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Dolphin
Guest
How was hell created? Did the devil have enough power on his own to create it?
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1Lord1Faith
Guest
Not sure it was created.When you walk away from a light is darkness then created? That’s sort of how I’ve thought about it. I don’t know if there is any sort of Catholic theology about the creation of hell though.
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Mythicalbio
Guest
Hell was “made” when the fall of angels happened. I don’t really think of it as a place, but as an eternal state of being when one has firmly decided that God is less than something else. It could be less than you, less than lust, gluttony, etc. I think of mortal sin as a participation in what hell is, so often when I ask for forgiveness I will say “deliver me from hell.”
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Dan_Defender
Guest
Hell was not willed by God. It is the consequence of a choice for separation from God and His will through sin. I agree it is rather a state of being.
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TK421
Guest
Hell is the state of eternal separation from God.
Angels cannot create something from nothing. Only God can do that. When an angel or a human being sins, they disfigure and distort what was created by God. Everything that God creates is good, including the devil.
In a homily, St Padre Pio described evil as taking a beautiful tapestry and turning it around so that everything becomes distorted.
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Dolphin
Guest
Is hell not a literal place that is very hot that people go to?
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TK421
Guest
Angels are pure spirit and do not exist in any material place.
Human beings are a composite of spirit and matter and so the damned will be reunited with their corrupt bodies at the Final Judgment and that includes sensual torments. A glorified body is suppose to be our inheritance and our gift but our sin can distort that gift into something terrible.
Human beings are a composite of spirit and matter and so the damned will be reunited with their corrupt bodies at the Final Judgment and that includes sensual torments. A glorified body is suppose to be our inheritance and our gift but our sin can distort that gift into something terrible.
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GioG12
Guest
Well hell is real and the suffering there is real. But hell is more of a state not a place.
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Lunam_Meam
Guest
In the angels — different in nature and perfection from all of us — there is, as in us, free will. God has created no one a slave. In the beginning there was in creation only Order. But that Order does not exclude freedom. Rather in that Order is perfect freedom. To be exact, in such order there is not even the fear of an invasion, an intrusion, of the anarchy of other wills which could produce collusion, and ruin that penetrate into the orbit and trajectory of other beings or created things. Thus it was for the whole Universe, before Lucifer abused his own freedom, and with his own will, put into himself the disorder of passions, so as to create disorder in that perfect Order. Had he been all love, he would have had no place in himself for anything that was not love. Instead he had a place for arrogant pride which could be called: the disorder of the intellect.
Would God have been able to hinder this deed? Yes. But, why violate the free will of the most beautiful, most intelligent archangel? Would not He Himself, the Most Just, then have put disorder into His own ordered Thought, by no longer wanting what He had previously wanted: that is, the freedom of the archangel? God does not oppress a troubled spirit in order violently to place it in the impossibility of sinning. Lucifer’s not sinning would then have had no merit. Even for the angels it was necessary “to know how to want the Good” in order to continue to merit enjoying the vision of God, infinite Bliss!
As God had wanted this sublime archangel at His side in His first creative works, and wanted him to know about the future of His creation of love, so God wanted him to know the adorable and sorrowful necessity that his sin would have imposed on God: the Incarnation and Death of a God to counterbalance the ruin from the Sin that would have been created should Lucifer not have conquered pride in himself. Love could not but speak this language. God’s first annihilation is in this act of wanting to bend sweetly, gently, this proud [archangel]; and with the vision of what his pride would have imposed on God, almost imploring him not to sin, and thus bring others to sin. It was an act of love.
Lucifer, already become a Satan, took this act as fear, weakness and an insult, as a declaration of war. And, he stirred up war against the Most Perfect, saying:
"You are? I also am. Whatever You made, it was for me You made it. There is no God. And, if there is a God, I am [he]. I adore myself. I detest You. I refuse to recognize as my Lord One Who does not know how to conquer me. You should not have created me so perfect if You wanted no rivals. Now I am and I am against You. Conquer me, if You can. But, I do not fear You. I, too, will create; and because of me Your Creation will tremble, for I will shake it like a shred of cloud caught by the winds. For I hate You and I want to destroy whatever is Yours, to create upon its ruins that which will be mine. I neither know nor recognize any other power outside of myself. And, I no longer adore, no longer adore, NO LONGER ADORE any other than myself."
Continued…
Would God have been able to hinder this deed? Yes. But, why violate the free will of the most beautiful, most intelligent archangel? Would not He Himself, the Most Just, then have put disorder into His own ordered Thought, by no longer wanting what He had previously wanted: that is, the freedom of the archangel? God does not oppress a troubled spirit in order violently to place it in the impossibility of sinning. Lucifer’s not sinning would then have had no merit. Even for the angels it was necessary “to know how to want the Good” in order to continue to merit enjoying the vision of God, infinite Bliss!
As God had wanted this sublime archangel at His side in His first creative works, and wanted him to know about the future of His creation of love, so God wanted him to know the adorable and sorrowful necessity that his sin would have imposed on God: the Incarnation and Death of a God to counterbalance the ruin from the Sin that would have been created should Lucifer not have conquered pride in himself. Love could not but speak this language. God’s first annihilation is in this act of wanting to bend sweetly, gently, this proud [archangel]; and with the vision of what his pride would have imposed on God, almost imploring him not to sin, and thus bring others to sin. It was an act of love.
Lucifer, already become a Satan, took this act as fear, weakness and an insult, as a declaration of war. And, he stirred up war against the Most Perfect, saying:
"You are? I also am. Whatever You made, it was for me You made it. There is no God. And, if there is a God, I am [he]. I adore myself. I detest You. I refuse to recognize as my Lord One Who does not know how to conquer me. You should not have created me so perfect if You wanted no rivals. Now I am and I am against You. Conquer me, if You can. But, I do not fear You. I, too, will create; and because of me Your Creation will tremble, for I will shake it like a shred of cloud caught by the winds. For I hate You and I want to destroy whatever is Yours, to create upon its ruins that which will be mine. I neither know nor recognize any other power outside of myself. And, I no longer adore, no longer adore, NO LONGER ADORE any other than myself."
Continued…
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Lunam_Meam
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Truly then in Creation, in all Creation, from the lowest [form] to the very depths, there was a horrendous convulsion from the horror of these sacrilegious words. A convulsion such as will not [again] be until the end of Creation. And, from it was born Hell: the kingdom of Hate.
Even God who created that place, tells us that when He descended into it to bring out of Limbo those who awaited His coming, He, God, experienced horror at the horror of Hell; and if something made by God were not immutable, on account of being perfect, He would have wanted to make it less atrocious, for He is Love, and He was pained by that horror.
Do you understand how Evil was born? From a free will, and, being respected as such by God, from one who was not ‘all love.’ Evil is a force that originated by itself like certain monstrous diseases in the most wholesome body. Lucifer was an angel, the most beautiful of all the angels, a perfect spirit, inferior only to God, and yet in his bright essence a vapor of pride arose, and using his free will, he chose to not scatter it. On the contrary, he condensed it by brooding over it, and evil was born of this incubation. It existed before man. God hurled him out of paradise, the cursed incubator of evil, who had desecrated paradise, but he is the eternal incubator of evil, and as he can no longer soil paradise, he has soiled the earth.
And, believe it: upon every fault which is committed from then on is this judgment: “Here there is not all love.” Complete love forbids one to sin; and without any effort. He who loves does not toil to reach justice! Love carries him above all the mire and dangers, and from moment to moment purifies him from barely apparent imperfections that are still there in the last step of consummate holiness: in that state in which the spirit is so [far] developed as to be truly a king, already united by spiritual marriage to its Lord, enjoying but one step less than that which is the life of the blessed in Heaven: so much does God give Himself and reveal Himself to His blessed child.
Even God who created that place, tells us that when He descended into it to bring out of Limbo those who awaited His coming, He, God, experienced horror at the horror of Hell; and if something made by God were not immutable, on account of being perfect, He would have wanted to make it less atrocious, for He is Love, and He was pained by that horror.
Do you understand how Evil was born? From a free will, and, being respected as such by God, from one who was not ‘all love.’ Evil is a force that originated by itself like certain monstrous diseases in the most wholesome body. Lucifer was an angel, the most beautiful of all the angels, a perfect spirit, inferior only to God, and yet in his bright essence a vapor of pride arose, and using his free will, he chose to not scatter it. On the contrary, he condensed it by brooding over it, and evil was born of this incubation. It existed before man. God hurled him out of paradise, the cursed incubator of evil, who had desecrated paradise, but he is the eternal incubator of evil, and as he can no longer soil paradise, he has soiled the earth.
And, believe it: upon every fault which is committed from then on is this judgment: “Here there is not all love.” Complete love forbids one to sin; and without any effort. He who loves does not toil to reach justice! Love carries him above all the mire and dangers, and from moment to moment purifies him from barely apparent imperfections that are still there in the last step of consummate holiness: in that state in which the spirit is so [far] developed as to be truly a king, already united by spiritual marriage to its Lord, enjoying but one step less than that which is the life of the blessed in Heaven: so much does God give Himself and reveal Himself to His blessed child.
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Montrose
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Aulef
Guest
Some things sill be revealed only after the Judgment. All we know is that God created everything.
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TominAdelaide
Guest
In regard to the “physical place” of hell, St Alphonsus Liguori (in his work “What Will Hell Be Like?”) says that God makes hell (the work has the nihil obstat and imprimatur):
God Makes Hell
It is also God who will make Hell, for, as St. Bernard remarks, He Himself will be the chastisement of the damned. For just as the elect will be supremely happy because God is for him, and he is for God, so also will the reprobate be unhappy, because God is no longer for him, and he is no longer for God. Let us listen to the threat which God made against those who refused to belong to Him during this life: “Call his name, Not my people’; for you are not my people, and I will not be yours.” (Osee 1:9). It is in this, then, that the torment of the damned will consist; it consists in the first sentence which Jesus Christ will pronounce over His enemies: “Depart from me into everlasting fire.” This eternal separation will constitute Hell for the damned.
St Alphonsus also discusses the location of hell in the same work:
Where Is Hell Located?
The question as to the place where Hell is situated has been a matter of conjecture among the Fathers of the Church and theologians. St. John Chrysostom, for instance, was of the opinion that it is situated outside the bounds of this universe. More commonly and with more reason, other theologians think that Hell is situated within the earth itself. Some have even gone so far as to declare that it is near the surface of the globe, basing their opinion, rather quaintly, upon the existence of many volcanic mountains such as Vesuvius, the Volcanic Isles, Mt. Etna and others.
The Catholic Encyclopedia (in its article on hell) also notes that the Church has not formally defined where hell is located either:
Where is hell? … As to its locality all kinds of conjectures have been made; it has been suggested that hell is situated on some far island of the sea, or at the two poles of the earth; Swinden, an Englishman of the eighteenth century, fancied it was in the sun; some assigned it to the moon, others to Mars; others placed it beyond the confines of the universe [Wiest, “Instit. theol.”, VI (1789), 869]. The Bible seems to indicate that hell is within the earth, for it describes hell as an abyss to which the wicked descend. We even read of the earth opening and of the wicked sinking down into hell (Numbers 16:31 sqq.; Psalm 54:16; Isaiah 5:14; Ezekiel 26:20; Philippians 2:10, etc.). Is this merely a metaphor to illustrate the state of separation from God? Although God is omnipresent, He is said to dwell in heaven, because the light and grandeur of the stars and the firmament are the brightest manifestations of His infinite splendour. But the damned are utterly estranged from God; hence their abode is said to be as remote as possible from his dwelling, far from heaven above and its light, and consequently hidden away in the dark abysses of the earth.
continued….
God Makes Hell
It is also God who will make Hell, for, as St. Bernard remarks, He Himself will be the chastisement of the damned. For just as the elect will be supremely happy because God is for him, and he is for God, so also will the reprobate be unhappy, because God is no longer for him, and he is no longer for God. Let us listen to the threat which God made against those who refused to belong to Him during this life: “Call his name, Not my people’; for you are not my people, and I will not be yours.” (Osee 1:9). It is in this, then, that the torment of the damned will consist; it consists in the first sentence which Jesus Christ will pronounce over His enemies: “Depart from me into everlasting fire.” This eternal separation will constitute Hell for the damned.
St Alphonsus also discusses the location of hell in the same work:
Where Is Hell Located?
The question as to the place where Hell is situated has been a matter of conjecture among the Fathers of the Church and theologians. St. John Chrysostom, for instance, was of the opinion that it is situated outside the bounds of this universe. More commonly and with more reason, other theologians think that Hell is situated within the earth itself. Some have even gone so far as to declare that it is near the surface of the globe, basing their opinion, rather quaintly, upon the existence of many volcanic mountains such as Vesuvius, the Volcanic Isles, Mt. Etna and others.
The Catholic Encyclopedia (in its article on hell) also notes that the Church has not formally defined where hell is located either:
Where is hell? … As to its locality all kinds of conjectures have been made; it has been suggested that hell is situated on some far island of the sea, or at the two poles of the earth; Swinden, an Englishman of the eighteenth century, fancied it was in the sun; some assigned it to the moon, others to Mars; others placed it beyond the confines of the universe [Wiest, “Instit. theol.”, VI (1789), 869]. The Bible seems to indicate that hell is within the earth, for it describes hell as an abyss to which the wicked descend. We even read of the earth opening and of the wicked sinking down into hell (Numbers 16:31 sqq.; Psalm 54:16; Isaiah 5:14; Ezekiel 26:20; Philippians 2:10, etc.). Is this merely a metaphor to illustrate the state of separation from God? Although God is omnipresent, He is said to dwell in heaven, because the light and grandeur of the stars and the firmament are the brightest manifestations of His infinite splendour. But the damned are utterly estranged from God; hence their abode is said to be as remote as possible from his dwelling, far from heaven above and its light, and consequently hidden away in the dark abysses of the earth.
continued….
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TominAdelaide
Guest
However, no cogent reason has been advanced for accepting a metaphorical interpretation in preference to the most natural meaning of the words of Scripture. Hence theologians generally accept the opinion that hell is really within the earth. The Church has decided nothing on this subject; hence we may say hell is a definite place; but where it is, we do not know. St. Chrysostom reminds us: “We must not ask where hell is, but how we are to escape it” (In Rom., hom. xxxi, n. 5, in P.G., LX, 674). St. Augustine says: “It is my opinion that the nature of hell-fire and the location of hell are known to no man unless the Holy Ghost made it known to him by a special revelation”, (City of God XX.16). Elsewhere he expresses the opinion that hell is under the earth (Retract., II, xxiv, n. 2 in P.L., XXXII, 640). St. Gregory the Great wrote: “I do not dare to decide this question. Some thought hell is somewhere on earth; others believe it is under the earth” (Dial., IV, xlii, in P.L., LXXVII, 400; cf. Patuzzi, “De sede inferni”, 1763; Gretser, “De subterraneis animarum receptaculis”, 1595).
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07207a.htm
https://www.amazon.com/What-Will-He...swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1593781049&sr=8-1
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07207a.htm
https://www.amazon.com/What-Will-He...swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1593781049&sr=8-1
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Agnus-Dei
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Dominus vobiscum
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Lunam_Meam
Guest
God said—God, the Triune God—that what is destined for Hell endures in it for eternity, for people do not emerge from that death to a new resurrection. He said that “fire” is eternal, and that all the scandalous, and workers of iniquity shall be gathered together in it. And, do not think, either, that this will be until the moment of the end of the world. No, because, on the contrary, after the tremendous review, that dwelling of weeping and torment will become even more atrocious, since what is still granted to its lodgers for their amusement — to be able to harm the living, and to see new damned ones plummeting into the abyss — will no longer exist, and the gate of Satan’s iniquitous kingdom shall be riveted shut, bolted by God’s angels, forever, forever, forever — a forever whose number of years has no number, and compared to which the grains of sand of all the earth’s oceans, if they were to become years, would be less than a day of this “immeasurable” eternity of His, made of light and glory on high for the blessed, made of darkness, and horror in the depths for the accursed.
Purgatory is a fire of love. Hell is a fire of severity.
Purgatory is a place where, while thinking of God, whose Essence has shone for you in the instant of the private judgement, and has filled you with a wish to possess it, you expiate the acts involving a lack of love for the Lord your God. Through love you conquer Love, and, by degrees of increasingly inflamed charity, you wash your robe until making it white and glistening to enter into the Kingdom of Light.
Continued…
Purgatory is a fire of love. Hell is a fire of severity.
Purgatory is a place where, while thinking of God, whose Essence has shone for you in the instant of the private judgement, and has filled you with a wish to possess it, you expiate the acts involving a lack of love for the Lord your God. Through love you conquer Love, and, by degrees of increasingly inflamed charity, you wash your robe until making it white and glistening to enter into the Kingdom of Light.
Continued…
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Lunam_Meam
Guest
Hell is a place where the thought the of God, the memory of God, glimpsed in the private judgement, is not, as for those being purged (in Purgatory), a holy desire, a grieved, but hope-filled longing, a hope full of tranquil expectation, of secure peace which shall reach perfection when it becomes the conquest of God, but which already gives the spirits being purged a cheerful activity in purgation because every affliction, every instant of affliction, draws them closer to God, their love; but it is remorse, anger, damnation, and hatred. Hatred for Satan, hatred for men, hatred for themselves.
After having adored Satan in life, in place of God, now that they possess him, and see his true appearance, no longer hidden behind the bewitching smile of flesh, behind the shining brightness of gold, behind the powerful song of supremacy, they hate him since he is the cause of their torment.
After — forgetting their dignity as children of God — having adorned men to the point of becoming killers, thieves, swindlers, and merchants of filth for their sake, now that they re-encounter their bosses, for whom they killed, robbed, deceived, and sold their honor, and the honor of so many unfortunate, weak, defenseless creatures, making them an instrument for the vice which beasts are not familiar with —for lust, the attribute of man poisoned by Satan — now they hate them since they are the cause of their torment.
The word “hatred” covers that boundless kingdom; it roars in those flames; it howls in the cackling laughter of the demons; it sobs and barks in the laments of the damned; it rings and rings and rings like an eternal hammering bell; it blares like an eternal bugle of death; it fills the recesses of that jail with itself; it is in itself torment because, with each of its sounds, it renews the memory of Love lost forever, remorse over having wanted to lose it, and rage over never being able to see it again.
The dead soul, in the midst of those flames, like the bodies thrown onto pyres, or into a crematory furnace, twists and shrieks, as if animated again by living movement, and reawakens to understand its error, and dies, and is reborn in every instant with atrocious sufferings, for remorse kills it in a curse, and killing brings it back to life again for a new torment.
Continued…
After having adored Satan in life, in place of God, now that they possess him, and see his true appearance, no longer hidden behind the bewitching smile of flesh, behind the shining brightness of gold, behind the powerful song of supremacy, they hate him since he is the cause of their torment.
After — forgetting their dignity as children of God — having adorned men to the point of becoming killers, thieves, swindlers, and merchants of filth for their sake, now that they re-encounter their bosses, for whom they killed, robbed, deceived, and sold their honor, and the honor of so many unfortunate, weak, defenseless creatures, making them an instrument for the vice which beasts are not familiar with —for lust, the attribute of man poisoned by Satan — now they hate them since they are the cause of their torment.
The word “hatred” covers that boundless kingdom; it roars in those flames; it howls in the cackling laughter of the demons; it sobs and barks in the laments of the damned; it rings and rings and rings like an eternal hammering bell; it blares like an eternal bugle of death; it fills the recesses of that jail with itself; it is in itself torment because, with each of its sounds, it renews the memory of Love lost forever, remorse over having wanted to lose it, and rage over never being able to see it again.
The dead soul, in the midst of those flames, like the bodies thrown onto pyres, or into a crematory furnace, twists and shrieks, as if animated again by living movement, and reawakens to understand its error, and dies, and is reborn in every instant with atrocious sufferings, for remorse kills it in a curse, and killing brings it back to life again for a new torment.
Continued…
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Lunam_Meam
Guest
In the fire the flames simulate the specters of what they adored in life; the passions are painted with burning brush strokes with the most appealing appearance, and they shriek and shriek their memento: “You wanted the fire of the passions. Now receive the fire set aflame by God, who’s holy Fire you derided.”
Fire responds to fire. In Paradise it is the fire of perfect love. In Purgatory it is the fire of purging love. In Hell it is the fire of offended love. Since the elect loved to perfection, Love gives itself to them in its Perfection. Since those of being purged loved in lukewarm fashion, Love becomes a flame to take them to Perfection. Since the accursed burned with all fires — except with the fire of God — the Fire of God’s wrath burns them eternally. And, in the fire there is ice.
We cannot imagine what Hell is! Take everything that’s man’s torment on earth — fire, flame, ice, submerging waters, hunger, sleeplessness, thirst, wounds, illnesses, sores, and death — sum it up into a single amount, and multiply it millions of times. We will only have a shadow of that tremendous truth.
Sidereal cold will be mixed with the unbearable burning. The damned burned with all human fires, having only spiritual iciness for their Lord God. And, ice awaits them to freeze them after fire has salted them like fish set upon a flame to roast. A torment in the torment is this passing from the burning which dissolves to the cold which condenses.
This is not metaphorical language. For God can make souls, burdened by the sins committed, have a sensitivity equal to that of flesh, even before they take that flesh. Many do not know, and do not believe, but in truth God says it would be better for them to undergo all the torments of His martyrs, rather than one hour of those infernal tortures.
Darkness will be the third torment. Material darkness and spiritual darkness. To be in darkness forever after having seen the light of paradise, and to be in the embrace of Darkness after having seen the Light that is God. To writhe in that dark horror where, in the glare of the burnt spirit, there is illuminated only the name of the sin for which they are nailed to that horror! To find no other support in that continuous agitation of spirits hating and harming each other, but the desperation making them crazed, and increasingly accursed. To feed on it, base themselves on it, and kill themselves with it. It is said that death with nourish death. Despair is death and shall nourish these dead ones in eternity.
Even God who created that place, tells us that when He descended into it to bring out of Limbo those awaiting His coming, He, God, experienced horror at that horror; and if something made by God were not immutable, on account of being perfect, He would have wanted to make it less atrocious, for He is Love, and He was pained by that horror.
And, many want to go there.
Fire responds to fire. In Paradise it is the fire of perfect love. In Purgatory it is the fire of purging love. In Hell it is the fire of offended love. Since the elect loved to perfection, Love gives itself to them in its Perfection. Since those of being purged loved in lukewarm fashion, Love becomes a flame to take them to Perfection. Since the accursed burned with all fires — except with the fire of God — the Fire of God’s wrath burns them eternally. And, in the fire there is ice.
We cannot imagine what Hell is! Take everything that’s man’s torment on earth — fire, flame, ice, submerging waters, hunger, sleeplessness, thirst, wounds, illnesses, sores, and death — sum it up into a single amount, and multiply it millions of times. We will only have a shadow of that tremendous truth.
Sidereal cold will be mixed with the unbearable burning. The damned burned with all human fires, having only spiritual iciness for their Lord God. And, ice awaits them to freeze them after fire has salted them like fish set upon a flame to roast. A torment in the torment is this passing from the burning which dissolves to the cold which condenses.
This is not metaphorical language. For God can make souls, burdened by the sins committed, have a sensitivity equal to that of flesh, even before they take that flesh. Many do not know, and do not believe, but in truth God says it would be better for them to undergo all the torments of His martyrs, rather than one hour of those infernal tortures.
Darkness will be the third torment. Material darkness and spiritual darkness. To be in darkness forever after having seen the light of paradise, and to be in the embrace of Darkness after having seen the Light that is God. To writhe in that dark horror where, in the glare of the burnt spirit, there is illuminated only the name of the sin for which they are nailed to that horror! To find no other support in that continuous agitation of spirits hating and harming each other, but the desperation making them crazed, and increasingly accursed. To feed on it, base themselves on it, and kill themselves with it. It is said that death with nourish death. Despair is death and shall nourish these dead ones in eternity.
Even God who created that place, tells us that when He descended into it to bring out of Limbo those awaiting His coming, He, God, experienced horror at that horror; and if something made by God were not immutable, on account of being perfect, He would have wanted to make it less atrocious, for He is Love, and He was pained by that horror.
And, many want to go there.
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Wesrock
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It’s absurd to deny God’s role in creating Hell, for it implies there are things that exist that God did not create. Certainly we can distinguish between his consequent and antecedent will, that he permits some things because he intends the freedom of creatures, but he also intends the punishment of the wicked. To deny he does is to say he created not knowing what would happen, to say he is not omniscient. As Christians we cant shy away from that and the idea that the punishment of wickedness is just and good, otherwise we twist ourselves into contradictions.
Also, Hell is a place where the devil is punished. It’s not a place he created or rules.
Also, Hell is a place where the devil is punished. It’s not a place he created or rules.
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IWantGod
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I have a slightly different take on this. I think God only wills the salvation of a being, not literally the punishment of a being. I don’t mean that God does not punish, but rather i think eternal punishment is a natural-consequence rather than something created, willed, contrived or wanted by God. I think the idea that God is angry with sinners and wants them to suffer forever is in error if taken literally. God does not will the existence of an eternal state we call hell because that would be incompatible with God’s nature which is love. God wills only the good, and it is in the willing of the good that we find the eternal suffering of the wicked as a natural consequence because of their incompatibility. Basically, love is incompatible with sin and hell is incompatible with heaven. It’s not that God wills the eternal punishment of sinners, but rather hell is the only metaphysically possible state a person can be in if he or she is eternally separated from God, and when we say that God is punishing somebody with hell this is only figurative human descriptions of a process that is completely natural; it is only analogous to human forms of justice. Again, this is only to say that God does not create artificial forms of punishment, and that God’s justice is simply the metaphysical impossibility of sin entering heaven.
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