Joshua Gibbs, on Dante’s Inferno:

Is Hell locked from the inside? Dante seems to think so. Few residents of the Inferno object. From time to time they pitch a sob story, but none of them has a sense of the infinite, and so they don’t know how to long for something better. For the last several weeks, my Medieval history class has bantered back and forth various arguments in favor of Hell being locked from the inside or from the out. It is easy to take simple comfort in the notion that Hell is locked from the inside; in such a scenario, the only persons who go to Hell are those who truly prefer Hell to Heaven. Obviously, Hell is awful. Should we not expect that very few persons will ultimately brave the broad way which leads to destruction?

At the same time, the notion that Hell is locked from the inside is counterbalanced with the notion that the only persons who go to Heaven are those who truly want to go to Heaven. It might be a bit too easy to say that everyone wants to go to Heaven. In the closing chapter of The Problem of Pain, CS Lewis suggests that “the joys of Heaven are for most of us, in our present condition, [would indeed be] “an acquired taste” – and certain ways of life may render the taste impossible of acquisition.”

One of the most psychologically acute aspects of the Divine Comedy is Dante’s depiction of the damned as being souls incapable of change. It’s not that they’re satisfied in Hell; actually, they are in torment. And as a metaphysical matter, they cannot change. Hell is their final destination. The time for deciding was in this mortal life. We see in Purgatorio that everyone there is headed for Heaven. Many of them led quite sinful lives. What got them into Purgatorio was repentance. They may have asked for God’s mercy in their dying breath, but that was all it took. The damned are those who never asked for mercy, because they didn’t think they needed it.

In thinking about Dante’s damned, one sees a quality familiar to all of us: the kind of person who would rather be miserable than change. We’ve all known people like that, people who derive a sense of identity from dwelling on their own victimhood, or their own suffering. I had a dialogue a long time ago with a friend who was going through some hard times. It went something like this:

Me: “Do you want to get better?”

Friend: “Of course I do.”

Me: “Then why don’t you do what your doctor tells you?”

Friend: “Well, I would except [excuses, excuses, excuses].”

Me: “But what the doctor says makes sense. It’s obvious. Why would you not listen to him?”

Friend: “You just don’t understand. [Long series of excuses].”

Me: “I think I do understand. You would rather be sick than try something different that might make you well.”

Friend [indignantly]: “I don’t need you to tell me what to do.”

I don’t know what happened to that person, but I guarantee they probably are still sick, and still wearing out the ears of anyone around them about how helpless they are, and how nobody understands.

People like this already live in a kind of Hell. I think we have all been there ourselves, or at least been tempted to be. Change is hard. In the Inferno, God gives people what they chose in life. If you prefer your sin to virtue, if you come to define yourself by your sin, if you think you are justified, and everybody else is wrong, well, God will let you have what you want, for eternity.

Why are we so afraid to acquire a taste for Heaven? Why do so many of us prefer to eat dog droppings instead of the bread of life?