Go to Hell - Stay there forever

[ProdglArchitect]

… it would be virtually psychologically impossible to live life without being in perpetual fear of the future.

A little bit of fear is good for you. It drives you, motivates you, and as you grow in sanctity that fear is lessened.

Jesus’ words would disagree. If you truly believe that people who are wracked in pain every single moment from hunger and disease and poverty who die horrible, disgusting deaths are not more worthy of “salvation” than privileged, rich folks with good families, good health, wealth and enjoyment, who die a peaceful death in their sleep, than I feel sorry for your perception of morality.

I assume you are speaking of Jesus’s warnings about how difficult it is for a rich man to get into Heaven. Well, let’s look at that context, shall we?

22
When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.

24 Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and said, “Who then can be saved?”

26 Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”

The rich man was unwilling to part with his possession. They were more important to him than God. He wasn’t willing to sacrifice to follow Jesus. The problem isn’t riches, it is attachment to those riches. Admittedly, having riches makes you more prone to worldly attachments. I won’t deny that. But the riches themselves are not a death sentence. There are innumerable rich people who do immeasurable good with those riches.

Furthermore, mere experience of suffering is not salvific or meritorious. Suffering only does us any good when we unite it with Jesus’ suffering and death. A hateful person who suffers is not more worthy of salvation than a loving man who doesn’t. Nor is a loving man who suffers more worthy of salvation than a hateful man who doesn’t. None of us are worthy of salvation. We do not merit it, we do not warrant it, we do not deserve it. The level of suffering in our lives doesn’t change that.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Then why are people not more fearful in their everyday lives? Why are people not running around nonstop trying to “save” people from hell?

Because when we try to do that, people reject us outright. Plain and simple.

If I were to just say to someone “stop what you are doing or you will be damned,” what do you think the likelihood would be of them actually listening to me? My wife had someone do this to her before we met, and it almost turned her away from religion entirely.

We work the way we do, peacefully and prayerfully, because that is the more sure way to bring people into belief. There is also a time for admonition, but that is after a relationship has been developed, after there is mutual trust and understanding. I’ve known my sister in law for a decade and a half and have just recently broached the topic of Catholicism with her. Because of my patience and our mutual trust and knowledge of each other, she is willing to read what I gave her. Had I tried this immediately after we met, she never would have accepted it.

The concept is defined as torment that lasts FOR EV ER! When a billion years has past, you are just beginning the fun! This is so comprehensively bad, it’s basically indescribable.

Yup. You are absolutely right. It is indescribably awful.

That doesn’t make it any less real.

The reality is…either most people don’t believe the concept as defined…or they think there is no chance they will end up there.

Unfortunately for them, their beliefs do not dictate reality.

 

[Magnanimity]

And point to Von Balthazar being raised to be a Cardinal as proof of his ideas being accepted, …But that doesn’t matter.

You’re overstating your case here. I’ll reiterate what I said above, “It simply isn’t reasonable to think that the three most important and influential Catholic theologians of the 20th century (De Lubac, Rahner and Von Balthasar), all of whom were universalists of one stripe or another, might have simply missed the obvious historical fact that the church has consistently denounced it as a non-option.” No one has offered this evidence as “proof” of their ideas being accepted. One the other hand, it is offered as evidence that some form of universalism is a live-option for anyone belonging to an ancient Christian communion (Catholic or Orthodox).

Also, the small section on Hell (CCC 1033-37) is most definitely written by an infernalist, but that’s hardly surprising, given the western church’s Augustinian bent for almost a millennium. Ratzinger was close with Von Balthasar and thought highly of him as a theologian (and JP2’s opinion of him is obvious). It isn’t that catechisms do not matter. Of course they do. It is simply that they must be seen for what they are. We all know they are not infallible, dogmatic testaments binding on all the faithful… They are generally reliable guides to the faith and practice of the church. But, in the West, with the church of the middle ages fawning over the thought of St Augustine, it’s hardly surprising to find catechisms that teach what he taught on Hell (massa damnata/Hell is full/we know for certain that humans will persist there indefinitely…).

You claimed the New Testament had numerous times that affirmed Universalism

Did I? I don’t recall making that claim. The NT references were offered as an abundance of evidence that Christ died for all and desires all to be saved. The scriptural passages were offered as evidence that whatever distinction you were trying to draw meant little, if anything, theologically.

Jesus died for all, but not all will be saved.

This is the question before us.

You can’t say His blood was shed for many for the forgiveness of sins and then extend it to all.

It is you who have claimed that his blood is shed for only “many,” and you have assumed this does not mean all. As I’ve claimed, this very much appears to be a distinction that makes no difference. You don’t seem to be following my reasoning. So, let me come at it from another angle.

What is the difference between Christ dying and Christ shedding his blood?

It is repeated with overwhelming frequency in the NT that Christ died for “all.” (Reference again the scripture quotes I provided.) But, you apparently think there is some real and important distinction between these two–between the shedding of blood and dying, though you haven’t pointed out what it is. They seem to me to be two ways of expressing the same act. So, what is the distinction between them, in your opinion?

 

[laylow]

The rich man was unwilling to part with his possession. They were more important to him than God. He wasn’t willing to sacrifice to follow Jesus. The problem isn’t riches, it is attachment to those riches. Admittedly, having riches makes you more prone to worldly attachments. I won’t deny that. But the riches themselves are not a death sentence.

That’s one interpretation (I would argue the wrong one), but there are hundreds, if not thousands. Which is why the bible is so problematic to begin with.

Furthermore, mere experience of suffering is not salvific or meritorious. Suffering only does us any good when we unite it with Jesus’ suffering and death. A hateful person who suffers is not more worthy of salvation than a loving man who doesn’t. Nor is a loving man who suffers more worthy of salvation than a hateful man. None of us are worthy of salvation. We do not merit it, we do not warrant it, we do not deserve it. The level of suffering in our lives doesn’t change that.

That is the most hateful, insensitive load of crap I’ve ever been subjected to. A person is completely justified, I would argue morally appropriate to be angry and hateful of suffering. If this is really the consensus view of the religious, they should not be surprised when people outside of their group find their ideas despicable.

And the whole “no one is worthy of salvation” is immoral and basically an oppression tactic, similar to the worst of dictatorships. The whole idea that human are born sick and demanded to be well is one of the most immoral concepts ever devised.

 

[laylow]

Because when we try to do that, people reject us outright. Plain and simple.

If I were to just say to someone “stop what you are doing or you will be damned,” what do you think the likelihood would be of them actually listening to me? My wife had someone do this to her before we met, and it almost turned her away from religion entirely.

Should give you the clue that the concept is bogus.

My wife had someone do this to her before we met, and it almost turned her away from religion entirely.

If the truth turns someone away, then so be it.

Yup. You are absolutely right. It is indescribably awful.

That doesn’t make it any less real.

Makes it incompatible to the rest of the narrative of endless love and mercy. No fancy mental gymnastics will change that.

Unfortunately for them, their beliefs do not dictate reality.

As yours do not either.

 

[sudy]

“With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Nothing is possible without the grace of God. Those who are greedy with their wealth, those who have used fraudulent methods to acquire their wealth, and those who are ungenerous with their wealth have problems, certainly. The other problem with wealth is that it is harder for that person to set himself apart from his riches, to strip himself of them… much like with power and rank. It’s important not to trust in them, and to acknowledge that everything we have is a gift from God and is to be shared with others with generosity. It’s basically saying that riches can hinder the person from entering heaven, if he sees them in the wrong light… which he often does.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

That’s one interpretation (I would argue the wrong one), but there are hundreds, if not thousands. Which is why the bible is so problematic to begin with.

Well, it’s a licit interpretation in keeping with Church teaching, so your opinion doesn’t really matter much to me.

That is the most hateful, insensitive load of crap I’ve ever been subjected to. A person is completely justified, I would argue morally appropriate to be angry and hateful of suffering.

… I’m not sure what you read, because I didn’t claim we weren’t allowed to hate suffering. We can hate suffering while believing that it is not, in and of itself, meritorious.

If this is really the consensus view of the religious, they should not be surprised when people outside of their group find their ideas despicable.

it’s not the consensus, and not even close to what I’ve written. Once again you’ve shown yourself to be astoundingly ignorant of your former faith. No wonder you left if your catechesis was really this deficient.

And the whole “no one is worthy of salvation” is immoral and basically an oppression tactic, similar to the worst of dictatorships. The whole idea that human are born sick and demanded to be well is one of the most immoral concepts ever devised.

But we are born sick. We are born with concupiscence, the tendency towards sin. You don’t have to like it for it to be true. Our natures are still inherently good, as human nature is a gift from God, but we are still incapable of meriting salvation on our own.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Should give you the clue that the concept is bogus.

The fact that people react poorly to calls to change their lives has nothing to do with whether or not that call to change is warranted or good.

If the truth turns someone away, then so be it.

I agree, if someone rejects the truth that is on their head. However, we must be sure that the manner in which we present the truth isn’t what drives them away.

Makes it incompatible to the rest of the narrative of endless love and mercy. No fancy mental gymnastics will change that.

it doesn’t take any mental gymnastics, as has been shown repeatedly in this thread. You’r e not going to accept that though, so why even continue in the discussion. You refuse to even admit of the possibility that Hell is justified, and so there is nothing we can say which will change your opinion. So, ultimately, this entire discussion is pointless for you. You’re only wasting your time and ours…

Unfortunately for them, their beliefs do not dictate reality.

As yours do not either.

Nope, they don’t. I am completely aware of that fact.

I am closing my browser window now, I’ve already spent more time on this debate today than I should. I enjoy this type of discussion, so it’s hard for me to pull away from it and focus on my work.

Have a good day!

 

[Magnanimity]

What I could never figure out is that if people really think that few people are saved, why they will be the ones among the saved. The modern, privileged person, who has had it better than 99.9999% of humanity is going to be saved…
…because they believed the right things? because they attended mass? because they confessed sins?

Your intuitions here are so very well-founded. One of the best quotes in the Von Balthasar book Dare We Hope That all Men Be Saved? is one from Kierkegaard. It is so clever and serves as such a contra-distinction to the confidently-bound-for-heaven mentality. Von Balthasar quotes Kierkegaard as saying,
“I have never been so far in my life, and am never likely to get farther than to the point of “fear and trembling”, where I find it literally quite certain, that every other person will easily be blessed — only I will not. To say to the others: you are eternally lost — that I cannot do. For me, the situation remains constantly this: all the others will be blessed, that is certain enough — only with me may there be difficulties. (loc. 640)”

That is so fantastic an approach. His confidence is for “the others” and not himself! Here in this thread, it appears the opposite. The infernalists seem quite confident of “the others” being bound for Hell! Not themselves, of course, just “the others” are going there…

 

[Gab123]

how could an angel change his mind? . . . How would a creature who can’t change his mind repent?

Scripture states that the bad angels made a choice to not serve God, and that their choice sealed their fate, the torment of hell their consequence. How is that different than people who knowingly commit mortal sins, refuse to repent and die in that state? After all, both angels and men are creatures of God’s creation. Since God is all merciful and love, why does He allow some of his creatures to be eternally tormented?

 

[Gab123]

The infernalists seem quite confident of “the others” being bound for Hell! Not themselves, of course, just “the others” are going there…

Everyone runs the risk of going to hell, thus the constant reminder to examine one’s own conscience and go to confession. The other extreme are those who commit the sin of presumption, which is to assume a hope for salvation without doing anything to deserve it, or for the pardon of sins without repenting of them. Then there are the false teachers who deny the existence of hell.

 

[Gab123]

the Von Balthasar book Dare We Hope That all Men Be Saved?

Do realize that in his book von Balthasar clearly insists that damnation is a real possibility for anyone, and nowhere does he state that he believes everyone is saved. What he does say is that God gives every soul every possibility of being saved—and that we must pray and work with God’s grace for the salvation of sinners.

His book simply echoes all the Marian apparitions and the message of Divine Mercy, which is a call for the Church Militant to pray and intercede for the conversion of sinners through prayer and sacrifice. God wants all to be saved, but free will gives man the choice to reject salvation, even in the face of an infinite ocean of mercy; incomprehensible as it may seem, people do reject God. The Bible calls them the children of the devil.

 

[oliver109]

You have to believe in Gods mercy more, I am of the hope that God will only allow people to go to Hell if they refuse outright to repent of their sins. Take this example, there is a priest who has on several occasions had sex with a parishioner, he makes the effort in his life to avoid doing this but frequently ends up doing the wrong thing. He goes to confession one day and after leaving the church he happens to meet the same woman at the local café, they go to her house and have sex again, a plane then crashes on the house killing the priest, would God have mercy on an otherwise good priest?

 

[Magnanimity]

You still seem to completely misunderstand me.

I hope that everyone will be saved. I fully believe that Jesus died for everyone, and that salvation is open to all souls. I do not enjoy the notion that people will be damned.

I don’t want to misunderstand anyone! And good, the above is precisely as I would articulate my own thoughts. I would only say that a person cannot hope for what is not possible. That is, hoping for the salvation of all is only coherent if the salvation of all is a real possibility. Otherwise, the “hope” is irrational–more akin to wishful thinking, “oh wouldn’t it be nice if…”

What I reject, as does the Church, is the notion that a soul, once damned, may later be redeemed. Once you are in Hell, there is no escaping it.

There is something to what you say here, I have to admit. But, I’d also like to point out that the patristics were not beholden to the western world’s obsession with courts and judges pronouncing final sentences on people. For all those Fathers that I mentioned had cyclical (Platonic) views of all of salvation history. From Maximus to Origen to Gregory of Nyssa to Gregory Nazianzen, this is true of all of them. They also interpreted what it is to pass through the fire of God differently from western minds too. To us, it’s a place of neverending sentencing. To them, it was a refiner’s fire–to clear away all the “wood, hay and stubble” and leave the person left with nothing more than the goodness set to enter God’s kingdom. I’m serious, you should read Von Balthasar’s book. It’s fascinating stuff–very much an eye-opener.

And I do appreciate the scripture quotes, I really do. I would only ask that you appreciate that everyone for the history of the church has been aware of these quotes, and yet church history finds no small representation of the hope that all will, in the end, be saved by the God who IS love. All the patristics knew these NT passages, all the Eastern Fathers, all the greatest 20th century Catholic theologians. They’re all aware, and they’re yet universalists of one stripe or another. Some are very careful only to “hope” (like Balthasar), others are much more confident (like Barth, David Bentley Hart and probably Rahner). It’s a spectrum. But, I hope you can get away from the (fairly outrageous) idea that you’re the only one paying attention to scripture. You and I by comparison to these intellectual giants of the faith know probably less than 1/10 of 1% of what they knew about the scriptures and about what’s possible, theologically.

Peace be with you!

 

[RealisticCatholic]

One way to help understand hell is to realize that sin and hell are, in a sense, convertible. Every sin we commit on Earth – insofar it is deliberate and done knowlingly – is an explicit rejection of God. It is a rejection of Love: whether love of God, neighbor, or self.

We know that sin is a real possibility on Earth. We encounter it all the time.

Every time we sin, we are “in” hell. We are walking away from the highest good in preference to our own selfish, loveless choices.

Hell as a state after death is simply the result of the possibility of humans to choose their own destiny: to love, or to not love. No one is forced into hell. Some people imagine hell wrongly, as if it were arbitrary: as if heaven were a matter of choosing apple pie and hell was a matter of choosing pecan pie. Why should someone go to hell just because of that subjective preference? It makes God to be a monster.

But that’s precisely getting the nature of things wrong. God IS Goodness itself. He is the source of authentic human fulfillment. To continue the above example, if Heaven were like choosing apple pie, then hell is more like choosing to starve oneself. (Of course, not because of some psychological disorder, but doing so fully knowing it is bad for oneself.)

If we think hell is irreconcilable with a loving God, then that may very well be the case: Because one’s definition of hell may be VERY wrong, in the first place! Hell is in no sense an arbitrary sentence given by God, as some kind of positive punishment from without. Jesus talked about the twigs taken off from the tree and “withering” of their own accord, because they “choose” to not stay united to the source of life. They choose not to bear fruit.

We all have this choice. Insofar as free will is real, we must admit of the possibility that humans can truly decide to definitively reject God.

 

[Magnanimity]

Scripture states that the bad angels made a choice to not serve God, and that their choice sealed their fate, the torment of hell their consequence.

Ok…

How is that different than people who knowingly commit mortal sins, refuse to repent and die in that state?

Since the vast majority of all humans who have ever lived have been perfectly unaware of this catechetical formula (knowingly commit mortal sin=damnation), I will not grant that this is the normal human path of life. I don’t grant your point. I don’t grant that most humans know the Catholic concept of mortal sin. I don’t grant that when people do moral wrongs that they don’t feel remorse and are unrepentant for their actions (they do feel this). Rather, people have consciences, are born into various religious traditions (or none!) and generally live what seems to them to be a good, quality life. And as Lumen Gentium makes perfectly clear, these folks can be saved.

I’ve already contested your belief that satan is now “tormented.” I don’t even know what that would mean. Can an angel feel regret/remorse? Possibly. I also don’t know what it means that death, hades and satan are all thrown into the lake of fire at the final judgment (Revelation). I would wager that you don’t either.

 

[oliver109]

I am sorry but your answer does not make that much sense, take my example I wrote above of the priest who committed sexual sin, he is in his life a generally good man, he looks after his parishioners and helps the homeless in his community. He had sex with a woman but confessed it yet succumbed yet again to temptation and died suddenly. Are you going to say that he was not really a true Catholic and that a true disciple would never do such a thing?

 

[Magnanimity]

those who commit the sin of presumption

You seem to miss the fact that to presume that humans will certainly be in Hell is itself a “sin of presumption.” You do not, could not, have that “knowledge.” You could have that belief. In a twisted way, you could probably even hope that Hitler and Genghis Khan and Mao are all in Hell. But, you cannot have knowledge of this. The Nicene Creed can supply you with knowledge. The decrees of the ecumenical councils can similarly supply you with knowledge. If one is Catholic, she could even say that papal ex-cathedra pronouncements supply her with knowledge. Outside of these limited things, you are doing speculative theology. And in this particular instance, you have have chosen to follow St Augustine and his views on Hell (whether you know it or not).

 

[RealisticCatholic]

I honestly have no idea what your reply has to do with my post.

Did you mean to reply to me or someone else?

 

[oliver109]

Reply to you, I was writing about how many of us struggle with sin and why t would be unfair for God to allow that priest in the scenario above to die in a state of mortal sin.