Monologion: Chapter 71
BASIC WRITINGS
supreme goodness give as a reward to one who loves and desires him, if not himself? For anything else he might give would not be a reward,since it would not recompense the love, or console the one who loves him, or satisfy the one who desires him. Either that, or if he wills to be loved and desired so that he might give something else as a reward, he does not will to be loved and desired for his own sake, but for the sake of something else. But in that case he does not will that he himself be loved, but rather that something else be loved—which it is impious to think.
Therefore, nothing is truer than this: that every rational soul, if it strives to love and desire the supreme happiness as it ought, at some time perceives him so as to enjoy him.Thus, what it now sees as if "in a mirror, in a riddle," it will then see "face to face."68 Now it is utterly foolish to doubt whether one will enjoy him without end, since one who enjoys him cannot be tortured by fear or deceived by a false security; nor, having once experienced being without him, could one fail to love him; nor will he abandon one who loves him; nor will there be anything else more powerful than he that might separate them against their will. Therefore, any soul that has once begun to enjoy the supreme happiness will be happy eternally.
Chapter 71 That one who disdains him will be eternally miserable From this of course it follows that a soul that disdains the love of the supreme good will incur eternal misery. One might say that for such disdain it would be more justly punished if it lost its very existence or life, since it did not use itself for what it was made for; but reason in no way allows that after so great a fault it should receive as its punishment the existence it had before any fault at all.69 Certainly before it existed it could neither be at fault nor experience punishment.Therefore, if a soul that disdains what it was made for dies, so that it experiences nothing, or is nothing at all, it will be in the same state both when it is most greatly at fault and when it is without any fault; nor would the supremely wise justice distinguish between what is capable of no good and wills no evil, and what is capable of the greatest good and wills the greatest evil. Now it is quite obvious how absurd that is. So nothing could seem more logical, and nothing should be believed more certainly, than this: the human soul was made in such a way that if it disdains to love the supreme essence, it will suffer eternal misery. Thus, just as one who loves him will rejoice in an 68 1 Corinthians 13:12.
69 In other words, nonexistence, which is the "existence" the soul had before it was guilty of any fault.