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Is There Pain in hell?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Franco Manni*
Affiliation:
Theology, KCL, 22, Kingsway, London

Abstract

I present a short summary of the traditional pagan and Christian legacy claiming that hell is above all a place of pain and the objections that have been addressed to it. Then I proceed to my main point:tracing a philosophical thread from Plato to Aristotle and then from Augustine to Aquinas, and citing a psychological experience of everyday life, I maintain that: 1) either there is no pain in hell, or 2) hell is not the worst thing that can happen to a human being. Then I present four possible objections to my thesis and attempt to counter them. In the last section I point to some practical consequences on the pastoral level that could ensue from a different doctrine on the nature of hell.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Decree 6, chapter 10.

2 JDDJ, 37, [http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_31101999_cath-luth-joint-declaration_en.html]. In substance, the Catholics and the Lutheran World Federation acknowledge in the declaration that the excommunications relating to the doctrine of justification set forth by the Council of Trent do not apply to the teachings of the Lutheran churches set forth in the text; likewise, the churches acknowledged that the condemnations set forth in the Lutheran Confessions do not apply to the Catholic teachings on justification set forth in the document. (Wikipedia 12/07/18)

3 Parry, Robin, “Hell”, in Holmes, Stephen (ed.), What are we Waiting For? Christian Hope and Contemporary Culture, (Milton Keynes: Paternoster), 2008, pp. 98-100Google Scholar.

4 The day after the Vatican spokesman declared that the meeting between pope Francis and journalist Scalfari was merely private and not a formal interview, but did not deny anything. [http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2018/03/29/0236/00512.pdf]

5 I say ‘substantially’, because Aquinas thinks that the severed soul is incorruptible, yes, but is not the person, the self (“mea anima non est ego”): Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter XV, lectio 2, n. 924.

6 Horton, Michael, review in International Journal of Systematic Theology, 4 Number 1 (2002), p. 94Google Scholar.

7 Perriman, , The Coming of the Son of Man: New Testament Eschatology for an Emerging Church, (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2012)Google Scholar.

8 Christophe et al editors, (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2017). I said “almost” because Karen Kilby's article's does deal with them, while she is supporting John Thiel's idea that the four last things “say something about the future, not a redescription of the present”.

9 Inf. 23: 121-123.

10 City of God, Book XXI. Chapter 2

11 ST, Ia-Iae, 87, 4.

12 Zuzoric, Pastor Bernard, reported by Divna Zecevic, ‘Croatian Popular Sermons of the 18th and 19th Century’, Nar. umjet. 32/1, 1995, p. 139Google Scholar.

13 Rowell, Geoffrey, Hell and the Victorians: A Study of the Nineteenth-Century Theological Controversies concerning Eternal Punishment and the Future Life (Oxford: OUP, 1974), viiCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 In his The Problem of Pain [1940], (Quebec: Samizdat University press, 2016, p. 80), he writes an hypothetical and obscure sentence: “Even if it were possible that the experience (if it can be called experience) of the lost contained no pain and much pleasure, still, that black pleasure would be such as to send any soul, not already damned, flying to its prayers in nightmare terror: even if there were pains in heaven, all who understand would desire them.”. However the only one comment of this Lewis's text I could find interprets it in the ‘usual’ contemporary way, where there is “pain of missing Heaven” : see Anders, Max, What you Need to Know about Bible Prophecy in 12 Lessons (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997, p. 129)Google Scholar.

15 Sprinkle, Preston (ed.), Four Views on hell: Second Edition, (Gran Rapids-Michigan: Zondervan, 2016)Google Scholar.

16 Eugenio Scalfari, ‘Il Papa: “È un onore essere chiamato rivoluzionario”’, La Repubblica, 28 March 2018.

17 Actually 117, because his Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens was published in 1901.