When I read Ross Douthat's "A Case for Hell" in The New York Times, I assumed that, as an atheist, my major disagreements would be with his Catholic theology. Instead, his ideas about human choices and freedom to act are a reminder of the chasm between conservative and progressive worldviews.
Inspired by preacher Rob Bell's new book Love Wins, Douthat's column is a riposte to universalism (the idea that all people achieve salvation) particularly universalism born out of a discomfort with the idea of a good God that would doom anyone to eternal suffering. Douthat accuses these universalists of putting comfort above freedom and respect for moral agency:
Atheists have license to scoff at damnation, but to believe in God and not in hell is ultimately to disbelieve in the reality of human choices. If there's no possibility of saying no to paradise then none of our no's have any real meaning either. They're like home runs or strikeouts in a children's game where nobody's keeping score...
The doctrine of hell, by contrast, assumes that our choices are real, and, indeed, that we are the choices that we make. The miser can become his greed, the murderer can lose himself inside his violence, and their freedom to turn and be forgiven is inseparable from their freedom not to do so.
Conservatives who subscribe to Douthat's theories of choice and agency are much less likely to support welfare programs and government redistribution. These programs deny Americans the choice to fail and limit human freedom. Conservatives claim liberal policies deny individual merit creating, as Douthat said, a game where no one's keeping score.
Liberals recognize that, for many Americans, the score is already stacked against them before the game begins. Progressive policies like HeadStart and support for poor expectant mothers (both programs are under attack by Republicans) try to restore some semblance of equality of opportunity to the disadvantaged. Soft paternalist restrictions on anything from payday loans to junk food are an attempt to remove stumbling blocks from the path.
Douthat seems to believe that a murderer deserves to lose himself inside his violence; any attempt to redeem him would deny his right to choose damnation. A teenage growing up in a neighborhood plagued by gang warfare is subsumed in violence; his 'choice' is coerced and he ought to be given as many avenues of escape as possible.
Douthat's own church offers a more nuanced view of human choice than does his column. The Catholic doctrine of invincible ignorance holds that non-Christians could be spared Hell if they weren't exposed to the tenets of Christianity. Invincible ignorance doesn't only apply to people who have never heard of Christianity but also to people who have never heard a good pitch or who have been so shabbily treated by Christians that it would be impossibly hard to accept the church's truth claims.
The doctrine of invincible ignorance acknowledges that people are the products of their circumstances and that those circumstances can be painfully limiting. The poor and otherwise disadvantaged can be too warped by suffering to be able to save themselves and even those people most capable of withstanding their brutal circumstances can't make use of options that are not available to them.
Christians can fall back on the idea of irresistible grace to save people from spiritual poverty. But to combat poverty in this world, both atheists and Christians have to take responsibility for the people whose choices have been closed off by their blighted circumstances.