Could Hell be Cold?

[HabemusFrancis]

We all know the traditionl idea of Hell being a hot place, where people are burning alive and shrieking in agony. Everyone from the Church Fathers to various saints have thought it thus.

I sometimes wonder though if the opposite is true. Could Hell be, instead of a burning, hot place, be a terribly dark and cold one instead?

Whenever I feel God absent from my life, it feels dark and cold, instead of burning lava hot. Negative emotions such as fear,worry,dread and despair, make one feel cold, not hot or even warm.

Isolation makes one shiver, while one can almost feel the heat from kind and lively company.

Curiously enough, I have no trouble believing purgatory is very hot and would be more than happy to go there when I die, as painful as it is.

Any thoughts? None of us know what Hell is like, and hopefully it will remain that way.

 

[Rhubarb]

That’s how Dante envisioned Hell. The most inner circle was a frozen hellscape,untouched by the warm light of the Divine. Satan was frozen in a lake, whose beating wings trying to escape only blew freezing wind about.

 

[Sparkythedog]

How is there a place apart from God. Isn’t your God omnipresent? Doesn’t that mean God is in Hell too?

 

[Tomdstone]

W
Any thoughts?

Jesus said: "“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’”
Matthew 25:41.
I don’t see where He said anything about a cold or freezing place of punishment.

 

[GLam8833]

Cold can “burn” too, have you not read
about “Freezer burn” of meat left too
long in the freezer, so it is conceivable
that Hell may be cold.
Torments, agony, gnashing of teeth, the
place where “their worm never dies and
the fire(of God’s judgment) is not quenched.”
Mark 9:48

 

[tee_eff_em]

How is there a place apart from God. Isn’t your God omnipresent? Doesn’t that mean God is in Hell too?

[ASIDE]

:twocents:
God is omnipresent and I believe God is “in Hell”, insofar as he sustains the existence of the damned. (And much to their consternation)

tee

 

[truetofaith]

Jesus said: "“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’”
Matthew 25:41.
I don’t see where He said anything about a cold or freezing place of punishment.

That’s what I was going to say…Jesus called it “eternal fire.” Plus in the parable of Lazarus & the rich man, he asks for a drop of water to cool his burning tongue.

 

[mikekle]

Ive heard a few people say, well if Im going to hell, at least I will have a lot of company, implying the suffering will be lessened somehow just because there are many other people around them, but if we are all in a literal lake of fire, I doubt that will matter much. I mean, whose to say the section you or I end up, there could be people that lived in the 1400s or some other times?!

But then again, people in hell do not receive glorified bodies, so Im not sure how fire/ burning, or ice and extreme cold, would effect beings without bodies like we have on earth.

 

[tomarin]

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
But if I had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

• Robert Frost

 

[John_Lazarus]

It’ll be a cold day in Hell before that happens.

No, wait…what? :whacky:

 

[kdbueno]

The eschatology of hell depends on the moral fact that the Trinity exist not to condemn but to love solemnly.

 

[Frankenfurter]

How is there a place apart from God. Isn’t your God omnipresent? Doesn’t that mean God is in Hell too?

God is so powerful that he can be humble enough to create beings capable of denying his existence.

We on the other hand like to hang to our arrogance and deny his existence to make us feel more powerful.

 

[IWantGod]

We all know the traditionl idea of Hell being a hot place, where people are burning alive and shrieking in agony. Everyone from the Church Fathers to various saints have thought it thus.

I sometimes wonder though if the opposite is true. Could Hell be, instead of a burning, hot place, be a terribly dark and cold one instead?

Whenever I feel God absent from my life, it feels dark and cold, instead of burning lava hot. Negative emotions such as fear,worry,dread and despair, make one feel cold, not hot or even warm.

Isolation makes one shiver, while one can almost feel the heat from kind and lively company.

Curiously enough, I have no trouble believing purgatory is very hot and would be more than happy to go there when I die, as painful as it is.

Any thoughts? None of us know what Hell is like, and hopefully it will remain that way.

Hell is a spiritual state of being. It is not a physical state.

 

[mikekle]

Hell is a spiritual state of being. It is not a physical state.

Why does the bible saying things like ‘gnashing of teeth’ to describe the conditions in Hell though? to even have teeth to gnash, one would have to have some kind of material body, no?

Which is also strange because teeth are for eating, why would bodies in the spiritual realm need teeth?

 

[truetofaith]

Hell is a spiritual state of being. It is not a physical state.

In the story of Lazarus & the rich man, Jesus said the man asked Lazarus for a drop of water to cool his burning tongue because he was in agony in this fire. Luke 16: 19- 39

 

[truetofaith]

Why does the bible saying things like ‘gnashing of teeth’ to describe the conditions in Hell though? to even have teeth to gnash, one would have to have some kind of material body, no?

Which is also strange because teeth are for eating, why would bodies in the spiritual realm need teeth?

In heaven we are supposed to be at the supper of the Lamb.

 

[IWantGod]

In the story of Lazarus & the rich man, Jesus said the man asked Lazarus for a drop of water to cool his burning tongue because he was in agony in this fire. Luke 16: 19- 39

Jesus was telling a story. Jesus often spoke in parables. I don’t understand why you would think that God has literally created a physical lake of fire to burn sinners.

 

[truetofaith]

Jesus was telling a story. Jesus often spoke in parables. I don’t understand why you would think that God has literally created a physical lake of fire to burn sinners.

Like the song says, “How do I know?..the Bible tells me so.”

There are many places where a hell of fire is mentioned in the Bible by Jesus & others. Look it up!

 

[IWantGod]

Like the song says, “How do I know?..the Bible tells me so.”

There are many places where a hell of fire is mentioned in the Bible by Jesus & others. Look it up!

I agree. The matter here is interpretation and a degree of reasoning that some people couldn’t care less to posses.

 

[Sacred_Heart_1]

We all know the traditionl idea of Hell being a hot place, where people are burning alive and shrieking in agony. Everyone from the Church Fathers to various saints have thought it thus.

I sometimes wonder though if the opposite is true. Could Hell be, instead of a burning, hot place, be a terribly dark and cold one instead?

Whenever I feel God absent from my life, it feels dark and cold, instead of burning lava hot. Negative emotions such as fear,worry,dread and despair, make one feel cold, not hot or even warm.

Isolation makes one shiver, while one can almost feel the heat from kind and lively company.

Curiously enough, I have no trouble believing purgatory is very hot and would be more than happy to go there when I die, as painful as it is.

Any thoughts? None of us know what Hell is like, and hopefully it will remain that way.

In this world when one freezes to death, pain subsides–that is what freezing cold does to the body. Hell is a place of punishment, fire is painful.

Think of what Jesus says about the unfruitful branches. He doesn’t cast them into the cold to freeze. He casts them into the fire–to be burned, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.