Question Three
Concerning the second receptacle of separated souls, namely hell, containing under itself thirteen questions
Question One
Whether hell exists in truth
It is asked whether hell is found after death according to truth, or whether it is a fiction for terrifying laypeople and extorting temporal goods from them.
It appears that this little question should first be answered negatively, by the arguments of Plato and Origen.
First, by the reasonings of Plato, as Augustine says in Book XXI of The City of God, chapter 13, as follows. Every divine or legal punishment is applied for the sake of correction or of advancement toward virtue. But after the passing of this age, the demons and the damned will not repent of their sins through contemplation of eternal punishment, nor will they cease to sin; and the blessed, according to the common law, will not be able to advance further in good upon any occasion whatever. Therefore after this life neither hell nor its eternal punishments ought to be posited.
The major premise is evident through the Psalmist, who says: “When he slew them, they sought him; and they returned and came to him early in the morning.” And again: “Fill their faces with shame, and they will seek your name, O Lord.”
Isidore also says in Book V of the Etymologies - and it is placed in distinction 4, chapter The Cause of the Establishment of Laws - that the purpose of laws is to restrain human audacity and curb the capacity to do harm. And in the gloss on the Digest, On Justice and Right, law Justice:
The good hate to sin from love of virtue; the evil hate to sin from fear of punishment.
The minor premise is proved through Gregory, Book IV of the Dialogues, chapter 37 - and it is placed in chapter As Each One Is, distinction 25 - who says: “As each person departs from here, so he is presented at the final judgment.”
This saying must be understood of souls departing in a state of damnation or salvation: namely, that a mortal fault not erased here through penance or baptism is carried with such fault to judgment, never thereafter to be erased or remitted.
And it is said in Ecclesiastes 11: “If the tree falls toward the south or toward the north, in whatever place it falls, there it will always be.” The tree is a human being. The north signifies hell and the south heaven.
And it is said in Ecclesiastes 9: “Whatever your hand is able to do, do it earnestly, because neither work, nor reason, nor knowledge will be among the dead, whither you hasten.”
That the blessed also cannot advance in merit is evident because merit belongs to the state of the present life. Hence Paul said: “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” And Isaiah: “In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you.”
Second, Plato argues as follows. Certain philosophers and poets fabricated that hell was below, a most sorrowful place full of every kind of punishments and miseries, and that the souls of the lost would descend there to be punished without end.
They also fabricated the wrath and beneficence of gods and goddesses, not because they believed in their minds that it was truly so - since they held that no punishments would befall the wicked after death - but they invented this because of fear of tyrants: namely, so that tyrannical princes would be feared by their subjects, as Augustine says in Book VI of The City of God.
Likewise, in Book III of The City of God, Augustine says that in ancient times those who presided over cities fabricated many false things concerning the gods and places of punishment, judging that those things would be useful if they were believed by the people, in order to draw them back from vices and summon them to virtues.
Statius spoke for this opinion in the Thebaid, saying:
Fear first made gods in the world.
And Cicero, in Book I of On the Nature of the Gods, says: “Certain persons said that the whole opinion concerning the immortal gods was devised by wise human beings for the sake of the commonwealth, so that religion might lead to duty those whom reason could not.”
And Cicero says in Book III of the invectives against Catiline: “Thus, so that some fear might be set before the wicked in life, those ancients wished that certain punishments had been established for the impious in the lower world.”
Seneca sets forth the same thing in tragedy 6, meter 5. And the Platonists, as Augustine says in the place cited above, were accustomed to say that it was useful in cities for brave men to believe themselves born from the gods, even if this were false, so that with confidence in a divine lineage they might more boldly undertake great deeds.
Second, Origen argues for this side in a deadly and poisonous manner. He wills that all the damned, and even the demons, be saved at the end of the world through divine mercy, and consequently that hell not be found, at least after the universal judgment.
First, as follows. It is said in Wisdom 11: “You have mercy on all, O Lord, and you have hated none of the things you made.” But the damned and the demons are also numbered among all things. Therefore God will have mercy on them also at the end of the world.
And it is said in Genesis 6: “My spirit will not remain in the human being forever, because he is flesh.” But the spirit of God, as the gloss there says, is taken for indignation. The indignation of God and the punishment he inflicts appear to be the same. Therefore, if the spirit - that is, the indignation of God - will not remain in a human being forever, neither, similarly, will punishment.
Likewise, Psalm 35 says: “You will save human beings and beasts, O Lord.” According to Origen, “human beings” means rational beings, and “beasts” means demons.
And again: “Will he in his wrath restrain his mercies?” as though to say, no. But the wrath of God is his punishment.
And Anselm says in the book Why God Became Man: “It is not just that God should allow the rational creature, which he made for blessedness, to perish altogether.” But the damned are also among rational creatures. Therefore he will not allow them to perish eternally.
Likewise, God wills all human beings to be saved, as Paul says in 1 Timothy 2. But the will of God is so efficacious that it must be fulfilled entirely and no one can resist it in any manner, for “whatever he willed, he did in heaven and on earth,” as the Psalm says. Therefore all human beings, even the damned, will be saved at least after the judgment, and consequently there will be no hell after the judgment.
But because certain carnal human beings, intoxicated with the goods of this age, follow this erroneous opinion of Plato and Origen so that they can live more licentiously, gloriously, and voluptuously, I shall therefore prove briefly, by five reasons, by authorities, and by examples, that hell exists before and after the judgment.
First, by reason of divine perfection. For mercy and justice belong to God. “For all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth,” says the Psalm; and elsewhere: “Power is yours, O Lord, and mercy; and you will render to each according to his works.”
For if he were just without mercy, he would be cruel; and if merciful without justice, he would be foolish, as in chapter Discipline, distinction 45. Therefore Thomas says throughout Part I, question 21, that the mercy and justice of God are found in every work.
Mercy is indeed found with respect to the first root, as, for example, creation in all things; and in the human being, his creation and the end of his blessedness, which depends upon the goodness of the divine will alone.
Distributive justice is found insofar as he renders to each according to the nature and dignity of each, in this world or in the future. Therefore Dionysius says in chapter 8 of The Divine Names: “It is necessary to see in this that the true justice of God consists in his assigning to all their proper things according to the dignity of each existing thing and preserving the nature of each in its proper order and power.”
Therefore, just as from mercy he will reward the good eternally in heaven, so from justice he will condemn the wicked perpetually in hell.
Second, it is proved by reason of the condition of opposites. For when one of two opposites or contraries is found in nature, the other is also found, Book I of the Metaphysics and Book II of On the Heavens - unless, however, one of them were infinite.
But according to the philosophers, there is found a place where there is an absence of all contrariety and a fullness of all beauty, transparency, and luminosity, as is evident concerning the nine movable heavens removed from all contrariety, Book I of On the Heavens. According to Plato’s view, the souls of the good ascend to these heavens, to stars corresponding to them.
Or, according to the Greeks and Waldensians, there is found a place and a certain region on the surface of the earth that is most temperate and most pleasing in all delights, loftier than all the earth, situated in the east and on the right side of heaven, which is nobler than the left, Book II of On the Heavens. This is called the terrestrial Paradise, the garden of delights, or the Paradise of pleasure, Genesis 2. According to the Greeks and Waldensians, the souls not fully purged ascend to this place until the day of judgment.
Or, according to Christian theologians, there is found a place of inconceivable beauty and of an indescribable disposition in glory, where there is every good without any evil, where there are unfailing light and the peace of God that surpasses every understanding. This is the Empyrean Heaven, immediately surrounding all nine movable heavens, in which place the souls of the saints rest and enjoy eternal joy and the divinity.
Therefore, from the opposite, there can be found and there ought to be some place or some subterranean region at the center, surrounding the middle of the world at the lowest point. This region is full of a certain fire and naturally dark, deprived of every influx of celestial light because the element of earth surrounding this region is simply opaque, altogether lacking transparency, without which light can nowhere be diffused or penetrate.
In this region there is every evil without any good, and all the contraries of those things that are in the heavenly bodies, in the terrestrial Paradise, or in the Empyrean Heaven. There the damned will be tormented forever and ever.
Third, it is proved by reason of honorable equity. For according to the canons and laws, in doubtful matters we ought to choose the safer path. In the Decretals, On Homicide, chapter Upon Hearing, and On the Cleric Who Excommunicates, chapter That, it is said that in doubtful matters the safer path is to be chosen. And in On Betrothal, chapter The Young Man, it is said: “In those things that are doubtful, we ought to hold what we judge to be more certain.” And in On Penance, distinction 7, Augustine says in chapter No One, § If Anyone: “Hold what is certain and leave what is uncertain.”
Hence Cicero says in Book I of On Duties: “They give a good precept who forbid one to do anything when one doubts whether it is just or unjust.” And the jurist says in law Always, Digest, On Rules of Law: “In doubt, the more benign things are always to be preferred.” He says the same in law In Ambiguous Matters of the same title.
Since, therefore, it is more benign, more honorable, and more consonant with reason to believe that the wicked who perpetrate evils here without fear, and are not chastised in this age, are punished elsewhere after death in hell, than to believe that those who always end their lives here in iniquity carry away advantage from the evils they have committed and are enriched with virtue after death, having always rejoiced in iniquity during life, as is said in On Penance, distinction 7 - therefore hell after death must certainly be posited for such persons.
For otherwise, from the uninterrupted prosperity here of wicked persons punished neither here nor elsewhere after death, it would be argued that God is unjust, unmerciful, improvident, and partial. To believe this about him would be more merciless, less benign, and less safe for those who believe in him.
Fourth, it is proved by reason of the divine threat. For God and Christ and the saints threaten evildoers with hell after death, according to Matthew 25: “These will go into eternal punishment, but the just into eternal life”; and Job 21: “They hold the timbrel and harp and rejoice at the sound of the organ; they spend their days in good things and in a moment descend into hell.”
But if you say that Christ threatened hell in order to terrify the wicked and convert them to good, not in order to inflict punishments, hear Gregory in Book IV of the Dialogues, chapter 37: “What if someone says, ‘Christ threatened eternal punishment to sinners for this reason, so that he might restrain them from the perpetration of sins’? It is answered that, if what God threatened in order to correct from injustice is false, then what he promised in order to incite to justice is also false. But who, even though insane, would presume to say this? For if God threatened what he was not going to fulfill, then, while we wish to assert that he is merciful, we are compelled to proclaim that he is deceitful - which it is impious to say.”
Thus Gregory. And Jerome writes to Pammachius and Oceanus concerning this as follows: “Do we think, brothers, that the prophets preach in jest, that the Apostles speak with laughter, that Christ threatens judgment childishly? But there are no jests where punishments intervene. If they suffered in jest, let them be believed also to have spoken in jest. Isaiah is cut apart by a saw; Daniel is consigned to lions; Paul is beheaded by the sword; Peter is suspended on a cross after the Lord’s example. All this was so that by their teaching they might recall us from sins.”
Thus Jerome.
The fifth reason is from the condition of the universal world. For no particular community and no temporal dominion is without some place of justice, because justice is of the greatest perfection.
For God says in Exodus 22: “You shall not permit sorcerers to live upon the earth.” Therefore in the whole kingdom of the world also, of which no one other than God is lord - because “the earth is the Lord’s and its fullness” - some place of torments ought to be assigned where divine justice toward the reprobate may be shown. This place is called hell.
Second, the existence of hell is proved by authorities, and first by sacred Scripture. In Genesis 37 Jacob said to Reuben, when he had seen the tunic of his son Joseph stained with blood: “I will descend mourning to my son into hell.” And in Numbers 16, Dathan and Abiron “descended alive into hell.”
Virgil says in Book VI of the Aeneid:
Easy is the descent to Avernus; by night and by day the door of dark Dis lies open; but to recall one’s step and escape to the upper air - this is the task, this the toil.
And in the same place he also says:
Each of us suffers his own shades,
and so forth.
Juvenal, in Book I, satire 2, says that there are certain shades, and so forth. And Seneca says in tragedy 1: “Whoever is placid,” and so forth. See above in the question concerning the immortality of souls.
And Ovid says in Book IV of the Metamorphoses:
There is a descending road, gloomy with funereal yew; it leads through mute silences to the infernal abodes.
And below:
The city, spacious enough for a thousand entrances, has gates open on every side.
And Lactantius, in Book VI of the Divine Institutes, says concerning the lower world: “Zeno the Stoic taught that the abodes of the pious are separated from those of the impious; that the former inhabit quiet and delightful regions, but that the latter pay penalties in dark places and in foul and dreadful chasms.”
That hell exists is also proved from the manifold restoration of souls to bodies, so that they might make known the punishments and other things that they saw occur among the dead, as blessed Gregory truthfully relates in Book IV of the Dialogues, chapter 28. There at the beginning he says: “The heavenly goodness, from the great worthiness of its mercy, arranged that some persons should return suddenly to the body even after their departure, so that they might at least fear, once they had seen them, the torments of hell which they had not believed when they heard of them.”
This is evident concerning Lazarus, who never laughed after he had been raised. Moreover, afterward he so chastised himself with fasts, vigils, and labors that, even if his tongue were silent, his manner of life declared that he had seen torments among the dead. Thus Gregory.
Now reply must be made to the three arguments of Plato set forth at the beginning of this little question.
To the first, it is said that it is erroneous to say with the philosophers that eternal punishments will be fruitless when the benefit of the punishments ceases, and that therefore they must be ended. It would perhaps follow in the same way that medicines are fruitless and therefore must come to an end because the sick cannot be cured and the healthy cannot become ill.
For according to the irrefutable truth of the Catholic religion, the punishments of the damned will exist eternally for three reasons: namely, for the manifestation of God’s justice; for the beauty of the universe through the comparison of the good and the wicked; and for the delight of the blessed, who see vengeance being most justly exacted upon those who unjustly glorified themselves in this life, according to the saying: “The just person will rejoice when he sees vengeance; he will wash his hands in the blood of the sinner.”
To the second and third, however, it must be said that the philosophers and poets who fabricated that hell existed for the utility of the commonwealth, while not believing that hell existed in fact, deserved to be called not wise but foolish.
First, because fictions concerning punishments of this kind are unlawful according to the faith, just as they are doubtful. Second, because even according to natural reason, truth - which is a noble virtue pertaining to the intellect and to the regulation of affection - is not to be cast aside for just any advantage, since the honorable good is to be preferred to the useful good. But through that useful fiction, virtue, truth, and the honorable good were being cast aside for the sake of the commonwealth. Therefore it was not lawful to fabricate it, and so forth.
Nor is it the way of God or the process of reason that simple human beings should be recalled from sins and incited to virtues through deceptions, errors, or fictitious fables, as poets do. For those who used such means did not benefit human beings or the commonwealth, but harmed them exceedingly, as the outcome proved. For from this, in the course of time, execrable errors were rooted and confirmed among the gentile people; after Christ came, they could scarcely be extirpated, and only with great difficulty.
The fitting means of drawing human beings back from vices and inciting them to virtues are true teachings, apt rebukes, devout exhortations, promises of good things, and threats of punishments both of the present and the future age - punishments not fictitious, but most true, with all ambiguity removed. One who truly uses these means can deservedly be called wise.
As to the profane and heretical opinion of Origen in this matter, it is said first that the demons will never be saved. For, as Damascene says: “The fall is to angels what death is to human beings.” But if human beings die in mortal sin, after death there is no redemption for them from hell. Therefore the angels also became similarly irrecoverable after the fall.
Therefore it was said in Matthew 25: “Go, accursed, into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.” And it is said in Revelation 20: “The devil who seduced them was cast into the pool of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophets will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” But in Scripture, “forever and ever” customarily signifies eternity. Therefore, and so forth.
That wicked human beings in this world who are afterward damned will never be saved is also evident by reason. For if all were saved at the end, it would follow that all could offend God at will and rejoice in the world, and that afterward, whether he willed it or not, God would save them. Thus they would pass from delights to delights; they would enjoy present and future goods; here they would have a full belly, and there a full mind; they would be first in both ages; and thus, finally, on earth and in heaven, they would appear glorious. This is impossible, as Jerome says to Julian.
Reply is made to the authorities that Origen strained and faithlessly adduced for his false opinion.
To the first it is said that the distribution of “all” ought to be taken as an accommodated distribution according to this sense: namely, all those whom divine justice knows to be worthy of mercy. But the damned after death and the demons after the fall are irrecoverable.
Or it may be said that this distribution is understood for the classes of individuals and not for the individuals of the classes, as will be explained in reply to the last argument.
To the saying of Genesis 6, it is said that it is understood of the human being according to his race; hence indignation was taken away through the Passion of Christ.
To the saying of the Psalm, “Will God forget to have mercy, or will he restrain his mercies in his wrath?” it is said that this is understood of those who are vessels of mercy, because they are freed from misery not by their own merits but by God having mercy.
To the authority of Anselm it is said that it is understood of rational nature absolutely and simply, so that the sense is: it is not just for all of the nature of angels and of the nature of human beings universally to perish. But nothing prevents some of them from perishing and some from being saved.
To the saying of the Psalm, “You will save human beings and beasts, O Lord,” reply is made by denying Origen’s exposition.
To the last, Augustine replies by expounding the authority of the Apostle.
First, so that there may be an accommodated distribution according to this sense: God wills all human beings who are saved to be saved - not because there is no human being whom he does not will to be saved, but because no one is saved whom he does not will to be saved.
Second, it is expounded so that the distribution is for the classes of individuals and not for the individuals of the classes. According to this sense, God wills that some from whatever state of human beings be saved - males and females, Jews and gentiles, small and great - but not all from each state.
Although the authority of the Apostle can be drawn to these senses, nevertheless, because they do not follow from the force of the words, it must be explained otherwise according to Damascene, Book II, final chapter.
The divine will is divided into antecedent will and consequent will. By antecedent will God wills all human beings to be saved; by consequent will, however, he does not. And because the antecedent will is not always fulfilled, not all are saved.
To know what is called antecedent will in God and what is called consequent will, it must be noted that no diversity can be found in the divine will, since it is supremely simple. Nevertheless, by reason of the thing willed, nothing prevents it from being considered in diverse ways according to the diverse conditions of the things willed.
In the thing willed, according to the matter about which we now speak, two things must be considered: namely, that which is ordered, and its aids by which it is helped to attain the end to which it is ordered. According to each of these, the distinction of the will into antecedent and consequent can be taken.
For in that which is ordered to blessedness, nature and person must be considered. Therefore, with respect to nature, God wills all human beings to be saved, insofar as he gave to all a nature capable of and ordainable to blessedness.
With respect to the person, however, he does not will all human beings to be saved, for actions belong to the supposit and the person. And because many deviate from the ultimate end through their wicked actions, therefore, with respect to those things that belong to the person, God does not will all persons to be saved.
The first will of God is called antecedent and the second consequent, because a nature ordainable to the end ought to be considered prior to the actions of the person by which the end is attained or one deviates from it.
Second, this distinction of antecedent and consequent will can be taken with respect to the aids by which a creature is helped.
For there are certain antecedent things, as it were certain common aids, which are given to all human beings so that they may be saved: namely, free choice, precepts, counsels, and things of this kind, by which all can be directed in those things that pertain to salvation.
Nevertheless, there are also certain special aids, such as grace, virtues, perseverance in good, and things of this kind, which are given to certain persons spiritually and singularly.
Therefore, because what is common precedes what is special in the order of nature, the divine will, insofar as it regards the common aids, is called antecedent will; but insofar as it regards the special aids, it is called consequent. In this way God wills all human beings to be saved by antecedent will, but not by consequent will.
The antecedent will is not always fulfilled, because it is not will simply, nor is the thing willed by antecedent will alone willed simply, but only in a certain respect. For the will concerning someone’s salvation is a practical will, which necessarily regards the particular conditions of the supposits to whom the actions belong. The antecedent will does not do this, but the consequent will does.
Therefore, those things which God wills by antecedent will alone he does not will simply, and for that reason they need not be fulfilled.
These things are collected from Thomas, Part I, question 19, article 6, and Master Henry of Hesse on Genesis.