Category Archives: Kreeft

Kreeft, Theology

Last Four Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven & Hell

“The holy fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.”- Prv 9:10


-by Peter Kreeft

“The Church’s teaching about life after death is summarized in the Four Last Things — death, judgment, heaven, and hell. However, even humanity outside the Church instinctively knows something about these four things.

Life’s one certainty is death. Everyone knows this, though not everyone knows what comes next. Nearly all religions, cultures and individuals in history have believed in some form of life after death. Man’s innate sense of justice tells him that there must be an ultimate reckoning, that in the final analysis no one can cheat the moral law and get away with it or suffer undeserved injustices throughout life and not be justly compensated. Since this ultimate justice does not seem to be accomplished in this life, there must be “the rest of the story.”

This instinctive conviction that there must be a higher, more-than-human justice is nearly universal. Thus the second of the Four Last Things, judgment, is also widely known. As Scripture says, “Whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him” (Heb 11:6). The final judgment is an encounter with Christ.

Most men also know that justice distinguishes the good from the evil and, therefore, that after death there must be separate destinies for us — rewards for good and punishments for evil. Thus mankind also usually believes in some form of heaven and hell.

There are only two eternal destinies: heaven or hell, union or disunion with God. Each one of us will be either with God or without Him forever. If hell is not real, the Church and the Bible are also liars. Our basis for believing in the reality of hell is exactly the same authority as our basis for believing in the reality of heaven: Christ, His Church, and her scriptures.

If hell is not real, then Jesus Christ is either a fool or a liar for He warned us repeatedly and with utmost seriousness about it. There is no reincarnation, no “second chance” after time is over. There is no annihilation, no end of the soul’s existence. There is no change of species from human being to angel or to anything else.

The particular judgment occurs immediately after each individual’s death. The general judgment takes place at the end of all time and history.

So the scenario of final events is: (a) first, death; (b) then, immediately, the particular judgment; (c) then, either hell, or purgatory as preparation for heaven, or heaven; (d) and, at the end of time, the general judgment; (e) and the “new heavens and new earth” for those who are saved.”

-from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, by Jonathan Edwards, (1703-1758)

“O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, Whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.

It is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long forever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains.”

Love, and holy fear & trembling,-Phil 2:12,
Matthew

Joy, Kreeft, Saints

The Joy of the Saints

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1 Peter 1:8, Job 19:25-27, Acts 5:41

I have a passion for singing martyrs.

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JOY!!! -by Dr. Peter Kreeft

Joy is not the same thing as “happiness”. God made us for happiness, Catholic theology’s first sentence says, and we will experience that in the Kingdom, but in this life, this fallen world, we aspire to joy. Joy suggests a more complete, ecstatic, consuming passion than mere happiness. In short, “happiness” can be described as an emotion, while “joy” is more properly related to a state of one’s being.

Sadly, many people in our secular world have lost the joy of knowing God. We all often try to cover internal emptiness with superficialities that don’t work and never will. But as Catholics, we have the duty to be channels of Christ’s love and true happiness to the world. Showing the happiness which results from love of God is a means to attract more people to the true joy of loving Him.

The saints are those people who evangelized with the glow of the joy which everyone wants, even though they seemed to lack all the created “things”, which we initially, naively believe will bring us this joy. Like a child navigating their world only to mature under tender loving care, to a more profound understanding of what really matters, what really is important in life. Yes, yes, Maslow’s hierarchy I grant you, and I might certainly sing a different song were I in severe need, but still.

For example, St. Philip Neri is known as the saint of laughter – he played with children in the streets of Rome and gave repentants ludicrous penances in the confessional. Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati liked to laugh at his own practical jokes. St. Rose of Lima wrote songs and could often be heard singing in her garden. The teenager Bl. Chiara Badano was known for her cheerfulness even as she lay dying with disease. St. Pio of Pietrelcina advised us to “serve the Lord with laughter.” In fact, if you look at a photo of any saintly person, chances are that he or she is smiling. This joy of Christ is what makes holy people so compelling and wonderful to be around.

“Let anyone who comes to you go away feeling better and happier. Everyone should see goodness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile. Joy shows from the eyes. It appears when we speak and walk. It cannot be kept closed inside us. It reacts outside. Joy is very infectious.” – Mother Teresa. We, as Americans, abundantly blessed in material resources, of all people in the world, should know that more and more abundance of material resources cannot address the inner, deeper longing within us.

There is a line no less perceptive for having been mistakenly attributed to Plato: “We can easily forgive the child who is afraid of the dark, but the real tragedy is the adult who is afraid of the light.” Joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, not a special gift given to a select few; it is simply a by-product of living in God. However, when people think of a Catholic saint, the first image that comes to mind is a sad, pale, thin figure, often tortured and in pain, or looking as if he was wearing a hair shirt.

Nehemiah 8:10 – “Do not be grieved (sad, sorrowful), for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

Thomas Merton was asked if it was possible to tell if someone had truly undergone inner purification, becoming transformed into the image of Christ. “It is very difficult to tell but usually it is accompanied by a wonderful sense of humor.” There are many amusing stories about the saints which illustrate their joy. While on a journey to visit one of her convents, a donkey dumped St. Teresa of Avila into a stream of freezing cold water. Standing in her water-logged, heavy habit, she yelled at God, “If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few!”

[2 Samuel 6:17-22] “As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.

When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”

David answered his wife , “I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes….”

“Joy is the serious business of heaven”. -C.S. Lewis

“I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting Him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since “no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord”. The Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that He is already there, waiting for us with open arms. Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with You. I need You. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into Your redeeming embrace”.” -Evangelii Gaudium – The Joy of the Gospel” (3)

Love, and His joy,
Matthew

Kreeft, Moral, Protection of Youth

Marie Collins, Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors

I wish I could tell you, over the past eight years, Marie’s story is unique.  It is not.  It is all too, too tragically familiar.  Dealing with evil is difficult.  But, as disciples, it is required.  The Catholic Church is an institution with a 400 year cycle time.

http://www.mariecollinsfoundation.org.uk/who-we-are/board-of-trustees/marie-collins

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-by Peter Kreeft, PhD

“The problem of evil is the most serious problem in the world. It is also the one serious objection to the existence of God. No sane person wants hell to exist.

When Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote his great Summa Theologica, he could find only two objections to the existence of God, even though he tried to list at least three objections to every one of the thousands of theses he tried to prove in that great work. One of the two objections is the apparent ability of natural science to explain everything in our experience without God; and the other is the problem of evil.

More people have abandoned their faith because of the problem of evil than for any other reason. It is certainly the greatest test of faith, the greatest temptation to unbelief. And it’s not just an intellectual objection. We feel it. We live it. That’s why the Book of Job is so arresting.

The problem can be stated very simply: If God is so good, why is His world so bad? If an all-good, all-wise, all-loving, all-just, and all-powerful God is running the show, why does He seem to be doing such a miserable job of it? Why do bad things happen to good people?…

If God is the Creator of all things and evil is a thing, then God is the Creator of evil, and He is to blame for its existence. No, evil is not a thing but a wrong choice, or the damage done by a wrong choice. Evil is no more a positive thing than blindness is. But it is just as real. It is not a thing, but it is not an illusion..

Second, the origin of evil is not the Creator but the creature’s freely choosing sin and selfishness. Take away all sin and selfishness and you would have heaven on earth. Even the remaining physical evils would no longer rankle and embitter us. Saints endure and even embrace suffering and death as lovers embrace heroic challenges. But they do not embrace sin.

…The cause of suffering is sin. …

We are single creatures, not double: we are not even body and soul as much as we are embodied soul, or ensouled body. So the body must share in the soul’s inevitable punishment, a punishment as natural and unavoidable as broken bones from jumping off a cliff or a sick stomach from eating rotten food rather than a punishment as artificial and external as a grade for a course or a slap on the hands for taking the cookies…

If the origin of evil is free will, and God is the origin of free will, isn’t God then the origin of evil? Only as parents are the origin of the misdeeds their children commit by being the origin of their children. The all-powerful God gave us a share in his power to choose freely. Would we prefer he had not and had made us robots rather than human beings?…

The worst aspect of the problem of evil is eternal evil, hell. Does hell not contradict a loving and omnipotent God? No, for hell is the consequence of free will. We freely choose hell for ourselves; God does not cast anyone into hell against his will. If a creature is really free to say yes or no to the Creator’s offer of love and spiritual marriage, then it must be possible for the creature to say no. And that is what hell is, essentially. Free will, in turn, was created out of God’s love. Therefore hell is a result of God’s love. Everything is.

No sane person wants hell to exist. No sane person wants evil to exist. But hell is just evil eternalized. If there is evil and if there is eternity, there can be hell. If it is intellectually dishonest to disbelieve in evil just because it is shocking and uncomfortable, it is the same with hell. Reality has hard corners, surprises, and terrible dangers in it. We desperately need a true road map, not nice feelings, if we are to get home. It is true, as people often say, that hell just feels unreal, impossible. Yes. So does Auschwitz. So does Calvary.”

Please pray and ACT for the safety of ALL children!!!! Lord, be merciful to us ALL!!!!  Our Lady of Knock, Queen of Ireland, Mother of the Church, Mother of Christian Families, pray for us!!!

“…He shall come to judge the living and the dead…”

Love,
Matthew