I I 4 i ETERNAL I I • o I 9 I PUNISHMENT. By FATHER STANISI.AIIS M. HOGAN, O. P. lasdii 13 ^ n? ^ Mission Church Press, | •!■■ M 11 Boston, Mass. I I oo^>aao gJo€^-oo o u la^r ’ 0 ? iSr^ ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. Father Stanislaus M. Hogan, O. P. Published with kind permission of the Australian Catholic Truth Society. Tnm MISSION CHURCH PRESS. St. Alphonsus Street, Boston, Mass. 4 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. enemy is well established in the very heart of the citadel. This is only the inevitable outcome of its principles. Necessarily and logically, they make for unbelief. Protestantism will never satisfy either the enquiring mind or the aching heart. Thinkers do not look to it for any authoritative statement, for men do not “gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles.” Protestantism has been “weighed in the balance, and been found wanting,” so wanting, in¬ deed, that thoughtful men are forced to choose be¬ tween Agnosticism and Catholicism. There is no other alternative. It is quite true that- some Pro¬ testant divines still cling to the old teaching as re¬ gards the nature and eternity of Hell; but what a storm of dissent and disapproval they stir up when they venture to preach such a doctrine from the pul¬ pit ! How dare they disturb the comfortable con¬ sciences of their hearers by such medieval super¬ stitions, invented by priests to terrorize the be¬ nighted people over wdiom they hold such undis¬ puted sway? Such preachments might have been acceptable in the Dark Ages, or they may be accept¬ able to ignorant Catholics of to-day; but they are not, and shall not be, accepted by enlightened Protestants who breathe tlie pure atmosphere of the Gospel. Away, then, with all such disturbing teaching, and let us have doctrine which is more in keeping with the spirit of the age—an age that is ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 5 nothing if it is not scientific and critical. Well, let ns examine this doctrine of Eternal Punishment, and see whether it is Scriptural or not: whether it is opposed to the idea of a God of love and mercy : whether it is an unreasonable doctrine, born of su¬ perstition and ignorance; or whether it is a doctrine which is perfectly reasonable and perfectly just. The thought of Eternal Punishment is a terrify¬ ing one, and it has always been so even to the great¬ est saints; but this does not allow us to deny the existence of such punishment. It seems that tlie ai)parent contradiction between endless pain and a God of love and mercy arises from the erroneous conception which some people have of sin. They forget that sin is an offence which is almost infinite because of the Infinite Peing Who is offended, d'hey keep the penalty and pain before their eyes, and measure that penalty according to their own ideas of wrong-doing: but they forget the nature of the offence which is committed. Our first con¬ sideration, tlierefore, will be to give the Theological, consequently the Scriptural, idea of sin. WHAT IS SIN? We take it for granted, first, that man is a free agent, that he is the arbiter of his actions: that he can act or not, and in whatever way he chooses, just as he pleases. Every man of common sense knows 6 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. that he is free. “Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, “we know our will is free; and there’s an end on’t. . . . As to the doctrine of necessity, no man believes it. if a man should give me arguments, that I cannot an¬ swer to prove that I cannot see; because I cannot answer his arguments, do I believe that I have no eyes?” With the doctrine of Determinism we have nothing to do. Secondly, we also take for granted the truth that man has been created for a purpose. That purpose is to know, love and serve God in this life, that he may possess God in eternal life. To attain that purpose, man has been given an Intelligence and a Will. Truth is the object of the one faculty; Good¬ ness is the object of the other; and as God is Primal Truth and Eternal Love, it follows that He is man’s objective, the objective of man’s thought, words, and actions. Now, that these things may go to form a “rationabile obsequium,” a reasonable service, they must come up to a certain standard—must be meas¬ ured according to a certain rule. This rule is the Eternal Law, which is made known to man by the law of reason. When a man’s actions—and by ac¬ tions we mean not only what is external, but also the internal movements of mind and will—when these actions are in accordance with right reason, and, consequently, with the Eternal Law, they are good. When, on the contrary, they fall short of ETERNAL PC’NISHMENT. 7 those standards, they are defective. This being so, we define sin to be '‘the thought, word, or act which is contrary to the Eternal Law.” St. Thomas, in explaining this definition of St. Augustine, says:— “Sin is nothing else than a human act which is evil. That an act be a human act it must spring from the will. ... A human act is evil in so far as it falls short of the proper standard, for the just pro¬ portion of anything is had by comparison with a certain standard; if the thing falls short of that (standard) it is out of proportion. Now the rule or standard of the human will is twofold. One is l)roximate and homogeneous—namely, human rea¬ son ; the other is the primal standard; and is the Eternal Law, which, as it were, is divine reason. Hence St. Augustine gives two parts in his defini¬ tion of sin—the first, which appertains to the sub¬ stance of the human act, which is, as it were, the material of Sin, when he says it is “a thought, word, or actthe second, which appertains to the idea of evil, which, as it were, is the essential in sin, when he says—“contrary to the Eternal Law.”(i) The law of God, then, is the standard of all hu¬ man actions. It has been imprinted on the human mind and will of each human being, who becomes ])erfect, naturally speaking, the more perfectly he brings his actions into harmony with it; and, in-, verselv, the less perfectly he does this, the less per- (i ) Summa. Theologica. la.. Ila?. Q. Ixxi., a. 6. 8 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. feet will he be. Like the artist who copies a pic¬ ture, or who puts his ideal upon canvas, the more perfectly he copies the picture before him, the more perfectly he puts his ideal on canvas, the more per¬ fect will the copy or the picture be in comparison Avith the model on the one hand, or the ideal on the other. When the copy falls short of the model; when the picture on the canvas fails to represent the ideal in the artist’s mind, there is want of pro¬ portion, want of harmony, defect. So is it in human life. When the thoughts, words, and actions of any individual are not in line with that Eternal Law of which he has knowledge, there is defect in conse¬ quence—defect which in such a case is sin. A man takes some other rule by which he measures his conduct. He becomes a law unto himself, and he regulates his actions according to the standard of his own views in this or that particular case. He pits his will against the Eternal Will. He measures the infinite by what is limited and finite. In other words, he claims equality with God. This is pride, the uplifting of the creature against the Creator; and hence it is that we read, “Pride is the beginning of all sin.”(2) By pride the angels fell; by pride, too. Sin obtained a hold upon the human race. “You shall be as gods,”(3) was the lure by which * the serpent tempted our first parents. “You shall (2) Eccles. X., 15. (3) Genesis iii., 5. ETERNAL Pl’NlSH MENT. 9 be as gods, knowing good and evil,’’ is still the radi¬ cal invective which sways the heart of man when choice is to be made between the Eternal Law and the individual appetite, between God and the crea¬ ture. Lor this reason does St. Thomas elsewhere define sin to be "the turning away from incommut¬ able goodness, which is infinite . . . and the inordinate turning to the commutable goodness. that is finite.”(4j Instead of taking God as his last end, the objective of his life and of all his ac¬ tions, man, when he sins, takes some created good, it matters not what it is, and makes that good his god. It will be seen, then, that sin is not the action, or word, or thought in itself, but it is the action, word, or thought which is defective, because di¬ verted from its true objective. Sin is in the will(5), and the will in the case is in opposition to God. The act is transitory ; the will is not so. And "while a man may give j)roof of his evil intentions by this action to-day, by that action to-morrow one thing ever remains the same, unless it be radically and completely transformed—the human will.”(6) The will decides whether any action, great or small, is sinful, because the will decides what is the objec¬ tive of the action: and, once again, that which makes the will evil is j)ride. (4) la., Ilae. Q. Ixxxvii., a. 4. (5) la., Ilae. Q. Ixxiv., a. i. (6) Weiss, O.P. AiX)logie de.< Christentums. French trails., vol. iv., p. 342. 10 ETERNAL' PUNISHMENt. No man can say that he did not know he was doing wrong, if he is in a normal state of mentality. Conscience prevents the excuse on the one hand, and on the other we must remember that it is the will, the intention, which constitutes the sin. Furthermore, any act that is persistently done creates a habit, and -a habit renders the perform¬ ance of the act easy. The boy who begins to smoke generally makes up his mind, after his first smoke, that he will keep as far away from the fragrant Aveed as possible in the future. But let him con¬ tinue, and soon the habit of smoking is formed, and, finally, becomes so strong as to become a second nature, impossible almost to give up. So with a sin. Repeated acts form habits. Sin comes to be almost impossible to give up, naturally speaking; the will, which in each sin is in opposi¬ tion to God, becomes habitually opposed to Him. In each sin the will rose in revolt against God; now it is in a state of continual revolt. The created good, which is the objective in each case, has obtained a firm hold upon the will, allures and seduces it easily, and thus enfeebles the will. Naturally speaking, the will cannot break with what has been its end and object, for this means humiliation, and the human will naturally shrinks from humiliation, just as pride forbids it. Milton has a fine passage which exemplifies this :— ETERX AL PU XISH MEN T. I I “Is there no place Left for repentance, none for pardon left? None left but submission; and that word Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduced With other promises and other vaunts Than to submit, boasting I could subdue The Omnipotent. But say I could repent, and could obtain. By act of grace, my former state; how soon Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay What feigned submission swore!. .Therefore as far From granting He, as I from begging peace.” (7) Until pride is humbled, there can be no thought of repentance, and the continual committal of sin shows that there is constant revolt of the human will against God, consequently lasting pride. W’e speak here of personal sin, whether actual or habitual. W c are not considering original or trans¬ mitted sin; and once again let us insist upon the fact that sin is an act of revolt, it springs from ])ride; it is the uplifting of the human will against the will of God, and as long as such revolt contin¬ ues there is not, and cannot be, any (piestion of re- ])entance—and repentance is the one and only royal road to obtain pardon and forgiveness. PUNISHMENT OF SIN. Now, every fault that is committed demands pun¬ ishment. This is the case in all human intercourse. (7) Paradise Lost. Book Fouith. 79-103, Cf. Cain. Act ii., Scene ii., by Lord Byron, 12 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. When a man steals, he is fined or imprisoned. When a child gets at the cupboard and steals the jam or sugar, he knows that punishment awaits him, if or when his mother finds him out. Why? Because he has done wrong. How does he know that he has done wrong? His con¬ science tells him. His conscience tells him that, while it is no fault to eat the jam if he has asked leave to have it, it is wrong to steal the jam, and, having stolen it, he must face the consequences if his theft is discovered. So in the matter of sin. Conscience tells that this act, or word, or thought is wrong, consequently that it will be punished inevitably, for there is no chance of escaping from the all-seeing eye of God. A man may not use the words of the Psalmist, but in his heart he knows that David spoke truth when he asked—‘'Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or, whither shall I flee from Thy face?”(8) The idea of punishment is essentially connected with the idea of wrong-doing. The commission of sin entafls the punishment for it; and the punishment is pro¬ portionate to the sin which is committed, (9) that is, infinite punishment for the infinity of the sin, finite punishment for what is finite in the sin. For “there are two things in sin,” says St. Thomas. “One is infinite, the turning away from incommut- (8) Ps. cxxxviii., 7. (9) la., Ilae. Q. Ixxxvii., a. 4. ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 13 able goodness, which is inhnite; the other is the in¬ ordinate turning to cominutable good, and this is finite.” d'he reason why sin brings punishment in its train is that sin is a perversion of order. “As long as the cause remains,” says St. Thomas, “the effect will also remain; wherefore, as long as that perver¬ sity of order remains, the punishment must remain, loo, of necessity. Xow perversion of order occurs sometimes in an irreparable manner, sometimes in manner which allows of amendment. A defect which implies the destruction of the principle is always irreparable; but if this principle be safe¬ guarded, then other defects may be remedied by its virtue. If the visual power is destroyed, for ex¬ ample, there cannot be restoration of sight except by divine power only ; but if the visual power is ])reserved, though other hindrances to sight may arise, they can be cured either by natural or by medical ])ower. Xow, that is the principle of any order bv means of which a thing is incorporated in that order. Hence, if by sin the principle of the order by which the human will is subject to (jod be destroyed, disorder will follow of such kind as to be irreparable of itself, though it can be restored bv divine j)ower. The principle of this order is the last end to which man is united by charity. W'here- fore, whatever sins so turn away man from God by 14 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. destroying charity, they, of themselves, bring with them the guilt of eternal punishment.” (lo) In his reply to the first objection in this article, that as sin is momentary and temporal, it would be injustice to punish it by eternal punishment, the Saint says:—"The punishment is proportionate to the sin as regards sharpness, both in divine and in human judgments. But, as St. Augustine says, in no judgment is it necessary that the pain shall be proportionate to the fault as regards duration. It does not follow, because adultery or murder are the matter of a moment, that, therefore, they are to be punished by momentary penalties, for sometimes they are punished by perpetual imprisonment, exile, or even by death. The duration of the act is not considered, but rather that the person who has done the act shall be altogether removed from all social intercourse. Hence, in its own way, it is an image of eternal punishment inflicted by God. ‘For it is just,’ says St. Gregory (Lib. IV., Dialog. C 44), ‘that he who sins against God eternally shall be eternally punished.’ Now, he is said to sin eter¬ nally, not by reason of the continuance of the sin throughout his whole life, but because he takes the sin as his end, he has the will to sin eternally. Hence, St. Gregory says again: ‘The wicked would desire to live for ever, that they might continue endlessly in their iniquities.’ ” (10) la., Ilae. Q. Ixxxvii., a. 3. ETERNAL I*L\X ISII M EN T . 15 When a man is sentenced to a couple of years’ hard labor because he has been caught in the act of burglary, we say that he has got only what he deserves. Xo one thinks the penalty excessive. Xo one says that, because the burglary was only the act of some minutes—half an hour, perhaps— it is unjust to inflict, for such an act, a penalty which extends over the space of two years. It is not the act which occupied only a few minutes that people consider; it is the fact that the burglar, the man whose action in this particular case shows the perversity of his will, has been brought to justice which people look to, and are satisfied, in conse- (juence, that he has been removed from society to which he was a menace. » So, too, in the case of sin. Let us bear in mind what we have said about it—that it is the most griev¬ ous otYence any human being could commit; that it is infinite, because committed against God; that it is subversive of all law, because directed against Eternal Law; that it is destructive of the principle of order, because directed against charity. Fur¬ thermore, that it springs from a perverted will, which is in revolt against God, and that as long as this revolt of the will lasts there can be no repent¬ ance, consequently no forgiveness of the sin which has been committed. The particular act of sin l6 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. shows the perversity of the sinner’s will; it is in a state of revolt and opposition to God’s Will and God’s law. When the will is in that state, death comes, suddenly, let us say, giving no time for re¬ pentance. It takes man as it finds him, and the will which was in revolt by that sinful thought, or word, or act becomes petrified, if one may use the word, in eternal opposition to God. Repentance means a radical change of will, but the time in which such a change could take place is past, and the sinner must exist for eternity without the God Whom, by a de¬ liberate act of his will, he has thrust aside in time. If sin is pride, and we have seen that it is, then sin is separation from God as long as pride continues. If that revolt of the will through pride becomes a stubborn, inflexible, unrelenting revolt, the separa¬ tion must last as long as the will is unrelenting. In the case we are considering the will is absolutely in¬ flexible ; death has made it so by removing all pos¬ sibility of change. Therefore, the separation of the sinner from God will be an endless and eternal separation, and such separation means eternal pun¬ ishment, everlasting torment. WHAT, THEN, IS HELL? “Hell is primarily separation from God in the other world, as Heaven is the possession of God. Hell is the necessary consequence of sin, as dark- RTERX AL 1 *L’X ISli M EXT. 17 ness is the necessary consequence of excluding light; or, rather, Hell is sin under another aspect— namely, as transferred from time to* eternity. Hell is no arbitiary punishment devised by God, and indicted by His action; it flows from the sin¬ ner's own act ... is the continuation of the sinner's life as commenced on earth; it is a trans¬ formation, and also a conservation, of the same en- ergy of sin which worked in him here.’'(ii) The Catechism deflnes Hell as “a place or a state of punishment where those who die in mortal sin sutler for all eternity.” The infallible teaching of the Catholic Church, while it teaches that all sin is a grievous thing, be¬ cause an ofl'ence against Cod, nevertheless makes a distinction between those sins which do not com¬ pletely separate the soul from Cod in this life and the sins which eft'ect this total separation, ddie first class of sins are called \Tnial; the second class of sins are termed Mortal sins, because they bring about the absolute destruction of supernatural life in the soul—namely, Ciod's grace. When the human will is so intensely centred and fixed upon some created good, in such wise that that good becomes its objective, its finality, its sole ob¬ ject of desire, in that case love of Cod, above all things, has no place in such a will. Cdiarity is lost. (11 ) “Meditations on Christian I)oj>ina.” By the Ri^lit Rev. Dr. Bellord. Vol. ii.. Treatise xvi., 12, p. ^^56. i8 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. As we have already said, the created good becomes a god for such an individual. The will, by its own deliberate act of choice, turns from the Creator to the creature, and by that act it separates itself from the Creator. Such is Mortal sin, and Hell means the continuation of that disunion and separation forever. To quote once more from Bishop Bellord: ‘'As motion continues forever in a straight line, unless perturbed by some external force, so the di¬ rection of the soul’s action continues, unless some act of man, aided by God’s grace, intervenes during this life to turn it back.”(12) But, as we have said, death prevents such a turning back, because it re¬ moves all chance of change in the human will; con¬ sequently, the will continues in the same direction it took in life at the moment when death happened. That direction was from God; the same direction will continue of necessity for eternity. Hell(i3) is so termed because it is the “deep abyss,” the “bottomless pit.’’ It is said to be a “place” or “state” of punishment; and, while faith teaches nothing as to where it is situated, the tradi¬ tion of the Church, which is based upon several passages in Scripture, has always pointed to some subterranean place. We read in St. Luke’s Gospel that, when Our Divine Lord had driven the devils (12) Ibd., p. 357. (13) Anglo-Saxon— hel, a concealed place, from helan to cover. ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ^9 uut of the man, "they besought Him that He would not command them to go into the abyss.” (14 ) Again, in Numbers (15) we read: "the earth broke asunder under their feet; and opening her moutli, devoured them . . . they went down alive into hell, the ground closing upon them.” These refer¬ ences point to a subterranean abyss as the dwelling of the lost; but where that abyss is situated none can tell. It is in the realms of the Unseen World; in the regions of the mysterious. Hell is also designated in Scripture by the term Gehenna, that is, the region of perpetual fire, from the Valley of Gehinna, near Jerusalem, where the Israelites sacrificed their children to the god Mo¬ loch. Isaias (16) reiireseiits the abode of the lost under the figure of the Valley of Topeth: “Tojieth is j)repared from yesterday, prepared by the King, dee]) and wide. The nourishment thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord as a torrent of brimstone kindling it.” There the souls of the lost suffer the penalty of their revolt now; there will the body and soul suflfer for eternity after the uni¬ versal judgment. "Although no body is assigned to souls after death, of which they are the form, or moving ])ower,” says St. Thomas, “still certain corporeal • (14) viii., .H- ABUSSOS—Bottomless; profound abyss. (15) xvi., 31-33. (16) XXX., 33. 20 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT places are apportioned to them appositely, accord¬ ing to their degrees of worth, in which they are, as it were, in place, in the manner in which incorporeal substances can be in a place. . . . Wherefore, we place those souls which share in the full partici¬ pation of the Godhead, in Heaven; but the souls which impeded from this participation, we locate in the contrary place.” (17) ‘h\s in bodies there is weight, or lightness, by w hich they are drawn, each to its place . . . so, too, in souls is there merit, or demerit, by which they achieve reward or receive punishment as the finality of their actions. Hence, as a body, unless it is hindered, is located immediately by its weight or its lightness, so, too, souls when freed from the ])rison of the flesh by which they were hindered in life attain at once either reward or punishment, un¬ less something prevents them . , . and, since a place is apportioned to souls as they deserve either reward or punishment, immediately on being re¬ leased from the body will the soul sink to Hell, or ascend to Heaven, unless some guilt prevents this by deferring that ascent until the soul is purified.” (18). From this it will be seen that St. Thomas teaches that, immediately after death, the soul whose will is petrified in revolt against God will be condemned (17) Supplementiim. Q. Ixix., a. t.' (18) Snpp. Q. Ixix., a. 2. ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 21 to eternal punishment. W’e may ask now, what is the nature of that punishment? THE NATURE OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. “lie it said in reply,” says St. Thomas, “that the penalty is proportionate to the sin. In sin there are two things, one of which is the turning away from incommutable goodness, which is infinite . . the other is the inordinate turning to commutable good. . . . To the turning away (from God) there corres])onds the pain of loss, which is infinite ; it is the loss of the Infinitely Good—namely, God. And to the inordinate turning to (the creature) there corres])onds the pain of Sense.”(19) This teaching of the Angel of the Schools may be inferred from the words of Our Divine Lord: “Then He shall say to them also that shall be on His left hand: De])art from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire.”(20) The first words, “Depart from Me,” signify the Pain of Loss; the remainder of the sentence is ex¬ pressive of the Pain of Sense. There are, then, two torments in Hell which correspond to the twofold act of the sinner: as he turned from God in life, he will be separated from God for eternity : as he cho^e the creature, instead of God, for his objective of Gg) la., Ilae. Q. Ixxxvii.. a. 4. \^ 2 o) St. Matthew, xxv., 41. 22 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. good and pleasure on earth, the creature, that is, created suffering, will be his lot for eternity. The Poena Damni, or Pain of Loss, is the su¬ preme pain in Hell, for “it is the loss of all that is good in every kind and degree. . . . It is the loss at once of everything; of the object and aim of existence, of wholesome activity, of all that makes life happy, of all that constitutes the life of the mind and spiiit apart from mere existence. Life without God, even on earth, is empty, unsatisfying, wearisome, disappointing; life forever without Him is the accumulation of every misery.” (21) Possibly we may bring this home to our readers in some faint way. We know that we have the in¬ born craving for happiness. It is instinctive in every heart to desire happiness; but nothing finite can, or ever will, satisfy our craving, and we ex¬ perience this when we have obtained something we desire strongly. We possess what we wanted. Yet, even in the moment of possession we experi¬ ence a vague sense of disappointment—the thing we desired so ardently is not just everything; we want something more, something thoroughly and really satisfying. That longing for something more is the expression of the soul’s discontent with the finite and limited, and of her desire for the Infinite and limitless ; in other words, her desire for God. To (21) “Meditations 011 Christian Dogma.” Bellord, vol. ii., P- 358. ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 23 recognize that God was within our grasp, if we may say so; to recognize that He, and He alone, can fill the aching void and satisfy our yearning, and then, to realize that we have lost Him through our own deliberate fault, and for ever—that is the maddening pain which makes Hell what it is for those who suffer there—the dwelling-place of the eternally dissatisfied, the prison-house of unfulfilled and ever-fruitless desire, the home of the lost. A man never realizes how much liberty meant for him until he is deprived of his freedom. He never ap¬ preciates the gift of sight until he has gone blind. Then he realizes what he has lost in each case, and if the deprivation of either liberty or sight has been through his own fault or his own neglect, he will rail against himself for the rest of his days. A soul will never realize what it is to lose God until she has lost Him. And when she realizes that her loss is altogether due to her own stubbornness and pride, the realization will be pain of the keenest kind, which eternity will never—because it can never—mitigate. Dante says finely : “He hath in sooth good cause for endless grief, W ho, for the love of thing that lasteth not, Despoils himself for ever of that love.” —Paradise xv., 8. The V'ision of God, “face to face” constitutes the supreme bliss of the blessed. It is for this purpose 24 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. that man has been created, and created with intelli¬ gence and will, which have been uplifted to the su¬ pernatural by the grace of God. On the other hand, to know with certain knowledge that the Vision of God is the true objective of the soul’s energies, and to realize that, that vision will never break upon the soul’s lost sight constitutes the supreme punish¬ ment of the lost. As regards the Pain of Sense, we have, first of all, the words of Our Blessed Lord: “Depart . . . into everlasting fire.” Again, He speaks of “un¬ quenchable fire,” and “fire that is not extin¬ guished”; (22) that “everyone shall be salted with fire”(23) (in Hell). These expressions, and others similar, which are found in Holy Scripture, show us, first of all, that the Pain of Sense will be, and is, a pain of fire. What kind of fire ? How can fire afflict immaterial substances, such as the demons are, and the souls of the lost? And is fire the only sensible pain which is experienced by the damned, or are there other punishments too? To these questions we can only give the briefest of answers, for al¬ though the Church insists upon the fact that there is sensible punishment by fire, she has never defined what the qualities or nature of that penalty are. St. Thomas teaches that the fire of Hell is a cor¬ poreal fire, and that it afflicts immaterial sub- (22) St. Mark ix., 42 seqq. (23) Ibd., 48. ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 25 stances, not, as some would say, because these spirits behold it, or because they apprehend it as something which is hurtful, but because “lire by its own nature possesses the power of uniting to it an incorporeal substance, as something located is in a ])lace; but in as much as it is the instrument of Divine Justice, it has the faculty of keeping that substance bound, and in this manner the fire is, in truth, hurtful to the spiritual substance, and thus the soul, in beholding the lire as hurtful to it, is “afflicted by it.”(24) Or, as Sylvius puts it, the soul apprehends this lire as something hurtful to it, in as much as, being the instrument of Divine Justice, it is contrary to the natural dignity and liberty of the soul, consequently the soul suffers the extreme of sadness. ‘'A corporeal substance,” says St. Thomas, “can¬ not naturally act upon an incorporeal substance . except it be in some way united to it; hence we read that ‘the corruptible body is a load upon the soul.'(25) A spiritual substance is united to a corporeal substance in two ways; first, as the form of the material substance, so that a totality results -from the union of the two substances; thus the spirit is united to the body, and quickens it . . . secondly, as the thing moved is united to that which moves it, or as the thing in place is united (24) Supplementum. Q. Ixx., a. 3. (25) Wsdom. ix., 15. 26 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. to the place; in this manner, incorporeal spirits that are created are defined by place, in that, being in one place, they are not in another. And although a corporeal substance can naturally define an incor¬ poreal* substance as regards place, it cannot natu¬ rally detain such a substance in that place, so that it cannot turn to another, or other places. This (power), however, is added to this corporeal fire, in as much as it is the instrument of Divine Justice, that it can bind the spirit.” ‘‘Whatever may be said concerning the fire which afflicts the disembodied souls, we must acknowl¬ edge that the fire by which the bodies of the lost will be afflicted is a corporeal fire. (26) Such fire is the instrument of Divine Justice; and an instru¬ ment acts not merely by its own energy, and in its own manner, but also by the energy of the chief agent, and accordingly as it is regulated by him.” (27) St. Thomas teaches, further, that fire will not be, and is not, the only sensible pain of the lost, and adduces the words of the Psalmist in support of his teaching: ‘‘Fire and brimstone and storms of winds shall be the portion of their cup.” (28)' Hell is the abode of disorder and contrariety, therefore “the lost will pass from extremest heat to extremes! cold.”(29) “Let him pass from snow waters to ex- (26) Supp. Q. Ixx., a. 3. (28) Ps. X., 7. (27) Ibd. Q. xcvii., a. 5. (29) Reply to Third Obj. ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 27 cessive heat.”(30) Moreover, the lost souls will suffer from remorse—the ‘‘worm that dieth not.” Everything for them will be the material and the cause of suffering and of sadness, and nothing which could be the occasion of suffering will be wanting. (31) Darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth are mentioned in Scripture as sufferings of the lost. (32) As regards the two faculties of the soul, intelligence and will, St. Thomas tells us that the lost will have natural knowledge of those things which they knew on ea-rth. Although unwilling, they will think of V the evil they have committed, and on account of which they are lost eternally; and they will have before them the good, the graces which they squan¬ dered, and of which they were unworthy.(33) Their will is irrevocably fixed in evil, since they are ir¬ revocably turned from the final end of every up¬ right will,(34) and they will hate God, not as He is in Himself, but because of His justice which they experience in the punishment they suffer. (35) These are the penalties which the lost must suffer forever because they have turned from God and to the creature. The soul cannot die; it is indestruc¬ tible, because it is a spiritual substance, conse¬ quently immortal. Its action in sin has been rebel- (30) Job xxiv., 19. (33) Supp. Q. xcix., a. 7. (31) Supp. Q. xcvii., a. 1, ad. 3. (34) Supp. Q. xcix., a. 7. (32) St. Matthew viii., 12. ( 35 ) H^d., a. i. 28 ETERNAL RUNISHMENT. lion and opposition to God ; that opposition contin¬ ues for eternity, and, in consequence of it, the pun¬ ishment due to such sin will last for ever. God will never repulse a soid which turns to Him Avith hu¬ mility to ask for pardon and forgiveness, but there are individuals who are so obstinate in pride, even in this life, whose hearts are so hardened that, in the language of Plato, “their hearts are as deeps, deeper than Hell itself.” They laugh to scorn the idea of craving for help, of seeking Divine assistance, or of submitting to God’s law. To do this would neces¬ sitate humiliation, and that is foreign to them. Sin is the free choice of each individual will; in each case the will prefers the temporal and transitory to the eternal and only good. God will not coerce the human will, and, when it elects to sin, it elects Hell, which, as has been already said, is but the eternal continuation of sin, and the eternal obstinacy of the will which turned away from its true objective by sin. As we have said, we do not know much with cer¬ tainty as regards the nature of the punishment of the lost, except that it is, first of all, eternal separa¬ tion from God, which is the supreme penalty; and, secondly, that Our Blessed Lord has emphatically said the sensible pain is a pain of fire. All other pains and penalties of which we read are but infer¬ ences drawn from the fact that Hell exists, and that ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 29 it is ‘‘a land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death, and no order,tbut everlasting- hor¬ ror, dwelleth,”(36) inferences which have their war¬ ranty in the inspired writings. OBJECTIONS. Let us now consider some of the objections which are urged against eternal punishment. The chief objection is that eternal punishment is altogether opposed to the infinite love, goodness, and mercy of God. Sin is often a matter of environ¬ ment, temperament, and education, consequently God could not act in so cruel a manner as to eter¬ nally condemn one who is the prey of so many and such strong incentives to evil. W’e must first keep the following principles be¬ fore our minds—namely, that God is a God of Jus¬ tice as well as of mercy, love, and goodness; that while it is mercy which pardons an offence. Justice demands its punishment; that man is a perfectly free agent, who can act or not, and in this way or in that, just as he chooses. Finally, that sin is an infinite offence against the very mercy, love, and goodness of God, for “the greater the dignity of him who is offended, the greater, in consecpience. will be the offence.”(37) (36) Job X., 22. (37) Summa. Theo. Ilia., Pars. Q. i a. 2, ad. 2m. 30 ETERNAL PUNISHMENl'. Now, Eternal Justice demands that any offence which is committed, against Eternal Law shall be punished by an eternal penalty. God, Whose Will is universal, has the universal good before Him, and that good necessitates equilibrium—that is, love and justice must work together. If any individual sins against God’s love. His Divine justice comes into action to restore the equilibrium which that sin has disturbed; if the sinner withdraws himself from God’s love by sin, he creates disorder, and order can only be restored by Divine justice which punishes. Now, when a man sins mortally, his will, as has been said already, is in rebellion against God and the order He has established. The rebellion is a deliberate act, for sin necessitates free choiee; a man who thieves in a state of hypnotic trance, or when in a state of somnambulism, is not free—he does not know what he is doing, cannot refuse to do it; he acts necessarily in one case, mechanically in the other, consequently sin cannot be imputed to him. But, given the possession of his senses, his reason, and will, when he sins then he does so freely, and that sin is revolt against God and His law. There and then he chooses freely the penalty attached to such revolt, and, if he should die unre¬ pentant, the penalty becomes an actuality, and not merely a penalty which was due. God would not be God if He allowed free agents ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 31 to sin against Him, and the order and law which He has established, without punishing those agents. The very order and law which He has established demand that those who infringe the law shall be penalized. There is more of imagination than rea¬ son in this objection, more of sentiment than strict logical regard for truth. The sinner freely chooses evil in choosing sin; freely turns from his true ob¬ jective; and he must bear the consequences of his choice for all eternity. Eternal punishment is but the inevitable consequence of mortal sin, for as by such sin man turns from his last end, so in Hell he is deprived of what he turned from in life, and shall never attain it. “The punishments,” says St. Thomas, “ are not inflicted by God for their own sake, as if He took delight in them, but for the sake of others—namely, on account of the order which must reign in created things, in which order univer¬ sal good consists. And this order necessitates that all things shall be in i)roportion.”(38) Another objection made frequently is that eter¬ nal punishment is ])urely vindictive, and that it does no good ; consequently that it is useless—in other words, that such punishment is not medicinal. The answer is, that every penalty is medicinal, though not always for the individual who is pun¬ ished ; as for example, “when a man is hanged it is (38) Summa. Theo. Ilia. Pars. Q. i., a. 2 , ad. 2m. 3^ ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. not that he may mend his ways, but that others, through fear of such a penalty, may not offend, as is said in Proverbs: ‘The wicked man being scourged, the fool shall be wiser’” (xix., 25). So, also, the eternal punishments which are inflicted by God on the reprobate are medicinal for those who, from consideration of such punishments, refrain from sin, as the Psalmist says: “Thou hast given warning to them that fear Thee; that they may flee from be¬ fore Thy bow. That Thy beloved may be deliv¬ ered” (cix., 6-7). (39) No one can doubt that many a man who will not be deterred from committing sin by any other consideration is deterred by the thought of the punishment which they experience who are lost eternally. There is yet time for such a one, if he has sinned, to repent of his sin before re¬ pentance is too late. And if, by God’s mercy, he has not outraged Divine goodness, the thought of eternal punishment is a potent restraint upon him when at times in his life no other thought has any Aveight. Again, it is asked: Why is correction or repent¬ ance unavailing or impossible after death? The life or existence of a free being is divided into two phases. The first is that of formation and evo¬ lution, the second is that of maturity and perfec¬ tion. The first phase implies temptation, trial, strife; the second implies rest and victory, conse- (39) Summa. Theo. la. Has. Q. Ixxxvii., a. 3, ad. 2m, ETEK X AL 1 *U X ISII M EX I'. 33