Pints With Aquinas - 25: Does Hell exist? Is it eternal? With Fr. Chis Pietraszko

Episode Date: September 27, 2016

On the contrary, It is written (Matthew 25:46): "These," namely the wicked, "shall go into everlasting punishment." Further, as reward is to merit, so is punishment to guilt. Now, according to Divine justice, an eternal reward is due to temporal merit: "Every one who seeth the Son and believeth in Him hath [Vulgate: 'that everyone . . . may have'] life everlasting." Therefore according to Divine justice an everlasting punishment is due to temporal guilt. Further, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. v, 5), punishment is meted according to the dignity of the person sinned against, so that a person who strikes one in authority receives a greater punishment than one who strikes anyone else. Now whoever sins mortally sins against God, Whose commandments he breaks, and Whose honor he gives another, by placing his end in some one other than God. But God's majesty is infinite. Therefore whoever sins mortally deserves infinite punishment; and consequently it seems just that for a mortal sin a man should be punished for ever. I answer that, Since punishment is measured in two ways, namely according to the degree of its severity, and according to its length of time, the measure of punishment corresponds to the measure of fault, as regards the degree of severity, so that the more grievously a person sins the more grievously is he punished: "As much as she hath glorified herself and lived in delicacies, so much torment and sorrow give ye to her" (Apocalypse 18:7). The duration of the punishment does not, however, correspond with the duration of the fault, as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xxi, 11), for adultery which is committed in a short space of time is not punished with a momentary penalty even according to human laws [Cf. I-II, 87, 3, ad 1]. But the duration of punishment regards the disposition of the sinner: for sometimes a person who commits an offense in a city is rendered by his very offense worthy of being cut off entirely from the fellowship of the citizens, either by perpetual exile or even by death: whereas sometimes he is not rendered worthy of being cut off entirely from the fellowship of the citizens. wherefore in order that he may become a fitting member of the State, his punishment is prolonged or curtailed, according as is expedient for his amendment, so that he may live in the city in a becoming and peaceful manner. So too, according to Divine justice, sin renders a person worthy to be altogether cut off from the fellowship of God's city, and this is the effect of every sin committed against charity, which is the bond uniting this same city together. Consequently, for mortal sin which is contrary to charity a person is expelled for ever from the fellowship of the saints and condemned to everlasting punishment, because as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xxi, 11), "as men are cut off from this perishable city by the penalty of the first death, so are they excluded from that imperishable city by the punishment of the second death." That the punishment inflicted by the earthly state is not deemed everlasting is accidental, either because man endures not for ever, or because the state itself comes to an end. Wherefore if man lived for ever, the punishment of exile or slavery, which is pronounced by human law, would remain in him for ever. On the other hand, as regards those who sin in such a way as not to deserve to be entirely cut off from the fellowship of the saints, such as those who sin venially, their punishment will be so much the shorter or longer according as they are more or less fit to be cleansed, through sin clinging to them more or less: this is observed in the punishments of this world and of purgatory according to Divine justice. We find also other reasons given by the saints why some are justly condemned to everlasting punishment for a temporal sin. One is because they sinned against an eternal good by despising eternal life. This is mentioned by Augustine (De Civ. Dei. xii, 12): "He is become worthy of eternal evil, who destroyed in himself a good which could be eternal." Another reason is because man sinned in his own eternity [Cf. I-II, 87, 3, ad 1]; wherefore Gregory says (Dial. iv), it belongs to the great justice of the judge that those should never cease to be punished, who in this life never ceased to desire sin. And if it be objected that some who sin mortally propose to amend their life at some time, and that these accordingly are seemingly not deserving of eternal punishment, it must be replied according to some that Gregory speaks of the will that is made manifest by the deed. For he who falls into mortal sin of his own will puts himself in a state whence he cannot be rescued, except God help him: wherefore from the very fact that he is willing to sin, he is willing to remain in sin for ever. For man is "a wind that goeth," namely to sin, "and returneth not by his own power" (Psalm 77:39). Thus if a man were to throw himself into a pit whence he could not get out without help, one might say that he wished to remain there for ever, whatever else he may have thought himself. Another and a better answer is that from the very fact that he commits a mortal sin, he places his end in a creature; and since the whole of life is directed to its end, it follows that for this very reason he directs the whole of his life to that sin, and is willing to remain in sin forever, if he could do so with impunity. This is what Gregory says on Job 41:23, "He shall esteem the deep as growing old" (Moral. xxxiv): "The wicked only put an end to sinning because their life came to an end: they would indeed have wished to live for ever, that they might continue in sin for ever for they desire rather to sin than to live." Still another reason may be given why the punishment of mortal sin is eternal: because thereby one offends God Who is infinite. Wherefore since punishment cannot be infinite in intensity, because the creature is incapable of an infinite quality, it must needs be infinite at least in duration. And again there is a fourth reason for the same: because guilt remains for ever, since it cannot be remitted without grace, and men cannot receive grace after death; nor should punishment cease so long as guilt remains. --- SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. 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Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 25. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down with St. Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer and ask him any one question, what would it be? In today's episode, we'll ask St. Thomas the question, does hell really exist? And if so, is it really eternal? Welcome back to Pints with Aquinas. This is the show where you and I pull up a bar stall next to the angelic doctor and discuss theology and philosophy. And today we are joined around the bar table with a good friend of mine, Father Chris Prochaszko. I'm so sorry that I can't say your name without developing a lisp. Father Chris Prochaszko.

How are you, Father? Doing well. Good. Doing well. Tell us what, I know you're in Ontario, but what diocese are you a priest within? I belong to the London Diocese in Canada, Ontario. Very cool. Well, good to have you back with us.

And I know you're drinking a beer, so I've got to ask, what kind is it? It is Rickards Red, Irish style ale. And our last discussion, you said that was one of your favorites. Good, good, good, good good are you drinking anything you know father i'm drinking uh this beautiful beverage it's called uh uh water oh you're making me look bad no you're making me look bad i'm the one who's supposed to be setting the tone. But anyway. All right. Hey, we're going to be discussing, as I said in the beginning of the show, the topic of hell. And not a pleasant topic. In fact, I recall somewhere Father C.S. Lewis saying something to the effect of, you know, if there were one doctrine in all of

Christianity that I could change, this would be it. But he goes on to say, however, it has the full support of Scripture and reason. And therefore, even though I don't like the idea of it, I have to accept it. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's crazy that, you know, if you look at what Scott Hahn says, he says that Jesus speaks more about hell than any other figure in the Bible. And people can get bogged down by, you know, what they might call fire and brimstone, kind of an over-emphasis on talking about hell, but our Savior himself spent a long time discussing it. And I think it's primarily because he wants to save us from it, not because he somehow is giddy about souls going to hell, but rather he's very concerned for each one of us. That's a good way to put it. You know, we have a lot of Protestant listeners, Father, and something I've noticed in a lot of my

Protestant friends these days, certainly not all of them, you know, there's all sorts of different types of Protestants, but there's different views on hell. There's different views on everything when it comes to Protestants. And I don't mean that in a disparaging way, but just that, you know, if you're a Protestant and your sole rule of authority is the Scriptures, well, you know, we all know that we can interpret sometimes what we want to interpret, or because of our ignorance, our darkened intellect, we might come to conclusions about the Scriptures that the Scriptures aren't even saying. Anyway, my point is that, you know, I know many Protestants now who will say,

no, hell doesn't exist. That's not what the Bible's teaching. Or they'll say, they'll believe, hold to something called annihilationism, which is, okay, if you die and reject God, then he will annihilate you, but you will not spend eternity in hell, and so on and so forth. Now, of course, we have Catholics who reject these things as well, but when they do it, we get to call them heretics, you know, or at least bad Catholics. But if you're a Protestant and you're just kind of going by the scripture alone, and that's what you come up with, you're in a sticky position. But have you noticed that as well, this sort of more relativistic, I don't know, interpretation of historical Christian doctrines taking place in the Protestants you know, or is that just me?

No, I mean, I think when you have Protestant Reformation, you had the splintering. And from that splintering off of different Christian traditions, you have all sorts of different contradictory interpretations. And there is a type of relativism, I think, but they might not characterize it as such, of course. But without that central authority that God's given his church, it becomes very difficult to explain how that doctrine is anything but a personal interpretation of scripture. And so I think there's a lot of rich tradition in the Catholic faith and how it's already looked at traditions like apocostastasis or this idea that one day even Satan might go to heaven, or the other extreme, which is annihilationism, like you brought up, this idea that God will destroy the soul of those who are damned so they don't have to suffer eternally as

a kind of compassionate act of mercy. But the church's position, of course, is right in between. And like you said, it's a difficult and uncomfortable one. So it makes sense if we're going to wrestle with it. But I think at the end of the day, you know, we have to confront what our Lord says and not try to wiggle out of it. And that's where faith-seeking understanding is so important. We need to begin in a place with faith and admit, maybe I don't understand where, where's the love in this teaching? How is it possible that a good, loving God could allow something like hell? Acknow, acknowledging and beginning with the fact that hell does exist. Yeah. Well, in the Summa Theologiae, this is in the supplementary section, question 99, Aquinas addresses a few interesting things. He talks about whether or not hell is

eternal. And I won't read this full quote here, Father, because it's rather lengthy. Let me just read the first objection and Thomas's short response to that objection and get your thoughts on it. Is that okay? Yeah, sounds good. So, the article, which is article one, whether by divine justice and eternal punishment is inflicted on sinners. And the objection, one of the six objections, this is the first one that St. Thomas sets himself, is the following. It would seem that an eternal punishment is not inflicted on sinners by divine

justice, for the punishment should not exceed the fault. According to the measure of the sin shall the measure also of the stripes be. That's a quotation that comes from Deuteronomy. Now, fault is temporal. Therefore, punishment should not be eternal. Now, I love Aquinas. I always say this, Father, but whenever you read his objections, it's almost like he couldn't set it up any more clearly and concretely if he tried. And it's almost like he does a sort of philosophical or theological Houdini. He shows you how he'll now get out of that objection. And here's his response. It's, let's see, here's two sentences. He says, It's, let's see, he has two sentences. He says, punishment has not to be equal to fault as to the amount of duration as is seen to be the case also with human laws. We may also reply with Gregory

that although sin is temporal in act, it is eternal in will, end quote. Absolutely. That's such a good response. I can think of one modern day example of where it applies. There was recently a father who was defending his son who had committed sexual assault against a woman in the U.S. and his father was frustrated with all these people demanding more time in prison for what he had done, claiming that what his son had done only took a matter of minutes to do, and therefore his punishment shouldn't be that lengthy because of the length of time it took in order to do it. And we know intuitively, I think, that that doesn't make any sense because to kill someone takes a second to pull the trigger.

But the graveness or gravity of the act itself is a mortal sin. It's a serious sin. And Aquinas actually, he gives four reasons why eternal punishment is justified in his main body and some of them are worth kind of sitting with and bringing to prayer one in particular i'd like to mention if i may is yeah it's he says it must be replied according to some that gregory speaks of the will that is made manifest by the deed for he who falls into mortal sin of his own will puts himself into a state whence he cannot be rescued except God help him. Wherefore, from the very fact that he is willing to sin, he is willing to remain in sin forever. When I read that, I kind of gasped

a little bit and kind of sat back and thought about that, that every time that we commit a mortal sin or are tempted to commit a mortal sin, what we're contemplating is putting ourselves into a pit, into some kind of situation in our relationship with God that we ourselves can't save ourselves from. And that just goes to show the permanence of that decision. And of course, Aquinas continues, but he says, you know, except God help him. And so it's by grace, by the sacrament of confession, by the gift of God's generosity and forgiveness, and through repentance in this life that we're capable of turning away from that eternal punishment. But another way that Aquinas says, and he says that this is, of course, better.

He says the very fact that he commits mortal sin, he places his end in a creature. And since the whole of life is directed to its end, it follows that for this very reason, he directs his whole life of his life to that sin and is willing to remain in sin our end, as our ultimate source of happiness. And it's a rejection of God as that source of happiness. And we replace him with something created. And that's where our idol kind of comes into play. And so that sin against God as our ultimate end is what persists within our soul for all eternity in hell, is that we're eternally rejecting God as our source of happiness. And that's why we remain in hell for all eternity, is because we are in a state of rejecting God.

Yeah, and the final reasons he gives here is um he says it must needs be infinite talking about why hell has to be eternal right he's saying um wherefore since punishment cannot be infinite in intensity because the creature is incapable of an infinite quality it must needs be infinite at least in duration. And again, well, here's the last one, I guess, is there is a fourth reason for the same because guilt remains forever since it cannot be remitted without grace. And men cannot receive grace after death, nor should punishment cease so long as guilt remains. But there is a, I mean, can we just react to maybe a natural reaction that people might be having right now, Father, and that's

just to say this just seems horrible. I mean, it seems horrible that someone should commit a sin and then suffer in hell for infinitely longer than the universe has been in existence. Maybe as you respond to that, Father, why don't you explain for our non-Catholic listeners what we mean by mortal sin too? Sure. In the first letter of John, there's a sin called mortal sin that's mentioned in Scripture, and it speaks of the difference between, you know, a sin that we might characterize as being of light matter or let me think of how to explain this. A venial sin is a sin that is not very serious. It's serious, but it's not very serious. So if I were to steal a penny, actually in Canada, we no longer have

pennies. If I were to steal a nickel from someone else, that would be not as serious as me stealing $500,000 or going to the casino with it or something along those lines if it wasn't my money. And so there's a seriousness or a scandal involved in mortal sin. And that is, as Aquinas would say, mortal sin is an offense that's directly against our ultimate end, which is God, our summa bonum. And venial sin is more of a sin against the path towards God. And so there's three things that are required for mortal sin, according to church teaching. One is that the act itself has to be serious. It has to be grave. It has to be seriously wrong. The second would be that you have to have freedom, the inner interior freedom to say no to it. And so if you say yes to it, but you were able to say no to it, then you're culpable for that.

And of course, the last one is that you have to have knowledge. You have to know that it was wrong and you have to have done it anyway. So all three of those need to be there in order for mortal sin to be committed, which means that it's a decision that we make. It's not something we trip into or accidentally fall into. It's a conscious decision that we make. It's not something we trip into or accidentally fall into. It's a conscious decision that we make. And as the catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, mortal sin is as radical a possibility as is love itself. And so I think in that mindset, we have to understand that hell is an absolutely horrible thing. It is horrible.

We should look at it as horrible. But it's not of God's making. It's of our own conscious free will. It's what human beings can create for themselves. themselves. And if I may, can I quote a particular passage from scripture that complements what Aquinas says? Here, actually, I should say Aquinas complements the scriptures. Yes, get that right. He had a great love for scripture. He memorized it all. But this is the parable of the rich man in Lazarus. And so here it is. There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen

and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, full of sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried in Hades. Being tormented, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom. He called out, Father Abraham, have mercy upon me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water to cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he's comforted here and you are in anguish.

And besides all this, between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able and none may cross from there to us. And he said, then I beg you, Father, to send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment. But Abraham said, They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. And he said, No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. to them from the dead, they will repent. He said to him, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets,

neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead. And that's from Luke chapter 16. In that passage, one of the things that's worth highlighting is that the rich man hasn't learned a darn thing because he says to Abraham, you know, send Lazarus to dip his finger into water and cool my tongue. The first thing that this rich man does is he continues to ask the poor man, Lazarus, to serve him. I've never thought of it that way before. Never. That's really insightful. Yeah. And so, what it teaches us, you know, is what my mom often said to me when I got caught doing something I shouldn't have. You know, you're not really sorry. You're just sorry you got caught, you know. And there's this kind of reality that we have to face in hell that in regards to the teaching on it,

which is that those who are in hell still cling to their sin. So it's not so much that hell is some place that God arbitrarily puts someone to suffer and they're truly sorry, and they're filled with love and they hate their sin because it's sin. But no, you have people in there that would sin if they could, and they would continue to reject God if they could. And so, there's this other source that I have, and it's called Aquinas' Summa, Aquinas' Shorter Summa. And I just bought that recently. It's terrific. When I first saw it, I thought, oh, maybe this is somebody's like, you know, breaking down Aquinas. But no, it's Aquinas breaking down Aquinas, which is cool. So, yeah.

And thank God for that, really, because it's helpful. But Aquinas explains that in the next life, our will is permanently fixed on whatever virtue or vice we've chosen in this life. And the reason for it is because we inherit an incorruptible body. And if our body cannot change, it cannot be corrupted, that means the dispositions, the habits that we've developed can't change either. The only exception would, of course, be purgatory, which is a whole other topic. The only exception would, of course, be purgatory, which is a whole other topic. But purgatory would only apply to those people who perhaps were guilty of venial sin. So their habits were perpetually directed towards the final end, which is God.

But there were certain things that were flawed on the way. But here's what he says. He says, however, when the body is resumed, the soul will not be governed by changes occurring in the body. Rather, the contrary will take place. During our present life, the soul is infused into a body that has been generated of seed and therefore, as we should expect, is affected by changes experienced in the body. But in the next world, the body will be united to a pre-existing soul, and so will be completely governed by the latter's conditions. Accordingly, the soul will remain perpetually in whatever last end it is found to have set for itself at the time of death, desiring that state as the most suitable, whether it is good or evil.

that state as the most suitable, whether it is good or evil. So it's like wet concrete, you know, it has this malleability in this life. It can be formed or deformed and then reformed. But in the next life, it dries, it hardens. So he finishes off by saying, therefore, the wicked regret the sins they have committed, not because sin displeases them, for even in hell they would rather commit those same sins if they had the chance than possess God, but because they cannot have what they have chosen and can have only what they have detested. I just think that kind of allows us to, if we're going to blame anyone or be angry about the reality of hell,

the finger has to be pointed towards ourself and not towards God. Why don't we speak a little bit about the practical applications of believing in hell or not? I think it's probably important, isn't it, that we remind ourselves that, you know, that Father Chris Prachashka, that Matt Fradd, to our listeners, you know, in five million years from now, we will exist. And it is a radical possibility, but it is indeed a possibility that we might be in hell. How does that bless one's spiritual life? I mean, it spurs us on to virtue and to take the Christian life seriously, surely. One way of looking at it, I think that can benefit us in our relationship with God is to recognize how profoundly He respects our freedom.

is to recognize how profoundly he respects our freedom. And this is one of two things I'd like to emphasize. But the first is that God respects our freedom sometimes more than we ourselves respect our freedom. As he said, quoting Gregory, he says, the will that is made manifest by the deed. The will that is made manifest by the deed. And so our choices communicate what we long for, where we hope to be for all eternity. And God respects that decision. And the reality is that without God granting us free will, love would never be possible.

You know, imagine a husband coming home saying to his wife, I love you because I have to. Romance would be completely stripped from that relationship. Funny anecdote here, Father, I've got to share. It's kind of embarrassing, but hey, let's do it anyway. I remember when I was probably about, I don't know, 12 or 13 years old, my mate and I were going for a walk and we were talking about the girls in our class that we really liked. And for whatever reason, I think one of us said like, wouldn't it be cool if there was some kind of like spell or something that you could put on them, like to make them fall in love with you. I don't know how we phrased it, but that's essentially

what our point was. But I remember as soon as those kind of words left my lips, or as soon as I heard my friends say them, I immediately felt like this sadness and wanted to retract it all as if to say, no, no, no, not like that, not like that, you know, and there's a real kind of deep, beautiful insight in that maybe hedonistic moment of mine that, you know, for love to be true, it needs to be free. Exactly. And the second thing I think is worth emphasizing is the fact that God doesn't want to force any one of us into a relationship. He doesn't want to kidnap us into heaven with some formula of irresistible grace to you know, to manipulate the way our mind thinks. But rather, he wants us to choose him freely. Now, that doesn't change the fact that

it would be completely irrational not to choose him. But the fact is that he gives us that ability to be irrational and to not choose him. And that teaches us, first of all, that, you know, life without God, because God is infinite beauty, infinite goodness, infinite love, to live without any of that is misery. And so it reminds us of the utter beauty of God, and that we're truly made for him, our hearts are restless until they rest in him. But last of all, recognizing that hell is there can wake us up. It's what I like to call the spiritual pots and pans that wake us up out of spiritual lethargy, spiritual complacency, where we think that there are no consequences for our decisions, even if they be natural consequences

coming from our own decisions. Now, as we wrap up here today, Father, I'd like to say a little word to the scrupulous among us. So, while it's true that many of us maybe have forgotten about the reality of hell, a lot of people in the Christian faith even, maybe have forgotten about the reality of hell, a lot of people in the Christian faith even, and we must be reminded of it because it's a real possibility, okay? And maybe we're acting in such a way that we are rejecting God, you know, freely and deliberately, right? But then again, there are also people who struggle with what we call scrupulosity, right? Which is that sort of condition, I suppose, if you will, in which we think that our actions which aren't sinful are, or maybe our venial sins we think are mortal. And there are people out there, and I've been one of them in the past, who have been absolutely crippled by fear. And it's almost as if the enemy speaks into that fear so that

the scrupulous person is almost on the edge of despair where he would rather God not exist, you know, than he do, or he might want to reject Him altogether so he no longer has to live under the gaze of what he perceives to be a wrathful God. So, would you speak a little bit to those people listening who are maybe unnecessarily scared of hell? Absolutely. I mean, what you're speaking to me is the virtue of hope that God wants to give us through his grace. And according to the catechism, there's two sins against hope. There's despair, which is what you're speaking of, which can come from, um, scrupulosity. And then there's presumption with regard to scrupulosity. You know, we cannot as terrible and as evil as our sins may be, whether they are sins or not, because we might be debating that

within ourselves, or whether they're mortal or not, as terrible as they might possibly be, there is no sin worse than killing God on the cross. And Jesus forgave that sin without hesitation. And when he forgave us his sins, he cried out. It wasn't something he muttered under his breath. You know, he cried out from the cross, forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. And so we cannot have the pride within our soul to believe that we can commit any sin that God cannot forgive and that through his infinite power cannot somehow remedy in this life. And so we may not be able to put much trust in ourselves, but we may be able to put an unfathomable trust in the one who's created us and can bring us to that perfection.

The other thing I would say is that we always have to look at our sin through the eyes of Christ. You know, I think of Peter on the boat when there's a great storm and he begins to walk towards Jesus. It's only when he stops looking at the face of Jesus and becomes distracted by this kind of turmoil, this spiritual turmoil manifest in a storm. And he looks away from Jesus and can't see himself in the reflection of Jesus' eyes that he begins to sink. And it's from there that he cries out, Lord, save me. What a beautiful thing for St. Peter to cry out, which is exactly why Jesus is here.

He's to save us because we need his help. And scrupulosity often involves this kind of tunnel vision, this preoccupation with our sin. And while it's important to look at our sin, we have to see it in the full context of the faith, which is that there was no greater sin than killing God on the cross, but God has forgiven it. God sees past our sin and is still deeply, deeply and madly in love with each one of us. So as St. Faustino would say, our sin is but a drop in the ocean of God's mercy. And that, I think, is one way of looking at scrupulosity. But the alternative dimension that we have to balance this off with, I think, is the danger of the sin of presumption, which is, you know, sometimes you hear people say, I'll

sin now and ask for forgiveness later. You know, I think of it kind of like, I'm going to eat a big fat cheeseburger right now and then I'll go to the gym later. There's this kind of belief that we can sin and then somehow be forgiven without actually being sorrowful for our sin, without making this kind of definitive decision to attempt or to do our best to not sin in that way again. And so presumption sometimes is a sin that we also struggle with. It doesn't mean that if you're going to confession again and again for the same sin that you have presumption,

that could actually be a sign of despair. But what it does mean is that, um, that, uh, the person is persistently trying to overcome that sin by constantly seeking grace and, uh, and, and yet at the same time, we have to do it in the right spirit, which is, you know, let's take some time before I go to confession to really meditate on what I just did, you know, or what I'm doing with my life, and why I'm called to something greater than that. Well, I think we could probably sum it up like this. We've mentioned Aquinas. Maybe turn my volume down there, Father, so I can hear me and my headphones.

Sorry. Peter Crave said this. I think it was a good point he said the bible is easy to understand yeah we gotta stop you okay sorry i just tried to turn down the volume that's okay i just said that uh if emphatically so i would hear that in a podcast okay okay so what all this is tough um because like everything i'm saying i hear in my headphones a second later um but i'll edit this bit out and i'll i'll say like one more thing and then i'll let you kind of say one more thing and then i'll wrap it up is that okay is? Is the whole thing recording with an echo? Only when I speak. That's why I haven't spoken much in this. Oh, I'm sorry. No, don't be. Because it's fun. I get to interview you and you have a lot of

wonderful things to say. So, I think it's probably a blessing. The Lord wants me to shut up and listen to your wisdom. So, I think it's great. But that was the most pronounced right then. So, I'll say something and then I'll let you kind of add some concluding remarks. Feel free to say something about Aquinas or whatever, and then I'll wrap it up. Sound good? Sounds good. All right. So, I suppose we could wrap things up like this, Father.

We could say, in the words of Peter Kreeft, actually, I have this quote in front of me. It says, the Bible is easy to understand. And now, of course, he's being a little hyperbolic, hyperbolical there, but that's okay. The Bible is easy to understand, but we pretend we can't, for we know very well that the minute we do, we are obliged to act accordingly. And so, I think the fact is this, that, you know, if we are Christians listening to this podcast, accordingly. And so, I think the fact is this, that, you know, if we are Christians listening to this podcast, the first question shouldn't be, how do I philosophically, you know, reconcile God and loving God in hell? I think we've spoken a little bit about how that is possible in this podcast. But the first question is, what did the Lord Jesus teach? And as you mentioned earlier,

the Lord Jesus spoke more about hell than any other figure in the Bible. And so, I think we have to submit to Him. And then, as you say, faith-seeking understanding by reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Holy Fathers, and also St. Thomas Aquinas, that's when we can begin to maybe understand what we know through revelation. Yeah, I agree. That's a good summary. Well, good. I'm glad you agree. You know, and I think St. Thomas is probably one of the best prolific writers on this subject that I've encountered. It just gives us a good kind of rational explanation

of it. The one thing, though, I might finish to say, if I may, is that all right, Matt? Of course. Yeah, it is. You know, just this idea of annihilationism is a difficult one, because some people think that it would be merciful for God to... Euston created us, he respects our free will, even when we're rejecting him for all eternity. And a person who's been created, God doesn't make mistakes when he makes a decision. So, when he made our soul to be eternal, he's not going to undo or somehow contradict himself by uncreating something that's eternal. And so God respects our freedom to even continue

to choose to reject him, even if that means for all eternity. And so I just wanted to offer that one last kind of apologetic response to that particular objection, because I find that's probably one of the most powerful ones that's really difficult and we need to struggle with. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for being with us today, Father Chris. If our listeners would like to learn more, go to newadvent.org and click Summa. And if you go to the supplement section of the Summa, question 99, you can read more about what St. Thomas has to say. But in the meantime, I want you to do a couple of things, all right? I want you to go to Father Chris's podcast. It's called Fetus Ed Ratio, and it's fantastic.

Father's got a lot of wonderful things to say. Every time I listen to the podcast, I'm, you know, having neurological explosions or something. It's terrific. you know, having neurological explosions or something. It's terrific. So please subscribe to his podcast. Please rate Pints with Aquinas on iTunes. And feel free to email me at matt at pintswithaquinas.com or send me a tweet, blah, blah, blah. We love doing this and thanks for your support.

God bless you. Talk to you next week. Who's gonna survive? Who's gonna survive? Who's gonna survive? And I would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you. And I would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you.