Beginning of Hell

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Brigid34

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My 8 year old grandson asked me if there was “the bad place” (Hell) before Satan fell or only after. I told him I’d get back to him. What do you think?
 
[BIBLEDRB]matthew 25:41[/BIBLEDRB]

Haydock Commentary

Prepared for the devil. When Christ invited the just to his heavenly kingdom, he calls it a kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world; a kingdom of inexpressible happiness, which from all eternity he designed for those who he knew would faithfully serve him. But, when he pronounces the sentence of the reprobate, he speaks in a widely different manner. He calls it an everlasting fire, prepared not for them, but for the devils and wicked spirits, their accomplices. They have chosen to cast themselves into it; they must therefore look upon themselves as the authors of all their miseries and sufferings. S. Chrys. hom. lxxx. — The pain of loss is here expressed by depart from me, and the pain of sense by eternal fire. M. and Maldonatus.
 
I don’t think hell is of a great interest because we do not reach heaven by running away from hell.
 
No one reaches Heaven without the grace of God. Some search for God and His grace because at first they fear God’s judgement and Hell. Yet if they continue on this path they will eventually make the second step and come to know God; then they will turn away from sin not because they fear Hell anymore, but because they love God so much they never wan’t to offend Him.

[BIBLEDRB]Proverbs 9:10[/BIBLEDRB]
 
Hell predates Satan’s fall and even his creation, at least if you believe Dante, from Canto III of Inferno, the famous “sign” on the gates of Hell reads:

*Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.

Justice the founder of my fabric mov’d:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.

Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
*
 
Hell is the absence of God, so whenever (if we can speak temporally here) a someone chooses to be away from God, he ends in hell. Was there hell before Satan fell? I don’t think we can know, since Satan is the first person we have evidence of having rejected God.
 
I.dont think we need worry about time, as all things are present to God. i do believe we run away from Hell -.via running away from sin in all its forms. One cannot serve two masters… We have to choose; which means rejecting or turning away from one - either God (good), or evil (devil, in favour of the other.
 
Hell is the repudiation of God. That is why hell is on earth as well as in the afterlife.
 
How would you say is the best way to say what you want to an 8 year-old?
 
How would you say is the best way to say what you want to an 8 year-old?
Tell him that hell is not exactly a physical place like ‘a room, like his bedroom’ for example, but a ‘state of being’ (maybe that is too compolicated to understand for a 8 yo…?).

Anyway you can tell him that hell is basically ‘refusing to be with God’ so hell started when the devil refused to be with God.

When we refuse to be with God we also ‘go to hell’ or rather we ‘become part of hell’ since our refusal makes us part of it.

I hope it can nbe clear… explaining things to children is hard 😃
 
Tell him that hell is not exactly a physical place like ‘a room, like his bedroom’ for example…
This is true for Hell as it exists now, but, as you know, we will be raised again in our physical bodies on the Last Day and those who freely chose to reject God will physically be in Hell, thus Hell must (at least from the Last Day on, if not now) be a physical place.
 
My 8 year old grandson asked me if there was “the bad place” (Hell) before Satan fell or only after. I told him I’d get back to him. What do you think?
No. Hell is a byproduct of the collapse of creation. “The whole of creation is subject to futility” And, many people today don’t realize this, creation is an ongoing process…“My Father is at work until now…and so am I” --Jesus
Creation is still going on today. When the old creation births the new one…like an old garment that is worn out and cast away…or a scroll of stars that is rolled up…then there will “exist” a neither world that eternally flees the Justice Face of God…hell indeed.
 
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