lpetrich
October 28, 2006, 08:22 PM
I defy any of my coreligionists to tell me they do not laugh at the idea of Dawkins burning in hell.
You are fond of your spectacles, but there are other spectacles; that day disbelieved, derided by the nations, the last and eternal day of judgment, when all ages shall be swallowed up in one conflagration; what a variety of spectacles shall then appear! How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many kings, and false gods in heaven, together with Jove himself, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness! - so many magistrates, who persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in raging fire, with their scholars whom they persuaded to despise God, and to disbelieve the resurrection; and so many poets shuddering before the tribunal, not of Rhadamanthus, not of Minos, but of the disbelieved Christ! Then shall we hear the tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; then shall we see the dancers far more sprightly amidst the flames; the charioteer all red-hot in his burning car; and the wrestlers hurled, not upon the accustomed list, but upon a plain of fire.
1. Do the saints see the sufferings of the damned?
... Wherefore in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned.
2. Do they pity them?
... Whoever pities another shares somewhat in his unhappiness. But the blessed cannot share in any unhappiness. Therefore they do not pity the afflictions of the damned.
3. Do they rejoice in their sufferings?
... It is written (Psalm 57:11): "The just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge."
Further, it is written (Isaiah 56:24): "They shall satiate [Douay: 'They shall be a loathsome sight to all flesh.'] the sight of all flesh." Now satiety denotes refreshment of the mind. Therefore the blessed will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked.
I answer that, A thing may be a matter of rejoicing in two ways. First directly, when one rejoices in a thing as such: and thus the saints will not rejoice in the punishment of the wicked. Secondly, indirectly, by reason namely of something annexed to it: and in this way the saints will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked, by considering therein the order of Divine justice and their own deliverance, which will fill them with joy. And thus the Divine justice and their own deliverance will be the direct cause of the joy of the blessed: while the punishment of the damned will cause it indirectly.
What a tradition she is following. :p
Sources:
Ann Coulter: The middle of Chapter 10 of Godless: The Church of Liberalism, quoted by Richard Dawkins's webmaster in The Ugly (richarddawkins.net/theUgly)
Tertullian: De Spectaculis (The Shows), chapter 30, translation from The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment (http://www.tentmaker.org/books/OriginandHistory.html)
Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica, Supplement to the Third Part, Section 94, The relations of the saints towards the damned (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/509400.htm)
You are fond of your spectacles, but there are other spectacles; that day disbelieved, derided by the nations, the last and eternal day of judgment, when all ages shall be swallowed up in one conflagration; what a variety of spectacles shall then appear! How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many kings, and false gods in heaven, together with Jove himself, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness! - so many magistrates, who persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in raging fire, with their scholars whom they persuaded to despise God, and to disbelieve the resurrection; and so many poets shuddering before the tribunal, not of Rhadamanthus, not of Minos, but of the disbelieved Christ! Then shall we hear the tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; then shall we see the dancers far more sprightly amidst the flames; the charioteer all red-hot in his burning car; and the wrestlers hurled, not upon the accustomed list, but upon a plain of fire.
1. Do the saints see the sufferings of the damned?
... Wherefore in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned.
2. Do they pity them?
... Whoever pities another shares somewhat in his unhappiness. But the blessed cannot share in any unhappiness. Therefore they do not pity the afflictions of the damned.
3. Do they rejoice in their sufferings?
... It is written (Psalm 57:11): "The just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge."
Further, it is written (Isaiah 56:24): "They shall satiate [Douay: 'They shall be a loathsome sight to all flesh.'] the sight of all flesh." Now satiety denotes refreshment of the mind. Therefore the blessed will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked.
I answer that, A thing may be a matter of rejoicing in two ways. First directly, when one rejoices in a thing as such: and thus the saints will not rejoice in the punishment of the wicked. Secondly, indirectly, by reason namely of something annexed to it: and in this way the saints will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked, by considering therein the order of Divine justice and their own deliverance, which will fill them with joy. And thus the Divine justice and their own deliverance will be the direct cause of the joy of the blessed: while the punishment of the damned will cause it indirectly.
What a tradition she is following. :p
Sources:
Ann Coulter: The middle of Chapter 10 of Godless: The Church of Liberalism, quoted by Richard Dawkins's webmaster in The Ugly (richarddawkins.net/theUgly)
Tertullian: De Spectaculis (The Shows), chapter 30, translation from The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment (http://www.tentmaker.org/books/OriginandHistory.html)
Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica, Supplement to the Third Part, Section 94, The relations of the saints towards the damned (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/509400.htm)