Does a person have to believe in literal burning hell to be Catholic

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rozellelily
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You also need to recall the eras from which this imagery came about.
Some of the more esoteric explanations for eternal separation from the love of God would not likely have been effective in centuries past.
The depictions of fire have been retold in many a Saint’s vision, and also in many pious writings.
However, remember that these things depict a TRUTH.
When we die unrepentant, in a state of grave sin, there is a consequence.
How that plays out really doesn’t matter. It’s all very bad.

SORRY LEA…MEANT THIS FOR ANOTHER POSTER, can’t seem to delete it though.
 
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Rozellelily said:
One thing that “concerns” me is regarding the belief of hell as a literal burning torture place
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The Catechism, IIRC, states that the primary ‘pain’ in hell is the pain of separation from God.

Does a fire-free hell bother you? That is, does it bother you that the teaching of the Church is that, for one who rejects God, He honors his choice, and does not force him to spend eternity with Himself in heaven?
If God is the “ultimate example” and he tortures people when they are bad/unrepentant people
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By ‘torture’, I presume you mean “allow to be in a place of torment”?
Also, and I know it’s not a great analogy,but a (loving) human parent would never harm their child by a literal fire no matter how disobedient their child was.
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Right. But, would a loving parent force their child into the torment of being somewhere that they absolutely reject?
Explanations Christians give such as that physical hell was created for demons and people choose to go there,God doesn’t send them" doesn’t really make sense either because then it renders God to like a “powerless figure”
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God gives us free will and invites us to utilize it properly. When we use it improperly, does that imply that God is ‘powerless’? Or, doesn’t it just mean that He allows us to use the power He’s given us?
 
If anyone truly believed it, I cannot see how they could live in the world and be sane. Just think of the worst suffering you have endured or seen other humans endure. Multiply that by millions and millions and trillions…then after that multiply it some more. It NEVER ends. I could not live one minute of my life knowing that there are humans currently enduring that. I would not wish that on the absolute worst human being, since obviously the torture that they may have handed out at least allowed the victim’s suffering to end. This type of suffering would make Jesus’ crucifixion look like the tamest of picnics imaginable, diminishing the act to a mere goodwill gesture.

It was contrived as a product of its era, as a scare tactic to govern the masses. After all, fear has been scientifically proven to interfere with rational though and decisions.
 
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IWantGod said:
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Lea101:
If you’re interested in truth, it’s best to steer away from emotional arguments
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I am interested in truth and i am telling you that burning people alive in literal fire forever does not make logical sense of God’s nature. secondly, what i am saying does not conflict with the established dogmas of the Catholic church, so you really have no right to dictate to me about truth. That is your interpretation.
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God isn’t doing it.

Free will is - the free will of the person to turn their soul from God’s grace.
 
Tulitas said:
How that plays out really doesn’t matter.
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If you want to present your faith as reasonable, then it really does matter. If someone told me that if you die unrepentant God stabs you continuously in the eyeball for all eternity i would not believe that person or that religion. It doesn’t matter that you are talking about God. So the idea that it doesn’t matter how it plays out because he or she is a sinner comes across to me as willful ignorance. And i mean no disrespect when i say that, i am just saying that’s what it looks like. And that kind of thinking does not help or progress the faith.
 
IWantGod said:
It does make a difference when it contradicts God’s nature. Hell as a natural consequence that necessarily follows our eternal rejection of God, makes sense to me, since we cannot enjoy what we have rejected.

But the idea that God has constructed a torture chamber, makes no sense at all.
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Modern Catholic Dictionary:

FIRE OF HELL. The physical reality, outside the person, by which those in hell are punished besides their loss of the vision of God. It is called fire in the Scriptures to emphasize the excruciating pain it causes, and to identify it as some external agent tormenting the lost. But it is not ordinary fire, since it does not consume what it burns, and, although material, it can affect the purely spiritual substance of the soul.
 
laylow said:
It was contrived as a product of its era, as a scare tactic to govern the masses. After all, fear has been scientifically proven to interfere with rational though and decisions.
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Fear also has been shown to galvanize people into action. Having been in a war zone I’ve seen it go both ways.
 
Neither does picking apart everything.
Hell exists. That;s the long and short of it.
If you don’t like the idea of burning, make sure you’re not a candidate.
What’s so hard?
Even Christ used various elements of story telling to get his point across. 'The point is: HELL exists.
 
I never denied the existence of hell. Get it right.
 
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IWantGod said:
I never deny the existence of hell. Get it right.
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It is irrelevant if the fires of Hell are literal burning fires or not. You seem to be the only person that cares. I also haven’t seen anyone agree with your view on this concerning God.
 
thistle said:
It is irrelevant if the fires of Hell are literal burning fires or not.
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It is relevant if you are concerned with having a consistently rational faith. All you are telling me is what you don’t care about.
 
IWantGod said:
It is relevant if you are concerned with having a consistently rational faith. All you are telling me is what you don’t care about.
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No I don’t care. Nobody but you cares if Hell has a literal fire or not.
 
You don’t care if what you believe is reasonable or not. Fine.

When you want to have a reasonable discussion let me know.
 
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Does a person have to believe in literal burning hell to be Catholic?

No you don’t. God would not do that. And neither do you have to teach that.as a Catholic.
 
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IWantGod said:
Does a person have to believe in literal burning hell to be Catholic?

No you don’t. God would not do that. And neither do you have to teach that.as a Catholic.
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Catholicism is not fundamentalist, so we do not attempt to lock the truth in language. Language is important as a conveyance of the truth, but the truth is not fully conveyed by “this word in this language at this time”.

Whether you believe in literalist flames or not is not the point. The point is that separation from God is an unspeakable loss. This is not based on proofs of physical conditions but on this truth:

God is love beyond our comprehension. We are wired to seek relationship with God.
If you’ve ever lost someone you love, you know the agony that results. To lose the experience of God’s incomprehensible love is likewise incomprehensibly agonizing. Add to that the fact that God does not fail us, we choose to reject God. And if you’ve ever experienced regret, it is terrifying to consider eternal burning regret over our failure to love.

Language can only do so much to describe the badness, because the good is so good.
 
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Like i said i do not reject the existence of hell. But i am not going to teach someone that love will burn you alive in fire for all eternity if you reject love. So teaching that people will burn alive in physical fire might not matter to some Catholics on here, but it does matter to me. It’s unreasonable, and it is not rational to think that God would do that. You can say that’s my opinion, but as far as i can reason that is not consistent with the idea of God.
 
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