Giving Them Hell

Among other things, a new year is an opportunity to consider the state of one’s immortal soul.

I’m pretty sure that mine is in serious peril. Sister Mary Josephine made it quite clear back in 1959, as did the Baltimore catechism from which she labored to instruct me: Hell awaits the habitual and unrepentant sinner. “Mortal sin [i.e. the worst kind, like deliberately missing Sunday Mass] makes the soul an enemy of God, takes away the merit of all its good actions, deprives it of the right to everlasting happiness in heaven, and makes it deserving of everlasting punishment in hell.” ¹

As to the nature of that punishment, the catechism explained:

1379. What is Hell?

Hell is a state to which the wicked are condemned, and in which they are deprived of the sight of God for all eternity, and are in dreadful torments.

1380. Will the damned suffer in both mind and body?

The damned will suffer in both mind and body, because both mind and body had a share in their sins. The mind suffers the "pain of loss" in which it is tortured by the thought of having lost God forever, and the body suffers the "pain of sense" by which it is tortured in all its members and senses. ²

For those who feel the need for still more information, Dante’s Inferno is the Fodor’s of the afterlife, telling (according to Wikipedia) “the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the ‘realm of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen.’”

The following only begins to suggest what is in store for the damned:

Naked and futile, they race around through the mist in eternal pursuit of an elusive, wavering banner while relentlessly chased by swarms of wasps and hornets, who continually sting them. Loathsome maggots and worms at the sinners' feet drink the putrid mixture of blood, pus, and tears that flows down their bodies. This symbolizes the sting of their guilty conscience and the repugnance of sin.

That, mind you, describes the fate, not of actual sinners in Hell, but of “the Uncommitted” who are consigned to Limbo, a kind of suburb outside the bounds of Hell itself. ³ According to Dante, there are eight circles of Hell beyond that, filled with tortures of increasingly ingenious Divine sadism.

Hell has not met with universal approval, even amongst Christians. According to the late Nikolai Berdyaev, Christians, by inventing Hell, have “devised a whole system of terrorizations: e.g. the atrocious doctrine of eternal torments in hell is largely a projection of sadistic instincts, a Christian transmutation and sublimation of the primitive instinct for revenge. I do not question the existence of hell,” Berdyaev continued; “indeed, I think that hell is a very common and a very profound human experience—a terrible and ghastly contingency on the pathways of human life. But I regard the erection of an ontology of hell as monstrous.” 

On the other hand, atheist philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville thinks that Hell is an idle threat: “The perspective of hell,” he claims, “is less disturbing than that of nothingness.” Moreover, few Christians even believe in Hell anymore; they see it, says Comte-Sponville, “as basically a metaphor. Only heaven, apparently, is to be taken literally. Quite a step forward!” he concludes.

I will not belabor this subject further; anyone interested in a comprehensive history of Hell should consult the likes of Jeffrey Burton Russell or Elaine Pagels. You might also consult The Penguin Book of Hell, by Scott M. Bruce, a recent compendium of damnation that critics have called “quite terrifying” and “a rich source for nightmares”.

My point is: a new year is, or can be, like a new broom, sweeping clean our misdeeds of the past and clearing our path to a brighter future uncluttered by sin. Therefore, I will endeavor this year to keep in mind the advice of Robert Frost: “I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to Hell in his own way.” ⁴

Happy New Year!

___________________________________________

¹ It is theologically suspect, if not explicitly heretical, to suggest that man has (or can have) any “right to everlasting happiness in heaven”. Salvation is entirely unmerited, a gratuitous mercy of God bestowed upon undeserving humanity; what can the authors of the Baltimore catechism have been thinking? (The same critique holds for their notion of “the merit of all [the soul’s] good actions”: what “merit”? What “good”?)

² Briefly to digress: re-reading the Baltimore catechism after lo these many decades, now and then I find its reasoning startling, even inexplicable. Take its response to the query, “How do you know that man was created for God alone?” The catechist tells us: “I know that man was created for God alone because everything in the world was created for something more perfect than itself: but there is nothing in the world more perfect than man; therefore, he was created for something outside this world, and since he was not created for the Angels, he must have been created for God.” Unfounded premise, unproven assertions, and a closing non sequitur for the ages: even as a fifth-grader, should I not have questioned such shoddy reasoning? But then I would have been sentenced to clapping erasers after school, and no one wanted to be stuck with that—unless it was for Miss Bishop, the lovely young third-grade teacher.

³ It may provide some relief to recall that “Hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned.” Having scorned more than a few women in my life, I’ve experienced my share of their justifiable fury; Hell should present no terrors for me.

⁴ Frost’s advice was paraphrased by Wild Bill Hickock (in the TV show “Deadwood”), who said to his friend Charlie Utter, “Can you let me go to Hell the way I want to?” To which Charlie, good friend that he was, replied, “Yeah. I can do that.” This also calls to mind Bob Dylan’s “You go your way and I’ll go mine.”

Comments

[Jack Shifflett]

Ann: but I said you can get there in your own way...in point of fact, this is one of the least coherent, least thought-out pieces I've ever posted; I just felt like posting something this morning, and this is what came out.

[Ann Markle]

Wait - did you just tell me to go to hell? And here I thought you were my friend! It was one of those times when I read through with great satisfaction and agreement, then did a double take and said, “Hey, wait a minute!” 😳🤪😁