God... in hell. That is, about the hope of universal salvation (Part I.)
Who are the dead? They are primarily our loved ones and those whom we worship as official or personal saints. The Christian faith teaches us that there is a real possibility of contact between us and the multitude who see God face to face. This possibility has nothing to do with - what we call - Invoking Spirit. This is based on faith in the power of human relationships, which through prayer become stronger than death itself.
We turn to the citizens of heaven because we believe they can ask God for us. On the other hand, it is we who intercede for the dead, trusting that our prayer – freed from the shackles of time and space – have an impact on the shape of their encounter with the merciful Judge. This is how we live the catechism truths about heaven and purgatory. However, there remains a third possibility called hell. What is it? How can one accept the existence of this land of despair and absurdity? Or is eternal damnation just a biblical metaphor or even a medieval invention from which, in the name of faith in a good God, one must depart as soon as possible?
Hell as a condition of love
Sometimes one can meet with a radical statement: I do not believe in hell! This opinion does not have to be heretical at all. Moreover, it can help us in our attempts to understand the doctrine of hell. The Gospel, in fact, does not consist in proclaiming an alternative: heaven or hell. The Master of Nazareth did not come to preach the news of two kingdoms, God and Satan. We are not called to believe in hell, but to believe in God's saving power. Christ's mission is, from beginning to end, a mission of love, a constant invitation to the heavenly banquet. The history of salvation cannot be imagined according to the logic of dark humor: Let the willing come out of line, and whoever does not come forward will be shot! God does not deal with man as a carrot and stick. He does not tempt with heaven and then scare with hell. The Creator did not make two worlds: evil and good. Everything God created was good. Hell is not His work, and therefore those who do not believe in hell are right...?
This does not mean that we reject the catechism teaching of eternal damnation. On the contrary, we affirm that the possibility of condemnation is a necessary, though only negative, condition for the salvation of a free being, such as man. But let us start from the beginning. God did not have to create anything. As a community of three: Father, Son and Spirit, He is the absolute Love that has no need to express Itself in something outside of Itself. But it is by His divine will that the world exists. The meaning of this existence consists only on love, that is, on the vocation to co-experience what constitutes the nature of God.
Existence understood in this way must be endowed with freedom. Only a free being is capable of love. This is where the problem arises, which consists in the indelible tension between freedom and the call to love. In creating man capable of loving, but also God give men the ability to reject love. A free person has the opportunity to say to God: I don't want to be with you! The Almighty Creator cannot force anyone to open up to the good. Violence destroys freedom, and where there is no freedom, there is no good or evil. Therefore, it is impossible to create a man capable of love without the possibility of what we call original sin and, consequently, without the possibility of eternal damnation. Paradoxically, then, God's omnipotence appears as a weakness towards a free being, to whom the word is addressed: Adam, I love you!
The refusal of love can take many shapes. It is most often expressed in everyday, banal gestures, which we regret a moment later. In the name of human freedom, however, we must accept the much more serious possibility of an almost absolute closure of a person in a circle of hatred. Man can deny himself by turning away from the source of the meaning of his existence. This is what we call condemnation. Hell is simply where there is no God. And every free being, capable of loving God, is at the same time capable of throwing the omnipresent Creator out of the area of his freedom. This ability is a negative condition for the finite being to enter into a loving relationship. Hell, therefore, appears not so much as a punishment sent by God the Judge, but rather as a possibility inseparable from the condition of the person called by God to the community of love.
The purpose of this reflection was not to give an unequivocal, satisfactory answer to the question of hell. Moreover, no reasoning should pretend to explain the possibility of eternal damnation. This possibility will remain a scandal that cannot be silenced by a theory. Moreover, pointing to created freedom as the cause of hell does not fully solve the theological problem of evil. Since the Almighty loves every man and desires his salvation, then any case of damnation would also be an eternal defeat of God. One may ask, then: How could God, without violating human freedom, realize his plan of universal salvation? How can God save someone who seems to be stuck in a closed circle of despair and hatred?
We will continue Tomorrow
fr. george