In A Short Discourse on Hell, appended to Dare We Hope ‘That All Men Be Saved’?, Von Balthasar disapprovingly discusses the common view in theology that those in Heaven (and God and the angels) are unable to feel compassion for those in Hell (Chapter Five: Joy Over Damnation). The basic reasoning is simple: compassion involves sharing in the sufferings of the sufferer. Heaven is supposed to be a place of perfect joy and peace. Suffering is incompatible with perfect joy and peace. Therefore, those in Heaven (and God and the angels) are unable to feel compassion for those in Hell.
As Von Balthasar explains, “God, angels and men can have compassion for sinners as long as they are on earth by wishing to help them find salvation. ‘In the next world, however, their misery can no longer be changed, and thus there can no longer be any proper compassion’” (pp. 160-161).
The force of this argument, and thus the view itself, seems to rest on a particular claim about the nature of compassion which I find baffling. It is entirely unclear to me why compassion requires the possibility of changing, presumably alleviating, the suffering person’s misery. Many of the times we feel most compassionate are when the person’s suffering CANNOT be alleviated. As an example, it would be entirely natural to feel immense compassion for a child who has suffered life-changing injuries, perhaps they have become paralysed from the neck down in a car accident. However, the whole point about life-changing injuries, such as permanent paralysis, is that they can never be fully healed.
Now, my opponent might respond by pointing out that in the example just given one can still comfort the child. Thus alleviating (at least some of) their psychological suffering. As a result, their misery can be alleviated and thus compassion is possible.
However, I would point out that it would be very strange for one to simply cease feeling any compassion for that child once that comfort has been given and no further alleviation of suffering is possible. Surely the proponent of the claim that compassion requires the possibility that the suffering can be alleviated is obliged to say that once all the suffering that can be alleviated has been alleviated that no further compassion is possible, and, yet, this claim seems absurd. It is entirely possible to continue to feel compassion for a suffering child even once we have done everything we can, and once everyone has done everything they can, to alleviate their suffering. Granted we can no longer ACT on that compassion, but none of this stops us from FEELING it. To give an example from my own life, I am good friends with someone who, after suffering from an accident, suffers from chronic pain. Given current medical technology, there is nothing anyone can do to change this, but I feel compassion for him! And if I can do this, then surely God, the angels, and the saints in Heaven can also feel compassion for him.
Once again, I suppose my opponent might respond by pointing out that in the world to come my friend’s chronic pain will be healed and thus compassion is still possible since my friend’s pain can be, and will be, changed (by God during the resurrection).
This response is fair enough, and I certainly hope that this will happen, so perhaps I am forced back a step, but it still strikes me as intuitively obvious that one can feel compassion for those in Hell. The thought of someone suffering for all eternity fills me with at least a flickering of compassion (I’d rather not think about it too much!), and if I can feel compassion for them then how much more God, the angels and the saints in Heaven?
Now perhaps my theological opponent will respond by making some fine-grained distinctions about the nature of ‘compassion’ whilst insisting that what I’m feeling isn’t truly ‘compassion’ but some perversion thereof.
To this my only response is that this theologian’s account of ‘compassion’ is now so divorced from our everyday experience of it that they must be speaking a subtly different language. Whatever they are discussing, it isn’t compassion as most of us understand it. Potentially, then, this theologian’s ‘compassionate’ God is no longer compassionate as we would understand it. Surely this isn’t a desirable result?