Why is there Hell? 

Some of history’s most chilling images are photos of Adolph Hitler, taken in the last days of his life. Every city of his Thousand-year Reich has been pounded into rubble. Over 10 per cent of his people have died for him. The Red Army is battling into the ruins of Berlin, only a few miles from his Fuhrer Bunker. He’s prepared to shoot himself within hours. 

The Fuhrer emerges momentarily from his bunker to inspect his newest recruits: adolescent boys, in natty black uniforms. They’re preparing to march into the raging battle where they’ll be shot or bayonetted by Russian soldiers. As their Leader paces their ranks, smiling, he reaches out and tweaks one’s cheek like he hasn’t got a care in the world. And he doesn’t. The world is ending. 

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We sometimes meet people who criticize the Catholic Church for persevering in the doctrine of Hell. They find incredible a God who would condemn anybody to eternal suffering. Mothers of those boys could put them straight. 

For millennia, the humiliated, tortured and dying have cried to God for justice. Are millions of Ukrainians killed by Stalin, and millions more slaughtered by Mao Zedong just so many eggs broken for some demonic omelet? Or does each have a claim to God’s justice? We should return to the mystery of Hell if only to keep our bearings in life.

St. Teresa of Avilla said bluntly, “All I know is, if I’m saved, it’s what God makes of me, and if I’m damned, it’s what I make of myself.” So, Hell is not some “place” where otherwise normal people end up. It’s a state of being what they’ve become. Hitler was already in a Hell of his own making, a universe of malice. He assumed the universe ended with him and was okay with that. 

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In his Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, then-Cardinal Ratzinger acknowledges the Creed is definitive only about “the resurrection of the flesh” at the end of time. Since we’re body-and-soul creatures, the interval between our own deaths and the Second Coming remains speculative. The faithfully departed are likely sustained in their unique personalities through immediate communion with God before the face of Christ Jesus, behind the veil that obscures that “great cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1) from our earthly sight. 

St. Paul describes our initial experience as a “refining fire” that purifies “the gold, silver, and precious stones” in our souls while burning away the “wood, hay, and straw” (1 Cor 3). This is Purgatory, again not a “place” but a momentary state of being: for the saintly, glorious sunshine; for the rest of us (if blessed) a real sunburn but a welcomed one. 

There may be a little “gold, silver, and precious gems” at the bottom of the soul of Hitler, Stalin or Mao. If not, they will not be rewarded with oblivion, nonexistence. They do not get to bring down the universe with their deaths. They, too, are sustained in communion with God, Being itself, in an endless rage at the love they reject. Philosopher Peter Kreeft speculates that everyone “in” heaven and Hell experiences the same reality, the fire of Divine Love. This may be like opera, Kreeft muses, the same performance being heaven for some, and hell for others. 

Still, how could a perfectly loving God maintain anyone in an endless state of suffering, an eternity of despair? Consider G.K. Chesterton’s story about his saintly grandfather, who announced at the dinner table: “I would bless God for my existence even if I knew I was damned.” The flipside of trust in God is boundless gratitude for simply existing, as displayed by urchins in squalid barrios. Just “being” is wonderful in itself.

Some may object that Jesus says of Judas, “Woe to the one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.” Yet every English translation (at least) can be interpreted, “That one will wish he had never been born.” Hell would be his longing not to be, while suspended in being by Being Himself.

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If Love maintains the damned in existence, it must be an act of love, however much they’re enraged by it. They’re infuriated by a God other than themselves, their empty wills. And such willfulness is possible for any of us, not just Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.

(Joseph Woodard is a research fellow at the Gregory the Great Institute.)