No Physical Heaven/Hell ... says the Pope?

A multitude of words about heaven and hell lies within the pages of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the writings of Christianity's church fathers. But when Pope John Paul II chose a few to elaborate on in two recent addresses, he made headlines, even though he was merely drawing on current church teaching in his descriptions of the afterlife.

"The Pope drastically lowered the temperature of hell," crowed a report from the British newspaper, The Guardian. An July 29 article from Reuters News Service said: "Forget the flames and the devils with pitchforks. A week after telling the Roman Catholic faithful that heaven was not up in the clouds, Pope John Paul II said yesterday that hell was not a physical place either."

Even in Italy, home of the Catholic Church's Vatican, the Pope's thoughts on eternity unleashed a discussion in the Italian press in which Catholic theologians weighed in on the subject, according to the National Catholic Register.

In this premillennial time, when mediums who claim to have received reports of the hereafter are frequent guests on TV talk shows and their books are big sellers, no one should be surprised that talk of the afterlife from one of the world's best-known religious leaders would spark the kind of interest it did. The popularity of books by and about such mediums as George Anderson, James Van Praagh, and John Edward in which they share messages from the "other side" that describe what it's like over there indicates people want their curiosity about what comes after death satisfied by more than blind faith.

Such curiosity often stems from the desire to know the state of loved ones who have died. Indeed, much of Anderson's work has been in giving readings, or as he calls them, discernments, to bereaved survivors about their deceased family members. What they have to say is far more detailed than anything the Pope has said in describing heaven and hell, but in some ways it is similar to his characterizations of heaven and hell as closer to a state of being than a place.

The Pope's comments stand in sharp contrast to popular images of heaven as a mass of fluffy clouds and hell as a pit of fire. Heaven, the Pope said, is neither abstraction nor a physical place, but a "living and personal relationship with the Holy Trinity," the Christian understanding of God as one being in three persons of Father,Son, and Holy Spirit. Hell, he said, is "the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy."

However, none of this is new as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, said the Rev. Brian Daley, a Jesuit and professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., who said he found reports of the Pope's talks "completely unremarkable."

"It was kind of a standard Catholic presentation of heaven and hell." The church's view, he said, is based on the Christian hope that the relationship with God begun in this life continues in the next and that humans have the freedom to turn away from that relationship if they choose, knowing that it will lead to destruction. "The rest is imagery about what we can't describe."

Much as the Pope did, the Catholic Catechism describes heaven as a communion of life and love with the Trinity, with Mary the mother of Christ, the angels and "all the blessed." Hell is defined in the text as a state in which the chief punishment is "eternal separation from God."

Father Daley, whose background is in patristics, or the writings of the church fathers, said that the authors of the early church do some of their own imagining about the hereafter. St. Gregory of Nyssa , an early church father, for example, spoke of a spiritual fire, the anguish of knowing one is separated from God and consumed with longing, sadness, and frustration, Father Daley said.

Although St. Gregory offered a spiritual notion of what heaven and hell might be like, he said that humans can only form metaphors or images of it for themselves. "He imagines heaven as a kind of perpetual growth, becoming more and more united with God, more and more satisfied in a sense."

St. Thomas Aquinas, who was called the "Great Synthesizer" because of his ability to relate faith to reason and theology to philosophy, has a lot to say about what heaven and hell might be like, Father Daley said. "He emphasizes that the center of happiness and fulfillment for a person will be the beatific vision, a sort of direct understanding of God which makes us fully happy. He kind of put it in terms of a vision, not just with physical eyes, but with our minds."

Much imagery about the afterlife, however, comes straight from the Bible. In the Christian gospels, Jesus Christ speaks about hell as a fiery place where unrepentant sinners will be cast. Hell as a place of eternal fire where sinners will be thrown forever also is found in some late Jewish writings that would have been written about the time of the Christian scriptures or later, Father Daley said.

The hell of eternal damnation sometimes is confused with the hell to which Jesus is said to have descended after His resurrection from the dead. That hell, however, is seen as a subterranean place, like the Jewish idea of Hades or Sheol, where those who had died were in a kind of waiting room until Christ's resurrection from the dead, when Christians believe He went there to proclaim their redemption.

Images of hell as a fiery place, Father Daley said, are not generally interpreted literally by theologians. "More and more the church has taken these things as being metaphors, a way of imagining what we can know from our present faith: which is to choose not to accept God's love is to choose a situation and image of ourselves that is self-destructive."

Father Daley said one of his favorite presentations on heaven and hell was given as a sermon by John Henry Newman before he converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism in 1845. "He has this idea, which is very fascinating, that heaven and hell are in the same place, that we all come to be in the presence of God, but for the person who has lived in faith, coming into the presence of God is tremendously fulfilling and happy. And for the one who lived for self, power, and material things, it's hell."

People are likely interested in the hereafter, Father Daley said, because of their inherent awareness of the fragility of life. "There is something in us instinctively that doesn't want to see death simply as annihilation of any of us, because our experiences seem to be more long-lasting and valuable than that. We want to believe and have some sort of intuition that there is something permanent in the human person."

Most religious faiths, he said, claim there is some lasting value and existence to individual people, even if they speak of it in poetic ways. When people think about the hereafter, Father Daley said, they draw on their present experience of faith and sense of God and the invisible realm and then imagine what it would be like to share in that in some lasting way.

In art, more of those imaginings seem to deal with hell than with heaven. Hell in art often is depicted with monster images, said Iva Lisikewycz, associate curator of European paintings at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The first devils in art were merely dark figures, meaning that they didn't possess the light, she said. "Early images of devils were fallen angels, and that then was united with the idea of the grotesque, so that devils look like monsters with big teeth, pointy ears, and bat's wings --because they were night creatures."

In one painting of Christ pulling Adam and Eve from hell, hell is seen as a great mouth with flames and tormented creatures within, Lisikewycz said. Heaven is more difficult to depict, she went on. "Very often, it's related to gardens, paradise, the enclosed garden, the idea of water and plant life. "Heaven is where God is and hell is where God isn't. I think that's what his holiness the Pope is talking about now. Just the fact that you should be unhappy you're not there, because those who are are happy."

This sounded like an explanation I had heard from time to time of the Eastern Orthodox understanding, such as is found in Paradise and Hell According to Orthodox Tradition, by Fr. George Metallinos, from which the following exerpt is taken:

Paradise and hell are not two different places. Such an idea is an idolatrous concept. Rather they signify two different conditions [ways or states of being], which originate from the same uncreated source, and are perceived by man as two, differing experiences. More precisely, they are the same experience, except that they are perceived differently by man, depending on his internal state.

This experience is the sight of Christ in the uncreated light of His divinity, of His "glory". From the moment of His Second Coming, through to all eternity, all people will be seeing Christ in His uncreated light. That is when "those who worked good deeds in their lifetime will go towards the resurrection of life, while those who worked evil in their lifetime will go towards the resurrection of judgment" (Jn.5:29). In the presence of Christ, mankind will be separated (like "sheep" and "kidgoats", to His right and His left). In other words, they will be discerning in two separate groups: those who will be behold Christ as paradise (the "exceeding good, the radiant") and those who will be looking upon Christ as hell ("the all-consuming fire" of Hebrews 12:29).

Paradise and hell are the same reality. This is what is depicted in the portrayal of the Second Coming. From Christ, a river of fire flows forth. It is radiant like a golden light at the upper end of it, where the saints are. At its lower end, the same river is fiery, and it is in that part of the river that the demons and the unrepentant ("the never repentant" according to a hymn) are depicted. This is why in Luke 2:34 we read that Christ stands "as the fall and the resurrection of many". Christ becomes the resurrection into eternal life for those who accepted Him and who followed the means given for the healing the heart. To those who rejected Him, however, He becomes their separation and their hell.

Among the patristic testimonies, Saint John of Sinai (of the Ladder) says that the uncreated light of Christ is "an all-consuming fire and an illuminating light". Saint Gregory Palamas (E.P.E. II, 498) observes: "Thus, it is said, He will baptize you by the Holy Spirit and by fire: in other words, by illumination and judgment, depending on each person's predisposition, which will in itself bring upon him that which he deserves." Elsewhere, (Essays, P. Christou Publications, vol.2, page 145): The light of Christ, "albeit one and accessible to all, is not partaken of uniformly, but differently".

Consequently, paradise and hell are not a reward or a punishment (condemnation), but the way that we individually experience the sight of Christ, depending on the condition of our heart. God doesn't punish in essence, although, for educative purposes, the Scripture does mention punishment. The more spiritual that one becomes, the better he can comprehend the language of the Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Man's condition (clean-unclean, repentant-unrepentant) is the factor that determines the acceptance of the Light as "paradise" or "hell".

“I think that by now we have reached the point of understanding correctly what eternal hell and eternal paradise really are, and who is in reality responsible for the difference.

In the icon of the Last Judgment we see Our Lord Jesus Christ seated on a throne. On His right we see His friends, the blessed men and women who lived by His love. On His left we see His enemies, all those who passed their life hating Him, even if they appeared to be pious and reverent. And there, in the midst of the two, springing from Christ’s throne, we see a river of fire coming toward us. What is this river of fire? Is it an instrument of torture? Is it an energy of vengeance coming out from God in order to vanquish His enemies?

No, nothing of the sort. This river of fire is the river which “came out from Eden to water the paradise” of old (Gen. 2:10). It is the river of the grace of God which irrigated God’s saints from the beginning. In a word, it is the out-pouring of God’s love for His creatures. Love is fire. Anyone who loves knows this. God is Love, so God is Fire. And fire consumes all those who are not fire themselves, and renders bright and shining all those who are fire themselves (Heb. 12:29).

God many times appeared as fire: To Abraham, to Moses in the burning bush, to the people of Israel showing them the way in the desert as a column of fire by night and as a shining cloud by day when He covered the tabernacle with His glory (Exod. 40:28, 32), and when He rained fire on the summit of Mount Sinai. God was revealed as fire on the mountain of Transfiguration, and He said that He came “to put fire upon the earth” (Luke 12:49), that is to say, love, because as Saint John of the Ladder says, “Love is the source of fire” (Step 30, 18).

The Greek writer, Fotis Kontoglou said somewhere that “Faith is fire, and gives warmth to the heart. The Holy Spirit came down upon the heads of the apostles in the form of tongues of fire. The two disciples, when the Lord was revealed to them, said ‘Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us in the way?’ Christ compares faith to a ‘burning candle.’ Saint John the Forerunner said in his sermons that Christ will baptize men ‘in the Holy Spirit and fire.’ And truly, the Lord said, ‘I am come to send fire on the earth and what will I if it be already kindled? Well, the most tangible characteristic of faith is warmth; this is why they speak about ‘warm faith,’ or ‘faith provoking warmth.’ And even as the distinctive mark of faith is warmth, the sure mark of unbelief is coldness.

“Do you want to know how to understand if a man has faith or unbelief? If you feel warmth coming out of him — from his eyes, from his words, from his manners — be certain that he has faith in his heart. If again you feel cold coming out of his whole being, that means that he has not faith, whatever he may say. He may kneel down, he may bend his head humbly, he may utter all sorts of moral teachings with a humble voice, but all these will breathe forth a chilling breath which falls upon you to numb you with cold.” 43 Saint Isaac the Syrian says that “Paradise is the love of God, in which the bliss of all the beatitudes is contained,” and that “the tree of life is the love of God” (Homily 72).

“Do not deceive yourself,” says Saint Symeon the New Theologian, “God is fire and when He came into the world, and became man, He sent fire on the earth, as He Himself says; this fire turns about searching to find material — that is a disposition and an intention that is good — to fall into and to kindle; and for those in whom this fire will ignite, it becomes a great flame, which reaches Heaven.... this flame at first purifies us from the pollution of passions and then it becomes in us food and drink and light and joy, and renders us light ourselves because we participate in His light” (Discourse 78).

God is a loving fire, and He is a loving fire for all: good or bad. There is, however, a great difference in the way people receive this loving fire of God. Saint Basil says that “the sword of fire was placed at the gate of paradise to guard the approach to the tree of life; it was terrible and burning toward infidels, but kindly accessible toward the faithful, bringing to them the light of day.” 44 The same loving fire brings the day to those who respond to love with love, and burns those who respond to love with hatred.

Paradise and hell are one and the same River of God, a loving fire which embraces and covers all with the same beneficial will, without any difference or discrimination. The same vivifying water is life eternal for the faithful and death eternal for the infidels; for the first it is their element of life, for the second it is the instrument of their eternal suffocation; paradise for the one is hell for the other. Do not consider this strange. The son who loves his father will feel happy in his father’s arms, but if he does not love him, his father’s loving embrace will be a torment to him. This also is why when we love the man who hates us, it is likened to pouring lighted coals and hot embers on his head.

“I say,” writes Saint Isaac the Syrian, “that those who are suffering in hell, are suffering in being scourged by love.... It is totally false to think that the sinners in hell are deprived of God’s love. Love is a child of the knowledge of truth, and is unquestionably given commonly to all. But love’s power acts in two ways: it torments sinners, while at the same time it delights those who have lived in accord with it” (Homily 84).

God is love. If we really believe this truth, we know that God never hates, never punishes, never takes vengeance. As Abba Ammonas says, “Love never hates anyone, never reproves anyone, never condemns anyone, never grieves anyone, never abhors anyone, neither faithful nor infidel nor stranger nor sinner nor fornicator, nor anyone impure, but instead it is precisely sinners, and weak and negligent souls that it loves more, and feels pain for them and grieves and laments, and it feels sympathy for the wicked and sinners, more than for the good, imitating Christ Who called sinners, and ate and drank with them. For this reason, showing what real love is, He taught saying, ‘Become good and merciful like your Father in Heaven,’ and as He rains on bad and good and makes the sun to rise on just and unjust alike, so also is the one who has real love, and has compassion, and prays for all.” Prof. John Kalomiros, “The River of Fire”

The piece you quoted is pure Orthodox, Patristic theology. The West as a general proposition neither understands or accepts this theology anymore, though it seems +JPII might have and given his Patristic mindset, I have no doubt that +BXVI’s conceptions of heaven and hell and the Final Judgment are in accord with what The Fathers taught as preserved in the Orthodox Church. Fire, brimstone and devils with pitchforks, while marvelous and didactic images, are taught to bring us little by little to an understanding of our reason for creation, our present condition and Who our God “is”. +Basil the Great explains the use of these sorts of images as “ “It is because fear,” edifies simpler people,”, like all of us.

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