If for any reason you cannot find the paperback version of Playing the Indian Card at your favourite bookstore or online retailer, please ask them to carry it. Protest and picket the store entrance if necessary.
A cardiologist who sees many people revived after heart death believes that 50% of near-death experiences are bad ones. So much for the claim you sometimes here that everyone experiences gardens and flowers and a complete lack of judgment. That’s just what we want to believe. He thinks these bad trips are less often reported for obvious reasons: people are reluctant to tell others they have been judged evil and are bound for hell. But immediately after people revive, their reactions are less filtered. Terror is apparent.
We also hear often from hospice nurses of how people approaching death have visions of dead loved ones welcoming them to the next world. And we hear how comforting these are. But one study suggests that 30% of them are not comforting, but disturbing.
These are things we do not want to hear. But they conform with the wisdom of the ages.
One man studying medicine when he had a “near death experience” was confronted by a figure in white whom he understood to be Jesus; and the figure asked him, “What have you done with your life? What have you done for me?”
And he was told that studying to be a doctor did not count.
What are we supposed to do with out lives? What does count?
We have written elsewhere of the commission Jesus gave to those he identifies in the Beatitudes as his own:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
As discussed elsewhere, “being salty” and “letting your light shine” has to mean the creation of art. Heaven is the New Jerusalem: it is an artifice, a town built on a hill. We build it together with God.
But what if we have no talent?
I came across a letter to Dear Abby recently, from a housewife who laments that she is not actually very good at anything. She has nothing to offer the world, so what is the point of her life?
Surely there are such people. Gifts are gifts; they are given to some, not to all. And God must have a plan for those he does not give gifts as well. Indeed, it must be at least as honourable.
And the mandate for those without talents is perfectly obvious.
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
That is what all of us “do for Jesus.” Moreover, as the Beatitudes make clear, there is no cause for those without talents to feel mistreated or disfavoured by God. The blessed given talents are given suffering to go with it: poverty, mourning, rejection, spiritual hunger.
Abby gives this distraught housewife just the right advice, and it applies to all of us who might feel our lives are meaningless: get involved in volunteer work with some charity.
There are suggestions in the Bible that few people make it
to heaven.
“Narrow is the path that leads to life, and few find it.”
Many read the book of Revelations to say that only 144,000
all told make it to heaven.
The visionaries of Fatima saw multitudes falling into hell.
This is troubling.
I wonder, however, if this is literal. It sounds to me like
the Buddha’s description of upaya in the Lotus Sutra: whatever is
necessary to lure the children out of the burning building. It is perhaps not
so much an accurate description of the population of Hell or the consequences
of sin, as a strategic or rhetorical device to illustrate the right path.
The point may more accurately be, we cannot get to heaven by
going along with the crowd; by doing what everyone else does.
This is necessarily true, because going along with the
crowd, or with others around us, or the social consensus, avoids making moral
decisions; so we cannot be earning merit even if the deed is objectively good.
It is the easy way, and, if by chance also the moral way, as Jesus says, “you
already have your reward.”
But the situation is worse than that. Any crowd or social environment
will tend toward the evil. As the Bible says, the Devil is the prince of this
world. Those guilty of sin will have a vested interest in promoting that sin, encouraging
others to that sin, avoiding personal responsibility for it. Those who go along
will go along, making the sin conventional. As happened in Sodom and Gomorrah; or
the world before the flood; or among the Canaanites or Carthaginians, who
practiced child sacrifice; or the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany; or slavery
in so many countries; or abortion today. The worse the sin, the stronger the
social pressure to condone it. So as not to cause a fuss.
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
So going along with the crowd, a failure to take moral
responsibility, is doubly culpable. It is doing objective evil, and refusing to
take responsibility for it. Taken together, that looks like turning away from God himself, the sin
against the Holy Spirit.
But does this interpretation give us any greater hope? Surely,
by definition, if going along with the crowd leads to hell, most people must therefore
be destined for hell.
Not necessarily. It is actually possible that “the crowd” or
“the social consensus” is not the majority. It could be only the largest single
group, the one that speaks with one voice, even if most people approach issues
individually—since, after all, those who think for themselves do not operate as
a crowd.
It is the NPCs; joined in Hell, of course, by those who
think for themselves but have chosen evil.
What proportion is that of the general
population? Your guess is probably as good as mine.
There are suggestions in the Bible that few people make it to heaven.
“Narrow is the path that leads to life, and few find it.”
Many read the book of Revelations to say that only 144,000 all told make it to heaven.
The visionaries of Fatima saw multitudes falling into hell.
This is troubling.
I wonder, however, if this is literal. It sounds to me like the Buddha’s description of upaya in the Lotus Sutra: whatever is necessary to lure the children out of the burning building. It is perhaps not so much an accurate description of the population of Hell or the consequences of sin, as a strategic or rhetorical device to illustrate the right path.
The point may more accurately be, we cannot get to heaven by going along with the crowd; by doing what everyone else does.
This is necessarily true, because going along with the crowd, or with others around us, or the social consensus, avoids making moral decisions; so we cannot be earning merit even if the deed is objectively good. It is the easy way, and, if by chance also the moral way, as Jesus says, “you already have your reward.”
But the situation is worse than that. Any crowd or social environment will tend toward the evil. As the Bible says, the Devil is the prince of this world. Those guilty of sin will have a vested interest in promoting that sin, encouraging others to that sin, avoiding personal responsibility for it. Those who go along will go along, making the sin conventional. As happened in Sodom and Gomorrah; or the world before the flood; or among the Canaanites or Carthaginians, who practiced child sacrifice; or the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany; or slavery in so many countries; or abortion today. The worse the sin, the stronger the social pressure to condone it. So as not to cause a fuss.
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.”
So going along with the crowd, a failure to take moral responsibility, is doubly culpable. It is doing objective evil, and refusing to take responsibility for it. Taken together, that looks like turning away from God himself, the sin against the Holy Spirit.
But does this interpretation give us any greater hope? Surely, by definition, if going along with the crowd leads to hell, most people must therefore be destined for hell.
Not necessarily. It is actually possible, if not probable, that “the crowd” or “the social consensus” is not the majority. It could be only the largest single group, the one that speaks with one voice, even if most people approach issues individually—since, after all, those who think for themselves do not operate as a crowd.
It is the NPCs; joined in Hell, of course, by those who think for themselves but have chosen evil.
What proportion is that of the general population? Your guess is probably as good as mine.
Friend Xerxes declares, without details, that he came to a “rational conclusion” long ago that there is no afterlife.
Yet he then presents evidence from his own experience that there is an afterlife. He hears his late wife’s voice; he feels her move beside him in the bed.
He dismisses it only by denying Aristotle’s Law of Non-Contradiction, which is the foundation of all rational thought. He says there is no “either/or,” only “both/and.”
In other words, his belief that there is no afterlife is unmoveable by either reason or evidence. The phrase “long ago” here is telling: he, like many another, has his heart set on no life after death, and will not permit himself to think any more about it. It is a doctrine in literal denial of both reason and evidence. On what basis, then, does h hold it?
The New Atheists commonly claim that belief in an afterlife is wish fulfillment. “Pie in the sky when you die.” This is projection. Most people do not want there to be an afterlife. If there is no afterlife, we can do as we please here and now and get away with it.
The concept of an afterlife comes with the concept of cosmic justice, and always has, world-wide. We will one day stand naked before God, all our acts revealed. We must submit to a higher authority than ourselves. According to the Ojibwe, wild dogs will tear us apart for our sins. In Hindu or Buddhist terms, we must pay our karmic debt. Merely ceasing to exist, to break this cycle, is the ultimate Buddhist or Hindu hope: “nirvana” means non-being.
As with so many, Xerxes does not believe in an afterlife because he does not want there to be an afterlife. There is nothing to fear in simply going sleep and never waking up; there is nothing to fear in being blown out like a candle.
On the other hand, his love of his late wife is saying something different. Love speaks of the eternal. Or his wife is herself calling him, out of her love for him.
There are a lot of YouTube videos recounting “near-death experiences” (NDEs). In one I was watching recently, the woman reported feeling an overwhelming feeling of relief, a sense that she had made it safely.
Safely? She’s dead. Safe from what?
She does not say, and perhaps does not know. But the answer is obvious. Safe from sin, safe from hell. I expect the sense is instinctive.
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
We all die. That is not the struggle for which we live.
Interesting as it might be to speculate about UFOs and alien craft, there is a far more mind-blowing issue that gets less attention: NDEs.
That is, “Near Death Experiences.” If they are real, they confirm the immortality of the soul, and make life here on earth seem relatively insignificant. We live only in the antechamber of eternity.
An eternity that, based on our choices here, could be eternal delight or eternal suffering.
According to the researcher interviewed by Andrew Klavan, 23% of those who report near death experiences experience something hellish. But the real proportion who see an awful afterlife is probably higher than this. For this is self-reported, and reporting that one is bound for hell is not great for one’s reputation.
The researcher also reports that those who, in these circumstances, cry out to Jesus for help, find they are rescued. This, for what it is worth, is also claimed in Buddhism: one cries out to Chijiang Posal, or Amita Bitsu.
Yet clearly many do not. Klavan tells of an acquaintance who, after a near-death experience, still insists she is an atheist
Salvation, then, just as the Catholic Church teaches, is available to all right up to the moment of death. Anyone who goes to hell does so by their own choice.
Why do they make this choice? Because they will acknowledge only themselves as God. In modern psychiatric terms, they are narcissists. In traditional religious language, it is the sin of pride. “Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven,” as Milton has the Devil himself explain.
Not that those who submit to God at the last moment get home free. As Klavan’s interviewee reports, everyone goes through a life review, in which they experience everything they have caused anyone else to experience. This corresponds to purgatory: if you have done another harm in life, caused them physical or emotional pain, you will experience the full measure of that harm yourself. All secrets are revealed.
Hospice nurses report that most patients die happy. Usually, perhaps a week or two before the end, they start seeing visions of deceased relatives or friends welcoming them. And they die peacefully, in repose.
It stands to reason that, while everyone may fear the pain of death, and the uncertainty, good people will, on the whole, welcome it; bad people will fear it.
This is probably the truth of the common observation that “the good die young.” They will, on average, because they have reason to welcome death rather than fight it. And we do seem to have some control. People tend to hang on for after Christmas and New Years, or for their birthday.
This is not to say that longevity is automatically evidence of a bad person. Or early death proof of goodness. It may be that a good person lingers because they feel some obligation to do something before they go. A bad person may get shot robbing a bank.
Depressed people become suicidal not actually out of despair. It is more often out of hope. They often kill themselves, or try to kill themselves, because they have a strong intuition that they are going to something better. Some have said so to me. And I have felt the same. The truly depressed are almost inevitably good people, and people with special spiritual insight.
It all makes me want to ponder my own relatives and how they died.
I have litttl real information on my father’s father. He died young, at 61. I was too young to be told much. The simple fact that he died young makes me think he was a good man. Also the fact that he was apparently depressed in this life. One of his favourite sayings was “the majority of men live lives of quiet desperation.”
I remember him as a very gentle man.
Next to go was my mother’s father. I heard that he went to bed one night saying he did not feel well, and did not wake up. That struck me as a good way to go. I assume he was a good man. I remember him, too, as a gentle man.
Next, my mother’s mother. They said at the time, she had just decided it was time to go, that she had no reason to linger; and so she said her goodbyes, to me as to others, and she went. That suggests true blessedness to me. I felt she radiated calm when I went to see her. She pointed out a squirrel outside the window, nuzzling the snow. It was winter, but life went on, and new life would appear.
I remember her as a a gentle woman, and she is mentioned as generous in at least one book. She lived near the train station, and on Christmases, she would bring a special meal to the clerks who were obliged to work on that day. She was known up and down the rails for her Christmas meals.
I also remember that she loved to laugh.
Next, my father’s mother. From what I knew of her in life, she was a conspicuously good person. She volunteered much for charity, and was extravagantly generous to others. As someone used to say of her, “she was always taking in some bird with a broken wing.” She was an observant Catholic, and made a Catholic of me by her example.
However, when in her seventies her heart was giving out, she was preoccupied with various diet and health regimens, and proposed to the doctors a heart transplant. “After all,” she said, “what have I got to lose?”
She was not looking forward to death. She was fighting it. This is not a good sign.
A few weeks before she died, she commented to me that, working on her cousin’s tax returns, she kept getting visions of an invasion by Communists. It seemed so real.
This does not sound like the expected welcoming by departed relatives. Rather, by red demons?
Soon before her own death, only weeks before, her brother died. When informed of it, she was surprised. “I thought I’d get there before he did.”
Others on the point of death apparently get visits from relatives they did not know had died. She didn’t. This perhaps bodes ill for either her or him.
While my grandmother was a kind and generous person, she was selectively and wilfully so. She had favourites. In being overindulgent to her favourites, she was in effect downgrading the worth and needs of others, those outside her magic circle, and taking to herself godlike powers. She was like the mother of a murderer who insists “her boy” could do no wrong, and cares not a bit for the strangers he kills. In the cosmic balance, inordinate and unqualified love is just as wrong as open malice; and ultimately just as malicious. And just as selfish. Think of the relative who keeps pouring the alcoholic spouse or parent another drink.
It grieves me to suppose so, but I fear for her fate.
Next to die was my mother. I have been told little of her last days. But I do recall hearing the doctors were surprised at how far the cancer had spread. Usually, they said, the pain would have driven someone to go to the doctor long before.
This could mean two things. Either she in effect committed suicide, looking forward to death as an escape; or she feared death so much that she was in denial, and was avoiding hearing the fatal diagnosis.
Was my mother a good woman? Most who knew her would insist she was. She was quiet and unassertive. She publicly deferred to my father in everything. But I suspect this was only to avoid taking responsibility. I have hints that, behind the scenes, she was often strong-willed; and if she was, she did not seem to influence her spouse much for the better. She certainly showed no interest in religion, God, or morality. Or, really, in her children, or in anyone other than her husband. This sort of unqualified support is, again, immoral.
Dying out of pure denial was certainly the case with my first wife, who was an atheist and a narcissist. I could feel the lump in her breast for months, and nagged her to see a doctor. Didn’t she care about the fate of her young children? She admitted it was because she was too afraid of the diagnosis. I finally threatened to leave her, and this at last got her to go. Had she gone earlier, she might have survived. Because she stalled, the cancer killed her. At the last, when it had spread to her bone, she insisted she could not believe or accept this was happening to her.
My brother Gerry went next.
He died on his 65th birthday. He seemed to know for months before that he was dying; knew before the doctors did; he told me so. He also said to others, I am told, that he wanted to die. He felt he had won through, and done what he needed to do. He had suffered for many years from depression. His death seems to have been his birthday present to himself.
He was not a conspicuously good person. He was nasty to me when we were both young. He stole things. In his early years, he got in trouble with the law.
In his last years, however, although he remained an adamant atheist, there was a gentleness about him, a humility. He consented to wear a green scapular I sent him. “After all, it can’t do any harm.” So at least, he was not afraid of God, and would not renounce him. I have strong hopes he was saved. I hope he will welcome me when I die.
Most recent to depart was my father. He lived a long life; I think he was 92. He almost died in the leadup to Christmas the prior year—I hear the doctors said all his systems were shutting down, and they expected him to go at any time. Yet he rallied and went home.
He was back in hospital some months later. Pneumonia, I think. Then they said again he was rallying. And then, as I recall hearing it, in the middle of the night watch, he suddenly sat up in bed, as though alarmed, and died.
That does not sound good. It sounds as though he was fighting to the last moment to live. Who dies sitting up? It sounds as if he was trying to force himself awake, awake from the sinister dream he was about to dissolve into.
It reminds me of reports of the death of Elizabeth I: “It is said that Elizabeth resisted lying down out of fear that she would never rise again. Elizabeth lay speechless on the floor for four days before her servants finally managed to settle her into bed.” She is supposed to have uttered the final words “All my possessions for one moment of time.”
To put it simply, he was not a good man. And, to all appearances, he died unrepentant.
In his latest column, friend Xerxes writes that it is important to challenge our fixed notions. This is to introduce the concept of “eternal life.”
As my own body moves inexorably towards its expiry date, I become increasingly convinced that we are bodied people. Not disembodied souls.
We cannot think, act, or even remember, without our bodies. Our thought processes depend on inputs from every organ. Eyes and ears, of course. Also heart, lungs, guts, skin…
Without a body, there can be no ‘me’.
If that conclusion offends you, sorry. You don’t have to believe it. Stick with your own beliefs. But I need to be honest – that’s where I am, at this stage in my life.
The circle of life shrinks as we grow older. Ultimately, it contains just one person. Me.
Then one day I’ll be gone, too.
And life will go on without me.
Notice that he gives no argument or evidence for this belief. He does not, in other words, challenge it. Just as he is saying we must do.
Notice also the phrase “I need to be honest.” We are obliged to be honest at all times. Therefore, if anyone ever uses the phrase “to be honest,” he is actually admitting he is generally not honest. He is reserving the right to lie.
These are examples of how our conscience works. It will not really allow us to get away with anything. It obliges us to condemn ourselves. Xerxes actually does not believe that consciousness ends at death, and he inadvertently tells us so, if we are paying attention.
He is whistling past the graveyard, to use an old expression. He is like the child playing peek-a-boo, who thinks that, if he covers his eyes, he cannot be seen. If there is no afterlife, he need not fear punishment after death. A consoling thought to many.
Irrational as this is, it is the common human reaction. Denial is the common human reaction. It is in the Book of Genesis, after the original sin:
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Yeah; hide from God. That ought to work.
This is actually the ultimate evidence that there is an afterlife. We know there is an afterlife, because we know there is a Hell. We can see that we are programmed, the universe is programmed, by some cosmic programmer, for justice. Anyone who studies history comes to realize, as Martin Luther King says, that “the arc of history bends towards justice.” We see in the lives of those around us, as we see here, that the unjust either soon or eventually turn to self-sabotage.
And yet, we also see that it commonly takes longer than a human life to actually see justice served. Van Gogh was unrecognized in his lifetime. Mao and Stalin died in their beds.
Accordingly, when we do not see individual justice fully served in this world, we must assume the existence of an afterlife, which compensates those here wronged, or who suffered for justice, and punishes those who here do wrong, or profit from injustice. That same cosmic program would have it so.
All the world believes this, as if it is indeed part of our operating system: pagans as much as monotheists.
For monotheists, it is the divine judgment:
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.”…
Then he will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” …
Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
For Buddhists and Hindus, it is karma.
“As a man himself sows, so he himself reaps; no man inherits the good or evil act of another man. The fruit is of the same quality as the action.” – Mahabharata.
Whatever is not achieved in this lifetime, determines one’s rebirth into a life of comfort or of suffering; or into hell itself. You can’t escape karma.
The ancient Greeks called it Dike, an iron law which even the gods were subject to. Evil deeds evoked Erinyes, Furies, which would pursue you in life to the ends of the Earth. After death, one faced an eternal punishment to suit one’s crimes. Greedy Tantalus, thirsty, could not bend down to drink the water that rose to his chest. Hungry, above him he saw a fruit tree forever just out of reach.
Hear me, illustrious Furies, mighty named, terrible powers, for prudent counsel famed; Holy and pure, from Hades born and Proserpine, whom lovely locks adorn: Whose piercing sight, with vision unconfined, surveys the deeds of all the impious kind: On Fate attendant, punishing the race with wrath severe of deeds unjust and base. Dark-coloured queens, whose glittering eyes are bright with dreadful, radiant, life-destroying, light: Eternal rulers, terrible and strong, to whom revenge, and tortures dire belong; Fatal and horrid to the human sight, with snaky tresses wandering the night; Either approach, and in these rites rejoice, for you I call with holy, suppliant voice. -- Orphic Hymn 69
So we know the afterlife is real. We know because of many who have risen from the dead, and told us what they saw. We know from saints who have had visions. We know from those who have heard in dreams from deceased relatives. Christians have the warrant of the Bible. But we know primarily because we know from our programming and our conscience, and from our own close observation of the actions of conscience in history and in others, that Hell is real.
“Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.' He said, 'No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' 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.'"
My father once said the most shocking thing.
“I believe the Jews really are the chosen people. That’s why we have to keep them down. Otherwise they’d control everything.”
Leaving out any other details of my father’s life and deeds, this seems to sum up something essential and unambiguous.
The comment, made in all sincerity, is shocking, of course, for its antisemitism. And antisemitism, history, especially modern history, has shown us, is the most sinister and least forgivable form of racism. Anti-black or anti-Indian discrimination can often look like benevolence. People can convince themselves they are doing it in good heart. Not so antisemitism.
A Muslim image of hell.
Of course, my father was also prejudiced against blacks and Indians, and other groups.
It is also an obvious expression of envy. It tracks closely the sin of Cain. Cain killed Abel because he thought Abel was favoured by God. After pride, envy is the worst of the deadly sins.
But there is something even more disturbing here. My father was saying
He believed in God.
He was God’s enemy.
So he did not have the alibi of ignorance. He knew he was going against God, and fully intended to do so.
Years later, my father has now died, without any sign of repentance, on this or as far as I can remember over any other of his acts or views. His will seemed spiteful. Always a heavy drinker, he encouraged everyone to get drunk at his funeral.
We can never be sure, but this looks like the perfect example of a soul bound for eternal torment.
“God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God is necessary, and persistence in it until the end.”
And God did seem to be merciful. He gave my father ample time, close to ninety years, to sort things out. He never did.
An early Renaissance Christian view of hell.
Why would anyone choose to go to hell? Milton gives the reason, in the words of Satan in Paradise Lost:
"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven”
It is pride, the first and worst of vices.
It troubles me often to think of my father suffering in hell. The traditional image is of burning—supposedly the most painful way to die, but continuing forever. Muslim sources are, if anything, more disturbing than Christian ones. Buddhist sources too speak of awful tortures.
Of course this does not make literal sense, because after death one has no body. Old authorities argue this does not matter, that one may have the same sensation, without the physical organs. Modern authorities, and the Catechism of the Church, say “The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God.”
That makes the fire image a metaphor; but is hardly reassuring. Eternal separation from God seems likely to be more terrible than physical suffering—as mental anguish in this life is easily worse than the worst physical pain.
I think I did my best during his life to fraternally correct, to point out to him the need for a change of heart—and paid bitterly for it. That at least is some consolation. But it is a heavy thought, that one’s father is lost forever.
Amber Heard is helpfully giving us all a master class in narcissism. Predictably, she has not gone silent or backed away after losing her court case. This illustrates the common observation that narcissists are incurable, and cannot be reasoned with; that a narcissist will never change. Heard is actually risking being sued all over again for defamation.
But a narcissist cannot let go. Failure of any kind cannot be acknowledged, or, in their own minds, all is lost. To them, it is kill or be killed.
This is why the generally recommended strategy, cutting all contact, may not work. It will not work unless you can effectively disappear from their consciousness; which is a hard thing to do, and necessarily highly disruptive to your life and livelihood. Once they have targeted you, the narcissist is likely to come after you; and to slander you to anyone they come in contact with.
The only exit for Depp is if and when the media lose interest in listening to Heard.
The incorrigibility of narcissism is no doubt why hell is understood in Christianity to be eternal. Once you have chosen self as your God, there may be no going back.
And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
What is the unforgivable sin? The question is of ultimate importance. For it seems this is the sin that sends you to hell—other sins can be forgiven, the passage implies, not just in this world, but if necessary in the next. They send you to purgatory, but not hell.
A widely-read Orthodox catechism explains clearly and simply:
“’Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit’ is conscious and hardened opposition to the truth, because the Spirit is truth (I John 5:6). Conscious and hardened resistance to the truth leads man away from humility and repentance, and without repentance there can be no forgiveness. That is why the sin of blasphemy against the Spirit cannot be forgiven, since one who does not acknowledge his sin does not seek to have it forgiven.” – Archpriest Alexivich Slobodskoy, The Christian Faith
The ultimate sin is denial. Without an admission of guilt, no forgiveness is possible, from either God or man.
Sadly, it is a common sin. Too many of us are too ready to deny good and evil, and avert our faces when we see evil done. It even seems the social norm.
Who cares if there are a lot of Jews being held in some distant camps?
Who cares if so many babies are aborted?
Why get involved in a war between Russia and Ukraine? No doubt they are both to blame.
More broadly, and less obviously, many of us seem to think we have a right to believe what we want to believe, instead of seeking truth. If we want to be a woman instead of a man, we can simply declare it so. If history does not suit our purposes, we can construct our own “narrative.”
Here’s another objection to becoming a practicing Christian from my 1982 notebook:
Objection: How is one to choose among the various religions? If God exists and is merciful, or even just, how can he permit the existence of a thousand false religions and only one true one? And then leave us with no clear basis on which to distinguish one from the other? And then say that anyone who makes the wrong choice is damned to hell?
To which I respond:
Religions differ far less than this supposes. They agree on most things. It is therefore reasonable to assume that a firm commitment to any religious path is sufficient, eliminating the problem. I hold that this is necessarily so, given these premises. God would not allow the persistence of a faith that did not lead to heaven if practiced in good faith. The New Testament itself testifies to the continuing validity, for example, of Judaism.
Monotheism is not tolerant of polytheism, it is true, and vice versa. The problem with polytheism is the “in good faith” part. Monotheism is ethical; polytheism is not. It does not believe in objective morality.
So why did God allow polytheism to persist? He does not, as a historical fact, as soon as a clear monotheistic alternative appears in any society.
Most religions do not believe that anyone who does not follow them will end in hellfire. Only some Protestant groups do, and some Muslims. Buddhists or Hindus do not. Neither do Catholics. While they hold Christianity to be, of course, the completed truth, anyone who is not aware of this is not punished. So long as their ignorance of it is not their own fault—that is, so long as they have been sincerely seeking truth.
The phrase “no salvation outside the church” is often quoted. But its sense is ambiguous. For after all, what is “the church”?
John 10: 16: “I have other sheep that don’t belong to this fold. I must lead these also, and they’ll listen to my voice. So there will be one flock and one shepherd.”
He might well here be referring to non-Jews, gentiles, as not being members of the flock to which he is speaking. Or he might be speaking more generally, of any visible or formally constituted flock. The true church is the “communion of saints.” This is obviously not coterminous with the people in attendance at a mass, or with the college of bishops. It is the confraternity of those who seek the good, the true, and the beautiful.
And when Jesus says he is the gate through which such souls must enter, surely he means the Logos, the Way, the Truth, and the Light, not that souls pass though his physical body somehow crafted into a gate. That is, one enters heaven by seeking the true and the good and the beautiful, wherever this leads, and despite personal sacrifice.
That said, it is an important step to tie oneself to a particular spiritual discipline and a particular objective set of moral standards. Without this, it is too easy to rationalize everything to your own advantage, and make yourself God. This, perhaps, is the “communion” part of the “communion of saints.”
The traditional view of Hell is as a place of many torments. Dante imagined it as having levels, with the punishments growing more severe to fit the crime.
Yet Catholic doctrine seems to make hell an up or down thing. There is really only one sin that sends you to hell. That is a willful turning away from God. This seems to imply that one punishment fits all, and that punishment is eternal separation from God.
However—justice seems to demand that, on top of this, there must be just retribution for harm caused to others. And the story of the rich man and Lazarus speaks of undying thirst, and of fire.
The damned may eternally crave, like Tantalus in the Greek underworld. They crave because this is their nature: always seeking to satisfy their urges in life, they come to exist only as an enormous appetite thatcan never be satisfied. This is the essence of what we now call narcissism, and which the Greeks called hubris: a desire to possess or devour everything. This is an appetite that can never, in principle, be satisfied, and so it endures eternally. Buddhism, too, speaks of “hungry ghosts,” and sees the necessity of ending all cravings.
Heaven and God, by contrast, is living water, living bread, which if eaten once one can never hunger or thirst again.
As for the image of fire: perhaps this is the fire of desire, an automatic metaphor. The wicked cannot rest.
Isaiah 57:
Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death. But you--come here, you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes!
… You burn with lust among the oaks and under every spreading tree; you sacrifice your children in the ravines and under the overhanging crags.
… But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud.
In the video clip. A college student asks Frank Turek whether she is going to hell.
Turek of course does not want to say so. He dodges the question. But in fact, she is a good example of someone bound for hell.
She says she is a “good” person. She of course hopes this is sufficient. But her definition of “good” is “according to the standards of our society,” and in the expectation that others will treat her the same.
This is what the Bible condemns in the passage
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Doing whatever society expects is an abdication of moral responsibility. It is taking society and your own well-being as God. Idolatry is a far graver sin than lying, theft, or murder.
Speaking of which, some of my students troubled me recently. The text was on lying. And the book asked the question, “Is it ever all right to lie?”
“Sure,” they answered. “If nobody finds out.”
At the beginning of the clip, Turek has just asked the student, “If God exists and if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?”
She answers “there is no proof that I would be able to accept.”
When he offers her a book to read on condition that she promise to read it, she at first will not do so. I wonder if Turek meant this as a test. It demonstrates that she is not looking for the truth.
This is the essential qualification for heaven. This is what true faith means: to seek truth. The Christian God is “the way, the truth, and the light.”
Not wanting truth means rejecting God. And Turek is right in his definition of heaven: heaven is the presence of God, hell is the absence of God. If we reject God in life, we choose for ourselves to go to hell.
I suspect in the end this woman will find her way. I sense a tremor in her voice when she asks about hell. She finally does promise to read the book. Part of her is seeking; otherwise, she would not have come to the talk. She is at least hearing the voice of her good angel.
It is those who will not read the book if offered, who are surely going to hell.
Each of us, before our deaths, perhaps gets that offer.
Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said: “Leaders of the people and elders:
9 If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a cripple, namely, by what means he was saved,
10 then all of you and all the people of Israel should know that it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead; in his name this man stands before you healed.
11 He is the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.
12 There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.”
Lumen Gentium:
16. Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues. But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things, and as Saviour wills that all men be saved. Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel. She knows that it is given by Him who enlightens all men so that they may finally have life. But often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator, Or some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, "Preach the Gospel to every creature", the Church fosters the missions with care and attention.
An interesting theological back-and-forth on YouTube, based on last Sunday’s first reading, from Acts, given above. It is a topic of deep interest to me. For some years, I could not see myself as a Catholic due to the misunderstanding that the Church held that only Catholics could be saved. This is obviously wrong, and offensive. No just God would accept this.
So I agree with Bishop Barron, and disagree with Father Goring, here. On the other hand, Bishop Barron is too eager to allow everyone into heaven. Dr. Martin adds a valuable corrective.
To accept Jesus as God is not simply to acknowledge “Jesus” as the name of God. This is silly and trivial. It is not to declare oneself Catholic without actually studying the teachings of the Church, and sincerely believing them. To do this is to follow the Evil One, having “exchanged the truth of God for a lie.”
Jesus is not just a guy. He is the Cosmic Christ: the Logos of creation. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Light. The person who follows Jesus and is a member of his Church is the person who sincerely and wholeheartedly seeks the way, the truth, and the light.
Any nominal Catholic who has not made a sincere effort to examine the faith, or is not fully in agreement with it, is not Catholic, and is emphatically not saved. Conversely, any Muslim of Buddhist who has made a sincere effort to examine their faith, and is fully in agreement with it, and seeks wholeheartedly to do as it requires, is a true follower of Christ, a true Christian, and is saved. The Church is the community of believers, living and dead. These people are members in good standing.
Bishop Barron focuses on conscience: he seems to say that anyone who sincerely follows his conscience is saved. This is not true; I agree with Father Goring on this. As Dr. Martin points out, this overlooks the critical last three sentences of Lumen Gentium 16. One must not just seek the Good, but also Truth.
Dr. Martin holds that the great majority of humanity is doomed to hell. He cites Matthew 7:
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.
I’m not sure this is what that passage means. It means one must seek truth and morality for oneself, not simply do what those around you are doing. We must examine the stones the builders have rejected.
It does seem to me that most people avoid making choices about truth and morality by simply doing this, by going along to get along. Anyone who does this is condemned. They are not following God or Jesus: they are following society, profit and self-interest.
Apparently the death of Stalin was not entirely as in the film. He lingered for three days, drifting in and out of consciousness. And his daughter, who was present, says that at the last moment, he lifted his fist toward the ceiling, fell back and died.
Somehow, I expected him to show fear.
As Joan Crawford, lay dying, her housekeeper tried to pray in her behalf; and she objected: “Damn it! Don’t you dare ask God to help me.”
Hitler seems to have been unrepentant too. He cursed the German people for having let him down.
There seems something troublingly admirable in this holding out defiant and unrepentant to the end. One thinks of Jacob wrestling with the angel. God gave us free will; should we surrender it so easily?
There is obviously a conflict in our consciences.
Do not go gentle into that good night Old age should burn and rave at close of day Rage, rage, at the dying of the light.
And aren’t these ends more admirable, at least, than Judas’s reported end, hanging himself from a tree in his remorse? That seems, by comparison, rather more despicable. It feels like an attempt to get out of making amends. As Saul did. As Peter did.
Judas is, by tradition, the one person we know with certainty to be in Hell.
Catholic teaching is that God sends nobody to Hell. We decide to go ourselves. Is this what we see here? In their defiance, are Stalin or Hitler or Crawford choosing Hell?
Milton has Satan justify his rebellion against God with the famous phrase, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
This sounds plausibly like the rationale here: a proud refusal to submit your own will to another.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
And yet, again, many or most of us find the sentiment in that famous poem admirable.
Stalin or Crawford or Hitler are, in the end, taking full responsibility for their actions, and in doing so, are also implicitly accepting punishment for their actions.
Perhaps they merit an incalculably long period in purgatory, rather than Hell. Or perhaps at least the lower circles of Hell are reserved for those who, like Judas, do their evil in secret and sly ways, pretend to piety, do harm while feigning affection, and then deny they did it.
A friend who was once a member of the Unification Church (the “Moonies”) recently mentioned to me that they believe no one goes to hell; or perhaps better stated, hell is not eternal.
This sounded heretical in Catholic terms—but then I remembered that von Balthasar, or Bishop Barron, advance the idea that, while hell must exist, it is still theoretically possible that there is no one in it. And that would amount to the same thing: the bad perhaps spend a long time in Purgatory, but no one is finally abandoned.
This idea is appealing, because it is hard to understand why God would create some for eternal torment. This does not seem merciful. It does not even seem fair. Suppose a very bad man, like Hitler, has caused unspeakable suffering to 20 million people. Would justice not be served if, in purgatory, he himself experienced the full measure of all the suffering he had caused? If this is not enough, wouldn’t twice all the suffering he inflicted? Ten times? That is still not eternity.
But then it seems to me there are problems with this idea. To begin with, it is hard to reconcile it with the Gospel. In the story of Dives and Lazarus, for example, Jesus seems to plainly say that Dives is in hell, and there is no path that can take him from there to heaven. Then there are the images of separating the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats. These images do not seem to work if, in the end of all, the wheat and the chaff are back together, and the sheep herd with the goats.
There seems to be, beneath this, an argument that, if everyone gets to heaven, there is no good reason for God to have created this life. This life would seem to be a testing ground, a valley of soul formation. It does not seem to do that if everyone passes the test.
To deny the possibility of hell also seems to diminish free will. What is the sense of giving man free will if he cannot freely choose the ultimately wrong course? That’s something less than true free will, then.
There is another issue as well. Not all sin is against one’s fellow man, or other creatures who can suffer. Sin is not necessarily the infliction of suffering on others. Who suffers if you secretly covet your neighbour’s wife? In this case, it cannot be atoned by experiencing suffering oneself.
The most serious sins, indeed, are against God, who cannot suffer. And it is exactly this, sin against God, that the Church says leads to hell—it is rejecting God.
Jesus, asked what is the greatest commandment, answered “To love God with your whole heart, and your whole mind.”
He called blasphemy against the Holy Spirit “the unforgivable sin.”
In the Ten Commandments, the first three (or four, depending on your division) are sins against God, not your neighbor. Being listed first suggests they are first in importance.
Is God being selfish to make sins against him so much more important?
I do not think so. Define God, or his Logos, as the Truth and the Good. Jesus says something like this: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light.”
Now, which is worse, telling a lie, or denying that there is any such thing as truth?
Surely the latter is sinful on a higher plane.
Which is more sinful, committing a sin, or denying that there is such a thing as sin, as right or wrong?
Surely the latter.
So the first example, committing a sin, gets you to purgatory; but there has to be a higher level of retribution for turning your back on the whole premise of being good or telling truth.
Hence there must be some state qualitatively different from Purgatory to which one would go.
And, if you have rejected Truth and Good as goals, it seems impossible for any length of time in purgatory to allow you to achieve either goal.
There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’
Jesus’s story of the rich man and poor Lazarus is interesting for several reasons.
For one thing, it looks superficially like a parable, yet is not a parable. A parable is a made-up story given as an illustration of some philosophical point. People never have names in parables, to make the point that they are not actual people. Places and times are also not given. Lazarus in this story is named, and so apparently is a real person.
Parables also always contain some shocking or improbable element. There seems to be no such reversal in the tale of the rich man and Lazarus.
So it is to be read literally.
And this is very interesting, because it is a description of the afterlife, and of hell.
So, no, if you are going to accept the Bible as authority, you cannot fudge this one. Afterlife and hell are not metaphors or symbolic or figurative language. They are real places, and, contrary to Bishop Barron and von Balthazar, there are real people there. And there is real suffering.
Gustav Dore
And, according to the story, once you are in hell, there is no way out.
Also interesting—this story says that Judaism remains valid into the New Covenant; there is no point in a Jew converting to Christianity. If you will not follow the law and the prophets, you will not follow Jesus any better.
The other interesting thing in the story is that Lazarus does not go to heaven because of his good deeds. One can say that the rich man goes to hell for immorality; not obvious or aggressive immorality, not bad deeds, but for a lack of concern for a poor man at his door. A frightening warning for the rich. But there is no act of Lazarus’s, on the other hand, that establishes his own concern for others. For all we know, if he possessed riches, he would act just like the rich man in the tale.
Abraham actually says plainly that Lazarus goes to heaven not because of his merit but because of his suffering: “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.’”
Hans von Balthasar and Bishop Robert Barron argue the possibility that there are no souls in hell. Yes, there is a hell, and going to hell must be a real possibility, so long as there is free will, but maybe not ever an actuality.
Reportedly, Pope Francis himself told one interviewer that nobody actually goes to hell, that failed souls instead face annihilation at death.
There are reasons to suppose this is so, to, beyond wishful thinking. Why, after all, would a good God create a soul only for eternal suffering? Surely extended times in purgatory ought to be enough? What about God’s infinite love and infinite mercy?
But a view close to this one was ruled out as heresy very early on in Church history. The assertion that all souls eventually made heaven got Origen declared heretical.
The New Testament seems to say not only that some will go to hell, but that many will go there. This is the “broad gate”; “few are chosen.” Jesus tells the story of Lazarus, in which a rich man is in hell, and he seems to emphasize here that there is no exit, no way out.
The Rich Man and Lazarus.
“Then he will say also to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you didn’t give me food to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and you didn’t take me in; naked, and you didn’t clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’ … These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
It may be possible to tease a different interpretation out of such passages, but the literal meaning seems plain.
In the visions of Our Lady of Fatima, the child seers reported seeing a great number of souls descending to hell.
“As Our Lady spoke these last words, she opened her hands once more, as she had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke now falling back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear…. Terrified and as if to plead for succour, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly: You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go.”
Fatima comes with some impressive miracles to attest to its authenticity, and is endorsed as genuine by the Church.
How can we reconcile this severity with a good and merciful creator?
According to Catholic doctrine, God sends no one to hell. Nevertheless, free will necessarily means that it is possible for some to choose to go to hell. Milton saw this when he had his Satan say “I would sooner rule in hell than serve in heaven.”
One can choose to turn away from God in a systematic, definitive way. All of us probably know someone who has. In a word, narcissists: we call people “narcissists” who choose systematically to put self above God, to think of themselves as godlike. This is the same pride we see in Milton’s Satan.
Heaven is the presence of God; hell is his absence. If they do this, they are choosing hell. And a hardened pride may indeed make this choice irrevocable.
Muhammed Visits Hell.
What about atheists? You may ask. Is belief in God all that is needed? And are all atheists then condemned?
No; nominal allegiance to God, or to the person of Jesus, is not the issue. The New Testament makes this clear enough. Jesus condemns, and seems to assign to hell, the religious authorities of his day: these are the Pharisees. Conversely, even the demons he casts out acknowledge him as the son of God.
Remove, if you like, as atheists do, the notion of a personal God. The Logos remains: that is, the transcendentals, the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. These are God himself, as he manifests in creation.
A good atheist is an atheist because he believes this is the truth. If so, he is a true worshipper of Christ, the Logos. A good atheist is adamant that he is obliged to act morally. If so, he is a true worshipper of Christ, the Logos. Conversely, someone who declares himself a true worshipper of Jesus Christ, yet who is not genuinely convinced this is the truth, is a Pharisee, a hypocrite. He is a worshipper of Satan. Someone who declares himself a worshipper of Jesus Christ, yet who does not consider himself bound to act morally, is a Pharisee, a hypocrite. He is a worshipper of Satan.
And the same, perhaps less obviously, is true of beauty. One who genuinely values and seeks to preserve beauty is a follower of Christ; one who does not worships Satan.
Anyone, nominally Christian or atheist or Hindu, chooses hell if they deliberately turn away from truth, good, and beauty.
We all do, of course, some times. Having sinned does not send you to hell. Repentance, not sinlessness, is what separates the sheep from the goats. 2 Peter 3:9 speaks of God “. . . not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” A good person sins, even again and again, like Peter himself. But he admits he has sinned, and repents. A narcissist will instead insist he never has. He or she will, if necessary, deny the very possibility of good, or truth, in order to preserve the godlike delusion of self.
Sisyphus, Ixion, and Tantalus in the Pagan Greek Conception of Hell.
Now, surely it is plain to anyone that a great many people are currently doing exactly this. It is the dominant doctrine among our educated elite. When a postmodernist says “there is no truth,” they are deliberately choosing hell in just this way. When they say that morality is culturally determined, purely a matter of group consensus, they have turned away from good. They have chosen hell.
Hitler, for one, barring some sort of last-second private repentance, is plainly in hell on these grounds.
It is also a commonplace among academics and others commenting on art today to reject the beautiful and seek the ugly. Much contemporary art is deliberately ugly. I hesitate to say this view is common among artists—I find in my own experience of practicing artists that it is not. It comes from elsewhere, from art criticism. And I expect it is not definitionally possible to be an artist without seeking beauty. Not the pretty or cute; beauty is something other than this, and must include the sublime. But if you simply set up a urinal on its side, and call it art, you are of the devil’s party.
Given all this, it seems obvious that a large number of people are indeed bound for hell.
Is it an absolute majority?
I think there are hopeful reasons to believe it is not. While the educated elite may be officially committed to postmodernism, the average person, having it explained, probably sees it as madness. These are the “little ones” Jesus praised in the Beatitudes. Even many of the “elite” are probably, like Nicodemus, in private dissent.
A Buddhist Conception of Hell.
When the Book of Revelations describes the cosmic war between the loyal and the fallen angels, it says that one third of the stars are torn from the sky: “Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.” This may be a reference to how far evil can extend in cosmic terms. Beyond about that proportion, it tends to be self-defeating. If everybody lies, for example, lying is no longer of advantage. If everybody is out to kill everybody, there is no longer any crime of murder; killing is self-defense. If everybody steals at will, in effect, nobody has any property. And so there is nothing to steal. And so on: moral evil needs good, and good to predominate, in order to exist.
By this rule, which seems at least as solid as the law of gravity, up to one third of souls probably end up in hell.
A further thought on how many go to Hell; mentioned here some time back as a current controversry between Church Militant and Bishop Barron.
The meaning and purpose of life is not obscure. It is to seek the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. This comes in the West from Plato; but it also seems to correspond to the Hindu trinity of sat, sit, ananda, usually translated, inaccurately, as “being, consciousness, bliss.” Sat is the Good, honesty; sit is Truth (true knowledge); ananda is aesthetic appreciation. These three things, at minimum, are of intrinsic value, and their presence gives value to all else.
Although this seems self-evident once pointed out—the real or true is of more value than the false, and the good is of more value than the bad—it is also true that some people—many people—do not seek the True, the Beautiful, or the Good. Some will insist the Truth is socially determined, or the Good is up for grabs, or our idea of Beauty is purely a matter of taste. The whole Postmodernist thing is to deny the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. And a huge proportion of people are assertively postmodern in this way.
This is ultimately cynical. The advantage of rejecting Truth and the Good, even if self-evident, is that it leaves you free to do or believe whatever you want.
Heaven is Good, True, and Beautiful to a maximum degree. To seek these transcendent values is to seek Heaven; and to seek God, who is a perfect being, so perfect Goodness, perfect Being, perfect Beauty. The immediate presence of God is definitive of Heaven. Those who are not seeking them are, therefore, rejecting God, and choosing to turn from the path to Heaven. They are declaring in favour of Hell, and against Heaven, as their intended destination.
And this makes sense in Catholic doctrine: God, being all-merciful, wants no one to end up in Hell, but some of us choose Hell for ourselves. Anyone who is not seeking the Good, the True, and the Beautiful has quite expressly chosen not to go to Heaven.
Sin, in turn, is when we choose anything else before the Good, the True, or the Beautiful. For example, immediate physical pleasure, or social status, or self-regard. These are the three great temptations: the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.
Any of us can slip up in this way at any time. The difference between the saved and the damned, however, is that the saved will understand this as sin, feel regret, and eventually repent. The damned will refuse to accept this, and deny they have done anything wrong.
They may instead protest, like Pontius Pilate, “What is Truth?”
I have long believed that there is really no such thing as an atheist.
Atheists tend to give the game away by making ethics their main concern. Christopher Hitchens used to challenge people to name one sin an atheist could commit that a theist would not. Atheist ads in subways and on buses in Britain and I think also North America read “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Richard Dawkins’ famous book in his own field was titled “The Selfish Gene.” It was, taken in ethical terms, a defense of selfishness.
Their real concern is ethical, rather than ontological. The question is not “is there a God?” but “is there any punishment for sin?” It is this they want to deny.
Atheists who say they do not believe in God commonly devoutly believe in “Evolution,” “Nature,” or “Science.” They speak of their chosen deity in personal terms, as though it has a will and a direction, and emotions, and is all-powerful.
What’s the difference between this and the traditional conception of God? Only the absence of an ethical dimension. Unlike God, Evolution, Nature, or Science do not believe in right and wrong. It is not God they are rejecting. It is right and wrong.
In other words, atheism is just a dodge by immoral people to convince themselves that they can do as they like, without being eventually called to account.
They give this away, too, by commonly claiming that religion is only wishful thinking, while they are the tough-minded realists. This works only if they ignore the concept of Hell, and think only of the possibility of Heaven. By this assertion, they show that it is Hell they are denying—they begin by denying it. Heaven is purely a secondary issue; presumably they have an inner conviction they’d never make it there anyway.
For an evil-doer, the concept of simple nullity is obviously infinitely preferable to that of eternal torture.
As to Hitchens’ challenge, it is easily met. There are ten commandments. The first three or four, about having no other gods before God, and keeping the Sabbath holy, would be routinely broken by any atheist.
You might argue that this is a Catch-22. How can an atheist be held responsible for violating these commandments if he does not believe there is a God? They are about things due to God.
But then, the fact that God includes these among the commandments suggests that God himself does not allow the possibility. There is, God here attests, really no such thing as atheism.
It indeed seems reasonable to assume that God would have imprinted the awareness of himself in the psyche of each one of us, and in the universe we experience. The universe is a conversation God is having with us.
St. Paul wrote to the Romans:
For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:20).
The existence of God also seems apparent to human reason seven ways to Sunday: there are many rational proofs of the existence of God. An atheist, if sincere, needs to have grappled with and somehow disproven all of them. And I think it is fair to say that nobody ever has.
“Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason.”11 - Catechism of the Catholic Church; Vatican Council I, Dei Filius 2:DS 3004; cf. 3026; Vatican Council II, Dei Verbum 6.
The common claim that the existence of God is an article of faith, and up for grabs, is a scam.
Anyone who asserts that there is no God is committing a willful act of denial.
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