Can We Truly Consent to Infinite Torture?

[Oreoracle]

Many Christians argue that Hell is an acceptable punishment because, by sinning, people consent to being punished there. They say that God tells us what will happen if we sin without confessing and that this is sufficient warning.

Curiously enough, they are also eager to gush over God’s infinite qualities and our lack of comprehension of these qualities. They say that we can only grasp finite concepts, and that sounds fair enough. However, they don’t seem to carry this over to the concept of Hell. Hell, in almost every Christian denomination, is supposed to be a place of eternal torture. This means that if you are sent there, you are tortured for an infinite amount of time. If we can’t conceive of infinity, we cannot possibly be expected to fully understand eternal torture. I think it’s fair to say that if we don’t understand a stipulation in a contract, we shouldn’t be able to sign that contract. It’s only courteous of one party to withdraw the contract upon seeing that the other party doesn’t fully grasp the conditions.

Thus, God shouldn’t offer us the choice between infinite torture or infinite happiness, as they are both items in a contract that we cannot conceive of.

Any objections?

 

[Jack17]

For all we know hell could be heaven and heaven could be hell. It was reverse psychology by rewarding those who go against God by granting heaven to them for having them live their life of sex drinking and other bad things. Those who went to Church are going to hell for fearing God more than loving him for the world he created.

 

[DominicVobiscum]

For all we know hell could be heaven and heaven could be hell. It was reverse psychology by rewarding those who go against God by granting heaven to them for having them live their life of sex drinking and other bad things. Those who went to Church are going to hell for fearing God more than loving him for the world he created.

Im sorry, but I don’t agree.

SInce the beginning of time, God hearkens to mankind, saying come to me, come to me. He sent his only begotten Son to show us the way. God does not wish us to spend eternity in Hell away from Him. We do that by our own free will.

Anyhow, His mercy is beyond our comprehension.

We make choices each and every day. The choice that is in our heart at the hour of our death will determine where we spend eternity.

 

[Dtmccameron]

Thus, God shouldn’t offer us the choice between infinite torture or infinite happiness, as they are both items in a contract that we cannot conceive of.

Any objections?

Unconcievable pain, or unconcievable happiness…I don’t know, I don’t think that much “concieving” is required to decide. It’s like xa+xb. If you’re using the same modifier equally, the equation isn’t that changed up, is it?

 

[LilyM]

Do people who go to Hell understand exactly what they’re getting themselves in for before they go there? Maybe not.

Does that negate the fact that the choice against God is freely made by them - and therefore the consequences that they know flow from that? Of course not.

I may not know precisely what the future holds when I decide to get married, stay in an abusive relationship, begin a particular course of study, get behind the wheel when drunk or have a child. Does that mean that I didn’t ‘sign up for’ the foreseeable consequences of those choices? I’d argue not really.

 

[Mark77]

As Catholics we believe that God has infinite Mercy. Even if we know better but choose to live a horrible, despicable and hateful life, we believe that we will be given one final chance just prior to the moment of our death to “repent and believe the Gospel!” Only if we choose to refuse God’s Mercy will we be damned to eternity in hell.

So why not live an evil, selfish and hateful life and just say i’m sorry when you die? Again Jesus has revealed the Truth through his Catholic Church, we will suffer in purgatory for our sins until we are cleansed and perfectly beautiful. Then and only then can we spend the rest of eternity with God is Heaven.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) teaches us; "The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:

As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come. (CCC1031)

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark

 

[Ignatius]

Thus, God shouldn’t offer us the choice between infinite torture or infinite happiness?

He doesn’t. The choice is to be with Him forever, which is infinite happiness; or to realize at the end, that we have chosen to be separated from Him for eternity.

 

[Oreoracle]

Unconcievable pain, or unconcievable happiness…I don’t know, I don’t think that much “concieving” is required to decide. It’s like xa+xb. If you’re using the same modifier equally, the equation isn’t that changed up, is it?

I may not know precisely what the future holds when I decide to get married, stay in an abusive relationship, begin a particular course of study, get behind the wheel when drunk or have a child. Does that mean that I didn’t ‘sign up for’ the foreseeable consequences of those choices? I’d argue not really.

Again, I don’t think God’s warning is sufficient. We put up with having imperfect knowledge of the consequences of our actions in this world, but I think that, if God wants to be fair about it, he should give us perfect knowledge. Otherwise, we are guessing to some extent.

In order to have that perfect knowledge, we must know how we will feel with our choice at all times. As I said, we normally don’t have this luxury. Then again, it’s usually not that important. Most of our decisions won’t affect our whole lives, but only affect us for a brief period, so the results are easy to conceive. If the results of your decision are infinite, though, any flaw in our conception is multiplied infinitely. How should I know if I’d want to be with God in 1,000,000,000 years?

He doesn’t. The choice is to be with Him forever, which is infinite happiness; or to realize at the end, that we have chosen to be separated from Him for eternity.

Most Christians that make the arguments in the OP believe that eternal separation from God is infinite torture.

 

[Mel_Stones]

Hell is eternal separation from God with the knowledge we could have been with Him had we just accepted His gift. That is the torture. Not physical torture, emotional/psychological torture which is the worst.
We can understand being with God or being away from God in our lives through Jesus. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are here on earth with us and we choose now whether to accept or reject. We have our whole lives to experiment with being with and without God. When rejecting God we run the risk of dying outside of His friendship. But once we die the permanent chose has been made with our consent. The big thing is faith. We must accept God without his audibly speaking to us or physically being with us (although He can and does work through others to audibly and physically be with us).

 

[LilyM]

Again, I don’t think God’s warning is sufficient. We put up with having imperfect knowledge of the consequences of our actions in this world, but I think that, if God wants to be fair about it, he should give us perfect knowledge. Otherwise, we are guessing to some extent.

In order to have that perfect knowledge, we must know how we will feel with our choice at all times. As I said, we normally don’t have this luxury. Then again, it’s usually not that important. Most of our decisions won’t affect our whole lives, but only affect us for a brief period, so the results are easy to conceive. If the results of your decision are infinite, though, any flaw in our conception is multiplied infinitely. How should I know if I’d want to be with God in 1,000,000,000 years?

I beg to differ. Marriage and having children for the most part affect you ever after, and often this is the case even if the marriage doesn’t last and even after your children have left. Doing something that risks physical injury - well, those certainly can affect you for the rest of your life. Doing something that risks your death - well, that affects your family for their whole lives!! So far from a brief period in many many cases.

And it’s not a question of wanting ‘to be with God in 1,000,000,000 years’.

Eternity is actually OUTSIDE of time, it’s a different thing from what you imagine, which would be earthly time extended infinitely. That’s why we say God ‘always’ existed, it doesn’t just mean He existed for an infinite length of time in the past, but that His existence is literally outside of and therefore without, time, which He created.

Past, present and future don’t exist as we know them to God, nor to us who are in His presence, so there’s no question of changing your mind or getting bored, not if you remained in heaven while a billion or even a billion billion years passed on earth.

Apart from which, of course, God is all perfect so there’s no such thing as being bored with Him or not wanting to be with Him once in His presence, if you’ve made the choice for Him.

Most Christians that make the arguments in the OP believe that eternal separation from God is infinite torture.

Some speculate the opposite - that being in His presence actually IS the punishment of Hell for sinners - since they become fully aware of the magnitude and horror of their offences against Him. A bit like fire, which burns you if you’re not wearing protective clothing but is fine if you are.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

How is it torture to give someone exactly what they want? We must reject the term “torture” in this case; perhaps we can substitute with “eternal separation from God”. I agree that it is necessary that we know exactly what this means before can consent to choose it.

But it is not at all clear that we have no accurate concept of infinity. We know many of things that are limitless, through experience – the night sky, the ocean, the depth of need within us. Existentialism is a philosophy that would not be possible the recognition of the infinite, and there are certainly existentialists.

 

[LilyM]

How is it torture to give someone exactly what they want? We must reject the term “torture” in this case; perhaps we can substitute with “eternal separation from God”. I agree that it is necessary that we know exactly what this means before can consent to choose it.

Good point. Is giving a drug addict an enormous quantity of the drugs they crave ‘infinite torture’? No. Of course it’s bad for them and injurious to them, as even many addicts would acknowledge, but it’s not torture.

 

[kerath25]

Again, I don’t think God’s warning is sufficient. We put up with having imperfect knowledge of the consequences of our actions in this world, but I think that, if God wants to be fair about it, he should give us perfect knowledge. Otherwise, we are guessing to some extent.

In order to have that perfect knowledge, we must know how we will feel with our choice at all times. As I said, we normally don’t have this luxury. Then again, it’s usually not that important. Most of our decisions won’t affect our whole lives, but only affect us for a brief period, so the results are easy to conceive. If the results of your decision are infinite, though, any flaw in our conception is multiplied infinitely. How should I know if I’d want to be with God in 1,000,000,000 years?

Most Christians that make the arguments in the OP believe that eternal separation from God is infinite torture.

Forgive me for not quoting all of the other answers to these points, which are all very good

What you are describing, if I understand, is a situation where we fully understand the consequences of our actions. If my understanding is correct, this is the situation that we see with the angels (best reference I could find was here). Yet, we know that some of them, even knowing the full consequences of their actions, choose Hell over Heaven, because they refuse to serve.

The major thing to consider is that, if we could fully understand the consequences of our actions, we would arguably be beyond the point of forgiveness. We could choose to follow God’s will, or not. If we have that knowledge, and choose freely to do the wrong, then how can we say later that we are sorry that we did it? Fortunately, God has not given us this full understanding (at least not in this life).

The idea of getting tired of being with God for 1,000,000,000 years is silly. First, as Mel pointed out, time does not exist in the life to come. Second, it shows an ill-conceived notion of what Heaven truly is. We do not know what we shall be, but we are promised that it will be paradise.

If you’re interested on some other thoughts on Hell and the like (in a format that mere mortals like myself can understand), you can take a look at what C. S. Lewis has written on the subject in The Problem With Pain and The Great Divorce.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

The major thing to consider is that, if we could fully understand the consequences of our actions, we would arguably be beyond the point of forgiveness.

Interesting point, but I think a distinction should be made. There could be two meanings of “understand the consequences of our actions”:

1. The existential consequences - By this, I mean hell or heaven, condemnation or blessedness.
2. The external consequences - By this, I refer to the damage we cause others through our sin, the damage we do to our own souls through sin, the brutality we visit upon the body of Christ through sin.

If we understood the external consequences of sin fully, I believe it would be impossible to sin. Or, if we sinned, as you say, it would be once and for all – like the fallen angels.

But I believe that we do understand the existential consequences of sin, fully. We may live in denial, but such an understanding is built into our nature. As I said before, we know an infinite depth of pain and longing within us: hell is that depth, extended over the course of eternity.

I’m glad your post made me think these things out.

 

[Oreoracle]

Good point. Is giving a drug addict an enormous quantity of the drugs they crave ‘infinite torture’? No. Of course it’s bad for them and injurious to them, as even many addicts would acknowledge, but it’s not torture.

“Torture” is defined as “extreme mental or physical anguish.” Given that definition, drugs that are injurious to one’s health could be said to torture that person. Can we agree on that?

You may think it’s acceptable to let children play with matches, and you may think the parents that leave those matches out aren’t culpable for the children’s burns, but can we at least acknowledge that the children are burned?

Anyway, for those of you that think my comment on being with God for X number of years is silly, I disagree. Time is a result of our perception–it is the measure of the succession of events. If there are entities interacting (in this case, God and I) there is a process (a series of events), and thus, time. To imagine otherwise is, I feel, silly.

 

[Zooey]

Again, I don’t think God’s warning is sufficient. We put up with having imperfect knowledge of the consequences of our actions in this world, but I think that, if God wants to be fair about it, he should give us perfect knowledge. Otherwise, we are guessing to some extent.

In all possibility charity, **I **don’t think that your judgment is sufficient to make a statement on the sufficiency of God’s warning.
God, being God, knows what warning we need when He gives us the warning. He also gives us all the grace we need to heed the warning, and He knows precisely what grace and how much grace each of us needs to heed Him.
God is God. We are mere mortals. It is only in accepting that we are mere mortals, and that we don’t have all the answers, that we have the humility that is needed to bow before Him.
[quoteOreoracle]
Most Christians that make the arguments in the OP believe that eternal separation from God is infinite torture. Well, it would be infinite torture for me, because I know and love God.
Actually, it could be reasonably argued that there would be no notion of such a thing as the rightness/wrongness of infinite torture unless there were a God and unless that God were the source of the knowledge that right and wrong, good and evil, torture and bliss are real, and that they are different, and that one is better than the other.

But :shrug:hey, that’s me…:twocents:.

 

[Zooey]

“Torture” is defined as “extreme mental or physical anguish.” Given that definition, drugs that are injurious to one’s health could be said to torture that person. Can we agree on that?

I think that if we had a real drug addict here, and offered him the choice, that he might very well say, that the real torture would be to keep the drugs away from him. (And, yes, I have seen a drug addict in need of a fix. I know whereof I speak).

Oreoracle:

You may think it’s acceptable to let children play with matches, and you may think the parents that leave those matches out aren’t culpable for the children’s burns, but can we at least acknowledge that the children are burned?

In respect: We aren’t talking about letting a child play with matches; we are talking about letting you play with matches.
I think its a horrible idea, but after I tell you (a thousand or so times), and you insist that I have no right to stick my nose in your business, what am I supposed to do? :ehh:Stay and join in with your :bigyikes:willful self-immolation?? Because I’m not going to do that. I will call 911 when your house goes up in flames with you in it. I will even visit you in the hospital if you happen to survive, and attend your wake if you don’t.
I have no moral obligation to commit suicide simply because you demand that I do so; you don’t have that right. You wouldn’t have the right even if you were a close relative, or my best friend.

Oreoracle:

Anyway, for those of you that think my comment on being with God for X number of years is silly, I disagree. Time is a result of our perception–it is the measure of the succession of events. If there are entities interacting (in this case, God and I) there is a process (a series of events), and thus, time. To imagine otherwise is, I feel, silly.

I :nope:don’t think it’s silly at all. I just think that it’s not particularly well thought out. But again–Hey, that’s just me.:twocents:

 

[One]

Oreo, my friend…

Since you are such a logical man, you may want to re-examine your original premise.

Your argument presumes that there is a physical place called “Hell” to which people can be sent after death, as well as a place called “Heaven.” This is the teaching of the Catholic church, but I would defy anyone to prove these two concepts, as anyone who could has, by definition, died, and is in no position to report on these things.

Some people (heresy alert!) have a different conception of these terms. For some, “Heaven” is a state of union with God/Divinity/Spirit/All-That-IS/{choose any term}, while “Hell” is a state of separation from God/Divinity/Spirit. In fact, the word “Sin”, as used in the time of Jesus, originally meant “the false belief that one is separated from God”, which would then lead us to the term “Original Sin”, which, rather than referring to fornication or any other transgression, describes the state that humans are born in – a state of forgetfulness wherein we (as humans) forget that we are never actually separate from God. Roman Catholic teaching regards “original sin” as the general condition of sinfulness (lack of holiness) into which human beings are born, distinct from the actual sins that a person commits, which, in my view, supports the notion that I’ve just put forth.

If and when a person fully realizes and experiences the fact that they are not separate(d) from God, then they can understand and experience “heaven on earth”, and need not wait for death to deliver on some promise. If, on the other hand, we remain in ignorance, our life on earth is “hell”, and we need only look around us to see the hellish state that ignorance of our true nature can produce.

(Now I realize that this is a Catholic forum, mainly populated by wonderful and devout Catholics, and that this will likely rub up against that belief system. I beg the forgiveness of anyone who adamantly disagrees with what I’ve said, as I’m only presenting other, known perspectives from which we can view this question.)

I firmly believe that a state of “heaven”, or bliss, is possible while one is still alive, and I know many people who live in a state of continuous “hell” because of their continued forgetfulness.

But one of the many problems that come up when discussing questions of this nature is that the questions are based on premises that may, in and of themselves, be false, or, if not false, then have been misinterpreted by humans over the course of millennia.

Always, with respect,
One

 

[TLM08]

It is often said in Catholic circles that God puts nobody in Hell. Instead people choose to go to Hell. There is no sane person on the face of the earth that would choose to go to Hell with it’s horrific torture in never ending flames. Would God send an insane person to Hell?

 

[Prodigal_Son]

You may think it’s acceptable to let children play with matches, and you may think the parents that leave those matches out aren’t culpable for the children’s burns, but can we at least acknowledge that the children are burned?

But why do you say that we are children? You haven’t responded to my claim that we **do **know what infinite separation from God (that is, alienation from ourselves) would be like.