Summa in a Year Day 306: A Hellish Abode
Mar 9, 2026
A focused look at the nature of punishments and torments in hell, from corporeal fire to darkness and conscience’s gnawing. Discussion of why the damned will willfully choose disordered ends and feel sorrow without true repentance. Exploration of envy, hatred of God as source of pain, and how memory and sight of the blessed intensify torment.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Location Of Hell Is Unknown
- Scripture and Church Fathers leave hell's physical location uncertain; Augustine and Gregory refrain from definitive claims.
- Aquinas reports differing opinions and concludes we do not know where hell is located in the world.
Damned Will Only Choose Evil
- Every voluntary act of the damned is evil because their will is fixed away from charity, the true end.
- Aquinas links absence of charity and entrenched vice to a will that can only choose disordered ends.
Remorse Without Repentance
- The damned experience remorse for pain but cannot repent because their will is fixed on temporal goods over charity.
- Without access to the beatific vision, they lack the corrective vision that would re-order their loves.
