Hell is locked from the inside?

[TK421]

Still no scripture from anyone. I get that people try to understand it more through these ideas but my point is I don’t think these ideas come from the bible. If you just read what Jesus says, He is casting them out even if they think that they are following Him, like the people who call Him Lord. So, those people must have thought, hey, I’m going to heaven, Jesus is my Lord and I did some good stuff (like prophesying, casting out demons etc) but then they don’t. I don’t hear a lot of people mentioning that kind of idea even though it is from scripture. They tend to emphasize that it is the person’s choice. I suppose it is their choice in some way, though it’s hard to see how if they really think they are following Jesus and did all these great things in His name and then they get a shock at the judgment. Maybe the argument would be, well, they didn’t give to charity and that’s what Jesus is pointing out. But it still doesn’t seem like these people are aware of what they did, since they are asking Jesus, hey when did we see you hungry etc? They just seem confused to me.

“Throw out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

That seems to be the main idea in scripture.

Something you’ll notice from being alive in the world for awhile is that people usually make some sort of justification or excuse for why they are supposedly innocent. It seems to be a natural condition of mankind’s (flawed) nature to refuse to ever find fault in itself. This is something that accompanies the darkening of a person’s soul, and in the Bible, you will find that being deceived is itself something that is a sin when it comes to spiritual matters; not a sin just for the deceiver, but also for the deceived. (Obadiah 1: 3, Jeremiah 49: 16, Luke 21: 8, 2 Thessalonians 2: 8-12, Revelation 19: 17-20)

So as a part of a person’s turning away from God, this doesn’t just affect a person’s heart, but it also affects their mind, and they become a disbeliever in their own unrighteousness. The people on his left ask Jesus “What have we ever done to you?” but Jesus goes on to answer their own question. They have done all sorts of wicked things without remorse, so it is not as though Hell is something that is given to a person arbitrarily or as a surprise. It is a choice that is made by their own volition (Sirach 15: 11-20).

I don’t have a comprehensive list of all other applicable scriptural verses, but as you read the Bible, keep in mind the idea of self-deception. It is something that almost always (perhaps even always?) accompanies impenitence, and you can easily see it all the time even in the world today.

 

[Robertanthony]

Still no scripture from anyone. I get that people try to understand it more through these ideas but my point is I don’t think these ideas come from the bible. If you just read what Jesus says, He is casting them out even if they think that they are following Him, like the people who call Him Lord. So, those people must have thought, hey, I’m going to heaven, Jesus is my Lord and I did some good stuff (like prophesying, casting out demons etc) but then they don’t. I don’t hear a lot of people mentioning that kind of idea even though it is from scripture. They tend to emphasize that it is the person’s choice. I suppose it is their choice in some way, though it’s hard to see how if they really think they are following Jesus and did all these great things in His name and then they get a shock at the judgment. Maybe the argument would be, well, they didn’t give to charity and that’s what Jesus is pointing out. But it still doesn’t seem like these people are aware of what they did, since they are asking Jesus, hey when did we see you hungry etc? They just seem confused to me.

“Throw out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

That seems to be the main idea in scripture.

“Work toward your salvation with fear and trepidation.” God is anything but easy going, Jesus was anything but nice and friendly, God is not your buddy, nor is he your abba, he is your worst nightmare, he has the power to destroy you, he wills that everyone be saved, but won’t hesitate to destroy you, both body and soul, if you don’t measure up to his standard. If you don’t measure up and thought you measured up, then you have deceived yourself, and self-deception is punishable by eternal hell. What’s the good news again? I wish God was less easily offended. God is love. Really? Am I the only one who sees God stark naked when everyone is marvelling at his fine clothes?

 

[Hieronymi]

Well said,

Wherefore, my dearly beloved, (as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only but much more now in my absence) with fear and trembling work out your salvation…
(Php 2:12)

 

[Skye_Ariel]

Never hear of that expression before. Hell doesn’t have doors to lock. It’s a place they can’t get out of but it has no doors. Like being dropped of on an island or another planet, there are no doors but you can’t escape from there.

 

[blaskoman]

Robert Anthony, you are way off base! wouldn’t it be a supreme act of love to give up your life for your friend or child? Well Jesus, who is God, gave up his life for you

 

[Mount_Carmel]

Isn’t the phrase ‘harden not your hearts’ used as fair warning to the sort of soul that is in peril of ending up in Hell? It is not God who turns away from such souls, but they who turn away from God - in effect slamming the door on salvation. God’s key no longer fits their lock.

 

[JRKH]

“Work toward your salvation with fear and trepidation.”

This is a good quote.

God is anything but easy going, Jesus was anything but nice and friendly, God is not your buddy, nor is he your abba, he is your worst nightmare,

I’m sorry that you have this outlook…especially since it is in such stark contrast to the teachings of Christ and of the Church.
You say that He is not our Abba - Yet Jesus tells us to call Him Father - Abba. You say that He is our “Worst nightmare”…Yet I find nothing nightmarish about a God who IS Love (1 John 4:4-8) - - who is perfectly just and perfectly merciful - a God who judges us in the same way that we judge (Mt 7:1-2). Such a God cannot be a nightmare to me…Unless I be a nightmare to myself.

I think I see a point in your words that some try to make Jesus to soft and cuddly - as Father Barron puts, it too domesticated - but in my opinion and on my reading of NT, you take it too far.

he has the power to destroy you, he wills that everyone be saved, but won’t hesitate to destroy you, both body and soul, if you don’t measure up to his standard.

Yet His standard is not difficult to recognize or to implement. In fact - if anything - it’s too simple for most people to truly recognize and embrace.

If you don’t measure up and thought you measured up, then you have deceived yourself, and self-deception is punishable by eternal hell. What’s the good news again?

The Good news is that God is Agape.
God is just and merciful - and if there is “self deception” involved, that will be taken properly into account. No need for fear that God will be unjust.

I wish God was less easily offended. God is love. Really?

Yes really.
Why choose to harp on the negative when the positive is so glorious?

Am I the only one who sees God stark naked when everyone is marveling at his fine clothes?

I’m sorry to say that I don’t think you are actually “seeing God” at all.

Peace
James

 

[Robertanthony]

JRKH, God/Jesus can say a lot of things, claim to be a lot of things, it’s like you can’t say of someone that he’s a wonderful human being, a good person if he’s a father like no other, a dream husband, the best boss you could ever find, yet one day out of every month, he yields to his urge to kill people and actually does it and comes back to his wife and children with Krispy Kreme donuts and the smile of a content man on his face. Everything good you can say about God is made null and void with his choice to make people suffer horrible agony eternally. Nobody can say of you that you’re a caring person if you’re selfless and good to everyone but become an absolute meanie on a regular basis. Someone who presents himself as my “Abba”, as my daddy, and who will make me suffer eternally if I don’t think he loves me personally and I decide that he’s not worthy of my affection and worship is not my father. If you’re a 5 year old boy, your parents have divorced, if your Abba doesn’t show up on your birthday, doesn’t pick you up on Friday nights, if your wonderful daddy gives you the silent treatment, when your wonderful daddy says “no” to everything you ask, if daddy is only interested in giving you stuff that you’re not interested in, if everything is about daddy, about what daddy wants, what daddy wants me to do for him, what daddy will do to me if I don’t do as he says, then you can’t be faulted for thinking, and rightfully so, that even though daddy likes to hear himself say how much he’s loving, and how crazy he is about you, reality contradicts him. Reality, both temporal and eternal, contradicts everything Jesus said that would make him resemble anything having to do with love.
God is your tender-hearted Abba, yet he's impassible. God will show the accursed the direction of hell without so much as a sigh. I have a gauge for stuff phony and fake, God is just like a politician holding a baby and smiling for the camera. Make no mistake, one single act, lost in a myriad of good acts, will make him destroy you both body and soul for eternity. Of course if annihilation was what happened to those who think God is not desirable, we wouldn't have this conversation because I would agree with almost every good you see in God and Jesus. Never mind the fact that it's unjust that the whole of humanity has to endure a curse that only belonged to the two transgressors, the first human couple. Never mind the fact that it's unjust that I had to have a bigger share of God's curse than many, many people I've been in contact with through the years. Never mind the fact that God could easily remove whatever has been tormenting me and eating at me all of my life, but choose not to. *That* speaks infinitely louder than Jesus paying a debt I never incurred.

 

[Robertanthony]

Robert Anthony, you are way off base! wouldn’t it be a supreme act of love to give up your life for your friend or child? Well Jesus, who is God, gave up his life for you

It’s not my fault if God decided to keep every human out of his kingdom if two people out of all humankind sinned against him. Jesus freely chose to live and suffer to appease God’s indignation with people (minus two) who had done nothing against him. I’m not Adam, I’m not a 12th Century Russian farmer, I’m a 21st century tormented loser. I wasn’t even around when Adam sinned, if God were just, I should have been born with all the neat faculties Adam, or Holy Mary, was born with. You want me to thank Jesus for returning an item that was stolen by someone I don’t know millenia before I was conceived. Baptism is a raw deal, too, original sin is removed but not the concupiscence associated with original sin. It’s like winning the Powerball jackpot and not getting the money. “Yeah I won the lottery, awesome!” But back to boring job on Monday. God does have a sense of humour. The joke’s on us, though.

 

[thistle]

It’s not my fault if God decided to keep every human out of his kingdom if two people out of all humankind sinned against him. Jesus freely chose to live and suffer to appease God’s indignation with people (minus two) who had done nothing against him. I’m not Adam, I’m not a 12th Century Russian farmer, I’m a 21st century tormented loser. I wasn’t even around when Adam sinned, if God were just, I should have been born with all the neat faculties Adam, or Holy Mary, was born with. You want me to thank Jesus for returning an item that was stolen by someone I don’t know millenia before I was conceived. Baptism is a raw deal, too, original sin is removed but not the concupiscence associated with original sin. It’s like winning the Powerball jackpot and not getting the money. “Yeah I won the lottery, awesome!” But back to boring job on Monday. God does have a sense of humour. The joke’s on us, though.

I really feel sad for you. Such anger and hate within you. I will pray for you.

 

[mikekle]

People can freely choose from their free will to separate themselves from God, or choose to love God and be in communion with God.

To self-exclude yourself from communion with God is hell. "This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.” (CCC 1033)

If this is true and Hell is just a separation from God, then it should be exactly like the life these people had lived while on earth then…right? If they choose to live their life without God in it while alive, then Hell would essentially be the same thing, so why then, would people trying to get out of Hell…If they did not embrace God in life, why would they suddenly strive to be with him upon death?

 

[sousley]

I guess it was CS Lewis, I thought it was Dante. From the Problem of Pain:

In The Problem of Pain he said, “The doors of Hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of Hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man ‘wishes’ to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free.”

 

[Robertanthony]

I really feel sad for you. Such anger and hate within you. I will pray for you.

When you’ve asked (more like “begged”) a rich man for help, when a tiny fraction of the money he spends daily would forever change your life and turn your anger, despair, and torment in endless cries of joy, you can’t be faulted for not having made your need known. The answer has always been “no”. When God decrees misery, torment and lack in someone’s life, nothing can change that. Not even the fervent prayer of someone who thinks God is the best, most loving daddy one could ever wish for. I hate to hear God glorified for things he is not. I hate to hear someoen being praised for his awesome prodigality when I know for a fact he’s as stingy as they come. I wonder what life would have been like had God not been loving? Then I also wonder what my life would have been like if God had been loving, sadly I’ll never know. Predestination is treating someone like dirt, not assisting them in times of dire need, and when they end up in hell, you say that you did everything you know to do to win them over. Gotta go to sleep, gotta be ready for yet another amazing day in a no less amazing, God-ordained life.

 

[blaskoman]

Isn’t there some atheist forum you can find? You can get validation on your comments there

 

[JRKH]

It saddens me to see a post like this…

I’m sure that Robert does not come here for validation of his arguments. Robert is here because he is hurting…His posts are full of pain.
Yes he is angry but he is angry because he hurts.
If he did not WANT to believe - he wouldn’t be bothering with us here. He’d just wander off somewhere else.

I wish there was something we could say to help him…something that would ease his suffering but unfortunately there seems little we can do - - - EXCEPT - - -
To be patient and caring - to Love him as best we can through cyberspace - to pray for him and to hope that, in God’s time and through God’s mercy - things will change for our dear brother Robert.

Peace
James

 

[Hieronymi]

At the Cross.

 

[Oren]

Well, I think it’s sad and blind that people act like they don’t understand what Robert is talking about, even if you are a Catholic. I have trouble with why life is this way all the time and why God is the way He is and the idea of Hell even tho I am Catholic. Sometimes I get past those troubles, but more often than not I still have them.
I don’t see anything wrong with what Robert is saying. I’ve felt the same way.

 

[GEddie]

• 1

 

[Gloria_de_G]

**If **you mean by **hell **where the devil is, then there is a scriptural answer for you.

We know that in ch. 20 of the Apocalypse and angel comes down from heaven with the key of the abyss, here is the quote:

“1And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2And he seized the dragon, the ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years 3and threw him into the abyss, and shut and sealed it over him”

Therefore **inside **hell the devil is in chains now, during the 1,000 years reign of Christ in His Church, and when the angel left him in chains, inside the abyss, then he went out and shut it and sealed it, from the outside.

Any other person who teaches different to the Revelation of Jesus Christ (Apocalypse) is wrong!

In the love of Christ and His Revelation
Gloria
May be you would like to see around here: newtorah.org

 

[blaskoman]

It saddens me to see a post like this…

I’m sure that Robert does not come here for validation of his arguments. Robert is here because he is hurting…His posts are full of pain.
Yes he is angry but he is angry because he hurts.
If he did not WANT to believe - he wouldn’t be bothering with us here. He’d just wander off somewhere else.

I wish there was something we could say to help him…something that would ease his suffering but unfortunately there seems little we can do - - - EXCEPT - - -
To be patient and caring - to Love him as best we can through cyberspace - to pray for him and to hope that, in God’s time and through God’s mercy - things will change for our dear brother Robert.

Peace

James

Well, robert’s comments were inflammatory and he should show some respect to us catholic members on this site. Militant atheists shouldn’t have free reign to be rude. He can take his rudeness elsewhere.