Sam Harrison writes:

Yes, a contribution! As usual, “summer break” didn’t turn out to be much of a break as far as free time was concerned, but these are some of my collected thoughts from the past few weeks. Also, I know it isn’t my day to post, but I guessed Hannah wouldn’t be posting, and since I’ll be away from the comp on Friday, I thought I’d go ahead. Anyway, enjoy and criticize mercilessly.

Calamities, as a rule, are always interpreted as chastisement from on high. I’ve heard hurricanes, tsunamis, the Holocaust, wars, etc. explained as God’s punishment for the sins of our time. This view of God’s role in the world is well expressed by Eliphaz in Job: “I have seen those who work iniquity, and sow sorrows, and reap them, perishing by the blast of God, and consumed by the spirit of his wrath.”

I believe we can all agree on the definition of sin/evil as that which is at variance with God. Therefore, calamity to punish sin is punishment for diverging from God’s will. In other words, a punishment for exercising our free will.

A tyrant, by its initial definition, was just a ruler who seized power. However, after the ideas of democracy became more prevalent, tyrant came to denote a self-serving ruler who utilized executions, fines, imprisonments, exiles and other punishments to preserve his control of the people. Plutarch distinguished Tyrants and Kings as ruling by the fear and love of their people respectively.

If we are to propose that these calamities are divine chastisements, as Eliphaz does in Job, then we ought not to call Christ our King, but rather our Tyrant, purely to maintain correct word usage. But anyway, that’s just an appeal to pathos, not an argument. And this vein isn’t my main point, because Job says almost exactly the same thing, but I’m using as an introduction.

Now, God being essentially the summation of perfection and being, and evil being a lack of perfection, it is impossible that anything issuing from God could be evil. Therefore, in these terms, it is impossible that he would inflict calamities meant to punish those who chose to oppose him. Bible quotes: “Whom the Lord loves He corrects, and chastises every son whom He receives;” Proverbs 3:12; “Whom I love I rebuke and chasten;” Revelation 3:19. It would appear, then, that any chastisement is not punishment, but a gift. And since it issues from God, suffering, then, is a good. This is the same conclusion that the book of Job reaches: suffering is a grace from God, to help increase the virtue of the just.

I’m finally coming to my main point: the nature of hell. Ultimately, we know that souls will end up in one of two places: heaven or hell. The main thing to remember is that this will be for all eternity—more on eternity in a bit. In these terms, our life on earth is a period for us to choose between God, and un-God. By choosing virtue, we chose to aspire to perfection, and by choosing vice, we choose to pursue lack of perfection.

God of course, desires our love. This love is impossible if it is compulsory, and so we’re given this period to choose. By the way, I’m going from one point to another without proving each individual point, because I think these points are generally accepted tenets of Christianity; they’re nothing new. I don’t know about Calvinists, I’d have to double check, but I think most Christian faiths believe that God loves each and every person with infinite, complete love. His love is so deep and so unselfish that he desires that not a single one be lost, but goes so far that he gives us free will to choose.

With that kind of love, to picture God taking those who chose not to serve, and, in wrath and anger hurling them into eternal torture is somewhat absurd. The book of Job states that suffering is granted to both the just and the evil as a means of aid, because, while they are still alive on earth, there is still time for them to choose God over evil. However, once a soul has entered hell, there is no more chance of it returning to God. Therefore, any suffering inflicted would be revenge, pure and simple. Punishment, as retaliation for an injury, as I’ve disjointedly shown above, is completely incongruous with God’s total perfection of love.

I think I need to say a bit more before I continue about an earlier point: the choosing between God and evil. The best way I can think to put it is to use an example from Plato’s Crito, when Socrates if having the Laws of Athens explain to Crito how he has validated their agreement by remaining in his home city:

SOCR.: ‘Consider then, Socrates,’ the Laws would probably continue, ‘whether it is also true for us to claim that what you are now trying to do to us is not just. Although we have brought you into the world and reared you and educated you, and given you and all your fellow-citizens a share in all the good things at our disposal, nevertheless by the very fact of granting our permission we openly proclaim this principle: that any Athenian, on attaining to manhood and seeing for himself the political organization of the State and its Laws, is permitted, if he is not satisfied with us, to take his property and go away wherever he likes. If anyone of you chooses to go to one of our colonies, supposing that he should not be satisfied with us and the State, or to emigrate to any other country, not one of us Laws hinders or prevents him from going away wherever he likes, without any penalty.’

In the same way, I think we are given our lives as a chance to observe all “the good things at our disposal” that God can give us, and we can, by turning away from love and virtue, choose to give up our citizenship of Heaven. My main point is this: if we acknowledge God as omni-benevolent, and a soul’s entry into Hell as a free choice and final, then the idea of active punishment for that soul is completely ridiculous. The final principle would be this: there are no punishments in hell, only consequences. Just as, if one were to leave Athens for the colonies, he would give up the assurance of laws, freedom, etc. he would not receive a punishment for having given these up. He would not have to deal with punishments, but the immediate consequence of having given these things up, the fact of their absence.

This, I think, is all that Hell consists of. This is not to say that it is pleasant. I think the souls in Hell would have infinitely more pleasure if they were being whipped, scourged, fried, etc. However, the consequence of giving up God and all his gifts is far more terrifying. First, what would they be giving up? All love, all truth, all beauty, all perfection: everything that is good. I don’t even think there would be anything in hell material at all, since the material world, created by God, is therefore good, and of God. Here’s the consequence I propose is endured in Hell: eternal boredom.

Before you start laughing, think about what eternity entails. I thought about it a lot, and when I finally realized what the concept of no end meant, it was kind of terrifying. That’s the only reason men can endure living in evil on earth, because of the short span of our lives, and the reassuring thought that it might end with death. I even thought, for a minute or two, that oblivion, non-existence, would be better than the happiest eternity. But of course, in heaven, I imagine, everything won’t be so Euclidian, and that won’t turn out to be the case.

But then, consider eternity without anything. An immaterial spirit, who has resigned his citizenship of Heaven, and consequently given up truth, love, etc. etc. It’
s hard to realize what agony that would be. ‘Bored’ has a kind of childish connotation with it, something that only happens to someone without any imagination who’s deprived of TV for a few minutes. But after a few thousand years of complete inactivity, wouldn’t they wish that God would fry them with fire and fill them with worms, so they could curse him in spite? But he is all loving, so he would only love them, even though they had repudiated him. And that would be completely unbearable to them. They would wish they could go insane, that they had bodies they could tear and teeth they could grind: they would yearn for suffering, to dilute their agony.

Anyway, that seems to me to be most likely the nature of Hell. It’s expressed pretty well in Matthew: “And the unprofitable servant, cast ye out into the exterior darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” In conclusion, there are no punishments, only consequences, and anonymous, you are the blockhead. :D