Tuesday, May 31, 2022

 Reverend John Ames, talking to his young wife Lila in the book by that name by Marilynne Robinson. (Lila had asked him about people going to hell when they died.)--  "Thinking about hell doesn't help me live the way I should. I believe this is true for most people. And thinking that other people might go to hell just feels evil to me, like a very grave sin. So I don't want to encourage anyone else to think that way. Even if you assume that you can know in individual cases, it's still a problem to think about people in general as if they might go to hell. You can't see the world the way you ought to if you let yourself do that. Any judgment of the kind is a great presumption. And presumption is a very grave sin. I believe this is sound theology, in its way.”