Cosmic sci-fi/fantasy writer Tim Powers (who gave permission to utilize his proper noun) writes:

What if there's a sort of Anti-Purgatory at the entry to Hell? I know I ever reflexively feel that  I couldn't ever actually be in danger of damnation just because I'm … such a nice guy. In terms of Hell equally Lewis fictionally described information technology in The Peachy Divorce, for instance, I wouldn't fit into it. There's but too much of good in me — amiability, mild generosity, occasional unstressful moral stands — for me to exist able to picture myself damned. Simply —

Purgatory burns out all the last $.25 of sin and self-dearest and inclination-toward-evil in saved souls before they enter Sky, then that what enters is a streamlined, sanctified soul that can sustain the Beatific Vision. What if in that location's an Anti-Purgatory before entry into Hell, that strips away all the (never deeply attached) bits of sanctity that might cling to a definitively lost soul? — so that what enters Hell is a strripped-downward soul that simply no longer has the "prissy guy" qualities which the living person had randomly and ad-hoc-ly accumulated?

This may already accept been proposed by Origen or Augustine or somebody, or even be dogma, but it never occurred to me before, and I find it a usefully-scary idea!

It'south not a dogma, nor is it a speculation that I recall reading in a theologian's writings before, only in that location may be something to this idea. Certainly in that location's enough to it that ane might want to base a scary story on it (and, concerning of that, I hereby grant Tim Powers license to use anything at all that he wants from this post or based on it, just to clear upwards any potential copyright concerns in advance).

Lemme talk well-nigh hell for a minute, since it's the country that an anti-purgatory would configure y'all for.

Folks who haven't read The Nifty Divorce should be aware that in this volume C. S. Lewis depicts hell as a grey town in which the inhabitants view themselves as good people (certainly non damned people) who are ameliorate than the unpleasant environment in which they notice themselves. Since they don't really "fit in" with each other, they  keep moving farther apart.

Bluntly, dissimilar Tim, that really sounds a fiddling appealling to me. I mean, who wouldn't desire a chance to get away from information technology all later the hustle and bustle of life and have a gamble to actually relax? Didn't God say something about "entering into his rest"? Maybe that'due south what he had in mind. It'south a hopeful thought, anyway. Perhaps the urban center might even have a jitney line or something to aid people go fifty-fifty further away. I'm sure that at that place would exist demand for a public transit system. Every major metropolitan area needs one of those.

This depiction of hell past Lewis is notable for how different it is from the biblical and traditional images of hell. Those images become like this:

  • Hell is like beingness excluded from a party that you really wanted to go to and left exterior in the darkness.
  • Hell is like existence burned live.
  • Hell is similar existence sentenced to torture by a male monarch or judge.

These images take been developed in different means by subsequent Catholic idea.

The starting time of them, in conjunction with other passages that talk most what sky is like, has been understood as the mirror image of the Beatific Vision. Those who get into heaven become to exist with and behold God (the Beatific Vision), existence transformed to exist like him. Those who go to hell are deprived of this vision, which is like being shut out of a party that you really, really wanted to become to bad. Theologians have called this the poena damni or "pain of loss."

The second two images (burning and torturing) stand for to what theologians have called the poena sensus or "pain of sense." The precise nature of the poena sensus has been disputed, with many theologians (peculiarly in former days) property that hell contained fire that was in some sense literal and somehow able to agonize the immaterial souls of the damned fifty-fifty earlier they reacquire their bodies at the Resurrection.

I thing that all of these images accept in common is that they depict the punishments–both the poena damni and the poena sensus–as existence inflicted on a person against his will by God, who is represented in parabolic form equally a powerful person (a rex, a judge, the rich caput of a household) with the right to practise these things.

Something else that they all take in mutual is that there is a tension between them and the idea that Deus caritas est. I mean, how practise yous square the idea that God is dear with the idea that he's going to torture people forever against their will? Many of the sins we commit on earth don't seem to us to deserve eternal punishment, and many people take such an impoverished knowledge of God through no fault of their own that it seems really hard to imagine that it would be just to burn down them alive for all eternity.

Respective to this, some take speculated that maybe only a very tiny, tiny number of people go to hell, but then why are the biblical warnings against hell so stiff?

Perhaps just to warn us against it in the strongest possible terms. Just perhaps in that location is some other possibility. After all, Jesus tells us that "many" go the road that leads to devastation, while "few" (adults, at least in his pre-Christian day) detect the mode to life. Maybe there's some other explanation.

Some have said, "Y'know: Scripture is a set of Heart Eastern documents that often utilise vivid imagery to gesture at spiritual realities. These images don't necessarily correspond to the spiritual realities in a one-to-1 manner. They contain elements that aren't literal, and they correspond to the spiritual realities in a more general way that operates on a deeper-than-the-surface-of-the-imagery level."

This has led a lot of folks to try and offer an account of hell that retains the underlying principles of the biblical images but that makes it easier to square hell with the idea of a God who is infinitely loving.

The fulcrum of this new interpretation consists in saying that the paradigm of God imposing hell on people against their will is non-literal.

The Heart Eastern environment in which Scripture was written was ane in which justice was dispensed by kings and judges who imposed harsh penalties on offenders at the drop of a hat (or turban, as the case may be). In that context, it was natural when thinking of the divine administration of justice, to film God in a similar manner.

But on some level–these theologians would argue–isn't hell really a matter of our own choice? I mean, nosotros chose to sin, right? God wouldn't exist sending usa to hell if nosotros hadn't made that selection. So perhaps the images of God imposing punishments from without is actually just part of the Middle Eastern framework in which these images were developed. The essential thing is that we accept made a pick not to go to heaven, not to be with God–to refuse him fundamentally.

Hell thus gets reconceptualized as but the natural outworking of our own choice. Nosotros have chosen not to be with God, and he lets us make that choice, though it is non a pleasant ane for those who make information technology.

The poena damni, which anybody already regarded every bit the essential pain of hell, is thus further accentuated, and the poena sensus gets re-interpreted as the natural consequences of the choice to abandon God (peradventure as some kind of inner, psychic torment the damned impose on themselves)–as some in Church history take always interpreted it. (For example, some historically have interpreted the image of burning as being the torments of a guilty conscience, though this has non been the majority position.)

In that location is considerable room for speculation on hell and what it is like. The Church really hasn't determined much in this surface area. But information technology has in recent times emphasized hell as self-exclusion from heaven. The Canon states: "To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's
merciful dearest ways remaining separated from him for ever past our own gratuitous
selection. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the
blest is called 'hell'" (CCC 1033).

At present allow'due south talk well-nigh anti-purgatory.

The Church has also determined that hell begins immediately upon death in mortal sin. The Catechism states: "Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin
descend into hell" (CCC 1035).

At showtime glance, this might seem to preclude the possibility of an anti-purgatory, only not necessarily. The point is that people who die in mortal sin begin suffering the consequences of separation from God immediately, non that they reach their final state of punishment in an instant. In other words, they don't get a respite from suffering until the Final Day. They first experiencing the consequences of being excluded from God's presence immediately, just there could be a process involved in what happens to them.

Those in purgatory are already linked to God by dying in his friendship, and many have held that they already experience tremendous joy through their marriage with God, fifty-fifty though there is a process that must take place for them to enter the full glory of heaven.

If this is truthful of those rising into heaven, it might be truthful of those sinking into hell: Though they already suffer from the loss of God'south presence, at that place is a process that must have identify before they experience the total consequences of their sins.

And just as those who are heaven-bound are losing the concluding bits of evil clinging to their souls, those who are hell-bent may be losing the final bits of skilful clinging to them.

The difference might be that the Church–with its focus on sky and how to get there–has devoted more attention to fleshing out the theology of the quondam rather than the latter.

In talks on purgatory, I've sometimes said that purgatory is the cloak room of heaven–the place where you get spiffed upwardly before you're ushered into the throne room. Anti-purgatory might so exist conceived of equally the cloak room of hell–the place where all that nasty adept is brushed or scrubbed (or amputated) off of you before you're brought in to meet the Lord of the Pit.

I'd similar to mention some other possibility here as well: Suppose that the re-conceptualization of hell in terms of self-exclusion isn't the just mode of looking at the matter. Suppose that there is an element by which God is active rather than passive in bringing nearly the state of damnation for those who have chosen information technology. Information technology seems to me that an anti-purgatorial process could play a useful role here.

One of the things that we're given to sympathise is that, when we go our only deserts, it will be obvious that the deserts are just (at least if nosotros're amid the right-thinking at that point). This is something most which we might be confused in this life since everyone nosotros see seems to be a mixture of good and evil and it's hard to tell nether all that mixture what key choice a person has made.

There are people who outwardly seem to have made a fundamental choice to sin, but they have really inwardly chosen redemption. (A number of such folks showed upwardly at Jesus' dinner parties.) Similarly, at that place are folks who outwardly seem to take called holiness but who are inwardly evil. (Jesus had a few things to say most them, too.)

Part of God's judgment will be publicly clarifying where everyone stands, and purgatory and anti-purgatory may play a function in that. Purgatory burns away all the schmutz on a person who has a middle of gold, while anti-purgatory burns away all the glitter on a person with a heart of obsidian.

Once all the masks and all of the clutter take been cleared abroad from someone so that we can see what he really is on the inside–a beingness of gold or a being of obsidian–it will be a lot clearer why the person deserves the fate he does, and why it's fair for the person to experience that fate permanently. Golden beings remain golden beings and and so deserve eternal light. Obsidian beings remain obsidian beings and so deserve eternal darkness. These two kinds of beings deserve to feel what they fundamentally are (or, rather, what they fundamentally chose to brand themselves), and the slap-up purification has made that obvious.

A question that remains is, if there is an anti-purgatory, specifically what is the nature of the good that it removes from ane?

In that location are ii kinds of good: supernatural good and natural good. The first consists of good that is oriented toward God in some way–specifically things like religion, promise, and charity. The 2d consists of every other kind of good–non just justice, temperance, fortitude, and prudence,  but as well things like being strong, being smart, and existence beautiful.

The 1 thing that anti-purgatory can't burn out of yous is true charity (supernatural dear of God). If yous had that when you died then yous would have died in a state of grace (clemency is biconditional with the state of grace) and so you would have gone to heaven (or at least to truthful purgatory). Charity is the one thing that anti-purgatory couldn't remove from y'all.

But whatsoever other form of good it could remove. If you died with organized religion (just not charity) then anti-purgatory could remove faith (belief in what God says because God says it) from you. If y'all died with hope (but not clemency) and then anti-purgatory could remove promise (trust in God for the means of salvation) from y'all. If you died with some measure of the cardinal virtues (justice, prudence, temperance, fortitude), and then anti-purgatory could remove those from you. If you died with other good qualities (intelligence, strength, beauty) then anti-purgatory could remove them.

This is non to say that anti-purgatory might not perversely strengthen certain aspects of you. For example, suppose that yous were intelligent and strong but also gentle and compassionate. If you die in mortal sin then anti-purgatory might strip y'all of the gentlenesss and pity and leave you wicked smart and wicked strong–a meliorate machine of evil than you always were in life.

Or it might but strip you of the compassion, leaving you smart and strong and able to be gentle when the situation calls for it (and then as better to hoodwink others). That'd make you an even better servant of evil.

The more good you take in y'all (the more virtues yous take except charity) the more potentially destructive you can be.

You might even have a form of natural dearest that just isn't the supernatural dear of God. For example, in the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (which has classically been understood such that the Rich Man is in hell; and if I remember correctly the Canon understands information technology this mode also), the Rich Human being has natural beloved for his brothers who are on earth and not notwithstanding in a state of damnation; he just doesn't have the supernatural love of God that would have saved him. He wants his brothers on earth to be saved for some natural reason–because he doesn't want them to suffer, for example.

St. Thomas also envisions a kind of preparatory love that proceeds true charity. One thus might have a kind of natural love for God that hasn't been elevated by grace into the concern for pleasing God for his own sake (e.g. just a desire to please God to get goodies from him).

Any or all of these might hypothetically be present in the damned, and thus might exist left in one experiencing anti-purgatory, leading to all kinds of dramatic possibilities for stories.

Perhaps under the right circumstances people at dissimilar stages in the loss-of-expert process might be allowed to act externally, leading to interesting dramatic complications in situations involving people who have experienced different good-ectomy surgeries. Some might even so accept relatively high amounts of good in them, while others take been configured more closely to His Satanic Majesty's prototype.

A person with relatively more than expert left in them might even betray–for a non-truthful-charity reason–someone with less good in them.

Fascinating stuff!

Incidentally, if you're looking for a dainty, Latin-sounding name for anti-purgatory, you might consider perditory or perditorium (from perditor = that which destroys or ruins), though if that'due south too close to "perdition" (a standard reference to hell) and so you might consider putresory or putresorium (from putor = rot) or putrefactory or putrefactorium (from putrefactor = that which causes rot/putresence).

BTW, for those not familiar with Tim Powers,

CHECK OUT THIS INTERVIEW WITH HIM ON IGNATIUS INSIGHT and

Check OUT HIS BOOKS.

Jimmy was built-in in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, merely at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive report of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he plant to support the Cosmic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Cosmic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides existence an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Mag, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Alive." View all posts by Jimmy Akin