The Nature of Hellish Apokatastasis
Is it Educative? Retributive? Ontological?
The Discussion of Apokatastasis
Now that the doctrine of Eternal Torment is out of the way, what is the operation of God’s dealings with the wicked in Hell? Is it a kind of temporal and retributive punishment directed by God? Is it a kind of interrogative reproof, or a spiritual surgical process that results as a painful reaction? I met or heard from some people who assume that God manually punishes the wicked for a temporal duration in the fire, but wise philosophy refuses such a notion. I don’t suppose that God punishes men with sickness or pain since the devil and sin already fulfill this function. I assert that God cannot give any detrimental influence by direct means, because His ontology is pure and whole. Instead, God can only confer or deprive a beneficial influence (or good gift) from the person. He deposits good out of kindness and withdraws good aimed at correction, so His intents in any action, whether seemingly kind or harsh, is only redemptive rather than destructive. “Hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord” (1st Corinthians 5:5).
God’s preferred will is that we should be saved without harsh discipline, yet what if we take the alternative route to salvation? As I said, God doesn’t repay evil for evil but good for their evil deeds. If God’s inspiration through Paul commands believers to repay good for evil, why would God Himself not fulfill a deed in accordance to His nature? If God is our moral exemplar, then His commands to us should be consistent with His nature. Otherwise, the atheist is right to suggest the Divine Command Theory on the arbitrariness of morality based on the following, “Does God command good because He says so?” But what about stealing? God cannot steal because everything belongs to Him, so does God have the right to torment humans because He has the right? Not so, because this single exception cannot work in other ethical situations; otherwise, we could “justify” God in every wicked and nonsensical thing. This is where moral theistic subjectivity occurs to which the atheists understand better than Fundamentalists. We cannot derive a universal principle for God based on a slight exception. We know lust or stealing doesn’t apply to God due to ontology and technicality, but there are still some matters that we know God wouldn’t perform like tempt others, perpetually torment, or worship Satan. Because none of these have any practical purpose, and God cannot confer something that is purely detrimental by nature. God’s ontology is too pure to afflict the wicked of detriment by direct means. If God directly caused our suffering and destruction by His ontology (especially by intent to harm), then we would be more skeptical that God is beneficial and moral to our well-being.
Arguably, if God commands us to be good, then it must be aimed to be like Him. In other words, Jesus or God is our moral exemplar, and so logically, any given command that is fundamentally moral should be imitated by God. I mean, how could God command me to forgive my enemies without limit if He doesn’t do it Himself. If God commands me to forgive, He should also do it since He is my moral example. If my moral example (e.g. God) doesn’t forgive as commanded by Him, then there is no motivation or inspiration to forgive our enemies. There’s no eagerness to forgive if your moral example doesn’t do so. A son respects his father more by deeds instead of mere words, so then the same logic applies for the Christian towards God.
Educative Apokatastasis Theory
When I use ‘theory’, I don’t imply that it isn’t true, or that such an idea cannot be justified as valid. It simply means a perspective or outlook of this kind of apokatastasis, because some might agree to this outlook. Anyway, if God directly punished men with harm, then such men or ourselves wouldn’t grasp God as a helper but as an oppressor. And such a notion would imply that God’s so-called ‘goodness’ isn’t beneficial to us in reality but merely detrimental. God cannot punish a person with detriment, but only correct them for their welfare, because truth is a beneficial gift instead of a detrimental force. I perceive the apokatastasis as God correcting the wicked through personal and moral truths, which they react to offensively or remorsefully (Matthew 8:12). He refutes their immoral justifications while redeeming them to the truth for their psychological liberation. As Jesus professed, “You shall know the Truth and the Truth will set you free” (John 8:32). So then, God’s justice is to correct them in order to purge or heal them apart from their sins. God’s justice is corrective by nature. In order for sin, a deceitful identity, to be overcome and done away with, it must be exposed to the loving truths of God. As a father chastises his son, so God chastises His creatures. God will correct them until every misconception and every justification for sin withers away, so that their minds will consent to the truths of God, that is, the ultimate reconciliation. Arrogant people will react to these moral and personal truths with great offense, yet soon to be remorseful in the end. Their torment isn’t coming from God directly, but their egoistic reaction to divine truths.
Ontological Apokatastasis Theory
This theory isn’t contradictory to the first proposed view, but a different manner of interpretation of the apokatastasis. In this theory, God is purifying the wicked by removing their sinful substances away from their astral body. He isn’t intentionally harming them, but because of their defilement by sin, the process of separation for them becomes painful due to its prolonged presence in the astral body. In a way, it’s like removing a band-aid that has remained too long with the skin, but multiplied by who knows how much due to the degree of their sins. St. Gregory of Nyssa was taught by his sister Makrina concerning the apokatastasis: “Moreover, as every being is capable of attracting its like, and humanity is, in a way, like God, as bearing within itself some resemblances to its Prototype, the soul is by a strict necessity attracted to the kindred Deity. In fact what belongs to God must by all means and at any cost be preserved for Him. If, then, on the one hand, the soul is unencumbered with superfluities and no trouble connected with the body presses it down, its advance towards Him Who draws it to Himself is sweet and congenial. But suppose , on the other hand, that it has been transfixed with the nails of propension so as to be held down to a habit connected with material things — a case like that of those in the ruins caused by earthquakes, whose bodies are crushed by the mounds of rubbish; and let us imagine by way of illustration that these are not only pressed down by the weight of the ruins, but have been pierced as well with some spikes and splinters discovered with them in the rubbish. What then, would naturally be the plight of those bodies, when they were being dragged by relatives from the ruins to receive the holy rites of burial, mangled and torn entirely, disfigured in the most direful manner conceivable, with the nails beneath the heap harrowing them by the very violence necessary to pull them out? — Such I think is the plight of the soul as well when the Divine force, for God’s very love of man, drags that which belongs to Him from the ruins of the irrational and material. Not in hatred or revenge for a wicked life, to my thinking, does God bring upon sinners those painful dispensations; He is only claiming and drawing to Himself whatever, to please Him, came into existence. But while He for a noble end is attracting the soul to Himself, the Fountain of all Blessedness, it is the occasion necessarily to the being so attracted of a state of torture. Just as those who refine gold from the dross which it contains not only get this base alloy to melt in the fire, but are obliged to melt the pure gold along with the alloy, and then while this last is being consumed the gold remains, so, while evil is being consumed in the purgatorial fire, the soul that is welded to this evil must inevitably be in the fire too, until the spurious material alloy is consumed and annihilated by this fire” (On the Soul and the Resurrection). There’s much more on this detail of it, but for now, you have this portion. Her example was much more severe than mine, yet it is an illustration of a sacred truth of hell.
The True Apokatastasis
Although, some will object to these theories or perceptions of the purgative hell for something akin to their vengeful desire. But I will not exert my prejudice of wrongdoers to cloud my judgement or my analysis of the moral dignity of God. The Lord’s dignity is much more valuable than any subtle conceited imagination that men desperately adhere to for their own sick gratification. I assert that God’s shining glory is greatly disclosed when our prejudices on men and misconceptions of God are put aside for darkness to vanish and for light to stand apparently. I believe that apokatastasis is whole with these two theories like the educative and ontological perceptions. God purifies their astral bodies (souls) from defilement while correcting them back to Truth. The educative theory suggests that God gains their consent by reverting their moral framework, and the ontological theory suggests that God prunes their astral nature back into divine health. God corrects every aspect of their thoughts and ambitions, in order to purify them apart from their sinful conditions. God heals depraved minds by the power of love (i.e. moral ontology) in an educative and energetic manner. Love and truth are the divine energies and opportunities to the life-giving theosis. This is the apokatastasis that I truly affirm in the name of the Christ. And all of the grateful said ‘Amen’.
