Is Hell Eternal?

Dives and Lazarus

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.