Did Hell exist before Satan's fall?

  • Thread starter Thread starter littletherese3
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
L

littletherese3

Guest
Did Hell exist before Satan’s fall?

And also, did God know what would happen to Satan, therefore create hell beforehand, or did God create hell after it happened?
 
littletherese3 said:
Did Hell exist before Satan’s fall?

And also, did God know what would happen to Satan, therefore create hell beforehand, or did God create hell after it happened?
Click to expand...
God didn’t create hell to begin with, that would contradict his nature… what hell is, is denying God and staying away from God on purpose… God created a possibility for that, such as with the apple you see in the garden of eden… Hell probably is not a physical location although we do not know that…

Devil created hell himself when he denied the supreme power of God and wanted to become God…
 
littletherese3 said:
Did Hell exist before Satan’s fall?

And also, did God know what would happen to Satan, therefore create hell beforehand, or did God create hell after it happened?
Click to expand...
No, Hell did not exist before Lucifer became Satan.

God probably knew of the possibility of Lucifer’s future misuse of his gift of free will, but God did not need to make a Hell for Satan to be in before or afterwards. As juho said, Hell was created the moment Satan rebelled.

Hell is closer to a spiritual state than a physical locale, although, as with many things in metaphysics, this does not preclude a facet of physical reality in its own way.

Hopefully this helps.
 
Studying Catholicism and found this thread. Interesting discussion. I am LDS (born, baptized, and raised Catholic) and know the LDS version of satan but didn’t think too much about the Catholic version of satan.

I would like to know more if any of you would indulge.

Thanks

C2M2C
 
littletherese3 said:
Did Hell exist before Satan’s fall?

And also, did God know what would happen to Satan, therefore create hell beforehand, or did God create hell after it happened?
Click to expand...
CCC1033 says …This state of definitive self- exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”

In that regard Hell is not necessarily a physical place so therefore wasn’t created, as such, at all.

CCC 1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. If the eternity of hell is taught by the Church then it cannot be a created thing, can it? If it was created then it is not eternal. If it is a physical place though then it probably must be created and therefore not eternal.

The state of eternal separation from God is also the primary punishment of hell.

CCC 1035 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

If the primary punishment is eternal separation from God then a physical place is not the answer anyway, since God is everywhere at all times. This must be a metaphysical punishment.

Thoughts?
 
C2M2C said:
Studying Catholicism and found this thread. Interesting discussion. I am LDS (born, baptized, and raised Catholic) and know the LDS version of satan but didn’t think too much about the Catholic version of satan.

I would like to know more if any of you would indulge.

Thanks

C2M2C
Click to expand...
You can start with the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs 1033-1037. I provide a link to the Catechism here for you, just scroll down to the paragraphs.

You can also go here for paragraphs 391-395.
 
There is a school of thought that believes that the angels that fell all did so at the instant of their creation. Remember that heaven is outside of space and time and is the eternity of “now”. I am not sure that even the concept of “sequence” (e.g. before and after) applies in eternity. So the question bridges two contexts - one in eternity to one in time and can not be properly addressed since its probably has no meaning in heaven.

The paradox for me is in observing that both Jesus and Mary have resurrected bodies - yet are in heaven. This to me means that the resurrected (and presumably transfigured) body is fundamentally different than our biological bodies and not subject to temporal aspects or constraints of time and space - but we know that a conventional physical body does require a place - not just a state. It is my conjecture that those who have a created body who are in heaven (Joseph may be there in body too as well a few others) can choose to step in and out of time at will to occupy time-space or step back into eternity (non space-time) where one may opt to exists in pure spiritual form (presumed to be a higher ordered existence since this is God’s form) or in resurrected bodily form (its more than just a mere vision or projection).

Following that line of reasoning then hell must be both a state and a place. Since after the 2nd judgment both wicked and good are given a resurrected body. A body requires a place to occupy - both in heaven and in hell.

I believe the traditional view that hell is a physical place and it might very well be in the inner core of earth hidden away supernaturally. But it is also a spirital “place” since demons are there as well. So hell has multiple aspects - state and place and was conditionally created at the instant the first soul rebelled against God. However that “instant” could have been a millisecond or a million years by our reckoning since it is meaningless to us. It had to be part of Divine Providence as well so then it also existed in God’s omnipotent mind - and that is more real than anything we can experience or conceive of.

James
 
MonkeyTape said:
The second link I provided discusses the fall of the angels. CCC 391-395
Click to expand...
One of the big moments of clarity for me during my journey out of Mormonism and into the Catholic faith was, when I was told by my sponsor that angels are *pure spirit creations *of God, but they are not *pre-mortal *beings. In other words, yes, there was a war in heaven, but no, we were not there in a pre-human state. (or “estate”) 🙂

The idea of a pre-existence was not something I ever truly believed anyway so this information was not hard at all for me to accept. I believe John the Baptist says that Christ is greater than him because He existed before he (John) was born? I think if there had been a pre-existence, John the Baptist certainly would have known about it, so the fact that Jesus existed before John was born wouldn’t be that big of a deal? Just pondering. Anyone unfamiliar with LDS belief is probably saying whaa? about now.

Sorry for the slight hijack! :o
 
truthsilence said:
One of the big moments of clarity for me during my journey out of Mormonism and into the Catholic faith was, when I was told by my sponsor that angels are *pure spirit creations *of God, but they are not *pre-mortal *beings. In other words, yes, there was a war in heaven, but no, we were not there in a pre-human state. (or “estate”) 🙂

The idea of a pre-existence was not something I ever truly believed anyway so this information was not hard at all for me to accept. I believe John the Baptist says that Christ is greater than him because He existed before he (John) was born? I think if there had been a pre-existence, John the Baptist certainly would have known about it, so the fact that Jesus existed before John was born wouldn’t be that big of a deal? Just pondering. Anyone unfamiliar with LDS belief is probably saying whaa? about now.

Sorry for the slight hijack! :o
Click to expand...
Fill me in on your story via PM. It’s not as difficult for me as I was raised Catholic but for my wife it has been comforting to hear other’s stories.

Thanks
 
👍 Thanks everyone! You have all helped me to understand better about Stana and Hell etc.- very helpful indeed.
 
Hell is not a physical place it is a lack of God. God did not create hell it is just where God does not dwell. It is possible that God knew about Satan’s fall but it is difficult to say becasue if satan had free will then by God knowing about his fall doesn’t that cancel out satan’s free will. The dilemma is that if God knows everything how can anything have free will, our choices would already be known to God and therefore we dod not have a real choice even though there is that illusion of a choice.

God gives us free will yet knows what we will do because God is beyond time he is everywhere at every second. He knows what we will do because he has known it from the past.

Crazy i know but God is GOD. 👍
 
I see that this is your first post, so I will mention that in general, pulling up an old topics (this one is over a year old) is called “grave-digging” is should generally be avoided. Creating a new topic is better than digging up an old one.

That being said, I read the topic before realizing that it was old, and now I feel the need to comment.

God did create Hell. The Gospel of Matthew mentions Hell being prepared for the devil and his angels. If God didn’t create it, it could not exist. Hell is a physical place in some regard even though the chief punishment of Hell is the pain of loss brought about by the state of seperation from God. (Heaven is also a physical place and is in Time contrary to what a previous poster stated). Both Heaven and Hell are eternal in the sense of infinite succession of time and not in the proper sense of being completely outside of time.

God absolutely did know that Satan would fall before he fell. Divine foreknowledge does not interfere with the exercise of free will.
 
I accept with informationIt is possible that God knew about Satan’s fall but it is difficult to say becasue if satan had free will then by God knowing about his fall doesn’t that cancel out satan’s free will. The dilemma is that if God knows everything how can anything have free will.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top