On the Coherence of Desiring Eternal Separation from God

The present paper examines whether the following claim is coherent: some persons genuinely desire an afterlife apart from God. I examine, and find implausible, two arguments designed to show the claim incoherent. I then examine, and find wanting, two arguments designed to lend some plausibility to the claim. To supply what is lacking in the foregoing arguments, I explicate and endorse a key feature of Charles Williams’s romantic theology: progressive volitional impotence. To close, I address some objections.