Hell

 

Pope Francis is a blithering idiot as well as Marxist fanatic. How he considers himself to be a Christian is beyond me.

 

Dennis Prager wrote an article for Townhall.com, posted 3/12/24, entitled, The Pope Hopes No One Is in Hell. We Should.

 

I am going to quote Prager’s article in full and comment on its content.

 

Prager (P after this): “In a televised interview watched by millions, Pope Francis recently made a comment about hell that has been widely reported.

 

In the words of the Catholic New Agency”

 

‘When asked by the interviewer, Fabio, Fazio, how he ‘imagines hell,’ Pope Francis gave a short response. ‘What I am going to say is not a dogma of faith but my own personal view: I like to think of hell as empty: I hope it is.’”

 

My response: It seems to me that Francis’s real faith is Marxism and totalitarianism. Christ clearly taught that we have free will, and that wielding free will means that the agent will face consequences for choices made, in this world and in the next: rewards and perhaps heaven if we are virtuous and holy; punishment and perhaps hell if we are vicious and unholy.

 

We might argue that  Purgatory saves many maybe most humans from eternity in hell, or I argue that even the worst, if repentant, may be able to escape hell after ten or twenty thousand years, but divine justice means that some people—I have no idea what percentage will be in hell forever, and the amount is not none, and the Pope should know better to even announce such an opinion to the faithful.

 

P: “I have a different—indeed, completely opposite—view.

 

I should make it clear that I, too, hope that sometime in the future—hopefully the near future—no one will be sent to hell. This would mean goodness had finally prevailed on Earth that not one person was deserving of punishment in the afterlife.”

 

My response: Prager clearly thinks that moral kindness and decency are the standard that God expects from us. If good works is our record, we will go to heaven; If evildoing is our record, we might burn in hell.

 

Christians, especially Protestants, might well argue that faith, not good works, is God’s standard. If we repent our sins and invite Christ and the grace from the Holy Spirit into our lives, we may go to heaven. If we refuse this free, divine gift, we may burn.

 

The moderate in me believes that the person that does good works most of the time, and if he is a man of faith, accepting Jesus and the other good deities into his life, then he has a chance to go to heaven or at least to Purgatory, or some intermediate place like that.

 

It also occurs to me that people are behave when they know that a cop will give them a ticket if they speed over 5-miles-per-hour over the posted speed limit on a highway. Similarly, if hell exists and those that are vicious and unholy might well burn is a negative, but productive, effective spiritual motivator for people to be religious and moral to avoid burning or reduce the prospect of such a horrible end.

 

In light of these perspectives, the Pope, in the name of modern compassion, may be well condemning more people to hell for being unfaithful, Satan-worshipers and immoral, because they believed there was no hell, so why bother believing or behaving, because they were all going to heaven anyway, because God is just so easy-going, forgiving and merciful, that everyone, even Mao and Hitler get a pass. God is merciful and that means anything goes, the Progressives, wrongly suggest.

 

By contrast, I believe that some go right to heaven; most spend centuries in Purgatory before going to heaven, and some go to hell for centuries or perhaps forever. These after-life judicial sentences are reality, whether people believe that hell exists or not, or that they need to believe and behave just to hedge their bets.

 

I believe that good exists ontologically, naturally, biologically, spiritually, and morally. I believe that evil exists ontologically, naturally, biologically, spiritually, and morally. If these conditions hold, and they do, then agents with free will expect to go to heaven, Purgatory, or hell after they die.

 

Prager talked about this article on his talk show after it was published. He said if there is no hell or if there is no one in hell, then either God does not exist or is not just. God exists and God is just so heaven and hell are destinations for people after death depending on their believing and behaving, because God is a god of love and justice, so free will only makes sense if divine justice is meted out to humans of free will, as divine payback for choices made, and people knew what they were doing.

 

Prager argues that this world is filled with vicious, cruel evil people that obviously prevail, rule and are rewarded in this world, so if they are not punished in the next world there is no divine justice, or God does not exist, a view which Prager dismisses, so, for him, heaven or hell are actual human, possible destinations after death. He makes sense, not Pope Francis.

 

By the way, with both Francis and Prager, I hope no one is in hell, but I do not believe that hell does not exist or that it is empty. I also do not think I will end up there, but one never knows for sure.

 

P: “But as of this moment, I fervently hope that some people are in hell—or whatever one wishes to call punishment after life; just as I hope some people are in heaven—or whatever one wishes to call reward in an afterlife. Why? Because if no one is punished after death, that would mean either there is no God or, equally depressing, it would mean God is not just.

 

It should be added that if no one is punished, the corollary would me that no one is rewarded. Pure logic dictates it is not possible to have an afterlife in which people were rewarded but not punished. It would mean either everyone is rewarded—which would mean there is no justice—or only some are rewarded. But if only some are rewarded, that means those who are deprived of reward are thereby punished.”

 

My response: Prager makes sense above. If everyone is rewarded, or if all were punished, that would not be justice, and free will and accountability would justice be meaningless gibberish and painful contradictions, and that is not how God works or the world works.

 

P: “It shows how little serious thought is given to the subject that a vast number of people do not think the existence of a heaven and hell are important subjects and/or dismiss them as religious nonsense.

 

This absence of serious thought can easily be demonstrated. Let’s imagine a society in which there were no rewards or punishments. I suspect almost no one—though not no one, as we shall see—thinks that would be a good society. How many people want to live in a society in which murderers and rapists were never punished while people who engage in exceptional goodness were never rewarded?

 

My response: There must be a functioning society, law, order, and justice—hopefully not two-tiered justice—so there must be rewards and punishment in this world and the next for what we believe and how we behave.

 

P: “If that doesn’t make the case, let’s not imagine a whole society. Let’s imagine a school. Would you send your child to a school in which children that routinely disturbed their classes and flunked all their subjects were never punished and students who excelled behaviorally and academically were never rewarded.”

 

My response: A world and after-life world where sinners are not punished, and the virtuous and excellers are not rewarded would be a world of chaos, injustice, enhanced suffering, and meaninglessness, not a world or heavenly world that could survive, function, make sense and flourish.

 

P: “I imagine not. So why, then, would anyone want such a scenario for all of life? Why would anyone want people who committed terrible evils not to be punished and people who committed heroic, self-sacrificing good acts not to be rewarded?

 

This is why I wrote that there is an absence of serious thought on this issue. What people would find utterly objectionable in their society or even just in their child’s school, they are at peace with regarding life.

 

But there is more to this issue. People are in fact increasingly at peace with no reward or no punishment in life. This is the egalitarian impulse that is coming to dominate intellectual life. More and more people are in fact advocating for such a society. No more ‘retributive justice.’ No more merit-based standards. No more valedictorians. No more failing grades. No more SATs. Indeed, no more standards. No more bail. No more punishment if you are caught stealing less than a thousand dollars’ worth of goods. No more prosecutors that prosecute. Only ‘equity.’”

 

My response: Prager is right; we do not want standards, consequences, or justice meted out in this world or in the next, but, that is not how God works in this world or in the next. There are objective standards of right and wrong, and there are consequences for viciousness and unbelief in this world and the next, and there are rewards in this world and the next for belief and virtue.

 

P: “I am convinced that is what animated Pope Francis’ words. Note that he said he was stating his opinion, not church dogma. As an egalitarian, the thought that anyone is in hell disturbs him.

 

So why do people who think like the Pole oppose rewards and punishments?

 

Because rewards and punishments mean that one must make judgments about better and worse—morally, academically and in most other spheres of life. It’s better to just assume that no one is better than anyone else. That is what animated participation trophies—no one, not even a team, is better or worse. In much of the contemporary intellectual world, the greatest sin is judging sin. And when you do away with sin, you do away with hell.”

 

My response: None are better or worse than anyone else but, being accurately judged by people the authorities in this world and by God in this world and in the next, is justice and necessary for beliefs and virtue or non-beliefs and viciousness are merited judgment based on actual individual, personal attitude, and behavior. All are equal. All could do better or worse each day, and this does not undermine a worthy interest in and insistence upon egalitarian justice.

 

We may think we, as unbelieving, morally relativistic secular humanist are beyond sin, that sin and hell no longer exist, but our believing these lies and falsehoods does not mean that worldly and otherworldly justice are not existent, nor that people will be judged and justice meted out accordingly by God for all of us, each and every time a human dies.