The Ice-olation of Hell

The dreadfulness of Hell is a thing we do not fully conceive because to our corporeal-focused minds, the nature of the sufferings there- or more precisely the nature of the suffering there- does not appear physically harsh at all. Certainly, the threat of demon and flame will make even modern man shutter, but even these physical torments do not approach sufficiently close to the substance of hellish pain. St. Isaac the Syrian describes Hell as "the suffering of no longer being able to love"(as quoted by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov). This description strikes at the core of that dreadful place, of that tormented state.

Nonetheless, do we not still hear fallen man sigh with relief: "Well, if that is the worst of it, that isn't that bad." What ignorance of man's nature is displayed in this sentiment!

Who man is is patterned off of the reality of God as a unity of persons. Conveyed in the very essence of the Godhead is a multiplicity of Persons in eternal union with each other. St. John the Evangelist tells us more succinctly: "God is love" (1 Jn 4:8). But love must be shared, it can never be stored up within oneself. Therefore, it is not sufficient for God to be merely one without distinction, as all other monotheistic religions claim He is, for that would mean something else defines Him besides love. For the Jew or Muslim, oneness and simplicity suffice for essential attributes of God for in their theologies there can be no question of love as essentially applying to God for there is no other within Himself to love. But if it is love that is God's very essence, as St. John teaches us, then in the relationship between the Persons of the Trinity we find the very nature of God.

With that said, man, who is made in the image of God, is ordered to a like union with the other- not within himself as in God- but outside himself as in communion with fellow beings. He is created for the other and must continually look to the other to share himself with. Even in his biology, he is only brought into this world through the union of two people and can bring forth new life in this world only through uniting to another individual; he was never meant to fade into the solipsistic oblivion of his own independence.

How unfortunate was Sartre in envisioning hell as other people (c.f Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit), for under the governance of God it is the exact opposite: in others we find life, hope, and happiness- in others we find Heaven. There is no room for the isolation wrought by man's loneliness within the system God designed. Love is the very reason and cause of man's existence and so it must be the reason and cause of his salvation. If he is no longer able to love as St. Isaac says- man enters into the greatest torment conceivable.

The means through which love is given in this world is sacrifice, the giving of oneself for the sake of the beloved. Therefore, when man dies, the time to offer his sacrifice is finished and truly no more opportunities lie ahead of him for that sacrifice to be made. Whatever he has done will go with him for good or for ill. The time for him to choose to live as his nature is ordered has ended. If he loved, that love (which now defines him) can only grow into eternity. However, if he failed to love, he will then enter into that place where love can no longer reach for he has shut himself up in isolation (c.f. Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity). He has not and does not love, thus Hell has not begun, but continued for him.

If, as he lived his life, man chose not to love and as a result found no enjoyment in love, then what value can be placed on any yearning he might have for Heaven if Heaven is where the love of God reigns supreme? If one desires to live against his nature, it is not any man's, nor even God's place to force him to change. No good, no happiness, no love could come from such compulsion. In speaking of Satan's distaste for Heaven, Milton places on the lips of Lucifer this thought-provoking sentiment: "How wearisome eternity so spent in worship paid to Him whom we hate." (Paradise Lost). As if echoing the thought of his fellow Englishman, St. John Henry Newman would later preach something similar in a sermon: "Heaven would be hell to an irreligious man." Perhaps we can even turn Newman's phrase on its head and said: for the irreligious man Hell would be Heaven; but whether he will enjoy his Heaven is another question.

Therefore, the doctrine of Hell is only comprehensible alongside the doctrine of man's free will. If man's fundamental essence is ordered for love and he chooses not do so, Heaven would not be a happy place for him. God does not force Himself upon us nor does He force others upon us. Love necessitates only one condition: freedom. If freedom is real, alongside the ability to choose to love God, so too is the ability to reject Him as well. Heaven is for the former, Hell is for the latter, but freedom is in both. Even Albert Camus would write: "Preferring oneself to eternity or losing oneself in God is the age-old tragedy in which each must play his part" (The Myth of Sisyphus). A radical sort of freedom is given to us to make the drama of our existence into either a heavenly comedy or a hellish tragedy.

One of the clearest implications of the reality of Hell our Lord makes occurs in Matthews's account of the Last Supper (c.f. Mt 26:20-25). "The Son of man goes as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed. It would have been better for that man if he had not been born." Better for a man never to have been born? Does such a dark reality really exist? Yet, to show us that it is difficult for one to unknowingly stumble into such a state, the Holy Spirit compelled Judas to ask a question he already knew the answer to: "Is it I, Master?" And our Lord's loaded reply: "You have said so."

So too we will ask the Lord at our own judgement: Am I also such a man that it would have been better not to have been born? And will we not also receive the same answer as Judas did: "You have said so." For we have said it by the corporal works of mercy we have or have not shown, we have said it by the spiritual works of mercy we have or have not done, we have said it by the love we have had or not had for others. But most especially we have said it by the trust that we have placed in Christ Jesus or the trust we have placed in ourselves.

Dante has the most impressive image of Hell in The Divine Comedy when he describes it as a place progressively getting colder and colder as one approaches its center. At its center is where one would eventually find Satan himself fixed in an ice cube. For cold seems to express the isolation of willful hate (which is where a choice not to love will eventually lead) and it is fitting that that would be at the heart of Hell. Conversely, the tradition in eastern icons that depict the face of Christ aglow in red better describes what happens in Heaven where the fire of the love of God burns bright, the fire that will set aflame the man who chooses to love. For there is a certain vibrancy and active vitality to fire that ice cannot comprehend except by passively melting in its presence. This is why there cannot be any "ice"-olation in Heaven, it can only exist in Hell where the damned are assured, out of respect for their freedom, that the temperature will never rise.