Ignatius of Loyola on the final state of the lost
Eternal conscious punishment
with the understanding how in sinning and acting against the Infinite Goodness, he has been justly condemned forever
THE POSITION
The First Week turns on it. The retreatant considers one who for a single mortal sin has gone to hell, "justly condemned forever", and the hell meditation asks for an interior sense of the pains the damned suffer, seeing "the great fires, and the souls as in bodies of fire", so that at least the fear of punishment may keep one from sin if love fails. The punishment is conscious and without end.
29 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Basque soldier turned pilgrim, founder of the Society of Jesus (1540) and its first superior general. His Spiritual Exercises, begun at Manresa in 1522–23 after his conversion at Loyola in 1521 and approved by Paul III in 1548, are still widely used for retreats; their closing rules for thinking with the Church are his nearest approach to doctrinal statement. This entry rests on the Exercises in Elder Mullan's 1914 translation and the Autobiography in the 1900 English edition by J. F. X. O'Conor.
Cite this page
"Ignatius of Loyola on the final state of the lost", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/ignatius-loyola/final-state (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/ignatius-loyola/final-state).