Another Question About Hell

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meltzerboy

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Whether one believes that hell is a physical place of eternal torment, a mental and emotional state of anguish, or a total separation from G-d, can it really be a place or state of complete and infinite separation? IOW, isn’t it a matter of faith that G-d is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent? If so, how can one actually be separated from G-d in time, space, state of mind, or consciousness? And, if one can be separated from G-d, does that also mean that G-d is separated from people in hell?
 
meltzerboy said:
Whether one believes that hell is a physical place of eternal torment, a mental and emotional state of anguish, or a total separation from G-d, can it really be a place or state of complete and infinite separation? IOW, isn’t it a matter of faith that G-d is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent? If so, how can one actually be separated from G-d in time, space, state of mind, or consciousness? And, if one can be separated from G-d, does that also mean that G-d is separated from people in hell?
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Maybe it’s like a kind of dome thing that incapsulates the damned from contaminating the pure as the driven snow yet is still under the domain of the maker of all things.
You know, like that thing at picnics that you use to keep insects from eating your food. It’s kinda like mosquito netting maybe?
Remember, they may get a kick out of watching the games being played out. Kinda like in Roman days, where you get to see some real suffering. So, there has to be theater areas in heaven for the saved to watch the suffering take place.
Just an idea.
 
meltzerboy said:
Whether one believes that hell is a physical place of eternal torment, a mental and emotional state of anguish, or a total separation from G-d, can it really be a place or state of complete and infinite separation? IOW, isn’t it a matter of faith that G-d is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent? If so, how can one actually be separated from G-d in time, space, state of mind, or consciousness? And, if one can be separated from G-d, does that also mean that G-d is separated from people in hell?
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The door is locked from the inside. The “punishment” ( like shame) may be the reality of who one is under the gaze of He who is infinitely compassionate and loving. One may be eternally running away from oneself.
 
Aloysium said:
The door is locked from the inside. The “punishment” ( like shame) may be the reality of who one is under the gaze of He who is infinitely compassionate and loving. One may be eternally running away from oneself.
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How has that worked for the priests who consecrate the host and at the same time are doing things that would land anyone else in jail?
 
meltzerboy said:
Whether one believes that hell is a physical place of eternal torment, a mental and emotional state of anguish, or a total separation from G-d, can it really be a place or state of complete and infinite separation? IOW, isn’t it a matter of faith that G-d is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent? If so, how can one actually be separated from G-d in time, space, state of mind, or consciousness? And, if one can be separated from G-d, does that also mean that G-d is separated from people in hell?
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It’s not that God has separated Himself from the person in hell, but rather the person in hell separates himself from God to the fullest degree he possibly can (“totally” from the perspective of the damned human).

No human is ever totally separated from God, because damned humans continue to exist and God is the first cause of their existence - that is, it is God who continues to keep them in existence. We are contingent beings; our existence depends on God’s willing us to exist – not just when we were first conceived, but every single moment that we continue to exist.

So, it’s not that God totally separates Himself from the damned; if He did, they would cease to exist.
 
Nita said:
It’s not that God has separated Himself from the person in hell, but rather the person in hell separates himself from God to the fullest degree he possibly can (“totally” from the perspective of the damned human).

No human is ever totally separated from God, because damned humans continue to exist and God is the first cause of their existence - that is, it is God who continues to keep them in existence. We are contingent beings; our existence depends on God’s willing us to exist – not just when we were first conceived, but every single moment that we continue to exist.

So, it’s not that God totally separates Himself from the damned; if He did, they would cease to exist.
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I agree, God must not be able to seperate himself from watching his creation in hell.
Think about that.
 
StrawberryJam said:
I agree, God must not be able to seperate himself from watching his creation in hell.
Think about that.
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Are you saying that you feel your god watching you, not connecting, not loving and possibly enjoying your suffering? Do you interpret God’s permitting your suffering and the existence of hell as pointing to this possibility? If this is the case I would recommend going through scripture (and the Catechism), perhaps forgetting what others have told you it says, but reading it fresh.

Oops forgot the obvious: pray.
 
StrawberryJam said:
Maybe it’s like a kind of dome thing that incapsulates the damned from contaminating the pure as the driven snow yet is still under the domain of the maker of all things.
You know, like that thing at picnics that you use to keep insects from eating your food. It’s kinda like mosquito netting maybe?
**Remember, they may get a kick out of watching the games being played out. Kinda like in Roman days, where you get to see some real suffering. So, there has to be theater areas in heaven for the saved to watch the suffering take place. **
Just an idea.
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I hope this was meant as satire or sarcasm … 😦
 
From a discussion of The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis, taken from this site: cslewis.drzeus.net/papers/light.html :
Near the end of the story, some of the children who follow Aslan go out into a field where the dwarfs live. They want to make friends; they want to help them see the light and the beauty of the world which surrounds them.
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When they arrived, they noticed that the dwarfs have a very odd look and were huddled together in a circle facing inward, paying attention to nothing. As the children drew near, they were aware that the dwarfs couldn’t see them. “Where are you ?” asks one of the children. “We’re in here you bone-head,” said Diggle the dwarf, “in this pitch-black, poky, smelly little hole of a stable.”
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“Are you blind?” asks another child. “No,” respond the dwarfs, “we’re here in the dark where no one can see.”
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“But it isn’t dark, you poor dwarfs,” says Lucy, “look up, look round, can’t you see the sky and flowers - can’t you see me?” Then Lucy bends over, picks some wild violets, and says, “perhaps you can smell these.” But the dwarf jumps back into his darkness and yells, “How dare you shove that filthy stable litter in my face.” He cannot even smell the beauty which surrounds him.
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Suddenly the earth trembles. The sweet air of the field grows sweeter and a brightness flashes behind them. The children turn and see that Aslan, the great lion himself, has appeared. They greet him warmly and then Lucy, through her tears, asks, “Aslan, can you do something for these poor dwarfs?”
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Aslan approaches the dwarfs who are huddled in their darkness and he growls. They think it is someone in the stables trying to frighten them. Then Aslan shakes his mane and sets before the dwarfs a magnificent feast of food. The dwarfs grab the food in the darkness, greedily consuming it, but they cannot taste its goodness. One thinks he is eating hay, another an old rotten turnip. In a moment, they are fighting and quarreling among themselves as usual. Aslan turns and leaves them in their misery.
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They children are dismayed. Even the great Aslan cannot bring them out of their self-imposed darkness. “They will not let us help them,” says Aslan. Their prison is only in their minds and they are so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out. “But come now children,” says Aslan, “we have other work to do,” and they leave the dwarfs alone in their miserable world.
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StrawberryJam said:
How has that worked for the priests who consecrate the host and at the same time are doing things that would land anyone else in jail?
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Most of these men are still living; Heaven and Hell are matters of the next life (eternity).

Is it really necessary to bring up the 20th century Church scandals constantly?

ICXC NIKA
 
As a follow-up to the passage above: If we really, truly believe that humans have free will (and I realize that not everyone believes that we do), but if we do, then one of the choices has to be that we are free to reject God; we have the freedom to say, as the Enemy did, “non serviam”.

The consequences of that choice are illustrated very well in The Last Battle, and also in The Great Divorce (both by Lewis).
 
GEddie said:
Most of these men are still living; Heaven and Hell are matters of the next life (eternity).

Is it really necessary to bring up the 20th century Church scandals constantly?

ICXC NIKA
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I am taking a look at this from the “miracle” standpoint. God wants to show us miracles, yet lost his chance to show himself by letting the host be consecrated by the hands of criminals parents trusted their children with, and making a big deal about bleeding statues as being miracles.
I would think the practical miracle would be the real body and blood of Jesus would dissapear in the hands of a man who hurt children.
But, it does not work that way I guess.
 
Morwenna said:
As a follow-up to the passage above: If we really, truly believe that humans have free will (and I realize that not everyone believes that we do), but if we do, then one of the choices has to be that we are free to reject God; we have the freedom to say, as the Enemy did, “non serviam”.

The consequences of that choice are illustrated very well in The Last Battle, and also in The Great Divorce (both by Lewis).
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And this does not at all mean that anyone who does not believe in your God has rejected you God. I don’t reject faires.
 
from a discussion about Inferno, by Greg Pournelle and Larry Niven.
larryniven.net/reviews/critical.shtml
… the final revelation that Hell is actually “the violent ward of a hospital for the theologically insane.” It is a testing ground engineered by God as a “last attempt” to get the attention of human beings too proud of their technology and too self-centered in their humanism to accept the reality of an eternal, omnipotent, ghostly Presence in both technology and nature.
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Nita said:
It’s not that God has separated Himself from the person in hell, but rather the person in hell separates himself from God to the fullest degree he possibly can (“totally” from the perspective of the damned human).

No human is ever totally separated from God, because damned humans continue to exist and God is the first cause of their existence - that is, it is God who continues to keep them in existence. We are contingent beings; our existence depends on God’s willing us to exist – not just when we were first conceived, but every single moment that we continue to exist.

So, it’s not that God totally separates Himself from the damned; if He did, they would cease to exist.
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You can be with someone physically and still be a million miles away if you know what I mean. Being some place physically doesn’t mean your mind or heart is there. I can look right at someone and not see them if my mind is preoccupied with something else. 😉 God can make Himself invisible and unseen to those in Hell and shield Himself off from them while still being present. How He does it is a mystery but those examples I gave can explain that it is possible to be somewhere and not see anything or anyone there if your mind is not there.
 
Between Good Friday (Crucifixion) and Easter Sunday (Resurrection) Catholics mark Easter Saturday when Catholics note Christ’s Descent into Hell, or the Harrowing of Hell. It is a theologically complex subject the exact significance of which is still debated by some theologians but which meaning our Catechism explains.

On another note, the famous 20th Century Swiss Catholic theologian Hans urs von Balthasar, a favorite theologian of our last popes, wrote the controversial book Dare We Hope that All Men Be Saved with a short discourse on hell:
books.google.ca/books?id=7ZfpLWkTtOgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=hans+urs+von+balthasar+dare+we+hope+that&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tp-hUZHZO8fq0QHg_YCQAg&ved=0CDMQuwUwAA

I remember dealing with the subject of this book and Balthasar’s beliefs on Hell specifically a while back on CAF and it’s a bit too late to discuss now. Maybe I can look tomorrow.

In the meantime here is an interesting synopsis on the subject of hell by the popular Catholic priest Father Barron, whose talk may be reassuring and hopeful to many but perhaps too rosy for other more traditional Catholics, but he deals in under ten minutes with some of the questions raised in this thread.
Fr. Barron comments on Is Hell Crowded or Empty?
youtube.com/watch?v=dmsa0sg4Od4

(p.s. just for Meltzerboy’s info. I am not one of those strict “outside the Church there is no salvation” posters on CAF who argue that only Catholics go to heaven thus ignoring the Church’s teachings on salvation, but I debated that subject on here too some time back but it’s obviously not the issue in this thread thankfully :))
 
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