Far be it from me to bemoan the authentic development of doctrine. It is a truly underrated gem of Catholic theology that shows how the Church, because it is the living body of Christ, includes a mind as well. However, theological development has also been messy. (See the early Christological controversies.)
One area in Christian theology that always seems under messy construction is the area of eschatology, traditionally classified as the four last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Of these, hell may be the most popular, precisely because it is the least popular for Christians to believe. It is less becoming lately for a Christian to think the God of love, mercy, and forgiveness would banish someone to the outer darkness (Matt. 8:12), to wailing (13:15), gnashing of teeth (22:13), fire (Mark 9:43), brimstone (Rev. 20:10), etc.
These descriptions of hell, or judgment of the wicked, come from the Bible, and many directly from the mouth of Jesus. It is not as though Christians who deny hell are unaware of these verses. Like with every controversy, those who stoke controversy (and drive the development of historical, orthodox Christian teaching) do so with contradictory Bible verses aplenty to support their own case. The Arians had plenty of biblical knowledge and support in their own case to deny the divinity of Christ.
Therefore, it might be worthwhile to consider a different approach.
C.S. Lewis famously said that our souls “demand purgatory” (Letters to Malcolm, 108). As much as Catholics wanted this to be Lewis revealing his crypto-Catholicism, it was far from a submission to Rome on his part. It was merely a recognition that the concept of personal purification should make sense to a Christian before perfect union with Goodness itself. A Christian of any stripe should want purgation, even if he struggles with purgatory.
Similarly, our souls demand hell. This does not mean we want any individual person, let alone ourselves, to be in hell. We do not demand that God create a place to put our enemies. Our souls demand hell because our souls, specifically the power of the intellect, recognize abstract realities from which the natural consequence include what Christian doctrine calls hell.
If we assume that hell is purely punishment, then it is God’s eternal time-out corner of shame. God is just so mad and disappointed in you. Also, there is torture. So be on your best behavior, or else. God becomes the fear-mongering disciplinarian whom we are also supposed to love tenderly. This is confusing at best and abusive at worst.
But what if hell is more of an ontological reality than a moral reality? What this means is that hell describes an “is” before it describes any “ought.” The “is” in this case is the perfect goodness of God. This is not sentiment; it flows directly from God’s being. If any individual example of goodness exists, a statement with which virtually every Christian agrees, then it exists on a standard of goodness that encompasses and transcends all goodness—Goodness itself (see St. Thomas Aquinas, ST I, Q2, A3). There is Perfect Goodness, God, and everything else, not God, that is not Perfect Goodness. This means that there is the possibility for non-goodness.
However, everything “not God” is not automatically hell, thankfully. Fortunately, there is the possibility of participation in goodness. Everything that exists, by existing, participates in goodness. Something with more good built into it has a greater capacity to participate in goodness. Because we can choose morally good actions, we have a greater capacity to participate in goodness than a rock, which has no capacity to choose at all.
Participating in moral goodness is not the same as getting dessert because you ate your vegetables. You got dessert only because your parents decided to reward you. Participating in goodness is like having a healthy body because you ate well. This natural consequence is built into the act itself. An even greater good would be to develop a taste for healthy food and enjoy eating it. Now you participate in both the consequence of health and the enjoyment.
The next reality we must consider allows for the rejection of God. It is also near-universally acknowledged by Christians: free will. Free will is built into the rational soul and allows for participation in moral goodness. However, it also allows for the rejection of goodness, un-participation.
To reject goodness is its own punishment. No, it does not always feel or look as though vice is painful; neither does eating junk food always immediately give us a stomachache, or heart problems, or obesity with its many comorbidities.
One of the most important concepts in Christian tradition is that participation in virtue is its own reward, and rejection of virtue is its own punishment. If this is true in the temporal sense, why would it be less true in the eternal sense?
The last reality shared by Christians is the incorruptibility of the soul. There are plenty of places one can find philosophical and biblical arguments that the soul continues, for everyone, after death. Because it has been assumed by most Christians in history, we will assume it here.
One argument most often used against hell is the temporality of the crime compared to the eternity of the time. It does not seem fair that my mere “breath” (Ps. 39:6) of a life accounts me for an eternity of torture or bliss. Setting aside the fact that physical time does not compare to non-physical time anyway—a day like a thousand years and all (2 Pet. 3:8)—this too misunderstands hell’s primary substance by seeing it as a punishment.
God does not condemn for eternity the same way a judge sentences a criminal, and then a parole board mitigates that punishment for good behavior. When we choose, we form ourselves into that choice. Many saints have expressed this point using images and metaphors. St. Augustine famously said, “My weight is my love,” showing that what we choose draws us closer to it (Confessions, XIII.9). St. Clare of Assisi, too, was clear when she said, “We become what we love.” This is true for our rejection of God. If we choose to reject Goodness, we become a rejection of Goodness. If our soul, the thing that chooses, goes on forever, then it forever chooses to reject Goodness.
To forever choose to reject Perfect Goodness is about as sound a description of hell as we can find, whether we’re holding a bible or not.
Ultimately, at the risk of psychoanalyzing, it makes sense that the concept of hell is so baffling to so many. Sin is literally unreasonable. We are not naïve; the existence of sin should not surprise us in practice, because we are familiar with fallen human nature. But sin as a concept, in theory, should surprise us. To freely choose, with full knowledge, something less than love or goodness for all eternity should baffle us as much as horrify or sadden us. It made someone else who gets it a lot better than we do weep, too (see Luke 19:41-44).
No, sin does not make sense, but it is real. Therefore, hell is real. Yes, the Bible says so, but our soul says so, too.