Dante's work isn't "real" or true - it's a work of Dante's incredible imagination. But, the good thing, the real truth, about Dante's vision is that it tangibly demonstrates that whatever we do has consequences, and that our punishments fit our crimes. But - we already discover that here on earth. What we do affects us. We don't need God to punish us - we punish ourselves. For example, if you drink too much, the natural and painful consequence is a nasty hangover. The punishment flows naturally from the "inside," or "intrinsically," not from the outside, or "extrinsically" from a punisher. Fr. Ronald Rolheiser comments on hell using these distinctions:
"St. Paul does not understand God's wrath, the punishment of hell, as consisting in some extrinsic punishment. For him it is never a question of God positively punishing persons because they have sinned (positively 'laying on' punishment, so to speak). Rather the punishment flows naturally and intrinsically from the sin itself.
"The New Testament views hell as a natural consequence of sin. And in this case hell is loneliness, cutting ourselves off from others and retreating inside ourselves with only our own pride and selfishness for companions. Hell is like a hangover, though infinitely worse. It is not some extrinsic punishment imposed on us by a God who is eager to safeguard His justice and to let us know we have sinned. Rather hell is simply the burning painful thirst of culpable alienation, willed neither by God nor any other outside judge, that results intrinsically from sin, from making ourselves our own God and refusing to move out towards others with openness and altruism. Sin is a tremendously alienating force at every level of existence." (from "The Restless Heart"). "Sin causes us to lose harmony with God and each other. Because of sin, we live in loneliness and isolation, deprived of much of the intimacy, empathy, and friendship that could lessen some of our loneliness." (in "The Restless Heart").
Both hell and heaven begin right here, right now. Whenever we sin, we get a taste of hell, that terrible final loneliness that results from our sinful alienation from ourselves - who we really are, from the people around us, and from God.
When we sin,we shatter the harmony that should exist between ourselves and our God-given nature as children of God, created for the joy of loving. We shatter the harmony between ourselves and others and even creation itself, the wonderful life-giving supportive community that we were created to be a part of. And we shatter the harmony that we were created to share with God, the life-giving intimacy of being endlessly, faithfully loved by the One Who is Unconditional Love.
Nothing is sadder than the bitter loneliness of those who have willfully cut themselves off from a family member or friend, perhaps through a quarrel. They cannot forgive, cannot forget, will take no steps towards reconciliation. Who is being hurt here? These people suffer the punishment of terrible loneliness and alienation that they have brought down upon themselves. They won't even admit to themselves how much they miss the one whom they sent out of their lives!
And how sad it is to see those who are consumed by wanting things, being envious, being possessed by their possessions, or by the possession of money. Things become their life's priority more than people. How lonely and dead inside they are! Things can never hold us at night when we're lonely, or say "I love you." Yet our society encourages us to concentrate on our possessions as defining us - look at their names: I-Phone. I-Mac. I-Pod. My Face. As if who we are is determined by what we own. As if playing with an object is superior to communicating with our friends eye to eye, soul to soul. Things also can alienate us from Nature. How sad it is to see people in trains or cars looking down at their phones or other devices instead of out the window at the beautiful landscapes waiting to be noticed and to rest their souls.
What about the terrible sinful violence of hate crimes or hateful language directed towards someone who is different from us - haven't we willfully shattered the God-given community we've been given, and punished ourselves by depriving ourselves of unity with those who are organically a part of us? We don't even recognize the loneliness we have imposed upon ourselves.
What about when we sin by willfully pillaging or polluting this earth's air or water or soil? Aren't we alienating ourselves from the world around us, sinfully shattering our God-given unity with creation? Don't we then become blind and deaf to the love that creation can offer us? Aren't we punishing ourselves by accelerating the horrendous damage to this earth that could eventually result in earth being no longer able to sustain life?
Can't we see the depth of sinfulness in this world when a politician in Montana is rewarded with winning an election in spite of - or is it because of? -he showed sinful violence towards a reporter by insulting him and ripping off his glasses? When politicians are so sinfully alienated from the sick and the poor that they want to enact legislation that will deprive them of health insurance? When politicians take bribes from corporations instead of working for the common good? When people of differing social classes use each other and tear each other apart? Pope Francis has said that the worst sin today is indifference. What is indifference but ultimate sinful alienation from those who should be part of our community!
Isn't the worst sinful alienation and indifference the act of sending young men and women to war where they must kill other human beings, like them in every way, having the same hopes, dreams, doubts, fears, and blood? And forcing them to endure the terrible sight of their comrades being killed? Every veteran sunk into PTSD suffers the terrible inner loneliness that comes from experiencing the perfect Hell of war and being unable and unwilling to share those dreadful visions with anyone else. Yes, we'll accept that they suffer the pain of seeing their comrades killed. But do we acknowledge the inner alienation and loneliness and pain that is the natural consequence of killing other human beings? Even in self defense?
Yet God's Love, made visible and audible and touchable in His Son Jesus the Christ, is meant to destroy the loneliness we endure because of our alienating sinfulness.
"YHWH, YHWH, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and abounding in faithfulness. For the thousandth generation, YHWH maintains His kindness, forgiving all our faults, transgressions, and sins." (Exodus 34: 6-7)
How does God deal with our sinfulness? How can we achieve a taste of heaven, right here, right now? Fr. Richard Rohr tells us
"In Ezekiel, chapters 36-37, God really chews Israel out through the prophet, telling the people, in effect, 'You haven't done anything right, you've missed the whole point.".... Then, seemingly out of nowhere (but really coming from divine mercy, which is always present), God promises to rebuild the project from the bottom up, and says, 'I am not doing this for your sake, house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name' (Ezekiel 36:22). God is God's own reference point. God is just being true to Godself in loving. God's faithfulness has never been dependent on our worthiness or readiness. This is restorative justice, the divine form of justice.
"The word translated as 'steadfast love' is often rendered 'covenant love' or 'faithful love.' Today we often call it unconditional love. It's 'one-sided love,' if you will, because Israel (in the Bible) never keeps its side of the covenant, just as we never keep our side of the relationship to this day. YHWH has learned to do it all from God's side since we are basically unreliable as lovers. That is the constant message of much of the Hebrew Scriptures from Moses to Job. Yet, as Paul says, 'Is it possible that YHWH has rejected God's people? Of course not!' (Romans 11:1). Divine Love is not determined by the worthiness of the object (us) but by the Total Generosity of the Subject (God)."
All of us are sinners, unreliable lovers. We sin every day! Every day our sins - quarrels, selfishness, lust, lying to ourselves and others, cheating others, massive indifference to the sufferings of others, - give us a taste of hell, a taste of the terrible deep loneliness and alienation which can literally lead us - all by ourselves - into the permanent state of hell.
Yet every day, if we open to God's grace, God's life within us, God can give us a taste of heaven - the deep joy of unselfishly and honestly caring for ourselves, the people around us, the people who are different from us and on the other side of the globe, and creation itself. God's love in us erases sinful alienation and loneliness. If we embrace God, God's people, God's creation, God lives in us and we live in God, and taste just a little of that ecstasy of community which will become a permanent state of heaven.
God will never "send" us to hell. We send ourselves through the natural results/consequences of our own sinful thoughts, words, and actions. Yet, we can always reverse that death-dealing journey. We can remember God's covenant love - "I have loved you with an everlasting love." We can take responsibility and say "Yes, this which I have done is a sin. Forgive me, God!" We can recognize that we need God living in us to overcome all our sinful tendencies, that we can't do it alone. We can see that every moment that we experience real love, we are experiencing a little taste of heaven - and resolve that yes, that's how we want to spend eternity - loving and being loved, holding and being held, by those like us and those unlike us, by the Heart of Compassion Himself, our faithful God.