A Hell Of Hopelessness

Will Martin continues his series analyzing Dante’s “Inferno.”

“All hope abandon, ye who enter in.”

– Canto III

It has been said that a man can live three weeks without food, three days without water, three minutes without air, and three seconds without hope. But what is Hope? There are two vastly different definitions. “A desire for a certain thing to happen.” As in: “I hope we get rain soon.” We can all take or leave this type of hope. Good? Maybe. Essential? No. The other type is “a confident expectation, a feeling of trust, that the future will contain good for us.” As in, “Why are you cast down, O my soul… Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Psalm 42:5). This future-oriented expectation of goodness is more necessary to our souls than air is to our bodies. Without it, Dante would say, we are in a living Hell.

In the third Canto, as Dante follows Virgil into the place I used to call The Devil’s Department, he reads these words above the gate: “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” It is perhaps worth considering at this point whether or not a person who disbelieves in the reality of Hell should still read from Dante. My answer is a resounding “yes”. I do believe Hell is a real place, as Dante did. But you don’t have to believe in Dante’s God, or that God’s judgement, to benefit from the wisdom of the Inferno. So please keep reading!

Consider for a moment what your life would be like without hope. I remember running the 400 meter dash in high school. As my pain wracked body rounded the last corner and sprinted for the finish line what made me persevere in that moment was the hope that the pain was seconds away from stopping. I would chant to myself “you can do anything for ten seconds.” There was a finishline. A metal if I won. A cold drink and a proud coach. In short it was the hope of finishing, and stopping, that aided endurance. Now imagine if we rounded that last corner and heard our coach screaming. “Keep going! There is no finish-line! Keep running forever!” The hope of an end keeps us running. But if we believed the pain would never end, we would all quit. We would surrender to ultimate despair. This is all there is. This is as good as it gets. And all God’s people said, “No thanks.”

What about you. Are you living with hope? Are you always looking forward? Do you expect at any moment to reach a glorious ending? Do you expect that, at the end of all things, you will be able to look back on all of your life and say “it was all worth it.” All the pain. All the disappointment. It was all worth it. Or do you live thinking your best days are behind you. That only a dark box buried six feet under awaits you in the end…or something far worse. Will your story end in triumphant eternal life, in oblivion, or eternal hopelessness? The way we answer these questions will tell us everything we need to know about our lives right now.

To those with hope I believe Dante, and Jesus, would say “to those who have, more shall be given.” I praise God if you have hope. And I exhort you to know that God intends you to have it in greater measure. For He is always able to promise more than we can trust. To those who live without hope I believe Dante would say that life without hope is a walking Hell. If Hell is real then it will just be a continuation of your current hopelessness. My heart breaks at the thought.

Martin lives in La Grange. Contact him at iamwillmartin@ gmail.com