“You made us for you, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

—St. Augustine, Confessions, I.1

It is fitting to examine the virtue of hope after chapters on faith and sin. Hope concerns our ultimate destiny, and Christian faith does indeed entail beliefs about human destiny beyond this life. In fact, heaven is perhaps the belief most popularly associated with Christians (ironically, more than faith in Christ). Virtuous belief in (faith) and yearning for (hope) union with God beyond this life are indeed crucial components of a good life here on earth, according to the Christian story. As for sin, the main reason why we need the virtue hope to keep us properly oriented toward our final destiny is due to the separation from God caused by sin. It is through hope that we cling to union with God as possible, despite our sinfulness. Of course, it is through Jesus Christ that such separation is overcome, and so salvation, in the sense of reconciliation between God and humanity, is addressed more fully in the following chapter. But the previous chapters on faith and sin make hope the fitting topic to address next. Hope is a virtue for persons of faith who believe that God invites us to union with God, but who also realize that such union right now is far from complete.

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. The first section defines and describes the second of the three theological virtues, hope. As will be seen, hope is a virtue for this life which also concerns things of the next life. Thus, the second task of this chapter is to say a bit more about that destiny in the next life. Christians are guilty of some very simplistic notions and images of that destiny, which may be fine for children, but which should be understood in a more complete way for those who are able. The second half of this chapter will examine the traditional doctrines of heaven, hell, and purgatory, and also examine how the Christian tradition has understood death itself, which is the path to these states.

In order to properly understand the virtue of hope, it is necessary to explain the human condition that occasions hope. In other words, what state of affairs marks our condition in this life that makes hope a good habit to have? The first part of this section relies on the thought of several contemporary thinkers to describe our condition. In order to better understand hope, which is a virtuous response to this condition, the next part explains some poor responses to that situation. The third and final part of this section then defines and explains hope. It will be clear there how hope both orients us toward our complete fulfillment in the next life, yet also enables us to live more virtuously in this life by attending to our final destiny.

The Human Condition that Occasions Hope

Who needs hope? According to the Christian story, it seems that one can already know (faith) and love (charity/love) God in this life. Why the need for hope? Several contemporary authors take up this question and offer helpful images to explain the human situation that occasions hope. Acknowledging his debt to St. Augustine, Michael Himes claims that human beings are fundamentally restless.See Michael Himes, Doing the Truth in Love: Conversations about God, Relationships, and Service (New York: Paulist, 1995). We always hunger for more, and never seem to be fully satisfied. Note that we are not yet making a judgment about whether that longing for more is properly directed—that will come below. The simple claim here is that human persons never do sit back in this life and say, “there is nothing more to do, or nothing further I could enjoy.” Even when we think of people who just seem to sit back and relax, we find they actually continue to pursue things. They eat and drink; they continue to nourish their relationships with others; they seek to enjoy things like leisurely activities. And even those of us who live satisfying and rewarding lives would have to admit that our lives are not complete. We long to be closer to others, to work on important life projects, to continue to improve ourselves, to understand more. Furthermore, we yearn for a world without the brokenness found all around us: poverty, injustice, sickness, suffering, and sin. And when things may be going well, even then we sense that and live as if all is not as it could be or should be. Unlike animals, who are without reason and will and cannot consciously understand this state and react to it, we humans are aware of our restlessness and can respond in better or worse ways, as we will see.

One twentieth-century thinker follows Aquinas in describing the human person in this life as a wayfarer.For these terms, Pieper relies primarily on Aquinas’s discussion of whether Christ was both a wayfarer (viator) and having arrived (to use a colloquial translation of comprehensor). See Summa Theologiae, English Dominican trans. (New York: Benziger, 1948), III 15,10. Pieper relies on these terms in his wonderful monograph on hope, published with the treatises on faith and love as Faith, Hope, and Love (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966). This archaic English term may be better understood by a look at the Latin term it represents: “status viatoris.” The human person exists in a state of being “on the way.” There are two claims implied in this description. First, the person is not yet where she is destined to be. Thus, at least some of the good about that final destination is lacking in the current state. That does not mean, of course, that there is nothing good about the current state. But one is not yet complete or totally fulfilled in the current state.

Second, even in the current state, where one is not yet at the final destination, there is nonetheless some knowledge, even if incomplete, of what being at that destination would entail. After all, to realize one’s self as on the way implies some goal which, even if not understood fully, must be understood enough for one to know that one is not already there. The term to describe one who is already there, by the way, is status comprehensoris. The person in this state has arrived. She has reached the goal. Here is where the analogy to a journey breaks down. On human journeys in this life, reaching a destination does not fulfill a person completely, to the extent of quelling all restlessness and fully satisfying one in all ways possible. But this is indeed what marks the status comprehensoris.

Christians believe that the status comprehensoris describes the person who has inherited eternal life in union with God. At this point, the reliance of hope on faith should be clear. We run into a classic big-picture question here: what is the destiny or purpose of human life? If you think there is none, then the human state of affairs described here is simply one of absurdity, a cosmic joke where conscious humanity can somehow understand and yearn for more, and yet find that yearning perpetually unfulfilled, and indeed unable to ever be completely fulfilled. Christians believe, however, that this natural human longing for completion, for fulfillment, is a natural consequence of the fact that humanity was indeed created for a purpose. That ultimate purpose is fullness of life—complete happiness—in union with the God of Life. The specific shape of this destiny transcends what humans are capable of understanding, let alone achieving on their own (hence it is a super-natural destiny). Yet we do naturally long for it inchoately, since our human nature is a creation of the God with whom we are destined for union.This is the traditional teaching on the natural desire for God in all human purposes. See Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 27–30. We are now anticipating the last part of this section on hope. But note here that one needn’t be Christian to affirm the point of this part, namely, that human persons exist in a state of restlessness, or longing for more. Even twentieth-century atheist existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus recognized this condition.

But is earthly life really so incomplete? Or better, even when earthly life seems relatively fulfilling, is there really something greater compared to which it pales in comparison? This may seem like an overly pessimistic view of life. C. S. Lewis appeals to a common experience to explain what is meant by this claim.

The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would ordinarily be called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in the first moment of longing, which just fades away in reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job; but something has evaded us.C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 135.

What is that “something we grasped at” that always evades us in this life? Presumably, Lewis means the complete satisfaction of all our longings. No relationship, trip, or job can offer that. In our world, marred by the sin described in chapter 12, this is certain. Our endeavors in this world are fraught with life’s tribulations.See Paul Wadell’s Becoming Friends: Worship, Justice, and the Practice of Christian Friendship (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2002), 130. Wadell’s work on hope, along with that of Thomas, Pieper, Himes, and Lewis have been hugely influential for this discussion of hope. As Lewis notes, even the beautiful and fulfilling things in our lives and world are not complete.

The troubling ramification of this observation is that the happiness that we all long for, and which this book consistently claims is the point of the moral life, is not immediately available to us. This is evidenced by our lack of satisfaction, or ongoing restlessness, even in the presence of genuinely good things for which we long. But the problem is not simply our seemingly unquenchable desire. It is a result of the brokenness, or at least finitude, of the things we long for in this life, and our own ability or inability to constantly long for the right things. Lewis is right. No spouse, job, or trip is perfect, and that is why we continue to grasp at what continually evades us. If this is our situation, how should we respond? Is there any real hope for us?

Poor Responses to the Human Situation that Occasions Hope

Before examining how one can respond virtuously to this situation, consider first some bad responses to this situation. The contemporary authors who vividly depict the human situation that occasions hope consistently describe two such poor responses. Michael Himes offers an anecdote that appeals to a culture such as ours, which is so enthralled with romantic love. As a priest, Himes frequently prepares couples for marriage. He describes the common experience of hearing a young spouse-to-be say something like, “she’s all I need,” or, “he’s all I want!”Himes, Doing the Truth in Love, 39. Himes seems stodgy and disillusioned about love when he replies

That might work if he or she dies on the honeymoon, or if you do, but if the relationship lasts any longer than a very brief honeymoon, you will discover to your dismay that it hasn’t worked. You will remain restless and hungry. You will find yourself ruefully admitting that he or she is not all you want. And, alas, this is the moment when many marriages hit enormous problems.Ibid.

Any person who has been married or in any serious relationship or friendship knows this from experience. Another person cannot possibly fulfill all our needs and desires.

Lewis describes this same experience and labels it, as a poor response to the occasion for hope, the “fool’s way.”See Lewis, Mere Christianity, 135–36. This person, when encountering the disappointment that the seemingly perfect job, relationship, or trip inevitably offers, concludes that the problem is the object he chose. Better find another job, spouse, or pastime. These people spend their lives continually jumping to the next best thing, and repeatedly becoming shocked and disappointed that even the next one still is not the real thing.

What is the problem with this response? Don’t we all have to commit, or attach, ourselves to something(s) in life? One problem with the fool’s way concerns what we choose to satisfy us and still our restlessness. Too often the things we pursue to fill the void and quench our hunger are pathetic substitutes for what we truly seek. We all know people who try and quell their restlessness with pleasures like alcohol, drugs, or sexual activity. For others it may be money, social status, popularity, or power. In these cases it is happiness and fulfillment that is sought, but poor candidates are chosen to fill that role. Another problem with the fool’s way is not what is sought but how it is sought. Even when such people throw themselves completely into genuinely good things in life—such as a marriage, job, or some worthy cause—they are seeking complete satisfaction in something that is simply unable to fill that need.

Himes perfectly diagnoses this problem. What one is doing in these situations is, in effect, making something god that is not God. When most of us today read the first commandment—“thou shall have no other gods before me”—we may chuckle and be grateful that, unlike the Israelites in the desert, we enlightened moderns are not the least bit tempted to worship some golden statue as a god (see Exod. 32:3–6). True indeed. But that does not mean idolatry, in the proper sense of putting something before God, is not still a common and serious sin today. In fact, it is exactly the poor response that Himes and Lewis are describing here—the fool’s way. For example, the person who thinks her lover will satisfy all her needs is basically making that lover into her god. After all, if the lover could so completely satisfy her, the woman would rightly make her lover the most important thing in her life. Nothing should come before him. To use the visual image in chapter 2 on intentionality, her lover would be the top of her triangle, more important than all other things in life, and her love of that person should govern all other things in her life. The same could be said of another person’s job, or another’s worthy cause.

You may ask, “what is wrong with that? Shouldn’t a person make her spouse or job or worthy cause her number-one priority?” Certainly these things should be rather high on the triangle of the goals and purposes in one’s life. But there are two problems with putting any of them at the very top. First, if something is the most important goal in one’s life, nothing else governs or limits it. As one’s ultimate goal in life, it controls all of one’s pursuits in life. To use the example of a marriage being the most important thing in one’s life, if your spouse were to ask you to do something contrary to the good of either you or your spouse, and thus the relationship, you would have to say yes. After all, that person is your “be-all-end-all” (or god) in life, and there are no resources other than that person’s will by which you could say, “wait a second, that is not right!” (If this is starting to sound weird, it should.) You would need to be completely obedient to that person as your ultimate goal in life, under the assumption that this person will fully satisfy you. If that were not the case, then whatever basis you used to say, “Wait, this instead is actually better for us,” would in fact be god, governing your relationship with your spouse. And of course this is what should happen. Even the best of spouses is not perfect—all-loving, all-knowing, all good.

The second reason that making another person one’s be-all and end-all in life is foolish is that it simply does not fully satisfy one. Himes is right in his comment on the young married couple. Or as the scripture author says, “Put no trust in princes, in mere mortals powerless to save. . . . Happy are those whose hope is the Lord, their God” (Ps. 146:3–5; cf. 49:6). The first part of the greatest commandment, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul,” is far from some externally imposed obligation that impedes our true happiness. It is actually the guard against our seeking to make something else the source of our complete fulfillment, when it—whatever it is—cannot deliver. Of course, we still have not explained why it is that God is the proper object of our hope, a task for later in this chapter.

The second poor response to the human situation that occasions hope is what Lewis calls the way of the “disillusioned sensible man.”Ibid. This person has learned Himes’s and Lewis’s lesson, and knows that no relationship, job, or activity will fully satisfy him. In this he is wiser than the fool. However, he then concludes that therefore such satisfaction is simply impossible. Rather than seeking a new object to satisfy him, he stops seeking full satisfaction. So he is willing to settle for less in life. We might imagine this person having a mediocre relationship with his wife, but thinking, “well, that’s life.” He seeks a decent job and neighborhood for his family and figures you cannot seek much more in life. But, as Lewis notes, what if full satisfaction is available, even if not in this life? What has this person missed out on?

Nothing, one might reply. Complete fulfillment is only available in the next life, and that is still a possibility for even the disillusioned sensible man. But, of course, we must examine how the disillusioned sensible man’s avowal that such satisfaction is not possible impacts how he lives his life in this world. Aquinas suggests two possibilities. The first he calls the sin of presumption. This is the sin of living as if no matter how one lives in this life, God will indeed welcome one to the union with him that, as seen below, constitutes complete fulfillment. Aquinas seems to have in mind here one who does believe in God and eternal happiness, but who does not let that belief shape his yearning and subsequent action in life. In other words, he seems to hold that God is the be-all and end-all, but assumes—really presumes—that union with God is assured, and thus he can live in this life as if other goals may take precedence over God. The disjuncture here should be obvious; this person claims to seek an ultimate goal in life, but it does not shape how other goals in this life are pursued. You cannot have your cake and eat it too by living as if destined for union with God, but acting in a sinful way that constitutes separation or alienation from God. The second section of this chapter explores further the relationship between our actions in this life and our destiny in the next.

The more likely stance of the disillusioned sensible man is the belief that the eternal happiness that union with God constitutes is not truly available. This is called despair. Perhaps such a person thinks there is no God, or that God cannot offer such fulfillment. Or perhaps he thinks his own sinfulness and the broken condition of the world makes such fulfillment impossible even for God to make happen. In any case, there is a lack of faith in God’s existence, God’s power, and/or God’s mercy. It is a sad reality that many people go through life without thinking full satisfaction, the complete joy that marks union with God, is possible. Such people can act cheerful and friendly. They may function well. Yet

they have abandoned any sense of life as promising and are reluctant to believe any talk of a human being’s vocation to find peace and fulfillment in God. For reasons we cannot always understand, and in ways of which they may hardly be aware, they anticipate each day the “non-fulfillment of hope.”Wadell, Becoming Friends, 132. For the phrase, “non-fulfillment of hope,” Wadell relies on Pieper, Faith, Hope, and Love, 113.

This non-fulfillment of hope, or despair, is actually a foretaste of hell, a topic addressed below. Aquinas claims such despair commonly flows from the deadly sin of sloth, a spiritual sadness and laziness that also reflects the belief that fulfillment is not possible.See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II–II 20,4. Thus, the second poor response to the human condition that occasions the virtue of hope is the disillusioned sensible man, manifest in either presumption or despair.

The Theological Virtue of Hope

So what, then, is the virtuous response to this situation? The virtue hope. Interestingly enough, each of the contemporary authors we have been treating claims in his discussion of hope that the very restlessness that occasions hope can actually be a gift. It seems odd to claim that a state of experiencing one’s own lack of complete fulfillment can be a good thing. Yet that is what they claim. Why? It is a good thing if it is true that we are not completely fulfilled in this life and can nonetheless be truly fulfilled. Because then the restlessness is a reminder to keep our gaze fixed toward that which will indeed truly satisfy us completely. And if such a destiny is truly available, as the Christian faith contends, than any reminder of that destiny before its realization is exactly what is needed to keep our eyes on the prize. As Himes says, our restlessness is what drives us to God, if we attend faithfully to the restlessness.

The virtue of hope inclines one to yearn for union with God as one’s true destiny, and the source of complete fulfillment. As noted above, it succeeds faith, since it is only by faith that one is even aware of the possibility of such fulfillment in God. It also engenders love, since it is through longing for God as our source of fulfillment that we cling in genuine friendship to God and God’s creatures, who share in this fellowship. Like faith and love, hope is a theological virtue in that it concerns God directly, since it inclines us to seek union with the God we are destined for, even when that full union is not yet evidently present. Like the other theological virtues, hope is possible only through grace, since the nature of that destiny is beyond our unaided comprehension, and therefore remaining fixed on it as our ultimate goal requires divine assistance.

Despite the fact that the fulfillment hope seeks is not available in this life, hope is truly a virtue that leads us to act well even now. How does hope shape a person in this life who has this good habit? First, it sustains the wayfarer while on the way. In this state of longing marked by restlessness, it is all too easy to become like the fool who seeks happiness in counterfeit goods, or who seeks complete happiness from things that are genuinely good but cannot fully satisfy us. In times of doubt, in times of death and tragedy, in times of vicious injustice, in recognition of our own sinfulness, it is all too easy to become like the disillusioned sensible man and fall into despair by giving up on the possibility of complete happiness. In the tribulations of this life, it is difficult to keep our eye on the prize and steadfastly yearn for union with God as our complete fulfillment. In this state of “not yet,” our separation from that for which we hope is difficult, and it is hope that sustains us. In fact, in this sense hope is similar to the cardinal virtue fortitude, since it enables us to face difficulties well. Yet unlike fortitude, hope is a theological virtue, fixing us on God directly, and is possible only through God’s grace.

Second, despite its focus on a destiny not available in this life, hope does enable us to seek the goods of this life more truthfully. It is often wondered whether Christian belief in the afterlife leads to a lack of appreciation for the goods of this life, and neglect of the injustices that harm them. Sadly, there have been Christians throughout history whose focus on the next life has indeed led to a neglect of the real presence of God’s kingdom in this life. Yet in actuality, neglect of this world is incompatible with true hope.

Lewis claims that throughout history, it is the Christians who thought the most of the next life who were most able to effectively transform this life for the better. Martin Luther King Jr. again serves a good example here. No one who has read his writings can doubt that his work for social justice flowed directly from his faith in and hope for God’s kingdom. How could this be? Hope’s foretaste of the true fulfillment that ultimately satisfies us most effectively illuminates the ways in this life that such fulfillment is not yet present. Furthermore, hope’s steadfast clinging in trust that the realization of this destiny is a real possibility actually generates movement toward that goal, even though full realization is not possible here. Finally, when the good things of this world are understood in proper relationship to their ultimate destiny, that destiny further dignifies those goods and leads us to more fully cherish them—though of course not as gods, or our be-all and end-all. More on how this happens is seen in chapter 15 on love, which inclines one not only to love God in God’s very self, but also to love all things for the sake of God.

A final word is in order concerning hope’s relationship to truth. Sometimes when people hear Christians express hope in union with God after death, they refrain from judgment but seem to assume that this is a nice sentiment that simply helps Christians get through the trials of this life. Hope is seen as a crutch, veiling the harsh reality that no such fulfillment actually exists. It must be said here that Christian hope is not an idle fantasy to make us feel better when times are hard. The Christian claim is that such a destiny is true. If it is not our faith is in vain and, reminiscent of what Paul says regarding the resurrection of the body, we are the most pitiful people there are (1 Cor. 15:19). Simply put, hope is not a virtue because it makes us feel better. It may make people feel better, but that is because it is true. If what Christians hope for is not true, then hope is pathetic self-deception. Of course, the Christian story states exactly the opposite. And in that story, despair is not simply a downer—it is actually false.

It should now be obvious why a discussion of hope leads naturally to reflection on last things, or life after death. So far we have simply discussed union with God in the next life, and described it as complete fulfillment. That is actually a good start, and the point where we will pick up this discussion of last things. But more needs to be said on the destiny for which Christians hope. This will then lead to an examination of the familiar terms heaven, hell, and purgatory. It will even require some refection on the meaning of death itself, and what it means to rise from the dead. The purpose of this second half of the chapter, however, is not an exhaustive look at the Christian tradition’s teaching on the afterlife. Most of what is described here can be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.See Catechism of the Catholic Church, 988–1065. For another helpful introductory text to these questions, see Romano Guardini’s Eternal Life: What You Need to Know About Death, Judgment, and Life Everlasting (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 1989). By far the most helpful book in my teaching this material has been C. S. Lewis’s allegory called The Great Divorce, an imaginary ride to heaven that demonstrates, in narrative form, many of the Christian traditions claims about the afterlife. The point of this discussion is simply to say enough about the Christian tradition’s teaching on last things to make a discussion of hope intelligible.

There is also an ulterior motive here. Another goal of this section is to offer a vision of the afterlife that is one step further in sophistication than that which most Christians are able to articulate. Many of us have vague and simplistic notions of heaven and hell, constituted by images such as halos, harps, pitchforks, or fire. Perhaps we are content to rest in those images, since this is a topic where it is particularly obvious that we do not see things with clear sight, to recall the language of chapter 11. But through some clear thinking and the guidance of revelation, we can avoid the more simplistic notions of the afterlife that often prompt people to regard Christians as people who delude themselves with fanciful hope and childish imagery.

Nunc Dimittis and Union with God as Fullness of Life

There is a beautiful story in the beginning of Luke where Mary and Joseph present the infant Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:22–38). The holy family is greeted in the temple by a man named Simeon, who had been told in a dream that he would not die before seeing the Messiah of the Lord. On the day when he meets Jesus, he knows right away this promise had been kept. He lifts up the baby in his arms and exclaims, “Now Master, you may dismiss [in Latin, nunc dimittis] your servant in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation!”Luke 2:29–30. The Vulgate Latin reads: “nunc dimittis servum tuum Domine secundum verbum tuum in pace quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum.” Simeon had been promised to witness God’s decisive act in history, and having witnessed it, he cries, “you may now dismiss your servant in peace!” He in effect says, “my life is complete; all that I have longed for has been fulfilled, so there is nothing further to seek with my life.”

Simeon’s cry is a grateful response to the Lord’s fulfillment of a promise that he would not die before seeing the Savior. Now that he had, he could die in peace. Yet the story is offered here for that beautiful phrase, nunc dimittis. Think for a moment about what would prompt you to utter Simeon’s cry. What would satisfy all your desires? What state of affairs would have to exist in order for you to say, “That’s it! I’ve arrived. I’m complete.” The answer to this question is exactly that for which Christians hope. It is what they call heaven, eternal life, the fullness of life, union with God, or seeing God face to face.

Christians have all sorts of images to represent this state. C. S. Lewis claims people traditionally speak of gold because gold is precious and endures. They speak of harps because, for many, music is something in this life that “suggests ecstasy and infinity.”C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 137. They speak of crowns to suggest the splendor and joy of union with God. The book of Revelation is full of such images. But all of these are images, images that suggest something true about that state but which, of course, are ultimately inadequate.

In the context of this work on moral theology we can explain these images further. Eternal life is not just life like we experience now but longer in duration. It is fullness of life, which includes greater duration, but much more. It is life without the restlessness that marks our current state, not because we cease to value complete fulfillment but because it has been achieved. All the limitations that mark this life—sin, ignorance, death, finitude, injustice, and the like—are gone in that state, and thus there is nothing more to long for. In fact, longings that are not even possible without guidance from God are fulfilled. These longings are given in the theological virtue of hope. And because that for which we long in this life can actually be achieved in the next, hope ultimately passes away. There will come a point when no virtue of hope is necessary, since what we hope for is actually present. The same is true of faith. Faith is belief in things unseen, and will no longer be necessary once we see God face to face.

Of course, though it is helpful to understand union with God as the fulfillment of all our desires, one must be careful not to make our desires the basis for our understanding of eternal life. Union with God (which is eternal life) is the fulfillment of all our desires, and more, because such a state is true happiness, not because God wants to satisfy any or every desire we might have. What is offered to humanity in union with God is true fulfillment, and not fulfillment on one’s own terms. Thus, only our true and holy desires are fulfilled, even surpassed. For instance, we commonly hear people say they long to be with departed loved ones in the next life. It is a true and holy desire to be united with others in love. Such a longing will be fulfilled, and the communion with others enjoyed in the next life even surpasses the loving union we can experience or even imagine here. (Christians call this belief the communion of saints.See Catechism of the Catholic Church, 946–53. ) We long to be free in the next life of our brokenness here: ignorance, sickness, sin, and so on. That longing is indeed fulfilled and surpassed since it is a truthful and holy longing.

This understanding of eternal life as fullness of life means that even life on this side of death can be more or less full. If living most fully is the having and attaining of good, truthful, and holy desires, then we could even say that people are more or less alive while living this life. When Christ said he came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly (John 10:10), he of course was referring to the way he made possible full union with God, something known only after death. But life on earth can also be lived more or less fully. Though we commonly think of life as part of a binary function— you are alive or dead—life is also a qualitative state. Indeed, the virtuous life is a fuller life. That is why it leads to happiness. Full happiness (fullness of life) may only be achievable beyond the grave, when there will be no more suffering, sin, and death. But life can be more or less full, or happy, even on this side of the grave.

Judgment and Hell

Saying that not all longings are satisfied, or that life can be more or less full, obviously implies judgment made among specific goals. And this raises a topic that is very uncomfortable to modern ears, that there is a final judgment, leading some to be thrown into hell. A more careful look at hell both intensifies and ameliorates this teaching. If heaven as fullness of life is rightly understood as union with God, then hell is best understood as definitive separation from God. How does this happen?

Though this is different from some other Christian traditions, the Catholic faith clearly states that “God predestines no one to hell.”Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1037. By default, then, the teaching must be that one chooses hell. How could this be? In his fascinating book The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis beautifully describes the tragedy of how such a choice is possible. Most of the characters in his story choose hell. But none of them says, “I want to suffer and be in hell.” Rather, all of them, in varying ways, decide that they want their desires to be fulfilled on their own terms. One wants to be with his spouse in heaven, but only if he can continue to be the petty, self-pitying spouse he was on earth. One mother wants to be with her son who died before her, but only if she can have him on her own obsessive terms. One man is shocked to find a great sinner in heaven, and claims he will go no place where his own ethical decency is not recognized and rewarded. None of these characters say, “I want hell.” But they each want things—often otherwise good things—on their own terms. We are reminded here of the discussion in chapter 12 of how pride works. These people want their desires fulfilled in manners that are ultimately false and destructive, of themselves and others. Thus, in wanting their warped desires fulfilled, they do not want their truly satisfying desires fulfilled. Though they do not word it that way, they “want hell.” The Lord will not—cannot—make what these people want to be truly satisfying. Thus, in the end they are given what they want, but what they want is hell.

Each of the above characters has a set of purposes or desires—a triangle representing their character—that does not conform to the way things really are. Certain lower goods are pursued above higher goods. Since the good earthly goals (spousal love, motherly love, ethical decency) that are pursued are not properly governed by a love of God, they are corrupted and actually lead one away from God. Ultimately, they become self-serving rather than truly loving. Thus, each character manifests the pride of insisting that their grasp of what is important in the world is truly the way things are. They are corrupted by that false vision, and become the sorts of people for whom true self-giving love (of spouse, child, one’s self, etc.) is not possible.

In this state, brought about and ingrained by their own sinfulness, they are judged. It is indeed God who judges, in that God is source and sustainer of the standard of truth by which a life is deemed essentially loving or self-centered, more or less full. But it is the individual choices that lead to God’s judgment. The beauty of Lewis’s book is demonstrating that hell is really possible. But hell as a definitive judgment is actually just the finalization (or fossilization, or solidification) of the hellish life the damned person chooses for himself on earth.

Judgment can be understood in two different ways. Too often it is understood as only extrinsically related to actions in this life. If we do good, we get the reward of heaven. If we do bad, we get punished with hell. In this view, the life lived here and one’s ultimate destiny are only extrinsically, even arbitrarily, related. For example, a popularized version of Muslim belief in the afterlife states that a martyr for the faith is rewarded with many virgins in paradise. If this were an accurate statement of Muslim belief, it would be an odd sort of god who would reward his followers with something prohibited them in this life.I do not know enough about Islamic faith to know whether or not this is actually the case. The claim here is simply about popularized, and hopefully inaccurate, thought on Islam and the afterlife. If promiscuous sex is not living in accordance with the fullness of life here, why would it be offered by God in the next life? Another example of this inadequate view of judgment is the way many believers, especially Christians, imagine final judgment as some sort of handing down of a decision, much like learning if one has passed or failed a test. In this view everyone wants heaven, but some get hell. Lewis disagrees; everyone may want happiness, but people may or may not desire true happiness. Desiring true happiness is heavenly; desiring happiness on our own terms, whatever they may be, is hellish.

On another view of judgment, the one espoused by Lewis and the bulk of the Christian tradition, sin in this life is living less fully and is thus a foretaste of hell. Virtue is living more fully and thus is a foretaste of heaven. Judgment is simply the extension of a trajectory that one has voluntarily lived during one’s life. The question is whether one lives in this life as if one wants union with God, and therefore lives out that desire in all one’s relationships or endeavors, or whether one wants to live out life on one’s own terms. In the end, everyone gets what they want.

Catholic Teaching on Purgatory

One part of the tradition on heaven, hell, and judgment that is held by Catholic but not Protestant Christians is the doctrine of purgatory. The above presentation of heaven and hell has prepared the reader for an understanding of this teaching, which is ultimately rooted in scripture and in the Christian practice of praying for the dead devoid of the legalism that often stirs reaction against the teaching.See 2 Macc 12:46. See also 1 Cor. 3:15; 15:29; and 1 Pet. 1:7.

Heaven and hell are presented above as definitive union with or separation from God. The union or separation is begun in this life, but becomes definitive at some point in heaven or hell. At which point is examined in the following section on the meaning of death. For now, note that there is a problem with a view of heaven and hell as radically continuous with this life. The benefit of such a view is that heaven and hell are seen less as external impositions than as reifications, or as finalizations of a trajectory set by the person herself. The problem is that this implies that only people who are sinless will be welcomed into full union with God. Perhaps we can imagine people who consistently separate themselves from God in this life, since even the good they do may be self-serving or done out of obligation. Hell seems to accurately describe such a life. But does or can anyone live “heaven on earth”?

Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that union with God can indeed be experienced in this life, through God’s grace, in a life of holiness and virtue. Yet in another sense, no. No one experiences union with God fully here (hence the need for hope), and the things that block that full union with God here are not just suffered by us, but are often perpetrated by us. The sin that is perpetrated by us does shape who we are, so for us to be united with God definitively, any remaining sin must be purged from us. And recall from chapter 12 that even the great saints recognize they are not sinless. Purgatory is simply this purging, in preparation for full union with God.

Consider two images of purgatory. In a more legalistic one, which fails to see our earthly actions as intrinsically related to our final destiny, purgatory is like a temporary jail sentence, where we put in time to pay our debt to God, and then are released into heaven. Though there are elements of truth here, what is completely lacking is a sense of the change in a person required for union with God.

Consider another image. Have you ever had the experience of falling in love and feeling completely unworthy of the beloved? Or meeting a truly holy person and feeling woefully inadequate in her presence, as if she could see through you and view all your sinfulness? In the presence of truth and goodness, such feelings of inadequacy are common. And reminiscent of Robert Barron’s reflection on knowing you are a sinner, they are accurate. Well, imagine the experience of standing in the presence of the Lord, the source of truth and goodness. It must be excruciating to see God’s beauty and goodness, and simultaneously be aware of all the ways, great and small, that we turned away from God to do things on our own terms. Imagine that through God’s grace and forgiveness, and the prayers of others, such an encounter could radically transform the parts of our persons that had become habituated into vices and turned us away from God. This process would be painful, in that it would entail letting go of parts of our lives to which we clung in opposition to loving God and others. C. S. Lewis describes such an encounter splendidly in The Great Divorce.See The Great Divorce, (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 106–15. But such an encounter would be both a necessary and painful purging, and ultimately an occasion for joyful healing and transformation with God’s help, in order to unite us with God.There are important parallels between the teaching on purgatory and the Catholic understanding of sacramental confession. Both involve a painful, yet ultimately joyful and life-giving, transformation or purging. This is the essence of the Catholic teaching on purgatory.

The Meanings—Yes, Plural—of Death

Discussion of purgatory, and all the above topics, leads naturally to reflection on the meanings of death. When, after all, do all these things happen? After we die, of course. But it is actually more complicated than that. After all, the previous parts explained the important continuity between our final destinies and our lives in this world. Consider some further challenging questions. When does definitive judgment happen? If it is when someone dies, why do we pray for the dead? When does the resurrection of the body (a topic addressed below) occur? If after death, are those who have passed already risen? With resurrected bodies? What, then, is interred in graves? What did Jesus mean when he said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:51)? Are people who die thus excluded from eternal life?

It may sound odd to speak of death as having more than one meaning, but this is done purposely here. As important as those discussions are, what is meant here is not a contemporary bioethical debate over when some persons are rightly labeled “dead.” The Christians tradition speaks of death in several ways, and it is important to have a sense of these in order to better understand the topics above, and the challenging teaching on the resurrection of the body examined below. What is common to both meanings of death in the Christian tradition is that they do not signify an end, but rather a disintegration, or radical loss of purpose. Death occurs when things are separated that should not be separated—there is disintegration. Or better, things die when they are radically separated from their proper orientation or purpose.

One meaning of death is precisely what most of us think of when we hear this term. Death is a separation of soul and body. It occurs when whatever vivifies our bodies—whether you call it “soul,” or “spirit,” or “life force,” or whatever—is no longer present making our bodies alive. When we see a dead body, perhaps at a wake or viewing, we know something is missing. The person whom we love is not fully there, even as we stand before a body. In fact, we even have a special name for the body at this point—corpse—to indicate its separation from the soul.

Death in this sense is bad. Though we were made with mortal bodies, it was not God’s plan that we should die in this way. People were made to live, and persons are body and soul. Thus, Christians have always understood death as a result of sin. This should not, of course, be taken in a crude sense, to mean that the death of a particular individual at a certain time is some indication of sinfulness. Rather, the claim that death is a result of sin is simply the claim that death was not in God’s plan for humanity—it is not the way things were meant to be.

However, this is not to say that God cannot bring anything good out of death. To the contrary, the resurrection of Christ reveals to us that God has conquered death, and that due to God’s power and mercy new life can come from death. More on that will follow below. But before discussing in what sense people are said to rise, consider a second meaning of death. Death can also refer to the soul’s estrangement from God. This death is also a radical loss of purpose, since the soul was meant to be in union with God. It is death in this sense that Jesus refers to when he says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:51). Clearly people who have shared in the eucharist (to which Jesus refers) have died in the first sense described above. But in the sense of life as union with God, we can see in what sense they never die. Conversely, there are people who are alive around us that may be dead in this sense, by living lives estranged from God. Recall from chapter 12 that mortal sin is precisely such a state. This again is a reference to life as a qualitative measure. People can be more or less alive. Death of the soul occurs when ever one is definitely separated from God.

Thus, the Christian tradition has two meanings for death. Death can mean the separation of body and soul that we normally think of when we say someone has died. But it can also mean a person’s estrangement from God. Both deaths are abominations, in that they defy God’s plan. Yet whereas the first can have what the Catechism calls a positive meaning, which God in mercy makes use of to bring new life, death in the second sense is in no way good.

Rising from the Dead

When many people think of rising from the dead, they think of a more general notion of the afterlife. In other words, they think of how souls or spirits live on without their bodies. The Catechism affirms this belief. If death in the first sense is a separation of body and soul, then after this death the immortal soul lives on. How the soul lives on depends importantly on how one lived during one’s earthly life. If one lives an earthly life in union with God, that union continues in the afterlife. Of course, the opposite is also true. The Christian scriptures are clear that living lives of social justice is crucial for determining how one lives on after death. (See esp. Luke 16:19–31; also Matt. 25:31–46.) But this meaning of rising from the dead is actually not the primary one for Christians. The creedal affirmation of the “resurrection of the dead” is a far more astonishing claim than merely the belief that life continues for the immaterial soul after its separation from the body.

What is the resurrection of the dead? Christians have affirmed from the very beginning of the church that at some final definitive point in history—on the last day, or at the second coming of Christ—all persons will rise and be reunited with their bodies. That’s right. Despite the corruption that obviously occurs to earthly bodies after death, the Christian claim is that at the end of time all people will rise from the dead, body and soul. Note that this is a communal event, rather than something that happens individually to people when they die. Before examining the basis for this astonishing claim, it should be noted that this resurrection is not the same for everyone. When that happens, God’s judgment is final, and the good are raised to everlasting glory in an incorruptible bodily state. The evil are judged definitively as well, and eternally separated from God. This last day of judgment is thus a wondrous ground of all hope for those who live in union with God and long for that union to be complete. It is also the notorious and final “second death” spoken of in Revelation for those who estrange themselves from God (Rev. 2:11). Second death is definitive separation of a soul from God for eternity.

Why do Christians believe in a bodily resurrection? It seems challenging enough for people to believe that life continues after the horror of death. Why affirm a bodily resurrection? After all, this belief engenders a host of theological questions, such as, what are incorruptible bodies? How can such a body truly be mine if I am dead for many years? What manifestation of one’s body is one reunited with on the last day: a child’s body? an adult body? my body at the time of death? Furthermore, what bodily weaknesses or disabilities exist on the last day? Since people are raised with glorified bodies, are those bodies marked by the same individual faults that we possess in this life?

This is not the first Christian claim to defy belief. Recall from the Gospel according to John the response of many of Jesus’s followers when Jesus told them to eat his body and drink his blood in order to have eternal life—they returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied Jesus (John 6:41–66). Similarly, St. Paul clearly acknowledges that Christian faith in the bodily resurrection is difficult, and that many preach against it. Yet he insists that this belief is central. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ was not raised. And if Christ was not raised bodily from the dead, then we Christians “are the most pitiable people of all” (1 Cor. 15:19). Why is this belief so central? There are two reasons.

The first, and most important, reason is mentioned by Paul. Christian belief in the resurrection is not simply some intellectual position arrived at by logic. It is God’s saving action that Christians witness and proclaim. How is it witnessed? First and foremost in Christ Jesus. It is because Christ rose from the dead that Christians affirm the resurrection of the dead. And as all four gospels make clear in varying ways, the risen Christ was not a ghost. He was risen in a body. True, his glorified body was not like yours and mine. His friends initially do not recognize him; he appears and disappears suddenly. But nonetheless he is no ghost. He eats with his disciples. They touch him, most famously St. Thomas, who puts his fingers in Christ’s hands and his hand in Christ’s side (John 20:24–28). And even though his friends do not recognize him immediately, they always do eventually recognize him as their friend and Lord Jesus. In other words, it is Jesus, body and all, and not someone else— not some ghost—who is resurrected from the dead.

This is the most important reason why Christians affirm a bodily resurrection. It is a stumbling block to many. If someone were making this up, it would certainly be more readily believable to claim a merely spiritual afterlife. But again, Christians are witnesses to what God does in Christ, not determiners of it. Of course, unsurprisingly, given the Christian affirmation of the complementarity of faith and reason, this doctrine received by faith also makes sense. After all, we read in the first chapters of Genesis, God created man and woman, body and soul, and called this creation “very good.” Therefore people are body and soul, rather than just souls. Bodies are good, and an essential part of who we are. If it is truly and fully we who are resurrected from the dead, it only makes sense that this resurrection be a bodily one. This is another, albeit secondary, reason why Christians affirm the bodily resurrection.

We have now come full circle to answer the question that was raised at the start of this chapter: if human persons are restless, longing creatures, what exactly is it we are longing for? We started to answer this question from the perspective of our own longings and we basically said “we are longing for all of our longings to be satisfied.” We saw that there are better and worse ways to respond to this state of restlessness. Two common errors, called by Lewis the “fool’s way” and the “way of the disillusioned sensible man,” entail seeking fulfillment in things which cannot offer it, or giving up on the possible of complete fulfillment, respectively. It is the theological virtue of hope that inclines us to keep our eye on the prize and keep longing for union with God, fully available only in the next life, as our true destiny and complete happiness. We also saw not only how the person of hope remains steadily fixed on a destiny beyond this life, but also how this virtue enables one to fully appreciate, yet not idolize, the goods of this life. Though a theological virtue, a life of grace marked by hope entails a transformed stance with regard to innerworldly goods, a topic explained more fully in chapter 16.

The second half of this chapter appealed to reason and especially Christian revelation to learn more about the content, if you will, of Christian hope. Though people quite commonly associate Christianity with a belief in heaven, they far too often have no mature idea of what exactly Christian belief about life after death entails. Two points about that teaching should be kept in mind. First, there is important continuity between how one lives in this life and one’s destiny in the next. In one sense this is obvious: everyone knows Christians believe you go to heaven or hell based upon how you live on earth. Yet hopefully this chapter has presented an understanding of God’s judgment as something far richer than some externally imposed or arbitrary grade that one receives at the end of life, all the while waiting in trepidation to see if one passed or not. Rather, judgment is more properly understood as a finalization, or solidification, of a way of living that one has already been shaped into during one’s whole earthly life. In line with Lewis’s view on final judgment, in the end everyone gets what they want. The interesting question is whether or not what we want in this life is the genuine complete fulfillment that is indeed available to us.

Second, what the Christian tradition teaches actually happens after death is both less impenetrable and yet far more extraordinary than is commonly assumed. On the one hand, this is a topic that exceeds the perfection of clear sight, so we cannot clearly see what happens after death without the assistance of revelation. But we can certainly say more about it than we can talk about people in white sheets playing harps! We can talk about death as a separation of body and soul, of union or separation from God. And we can talk about the communal nature of what happens after death (the resurrection of the dead).

The Christian tradition teaches that the afterlife is far more than some wispy spiritual state. There is ultimately a bodily resurrection on the last day, final judgment, and a new creation which is begun in this life in the grace of baptism, but completed only at the second coming of Christ, a fulfilled destiny for which “all creation is groaning” (Rom. 8:22). Though there are solid reasons why this teaching makes sense, it far exceeds our unaided capacities and, as Paul recognized from the first century of Christianity, it poses a stumbling block for many. It is in this sense that Christian belief about the afterlife is far more extraordinary that is commonly assumed. And when we recall how dimly we see now, as if through a glass, then we may wonder even further about the ways this destiny must transcend even the extraordinary things we are only able to fleetingly imagine in this life.

1. Describe the human situation that occasions hope.

2. This chapter presents two poor responses to the human situation that occasions hope. Name and describe each. Why is each one a poor response?

3. Define the virtue hope. Why is it a theological virtue? Why is it only possible with God’s grace?

4. What does having hope have to do with how we live in this life?

5. Define heaven, hell, and purgatory. Describe two ways these terms can be understood: in a manner that is only extrinsically related to our lives on earth, and a manner that is intimately connected to our lives on earth.

6. What two meanings do Christians have for death? When does one die in each sense?

7. What does it mean to rise from the dead? What role does one’s body play in one’s life after death?

restlessness, Lewis’s “fool’s way,” idolatry, Lewis’s “disillusioned sensible man,” presumption, despair, hope, heaven, hell, “everyone gets what they want,” purgatory, death, second death, resurrection of the body

1. Hope is a theological virtue that requires God’s grace. How, then, to explain people who are not Christians, but do not seem to fall into either trap of the fool’s way or the disillusioned sensible man? In other words, can people live in hope without believing in God and union with God in the next life?

2. In what ways is hope similar to the fool’s way? In what ways is it similar to the disillusioned sensible man’s way? Yet how is it importantly different from each, and how could you determine in real life whether one had the virtue hope or was slipping into one of these two errors?

3. What are some of the concrete ways that people are led to have hope, rather than fall into despair or the fool’s way? What experiences lead people to either affirm or deny the possibility of true fulfillment?

4. What are some examples of being more or less fully alive in this life?

5. One question Lewis addresses in The Great Divorce is whether or not the communion of saints in heaven can truly be full if even one person is estranged from God and that communion for eternity. In other words, if sharing in the divine nature is living fully in self-giving love that is God, how can such a person be happy if one whom they presumably love is separated from God from eternity?

6. What experience from life can be cited as “mini-purgatories” and help make that teaching more accessible to us?

7. To what extent can nonrational creatures (such as animals) participate in eternal union with God?

8. What difference does the claim that eternal life is outside of time— and not merely an extended period of time—make for understanding the resurrection of the body and its relationship to bodily death?

Three authors have been particularly influential on this chapter due to their accessible descriptions of hope: C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, Michael Himes’s Doing the Truth in Love, and Paul Wadell’s Becoming Friends. For more exhaustive inquiry into this virtue, see Thomas Aquinas’s treatise on hope (Summa Theologiae II–II 17–22) and two more contemporary Thomists, Josef Pieper (Faith, Hope, and Love) and Romanus Cessario, OP (“The Virtue of Hope,” in Stephen J. Pope, ed. Ethics of Aquinas). As for the second section’s discussion of life after death, the most clear and concise synopsis of Christian teaching is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church 988–1065. The classic scriptural text on resurrection, besides the four gospel accounts, is St. Paul’s 1 Cor. 15. St. Augustine’s work on death (in City of God IX) has also been influential on this chapter. Two comprehensive but relatively accessible overviews of the Christian tradition on last things are Joseph Ratzinger’s (now Pope Benedict XVI) Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, and Romano Guardini’s The Last Things: Concerning Death, Purification After Death, Resurrection, Judgment and Eternity. C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce is a superb resource for presenting Christian teaching on hope and life after death in narrative form. Finally, Pope Benedict XVI released an encyclical on hope entitled Spe Salvi as this book was going to print.