Many lament the large numbers of prisoners, particularly male convicts, who face extended jail time in the United States. Many advocates for judicial reform have sought reduced sentences for convictions and leniency for certain crimes. Often at the heart of these discussions is a debate about the overall purpose of our prisons. There is a parallel here with the spiritual realm. Either denied or left largely untouched in religious arguments is the fact that an almost unimaginable number of spiritual felons are incarcerated by God in a prison where there is torture or pain and an eternal sentence without reprieve. Is God cruel and sadistic? The Church would say, no. Then what are we to make of all this?
Like earthly prisons, our appreciation of purgatory is for rehabilitation. A better analogy might be that of a hospital. A surgical procedure might hurt but in the long-run we will be better for it. The purgation will perfect and heal the soul. All who pass through purgatory are on their way to heaven. They are saints in the making. At the end of time, purgatory will cease to exist and there will only remain two realities, heaven and hell.
Unlike terrestrial jails, there can be no rehabilitation in hell. This is no longer on the table. Often this seems to be the case on earth, not because hope has vanished, but because hearts have become too hardened to change. Recidivism rates among violent federal offenders in the U.S. is over 60% or 3 out of 5 men. Prison doors swing open and close with repeat offenders. While human justice makes mistakes, divine justice is perfect. God knows our hearts. Those who can be corrected pass through purgatory but the damned must suffer hell. We trust a God who does not err. The sentence fits the crime.
The purposes of hell seem similar to the traditional purposes for earthly prisons:
- RETRIBUTION – crime or sin cries out for punishment.
All sin requires the satisfaction of temporal punishment. That is why a priest gives a penance to the penitent. If this punishment is not served on earth then it must be satisfied in purgatory before our release into heaven. However, when it comes to hell, there can be no full satisfaction or propitiation. The redemptive work of Christ has been rejected. Apart from Christ, we cannot be saved. This retribution (not revenge) insures that Divine Justice is not compromised. Dishonoring or offending God is a most terrible sin. It is the direct opposite of our purpose to give glory to God and to serve him.
- INCAPACITATION – protecting the innocent from their influence.
This topic brings up the serious issue of demonic involvement in the world. Some have even speculated that damned souls or ghosts may be able to extend something of their oppressive manipulation, particularly of those in their family line. Having said this, I have tended to interpret so-called ghosts as either the souls in purgatory beckoning our prayers or demons in disguise. Note that in cases of demonic possessions, exorcists will order the devils to return to hell. The peculiar case of Christ driving demons into the suicidal swine is reflective of a Jewish ritual where demons might be dispatched into animals. The demons so dreaded hell that they begged to be consigned into the unclean animals, instead. A strange case with some similarity was explained to me where a Jewish exorcist drove a demon into a chicken and then he killed the bird. Unlike living human beings, demons have no localized bodies. Given that fallen angels and “disembodied” souls lack matter, they are technically only where they operate or are active. As finite, they are not like God who sees all and is in all or everywhere.
But how is it that these demons are escaping to earth anyway? This happenstance goes all the way back to the book of Genesis where we find Satan as a serpent causing trouble for our first parents. How was it that he was not caged in hell? Some of the church fathers theorized a close proximity where hell was understood as below or under the earth. Light is thrown upon this in the last book of the Bible:
Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it. (Revelation 12:7-9)
We battle with cosmic powers and principalities. The hell spirits may be invisible but they are among us exerting their dark influence. Fallen angels have no corporeal bodies and thus do not “physically” break out of hell. Their condemnation and the suffering accompanied with it is their hell. While hell is a place it remains true that the devils carry hell with them wherever they go. God’s permissive will allows them a certain influence, as we see in the testing of Job and in the temptations of Christ. However, the war is won in Jesus Christ. Satan and his devils are spiteful but they are losers. God’s permissive will allows for the correct and incorrect use of freedom. He equips his children in faith with the gift of sanctifying grace, our great weapon against the powers of hell.
Some would speak of the demons as extending themselves or their spiritual stuff in such a way as to be both in hell and on earth. When it comes to certain saints this is referred to as bi-location. In any case, with the last judgment and final consummation, whatever liberty the damned spirits possess will be rescinded. Indeed, the redemptive work of Christ has broken the devil’s hold on the earth. But each of us still has to want to be saved.
- DETERRENCE – urging those on earth to do good and to obey God.
The prospect of the loss of heaven and the pains of hell is meant to deter the living from leading ungodly lives. Some preachers take this to the extreme of seeking to scare people into being good. The ideal is that people would be good because they love the Lord and want to honor God through their praise and obedience. But some with meager love might still be saved through the intimidation of punishment. Of course, this would not work if there were nothing of love in their hearts. In such a case, the damned of hell might know regret, not toward the Godhead, but rather because of the pain associated with hell he has brought upon himself.
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