cathdoki
I think you’re misunderstanding hell…
God doesn’t WANT people to go to hell, God made people for Heaven…but they CHOOSE hell with their sins
if God were to admit an
unrepentant sinner into Heaven, do you think the sinner would enjoy it? it would be torment for them… actually it would be a lot like hell. They would be surrounded by God but would want to hide, run away. God is holiness and there is no darkness in Him, anything evil can’t be united to Him, but its very nature. That’s why hell exists, and it’s locked from the inside, not from the outside… the souls there don’t WANT to repent. Love and repentance must be chosen through free will to even be valid.
Here’s a quote about good and evil from a book by an Eastern Orthodox author, but the understanding is the same as the Catholic teaching, I think:
"One afternoon at the beginning of Holy Week, having made a stop in Thessaloniki, I was by myself in our home there, when, suddenly, my surroundings vanished. There were no images to be seen, sounds to be heard, or objects to be touched. My five senses ceased functioning. It was as though the light switch had been flicked and the room plunged into total darkness.
My mind turned its full attention to a spiritual realm that it found utterly riveting and captivating. In one direction, I saw a soft but intense light - brilliant yet gentle. In the other direction, I saw a thick, cavernous darkness. Initially, I turned my attention towards the awesome, yet fearful, darkness. It made my flesh crawl, but I was overcome by curiosity, the desire to understand what it was. My mind advanced towards the darkness, and I began to sense the magnitude of its negation. The deeper I went, the greater this negation became, and the thicker the darkness. It had a vast power and, if I dare put it this way, a certain grandeur. It represented a negative perspective on reality, unhesitatingly extending into reality as depth, even as the light stretched infinitely into reality as height. On one side, there was immense love; on the other, immense hatred. The light was overflowing with unconditional altruism, while the darkness pulled away in utter self-centeredness.
Though I couldn’t see into the darkness, I could feel the presence of souls in it, leaping about and shrieking with insane, wicked laughter as they were pulled deeper and deeper into the ocean of darkness, until the sound of their voices disappeared altogether. Frightened by this savage madness, I headed towards the light, seeking its protection. Just reaching its outskirts, I felt the relief of having been rescued from a grave danger.
Although I didn’t advance very far at all into the darkness, I was able to feel the depths of its evil ocean. I could understand the very essence of the enticing power of sin to tempt, as well as its laughable powerlessness, utter dependence, and shadowy nonexistence. The darkness, I saw, is fearsome when it has won you over, but it is absurd and feeble when you reject it - it cannot defeat even a small child if he does not fall on his own. In the same way, I didn’t advance far into the light - only, so to speak, skating its edge - but even there I felt confident and comforted by a fullness of life, peace, joy, and knowledge. The light loved me greatly in spite of my unworthiness and granted me its gifts, gifts I never dreamed existed.
At this point, I realized that the light created the world and every living being. The existential space in which each person dwells is itself a creation fashioned by the light, which also fills and permeates these spaces. One being decided to stay outside of the existential space created by the light, thus creating a sort of space for itself, though only by denying the light, turning from it, driving it away. The darkness has no existence of its own, but only in that it denies the ever-existing and sovereign light. That is to say, the existence of the darkness would have been impossible without the existence of the light; though the light had no need of the darkness for existence, for its existence is self-sufficient. The light respected the free decision of its creation to reject it, and so kept its distance. In this way, a dark existential space made its appearance - the darkness, in this sense, became a reality.
The darkness resulted from the inclination of a conscious being, called satan, who chose such a form of existence though he had no reason to. And this denial made the darkness a reality. Although this act of denial may have resembled God’s act of creation, it was not creation, but an imitation of creation performed in reverse. That is, the devil tried to behave like God, but, since he did not have the ability to create on his own, he was only capable of denying God’s creation, energies, light, and grace. He pulled away from the very borders of reality and made non-existence a way of being, thus “creating” death and darkness. For, until that time, there was neither death nor darkness, but al things were filled with light and life.
Just as the light’s love wishes to unite all things, being the source of existence and creation, so the hatred of the darkness wants to divide all things, being the source of nonexistence and destruction. Just as the light extends out into the infinite beyond, so the darkness seems to extend into its infinite beyond. Just as there is a grandeur about the simple, yet infinite light of God, with all His attributes and energies, so there is a certain grandeur about the blunt, yet apparently infinite darkness of the devil, with all his deep-rooted and ferocious self-destructiveness, full of a stubborn and manic rage."
- “The Gurus, the Young Man, and Elder Paisios” by Dionysios Farasiotis
