The Pains of Hell

The Catholic Philosopher #15

Then he will say to those at his left hand, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. […] And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41, 46)

This is the hell of hell, to be consigned to the place, the “fire”, prepared for the devil and his angels. The just are welcomed into a place that God, the merciful Father, has prepared for them. The damned, who could not spare a drink of water for the Lord’s brothers, must go to the place of the devils. And that is the true hell of hell.

We need to recall Satan’s aim—his goal—which is to rule God’s creation. In his hubris, he believes he can rule the world better than God, and he works hard to pervert God’s plans for this world. Wherever Satan rules, there is hell. To the extent that Satan rules some sphere of human life and work—it might be a workplace, an athletic team, or a club; it might be an entire nation—, to that extent hell has seeped into that place. This is why anyone who disbelieves in hell is not paying attention. Its shadows and reflections are all around us.

In The Godfather, the undertaker Bonasera comes to the Godfather, Don Corleone, to buy justice for his daughter who had been assaulted. The State of New York did not give him the justice he sought. But Don Corleone would not sell him that justice. Instead, he asked that Bonasera pledge his fealty to him, to kiss his ring and call him “Godfather”. From that point on, Bonasera was no longer a loyal citizen of the United States. He was loyal to the Godfather, who was to provide him with criminal protection and criminal justice in everything. This is how it is with the devil.

When we want something that we know that God forbids—a satisfaction of lust, perhaps, or sharing a bit of gossip or telling a very profitable lie—he allows us what we want, encouraging us to distrust God’s command as he did with Eve at the tree in the Garden. “You will not die. You will be wise like God.” He soothes the stings of the sinning conscience. We find his regime more comfortable than life under God’s law. As we grow accustomed to his comforting encouragement we move ever further from God’s law of love. The forbidden fruit looks tasty and besides, “you will not die.”

A young man—let us call him “Hans”—joins the army. He may be a patriot, eager to defend the Reich because his Führer has called. He is almost certainly looking for some adventure. (He has not yet experienced combat.) He kisses his sweetheart goodbye and hugs his nervous and tearful mother. He shakes hands with his proud father and goes off to fight for the fatherland and kill its enemies. Eventually, he is assigned to the extermination camp Majdanek, just outside the Polish town of Lublin. When a new batch of Jews and perhaps rebellious Poles are trucked in, it is his job to supervise their execution. He stands in a special room with a heavy window at one end. Through this he is to watch the crowded naked captives as poison gas fills the chamber. He sees them claw at the door, desperately and futilely trying to get out. They can’t. When he sees that the last of them has stopped twitching, he leaves his room to advise the commander that the prisoners are dead. The gas can be pumped out and the bodies removed. Again today he has served his Führer. What does he think? How does he feel? He has probably quenched any ‘wrong’ thoughts or ‘unmanly’ feelings inside. Mother dare not know what he has done. He is starting to live in hell.

Very few of us are called to murder Jews for a dictator. But we are tempted to sin, not to please a Führer, of course, but to please ourselves and our own appetites. Or perhaps to please our companions or employer. There is the man who worked for the finance company. He knows that many of the customers turn to this loan company as a last, or almost last resort. He laughs at how many of them sign agreements that they should know they cannot keep. He laughs when the company forecloses and seizes the borrower’s remaining assets. It is, after all, their own fault. The terms of the contract were clear. He should have read. So, he brags about his company and about his role in making it successful.

Following the devil can be comfortable, because conscience is so malleable. With some mental effort, anything can be justified. In Judas’s shoes, anybody may have betrayed Christ. The soldiers on Calvary were simply obeying orders. With the right perspective, a person can convince his conscience of anything. A man who sticks his hand in the fire feels the pain, but the man who warps his conscience may feel a pang at first but eventually feels nothing. Satan makes his ways look bright and easy.

“And they will go away into eternal punishment,” which is their reward. Having slowly adapted themselves to Satan’s ways, they enter Satan’s kingdom. And here is the ultimate betrayal. He does not even meet the great Master of hell, just a lowly demon who had been assigned to tempt him during his earthly life. And his reward for faithless service? He is berated for his stupidity and incompetence. Perhaps he has shot up a school, killing some classmates and terrorizing the rest, inflicting pain on the parents and the townsfolk. Is there praise in hell for this? No. He has hardly caused a ripple toward the realization of Satan’s plan. This sinner is a loser, a failure in hell. Solzhenitsyn tells us of the pathetic cases of true Communist believers in the Gulag camps, men convinced that if only Stalin knew of their loyalty and commitment to him, he would reward them and free them from their prison. The Great Leader never did and never would. If you have given your all for Satan, he is not grateful, not even grudgingly so. The devil does not love or appreciate his followers. The sinner is turned over to the demons and even worse human souls to be mocked and tormented. The sinner is terribly alone.

And this torment is eternal. We sometimes wonder why the punishment must be forever or at least why the good God does not mercifully reduce the condemned to nothingness. The answer is that even in this life, our souls share in eternity. Even now, your soul and mine transcend time in a way we cannot yet see. In this life of time, we can turn to God for help. The good thief in his dying moment turned to Jesus on the cross, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he was saved. However, to die as a murdering camp guard, a sycophantic loan officer, an unrepentant adulterer, or an embittered gossip, not turning to the one who can save even the worst of us, is to doom oneself to the hell he has chosen already to live in.