Tallman: If there’s an afterlife, what should humans hope for?

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Humans are meaning-makers; we cannot survive without meaning. Religion specializes in creating ultimate meaning. To create meaning, every world religion answers our big questions: Where did we come from? What is my purpose on Earth? Is this life all there is, or is there an afterlife?

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Regarding the afterlife, there are five basic options: God is so gracious everyone immediately goes to heaven; everyone eventually goes to heaven after being purified; believers in God go to heaven, nonbelievers go to hell; believers go to heaven, nonbelievers are annihilated; there is no afterlife for anyone.

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I favour the second option, purgatorial universalism. There is some scriptural basis for purgatory (Matthew 5:26). However, it is more a rational theological conclusion than a church doctrine. And universal salvation is something we can at least hope for.

Most believers subscribe to the third option: heaven for believers and eternal torment (hell) for nonbelievers. They are in the group stage of faith, where they haven’t questioned or wrestled with what others taught them. Because this is a most profound topic, let me try to deconstruct and reconstruct hell to give them some possible options.

For Pope John Paul II, hell was something many people, not a few, fell into. Hell was not a place but a state of consciousness – suffering through life without God.

Another option is there is no hell at all – hell is a human projection of our worst fears onto God and the afterlife. Both Christian and Islamic scriptures speak of hell as an eternal fire. Some see it as a projection clergy use to scare people into conversion.

On the other hand, a Catholic priest, Rev. Firmin Michiels, said, “As clergy, you don’t need to worry as much about scaring the hell out of people as scaring the hell into them.” In other words, creating toxic fear in people about damnation.

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If hell is a projection, perhaps heaven is a projection of our greatest hopes. However, this option seems unlikely, given that many people have had near-death experiences where they were clinically dead but, in their consciousness, were in such a wonderful state of bliss they did not want to return to their life on Earth.

If God is all-compassionate, all-loving, and all-forgiving, surely God can forgive even the worst human being. On the other hand, surely there must be some consequences for people like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Putin. It would be horrific if one could destroy millions of lives, die, and not pay for the carnage caused.

Possibly, hell for these monsters is being cut off from their own conscience, heart and compassion. In other words, they are cut off from God and their true self, the image and likeness of God within them, and that continues after death.

Or, maybe in the afterlife, they experience all the pain and sorrow they have caused others. This might happen in a second or go on for millions of years that seem like an eternity. Or maybe hell is experiencing in the afterlife the unfiltered, fiery love of God and realizing they had rejected that. Maybe God’s love and hellfire are the same for unbelievers.

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On the other hand, I believe God’s justice is restorative, not punitive. If Jesus is the best representation of God, it is telling that his miracles – curing all kinds of physical and mental illnesses and raising people from the dead – were always about restoring people’s lives. Jesus never punished anyone. God wants us all to be fully alive forever.

Eternal torment makes no sense to me for several reasons. Aristotle wrote, “If you want to know how happy someone is, ask how their least happy child is.” If even one of God’s children were in eternal torment, how could God be happy? Also, eternity is an awfully long time. If it turns out God’s justice is punitive, not restorative, surely, at some point, you would have suffered enough? Otherwise, God is an unforgiving sadist.

An expert on New Testament translation said in a podcast that “hell” is a Latin mistranslation of the original Greek. The proper translation is “temporary pruning.” This is why purgatorial universalism makes the most sense to me. Our choices must have consequences, so we may all spend varying amounts of time being purified. But because God is forgiving, we will all eventually get to heaven. At least, this can be our hope.

Bruce Tallman is a spiritual director and educator of adults in religion. brucetallman.com

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