Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion [1908]

[Stone]

Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


TWENTY-NINTH OBJECTION. THERE IS NO SUCH PLACE AS HELL; NO ONE HAS EVER RETURNED THENCE TO PROVE IT.

Answer. Certainly, no one has ever returned thence; and if you go there yourself, you will not return any more than others.

If any one person had ever returned thence, I would say to you, "Go there, and you will see if there is such a place." But it is precisely because we cannot make this experiment, that it is such madness to expose ourselves to an evil irremediable, interminable, and unbounded.

You say there is no hell? Are you sure of it? I defy you to affirm it sincerely. You would have a conviction that none has ever had before you, not even the most impious of men. Rousseau's reply to the question, "Is there a hell?" was, "I cannot tell." And Voltaire wrote to one of his friends, who thought he had discovered proofs of the non-existence of hell, "You are very fortunate. I am far from having arrived at that."

But I will show you what a terrible affirmation I can oppose to your perhaps. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, made man, declared that there is a hell, and one so dreadful, that "the fire thereof shall never be quenched." These are His own words, repeated many times over.*

And which should I believe by preference? One who has never studied religion, who attacks what he knows nothing of, who can possess no certainty, nothing but doubts on this subject; or Him who has said, "I am the truth; heaven and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not pass away?"

Be not so rash: it is Jesus, the good Jesus; Jesus, so merciful and compassionate, who pardons all to poor repentant sinners; who receives without a word of reproach the guilty Magdalen, and the woman taken in adultery, the publican Zacchaeus, and the crucified malefactor; it is Jesus, I say, who declares to you that there is an everlasting hell fire, and who repeats it on fifteen separate occasions in His Gospel!

Would you pretend to understand mercy and goodness better than Jesus Christ?

In this matter, you see, more than in any other, it is frequently the wicked man's heart which suggests these ideas, and not his reason. It is the cry of wicked passions, fearing the justice of God, and anxious to stifle the voice of conscience, "There is no divine justice; there is no hell!"

Yet, what matter these cries, these evil passions in reality? Does the blind man who denies the light prevent the light from shining? Whether the blasphemer denies or acknowledges the fact, there exists a hell, where wickedness is punished, and that hell is eternal.

It is the conviction of humanity at large. The certainty of hell is so thoroughly implanted in the depths of the human conscience, that one meets with this dogma among all nations, ancient and modern, among idolatrous savages, as among civilized Christians. It is so completely a fundamental part of Christianity, that, of all the heresies which have attacked Catholic dogmas, not one has thought of denying it. The truth of hell has alone remained standing, intact, amidst so many ruins.*

The greatest philosophers, and men of genius, not only among Christians, for that is a matter of course, but among pagans, have admitted its existence: Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Plato, Socrates, lastly, the impious Celsus himself, that Voltaire of the third century. Who would presume to be more difficult to persuade than these?

The doctrine of eternal punishment has, besides, a complete compensation, according to the Church's teaching, in the doctrine of eternal reward. The one manifests the sovereign and infinite justice of God; the other his sovereign and infinite goodness. But are not all the attributes of God worthy of adoration, His justice among them? I repeat again, few would think of denying it, if they did not stand in just dread of it.

I might add, in this place, many reflections on the use, and even necessity of the dogma of the eternity of future punishments. I might remark that it is this eternal duration which renders it thus useful and necessary; as it is the eternal duration and that only which alarms the wicked man, and has power to arrest the course of his crimes. Man feels that he will never come to an end; thence ensues the necessity for him of hopes and fears of a like immortal stature; all that is below it disappears from his sight.

If all the crimes which the fear of an eternal hell has arrested could be known, men would be struck with the necessity of this sanction; and as God gives to man all that is necessary for him, from the necessity of eternal punishment, one would conclude its reality.

I might further show that there is no repentance possible in hell, and consequently there is no pardon possible; that hell appears incomprehensible to us only because we do not form an adequate idea of the enormity of sin, of which it is the chastisement, and of the easy means afforded us of avoiding it, etc. But I desire only to abide by the two great authorities I have already furnished you with touching your doubts: the authority of Jesus Christ and that of the human race.

Let us have a lively faith in the mysteries of Christianity. Let us live in accordance with our faith; let us love God and serve Him; let us imitate Jesus Christ; let us be good Christians, and we shall no longer have any thing to do with hell.