Hell

[Daughter0fMary]

I think, though, that to hold the optimistic and hopeful position that “in the end everyone may be saved,” one shouldn’t pull up a chair and a bag of popcorn saying, “it’ll all be fine,” but rather pray and offer sacrifices for those souls who otherwise might choose to reject Him who suffered bitterly and was crucified for LOVE of them! I think there are souls who would otherwise have refused Him, if not for the intercession of our prayers and the prayers of the saints. So really, it is up to us in a way to make it more and *more *possible that not a soul will be in hell! That is a heavy thing…the weight of another soul!

 

[Shin]

God, by an Eternal Resolve of His Will, **predestines **certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection. (De fide.)

• Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma

And when the Son of man shall come in His majesty…and all nations shall be gathered together before Him, and He shall separate them one from another…and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His left. Then shall the king say to them that shall be on His right hand: Come ye blessed of my Father….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 …and these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting.

Mt. 25

…and those that sleep in the dust of the earth, shall awake; some unto life everlasting, and others unto reproach, to see it always.

Daniel 12:2

‘All novelty in faith is a sure mark of heresy.’

St. Vincent of Lerins

‘It is of faith that Heaven exists for the good and Hell for the wicked. Faith teaches that the pains of Hell are eternal, and it also warns us that one single mortal sin suffices to condemn a soul forever because of the infinite malice by which it offends an infinite God.’

'Suppose that, in the case of unhappy Cain, weeping in Hell, he shed in every thousand years just one tear. Now, O my soul, recollect your thoughts and suppose this case: For six thousand years at least Cain has been in Hell and shed only six tears, which God miraculously preserves. How many years would pass for his tears to fill all the valleys of the earth and flood all the cities and towns and villages and cover all the mountains so as to flood the whole earth? We understand the distance from the earth to the sun is thirty-four million leagues. How many years would be necessary for Cain’s tears to fill that immense space? From the earth to the firmament is, let us suppose, a distance of a hundred and sixty million leagues.

O God! What number of years might one imagine to be sufficient to fill with these tears this immense space? And yet – O truth so incomprehensible – be sure of it, as that God cannot lie – a time will arrive in which these tears of Cain would be sufficient to flood the world, to reach even the sun, to touch the firmament, and fill all the space between earth and the highest heaven. But that is not all.

If God dried up all these tears to the last drop and Cain began again to weep, he would again fill the same entire space with them and fill it a thousands times and a million times in succession, and after all those countless years, not even half of eternity would have passed, not even a fraction. After all that time burning in Hell, Cain’s sufferings will be just beginning.

This eternity is also without relief. It would indeed be a small consolation and of little benefit for the condemned persons to be able to receive a brief respite once every thousand years.’

St. Anthony Mary Claret

‘No, indeed; if sinners were to think of eternity – of that terrible FOR EVER! – They would be converted instantly. Cain has been in Hell nearly six thousand years, and he is only just entering it.’

St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars

‘Alas! I could not bear the sight of them. How could I, as the mere noise of these despairing yells caused me an unbearable horror?’

St. Lydwine of Schiedam, of the souls in Hell

‘Think how many saints there are in heaven who see their fathers, mothers, brothers, and other relatives in the damnation of hell, which is the misfortune of misfortunes and the height of all woes; and notwithstanding they adore, they love, they bless with joy and happiness that most just will because they see such a decree of divine justice concerning these relatives.’

St. Jean Eudes

‘Let us not doubt that baptized babies who die in their infant years will enter into the heavenly Kingdom. We should not, however, believe that all those infants who have begun to speak will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. For the entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven will be closed to many babies because of their parents’ bad rearing.’

Pope St. Gregory the Great

‘We are convinced, that this sin [willful ignorance] alone causes the loss of more souls than all the other sins together, because he who is ignorant does not realize the harm he does by his sin, nor the great good he thus forfeits.’

St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars


The Little Number of Those Who Are Saved

 

[Onegin]

To clarify my earlier point, I am quite convinced that Hell is not devoid of unfortunate and pitiful souls. While I certainly couldn’t begin to know or guess who they are specifically, I believe that the idea that Hell might be empty is a newer idea and one certainly not contemplated by the Saints, the Church in the past or - as some would call it - “private revelation.”

Think what you will about the Fatima apparitions, but the vision of the souls falling into Hell like raindrops is truly terrifying:

“She opened Her hands once more, as She had done the two previous months. The rays [of light] appeared to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned]. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke. Now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons were distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. That vision only lasted for a moment, thanks to our good Heavenly Mother, Who at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear.”

St. John Bosco had visions of Hell that were worse than something one might see in a horror film. And Michelangelo went so far as to suggest in his fresco “The Last Judgment” that the souls in Hell may include not only laity but Church clergy and hierarchy as well. The idea of Hell as being a place that only the REALLY bad people go was not a traditional idea - people feared Hell as a very real possibility that everyone (laity and clergy alike) might suffer unless they repented and remained free of mortal sin.

It is hard to ascribe this same attitude today where Hell is seldom preached about, much less mentioned in many churches. One can hardly blame the poor Catholic who expresses surprise or fear upon learning that Hell is more than a place for those who are extremely evil! Satan is hardly that discriminating.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

God, by an Eternal Resolve of His Will, **predestines **certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection. (De fide.)

• Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma

So much for free will.

 

[MikeDunphy]

Shin;7053095:

God, by an Eternal Resolve of His Will, **predestines **

certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection. (De fide.)

• Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma
  So much for free will.

God wills only good. Justice is good. If I understand the quote correctly, what is predestined in the case of damned sinners is the exercise of divine justice in punishment for their sins freely chosen.

 

[josephdaniel29]

God wills only good. Justice is good. If I understand the quote correctly, what is predestined in the case of damned sinners is the exercise of divine justice in punishment for their sins freely chosen.

Are you really making the case that eternal torment is good?

 

[josephdaniel29]

God, by an Eternal Resolve of His Will, **predestines **certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection. (De fide.)

• Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma

Apparently John Calvin was a true son of the Catholic Church.

 

[Shin]

Are you really making the case that eternal torment is good?

Are you making the case that justice and punishment are evil? And that anything God created and Providentially enacts is evil?

Justice **is **good.

“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Matthew 25:41

And there came down fire from God out of heaven, and devoured them; and the devil, who seduced them, was cast into the pool of fire and brimstone, where both the beast And the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

Apocalypse 20:9-10

A fire is kindled in my wrath, and shall burn even to the lowest hell: and shall devour the earth with her increase, and shall burn the foundations of the mountains.

Deuteronomy 32:22

Therefore I also will deal with them in my wrath: my eye shall not spare them, neither will I shew mercy: and when they shall cry to my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.

Ezechiel 8:18

In the day of Judgement he will punish them: He will send fire and worms into their flesh, and they shall burn and suffer forever.

Judith 16-17

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.

Psalms 2:4

Thou shalt make them as an oven of fire, in the time of thy anger: the Lord shall trouble them in his wrath, and fire shall devour them.

Psalms 20:10

“That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more richly, a perfect sight of the punishment of the damned is granted them.”

St. Thomas Aquinas

‘What is done in accordance with God’s will is the best of all things even if it seems to be bad. What is done contrary to God’s will and decree is the worst and most unlawful of all things-even if men judge that it is very good. Suppose someone slays another in accordance with God’s will. This slaying is better than any loving-kindness. Let someone spare another and show him great love and kindness against God’s decree. To spare the other’s life would be more unholy than any slaying. For it is God’s will and not the nature of things that makes the same actions good or bad.’

St. John Chrysostom

One of these angels was most beautiful, and was named Lucifer, which means light-bearer. He was so perfect that he seems to have forgotten that he received all his beauty and intelligence from God, and not content with what he had, became sinfully proud and wished to be equal to God Himself. For his sin he and all his followers were driven out of Heaven, and God then created Hell, in which they were to suffer for all eternity.

Baltimore Catechism #4

 

[vz71]

Are you really making the case that eternal torment is good?

I wouldn’t consider it good, but we are not talking about eternal torment as much as we are the personal choice of those that choose self over God.
The free will these people exercise is a good thing, although what they do with it may not be so good.

 

[josephdaniel29]

Are you making the case that justice and punishment are evil? And that anything God created and Providentially enacts is evil?

I’m making the case that punishing someone infinitely for a finite transgression is most certainly evil and that God does not providentially enact that. It turns God into a vengeful, hate filled oppressor, not a loving Father.

Why would anyone love a God such as that? A God who torments you for all eternity because you violate one of His fetishes. That He is bound by some necessity, a necessity that He neither controls nor has any power over, to punish you. That my friend is a characteristically pagan conception of God.

 

[vz71]

I’m making the case that punishing someone infinitely for a finite transgression is most certainly evil and that God does not providentially enact that. It turns God into a vengeful, hate filled oppressor, not a loving Father.

Would it be more evil to inflict himself upon someone that wants nothing to do with him? Wouldn’t that negate any type of free will?

Why would anyone love a God such as that? A God who torments you for all eternity because you violate one of His fetishes. That He is bound by some necessity, a necessity that He neither controls nor has any power over, to punish you. That my friend is a characteristically pagan conception of God.

Sorry, but at what point was it established that it is God that is inflicting punishment here?

 

[Shin]

I’m making the case that punishing someone infinitely for a finite transgression is most certainly evil and that God does not providentially enact that. It turns God into a vengeful, hate filled oppressor, not a loving Father.

Why would anyone love a God such as that? A God who torments you for all eternity because you violate one of His fetishes. That He is bound by some necessity, a necessity that He neither controls nor has any power over, to punish you. That my friend is a characteristically pagan conception of God.

You’ve quite misstated the Catholic position. I’ve seen ‘Orthodox’ do this a good deal. You set up a misunderstanding and misrepresentation and knock it down. I know of no Catholic teaching about God tormenting people for all eternity ‘because you violate one of His fetishes’. Offensive to read frankly.

Men are children of God. They commit deeds that have lasting consequences. Deeds in fact, which last forever, and they can become beings that reject God forever, and so are judged as condemned forever. Justice is not evil. Condemnation is not evil. Judgement is not evil.

Punishing those who commit evils is not evil, period. End of sentence. You need to process this. It is good. It is the sin of this time that considers it otherwise. But all history and Holy Scripture witnesses justice and punishment are good.

Christ Himself tells us He will sit in judgement. Christ Himself drives the moneychangers from the temple, scourging them. The Holy Scriptures witness to the eternity of Hell. They are clear. We are to shape ourselves and our wishes to the truth, not vice versa. When we do form ourselves to the truth then we form right consciences and feelings, not vice versa. That is what conversion is about.

‘For this reason it is that no one of us fights back when he is apprehended, nor do our people avenge themselves against your unjust violence though numerous and plentiful. Our certainty of the vengeance which is to come makes us patient. The harmless give way to the harmful; the innocent acquiesce in the punishments and tortures certain and confident that whatever we suffer will not remain unavenged, and that the greater is the injury of the persecution, the more just and serious will be the vengeance for the persecution.’

St. Cyprian of Carthage

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

God wills only good. Justice is good. If I understand the quote correctly, what is predestined in the case of damned sinners is the exercise of divine justice in punishment for their sins freely chosen.

How are “foreseen sins” freely chosen? :ehh:

 

[Robert_Burns]

How are “foreseen sins” freely chosen? :ehh:

GOD is both infinitely loving and infinitely just. What some people fail to consider are the other aspects of GOD’s LOVE - IE his ample Grace that he gives so that all men can avoid sin because No man is tempted beyond his strength - we only have GOD to thank for that - in addition - his sacraments that strengthen us further and help us avoid Sin - his Sacraments if we fall into Sin to bring us back - Our Prietsts and religious to teach us how to live properly and to teach us the truths of our Faith - His Boday and Every Drop of his blood spilled for us because we sin and now some of us have the audacity to blame GOD because we may face a possibility of Eternal Damnatiion of sins we can avoid simply by living according to the will of GOD and not our own will? Sorry - but GOD does enough and then some so that all may be saved - if anyone is lost its their own fault and definitely not GOD’s

 

[josephdaniel29]

Would it be more evil to inflict himself upon someone that wants nothing to do with him? Wouldn’t that negate any type of free will?

God does not inflict Himself upon anyone.

Sorry, but at what point was it established that it is God that is inflicting punishment here?

I’m not the one who said it.

 

[josephdaniel29]

“That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more richly, a perfect sight of the punishment of the damned is granted them.”

St. Thomas Aquinas

John Calvin said something similar. This makes me think of a very famous exchange St Silouan the Athonite had with a pilgrim. The pilgrim…

…declared with evident satisfaction, “God will punish all atheists. They will burn in everlasting fire.”

Obviously upset, the Staretz [Silouan] said, “Tell me, supposing you went to paradise, and there looked down and saw somebody burning in hell-fire—would you feel happy?”

“It can’t be helped. It would be their own fault,” said the hermit.

The Staretz answered him with a sorrowful countenance. “Love could not bear that,” he said. “We must pray for all.”

 

[MikeDunphy]

How are “foreseen sins” freely chosen? :ehh:

To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of “predestination”, he includes in it each person’s free response to his grace. (CCC 600)

You and I experience a succession of events in our lives. We have some fallible knowledge about the past and present, and can make educated guesses about what the future holds.

Our Creator’s knowledge of His creation is different than ours. He can see with perfect clarity all the events of the world from its beginning to its end. But His seeing the choices we make does not mean He is somehow forcing the choices on us.

Think about something you did yesterday. Does the knowledge you have today somehow control what you did yesterday? Of course not! That’s exactly backwards. Your current knowledge of what you did before is a result of what you did before, not its cause.

Similarly, God knows what we have done, what we are doing and what we will do, because He sees it all. He has made us free to choose good or evil, and has said He will judge us based on the choices we make.

 

[RoryMcKenzie56]

Hi Joseph Daniel.

The Church denies that Hell is “infinite punishment” as you allege. There are degrees in Hell which are adjusted according to justice. The Church clearly denies that anyone goes to Hell for breaking what you call “fetishes”. There just isn’t any way that the Church has taught us that God, who sent His Son to die for our sins is going to punish anyone beyond what justice calls for and certainly not whimsically. Unless you die in a state of grace, you’re going to hate the idea of Heaven anyway.

How would you like to be so exposed to someone you hate, that you are virtually thinking about them night and day forever? People who complain about the Catholic belief in Hell aren’t think straight about the alternative. If Hell isn’t so great, and I am sure it isn’t, these souls who die in oposition to God don’t have anywhere else to go! And we are assured that the only way anyone makes it to Hell is if they die as a decided enemy of God. God isn’t going to make people love Him…and if they really didn’t get a chance…they didn’t know about any serious precepts and commandments (or as you ungenerously called them…fetishes), they won’t be punished. They’ll be excused. God is good, He doesn’t desire the death of souls, but He does, we are assured, desire our freely given wills with regards to our eternal choices, and in the end, nobody who so loves God that they want to contemplate Him in mystical vision forever will be excluded.

Some might be surprised to discover that God’s mercy is as real in Hell as in Heaven. It is a mistake that many make in evaluating the justice of Hell to assume that the alternative of Heaven, would be appealing. I don’t think there is any reason to think that the souls in Hell would be happier in Heaven.

You can’t understand us by imagining some mean, spiteful Being that we Catholics don’t even believe in. You have been inaccurate, and if it was purposeful, unjust with your caricature of Our good God and Savior as One who demands we cater to His “fetishes”. And if you will be fair, if you will be just, I think you can see that you have been taking the doctrine of Hell as we explain it but superimposing your own views about the who, how, and why of eternity.

If you are going to criticise the Catholic Hell, it does not go to to the point to be speaking of a non-Catholic God and people who are innocently punished for failing to understand the obscure wishes of a nasty Being.

 

[Shin]

'God does not delight in punishments for their own sake; but He does delight in the order of His justice, which requires them.

Although punishment is related indirectly to nature, nevertheless it is essentially related to the disturbance of the order, and to God’s justice. Wherefore, so long as the disturbance lasts, the punishment endures.’

‘Punishment is proportionate to sin. Now sin comprises two things. First, there is the turning away from the immutable good, which is infinite, wherefore, in this respect, sin is infinite. Secondly, there is the inordinate turning to mutable good. In this respect sin is finite, both because the mutable good itself is finite, and because the movement of turning towards it is finite, since the acts of a creature cannot be infinite. Accordingly, in so far as sin consists in turning away from something, its corresponding punishment is the “pain of loss,” which also is infinite, because it is the loss of the infinite good, i.e. God. But in so far as sin turns inordinately to something, its corresponding punishment is the “pain of sense,” which is also finite.’

St. Thomas Aquinas

 

[josephdaniel29]

Hi Joseph Daniel.

The Church denies that Hell is “infinite punishment” as you allege. There are degrees in Hell which are adjusted according to justice. The Church clearly denies that anyone goes to Hell for breaking what you call “fetishes”. There just isn’t any way that the Church has taught us that God, who sent His Son to die for our sins is going to punish anyone beyond what justice calls for and certainly not whimsically. Unless you die in a state of grace, you’re going to hate the idea of Heaven anyway.

How would you like to be so exposed to someone you hate, that you are virtually thinking about them night and day forever? People who complain about the Catholic belief in Hell aren’t think straight about the alternative. If Hell isn’t so great, and I am sure it isn’t, these souls who die in oposition to God don’t have anywhere else to go! And we are assured that the only way anyone makes it to Hell is if they die as a decided enemy of God. God isn’t going to make people love Him…and if they really didn’t get a chance…they didn’t know about any serious precepts and commandments (or as you ungenerously called them…fetishes), they won’t be punished. They’ll be excused. God is good, He doesn’t desire the death of souls, but He does, we are assured, desire our freely given wills with regards to our eternal choices, and in the end, nobody who so loves God that they want to contemplate Him in mystical vision forever will be excluded.

Some might be surprised to discover that God’s mercy is as real in Hell as in Heaven. It is a mistake that many make in evaluating the justice of Hell to assume that the alternative of Heaven, would be appealing. I don’t think there is any reason to think that the souls in Hell would be happier in Heaven.

You can’t understand us by imagining some mean, spiteful Being that we Catholics don’t even believe in. You have been inaccurate, and if it was purposeful, unjust with your caricature of Our good God and Savior as One who demands we cater to His “fetishes”. And if you will be fair, if you will be just, I think you can see that you have been taking the doctrine of Hell as we explain it but superimposing your own views about the who, how, and why of eternity.

If you are going to criticise the Catholic Hell, it does not go to to the point to be speaking of a non-Catholic God and people who are innocently punished for failing to understand the obscure wishes of a nasty Being.

First of all, where did I criticize “Catholic Hell” or the specifically Catholic concept of anything for that matter? Second, if Hell is not infinite punishment, but rather something more like the idea the idea you put forth; then perhaps instead of correcting me you should correct your fellow Catholics who’s concept of Hell I was criticizing.

God, by an Eternal Resolve of His Will, **predestines **certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection. (De fide.)

• Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma

God wills only good. Justice is good. If I understand the quote correctly, what is predestined in the case of damned sinners is the exercise of divine justice in punishment for their sins freely chosen.

Are you making the case that justice and punishment are evil? And that anything God created and Providentially enacts is evil?