The Force of Inspiration Behind Our Faith

Our culture recognizes the physical world and has developed a detailed study of it through observation and experimentation. There is also a spiritual world that we cannot see or examine or quantify. Earlier cultures built up knowledge of this unseen world through philosophy, metaphysics, theology, and ethics to name a few windows into this world. Today, our culture has dismissed the spiritual world and tries to explain everything through the physical sciences. Our culture is no longer convinced that humans have a spiritual nature as well as a physical nature. And many in our culture no longer believe in the existence of a spiritual God.

The reason our culture has lost interest in the spiritual world is that there is nothing in the spiritual world that can be seen with eyes, heard with ears, or felt with the hands. Everything in the spiritual world must be approached through faith in the testimony of somebody who was there. Jesus was there. He is the ultimate witness. We should believe Jesus.

In the spiritual world, we have the phenomena of inspiration where information comes into our minds through the action of some spiritual force: God or an angel or a devil. When dealing with our inspirations, we must be careful to be sure we know the source of the inspiration. We can even inspire others ourselves when we endeavor to make a motivational speech, or through music, literature, art, etc. We even hire coaches to inspire our athletes to strive for victory.

It is Different When We Die

When we leave this life, this same scenario turns on its head. The entire physical world will then be closed to us, but the spiritual world through inspiration is still there. God can enlighten and inspire us to understand what we did not recognize while we were still in our physical bodies. Our loved ones can intercede for us and inspire us through prayer. Even in our earthy lives, some of us have experienced big flashes of inspiration. I remember cartoons showing someone with a difficult problem. Suddenly a light bulb flashes in his mind and, in an instant, a resolution of the difficulty becomes apparent. Virtually everybody has had flashes of intuition in their lives.

The Apostles also experienced inspiration when they first began to preach the Gospel. On the Day of Pentecost, everybody listening to them understood, in their own native language, what they were saying (Acts 2). God gave inspiration to those who were listening rather than let them be influenced solely by spoken words. Also when we pray to a saint, who, in this mortal life would not have known our language, that saint understands our prayer through inspiration. I think it is also through divine inspiration that a saint can understand the multiple prayers in different languages prayed to him simultaneously from all over the world and get each prayer straight.

During our mortal life in a physical body, we have spiritual inspirations through thoughts, fears, dreams, and temptations. These thoughts do not enter the mind through hearing spoken words like we hear words through our physical ears. It is said that dreams occur very fast in duration, probably faster than the physical mind can keep up with them.

I try to imagine what I would become after I die, when the whole physical world immediately is shut down, and I can only experience inspiration. My body will be dead. I will no longer have eyes, ears, nose, fingers and hands to experience the physical world. All I will be able to perceive after death is the spiritual world where God inspires me to recognize who and what God is far better than anyone was ever able to know before death.

In such a state, I would instantly perceive how wonderful God really is, how merciful, kind and how extraordinarily interesting. I would feel a strong attraction toward God, but at the same time I would realize what an unworthy wretch I had been before I died. The contrast between an infinitely holy God and a finite sinner like me would be evident through inspiration in the next life.

I can imagine the shame and shock I would feel because of my discomfort with the life I had lived, and that discomfort might be noticed by others, especially God. It would be a very painful and humiliating experience. It should generate contrition in me, but there is always my pride to consider. My exorbitant pride might incline me (prodded by Lucifer) to insist that my own will must prevail.

God Surrounds Himself with Blazing Light

God has revealed himself as light. During His transfiguration, Jesus suddenly appeared in dazzlingly white raiment, blinding Peter, John, and James, so that they who had been watching, could no longer look at Jesus. In the next life I would have to be free from every moral defect to be comfortable perceiving God through inspiration.

If I harbored any sinful tendencies, those tendencies might suddenly become noticeable for others to see in God’s blazing light. That would cause me a great deal of shame and discomfort. I think God’s blazing light would be a better explanation for the fires of purgatory. I would not be able to endure the flawed character I obviously have, compared to the glory of the God who created me.

On the other hand, if my pride incites me to stick to my guns, the magnitude of my mismatch with God will become more and more widespread in my soul.  I could refuse to break out of it because of my pride. I think this is a good way to try to understand the fires of hell. I recognize my disharmony with God, but I am not willing to give up my sinful ways.

What Hell Is Like

God being God, and also the one who is in the right, will never diminish the illumination of His glory that belongs to Him simply because I prefer my own wicked character. Finally, my soul would become more and more unlike God until I decide I have to get away from God to avoid the illumination of His righteousness. The farthest I can get away from God is hell.

The Church teaches that hell really exists. It includes, indirectly, within this teaching the biblical warning that the wicked are punished by fire. I try to understand why that is, but I can easily believe it. All that faith requires is to simply believe it. I think humans and devils make fatal mistakes when they refuse to believe something that God has revealed.

Some have actually seen hell. The three children at Fatima were shown an apparition of hell on July 13, 2017. The earth appeared to open up and exposed a deep chasm of blazing fire billowing over like a pot of water brought to a rolling boil. The children could see the forms of damned human souls and devils in hell. Human souls were simply carried along with the flames, tossed here and there without displaying any sense of equilibrium or balance. All souls were hideous to look at, but the devils were even more hideous than the humans. The vision was so frightening to the children that God only allowed it to last a very short time.

The Downfall of Lucifer

I have heard speculation within the Catholic Church of the event that caused the downfall of Lucifer. It is not a matter of divine revelation but of speculation within the various theological traditions of the Church, but I heard it so many times, in high school, in college, in catechetical sessions, that I think it is worthy of consideration.

It happened soon after God created the angels. The angels had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, fully mature and cognizant that they are here now, but were not here a moment ago. So they questioned where they came from.

God then gave them a revelation. A vision of the humanity of Jesus Christ suddenly became visible, and God said something like He said to Peter, James, and John during the Transfiguration: “This is my beloved son, listen to him!” This occurred before God created the physical universe, but the angels perceived that this was a vision of a flesh and blood physical creature, and some of them reacted negatively to it.

Lucifer immediately thought: No! I will not serve. I will ascend to heaven myself. Michael, a significantly lower angel cried out: Who is like unto God? A power struggle took place among the angels and one third of them followed Lucifer. Scripture testifies in a mysterious way to this struggle (Is. 14: 12 and Ez. 28: 12-29).

This whole episode was repeated in the Transfiguration where something similar happened to Peter, James, and John. When they saw the apparition, they heard a voice saying: “This is my beloved son. Listen to him” (Matt 17: 18). Thus, I’m inclined to think that the earlier apparition that God made to the angels is probably factual. The speculation of the way God tested the angels is similar to the way God tested humans. For Peter, James, and John that’s all it was. Jesus told them not speak to others about it.

God’s Glory Purifies

A lot of people think God is not so cruel as to confine the wicked to the fires of hell forever. I also know God is not cruel, and I shudder to think that anyone might be confined to the fires of hell, but that is what Christ has taught His Church, and I would be foolish not to believe it.

I think the flame of God’s glory is probably what purifies souls in purgatory, but it is a flame that does not destroy. It makes their moral defects so obvious that a soul is very uncomfortable when all its imperfections are illuminated. After their purification is completed, the souls no longer feel uncomfortable no matter how brightly God’s goodness is manifested.

If a soul is too proud and arrogant to come to terms with such a vivid contrast between his sinfulness and God’s holiness, that soul will want to get away from God, as far as one can go to avoid the intense illumination of God’s glory. I think that’s a better explanation of hell.

Conclusion

Believing in the probability that these speculations might be factual has allowed me to soar with the faith, so to speak, to make it a part of my thinking. Instead of rejecting the realities we are all required to accept and arguing against them – as a large number of human beings insist on doing – I am able to build a deeper understanding of the faith through common sense and, let’s say, inspiration.