By Fr. Joseph B Francis –
Continuing the series on ‘I Believe’, the Niceno-Constantinople Creed (381 AD) has a variant: “…and the life of the world to come”. Basic to this statement is the belief we as Christians enjoy that my human life is immortal. I have a beginning but no end. Before creation, I was in the mind of God but was created in time to be forever. I cannot succeed in destroying my human life even by suicide nor can anyone else destroy me. Death itself is only a biological factor.
What is lost at biological death is only my external body but with my internal body I go to meet my Saviour to be judged individually and according to my deeds I am given heaven, purgatory or hell. If in my final fundamental choice in death I had chosen God, I will be with him forever and that is in heaven but if I still need purgatorial maturation/ purification then I will go to the state of Purgatory till I become perfect in love and admitted into the joys of heaven.
If on the contrary I had made my final fundamental choice in death to be away from God, then forever I will be away from God and that is hell. I will be like a madman running away from the all pervading God whom I had chosen to reject. “Forever, never ending” boggles our human mind to imagine. We are so accustomed to start and end things. While purgatory is temporary and will be ended at the end of final General Judgment, heaven and hell, however, are never ending. There are some who argue against the eternity of hell and suggest a “universalist” view (i.e., in the end all will be saved, even the devils). In Scripture, we have 2 sets of texts.
a) For Universalism: The texts quoted are the following. I Cor 15.22 “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ”. Confer also v.24 “Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power”. Col 1.20 “and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross”. Jn 3.16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life”.
b) Against Universalism: I Cor 6.9-10 “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers–none of these will inherit the kingdom of God”. Similarly Gal 5.19-21 (this contains a list of those who are living according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit and who would not inherit the kingdom). Eph 5.3-5 “But fornication and impurity of any kind, or greed, must not even be mentioned among you, as is proper among saints.
Entirely out of place is obscene, silly, and vulgar talk; but instead, let there be thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure person, or one who is greedy (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God”. II Thess 1.9 “These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might”.
The Annihilationists (those who say that the evil would go out of existence or will be destroyed) use this text in their favour but the destruction here need not mean annihilation! It could just mean complete loss. Mt 25.46 says that the Lost will go into eternal punishment. Here also some interpret “eternal” [in Greek it is AIONION] to mean only a “long time’ i.e., 70 generations or 500 years but this is arbitrary. Augustine argues against this by saying: if hell’s eternity were to be only 500 years, then heaven’s eternity should also be only 500 years and the thought of the joys of heaven ending would put an end to the enjoyment of heaven by those in heaven and anxiety about the 500 years’ close will destroy heaven for them! Therefore he says that this is absurd.