This semester I have been blessed to teach Augustine’s Confessions two times: once in my “Philosophy of the Human Person” course and a second time in senior colloquium. Re-reading it, I was struck at how Augustine describes evil and sin as leading to alienation, nihilism, and existential destruction, but never (as far as I can see) speaks of hellish damnation.
This reminded me of a question (and other questions that seem to follow from it) I have only voiced one time, but wonder about quite a lot:
Should we pray for the conversion of Satan? When we pray for the conversion of sinners, why not pray for the conversion of Sin itself? If this prayer is too ambitious, then what does that mean for our understanding of God, prayer, and sin?
The one time I asked this question, I was completely shut down with faces full of shock and quick assertions that I was “going too far.”
As I think about it from an Augustinian lens, I see this as a an exercise in futility: evil has no substance; “it” (sin, evil) is not an it or a thing in the strong sense. But, by this reasoning, Satan would not exist either — at least not as the author of evil; evil is authorless. This seems to have big implications for the existence or non-existence of Hell.
One bright student noted that as Christianity grows and matures it seems to progressively add more and more disciplinary myths to its tradition, perhaps as a way to secure itself as it is threatened by outside forces and keep a pastoral set of teachings that instill fear and prevent defection.
Augustine fills me with a sense of the longing for Love that bears its own consequence: spiritual and existential homelessness, complete alienation from God, the world, myself, and others, and/or total and complete Truth revealed in Love, an eternal embrace and a real existence beyond the limits of the superficial self, death and resurrection. The negative side of this is terrifying on its own. It seems real to me. My prayer facing such dire realities and possibilities is a desperate plea to know and be-with God. To dwell in Love.
Facing Satan and hell and other things, my prayer is less sincere, more cynical, and very calculated. It is more like an insurance policy than an authentic desire for holiness, come what may. I see signs that declare that “HELL IS REAL” quite often, but if it is, then, it seems to be something we might, and perhaps should, try to intercede away. If hell is not real — if it, like sin, has no ontological reality — then perhaps we can truly pray, and seek Love with reckless abandon.
Real, true, beautiful, monstrous, mad, erotic Love.
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