The Abyss Worse Than Nothingness
When it first came out, I heard the song “Kill Bill” by SZA playing all over the radio. The lyrics were quite grim on their face—the song conveys the feelings of a sorrowful lover who thinks of killing her former boyfriend and his new girlfriend. Nevertheless, its catchy beat and melody was captivating and could stay in your head for hours. While the gruesome lyrics were likely a sign to be cautious of the song, they were not what turned me away from the song. Instead, it was a very short comment at the end of the song that seized me, and about which I have contemplated since I noticed it.
At the end of the hook, SZA would typically sing “Rather be in jail than alone.” But in the last few seconds of the song, she changes the words:
Rather be in hell than alone.
At first, I admit that I had not paid much attention to these words. When I had, however, I was deeply troubled for some reason I couldn’t explain. Of course, invoking hell, especially any supposed desirability of it, is a very dark thing. But beyond that, it wasn’t until contemplating about this for some time that I realized why this brief remark gave me such grief:
To be in hell is to be alone.
In the Gospel, references to hell include mentions of its incredible loneliness. Both the servant who did not multiply his talents and the man who did not bring a wedding garment were thrown “into the darkness outside” (Matt. 22:13; 25:30). The demons cast out into swine by Christ begged not to return “to the abyss” (Luke 8:31). Similar mentions are found in the epistles. St. Paul teaches that those in hell will be “separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power” (2 Thess. 1:9), and St. Jude describes hell as the “gloom of darkness” (Jude 1:13).
It is this abyss described in the Gospel of St. Luke that illustrates the loneliness of hell. The souls of the damned experience an eternal privation, being stripped of all goodness by our own choosing. Jesus tells us that for he who betrays the Son of Man, “It would be better for that man if he had never been born” (Matt. 26:24). While the direct reference here is to Judas Iscariot, we may see how the choices of the damned reflect this same idea. Hell is an abyss that is worse than nothingness.
The pains of hell are true emptiness and darkness experienced in the rejection of God. St. Irenaeus of Lyons teaches that hell is a free choice that alienates one from all goodness of community and perfection:
But on as many as, according to their own choice, depart from God, He inflicts that separation from Himself which they have chosen of their own accord. But separation from God is death, and separation from light is darkness; and separation of God consists in all the benefits which He has in store.1
This view of hell being the deprivation of companionship with God is passed down into our current theological language. The Catechism emphasizes the loneliness of hell with similar wording: “The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.”2 Being separated from the only fulfilling source of perfection and happiness, isolating yourself from Truth, Goodness, and Beauty itself is a loneliness worse than death.
St. Thomas Aquinas teaches how hell will truly be a darkness that will isolate us from all others. Hell, he says, will be so dark that nothing can be seen clearly except for those things which torment the damned. The only collection of individuals will be the “massing together of the bodies of the damned,” preventing any sight or ability to share in friendship due to the corrupted and eternally tortured heap.3
In contrast, St. Thomas characterizes the Beatific Vision—Heaven—as fulfilled in the communion of saints in contemplation of God. We are assuredly not alone in the Beatific Vision because “In heavenly glory there are two things which will particularly gladden the just, namely, the enjoyment of the godhead and companionship with the saints. For no good is joyfully possessed without companions….”4 One of the greatest goods in heaven is the society of the blessed, indicating that there will be no companions in hell where there is no joy. There is community in heaven with the communion of saints; there is no community in hell save for the collected perversion of nature.
We cannot find fulfilment anywhere else—the Lord, in His infinite goodness, is the only goodness that will satisfy and perfect us. This is why St. Thomas recognized that all things desire God, even if they harm themselves by consciously rejecting Him: “All things, by desiring their own perfection, desire God Himself, inasmuch as the perfections of all things are so many similitudes of the divine being….”5 Until we achieve this perfection, only attainable through the eternal good, we will continue to search. As St. Augustine prayed, “our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”6 The kind of restlessness that besets us when we are lonely, searching for some consolation or rest, burns in the souls of the damned. They are eternally restless, alone with no shoulder on which to lean. The blessed enjoy the fellowship of God and man, finding rest in the Beatific Vision.
But I think that this song is characteristic of the confusion and darkness of the modern day. People view hell as some unpleasant or painful place where the devil will prod you with a pitchfork instead of a truly empty abyss of despair. Sartre’s saying that “Hell is other people” is indicative of this misconception, placing spiritual punishment in some superficial view of the self and others instead of the eternal lonely emptiness.7 Similarly, they view heaven as some supernatural Disney World instead of the fulfilment of all life in joyful contemplation of God. The realities of heaven and hell are not sufficiently contemplated by the modern world. Not every person is called to be a theologian, but every person is called to the faith and, in drawing near the truth, to know those things that God has revealed. The believer must, as St. Peter proclaims, “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…” (1 Peter 3:15).
Of course, as St. John Paul II tells us, we should not despair in contemplating these last things but instead be reminded why is was that Jesus Christ needed to save us.8 Understanding sin and hell is not meant to draw focus to all that is evil in the world, but to be vigilant of what to avoid and acknowledge the true nature of our salvation—we cannot fully understand salvation if we do not know that from which we are saved. Sartrean existentialism makes the mistake in dwelling on the nausea of contingency as if it were foundational; Camusian absurdism makes the mistake in using the contingency as a substitute for meaning. The Beatific Vision and the salvation from Christ, not contingency or self-will, is foundational and the true meaning of our existence. We contemplate these uncomfortable, ugly, and painful truths precisely because we do not want to make the same mistake SZA made. We should not say that we would “Rather be in hell than alone.” We must recognize that Christ conquered death so that we might not be alone.
Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, trans. Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut (accessed at https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103.htm), V, 27.2.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, sec. 1035 (accessed at https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2O.HTM).
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (accessed at https://www.newadvent.org/summa/), Suppl., q. 97, a. 4 (hereinafter cited as ST).
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, trans. Fabian R. Larcher (accessed at https://isidore.co/aquinas/english/SSHebrews.htm), sec. 706.
ST I, q. 6, a. 1, ad. 2.
Augustine, Confessions, trans. J.G. Pilkington (accessed at https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1101.htm), I, 1.
Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit and Three Other Plays, trans. S. Gilbert (New York: Vintage International, 1989), p. 45.
John Paul II, General Audience, 28 July 1999 (accessed at https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/audiences/1999/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_28071999.html).
So based
Interesting take