In my response to my critics at my APA book session, I pursued an analogy between pain and truth: pain is always and everywhere prima facie bad, but this badness is sometimes defeated or overridden; truth is always and everywhere prima facie valuable, though this value, too, can be defeated. Robert Johnson and I talked a bit about the alternative view of pain, where it takes a valence depending on context. For example, pain in the wicked is a good thing, and not because their wickedness defeats the prima facie badness of pain because they deserve it. It is rather that pain has no valence independent of context, and acquires one depending on the context.
This viewpoint on pain connects in an interesting way with the objection by universalists that heaven can't be complete bliss because those in heaven will know of the suffering of the damned. Somebody, perhaps Tertullian, replied that part of what makes heaven so blessed is this very knowledge, the knowledge that the wicked are suffering the pain of hell.
On the contextual valence picture of pain, it looks like Tertullian was exactly right. Maybe seeing the torment itself would not be a good thing, but the suffering of the wicked, on the valence view, is a good thing. So on the valence view, the universalist objection to the standard view of hell is completely wrongheaded. Whereas the objection purports to describe a theoretical cost of the traditional view, the facts, if the valence view is correct, are exactly the opposite! The suffering of the wicked is a good thing, and knowledge that good things are happening is itself a good thing. It is simply a confusion to view the pain of hell as something that needs to be explained away. The proper view is that the standard view has a theoretical advantage because of the goodness of the suffering of the damned.
If your ears are on, Keith, I know you are cringing at this line of argument! I agree, by the way. In fact, I give the argument as a reductio of the valence view. Whatever we say about the problem of hell, we shouldn't say what Tertullian (or whoever it was who took this line) said. Whatever we say to the unversalist challenge, we shouldn't say that. But maybe I underestimate the attraction of the valence view?
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While I think the view is wrong headed it is a common Christian theme found in Tertullian, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and as late as Jonathan Edwards. In part this is sometimes based on Psalm 57:11: "The just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge." Tertullian is worth a peek because he takes special pleasure in seeing the philosophers consumed in flame. More to the point would be the following choice line often credited to Edwards.
See also:
Augustine, The City of God, What is Meant by the Good Going Out to See the Punishment of the Wicked
Tertullian, De Spectaculis, Chapter XXX
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Whether the blessed in heaven will see the sufferings of the damned? & Whether the blessed rejoice in the punishment of the wicked?
Jonathan Edwards "The Eternity of Hell Torments" Dated April, 1739
On the historical question, I don't know about Tertullian, but I do know Jonathan Edwards said it (taking his jumping off point from Rev 19). Jonathan Bennett takes him to task for it his famous Huckleberry Finn paper.
Do you have any sense how this this valence view is supposed to account for God's having no delight in the death of the wicked? I would think that there should have to be some sense in which it's still bad. I'm fairly sure Edwards wanted to acknowledge both elements (though I don't think Bennett is aware of that), but the valence view seems to be saying that in any context there's one answer to whether it's good. I suspect Edwards wouldn't want that particular result.
Matthew, you beat me to it. That's what I get for getting up and dealing with other things while composing a comment without checking to see if any further comments have come in.
I found a few Edwards links that I take to be of interest. He takes this general line but says it's not something God is forward to but backward to, quoting the Ezekiel line about no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He also emphasizes the completely opposite end when he says the destruction of the wicked is for the sake of the elect and thus not good in itself. I don't think the valence view is compatible with his view, unless contexts aren't working the way I'm taking them to work. I take the view to be that there's one true value of suffering in any context, not that the same event can be thought of in different contexts with different results.
Anyway, the kind of view I'm attracted to would emphasize (a bit more than Edwards does) the grief of God over the destruction of the wicked, without abandoning the idea that there's something that God (and perfected humans) would appreciate as good. If the general tradition on this that Matthew presents to us doesn't allow for that grief, then I would agree that this can't be the best solution to the problem. But I don't like solutions that see no allowance for the good of mercy to those the wicked are persecuting (which is the context of Rev 19 and most of the Hebrew prophetic rejoicings over the destruction of other nations), and I don't like any view that removes the retributivist justice in terms of deservingness. I just don't think that should be the only or even primary element.
While it is true that lots of theologians will try to justify the suffering the of damned in some way, the Tertullian view is special because it says, I think, what the valence view needs to say. There is no conflicted sense involved, where you regret certain aspects of the situation, but also recognize the justification for them. Instead, your moral sense speaks only with one voice: rejoice, I say, rejoice; it is all to the good! And since the good is worthy of contemplation, no diminution of awareness of the suffering of the damned should occur...
I find the valence view peculiar. I of course recognize that pain can be taken up as a constituent part of another good -- say, just punishment, or the overcoming of a challenge in an achievement (e.g. running a marathon). But I don't see why this would tempt one to say that the valence has switched. After all, one who eases the suffering of one who is subjected to a just punishment, or who stops running a marathon because of the pain, isn't doing something crazy. But if there is no longer any good to the avoiding of pain in these contexts -- if the valence has just switched -- then the easing of the suffering of those subjected to a just punishment or stopping running after the twentieth mile would be as pointless as getting a plate of mud (for no further reason...).