There are a few big questions that I have had an epiphany on (great timing 👑🐫💡 ) .
- What is hell?
- What exactly is the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit?
- If God is all merciful, why does hell exist?
(The problem of evil, which addresses “why does suffering exist”, is out of scope, I think it’s a red herring in this conversation).
So what are some things we know? Let’s start with some pertinent truths:
1 – Our purpose is live a happy life with God! This life is meant to be good! Jesus Himself in the Good Shepherd narrative says this is why He came!
- “Man is made to live in communion with God in whom [we find] happiness (Catechism 45)”.
- Jesus: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10)”.
2 – When we fail in our purpose, God does not abandon us!
- “God never ceases to draw man to Himself….Although man can forget God or reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek him, so as to find life and happiness. (Catechism 27, 30).”
3 – There are lots of definitions and descriptions of Hell. The one I want to focus on here is Hell being a place apart from God for all eternity. The focus is not on how hot it is or who is there.
- “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell’ (Catechism 1033)”.
4 – The unforgivable sin – It’s bad. It is defined as the deliberate refusal to accept Gods’ mercy.
- Jesus: “And every one who speaks a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. (Luke 12:10)”
- “There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss (Catechism 1864)”.
OK the stage is set, let’s continue.
Hell is the opposite of our purpose, as articulated in Point 1 above. Man cannot be in communion with God in hell. But if Point 2 is true, if He pursues us always, why would Hell exist? Did God make something broken or impossible? Did God fail in pursuing us?
Of course not! And the secret ingredient to the plan, the one that (from my perspective) would have been the flaw had it not been designed by a perfect God, He Who Cannot Wrong, is free will.
Free will describes the reality that the Creator allows His Creation to seek and choose their fate (see Catechism 1730). God does this because He loves us and IS LOVE and true love never forces itself upon its recipient.
In our free will we sometimes don’t seek or chose our purpose in Point 1. Because of that choice, God performs Point 2 – His pursuit. He will continue to pursue man to accept His love until we are incapable of seeking Him, which is upon our death. Once we are incapable of choosing Him, if, in our free will man rejected Him, God, the Just judge, gives us our choice, which is the place out of communion with Him, namely Hell.
It seems like there is a lot going in our favor to gain eternal life. God made us for it and he pursues us if we fail. What better advocate could we have? Intro Point 4. God does pursue us relentlessly, but there is a point at which we tread alone — the unforgivable sin. The rejection of God with full knowledge consent and free will, the standard for a mortal sin.
I rest a little easier when I read this verse. Like a small child who is incapable of committing a mortal sin, I feel like I am incapable of this one. I would never knowingly reject God’s offer of mercy — the acceptance of this is the promise I made at confirmation.
So who would do this? Who would 1) discern God 2) acknowledge God’s offer of mercy and 3) reject it?
I was reading the Gospel of Luke when the epiphany lit up in my mind.
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick;
I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
Jesus, Luke 5:27-32
Normally it is good to be “righteous” but not in this context; in fact, it is fatal.
It comes back to pride — the Original Sin of Satan and of our first parents. They, along with the “righteous”, those who have no need for a physician, have scales on their eyes.
God is there with His great promise. The proud, the righteous, see His outstretched hand. But they do not take it. Why?
The hand is for those people, the others, those people who do not worship/look/act/speak/celebrate right.
They have no need for a physician. They have no need for a savior (so they think). And so, fully knowing that the savior extends salvation to those who ask, they do not ask, they do not knock. And God gives them what they seek (or do not seek).
Mercy.
So I’ve never encountered this line of thinking in church teaching and I have a theory on why (there could be many of course). The reason is — It’s dangerous.
All God asks is relationship and to seek Him. There are no qualifiers, this is a binary decision: Seek me or don’t seek me. If you seek Him, you know you are sick, and the Divine Physician will heal you, either in this life or the next. He will not abandon you. He frees you from the ultimate human Fear, the Fear that we will not fulfill our purpose, our destiny.
The extent to which you receive the fullness of joy in this life, how “abundantly” you live, relies on your discernment and participation in the divine life of the church. But you don’t have to participate in anything formally for salvation (this is the potentially heretical part – hit me up in the comments to offer correction).
What is the goal of the Gospel? To spread the Good News. To whom gets the glory? God!
Institutions of the good news have additional goals of course. And that’s where the dangerousness of this message comes in. If members knew that choosing God was enough, and participating in church or donating to a church were not vital, that could impact real (good) goals that are needed for effectiveness in their spreading the Good News.
The other danger is that if choosing God was enough, what happens to pursuit of a moral life? “Works” become irrelevant, which is why scripture tells us that “faith without works is useless (James 2:20).” That is a whole other conversation, but I think that “useless” is not quite accurate. True, if you don’t have the works, the holy life to back you up, you are going to spend a lotttt of time in purgatory. But faith with absolutely no works, it appears, will at least keep you in communion, and out of Hell.
There are a lot of complexities with this dangerous line of thought, but my first reaction is: Who, knowing there is an entire treasure waiting for us, would stop at the first coin and be satisfied?
I know, however, that every journey is difficult and that were the message could be misleading, and we definitely don’t want to find ourselves misleading others in the faith, which is why I emphasize these are all thoughts of mine and nothing more. But I share it because this theory satisfies the initial questions and gives me a lens with which I can look at my life, and my service to others.
As for me, I will ACCEPT that I am sick, that I am a sinner. That I need a physician, and that I need a Savior. I will pray for humility and remembrance of this truth as I serve — my husband, my children, my friends and greater family, and those outside my immediate network. We are all sick, whether we know it or not. And the reason we seek our Father and seek to share Him with others is not out of fear or some superficial “extra credit” but because we know of His healing and saving power and it is TOO GOOD NOT TO SHARE :)! Amen!
Let Us Pray:
Loving God, thank you for the gift of faith and free will!
Thank You for revealing to us that You are the Good Shepherd and You love us, Your Sheep!
That You are Love and created us from Love, that is Yourself, to live with You forever in a life marked with joy!
Help us to continually discern Your will, that our lives are marked by “epiphanies” that turn us closer and closer to You,
Until one day, we will walk through You, our gate as Your sheep to the green pastures that are the fulfillment of Your Love and the fruit of our live’s pursuit!
(John 10: 7-9)
A combination of reflection on Scripture and thoughts around the meaning of life + reading and reflecting on Pope Benedict’s Life helped me get here. This is something I’ve had rumbling around in my head for many years and synthesized recently. It is not necessarily cited by the Church as teaching (that I know of). I’m happy to accept fraternal correction in the comments!