Well I’ll be damned
Michael Novak, in First Things:
One reason I have often encountered for not believing in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus runs like this: As long as there is even one orphaned child, who uncomprehendingly sobs alone in the dark, I will not accept a God who permits such a world to exist. I refuse.Another reason I have heard is this: Any God who would throw human beings into unmitigated torture in hell for all eternity, just because of a minor infraction of some silly taboo, is a being to despise, not to accept.
…
The second objection, concerning hell, evinces a most primitive notion of hell, and also of what constitutes a sin. A sin, writes St. Thomas Aquinas, is an “aversio a Deo,” a turning away from God, a turning away from Light, a deliberate and fully considered turning away from the light, however dim, of one’s own conscience.
A most primitive notion indeed. How, I wonder, did the non-believers come up with it? Novak quotes Aquinas, and one good quote deserves another. Here is Aquinas again, from the Summa Theologica, question 94, article 1:
Nothing should be denied the blessed that belongs to the perfection of their beatitude. Now everything is known the more for being compared with its contrary, because when contraries are placed beside one another they become more conspicuous. Wherefore in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned.
What is the nature of this suffering? Here is Novak:
From this it follows that hell is the utter absence of God, made fully conscious to the unfortunate one who with full deliberation excluded God from his life. In his lifetime only dimly aware of the vastness of God’s love for and friendship toward humans, such a person recognizes too late that it is only by his own personal choice that he forever cut himself off from the presence of the Divine Lover. It was pride that led to his total isolation, cold and dark. Pride that led to a fully considered and deliberate choice to live as though there is no God.
Novak cites Aquinas when it suits him, but he prefers the more enlightened modern hell over the traditional torture chamber view. This is what Aquinas taught:
However, whatever we may say of the fire that torments the separated souls, we must admit that the fire which will torment the bodies of the damned after the resurrection is corporeal, since one cannot fittingly apply a punishment to a body unless that punishment itself be bodily. Wherefore Gregory (Dial. iv) proves the fire of hell to be corporeal from the very fact that the wicked will be cast thither after the resurrection. Again Augustine, as quoted in the text of Sentent. iv, D, 44, clearly admits (De Civ. Dei xxi, 10) that the fire by which the bodies are tormented is corporeal.
It seems that the Roman Catholic Church’s greatest theologian evinces a most primitive notion of hell, as do Augustine, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and a host of other well informed Christians.
[Novak] Intelligent people, one would think, would spend a little more time in inquiry before squeezing tight to such primitive notions. The real scandal is that atheists appear to think so shallowly about God.
No, the real scandal is that so many believers accept so monstrous a doctrine, and then chose to blame the notional victims:
[Novak] No one can complain about being in hell. Hell cannot be entered inadvertently but must be deliberately chosen. The choice that constitutes it is to exclude deliberately the God of Love from one’s own heart. It is to push away the extended arms of the divine friendship.
And if you don’t accept the divine friendship, prepare to suffer the divine wrath. That’s what love is all about.
Whatever the truth of the doctrine of hell, it is preposterous to to impugn the intelligence of those who reject it for having a “primitive notion”. The primitive notion is precisely what has been taught as Christian doctrine for centuries.
Posted on August 20th, 2006 by pwyll
Filed under: religion
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“…. [T]he real scandal is that so many believers accept so monstrous a doctrine, and then chose to blame the notional victims. ….” From our editor’s post. You said it, man.
The following observations do not fit with this erudite post, but what the hell. I’ve been saying something — often in bars and clearly among the damned — for years. Heaven doesn’t interest me because the people there are going to be so boring. Even if the air conditioning is broken, I wanna hang with my sinner friends, and get the chance to hear Robert Johnson and Charlie “Bird” Parker playing at “Club Hell”. Hunter Thompson and Henry Miller might even be talking at the next table.
In short, eternity with a lot of non-sinners sounds like hell to me.
Dear Radically Spiritual Progressive Libertarian,
Where are you on this one? This reader wants to know what your comment is.
Sorry, first week of class and I’ve been too swamped to respond.
While I find Michael Novak grating at times, on this issue of a “primitive notion of hell” I must agree. The modern notion is precisely as he described it and, in fact, John Paul II wrote that we have no way of knowing if anyone is actually in hell.
It is not clear to me how Novak has impugned anyone’s intelligence by pointing out that this torture chamber notion is no longer official doctrine. Many things that are no longer official doctrine that have not trickled down to the the faithful in the pews. There have been theological advancements since the Summa. This particular notion of hell is primitive in the sense that it was the first version of hell.
I also agree with our host that this “primitive” notion is precisely what was taught in the Church for roughly fifteen centuries. There are many reasons for this, but none as important as the “righteous” wanting to be reassured that the “wicked” receive their “just” punishment.
Yet there is no more consistent theme in the New Testament than Jesus’ warnings that we should never judge.
“And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?
Matthew, 7, v. 3.
So, Paco, don’t despair about the company in heaven. It may be far more interesting than you imagine.
Novak wrote “Intelligent people, one would think, would spend a little more time in inquiry before squeezing tight to such primitive notions. The real scandal is that atheists appear to think so shallowly about God”
I found that comment grating and presumptuous. It insinuates either intellectual laziness or lack of intelligence. I took it as a backhanded insult to those who have spent a great deal of time in inquiry, and who squeeze tight to that primitive notion because it deserves to be choked to death.
As for the bit about atheists thinking so shallowly about God, I disagree. I have never believed that the world was created by sadist, no matter how many people have claimed otherwise. If I had to face God today, I think I could say to him that I may not have believed, but neither did I believe the filth that was said about him. Call it the faith of an atheist.