How can you say we "choose" hell?

[KevWK]

I know Catholics believe that God does not send people to hell, but that people choose hell by their sins. But I don’t think when a person decides to skip church he is also deciding to spend eternity in fire and torment.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Perhaps not so directly as that, but such a person is choosing himself over God because he is choosing to neglect his duties to God in favor of doing whatever he prefers. It is the choice for self over God that is the essence of hell. The pain of hell, whether or not it is literal fire, is a consequence of the choice to separate oneself from God. This is not because God is inflicting the pain on a defiant soul but because the soul is made for God and eternal separation from him for who one is made is, ipso facto, painful. For example, if a fish is separated from water, he dies – not because nature is punishing the fish for leaving the water, but because the fish is made to live in water. In analogous fashion, if a soul is eternally separated from God (which can only happen by that soul’s free choice to choose self over God) then the soul is damned and in eternal torment by eternal separation from him for whom he was created.

Recommended reading:

Why is repentance after death “too late”?