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brian
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Posted: Wed Sep 5th, 2007 02:14 am |
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How do I explain the fact that some teachings we have recently heard about hell contradict an earlier catechism in its teaching on hell? Are catechsisms infallible? I would have thought I was able to trust every statement in them, but are they able to change with further theological discoveries? Here are two statements. Maybe they do not exactly contradict, but they are definitely going in different directions and the new statement seems to free us from having to literally believe prior understandings.
This is from a writing John Paul II wrote in 1999.
"The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. Rather than a place, Hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy".
now for the earlier teaching. It strongly seems to be referring to the idea of fire in a literal way.
"Those are punished in hell who die in mortal sin; they are deprived of the vision of God and suffer dreadful torments, especially that of fire, for all eternity..."A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Revised Edition of the Baltimore Catechism, St. Anthony Guild Press, New Jersey (1949), pp144, 145
I like John Paul II's understanding better, ut since not all statements made by a pope are infallible how much weight should I give that compared to the catechism? And what of the fact taht Lucy had a vision of hell at Fatima that speciically mentioned fire and flames. The church approves this message, but is it possible that it was just symbolically revealed in ways she could understand because it also seems to contradict with the earlier statement in some ways if taken literally.
Also, some Orthodox seem to believe we can help people in hell with our prayers and maybe they will be restored and go to heaven. It is not official teaching but I hear it referred to at times, is this definitely something we can not entertain since we already have a concept of purgatory for those who maybe still have some things to settle before going to heaven?
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Wed Sep 5th, 2007 10:14 am |
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That hell is the “lake of fire” is revealed in Revelation 19, 20 and 21. Satan and his followers are “thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur” (Rev. 19:20); the evildoers among men are likewise punished there (21:8). Compare also Psalm 11:6; 21:8–9; Matthew 3:12; 5:22; 7:19; 13:40–42; 18:8–10; 25:41; John 15:6; Hebrews 10:26–27; James 3:6; 2 Peter 3:7. Therefore, Lucia’s vision of hell at Fatima is biblically correct. Note, however, that she herself understood the vision as figurative because it was what mystics like St. John of the Cross refer to as an “imaginative vision.” It appears that this is also what JPII meant in referring to hell as a spiritual state rather than a physical place.
In other words, it is not necessary to accept the idea that the two concepts (fire and spiritual state) are in opposition. Fire is a symbol of the spiritual torment of hell. It is used because we humans have a difficult time relating to non-material concepts. Also, it must be known that beginning at the resurrection (at the end of the world), the person’s body will be reunited with his soul and will share in the torments and agony (if the person is in hell) or in the joy and glory (if in heaven). In this sense, the fire can be understood as literal, although the literal concept probably indicates the effect felt by the body of the spiritual suffering of the soul in hell.
Regarding the belief among some Orthodox that our prayers and penances will aid those in “hell,” it appears you have interpreted this correctly as a reference to what in the west is called purgatory. For hell itself, as it appears in the bible (cf. some of the references above), is eternal.
Bottom line: the Church teaches that hell exists, that all unrepentant evildoers (those who through their own fault are “not saved”) will go there, and that it is an eternal state of torment and punishment. The detailed descriptions of hell, including the image of fire, are in figurative language. In other words, the biblical and magisterial words used to describe hell are, in their literal sense, a figurative description.
David
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brian
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Posted: Wed Sep 5th, 2007 03:26 pm |
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| I think everything you said makes sense. My only problem was that the early catechism really seems to interpret this fire as a very literal thing. I know you have explained how we cn have it as a both/and and see it as literal and figurative but most importantly true, I am just saying that if you asked those who wrote these teachings that they most likely would have told you that they did mean a literal physical fire burning a person and not seen much ground to interpret it otherwise. I could be wrong, and I am basing my opinion on nothing besides the way the text seems to me when I read it. I have no knowledge of religious thought or insight into how these people thought. But if my intuition is correct and they did ineed write this to be a literal fire and sought to teachthat as a truth of the faith, is that now a problem that we have come to slightly modify this understanding?
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Wed Sep 5th, 2007 04:15 pm |
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I am basing my opinion on nothing besides the way the text seems to me when I read it. I have no knowledge of religious thought or insight into how these people thought. But if my intuition is correct and they did indeed write this to be a literal fire and sought to teach that as a truth of the faith, is that now a problem that we have come to slightly modify this understanding?
Since the image of fire as part of the punishment in hell is both biblical and traditional, I don’t think it makes much difference what the compilers of the Baltimore Catechism themselves thought. They were transmitting the the Church’s doctrine, not their own opinions, and I believe they did it accurately enough that this catechism is still useful today. The Catechism of the Catholic Church retains the references to fire in its treatment of hell: §1034, 1035 and 1036, but there is no hint of whether this fire is properly understood as physical or spiritual. As I did above, the determination must be made on criteria other than what appears in the bare statement of the doctrine.
David
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Racaela Fultz
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Posted: Wed Sep 5th, 2007 08:07 pm |
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I'm going to throw something slightly off topic into this discussion, if you don't mind.
Jesus promises those who follow him and do his will "eturnal life." As in, your soul will live for eturnity. But, don't those in hell also have eturnal life, then? I mean, if their souls will live (albeit separated from God and in torment) forever? That just confuses me. Is there any other possible interpretation or way to understand this?
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"To be deep in history is to cease to be protestant" - Cardinal Newman
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Darlene
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Posted: Wed Sep 5th, 2007 09:36 pm |
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Racaela Fultz wrote: I'm going to throw something slightly off topic into this discussion, if you don't mind.
Jesus promises those who follow him and do his will "eturnal life." As in, your soul will live for eturnity. But, don't those in hell also have eturnal life, then? I mean, if their souls will live (albeit separated from God and in torment) forever? That just confuses me. Is there any other possible interpretation or way to understand this?
Racaela,
Here's another way to look at this. Unbelievers, those who have rejected Christ, still exist after death. There is existance for all human beings after physical death, contrary to the teaching of some cults. So, those in Hell will exist in a state of separation from God eternally. They will not be able to enjoy God's presence, simply because they rejected Christ during their earthly life until their physical death. They chose not to repent of their sin, and chose to reject God. So, they suffer eternal existance apart from the God whom they rejected.
Brian, I think it becomes difficult at some point to try to explain the specifics of what Hell will be like, or Heaven for that matter. Just as we can speak about the spiritual body that Christ revealed to the disciples after His resurrection, we also know that His body possessed physical attributes. Christ could eat, Thomas could touch Jesus and feel the wound in His side and the nail prints in His hands. Yet, this same resurrected body that Christ possessed, was able to walk through matter and able to disappear into thin air. How can we get down to the nitty gritty to explain it thoroughly? I think we are limited.
And so it is when we try to describe hell from our limited human perspective. Is it not enough to describe it as a place of horrific torment, and eternal separation from God? And if the fire is actual fire as we know it, then wouldn't the "bodies" in hell eventually burn into ashes and eventually cease to exist? For example, the bodies that were burned in the epicenter of the hydorgen bomb attack at Hiroshima and Nagasaki left only images on the ground because of such high temperatures. Their physical bodies disintegrated into thin air. In the same way, we don't really know how hot this fire would be in hell, if it is indeed a physical fire. And do we really need to know if the fire is physical and how hot it is? Rather, I think we should be concerned with hell as a place of eternal torment and separation from God. That description alone should deter us from ever wanting to be there.
Darlene
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The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. II Corinthians 13:14
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Wed Sep 5th, 2007 10:29 pm |
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A wonderful question, Racaela. You’re still on the topic of hell and the details of what goes on there, and that’s close enough for me.
The immortality of the soul is clear, and as you say, both heaven and hell are eternal. So what does the phrase “eternal life” mean, and in relation to what?
Let us return to the image of the lake of fire. Revelation 20:14–15 reads: “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and if any one’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” This defines the lake of fire as the “second death.” It appears to be in contradistinction to the “first death,” which is the death of the body and the transition of the soul to eternity, personified here as Death and Hades (done away with by Christ’s redemptive death, resurrection and ascension into glory, and so here depicted as “thrown into the lake of fire,” the realm — as I will describe later — of the desire for non-existence).
“Eternal life” is the apostle John’s nomenclature for the life of supernatural grace and, eventually, of glory. So the infernal counterpart of “eternal life” seems to be a definitive death on another, supernatural level, what we could call “eternal death.”
We will in addition recall that, at the end of time, the body is resurrected and rejoined to the soul in such a way that the human being is once again complete, although there is biblical evidence — Matthew 22:30; Mark 12:25; and especially 1 Corinthians 15:46, 50 and context — that the resurrected body’s nature is no longer physical, so that it cannot return again to the dust from which it came, making it, too, immortal (1 Corinthians 15:42, 53). The resurrected body shares in both the nature and the state of the soul, so that if the soul continues to exist, but in torment, so also and eternally does the body.
Therefore, the soul and the resurrected body are existent in eternity. But their state is either of life (glory in heaven) or of death (perdition in hell).
Where God is, there is life. Where he is not, there is death and annihilation. But God is present even in hell; for hell would otherwise not exist. And it is precisely this which the denizens of hell detest and try to do away with: God’s very presence among them, in them, holding them in being. For evil tends toward non-existence (St. Augustine, City of God). This is why it is called death: it is the perverse desire to do away with its own being. (Could this be what lies behind the current cultural fascination with death? I recall the rebels of my own day proclaiming, “I didn’t ask to be born!”)
So our conclusion is that, while the personal existence is in a way eternal, it can be either a divinized existence in plenitude of life (heaven) or a quasi-existence which might be called death (hell).
David
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brian
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Posted: Thu Sep 6th, 2007 04:30 am |
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Darlene, it is not that I was wanting to know too much about it. I was just curious if we have altered or contradicted any teaching.
David, I think what you are saying is similar to St. Isaac the Syrian who I think believed that after dying all people will experience God's all consuming inescapable love. For the faithful it is joy and for the unfaithful it is hell.
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Thu Sep 6th, 2007 08:11 am |
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brian wrote:I think what you are saying is similar to St. Isaac the Syrian who I think believed that after dying all people will experience God's all consuming inescapable love. For the faithful it is joy and for the unfaithful it is hell.
Correct. Those who love God will be attracted to him, and they will find comfort in his embrace; those who hate him will be repelled, but they will have nowhere to escape. Are you beginning to get your bearings with the Philokalia?
David
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