Can God be in hell?

[spockrates]

Actually Spockrates is correct.

I’m sure David has been correct more often than I have. I suppose I was just lucky this time.

If God maintains our existence (which He does) then He must be present. If those in hell exist then He must be present there also. You cannot completely escape God’s presence and continue to exist, since you are not “being” in and of itself like God. If you could then you would be a god of some sorts. There is nothing logically contradictory with saying God is present in hell, but we have to know in what capacity. God is love, and so He does all things in love. That includes maintaining your existence. So why is hell so horrible? Because it is a rejection of love/God (kind of like being at a party that you don’t enjoy). That being the case, hell has less to do with God’s relation to us than it does with our relation to God. You create hell, not God. So God will still maintain your existence, and you cannot escape His presence. However, if you are faithful that presence will bring you peace and joy (as it should), and if you are impenitent then your continual rejection of that presence will be torturous (since you want that joy, but you refuse to obtain it by going to God, which is actually the only way to gain it. This fact too will be torture to you). Again, it’s more harder to explain than this, but the main point is that Spock is right.

Still Questioner, I actually *can *imagine one way in which David might be correct, which is this: If Hell is not a place, but merely a state of existence, then to say,

Adolph Hitler is in Hell.

we would mean,

Adolph Hitler is separated from God.

Trying to apply this to God, we would say that the words,

God is in Hell.

means,

God is separated from God.

which is indeed a contradiction, and absurd in the extreme!

So David is correct that God cannot be in Hell in that He cannot possibly experience Hell the way the damned do. And you are wrong to say I proved him wrong!



However, if we say that Hell is a place where the damned reside forever, then to say,

Adolph Hitler is in Hell.

we would mean,

Adolph Hitler is in a place where the damned reside forever.

and to say,

God is in Hell.

would mean,

God is in a place where the damned reside forever.

So you too are correct! God cannot possibly be absent from Hell in that He cannot possibly be unaware and inactive in maintaining the existence of those imprisoned there.



I suppose the questions before all of us, then are these: Is Hell a location, or a state of being, or both? If it is both, then how can God be present but the damned still be separated from Him (that is, in what way are they separated from Him)?

 

[spockrates]

False. P4 is not true. Omnipresence does not include logically contradictory states.

Please also see post #21.

 

[skinny_pumpkin]

Interesting, Skinny. Reminds me of my days as a Fundamentalist Baptist. When I asked one of my teachers how a loving God could send anyone to Hell, his answer was this: “God is a loving God, but He is also a just God.”

On this topic, at least, the Eastern Orthodox Church appears to agree. God sometimes sacrifices love and mercy for the sake of justice and wisdom. The premise appears to be a strong one, and easily defended.

Then I have not communicated the EO belief effectively. However, the best thing I have read outside of the EO that does is CS lewis’ The Great Divorce.

It is an appropriate title for the concept.

 

[Mig]

Hell is separation from God.
God cannot be separated from Himself
Therefore, God cannot be in hell.

I take humble (still learning) issue with your second phrase, or more particular with the word “cannot”, used in conjunction with God. What disallows God, being God, from separating Himself, from Himself? Consider please, that there are many forms and meanings of the concept of separation.

The only thing that prevents God from doing anything, is His will.

I offer up a bit different take.

God breathed life into man.
Life is, in some sense, God.
In Hell we continue to have life.
Therefore, in Hell, God, in some sense, continues in us.

I’ve this theory: God created man for fellowship. That fellowship can certainly be from without, as in person to person. It can also certainly be from within, as in God within us . That is God experiencing every thing we experience (the ultimate fellowship) That is at once, a wonderful, yet terrifying thought. That I subject God to the sin He hates *and the eternal consequences *

If God indeed does subject himself to everything we feel, plus everything His Godly Self’ feels, then it’s logical His suffering is greater than our own. If that’s true, wouldn’t that silence our questions about how God can allow man to suffer, especially for that man’s own choices?

 

[davidv]

Do you think, David that Hell might be different things to different beings?

I think this may be so. For God it is the place, or state, for those you have rejected Him. For the saints, it may not be known. For those who have rejected God, it is experienced first hand.

For example, to a saint in Heaven, Hell is a place she cannot possibly go (or state of existence she cannot possibly experience). This is quite different from what Hell is to the damned, which is a place from which she cannot escape (or a state of existence she cannot change). So you see that Hell is contrary things. It is a place one cannot enter, and also a place from which one cannot escape. It is a state of existence one cannot experience, and a state of experience one cannot help experiencing. Yet I would be wrong to say that this makes the idea of Hell contradictory.

I don’t follow this.

Just as Hell is something different to the saint than it is to the damned, so too Hell might be something different to God than it is to the damned. What Hell is, is relative to whom it is related, but this does not make Hell itself a contradiction.

 

[davidv]

I take humble (still learning) issue with your second phrase, or more particular with the word “cannot”, used in conjunction with God. What disallows God, being God, from separating Himself, from Himself? Consider please, that there are many forms and meanings of the concept of separation.

The only thing that prevents God from doing anything, is His will.

I believe another way God is prevented from doing something is His nature.
For example. God is Love, therefore He cannot be un-loving.

I offer up a bit different take.

God breathed life into man.
Life is, in some sense, God.
In Hell we continue to have life.
Therefore, in Hell, God, in some sense, continues in us.

It seems to me that the only way God can be “in us”, is for us to permit it. So, even as he sustains us as a being, our rejection of Him shuts Him out.

I’ve this theory: God created man for fellowship. That fellowship can certainly be from without, as in person to person. It can also certainly be from within, as in God within us . That is God experiencing every thing we experience (the ultimate fellowship) That is at once, a wonderful, yet terrifying thought. That I subject God to the sin He hates *and the eternal consequences *

If God indeed does subject himself to everything we feel, plus everything His Godly Self’ feels, then it’s logical His suffering is greater than our own. If that’s true, wouldn’t that silence our questions about how God can allow man to suffer, especially for that man’s own choices?

Quite possibly, as well as giving some understanding of the agony Jesus experienced in His passion.

 

[davidv]

Please also see post #21.

See post #25.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

To be in hell is to suffer the consequence of sin. How can God suffer such a consequence since God cannot sin?

Jesus was born without sin, and died without sin. Whether as God or Man, Jesus cannot be in hell.

 

[spockrates]

Then I have not communicated the EO belief effectively. However, the best thing I have read outside of the EO that does is CS lewis’ The Great Divorce.

It is an appropriate title for the concept.

So many books; so little time! Do you have a brief synopsis?

 

[spockrates]

I think this may be so. For God it is the place, or state, for those you have rejected Him. For the saints, it may not be known. For those who have rejected God, it is experienced first hand.

Yes.

I don’t follow this.

I was trying to explain how Hell is relative–it is different things to different beings, depending on how the place called Hell, or the state of existence called hell, relates to them. The saint experiences Hell in a different way from the condemned.

 

[spockrates]

See post #25.

That I did, David!



So do you think I’m right? Are you thinking of Hell as a state of existence, and do you think Questioner is thinking of Hell as a place? And if Hell is both, can you see how both you and Questioner might be correct?

 

[spockrates]

To be in hell is to suffer the consequence of sin. How can God suffer such a consequence since God cannot sin?

Jesus was born without sin, and died without sin. Whether as God or Man, Jesus cannot be in hell.

Charlemagne:

True, that! So you would agree with David that God cannot experience the eternal consequences of Hell.



But do you also agree with Questioner that God, who is omnipresent, can be in Hell?

 

[spockrates]

Questioner:

Do you have any questions in response to our questions?