Tag Archives: Mortal Sin

The Permanence of Hell

Anthropology, Church Fathers, Communion of Saints, Devils, Heaven, Magisterium, Mercy, Scripture, , , , , , , ,

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.

On Absolution without Confession

Sacraments, Sin, Spiritual Life, ,

At the heart of Christianity is freedom; for it was for “freedom’s sake that Christ set us free” (Gal 5:1).    So it is rather strange that the two things we fear most are the very same things He freed us from—death and sin.  We do not like to think or talk about either except when it comes to denying their reality.  It is this self-deceptive practice that compels me to offer the previously promised second example of our painful plucking and splitting of theological hairs.

The average Catholic probably can’t name all twelve Apostles, but they can tell you the conditions for mortal sin.  That is because they are sure to have heard a homily or three about it in one of the Masses that they didn’t miss.  They have learned that for a sin to be mortal it must be grave matter and it must have been done with full knowledge and consent.  In a previous age the emphasis was always on the “grave matter” part.  With a cultural turn to the subjective, the emphasis is now on the personal aspects—knowledge and consent—and almost always with the goal of absolution without confession.  If you can absolve from the pulpit then the lines in Confession will shrink while the lines for Communion will grow.

The Pastoral Approach?

What makes this rather sticky is that technically Father is right.  For someone to be guilty of mortal sin, they must have done something that is particularly grave.  They must have known it was grave matter and they must have done it with full freedom.  That is solid moral theology, but, as will be obvious shortly, is bad pastoral practice.

The Prophet Jeremiah tells the people that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9).  His point is that the knowledge and intention of our actions are almost always hidden, even from ourselves.  Thanks to our fallen condition our capacity for self-deceit is quasi-omnipotent.  When faced with admitting our faults or justifying them, we will almost always choose the latter.  It is as if we are naturally trained in the art of moral hair splitting so that when Father or our favorite armchair theologian splits hairs on this issue it finds our sweet spot.

Once can see how this might lead to a rejection of the existence of mortal sin.  It may exist in theory, but is practically non-existent except for a few of the most hardened of sinners.  If we can’t know two of the three conditions with any surety, then there is no reason to worry about it.

This is a sure sign of the collective insanity caused by Original Sin.  The reasonable man, when faced with a large mass protruding from his abdomen would not go to the doctor because he does not feel bad.  He would go because he has an objective, measurable sign that he may have cancer.  So too with mortal sin.  When all objective signs point to mortal sin, the reasonable man would go to Confession.  Like the man with the tumor, he assumes the worst and goes to the Divine Physician’s clinic in the confessional.  It may be nothing serious, but when it comes to the health of our soul we should assume the worst.  The Good Doctor will sort out whether you actually have a spiritual cancer growing in your soul, but either way you have had an encounter with the living Christ in the Confessional.  Christ has already paid dearly for the premium and empowered His ministers to forgive sins, why not take advantage of it?

Why the Doctors of the Church Did Not Split Hairs

There are valid reasons why there was a movement away from emphasizing the “grave matter,” especially in the post-Jansenist Church.  But we ought to seriously consider why the moral Doctors of the Church always used “mortal sin” and “grave matter” interchangeably.  I am sure someone has counted how many times he did this, but St. Thomas when examining virtues and vices in the Summa almost always asks “Is X a mortal sin?”  He was well aware of the conditions of mortal sin but his goal, even in his Summary of Theology, was to be pastoral.  When in doubt Confession was the remedy.

For the world’s loss of a sense of sin to have crept into the Church is absolutely absurd.  The Church exists to forgive sins.  To explain away their existence is to make herself obsolete—“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’  And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’”(Jn 20:21-23).

Scrupulosity is an emotional hyper-sensitivity to sin.  It is a common aspect at the beginning of the Christian journey and tends to subside as the person progresses in the stages of holiness.  It is when it persists that it becomes a real problem.  It is these relatively few tortured souls that many have found their justification for de-emphasizing the “grave matter” aspect of mortal sin.   First of all, a person plagued by a case of the scruples already has a conscience that will not rest.  It is constantly being challenged by the emotional feeling of sin.  Taking away an objective measure and leaving it completely as a subjective measure leaves them in a worse state of confusion.  Their mind may tell them one thing, but the feeling can overwhelm them causing a great deal of inner turmoil that will not cease until they can set their conscience at ease in Confession.

Assuming that you are not seeing a regular confessor and combating a prolonged case of scrupulosity, I would like to make brief mention of something that is related to this.  Be very leary of a priest when he tells you in the Confessional that something is not a sin .  If you do not know your own heart, then (except in the rare cases of an enlightenment by God) neither does he.  His only judgment is whether you are contrite and have a firm purpose of amendment.  He is not a tribunal of one to judge whether something is sinful or not, that is God’s role.  If you confess something that is not sinful, then God will figure it out.  Better to find out later it was not a sin then to have it before you on Judgment Day.  While we cannot be sure of the judgment rendered on that awful day, we can be sure that there will be no hair splitting.