What you gotta love about Michael Voris is, to borrow a description from Fr. Z., "his usual non-committal, indifferent, ambiguous, vague, tepid, ho-hum style."
Christ does not mention devils torturing those in hell. Devils would enjoy that so why would God allow them something they enjoy. I find the concept no where in scripture....Christ says..."where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched"....worm - interior loss, fire- physical pain but probably hyperbolic in this sense: if you Hieronymous Bosch hell's pains, you miss the prime point...the worm...the loss of union with God. Everyone talks of the fire. No one talks of the worm. That's like saying I want to reach Heaven to be with my parents and noble friends. No...that's putting the secondary first just as everyone noticing Christ's fire without noticing His worm is identical. If your fire of hell upstages the pain of loss then your fire is more horrible than the true fire Christ spoke of and your hell denizen would have to say that he has no focus on missing God because the fire is all he can focus on. Sorry Augustine...not the only time you were incorrect.
It's irrelevant that the Bible does not mention demons torturing those in hell. Catholics do not believe in Sola Scriptura. References to demons torturing the damned in hell can be found throughout patristic writings and subsequent Catholic writers down to modern times, so there's good grounds for believing it. It's frankly silly to reason that God wouldn't allow a demon to torture a damned soul because the demon would enjoy it. Demons don't enjoy anything -- joy is a fruit of the Spirit, and the wicked cannot bear that fruit. Demons don't do anything out of joy, but out of malice, nor do they derive joy from the things they do. They are beyond all capacity for joy.
The idea that the pain of interior loss will be worse than the exterior pain is interesting, but considering that the "fire" is probably just as metaphorical or symbolic as the "worm," it's hardly worth disputing one of the greatest Doctors of the Church's teachings on this point. St. Augustine wasn't infallible, but on this point he makes more sense than you do.
Would those be the same centuries in which torture by man was commonplace? I think so. Not til 1816 did a Pope stop all torture in papal lands according to Brian Harrison's essay on torture at the Roman Forum and the Roman empire did it in St. Cyprian's day because he criticizes here the fact that some want it used on heretics: " Of what use is cruelty? What has the rack to do with piety? Surely there is no connection between truth and violence, between justice and cruelty..." Divine Institutes v: 20. A similar long standing belief involved unbaptised infants...hell later limbo...both held by Augustine at different times but also in Trent ( but not attached to an anathema) and in the Trent catechism but like demons torturing the damned...not mentioned most recently. Here is Pope John Paul II talking in Evangelium Vitae to mothers who aborted their children in section 99: "The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. To the same Father and his mercy you can with sure hope entrust your child." So tradition can be valid but it can also be simply a reflection of how severe general culture was for those centuries.
PS If you are going to restrict the word "joy" to its use in the fruits of the Holy Spirit, then we say it this way...the demons have preferences: "The demons begged Jesus, 'If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs'". Ergo they prefer one reality as better than another. Since they are malign, they would prefer torturing those in hell but God is merciful to those in hell to some degree because Tobias says, "all thy ways are mercy and truth and judgement.". Ergo why would God grant a preferred reality to demons in hell and not to men in hell for eternity.
Christ does not mention devils torturing those in hell.
ReplyDeleteDevils would enjoy that so why would God allow them something they enjoy. I find the concept no where in scripture....Christ says..."where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched"....worm - interior loss, fire- physical pain but probably hyperbolic in this sense: if you Hieronymous Bosch hell's pains, you miss the prime point...the worm...the loss of union with God. Everyone talks of the fire. No one talks of the worm. That's like saying I want to reach Heaven to be with my parents and noble friends. No...that's putting the secondary first just as everyone noticing Christ's fire without noticing His worm is identical. If your fire of hell upstages the pain of loss then your fire is more horrible than the true fire Christ spoke of and your hell denizen would have to say that he has no focus on missing God because the fire is all he can focus on. Sorry Augustine...not the only time you were incorrect.
It's irrelevant that the Bible does not mention demons torturing those in hell. Catholics do not believe in Sola Scriptura. References to demons torturing the damned in hell can be found throughout patristic writings and subsequent Catholic writers down to modern times, so there's good grounds for believing it. It's frankly silly to reason that God wouldn't allow a demon to torture a damned soul because the demon would enjoy it. Demons don't enjoy anything -- joy is a fruit of the Spirit, and the wicked cannot bear that fruit. Demons don't do anything out of joy, but out of malice, nor do they derive joy from the things they do. They are beyond all capacity for joy.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that the pain of interior loss will be worse than the exterior pain is interesting, but considering that the "fire" is probably just as metaphorical or symbolic as the "worm," it's hardly worth disputing one of the greatest Doctors of the Church's teachings on this point. St. Augustine wasn't infallible, but on this point he makes more sense than you do.
Would those be the same centuries in which torture by man was commonplace? I think so. Not til 1816 did a Pope stop all torture in papal lands according to Brian Harrison's essay on torture at the Roman Forum and the Roman empire did it in St. Cyprian's day because he criticizes here the fact that some want it used on heretics: " Of what use is cruelty? What has the rack to do with piety? Surely there is no connection between truth and violence, between justice and cruelty..." Divine Institutes v: 20.
ReplyDeleteA similar long standing belief involved unbaptised infants...hell later limbo...both held by Augustine at different times but also in Trent ( but not attached to an anathema) and in the Trent catechism but like demons torturing the damned...not mentioned most recently. Here is Pope John Paul II talking in Evangelium Vitae to mothers who aborted their children in section 99: "The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. To the same Father and his mercy you can with sure hope entrust your child."
So tradition can be valid but it can also be simply a reflection of how severe general culture was for those centuries.
PS
ReplyDeleteIf you are going to restrict the word "joy" to its use in the fruits of the Holy Spirit, then we say it this way...the demons have preferences: "The demons begged Jesus, 'If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs'". Ergo they prefer one reality as better than another. Since they are malign, they would prefer torturing those in hell but God is merciful to those in hell to some degree because Tobias says, "all thy ways are mercy and truth and judgement.". Ergo why would God grant a preferred reality to demons in hell and not to men in hell for eternity.