If God didn't create hell, does that mean he didn't create all things?

[tee_eff_em]

In a recent answer (Who made hell?), Michelle Arnold states: “God did not create hell, he only allows for its possibility as a consequence of his choice to give angels and humans the gift of free will.”

How does this jibe with what I was raised to believe: “I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible”?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor, or against ourselves: “He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell” (CCC 1033, emphasis added).

Above all, hell is a state of being. It includes spiritual torments and, at the end of time, it will include physical torments for human beings. But those torments and that state of being are the freely-chosen consequences of the choice to permanently and irrevocably separate oneself from communion with God.

There is only a conflict here if we depend too literally on hell being a literal “place” into which the damned are committed. God does create all things, but hell is primarily freely-chosen self-exclusion from communion with God. Just as heaven is the direct beatific vision of God and communion with him and all of the saved, and not necessarily a cloud-filled city with golden streets and fabulous mansions, so hell is not necessarily a fiery pit with pitchfork-toting demons. Those images give us an idea of the joy of heaven and the terror of hell, but they should not be confused with literal reality.

Recommended reading:

Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory by John Paul II