Go to Hell - Stay there forever

[ProdglArchitect]

So, the question does remain and needs an answer, “What is the good toward which a human will unendingly tends in a place like hell?”

Being oriented to the good does not mean that you acquire the good, or even that your acts are good in and of themselves. Plenty of people alive right now believe they are doing good while, in actuality, they are performing grievously horrific acts.

They have to answer for those acts.

Hopefully that means a stint in purgatory, but the words of Jesus are incredibly clear. He warns again and again that the good will be separated from the bad, and the bad will go into everlasting fire. All the attempts you’re making to circumnavigate that just sounds like mental gymnastics to me. Add to that the numerous accounts of saints throughout Church history that all attest to the reality of damnation, and I cannot take your position seriously.

The disanalogy between good acts towards the infinite being and sins against the infinite being still exists.

No it doesn’t. The saved ARE awarded infinitely in accordance with their good works. That is another basic Catholic teaching. Just as we may be awarded in accordance with our good works, we may be punished in accordance with our bad.

For every act of good I do, I will receive an infinite reward if I make it to Heaven. For every act of bad I do, I will receive and infinite punishment if I go to Hell.

“I don’t know of any humans who would do this. It would be regarded as cruel, unusual and repulsive to perpetually allow another to suffer and persist in torment with no hope of escape.”

I said above that God is not some big Human. He is perfect Justice and Perfect Mercy. No one in Hell suffers greater than what is due for their sins.

This is not coherent. Neverending punishment is not a good, not an end that a human will would incline towards or choose…

As I stated above, being oriented towards the good doesn’t actually mean that you do good, and through continuous engagement in the bad, no matter how much your soul may desire the good, you will place yourself at greater and greater odds with God. We are oriented towards the good, I agree, but we do evil. We can allow our own desires to override what is actually good in favor of what we think is good, despite the protests of our conscience. We can warp our minds and our consciences until up is down and forwards is backwards, etc.

I remember quite clearly the way I used to think before I returned to the Church, and I remember how clearly I believed that certain evils were good and positive. I had deluded myself and drowned out the voice of my conscience. I had no interest in God, and had I died then I would have rejected Him, no questions asked. I would not have been willing to give up my sinfulness, no matter the consequences.

I understand why you want universalism to be true, but you have to ignore the explicit teachings of Christ in order to make it true.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

But, his basic premise of the entire human race as massa damnata since we all inherit the guilt of Adam and Eve (errant translation of Rom 5:12) and so we all are deserving of Hell

I can’t respond to the whole of this, but that is not his premise.

We all inherit original sin and are therefore cut off from savlific grace. Original sin isn’t something we are guilty of, it is a state of being, like being blind or deaf. It is an inability of our soul to receive grace. Original sin does not make us deserving of Hell, is just makes us incapable of Heaven. That’s a really big difference.

God is our creator who loves us. Nobody needs to rescue us from Him. He always wills our good, and his mercy endures forever.

I agree, but just because God wills it doesn’t mean that we are obligated to accept it.

It’s past time for a fundamental reconsideration in the minds and hearts of the Catholic faithful.

That’s the same sort of argument people use to claim we should rethink our teachings on homosexuality, or any other teaching that they just don’t happen to agree with.

The amount of time that has passed since a teaching was posited has no impact on the validity of that teaching.

 

[oliver109]

I would not really compare Catholic teachings on homosexuality with teachings on Hell, for a start it is clear that homosexual love is not what God had in his plan for eternity, produces no fruit and is fundamentally finite in it’s character. With Hell It is different as the church has in my view taken the less merciful approach for many centuries, it has been too conservative in it’s teaching on Hell and has in my view lead to bad attitudes among the public to wrongdoers, especially prisoners and the homeless who are in that state “because they chose to be in it” I think the church needs to emphasize Gods mercy more, you may think that this will result in people sinning more because they feel they will get away with it but a visit to less religious countries like Japan and Sweden will show you that people can do the right thing on mass without having the constant threat of Hell hovering over them.

 

[Magnanimity]

Plenty of people alive right now believe they are doing good while, in actuality, they are performing grievously horrific acts.

Care to give any examples of these folks (besides the psychopaths)? Most people around me and in my life seem to be living what seems best to them to be a morally good life, oriented towards various goods that bring them both immediate and more long-term happiness. That’s what I see day in, and day out. But, you seem to see something much darker and more tragic. Who are these “plenty of people” and what are they doing exactly?

It’s true enough that there’s an admixture of disorder in some human acts–the “missing of the mark” of sin. But, that’s the thing about sin, it’s a miss. One didn’t hit the bulls-eye, but he did take the shot. He aimed at a good. He might have hit the target, or sometimes he might miss it completely, but he’s still aiming at a good. That’s what humans do.

the words of Jesus are incredibly clear.

Are they though? He spoke to the crowd in parables, which are deliberate story-telling devices to convey truths. He did this repeatedly. An example of such a parable is that of the sheep and goats. You apparently interpret it as some eschatological prophecy. I don’t see that at all. What I do see is that it is a requirement for the people of God to help those less fortunate–the hungry, those in prison, those sick, the “stranger,” the naked (homeless?). He is so adamant about it that he uses the strongest language possible to make his point that helping the needy is not an option. It is a must. In other places, Christ uses similarly strong (hyperbolic) language to make his point. He plainly states to pluck out your eye if it causes you to sin (or cut off your hand). How many of us are “taking Jesus at his word” and doing these very things that he commands us to do. Or, do we not rather understand him to be speaking of the seriousness of avoiding the “occasions of sin?” We remove those things from our lives that lead to repeated stumbling.

If Matthew 25 was so clearly a teaching about heaven and hell and the end-times, I wonder why the patristics did not think so? (The most prominent of them were universalists.) I wonder why the Orthodox have generally not thought so? I wonder why the main theologians of the 20th century and up to now did not think so? Perhaps then, it is not as clearly a support of your infernalist commitments as you would like it to be.

But, I’ll grant you this. All have taught a belief in Gehenna. But what it is, whether it is a painful type of healing and reconciliation, and whether it is a necessary state from which all the “wood, hay and stubble” of our lives gets consumed, all of that has considerable voice and support from the church, east and west, and throughout the ages. (Hell as nothing more than unending torment and suffering as a punishment of divine justice, from which there is not escape, is linked merely to Augustine and his devotees.)

 

[Magnanimity]

I will receive an infinite reward if I make it to Heaven. For every act of bad I do, I will receive and infinite punishment if I go to Hell.

Infinity and eternality belong properly only to God, as St Thomas Aquinas argues. In one place, Aquinas says, “God is eternity.” You can say “unending” and that would be proper to you as a reward. But, that is precisely my point. Humans are made for paradise, the good is what we are oriented to. It’s what we seek in all our acts. You try to point out that we “do evil,” but what does that mean? Evil is not a thing. It has no ontological status. It is, as St Augustine rightly put it, a “privation of the good.” All acts aim at some good, it’s not possible for a human to act otherwise (barring psychopathology or other grave cognitive disorder). Even acts that are “less than the best” are still an admixture of good and bad. The “badness” will consist in whatever describes the disorder. But, it isn’t a thing in itself. This is just to confuse human nature and the nature of our will.

 

[Magnanimity]

Original sin does not make us deserving of Hell, is just makes us incapable of Heaven. That’s a really big difference.

There can be no doubt that St Augustine’s teaching is as I have described it above. I have read over and over from all sorts of theologians that that was his teaching. So, I have no reason to doubt it.

But, your statement above is nicely put. I would agree. I think most of the church would agree with you. It is basically an affirmation of the fallenness of the world and how that fallenness has affected each one of us. And it is only through God’s grace that we can escape this fallenness. That’s fine as far as it goes. But Augustine goes much further.

I agree, but just because God wills it doesn’t mean that we are obligated to accept it.

It’s not a question of obligation. If humans are oriented toward the good (and they manifestly are), then the final cause of their good is God–whether they know this or not. God is that which they are tending toward, again, whether or not this is apprehended.

That’s the same sort of argument people use to claim we should rethink our teachings on homosexuality, or any other teaching that they just don’t happen to agree with.

If it were me on an island, regarding my serious misgivings about the Augustinian vision of Hell, then I’d probably concede the point. But, I’m in firm company. You have the medieval church of the west as support for your beliefs. I am firmly on the side of the church, both east and west, for every other period of its vast history (early, medieval, modern, contemporary). I am merely giving voice here on CAF to the view of Hell taught by the patristics, by the church of the East and by contemporary scholarship.

The church is not beholden to bleak vision of St Augustine, as much as you seem to think otherwise.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

It’s not free to never been given the choice.

Only in that particular instance and maybe a few others.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

Most likely it is being used as a term of affection.

 

[Vico]

…

I won’t be answering your question in a way you want, apparently. The sin is in the use of the will for what is improper which is seen as a good, but it is not a true good.

 

[Magnanimity]

I don’t think we’re as far off from each other as it might seem. I completely accept as true the statement you have above. That is certainly what sin is.

All I’ve wanted is for you to ponder the sinner in the afterlife. Without a “good” towards which to orient the will, how can you call that human? So, all people in the Augustinian Hell cease to be human, since they have no good as their end. Or its time you rethink your views on what Hell is. That’s all.

 

[Vico]

I don’t think we’re as far off from each other as it might seem. I completely accept as true the statement you have above. That is certainly what sin is.

All I’ve wanted is for you to ponder the sinner in the afterlife. Without a “good” towards which to orient the will, how can you call that human? So, all people in the Augustinian Hell cease to be human, since they have no good as their end. Or its time you rethink your views on what Hell is. That’s all.

Human person means a composite of body and rational soul. After the resurrection the person will be in either a state of heaven or hell.

The good is not necessarily extrinsic.

Aquinas S.T. I, II, Q78, A4:

“when a sin is committed through malice, the movement of sin belongs more to the will, which is then moved to evil of its own accord, than when a sin is committed through passion, when the will is impelled to sin by something extrinsic”.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2078.htm

 

[TrueRomanCatholic]

I do, I just like saying it

 

[Neithan]

This is why purgatory is merciful. I recommend a meditative reading of Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Spe Salvi – here’s a good clip:

1. […]There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell. On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbours—people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfilment what they already are.

1. Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul. What happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? […]

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Who are these “plenty of people” and what are they doing exactly?

Alright, I apologize now because I just cannot keep up with this discussion right now given my workload. So I’m going to write this and then bow out.

We’ve both said our piece, and we’re not going to convince each other. Suffice it to say, I see your reading of history as being wrong, especially when it comes to the ECFs’ teachings on Hell. To claim that most of were universalists is just blatantly false. Jimmy Akin’s book Fathers Know Best breaks down their writings into topic, and, while there were some universalists, it is far from the majority opinion.

To answer this question though.

Every last person who supports abortion, euthanasia, homosexual “marriage”, or any one of the dozens of other moral evils our zeitgeist has latched itself onto. I know more people who support these evils than who don’t. So yeah, I see a dark situation where millions upon millions of people support gravely immoral ideologies while thinking they are doing good. They work to advance and promote those ideals, doing grievous harm to everyone who buys into them.

As for your efforts to circumvent Jesus’s teachings, if there is no Hell, or no chance of going there, then why such severe warnings? If we all just do our time in purgatory and then are saved, then why the need for such extreme imagery? No matter how terrible the pains of purgatory are, they are finite and will eventually give way to the unending bliss of eternity in the presence of God. Without true consequence, these warnings are not necessary.

I wonder why the Orthodox have generally not thought so?

I wonder why tons of people thinks tons of wrong things. The fact that people believe wrongly doesn’t give their beliefs any weight, nor does the quantity of false believers prove a belief to be true or false. I don’t care how many Orthodox believe in unversalism. I already see them a a theologically unsound sect that divorced itself from the fullness of truth a thousand years ago. That they have additional incorrect theological positions doesn’t surprise me, nor does it spur me to reconsider. They’re certainly closer than most, but their opinions aren’t even remotely binding on me as a Catholic.

That is all, further discussion between the two of us on this subject is pointless. I see your opinion as deeply flawed and latched onto a minor potential which you treat as an absolute. You see my view as overly adherent to the theology of St. Aquinas (despite the fact that they are based far more in the visions of the saints as regards the subject of Hell.). I’m not going to convince you, and you’re not going to convince me, and at this point we’re just talking in circles.

For what it’s worth, I don’t wish Hell on anyone. I wish everyone was in Heaven. It would be wonderful. I just don’t see it as particularly realistic. Maybe I’m wrong. That would be nice. The fact that I wish I was doesn’t change how I see the evidence though.

 

[Magnanimity]

Yes, any purgation is an act of mercy. The only thing is that outside of the Augustinian vision of the afterlife, the major patristic fathers all saw a purgation as the only possibility. God as punitive, as relating to his creatures in a vindictive way, just isn’t in the patristics outside of the bishop of Hippo. Contemporary scholarship seems quite united in this historical point. The view of God as punitive is an Augustinian anomaly, historically speaking. Hell itself was seen by many patristics to be a purgation leading to a renewal of Creator with creature—not a state of perpetual punishment.

 

[Magnanimity]

Its ok, I had to step back too—haven’t posted in a little while. CAF can certainly overwhelm one’s time!!

To your first point, there is an enormous amount of evidence contrary to Akin’s claim. Anyone can peruse it here. The view of God as punitive/vindictive is certainly traceable to St Augustine. It is not controversial to point out that he taught that all inherit the guilt of Adam and Eve (his reading of Rom 5:12) and the entire human race is in relation to the divine, a massa damnata. That’s just the data. It’s historical and uncontroversial. That’s what St Augustine taught. Also uncontroversially true is the fact that, for the church of the West, he loomed as the largest of all the church fathers for many centuries after his death. St Thomas Aquinas, whom I love and revere, followed him closely. This is also just historical data—not particularly open to debate.

As to your point about the current moral positions of the majority in the West, you’re quite right. I also think that this is data, not really open to much debate. Surveys clearly show greater than majority support for things you mention (abortion, gay marriage).

But I don’t see what any of this has to do with the love of the Father who gave his Son for the whole world. Christ died for all, as is repeatedly affirmed in the NT. God is the Good towards which all of us tend (whether or not we apprehend this). My various privations (evils) either in thought or in deed do not stop the love of the Father. His mercy endures forever.

It’s not that I (or any of the patristics who taught a universal restoration of all things) disbelieved in Hell. That’s not it at all. Hell can exist. It is compatible with a loving God.

But what is the nature of the place? That is the question. Is it temporarily purgative (even though painfully so)? Or is it a neverending prison from which there is no escape and in which there is no good? THAT vision of Hell is what has been rejected by the majority in the East, the greatest Catholic theologians of the last 100 years, and pretty much anyone not in the line of Augustine.

The punitive, vindictive god who will let me suffer unendingly in a place of perpetual torment into which he will never venture to rescue me is a god (I suppose). But such a divine being has more in common with Zeus than with the God of St Thomas Aquinas, who is infinite Goodness itself.

Peace be with you!

 

[Vico]

…

St. John Chrysostom on everlasting gehenna:

“There are many men, who form good hopes not by abstaining from their sins, but by thinking that hell is not so terrible as it is said to be, but milder than what is threatened, and temporary, not eternal; and about this they philosophize much. But I could show from many reasons, and conclude from the very expressions concerning hell, that it is not only not milder, but much more terrible than is threatened. But I do not now intend to discourse concerning these things. For the fear even from bare words is sufficient, though we do not fully unfold their meaning. But that it is not temporary, hear Paul now saying, concerning those who know not God, and who do not believe in the Gospel, that “they shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction.” How then is that temporary which is everlasting? “From the face of the Lord,” he says. What is this? He here wishes to say how easily it might be. For since they were then much puffed up, there is no need, he says, of much trouble; it is enough that God comes and is seen, and all are involved in punishment and vengeance. His coming only to some indeed will be Light, but to others vengeance”

Homily 3, 2nd Thessalonians: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf113.iv.vi.iii.html

St. Gregory of Nyssa, extension to infinity:

“Certainly, in comparison with one who has lived all his life in sin, not only the innocent babe but even one who has never come into the world at all will be blessed. We learn as much too in the case of Judas, from the sentence pronounced upon him in the Gospels; namely, that when we think of such men, that which never existed is to be preferred to that which has existed in such sin. For, as to the latter, on account of the depth of the ingrained evil, the chastisement in the way of purgation will be extended into infinity…”

On Infants’ Early Deaths: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205.ix.iii.html

 

[Vico]

…

St. Cyril of Alexandria commentary on 1 Peter 3:19:

“Here Peter answers the question which some objectors have raised, namely, if the incarnation was so beneficial, why was Christ not incarnated for such a long time, given that he went to the spirits which were in prison and preached to them also? In order to deliver all those who would believe, Christ taught those who were alive on earth at the time of his incarnation, and these others acknowledged him when he appeared to them in the lower regions, and thus they too benefited from his coming. Going in his soul, he preached to those who were in hell, appearing to them as one soul to other souls. When the gatekeepers of hell saw him, they fled; the bronze gates were broken open, and the iron chains were undone. And the only-begotten Son shouted with authority to the suffering souls, according to the word of the new covenant, saying to those in chains: “Come out!” and to those in darkness: “Be enlightened.” In other words, he preached to those who were in hell also, so that he might save all those who would believe in him. For both those who were alive on earth during the time of his incarnation and those who were in hell had a chance to acknowledge him. The greater part of the new covenant is beyond nature and tradition, so that while Christ was able to preach to all those who were alive at the time of his appearing and those who believed in him were blessed, so too he was able to liberate those in hell who believed and acknowledged him, by his descent there. However, the souls of those who practiced idolatry and outrageous ungodliness, as well as those who were blinded by fleshly lusts, did not have the power to see him, and they were not delivered.”

Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament, Vol. XI, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude, Gerald Bray, ed. (Downers Grove, IL: Intervasity Press, 2000) p. 107f.

Synodikon (Read at the First Sunday of Lent – from Synod of 843, which restored the Veneration of Icons)

" To them who accept and transmit the vain Greek teachings that there is a pre-existence of souls and teach that all things were not produced and did not come into existence out of non-being, t hat there is an end to the torment or a restoration again of creation and of human affairs, meaning by such teachings that the Kingdom of Heaven is entirely perishable and fleeting, whereas the Kingdom of Heaven is eternal and indissoluble as Christ our God Himself taught and delivered to us, and as we have ascertained from the entire Old and New Testaments, that the torment is unending and the Kingdom everlasting, to them who by such teachings both destroy themselves and become agents of eternal condemnation to others , Anathema! Anathema! Anathema!"

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY THEN AND NOW: The Synodikon of Orthodoxy

 

[Magnanimity]

St. Gregory of Nyssa, extension to infinity:

I’m no expert on the Cappadocian fathers, but a quote like this gives a misleading impression of the eschatology of St Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory is about as simplistic as St Thomas Aquinas. As in, he ain’t! Another excellent Eastern thinker on these issues is very helpful in helping a person to understand the vision of Gregory here. St Maximus the Confessor, when writing of the apokatastasis of Gregory, states that

“the third meaning [of apokatastasis] is used by Gregory especially in reference to the qualities of the soul that had been corrupted by sin and then are restored to their original state. Just as all nature will regain, at the expected time, its completeness in the flesh, so also will the powers of the soul, by necessity, shed all imprints of evil clinging to them; and this after aeons have elapsed, after a long time of being driven about without rest. And so in the end they reach God, who is without limitations. Thus they are restored to their original state through their knowledge, but do not participate in gifts. It also will appear that the Creator cannot be blamed for any sinfulness.” Maximus, Questiones et dubia 13, PG 90:796AC

This passage is evidence of the subtlety of the Fathers on these issues. Though the restoration of all things is taught, there is no equality taught. And also, these fathers will allow for “aeons of time” being driven about without rest [stasis] by those who have turned away from God. But in the end, God will be all in all (1 Cor 15:20-28). All are drawn back, though not equally, and not even in the same qualitative way (the worst of rational creatures are drawn back to God through “knowledge” but do not participate in his “gifts”).

Justice is served, but the mercy and love of God are, in the end, triumphant over evil. This is a hopeful vision and one that is consistent with a Father who loves His creation.

 

[Vico]

…

Condemnation is also consistent with a Father that loves his creation: allowing free will that love may be expressed by those created in his image and likeness.

Council of Constantinople in 543 decided against apokatastasis. Initially however, St. Jerome (died 420 A.D.) adopted it from Origen (died 253 A.D.) as well as St. Gregory Nazianzus (died 390 A.D.) and St. Gregory of Nyssa (died 394 A.D.). St. Gregory Nazianzus left the idea undecided. St. Jerome abandoned it.

From the Synod of Constantinople 543:

1. If anyone says or holds that the punishment of demons and impious human beings is temporary and that it will have an end at some time, and that there will be a restoration of demons and impious human beings, let him be anathema.

The Canons of the Synod of Constantinople (543) | Eclectic Orthodoxy