Catechism of the Catholic Church, C.S. Lewis, Irenaeus on the 'damned'

In this post, I'll comment some quotes of the current Catechism of the Catholic Church about the fate of the 'lost'. 

Paragraph 1033  of the Catechism reads:

"To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."" (source: https://www.catholiccrossreference.online/catechism/#!/search/1033-1037 )

Arguably, if it is even possible to reach a state of 'definitive self-exclusion' from God, one might even argue that the damned cease to be proper human beings. In paragraph 27, we read:

"The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for" (source: https://www.catholiccrossreference.online/catechism/#!/search/27 )

But a definite self-exclusion from communion of God would arguably imply that the damned human beings lost an essential property of being 'human', i.e. the desire and the potential to come into communion with God. So, I wonder if, in fact, saying that the damned remain in a perpetual state in which they can't orient their will to the good anymore is in fact saying that they also ceased to be proper human beings (and rational beings). It is not a true annihilation but if we assume that the potential of being in communion with God is an essential property of being human, they are not human anymore.

Interestingly enough, C.S. Lewis in fact stated precisely that regarding the damned:

"Destruction, we should naturally assume, means the unmaking, or cessation, of the destroyed. And people often talk as if the ‘annihilation’ of a soul were intrinsically possible. In all our experience, however, the destruction of one thing means the emergence of something else. Burn a log, and you have gases, heat and ash. To have been a log means now being those three things. If souls can be destroyed, must there not be a state of having been a human soul? And is not that, perhaps, the state which is equally well described as torment, destruction, and privation? You will remember that in the parable, the saved go to a place prepared for them, while the damned go to a place never made for men at all. To enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell, is to be banished from humanity. What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is ‘remains’" (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, p. 81)

Anyway, perhaps Irenaeus meant something like this rather than total annihilation (Against Heresies 5.27* might be interpreted as that since he compares the lost as those who blind themselves and can't see the light - so it is not that God actively damns them - and also says that the lost 'experience' all kinds of punishments as they lose all the goods permanently - which at the same time also suggests true annihilation if we take existence as good...), we might even say that Irenaeus was the first to argue for a 'free will' defense of hell of sorts (or a 'free will annihilationism' like the Catholic theologian Paul Griffiths if, instead, he meant as I believe total annihilation; see this link: https://ancientafterlifebelifs.blogspot.com/2026/05/possible-conditionalism-in-justin.html).

* Here is the quote for reference:

"And to as many as continue in their love towards God, does He grant communion with Him. But communion with God is life and light, and the enjoyment of all the benefits which He has in store. But on as many as, according to their own choice, depart from God, He inflicts that separation from Himself which they have chosen of their own accord. But separation from God is death, and separation from light is darkness; and separation from God consists in the loss of all the benefits which He has in store. Those, therefore, who cast away by apostasy these forementioned things, being in fact destitute of all good, do experience every kind of punishment. God, however, does not punish them immediately of Himself, but that punishment falls upon them because they are destitute of all that is good. Now, good things are eternal and without end with God, and therefore the loss of these is also eternal and never-ending. It is in this matter just as occurs in the case of a flood of light: those who have blinded themselves, or have been blinded by others, are for ever deprived of the enjoyment of light. It is not, [however], that the light has inflicted upon them the penalty of blindness, but it is that the blindness itself has brought calamity upon them: and therefore the Lord declared, 'He that believes in Me is not condemned',  that is, is not separated from God, for he is united to God through faith. On the other hand, He says, 'He that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God'; that is, he separated himself from God of his own accord. 'For this is the condemnation, that light has come into this world, and men have loved darkness rather than light. For every one who does evil hates the light, and comes not to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that does truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that he has wrought them in God.'" (Against Heresies, 5.27.2, source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103527.htm   )

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