C.S. Lewis once said that there was no doctrine that, if he had the power, he would more willingly remove from Christianity than hell. But he also was humble enough to recognize that were he to do so, it would destroy the very reason for Christianity. The Good News is really only good when we understand the bad. Unfortunately, there are many in our modern day who, rather than teaching us how to avoid hell, avoid hell itself by explaining it away. In its place they have offered a universalism in which all men will be saved. There are different ways in which this universal salvation is brought about, but one of the more popular versions posits that hell is not everlasting and those who had been consigned there will be given the opportunity to repent and join everyone else in heaven.
According to Scripture, Sacred Tradition and human reason, escaping hell after death is an impossibility. In Hebrews 9:27-28 we are told that just as Christ died once, we too die and receive judgment once. Likewise, Revelation 20:10 says that the damned “will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” That “their worm dies not and the fire is not extinguished” (Mk 9:45) is also taught by Sacred Tradition, not only through the unanimity of the Fathers (c.f. St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Irenaeus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Augustine) but also through the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) which declared that the damned “receive a perpetual punishment with the devil”.
The Permanence of Hell and Human Nature
It is when we apply human reason to Revelation about the duration of hell that we begin to understand why it is the way it is. In our temporal state, our will remains flexible in that it may be changed both before and after a choice is made. We choose based upon some knowledge and only choose differently based on some new knowledge. In short, a change in will is dependent upon a change of mind. Regret only follows upon some new realization.
The ability to change our minds is a uniquely human power, and uniquely temporal at that. The angels, our spiritual counterparts, are incapable of regret because they can’t change their mind. Our decisions are plagued by ignorance, their decisions are always fully informed and thus fully consented to. Their wills remain everlastingly fixed in the decision they have made because they never have a reason to change their mind. When the soul is separated from the body, we will “become like the angels” in that our wills too will remain fixed in the state they were at separation and we have no reason to change our mind.
As we apply this anthropological truth to the question of the damned, it does not seem obvious at first why they should not desire to change their mind. Wouldn’t the pains of hell be enough to make them rethink their relationship to God? The short answer is no and to deny this would begin to tear at the fabric of many Christian beliefs besides the everlasting duration of hell.
A change of mind regarding God in this life requires the action of actual grace. We are incapable of lifting ourselves out of sin and move towards repentance on our own. It is actual grace that moves us. Because it is still my and your repentance however there must be a movement of the will that accompanies the actual grace. It is possible that the will become so hardened that actual grace no longer penetrates the hardened heart. Scripture offers us a prime example in Pharaoh. While Moses pleads with him, his heart remains impenetrable. The will becomes hardened through its own acts and only a supernatural act of God can undo it.
Why Repentance After Death is Impossible
The soul in hell then is incapable of repentance because there is no actual grace present to move them. This is not because God withholds it however. It is so because their will is fixed in a permanent “No!” to God. There is no actual grace is present because no amount of grace could change their mind. Why this must be so becomes obvious once we think about it for a second. This fixity of the will is, in a certain sense, a two-edge sword. It keeps both the damned in hell and the blessed in heaven. If a change from evil to good is possible, then it could also be possible that there is a change from good to evil. In other words, there would be nothing per se that would keep the blessed from crossing over the chasm into hell. This law of human nature cannot be operative for good only. As Abbot Vonier puts it, “God has made spiritual natures so perfect that a wrong use of their powers will bring about results as permanent as the right use of them.”
This, by the way, is at the heart of the error that those who believe in “once saved, always saved” commit. They confuse our temporal state with our permanent state. The soul is not fixed until death, but they insist that it is fixed once a single choice for Christ is made.
All of this helps us to see damnation as caused strictly by the damned themselves and not as a result of God’s judgment. It all depends upon the condition of a person’s soul upon death. Our souls at baptism are reformed into the shape of a cup enabling them to hold sanctifying grace. This grace, as a participation in the divine nature, is what enables us, upon death, to see God face to face. It is what makes our souls flame resistant enabling us to stand within the flames of the Consuming Fire. But our wills, through mortal sin, can also bend our souls so that they are no longer able to hold sanctifying grace. If our souls are never repaired and we die with them in that shape, then we become permanently incapable of standing before God. It is the shape of our souls then that determines are everlasting state.
Catholics have grown very fearful of hell, not in the sense that they try to avoid it, but that they avoid speaking of it. The risk for seeming harsh or intolerant is overwhelming. The problem is that silence on the bad news makes preaching the Good News very difficult. Catholics need to rethink their approach if they are to trample down the Gates of Hell and save many people who would otherwise end up there. This begins by seeing hell for the hell it is and understanding why it must be so.