies would be entirely disharmonious with what appear to be God’s policies this side of the eschaton if God’s policies change in the afterlife to include a ‘closed-door’ policy towards His creatures that bear God’s image...

People have genuine, heartfelt problems with worshipping a being who consigns persons to an everlasting state of damnation yet claims to be a loving parent who desires nothing more than to commune with them. Leaving an opening for the recalcitrant to turn to and enjoy communion with God seems like a reasonable policy for a just and loving Creator and parent to adopt. So escapism should be the view of hell adopted by Christians...

If retributivism is right and some people are consigned to hell forever, then those who are consigned to hell forever are so consigned because of the heinous nature of the sins that they have committed. Since hell would be retributive, the denizens of hell would be eligible to leave and enter heaven only when their punishment was exhausted. Those who are consigned to remain in hell for eternity, however, would never exhaust their punishment, and so could never enter heaven and be in communion with God. But, if the above arguments are sound, then this state of affairs would be one that God would not will since it would be inconsistent with His motivational states – in particular His desire for all persons to be reconciled with Him. So if retributivism is true, and some of those in hell remain there forever, then there must be some reason why they remain in hell, otherwise God’s policy would seem inconsistent – specifically, God would desire reconciliation, but after serving their time, some or all remain in hell.

There is a further difficulty for the retributivist who wants to endorse (E1), namely, Sider’s objection to the traditional doctrine of hell. Assuming a retributivist conception of hell where some persons might remain in hell forever, then there must be some cut-off point on whatever metric to differentiate between those damned for eternity and those who are only consigned to hell for a limited period of time. But such a cut-off point would be arbitrary and unjust. Two very similar people who fall on opposite sides of the cut-off point would be treated very differently. But such a situation would be unjust and so run counter to God’s perfect justice. So, the retributivist who endorses our argument cannot allow for the possibility that some persons will remain in hell forever.

The retributivist may be able to avoid the foregoing problems if she also endorses the following claim: that it is possible to continue to sin in hell (and to do so for eternity), and one’s punishment (i.e. the time one would reside in hell) is lengthened by continuing to sin in hell. If the retributivist endorses this position then she can claim that those who remain in hell for eternity are those who continue to sin in hell and do so for eternity...

Our more traditionalist opponents may object to the claim that it is out of character and arbitrary for God not to allow any opportunity for post-mortem reconciliation. The most common objection to such reasoning involves claims about human fallibility, divine ineffability, and God’s being above reproach – no matter what God does and no matter how bad it may seem to us. In effect, proponents of such views claim that our limited, mortal perspective does not allow us to make judgements about what God can or should do. Call this the ‘Job objection’.

What the Job objection fails to be sensitive to is the nature of practical rationality and the norms that govern rational action. We are claiming, in effect, that God’s practical reasons for acting, that motivate Him to act as He does, are also normative reasons. They do not merely explain why God acts as He does. Reasons for acting, as Stephen Darwall notes, ‘rationally ought to have force for a person and…[they] do for a person who considers them as he rationally ought’. So God ought to act in certain ways if God is rational and has the sort of just and loving character we are claiming that He has; and in cases of morally significant actions this requires considering what moral obligations God has to which His actions ought to conform.

So, the simplest direct answer to the Job objection, and we believe the best available answer, is that God’s moral obligations that provide Him with moral reasons for acting do not differ from ours. Given that we do not have any other standards of moral goodness apart from those we apply in human situations, we should apply those standards to God. So we follow David Basinger in shifting the onus on to our detractors and asking them, ‘Why should anyone desire to worship or expect non-theists to respect the concept of a being who appears not to be obligated to act as morally as some humans? ’ And if we believe that a parent is morally obligated always to be willing to receive her estranged child, and forgive him if he asks for forgiveness, then why shouldn’t we expect the same from God? God has moral reasons for adopting policies consistent with escapism and therefore ought to adopt such policies in acting. To do otherwise would be irrational, given God’s character and reasons for acting."


--- Escaping hell: divine motivation and the problem of hell. Andrei A. Buckareff and Allen Plug (All bold emphases are mine)

I love the talk of "evidence".

I note they do not use the terrible "what appears to be evil to us may actually be good" argument from ignorance (maybe the lack of such cheap tricks distinguishes philosophers from run-of-the-mill apologists).

And how come these papers all (?) use "she" to refer to the generic person? Maybe it's a subtle dig at how Woman is responsible for Origial Sin...

Lastly, most of these papers are fond of what has been derisively dismissed by some as "the argument from tangential analogy".