Audio only:
Is hell empty? Michael Lofton joins us to answer the question that seems to be surrounded by controversy in many Catholic circles.
Cy Kellett:
Will hell ever be empty? Michael Lofton is next. Hello, and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding, and defending your Catholic faith. I’m Cy Kellett, your host confessing to you that one of the hardest things to defend is hell. It’s a very unpleasant thought. It certainly doesn’t comport with our modern idea that everybody gets a participation trophy. There seems to be some very serious consequences for choosing evil in this world, for choosing to do what denigrates our fellow human beings, ourselves, and most especially God. That seems like a very harsh punishment for limited creatures, however, eternal damnation. Can that really be right? There are more and more Christians who are saying no, that is not right. That is not what the scripture intends, that is not what Jesus intends, and that is not a proper understanding of reality.
Cy Kellett:
Our guest for this episode, Michael Lofton, from Reason and Theology, you can find him at his Reason and Theology podcast, and you should, says, “Hang on a minute. There is one person whose testimony is dispositive in all of that, and that is Jesus. He’s the guy who knows, and what does he have to say about it?” Here’s what Michael Lofton had to say about that. Michael often hosts Of Reason and Theology, an affiliate apologist of Catholic Answers, something we never tired of saying, because it makes us look good. Thanks for being here with us.
Michael Lofton:
Hey Cy, thank you for having me. It’s an honor to be here in person.
Cy Kellett:
It’s really nice to have you here in person, you and your wife Stacy, both here in town, and that’s a great privilege for us.
Michael Lofton:
Yeah, it’s a little bit of a vacation.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. People say that when they come to San Diego. We get that a lot, yeah. Okay, so I got a problem.
Michael Lofton:
Sure.
Cy Kellett:
And my problem is hell. As a Christian, it is just one of the most intellectually challenging parts, and also emotionally challenging parts, of Christianity.
Michael Lofton:
Right.
Cy Kellett:
Because everything about Jesus, everything about salvation history, certainly the cross itself, points to a God of infinite mercy. I really love that part.
Michael Lofton:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
Where does hell fit into all of that?
Michael Lofton:
Yeah. It’s a curious subject. How does this work in relation to divine mercy and love? What’s curious is, of course, one of the most prominent figures in the New Testament who speaks about love is Jesus, and yet he’s also the same figure who speaks the most about hell, so…
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Michael Lofton:
There is that tension.
Cy Kellett:
More than anyone else in the Bible, he talks about hell.
Michael Lofton:
Right, right.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Michael Lofton:
I mean, in fact, if you were just to remove the words of Jesus from the New Testament somehow, you would have very, very little about hell and the lake of fire. There would still be a few bits and pieces here and there.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Book of Revelation.
Michael Lofton:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Michael Lofton:
But for most part, a lot of our understanding of this doctrine comes from him. So with him, he doesn’t see attention, obviously. So clearly there’s a way to reconcile divine love and mercy with this idea of being eternally separated from God. And of course the idea that I think a lot of people have in mind when it comes to hell is that God sends a person there to torture them, and he’s this sadistic and evil person, and he’s just doing it to punish them because he’s angry with them. I think that’s what a lot of people have in their mind whenever we have this discussion. And that is not exactly the case, right? Especially in the Catholic understanding, our understanding would be that if a person is separated from God eternally it’s because they choose to be eternally separated from him, and that experience of being separated from the very one who is the source of our life, it’s experienced as a lake of fire. It’s like if we don’t drink water or feed our body, at some point, you’re going to start to feel that, because your body needs water and food.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Michael Lofton:
In the same way, we need God, who is, again, the source of our life. Well, if we’ve turned our back on him, and we don’t want to be in union with the one who is the source of our life, the experience of that is like fire, and it’s painful. And there’s also a sense of loss and remorse that we are separated from this ultimate good. So that’s how I think that we should understand the context of this eternal separation from God. It’s not this idea that God is just wanting to be mean, and just wants to torture people, and he’s a sadistic figure. No, it’s actually that God wants everyone to be united to him, but he respects their free will. And if a person chooses to remain separated from him, he will respect and honor that. No, go ahead. I’m sorry.
Cy Kellett:
Well, I was just thinking that when you mentioned how Jesus talks about how way more than the rest of the Bible talks about hell, in a certain sense in his person, you can see love and damnation fitting together. In the sense that, he’s right there in front of you saying, “I will take you with me to heaven. Just come.” And so any hell would have to be a refusal of the immediate invitation that he is making.
Michael Lofton:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
So that you can’t say, “Well, that’s not fair that you would send people to hell,” because he’s standing right there saying, “I’m not sending anybody to hell. Anybody who wants to come, come.”
Michael Lofton:
Exactly. I mean, he made himself available for us on the cross so that we don’t have to be eternally separated from him. So that we don’t have to reap the consequences of our sins. He took that on himself. And so yes, he makes himself available, but he will respect our decision. If we say, “No, I don’t want you,” and we remain obstinate and hardened and turn away from him, he won’t force us to be with him. I mean, that’s not love, right? I mean, I think both of us are married, right? You don’t want to force your wife to love you, right. You want them to voluntarily love you. Otherwise, it’s not really love, and that’s the same thing with God.
Michael Lofton:
But I think another important thing that we need to do to contextualize this conversation, because there’s often a lot of misunderstanding, not only about the nature of hell, which we just talked about, but also just hell as far as a concept, what exactly it is. Because if you look in scripture, there is a good five different ways in which we can speak about hell, just to use just a crude analogy, or an example, or a phrase I should say, there are different compartments to hell if you will, right. So there’s one concept that we see in scripture that relates to hell and it’s called Tartarus, but that’s exclusively where the fallen angels are described to be.
Cy Kellett:
And St. Peter, I think, describes that.
Michael Lofton:
Right, exactly. So there’s Tartarus, that’s where, again, the fallen angels are, but we can speak of them being in hell. But again, crudely using the concept of a compartment, if you will.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Michael Lofton:
We can also, we see this, not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament, in the words of Jesus. We can speak of limbo of the fathers, also known as paradise, which you see the thief on the cross speaking about paradise. Actually Jesus tells the thief on the cross, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” He’s speaking of the limbo of the fathers. Well, what exactly is that? This is where the righteous Old Testament saints went prior to those… Well, prior to the resurrection and the ascension, those who were united to God and were righteous. So John the Baptist and pretty much everyone prior to him, such as Abraham, or Isaac and Jacob, they would go to limbo of the fathers. And that is a compartment, if you will, of hell. So we can speak of them being in hell, but it’s not a place… for limbo of the fathers… it’s not a place of pain and suffering. It’s more of a place that it’s a holding place until the resurrection.
Cy Kellett:
So we could think of Lazarus maybe as giving us, in the parable-
Michael Lofton:
That’s pretty good.
Cy Kellett:
A little bit of an image of, it’s really a place of rest and ease.
Michael Lofton:
Exactly. And that’s actually where we get it from. But after the resurrection and especially the ascension, the scripture talks about how Jesus took those captives on high. We call it the harrowing of hell, right? He descends into hell, and then he also brings them, then, to heaven. But again, this is after the resurrection. Prior to that, they’re in this holding place. So we can speak of that. We can also even speak of limbo of infants. If an infant were to die in a state of original sin, because every individual contracts original sin due to the sin of Adam. If an infant were to die in that state, in other words, they weren’t baptized, or God did not remit it in some kind of extra-sacramental way. If they were to die in that state, they would be in limbo.
Michael Lofton:
This is one of the theological conclusions of the church. So if you have that situation, that’s where they would be. We can speak of that as a part of hell. In fact, the word limbo means fringe or border. It’s the border of hell, but it’s not a place of suffering. In fact, limbo is described as a place of just perfect, natural happiness, natural knowledge of God, natural communion with God, but not supernatural, what we would experience in heaven in the beatific vision. So there’s this natural union with God, and natural happiness for anyone if they were to be in that place. So we can also speak again of hell in that sense. But I suspect many of us, when we talk about hell, we’re talking about what we would call the hell of the damned, where the unrighteous souls would go.
Michael Lofton:
And so we can speak of the hell of the damned, but what a lot of people tend to miss is that hell and especially the hell of the damned will be thrown into the lake of fire after the second coming, and after the final judgment. The Book of Revelation speaks about how Hades will be cast into the lake of fire. So if we speak about unrighteous souls being separated from God for eternity, very technically they’re not separated from God in hell. They’re actually separated from God in what we would call the lake of fire. But again, this is not necessarily a physical location. It’s more-
Cy Kellett:
A condition?
Michael Lofton:
Yeah. The church understands it, especially as like you say, a condition. It’s this experience of being separated from the source of our life. So we can describe it analogously as a lake of fire.
Cy Kellett:
And here, I always have to remind myself, I can’t have a mental concept of my own soul, because my own soul is immaterial and it’s impossible. It is impossible for me to have a mental concept of something that’s immaterial.
Michael Lofton:
Sure.
Cy Kellett:
So all of this language of where is my soul, location for soul and all of that, it’s metaphorical. It’s helpful, it is descriptive, but not in a way that is in the same way that I can describe, well, Darren’s on that side of the glass and I’m on this side of the glass.
Michael Lofton:
But what’s curious is, of course after, and we can speak of that right now, in this intermediate state where we’re separated from our bodies after death. So we can see hell of the damned in this immaterial way. But what’s curious is, after the general resurrection-
Cy Kellett:
Oh, the resurrection. Yes, that’s right.
Michael Lofton:
We will be in our bodies. So can we speak of a physical location to the lake of fire? I guess our bodies have to be somewhere, but I don’t necessarily think it’s literally a lake of fire. I think that that is describing the condition of what our body and spirit will experience separated from God. And again, it’s not because God is trying to be mean, it’s that we’re choosing to be there, and our will is fixed at death. So there’s not this idea of a post mortem repentance. You’re not going to want to change your will. The reason why you would be there for eternity, if you’re there for eternity, is because you’re choosing to be there. It’s not as if God says, “Oh, well, you know what? After your death, if you wanted to ask for forgiveness, I’m just not willing to offer it.” No God would be willing to offer it. The problem is once you die, your will is fixed. You’re hardened. And you just say you simply won’t want to be with God.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. So here’s, if I may raise an objection to this, and the objection comes from my own limits. That is, I make bad decisions all the time. I’m very good at making bad decisions.
Michael Lofton:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
As a matter of fact, it takes effort for me to make good decisions, and sometimes the help of a whole lot of other people to make. But you’re saying I, God has made the stakes of my life so high that I can make decisions that have eternal consequences. Doesn’t that seem a bit much?
Michael Lofton:
It does, especially if he’s going to be incredibly strict, right. But fortunately, God is very merciful.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Slow to anger, rich in mercy.
Michael Lofton:
So he’s going to be merciful, not only with sins of action, but he’s also merciful with faults in our knowledge and intellect. Because as material beings, the way our intellect works with discursive reasoning, it’s really easy to make the wrong decision and think that you’re choosing a good. Well, and in a sense, everything that we choose is good, but it might not be the best good for that situation. So God recognizes that there’s a limitation to the way our thinking works there, so he’s merciful. The question is, are you disposed to God? Are you open to forgiveness? Are you open to accepting him? Is that your disposition?
Cy Kellett:
Well, why would I not be Michael?
Michael Lofton:
That’s a mystery.
Cy Kellett:
Why would a person say, “No, I don’t want any of that.”
Michael Lofton:
That’s what’s curious to me, but I’ve seen it. I’ve seen some people that are incredibly hardened against God. I knew a man, I used to work with him, and I was telling him about Jesus. And I was just simply explaining the gospel to him, and I was also talking about this issue. If we choose to remain separated from him, he will respect and honor that. And I won’t exactly repeat what he said, because I felt it was… It’s pretty blasphemous. But to the effect, he said something along these lines, “Well, if that’s who Jesus is, I don’t want to have anything to do with him. I don’t want him.”
Cy Kellett:
And that’s irrational-
Michael Lofton:
But you know what, though?
Cy Kellett:
Yeah?
Michael Lofton:
To my knowledge, he died in that state. He did not change that position.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Michael Lofton:
To my knowledge, maybe he did last minute.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah, we don’t know that.
Michael Lofton:
Right before his death. But to my knowledge externally, he went to his grave maintaining that hardened position against Christ. And I always found that curious. Why would you want to be so hardened against God? I just don’t understand that.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Michael Lofton:
But I think the effect of sin sometimes, it does that. It darkens our intellect. It hardens our hearts. We see that in the Old Testament and New Testament. You see the Israelites coming out of the land of Egypt and God is doing all these kinds of wonderful miracles in front of them. They’re seeing the power of God. They’re seeing the goodness of God. He’s been merciful to them. And yet, the vast majority of them hardened their hearts as the Book of Hebrews says, right. They hardened their hearts and they turned away from him, and God respected that. But for me, I always thought that’s just so odd. You saw the work of God, you saw his goodness and mercy. Why wouldn’t you want to believe in him? Why wouldn’t you want to follow him and obey him? I think that’s just what Romans 1 talks about. Paul mentions this hardening of the heart
Cy Kellett:
And in a certain sense to try to understand evil, because it’s a negation, is impossible really, because the person you’re saying, “Well, that makes no sense.” Well, the very thing that they’re rejecting is sense.
Michael Lofton:
Right, right.
Cy Kellett:
The very thing that they’re rejecting is order and goodness and peace and mercy. They’re choosing to say no to what are, to most minds, obvious goods.
Michael Lofton:
I mean that’s the irrational aspect to sin.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Michael Lofton:
It’s turning away from reason, it’s turning away from good, and choosing a particular good that’s not the ultimate good. So I definitely see sin, and Paul certainly sees it as, a darkening of the intellect, an irrationality. Surely seems to be the case, but yeah, I’m just like you where I look at that and I just say, “I don’t understand that. At the end of the day, I want to be with God.” Do I make mistakes and sin? Yes.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Michael Lofton:
But at the end of the day, my disposition is, “I want to be with you.”
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Michael Lofton:
But I’ve encountered in my experience people who, they don’t feel that way, and it doesn’t matter to them. They don’t necessarily want to be with God.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. I heard an exorcist tell a story one time about someone being brought in for an exorcism, and the person saying to the exorcist, “I don’t want an exorcism. I like the demons. I want to be with them.”
Michael Lofton:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
And the exorcist said, “You can’t perform an exorcism on that person.” It would have no effect, because you can’t do it against someone’s will.
Michael Lofton:
Yeah. It’s called perfect possession. I mean a lot of people… Well, first of all, possession isn’t very common, but a lot of people who are possessed, and we’re here talking about full possession, a lot of them don’t want that, right?
Cy Kellett:
Yeah, they know-
Michael Lofton:
They do want deliverance. They do want healing. But there are some, there are a few out there. Again, it’s called perfect possession. They’re given over to this. They’re given over to the demon and they want it. They don’t want to be changed. The reason why the exorcist can’t do anything is because again, God is not going to force us to do something against our will. If we want to be separated with him-
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Michael Lofton:
Okay.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Michael Lofton:
He’s going to honor that.
Cy Kellett:
And there is a kind of… I mean, certainly pleasure can lead us into evil and all that, but there is also a certain pleasure in evil. I don’t know what it is, but there is a pleasure that comes in doing evil, and maybe some people just don’t want to surrender the pleasure of evil.
Michael Lofton:
Well, yeah. In scripture, it talks about how there’s a period of time of pleasure and sin, but the way a friend described it to me, and I’ve even experienced it personally, my friends spoke about how there’s a period of time where you experience pleasure in that sin, but it always has a hook on the edge.
Cy Kellett:
Oh sure. Right. Yes, of course. Yes.
Michael Lofton:
There’s always a hook on the edge, and you know what I’ve experienced that.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Michael Lofton:
Where in times in my life where I chose to live in sin, there was a period of pleasure in it, but I’m telling you, that hook got me. And at the end I just said, “Okay, I don’t want this. I don’t want that mistake anymore. I don’t want to have anything to do with this. I repent. I turn away from it.”
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Michael Lofton:
But there’s some people that, no, they actually still enjoy it.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. So I have to say you’re a bit out of step with contemporary thinking, I think, because a lot of bestselling books and very prominent Christians, Catholics in many cases, Orthodox Christians, Protestant Christians, deep thinkers, profound people in many ways, often evangelical people, people who really want to share the gospel who say, “No, Michael, you’re wrong about this.” That in the end, hell will be empty. This has become quite a prominent thread.
Michael Lofton:
Yeah. In a way, it’s very tempting to want to go that direction, because-
Cy Kellett:
I’m pretty tempted by it.
Michael Lofton:
Who wants to believe that somebody would be separated from God? Who enjoys that?
Cy Kellett:
I know, that’s horrible.
Michael Lofton:
I mean, I don’t know, maybe there are some people who enjoy that concept. But for me, I find it repulsive that anybody would want to be separated from God for all eternity. Even if it’s by their own will, I still just find that reprehensible. So naturally, I’m inclined to push back on that, right? But at the end of the day, I have to go with revelation, and here I’m just talking about divine revelation. Although, we could speak about the Book of Revelation, too. But I have to go with ultimately, what has God revealed? And when I look at sacred scripture and what God has revealed, Jesus himself says some things to me that indicates hell will not be empty.
Michael Lofton:
And here again, we’re talking about the hell of the damned, and those individuals who will be cast into the lake of fire. Jesus mentions in Luke 13:24, he speaks about, “There will be some who will try to enter into the kingdom of God, but will not be able to.” Now here we have Jesus himself in divine revelation telling us they will not be able to. And it’s not just that he’s warning us so that we don’t end up in that state. I mean, we could certainly say that that’s true of some passages, but here it seems that he’s describing how hell will actually be. There will be some who will not be able to enter the kingdom of God. Well, where will they be? Well, if they’re not in the kingdom of God, obviously they’re separated from God. So clearly that’s going to be an eternal separation.
Michael Lofton:
Moreover, we do see multiple time in times in scripture that hell, and especially the lake of fire, was created for Satan and his fallen angels. So we know it won’t be empty because scripture is very, very clear that Satan and the fallen angels will be there. But there’s also one other thing in the Book of Revelation. It speaks about the false prophet and the beast also being with him, tormented in the lake of fire forever. And again, it’s not just warning them so that they don’t end up there. No, it’s saying, here’s what the future and eternity is going to be for not only Satan and the fallen angels, but the beast and the false prophet, which those will actually be humans. So we could, at the very least, say that divine scripture attests that they would be there.
Michael Lofton:
Not only that, but Jesus does talk about the son of perdition being lost. Some might try to interpret that and just say, “Well, he’s lost for a period of time,” but that doesn’t necessarily seem to be the context. Because the context is Jesus is talking about individuals who will not be lost in the context of eternally. “All that the father has given to me will come to me,” and he’s speaking, again, in the context remaining with him for eternity. So when he’s speaking about one individual, the son of perdition, namely Judas, being lost, it’s in the context of eternally lost. So I just don’t see a way to rehabilitate Judas, for example. I think we would have to take the position that scripture is clear on that. I think where a lot of people have difficulty is, and it’s a reaction against Protestantism in my estimation, they don’t want to necessarily go to scripture.
Michael Lofton:
They’re trying to find, is there an infallible definition of the church telling me Judas is in hell, is there some kind of infallible ex cathedra teaching of the Pope saying it’s a dogma that so and so is in hell? Why are we limiting the discussion to that? Well, the reason why is we’re reacting against Protestants who appeal to scripture, and we’re buying into this mentality, well, hey, that’s your interpretation of scripture, and we can always just debate scripture and one’s interpretation. Actually, there are some things in scripture that are incredibly clear, and we don’t need an infallible definition for them. We have no infallible definitions of the resurrection of Jesus. Do you know that the church has never infallibly defined that?
Cy Kellett:
I didn’t know that.
Michael Lofton:
Do you know the church has never infallibly defined that Jesus is the Messiah? But are we going to now say that that’s up for grabs? That I can now say Jesus isn’t the Messiah, or he is not risen from the dead because the church has never infallibly defined it. Well, it doesn’t have to infallibly define it because it’s explicit in scripture. And I would say the same is true of some of these other things about Satan, the beast, the false prophet, fallen angels, Judas, being separated from God for eternity.
Michael Lofton:
We don’t need an infallible definition telling us that hell will be filled with some people. Scripture is already clear enough about that. And again, the responses that some people tend to offer against those interpretations, I think just fails. They effectively say, “Well again, a lot of these passages are just there to warn us, and to urge us to do good things to avoid hell.” And I would say that’s true of some of the passages. I don’t think that’s true of Luke 13:24, which I just mentioned. Also the Book of Revelation that talks about Satan being tormented day and night for eternity in the lake of fire.
Cy Kellett:
Well, let me ask you about eternity, though. Because I am familiar with an argument that is popularized by David Bentley Hart. I don’t think it originates with him, but that’s actually a bad translation to say eternity. It just says unto the ages, or ages upon ages, or you could interpret it that way. You’re familiar with this argument?
Michael Lofton:
Yeah. And you know what, he does offer some really, really good pushback, in my estimation, to this idea of an eternal separation. But ultimately I do think that it fails. Yeah, I understand that there’s different ways in which we can define some of these terms, forever. But I think, again, words have meaning only in their context. And the context here in the Book of Revelation is telling us the eternal fate of souls after the second coming, the final judgment. It’s telling us where they will be eternally.
Michael Lofton:
So though you might be able to turn to some of these words and say, well, technically this could just mean for a long period of time, or for just a particular age. I understand that. But words again are defined in their context. And what is the context of the Book of Revelation that it’s talking about, say, being tormented day and night in the lake of fire? The context is, this is something after the second coming, after the final judgment. If it’s not a final judgment… I mean, if you can repent after it, it’s not necessarily a final judgment.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Isn’t very final, is it? Yeah. I see what you’re saying.
Michael Lofton:
So again, contextually, I just, I think that argument fails, but I would say that David Bentley Hart, I think gives the best responses.
Cy Kellett:
He’s very, very good at arguing. I wouldn’t want to argue with him, but then the…
Michael Lofton:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. But also I wonder about the psychology of solving the problem that way. Of saying, “Well, God wouldn’t be so evil to put someone in hell for eternity, but God would put someone in hell for millions of years.” Well, in what way am I relieved of this is a problem? Either just accept what Jesus clearly seems to say about this, and acknowledge your problem before God, “I don’t understand why reality is this way. Or, I do understand it to this degree, but it becomes a mystery after that.” But why say, “No, God’s such a good God that he would only torture you for a million years. He wouldn’t torture you for eternity.”
Michael Lofton:
Yeah. I don’t think that that really saves the position, sure.
Cy Kellett:
It doesn’t seem to be a… But additionally, I would also say that hell, and especially the lake of fire, is in a sense that person’s experience of God’s love. It’s not that God’s love has been removed from that individual in the lake of fire. It’s that that is the way they experience it. The only way that I can really give an analogy here is if there’s a person that you just really hate, and your heart is hardened towards them, they’re-
Cy Kellett:
So is this person a politician?
Michael Lofton:
No, no.
Cy Kellett:
Maybe so, I don’t know. Maybe so.
Michael Lofton:
I won’t blame you. But I mean, if there’s a person, and I’m not saying that we should have this in our hearts-
Cy Kellett:
No, I think we’ve even-
Michael Lofton:
I think some of us have sometimes experienced this, right? If we’re repulsed by a person, and there’s a lot of hatred built up towards them, even their affection, even their signs of sorrow, or forgiveness, or just goodness towards us, is repulsive to us, right? I mean, you could think of maybe perhaps a wife who has experienced a great deal of adultery from her husband, and maybe the husband is now sorry, and tries to go to show affection. That affection is repulsive to her, right? So I think that that’s one way that we could understand this, is that a person can end up being so hardened against God, hate God so much, that even his love, they experience as something that they hate, and it’s painful. That’s the way I understand hell. So it’s, again, not God torturing a person. It’s actually, God is still giving them love, but they hate him and they don’t want it.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Yeah. So would you say that it is Christian teaching, the teaching of Jesus, the teaching of scripture, and the teaching of the church, that hell is not empty now and will never be empty?
Michael Lofton:
When we consider sacred scripture, I think that that is the teaching of the church, because of course the church is canonized, and put its stamp on these books of scripture, and says, “This is divine revelation.” So anything that’s in divine revelation, we have to say is the teaching of the church, even if it hasn’t added some kind of infallible definition clarifying the matter. I mean, sometimes that’s necessary, right? There are some things in scripture that are only implicit, and so it’s necessary for the teaching authority of the church to offer some clarification and intervention.
Cy Kellett:
Sure.
Michael Lofton:
But in many cases, it’s explicit. Scripture is explicit. We don’t necessarily need the teaching authority to step in and do that. The teaching authority just merely says, “This is God’s divine revelation,” and we can go to that, and access it and see, yeah, God clearly teaches this. So I would say that is the teaching of the church. We can speak also of some magisterial interventions, because there have been a few. Because there have historically been some who have said, “Okay, hell will only be temporary.” Or, “Satan will be rehabilitated.” In those cases, the magisterium, the teaching authority of the church, has intervened, solemnly defined, and said, “No, Satan will eternally be separated from God in the lake of fire. He wanted to go perpetual punishment, as the Fourth Lateran Council mentions. And it’s mentioning this in the context of a confession of faith, so it’s not one of those non-definitive contexts.
Cy Kellett:
Right, right.
Michael Lofton:
It’s in a profession of faith. This is clearly infallible in nature. And it’s saying, “No, he will be separated from God for all eternity. His fallen angels and anyone who joins in with him.” Now, you might say, “Okay, well, but will anyone join with him?” Okay, I understand that part, and the Fourth Lateran Council might not answer that question, but elsewhere it has. Again, a divine scripture. There also are some local councils of the church, which are important to consider, because in fact, many teachings of the church come from local councils, and not these universal ecumenical councils. There is a local council of the church that mentions that actually some will be separated from God, and it’s talking about humans.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Michael Lofton:
So that’s also worth considering, in addition to scripture.
Cy Kellett:
Well, two things, I’d like to end with two things. First of all, believing that, and it is difficult to believe, to hold, to… It feels like it’s one of those things where you, and this may not be the case for you, I’m not… But for me it feels like I have to constantly say to the Lord, “I don’t understand that. I don’t understand this. I don’t. But you’ve revealed it, and I accept it.” So this is a difficult one. But one thing that I do take comfort in is, I do think it’s pretty consistently taught by the preachers and teachers of the church that you’re going to be surprised that some of the people who are saved. Some of the people who… Everyone has always pointed to Adolf Hitler. And I don’t know the fate of Adolf Hitler, and I wouldn’t be sad to find Adolf Hitler in heaven. And God can do amazing things like that, and may have done them, and you just don’t know about them yet. We may be quite surprised at who we see in heaven.
Michael Lofton:
It’s possible. And this is actually something Benedict hints at, Benedict the 16th, when he wrote Spe Salvi. He hints at this when it comes to this idea that you’d be surprised who’s there. He mentions in Spe Salvi that the vast majority of mankind seem to be disposed to God. And so he is of the opinion in Spe Salvi that the majority of mankind will not irrevocably say no to God. He wants to say there will be a minority who will be in the lake of fire perpetually.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah, he does?
Michael Lofton:
They will turn away. And there’s a minority of individuals who will not need any kind of purgation. Their heart is so on fire for Christ that when they die, immediately, they see God in the beatific vision. But he wants to say, you know what? The majority of mankind doesn’t fall into those two categories. He wants to say the majority of people in our human experience, we realize that people are open to God. They might have an implicit faith. They might even have an informal union with a church, insofar as if they had known that they needed to be a member, they would’ve accepted that, and would have become a member.
Michael Lofton:
So is grace still available to these people? Benedict seems to indicate yes, and he wants to say that the majority of people would undergo some purgation after death. They’re not immediately ready to enter God in heaven, but they will undergo this purgation. So with that concept, it’s implied that you might be surprised who all is there.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Michael Lofton:
Again, that’s his opinion. It’s not magisterial. It’s in a magisterial document, but he’s not proposing it authoritatively.
Cy Kellett:
Right. No, as a matter fact, he’s very careful in the language he uses.
Michael Lofton:
Yes.
Cy Kellett:
[inaudible 00:34:30] suggested he’ll say, that kind of thing.
Michael Lofton:
Exactly. So it’s merely his opinion. You take it or leave it.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Michael Lofton:
Some might say, well, no, I’m of the opinion that the majority of individuals would be separated from Christ. And there are some words of Jesus that could certainly be interpreted that way.
Cy Kellett:
Sure.
Michael Lofton:
But at the very least, I think there are words of Jesus that indicate that some will be there.
Cy Kellett:
All right. So the last thing then is how do I stay out of hell?
Michael Lofton:
Yeah. So according to scripture, the way is that we repent of our sins. That is, we turn away from our sins, stop doing evil, turn away from those things, and trust and believe in Christ. Jesus gives this message at the beginning of his ministry. Repent and believe the gospel. That’s the same message for us today. Turn away from evil, trust in Christ, trust in what he has done for us. Because ultimately, there’s nothing that we can do to merit that initial reception, if you will, into heaven. There’s nothing we can do to merit that. So again, it is based on repentance, turning away from sin, and turning to Christ, trusting in him and resting in him. I think when we do that, we’re in the right direction.
Cy Kellett:
I get the sense of a spirit of a denigration actually, and a smug spirit of denigration of those Christians who continue, who persist in their belief in hell. There’s a spirit of lecturing. Like that’s old fashioned, that’s backwards. Why would you believe in a God like that, grow up kind of attitude. And I’m not convinced that all of that denigration is rooted in reality, because I do believe that Jesus himself has described reality to us. And also in people like Michael Lofton, who defend the doctrine of hell, who defend the existence of hell, its reality, and its importance to our salvation to know about it. An actual sense of humility, a sense that this is what Jesus the Lord taught.
Cy Kellett:
And however uncomfortable it might make me, however much I might not like this to be the truth, it is the truth, and I know it is because I trust in Jesus. That spirit of humility is the spirit of the gospel. It’s the only spirit in which the gospel can be received. And so I tend to be convinced by those who are willing to accept what seems quite obvious when we actually listen to Jesus. There doesn’t seem to be much wiggle room in what Jesus has given us. That doesn’t mean that I’m thrilled about hell, but I don’t know everything, and I don’t love perfectly the way that God loves perfectly. And I intend to be with him someday. I hope to persevere in my faith and to have the triumph of being with him someday, and then he’ll explain it to me, and then I will understand it. And then my questions will be satisfied, and even the restlessness of my heart, when it comes to these kinds of things will be satisfied, and we’ll rest together in him.
Cy Kellett:
I hope that you’ll be there. I know that you hope that I’ll be there. I’ll pray for you, you pray for me in that regard. And let’s try to maintain that spirit of humility that doesn’t say, “I don’t understand it. I don’t like it, therefore Jesus couldn’t have meant it.” That is not the spirit of the gospel, and that is not a spirit that can accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. I wanted to say thanks to Michael Lofton, it’s always great to get to speak with him. It’s wonderful that we have this affiliation with him. He, and some others like Pat Flynn and Suan Sonna have been affiliated with us. And hopefully there will be more, because there are wonderful Catholic apologists out there doing wonderful work.
Cy Kellett:
Patronize Michael’s work if you would. Head over to his podcast, Reason and Theology, and hear what he has to say, and support him if you can. And I think that’ll about do it for us. If you’re watching us on YouTube, don’t forget to like whatever we’re doing, and hit that little button, and the bell. That way you’ll be notified when new episodes are out. We want to grow the podcast, that helps us do it. And you all who are listening on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, and all those other services, you know what to do. I pretty much say it every week. Please, five stars and a few nice words. That really helps to grow the podcast. I’m Cy Kellett, your host. We’ll see you next time, God willing, right here. Catholic Answers Focus.