897. When ecclesiastical Christianity uses the terms "eternal hell" or "eternal damnation", here too these expressions consist not of scientific truths in the literal sense of the word but of formulas that this Christianity has need of for the time being, as long as it knows nothing of reincarnation, in order to cover the entire aspect of life and God's being that decides the formation of human beings' fate. Its idea of "hell" is like its idea of "heaven", in that it is something beyond physical death, a spiritual or non-physical phenomenon. Its horizon concerning the beings stretches only from the mother's womb to the cessation of the physical organism, after which the beings take leave of the physical world for ever in order to gain a heavenly or spiritual existence, which must either be in "eternal damnation" or in "eternal salvation", according to whether the beings' physical conduct was in favour of "damnation" or "salvation". This Christianity can therefore perceive "all punishment for sins" as only something that mainly takes place in the spiritual world, or that is by nature spiritual. But as a result, it is totally unable to give its adherents any explanation of all the physical suffering and unhappy fates. It is totally unable to give a justifiable explanation of why it is that all beings are not born under the same fortunate conditions, but come into the world under widely differing and unequal states of fortune, or why, as a result, the physical world is to these adherents completely lacking in justice and governed only by pure chance. Some beings come into the world and already from their mother's womb meet such a severe and unhappy fate that all it offers them is such a wretched and painful condition, full of mutilation and disability, sorrow and suffering, that they die far too early – in reality they came into the world merely to experience one long, painful process of dying – while the same world offers other beings, from their mother's womb until a great old age, one great indulgence in good fortune, joy and love, bodily health, financial well-being and high social status. It is of course inevitable that such phenomena will turn everyday, physical life into a mystery and cause confusion regarding the idea of absolute justice.