Short answer: We don't know. On this, the Church is agnostic. It has not been revealed to us. Our beliefs spring from the revelation we have received. But we don't know what we don't know. It would be presumption for one to say "No one is in hell for eating meat on Friday" or "Definitely people are in hell for eating meat on Friday."
Long answer is more complicated. Using old-fashioned catechism format, we will address three issue in three short essays: hell, mortal sin, and what is the big deal about meat on Friday?"
Is there a hell? Yes. This is revealed to us: there is a hell. Currently the debate on this has been revived as some argue that an all-loving, all-powerful God will bring everyone to heaven and could never leave any of us beloveds in hell for eternity. The problem with this view is: Freedom. If we all go to heaven, necessarily because of God's goodness, we really have no freedom. God did make us to be happy with Him forever in heaven but he offers this as a gift, which we are free to accept or reject. Another problem: presumption. If we convince ourselves that God mercifully will bring all of us to heaven, we have an incentive to indulge ourselves. So, hell is a correlate of our freedom and a requirement for our motivation to do good.
Is hell populated? We don't know. We are agnostic on this. It hasn't been revealed. That there is a hell, as a possibility for each of us, does not mean necessarily that it is populated. One impeccably orthodox Catholic theologian (Balthasar) argues that we dare hope for the salvation of every single soul. This makes sense. It is not given to us to know that any specific person is in hell: not Judas nor Hitler nor Stalin. We know specific people who are in heaven, since we receive two scientifically certified miracles as signs from heaven so we know to pray to them. Not so with hell. These days lots of people assume we are pretty much all going to heaven. This is the sin of presumption, and can lead to hell. Daughter of a deceased mobster spoke of her father and the cousin who testified against him: "Dad is at a better place now. But I will make sure that rat gets what he would have from my father." The theological logic here is weak. A hundred years ago the assumption was that few went to heaven and many to hell; today that assumption is inverted. A fine theologian (Dulles) says it is good that we not know the population of hell, great or small: if we knew it was great we would despair, if we knew it was little we would presume...the two great sins against faith.
What is hell? We really don't know much. A lot of agnosticism here. We don't know what we don't know. No one has returned from hell to tell us. It is the loss of God and of all love; it is emptiness, loneliness, hopelessness. As heaven begins here on earth, in our communion of love with God and others, so hell begins here in this life, in the refusal of trust and love, in isolation and despair. The image of fire is metaphoric, not literal: the immaterial soul, separated from the body at death, cannot suffer physical fire. I myself am tempted to a soft "annihilism" which would hold that the evil person pretty much ceases to exist. This, however, contradicts the Church's teaching that we are created with an immortal soul, which continues to exist after our earthly life. I find it impossible to imagine an eternal hell. That doesn't mean there isn't one.
If I could, I would modify Church teaching on an immortal soul. The Church got this concept from Greek philosophy, especially that of Plato. The strongest biblical idea is different: resurrection from the dead, rather than innate immortality. In other words, most of scripture would suggest that we are mortal, that we really die, but that Jesus was resurrected from death, and raised into eternal life. I would like to think we are created, not with an immortal soul, but with a mortal soul that has the possibility for receiving, from God, eternal life. In that case, the just receive eternal life and the unjust evaporate. But that is not what the Church teaches; only what I would like to believe. I defer, of course, to Church as Mother and Teacher.
How do we choose heaven or hell? Especially those never really exposed to the faith? We really don't know. This is a mystery of God. But somehow each person exercises freedom in the choice for the good or the bad: to assist the suffering, to forgive those who offend, to amend wrongs we do, and so forth.
My favorite theory that is neither affirmed nor denied by the Church: at the very moment of death, Christ appears to each of us; shows his wounds and suffering; the reality that he went to the deepest depths of suffering, the bottom of hell itself, to save us. He offers us eternal salvation: if we accept his Mercy, be sorry for our sins, and forgive those who have hurt us. The decision is ours, heaven or hell.
Summary: God's offers each of us an eternity of love with Him and a community of love. However it is for us to freely accept; the other option is to refuse heaven in favor of hell, a final isolation and loneliness.
More to come on next blog: Mortal Sin, which puts us in hell.
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