Is eternal punishment in hell really a just punishment? [Update: YES]

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jacob1
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Jacob1 said:
it doesn’t make sense to me that someone should be punished forever for 70 or so years of sins. does it make sense to you?
Click to expand...
It’s not so much that they’re being “punished” as that they’ve distanced themselves from God with their actions to the extent that they’re unable to enter heaven.
God gave us free will, and with that comes the risk that we’ll actually reject God’s plan for us.

You say 60 or 70 years of sin, but you could also say 60 or 70 years of rejecting God.

On the flip side, God will take any opportunity to bring us back. Even if we repent in our final seconds of life, the door is still open. I should think that is mercy enough.
 
Last edited:
AdamP88 said:
You say 60 or 70 years of sin, but you could also say 60 or 70 years of rejecting God.
Click to expand...
That person unless profoundly immoral may have been making an effort to turn away from sin, going to confession, going to mass etc, they just happened to die in their sin and went to Hell after living in and out of sin.
 
oliver109 said:
That person unless profoundly immoral may have been making an effort to turn away from sin, going to confession, going to mass etc, they just happened to die in their sin and went to Hell after living in and out of sin.
Click to expand...
If that person was making a sincere effort to turn away from sin and just happened to die before they could get to confession, but would have gone had they lived, I have to believe God would have mercy on them.
 
Hey @oliver109 and @Jacob1

My own opinion is that no one stays in hell who doesn’t want to be there. Not that they like it there, but they prefer it to loving God and the people God loves in heaven.

I think the doors are wide open, but if hell is populated it’s because everyone there is eternally rejecting the invitation.

I think someone who loves God even in a small degree and enjoys loving Him cannot possibly go to hell, no matter their mistakes. If they enjoy loving him they are already in heaven. Heaven is the love of God. Loving God would make even hell pleasant.

If someone disagrees with me I would be happy to try to answer objections.
 
Last edited:
CS Lewis had a similar idea that was repeated by Bishop Barron: “the doors of Hell are locked from the inside.”

Meaning, the soul has so malformed itself with sin and hatred of God that it doesn’t want to go to Heaven. It hates Hell, but it finds the presence of God insufferable. It wants to sit in the dark and gloom, refusing to let go of pride and resentment and accept mercy.
 
I think the problem with CS Lewis view is that he seems to be implying that a sinful soul never makes the effort to repent, i would say that the majority probably do make the effort to repent unless they are profoundly immoral. Why should someone who has at least tried to repent be damned?
 
the truth friend is that no matter what anyone tells you, the Church has never made pronouncements about how many souls are damned. some people say “but the Son of God” has declared it, and then they quote scripture like “many are called, few are chosen”, and verses about Judas, etc. But that’s a Protestant tactic, thinking you can authoritatively and definitively interpret a scriptural line without ecclesial confirmation. the magisterium has never said this or that about the population of hell, so you’re free to hope as much as your soul is inspired to.
 
Last edited:
I think I read somewhere that Saint Faustina said Jesus told her that at that moment of death he gives everyone the chance to repent of their sins, can anyone else verify this.
 
Jacob1 said:
it doesn’t make sense to me that someone should be punished forever for 70 or so years of sins. does it make sense to you?
Click to expand...
So the logic here is, a person can sin all they want, die in their sin, and still deserve no punishment? how is God’s justice served in that scenario?.. mmm better no to question God’s judgment but accept it humbly.
 
Again, you seem to feel that a person’s ‘good deeds’ earn a ticket to heaven. That isn’t true. And what I say is actually Scriptural, and from God Himself. Allow me to reference the Old Testament with God speaking. Please read Ezekiel chapter 18.
 
Last edited:
Peebo said:
I think I read somewhere that Saint Faustina said Jesus told her that at that moment of death he gives everyone the chance to repent of their sins, can anyone else verify this.
Click to expand...
From Is there one last chance…
The Lord, Himself, encouraged praying the Chaplet of The Divine Mercy for the dying. He told St. Faustina: " At the hour of their death, I defend as My own glory every soul that will say this chaplet; or when others say it for a dying person, the indulgence is the same. When this chaplet is said by the bedside of a dying person, God’s anger is placated, unfathomable mercy envelops the soul, and the very depths of My tender mercy are moved for the sake of the sorrowful Passion of My Son " ( Diary , 811).

Beyond this, there is really no more that our Lord can do for a soul. The “chances” ultimately have to come to an end because at some point the soul is either irrevocably hardened to His appeal or truly open to repentance and faith.
Click to expand...
I don’t believe the concept of there being a second chance after death meshes with Church teaching. Once you’re dead, you’re dead, and you’re out of chances. However, there is nothing that precludes one last chance of repentance right at the moment of death. I honestly believe this does happen, because we know that God wants all people to be with Him in Heaven. However, we cannot then use that as an excuse to not denounce sin in the present. If we take God’s mercy for granted I doubt such a grace would be efficacious, as we would not have the proper disposition to accept it.

I recall one story about St. Padre Pio. A mother came to him utterly distraught because her son had committed suicide by jumping off a bridge. St. Pio, who was know to receive revelation about the final destination of certain souls, was granted knowledge about the state of the son’s soul. God showed him that after jumping, but before hitting the water, the son had realized the evil he was committing, had repented, and had asked for God’s forgiveness. That forgiveness had been granted. The son would have to spend a very long time in Purgatory, but he was not damned due to that last act of repentance. (The general sense I’ve gotten from reading other vision of purgatory is that those who commit suicide but are saved have to live out the remaining length of their earthly life in Purgatory before their actual purification can begin. I’m not sure if that’s accurate, and it’s certainly not Church teaching, but it makes a bit of sense.)
 
Good deeds show God that the sinner is making an effort to please him, why God would turn anyone who has done good deeds is beyond me unless that person despaired of his mercy.
 
God as I have mentioned several times does not turn away a repentant sinner.

Neither does He wait until somebody is ‘between confession’, smite them —not ‘allowing them to repent’ and toss them into hell saying, “GOTCHA”.

The only way a person will wind up in hell is if he or she fully, freely, and knowingly allows himself or herself to CHOOSE Hell.

What is God supposed to do? FORCE a person to be sorry when they aren’t?

But the thing you appear to accuse Him of—unfairness in somehow condemning some poor person who did some good things but refused to repent a MORTAL sin, even when offered every chance to do so—presupposes again that people can ‘earn’ heaven through good deeds, and that good deeds ‘cancel out’ bad ones. And that just isn’t the way it works.

It is true that a good deed can allow a person to stop rejecting God, to repent of all mortal sin, and thus have the person choose salvation. But the person being saved did not ‘earn heaven’ with the ‘good deed’ cancelling the bad. The person ACCEPTED free salvation not of his own merit but by grace in repenting evil.

And one unrepented mortal sin (bad deed) can result in the consequence of a person choosing damnation even if that person had done ‘many good deeds’, not because the bad ‘canceled’ the good but because of the final impenitence whereby the person turned away from every good he had offered to God and totally rejected and denied God.

What it comes down to is not God rejecting US, but us rejecting GOD. It’s not about the number of times we do something good, but about whether as we approach God at the point of death we are rejecting Him forever, or accepting Him forever.
 
Does it not seem unfair though how someone can go to Hell after trying in their life to avoid sin? Especially as they actually did accept salvation occasionally, God could enable the sinner to repent after they die(it is not impossible) but he chooses not to, why i don’t know.
 
No, Oliver. Actions have consequences.
And yes, it is impossible to repent after death. There is no more ‘time’. There is no more ‘before, during, after’.
Does it not seem unfair how somebody can go to heaven after not trying most of their life to avoid sin? I think you said earlier that yes, it ‘is’ unfair of God to accept a repentant sinner, apparently if you sin ‘too much’ you think God will stop accepting you in THAT case, but in the other case you think God SHOULD accept you because you ‘did too much good’.

It’s just not logical or fair to think people ‘earn’ heaven or that God ‘owes’ some people because at times they ‘did well’; or that He can totally reject people after a ‘certain number of sins’ even if they try in the end to do right. It is, if you’ll forgive me for saying this, a very childish assessment of God’s justice and mercy to assume that He must be subject to your opinion and to both accept a person who committed unrepentant mortal sin ‘if he did some good things in life’, and to REJECT a person who did repent his sins at the end but “didn’t do enough good things in life’ =in your opinion.

I much prefer God’s way of doing things!
 
bruisedreed said:
My own opinion is that no one stays in hell who doesn’t want to be there. Not that they like it there, but they prefer it to loving God and the people God loves in heaven.

I think the doors are wide open
Click to expand...
A person’s will is fixed at the moment of death and becomes like the angels (good and bad) in the sense that they cannot repent.

The angels (both good and bad) are pure spirits. As such, when they make a decision, they make it with their entire being. So St. Michael will NEVER change his mind and rebel against God, nor can Satan ever repent and decide to serve God.

Every day, we change our minds (should I wear this red blouse? No, I’ll wear the pink one… No, I’ll go with the yellow one…). An angel can’t do that.

Luke 16: 19-31
 
If we change our minds every day then how is it fair for God to fix our will at death on whatever we were thinking/doing at that moment?
 
It is not like we decide to die at a particular moment and say “i will fix my will on so and so and die”
 
God doesn’t fix our will. We do.
We change our minds because we live in time.
We are born, we live, we die.
After death, we move to the next, the final phase—eternity. Which is not time.

We have either chosen to conform ourselves to God —our free full choice— for eternity, or we have chosen to reject Him—for eternity.

In eternity we keep on making that choice. An eternal ‘now I am loving and joined to the Lord perfectly’ (heaven) or an eternal ‘now I am rejecting the Lord and refusing to be with Him always”. A constant choosing, if you prefer to look at it that way, a constant choosing where one always makes the full and free choice of accepting, or of rejecting.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top