Does hell violate omnipresence?

[JDaniel]

If hell is eternal separation from God, doesn’t that violate omnipresence? Even if it’s just a state, he is then not present with that person anyway. I don’t mortal sin would as you just aren’t enjoying a total relationship with him, not that you’re separated from him, but i can’t work over hell.

Pieman:

The Catholic position on hell, as best I can figure out, is simply the loss of The Beatific Vision. There are essentially three levels to the overall of that which we call Heaven. From the ground up, the lowest level is the earthly level. On this level dwells, of course, humans. Then, above the earthly level is the Angelic level. This is where, so to speak, the Angels dwell, including those that followed Satan. The ultimate level is the Vision level. It is in this last level that one can come face to face with God, if one is good enough and capable of viewing His Divine Face.

After God created the Angels (all pure, of course) the Angelic level is where most of the Angels dwelt. Some Angels we able to travel, so to speak (again!), back and forth between the Angelic and the Vision levels. Even as pure as the Angels were, after their creation, there were some who could not face God face to face. Satan and his group preferred the Angelic level as they could not face God’s face. It is too much for them to behold. But, there was always that sort of hope and understanding that should there come a point when he/they could, they would be allowed into the vision level. Satan decided, though, that he rather enjoyed the Angelic level - he felt god-like there, enjoyed himself, enjoyed his own face - so, he decided to stay by a kind of self-exclusion from the Vision level. Not all of the Angels reside in the vision level, some do but others roam back and forth between the three levels (or, at least the upper two levels).

There is no “place” that is Hell. From the definition of the word, we would automatically assume that it is such a defined “place” somehow. Rather, it is a State of perpetual disassociation from God. It has been sometimes said that at judgement, the damned will see God for just an instant and then be deprived of his sight for ever. However, this is an incorrect way of speaking about this. Because, once the vision has been granted it will never be withdrawn. The Teaching of the Catholic Church continues:

Though this particular expression, therefore, is incorrect, still it is prompted by a true idea. Unless the soul were granted a deeper and greater realization of what God is than it had possessed on earth, the loss of the immediate vision of God would mean but little to it.- The Teaching of the Catholic Church, Vol II, Chap. XXXIII

How God prevents the disassociated from seeing him, we can only surmise. But, he has to remain present to the saddened soul so that that soul can for ever desire association - with every fiber of its being, as we sometimes say - yet without ever having the possibility of Viewing Him. When understood like this, this would not violate Omnipresence, I don’t think.

God bless,
jd

 

[ConstantineTG]

How God prevents the disassociated from seeing him, we can only surmise. But, he has to remain present to the saddened soul so that that soul can for ever desire association - with every fiber of its being, as we sometimes say - yet without ever having the possibility of Viewing Him. When understood like this, this would not violate Omnipresence, I don’t think.

Read my previous post. From my interpretation from the Church Fathers, I believe its not God that is preventing Beatific vision, but rather a person who is rejecting it. All souls are subject to the full intenstiy of God’s love in the afterlife. The problem with those who reject Him is that they will never feel the warmth, the bliss of His love. It will always be a source of pain and suffering for them as there is this constant and eternal outpouring of love from God and the same constand and eternal rejection from the soul who has despised God.

 

[JP2Admirer]

I would hesitate to say that “all are surrounded by God’s love” in the sense of seeing the essence of God.

I would think that hell would be something like knowing that God exists and being eternally lost to attaining Him.

It would be knowing that God is the complete rest of the will, and being unable to attain that ever.

An eternal loss of purpose and a goal.

 

[JDaniel]

Read my previous post. From my interpretation from the Church Fathers, I believe its not God that is preventing Beatific vision, but rather a person who is rejecting it. All souls are subject to the full intenstiy of God’s love in the afterlife. The problem with those who reject Him is that they will never feel the warmth, the bliss of His love. It will always be a source of pain and suffering for them as there is this constant and eternal outpouring of love from God and the same constand and eternal rejection from the soul who has despised God.

ConstantineTG:

Yes, this makes sense to me.

I must have missed your earlier post. Sorry.

God bless,
jd

 

[zalzankavol]

first and foremost we have to recall, ala Thomas Aquinas, that God’s “being” is radically other than ours. His existence is not like ours, and we cannot fully comprehend or understand it. The question of omnipresence itself implies taking up space, and this is not something we can properly ascribe to God. For that matter, modern scientists cannot even agree what “matter” is anymore, and they now postulate that “space” is in fact some kind of matter that is stretching (last I checked with quantum physicists).
The most accurate description I have seen here is the lack of the beatific vision. We have some sense of this on earth…how many people have persisted in evil and hatred depsite being in the presence of goodness, and even prepetrating that evil on those who are good and innocent?

 

[ConstantineTG]

I would hesitate to say that “all are surrounded by God’s love” in the sense of seeing the essence of God.

I would think that hell would be something like knowing that God exists and being eternally lost to attaining Him.

It would be knowing that God is the complete rest of the will, and being unable to attain that ever.

An eternal loss of purpose and a goal.

One view of hell is those who desire to be with God but can’t. But if one desires to be God, why can’t they at least have made it to purgatory and then to heaven? If there is genuine desire for God then how did one end up in hell? A mortal sin is an objection of God, either directly or indirectly by going against the nature of God. So I can’t believe people in hell suffer from the loss of God because they did not desire God or what is Godly in the first place.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

This makes sense to me:

God doesn’t separate himself from us, but we do from him. Nothing can exist without God’s presense, as demonstrated by St. Thomas and other Doctors of the Church; those in hell are separated from God not by God’s presense since God is omnipresent, but from their own rejection of God’s salvation and grace. and therefore they are separated from experiencing in God’s love and God’s presense.

The Catechism says that “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” (CCC 1035).

Those in hell eternally separate themselves from God, but God doesn’t separate himself from those in hell. The separation is from eternal salvation and God’s grace.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

Separation doesn’t mean lack of God’s presence. God could still be there but rejected by the soul who refuses union with God.

So hell could really be just a soul suffering because he is surrounded and being filled by God’s love, but because the soul has rejected God there is an eternal struggle to reject God and thus God’s love becomes a source of pain for the soul who refuses Him.

Exactly.

 

[vera_dicere]

You are confusing existence with the qualitative experience of existence. For those against God, God will become hell according to their qualitative experience and relationship with God. This is not to say that God is hell, but if you hate true love and act against it, you will not experience the things that exist in true love, such as existential fulfilment. People in hell are not only experiencing hell, but rather their attitude toward God is hell. Thus you will experience the opposite of God necessarily as result of setting ones heart against God for all eternity; and hell by definition is the absence of the “experience” of true eternal love (God). I am not sure exactly what senses you will retain in hell, but the only thing you will retain for certain in hell is your eternal existence. Because God is the source of existence, God will be present in hell, but he will not experience it.

I am not sure, but this seems to me correct, or at least it shows how hell can exist in the presence of God.

I’m not great with philiosophy, but what your’e saying, could it be used to express different levels of “heaven” and “hell”?

If a person in Hell is suffering because their opinion against God is hate and rejection, that being in His presence is hurtful to them, could we hold this example to mean that say the agnostic would be suffering less? They acknowledge the possibility of a god but don’t accpet him? Or other religions? Say a Hindu beleiving in many gods, they live a “good” life but they have been unable to truly reject God because they dn’t konw God like the Christian? Or even the Christian? They accept Christ, they love God, they go to Churchh, but they live an ungodly life, ie. fornication, abortion, and see no issue wiht it in a Christian context?