Is Torture Morally Acceptable?

James Comey is making the rounds in the news media promoting his new book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership. Comey, in case you don’t know, was the Director of the FBI before President Donald Trump fired him a year ago.

When Comey was being interviewed on CNN’s Andersen Cooper 360 television broadcast days ago, he mentioned that a student had asked him the question, “Is torture morally acceptable?” Comey answered “no.” The context of the question was the debated issue when George W. Bush was the U.S. president and it was discovered that the our military was using the waterboarding technique of torturing prisoners at the U.S. Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba.

So, the context of that question to Comey is how national government’s ought to treat prisoners who may be suspected of wishing or committing crimes against the state. But what about raising the bar on this question to God in heaven? Is it morally acceptable for God to torture people in hell, perhaps even for all eternity? Comey is a devout Christian who used to teach Sunday school at his Methodist church. I think the title of Comey’s book is meant to suggest not only that Comey himself tries to be loyal to truth but to God himself, the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible.

Most Christians believe that at the end of this age there will be a resurrection and a judgment. At that time, God will judge people for how they lived their lives. Most Christians also believe that those people who lived unrighteously will at that time be cast into hell. A large number of Christians have believed that people in hell will suffer from exposure to fire and all sorts of things for all eternity. That is serious torture.

So, how can James Comey say national governments torturing certain types of prisoners is morally unacceptable whereas Methodists believe otherwise about God. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, believed in and preached the eternal punishment of the wicked in hell. Catholics and most Protestants have believed this as well. The United Methodist’s current Book of Discipline declares, “we believe in the resurrections of the dead; the righteous to life eternal and the wicked to endless condemnation,” whatever that means. What do you think?