I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse” (Issac Asimov). Throughout the lives of men, certain defined images heaven and hell have emerged. Due to the immaturity of the human mind in the early child stage, authorities take advantage, sometimes forever branding misleading images of these two significant states of being into the mind of the child. There seem to be a number of images on these two states, however the most misleading reduce each to a place (because the mind associates much more easily with the seen, the tangible and the recognizable). Heaven becomes a place in the sky, blue and cloud-filled, infinitely pleasurable “until the end of time”, God judging in his chair of infinite glory, all earthly pleasures present in abundance. Hell, on the other hand, is reduced to the devil with prongs, a place “below” earth, a fire filled pit of doom and destruction “until the end of time.” These images have been manipulated by (not so) great political, religious and secular leaders in history in order for material gain, national prosperity or mass conversion. Let us look to three great Christian apologists - Peter Kreeft, C.S. Lewis and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) – for a clearer picture of those states which may or may not follow earthly death.
First of all, Peter Kreeft, a professor at Boston College, proposes a unique and new viewpoint on the subjects of heaven and hell – a viewpoint much in tune with that of C.S. Lewis. Kreeft establishes the role of time, eternity and joy in heaven and hell. Kreeft works with a purpose, a purpose designed specifically to go against the commonly held views of Heaven (as infinite pleasure) and Hell (as infinite pain). This is primarily due to the reality that the most objections occur within the realm of the presupposed and most common images of heaven and hell. If a new, more clear, more truth-filled image of an idea emerges, new, clearer objections must be raised – objections which simply apparently do not exist at this point because of the commonly accepted images. Individuals tend to ignore their standing as images but accept them as truth or fact, not open to any new portrayal of the reality in place of the image. Kreeft attempts to do this.
In order to do this, Kreeft works in threes instead of twos, eliminating any sense of duality – following the tradition of the Christian trinity. There are three primary levels (each with three aspects to it) that wholly compose the self and the self’s being. The three levels of depth are body, spirit and soul; the three aspects are life, desire and consciousness. These three images are able to more clearly establish the relationship between Heaven and Hell. Rather than simply indicating that one is infinite pleasure and the other infinite pain, Kreeft establishes the human relationship to that which is less (the world and worldly desires), that which is equal (the self and self desires), and that which is more (the beyond or Godly, selfless desires).
Being in alignment with Kreeft, C.S. Lewis establishes much of the same points in his work The Problem of Pain. Lewis’ honesty shines true when he says, “I am not going to try to prove the doctrine tolerable. Let us make no mistake; it is not tolerable” (Lewis 120). Lewis establishes the importance of truth and his dedication to it through this argument. Personally, Lewis, being a selfless Christian, would prefer that Hell did not possess true reality. Yet truth tells him it must be so, so he must be honest with his reader. This honesty, Lewis believes, will report the truth, no matter how much the truth pierces he and the reader on a surface level. This surface piercing goes along with Kreeft’s idea of the three levels of self. If a surface piercing is necessary to unlock joy and wisdom on a spirit level, then the surface piercing must be handled.
I believe that the most apparent reasons that C.S. Lewis and Peter Kreeft go against the common perceptions of Heaven and Hell are truth and joy themselves. Kreeft often reminds the reader of his own and Lewis’ commitment to true joy, stating, “As C.S. Lewis puts it, ‘Joy is not a substitute for sex; sex is very often a substitute for joy. I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy’”(Kreeft 105). Rather than seek joy in its deepest truth, we seek the surface and thus in seeking the surface we receive a piercing at our depths rather than only a surface piercing (as would be the case if one pursued joy).
The problem of Heaven and Hell, the one that leads to false images of each and which Kreeft and Lewis attempt to correct, is that people, being faced with the tangible since childbirth, accept and pursue only the tangible. Lewis argument from desire shows that the surface can only bring so much to the individual, the rest must be assumed to be God, the unquenchable desire present while living only has one final object. That object is joy, and God is joy. The definition of joy explains earthly sufferings – the surface must be pierced in order to “tempt” the surface dwelling human to the center of his own self. To not suffer, to not be tempted in pursuit of these desires would truly be hell. The person would forever live on in self-indulgence, in self-pity, in all selfhood and never in selflessness. However, because many individuals fail to accept the surface piercings as simply surface with a greater cause, they become isolated in pursuit of solely temporal desires, “locking the gates of hell from the inside” as Lewis puts it. God will never force the sinner to delve into the depths of himself, but does allow for the surface of the self to be pierced – because he knows that this piercing is (or at least, should be) ultimately for the good of the self, the ultimate joy within the self.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger proposes some additional thoughts on the subjects of heaven and hell, specifically linking the dual realms of bios and zoe along with concepts of time and eternity to each. Ratzinger, in tune with Kreeft and Lewis, establishes that, “Only when we have experienced [God] as silence may we hope to hear his speech, too, which proceeds in silence” (Ratzinger 296). God as eternal silence establishes and shows man’s true fear of loneliness, a fear which Jesus himself experienced in his descent into hell and cry out to God on the cross. Without the eternal “You” of God, the human self becomes entrenched in the ultimate loneliness and isolation: Hell. Though death is absolute loneliness as well, love can still enter into it – love penetrated with the joy and truth of God. There is a depth-ridden beauty inherent in death which cannot seen simply from the surface of the earth, it must be experienced first hand.
Hope of surface immortality, though, leads to final and closed death. In order to not fall into this trap, the human must realize the temporality of the realm of bios and move into the realm of zoe, or definitive life. This can be done through the love of God, the truth of God – it being unconditional and able to conquer even the seemingly most utter of loneliness: death. Here lies the distinction between heaven and hell, between the afterlife of the “above” and the afterlife of the “below.” Does man remain untouchable and immortal in the afterlife of the below? Absolutely. But this is man’s greatest torment, to evade the truth and exist in isolation for eternity. Eternity in this case is not something within the bounds of time but the entirely other of time – that which is present always, even today. Ratzinger establishes that Jesus is the one who connected time with eternity, humans with God, and humans with joy. No deep satisfaction can be elicited from the temporal, only hints and analogies of true joy.
What does everything that Kreeft, Lewis, and Ratzinger had to say mean? Well, for one, it gives a whole new meaning to the cliché “There is a reason for everything.” Rather than this, the saying should be rephrased: “There is the reason for everything.” This reason being the deepest joy, the deepest wisdom – the deepest truth. At first, I was skeptical – why should any pain be necessary for the ultimate satisfaction? Why must the self be pierced at all? Then I realized that if this were the case, earth would be heaven, a heaven which we would not even be able to recognize (and maybe even more towards hell than heaven). While I may not appreciate surface piercings at the time of their occurrence, I am now able to appreciate the depth of their value, the realm of the zoe bursting forth only through the realization of the existence of a bios and a multi-faceted self. These piercings lead us to live lives not for ourselves but for others, for the sake of the ultimate joy of the pierced, the ultimate joy of the other. Only through the selfless (which can only be realized through the existence of “surface” and “surface piercings”) can one fully realize the importance of the depths of self and what truth really means. If the water on the surface of the ocean was a solid and not able to ripple, one would not be able to delve into the ocean’s uttermost depths where the true treasure lies in abundance.
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