The New View of Hell/Chapter 10
X.
IS HELL TO UNDERGO ANY CHANGE? IF SO. OF WHAT NATURE?
SWEDENBORG has disclosed with great clearness the condition of the wicked in the other world. Nor does he pretend to give us merely his opinion on the subject, but to set forth what he actually heard and saw when his spiritual senses were opened. He has told us what sort of people he found in hell, or of whom it consists. To cite his own language:
"Hell consists of spirits who, while living in the world, denied God, acknowledged nature, lived contrary to divine order, loved evils and falsities (although not so much before the world on account of the appearance) and who, therefore, were either insane in regard to truths, or despised and denied them, if not with the mouth, yet in heart [and in their lives]. Of all such, who have lived from the creation of the world, hell consists."—Athanasian Creed n. 41.
The wickedness of the infernals is described as terrible—surpassing all belief. Speaking of their "malignity, cunning, fraud, deceit, and cruelty," he says:
"These are such and so great that, if they were told only in part, scarcely an individual in the world would believe it. The infernals are so cunning and artful, and likewise so wicked—in short they are of such a character, that they cannot possibly be resisted by any man, nor even by any angel, but by the Lord alone"—A.C. 6666. And speaking of those who have lived wicked lives on earth, and have interiorly denied the Divine, he says: "Such persons in the other life, when they come into the state of their interiors, and are heard to speak and seen to act, appear as if infatuated; for from their evil lusts they break out into all manner of abominations—into contempt of others, ridicule, blasphemy, hatred and revenge. They contrive plans of mischief, some of them with such cunning and malice, that it can scarcely be believed that anything of the kind could exist in any man." "They lay snares; they cherish hatred; they burn with revenge, and seek to vent their rage against all who do not submit themselves to them. . . . At last they deliberate with themselves how they may climb up into heaven so as to destroy that, or be worshiped there as gods. To such lengths does their madness go. Those of this class who have been of the Roman Catholic religion, are more insane than the rest." "[When on earth] they desired to be worshiped as gods, and therefore burned with hatred and revenge against all who did not acknowledge their power over the souls of men and over heaven. They still cherished the same disposition which distinguished them in the world, that is, the same hatred and revenge against those who oppose them. Their greatest delight is to exercise cruelty; but this delight is turned against themselves; for in their hells one rages like a madman against another who derogates from his divine power." And, as might be expected, "within their habitations, they are engaged in continual quarrels, enmities, blows and fightings, while in the streets and lanes of their cities are robberies and depredations"—Heaven and Hell 506, '8, 86.
Such is the sad condition in the great Hereafter of those who, while on earth, have disregarded and trampled on the laws of their spiritual and heavenly life, and have thereby brought themselves into a state to love darkness rather than light, and evil rather than good. And the ruling love, we are told, can never be changed in the other world.
Swedenborg has told us of various kinds of hells which he was permitted to inspect[1]—for no two of the infernal societies are precisely alike; and their punishments are as various as their characters, but admirably adapted to their states and needs. Thus he speaks of "the hells of those who have spent their lives in hatred, revenge, and cruelty;" of "the hells of those who have lived in adultery and lasciviousness;" of "the hells of the deceitful;" of "the hells of the covetous and of robbers;" of "the hells of those who have lived in merely carnal pleasures," etc. And while the ruling spirit and general features of them all are the same, each has its peculiarities. Without attempting any detail of these, I will quote one or two passages from his account of "the hells of those who have passed their lives in adulteries and lasciviousness," and leave the reader to form his own judgment.
"Those who find their chief delight in the spoils of virginity, having no regard to marriage or issue, and who, after compassing their lustful ends, conceive an aversion for their victims, and then leave them to prostitution, suffer the most grievous punishment in the other world. For their life is contrary to all order, natural, spiritual, and celestial. Not only is it contrary to conjugial love, which in heaven is accounted most holy, but also to innocence, which they wound and destroy by seducing innocent beings into a course of prostitution, who might have been initiated into conjugial love; for the first delights of love, as is well known, introduce virgins to chaste conjugial love, and conjoin the minds of married partners. And since the sanctity of heaven is founded on conjugial love, and on innocence, the destroyers of such love must needs be murderers interiorly.'
And after giving some account of the terrible punishment which this class of persons have to suffer in the other world, he continues:
"This punishment returns many times for a hundred and a thousand years, until they become affected with horror at these lusts. I have been informed that the offspring of such parents are worse than other children on account of their constitution, derived hereditarily from the father, partaking of his nature. Therefore children are seldom born from such connections; or if they are, they do not remain long in this world."—A. C. 828.
And what does he say of the innocent victims of these wicked persons, some of whom he met in the other world?
"There are young girls who have been enticed to prostitution, and persuaded that there was no evil in it, who in other respects were well disposed. These, not having yet attained to an age capable of knowing and judging correctly of the nature of this kind of life, have a certain instructor set over them in the other world, who is very severe, and chastises them whenever they give their thoughts to such wantonness, and of whom they are much afraid. In this way they become vastated." That is, they are carried through a certain reformatory course of discipline; and "when the time of vastation is over, they are taken up into heaven; and being novitiates, they are instructed in the truths of faith by the angels among whom they are received."—A. C. 1106, '13.
But very different is it with another class of females whom he met in the spiritual world, and who were, when on earth, persons of most captivating manners, but deceitful, ambitious and destitute of conscience.
"There are some of the female sex who have lived in the indulgence of their inclinations, regarding only themselves and the world, and making the sum total of life and its delights to consist in external decorum, in consequence of which they have been particularly esteemed in polished society. They have thus, by practice, acquired the power of insinuating themselves into the good graces of others by specious pretences and a fair exterior, for the purpose of gaining an ascendency over them. Hence their life has been one of simulation and deceit. They used to frequent churches like other people, but for no other purpose than to appear upright and pious; being, moreover, destitute of conscience, and extremely prone to wickedness and adulteries when able to conceal them. Such persons in the other world think as they did here, not knowing what conscience is, and making a mock of those who speak of it. They enter into the affections of others by a pretended honesty, piety, compassion, and innocence, which with them are a means of deceiving; and whenever external restraints are removed, they plunge into the most wicked and obscene practices. These are they who in the other world become enchantresses or sorceresses, some of whom are denominated sirens, who become expert in arts unknown on earth."
Some of these arts are described. "They can assume the likeness of others" at will. By cunning artifice "they can inspire every one with an affection for them." "They have the power of representing to the view of spirits a bright flame encompassing the head, and this—which is an angelic token—to several at the same moment. They can feign innocence by various methods, even by representing infants whom they kiss; they also excite others whom they hate to murder them. . . . Their nature is so persuasive that no one suspects them; and hence their ideas are not communicated like those of other spirits; for they have eyes resembling those ascribed to serpents, seeing every way at once, and having their thoughts present everywhere.
"These sorceresses or sirens are punished grievously, some in Gehenna, others in a kind of court among serpents; others by being, as it were, torn asunder and subjected to various collisions attended with intensest pain and torture."—Ibid. 831.
And this, too, for their own good. For there is nothing of vindictiveness in the punishments of hell. They are all repressive, corrective and reformatory in their design and tendency.
But will the hells remain forever as they were when Swedenborg saw them? Is there to be no change—no improvement—in their condition? If so, of what nature?—and how is the improvement to be effected? The answer to these questions has been already anticipated in a measure; but I will endeavor to make it clearer and more definite.
"The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." He, therefore, has regard for, and continually endeavors to promote the best good even of the devils. He governs the hells as well as the heavens; and his love and wisdom are as conspicuous and as active in the one realm as in the other. But the devils cannot be governed in the same way, or by the same methods, as the angels. The latter, because they love the Lord above all things, and their neighbor even better than themselves, can be led and governed by love—by the love of what is just and true and good. But the former, since they have no love of the Lord or their neighbor, but love themselves supremely, can be governed only by fear. Self-love is perpetually encroaching upon the rights of others perpetually grasping at unlimited power; perpetually seeking, not to serve and bless others, but to subjugate them to its own control. It is, therefore, from its very nature, forever threatening the peace and welfare of the moral universe. And the only way this love can be restrained in its insane endeavors, is through fear—the fear of punishment.
The only way, therefore, that the Lord can reach the hells, and exert upon them a controlling influence, is through the medium of fear. It is in this way that He comes to, and manifests his love for, the devils. He does not hate them. He does not turn his face away from them. He does not take delight in tormenting them, as Christians have hitherto believed and taught;—far from it. On the contrary his love for them is like that of a kind and benignant father for his disobedient children, only infinitely more tender. It is not less strong for them, than it is for men on earth, or even for the angels in heaven;—no, nor less active in its efforts to promote their highest welfare. But because they have quenched his holy Spirit in their hearts—because they have refused to listen to his loving voice, which evermore seeks to lead men freely in the path to heaven, therefore they must be governed like wayward and rebellious children. They cannot be governed as the angels are—by love; they can only be governed by fear. Therefore the Lord permits them to be punished from time to time, with more or less severity according to the stubbornness of "their dispositions or the measure of their perversity. And this, too, for their own good; precisely as a wise and loving father will chastise his disobedient children, not because he delights in causing them pain, but because he wishes, for their good, to subdue their rebellious dispositions, and prevent them from injuring themselves and others through the unrestrained indulgence of their wrong inclinations.
It is precisely in this way that the Lord deals with the evil spirits in hell—his disobedient and rebellious children. He permits them to suffer punishment from time to time, but never without an end of use;—never, but for their own or others' good. As Swedenborg says: "The Lord turns all punishment and torment [in the other life] to some good use. It would be impossible that there should be any such thing as punishment, unless use were the end aimed at by the Lord; for the Lord's kingdom is a kingdom of ends and uses." (Arcana Cœlestia 696.)
And this is the use intended by punishment in the hells, and the use which it actually accomplishes: It excites fear and dread by the pain it produces; and thus the devils are constrained, through fear of punishment, to moderate their insanities, and restrain in some measure their evil inclinations. And although the lust of doing evil forever remains, yet the condition of the devils is rendered vastly more tolerable when they have been reduced to a state in which they dare not do the evil to which they are inclined; and are kept in this state through fear of punishment.
Under a government of fear and force, therefore—the only kind of government suited to the states of the infernals—and through the instrumentality of punishments administered by divine permission, a change in the condition of the hells is perpetually going on, though not such an internal reformation as will result in obliterating their existence, or in finally converting the devils into angels. Swedenborg says:
"All the inhabitants of hell are governed by fears; some, by fears implanted in the world, which still retain their influence; but because these fears are not sufficient, and likewise lose their force by degrees, they are governed by fear of punishment; and this fear is the principal means of deterring them from doing evil. The punishments in hell are various, more mild or more severe according to the nature of the evils to be restrained. For the most part the more malignant who excel in cunning and artifice, and are able to keep the rest in a state of submission and slavery by punishments and the terror thereby inspired, are set over the others; but these governors dare not go beyond the limits prescribed to them. It is to be observed that the fear of punishment is the only means of restraining the violence and fury of the hells: there is no other."—Heaven and Hell 543.
"They who have not in the world acknowledged the Lord, and that all good and truth are from Him and nothing from man, cannot resist evils as of themselves after death; for they are in evils and in the delight thereof grounded in love; and to resist the delight of their love, is to resist themselves, their own nature and their own life. On one occasion the experiment was made whether they were able to resist evils while the punishments of hell were announced to them, yea, while they were seen and likewise felt; but it was in vain, for they hardened their minds, saying, let come what will, provided only that we are in the delight and joy of our hearts while we are here. We shall not suffer more evil than many others. But after a stated time they are cast into hell, where they are compelled by punishments not to do evil; but punishments do not take away the will, the purpose, and consequent thought of evil; they only prevent the evil act."—Apocalpse Explained n. 1165.
"While man lives in the world, he is kept continually in a state capable of being reformed, provided he desists from evil from a free principle. But his life follows him after death, and he remains in the state which he had procured to himself by the whole course of his life in the world. Then he who was in evil, is no longer capable of being reformed; and lest he should have communication with any society of heaven, all truth and good are taken away from him, in consequence of which he remains in the evil and false, which principles increase according to the faculty of receiving them which he has acquired in the world; but he is not permitted to pass beyond the acquired bounds. . . . His state then is such that he cannot any longer be amended as to his interiors, but only as to his exteriors; and this by fear of punishments, which, being often repeated, compel the spirit at last to abstain from evil, which he does, not in freedom but through compulsion, the lust of doing evil still remaining; this lust is held in check by fears, as was said, which fears are the external and compulsory means of amendment. Such is the state of the evil in the other life."—Arcana Cœlestia 6977.
"Every evil spirit in the other life brings punishment and torment on himself, by casting himself into the midst of the diabolical crew who act as the executioners. The Lord never sends any one into hell, but desires to bring all out of hell; still less does He inflict torment. But as the evil spirit rushes into it himself, the Lord turns all punishment and torment to some good account. There would be no such thing as punishment if use were not the end aimed at by the Lord; for his kingdom is a kingdom of ends and uses; but the uses which infernal spirits are able to perform are most ignoble; yet when they are engaged in the performance of these uses, they are not in a state of so great misery [as at other times]."—Ibid. 696.
"Man in the other life enters into new states and undergoes changes. They who are being elevated into heaven, and afterwards when they have been elevated, advance forever towards perfection. But they who are being cast into hell, and afterwards when they have been cast in, endure sufferings more and more grievous, which are continued until they dare not do evil to any one. And afterwards they remain in hell to eternity. They cannot be drawn out, because they cannot be gifted with the ability to do good to any one, only not to do evil from fear of punishment, the lust of doing it always remaining."—Ibid. 7541.
Such, then, is the nature of the change that is going on in the hells, and such the means by which it is accomplished. And even in the punishments which are there inflicted, we have a manifestation of the Divine benevolence. For the purpose of these is, the amelioration of the condition of the devils;—an end altogether worthy of infinite Love, but one which infinite Wisdom sees could not be attained without the instrumentality of punishment. To withhold the exercise of this instrumentality, therefore, would not be an act of benevolence, and hence not agreeable to infinite Love; for this Love forever regards the end to be accomplished, and wisely permits temporary suffering as a means toward the attainment of that end.
Through the instrumentality of punishments, therefore, severe and oft-repeated, the hells are undergoing an improvement not unlike that which goes on in a well governed penitentiary here on earth. They are being reformed outwardly, but not inwardly;—not as to their spirit or ruling purpose, for no internal reformation is ever effected by punishment or the fear of it. All that punishment can ever do, is to intimidate and restrain, and so prevent the actual commission of evil deeds, the disposition to commit them still remaining.
By means of a strong police and severe punishments, a community of thieves and murderers may be restrained, and kept in some degree of external order; but theft and murder (or the spirit that prompts them) still remain in their hearts; and will break forth into outward act as soon as the police are out of the way, or there is no longer any fear of punishment. You cannot drive love—pure, unselfish love—into human hearts with bullets or bludgeons, by infantry or artillery, by cavalry or police.
Our state prisons furnish a good illustration of the hells as described by Swedenborg; and the external improvement which has been going on in many of these for the last thirty years, through a wise administration and a firm government, will give us some idea of the nature and extent of the improvement that is going on in the hells. And while this is not such as will result in finally changing their essential character or ruling love, let us hope that it may, however, be carried so far as to render the condition of the devils quite tolerable if not happy. Let us hope that, ultimately, they may be reduced to such a state of external order, that life—even the low and selfish kind of life which they have chosen and made their own—will be esteemed by them a blessing and not a curse.
In a community here on earth, where a great majority of the people have a conscience and are actuated by principle, the sphere of law and order, of justice and right, is usually so strong that there is rarely any outbreak of the hells through the minority. These latter are kept in subjection and order by purely selfish and prudential considerations—from an enlightened regard to their own temporal interests, or through fear of disgrace, punishment, or worldly loss of some sort. So from like considerations, and under the rigid discipline to which the devils are subjected and which I have here hastily outlined, the universal hell may ultimately be brought into such complete subjection to the angelic heaven, (whose numbers and influence, it is believed, are continually increasing), that the violent commotions and outbreaks which are now so frequent, will entirely cease. When this takes place, we can easily see that, although the hells will still remain unchanged as to their essential nature, they will be like the tamed tiger—submissive, and therefore harmless. We can see, too, that, by their subjection to the heaven of angels, or to the emanating and controlling sphere of law and order, their own peace and comfort will be increased, and the welfare of the moral universe promoted to an extent beyond the power of imagination to conceive.
Such is a brief outline of the New Doctrine of Hell;—a doctrine which builds itself impregnably upon the constitution and laws of the human soul, which accords with the teaching of sound philosophy, with the dictates of reason, with the facts of history, with the record of human experience, and with the teachings of Scripture rationally and spiritually interpreted.
How different this doctrine is from the one taught in the literal sense of the Word, and generally accepted among Christians a hundred years ago! It presents us not with an angry and vindictive God delighting in the sufferings of his disobedient children, but with a tender and loving Father pitying their infirmities, and pursuing them with outstretched arms of mercy through all their wanderings, and even into the lowest depths of degradation and sin. And if, in the exercise of the freedom vouchsafed to every human being, they choose to unfold only the lower or sensuous part of their nature—choose to make their bed in hell, behold the loving Father is there, restraining, correcting, controlling and governing them in the manner best suited to their condition and needs; chastising them for their own good, and granting them the enjoyment of such delights as belong to the life which they have developed within them and made their own; mercifully closing their minds against the light of heaven, that they may not see where and what they really are; providing for each and all a home in the society of congenial spirits—a home which their nature impels them to seek, and to which they go as freely and as willingly as the inebriate goes to the gin-shop or the leopard to his lair.
And the practical tendency of this doctrine, like that of every other that is true, is most salutary. While it proclaims the infinite love and mercy of God, and his ceaseless desire and effort to save all, it at the same time shows us that salvation is a work which not even almighty Love itself can accomplish without our willing co-operation; that the heavenly life cannot be forced upon us nor into us by almighty power, but can only be wrought out by our own volition—or built up through struggle and conflict and self-denial and obedience to the laws of that life,—the Lord meanwhile "working in us to will and to do of his good pleasure"; and that unless we begin to live the life of heaven here on earth—begin to deny self, take up the cross and follow the Master—we shall have no desire to engage in this work in the realm beyond the grave. The heaven of our minds will then be closed in tender compassion for us; and the peace and joy and unutterable bliss of heaven will, therefore, never be ours.
So tremendous are the moral sanctions with which this new doctrine is invested! So benign and quickening is it in its practical tendency!
- ↑ In order that he might learn the actual state of things in hell, from his own personal observation, he says: "I was sometimes let down thither. To be let down into hell, is not to be translated from one place to another; but it is an immission into some infernal society, while the person remains in the same place." On one of these occasions, he continues, "I clearly perceived that a kind of column, as it were, encompassed me, which became sensibly stronger; and I perceived also that this was the wall of brass spoken of in the Word, formed of angelic spirits, in order that I might be let down in safety among the unhappy."—Arcana Cœlestia 699.