An Eternal Hell Doesn't Make Sense

[Flopfoot]

Hey Edwin, I remember you from back in the day, and thanks for your answer. Let me see if I understand it by way of analogy.

Your dad says “don’t pull the rug off the shelf or you will get hit by a hammer”. He’s not threatening to hit you with a hammer, it’s just that he knows that there is a hammer on top of the rug and is warning you that getting hit is an inevitable consequence of your action because of gravity.

But who put the hammer there? People here insist that God doesn’t create hell, it’s just a place that exists because it logically needs to due to people’s ability to reject God. But in that case, why is there fire there? Why is there anything other than just “a place where God is not”? One atheist said that he had lived his whole life without God and it hadn’t caused him any suffering so he doesn’t know why eternity without God should cause him suffering.

Another question to throw into the mix: Who is this hypothetical person that is going to hell? We imagine them as a person who ‘hates’ God, but on this earth we don’t really get a chance to get to know God well enough to hate him. Who are the people who sin out of anger or rebellion against God, rather than sinning because they like the sin (eg. stealing) or because they can’t help it (eg. envy)? Perhaps we just imagine such a person exists for the sake of our explanations.

 

[davidv]

Hey Edwin, I remember you from back in the day, and thanks for your answer. Let me see if I understand it by way of analogy.

Your dad says “don’t pull the rug off the shelf or you will get hit by a hammer”. He’s not threatening to hit you with a hammer, it’s just that he knows that there is a hammer on top of the rug and is warning you that getting hit is an inevitable consequence of your action because of gravity.

But who put the hammer there? People here insist that God doesn’t create hell, it’s just a place that exists because it logically needs to due to people’s ability to reject God. But in that case, why is there fire there?

The people in hell created their own fire.

Why is there anything other than just “a place where God is not”? One atheist said that he had lived his whole life without God and it hadn’t caused him any suffering so he doesn’t know why eternity without God should cause him suffering.

I would say this person is lying. No human has escaped the many sufferings that occur through out this life.

Another question to throw into the mix: Who is this hypothetical person that is going to hell? We imagine them as a person who ‘hates’ God, but on this earth we don’t really get a chance to get to know God well enough to hate him. Who are the people who sin out of anger or rebellion against God, rather than sinning because they like the sin (eg. stealing) or because they can’t help it (eg. envy)? Perhaps we just imagine such a person exists for the sake of our explanations.

 

[oldcelt]

The people in hell created their own fire.

I would say this person is lying. No human has escaped the many sufferings that occur through out this life.

So, your God is the creator of suffering?

John

 

[Contarini]

This sounds logical, but the soul in hell being a conscious person, could conceivably change for the better. Or is he prohibited from changing for the better? That would be a rather strange prohibition.

This idea of an hell which is eternal, but still has a beginning in time - a hell which may or may not have time - where people are suffering, but are still frozen in time and space - where people may deteriorate in some way, but can not change for the better even if they wish to - this whole idea seems rather self-contradictory and illogical. Not very well thought out, it seems to me.

Actually I think you are rejecting the idea out of hand without thinking it out thoroughly.

The argument is that life on earth sets the trajectory for eternity. You can’t change direction after death, not because it’s arbitrarily “prohibited” by God, but because that’s the nature of death. You continue moving eternally in whatever direction you were moving when you died.

This is in fact perfectly logical and coherent, as far as I can see. It may be wrong, but it’s well thought out and coherent.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

To deny that we are free to choose anything is an excellent example of self-contradiction. The denial itself is a choice…

I’m not sure what you mean and how it applies to what I said.

 

[davidv]

So, your God is the creator of suffering?

John

No. How does that follow from what I wrote?

 

[Contarini]

Hey Edwin, I remember you from back in the day, and thanks for your answer. Let me see if I understand it by way of analogy.

Your dad says “don’t pull the rug off the shelf or you will get hit by a hammer”. He’s not threatening to hit you with a hammer, it’s just that he knows that there is a hammer on top of the rug and is warning you that getting hit is an inevitable consequence of your action because of gravity.

But who put the hammer there?

God, in creating beings capable of rejecting Him.

People here insist that God doesn’t create hell, it’s just a place that exists because it logically needs to due to people’s ability to reject God. But in that case, why is there fire there?

Do you mean literal fire? I certainly didn’t say that there was. Perhaps some on this forum believe that there is, and you can take that up with them.

I think there are several possible explanations for the fire language:

1. God inflicts it in retributive punishment because all sin deserves infinite punishment. I agree with you that there are huge problems with this view.
2. God inflicts it because it’s better for a person no longer capable of willing the good to suffer than to be content in evil. I think there’s some truth to this, probably, but I still have huge problems with the idea of God intentionally inflicting pain on people for eternity when he could choose not to.
3. The language of “fire” is simply a way of describing the torment of being without God. In a sense, but your implicit point here is valid–the language sounds far too active for a description of simply “being without God.” Perhaps that’s just because negative language doesn’t convey the horror of this ultimate negation to us, so we need language that evokes actual torment. But perhaps
4. The “fire” of hell is God’s presence, and the “darkness” is his absence. After all, in Christian theology God is everywhere. He can’t not be everywhere. Hence, God is present in some way to souls who have utterly rejected him, while being morally and spiritually absent from them (because of their rejection of him). One traditional Catholic way of describing this is that our nature is necessarily ordered toward God, but our will can become fixed in the opposite direction, and this conflict between nature and will is the torment of hell. But the Eastern Orthodox are the ones who have really taken this idea and run with it. Some of the Eastern Fathers suggest that hell is not fundamentally different from heaven, but is experienced differently. See Lewis’ The Last Battle, in which the Dwarfs experience the beauty of Aslan’s country as a dark stable in which they are imprisoned. Or it may be that
5. The fire of hell is God’s love burning up our alienation from him, so that “hell” will ultimately be thrown into the 'lake of fire" and all will be reconciled to God. George MacDonald is one of the great proponents of this view. Like C. S. Lewis, I’m not quite convinced by this universalist view. But naturally I hope I’m wrong!

One atheist said that he had lived his whole life without God and it hadn’t caused him any suffering so he doesn’t know why eternity without God should cause him suffering.

Because he hasn’t been without God at all, of course, from a theistic perspective.

Another question to throw into the mix: Who is this hypothetical person that is going to hell? We imagine them as a person who ‘hates’ God, but on this earth we don’t really get a chance to get to know God well enough to hate him. Who are the people who sin out of anger or rebellion against God, rather than sinning because they like the sin (eg. stealing) or because they can’t help it (eg. envy)? Perhaps we just imagine such a person exists for the sake of our explanations.

One hypothesis that makes sense of hell is that to experience God directly makes free choice impossible. We need to learn to know God through “veils,” because otherwise we would have no genuine capacity to know and love him. People therefore don’t consciously “hate God” (in fact, the people who say they hate God, or the idea of God, are not necessarily the ones who are really rejecting God). But they may hate God’s reflection in his creatures, especially his human creatures.

All sin is a desire for some good–but a disordered desire. if you habitually choose the disorder, then your will becomes more and more disordered.

Edwin

 

[TK421]

Eternal punishment is not rendered for temporary evils, but for perpetual, eternal ones. A person in Hell not only sins in earthly life, but continues to sin for eternity; that is why it is called final impenitence. A person in Hell is not penitent and does not love God. They don’t desire to be in Hell, but those are entirely separate things, just as there is a difference between being sorry and being sorry that you were caught. Mystics in Church history describe the residents of Hell as bearing immense hatred toward God, and towards the saints, and towards one another.

To prevent the wicked from enduring the punishment that they have chosen to pursue - both in life and in eternity - would allow evil to triumph over good, because the wickedness of a creature would be dictating the actions of God. God - and by default all creation - would have to bend to the actions of a creature to prevent the destruction that they have merited themselves. This cannot be.

God and the saints do not delight in punishment for its own sake, but they do delight in the fulfillment of justice. Thus it is in Revelation, that when Satan & his children met their fate, it is met with sounds of triumph in Heaven.

 

[TK421]

Earthly living is obscured mostly in shadow. As new revelation and new discoveries are made by a person, a person that might have at first seemed evil can become good, because he misunderstood or was betrayed by some false conviction, which he later becomes aware of, and thus he repents. Or a person that seemed good can become evil, because there was some hidden stipulation that he clung to, and it took until a certain point in life for that to be revealed, and thus he turns away from the faith that he never truly knew to begin with.

Beyond death, there is no more obscurity of knowledge or understanding. Everything is made plain. A wicked man cannot change because there are no further personal revelations to be had that can alter him. He sees fully, and yet he is evil, and thus nothing more can ever change that. A good man cannot change because there are no further personal revelations to be had that can alter him. He sees fully, and he loves what is good, and thus nothing more can ever change that.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Eternal punishment is not rendered for temporary evils, but for perpetual, eternal ones. A person in Hell not only sins in earthly life, but continues to sin for eternity; that is why it is called final impenitence. A person in Hell is not penitent and does not love God. They don’t desire to be in Hell, but those are entirely separate things, just as there is a difference between being sorry and being sorry that you were caught. Mystics in Church history describe the residents of Hell as bearing immense hatred toward God, and towards the saints, and towards one another.

To prevent the wicked from enduring the punishment that they have chosen to pursue - both in life and in eternity - would allow evil to triumph over good, because the wickedness of a creature would be dictating the actions of God. God - and by default all creation - would have to bend to the actions of a creature to prevent the destruction that they have merited themselves. This cannot be.

God and the saints do not delight in punishment for its own sake, but they do delight in the fulfillment of justice. Thus it is in Revelation, that when Satan & his children met their fate, it is met with sounds of triumph in Heaven.

How can a person be said to continue to sin in hell when they don’t have the freedom to do otherwise? Ought implies can. It doesn’t make sense to say that people in hell are “sinning” since they have not the freedom to do otherwise. If they did, some of them could repent and leave hell. If you say that they just all happen to be obstinate sinners whom God has always known would be so, why create them in the first place? If God has the power to create free beings who will always just happen to choose evil, for eternity, then why didn’t he just create free beings who will always just happen to choose good, for eternity?

How would the annihilation of the “wicked” be the triumph of evil over good? To me it would seem rather the total opposite. To continuously sustain the existence of the “wicked” in hell seems rather more like the triumph of evil over good. Indeed, an eternal triumph. Satan’s rebellion lasts forever.

 

[TK421]

Satan’s rebellion, and the rebellion of his children, will last for all eternity. “To sin” means to not cooperate with God’s will. Because Satan will hate God for eternity, Satan will sin for eternity, and he will rebel for eternity. Those are all different ways of saying the same thing. However, when all earthly life is brought to a close, it will become a futile rebellion, and the damned will only ever be able to inflict harm on one another, since they have no access to Heaven. Demons will torment demons. Demons will torment men. Men will torment each other. Divine Justice - kindled and unmixed - will torment all of them.

It is the destiny of men and angels to be united with God, to love, and to be loved. That is the meaning of life, and it is the will of God. God will not and cannot alter this plan by sparing the reward that is due to the wicked. St Aquinas posed this question: “Why doesn’t God use his foreknowledge to inhibit the will of the wicked from choosing wickedness, or by not creating them?” To do so would be an injustice. It is not an evil thing that the wicked should suffer during their supernatural, in-temporal existence. When you die, whether you go to Heaven or to hell, you go where you are suppose to be. If somebody goes to where they are suppose to be, then that it not a bad thing. God would not permit a person to suffer hell unless they merited it.

 

[oldcelt]

Satan’s rebellion, and the rebellion of his children, will last for all eternity. “To sin” means to not cooperate with God’s will. Because Satan will hate God for eternity, Satan will sin for eternity, and he will rebel for eternity. Those are all different ways of saying the same thing. However, when all earthly life is brought to a close, it will become a futile rebellion, and the damned will only ever be able to inflict harm on one another, since they have no access to Heaven. Demons will torment demons. Demons will torment men. Men will torment each other. Divine Justice - kindled and unmixed - will torment all of them.

It is the destiny of men and angels to be united with God, to love, and to be loved. That is the meaning of life, and it is the will of God. God will not and cannot alter this plan by sparing the reward that is due to the wicked. St Aquinas posed this question: “Why doesn’t God use his foreknowledge to inhibit the will of the wicked from choosing wickedness, or by not creating them?” To do so would be an injustice. It is not an evil thing that the wicked should suffer during their supernatural, in-temporal existence. When you die, whether you go to Heaven or to hell, you go where you are suppose to be. If somebody goes to where they are suppose to be, then that it not a bad thing. God would not permit a person to suffer hell unless they merited it.

Something that the God you describe knew with absolute certainty from all eternity. With creation coupled with infallible foreknowledge, comes responsibility.

 

[TK421]

This is assuming that Satan suffering for eternity is a negative thing. It is not a negative for a wicked person to receive the fruits of their choices anymore than it is negative for a good person to receive the fruits of their choices. The wicked enter into eternal suffering, and the righteous into eternal life. Both of these scenarios have good & just outcomes.

 

[tonyrey]

… All sin is a desire for some good–but a disordered desire. if you habitually choose the disorder, then your will becomes more and more disordered.

A very good point but the will is not so disordered that free will ceases to exist. Hell would be unjust if there were no element of choice.

 

[dmftx]

I am not sure why we (society, in general) argue about hell so much. I don’t feel the need to prove something I believe. I have, on occasion, felt the need to state my opinion on something I disagree with but in my humble opinion, everything we discuss about our religious beliefs are dependent on one thing - FAITH. Without it we would be nothing.

 

[Techno2000]

I remember reading somewhere from a private revelation that Jesus said people go to hell because of ingratitude and that they say … I did not ask you to die for me.

 

[tonyrey]

I am not sure why we (society, in general) argue about hell so much. I don’t feel the need to prove something I believe. I have, on occasion, felt the need to state my opinion on something I disagree with but in my humble opinion, everything we discuss about our religious beliefs are dependent on one thing - FAITH. Without it we would be nothing.

Then why did Jesus and the Apostles give reasons to those who disagreed with them?

 

[tonyrey]

I’m not sure what you mean and how it applies to what I said.

It doesn’t apply to what you said but the view you were criticising, i.e. the denial of free will!

 

[Contarini]

A very good point but the will is not so disordered that free will ceases to exist. Hell would be unjust if there were no element of choice.

There is no choice in hell, as traditionally taught. There was choice in this life. At the point of death our choices become “fixed,” at least in their direction (toward God or away).

At least, that’s the traditional view, and I’m not convinced that it’s untenable.

Edwin

 

[dmftx]

Then why did Jesus and the Apostles give reasons to those who disagreed with them?

You are very correct. I simply think this is one of those beliefs that, above all else, requires faith. This, as well as other topics, are excellent to discuss and my statement was not meant for this specific thread or poster.

There are thing that our Church gives us as a “given” for which I am so thankful. It helps us to worry less and focus on God more.