It’s a turn of phrase. Jesus is saying, “You will suffer terribly because of this deed.”
Taken literally, the statement isn’t logically coherent. Turn it back to front. If Judas had never been born, he wouldn’t exist. If he didn’t exist, how could anything be better for him? Or worse for him?
It’s absurd to say non-existence can be better than existence… because it’s non-existent!
Animals are put down (and people are sometimes allowed to die, by doctors who don’t believe in any afterlife) because it’s believed that non-existence is better than suffering.
It makes perfect sense to say that non-existence is better than eternal conscious torment (and I think most universalists, and most anihilationists, would agree with me here.)
My question concerns the proper translation, and the meaning, of Matthew 26:24.
I’m a technical analyst, so I mention options. Anyone who thinks the saying doesn’t mean Judas (or Job or Jeremiah) had a better pre-existent life which he lost by being born, has to be comitting themselves to some kind of hyperbolic interpretation instead: because the situation as stated would (if they didn’t exist in a better state pre-birth) make no sense literally.
Was the continued existence of Job or Jeremiah a hopelessly unending curse for them? No. Were they expecting it to be? Ultimately, no. Did they say such things about themselves anyway? Yes. Why? Because it’s a culturally hyperbolic way of expressing a request for pity.
And my answer, again, is that He was deploying a cultural cry for pity–not for Himself in this case but for Judas.
It’s a completely figurative expression, so the meaning depends on cultural deployment options, and on the personal character of the one making the expression.
So… you soberly think they would have existed better off if they had not existed to be born? Or do you think their cause was ultimately hopeless from which not even God could save them so that their existence must always be a curse without any remission or help?
Those are the two literal options. The third option is figurative hyperbole.
No doubt they were honestly expressing their personal feelings, which were immensely intense. That doesn’t mean they were expressing metaphysical technical truths thereby. If they weren’t, then they were using hyperbole to express their personal feelings.
You’re assuming our Lord was speaking as an objective statement of fact instead of expressing His feelings in the cultural idiom. Or maybe you’re inferring this?–if so on what ground?
We know from the narrative context Jesus was emotionally agitated when He said it. We know from the narrative context that Jesus had been raised, and was currently living, in a culture where this expression served as a strong cry for pity for the object. We know from prior examples that Jesus deployed cultural imagery in His language, especially when He was being emotional. We know from prior examples that Jesus was a person Who pitied sinners (as well as Who spoke some very kick-ass things concerning overthrowing powerful criminal sinners.)
Three out of four relevant pieces of information weigh in the direction of one interpretation of the saying, and the fourth could go either way–so could count along with the other three as easily as against them. And even in His two greatest direct condemnations there was room left over for hope: all things emphatically whatever would be pardoned men; and the Pharisees would eventually sing blessings to Him for coming in the name of the Lord.
I thus assess the compound weight of evidence as favoring a cry for pity.
Your only evidence against it is a literal interpretation, the actual literality of which you yourself reject when the implications are spelled out. So it’s a figurative literality which is also somehow not supposed to be hyperbolic but rather a statement of objective fact instead.
Do you have anything better than that Michael? 
(I could adduce a mysterious repeated statement from GosJohn’s final discourse in favor of Jesus pitying Judas, too, but it’s an obscure argument and I don’t really need it. Nice to have, though, since it answers a riddle theologians have been plugging at for millennia: how is it that “loving one another” is supposed to be a new commandment? I think Jesus is referring back to the Mount Sermon material found in the Synoptics, especially GosMatt’s version, where He was also giving what He presented in effect as new commandments about loving one another: if we love only those who love us, don’t pagans and traitors do that?! Be loving our enemies, that we may be perfect as our Father in the heavens is perfect. So why reiterate this new commandment to His eleven chief apostles, of all people, in the final discourse? Because they were only eleven apostles now…)
I’d have to re-read Jeremiah, but I have no doubt that Job didn’t see anything getting any better, and would have prefered not to exist at all.
I believe he genuinely cursed the day of his birth, and I see no reason to take his words hyperbolically.
Also (considering that he had lost all his sons and daughters, was covered in boils from head to foot, and was in constant pain), I think it’ fair to say that if things never got any better, he would have been better off out of existence.
I don’t follow you at all here.
It seems to me that they (or at least Job) were expressing there feelings quite literally.
Why would they have to be speaking hyperbolically, if they weren’t right (*expressing metaphysically technical truths") in their assesment?
Why?
If that were true, no atheist (who believes death is a state of non-existence) would ever use the quality of life argument.
Those with power and medical degrees wouldn’t try to convince family members to let loved ones die, because they’d be better off.
I don’t reject the literality of it at all, and I don’t understand your logic.
Would you agree with Augustine’s contention that it’s better to be damned (to eternal conscious torment) than not to exist at all?
Your logic makes about as much sense.
How can you say that a figurative, hyperbolic interpretation is necessary, because the statement can’t be taken literally?
It clearly can be (by anyone who knows what suffering is, and who doesn’t agree with Augustine.)
I’m still interested in a universalist interpretation/translation of Matt. 26:24, but I don’t see how you yourself can find anything you’ve said here very convincing.
Imagine two bowls. Bowl A contains hot water. Bowl B is non-existent.
It’s meaningless to say, “The water in Bowl A is hotter than the water in Bowl B.”
Or suppose I put some apples on the table and say, “Pick the best banana.”
It’s meaningless to compare a miserable life with a non-existent life. If I cannot compare apples with oranges, I certainly cannot compare Something with Nothing. No two things are more dissimilar.
First Imagin yourself:
A.) In constant, unending, unbearable pain,
Then imagine:.
B.) Nothing, you don’t exist
Are you saying that (if given a choice) you’dt have no preference?
Are you saying you wouldn’t prefer option B over option A (or that you couldn’t make a choice because it would be like comparing apples to oranges)?
If that’s not what you’re saying, you’re just playing with words here, and I’m not interested in word games or thought experiments.
I’m interested in a reasonable interpretation of Matt 26:24.
As a universalist, Young’s literal translation makes much more sense than the standard translations (and the Greek text seems to supply a strong argument for it), but I don’t see the logic of pronouncing a woe on Judas, followed by the statement that it would have been better for the pronouncer of the woe if Judas hadn’t been born.
Does anyone have any thoughts on that?
Its Just a simple thought but I would think the fact that he killed himself would indicate in this life that he certainly wished he hadn’t been born. There have been some times in my life where I have contemplated suicide and I thought seriously at those times that I wish ihadn’t existed because of damage I had done to other people and the fact that I felt really fatalistic and explaining to the minister really related when he said some people feel like where just ants, God has a big boot and we ae just there to be squashed. If Judas was faced with the reality of what he had done he would literally be like the torment that Job was in Job ch 10 where his soul despised his life and ch 7 where he was saying “Whe I lie down, I say when shall I rise and the night be ended?”(NKJV). I think when we talk about atheists who don’t believe in life after death, there is a complete lack of hope from there perspective that life sucks and then you die. Job offers that imagery of death as “Land as dark as darkness itself” once we have experienced existing, I think the hopelessness of non-existence is kind of a scary thing
Jesus wasn’t talking to philosophers but to fishermen. Taken philosophically, Jesus’ statement is meaningless. You *cannot *compare the existent with the non-existent. But taken as a turn of phrase as understood by simple folk, its meaning is plain: Judas will suffer terribly as a consequence of his actions. And he did. He suffered so deeply he despaired of life itself.
Judas despaired of God, but did God despair of Judas?
Jesus called him “Friend”. What does it mean to have God call us “Friend”?
"The moment of creation when God decided to make humanity in His image is the moment of salvation. The moment He dared to risk calling us His children was the moment that He determined to risk everything to be always our Father. If any human were to be lost, it would not be the loss of a man worthy of God’s blessing, or the loss of one man whom God could have nonetheless chosen to have mercy upon; rather, the loss of one man would be a disruption of the very purpose of creation, a violation of the covenant, and the loss of a part of God Himself. It is therefore an offense to God to suggest that He would allow anyone to be lost to Him.
The Christ is the revelation of the Father’s determination to risk everything for us. And the revelation of the Unconditional Himself has become a condition, that allegedly I must confess that God is all merciful and loving and would sacrifice anything to hold me close, unless of course I do not believe that He will, in which case He won’t. Yet how could I honestly claim to believe in such an Unconditional God? The only gods in which any man, Christian or not, can truly believe is in a conditional god; an Unconditional God is so foreign to us that even when we confess that we have to believe in Him, we are forced to add conditions to enable us to believe. With an Unconditional God, all we can do is hope; and this not a whim or fancy, but an activity, as the prophets hoped “if you throw us into the fire, God will save us, but even if He does not, we shall not bow down to your idols.” Adam Leyrer
Excellents points 
No “friend” would ECT another!
Hi Allan
The problem I see with this line of thinking is that, by the same token, eternal bliss with our Lord is no better than annihilation.
I have to agree with you Mike. I see no problem in taking the statement literally other than the problem it gives me as a universalist. I don’t like it, but I’ve not been convinced by any other pov.
Hmmmm. That might be the iceberg that sinks my Titanic… 
How about this? To discover if eternal bliss is actually better than non-existence, you’ll need to find someone who’s experienced both. Which could be tricky.
Eternal bliss is an experience. Non-existence is a non-experience. You cannot compare an experience with a non-experience and decide which is better. We can only declare that existence is good (because God is good.) We cannot say anything about non-existence. We certainly can’t say it’s better than something existent.
It’s a bit like that famous Wittgenstein quote: Death is not an event in life. We do not live to experience death.
There is Young’s alternate translation:
the Son of Man doth indeed go, as it hath been written concerning him, but wo to that man through whom the Son of Man is delivered up! good it were for him if that man had not been born. (Matt. 26::24.)
And it’s supported by Wyclif, Tyndale, and Luther.
Even commentators who believe in eternal torment, have made textual observations like this:
ccel.org/ccel/chadwick/mark.txt
And this is from the universalist commentary of A. E. Knoch.
gtft.org/ConcordantCommentary/CC01_Matt.htm
The problem I have with this is understanding what it means.
What would it mean if I said “woe unto Joe, it would have been better for me if he hadn’t been born”?
(If it would have been better for me if he hadn’t been born, isn’t the woe mine?)
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
There are two things we can safely say about non-existence.
There is no pain, and there is no joy.
It is therefore possible to compare existence with non=existence.
A happy existence is better than non=existence; and a joyless, painful existence is worse.
(Or would you not agree that the one is a blessing, and the other is a curse?)
This was from the same Job who kept demanding that he was innocent and that God would do justice for him eventually, right? 
My question there, of course, was whether you thought this was what was being revealed to be true by their words. Later in your post you distinguished their emotional extremities from an objective pronouncement about metaphysical truth, which by necessity would thus be some kind of hyperbole compared to an objective pronouncement about metaphysical truth.
Did they kill themselves, or even try to do so? Or were they praying and hoping for God to make things right in the future, including appealing to Him with their complaints?
If they tried to kill themselves (or even succeeded) then I would agree, they weren’t speaking hyperbolically: they weren’t expressing the intensity of their feelings by exaggeration and actually believed they would somehow be better off not-existing and so were trying to achieve that non-existence (regardless of whether that made any logical sense or not).
If they still looked and appealed to God to restore them and save them from their misery, and never tried to end their miserable existence in despair from God’s salvation, then they were using the phrase as a cry for pity–which, not incidentally, is how the concept is typically treated in Near Middle Eastern culture.
Note that when atheists (or anyone else) uses the “quality of life argument”, as you mentioned, they’re doing so for purposes of practical justification of a particular action: namely ending a life (theirs or someone else’s).
Even then, it’s still a cry for pity though. And people who make that argument (which I have a lot of sympathy for) who also believe in God or at least in some kind of ‘heaven’, don’t mean by it that the person in question will suffer endlessly after death or be annihilated out of existence. Theistic/heavenly quality-of-life proponents want the person transferred to post-mortem life as soon as possible in order to avoid more suffering in this life.
So, since you yourself bring up the distinction of using the claim as a justification for euthanasia or suicide: was either Job or Jeremiah using the claim to justify their suicidal actions? If not, then they were making a hyperbolic cry for pity. If so, they were making a more literal cry for pity. But either way it’s a cry for pity; and either way they had hope from God for something better which they were seeking by making that cry.
Literally the phrase indicates that they would be better off to have continued existing without being born. But you reject their pre-existence as such. So in fact, as I noted, you don’t take the phrase literally but figuratively. Yet the weight you want to put on it requires (as you yourself keep emphasizing) some kind of very literal application.
No, I would not. I would call that a category error; there is no common frame of reference for comparison. Someone who does not exist at all is in no position to be in a better or worse state compared to any existent person.
I certainly acknowledge that a person may mistakenly feel that way, especially in high emotion; or not understand the issues involved and so soberly have an opinion about which one is “better” for the person.
Step 1: I assess the literal value of the statement and I find that, to be taken literally, it requires a belief that a person exists in a better status before birth than the person has any hope of being after being born.
Step 2: I check to see whether this can or should be taken literally. It can, but only if someone believes that a person exists in a better status before birth etc.
Step 3: I check to see whether the person making the statement believes that a person exists in a better status before birth, and I discover the person does not in fact believe this.
Step 4: I conclude that the person does not take the sentence literally as stated, but is applying it figuratively in one or another way.
Step 5: I check to see how far the person making the statement believes (by means of a logical category error, as it happens) that the non-existence of the person so described is somehow better than that person’s continued existence.
Step 6: I find that the person is taking no steps to send the person so described into non-existence.
Step 7: I also find that the person is taking no steps to send the person so described even into a post-mortem better existence.
Step 8: I conclude that a figurative and hyperbolic interpretation of the statement is necessary, because the person making the statement is not taking the statement literally (because the person does not believe in a pre-existent better state of the described person); and because the person making the statement shows concern for the person described by the statement, yet the person making the statement is not acting to put the person so described into a better status by sending them out of this life (whether into non-existence or into a superior post-mortem existence)–thus is speaking in exaggeration for emotional emphasis, i.e. hyperbole.
Step 9: I type out the words “a figurative, hyperbolic interpretation is necessary, because the statement can’t be taken literally”, thus saying them. 
When I also factor in (1) the cultural usage of the statement as a non-hopeless cry of pity for the person so described (with examples at hand, by the way); (2) the emotional status of the person making the statement (grieved in himself and shaking etc.); (3) the person making the statement has a habit of deploying cultural usage phrases and concepts; (4) the person making the statement has at least some real chance of pitying the person so described; then I can be reasonably certain the person making the statement was expressing a cry of non-hopeless pity for the person so described.
Job fits all the elements of this analysis (assuming he did not believe in pre-existence of the merely human soul); so does Jeremiah (ditto); so does Jesus (ditto), the main difference being that He is making the statement about someone else other than Himself (better for Judas if Judas had not been born). The main point of contention is whether any or all of them believed in the pre-existence of (merely human) souls and so was in fact making a literal appeal after all.
I would have an understandable emotional preference for B, under the misapprehension that I would somehow exist in my non-existence to benefit by comparison. But if my logical faculties were not impaired by the constant, unending, unbearable pain (and considering that I have constant unending emotional pain, which has occasionally flared to the point I have begged God to kill me and be done with it, I am not speaking from lack of experience here), then I would realize the supposed preference is a non sequitur and that option B is just playing with words–I ought to be interested in actual salvation from my pain, not in self-contradictory word games or thought experiments (imagining what my comparative state of existence would be if I didn’t exist, for example.)
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Then you don’t consider creation an act of love, life a gift, or personal existence something that anyone will ever have reason to be grateful for?
Someone who thanks God that they were born, or is grateful for their creation, is simply making a catagory error.
Regardless of whether we exist in joy or torment, we’re no better or worse off than if we didn’t exist.
Is that really what you’re saying here Jason?
If Jesus was was speaking of eternal damnation, killing Judas would not havr sent him into a state of non-existence.
And as for why Job didn’t off himself, maybe he didn’t believe that would end his suffering–but the point is that he was speaking of himself, and the ending of his story shows that he was wrong to think he’d be better off if he hadn’t been born.
Jesus (by your interpretation) was speaking of Judas.
If He really said he’d be better off if he hadn’t been born, how could He be wrong (and if “not born”=non-existence, how can there be any hope for Judas)?
Maybe Judas would have been better off if he had died in the woumb (like my sister.)
Maybe he would have been resurrected to mortal life at the Great White Throne Judgement, seen all of our books opened, grown, learned, and put on immortality without the anguish of knowing he betrayed the Master.
(That’s the only way I can understand the standard translation of Matthew 26:24 as a universalist, and it doesn’t require any hyperbolie.)
The alternate translation would make sense to me, if I could see how it fit contextually.
Once again, here is what A. E. Knoch had to say in his commentary on Matt. 26:24.
Any thoughts?
A painful existence is good because existence is good. Existence is good because God is good. Joy certainly is better than pain, but some joys can only be reached through pain. God wounds and God heals, but in all things his love is absolute. Endless, infinite pain therefore is neither good nor bad. It’s impossible because it’s a blasphemy.
A painless non-existence is a meaningless string of words. It’s like the old joke: What is red and invisible? Answer: No tomatoes.
This all seems logical to me, based on my intuition. If your intuition differs, not much more can be said.
Many people who are suffering, physically and/or emotionally, have uttered the words, “I’d be better off dead”. Some of these people have no belief in an after life. They think of death as being non-existence. True, they are speaking out of their pain rather than out of logic, but so what! What they are really saying is they want their suffering to cease. Some of them actually commit suicide to escape the pain.
Jesus was a true human being. Indeed, he called Himself “the son of man” far more often that “the son of God”. Jason has indicated that His emotions were running high when He uttered these words. So why couldn’t He also have been saying that Judas would have been “better off not to have been born”? That is, if he had not been born, Judas would not have had to go through all the pain he endured as a result of turning Jesus over to the authorities. I see Jesus’ statement as empathy for Judas and his suffering.
If a suffering man dies, and there is no afterlife, he will no longer suffer. That’s the simple man’s way of putting it. Of course, logically, this makes no sense since then there would be no “he” to suffer or exist in comfort. But how else can we say it?
Similarly, if Judas had never existed, he would not have gone through all that suffering as a result of turning over Jesus to the authorities. Again, logically, this makes no sense, since if Judas had not been born there would be no Judas to suffer or to exist in comfort. But how else can we say it?
Thank you Don.
I appreciate your comments, but I have to disagree with you here (in the last statement quoted above.)
It’s not a question of suffering, or existing in comfort (if anything is a catagory error, that is.)
It’s a question of suffering, or not suffering (and non-existence is not suffering.)
The one thing all universalists agree on is that an all-knowing, loving God would not create bings He knew would suffer unending torment.
Why?
Because bringing them into existence, when He foresaw their endless suffering, wouldn’t be an act of love.
Why?
Because non-existence is preferable to exitence in a state of endless suffering.
There’s something wrong with the “logic” some have used here, because it undermines this argument (and the basic human intuition shared by all who believe in UR.)
Even annihilationists recognize that non-existence is preferable to eternal conscious torment, which is why a doctrinal commitee of the Church of England recently decided that an annihilationist view of hell is more consistent with a loving God than the traditional view.
According to the “logic” of some here, they were wrong (because non-existence is no better than eternal conscious torment.)
I say that’s illogical.
If eternal torment is the fate that awaits Judas, it makes perfect sense to say it would be better for him not to exist at all (but then why would God create him, did Jesus say it would be better for him or better for Himself if Judas hadn’t been born, and is “had not been born” equivelant to “never existed”?)
God would not create beings if he knew they would suffer endlessly because such an act would be inconsistent with his nature. God is Love. God is Sovereign. He doesn’t have to compare the suffering of a creature with the non-suffering of a non-creature to conclude that joy is better than misery.
Endless misery in even one of his creatures would demonstrate a catastrophic failure of God’s love and judgment, and as such would spell the end of God’s claim to Kingship.
(Satan challenged God’s judgment concerning Job. It was an attempted coup. Had Job failed, God’s judgment would have been proved faulty. God would not have been GOD, and his throne would have been forfeit. Fortunately Job was a righteous man who did not fail.
But now we have God making an even more preposterous gamble. If even one human is lost forever, God’s loving wisdom in creating that person is shown thereby to be folly. God’s assurance that good will overcome evil is shown to be hollow. If love fails even once, God also is lost because power, not love, has the last word. Then Satan will seize the throne, and universal darkness will rise to cover all. (The Norse believed the Gods will die at Ragnarok. ECTers also preach the death of God, little though they know it. Let’s hope they’re wrong.))
And we don’t have to compere the suffering of a creature with the non-suffering of a non-creature to conclude that no suffering is better than suffering.
Non-existence is zero suffering, and zero joy.
Just as any positive number is greater than zero, a joyful existence is better than non-existence.
And just as any negative number is less than zero, suffering is worse than non-existence.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out, and that’s why your “logic” (and Jason’s) is nothing but a word game.
And btw, apples can legitimately be compared to oranges to demonstrate any number of things.
If looking at vitamine content, oranges are higher in vitamine C.
In describings colors, Apples are red, and oranges aren’t.
If looking at shapes, oranges are round, and apples aren’t.