Does Hell Exist? Pope Francis Says No (Warning: This title is misleading)
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KMG
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Souls are immortal.
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Luke6_37
Guest
Only as long as God wills them to be…
I think folks have had enough of this discussion. You’re just repeating yourself and I am getting tired of falsifying your arguments. I am content to leave it as a dispute between two faithful members of the Church that cannot be resolved at the moment.
Not all doctrines are dogmatic. The doctrine of Eternal Conscious Torment is derived from a Platonic (i.e. pagan) understanding of the nature of the soul, and has never been defined as divinely revealed in Scripture or Tradition (dogma). Augustine made it popular and the brutish mentality of culture of his time made it seem reasonable. Maybe someday the Pope or an ecumenical council will directly address this issue. Until then, there is room for a diversity of opinion.
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KMG
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Your views as posted on this thread are heretical.
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kyrie03
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Your bluff, Luke, is that you don’t even claim to be a member of the Church (which is the congregation of all baptized persons united in the same true Faith, same Sacraments, and the same Sacrifice, under the Sovereign Pontiff). You don’t share the same Faith, Sacrifice, or Sacraments; yet you expect Her members to believe -what you think or hope the lawful authority is declaring. Whether or not you submit to the lawful authority of the Sovereign Pontiff (all of them), is also lacking. What you are advocating is called called subversion.
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kyrie03
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Thank you for helping to illustrate the wounds inflicted upon the Bride of Christ by those seeking to re-make Her in their own preferred image. Whether or not Pope Francis agrees with your image is unlikely. The Bride is stripped of the solid doctrines bequeathed by Christ Himself and consistently taught by the Apostles and their successors. She’s divvied up according to novel and contradictory ideas. She is agonizing to bring souls to the fullness of the truth obscured by the competing falsehoods being peddled as legitimate viewpoint.
St Paul in Gal 1 tells us of the tremendous sacrifice Christ endured to give us His Bride: “Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present wicked world, according to the will of God, our Father.” He wondered why the Galatians would listen to a different gospel: a perverted gospel, other than what he had taught them. (The Galatians had been converted by Paul 3-4 years prior and still considered themselves “Christian” in spite of allowing errors to subvert their belief.) St Paul then pronounces, “But though we, or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you other than what we have preached to you, let him be anathema/cursed!” So yes, Catholics do take seriously their membership in the Mystical Body of Christ. We don’t wish to be cursed. Then again, if anathema just means annihilation at the end of life, may not be such a bad thing?
I invite you to read what His Holiness, Pope St Pius X, wrote about the Doctrines of Modernists in Pascendi Dominus. Pascendi Dominici Gregis (September 8, 1907) | PIUS X Catholics can’t claim only Pope Francis has the ability to channel Christ; the saintly popes would’ve done likewise.
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kyrie03
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Really? Those who attempt to defend the Bride of Christ from error are enemies? bullies of the Pope and the faithful clergy? threatening schism? To my knowledge, Pope Francis hasn’t clarified what he actually said to Scalfari. And schism is not only separation from lawful authority, but can also mean splitting away from doctrine.
The scandal is when the doctrines believed in every generation since the time of Christ are allowed to be questioned. debated, and abandoned.
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kyrie03
Guest
Actually, that hell is everlasting has already been De fide/Dogmatically defined by the Church. I happen to own the Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott. Here is what is stated(415) The punishment of Hell lasts for all eternity (De fide) A Summary of the Dogmas and Teachings of the Church
The Caput Firmiter of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) declares: "Those (the rejected) will receive a perpetual punishment with the devil.”
Synod of Constatinople (543) rejected the Apocatastasis doctrine of Origin (Origin denied eternity of hell-punishment)
Holy Writ frequently emphasizes the eternal duration of hell-punishment by speaking of it as an “eternal reproach.” (Dn 12, 2; Wis 4,19
an “eternal fire” (Judith 16, 21; Mt 18,8; 25,41; Judith 7)
an “everlasting punishment” (Mt 25,46)
an “eternal punishment in destruction” (2 Thess 1,9)
I didn’t copy the many other references in Scripture or the numerous writings of the Church Fathers to back up the truth that the punishment of Hell lasts for all eternity but an additional page and a half in the book contains more citations.
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Luke6_37
Guest
Hmm…Luke6_37:
Your bluff, Luke, is that you don’t even claim to be a member of the Church (which is the congregation of all baptized persons united in the same true Faith, same Sacraments, and the same Sacrifice, under the Sovereign Pontiff). You don’t share the same Faith, Sacrifice, or Sacraments; yet you expect Her members to believe -what you think or hope the lawful authority is declaring. Whether or not you submit to the lawful authority of the Sovereign Pontiff (all of them), is also lacking. What you are advocating is called called subversion.
It’s my understanding that Catholics are Christians. Maybe you don’t think so. There are plenty of Protestants who don’t.
As for the rest, you shouldn’t go around making personal attacks full of baseless and false accusations. We only discussed one aspect of one doctrine and you are claiming to know all about me, including what I think about the Mass & Sacraments! That’s pretty obnoxious.
I advise you to heed the advice of St. Peter…
“Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame.” 1 Peter 3: 15-16
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Luke6_37
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Here we go again…Luke6_37:
Actually, that hell is everlasting has already been De fide/Dogmatically defined by the Church. I happen to own the Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott. Here is what is stated(415) The punishment of Hell lasts for all eternity (De fide) A Summary of the Dogmas and Teachings of the Church
The Caput Firmiter of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) declares: "Those (the rejected) will receive a perpetual punishment with the devil.”
Synod of Constatinople (543) rejected the Apocatastasis doctrine of Origin (Origin denied eternity of hell-punishment)
Holy Writ frequently emphasizes the eternal duration of hell-punishment by speaking of it as an “eternal reproach.” (Dn 12, 2; Wis 4,19
an “eternal fire” (Judith 16, 21; Mt 18,8; 25,41; Judith 7)
an “everlasting punishment” (Mt 25,46)
an “eternal punishment in destruction” (2 Thess 1,9)
I didn’t copy the many other references in Scripture or the numerous writings of the Church Fathers to back up the truth that the punishment of Hell lasts for all eternity but an additional page and a half in the book contains more citations.
None of your citations rule out Annihilation as an alternative to Eternal Conscious Torment.
1 - Annihilation is a punishment from hell that lasts for all eternity.
2 - Annihilation is the consequence of being cast into the unquenchable fire with the demons that leads to destruction.
3 - Annihilation is not Apocatastasis
Apocatastasis is a form of Universalism proposed by Origen. Von Balthasar addresses this in his book, “Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved?” and concludes that we can have hope, but not certainty.
That’s what all your citations say. What they don’t say is that the soul will experience eternal conscious torment.
The issue of the immortality of the soul has also been addressed. In order for that to be a problem, you’d have to deny that the Almighty God, who creates from nothing, and sustains our existence, is incapable of destroying a soul or returning a it to nonexistence.
So, rather than wasting everyone’s time, why don’t you just read through the thread. This has all been addressed already.
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Luke6_37
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The only problem with your scenario is that a good case can be made that Annihilationism was the original teaching and that Eternal Conscious Torment was an innovation derived from pagan notions about the immortality of the soul some time in the 3rd century and made popular by Augustine in the 5th. The weight of evidence from Scripture supports this view. The only way you can get ECT from the earliest Christian sources is if you twist their words to mean something other than what is plainly stated.
With Annihilation, all the imagery of being consumed in a fiery lake or being eaten by worms still applies, it just doesn’t last eternally. I would say that’s a pretty bad thing. Something definitely to avoid.
You do realize that Paul’s warning in Galatians is not about adopting new ideas, but about the failure to give up old ideas now that times have changed. Paul’s Gospel was about the New Covenant in Christ, with Baptism being the sign of membership in God’s Chosen People. The Galatians were all baptized - that was all they needed to be people of the New Covenant. However, the party from James was stuck in the past and insisted that they also be circumcised in accordance with the doctrine of the Old Covenant. Circumcision was the sign of membership in God’s Chosen People according to the covenant with Abraham. Paul disagreed with this, which is why they had to hold a Church council to decide who was right. (i.e., the Council of Jerusalem).
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Luke6_37
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Thanks for the reference, but this discussion is not about modernism. It’s about returning to the original sources with an unbiased perspective.
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KMG
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Annihilation of souls is a heretical belief. In this case, spread on this spread by someone who personally interprets Scripture to suit himself. The essence of Protestantism.
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Luke6_37
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What gives you the right to decide what is or is not heresy?
Produce an authoritative statement from a Church council or a Pope that specifically condemns Annihilism or dogmatically declares that Eternal Conscious Torment is the ultimate fate of the damned to back up your claim.
You are the one who is making up dogma that does not exist. That is a false teaching.
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kyrie03
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Please forgive any misunderstanding about your designation of Christian. In my experience, members of the Catholic Church understand they are Christian. However, I have yet to meet a Catholic who designates himself as Christian……it’s always Catholic.
Are you baptized, chrismated, and sustained on the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist?
I’m still not clear?
Not that an answer in affirmative or negative changes much. Pope St Pius X explains how attacks to doctrines of the Faith come from both within and outside of the Catholic Church.
The partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; they lie hid, a thing to be deeply deplored and feared, in her very bosom and heart, and are the more mischievous, the less conspicuously they appear. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, nay, and this is far more lamentable, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, feigning a love for the Church, lacking the firm protection of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, vaunt themselves as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ.
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kyrie03
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Whether or not it is arrogant to now attempt a better understanding of Church dogmas by so-called unprejudiced examination of original sources, is known to God. But this style of faulty reasoning was addressed in Pascendi Dominici : They are wont to display a certain contempt for Catholic doctrines, or the Holy Fathers, for the Ecumenical Councils, for the ecclesiastical magisterium; and should they be rebuked for this, they complain that they are being deprived of their liberty…… They attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.
It has been clear understanding in the Catholic Church from its inception that souls are immortal and after the Final Judgment, will either be in Heaven or in Hell (an actual place where the body and soul suffers for all eternity……not annihilated). Which Pope, Council or group of Church Fathers taught otherwise?
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KMG
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Exactly.
Souls are immortal. Basic Catholic dogma.
Souls are immortal. Basic Catholic dogma.
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Luke6_37
Guest
That’s right. It doesn’t matter who I am. We are supposed to discuss the issues, not one another on this forum. That permits the arguments to stand or fall by their own merit, rather than by some potentially spurious claim to authority.Luke6_37:
Please forgive any misunderstanding about your designation of Christian. In my experience, members of the Catholic Church understand they are Christian…
Not that an answer in affirmative or negative changes much.
I would only add that I would like to encourage more Catholics to proudly claim and use the the title “Christian”, because the early Martyrs died for that right and today it is being misused by all sorts of people who worship the gods of money, power or celebrity and clearly do not believe Jesus Christ is Lord. If you want to fight heresy, that’s a good place to begin.
I am not denying that Augustine’s teaching on hell is the basic doctrine taught by the Catholic Church today. However, this is doctrine, not dogma.
Doctrine can and should develop over time in light of reason and new insights into the essential meaning behind them. That is what theologians do. Stripping away the false assumptions of a particular era gets us closer to the Truth of the faith.
For example, modern scholars (both Catholic & Protestant) agree that the Platonic understanding of the nature of the immortality of the soul that Augustine assumed was true is VERY different from how the Jewish writers of Scripture and most likely the Apostles and Christ himself understood it.
So all the subsequent speculation on what the souls in hell would experience based on Augustine’s assumption needs to be reevaluated. It’s important to know what a first century Jewish peasant hearing Christ say “thrown into the eternal fire” or “destroy both body and soul” would have understand that to mean, because Jesus was talking to him.
Jesus says to seek the truth. Seeking is not an attack.
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kyrie03
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Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma list eternal punishment of hell as De fide. Again, can you point to anything in the Magisterium that agrees with your theory?
Innocent IV to apostolic delegate in Greece 1254: But if anyone dies unrepentant in the state of mortal sin, he will undoubtedly be tormented forever in the fires of an everlasting hell.”
Vatican Council I, Collectio Lacensis, VII: “Therefore, all who die in actual mortal sins are excluded from the kingdom of God and will suffer forever the torments of hell where there is no redemption.”
Sorry,….but you interpreting torments to mean annihilation is outrageous.
And how those early Church Fathers and the Magisterium of the Church down through the ages got it wrong or or weren’t clear enough to satisfy your objections, but today, we are able to look at the collection of writings that survived with an unbiased point of view and infer the REAL doctrine, is equally outrageous.
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