The Particular Judgment

God's Gamble: the Gravitational Power of Crucified Love, a most insightful, inspiring and delightful piece of theology from Gil Baile, offers us a fresh integration of (what I take to be) the three great breakthroughs in Catholic theology in the second half of the 20th century: John Paul on erotic love, Gil Baile on mimetic anthropology, and Balthasar on Holy Saturday. This last is especially thrilling as Baile offers a new understanding of what we always called "the particular judgment" in light of Balthasar's understanding of the descent into hell. Traditionally we know that immediately after our particular death we encounter our Lord Jesus and are judged, according to our life, and assigned to hell, heaven, or purgatory as a preliminary to heaven. Normally, the emphasis is upon our good and bad works in accord with Jesus' famous parable of the sheep and goats:  what you have done to the least you have done unto me. Baile points out that there is something missing in this analogy: most of us fit neatly into neither category, we are neither sheep nor goat but somewhere in the middle. The doctrine of purgatory is a partial, but not fully satisfying solution. Baile envisions a quite different, comforting but also sobering, vision of this postmortem encounter. It is connected with the Baltasarian understanding of the descent into hell on Holy Saturday by which Jesus entered into the deepest place of hell, not a final and eternal damnation, but a godforsakeness, desolation and loneliness deeper than that of the most miserable sinner that ever lived. Because of his love of the Father, Jesus suffered far greater agony and desolation than any sinner could. He did this to offer his love and mercy to that very sinner. And so, by virtue of this descent into hell, Baile imagines this ad-mortem or postmortem encounter as a true event: something new and surprising! Each of us meets Jesus our Lord as he shows us his wounds and suffering and offers Mercy! In that mini-micro-moment each of us, saint and sinner, experiences the freedom to accept or reject the offer of Love. This does NOT mean everyone goes to heaven and that there is no hell! There is the availability of hell because there is freedom. Baile draws upon Baltasar's sobering, even frightening, awareness that Jesus, source of all that is Good and True and Beautiful, is absolutely attractive; but He also provokes a violent reaction of rejection from the arrogant, the unrepentent, the resentful. And so it is not predetermined that each will accept: God has gambled on us, by giving us freedom, and granting us the power to reject Him and choose hell. This is an awesome and terrifying reality! Implied here is that our entire life is a preparation for this surpassing Event. There is high drama here! Consider, a good narrative leads to a climax which resolves the conflict driving the plot. By this telling, the real climax is immediately post-life, and yet this life is not without consequence since it prepares us for the Climax. And so, even the greatest sinner is offered Mercy: the victim of suicide or overdose, the terrorist, the psychopath, Judas and Hitler. The greatest sinner, right to the last moment, has some Hope, and is spared final despair. The greatest saint is not assured of final victory: so he is spared presumption and becomes even more vigilant and urgent in his journey into holiness. This is a thrilling, encouraging and motivating destiny!