The Logical Problem of Hell

Part 1: Introduction and Core Argument

Does God exist? I argue that the God that sends people to hell, as featured in orthodox Christianity and Islam, not only does not exist, but certainly does not exist. More precisely, I argue that an infernalist God is logically incompatible with being a perfect being. So if a perfect being exists, hell doesn’t.

There are two reasons why this matters. First, many religious traditions have taught both that God sends people to hell and that God is perfect – perfectly loving, just, worthy of worship, and so on. If we prove that hell is incompatible with a perfect God, then we prove that these religious traditions have been sorely mistaken all this time. For a religious tradition to get hell, a doctrine of infinite importance, so wrong for so long is to deal a serious blow to its credibility. You would think that a God of perfect love would ensure proper communication of such an important doctrine. But it gets worse. If my argument succeeds, then members of these traditions have the following options: 

 

1) Opt for the view that life in hell is not fundamentally bad because hell does not last forever ('fundamentally bad' is explained under Part 2). In other words, opt for some form of universalism.

 

2) Opt for the view that life in hell is not fundamentally bad because although it lasts forever, members of hell do not wish for death.

 

3) Conclude that the God they worship is not perfect.

 

4) Conclude that the God they worship does not exist.

 

If options 1–3 are unacceptable for theological reasons, then members will be forced to give up their religion entirely.

The second reason why this matters is because some people—both religious and non-religious—suffer from ‘hell anxiety.’ Some religious folks may suffer from hell anxiety not for themselves, but for non-religious loved ones. For Christians, Jesus twice depicts scenarios where characters are in hell, desire to get out, and are refused by God.[1] On one interpretation, Jesus says that some sincere believers will go to hell.[2] Furthermore, Jesus mentions a mysterious unforgivable sin of ‘blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.’[3] Combining these items, we can see how some Christians may worry that they have committed the unforgivable sin unbeknownst to them, and will find themselves rejected by God with no recourse despite the fact that their faith in God is sincere. Such Christians are at a high risk of severe hell anxiety.

Hell anxiety is not a common issue,[4] but for those afflicted by it, proofs against hell can in theory be a precious resource for treating hell anxiety. Proofs against hell can further be used to prevent hell anxiety from taking root in the first place, and to combat attempts to spread hell anxiety through "fire and brimstone" preaching.

 

Below are the three steps of my core argument. After defending the first two premises I will draw out the full argument, which ends with the conclusion that God doesn’t exist (though the argument can be inverted to say that because God exists, hell doesn’t).

1) A fundamentally bad life is the worst possible evil for an individual. (Premise 1)

2) Every evil corresponds to a good of equivalent magnitude of being saved from that evil. (Premise 2) 

3) Therefore, being saved from a fundamentally bad life is the best possible good for an individual living a fundamentally bad life. (Conclusion 1; From 1,2)

 

Part 2: Defending Premise 1

To live a fundamentally bad life is to be stuck in an unwanted existence forever, eternally wishing for death but unable to die. Note that while the word ‘evil’ is associated with immorality, here ‘evil’ means ‘bad thing.’ So a fundamentally bad life is the worst possible bad thing to happen to an individual.

A Christian might respond in the following way: We have free will, and with free will comes moral responsibility. With moral responsibility comes just deserts, including retributive punishment. People who do evil must pay for what they’ve done. When we imprison murderers and child abusers for their crimes, we don’t feel bad for them. We see their suffering in prison as good. Justice demands that they suffer. So while hell is bad for the individual, this badness constitutes justice, a great good.

My rebuttal has two parts. First, this fails to understand the concept of ‘good.’ What does it mean to call justice good? Good for whom? Good in what way? Joshua and Rachel Rasmussen, in their book When Heaven Invades Hell, argue for a universal reconciliation view of hell. In that book the question is posed: Do people serve justice, or does justice serve people? Immediately we should see that justice serves people. Isn’t this the point Jesus makes when he says that "The Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath"?[5]

The person who thinks people serve justice has a poor understanding of value. Here’s a better understanding. If there were no persons, no consciousness at all, then there would be no goods or evils. There could be no suffering, or harm, or injustice if no one is there to suffer or be harmed or be wronged. So goods and evils depend on consciousness.[6] Intrinsic goods (intrinsically positive qualia, or ‘happiness’) just are those things that make consciousness worth having, and intrinsic evils (intrinsically negative qualia, or ‘pain’) just are those things that make consciousness not worth having. That which makes consciousness most not worth having is therefore the greatest evil for a conscious being. Hence, Premise 1.

Second, and this follows from the preceding point: free will is not worth the risk of eternal suffering. Joshua Rasmussen paints the following picture for us[7]: Imagine your children playing on a playground. There’s an infinitely deep pit on the playground, and anyone who falls down that pit will fall down forever and will suffer forever. Would you give your children the freedom to play on the playground if it meant running the risk of them falling in? Of course not. In the same way God, who loves like a parent, and who knows how value works, would never give us freedom at the risk of eternal suffering. Like Rasmussen, I "can’t see how the value of freedom could possibly be worth that kind of a risk."[8]

 

Part 3: Defending Premise 2 and Expanding the Core Argument

Intrinsic goods—various kinds of happiness—are good in virtue of their phenomenal quality. By being directly aware of this quality, we are directly aware of what makes happiness worth pursuing for its own sake. Extrinsic goods by contrast are good in virtue of their giving rise to intrinsic goods. The same is true, mutatis mutandis, of intrinsic and extrinsic evils. Most things we call good (good movies, good food, good friends, good jobs, etc.) are extrinsically good, with the experiences they generate being the intrinsic goods that ground their goodness.

But this leaves us with a puzzle. How can death be bad for us? If death is the cessation of consciousness, then there is no consciousness to ground the badness of death for the one who dies. But clearly, dying is bad for the one who dies, and indeed we consider death to be typically the worst harm that can befall a person. This calls for a third kind of evil, depriving evils, which derive their badness not from their giving rise to intrinsic (or extrinsic) evils, but from their preventing the intrinsic goods that would have taken place. Not only are we directly aware of the goodness of happiness and the badness of pain, but we are directly aware of the difference between the two, and of happiness being better than pain and better than an absence of happiness. When a young person dies, we say they have been robbed of life, that they had their whole life ahead of them. We are acknowledging the directly accessible superiority of having intrinsic goods over not having them. The direct awareness of this superiority provides the consciousness needed to ground the badness of depriving evils. Despite death not being intrinsically bad, we know death is bad for the one who dies because we know that it’s better to enjoy intrinsic goods than not to, all else being equal.

We need a ‘deprivation theory’ (some version of it) to make sense of the badness of death.[9] But depriving evils imply the existence of saving goods. And just as being deprived of a greater good is worse than being deprived of a lesser good, being saved from a greater evil is better than being saved from a lesser evil. As bad as an evil is, it is that good to be saved from it. Hence, Premise 2.

But this leads to another puzzle. Consider the depriving evil equivalent of Premise 2:

Premise 2(d): Being deprived from a fundamentally good life is the worst possible evil for an individual living a fundamentally good life.

 

On one hand, this sounds commonsensical. It does sound right that the worst thing that can happen to you if you’re in heaven is to lose heaven. But there is more than one way to lose heaven. You could be annihilated, or sent to hell (or sent to purgatory, or earth, or a slightly worse heaven). Surely getting sent to hell is infinitely worse than being annihilated. So how could being annihilated be a worst possible evil when being sent to hell is infinitely worse?

 

My answer is that living a fundamentally bad life is the worst possible extrinsic evil. Being fully deprived of heaven is the worst possible depriving evil. These evils are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, living a fundamentally bad life includes being deprived of a fundamentally good life for the person who otherwise would have lived a fundamentally good life.

Applying this to Premise 2, then, we see that there is more than one way to be saved from a fundamentally bad life. You could be saved by being annihilated or saved by being sent to a fundamentally good life. Again, clearly, being sent to a fundamentally good life is infinitely better than being annihilated. And yet, if Premise 2 is right, being annihilated or sent to heaven would both be best possible goods. How can this be? We can apply the same distinction here: living a fundamentally good life is the best possible extrinsic good while being fully saved from a fundamentally bad life is the best possible saving good. As long as you are fully saved from a worst possible fate, you enjoy a best possible saving good no matter how you are fully saved.

To ensure there is no equivocation over the terms 'good' and 'evil', here is the core argument updated:

1) A fundamentally bad life is the worst possible extrinsic evil for an individual. (Premise 1*)

2) For every evil there is a saving good of equivalent magnitude of being fully saved from that evil. (Premise 2*)

3) Therefore, being fully saved from a fundamentally bad life is the best possible saving good for an individual living a fundamentally bad life. (Conclusion 1*; From 1,2)

 

These clarifications allow the argument to be filled out, showing its final conclusion:

 

4) People in hell live fundamentally bad lives (and thus, suffer worst possible extrinsic evils). (Premise 3)

5) The best possible good for an individual will either take the form of a best possible extrinsic good or a best possible saving good (with best possible extrinsic goods entailing best possible saving goods for those saved from worst possible evils). (Premise 4)

6) Therefore, there are worst possible evils that fail to give rise to best possible goods. (Conclusion 2; From 4,5)

7) If there are worst possible evils that fail to give rise to best possible goods, then there are unjustified evils. (Premise 5)

8) Therefore, there are unjustified evils. (Conclusion 3; From 6,7,modus ponens)

9) If God exists, there are no unjustified evils. (Premise 6)

10) Therefore, God does not exist. (Conclusion 4; From 8,9,modus tollens)

 

In Part 4 I defend Premise 3 and in Part 5 I defend the remaining argument. While the first four steps are crucial, steps 5–10 present opportunities for variations of the argument. This is just one variation. The key idea behind steps 5–10 is that because the best possible goods with respect to worst possible evils are necessarily eliminating in nature, worst possible evils cannot possibly generate justifying goods. The best you can do with respect to worst possible evils is prevent them.

 

Part 4: Defending Premise 3:

Do members of hell live fundamentally bad lives? Recall the two criteria for a life to count as fundamentally bad: the rejection of consciousness (preferring death to life) and eternal duration. According to the orthodox account of hell, hell explicitly lasts forever. That criterion is easily checked off. But according to the orthodox account, do members of hell wish for death? While this is not explicit, there is strong evidence that this is implied. In the case of Christianity, consider the following responses:

 

1) The first is the common sense response. Given descriptions of hell (of which I'm sure you are familiar), it's just obvious that yes, anyone suffering the torture of being burned alive, or what have you, would shortly be wishing for death. This response applies to Islam's orthodox account of hell as well.

 

2) The second is the salvation response. If hell is not a bad place to be, then why is it so urgent that we be saved from it?

 

You could argue that hell is a purgatory where life is fundamentally neutral. That is, life is always just good enough that you could take it or leave it; or life bounces evenly back and forth between being more worth living and less worth living. Then life in hell would still be infinitely worse compared to life in heaven. This retains the urgency and importance of salvation, nullifying the salvation response.

 

But the orthodox account does not remotely paint a picture of hell being like purgatory, with hell and purgatory being explicitly separate fates in Catholicism.

 

3) The third is the candidate response. There are at least five good candidates of figures in the New Testament who plausibly prefer death over their fate: the rich man (Luke 16), the devil, the beast, and the false prophet (Revelation 20:7-10), and Judas.

Jesus says of Judas, the disciple who betrays him, "It would have been better for that one not to have been born."[10] Now, if universalism is true, then ultimately all souls go to heaven. So ultimately, it’s always better to have been born on universalism. So on a plain reading, Jesus is saying that at least one person, Judas, will not end up in heaven (indicating that universalism is false). This means either Judas will end up in hell as tradition teaches, or Judas will be annihilated and, per Jesus, it’s better to have never been than to live a life like Judas’ only to be annihilated. If Judas ends up in hell, and it's true that it's better to have never been than to be in hell, then hell is a worst possible fate. Even if this only applies to Judas (or only to any of the other candidates), that's enough to enable the argument.

 

If Judas ends up annihilated, then the orthodox account of the fate of Judas is sorely mistaken, and again one wonders how a religious tradition could be so wrong about something so important. If Judas ends up saved in a universalist scenario, then Jesus is mistaken, or exaggerating to the point of being misleading when he says that it would have been better for Judas to have never been.

4) The fourth is the Revelation 9:6 response.[11] This verse reads (NRSVUE): "And in those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them." This is described as a period of punishment that lasts five months when God is sending his wrath on earth against the unbelievers. If we suppose that the suffering of this period is no worse than the suffering of hell’s final form, then this description will apply to hell as well.

 

5) The fifth is the Revelation 20 response. Consider the relevant passages:

 

And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. (10)

And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire, and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. (13–15)

If we suppose that the translation of "forever and ever" is accurate, and that the torment in question causes one to wish for death, and that the lake of fire in verse ten is the same lake of fire as in verse fifteen, and that there is no difference between the torment of the first group (devil, the beast, the false prophet) and the second (the damned non-believers), then this would confirm the orthodox view of hell and the view that hell is a worst possible evil for all its members.

 

On one interpretation, the second death means the destruction of the soul, supporting annihilationism. But on another interpretation, the death of death refers to the eternity of hell (if death "dies" then no one can die after that).

Christians might argue that members of hell, despite their torment, prefer hell to heaven in their stubbornness. But this clashes with Luke 13:25 where those casted out of heaven are depicted as wanting to be in heaven.[12] The rich man in Luke 16 is depicted as wanting relief from his suffering, and as wanting to save his family members from hell.

Despite these verses, it’s debated whether the Bible teaches a doctrine of eternal conscious torment.[13] In addition to infernalism you have universal reconciliationism (hell is a temporary period of rehabilitation) and annihilationism (the eternal punishment is permanent death). There are conflicting interpretations of the relevant Bible passages, and a number of verses seem to outright contradict each other. All three views can be argued from scripture. Authors arguing against the traditional doctrine of hell have responses to the verses I’ve quoted here.

 

At the very least, my argument, if not an argument against Christianity (or Islam) in its best light, remains as an argument against Christianity (and Islam) in its contemporary orthodox form. In that case, as already pointed out, if contemporary orthodoxy is mistaken, then this proves to be quite the embarrassment for Christianity (and Islam), especially if one takes the Church to be guided by the Holy Spirit toward true doctrine. The Christian (and Muslim) is left with a dilemma: Keep the orthodox doctrine of hell and face the logical problem of hell, or give up the orthodox doctrine and face the problem of having a tradition that is unreliable in arriving at the truth of its most important doctrines.

 

But it's even worse than that. Giving up the orthodox doctrine of hell may prove impossible given its scriptural and cultural support, and debates over hell may do little more than reveal that scripture is ambiguous at best and contradictory at worst about one of if not the most important doctrine, casting doubt on the inerrancy and inspiration of the Bible.

Indeed, if the arguments from defenders of universalism and annihilationism as to the true interpretation of scripture have merit, and there are multiple defensible interpretations of hell, then the Christian has no choice but to admit that the Bible is ambiguous at best and contradictory at worst about one of if not the most important doctrine. In that case, no matter which interpretation the Christian chooses, the damage will have already been done to the credibility of the Bible and the Church.

 

But to make matters even worse, annihilationism is itself an undeniably morally abhorrent doctrine, placing further philosophical pressure on Christians to accept universalism and to explain away passages that imply annihilation.

 

A Christian might say that the Holy Spirit is guiding the Church into the truth of universalism (or annihilationism) today. But I would argue, one, that the Holy Spirit ought to have prevented the Church from ever adopting a doctrine as horrible (and logically impossible) as hell in the first place, and two, both universalism and annihilationism remain unsupported by most denominations. Given the obvious scriptural support for infernalism[14], and the endorsement of infernalism by major denominations, Christianity may be stuck with the orthodox account of hell.

Part 5: Defending the remaining argument

What the rest of the argument is getting at is the fact that worst possible evils cannot possibly be justified. Intrinsic badness is self-evidently worth eliminating (and thus, preventing). So to justify an intrinsic evil (or an evil that gives rise to an intrinsic evil, or an evil that deprives one of an intrinsic good), the evil must lead to an intrinsic good that outweighs the intrinsic evil (or lead to a saving good that saves one from a worse intrinsic evil) and the good must depend on the evil to be realized (that is, if you can get the same good without the evil, then the evil is not justified). Because worst possible extrinsic evils lead to maximum intrinsic evils, worst possible extrinsic evils are maximally self-evidently worth eliminating (and thus, preventing). Anything that is maximally worth eliminating cannot possibly be justified.

Another way to see this: because intrinsic evils are conscious, and thus positive[15], the best possible goods that depend on worst possible evils are negative, or saving, in nature. So it’s impossible for a worst possible evil to generate a positive good that both depends on it and exceeds (or even matches) its magnitude.[16] If someone is suffering a worst possible evil, it’s necessarily the case that the sufferer has missed out on the best possible good that depends on this evil. Put another way, because the best thing that can happen to someone with respect to a worst possible evil is being saved from that evil, then necessarily if that person is suffering a worst possible evil, they haven't been saved, and thus haven't enjoyed the best possible good with respect to that evil. 

 

Whatever dependent goods the worst possible evil might generate (e.g., God’s justice, or alleged justice), they cannot possibly reach the magnitude of the best possible saving good. The person living a fundamentally bad life would have to live a fundamentally good life (or not at all) to cancel out the worst possible evil, but it’s impossible to live a fundamentally good life (or not at all) and a fundamentally bad life at the same time. Even if this were possible, the fundamentally good life would have to depend on the evil of living a fundamentally bad life to count as justifying, and even then the good would not exceed the evil, only match it in magnitude, making the good more arbitrary than justifying.

God, as a perfectly good, perfectly rational, perfectly powerful being, would be perfectly aware of all of this and would have the power to prevent worst possible evils. And therefore, if there is a perfect being, there are no worst possible evils. In simplified form, my argument is therefore the following:

 

1) Worst possible evils cannot possibly be justified.
2) Hell is a worst possible evil.
3) Therefore hell cannot possibly be justified.

While this rules out the possibility of a perfect being creating hell, my argument does not rule out all conceivable hells. For all that’s been established here, there could be an evil God who sends everyone to hell. Or, there could be no gods at all, and yet our consciousness survives our deaths and drifts on for eternity. I trust that there are proofs out there against these hells too.

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1 - See: The Narrow Door: Luke 13:22-28 and The Rich Man and Lazarus: Luke 16:19-31.

 

2 - Matthew 7:21-23, Luke 13:22-28.

3 - Matthew 12:31-32, Mark 3:28-30, Luke 12:10.

4 - In a study of 353 undergraduate students at a religious university, 82% held moderate to confident belief in hell. Students were asked to rate how well various statements applied to them (e.g., “Sometimes I worry that my beliefs are not enough to keep me from Hell”) from 1–5, with 1 being “not at all” and 5 being “very much.” Scores were low, ranging from 1.34 to 1.88 across questions reported. The study still notes that hell anxiety is “a significant mental health concern for many individuals given the extreme nature of the traits attributed to Hell,” especially given how common belief in hell is. For details, see: “Hell anxiety as non-pathological fear” (2018) from Cranney et al. An obvious explanation for why hell anxiety is not common is because religious people believe they are saved and non-religious people believe there is no hell. Besides anxiety, belief in hell is linked to negative well-being. See: “The Emotional Toll of Hell: Cross-National and Experimental Evidence for the Negative Well-Being Effects of Hell Beliefs” (2014) from Shariff, Azim and Lara Aknin.

 

5 - Mark 2:27, NRSVUE.

 

6 - This account of good and evil (‘philosophical hedonism’) is ancient, tracing back to Epicurus who says that “good and evil implies awareness” ("Letter to Menoeceus"), and to Plato via Socrates ("Protagoras", 352d – 355e). Recently, philosophical hedonism has been defended by Sharon Rawlette (The Feeling of Value, 2016).

7 - Majesty of Reason. “Universalism and Eternal Hell | Dr. Josh Rasmussen & Dr. Eric Reitan.” YouTube. October 22, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxQyKw04Ncg?t=3495, 58:15-1:00:25 and 1:25:55-1:26:25.

 

8 - Ibid. 59:31. David Lewis is another philosopher that questions the value of free will in light of the risk of eternal suffering (and argues that hell is certainly incompatible with a good God). See “Divine Evil” in Philosophers Without Gods (2007), edited by Louise Antony, 231–242.

9 - For a partial defense of the deprivation theory and discussion of some of the tricky puzzles surrounding it, see Death (2012) by Shelly Kagan, 206–233.

 

10 - This is true of traditional, orthodox accounts of hell within Protestant, Catholic, and Islamic traditions. However, a number of recent works from Christian authors have argued that the Bible does not teach this traditional, orthodox account. See:
“Universalism and the Bible,” by Keith DeRose, https://campuspress.yale.edu/keithderose/1129-2/.
God’s Final Victory (2011) by John Kronen and Eric Reitan.
Rethinking Hell (2014), edited by Christopher Date, Gregory Stump, and Joshua Anderson.
That All Shall Be Saved (2019) by David Bentley Hart.
When Heaven Invades Hell (2020) by Joshua and Rachel Rasmussen.
One can’t help but wonder whether the motive to deny traditional views of hell is attributable in large part to the philosophical problems of hell. Certainly, arguments against hell are motivated by a reexamination of the biblical data and the history of the doctrine itself. But what motivated this reexamination in the first place if not the obvious difficulty in justifying hell?

11 - There is also Revelation 7:14–17, which features the damned asking for rocks to fall on them:

 

14 The sky vanished like a scroll rolling itself up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. 15 Then the kings of the earth and the magnates and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone, slave and free, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 calling to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their[h] wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"

Curiously, the passage says that all mountains are removed and yet are still there.

 

12 - Matthew 26:24, NRSVUE.

 

13 - This conflicts with Revelation 9:20 and 16:9–11 where the damned are depicted as unrepentant despite their torment.

 

14 - It's important to point out not only what the Bible says, but what it doesn't say. It doesn't depict Judas, the devil, the beast, or the false prophet as being redeemed. It doesn't depict anyone, ever, being rescued from hell. We don't see universalism played out in the Bible, something you would expect were universalism true. Why would scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit, fail to appropriately emphasize a universalistic message were universalism true? Shouldn't such an important doctrine be featured front and center?

 

15 - Intrinsic evils are ontologically positive, but phenomenally negative. Intrinsic goods are ontologically and phenomenally positive.

 

16 - Even if a worst possible evil gave rise to a best possible good by way of someone’s going to hell somehow giving rise to someone else going to heaven, you still would have a worst possible evil failing to generate a best possible good with respect to the person in hell.

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Bibliography

 

Cranney, Stephen, Joseph Leman, Thomas Fergus, and Wade Rowatt. “Hell anxiety as non-pathological fear.” Mental Health, Religion & Culture 21, no. 9-10 (March 2018): 867–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2018.1443436.

Date, Christopher, Gregory Stump, and Joshua Anderson. Rethinking Hell: Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2014.

DeRose, Keith. “Universalism and the Bible.” n.d. https://campuspress.yale.edu/keithderose/1129-2/. Accessed March 31, 2025.

Epicurus. "Letter to Menoeceus." Translated by Robert Drew Hicks. The Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Epicurus/menoec.html. Accessed March 31, 2025.

Hart, David Bentley. That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019.

Kagan, Shelly. Death. Yale University Press, 2017.

Kronen, John, and Eric Reitan. God’s Final Victory. Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.

Lewis, David. “Divine Evil.” In Philosophers Without Gods, edited by Louise Antony, 231–242. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Majesty of Reason. “Universalism and Eternal Hell | Dr. Josh Rasmussen & Dr. Eric Reitan.” YouTube. October 22, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxQyKw04Ncg?t=3495, 58:15-1:00:25 and 1:25:55-1:26:25.

Plato. “Protagoras.” In Plato: Complete Works, edited by John Cooper and D.S. Hutchinson, 746–790. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.

Rasmussen, Joshua, and Rachel Rasmussen. When Heaven Invades Hell. Great Legacy Books, 2020.

Rawlette, Sharon. The Feeling of Value. Self-published, 2016. First published as Normative Qualia and a Robust Moral Realism by Sharon Hewitt, 2008.

Shariff, Azim and Lara Aknin. “The Emotional Toll of Hell: Cross-National and Experimental Evidence for the Negative Well-Being Effects of Hell Beliefs.” PLoS ONE 9, no. 1 (January 2014): e85251. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0085251.