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Robert_Burns
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Well , thats what I have alway believed. I started this thread when I came across some who dont. And thanks - I totally agree.
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Melchior_1
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The thing is, Scripture is VERY clear that once you are in Hell you canât leave so Iâm not sure why people would think otherwise. The Parable of the Rich Dude and Lazerus for example, makes it rather straightforward.Well , thats what I have alway believed. I started this thread when I came across some who dont. And thanks - I totally agree.
And if you COULD leave Hell, that makes Purgatory pretty moot, so reallyâŚI honestly donât know how/why one could think otherwise.
EDIT: And about Orgien, the man was brilliant but there has long been debates about his orthodoxy. According to William Jurgens (who compiled the EXCELLENT Faith of the Early Fathers volumes) says that the majority of his work was preserved thanks to Rufius who supported Orgien,.,and one Mr. Saint Jerome who did not.
So yeah,
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skinny_pumpkin
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I lean towards your point of view, but I also know that in both the RC and EO traditions it is incumbent for the Church Militant to pray for the dead.
At any rate, salvation seems to be through the Church of Christ ( I am not talking about campbellism).
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Robert_Burns
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Well said. Exactly - why have Purgatory.
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Melchior_1
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We pray for the dead for three reasons;
- We ask those in Heaven for their help and support during our time on Earth.
- For those who are in Purgatory, obviously. They need the help, then they can help us. A win-win scenario,
- Most importantly, we pray for those who have just died. For those are the ones who are currently being judged by the Lord and in most need of His Mercy. We pray that the Divine Mercy may win the soul, in which we become like Abraham, Tobit, David, and several other Old Testament figures who pleaded with the Lord for those on Earth. Our prayers for all Christians do not cease when people die. As we pray during the Rosary:
MaybeâŚJUST maybeâŚthe Divine Mercy will redeem them, But make no mistake, once youâre in Hell thereâs no going back. And once youâre in Purgatory, you can only go to Heaven. And once youâre in Heaven, youâre always in Heaven.
People can spin it anyway they want, but contrary to popular belief there are such a thing as consequences for oneâs actions.
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BlueSapphire
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josephdaniel29
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There are certainly consequences for our actions but do they have to necessarily be eternal consequences? St Issac the Syrian makes the point that for God to torment a creature He supposedly loves for all eternity for an offense that is in and of itself finite does not make sense. He says that all punishment from God is corrective, not retributive. St Issac saidâŚ
God chastises with love, not for the sake of revenge - far be it! - but seeking to make whole His image. And He does not harbour wrath until a time when correction is no longer possible, for He does not seek vengeance for Himself. This is the aim of love. Loveâs chastisement is for correction, but it does not aim at retribution⌠The man who chooses to consider God as avenger, presuming that in this manner he bears witness to His justice, the same accuses Him as being bereft of goodness. Far be it, that vengeance could ever be found in that Fountain of love and Ocean brimming with goodness!
And also
It is not the way of the compassionate Maker to create rational beings in order to deliver them over mercilessly to unending affliction in punishment for things of which He knew even before they were fashioned, aware how they would turn out when He created them - and whom nonetheless He created.
Here St Issac forcefully makes the case makes that Godâs punishment is corrective, not retributive. In fact to St Issac the idea implicit in eternal damnation, that God would continue to punish a person even after there is no hope for correction, goes against everything we know about God. It turns Him into an evil, vengeful oppressor instead of our Father who âis loveâ and whoâs âmercy endures forever.â
If God is all love then it makes no sense that He would consign a large number of His creatures eternal torment. In fact many saints put forward the idea that the fires of Hell themselves are nothing other than the fire of Godâs love experienced as burning pain by those who reject God. To my mind that is the only concept of Hell that makes sense in light of what we know about God; that God doesnât condemn anyone to eternal torment and that He loves everyone; and that if we chose to reject Him we will experience that love as pain and torment.
In Christ
Joe
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rosary_kat
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Since we canât know where the dead are (heaven, purgatory, or hell), I let the Blessed Mother decide. This is one of those issues where, I think, Catholics have much more in the way of hope than perhaps other faiths. I have actually been to funerals where the preacher (note I didnât say priest) told those gathered that unfortunately, the deceased is in hell because he/she didnât âcome to Jesusâ before his/her death. The criteria being that âcoming to Jesusâ must be in the presence of said preacher. It amazes me.
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Melchior_1
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The Egyptians would have loved this kind of God around the time their first born children were being wiped out. Sodom wouldâve been fine with this kind of God too. You know who else? Lotâs wife. I hear the Philistines may have been in favor of God leaning towards this as well, what with them having their giant get smashed in the forehead.
Look at the Old Testament. You see a God of Mercy, yet you also see a God of of Justice. Floods and stuff.
Yet in each of these cases it is not God who torments the creatures, rather the creatures make the choice to fall into torment themselves. St. Isaac may be a Saint, but he ainât Jesus Christ, who made things pretty clear (very clear) in Scripture. One may look no further than Lucifer to see that the choices one makes has eternal consequences.
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josephdaniel29
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Yet again St Issac would look at things in quite a different maner. He would say that all those things you cite from the Old Testament were corrective as well. Ultimately they were to bring about the good.
God is not one who requites evil, but He sets aright evil - St Issac the Syrian
Of course itâs also important to note that none of those instances in the Old Testament say anything at all about eternal torment.
I fear we are often guilty of projecting our own ideas of justice onto God. In human society justice means that good people are rewarded and bad people are punished. How can we say God is just in that sense of the term? God loves every single human being, good or bad and âHe causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.â
Justice doesnât forgive, it retaliates; but God always forgives regardless of how bad we are, and He requires nothing in return. In fact St Issac takes it so far as to say God is not just, at least not in the human sense of the term.
How can you call God just when you come across the Scriptural passage on the wage given to the workers? âFriend, I do thee no wrong: I will give unto this last even as unto thee. Is thine eye evil because I am good?â (Matt. 20:12-15). How can a man call God just when he comes across the passage on the prodigal son who wasted his wealth with riotous living, how for the compunction alone which he showed, the father ran and fell upon his neck and gave him authority over all his wealth? (Luke 15:11 ff.). None other but His very Son said these things concerning Him, lest we doubt it; and thus He bare witness concerning Him. Where, then, is Godâs justice, for whilst we are sinners Christ died for us! (cf. Rom. 5:8). But if here He is merciful, we may believe that He will not change - St. Isaac the Syrian - Homily 60
God is not just because he requires punishment, or âsatisfaction.â As St Issac points out above, Scripture makes it clear that God is not just in that sense of the term. God is just because He loves every single human the same, He loves us all equally without exception.
It is also quite apparent that there are Scripture verses that seem to point in the other direction.
In Christ
Joe
The interesting thing about walking a tightrope is that it brings home the concept that the consequences of your actions donât necesarily correlate.
If I walk a rope strung across a pool, one misstep and I am all wet.
If I walk a rope strung across the grand canyon, the same misstep will have far greater consequences.
Why should someone fall thousands of feet to their death for simply choosing poorly where best to put their center?
It just does not seem fair.
Of course, we can readily widen the scope and see why it is fair.
The rope is thousands of feet above the ground, and the consequences are known in advance.
And so it is in our own lives. God has given us all of the tools needed to go to heaven.
We know well there is a hell, and where we place our center in the light of this knowledge rightfully has the consequences we choose.
Are the torments of hell really Godâs handiwork?
Or are they simply qualities of what we have forever chosen for ourselves?
Agreed, but I should add that the choice is forever.
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Layman
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I donât see St. Isaac The Syrian as an authority on this subject.
Pre-Vat II: Unforgiven mortal sin gets you into Hell, forever.
Post Vat. II: âWe donât reeeellllly know if anyone is in Hellâ.
How did Lucifer end up there?. He rebelled against God. He now hates God. He canât tolerate His company, which is Heaven.
My opinion: From what Iâve read of accounts of exorcism, this attitude is not limited just to fallen angels. The damned hate God; not because He damned them, but because they set themselves against Him and continued in this attitude beyond the death of the body. Now they are lost to His Grace. So the attitude is entrenched. Thus they simply canât get near Heaven. Theyâre like sick people hating direct sunlight.
In the New Religion of âFaith, Hope and Nicenessâ, this is hard to understand.
Pre-Vat II: Unforgiven mortal sin gets you into Hell, forever.
Post Vat. II: âWe donât reeeellllly know if anyone is in Hellâ.
How did Lucifer end up there?. He rebelled against God. He now hates God. He canât tolerate His company, which is Heaven.
My opinion: From what Iâve read of accounts of exorcism, this attitude is not limited just to fallen angels. The damned hate God; not because He damned them, but because they set themselves against Him and continued in this attitude beyond the death of the body. Now they are lost to His Grace. So the attitude is entrenched. Thus they simply canât get near Heaven. Theyâre like sick people hating direct sunlight.
In the New Religion of âFaith, Hope and Nicenessâ, this is hard to understand.
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skinny_pumpkin
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This was CS Lewisâ take in The Great Divorce. There is also a polemic called The River of Fire that basically asserts the same thing.
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josephdaniel29
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rosary_kat
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In the case of the Egyptian first-born, Sodom/Gomorrah, and Lotâs wife, Godâs actions were corrective for the viewer of the scene, forever for the ones involved.
Remember, God does not WANT anyone to go to hell, he WANTS to save all mankind. It is mankind who has the free will to CHOOSE to go to hell. Someone said, âsouls are marching into hell with their eyes wide openâ (paraphrasing). Either we are misinterpreting St. Isaac (re-reading the quote given, I believe this is the case)
, or he is just wrong. 
And, come to think of it, if God is chastising those souls with the âfire of Godâs love experienced as burning pain by those who reject Godâ, is their suffering not just as real?
Remember, God does not WANT anyone to go to hell, he WANTS to save all mankind. It is mankind who has the free will to CHOOSE to go to hell. Someone said, âsouls are marching into hell with their eyes wide openâ (paraphrasing). Either we are misinterpreting St. Isaac (re-reading the quote given, I believe this is the case)
, or he is just wrong. And, come to think of it, if God is chastising those souls with the âfire of Godâs love experienced as burning pain by those who reject Godâ, is their suffering not just as real?
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Onegin
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Hereâs my theory: society has turned so far away from moral absolutes and yet Heaven and Hell are the most morally absolute things that exist - you ultimately will either end up in one of the other for eternity and people just canât stand that so what we get today are finagling reasons why Hell just may not be forever or just âmightâ be unpopulated and other such nonsense to explain away one of the greatest moral absolutes that exist.
In fact, it is precisely BECAUSE of the absoluteness of Heaven and Hell that we should adhere to other moral absolutes as well rather than embracing the errors of relativism and subjectivism that deny this.
I fail to see how these two are in any way contradictory.
Indeed unless one wishes to lay claim upon knowledge of the state of others souls at the time of death, we cannot know of any given person in hell.
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Onegin
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You are correct that we cannot know as to whether an individual person is in Hell, however, I believe that Layman was speaking to the recent popularisation of the idea Hell could very well be empty. This is the idea that I would assign as a more recent novelty and one that is both a) incorrect and b) does nothing to foster a healthy fear of Hell. After all, if no one reeaalllly goes to Hell, then we shouldnât worry to much about confession, mortal sin or other such ânonsense.â
I would likewise believe it difficult to believe in a hell devoid of humans.
But other then private revelation, we have no authoritative source to indicate anyone is there.
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Daughter0fMary
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Hi Onegin;7052679, It seems like the idea which you are against is not that âHell could very well be empty,â but that Hell MUST be empty. Right? Because of course if hell MUST be empty then as you say, âwe shouldnât worry too much about confession, mortal sin or other such nonsense,â if we CANâT go to hell. Is that your position?
You shouldnât object to the POSSIBILITY of hell being empty though. That implies either that a) God requires that no matter what some souls are gonna have to go to hell whether they choose it or not, or b) God gave you the special ability of reading the souls who have died and whether they chose Godâs forgiveness or not! God could give you that gift I suppose, but you probably shouldnât be requiring other people to take your word for it.
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