348. Hell’s eternity
348. HELL’S ETERNITY
Is there any chance or possibility that Hell might end? Shouldn’t it end? How is it just for God to punish sinners eternally for sins that were only temporal?
Whether by divine justice an eternal punishment is inflicted on sinners?
Objection 1. It would seem that an eternal punishment is not inflicted on sinners by divine justice. For the punishment should not exceed the fault: According to the measure of the sin shall the measure also of the stripes be (Deut. 25:2). Now fault is temporal. Therefore the punishment should not be eternal.
Reply to Objection 1. Punishment does not have to be equal to fault as to the amount of duration, as is seen to be the case also with human laws. (For a murder in one moment of passion we may justly imprison a man for the rest of his life. The punishment must fit the crime in moral ways, not necessarily physical ways.) We may also reply with Gregory that although sin is temporal in act, it is eternal in will. (Those in Hell do not repent, so their will is evil eternally.)
Objection 3. Further, a just judge does not punish except in order to correct. . . (for) punishments are a kind of medicine. Now to punish the wicked eternally does not lead to their correction, nor to that of others, since then there will be no one in future who can be corrected thereby.
Reply to Objection 3. The punishments inflicted on those who are not altogether expelled from the society of their fellow-citizens are intended for their correction; whereas those punishments whereby certain persons are wholly banished from the society of their fellow-citizens are not intended for their correction, although they may be intended for the correction and tranquility of others who remain in the state. Accordingly the damnation of the wicked is for the correction of those who are now in the Church.
In human penology too, sometimes the punishment justly and necessarily, for the protection of the innocent, excludes the criminal from society (by exile) or from human life itself (by capital punishment). And this is for the good of deterrence toward others.
Objection 6. Further, the justice of God would seem to require that sinners should be brought to naught (annihilated), because on account of ingratitude a person deserves to lose all benefits; and among other benefits of God there is being itself. . . .
Reply to Objection 6. Although a man deserves to lose his being from the fact that he has sinned against God the author of his being, yet . . . being is presupposed to merit and demerit, nor is being lost or corrupted by the inordinateness of sin, and consequently privation of being cannot be the punishment due to any sin. (Annihilation (“privation of being”) would be less just, for sin does not refuse, hate, or lose existence itself, but does that to goodness.)
On the contrary, It is written (Mt 25:46): These shall go into everlasting punishment. . . . However strong the arguments may seem to be for alternatives to eternal punishment, our supreme authority on the matter could not be more clear. Christ has spoken, the case is closed.
I answer that, Since punishment is measured in two ways, namely according to the degree of its severity and according to its length of time, the measure of punishment corresponds to the measure of fault as regards the degree of severity. . . . But the duration of punishment regards the disposition of the sinner . . . as regards those who sin in such a way as not to deserve to be entirely cut off from the fellowship of the saints, such as those who sin venially, their punishment will be so much the shorter or longer according as they are more or less fit to be cleansed through sin clinging to them more or less. This is observed in the punishments of this world and of purgatory . . . (But) Gregory says: . . . those should never cease to be punished who . . . never ceased to desire sin . . . The wicked only put an end to sinning because their life came to an end; they would indeed have wished to live for ever that they might continue in sin for ever. . . (S99,1). If we are just and rational, though we tremble, we agree.