“ The Wrong Side of Heaven , the Righteous Side of Hell ”
In many ways , “ Hell Is the Absence of God ” is a commentary on Pascal ’ s Wager . In the world of the story , the inhabitants know God exists ; therefore , there is no infinite gain or infinite loss in choosing to believe or not to believe . The infinite gain or infinite loss is situated in the love one has or does not have for God . If one loves God and goes to heaven , then one receives infinite gain . However , if one loves God and goes to hell , as does Neil Fisk , then one experiences infinite loss . There is no “ best bet ” in this world as one cannot trust God to reward the righteous .
Rudy Busto argues that “ Chiang is asking us to take a religious belief and make it a real , statistically measurable thingin-the-world , and by so doing , he forces us to think about ways religion can be so abstracted and ‘ unreal ’ in our lives ” ( 398 ). Many of us feel comfortable pronouncing certain events as either a blessing or a scourge from God , yet few of us would feel comfortable definitively pronouncing a birth defect , for example , as one or the other . Chiang brings us into a world where the inhabitants do not have such options , a world where “ God is not just , God is not kind , [ and ] God is not merciful ” (“ Hell ” 234 ). This God is the God for those who do not see religion as a means of achieving any kind of spiritual improvement . Chiang lays bare the mystery and the incomprehensibility of God ’ s purpose . We never know why God sends Neil Fisk to Hell and Barry Larsen to Heaven . “ Hell Is the Absence of God ” is an apocalyptic story that reveals a crisis of faith , the disillusionment of those who no longer ( never ?) believe in the promise of God to reward the faithful .
The disillusionment of faith affects those who do not see God as a way of improving their lives . If belief is , as Eric Schwitzgebel defines it , something we regard as true , what happens when one proves that something incorrect ? To return to Pas-
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