A question about the main pain of hell

[zhoudu]

Now the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that the separation from God is the main pain of hell. But it seems that the fire in hell was emphasized long before (perhaps several hundred years ago). Is there any ancient reliable material that said the separation from God is the main pain of hell?

 

[Francis]

@zhoudu

Psalm 9:18 The wicked shall be turned into hell, all the nations that forget God.Job 24:19 Let him pass from the snow waters to excessive heat, and his sin even to hell.

http://www.divinemercysunday.com/vision.htm

Sister Faustina’s Vision of Hell

“I, Sister Faustina Kowalska, by the order of God, have visited the Abysses of Hell so that I might tell souls about it and testify to its existence…the devils were full of hatred for me, but they had to obey me at the command of God, What I have written is but a pale shadow of the things I saw. But I noticed one thing: That most of the souls there are those who disbelieved that there is a hell.” (Diary 741)

The Apostle of Divine Mercy
St. Maria Faustina Kowalska
of the
Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy

"Today, I was led by an angel to the Chasms of Hell. It is a place of great torture; how awesomely large and extensive it is! The kinds of tortures I saw:
The First Torture that constitutes hell is:
The loss of God.
The Second is:
Perpetual remorse of conscience.
The Third is
That one’s condition will never change.
The Fourth is:
The fire that will penetrate the soul without destroying it. A terrible suffering since it is a purely spiritual fire, lit by God’s anger.
The Fifth Torture is:
Continual darkness and a terrible suffocating smell, and despite the darkness, the devils and the souls of the damned see each other and all the evil, both of others and their own.
The Sixth Torture is:
The constant company of Satan.
The Seventh Torture is:
Horrible despair, hatred of God, vile words, curses and blasphemies.
These are the Tortures suffered by all the damned together, but that is not the end of the sufferings.

Indescribable Sufferings
There are special Tortures destined for particular souls. These are the torments of the senses. Each soul undergoes terrible and indescribable sufferings related to the manner in which it has sinned.

I would have died
There are caverns and pits of torture where one form of agony differs from another. I would have died at the very sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of God had not supported me.

 

[Mintaka]

One of the Biblical terms for Hell is the “lake of fire.” Jesus calls it that, and one would presume He would know.

However, we are also told that the good are tested in fire, and their works too. The early Christians connected this to the Scripture that God is “a consuming fire,” and also that God is love.

So you get people like St. Macrina the Younger teaching that encountering God pretty much is the judgment, the purging, the eternal reward and the eternal punishment: the good are full of love and enjoy God’s fire of love; the repentant bad souls find it painful at the first moment but burn off their evil; and the unrepentant sinners just get burnt up, because they have no love in them to endure the fire.

On the other hand, though, you get the idea that God allows evil people to separate themselves from Him, and that’s the punishment of Hell. God is love and life; so wilful separation from Him is the opposite of that. And yet the damned can’t actually have a total absence from God, or they would cease to exist; so they just have to sit and stew in their very bad state. And so, the state of being separate from God is full of psychic torments, as if a lake of fire.

All of these things are basically using physical analogies to describe something happening to the soul, or to resurrected bodies. So it’s really hard to picture what’s going on, because we don’t understand it and have no direct experience of it. (And frankly, I would like to avoid having direct experience of Hell.)

Different ways of explaining Hell are used at different times, mostly to counter false ideas that have taken hold. In the Enlightenment period, a lot of people attacked Hell as impossible, because (they said they had been taught this) it was a physical place under the earth’s surface where souls were tormented, and modern geology said that did not exist. At which point, the Church felt it necessary to make clear that Dante’s Inferno was not a literal geography of Hell, and the separation thing got more popular from then on.

 

[fhansen]

First of all it has always been recognized that what makes heaven a place of eternal happiness is the Beatific Vision, the immediate presence of God. So the Church has become more sophisticated in her understanding of what really makes us “burn”: the absence of God.

 

[catholic1seeks]

Indescribable Sufferings
There are special Tortures destined for particular souls. These are the torments of the senses. Each soul undergoes terrible and indescribable sufferings related to the manner in which it has sinned.

I don’t think this kind of suffering is compatible with God’s love. It seems arbitrary and externally inflicted, as if God is handing out his preferred method of punishment per sinner.

Thankfully, we aren’t obligated to believe private revelation.

 

[Francis]

There is nothing against faith and morals,and Pope John Paul the Great has been the pioneer to accept it and spread the devotion ,remember one of God’s attribute’s is Divine Justice,the souls merits each according to his deeds,they are accordingly punished,you mean to say satan was not punished since God is Love? hundreds of saints where shown hell or experienced it by the will of God.

Padre Pio was asked what he thought about modern people who didn’t believe in hell.

“They’ll believe in hell when they get there.” he replied.

Deuteronomy 28:20 The Lord will send upon you disaster, panic, and frustration in everything you attempt to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me.

Revelation 14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.”

http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-p...documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_20000430_faustina.html

http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20000430_faustina_en.html

Sister Mary Faustina, an apostle of the Divine Mercy, belongs today to the group of the most popular and well-known saints of the Church. Through her the Lord Jesus communicates to the world the great message of God’s mercy and reveals the pattern of Christian perfection based on trust in God and on the attitude of mercy toward one’s neighbors.

She was born on August 25, 1905 in G»ogowiec in Poland of a poor and religious family of peasants, the third of ten children. She was baptized with the name Helena in the parish Church of Ðwinice Warckie. From a very tender age she stood out because of her love of prayer, work, obedience, and also her sensitivity to the poor. At the age of nine she made her first Holy Communion living this moment very profoundly in her awareness of the presence of the Divine Guest within her soul. She attended school for three years. At the age of sixteen she left home and went to work as a housekeeper in Aleksandrów, ºódï and Ostrówek in order to find the means of supporting herself and of helping her parents.

 

[Francis]

On the other hand, though, you get the idea that God allows evil people to separate themselves from Him, and that’s the punishment of Hell. God is love and life; so wilful separation from Him is the opposite of that. And yet the damned can’t actually have a total absence from God, or they would cease to exist; so they just have to sit and stew in their very bad state. And so, the state of being separate from God is full of psychic torments, as if a lake of fire.

One of God’s attribute’s is Divine Justice,the souls merits each according to his deeds,they are accordingly punished,was not satan punished, since God is Love? no, hundreds of saints where shown hell or experienced it in different ways by the will of God.there are torment in spirit the senses through which they have sinned all these are mysteries these are revealed to saints for us as examples and to save our souls by trying leading a holy life by His Grace,as st Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.only when we reach Heaven,we will understand fully. Your trying to understand things humanly using intelligence,no unless God reveals to us and by the many examples of saints we have is to believe,there is nothing contrary to faith and morals God Bless

Jude14 It was also about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “See, the Lord is coming[m] with ten thousands of his holy ones, 15 to execute judgment on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

 

[catholic1seeks]

Punishment is not my problem per se. I believe in hell.

I have problems with a God who would arbitrarily punish someone by inflicting specific and hand-picked sensual (tangible) punishments.

Until I see how such punishments are not arbitrary, then I will maintain that Faustina’s description is at odds with the God who is Love.

 

[Francis]

Each soul in unique and sins in different ways,and inclined in sinful tendencies of different kinds,they are punished accordingly, its a torment of the sense,there are different stages in hell ,like wise ih Heaven and even purgatory.John 14:2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm
IV. HELL

1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."612 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.613 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”

1034 Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.614 Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,"615 and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!"616

1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire."617 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

1036 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few."618

 

[Teek]

And yet the damned can’t actually have a total absence from God, or they would cease to exist; so they just have to sit and stew in their very bad state.

I think they can experience it as a total absence of God. Even if God still holds them in existence, they are not in His presence and they do not have His divine life in their souls-but they, unlike us, know what they are missing fully. Just a thought. I’m not sure it is accurate theological. (Not sure if they know what they are missing. But they experience the lack of it fully, so it seems to me that implies some sort of knowledge. But perhaps not, you can experience guilt without knowing why, or fear without knowing why, so maybe you can experience complete absence of God without knowing what is absent. Just…pain.)

I don’t think this kind of suffering is compatible with God’s love. It seems arbitrary and externally inflicted, as if God is handing out his preferred method of punishment per sinner.

I see it differently. When you betray someone or hurt someone and regret it, you experience an acute form of pain and self loathing. Everything about it reminds you of what you have done. I think it makes sense that you are tormented particularly by every single choice you made for something you valued more than eternal life with God. You would regret every single sin intensely. So your torment would be specific to your sins. Not that God is designing torments for you. You designed your own personal hell by your choices.

Choose life! Then maybe we won’t have to find out!!!

 

[pianistclare]

I haven’t read through everything here, but I will say this: Punishment is not arbitrary. One has to have done SOMETHNG EVIL to get punishment in hell without repentence before death.

 

[Mintaka]

Obviously, the damned souls cannot receive separate tangible punishments, because they’re souls. They don’t have any sense of touch, because they have no physical bodies at this time. So there can’t possibly be any tangible punishments until after the resurrection of the dead, when the damned souls will also be reunited with their bodies, and after the Final Judgment (also called the “general judgment” – the one where we’re all there).

However, if you believe that all people are unique individuals, justice would seem to demand that every damned person should receive a unique amount and kind of punishment, tailored to his specific amount and kind of evil deeds. We don’t know how this works; but it’s a lot better than just doing the same thing in the same way for everyone, whether the damned person was a jewel thief, a drugdealer, a mass murderer, or a molester of kids.

The whole point of everyone who ever lived being present, and being put on trial, at the Final Judgment, is that we will all know what everybody did, and we will all get to see how God’s justice and mercy are both perfect. The damned will know what they’re going to get, and why, and everyone will have to see how just that sentence is. There’s nothing “arbitrary” about God’s justice; we will see how the whole Plan of God’s providence works for everyone.

Obviously, though, the real point is to avoid going to Hell, by doing good and by throwing ourselves on God’s mercy before He has to send us there. The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay!

 

[OmnesBonum]

The main reason people have a problem with the idea of these “punishments” of “hell”, is because they are taking literally the human metaphorical image of a judge handing out personal punishments to a criminal. This is only an image, appropriate for those whom it helps to understand what God’s true justice or righteousness is. The punishment is really that person or thing separating themselves voluntarily in some degree from complete union with our Lord, who is all good and happiness, and so in that degree they are separated from good for a time and experience bad/evil, which is simply some kind of absence of good/God. There is no way to exist outside of God literally however, since God is not a supreme being, he is supreme being. As St Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”