Once upon a time, I published a little piece in which I spoke fondly of (and quoted from) one of my favorite books: C.S. Lewis’ THE GREAT DIVORCE. In the piece I remarked that, “It plays with the idea of the damned being perfectly free, if they like, to go to Heaven and even stay, only the vast majority don’t like and find reasons for avoiding the trip, or are repelled by the costs to their self-will when they get a taste of Heaven.”
I should have known that doing so rash a thing as describing the book would inevitably provoke somebody with a Solid Theological Diagram to respond and try to bring me to the Light. For, sure enough, there came this correction to my errors:
David Bentley Hart has successfully refuted the claim that anyone could voluntarily choose hell.
(For background, Hart is the author of an interesting and strongly argued book called THAT ALL MAY BE SAVED. He essentially takes the view of St. Gregory of Nyssa that eternal damnation is ultimately impossible since the love of God will not rest until every human being is won over by the love of God. I think such a view is within the pale of Catholic opinion, given that Gregory is a Catholic saint, but that it is not a settled question, particularly given that the Catechism certainly teaches the possibility of eternal damnation:
1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: “He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. 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.”
1034 Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he “will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,” and that he will pronounce the condemnation: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!”
1035 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.
1036 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where “men will weep and gnash their teeth.”
1037 God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want “any to perish, but all to come to repentance”:Father, accept this offering
from your whole family.
Grant us your peace in this life,
save us from final damnation,
and count us among those you have chosen.
Hart is not a Catholic, and therefore sees no reason to take the Catechism as authoritative. And indeed, his extreme impatience and disdain for any Christian who takes the possibility of damnation seriously suffuses the book.
Still and all, I find that confidence and “proof” are not equal and co-terminous. So I told my reader that his claim concerning Hart seems to me like saying “Hart has successfully refuted the claim that Truman can defeat Dewey”. For myself, I hope he turns out to be right. But I would not bet the farm on it, given that life is ever so full of Himmlers who have willingly chosen to be Himmlers and give no indication I can see of being willing to repent it.
My reader then replied:
He refuted the claim that choosing hell is compatible with any coherent understanding of free well, at least with any coherent understanding of free will in a Thomistic tradition. I rarely use the word “refute” when referring to a philosophical text (I would usually say “argues”), but Hart dismantles the idea of freely choosing hell so decisively that no other term is appropriate. This isn’t about predicting who goes where.
The claim that anyone can choose hell is a pernicious retcon of the historical Catholic doctrine that eternal torture (“cruciare” or “tormentum”) is a just punishment for sin. Since (thankfully) this historical doctrine no longer compatible with most people’s consciences, the “Hell is locked from the inside” retcon of hell has become popular. It’s nicely suited to American idolization of freedom.
It’s pernicious because any threat of eternal torment is spiritually abusive, every time, full stop. Both voluntarist understandings of hell like Lewis’s and possibly empty hells like von Balthasar’s have enabled this spiritual abuse to continue, by putting a modern face on it.
I hope he’s right. But unlike so many of Hart’s passionate fans, I cannot honestly say I know he’s right for the very good reason that I do not know how the Story ends. I do not believe that Hell is an extrinsic punishment imposed from without by God on people who don’t want it. More than that, neither does the Church, describing it as the “state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed”. Hart may be confident that nobody can do that to themselves. I hope he’s right. But I don’t know he’s right and I see no evidence that he has (or even can) “prove” his claim since I don’t believe for a second that he or any mortal knows all hearts.
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5 Responses
It is enough to know the heart of God. Hence, Hart is actually right.
Hart does not claim to “know all hearts”. In his book “That All Shall Be Saved” there are a number of connected reasons to reject the idea that anyone could willingly condemn themselves to eternal separation from God–the nature of free will, the nature of God’s act of creatio ex nihilo among them. I am not able to do justice to the book at the moment, but I too would certainly say that Hart proves his case. Have you read the book?
Yes. I’ve read it.
(First time caller). The fundamental problem with the Catechism texts above is less that they teach eternal conscious torment; there’s still some residual reference to fire but the core punishment is seen as “eternal separation from God”. Rather, its the implicit notion that the welcome of the truine God ceases at human death. The core of Apokatastasis, Universal Restoration, is that God ultimately rejects no-one, in this world and the next and that whether pre-or post-mortem, all will utimately freely choose to fall at the feet of the Heart of Love. (Philippians 2). I was Catholic for 45 years, have been Anglican for 25, and am with DBH 100% 🙂 If you haven’t come across it, you mat also want to real Ilaria Ramelli’s “A Larger Hope”.
I want to agree in theory. But the older I get, the more I see of people who seem to have zero empathy for anyone but themselves, who seem to revel in cruelty and hatred just because it is cruel, I wonder. Which is why I believe in Purgatory. Since I’m human I think in years, so maybe at the end of a billion or so years deprived of real Love and Heaven, and seeing others who go there, maybe there is hope for those people. Then again, my human brain can’t really conceive of eternity, at least not as we humans think of it.