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If you\u2019re a mystic, on the other hand, you might find yourself idiotically plunging forward into the dark of your own free will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Divine Spelunking<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At first glance, the idea of Hell seems pretty straightforward. Hell is the worst thing you can think of, multiplied by infinity, enduring forever. In the popular imagination that means fire, pitchforks, pointy-tailed devils.<\/a> More technical understandings, like the Catholic Catechism\u2019s \u201cstate of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God,\u201d<\/a> emphasize what Hell lacks<\/em>, namely the presence of God. Hell, by this definition, is simply that location where God and God\u2019s attributes\u2014Beauty, Truth, and so on\u2014are absent. Hell is where\/what\/when God is not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, a place you\u2019d want to avoid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So far so good. But if it is indeed the case that we shouldn\u2019t be able to find God in Hell\u2014if God\u2019s absence is the very thing that makes Hell such a terrible place\u2014then why do God and godly people regularly make themselves such a theological nuisance by treating it like a tourist destination? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Why, in the holy texts and stories of certain faiths, do we find God, saints, and mystics effectively doing cannonballs into the lake of fire?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most straightforward example is Jesus of Nazareth, the \u201cSon of God\u201d who, according to some Christian traditions, descended into Hell (or at least \u201cthe land of the dead\u201d) during the time between his death and resurrection, in an event commonly referred to as \u201cThe Harrowing of Hell.\u201d<\/a> Meanwhile, from the Buddhist tradition, we have monk and scholar Shantideva, who claims that the bodhisattvas<\/em>, enlightened saints, \u201cplunge down into the Avici hell<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> as geese into a cluster of lotus blossoms.\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n The stated reasons for both trips are similar. In Jesus’ case, we are told in First Peter that Jesus went to the land of the dead to preach the gospel there<\/a>\u2014to save those who had died without hearing his message on Earth. Similarly, according to Shantideva, the hell-trotting bodhisattva is one \u201cto whom the suffering of others is as important as the things they themselves hold dear.\u201d In other words, a being so compassionate that they will endure the most horrible things in existence to help the ignorant damned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In both instances, we find a certain selflessness\u2014a willingness to go boldly into the places that common sense would have us avoid, for the sake of helping others. It follows that those of us who claim to follow the Christ, or who took the Bodhisattva Vow at that weekend Zen retreat, are in some sense called to do the same.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA Thousand Years of Horror\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again and again in the writings of accomplished mystics, contemplatives, and religious thinkers, we find an attitude to Hell very different from what you\u2019ll hear in a typical fire-and-brimstone sermon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the latter, Hell is absolutely repugnant, terrible, final\u2014a fate to be avoided at literally any cost. In the former, Hell strangely becomes something willingly endured for the sake of the highest good, whether that be God, the enlightenment of all sentient beings, or something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meister Eckhart, for instance, tells a parable about a certain beggar who is so confident in his relationship with God that he seems to have no fear of Hell at all. When asked what he would do if, for some arbitrary reason, God were to cast him into Hell, the beggar replies:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCast me into hell? His goodness forbids! But if he did cast me into hell […] I should so embrace Him that he would have to go to hell with me. And I would rather be in hell and have God, than in heaven and not have God.\u201d<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Even Sarah Edwards\u2014wife of Jonathan Edwards, the Hell-happy author of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”<\/a>\u2014recalls a similar feeling in her own conversion narrative<\/a>, claiming that she is ready to \u201clive a thousand years in horror, if it be most for the glory of God: yea, I am willing to live a thousand years an hell upon earth, if it be most for the honour of God.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Likewise, in his journals<\/a>, Methodist revivalist John Nelson describes a moment of crisis when, overwhelmed by a sense of his own sin, he feels compelled to turn over the matter of his personal salvation to God, crying out:\u00a0 \u201cLord, thy will be done: damn or save!\u201d In other words, Nelson gives up on trying to get into Heaven\u2014he\u2019ll willingly go wherever God sees fit to send him, even if that means Hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This trope\u2014the readiness to give up Heaven and suffer Hell for the sake of something more important than either\u2014has even started popping up in books, films, and TV shows in the last few decades. <\/p>\n\n\n\n More upbeat takes can be found in The Good Place <\/em>and What Dreams May Come<\/em>, both of which feature characters who are willing to join their loved ones in Hell, rather than spend eternity in Heaven without them. On a darker note, we have Ted Chiang\u2019s \u201cHell Is the Absence of God,\u201d<\/a> in which a man undergoes a complete conversion in the final moments of his life, is sent to Hell anyway, and nevertheless spends eternity loving the God he can never have.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Letting Go of Heaven<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what do we make of all this? What does it mean that everyone from the most flea-bitten medieval beggar to the divine Logos Himself is lining up for the chance to check out the worst place in all the universes? Where does Hell fit into a mystical life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n