IslamQA: Why is Hell eternal? Who deserves eternal burning punishment?

Why is Hell eternal? Does anyone really deserve eternal fiery punishment in Hell, or is the view of Ibn al-Qayyim correct that by "eternity" the Quran means a very long time, not time without end?

About the eternity of Hell, unfortunately I do not have anything new to offer. But I feel that most ordinary people (especially in the West), at least those who grow up with middle class values, due to being wholesome people, have a hard time imagining what the deservers of Hell are really like. We have so much empathy for others, and we see them as like ourselves even if slightly worse, that we cannot imagine what it is like to be so deprived of all goodness to deserve Hell.

But look at what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians. They are filled with so much arrogance and pride and bloodthirst that they consider the Palestinians animals that have to be butchered so that they can enjoy the lands they have stolen.

Or think of the bankers in the West who probably orchestrated the war on Iraq knowingly, knowing that millions of innocent people could die. Look at the US knowingly arming the Afghans in the 1980’s, knowing it would cause millions of innocent deaths, just so that they could force the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan and in this way weaken the Soviet Union by making it lose money and men.

What do such people deserve? I used to have difficulty accepting eternity in Hell until I started thinking of such people, not of individual sinners. I feel that such people deserve eternity in Hell. They have knowingly given up their ticket to Paradise, they have rejected all goodness, they have rejected God and insulted Him and killed His innocent creatures.

It would be the greatest injustice to let such people into Paradise, because they have changed their own nature, they have utterly corrupted their own souls.

There are also two very important considerations:

• If the punishment is not eternal, it means they “win” in the end, they will have the “last laugh”. The committers of genocide will be able to look at the mothers of the dead children in Gaza and think they got away with it in the end.
• The Quran tells us that the ones burning in Hell, if they were to be taken out and put back on earth, they would go back to committing their evil deeds (The Quran, verse 6:28). To put the committers of genocide back on earth means to give them the freedom to commit it again. Even if they were to burn in Hell for a thousand years, if they were put back on earth, they would continue just as before.

Since the ones in Hell will, for all eternity, continue to fully embrace the idea of going back to their sins given the chance, they will never, for all eternity, be deserving of Paradise.

It can then be said that God, having forbidden them Paradise, could have put them somewhere less extremely punishing than Hell, such as putting them on a planet and taking away from them the ability to take pleasure in anything. The problem here is that this is not really punishment, it is to allow them to continue to exist in limbo without paying for their actions. A mortal human from earth may find such a life a horrible punishment, and they may lose their minds if they stay there long enough. But these condemned criminal will be immortal, and God will preserve them as they were when they were resurrected. Having the guarantee that they will never die, they will lose all fear and worry, and they will come to terms with their existence.

Isn’t this, too, a kind of winning for the committers of genocide? They committed unspeakable evil, and they will be perfectly willing to commit it again, and they are placed here, suffering no pain, suffering no worry or anxiety about their safety or their future.

For it to be a proper punishment, there must be pain. Pain is the only thing that humans cannot come to terms with. Pain is the only thing that will show these people that they have not “won” in the end. And the main must continue, because as soon as it is taken away from them, they will go back to arrogantly thinking they have won.

So this imaginary punishment planet must contain pain. How much and of what kind? God’s justness requires that the punishment’s intensity must match their crime, their current evil nature. For if the most evil ones are given just a little pain, they will be able to continue to maintain the arrogant feeling that they have won.

So we have an exact equation here: The pain must be sufficient to place them in a state of permanent defeat. The less evil ones will feel defeat if they are given a little pain. The most evil ones, those who proudly laughed in God’s face and challenged Him to punish them, and who will do this again if they were put back on earth, these ones may only be defeated by the most horrible punishments. It must crush their pride, and keep it crushed for eternity, because as soon as punishment is taken away it will bounce back and they will start laughing in God’s face again, and in the face of all those they committed atrocities against.

Even in this world there are people who believe in God, and who suffer terrible pain from illness, and who nonetheless challenge God to defeat them, who nonetheless tell God they will go back to doing the evil they did as soon as they are able.

So in Hell there will be lesser and greater punishments, perfectly matching each person, until there is not one person left who can challenge God, who can face God and laugh at Him.

And in the end, as the book of our universe is closed, everyone will have received exactly what they deserve. The good will live happily ever after, and the evil ones will permanently be chained in a way that they can never feel that they have won. The good ones in Paradise will not have reason to complain to God that their unrepentant victimizers can still laugh in their faces, their victimizers who would be perfectly willing to victimize them again any time given the chance. They will know that that evil has been dealt with forever.

The above explanation misses one important point: Crimes are not committed only against other humans, but against God too. God too is victorious on that day. Those who victimized Him (the Quran does use such a phrasing in 33:57) must also suffer whatever level of pain necessary until they can no longer feel that they have gotten away with their crime and laugh in His face.

Crimes against God include things like a person mocking Him and mocking His revelations while knowing in one’s heart that He exists and has sent revelations, or that person working to convince others not to believe in Him. A crime against any other human (or even animals) is also a crime against God for victimizing His creatures. And the fact of misusing His gifts and blessings is also a crime against Him.

Such criminals may again be subject to the equation of having to be placed in a state of permanent defeat.

This is my current thinking on this question, and I cannot claim that it is perfectly sound or that it is the best view.