The Vatican Rekindles Hell

BY “AWAKE!” CORRESPONDENT IN FRANCE

“FIRM Reminder from Vatican.” “Hell Revisited.” “Has Hell Misfired?” “The Teachings of the Church on the Hereafter Must Be Safeguarded​—Christians Distressed.”

Those are just a few of the newspaper and magazine headlines that greeted the letter relating to hell published last year by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was duly approved by Pope John Paul II.

This official letter reminded all Catholic prelates and theologians of the “need for perfect faithfulness to the fundamental truths of the faith.” Among these it included the survival after death of the “soul,” “bliss for the just” and “punishment for the damned” in “hell” throughout eternity.

Commenting on this pope-approved Vatican document, the Paris daily Le Monde wrote: “Concerning hell, the Roman Congregation gives a reminder that such punishment is real and that it lasts ‘forever.’ This dogma is undoubtedly the one that raises the most problems in the modern mind. . . . It is the most depressing and improbable of all dogmas. The Roman Congregation that has replaced the Holy Office has brutally reminded us of it, with no commentary and without the slightest effort to explain it.”

“Cool Hell” of Recent Years

This brutal reminder of the ‘reality of hell’ was all the more surprising and distressing to sincere Catholics. Why? Because for some years now the Catholic clergy have been soft-pedaling the hellfire theme. French newsweekly L’Express highlighted this when it wrote:

“Hell has come back into the news after having been more or less purposely forgotten for many years. . . . It is practically virgin material. Thirty years have gone by since hell was preached in the churches. Heaven and purgatory fared no better. The new generation of Catholics have received little or no education about life everlasting.”

The Catholic clergy has been blown along by the winds of change. The advance of science and technology, the end of old-time colonialism, the development of human rights, and education for the masses​—all of this made it expedient for priests to preach more about the here and now than about the hereafter, particularly hell.

It became fashionable in such Catholic countries as France for priests and educated Catholics to “cool down” hell. They explained it away by saying that nobody still believes that God torments people forever in a literal fire. Instead, it was said that the damned bring eternal suffering upon themselves by depriving themselves everlastingly of God’s presence.

This “cool” concept of hell is reflected in Catholic reference works published in recent years. For example, A Catholic Dictionary states:

“Theologians divide the punishments of the damned into that of loss and that of sense. The former of these is indicated in our Lord’s words ‘Depart from me, ye cursed,’ and consists in the deprivation of the vision of God. . . . It is from the knowledge of the bliss which they have forfeited that the chief suffering of the lost arises.”

However, Pope Paul VI had already begun to heat up this “cool” hell back in 1968. Then, in his “Profession of Faith,” he asserted that sinners who continue to reject God’s love “will go into inextinguishable fire.” And now this more recent letter, approved by Pope John Paul II, further reminds Catholics that hell is still a place very much to be feared.

Middle-Ages Scarecrow or Current Dogma?

“All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” Such was the inscription placed over the gates of hell in Dante’s Inferno. This 14th-century poem depicts hell as a deep pit divided into nine circles going down to the center of the earth where Satan dwells. Each circle represented a greater degree of suffering and punishment.

That medieval Italian poet made an imaginary word picture of what was then current Catholic dogma and had been ever since earliest times of the Roman Church. The horrible sufferings of hell have also been depicted over the centuries by artists. “Last judgment” paintings are to be seen in many Catholic churches and in museums all over the world. The most famous one likely is Michelangelo’s huge fresco in the Vatican’s Sistine chapel, said to have scared the wits out of Paul III, one of the popes who had commissioned the painting.

Frightening too are the sculptured portals of many Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals in Europe. For example, millions of tourists visiting Paris feel a shudder when they gaze at the terrifying “last judgment” scenes carved into the stonework above the central doorway of Notre Dame Cathedral. There is no gainsaying that what is depicted in these various works of art is excruciating physical torment of a literal kind.

“Oh, yes,” the modern educated Catholic will reply, “but these artistic representations merely show that the hellfire dogma was used in the Middle Ages to scare ‘simple souls’ into serving God. These days, enlightened Catholics know that these ‘last judgment’ scenes symbolize the mental anguish of the damned who are deprived of being in God’s presence.”

But this loophole places the Catholic Church in a dilemma. If all these artistic works depicting hell are a misrepresentation, why was the most famous of them, located right in the Vatican, commissioned by two popes (Clement VII and Paul III)? If, on the other hand, they give a true picture of official Church dogma, then why have Catholic priests been allowed to soft-pedal such a vital doctrine for so long? Sincere Catholics are wondering.

Is “Mental Torment” Any Improvement?

Another thing many sincere Catholics are wondering about is whether even the “cool” version of hell, limiting the suffering to mental anguish at being everlastingly separated from God, is reconcilable with God’s love. Thus French religious writer Henri Fesquet wrote in Le Monde: “Is the God worshiped by Christians a torturer? . . . Is God sadistic, putting the pleasure of being obeyed above the suffering of his wayward creatures?”

L’Express made the following interesting comments: “No more caldrons. But hell continues. It is said to be ‘a state in which man places himself through refusing God.’ Hell is isolation. . . . Even in earthly prisons sensory isolation is considered to be the worst torture.” “Hell, as explained by modern theologians, is just as fearsome as the hell depicted by medieval artists.”

A Catholic Dictionary quotes Catholic “Saint” Augustine as saying that the pain of loss is “so great a punishment that no torments known to us can be compared to it.”

So is it any improvement over the classic “fire-and-brimstone” hell to say that unrepentant sinners will be punished everlastingly by unremitting mental anguish? Many sincere Catholics will readily agree that, morally, it is just as fiendish to torment someone mentally as physically. Both forms of punishment are incompatible with the Scriptural concept of a God of justice and love.

The above-quoted article in L’Express put the question: “‘How could a kind God have his creatures suffer eternally?’ That is a fundamental problem. Theologians reply that paradoxically hell is the ultimate consequence of God’s love for man’s freedom.” Does that sound logical?

What Does the Bible Say?

Interestingly, in his article “Has Hell Misfired?” published in Le Monde after the Vatican reaffirmed the hell dogma, H. Fesquet also stated: “To believe hell exists and is not empty, many obstacles have to be overcome, obviously the first one being survival after death.” Yes, if there is no immaterial soul that survives man’s death, such “hereafter” doctrines as limbo, purgatory and hell collapse for want of souls to inhabit them.

What says the Bible? Let the answer come from Catholic scholars:

“A distinction between the body and the soul is nowhere clearly stated in the Scriptures.”​—Dictionnaire de la Bible, edited by F. Vigouroux.

“The concept of ‘soul,’ meaning a purely spiritual, immaterial reality, separate from the ‘body,’ . . . does not exist in the Bible.”​—Georges Auzou, Professor of Sacred Scripture, Rouen Seminary, France.

The Bible clearly states: “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die.” (Ezek. 18:4, 20, Catholic Douay Bible) Not only does this show that the human soul is not inherently immortal, but it also shows that the punishment for unremitting sin is not torment (whether physical or mental), but death. The Bible further says: “The wage paid by sin is death; the present given by God is eternal life.” (Rom. 6:23, Catholic Jerusalem Bible) Everlasting life or everlasting death​—such is the choice God sets before his creatures.​—John 3:16, 36; Deut. 30:19, 20.

The Hebrew and Greek words mistranslated “hell” in some versions of the Bible mean either the common grave of dead mankind (Heb., sheol; Gr., hádes), from which there will be a resurrection, or everlasting destruction (Gr., geʹenna).a A careful reading of the Bible will convince any honest person that the “everlasting fire” prepared for the Devil, his angels and wicked men (Matt. 25:41, 46) is symbolic of destruction, “the second death,” from which there will be no resurrection.​—Apoc. or Rev. 20:9, 10; 21:8.

“God is love.” (1 John 4:8) The dogma of eternal torment in hell is a gross misrepresentation of the just and loving God whom true Christians worship. The motivating factor in true worship is love, not morbid fear. (1 John 4:16-19) By rekindling the idea of the non-Biblical hell, the Vatican is certainly dishonoring God.

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 17]

A section of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment inside the Sistine Chapel

[Picture on page 18]

Last Judgment sculpture, Rheims Cathedral, France