To the non-religious person heaven and hell are hypothetical spiritual concepts. The adage that it is better to build a fence at the top of a cliff rather than maintain an ambulance at the bottom is what drives earnest evangelists to warn non-believers of the dangers of denying God which would await them in the afterlife. But what is Hell? We have seen enough human cruelty during this millennium to imagine how awful its theological counterpart could be.
I can’t imagine Hell in the after-life. I think of it mostly as a place where God is absent. His complete absence is soul-destroying for true believers. But what of non-believers? And what is “true” belief ? Only God can be the judge of that. Those amongst us who assume infallibly to know God’s mind may find that they were sorely mistaken. Personally, I believe we will know the full truth on death itself. In the same way that the thief’ who was crucified beside Jesus had his eyes opened when he said: “Remember me when thy comest into thy kingdom….”
For me living hell is the lancinating pain of displeasing God. Disappointing a loving God who has showered me with blessings is almost too much to bear – His regret that I put my hand to the plough during the heady days of summer but turned back when the going got tough would be a personal hell. This is what Richard Holloway (former Bishop of Edinburgh) also felt, as he describes movingly in his autobiography Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt.
