Final Remarks
Custom dictates and prudence advises that here, in closing,
I wax gracefully disingenuous and declare that I am uncertain in
my conclusions, that I offer them only hesitantly, that I entirely
understand the views of those that take the opposite side of the
argument, and that I fully respect contrary opinions on these
matters. I find, however, whether on account of principle or of
pride, that I am simply unable to do this. I believe I am obeying
my conscience in refusing to lie about my convictions; more to
the point, though, I believe that I am obeying my conscience
with a special rigor in rejecting the majority view that there is
a hell of eternal torment, since I am fairly sure that it must be a
wicked thing to give one's intellectual assent to something one
cannot help but find morally repugnant. I do not rely on con-
science alone, however. Without the support of reason, all the
conscientiousness in the world would still add up to nothing
more than mere personal sentiment. I make no apologies what-
soever for entirely rejecting the late Augustinian tradition re-
garding the relation between grace and nature, predestination
and inherited guilt, and most especially the early modern vari-
ants of that tradition (Calvinism, Baroque Thomism, Jansen-
ism, and so forth) that brought it to such extreme expressions.