How full is Hell?

[M-Dent]

The easiest way to view this difficult subject may be in understanding that Hell is a choice.

It’s not possible to determine what people may be, or may not be in Hell. Especially since God offers “perfect” justice. We, as human beings are imperfect. Thus truly can’t fathom perfection.

Maybe we should stick to what we can understand.

When we try hard to put God first - everything else falls in to place.

36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
37 He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
38 This is the greatest and the first commandment.
39 The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/matthew/matthew22.htm

 

[LilyM]

Some have a lack of discipline that could be called lazy. Can these same people make it in time for the start of the football game? Get to work, school daily? Make it to a date on time or how about this…never miss their favorite TV show?

It’s a commandment. God did not give us the commandments to decide when and if we wanted to follow them - but said follow them.

We, as Catholics are not to pick what we want to believe - though we have the free will to make those choices. We must be careful of Relativism sneaking into our mode of thinking and warping our thinking.

I don’t see why people have a problem with attending Mass … unless they believe that God couldn’t ever possibly want us to do something just for him that is pleasing to him alone. Like, say, worship him in the place and time he wants and in the way he wants?

Plenty of the commandments are ones we would keep anyway because we see the obvious benefits of not murdering, stealing, cheating on our spouses etc. The true mark of devotion to God comes when we do something purely for his sake, because we know it pleases him, not because we perceive any benefits for ourselves.

Jesus didn’t benefit in any way from being crucified, he did it out of utterly self-giving and selfless love for us. That’s meant to be our model, folks

Same with using our nature and upbringing as an excuse. Not that God never takes these things into account, but it is a greater thing and a mark of true devotion to God to strive to do what’s right in spite of every excuse that we could make not to.

And you’d better believe people go to hell for disobeying each of the Commandments, otherwise God wouldn’t give any of them to us and wouldn’t expect us to obey any of them.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Thank you Dave for that excellent link. It gives a very scholarly history of this subject and I recommend that everyone here read it. Very well written!

You’re welcome. See also an expanded treatment in Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar’s book, Dare We Hope.

 

[VociMike]

I am sure you meant Hell?

Eeek is right! Yes, I did mean hell. When can I buy one of those computers that sends what I think, not what I type?

 

[JoeyWarren]

Eeek is right! Yes, I did mean hell. When can I buy one of those computers that sends what I think, not what I type?

When computers can read the mind, I will stop believing in God. And God, I hope they don’t already…

 

[Mommyof02green]

When computers can read the mind, I will stop believing in God. And God, I hope they don’t already…

Joey you might be in trouble… there is software that allows you to speak-to-type:
programurl.com:

With SpeakToText 2.0, you can dictate and copy text to almost any application. You can even speak and send chat messages all without touching your mouse or keyboard.

That’s getting pretty close to being able to “read” minds wouldn’t you say…

 

[thistle]

I don’t see why people have a problem with attending Mass … unless they believe that God couldn’t ever possibly want us to do something just for him that is pleasing to him alone. Like, say, worship him in the place and time he wants and in the way he wants?

Plenty of the commandments are ones we would keep anyway because we see the obvious benefits of not murdering, stealing, cheating on our spouses etc. The true mark of devotion to God comes when we do something purely for his sake, because we know it pleases him, not because we perceive any benefits for ourselves.

Jesus didn’t benefit in any way from being crucified, he did it out of utterly self-giving and selfless love for us. That’s meant to be our model, folks

Same with using our nature and upbringing as an excuse. Not that God never takes these things into account, but it is a greater thing and a mark of true devotion to God to strive to do what’s right in spite of every excuse that we could make not to.

And you’d better believe people go to hell for disobeying each of the Commandments, otherwise God wouldn’t give any of them to us and wouldn’t expect us to obey any of them.

 

[TimOliv]

Back to what one poster told me, my personal difficulty with the concept of damnation and hell. Let me premise this by saying that I am a faithful Catholic, I go to confession, never miss Mass, and try and make it to daily Mass. I’m a relatively conservative person and try and lead a temperate life.

I was speaking with Father the other day, and we were talking about the concept of Hell. Apparently, he seems to believe that Hell exists, but that it might be empty. I know that he has many, many times discussed the concept of Purgatory. We didn’t discuss that in our last conversation, but my feeling is that he probably views Purgatory as the destination for most of us, including Saddam Hussain. He has said from the pulpit that Purgatory is where we will be cleansed of our attachments to sin in order to enter Heaven, and most of us will need this.

Intellectually, this makes the most sense to me. From my point of view, based on the latest medical research, there are many biological things that interfere with our free will. Also, we are often products of our upbringings that can distort and warp our personalities and compel us to do evil things.

I know many people will disagree with this pov here, but I find it an interesting subject that I’d like to reopen for courteous responses.

I think we are all a little stuck on the idea that hell is a physical place and it is simply a kingdom which rivals heaven.

Heaven has the presence of God, this is what makes it great. Any place devoid of God will be terrible. Without God there is no light. Many who have experienced the dark night of the soul have experienced burning sensations on their bodies. The feeling of abandonment by God results in physical pain. So as to hell being a place that is completely empty, I cannot say I would agree with such a theory, as hell would be defined as a state of being without God. As for people’s free will and how it faires on their afterlife, I think I can think of one group who probably wouldn’t have a decent case. People who acknowledge there is a God, yet worship Satan, people who acknowledge there is a God but tell God they don’t want him in their lives, people who curse God. Let’s not forget that such sins against the Holy Spirit have been called unforgiveable. Not to mention, God is pretty good with answering prayers, if you spend your whole life declaring that you want God to leave you alone, I imagine you’ll get what you want in the afterlife, you just might not like it as much as you thought you would.

 

[godbless]

Hi Tim,
Do you think Hell will be a state of aloneness or will those in this state of seperation from God exist in communities of the damned? What details does the Church actually give on this? Also, why doesn’t the Old Testament discuss Hell? It alludes to it, but you’d think there would be more detail in all those many pages. I know that the Jews don’t really teach about Hell, I’ve never heard that they do.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Answer to your question: there are 378496 people there. Give or take a few.

 

[TimOliv]

Hi Tim,
Do you think Hell will be a state of aloneness or will those in this state of seperation from God exist in communities of the damned? What details does the Church actually give on this? Also, why doesn’t the Old Testament discuss Hell? It alludes to it, but you’d think there would be more detail in all those many pages. I know that the Jews don’t really teach about Hell, I’ve never heard that they do.

A state of aloneness, I believe, is an understatement. I believe it will be a sense of utter despair. Imagine a time in your life when you felt there was no hope, now imagine a feeling of there being no hope beyond that, ever. You don’t just think, but you know that you will never experience happiness or any joy. It is the complete absence of God where there can be no good, no light, no happiness, no comfort. As for communities of the damned?

I cannot say, having never been damned for all eternity. However, it would not seem logical to me that those would have the ability or the desire to form communities of the damned. I always envisioned hell as being hellish enough when it is just you suffering, why you would want to be around others with the same fate would mystify me.

As for why the Old Testament or Judaism as a whole does not discuss Hell (or the afterlife that much at all, while we’re on the matter), it is because Judaism is waiting. There are those who believe the messiah has yet to come, and when he does, he will throw open the gates of Sheol (as Jesus did) and lead righteous patriarchs and ancestors into Heaven. So really, if your religion taught that when you died you were basically just going to sit around and wait for a messiah (or moschiach as it were), I probably wouldn’t want to focus on that aspect of my faith all that much. Another reason is that Judaism takes a differnet philosophy on life. Many Christians are taught very simply, do good and go to heaven, do bad and go to hell. Jews on the other hand are taught, instead, to do good because it is the right thing to do and don’t do bad things because they disappoint God and hurt your fellow man.

 

[CatholicNick]

Hell is a place of unimaginable suffering and eternal hellfire - devoid of hope and God. The suffering in hell is much greater than anything we can ever imagine…

 

[Malcolm_McLean]

Intellectually, this makes the most sense to me. From my point of view, based on the latest medical research, there are many biological things that interfere with our free will. Also, we are often products of our upbringings that can distort and warp our personalities and compel us to do evil things.

Evil people get a more and more distorted view of reality until you can almost say that there is a clinical problem.

 

[godbless]

Evil people get a more and more distorted view of reality until you can almost say that there is a clinical problem.

You bring up an interesting point, Malcolm. What comes first, the chicken or the egg? Can evil choices we make have a downward negative effect on our brain and body chemistry? Can mental disease result from the “evil spirit” of sin that we initially open the door for? The Bible speaks very often of evil spirits that enter people. Perhaps these evil spirits, Satan’s emissaries, have their effect on people, distorting their awareness of right or wrong and compelling them to do evil.

Can a person be possessed by an evil spirit without consent of their free will? You don’t hear much from the Church about this these days.

 

[Mijoy2]

Just an objective observation.

The vast majority of people do not regularily go to Mass or give God more then a passing thought. In terms of percentage of Christians it would appear the number to be in the single digits.

Yet virtually all believe that** if** there is a Heaven they will go there because “I am basically a good person andnot worthy of everlasting torment”

If the individual who thinks as previously stated is going to Hell, Heaven will be scarcley populated repectively.

The fact of the matter is, God has revealed very little (if anything) about the ratio of people who go to Heaven vs. Hell. It’s anybody’s guess.

Frankly, I find the absense of a clear teaching on Hell it a deterrent to my faith.

 

[Verita]

This is a very difficult question.

Many places in the Bible refer to belief in Jesus being the criteria for salvation. However, Jesus gives a very startling and graphic depiction of the Last Judgement where it is our works, what we have done with our faith, that determines whether we are a sheep or a goat. That image would seem to indicate that quite alot of people will end up in hell.

Frankly, I think the ammount of people that have a legitimate, clinical problem that would keep them from accepting Christ is negligible compared to the whole of humanity. Far too many people try to use upbringing as an excuse. It is NOT an excuse unless your upbringing has involved severe trauma (physical or mental) or you upbringing put you in a situation where it was impossible to hear the truth about Christ.

All humans seem to be born with a desire for God. Many humans spend much of their lives looking for Him. If you are an honest seeker after God and you did all that was within your power to do to reach the truth of Him, then even if you don’t find Christianity I believe God has a place for you. However, if you have seen God and reject him or place your own concerns above him, then you have far less chance of reaching Heaven than a Buddhist or a Muslim who was seeking God with his whole heart.