One thing that “concerns” me is regarding the belief of hell as a literal burning torture place as this to me seems to be in direct contradiction to everything that is taught about loving ones neighbor and being kind and loving.
I want to tread carefully with your question and comment.
First, Hell is the eternal separation from God. The torture of hell described in many passages of Scripture, range. And it is punishment. Even in the prayer to Saint Michael, “…humbly pray, Oh Prince of the Heavenly Host, to cast into Hell Satan, and all the evil spirits…”
I have always found it scary. For if God loves, why would we pray to purposely place even angel’s in Hell?
Those Angel’s are bound to Hell. Not because God is without mercy, for even them. But, they are pure spirits without error. Yet, they do the most prideful thing an angel could do. They choose their own idea’s, belief’s, and purposes over God. That is, “non-servium.” They do not serve.
Hence, why the one angel went down to Eve, and asked if she could eat anything she wanted in the garden. And she said yes, except for the tree of good and evil. Where then the angel said she surely will not die. And will become like god’s. So the angel told her that God was a liar.
The angel fell, and wanted to take down Adam and Eve with him. It was rebellion. And so the battle ensued thereafter. Wherefore God put enmity between her seed and the devil’s.
And so the fall happened.
Hell is the place people choose over God. A state and a place. For just as Adam and Eve chose freely to break from God’s Covenant and love. The fruit they ate, as it were, told them life without God, out of His love, was all the more. That God was holding something from them, by telling them not to eat it. And so they stumble, fell, and did fall. Instead of them going to Hell, He intervened by asking where they were. Calling them out in the midst of their shame and sin, “Who told you were naked?”
Thus, the reason Hell is there, because, it’s a choice. For God made the soul eternal. To exist forever. But when a person chooses something out of God’s presence. He or she wants to be sustained by anything but God. So thus Hell exists. God allows Hell, because He doesn’t want the soul to be destroyed and removed from existence. God cannot repent for the life of a human He made. He cannot contradict Himself. So, for the consequence of people who do not want His love and mercy. To live in His presence. Because He is God and Eternal. He sustains all things. And when someone chooses to be apart from that reality of God. The consequences spell out. Again, God tells us Hell exists because He does not want us to go there.
Suffering here exists as a last resort of God’s sign to tell us sin exists. It is to lift us up to the desire of Baptism. To something outside of His love is wrong, dangerous, and evil.
So, Hell exists because the Eternal Separation the souls suffers for wanting to not be with God. When God is all love. Thus the soul opposes God’s very nature, love itself.
