Spiritually Repressed Memories

Betrayed By Words

The noun "hell" is of interest.  Millions of people, if asked, Do you believe in hell? would respond in the negative.  Nah.  Hell is just a name for something.  It does not really exist.  To reassure themselves that Hell is a figment it has become one of the most widely used words in the English language.  It  has even had usages added to facilitate further its deployment in everyday thought, speech and writing.  Take the adjective "helluva" for example, as in "We had a helluva great time."

When someone gets really wound up, they might use the word "hell" as an execration:  "Go to Hell, you son of a bitch!"  Why being the sire of a dog should result in one being cursed unto Hell is a bit of a mystery--but we get the general idea.  The cursor does not like the one he or she is execrating.

Of course, the inflated use of the word and its cognates minimises their power, effectiveness; it dilutes their meaning.  Here we believe is the unconscious motivation for the ubiquitous, never ending use of the word "hell" in the English speaking world.  The Bible makes very clear that mankind--everyone--is God conscious.  Not, mind you, god conscious--that is, holding a vague, general idea of a deity out there somewhere. But God conscious.

Freud and Freudians speak about repressed memories.
  Whilst a lot of Freudian constructs are controversial and of dubious value, the notion of repressed memory is right on the money.  The Scriptures are very clear about the work of both the conscious and sub-conscious mind to repress what it actually knows and believes about God.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who practise such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practise them.  [Romans 1: 18-32]

We are well aware that just as inflation in the money supply results in a reduction in the value of money, so overuse of anything diminishes its value.  Why do men engage in profanity without a second thought?  Because it is part of the suppression of what they know to be true about God: that He not only exists, but that they are confronted with the anger of God towards them--as Jonathan Edwards so forcefully reminded us in his famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God".  The more "God" can be used in everyday speech and a common profanity, the more successful the repression of memory is.

Have you ever wondered why folk who would deny emphatically any belief in God, constantly punctuate their volubility with, "Oh my God!"?  (It's use is so commonly profane that it has even spawned its own shortened form: "omigod".)  Spiritually repressed memory, that's why.  The repression works out in various ways, but this is one of the most common.  Turn the name "God" into a profane, common epithet and the spiritual memory with which we are all born is inflated away to uselessness, impotence, and insignificance.

The use of the word "Hell" works in exactly the same way.  Overuse of the word represses our latent fear of the place of divine judgment.  Instead, in a Freudian sense, the repeated overuse of the word makes the concept of hell normal, ordinary, and non-threatening. It represses the memory the Scriptures declare we all have: that we all know and believe in God, but constantly labour to suppress what we know.

Have you ever noticed that Christians do not speak of Hell in a profane way?  Christians do not speak of having a "helluva good time".   For Christians--that is, people whose suppressed memories have been brought out into "up front and centre consciousness"--Hell is a holy place.  It is the place of God's final and eternal judgement upon evil, that which He hates.  "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men."

Therefore Christians never use the word Hell as a profane noun or adjective.  It is far too dreadful a place, too awful a reality, to permit its deployment in any everyday or common sense.