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Notes -
Here we go again. We are required to believe that Hell exists. We are not required to believe that any one person is there, because only God knows for sure. Yep, that includes the worst monster in history you've ever heard of. Likelihood they're in Hell? Very damn high. Pronouncement of absolute certainty they're there? Nope, can't do it.
Let's go back to the 14th century, Hollander translation of Canto XIII, 'Paradiso', "The Divine Comedy" where Dante puts these words into the mouth of St. Thomas Aquinas:
130 'Let the people, then, not be too certain
131 in their judgments, like those that harvest in their minds
132 corn still in the field before it ripens.
133 'For I have seen the briar first look dry and thorny
134 right through all the winter's cold,
135 then later wear the bloom of roses at its tip,
136 'and once I saw a ship, which had sailed straight
137 and swift upon the sea through all its voyage,
138 sinking at the end as it made its way to port.
139 'Let not Dame Bertha and Master Martin,
140 when they see one steal and another offer alms,
141 think that they behold them with God's wisdom,
142 for the first may still rise up, the other fall.'
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