Did God Create Hell?

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God created everything. Does that mean that God created Hell? In other words, when Satan revolted and decided not to serve God, where could he go? He couldn’t go somewhere outside of God’s creation because no such thing exists. But if God created everything to be good, then what does that say about Hell?

My first thought was that God created everything including Hell, but that Hell is fundamentally a neutral place. It was Satan that turned it into the agony that it is when he revolted against God. It’s sort of like someone building a nice home and you move in and thrash it. It’s not the builder’s fault that you turned something into a squalor.

Anyone have anything to add? This is just a nightly pondering.
 
I hear you, voice crying out in the night like that

I consider hell as being totally without God, at the mercy of the unmerciful, did he create your choice to reject him and follow through with it? No, you did that one, did he create the free will to become unmerciful, yes, yet, still, it was the free choice of the merciless to choose that, and this “choice” rests quite squarely upon the shoulders of whom made it…
 
God didn’t create hell. God created heaven and that is earth but day bye day his haven going to hell. Father(GOD) always want that his son(WE) leave lavish life in his haven. It’s up to son(WE) how he use his father’s freedom. Today every one making father haven into hell so everybody thought like Father(GOD) created hell BUT IT"S WRONG!
 
Hell isn’t a place–it’s the absence of God and His love. It’s more a spiritual state of being.

Does darkness have substance? Is it created? No, it’s just the absence of light. Hell’s like that, I think.
 
Moscati said:
Hell isn’t a place–it’s the absence of God and His love. It’s more a spiritual state of being.

Does darkness have substance? Is it created? No, it’s just the absence of light. Hell’s like that, I think.
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OOOOh, I like that explanation.
 
prodigalson12 said:
I hear you, voice crying out in the night like that

I consider hell as being totally without God, at the mercy of the unmerciful, did he create your choice to reject him and follow through with it? No, you did that one, did he create the free will to become unmerciful, yes, yet, still, it was the free choice of the merciless to choose that, and this “choice” rests quite squarely upon the shoulders of whom made it…
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In this scenario, he certainly created the conditions under which a person could potentially spend an eternity in suffering. It’s worth pointing out that for a very long time, Catholic teachings (supported by scripture) had been that hell was a physical reality of pain na d suffering…this notion is changing in an effort to de-monsterfy the catholic god.

I have an analogy for the “hell is a rejection of god” notion:

Imagine that the next time I met my friend Dan I ask him “Hey Dan, how’s your son 6 year old son Ben”?
He replies, "Not well…he has fallen into the pit I dug in my backyard and can’t get out. He’ll likely starve to death over the next 20 - 30 days”.
"Oh my gosh, " I reply “that’s horrible. Can’t you get him out”?
“Well yes…of course I could, but here’s the deal: Two years ago, I warned him not to get near that pit, and here he goes, two years later and falls into it. He deserves his fate, and if I rescued him…which I easily could…he would not learn a lesson from this sad experience. Like I said, I warned him to stay away from that hole”.
“But…but…he’s just 6 years old…you’re his father… You can’t just let him starve to death in that hole”!
“Listen, I love Ben more than anything. I love him with my whole heart, but he was warned two years ago…he deserves his horrible fate”.
“If you warned him, why did he get near the hole? I mean outside of the fact that he’s just a finite child with an extremely limited understanding of the world and of the consequences of his actions”.
“Well, he was trying to get the toys and candy that were in the pit”.
“TOYS AND CANDY! Why were there toys and candy in the pit”?
“Well, I let my other evil son Stan placed them there, you know, to lure Ben into the pit”.
“Why do you allow you son to do that”!
“Why should I attempt to stop him, after all Ben has been warned to stay away from the pit? How many chances do I have to give him? Here’s the deal, Ben’s not the first of my many children to fall in that pit, nor will he be the last. To be my loving child, one must obey my commands. By failing to do so, he has rejected me. Sure, he regrets it now…but it’s too late, he chose his fate and is now dealing with the consequences.

Ask yourself, what’s your opinion of Dan’s parenting skills? If Dan allows this to happen, does Dan truly love his son or does he hate him? How is Dan’s attitude any different from that of a God who would condemn his own creation to eternal hell (or create a reality in which they could)? Can Dan really claim that this is not his fault? At least the son’s torment will be over in 20 -30 days; Your God would mercifully allows us to suffer for an eternity if “fail to love him”.
 
Zerilos said:
In this scenario, he certainly created the conditions under which a person could potentially spend an eternity in suffering. It’s worth pointing out that for a very long time, Catholic teachings (supported by scripture) had been that hell was a physical reality of pain na d suffering…this notion is changing in an effort to de-monsterfy the catholic god.

I have an analogy for the “hell is a rejection of god” notion:

Imagine that the next time I met my friend Dan I ask him “Hey Dan, how’s your son 6 year old son Ben”?
He replies, "Not well…he has fallen into the pit I dug in my backyard and can’t get out. He’ll likely starve to death over the next 20 - 30 days”.
"Oh my gosh, " I reply “that’s horrible. Can’t you get him out”?
“Well yes…of course I could, but here’s the deal: Two years ago, I warned him not to get near that pit, and here he goes, two years later and falls into it. He deserves his fate, and if I rescued him…which I easily could…he would not learn a lesson from this sad experience. Like I said, I warned him to stay away from that hole”.
“But…but…he’s just 6 years old…you’re his father… You can’t just let him starve to death in that hole”!
“Listen, I love Ben more than anything. I love him with my whole heart, but he was warned two years ago…he deserves his horrible fate”.
“If you warned him, why did he get near the hole? I mean outside of the fact that he’s just a finite child with an extremely limited understanding of the world and of the consequences of his actions”.
“Well, he was trying to get the toys and candy that were in the pit”.
“TOYS AND CANDY! Why were there toys and candy in the pit”?
“Well, I let my other evil son Stan placed them there, you know, to lure Ben into the pit”.
“Why do you allow you son to do that”!
“Why should I attempt to stop him, after all Ben has been warned to stay away from the pit? How many chances do I have to give him? Here’s the deal, Ben’s not the first of my many children to fall in that pit, nor will he be the last. To be my loving child, one must obey my commands. By failing to do so, he has rejected me. Sure, he regrets it now…but it’s too late, he chose his fate and is now dealing with the consequences.

Ask yourself, what’s your opinion of Dan’s parenting skills? If Dan allows this to happen, does Dan truly love his son or does he hate him? How is Dan’s attitude any different from that of a God who would condemn his own creation to eternal hell (or create a reality in which they could)? Can Dan really claim that this is not his fault? At least the son’s torment will be over in 20 -30 days; Your God would mercifully allows us to suffer for an eternity if “fail to love him”.
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The analogy makes one bad assumption: that Dan dug the hole. But what if Ben intentionally digs the hole himself, and then chooses to stay in it for eternity because he hates his father so much while trying to hide as far away as possible from him, being that he’s such a selfishly spoiled brat? Ever consider that option?
 
Syntax said:
The analogy makes one bad assumption: that Dan dug the hole. But what if Ben intentionally digs the hole himself, and then chooses to stay in it for eternity because he hates his father so much while trying to hide as far away as possible from him, being that he’s such a selfishly spoiled brat? Ever consider that option?
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The analogy fails in another regard, as the hole doesn’t really exist. In truth, the hole only exists as a threat to keep children in line (i.e. be good or I’ll throw you in the hole). This notion that a person would intentionally subject himself to an eternity of pain so as to avoid being loved by his father is absurd.
 
Zerilos said:
The analogy fails in another regard, as the hole doesn’t really exist.
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You’re certainly entitled to your opinion…
Zerilos said:
In truth, the hole only exists as a threat to keep children in line (i.e. be good or I’ll throw you in the hole).
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Construing this as a crime/punishment relation is a very childish and rudimentary conception of the doctrine of hell. Some people construe it this way (such as yourself), but most people don’t.
Zerilos said:
This notion that a person would intentionally subject himself to an eternity of pain so as to avoid being loved by his father is absurd.
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This isn’t absurd. People choose the worst for themselves quite consistently.
 
As some above posting, God created heaven and earth, and because of the Father is so Holy, beyond our earthly mind (mine) grasp we need to remember Jesus himself was cast down for 3 days and then ascended to fulfill the scriptures hell must be real I do think it is a physical place where fire and torment is forever. I know in my sinful nature and if I reject the King of all, I deserve to be as far away from the one I rejected…because I am unworthy of his presence…and because of my eviliness I carry (if I CHOOSE him not) I myself created hell the place that I deserve to be if I rejected God the Father, his Son and the Spirit,
 
PrayHarder said:
God created everything. Does that mean that God created Hell? In other words, when Satan revolted and decided not to serve God, where could he go? He couldn’t go somewhere outside of God’s creation because no such thing exists. But if God created everything to be good, then what does that say about Hell?

My first thought was that God created everything including Hell, but that Hell is fundamentally a neutral place. It was Satan that turned it into the agony that it is when he revolted against God. It’s sort of like someone building a nice home and you move in and thrash it. It’s not the builder’s fault that you turned something into a squalor.

Anyone have anything to add? This is just a nightly pondering.
Click to expand...
The devil’s ultimate fate is the Lake of Fire, which apparently looks like molten glass. That’s not Hell, but eternal punishment. Now the devil would hardly create a lake of fire as a place of torment for himself, so God must have made that at least.

When the devil rebelled, he had to be kept somewhere, away from heaven. So he must have been confined somehow. The Bible talks about an abyss.

But once restrained in some way, his pure evil would then turn his surroundings into hell. Even the demons screamed when they were driven out - they were going back to hell.

It’s a bit like prison - the state creates the institution complete with all its security paraphenalia. But it takes the combined efforts of guards and inmates to create the culture of the prison.

In the same way, I think God imprisoned the fallen spirits in hell. But they determine the culture of their prison.

However I think the lake of fire is God’s creation. I mean if we take this earth as His creation, He’s made gentle nectar sucking butterflies, and savage crocodiles. Just because He’s “good” doesn’t mean He’s harmless.

After all why shouldn’t the devil ultimately pay for his endless cruelty?

I think there’s a harsh side to God we tend to ignore. CS Lewis pointed out that God may be the final comfort, but He’s also the final terror.

My own belief about Hell and the Lake of Fire is we have a allegory in the form of the Black Hole, where stuff just disappears forever. I personally think at the end of time, Hell will be shrunk to microscopic size, so that it is not even a memory. It will still be terribly real to those inside it, but from the viewpoint of heaven it will have disappeared. Out of sight, out of mind. Why would God want to eternally brood over their ultimate fate?

Not a very pleasant eternal prospect for the inmates.
 
Zerilos said:
In this scenario, he certainly created the conditions under which a person could potentially spend an eternity in suffering. It’s worth pointing out that for a very long time, Catholic teachings (supported by scripture) had been that hell was a physical reality of pain na d suffering…this notion is changing in an effort to de-monsterfy the catholic god.

I have an analogy for the “hell is a rejection of god” notion:

Imagine that the next time I met my friend Dan I ask him “Hey Dan, how’s your son 6 year old son Ben”?
He replies, "Not well…he has fallen into the pit I dug in my backyard and can’t get out. He’ll likely starve to death over the next 20 - 30 days”.
"Oh my gosh, " I reply “that’s horrible. Can’t you get him out”?
“Well yes…of course I could, but here’s the deal: Two years ago, I warned him not to get near that pit, and here he goes, two years later and falls into it. He deserves his fate, and if I rescued him…which I easily could…he would not learn a lesson from this sad experience. Like I said, I warned him to stay away from that hole”.
“But…but…he’s just 6 years old…you’re his father… You can’t just let him starve to death in that hole”!
“Listen, I love Ben more than anything. I love him with my whole heart, but he was warned two years ago…he deserves his horrible fate”.
“If you warned him, why did he get near the hole? I mean outside of the fact that he’s just a finite child with an extremely limited understanding of the world and of the consequences of his actions”.
“Well, he was trying to get the toys and candy that were in the pit”.
“TOYS AND CANDY! Why were there toys and candy in the pit”?
“Well, I let my other evil son Stan placed them there, you know, to lure Ben into the pit”.
“Why do you allow you son to do that”!
“Why should I attempt to stop him, after all Ben has been warned to stay away from the pit? How many chances do I have to give him? Here’s the deal, Ben’s not the first of my many children to fall in that pit, nor will he be the last. To be my loving child, one must obey my commands. By failing to do so, he has rejected me. Sure, he regrets it now…but it’s too late, he chose his fate and is now dealing with the consequences.

Ask yourself, what’s your opinion of Dan’s parenting skills? If Dan allows this to happen, does Dan truly love his son or does he hate him? How is Dan’s attitude any different from that of a God who would condemn his own creation to eternal hell (or create a reality in which they could)? Can Dan really claim that this is not his fault? At least the son’s torment will be over in 20 -30 days; Your God would mercifully allows us to suffer for an eternity if “fail to love him”.
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I’m not sure I understand the analogy. Why would there be toys and candy in hell? Is the pit hell, or sin? If you mean to say the pit is sin, then Dan/God is standing at the side of the pit, pleading with Ben to let him help him get out. The second Ben lets Dan help, he’ll be out of the pit. No matter how many times Ben jumps into the pit (that he dug himself), Dan will help him out again.

Hell is what happens when Ben sits and wallows in the pit, taunting his father, utterly and overwhelmingly rejecting his help. He wastes away, while his father weeps.
 
Moscati said:
I’m not sure I understand the analogy. Why would there be toys and candy in hell? Is the pit hell, or sin? If you mean to say the pit is sin, then Dan/God is standing at the side of the pit, pleading with Ben to let him help him get out. The second Ben lets Dan help, he’ll be out of the pit. No matter how many times Ben jumps into the pit (that he dug himself), Dan will help him out again.

Hell is what happens when Ben sits and wallows in the pit, taunting his father, utterly and overwhelmingly rejecting his help. He wastes away, while his father weeps.
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Right, the original analogy is just plain silly and one-dimensional, and doesn’t capture the real import of the doctrine of hell at all.
 
Moscati said:
Hell isn’t a place–it’s the absence of God and His love. It’s more a spiritual state of being.

Does darkness have substance? Is it created? No, it’s just the absence of light. Hell’s like that, I think.
Click to expand...
Great explanation! We must remember that hell is not a place like we see in movies. It is a seperation of God. There is no such thing as a spirtual place where all the damned souls live.People say hell will be painful becuase we are going to be burning alive but that is not the case. People will feel pain in there but it will be a spiritual pain because they willl be out of God’s presence,

Peace and Good will brothers!!!
 
I always liked C.S. Lewis’ view. I know he was not Catholic, but I feel his view is not far off the mark. In the book THE GREAT DIVORCE, his hero calls Hell “a state of mind”, and Heaven as reality it’s self.
Since God is the ultimate of all reality, and Heaven is close contact with God, it seem to make sense to me.
 
God’s justice is of God too. There is no place without God…

Each person in Hell is punshed according to that person’s particular sins, fittingly, by God’s justice.

Hell is a place as well as a state of being. 🙂 There will be a lot of bodies in Hell once all the souls there gain their bodies back.
 
Sorry, Moscatti, Hell IS a place! Just read the writings of St. Don Bosco, St. Faustina and Catherine of Sienna, just to name a few. Even Jesus said hell was a place.
 
Hell is a place that God allows to exist but that He did not create. Hell is a creation by the free will decision of an individual to reject God. Hell is a choice that the damned make which through free will, they perceive as preferable to Heaven.

Let me try this thought to see it works. Hell is unimaginable in torment and punishment. Yet, I suspect that there is one place even worse for the damned than Hell. If one has chosen, and is sealed in the decision to reject God with their death, then wouldn’t being forced to be in God’s presence, (Heaven) be a white hot punishment worse than even hell, for those sealed in that decision?

If my supposition is correct, then God’s allowance for Hell to exist could be seen as a sign of His mercy, as the alternative (Heaven and the damned being forced to be in God’s presence forever) would be even worse. This would be consistent with God’s infinite Love of his creation and benevolence. The existence of Hell would also recognize the consequence of free will and God’s respect for this gift to us.

What do you think? I hope this is consistent with the Catholic teaching.
 
Moscati said:
Hell isn’t a place–it’s the absence of God and His love. It’s more a spiritual state of being.

Does darkness have substance? Is it created? No, it’s just the absence of light. Hell’s like that, I think.
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Yes, here is the right answer. Thank you.
 
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