Hell and the Mercy of God by Adrian J. Reimers (review)

Can "a good God send anyone to hell?" (4). Demonstrating the plausibility of everlasting damnation, while also defending God's goodness and mercy, is the central task of Adrian Reimers's book. Its overall thrust can be taken from the first page of its Conclusion, where Reimers succinctly states what he has intended to demonstrate: that the "devil and his angels are real"; that we human beings "can be—and often are—genuinely wicked"; that although God did not plan for any human being to go to hell, he did create hell for Satan and the other angels "that rebelled against him"; and that God also created a place for human beings to be with himself, while those "who have rejected God's love have no place else to go but hell" (239). What is essential, Reimers believes, is that God's primary will for his creatures is love; thus, God seeks to save them, not to condemn them. What the author wishes to rule out is the notion of hell as externally imposed by a vengeful God, maintaining that God does not "deliberately inflict great pain on his enemies forever" (11). Reimers seeks rather to show that it is reasonable, and in accord with Scripture, to consider hell as the Devil's domain and the inevitable final abode of those who will not accept God's mercy. He thus defends damnation as a real possibility for those making the choice against accepting God's love. The topic is a timely one, the author asserts (no doubt, rightly), given that "we of the 21st-century are blind to the reality and gravity of this choice" (5).

Without striving "directly to engage the state of scholarly discussion" on its subject matter (xii), Reimers offers a breadth of considerations related to the book's central question. The tone is occasionally personal, as he admits, although there is never an appeal to subjective feeling in a way that is only privately applicable. Although not drawing from any particular sources extensively, his favored theological resources include Sacred Scripture, Thomas Aquinas, and Karol Wojtyła/John Paul II, while he draws on Aristotle and Plato when making certain philosophical points. A bibliography of works cited is included at the end of the book, along with a combined name/subject index. Thankfully, the book employs footnotes rather than endnotes. The book is not a painstaking argument for a thesis, but a set of philosophical and theological reflections attempting to offer a "logical and conceptually coherent" (xii) account supporting the plausibility of damnation as a real possibility, given an infinitely loving and merciful God. Reimers approaches the matter from several angles, as the following summary will illustrate.

Chapter 1, "The Fall of Satan," accounts, philosophically and theologically, for how Satan could have chosen to allow his beatitude to be provided by God, but instead, out of pride, chose to pursue whatever end he could reach on his own. Explaining how this choice against God is possible even for a superior, angelic intellect, Reimers then shows how Satan has set himself up as an alternative to God, to ensnare us: "through his power to influence the formation of human knowledge and understanding, he can try to induce humans into participating in a realm or world of his own design" (38), showing himself to be aptly characterized in Scripture as a "'liar from the beginning'" (39, citing John 8:44). When one turns away from God's mercy, one will find oneself outside that mercy, with "no option but to enter the society of Satan" (41), bringing unending suffering.

"Original Sin and the Fall" are then addressed in chapter 2, which begins by contrasting human freedom with the will of Satan, which by a single irrevocable choice has been fixed in evil virtually from his beginning. It includes a discussion on how an angel could tempt...