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Hatred of God
Do the damned hate God?
St. Thomas says that God, considered in Himself, is the Supreme Good, and
therefore cannot be an object of hatred for any reasonable creature. But He can
become such to the
damned in two ways: first, as the Author of their punishments, by which He is
bound to afflict
them; second, because they are obstinate in evil, while He is the infinite Good,
they would hate
God with their whole heart, even though He punished them but little.
Do the Damned Desire to Be Destroyed?
We ask, finally, whether the damned would prefer to be annihilated and deprived
of existence,
than to submit to the punishments which they endure. St. Thomas, considering the
question in itself
answers in the negative for, as he says, a state of nonbeing is never desirable,
for it implies
a deprivation of all good. But if this annihilation be considered as an
end of all
punishment, St. Thomas says that, from this point of view, the state of
nonexistence presents
itself as a good. It is in this sense that Jesus Christ spoke this sentence of
Judas: "It were
better for him, if that man had not been born." (Mt. 26:24). St. John seems to
say the same thing
when speaking of the damned in the Apocalypse: "In those days men shall seek
death and shall not
find it: and they shall desire to die, and death shall fly from them." (Rev.
9:6). This will of
the damned, however, is