Hell is preferable to nonexistance?

[adrian1]

I heard an idea that struck me. Hell is thousands of times preferable to nonexistence. Better to be in hell than never exist.The status of devils is preferable to nonexistence. A university professor and I have also met this ideea în sermons, with reference to St. John of Damascus.

Do anyone know reference?
Is that true? In can’t undersant exactly how, but i think is true…
Referance from Aquinas or…

 

[ahs]

I would think that not existing would be preferable to existing in hell. To not exist at all entails nothing. There would be no knowledge of good or evil or suffering or joy because one simply would not be.
To exist in hell, however, entails knowledge of all of the above, and eternal torment over it.

At the same time, one can’t say, “I wish I didn’t exist”, because the very thought of it requires that the person thinking it DO exist. Even still, hell could not be preferable to ceasing to exist, because if it were possible to cease to exist, then the eternal torment would also cease, presumably.
Sounds like the professor got it backwards?

 

[ahs]

This is why I stay out of the philosophy subforum. I get what you are saying, but it’s mind-numbing.
(I realize this is in “Apologetics”, but the answer is steeped in the philosophical.)