Tag Archives: Hell

Hell: a synopsis of Catholic teaching

01 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in Bible, Blogging, Catholic Tradition, Faith, St. Isaac

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JohnPaulII-Pope

St John Paul II’s ‘Crossing the threshold of hope’ informs much of this post.

The subject of hell has somewhat dominated our blog of late, and it might be time to outline what the Catholic Church has to say on the subject. As so often, it is necessary to draw a distinction between what the pious believe in a general way, and what the Church teaches officially. To give one example, many ordinary Catholics (and non-Catholics) would, if asked about hell, respond in terms of pitchforks, devils and real fire burning people, and if asked why they believe that would say ‘it is in the Bible’. But as our friend Bosco here so often shows, it is not enough to read everything in Scripture literally. The Church teaches from Scripture and Tradition, and does not neglect reason either. It knows that much of what will happen after death is a mystery, and, contrary to the charges of some of its critics, it does not try to make cut and dried what is mysterious. Those caveats entered, let me offer a synopsis of what I understand Catholic teaching in this area to be saying.

At death the soul is judged – this is known as the particular judgment. There are, the Church teaches, three outcomes to this judgment immediately after death: immediate unification with Christ; conditional unification, which is commonly called Purgatory; and immediate rejection which is eternal damnation – as the catechism puts it:

To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”

The chief punishment of hell is separation from God. The careful reader of the link will see that the Church puts inverted commas around ‘eternal fire’, and this is because it is not pronouncing on the literal presence of fire. St Thomas Aquinas says it is a real fire, but with all respect to the Angelic doctor, that is his opinion, one we should take seriously, but not an article of faith. But it must be emphasised that in its official teaching the Church relies, as it always does, on the words of Jesus, who, according to St Matthew, said that at death people would be separated into two groups – everlasting punishment or eternal life. I can quite understand the Apologetics which then queries the existence of Purgatory on the ground this does not fit with the twofold division here (although, since the Church teaches that eternally there are only two destinations for us, there is no contradiction); what I find more puzzling is the notion that the idea of everlasting hell is not to be derived from this.

I quite understand the impatience of some thinkers with the assumption that, for example, when Paul speaks of people being unworthy of eternal life, that means they are going to hell, or that when he says the wages of sin are death that means sinners go to hell. If you do not believe in hell, or you do not believe in the Catholic teaching, you could not extrapolate it from such passages. However, we read Scripture as a whole, and once you take the sense of the Matthean passage just quoted, then it is natural to talk of hell in relation to the Pauline passages. I would entirely take Jessica’s point that Paul does not major on this theme, and would add to it that the Catholic Church follows suit – in a catechism of 2865 paragraphs only 5 of them deal with hell. As ever, the Church follows in the path of the first evangelists. This has the huge advantage that it can be secure in its teaching; it has the eternal disadvantage that there will be things it teaches which every age will find difficult. Our own age finds the idea of eternal torment one of those things. But let us examine the nature of that torment as far as we can.

Balthasar, whose Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved?” (1986) is more often criticised than read, did not teach universalism (indeed, it seems rather doubtful as to whether Origen did so either, but that’s another matter). He acknowledged that we all stand under judgment, and that, despite the distastefulness of the idea, eternal torment was not to be dismissed:

If we take our faith seriously and respect the words of Scripture, we must resign ourselves to admitting such an ultimate possibility, our feelings of revulsion notwithstanding. We may not simply ignore such a threat; we may not easily dismiss it, neither for ourselves nor for any of our brothers and sisters in Christ” (p. 237).

In this he was at one with St John Paul II, whose book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope (1994), also spoke of the hope that we might legitimately have that all men might yet be saved, but added (as Balthasar did) that sinful, prideful man might reject the love of God and choose not to be in his presence. To quote St John Paul directly:

“… yet the words of Christ are unequivocal. In Matthew’s Gospel he speaks clearly of those who will go to eternal punishment (cf. Matthew 25:46).”

Speaking in a General Audience on 28 July 1999, St John Paul said:

The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy.

God grants us free-will and we can reject him – in which case, as St John Paul II put it:

Damnation remains a real possibility, but it is not granted to us, without special divine revelation, to know which human beings are effectively involved in it. The thought of hell — and even less the improper use of biblical images — must not create anxiety or despair, but is a necessary and healthy reminder of freedom within the proclamation that the risen Jesus has conquered Satan, giving us the Spirit of God who makes us cry “Abba, Father!” (Rm 8:15; Gal 4:6).

The Church prays that all men may be saved (CCC 1821) and that no one will be lost (CCC 1058), and since Christ came to save all, again, and as usual, it does no more than its founder taught it. But Saint John Paul is right, it is not given to us to know who is in hell. Nor, in speaking of the latter, is it necessary to postulate literal flames. St Isaac the Syrian, in speaking of hell, expressed it best:

Those who are tormented in hell are tormented by the invasion of love. What is there more bitter and violent than the pains of love? Those who feel they have sinned against love bear in themselves a damnation much heavier than the most dreaded punishments. The suffering with which sinning against love afflicts the heart is more keenly felt than any other torment. It is absurd to assume that the sinners in hell are deprived of God’s love. Love is offered impartially. But by its very power it acts in two ways. It torments sinners, as happens here on earth when we are tormented by the presence of a friend to whom we have been unfaithful. And it gives joy to those who have been faithful. That is what the torment of hell is in my opinion: remorse.

This is very far away from pitchforks and devils and torture chambers. It is also, I would suggest, more accessible for us all. Which of us, having done something very wrong and come to repentance has not been tortured by the remembrance of our sin? As the old Anglican General Confession put it: ‘The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable.’ These are the things which drive us to confess and to repentance. They are healthy for us because they encourage us to turn aside from our sins.

None of this is to say that ‘fear’ in its common sense, is what drives us to God. If we love Him, we will feel remorse, and the remembrance of our sins is intolerable. If we do not, then hell is most likely the state of coming to that realisation too late. That is our choice. There is no eternal torture chamber created by God – just the one we construct for ourselves.

I hope that this helps set forth what the Church teaches in a form which is of assistance. The traditional caricatures are not, in my own view, very helpful, and, as we have seen here recently, can create confusion and anxiety. That is not what the Church wishes to do – it wishes as its founder wished, that all men might turn from their sins in repentance and come to Christ. Might we hope for that? Of course we can, the Church does; can we say it is so? No, for the Church has not said so. St Isaac said this life is for repentance, and, as the thief at the right hand of the Saviour found, whilst there is life there is hope – and whilst there is hope, then there is prayer we can all offer that all who have not yet repented and turned to Christ, might yet do so.

Hell: some reflections

01 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in Bible, Faith

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Those who seem to have taken Jessica’s posts as meaning she thinks hell does not exist are, I think, not getting her point. As I read them, she thinks it does, but is not eternal. That’s an interesting point, and one I’ve not seen raised often – that hell will cease to exist when God triumphs and evil is defeated for ever. It makes one wonder, that’s for sure. But on the main issue, hell as a place of torment, then it seems to me that despite all the cleverness with words by the Church of England, we are left with the usual choice on these matters – what most Christians have always thought is wrong and what a few modern ones think is correct – or that traditional wisdom prevails. In the context of explaining away the prohibition on women preaching and leading, and explaining why homosexual marriage/relations are not really sinful, we might expect the same word-play with hell – so I am unsurprised we are getting it.

Now we might, up front, say a few things of wider import here. Jessica has suggested that the view many have of hell is conditioned by secular society’s legal norms and practice in the past. There is much to be said for that, indeed it is hard to see how it could not be so – we can only explain the ineffable by reference to something with which we are familiar. There is equally something similar to be said for the way in which the role of women and of homosexuals are treated. But if we are going to say that the maxims of Scripture are all conditioned by the norms of past societies, then where does this stop? Acknowledging that the way in which we interpret certain parts of Scripture is by reference to our own society does not, so it seems to me, involve conceding the point that everything is relative. Our Lord treated women in a way which was profoundly counter-cultural; what Paul had to say about who could be saved was equally so controversial and counter to what his fellow Jews held that he was persecuted by them for it. As it happens, there is no evidence that Graeco-Roman society held any ‘prejudicial’ views on homosexuals – so again, the view put forward by Paul was not in line of that of the wider Gentile society to whom he was appealing. Women clearly had major roles in the early Church, so prohibiting them from preaching had a particular purpose and was not necessarily in line with wider Gentile practice; indeed had that been the case – i.e. had wider Gentile society not had women in such positions in Temples, then Paul’s words would have been unnecessary. The same is true of hell.

I am quite prepared to believe that there were varied views about hell in the early church, but I remain to be convinced that these views paralleled that of modern annihilationist thought. But I also remain to be convinced that we are meant to read hell quite as literally as some would like. The notion that it is how those who have rejected God feel in his presence seems to capture it best for me. This is not analogous with anyone putting anyone in a cage and burning them. If there is an analogy, it is with how we might feel when we realise, looking back, we made a really bad decision and there is nothing we can do because we refused advice and thought we knew better. It is the choice of the individual – not of God.

I don’t know how far that helps anyone, but that’s my two penn’orth. A Happy New Year to you all.

Obstacles to Evangelism

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Bible, Faith, Reading the BIble, Salvation

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We now have a winner for the post which provoked the most comments on this blog. My post on The difficulty of hell has reached more than 600 comments, and despite a couple of other posts on the issue, is going strong.

Our Roman Catholic commentators have, rightly, commented that the traditional view is the one taught by their Church and that, for them, is that. This seems entirely right, and I am very grateful to those who have engaged constructively here. What the discussion has revealed is that views in the early Church were more varied than some had thought, and that the main dogma on this comes from as late as 1215, and endorses the view St Augustine put forth in his City of God. It is interesting that the subject has never been debated at an ecumenical council, but that probably reflects the overwhelming nature of the Roman Catholic consensus on the issue.

My reason for raising it at all is not to be controversial for its own sake, but because in active evangelisation I have found it to be one of the subjects most often raised by those willing to engage me and others on my little team in conversation. That, I think, has much to do with the way in which the Dawkinsite atheists have highlighted it as a major objection to Christianity. In so doing, my experience suggests, they have hit a rich vein. People, I have found, are very open to talking about Christianity in terms of Jesus and his teaching, and I have rarely found anyone mounting the argument against the faith from the “Jesus did not exist” or “Jesus’ teaching is repugnant” angles. The opposite is the case with two things – the existence of hell, and the fate of people who are not Christian.

The Church of England comes in for a fair amount of criticism for being ‘wishy-washy’, but that is because it is always easier to caricature attempts to work through theological concepts which time and custom have left undisturbed, than it is to engage with them. The early Church was often a ferment of discussion and debate, and our doctrine is the better for it. For a long-time the Roman Catholic Church, profoundly disturbed by the Reformation and then by the rise of nationalism and socialism, was so on the defensive that it became difficult to continue that tradition; even theologians as distinguished as de Lubac and de Chardin found themselves under suspicion. The Church of England has retained the intellectual self-confidence to confront contemporary questioning in the light of tradition. The Church of England, recognising the objections raised to the traditional concept, has responded not by saying” ‘this is what has always been taught and that’s that’, but rather by taking a serious look at the history and theology behind our concepts of hell. Early in 1996 a report by the Doctrine Commission of the Church of England was published. It was a book (called The Mystery of Salvation). Predictably, the press reacted to one paragraph and rushed out with headlines about ‘church abolishes hell’. But the report, like the debate in the Church, has tried to make the Christian understanding of salvation relevant and meaningful in the context of contemporary life and society. As the report put it when it rejected the idea of hell as a place of fire, pitchforks and screams of unending agony:

“There are many reasons for this change, but amongst them have been the moral protest from both within and without the Christian faith against a religion of fear, and a growing sense that the picture of a God who consigned millions to eternal torment was far removed from the revelation of God’s love in Christ”

The Roman Catholic Church has also, made some moves towards a deeper, and better, understanding of what hell really means. The Catechism has only seven paragraphs on the subject, and whilst it says that Jesus spoke of hell as an ”unquenchable fire,” it says hell’s primary punishment is ”eternal separation from God,” which results from an individual’s conscious decision. Bishop Robert Barron has recently commented: ‘“Think of God’s life as a party to which everyone is invited,” he says, “and think of hell as the sullen corner into which someone who resolutely refuses to join the fun has sadly slunk.”

The Bishop, like anyone involved in evangelisation, knows that it is not possible to talk about hell without talking about heaven and salvation.

Salvation is not missing hell, hell is missing out on salvation, and we can only explain the one in the context of the other; Christ came to save us. If we are made to know and to love God, then we can find salvation only in that fate – salvation, now and in the life of the world to come, comes in knowing God. If that is the fate God intends for us, that is what we get by embracing his Son. If we do not do that, what happens? The traditional fire and brimstone version posits a second destiny for us. If we do not achieve the knowing and loving God, we are plunged into eternal fire and torment. Paul said the wages of sin is death; the Roman Catholic Church traditionally insists it is something worse than death. The Anglican report suggested that we might better read the Gospel passages on this subject more plainly – the wages of sin is death – we are not raised to eternal life with God, we cease to exist at all. That is not a comfortable thought, but it does not portray a God who hands us over to the devil for eternal torture. Which of these versions of God one believes may well reflect one’s own experience of love and of God: some seem quite comfortable with the idea (assuming of course that it will not be them) of those who displease God being confined to an eternal torture chamber; others cannot find in them an experience of the God of love who defines his live for his creation in that way.

The question I am often asked when teaching, is what sort of God created the traditional vision of hell, and why I, or any decent human being, would want to worship him. As one young woman said to me recently, ‘God seems a bit of a cruel narcissist – if you don’t worship him he will make you suffer eternal fire for ever’. That is not, I told her, what the Church of England teaches, and nor is it. The distinguished Anglican theologian, John Wenham wrote some years ago now:

I feel that the time has come when I must declare my mind honestly.
I believe that endless torment is a hideous and unscriptural doctrine which has been a terrible burden on the mind of the church for many centuries and a terrible blot on her presentation of the gospel.
I should indeed be happy if, before I die, I could help in sweeping it away.

Christianity is not a faith preserved in amber, neither is it a museum piece. It responds, as it always has, to the circumstances in which it finds itself. Traditional teaching about hell has been around, but in an unexamined way, since the days when even civilised men thought nothing of burning each other in the name of Jesus. In our own age, as with capital punishment, it is being examined and discussed in a way unparalleled in Church history. In Rome, as in Canterbury, theologians are responding to the challenge. Those comfortable with the idea of hell-fire and brimstone may object, but it is happening across the Christian community, and it will continue until we reach some kind of consensus on what hell is. No one is abolishing it, but modern theologians, reaching back to the early Fathers, are reexamining the idea – this is what happens in a living church led by the Spirit. Is it uncomfortable to those who have not kept up with what the theologians have been saying? To judge from the comments on my other thread, it is. But as their own Church moves in the direction my own one has pioneered, they can add that to the ever-lengthening list of ‘heresies’ taught by the ‘Novus Ordo’ sect, or whatever uncomplimentary description they apply to the Pope and those who think like Bishop Barron.

 

 

Dives and Lazarus and hell

23 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Bible, Faith, Reading the BIble

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Dives

This is something of a novelty, and one which WordPress does not seem to provide for, and that is a joint post. Dave Smith is the author of most of it, and I have topped, tailed and added some things from the Catechism. My parts are italicised for ease (and to exculpate my friend Dave from any errors of mine: C451).

Jessica’s post today offers us a pre-Christmas brain stretcher.  She is not alone in what she speculates here, and she offers good reasons for her views, as ever. But there are reasons to hesitate before accepting them. The universal teaching of the Western Church (and the Eastern, although it is expressed differently) is not lightly to be put aside. Paul certainly can be read the way Jessica and others have suggested, but if we place him into a wider setting, we see how the Church comes to its conclusion.

Let us first remind ourselves of what the Church teaches here:

“Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.” The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs. (CCC 1035)”

We get an illustration of this here:

Luke 16:19-31  (NRSVCE)

The Rich Man and Lazarus

19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.[a] The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.[b] 24 He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26 Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ 27 He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ 29 Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ 30 He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Footnotes:

  1. Luke 16:22 Gk to Abraham’s bosom
  2. Luke 16:23 Gk in his bosom

My personal understanding from this parable is that there was a permanent division in hell (hades, sheol) operable until Christ was raised from the dead and that the hell of Abraham and the saints of the OT was that of sleep – where Christ went (during the 3 days) to awaken and spread the Good News; they were not in torment but dormant, so to speak. It is to that hell then (the hell in the creed), that Christ visited and emptied of its inhabitants (1 Pet. 3:19). Such a place has no need of inhabitants now as the gates to heaven have been opened. However, he did not go across the divide (the chasm) that separates Abraham and the just (the ‘us’) from the tormented damned. As stated: there is no way for ‘us’ to pass from here to there or for those there to pass to us. Or is this parable pure fantasy?

It is possible (for human reason) to suppose that after opening the gates to heaven that the hell at the other side of the chasm became a place now emptied as well but by utter annihilation. But I see no evidence of this thought. It seems to be a nice hypothesis but what of the eviternal nature of the spirit soul; spoken into existence out of nothingness to live a life eternal. God did not make souls to send them back into non-being: for I think it is against His Will to do so or to undo that which He Himself has Willed. Otherwise, why have the bad angels swept out of heaven into the realm where the ‘children” of God were to live? It seems cruel not to have annihilated them except that it is God Who puts us to the test: and we best not put God to the test by thinking ‘if I were God, I would do such and such . . . ‘ Why, also, would Christ say that it would be better if Judas had never been born if the result of his sin was annihilation and non-being; the same state he and we came from.

Matthew 13:42 has Our Lord saying that angels would gather up the people and some would be cast into a fiery furnace. If we want to know the origin of the idea, that would really be it.

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We say we believe in hell; but it seems to me that what Jessica is describing is an empty hell without suffering souls. Then is there really a hell if it is not a place made for something and for someone? Is it an empty threat to cajole us in a dishonest effort to avoid evil and embrace good? If Satan is mortally wounded and will dissolve into nothingness as will the souls of the damned then the atheists should not fear death (and most don’t) . . . as it is simply a state (state of nothingness) that we possessed (in potentiality) before birth. As such, Christians that believe in Christ can sin without despair or danger. Their sins can be like scarlet and yet all they need do was done the moment they accepted Christ as the atonement for their sins without regard of their own freewill to avoid these sins rather than heap them on the agony of Christ some 2000 years ago. All will be well.

But alas, I am afraid that what we were given in freewill is a chance to share this burden with Christ by constant effort to live without sin. At least the effort (if not the reality) will be enough if sincere and our love for God and contrition for our sins are of some merit which makes us suitable, in the Merciful eyes of God, to receive forgiveness and Divine Mercy:  not to mention the Mercy to receive His Body and Blood which He gave for us and which He now gives to us at the Holy Altar. I would, that I wouldn’t fear and tremble that I am no better than the rich man in the parable: what is it that I might have done in this life that I didn’t do? For his sin was a sin of omission rather than one of commission. My Church is a penitential Church that asks not only for forgiveness but asks us to do penance for those sins committed against God. So my faith and hope resides in those things which the wretched rich man did not have: Christ, the Church, Confession, Penance, the Eucharist and the prayers of Our Lady, the Saints and my friends and family. If I did not have these, I feel that I would despair of the life I have led. So I say with the father of the child: “I believe, help my unbelief.” I hope that Christ will give me what he gave that man.

 

 

Reflections on hell

23 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Bible, End times, Faith, Reading the BIble, Salvation

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gehenna1We have been discussing hell a lot here, and I have been doing a bit of reading on the subject. Dave Smith and I (and Ginny) have had something of a back and forth on this (300 comments and rising!) and rather than leave everything in the comboxes, I thought I’d share some thoughts. Right up front, let me say I am not denying the reality of hell, but what I am doing is interrogating the view that it is a place where souls, or souls and bodies, burn for eternity.

So, let us have a little look at that four-letter word – hell. It is not used in the Greek or the Septuagint – so we do not find it anywhere in the original Bible. What do we find? We get four words (the links are to Strong’s concordance so you can check I am not making this up as I go along):

  1. Sheol (Hebrew)
  2. Hades (Greek)
  3. Tartarus (Greek)
  4. Gehenna (Greek)

It depends, of course, on which English translation you use. The most common one, the King James Version, has the most uses of the word ‘hell’ – some 54 occurrences – you can see from the link that others have far fewer. To put it into perspective, the Bible uses the word ‘heaven’ 664 times – in whatever version you choose. It may mean nothing that in most versions heaven is mentioned more times, but in most modern versions ‘hell’ gets 14 mentions, and the original word is one of those used above. So where does this get us?

Let’s deal with ‘Tartarus’ first and its one mention in 2 Peter 2:4. This, we are told, is a holding place for fallen angels before they are judged – so I think we can say with some confidence it isn’t any place anyone is going to spend eternity. That leaves us with the other three words which the older English translations call ‘hell’.

In the Old Testament, every translation is from the Hebrew ‘Sheol’. It means the abode of the dead. I cannot trace any mention in the Jewish sources to which I have access of anyone burning there for eternity. In English, ‘Sheol’ is translated variously as ‘hell’, ‘the pit’ and ‘the grave’ – and it is a place people can go into when they are alive, but in which they then perish. It is a place of the dead – there is no mention of anyone in it having any consciousness – or of them burning. Hades is mentioned 11 times in the NT, mostly as hell, but once as grave. But what sort of place is it? If we look at Acts we see a place which looks like Sheol – a place where the dead go and their bodies rot.

The only word used in the NT which has any connotation of burning is Gehenna. It is used 12 times in the NASB: Matthew 5:22; Matthew 5:29; Matthew 5:30; Matthew 10:28; Matthew 18:9; Matthew 23:15; Matthew 23:33; Mark 9:43; Mark 9:45; Mark 9:47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6. Gehenna was a real place – it is the Hinnom valley just outside Jerusalem. It was the place where the Pagan Jews erected their altar to Moloch. As a result, later generations used it as a rubbish pit into which all the refuse of the city was thrown, and where the bodies of those crucified were also thrown – and fires would burn perpetually to burn the remains and stop germs spreading. So, when Jesus refers to it in Mark 9 as the place where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched he is speaking literally – those hearing him knew the place. There is no reference here to it being a place where any conscious being would dwell in eternal torment. Of course, for a Jew, the defilement of the corpse in such a place was a dreadful thing, and Christ is saying that even that would be better than sinning – but the idea that he is saying that those who sin are going to spend eternity suffering there is not in the text. If we look at the Lukan reference, where Jesus talks about ‘Him’ who destroys the body and soul in Gehenna, then that is a reference to God destroying us – not letting us live forever in torment.

Paul tells us the wages of sin is death, which he contrasts with the eternal life to those who believe. He does not say ‘the wages of sin is to burn in hell forever. Paul was steeped in Jewish teaching, and what he inherited was the idea of Sheol as a place of death and extinction. Psalm 1:6 told Paul and his fellow Jews that the Lord would know the righteous, but the ungodly would perish; it did not say they would burn in Gehenna. Psalm 37:20 made the same point – the wicked would perish, they would vanish away, and Psalm 69:28 underlines that – they will be ‘blotted out’ – not burnt in any lake of fire. They will be (Psalm 92:7) ‘destroyed forever’. This was standard Jewish teaching as we see not only from the Psalmists, but from Isaiah too. Malachai certainly mentions fire, but does so to say that the wicked will be burnt up and no trace of them will be left.

This was what the Jews believed, so if Jesus was telling them something new, one might expect much to have been made of this by Paul and the others – after all, if, as disobedience to God actually means spending eternity in a lake of fire, then that’s a message to get out there urgently, not least to the People of the Covenant who had no such concept. Yet we find St John, who certainly combatted heretical ideas in his Gospel and letters, telling us that those who do not believe in Jesus will perish, whilst those who do will have everlasting life; he does not say those who do not believe will burn in Gehenna. Paul makes the same point to the Philippians that the evil will be destroyed. The same message was sent to the Thessalonians (unless one takes the view that everlasting destruction does not mean that you are destroyed for evermore, but are subject to being destroyed for ever, and I can’t see why Paul would have meant that when there was no Jewish teaching to that effect) the Corinthians and, as I have already mentioned, to the Romans.

Paul seems to have known nothing of this Gehenna where the wicked would burn eternally, and neither he, nor James nor Jude nor Peter mention it. It would have been a big departure from what they had been taught, and one might reasonably have expected it to be emphasised. Instead there is a continuity with the Jewish teaching on Sheol. We shall be raised at the last and judged, and then, death and hell (Sheol) are cast into the lake of fire. They cease to exist, that is the second death.

How we read Revelation is always a moot point, and is one of the reasons the early Church fathers hesitated before accepting it into the Canon. ‘As late as 633, the Spanish Council of Toledo remarked how many people still opposed the use of John’s Revelation, and commanded that it must be read in church liturgies, under heavy penalty’, whilst to this day the Greeks do not use it in their liturgical worship. But it is there (although Luther had his doubts) and it tells us that hell and death are to be cast into the lake, as are those whose name is not written in the book of life, but only ‘the devil’ ‘the Beast’ and the ‘false prophet’ are condemned to eternal torment. One could certainly insist that everyone else in the lake would also suffer, but that would be a lot of weight to place on a notoriously difficult text.

Well, there it is, ‘heresy corner’ as Chalcedon has called it. I shall don my helmet and retire to my trenches with just one note. I am not denying the resurrection (pace ginny), neither am I saying hell is not real. I am simply trying to see how what the Scriptures say aligns with the Western belief that hell is a place of eternal torment. Yes, I am happier to think that God has so arranged things so that no one suffers for eternity; the faithless go down to the pit and are known no more; the faithful rise to life eternal.

 

 

 

Heaven and Hell

03 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by in Faith, Salvation

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risen

We’ve given a good run this week to questions about hell – and by implication, heaven. I think we’ve no choice other than to accept the position we’ve outlined that God alone knows who goes to hell, but I think we have given a good answer to those who argue that God must be a sadist for sending people to hell. That, we have suggested, is the choice of the individual, and it might well be, a C suggests, that for a proud and inveterate sinner, the sight of God’s mercy would, itself, be a form of hell. We know only that God’s mercy is without limit, and that his love is infinite – he loved us first; but not everyone will respond to that love, and those who don’t may well wish to blame others for their eventual plight.

Less has been said about heaven, and that’s not surprising, since we know even less about it. At the end of time, as I read it, Jesus will come again to the living and the dead and his kingdom will be established. I don’t read what the Bible says as implying some place in the sky with us all in night-shirts with wings. We are told we, and everything will be transformed, and we look forward to living in God’s presence for ever more; for that to be at all possible, we shall indeed have to have been transformed into that image of God in which we were made, so I am assuming that, too. But I can imagine that about as well as I can God – which is to say through a glass darkly.

Bosco responded to my post on ‘What is the point of Christianity’ with this: ‘Saved is short for”saved from the wrath of the great and terrible God’. I am sure he speaks for many here, and he would once have spoken for me, but no more. The ‘great and terrible’ God is omnipotent. He could have ‘saved’ us anyway he chose – if not, he’s not God because he’s not omnipotent. He did not choose to save us by coming down in all his terrible glory and making it perfectly plain to us that we either followed his commands or we went to hell. He could have done that, and given what is at stake – the eternal salvation of his children – we might well wonder why he didn’t? An appearance every generation or so and surely all but the most recidivist among us would be there saying ‘yes. God, I will do as I am told.’ But we’d be doing that because we were frightened. What father among us would want our children to do as they were told because they were frightened of our wrath. This line of thinking is why Dawkins and others think there is something wrong with Christianity and Christians, and if that was why I obeyed God’s precepts, they’d be right.

I obey them because I know God loves me and wants what is best for me. I know from simple observation that if I do what he wants, it is good for me and those I love, and that departing from them tends to lead to trouble. I am grateful that he will forgive my foolish ways when I err, but if I thought I was doing his will out of fear, I would wonder what sort of heaven it would be to spend eternity with such a being? But then such a being would not have become incarnate and been crucified, so I shall dwell with the Lord, and hope that at the end he will receive me.

What’s the point of Christianity?

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Atonement, Bible, Faith, Salvation

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The Batlló Crucifix. Barcelona © National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC)

The Batlló Crucifix. Barcelona © National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC)

I agree with what Chalcedon said yesterday about the need to find a balance between an emphasis on hell-fire and the fact that God is love. A God who is love is not going to create millions of folk just so they can burn in hell for eternity; but that does not mean that millions of folk will not do just that – simply that is not what God created them for. There is a central and disturbing fact at the centre of our faith – Christ on the cross. In having Him on their crucifixes, Catholics rightly focus our attention on His sacrifice. But what is the use of it, what is its point if there is no hell? Just what are we being saved from? Why did Jesus need to become incarnate? Why did he need to atone for our sins on the Cross? If we do not believe in damnation, not only do we deny the many times Christ talked of hell, we deny the reason for his sacrifice. I repeat – what is it we are being saved from?

Those who doubt the reality of hell, do they also doubt the reality of the Incarnation and the Resurrection? I know some do (I have Anglican acquaintances who are very consistent as they take just that view), but for those who do not, I am not sure what it is they think that whole Christ getting born and dying on the Cross was for? If Christianity is no more than a call for social justice (whatever that may be) then why did Jesus have to be born and die? We can, as many atheists (rightly) remind us, be decent human beings, be kind and compassionate without any religious faith. The question we Christians often ask – but what canon do you use to measure ‘goodness’? – can be by-passed by their simply pointing out that treating other human beings decently is not a Christian prerogative (and if they want to be provocative, adding it is sometimes not a Christian practice either). We can have peace, good-will and harmony (somewhere?) without Christianity, just as we have had Christianity and none of those things. Our faith is, if anything, a call to go beyond the obvious criteria we use as humans: walking extra miles, loving our enemies, turning the other cheek and the rest of it are all very radical. But those things are all part of whhat is at the heart of our faith – a radical personal transformation of the heart.

The refiner’s fire burns away (over time) the dross in us, the image of God in us, marred by sin, is cleaned up, and we should become more as God intended us to be. But not all will do that. That’s where I part company with Bosco. It seems to me Paul is writing to those in Corinth and Galatia who considered themselves born again, and he is telling them that what they have gained can be lost. Why is Paul so urgent? Why are John and Peter and Jude all so keen that born-again folk should receive the right Gospel? Why does the early Church care so much about orthodox belief? In our bloodless age we tend to go on about how beastly some of those early Christians were to each other, but we forget why that was. It was because they believed something really important was at stake – our salvation. A man who believed wrongly, or who followed a false prophet was not just going wrong in this life, he was in danger of hell-fire for ever. That being so, they didn’t go ‘meh, whatever, as long as you are a good person’, and they didn’t because they cared.

Jesus became incarnate, was crucified, died, was buried, descended into hell and rose again on the rid day to redeem our sinful selves – to redeem us from hell. I have no idea what hell is like, but I know someone who died so I could be redeemed from it. I don’t say it should be at the forefront of all we say and do, and I do agree a balance in which we respond with love to the love God first showed us in necessary. But I do say we should think on those last things and before succumbing to universalism, ask again, what is the point of Christianity if it is not that we should be saved from the fires of hell and come to the beatific vision?

The Fewness of the Saved (2)

12 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by in Bible, Catholic Tradition, Faith, Homilies, Pusey

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Pusey at his desk

It is one of those deep Mysteries, which will never be understood, save in Heaven, in the Light and Love of Almighty God. For it may be, that, in Hell, it will be part of the misery of the damned, still to rebel against the Justice of God, as here against His Love and Righteous Will. One only difficulty there is, of which all the rest are but offshoots, “Whence is evil amid the Works of an All-Good, All-Wise, God?” And if man, living in this corner of the Creation, bounded in his understanding, looking but a little way along a little space, be not humble enough to say, “I cannot know, God has not revealed it,” there is nothing before him, but to say with the fool, “There is no God.” If we shrink back from this, as we must, and believe, and know, and confess, and glory, and think in our inmost souls, that, be this how it may, (we know not, need not to know, cannot know now, wish not to know,) since we know this which alone concerns us, that God is very good to us, then we shall go on, and with the Psalmist “Praise God in His Holiness,” for “His Mercy is over all His Works,8” although we understand not His Dealing with any of them.

There are but two resting-places in the whole range of thought about God; the one a loving, implicit, child-like faith, which, although it understands not, believes every Word of God, because it loves Him, and “bends not the Thoughts of God to be as its thoughts, but yields and casts down its every thought to be obedient to the Thoughts of God; the other, entire unbelief, which ends in dethroning God, making God a part of the world, and itself a part of God. All else is only moving in the one way or the other.

…

And so will ye, too, Brethren, and putting from you all thoughts, “how it can be thus?” think only, reverently though sadly, “hath not He Who is Love, God Who, for Love of us men, became Man, said, it shall be thus?”

Alas! Brethren, it is an Aweful, painful Mystery of the Justice of Almighty God, corresponding with the Mystery of His Love in our Redemption by the Infinite Merits and the Death of the Only-Begotten Son. Both were foreshadowed from Paradise; both were revealed, in their depth of light and darkness together, by Him, and in Him. It would seem as though they were inseparable. Without the one, we should presume; as, without the other, despair. The loss of an Infinite Good, must be an infinite evil. An Infinite Remedy implies an ill all-but infinite. We can see that it is very fearful to put aside Love so Boundless. It may be a contradiction, that such Love, such light terms of acceptance should be offered, and not entail misery proportioned on those who put them aside. But what I would point out, is the fact, that our knowledge of the Greatness of our Redemption, the misery of those who would not receive it, and their multitude, became known to us, by degrees, together. Scarcely were the Gates of Paradise closed, with the Promise of Him Who should crush the serpent’s head, than the first-born of our fallen race was a murderer! His seed became the mighty of the earth, the discoverers of all earthly wisdom, the corrupters of what remained good in the race of Seth, until “all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” …What is the constant prophecy of Judgment to come? “A remnant only shall be saved.” It is foretold in the name of Isaiah’s son; and yet he again, St. Paul says, is the image of us Christians, “the children which God” the Father “hath given” to His Christ. St. Paul again gives this as the sum of the prophecies as to Israel. “Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved; ” and again, “Except the Lord of Hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah,” the cities whom God utterly overthrew, “suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” Again, when amid a great forsaking in the midst of the land, a tenth only should remain, even this should again be consumed, and a “holy seed” alone be the hope for the time to come. “A holy seed,” “gleaning grapes as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof;” such are the emblems of those who shall be left. And when that former people were restored from that first desolation, the captivity of Babylon, (again an image of our restoration in Christ), how few, in comparison, even of that one tribe returned, from which our Lord was to be born; and when He came, these were divided in divers heresies; and they who believed in Him, although a great multitude, even “many tens of thousands” in Jerusalem alone, were still but “a remnant according to the election of Grace,” while “the rest were blinded.” What is the very name of Christians in St. Paul, but “the elect,” i. e. those “chosen out of” the greater mass who remained; and of those thus chosen, there is yet a smaller body, which, when the larger part are cast away, shall be “the chosen;” “Many are called, but few chosen.” Again, the name by which our Lord calls His disciples, is “a little flock. d” He prays for them who are chosen out of the world. They are but as a heap of corn, small, compared to the chaff from which it is sifted. e Such is the history before Christ came and at His Coming; before, few were even called, still fewer chosen; at His Coming “His own received Him not.” So many would “not have this Man to reign over them,” that St. Paul had to prove that God had not altogether cast away His people, that, in the mass of Israel, there was a hidden number who alone were the true Israel. And what shall be at the end? Our Lord answereth, “When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find Faith on the earth?” and that, “if it were possible, the very elect” should fail.

…….

But what, Brethren? are we then to despond for ourselves or others, because the way is narrow, and few find it? This were the very device of Satan, to slay us through despair, if he cannot lay us to sleep in presumption. This we know, God willeth all men to be saved, willeth that we be saved. His Love is wanting to no one, but we to It. God willeth thee to be saved; will thou it also; will it with a steadfast will; will it with a whole heart; will it at whatever cost; and pray Him to uphold thy will, and thou wilt be saved. Wherever or whatsoever we are, we are encompassed with tokens of His Love. …

These aweful warnings are but a token the more of His Love towards us, if we will be warned. He terrifieth us, only that we may take refuge in His Love. He meeteth us in terror if we fly from Him, only that we may turn to Him in love. He affrighteth us, even as a tender parent doth, that we may cling the closer unto Him. … He biddeth us, “fear” and “fear not;” “fear Him” and we shall fear nothing out of Him; “fear the Lord and depart from evil.” He Himself saith, “Ye that fear the Lord, put your trust in the Lord, He is their Helper and Defender.'” He Himself biddeth them who fear Him, to say “His Mercy endureth for ever.” …….

Never, perhaps, were there times, in which the Windows of Heaven were more opened, God’s Calls louder, His Work and Care, in recovering us, as a Church, more visible, His Work and Care for human souls more manifest. He calls us, as a Church, by sorrow and by blessing, by spreading us without and strengthening us within, by giving us “the heathen for our inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for our possession,” by enlarging our borders; and woe unto us, if we preach not the gospel.'” He is calling us individually, again and again; He is calling the very “dead in trespasses and sins” to hear His Voice and live.

Oh stand we not all the day idle! trust we ourselves with Him, and He hath said, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee.” Aid we how we may, whom we can, by prayers, alms, self-denial, that His Call reach others also. Our love shall return into our own bosom. “Pray” we “the Lord of the Harvest” to “send forth labourers into His Harvest.” And for ourselves and those we love, fear we not either repented sin or present infirmities, so as to lose courage, and faith, and hope in Him. The more pitfalls surround us, cleave we the closer to Him, our Only Guide. The more the waves assault us, cling we closer to Him, the Rock of our Salvation. Cast we ourselves, our fears, our past sins, into the Infinite Abyss of His Mercies, and as we lose ourselves in Him, we shall find ourselves in Him for ever. If we fear to faint by the way, keep we the nearer to Him Who is our Food for the way. If we fear to be parted from Him, part we with ought, at least offer we to Him, to part from us ought which may keep us from Him. Commit we our way unto Him, and He will bring it to pass. He Who forsook us not when we forsook Him, will not forsake us when we would turn to Him. “Faithful is He That calleth you, Who also will do it.”

Now unto Him “Who hath saved us, and called us with an Holy Calling, not according to our works, but according to His Own Purpose and Grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, be blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, for ever and ever, Amen.”

 

The Fewness of the Saved (1)

11 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by in Anglicanism, Catholic Tradition, Faith, Homilies, Pusey

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Judge-Jesus

One of the issues which has sometimes occupied us here is ‘universalism’. Fr Aidan Kimel has run an excellent series on this topic, and I know it is one one which Jess feels passionately. The notion that it is but recently that Christians have moved from the ‘damnation and hell fire’ view on this topic is one which, as this sermon from Pusey shows. is not as new as we might think. The temptation has been there is every age to play the love of God off against the idea of judgment and hell. As the original of this sermon is nearly 5000 words, I have edited it rather severely, and then still needed two posts; the second one up tomorrow. I would be interested in any comment. C451

 St. Matthew XX: 16.

“Many be called, but few chosen.”

THESE are heavy words, Brethren. Of them, as well as of the doom of the wicked, we would gladly be silent, if we dared. We would gladly speak only of the Love wherewith God so loved the world, as to give His Son to be the Propitiation for our sins; the Love, wherewith God the Son so loved us, as to become one of us, one flesh with us, that we might be one Spirit with Him; the Love, wherewith God the Holy Ghost vouchsafes to hallow us, by dwelling in our clay, knitting us into one with God; the Love, wherewith the Co-Eternal Trinity vouchsafed, in Their Ever-Blessed Eternity, to love our nothingness.

But do we then, whose little love is but a spark from that Sun of Love Which kindleth all which loves in all Creation, do we then indeed love one another, better than He Who is Love? Can it be loving to hold back what He, Who is Love, revealed? Or safe for you, or without peril to our souls?

These Words of our Blessed Lord do give the intensest awe and pain of any in Holy Scripture; … they render what Holy Scripture says of Eternal Punishment most fearful, and bring it most near ourselves. For they cut at the root of the very comfort, wherewith so many delude their souls, that God cannot mean to punish so great a multitude; that they are no worse than most besides; have done no more harm; not wasted their talents more; not been more irreligious, or impure, or careless than their neighbours. The poor, who speak most honestly, draw out this in words; they tell you, plainly, this is their ground of hope. But is it not that of all, who are not in deep earnest about their souls? Whence is it that, not so long ago, words of Holy Scripture were wrested aside from their real meaning, and that to be “righteous overmuch,” was taken as a warning from God Himself, not to be too religious? Whence was it that “pious,” or “saint,” or (God have mercy) “godly,” were used as terms of reproach? Whence is it that, even now, a person who will not content himself with easy ways, thinks it for his soul’s good to use more devotion, be stricter with himself, “deny himself,” “take up his cross daily” after his Lord, if this becomes known of him, by the mass of Christians, who renounce the world in words but not in deeds, he is made “a proverb of reproach.” Whence is it that, whenever our ruder nature is not restrained by forms, and even among the young, not to be ashamed of Christ, amid coarse or finer ridicule, is often one of the sharpest tests by which their steadfast love of Him is tried?

All this is not, simply that people think it all hypocrisy or formalism; it is, that it shakes the foundation on which they themselves are building. If these, who desire to keep the sayings of Christ and do them, are building on the Rock, then they themselves, with their easy ways, are building upon the sand. Would they dare to’ speak plainly, it is the one common maxim of all, that Heaven is very easy to gain, that it is even difficult to perish. Would they be content to take the same degree of pains about the very slightest thing which really touches them, nay, about their estates, their very buying and selling, their every-day traffic, their everyday pleasures, that they do about their souls? Would they keep their worldly accounts, as they do the account of their soul? Would they risk the favour of any one, whose goodwill was of any importance to their earthly happiness, in the way they do that of Almighty God? What uncertainty will they not bear, what fickleness! how will they bring all things to bear to gain it; how long will they bear to toil for it, how will their souls hang upon it, how will they feed themselves with the very thought of it, however distant! Patience, endurance, toil, self-denial, all which, endured for God, would win Heavenly Crowns, His Favour and His Love, become easy graces, so soon as the object is one of earth. For Him Alone nothing is done, all is too hard, Who will be the Friend of the soul at once, Who first loved it, in order to win its love.

…

What does lie at the root of all this intense serving of self, and this forgetfulness of God, but a deep, fixed persuasion that God cannot mean to be what they think so severe; that He cannot really intend to destroy so many: that although God Himself has said “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil,” it must be safe to be with the multitude? And they will bear themselves out by a bold praise of God, as though God would “accept flattering words;” and men who know not what real love is, who never thought of God so as to love Him, and could scarcely pretend that they know what it is to love Him, or that they ever felt it, will say that so heavy dealings are contrary to the Love of God. It is but a few steps further, to deny that Hell will last for ever, or to deny Hell altogether. The principle is the same. It is just as hard to conceive of one soul, or Satan himself, lost for ever, as to believe that any number will, however miserably large.