How could Hell be worse than the desert of faith or the dark night of the soul?

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If Hell is, at its heart, the experience of being separated from God’s love, then it is hard to imagine how that will be worse than the life here of those who already feel forsaken or unloved by God. Can we feel more forsaken? How could they feel even less loved by God than they do when confronted by His silence in response to their cries and prayers?

Now you might argue that Hell is the feeling of having turned away from God’s love, but that claim is not built on solid ground. If a person spends his life calling out to God in his words and in each waking hour of his heart, and he hears no clear answer in reply, then how in the world can we say he has turned away?

What is left for him to fear at the moment of his death? The knowledge that he will never be able to turn back toward God’s love? That would necessarily imply that he sees, at that point, God’s love, and realizes he will never be able to turn back toward it. Again that suggests a house built on sand, because why would he be allowed to see God’s love at that moment after being blinded to it during his lifetime of seeking?

Even then, at that moment, would he not be better for knowing that God’s love is real than to go on in a world where he has never seen it at all?
 
Did you ever read that story about the footprints in the sand? Where the guy looks at his and another persons’ footprints walking together, and then at one point the 2nd pair of footprints disappears, and he says to God “that was when I needed you the most, where were you?” and God replies “that was when I carried you”.
Just because you can’t feel God’s love, doesn’t mean it isn’t there, He may be withholding from you the feeling of His love but He’s always looking after you by it. In hell, it really is objectively gone, and you feel the truly real pain of God’s absence in hell.

That’s one way of looking at it, I’m not sure how right it is but it seems likely enough. Of course some would say that in hell you’re surrounded by the fire of God’s love but to you it’s a fiery torment because you’ve chosen to reject God in your life. I suppose that contrasts with the other interpretation, but in both you’re either deprived of His love, or of seeing it as a good, which kinda amounts to the same thing in the end. I think though that the saints who endured the dark night of the soul still loved God, which is more than can be said of the lost souls who hate Him.
Personally I suspect half the torment of hell is seeing yourself as you really are compared to what you could have been, and knowing your guilt.
 
Neoplatonist said:
If Hell is, at its heart, the experience of being separated from God’s love, then it is hard to imagine how that will be worse than the life here of those who already feel forsaken or unloved by God. Can we feel more forsaken? How could they feel even less loved by God than they do when confronted by His silence in response to their cries and prayers?

Now you might argue that Hell is the feeling of having turned away from God’s love, but that claim is not built on solid ground. If a person spends his life calling out to God in his words and in each waking hour of his heart, and he hears no clear answer in reply, then how in the world can we say he has turned away?

What is left for him to fear at the moment of his death? The knowledge that he will never be able to turn back toward God’s love? That would necessarily imply that he sees, at that point, God’s love, and realizes he will never be able to turn back toward it. Again that suggests a house built on sand, because why would he be allowed to see God’s love at that moment after being blinded to it during his lifetime of seeking?

Even then, at that moment, would he not be better for knowing that God’s love is real than to go on in a world where he has never seen it at all?
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You can’t experience a dark night of the soul unless you love God and desire His presence. When Christ comes again even those who would reject God will be consumed with His presence. But there is no point at which you cannot turn back to God. Even when we are faithless He is still faithful.
 
The DNS is temporary; it will end, at latest, when one dies.

Whereas Hell is for ever.

ICXC NIKA
 
There’s a difference between desiring and seeking the presence of God and feeling nothing, even to the point of that causing extreme anguish, and the anguish of the soul which desires not God and knows only the isolation that comes from being separated from him. In the case of the former, the desire is still present, God is still present, and it is perhaps that the soul is being cleansed of its desire for feelings and led to desire for God in himself. In the latter case, there is no turning back, for to have arrived at that kind of separation only occurs in the life to come; the anguish there is not a mere intellectual or emotional state, but is a painful death of torment that reaches to the depths of the soul.

-ACEGC
 
Neoplatonist said:
If Hell is, at its heart, the experience of being separated from God’s love, then it is hard to imagine how that will be worse than the life here of those who already feel forsaken or unloved by God. Can we feel more forsaken? How could they feel even less loved by God than they do when confronted by His silence in response to their cries and prayers?

Now you might argue that Hell is the feeling of having turned away from God’s love, but that claim is not built on solid ground. If a person spends his life calling out to God in his words and in each waking hour of his heart, and he hears no clear answer in reply, then how in the world can we say he has turned away?

What is left for him to fear at the moment of his death? The knowledge that he will never be able to turn back toward God’s love? That would necessarily imply that he sees, at that point, God’s love, and realizes he will never be able to turn back toward it. Again that suggests a house built on sand, because why would he be allowed to see God’s love at that moment after being blinded to it during his lifetime of seeking?

Even then, at that moment, would he not be better for knowing that God’s love is real than to go on in a world where he has never seen it at all?
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😦 May I ask why you feel forsaken and unloved by God?
 
Neoplatonist said:
If Hell is, at its heart, the experience of being separated from God’s love, then it is hard to imagine how that will be worse than the life here of those who already feel forsaken or unloved by God. Can we feel more forsaken? How could they feel even less loved by God than they do when confronted by His silence in response to their cries and prayers?

Now you might argue that Hell is the feeling of having turned away from God’s love, but that claim is not built on solid ground. If a person spends his life calling out to God in his words and in each waking hour of his heart, and he hears no clear answer in reply, then how in the world can we say he has turned away?

What is left for him to fear at the moment of his death? The knowledge that he will never be able to turn back toward God’s love? That would necessarily imply that he sees, at that point, God’s love, and realizes he will never be able to turn back toward it. Again that suggests a house built on sand, because why would he be allowed to see God’s love at that moment after being blinded to it during his lifetime of seeking?

Even then, at that moment, would he not be better for knowing that God’s love is real than to go on in a world where he has never seen it at all?
Click to expand...
I don’t fully understand what you are saying in the last sentence of your first paragraph:

“If a person spends his life calling out to God in his words and in each waking hour of his heart, and he hears no clear answer in reply, then how in the world can we say he has turned away?”

When a person truly calls on God, He hears, He responds, and He leads the person.

In fact, I believe God is doing that even before we call on Him.

Could it be that the person needs to talk to a deeply spiritual person and get guidance about the ways of God? Perhaps have some good spiritual books about prayer recommended to them? Be with other believers at a bible study?

I make those suggestions because they helped me tremendously. I cannot comprehend God not hearing us.
 
josh987654321 said:
😦 But you could have had so much.
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“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

“Thus laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life which is life indeed.”
 
Trekker47 said:
Did you ever read that story about the footprints in the sand? Where the guy looks at his and another persons’ footprints walking together, and then at one point the 2nd pair of footprints disappears, and he says to God “that was when I needed you the most, where were you?” and God replies “that was when I carried you”.
Just because you can’t feel God’s love, doesn’t mean it isn’t there, He may be withholding from you the feeling of His love but He’s always looking after you by it. In hell, it really is objectively gone, and you feel the truly real pain of God’s absence in hell.

That’s one way of looking at it, I’m not sure how right it is but it seems likely enough. Of course some would say that in hell you’re surrounded by the fire of God’s love but to you it’s a fiery torment because you’ve chosen to reject God in your life. I suppose that contrasts with the other interpretation, but in both you’re either deprived of His love, or of seeing it as a good, which kinda amounts to the same thing in the end. I think though that the saints who endured the dark night of the soul still loved God, which is more than can be said of the lost souls who hate Him.
Personally I suspect half the torment of hell is seeing yourself as you really are compared to what you could have been, and knowing your guilt.
Click to expand...
 
Trekker47 said:
Did you ever read that story about the footprints in the sand? Where the guy looks at his and another persons’ footprints walking together, and then at one point the 2nd pair of footprints disappears, and he says to God “that was when I needed you the most, where were you?” and God replies “that was when I carried you”.
Just because you can’t feel God’s love, doesn’t mean it isn’t there, He may be withholding from you the feeling of His love but He’s always looking after you by it. In hell, it really is objectively gone, and you feel the truly real pain of God’s absence in hell.

That’s one way of looking at it, I’m not sure how right it is but it seems likely enough. Of course some would say that in hell you’re surrounded by the fire of God’s love but to you it’s a fiery torment because you’ve chosen to reject God in your life. I suppose that contrasts with the other interpretation, but in both you’re either deprived of His love, or of seeing it as a good, which kinda amounts to the same thing in the end. I think though that the saints who endured the dark night of the soul still loved God, which is more than can be said of the lost souls who hate Him.
Personally I suspect half the torment of hell is seeing yourself as you really are compared to what you could have been, and knowing your guilt.
Click to expand...
Well said Footprints in the Sand is an excellent illustration,
Mary
 
Neoplatonist said:
If Hell is, at its heart, the experience of being separated from God’s love, then it is hard to imagine how that will be worse than the life here of those who already feel forsaken or unloved by God. Can we feel more forsaken? How could they feel even less loved by God than they do when confronted by His silence in response to their cries and prayers?

Now you might argue that Hell is the feeling of having turned away from God’s love, but that claim is not built on solid ground. If a person spends his life calling out to God in his words and in each waking hour of his heart, and he hears no clear answer in reply, then how in the world can we say he has turned away?

What is left for him to fear at the moment of his death? The knowledge that he will never be able to turn back toward God’s love? That would necessarily imply that he sees, at that point, God’s love, and realizes he will never be able to turn back toward it. Again that suggests a house built on sand, because why would he be allowed to see God’s love at that moment after being blinded to it during his lifetime of seeking?

Even then, at that moment, would he not be better for knowing that God’s love is real than to go on in a world where he has never seen it at all?
Click to expand...
The experience of God’s absence is more powerful than His presence.
You can feel Him in the emptiness, rancour, fears, hostility and superficiality of nonbelievers when they speak of existence.
In oneself, you can hear Him calling in your yearning for truth, beauty and love.
Truly, if you seek, you will find Him. That your resolve will be tested, is a certainty, as is the final reward that comes with sharing in His love.
Forget about what will happen after death. Go for it all, Now!
 
MaryT777 said:
Well said Footprints in the Sand is an excellent illustration,
Mary
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Except the story never made sense to me because: a) the schlepp can see that there were another pair of footsteps in the sand, and b) God is talking to him. If the person in the midst of the desert of faith saw signs so clear as footprints or heard an actual voice, they would not feel forsaken.

Without those, it is just some nice story we wish would turn out later to be revealed to us. Make no mistake, though, it is only in imagining we are already at that future where we are given evidence (signs, a voice) that the story takes on a different meaning.
 
Dorothy said:
I don’t fully understand what you are saying in the last sentence of your first paragraph:

“If a person spends his life calling out to God in his words and in each waking hour of his heart, and he hears no clear answer in reply, then how in the world can we say he has turned away?”

When a person truly calls on God, He hears, He responds, and He leads the person.

In fact, I believe God is doing that even before we call on Him.

Could it be that the person needs to talk to a deeply spiritual person and get guidance about the ways of God? Perhaps have some good spiritual books about prayer recommended to them? Be with other believers at a bible study?

I make those suggestions because they helped me tremendously. I cannot comprehend God not hearing us.
Click to expand...
Ah, yes, the inescapable, unfalsifiable: “you must be doing it wrong or it would work.”
 
josh987654321 said:
😦 May I ask why you feel forsaken and unloved by God?
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For the same reason I do not feel surrounded by water, or covered in fame, or why the crying child with no reassuring touch or soothing words does not feel comforted. We could as well ask the hungry man why he does not feel full.
 
I believe the following may help
Jesus to Catalina:
The Passion - loveandmercy.org/Eng-TP-Reg.pdf

**Now let us go to the story of My Passion…The story that will give glory to the Father and holiness to other chosen souls…
  1. The night before I was handed over was a night full of joy because of the Paschal Supper, the inauguration of the Eternal Banquet at which human beings must sit to feed themselves of Me.
  2. If I were to ask Christians, “What do you think of this Supper,” surely many would say that it is the place of their delight but few would say that it is My delight… There are souls who take Communion, not for the joy that they experience but for the joy that I feel; they are few because the rest of them only come to Me to ask for gifts and favors.
  3. I embrace all the souls that come to Me because I came to Earth to make the love with which I embrace them grow. And since love does not grow without sorrows; little by little I withdraw the sweetness, to leave the souls in dryness. And this is so that they fast from their own joy to make them understand that they must keep their light focused on another desire: Mine.
  4. Why do you talk about dryness as if it were a sign of diminishment of My Love? Have you forgotten that if I do not give happiness, you must taste your dryness and other sorrows?
  5. Come to Me, souls, but think only that I am who wills everything and who incites you to look for Me. If you only knew how much I value unselfish love and how it will be acknowledged in Heaven! O, how greatly the soul who possesses it shall rejoice!
  6. Learn from Me, dear souls, to love only to give joy to the One who loves you… You will have sweetness, and much more than what you leave behind; you shall enjoy so much of everything of which I have made you capable. It is I who prepared the Banquet for you. I am the food! How then, can I let you sit at My table and leave you fasting? I promised you that whoever feeds on Me will no longer hunger… I serve Myself of things in order to reveal My Love to you. Follow those called to act as My priests to you, who take the occasion of this Paschal feast to lead you to Me, but do not linger over what is human, otherwise, you will nullify the other purpose of this feast.
  7. Nobody can say that My Supper has become their nourishment when they only experience sweetness… For Me, love grows with denial of self.
  8. Many are priests because I wished to make them My ministers, not because they truly follow Me… Pray for them! They should offer My Father the sorrow that I felt when in the Temple I overturned the benches of the merchants and I reproached the ministers of that time for having turned the house of God into opportunists.
  9. When they asked Me under what authority had I done that, I felt an even greater sorrow upon confirming that the worst denial of My Mission came precisely from My ministers.
  10. For that reason, pray for the priests that treat My Body with a sense of habit and, therefore, with very little love.
  11. You will soon know that I had to tell you this because I love you and because I promise anyone who prays for My priests, the remission of all due temporal punishment. There will be no Purgatory for those who grieve because of lukewarm priests, but rather Paradise immediately after their last breath.
  12. And now, let Me embrace you again in order for you to receive the life that I, with infinite joy, made you part of.
  13. That night with infinite Love, I washed the feet of My Apostles because it was the culminating moment in which to present My Church to the world.
  14. I wanted My souls to know that even when they may be burdened with the greatest sins, they are not excluded from graces. They are close to My most faithful souls; they are in My Heart, receiving the graces that they need.
  15. What anguish I experienced at that moment knowing that in My Apostle Judas was represented so many souls who gathered at My feet and cleansed so many times with My Blood, were yet to be lost! At that moment, I wanted to teach sinners that because they have sinned, they should not distance themselves from Me thinking that they no longer have recourse and that they will never be loved as before they sinned. Poor souls! These are not the feelings of a God who has shed all His Blood for you. Come to Me all of you and fear not because I love you. I will cleanse you with My Blood and you will be as white as snow. I will drown your sins in the water of My Mercy and nothing will be able to snatch from My Heart the Love that I have for you.
  16. My beloved, I have not chosen you in vain, respond to My election with generosity. Be faithful and firm in the faith. Be meek and humble so that others may know the greatness of My humility.**
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Jesus to Catalina:
I Have Given My Life for You - loveandmercy.org/Eng-IHG-Reg.pdf

**4) I wish to speak to you again about My Passion because when I do so, I want to spread in your hearts feelings of union with Me, of compassion… to show you My Love.
  1. How I wish that mankind would cultivate greater devotion to My Passion! For that reason, I insist upon it, even though many “theologians” feel repulsion in their stomachs when they contemplate a statue representing Me weeping or bleeding.
  2. My Passion is a compendium of Holy Love and supernatural Wisdom itself. Everything can be found during My hours of the Passion: every evil in the world transformed into good for eternity, and all the supernatural goodness of present mankind, united to the promise of the good that they may attain if they die protected by My Passion.
  3. It is for that reason that time and time again I insist on it for those who gaze upon My crucified self, and I invite them to be with Me in order to relive the dreadful, bloody hours that led Me to sacrifice Myself.
  4. Those who do not meditate on My sufferings, who do not compare them with their own, do not extract from the treasure chest of My Passion, the treasures that I have stored up for each one of you.
  5. I assure you that those who meditate on My sorrowful Passion will derive many Graces, because it is a treasure chest of infinitely enormous benefits. By the same token, those who have paid no attention or have forgotten My sufferings will always find emptiness and spiritual poverty.
  6. My sufferings will always be the Glory of My Father and My Glory, as well as the greatest demonstration of the Spirit of Love for you on earth.**
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Jesus to Catalina:
I Have Given My Life for You - loveandmercy.org/Eng-IHG-Reg.pdf

**4) My Passion contains everything that you need today and tomorrow and it works marvellous miracles on all those who forget the world and themselves, in order to think of Me.
  1. When everything is subordinated to My sufferings, to My Will, then My Passion brings great benefits to souls.
  2. In the world, many words, too many are uttered! But if greater reasoning about Me, especially about My sorrow, were introduced [into the world], My Love would soon enkindle flames in your souls…
  3. Yet I am deprived of this delight: the stirring of souls to unite their sufferings to Mine in order to attain comfort and strength, generosity and patience, all that which is lacking in men and women of these times.
  4. They remove Me from nations, from households, from schools and even from many Christian installations. They do not want to exalt Christ crucified; they prefer to show Me to new generations as Christ Resurrected… as if Tabor could be separated from Calvary!
  5. Many do not understand that those who love Me as Christ crucified and acknowledge My sufferings, will also love My Presence in the Eucharist.
  6. But those who are ignorant of My Passion, will be unlikely to believe in and to love My Eucharistic Presence, alive, among them…**
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Jesus to St. Faustina
It is in My Passion that you must seek light and strength. (Diary, 654)

The Passion -
loveandmercy.org/Eng-TP-Reg.pdf
(Roman Catholic Imprimatur)

The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by Anne Catherine Emmerich -
jesus-passion.com/DOLOROUS_PASSION_OF_OUR_LORD_JESUS_CHRIST.htm
(Roman Catholic Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat)

God Bless

Thank you for reading
Josh
 
josh987654321 said:
I believe the following may help
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If giving dryness and sorrows to someone is what makes them better and more loving, then I’ve been doing parenting and teaching all wrong. :-/

What is more, the angels who came to give consolation in the garden mishandled things.

God’s voice from the Heavens at Jesus’ baptism must have been a moment of weakness.

The examples multiply…

I know there are many examples throughout the tradition that reflect that same sentiment as is seen in the numbered passage you post, but again I fail to see how the threat of waking to a day filled with sorrow and dryness in Hell a thousand years hence is no more daunting than the thought of waking to a day filled with sorrow and dryness tomorrow.

What is more, if our life in Heaven is to help us grow in love, and giving sorrow and dryness is what helps us grow thus, shouldn’t Heaven also be riddled with sorrow and tears of perceived abandonment?

How do we reconcile this?
 
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