Chapter 2 Friendly Fire

Chapter 2

Friendly Fire

BT5 – Joy suggested “Gentlemen, I think we should seriously grapple with this claim they make that an angel can be ‘burned’ by fire, making fire a source of pain. Can such a thing be literally possible?”

What an offering of laughter we made to God! I doubted whether Joy would ever be taken seriously again!

“When Heaven burns up”, joked Sarcamson. Ha!

“Because life is killing us”, added Smarty. Ha, ha!

“Love is the source of hate, and pleasure is the source of pain!” roared Ditsy. Ha, ha, ha!

That summed up the logic we are dealing with. When we swim in fire as our natural medium, when

God is fire, when there is no place besides God, and when we exist in Him, how can fire cause pain?!

Or, if fire causes pain, how come we never noticed before?!

VerseScout: John 3:20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

VerseScout Relevance Report: Light, truth, challenges, God’s presence, and indeed life itself, are not always comfortable for those who love God, but we learn to love it and do not associate it with pain, as they do who hate it. The difference is not our experience, but our response, and its interaction with our response.

Lots of laughter. Lots of discussion. No answers.

And for some reason, God was still not ready to explain.

As I walked past God’s Workshop, underneath the hovering ball of tears, growing on God’s Workbench were two lovely decorations. I don’t know a good way to describe them. They were complex, beautiful, and covered with small flat green things. Growing on one of them was books. Dripping from the other was something red. As I stood in awe, trying to imagine what they were or what use they might serve, I noticed some blueprints of the devices beside them on the workbench. I strained to read the title on the blueprints. I think it said “The Two Trees”, whatever “trees” are.

BT6 – We have noticed Darkness in the fallen angels. No angel has ever actually seen Darkness before, not even from very close. We have theorized that tiny spots of it exist in all of us on occasion, but that the Consuming Fire of God “burns” them long before they are visible.

So how did these spots get so big?

BT7 – What a theory!

It was the topic of a luncheon to which Joy invited me.

VerseScout: Genesis 18:1 And the LORD appeared unto him [Abraham] in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; 2 And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: … 8 And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat. (The next chapter indicates two of the men were angels.)

Psalms 78:25 Man did eat angels’ food: he sent them meat to the full. [Referring to the 40 years of manna in the desert, Exodus 16:15.]

VerseScout Relevance Report: This doesn’t tell us that angels routinely eat, but it indicates they at least can. Although in Judges 13:16, an angel refuses to eat. If manna was literally “angels’ food”, then humans can eat angels’ food as surely as angels can eat human food. Perhaps they also enjoy many other bodily pleasures, as we do.

“Do I have this right?” I asked. “Are you saying our lost brothers’ desire to have ‘space’ between themselves and God, because they actually do not love God’s fiery Love, is a wish, or prayer, that God has granted?!”

VerseScout: John 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

VerseScout Relevance Report: Consider the similarity between light and fire, viewed scientifically. Fire produces light. Light produces heat. We feel light’s heat, the brighter it is, such as in sunlight. Every source of light as well as of fire suffers loss as material is consumed. Electricity shares these properties. And yet our experience of the three is quite distinct.

Statements about light in the Bible, such as the one here, are assumed to be metaphors; that is, it is not literal light which is hate. But evidence and truth expose lies and comfortable delusions, pressuring people to get better in touch with reality, a direction in which human nature is not naturally inclined. Similarly, light exposes objects in our path, pressuring us to step around them before we collide. This makes light as useful a metaphor of truth as it is familiar.

But there are many who actually hate literal light. They prefer the night. They move in darkness.

“Yes”, answered Smarty in his rolling, golden voice. “I think God has allowed their wills to create a barrier between them and us, to protect them from any Love overwhelming enough to crush their wills.”

VerseScout: Luke 16:26 ….between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Psalm 81:11 But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me. 12 So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.

VerseScout Relevance Report: The Bible says the “great gulf” blocked any effort to “quench” the flame, as Mark 9:43-48 puts it. But conversely, could the gulf be also the choice of the lost, to keep out too much Light? When people want God gone, God honors their choice.

“Not just our love, but even God’s Own Love”, Joy said.

“In this peculiar scenario,” Joy continued, “God restrains His nature, which is to shine the Light of His Fire on the darkness of resistance, ‘consuming’ all resistance as fire consumes its fuel.

“God does not entirely abandon them, but He does allow their darkness to grow, since that is what they fervently desire, and because they love it so much.

“The larger it grows, the greater the amount of heat that is produced when the darkness reaches the limits God has set.”

“Heat?” I asked, when Joy had no more to say, as if his explanation were finished. “How does heat enter into the theory? Does heat have something to do with the pain they allege?”

Joy answered, “The theory is that the same heat which keeps us warm and comfortable, if too intense, can cause pain!”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Our theory fits some of the statements we recorded of our lost brothers.

Dialog with the Damned

“Remember Stinky? He told Brainy, ‘How could a God of Love allow so much evil in Creation?’”

I held up my hand in a “stop” gesture. “I need to process this. And by ‘evil’, he meant – ?”

“‘All this painful fire’, he answered us when we asked him the same question.”

“So, fire being Love, Stinky was demanding how a God of Love could allow so much love in Creation?”

VerseScout: Hebrews 12:5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; ….28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: 29 For our God is a consuming fire.

“Yes, but Stinky will no longer acknowledge that God’s Fire is Love. He insists it is a source only of pain, which he calls ‘evil’.”

“And he experiences love as ‘pain’ to the extent he resists it?”

“Yes. He blames God not only for his own personal suffering, but for the suffering he now sees all around him.

“He blames God for the suffering each soul brings upon himself directly.

“He blames God for the suffering which his friends deliberately cause each other since The War.

“He blames God for allowing him and his friends the power to hurt each other.”

Of course God doesn’t limit how much we can Choose to hurt each. God only limits how much we can act on our choice. He doesn’t let anyone really destroy anyone.

VerseScout: Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. 8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? 9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? 10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. 11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. 12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

VerseScout Relevance Report: God even answers Satan’s prayers, though limited to what He can turn into a blessing for Job. A related discussion throughout Job was how many wicked people God allows to become rich and powerful. God allows all of us free will to choose any goal we want, and considerable though limited power to reach it. The fact that God’s respect for our choices is so great that He even indulges Satan, is an assurance of how willing God is to answer our prayers as we walk with Him!

Squeaky piped in. “And it isn’t just suffering, that they call ‘evil’. When I asked Dirtsy what he meant by ‘all the evil in creation’, he told me ‘Life is hard!’”

I said, “so you mean mere difficulty – the very challenges God gives us to fill our lives with activity and meaning – the goals whose very difficulty makes them interesting, adventurous, and exciting as we near them – Dirtsy now calls evil?”

VerseScout: Matthew 25:20 And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, … behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. 21 His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

VerseScout Relevance Report: It is exciting to succeed – to double one’s capacity – to accomplish more than we thought possible, or at least that we were sure we could.

The fact that Jesus used this familiar story of human relationships to illustrate the nature of the Kingdom of God indicates several characteristics of consciousness which we share with the inhabitants of Heaven. Notice how the capacity of consciousness grows. The more faithfully we take care of small responsibilities, the greater responsibilities we will be given, by God as well as by men.

“The same. Right. Challenges are now ‘evil’.

“Of course, life’s challenges have become much greater for them since The War, now that they no longer accept God’s help solving them!”

“Amen, brother! They do the opposite of what God advises, and then blame God when their ‘solutions’ create more problems!”

“That’s like one of the messages delivered by the Thunder Bombs”, Squeaky reminded us. He really didn’t have to sing it. But he did.

“‘I feel so right doing wrong;

“‘I feel so wrong doing right;

“‘What kills me makes me feel alive.’”

After we finished laughing at how well Squeaky’s scratchy voice represented the distortion of the Thunder Bombs, we learned he wasn’t done.

“Then there was ‘It can’t be wrong, ‘cause it feels so right.’”

[Translator’s note: these very same words were handed down over the millennia until they were copied into the 1977 song, “You Light Up My Life” by Debbie Boone, the Gospel singer and daughter of gospel singer Pat Boone, the 1978 song “Falling in Love” by Freda Payne, and the 2014 songs “Counting Stars” by Ryan Tedder, “Dumb” by Redrama, and “Down in a Hole” by Uncle Tony.]

Joy continued as quickly as he could: “A few of us have postulated this theory in the form of a general principle:

“‘The greater the resistance to love, the greater the painful heat caused by the friction of resistance.’”

Brainy took up the thread. “The theory explains why this phenomena has never before been observed: no angel has ever before deliberately resisted God’s love. Thus the heat we have experienced, produced by the flickering flame which God perpetually conducts within us, has never before been uncomfortable, but has only produced warmth such as what we experience at the sight of a heart opening a little wider than before, which ‘warms our heart’, as we say.”

Joy added, “A corollary is that with them, their resistance is so stubborn, and so ongoing, that if God’s Fire gave their Darkness any rest, it would grow and swallow them up in the infinite despair of utter meaninglessness!”

I thought of my own questions about the reason for my existence: how does my existence benefit God? And how does my love benefit me?

VerseScout: Job 35:3 For thou saidst, What advantage will it be unto thee? and, What profit shall I have, if I be cleansed from my sin?

Job 35:4 I will answer thee, …6 If thou sinnest, what doest thou against him? …7 If thou be righteous, what givest thou him? or what receiveth he of thine hand? 8 Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; and thy righteousness may profit the son of man.

When such questions occur to me I simply turn to the answers God has given me, and my soul overflows with gratitude.

But I can see how, for hearts too hard to contemplate God’s answers, such questions could become so very dark as to be worse than any bodily suffering.

I can see how, in fact, suffering could become a blessing to them, because it forces the mind away from that rebellion-darkened black hole. It at least lifts the mind to contemplate Right and Wrong, even though, turned from God, they think the very suffering which is their salvation is “wrong”.

“But for us,” Joy continued, “when a dark spot suddenly grows due to our spiritual carelessness, God can safely heal our darkness gradually, with a gentle warm comfortable fire, when unrestrained fire would be too intense, causing us pain.”

VerseScout: Mark 9:47-50 …Hell fire: Where…the fire is not quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire,…have salt in yourselves…

VerseScout Relevance Report: “Quenched” means to put out a fire, for example by throwing water on the fuel, before the fire has finished consuming its fuel.

The only difference Jesus identifies, between the “fire” we all experience and the fire in Hell, is not in its nature but in its duration, or intensity.

Fire, light, and rebuke are frequently used Biblical metaphors for the same process of cleansing sin. The evil fight it; the saints “come to” it willingly, (John 3:21).Outside Hell, the fire is restrained while sin remains. This restraint has for its purpose making it “bearable”, according to 1 Corinthians 10:13.

“Oh, I think I know what you’re talking about”, I said. “You mean the wonderful tingling in our spines we feel when we see a heart facing a choice between serving self, or loving another, and chooses love.”

“Right”, Joy confirmed. “The very thrill that Beelzebub makes fun of!”

We laughed at the thought. The very “crying” which draws us to our most popular sound/light shows, which we watch over and over so we can cry again and again, Beelzebub mocks as “sentimental”!

But now, the theory goes, this very pleasure, in too strong a dose, can cause pain? Or is it that this pleasure, if resisted, can cause pain?

I asked the two, “I almost have this thing into a movie formula which will always make viewers cry. Tell me if I’m right. It seems like the story has to show someone whose heart has closed itself a little. Then the story must show the influence of Love on this heart, until the heart opens so wide to Love that it not only receives love, but gives. That’s when our hearts overflow with gratitude, more for the closed heart now open, than for hearts which were never closed.”

VerseScout: Luke 15:4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? 5 And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. 7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

“That’s when we all ‘cry’. Is that it?”

“That comes pretty close”, Brainy said. “A variation is when a heart is humble enough to realize that he does not deserve kindness, and so does not expect it, feeling lonely and sorrowful. Then when he realizes he is loved more than he could imagine, he cries in joyful gratitude, and we cry with him.”

VerseScout: Luke 7:44 And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head… 47 Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.

VerseScout Relevance Report: Of course, the best kind of thanksgiving is crying.

The woman was painfully aware of her need for forgiveness, so when she sensed it, she was moved to tears of gratitude for her relief.(Continued in Appendix C, The Forgiven Woman)

Joy clarified, “It isn’t the mere evidence that we are loved more than we deserve that makes us cry, but the choice we finally make to believe that evidence. Not believing evidence that one is loved, but crying because we imagine we are hated, we call ‘tragedy’.

Brainy interjected, “The point when one finally believes the evidence is always unpredictable. Entire stories wait for that moment, hopeful, but never certain when it will come, because the choice is not directly related to any evidence. But when love finds some creative new way to express itself, which usually requires significant cost, and the one loved finally breaks down and receives it, we cry. Because it reminds us of how long we ourselves resisted, and how much creativity love took, before love finally got through to us.”

Joy pointed out, “Of course that is not just a formula for sound/light shows. It is the story of our souls. It is the magic we wait for in one another, that makes Love so rewarding.”

“Right. Of course, nothing like the crying we have seen in God lately”, noted Squeaky.

Joy added, “The crying we experience during these stories is an expression of pure happiness. It is an expression of surprise at the power of Love to open a heart, and also at the willingness of Love to pay the cost necessary. Though we see it every day, its power always surprises us.”

I searched my memories of conversations with Beelzebub before The War. “Does Beelzebub remember that there is something very wonderful about choice?” I wondered. “Does he appreciate the choice God gave him? It is one’s choice to love that moves us, even more than a life of love becoming habit long after the choice.”

I prayed, “God, why is it so hard to persuade our family to not choose Hell? Help me understand. Help me find better words.”

Thoughtful joined the discussion. “As long as we are analyzing movie formulas, let’s not overlook what happens to the closed heart before it opens.

“The tighter a heart closes, the more destructive it becomes to all around, motivating all around to put pressure on him to open. So the plot shows how different angels do that. There are many wise words that took much labor to assemble. There is love, gentleness, and firmness. Some take action to limit the damage, involving various ways to limit the freedom to hurt.

“When others try to ‘quench’ the pressure – to ease the pressure before it can finish opening the closed heart – the plot shows the closed heart either softening in response, or ‘taking advantage’ of the mercy, hardening more, and destroying more. When the latter, those around take note and guard against more ‘quenching’, which they also call ‘enabling’.

“But when, brokenhearted, the heart is sorry, hurt more by the interruption of fellowship than by the interruption of freedom, and indeed suffers the pressure without resistance as fully deserved, the pressure can finally be ‘quenched’, and correction reduced to a relatively comfortable level sealed with hugs and handshakes.”

BT8 – Halfway through breakfast, the fax line came to life. I laid down my newspaper and picked up the printout to read as I finished eating.

VerseScout: _________________

VerseScout Relevance Report: Unfortunately the Bible does not mention fax machines, so we cannot corroborate whether angels have them. However, it would seem simpleminded to assume angels are incapable of the technology which we exalted humans have invented. If they do not have fax machines, it surely is not because their technology is not that advanced, but rather that their technology, or natural abilities, render them antiquated.

But if we may define “technology” as “manipulation of physical resources by wisdom”, then it is safe to assume that angels have “technology”.

“Report from the Front Line.

“From our sample of 12,477,324,558,122 test subjects in whom darkness is measurable, we calculate an 81% correlation between increase in darkness and reduction of “sense of purpose”, and a 67% correlation between decrease in darkness through God’s Love, and a slight increase of a sense of something for which to live, accompanied by a 200% increase in complaints about fire.”

VerseScout: Genesis 6:3 …My spirit shall not always strive with man….

Romans 1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, ….26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: …27 …the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; … and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. 28 …God gave them over to a reprobate mind, …

Romans 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

1 Corinthians 5:5 [you should] deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

VerseScout Relevance Report: God does not always strive with those who reject Him, Genesis 6:3, but rather, God will allow rebels to turn away from Him, Romans 1:24-32, in order to learn for themselves what His absence feels like, in the hope they will eventually repent, Romans 2:4. In fact, turning someone over to Satan is even a strategy God wants us to use to restore that person to Him! 1 Corinthians 5:5.

BT9 – “Excerpt from Minutes of Meeting #379, taken by Comunicus, Recording Secretary.

“Meeting #379 was called to order…

“A Realogram of Stinky and Dirtsy was shown, while the Host enjoyed popcorn prepared by the Littlest Angels Quilting Champions, Post #5,665.

“One highlight was an exchange between Stinky and Dirtsy:

“I want those do-gooders to stop annoying me with facts. My mind is already made up.”

“Exactly! I am not so insecure in my faith, that mere evidence can change what I believe!”

“I don’t agree with God having any right to offend me with truth that I can’t refute. I have a right to my own religion, and God has a right to His. My faith is who I am. God needs to love me just the way I am. ”

“Just so! And if I choose to believe God does not exist, God needs to respect that and stop existing!”

“Brainy observed that from this exchange we see that the Beloved Darkness theory has grown into the Darkness is Me theory: love of darkness is so great that their souls identify with darkness! They concentrate so hard on ‘discovering’ who they are, starting from the premise that God’s explanation must be wrong, that their imaginations construct an image of themselves completely out of touch with reality. They are so obsessed with what they want that they miss their true source of meaning, which of course is the diversion of their attention from serving themselves to serving others in love.”

VerseScout: Matthew 16:25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

“More from the Realogram:

“We can’t let God destroy who we are with all this truth business! Truth has to be stopped!”

“And we used to think God is a God of Love! And lookit, He keeps telling us the Truth!”

“Exactly! God certainly doesn’t love me just the way I am, when He keeps trying to destroy who I am with all this reality!”

“And on top of that, making us suffer like this from the stress of having to censor all this proof!”

“All this suffering in creation proves that either God has lost control, so that He no longer meets the definition of ‘God’, or God is not a God of Love, to allow all this suffering!”

“I believe both: everything is God’s fault, and there is no God.”

“The Paranoid Stress theory came out of the Realogram discussion: the foolish belief that one’s very soul is consumed by God’s fires of correction, and that suffering is not a blessing, because it causes physical pain.”

VerseScout: 1 Peter 1:6-7 “…ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ”.

VerseScout Relevance Report: Even for the saints, trial of faith, by fire, can be difficult. Yet it is a blessing.

“If we should regard God’s showering of fire upon the saints as a blessing, how can we not regard God’s same fire upon the wicked as likewise a blessing?

“First, Paranoid Stress causes a state of mind which imagines terrible calamity and pain despite contrary evidence. “Second, it generates a stress-caused breakdown in the efficient functioning of the body, which increasingly causes genuine physical pain.”

VerseScout: Psalms 31:10 For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.

Proverbs 17:22 A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones. (See also Proverbs 3:7-8, Philemon 7)

VerseScout Relevance Report: Many such passages support the medical common knowledge that mental states affect physical health. But these passages go farther, suggesting physical pain is more directly related to mental pain than to physical disease; as if the first consequence of mental pain is pain as deep as anything physical, and THEN comes physical disease, almost as an afterthought.

BT10 – A clarification about the nature of fire is forming in my mind as I am finishing cleaning out my mindmail. At the risk of wasting time by stating the obvious, I need to stop and add it to my diary notes before I forget it. Sometimes when brainstorming great problems, we need to double check even their plainest elements for some detail we may have missed.

Although our response to fire – the way it makes us feel – is vaguely like some mere chemical reaction or electrical flow producing the warmth of joy when unresisted, and pain when resisted, the fire itself is anything but some uniform flow of homogeneous energy like the electricity that feeds my floor lights. It is more like the electrical signals that feed my fax machine and mindmail; it transmits extremely intelligent, sophisticated information. But even that analogy vastly understates the complexity of the fire which is the nature of God.

When I speak, mere air waves are set rolling from my mouth to the ears of my friends, which are intelligent enough for my purposes, transmitting my wisdom to them.

When God speaks, the energy rolling out of His mouth creates worlds, sustains our lives, and satisfies every need of each of the legions of the Host.

Far from some mere chemical process, the fire which is God bathes us in the full range of experiences of life.

For example, God enables us to experience what we have done to others, so that every time we bless another, we are blessed. The Fallen have, of course, experienced the opposite because their interaction with others has been the opposite.

VerseScout: Revelation 18:5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. 6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. (See also Isa 40:2, 61:7, Jer 16:18, 17:18, Zec 9:12. And “according to their works”, Pr 24:12, Mt 16:27, 2Ti 4:14. Also Gal 6:7, Job 4:8, Pro 1:31, Hos 8:7, 10:12, Rom 2:6-10, 2 Cor 9:6, Luke 6:38, Luke 16:25.)

VerseScout Relevance Report: In only a few verses does God tell us the proportion between how much the wicked make others suffer on Earth, and how much they will then have to suffer in Hell. That proportion is “double”.

It is these experiences which we welcome and they resist. God’s Love warms us with joy, while their resistance to the challenges of the adventure we call Life fills them with terror.

Chapter Three: Hell at the Movies