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

[ethereality]

Any confessor or spiritual director can help you discern this and you can be guaranteed that they speak for God.

This is dangerously false. For example, I once met with someone who encouraged masturbation as a reward “occasionally” for hard work during the week. You must not assume a spiritual director speaks for God.

 

[Amandil]

This is dangerously false. For example, I once met with someone who encouraged masturbation as a reward “occasionally” for hard work during the week. You must not assume a spiritual director speaks for God.

Perhaps you missed it but in several previous posts I had stressed competent spiritual directors, that is assumed in my comment above.

 

[Amandil]

I’m sorry you feel like I have missed your position. You said we know the good but we do not choose it because of disordered appetites and passions. I am curious to hear your theory of how those appetites and passions first gain the upper hand over the intellect. If the good is written on our hearts and we know it, what goes wrong?

Do you not know what venial sin is?

 

[Neoplatonist]

Do you not know what venial sin is?

I think so, and I get how committing v.sins can weaken the will, and how they reflect disordered appetites and passions. That still doesn’t help me see how you think those passions and appetites get disordered enough (or strong enough, or however you want to characterize it) to outvote reason in the first place. Can you fill in that part?

 

[Neoplatonist]

I guess to answer the OP, hell leaves no hope for the future. At least with the dark night of the soul there is hope for the beatific vision.

Curious to hear how you would address my example from earlier about receiving a kidney transplant… ?]

 

[CrossofChrist]

Which is more heartbreaking:

a.) You are dying of a kidney disease, and your mother could donate a kidney to save you but doesn’t for some reason of her own which she will not share with you?

or

b.) Your illness is now too far gone for a transplant to save you, even if your mother were compatible?

Let’s even allow that the reason the situation is in condition B is because you refused to stop drinking, so your own bad decisions have pushed you beyond reach.

I’ve still got to go with A as the more heartbreaking, soul-numbing of the two.

A is the more heartbreaking one.

But that’s not how God is. If we stay with your analogy, it would be like a mother begging for you to take the kidney, but you refusing for some ultimately trivial reason.

That’s what hell is: our refusal to God’s offer of love.

But what about those who, because they didn’t have a sense of God’s presence, fell away from the faith and eventually died?

It’s important to understand that we don’t know the end result of any soul. The only ones in hell that we know of are the devil and the demons. So this means there is hope for their soul, even if not good hope like for a devout Catholic (e.g Mother Theresa), there is still at least a sliver of hope. All who end up in hell are there because they rejected God’s grace.

Or why would God allow for a situation that is so dry? Such as the experience of many Catholics and really all people during the cold years of WW2?

A dry situation offers us a chance to both reflect on our own weaknesses and limitations, while recognizing that God is more than a fuzzy feeling of goodness. God’s presence is sometimes found in the silence, in a paradoxical fashion.

I would imagine that Rahner’s Encounters with Silence, which FWIW I’ve never read, would be a good place to start. Ignatian spirituality is an immensely helpful gift, which is centered around finding the Holy Trinity in your ordinary life.

Ratzinger’s section on belief in his Introduction to Christianity–he has about 50+ pages dedicated to it–is a gem. Therese of Lisieux also has great imagery and an inspiring story in her Story of a Soul. Perhaps something to look into.

 

[Neoplatonist]

A is the more heartbreaking one.

But that’s not how God is. If we stay with your analogy, it would be like a mother begging for you to take the kidney, but you refusing for some ultimately trivial reason.

That’s what hell is: our refusal to God’s offer of love.

But what about those who, because they didn’t have a sense of God’s presence, fell away from the faith and eventually died?

It’s important to understand that we don’t know the end result of any soul. The only ones in hell that we know of are the devil and the demons. So this means there is hope for their soul, even if not good hope like for a devout Catholic (e.g Mother Theresa), there is still at least a sliver of hope. All who end up in hell are there because they rejected God’s grace.

Or why would God allow for a situation that is so dry? Such as the experience of many Catholics and really all people during the cold years of WW2?

A dry situation offers us a chance to both reflect on our own weaknesses and limitations, while recognizing that God is more than a fuzzy feeling of goodness. God’s presence is sometimes found in the silence, in a paradoxical fashion.

Ah, but if I “think” I’m saying yes, and I hear myself inside and out asking for the transplant, then my refusal is the result of some kind of fevered delusion or mental illness, right? If our mother were a doctor of immense ability, would she not bring down our fever so we could make a clear decision or so we could tell whether we were asking what we think we were? To avoid too much weirdness, let it be someone else’s kidney besides hers - that of a willing donor as soon as I approve/consent to the surgery.

All the way up until the mother operates to resolve our problem at time t, we will feel as if we are in version A—the most heartbreaking option. Since we have been told she has immense ability as a doctor, why would time t be repeatedly forestalled into the future?

Weaknesses and limitations? So my mom, the surgeon of immense ability, won’t give me the transplant to end my suffering because she thinks I’m being a wimp and wants me to grow stronger or because I don’t “deserve” the transplant yet? Maybe I need to bring my blood pressure down before my prospects for the surgery are high enough. But she’s a doctor of nearly infinite ability, would she not give me near-miraculous treatment to solve the BP problem so we could then solve the kidney problem?

I can only imagine rational, stable human parents behaving that way with regard to something much less significant, like the heart-wrenching cries of a child dropped off at school for the first time. But those situations are not ones where the kid could screw up and ruin their entire lives for all time. And the parents build up credibility by coming to pick the child up every afternoon (or by meeting them at the bus stop), if not, the angst would deepen rather than heal.

Now, lest we get too far afield in the analogy, let me re-establish that we are not talking about taking away all the suffering and struggle from which a child may grow. We are just talking about the sense for the child that their mother or father is, indeed, present and supportive and responsive, even when not granting requests or intervening in the struggles.

Somewhere there is a turning point in our hearts between being dropped off each day for school, being sent off for 9 months to boarding school, or spending years in an orphanage. We cannot voluntarily choose which case we believe represents our situation.

 

[CrossofChrist]

Ah, but if I “think” I’m saying yes, and I hear myself inside and out asking for the transplant, then my refusal is the result of some kind of fevered delusion or mental illness, right? If our mother were a doctor of immense ability, would she not bring down our fever so we could make a clear decision or so we could tell whether we were asking what we think we were? To avoid too much weirdness, let it be someone else’s kidney besides hers - that of a willing donor as soon as I approve/consent to the surgery.

All the way up until the mother operates to resolve our problem at time t, we will feel as if we are in version A—the most heartbreaking option. Since we have been told she has immense ability as a doctor, why would time t be repeatedly forestalled into the future?

Weaknesses and limitations? So my mom, the surgeon of immense ability, won’t give me the transplant to end my suffering because she thinks I’m being a wimp and wants me to grow stronger or because I don’t “deserve” the transplant yet? Maybe I need to bring my blood pressure down before my prospects for the surgery are high enough. But she’s a doctor of nearly infinite ability, would she not give me near-miraculous treatment to solve the BP problem so we could then solve the kidney problem?

I can only imagine rational, stable human parents behaving that way with regard to something much less significant, like the heart-wrenching cries of a child dropped off at school for the first time. But those situations are not ones where the kid could screw up and ruin their entire lives for all time. And the parents build up credibility by coming to pick the child up every afternoon (or by meeting them at the bus stop), if not, the angst would deepen rather than heal.

Now, lest we get too far afield in the analogy, let me re-establish that we are not talking about taking away all the suffering and struggle from which a child may grow. We are just talking about the sense for the child that their mother or father is, indeed, present and supportive and responsive, even when not granting requests or intervening in the struggles.

Somewhere there is a turning point in our hearts between being dropped off each day for school, being sent off for 9 months to boarding school, or spending years in an orphanage. We cannot voluntarily choose which case we believe represents our situation.

And the purpose of this is…? Because you don’t sense God’s presence?

 

[Neoplatonist]

And the purpose of this is…? Because you don’t sense God’s presence?

Desolation. Spiritual dryness. Forsakenness. There are different names. I feel like we’re starting all the way back at the original post. ?]

As I said a few frames ago:
Somewhere there is a turning point in our hearts between being dropped off each day for school, being sent off for 9 months to boarding school, or spending years in an orphanage. We cannot voluntarily choose which case we believe represents our situation. I don’t agree with the bizarre theory that we can voluntarily choose whether hope fades in time.

Whatever the cause of my feeling of being a sheep lost in the night, the question is: how would Hell feel different? (As discussed along the way, there would at least be the difference of not having my hope constantly crushed.)

 

[CrossofChrist]

Desolation. Spiritual dryness. Forsakenness. There are different names. I feel like we’re starting all the way back at the original post. ?]

I do think (albeit I am biased since I personally am a fan ) that Ignatian spirituality would be beneficial for you. Even if you can’t feel any consolation, it would help give you a greater awareness that God still is in your life.

St. Therese’s Story of a Soul has some great insight IMO.

 

[Neoplatonist]

I do think (albeit I am biased since I personally am a fan ) that Ignatian spirituality would be beneficial for you. Even if you can’t feel any consolation, it would help give you a greater awareness that God still is in your life.

St. Therese’s Story of a Soul has some great insight IMO.

When I looked into it before, Ignatian Spirituality seemed a little too much like self-hypnosis for my tastes, but might be a good fit for some. Glad to hear it has helped you.

Would you say, then, that you feel God’s presence in your normal life (not just seeing things you interpret to be signs of his presence)?

 

[CrossofChrist]

When I looked into it before, Ignatian Spirituality seemed a little too much like self-hypnosis for my tastes, but might be a good fit for some. Glad to hear it has helped you.

Would you say, then, that you feel God’s presence in your normal life (not just seeing things you interpret to be signs of his presence)?

Sometimes, not always or even often…“feel” probably in a similar way how Pope Benedict XVI could “feel” prayers for him before he became Pope Emeritus.

 

[CrossofChrist]

Sometimes, not always or even often…“feel” probably in a similar way how Pope Benedict XVI could “feel” prayers for him before he became Pope Emeritus.

God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else — God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.” - Pope Francis