Hell and how it makes sense

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Why would a God who loves us create a hell of eternal torture and create people knowing that they’ll go to hell? Why is there not just purgatory (for purification, instead of hell) and heaven? What bible verses talk about hell?
 
Well, not going to get into a verse slinging contest, but the first verse that comes to mind is Jesus saying it is better to cut off a hand or pluck out an eye, that to be thrown into Gehenna (Hell) whole. There are others.

God is a God of perfection. And one of His great attributes is Justice. Perfect justice is giving you exactly what you ask for. If you live a life that says to God, “I don’t care about your laws or your love, or your way, I will live my life without you or any of that stuff in it.” Will God then not say at judgment, “You ask for a world where I am not present. I will give it to you.” Problem is, that do you think at judgment a soul will see and know the glory of an eternity in a place where God and perfect love exists, and that soul will not be a part of it. I think that would be agony.
A big pit of fire with demons and pitchforks, maybe, I’m not going to object to the traditional idea of Hell. But I am sure it is a place of desolation and hatred. Like the saying in ancient Lit says, “Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here.”
Shalom.
 
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Offense against the Infinite God, but who really goes to Hell?

It is those who cannot accept God, and cannot live in His Love. This is hard to explain, but essentially you go to Hell for rejecting God, and there you feel the absence of Him.
 
One other thought about Justice. Do you think Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao, Josef Stalin, Joseph Mengele and that ilk should receive the same “reward” as Maximillian Kolbe, Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi, John Paul II, my mom (by the way who is a saint:smiley:😃) and all who live a life faithful to the Law and the Light of Love that God wants from us?
 
There are shadows (or previews) of heaven, hell and purgatory here in this life.
 
God creates people out of love. He gives us freedom to choose whether we want to be with Him forever in heaven or separated forever in hell.
People choose to go to hell because they reject God. And if you reject God and His love, wouldn’t even heaven be a kind of hell for you? Wouldn’t it be torture to have to be purified against your will, and then be with a God you reject for eternity?
Yet God is the source of all that is truly good, so we cannot be truly happy without Him.
 
The question of why will not provide access to the chief good at any given moment. But the question of who is fundamental to the last things. We are either overtaken by God or the devil. Who? The soul decides and tastes the enigma while she waits to the last things.
 
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So hell was created so that heaven could exist, because for anything to exist it’s opposite must also exist? And God thought it was worth it to allow evil so that good could exist? And it was worth it to give us the choice to choose evil, because then we can also choose good? Free will was important enough to warrant having a hell? Because without free will, there’s no good or evil, nor love or hate, so everything would be meaningless?
 
If you do wrong - continually - not even caring -
If you enjoy sinning - and thumbing your nose at God -
If you enjoy devil like enjoyments -
Yeah, Hell is there -
That’s where sinners go who refuse to go to church or pray.

No one, in Heaven, would want those type of clowns around them.
 
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Freewill means there is an option for choice. If there is no choice, then there is no freewill. Hell only means the absence of God, who is love. There are people who choose not to be with God, thus that is why there is hell, for such people, while those who choose God will be with God.
 
None of us deserve heaven. The Saints you listed would be the first to tell you that.
 
We abide here
In this lake of fire
In this place
We have made
How long
Does not matter
For time
Stopped long ago
It is without meaning
To minds gripped
By fever
To souls
Burning with vengeance
We are on fire
We have become that fire
And now
It fills our veins
It has turned our hearts to cinder
Transforming each of us into a furnace
With cherry red eyes
Like two hot pokers
Gazing into the emptiness
Of past wrongs
Of squandered gifts
Of unrequited grace
Seeing only one vision
Purified by these flames
A vision of hate
And we know that our hatred
Has become a perfect hate
It has become our only art
It has become beauty itself
It has become a diamond
Brought forth by the heat of punishment
Cut perfect by suffering
Polished clear by agony
Diamond clear
Hard
Compassionless
Unwavering
Focusing all
To unbearable
P(name removed by moderator)oint clarity
Of this eternal moment
Where we find ourselves
Gazing into that dark mirror
Of the soul
Into that reflection
Of everlasting sin
Seeing the self
Forever Alone
In that shadow world
Now so interrupted
By this inferno
By this eternity of burning madness
By this epiphany of searing horror
Which takes us
And drowns us in flame
And pulls us in
Into our great lake of fire
Downward
Sinking
Beneath these devouring waves
Together
To that sea of pure misery
To those depths of punishment
Of our own making
Which we kindled
With those first embers of disobedience
Given so thoughtlessly
So long ago
Not knowing
How well
We would care for them
Feeding their sparks
Sin by sin
Until at last
The flames rose a hundredfold
A thousand fathoms deep
Reaching higher
Ever higher
Into the darkness
Of eternal night
 
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To put it simply the way I’ve learned to think about it is this:

God is an infinite and infinitely perfect being. To offend him is therefore an therefore an offense of infinite gravity. An offense of infinite gravity merits an infinite punishment. Therefore Hell is eternal.

We are creatures composed of body and soul. We offend God with both body and soul. Therefore it is fitting that we suffer this infinite punishment in both body and soul. Hence Hell is physical torment by fire (body/pain of sense) and spiritual torment (soul/pain of loss).

I know it is in vogue these days to think of Hell as some nebulous space somewhere without God. But all the evidence of scripture, the testimony of the saints, the constant historical teaching of the church, as well as the first secret of Fatima all clearly describe a literal, fiery, burning hell of eternal torment of both body and soul. The things of God are NOT to be taken lightly.
 
41 Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. (St. Matthew 25)
Your question is tough. Let’s see if I can give it perspective.

Yahweh God being Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent, Knows that man will fail, right from the onset of Creation… Choices follow:

a) Do not Create man
b) Create and re-Create man billions of times till he get himself right
c) Create man as an automaton (no will, no cognizant ability, no capacity for failure or for holding a thought…)
d) Create man with a built-in excuse (no consequences for sin/anti-God)

Would God not have been limited in His Creation if all that would be Created were creatures and things that could not have the ability to aspire to unite themselves to their Creator?

Would man have gained anything in an un-Created state?

Now, why hell?

St. Matthew’s passage is quite clear: created for Satan and his angels.

Let’s go to Creation… what happens at the end of the Creative period? God Saw that it (Creation) was good.

So why not just kill the evil/bad seed?

Well Ezekiel 18 has a depiction of God’s Reasoning: Even if a man is wicked his child can choose to align him/herself to God.

Jesus gave us a window into this conundrum:
28 And he said to them: An enemy hath done this. And the servants said to him: Wilt thou that we go and gather it up? 29 And he said: No, lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it. 30 Suffer both to grow until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye into my barn. (St. Matthew 13)
So God suffers the wicked so as to have Mercy on those who would willingly turn to Him.

Your proposition… do you truly believe that if there were no consequences to sin/immorality that man would turn from wickedness… look at the contraception technology… when it was introduced and accepted in the secular world, even “Christians” embraced it; the Pope warned against it… soon divorce became the next thing that was embraced, then abortion… millions of children losing their lives in their mom’s wombs and millions more being victims of divorce, and millions embracing adultery and fornication… and millions suffering from all sorts of stds–the false premise of liberation through contraception has not worked!

Imagine if you will an after life where no sin/immorality prevents humanity from entering Heaven, how many millions/billions would not embrace destruction and the destruction of others since there would be no eternal consequences?

Finally, consider the various destructive behavior that man engages (as aids or the opioids use/abuse) with full knowledge that engaging such behavior places his life/existence in jeopardy… is God’s Way not better: He Creates us and patiently allows us to Choose Life: Christ?

Maran atha!

Angel
 
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No. That’s the Oriental yin-yang premise or hollowood’s spirituality where God and Satan are just playing an intricate game of lordship (winner takes all) thing each needing the other to be able to exist.

Satan was not Created as Satan; he was Created as a beautiful being (Lucifer) who perverted his existence by seeking to usurp God’s Authority.

Hell was created to contain him and his followers.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
Jesus saved us from the Wrath that sin demands:
23 For the wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23a)
There’s no opposite of being with God.

There’s Heaven and there’s hell.

God Resides in Heaven. Satan’s place is hell.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
No, I would not. But why would you think that heaven is the same for all?
 
Why would a God who loves us create a hell of eternal torture and create people knowing that they’ll go to hell? Why is there not just purgatory (for purification, instead of hell) and heaven? What bible verses talk about hell?
The Christian religion is full of dualities that you have to accept in some way. Some don’t accept them and label them contradictions. You end up with a never-ending battle between theologians and skeptics trying to harmonize and break apart. Examples-

God is merciful and gracious - so there’s heaven. But God is also just - so there’s hell.
Both our goodness and evil are finite since our lives are finite, but the reward and punishment are eternal.

Adding to it-

God is sovereign over all creation, yet man is responsible for his own deeds.
God is jealous, loving, yet also unchanging (a mashup probably caused when Judaism encountered Greek stoicism).

There are loads of others.

To your point - there are plenty of others out there who look at all this through eyes of faith and conclude that the only way mercy and justice both get carried out is that all are ultimately redeemed or that the damned don’t suffer forever and are annihilated (which is fairly in-line with older forms of Judaism) - even though you wont find much direct textual support for these, ahem, “meta” conclusions.
 
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No, I would not. But why would you think that heaven is the same for all?
I don’t! Personally, I think heaven is realization, getting what you asked for. The more you put into a loving relationship with God, the more you will get out of it. Basic.
 
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