Hell as a Problem of Evil in Medieval Women Mystics

Abstract

In the thirteenth century, it was unusual to regard the doctrine of hell as generating a problem of evil that needs to be solved. For most scholastic theologians it was, rather, a large part of the effort to create a theodicy for evil. Nevertheless, there were dissenters. In this Reflection, I consider the resignatio ad infernum tradition—most powerfully articulated by a number of women mystics writing in the vernacular—in which love of God, love of neighbor, and a willingness to be damned in solidarity with reprobates were simultaneously upheld. I also consider some later iterations of similar ideas in Dostoevsky and Camus.