Relying on the position that hell serves no purpose since we don’t know of any redemption from its darkness, the pain there would be useless. that argument/reality/position is one of the most prevalent criticisms of our religion, and why the “religion” gets rejected, and Christ along with it. a tragedy of false assumption.
I don’t believe the suffering in hell is pointless because Jesus warned us it is caused by our failure to help others when they need our help. It demonstrates that we receive precisely what we deserve and divine justice is not a fantasy but a fact.
To** whom **does it demonstrate it?
Excellent question. If the reply is “to those in heaven” this demonstration would certainly torment anyone with even the slightest inkling of charity or compassion. If the reply is “to those in hell” then this demonstration would be quite pointless since no practical effect could result from this severe education. No interior or exterior change (conversion), just eternal doom.
I feel like I’m betraying my own line of reasoning here, but perhaps there is something salvageable in it.
As C. S. Lewis put it, in the end we will either say to God, “Thy will be done” or God will say to us, “Thy will be done.”
The phrase “snatched from the fire” does not refer to those in hell. Rather, it refers to those in danger of going there. We are to help others toward their salvation, even if that means using a bit of tough love, when applicable, to keep them from endangering their souls. It’s one of the seven spiritual acts of mercy to admonish sinners–with great love and care, of course.
To everyone - after they die.
I give you points for apparently trying to make your argument more forceful by including heaps of drama.
Yes, I am not attempting to state Calvinist predestination here. I do not mean that God forces us to go to hell. What I mean, is that if God both 1) knows that we will go to hell and 2) creates us anyway, then he has effectively created us for hell. Hell becomes our “telos” by the mutual cooperation of our wills and his. In a very real sense, it is our freely chosen destiny.I give you points for apparently trying to make your argument more forceful by including heaps of drama.
No one was “created to burn forever”, and that position is heretical. That view is held by Calvinists, and not by Catholics.
Have you ever met someone who says “I really desire the pain of being separated from God?” Ask yourself if you really believe what you stated above. Try to put the apologetic reflex to one side and really examine this posture. Now, read Matthew 7:21-23 carefully. They call upon the Lord but are cast into hell anyway. How can they reject what they obviously desire? Then, why does he order them to depart?
He wills their good? So eternal hell is good? At least, it is better than non-existence? But is it truly meaningful to say something is “better” than non-existence? Better for whom? The person? Why? Why would Jesus say it would have been better for Judas to have never been born? Who in their right mind would choose endless torment over oblivion? Nasty choices for sure, but don’t people even in this short life ask to be “put out of their misery” when facing a terminal and painful illness? Doesn’t the Church even allow people to go off of life-support and does not obligate us to use “heroic measures” to preserve what remains of someones life when they are dying? Why couldn’t God “pull the plug” on those who refuse to obey his laws? Why sustain them in endless torment?
I’ve spend an inordinate amount of time on this website arguing this very point. Glad we agree. Hell is not necessary for free will. Therefore, it could be such that it is a gratuitous evil and not part of the creation of an omnibenevolent God. This admission does not prove by itself that hell is a gratuitous evil, but it seriously undermines the notion that hell is a “necessary evil.”Thanks for the lectures, I will listen. I don’t want to derail this discussion by talking about Orthodox Judaism. I will agree that being a Gentile requires less dogmatic assent than being a Catholic, but the discipline is quite similar. I agree with Catholics about all the “hot button” issues, pray, fast, give alms, and do my very best not to transgress the moral law. My everyday existence is very similar to when I was a Catholic. The main difference is that I don’t have statues of intermediaries, do not pray to anyone or anything other than God, do not bow down or prostrate before images, statues, tabernacles, or anyone or anything else, and try to eat Kosher meat in an attempt to avoid animal cruelty. The other difference is that I am not required to believe things that I think are 1) self-contradictory 2) make God seem evil, 3) are extremely doubtful, or 4) are impossible.
There is not the same kind of infallible, authoritative, centralized structure to Judaism.Every religion struggles with the problem of evil. INCLUDING Judaism. However, Christianity through the interpretation and study of Jesus, literally of word, figurative of image, and endospirtually of prayer, meditation, imitation, and mysticism, offers what no other religion can to help solve the problem of evil; which solution consists in this: Deliverance from evil. Amen.
Being poor or an addict? This doesn’t even warrant a response.
It proves that though the Name is holy and may not be defiled even by blasphemy, the Devil may yet quote scripture.
Is God the cause of the existence of everything or not? Does God know everything there is to know or not? Are these not “yes or no” questions? Why not?
I could be wrong, but I believe that the Torah tells us that God does allow evil, but that he is still “all good” because we don’t have a reason to suppose that God allows evil for no reason or without a greater good. We just don’t know. That is OK. He wills evil, but we just don’t have enough knowledge to say that it is gratuitous. Eternal hell, however, seems likely to be a gratuitous evil.
Indeed, of course you have compassion for the poor or drug addicts, even though their situations may have been self-inflicted. Why do we have more compassion for the poor and drug addicts than the souls endlessly suffering in eternal torment?
Also read about the sheep and the goats. Matthew 25, 31-46. Why are the sinners sent off to eternal punishment? Is it because they “desired the pain of separation from God?” It seems to me, clearly not.
He doesn’t “will” evil. He merely proves not to stop it, and thereby proves that either we resist evil by prayer, or, if they are evil, they follow the sound of it.
It’s a good question. We are still resolved to help the poor and addicted, whereas the morass of discussion and shameful doctrine on hell in the Church leads people to believe they cannot any longer help a person in hell; even though we know full well that we profess to be imitators of he who “descended to the land of the dead”…to ensure the good news was heard there also.
Action speaks louder than words.
The serpent was there in the garden. Yes god created it. but in my opinion, it represents the inclinations of nature.
the food was good, and everything natural desires what is good. god wanted more for man than to be natural in that all that is natural is not good – ie, poisons, vicious animals etc as these would become after the fall. i see it as a warning, which indeed it was, that life without obedience to God is a dangerous endeavor fraught with difficulties. the fall is also the beginning of a continuing and loving act of creation.
If in the full Grace of Christ there is no difference between man and God. This is a practical matter of improbability in this sinful age. But, nevertheless, the gap has been narrowed to sufficient terms that we are free to abdicate and go to hell. God knows, perhaps not ‘if’ so much as more ‘when’ we make that choice because he searches hearts. he tries to avert it for us. but if we really desire hell, then they are evil and that is their place to go.
It is almost as if the evil in man “converts” God’s human bound omnipotence, freedom to choose, into a weapon for destruction or eternal punishment of the self. since the root of all evil is the love of money, death of the body extirpates this evil, and then we shall see that they are evil if they yet choose hell.
Please provide the references.
Jude cannot help the souls in hell–they are eternally lost. The “hopeless cases” he helps with are only the ones concerning those still alive on earth–people who seem intractable, situations that are humanly impossible to solve, etc., but of those alive on earth, not those in hell.
Please provide the references.
“Plucked out of the fire” is an expression that means “rescued before it was too late.” For those in hell is it too late. They are lost and burning not on the verge of being lost.
It doesn’t matter what you or I want to think about this, the Church teaching is very clear that those in hell are lost for eternity and cannot be rescued. If we are going to interpret Scripture however it appeals to us we may as well become Protestants who do that very thing to justify rejecting many core doctrines.I’d like to resolve the verse of the Letter first. I have been stubborn on this before, but I’ll keep an open mind
You say the church teaching is clear. I agree. But there is a sense in Scriptural Authority that angelic forces are involved at the time of death. Archangel Michael, for example, is mentioned in Jude. And the angels in the Genesis account of Sodom and Gomorrah. This means to me that hell is not fully resolved by the soul by the mere loss of consciousness at death, but by a choice to “assent” to its depravity. Just as it may take years to assent to the baptismal vow, or even to become aware of it, so at death time might very well be indeterminate. In that case, though the body may well be in hell, and the mind too, if the will has not consented to the depravity of hell, a soul is raped in the fire once said to be lost in the fire.