Hell: Myth or Reality?

“HELL REALLY exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more.” With these words Pope Benedict XVI addressed a parish gathering in a northern suburb of Rome in March of last year. The Pope went on to say that in the modern world many people, including some believers, had forgotten that if they failed to “admit blame and promise to sin no more,” they risked “eternal damnation – the inferno”. Finally, the Pope reiterated the Catechism concept which holds that hell is a “state of eternal separation from God,” to be understood “symbolically rather than physically”.

Hell is not a pleasant subject to talk about, and most unbelievers simply dismiss it from their minds – except for using it as an occasional curse word! Even some unbelievers, however, would agree that there ought to be some kind of hell. After all, if the Stalins and Hitlers can get away from their crimes and atrocities by merely dying, which is the common lot to all mankind anyway, then life is totally unfair and unjust. But why did the Holy Father deem it necessary to remind us of this frightful possibility in our future? Is the idea of hell actually contained in the Bible, or is it a misconception about the afterlife that has somehow crept unawares into Catholic doctrine? If hell exists, what is it like? Are we to conceive of it as a place where souls burns for all eternity?

As considerable uncertainty exists on this very controversial subject, even among the faithful, the director of this magazine asked me to interview a theologian whom our readers are already well acquainted with, the Polish Franciscan friar Father Zdzislaw Kijas, Prsident of the Pontifical Theological Faculty of St. Bonaventure-Seraphicum in Rome. Fr. Kijas was glad to contribute once again to the Messenger, and to illustrate the subject to our readers, because he believes that this thorny issue has been sidelined for too long, even within ecclesiastical circles.

Father Kijas, does hell really exist?

There can be no doubt about its existance. The Church, in a short series of concise statements which bring together its highest teachings, has declared in paragraphs 1033 and 1035 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “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’.” And, “The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. 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.”

These statements need not surprise us. The Church is only affirming what is also held by all the major religions of humanity. All the great faiths have, as part of their tradition, the belief in a negative reality in the afterlife for those who have been partcularly evil in this life. This belief, however, did not generate sadness or suffering, rather did it comfort ancient man, and it lead him to a positive attitude to life.

How could anyone feel comfort and joy at the thought that such a horrible place exists?

Simply because belief in a place in the hereafter reserved for the punishment of those who had been evil was seen as proof of the objective workings of divine justice. It was seen as a guarantee that those who had managed to escape human justice here on earth would not succeeed in avoiding God’s justice – that they would not manage to ‘get away with it’ in the end.

However, when European humanity, at the birth of the modern era, stopped looking at itself with the eyes of God, and in its place began to look at itself with the eyes of modern materialistic science, of materialistic psychology, then humanity found itself in a chaotic and dismal world, a world that was without any moral order, and in which life was meaningless. Absolute truth existed only in the natural sciences, but in the realm of faith and morals, relativism and nihilism reigned supreme, so that brute force became the sole criterion for moral truth.

In this way Hell ‘ascended’ to earth; it is ironic that it was precisely when humanity stopped believing in hell, that this horrible reality began to emerge before its very eyes in the material plane, in the horrors of the world wars, of the impending nuclear catastrophy, of ethnic cleansing, of the gulags and concentrations camps, etc.

Hell, however, is a location, a place, only in the metaphorical sense; it would be more appropriate to define it as a psychological condition in which those who die in a state of mortal sin are forever contemplating the horror of their deeds and, moreover, are painfully aware of that which they have lost for all eternity – communion with God, the source of all true happiness. Tales on hell and the sufferings that its occupants are experiencing have always had the scope of motivationg people to steer clear of sin and evil and to pursue goodness and morality. And those hellfire preachers of the Middle Ages had to use such vivid imagery as a paedgogical tool to extripate vice and promote virtue in a population that was still wild and childish.

Is it possible to prove the existance of hell through human reason?

The Church has, in fact, already done this because the existance of hell is one of the consequences of what is called “the natural moral law”. As the Cathechism states in paragraph 1954, “Man participates in the wisdom and goodness of the Creator who gives him mastery over his acts and the ability to govern himself with a view to the true and the good. The natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie: The natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin… but this command of human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter of a higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be submitted.”

Clearly, this ‘higher reason’ of which the Catechism speaks is infused into every human being from above, from God. The idea of hell, therefore, is not really the belief of this or that theologian, but has been inscribed into the human heart and mind by God. Our intellects can see clearly that if freedom exists then the possibility of hell must also exist. This is because freedom entails having the capacity to choose between good and evil. The meaning of life lies in self-education, in improving one’s ability to discern good from evil, and in strengthening one’s capacity to perform acts of goodness. The possibility going to hell therefore, has existed for us from the moment God gave us the gift of freedom.

At this point, however, it is very important to understand that, even though the possibility of going to hell has existed since the moment God gave us the gift of freedom, that God has never ‘created’ hell. Hell is something which we create. Whether in this life or the next, hell is always our own doing, our own creation, because hell is ‘self-exclusion from God’ – it is not God who excludes us, it is we ourselves who freely choose to exclude ourselves from Him.

God has created man in His image and likeness, and has thus creted him with His own capacity of freedom. God never compels anyone to do good or evil. This is because God is love, and love is either free, or is not love at all. Hell is the logical consequence of the use of that freedom outside of the realm of love, who is God.

Why did the Holy Father raise this subject three times last year?

Because this issue has been very much neglected in recent times, even in ecclesiastical circles, to the detriment of the faithful, who have thereby been deprived of a teaching that makes moral doctrine and Catholic teaching come full circle.

Benedict has again touched upon this subject with great clarity and style in his encyclical Spe Salvi. In it the Pope writes that Christian hope cannot fail because it is based on a promise made by a being who desires nothing but our own good.

In paragraph 45 of the encyclical the Holy Father states, “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”.

This reality of hell, however, entails the existance of a counter-reality, that is, of the existance of people who, on account of their inner purity and intimate communion with God, are already in a psychological state similar to that of heaven. This is also brought out in the same paragraph, when the Pope mentions people who are already experiencing a privisional form of bliss, “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.”

The choise between these two dimensions, between heaven and hell, is ours, but God is continuously at our side helping us to choose heaven in any way He can.

In your opinion, is hell full or empty?

One of the greatest theologians of the last century, Urs Hans von Balthasar, wrote, “Hell exists, but it could be empty because God’s mercy is as infinite as His forgiveness”. This, however, is just speculation, and I simply do not know the answer to this question. All I can say is that Jesus refers to hell as a place where one’s life is lost, as a place where one is excluded from all feelings happiness. Each one of us prepares his own hell in this life from the moment we choose evil over good.

One problem I am still struggling with is this: How can God the Father, who is the very essence and substance of Love, condemn any of His children to such a horrible destiny?

Your problem arises because you have not yet freed yourself from two misconceptions. First of all God never condemns or sentences anyone. When we appear before God on the Day of Judgement, it is not God who sentences us, but we ouselves. This is because on that Day we will see ourseles as we really are in the mirror of God, and in that faithful mirror we will have the right criteria for judging ourselves.

In this connection it is interesting to note that, just as we already have a foretaste here on earth of what heaven and hell is like, so do we also have a foretaste of this Day of Judgment here on earth in the form of what we call the “voice of conscience”. Our conscience already reproaches us whenever we do something wrong or evil.

Secondly, as I have already mentioned, hell is ‘self-exclusion from God’. It is our own creation, and we are not sent there by anyone else but ourselves.

Jesus speaks of hell fire, and so do the mystics and seers in their visions. Why is hell assocaited with fire?

Fire is a symbol of eternity, of that which is perennial. In the theophanies (divine manifestations) of the Old Testament, fire symbolises the holy and unapproachable nature of Yahweh. We read in chapter 19 of Exodus, “The whole of [Mount Sinai] smoked, because Yahweh descended on it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.” Also, in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, God is represented as a fire that consumes and judges everything.

In his address to the parish priests and clergy of Rome at the beginning of Lent this year the Holy Father said, “Today people have become used to thinking: what is sin? God is great, He knows us, so sin does not count; in the end God will be kind to us all. It is a beautiful hope. But both justice and true guilt exist. Those who have destroyed man and the earth cannot suddenly sit down at God’s table together with their victims. God creates justice.”

Our choices, whether for good or ill, will have consequences, despite the fact that God will use His ineffable goodness to help us, and that His willingness to forgive us is boundless.

So, despite the terrible reality of hell, God remains a loving father to us all.

Absolutely. Jesus Himself has told us that God is Our Father. This is brought out in the parable of the lost sheep, where God leaves the other 99 sheep behind, and will not rest until He has found the missing one. God cares for each one of us; He cares for our personal happiness and spiritual well being. And, of course, what more eloquent expression do we need of the depths of God’s love for us than the sacrifice on the Cross of His only begotten son as atonement for our sins?

The creature is always inferior to the creator. Now God is the creator, and we are His creatures. One of the consequences of this is that we can never find complete fulfilment, complete happiness, in other creatures – who are at our own level or even below us. True happiness can only be found in that which is above us. Now, the only being which stands above us is God. Thus only in God can we find true fulfilment. But we all too readily ignore this fundamental truth of the spiritual life, and search for happiness where we cannot really find it. This ultimately leads us to do evil deeds, and when we persevere along this path, then the doors of hell open.

In this process God suffers with us. He does not suffer in His own being, because He lacks nothing, but He suffers within us, from the fact that we are losing Him, our only true joy.

Therefore those who love God and respect his laws are safe from hell?

Those who love God are sure of salvation. For the Law, the 10 Commandments, are only an indication, albeit a very important one, along the path that leads to complete union with God – and this is what heaven is.