Hell

[FelixBlue]

The Augustinian:

Greg: Even if this were true, the exception proves the rule.

Apologia: Perhaps this thread is a troll. I’m not sure if it is. FelixBlue sounds sincere enough. However, even if it was, it’s an interesting way to ponder the reasons why eternal punishment is necessary.

The Augustinian

Sincere? Sincere as hell! Yes! No “troll.”

I have to admit that you and others have painteded it pretty clearly that the Church does teach this doctrine of Hell.

Now let me explore one other option with you (and as someone said before, I am seeking some kind of loop hole to escape this doctine that has caused me all kinds of emotional and intellectual anguish for years and years).

In your opinions (the dear participants in this “troll”–whatever that Greek word is…), is it possible to look at the problem in this way:

Hell is a logical possibility, and thus the Church propagates the doctrine, but is not and will not be an actual reality. Here the loophole is the distinction between what is possible (the threat) and real.

Let me give an analogy:

Let’s say I can travel in time. I go back to England, 1943 and tell the Brithish and American soldiers that if they fight their best, they will win; but if they are cowards, and don’t fight, Hitler and his cronies will rule. Now, being from the future, I know (with positive knowledge) that they will fight and win. Still, I feel I must “threaten” them with defeat in order to motivate them to fight hard and win. Thus, the existence of defeat, the possiblity is a real possibility; but given my knowledge of the future, it is not going to be a reality.

Here, of course Christ is the time traveler who is incarnate, etc. I don’t think I need to spell it out.

Personally I’m willing to live with the logical possibility of hell. But the reality…

By the way, the answer, “hell exists, but that doesn’t mean anyone will be there…” doesn’t work for me.

 

[FelixBlue]

Greg_McPherran:
I also ask, if the Church has pronounced the eternity of hell infallibly (e.g. the anathema in Constantinople II), then why would the Catholic Encyclopedia say it is no recjection of Catholic Dogma to suppose otherwise? I find this confusing and I seek an explanation.

Thank You,
Greg
Is this not a legitimate question? Anyone have an answer…a most interesting question indeed.

 

[FelixBlue]

Greg_McPherran:

Hello,

The best insight I have so far, I received from the Catholic Encyclopedia article. God cannot wait for an eternity for us to repent and therefore must draw the line somewhere. Also, I think that God could see whether someone would ever repent for all eternity. He can close the door knowing that they would never repent even if given eternity to do so, so He just settles the issue.

This explanation for the eternity of hell does make sense to me. My real questions would now refer back to our culpability, free will, original sin, and grace. So perhaps FelixBlue could now understand that the eternity of hell is less of a mystery than free will and predestination.

Why God predestines some to heaven is indeed mysterious and in fact theological questions and doubts related to predestination are apparently not resolved:

newadvent.org/cathen/14698b.htm

The Thomistic School is distinguished from other schools of theology chiefly by its doctrines on the difficult questions relating to [God’s (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06608a.htm) action on the free will of man, God’s foreknowledge, grace, and predestination. In the articles on these subjects will be found an exposition of the different theories advanced by the different schools in their effort to explain these mysteries, for such they are in reality. As to the value of these theories the following points should be borne in mind:

• No theory has as yet been proposed which avoids all difficulties and solves all doubts;

I think that St. Paul indicates this mystery in Romans 9:18-20:

Consequently, he has mercy upon whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills.You will say to me then, “Why (then) does he still find fault? For who can oppose his will?” But who indeed are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is made say to its maker,“Why have you created me so?”

Greg

The passage from Romans 9 has always bothered me to no end (do you ever hear homilies on this?). But again, it is not so much predestination or providence that’s hard to swallow, but the idea of **unending **damnation. Evil I can deal with. Unending evil…another problem altogether.

 

[FelixBlue]

One last word before I have to sign off and go feed Maximus (our newest youngster…and named after Maximus the Confessor a believer in the final restoration):

The basic Catholic argument for hell is that it is God’s way of respecting man’s free will, etc.

You have to remember, though, that human free will is not absolute. It is a created reality. God created our free will without any say from us (obviously!). It is not crazy to think that he has constructed things in such a way that through his providence and grace even the most heinous sinner will return to him. And for those of you who say you might have to wait years and years for some people to come around, are you privy to what goes on in their heads/hearts/souls as they die? And speaking of death, at one point do persons enter eternity; at what point is the soul separated from the body? My point is not so much to get an answer as it is to point out that YOU DO NOT KNOW what is going on in one’s soul at any one moment.

As Judas hanged himself, and as his eyes bulged and toungue wiggled around after his last breath, I believe he repented and was reconciled with God. Do I have any proof of this? Of course not. But neither do you have proof to the contrary.

St. Paul commands us somewhere to “love, for love covers a multitude of evil.” From this I would argue that God’s love is able, far more than man’s, to cover a multitude of evil as well.

Cheers.

 

[Greg_McPherran]

FelixBlue:

St. Paul commands us somewhere to “love, for love covers a multitude of evil.” From this I would argue that God’s love is able, far more than man’s, to cover a multitude of evil as well.

Cheers.

Very interesting Felix. I love your attitude of mercy. It does seem to reveal God’s love!

Well said!

---

 

[Joanna]

FelixBlue:

I reject the doctrine of hell for the following reasons:

1. The punishment outweighs the crime.

Man’s concept of justice is and has always been that a punishment should be proportional to the crime. Even in our most draconian view of justice, an eye was demanded of an eye, etc.

But with hell, the punishment far exceeds the nature of the crime. Hell is an eternal/infinite punishment for a temporal/finite crime.

And yet some (Anselm and others) will argue that the crime is actually infinite in dimension because it is against God.

Hell is the state of final refection which becomes eternal rejection outside of time. By rejecting God man creates, of his own free will, his last end. e.g. A man is made by his Creator to breath air. If he choses to hold his breath forever he has created his own hell for as long as he choses to hold his breath. Not functioning in the order God has created for him or receiving from the hand of God that which he needs has it’s consequences from moment to moment and at the end of time those consequences become eternal. Eternity is not one moment after another forever, it is NOW (forever.) God for his part offers life and redemption until time comes to an end and that eternal Now begins for each person. He offers mercy until our final “ne fiat mihi” (just guessing at the Latin.)

FelixBlue:

This brings me to my second reason.

1. Full culpability requires full knowledge. But here, even though the crime is technically against the Infinite/Eternal God, man does not have full knowledge of God. At best, man’s knowledge is abstract. Following the idea of Cardinal Newman, our knowledge of the infinitude of God is notional…abstract. At anyrate, I could quote any number of Church Fathers on the fact that our knowledge of God is incomplete (Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Thomas, etc.).

Thus a simple sylogism:

Full culpability requires full knowledge.
Man does not have full knowledge.
Therefore, man is not fully culpable.

Ergo, no hell…

Even if man has not the perfect clear full knowlege to will Hell, Lucifer did and chose not to serve. Ergo, hell. If we refuse to enter into God, by our free will? Ergo, hell** ! **

In this life, in Time, there’s a failsafe reflex which doesn’t allow us to “hold our breath”, in eternity there is only one failsafe, Jesus Christ!

 

[Joanna]

FelixBlue:

1. Culpability also requires a full participation of the will (which is already impossible given our incomplet knowledge). We happened to be born, however, with a proclivity to sin. We are weak. Concupiscence and the whole story. Can we be blamed? Yes…but only to a degree. And degrees are finite. Hell is not. Thus no hell.
2. Although there are many other arguments (most having to do with the nature of God), the strongest argument in my view is the following:

We (from bishops to priests to the average Joe Layman) simply do not behave as though people are going to hell.

Imagine you are standing next to a burning house with people inside and you know you have the capacity or at least the possibilty of getting into the house and pulling them out to safety. Do you stand outside and do nothing? Do you strike up a conversation about politics or make a sandwich or engage in necessary recreation?

But that is what we do regarding others and hell.

The Church teaches that there is hell and that some are going to eternally be separated from God. But we (in general) behave as though notihing is going on.

Thanks from a convert (of 12 years) who wishes to remain “solid”.

These are not arguments for “Ergo, no hell.” They are arguments for Mercy. God as it were supplying for our weakness. He is the architech and the substance of Eternal Life. Ergo, no Life=hell.

They are also the arguments for Church and the Communion of Saints. God in His mercy, as it were, appealing through us to be Christ for others.

Jesus Christ is the blue print for our Eternal Life and our Eternal Home. Outside there is only darkness, at least the equivalent of eternal death.

So, “do me a solid” and remain solid.

 

[FelixBlue]

Joanna:

Hell is the state of final refection which becomes eternal rejection outside of time. By rejecting God man creates, of his own free will, his last end. e.g. A man is made by his Creator to breath air. If he choses to hold his breath forever he has created his own hell for as long as he choses to hold his breath. Not functioning in the order God has created for him or receiving from the hand of God that which he needs has it’s consequences from moment to moment and at the end of time those consequences become eternal. Eternity is not one moment after another forever, it is NOW (forever.) God for his part offers life and redemption until time comes to an end and that eternal Now begins for each person. He offers mercy until our final “ne fiat mihi” (just guessing at the Latin.)

Even if man has not the perfect clear full knowlege to will Hell, Lucifer did and chose not to serve. Ergo, hell. If we refuse to enter into God, by our free will? Ergo, hell** ! **

In this life, in Time, there’s a failsafe reflex which doesn’t allow us to “hold our breath”, in eternity there is only one failsafe, Jesus Christ!

You have brought up a few important points: free will and the issue of time vs. eternity.

As to free will, I have addressed that in many of my replies above. But here are a few of the important points:

1. Free will is not absolute (as God’s is); rather, it is created.
2. Man’s free will does not logically imply God’s absolute respect as he is its creator.
3. God can work around man’s free will while respecting man’s free will (much in the way the mystery of predestination and free will work together or in the way that a mother drags her two year old along despite his free will. Afterall, next to God, we are but two year olds).

As for the nature of eternity, the jury is still out. There are some Fathers/Theologians (Thomas among them) that understand Eternity to be more static (the Now I believe yo speak of); there are others (Gregory of Nyssa) who do see eternity is a series of events…and constant journeying into the reality of God. For me, I think it must be a confluence of the two ideas: in other words, as a finite creature who ratiocinates, I can’t fathom (aside from weak images) what eternity is.

Regarding Lucifer’s vision of God, I agree: that is what the Tradition of the Church teaches. But you have to ask the further question: was Lucifer predominantly choosing to reject God or for himself. If you had to choose one (as they are two sides of one coin), which would you choose? I would choose that Lucifer was predominantly choosing himself…which, yes, implied a rejection of God. But this choice of self was a finite choice as he himself was a finite, created being. This leaves the wiggle room of salvation even for Lucifer. Final Restoration when “God will be all in all”.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[FelixBlue]

Joanna:

These are not arguments for “Ergo, no hell.” They are arguments for Mercy. God as it were supplying for our weakness. He is the architech and the substance of Eternal Life. Ergo, no Life=hell.

They are also the arguments for Church and the Communion of Saints. God in His mercy, as it were, appealing through us to be Christ for others.

Jesus Christ is the blue print for our Eternal Life and our Eternal Home. Outside there is only darkness, at least the equivalent of eternal death.

So, “do me a solid” and remain solid.

I’m not quite sure I follow your first arguments.

As for the latter, I am in full agreement:

Jesus is the one and only means of salvation: he became man that we might become divine.

That’s not the point. The point is that I believe he not only has made provision for all to be saved, but that all will finally be saved in and through Him. Look at the many biblical passages I provided above implying universal salvation…which, by the way, no one has addressed.

 

[trogiah]

From Matthews gospel:

"Stop judging, that you may not be judged.

For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.

From Luke’s

"Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.

Hell is real but it is not incurred by what most people (apparently) believe.

A murderer does not necessarily go to hell, nor a person who obtains or provides an abortion.

Theives and liars and bully’s do not necessarily burn in hell for eternity, or even for very long.

Hell is incurred primarily by being unforgiving and by doing those things that you would not forgive another person for doing. Is that not just? A person can avoid hell entirely and completely by being willing to forgive anyone else their sins.

Regarding the authority of the Church: If all the popes, cardinals and bishops of all time declared that some individual has been sent to hell for all eternity, we would be misguided to believe that it must be so. Such a thing is decided by God. God alone knows if an individual has granted forgiveness and thus is able to accept forgiveness.

Practice forgiveness, and you will avoid any chance of eternal damnation.

There are plenty of other consequences for sin. We shouldn’t think this means we can break the commandments and not have any consequences. But if we practice forgiveness ourselves, all other consequences will be limited in duration.

There is a fire in the house. People stand in severe judgement, ridicule, and scorn of other people - for all kinds of reasons. They risk judgement and condemnation. Someone should tell them that.

-Jim

 

[The_Augustinian]

“But at last came also the other virgins, saying: Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answering said: Amen I say to you, I know you not.”
–Matthew 25:12-13

1. God gives all men sufficient grace to conversion in this lifetime.
2. After the trial of life, men are judged by God.
3. God is perfect in His judgments.
4. This judgment is final and irreversible.
5. There is no repentance after death.

In Christ,

The Augustinian

 

[Mijoy2]

Sheen:

So, it seems you are saying we are suffering “hell on earth” when we are sinning. You could, according to what I believe your theory is, walk into that strip club and say to all those men enjoying themselves (and they are enjoying themselves; they’re not experiencing any pain in their separation from God or they wouldn’t be there), “Hey, guys! This is as bad as it gets! And guess what else? You’re going to heaven anyway!”

Sorry, this just isn’t true. Happiness is not having your tongue dragging on the floor as you entertain fruitless lustful desire. This is analogous to saying that the heroin addict is “having fun” as he puts the needle in his arm. He’s buying time, attempting to fill a void, one that cannot be filled by drooling over a naked 18 year old woman who wants no part of him except his wallet.

Nope, this is not true. It eventually (even if slowly) eats away at his inner being. AND when honest, he knows it. He just doesn’t admit it. He leaves the strip club feeling lonely, more lonely then when he went in and not satisfied in any way.

 

[ncgolf]

Monarchy:

God could have just made it so people who don’t go to heaven cease to exist.

God could have but the data from scripture does not point to that conclusion. If you have that belief then what data do you base your conclusion? Scripture says if you are not bound for heaven the other place is hell. If heaven is love eternalized why as Kreeft suggests cannot hell exist, which is nothing more than evil eternalized.

I do not know whether that is true or not. That is between you and God, but if you have no belief in God then what are you worrying about.

I have been shown absoulutly NO evidence for the existance of god, and have been told simply to have faith. I cannot believe in something simply because I have to.
None, absolutely none, I find that hard to believe. There is plenty of evidence to at least suggest there is God. Even the simple pagans of long ago worshipped idols and other things that pointed to a power greather than they. The ‘have to believe’ is just the beginning of faith journey. It isnt the greatest of reasons to believe. I started as a ‘have to’, my parents said this is what we believe, I choose later as an adult to want to believe, to make it a much larger part of life. I freely chose that path.

 

[Joanna]

FelixBlue:

My desire is to be faithful to the Church and the Magisterium, but I find it increasingly difficult to do so. I can only do mental gymnastics for so long. If the doctrine of hell is wrong, then so must be the doctrine of the teaching authority of the Church.

You have yourself argued for man’s limited knowledge. Yet you seem willing to tie your eternal destiny on your own ability to do these “mental gymnatics.” We have a safer course in the Church. I think depending on our poor ability is the essence of pride. Our knowledge won’t become sublime until God grants us vision or in the next life when we see HIm face to face. His Church on earth also have limited knowledge. Those limits are set by God. However, in His mercy and love, He has graced us by Revelation through the Church which is providentally guided by the Holy Spirit. She is the teacher; we are students and as heirs of Christ to be instructed and even in love corrected or chastened.

 

[Joanna]

FelixBlue:

Thus a simple sylogism:

Full culpability requires full knowledge.
Man does not have full knowledge.
Therefore, man is not fully culpable.

Ergo, no hell.

1. Culpability also requires a full participation of the will (which is already impossible given our incomplet knowledge). We happened to be born, however, with a proclivity to sin. We are weak. Concupiscence and the whole story. Can we be blamed? Yes…but only to a degree. And degrees are finite. Hell is not. Thus no hell.

The Church teaches that our freedom has the power to make choices that are forever, with no turning back. Even in the temporal realm insisting on full knowledge is a dicey defense on which to risk our eternal destiny. It’s like a child insisting he have full knowledge before he heeds his mother’s warning to cross the street only at the corner and only when the light is green and then only after he has first looked both ways. Before he knows all the reasons for why he should do this, he knows his mother and her loving concern for his welfare. He knows also he is under her authority. One day he’ll have his knowledge of the situation in it’s fullness, but, for today, refusing to act on her word can bring about a temporal result, may be even a terminal result, that is greater than his knowledge. So, aside from the extent of our culpability, there are consequences for our actions or refusal to act. We can continue to argue, ad infinitum, for the sake of argument “But I didn’t know all the ramifications, Mommie.” His mom however would have to shake her heard in sorrow, repeating “But I warned you; why didn’t you listen to me. Why didn’t you trust me?”

God have given us the Church, not as a debating partner, but as a Mother and safe harbor. I think it comes down to do we trust the gift God has given us. He chose weak men without full knowledge to go forth to teach and evangelize the world.

 

[Joanna]

FelixBlue:

The point is that I believe he not only has made provision for all to be saved, but that all will finally be saved in and through Him. Look at the many biblical passages I provided above implying universal salvation…which, by the way, no one has addressed.

You bring to mind, Blessed Julianna of Norwich’s revelation from God. “All shall be well” “You yourself shall see that all manner of things shall be well”…

“As we see it, there are many deeds evilly done. So great is the harm they cause, that it seems to us impossible that they should ever come to good. We look upon these deeds sorrowing and mourning so that, on their account, we cannot be at rest in the blissful contemplation of God as we should be.”

Julianna goes on to say, “There is a deed that the blessed Trinity shall do on the last day, according to what I saw. When and how the deed shall be accomplished is and shall remain unknown to all creatures beneath Christ until the day it is done. What our Lord wills that we know, through His goodness and love, is that the deed will be done. His power and wisdom, by the same love, will to conceal and hide from us what the deed will be and how it shall be done.”

“The reason He wills that we know that the deed will be done is because He wants us to be more at ease in soul and more peaceful in love and to stop looking at all the tempests that could keep us from true rejoicing in Him.”…

"At this sight I wondered greatly. I looked at our faith, marveling thus: “Our Faith is grounded in God’s Word and it is part of our Faith that we believe that God’s Word shall be saved in all things. But one point of our Faith is that many creatures shall be damned, like the angels who fell from heaven because of their pride and are now devils. Men, too, who die outside the faith of Holy Church (that is to say, heathens), and men who are baptized Christians yet live unchristian lives and so die outside of charity, shall all likewise be damned to hell forever, as Holy Church teaches me to believe. Considering all this, it seemed to me impossible that all manner of things should be well, as our Lord had showed me at this time.”

"Concerning all this, I had no other answer in any showing from our Lord God but this; “What is impossible to you is not impossible to me. I shall save My Word in all things and I shall make all things well.”

So, FelixBlue, although that doesn’t directly answer our questions, I hope it is, in some small way, a cause for your peace as it was a great cause for Julianna’s peace and my own.

 

[FelixBlue]

JoAnna,

It’s funny, because I was just reading that very (last) passage from Julianna of Norwich the other day…and do like it.

I understand it to mean that all will truly be well…and that God is truly able to do all things (even as when the apostles are frightened–I believe in Mark–and say, who then Lord can be saved? Jesus responds, with man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God).

I offer this analogy (which I wrote before so I apologize for being redundant):

Let’s say I can travel in time. I go back to England, 1943 and tell the Brithish and American soldiers that if they fight their best, they will win; but if they are cowards, and don’t fight, Hitler and his cronies will rule. Now, being from the future, I know (with positive knowledge) that they will fight and win. Still, I feel I must “threaten” them with defeat in order to motivate them to fight hard and win. Thus, the existence of defeat, the possiblity is a real possibility; but given my knowledge of the future, it is not going to be a reality. Hell is a possibility; but given God, it will not actually be a reality for any soul.

Jesus, incarnate in time, must recognize and preach the logical possibility of both belief and unbelief and their consequent ends. Still, from his eternal perspective, outside time, he knows that “all will end well”. Still, this does not mean indifference. Rather, to follow the above analogy, we must fight.

What do you think?

By the way, when I see the word “authority” in your replies, my eyes become glazed and I simply skip what you have to say. I understand authority to be a good argument for someone who explicitly accepts that authority (which I used to!!). Behave, though, as if I don’t, and try to use reason with me. If I appear to be prideful, I apologize. My goal is not to set myself above or opposed to the Church, but to try and understand this very difficult (for me) doctine. And remember, theology (as Anselm said) is fides quarens intellectum, faith seeking understanding. For me it just may be a …seeking understanding. But nevertheless, follow the example of Christ and lower yourself for a momsent to my reality as I, for the moment, am not able to accept yours.

Thanks

 

[tuopaolo]

If God at times by way of exception liberates a soul from Hell, that wouldn’t mean that Hell isn’t eternal. Hell is eternal in that the sentence a damned person receives is forever. If God pardons that sentence and grants the grace of conversion to a damned person, that doesn’t change the fact that the sentence was eternal anymore than the pardoning of someone was sentenced to life in prison would make the sentence he received a non-life sentence.

Here’s something Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, wrote which is interesting:

In a “reverie” circulated among friends but not published until after his death, the philosopher Jacques Maritain included what he called a “conjectural essay” on eschatology, in which he contemplates the possibility that the damned, although eternally in hell, may be able at some point to escape from pain. In response to the prayers of the saints, he imagines, God may miraculously convert their wills, so that from hating Him they come to love Him. After being pardoned, they will then be delivered from the pain of sense and placed in a kind of limbo. They will still be technically in hell, since they will lack the beatific vision, but they will enjoy a kind of natural felicity, like that of infants who die without baptism. At the end, he speculates, even Satan will be converted, and the fiery inferno, while it continues to exist, will have no spirits to afflict. This, as Maritain acknowledged, is a bold conjecture, since it has no support in Scripture or tradition, and contradicts the usual understanding of texts such as the parable of the Last Judgment scene of Matthew. But the theory has the advantage of showing how the Blood of Christ might obtain mercy for all spiritual creatures, even those eternally in hell."
firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0305/articles/dulles.html

I am inclined to agree with Maritain’s conjecture as summarized here by Dulles.

 

[Joanna]

Tuopaolo,

Thanks for that link. Very interesting; both hopeful and sobering, I think. Best to be safe and pray for perseverence and accept all the help I can get.

I hope we are trying for more than just escaping hell. Spiritual growth has it’s reward even in this life, if only to improve our effectiveness as witnesses drawing others to Christ.

 

[FelixBlue]

Yes, thanks for the link. I have a high respect for Avery Dulles, and so this article leads me to a few “conclusions”:

1. Despite evidence to the contrary (from Scripture and some early Fathers), it seems incontrovertible that the tradition of the Church has been that hell is eternal and that many are in hell or will go to hell (in Dulles own words, this position was held more or less up to around 50 years ago).
2. One can’t buy the latter half of his essay (the hope part) if one agrees that the teaching of the Church (Sriptures, Fathers, councils, theologians) for 1900 years was: hell and many are in hell.
3. If one does buy the second half of the essay, it seems one can go further (which I have been trying to argue) and simply re-interpret the Fathers and Scriptures and magisterial statements to the extent of universal salvation.
4. Yet, if one does this (#3), what does this say about the irreformability of Church teachings, etc.?

So, I raise the white flag: I admit that the Church teaches (officially) and has always taught that hell exists and that it will be populated. Again, while there are some Scriptures and Fathers that seem to teach to the contrary, I can’t help but agree that the majority falls to the other side. History seems clear.

Now I am faced with the dilemma of having to accept what the Church has always taught or reject it.

I can do fancy foot-work and accept it (a la Balthasar and Rahner) or I can accept the plain sense of the tradition (hell and hell is very well populated) or I can simply say it’s all bunk and leave the Church.

But another dilemma (and although this may seem odd to you, it is a question that has bothered me for years and years): faced with the possibility or perhaps the plausibility of many, perhaps most, going to hell, how is one supposed to live? What does it mean for leisure time? For watching movies? Going to see art? For having a few pints with friends talking about nothing more than whether the Rangers will ever get their pitching game together? How can one engage in such trivialities knowing that others–the one in the movie, the artist who painted the painting, the pitcher of the Rangers–are likely candidates for everlasting damnation? Really. This is the import of my original analogy in my first submission in this strand (that many of you took to be so lame): if the house is burning and someone is in there, how can I go on doing other relatively trivial things if I could save the person inside by calling 911 (prayer) or going in myself and pulling him out (evangelization).

Pray for me that I will make the right decision.