Is God's mercy available in Hell?

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Arrowood

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I have a moral theology class this year (juniors in high school) who are having a hard time swallowing that once a person is in Hell, there is no more opportunity for salvation. I have told them that God’s judgment of us after we die respects our freely made choice to have a relationship with Him or to refuse His love and mercy. That opened their eyes a lot. However, they still don’t see why someone couldn’t repent of their sins once they now beyond a doubt that God is real. We’ve had the discussion about this life being our time to choose, and why God would want us to choose when His existence is veiled to us. They’re still not buying it. I don’t want to go into all of the arguments I’ve used, but one student proposed an idea that I did not know how to respond to.

He wrote me a note saying, “I am of the firm belief that God loves us so much he will always offer himself to us. I believe tho (sic) our ability to choose it is impared (sic).” Later in the note he says, “In hell God will offer salvation but we cannot accept it. Since hell is lies it is safe to assume that the perfect truth could not be told. We couldn’t percive (sic) God as good or his message of salvation as real. We may percive (sic) it as a crule (sic) joke or something. In hell we yearn for salvation but we hate God for sending us there. It is an unending cycle of love that is returned in hate. God loves us so much, to let us live in lies (according to our free choice), but he will always offer the truth.”

Basically, he is saying that truth, mercy, and salvation are offered, but those in hell are unable to receive it. I wanted to get some reaction to this idea. Where better to go than Catholic Answers forum?

Thanks for any (name removed by moderator)ut you can give!
 
Nope. You are in hell because you have rejected God’s mercy.

NO SOUP FOR YOU!
 
Whats makes Hell Hell is that we are tottaly deprived of God. There we cannot recieve his grace or mercy. Those who are there have had their chance, and chose not to take advantage of the opporunity. See the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1035.
 
Why doesn’t God give people a second chance then after they die? This would be overwhelming coercive. Once people saw Hell, what choice would they have? They no longer freely choose to love God but desire only to avoid hell. Hell is not torture. God is indeed generous, loving, and merciful. He is also holy, moral, righteous, and just. We are created for purpose, and when we fail consistently to live for that purpose, God gives us what we have asked for. People do not consciously choose hell of course. They do chose not to care about the kinds of values that will present in heaven. Life on earth is preparing for a life in heaven.
 
Sir Knight:
Once people saw Hell, what choice would they have? They no longer freely choose to love God but desire only to avoid hell.
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This is such a great point. I explained that the Beatific Vision would make it impossible for us to choose freely because we would be irresistibly drawn to God’s glory. However, I was at a bit of a loss to explain why Hell would impede free choice as well. I missed the fact that people in Hell would be irresistibly repulsed by Hell. Thanks!
 
Sir Knight:
Hell is not torture.
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I can’t say that I remember reading that in the Catechism. To live without God is to live in great torture, worse than anything we could possible go through on Earth.
 
Someone whose opinion I greatly respect once told me: “People are not in hell because they** don’t** repent, they are in hell because they won’t repent”…
 
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Zooey:
Someone whose opinion I greatly respect once told me: “People are not in hell because they** don’t** repent, they are in hell because they won’t repent”…
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Exactly, Hell is always a choice, but the longer a soul is in hell, the deeper its hate grows for God…

so in all actuallity the answer to the initial question could be yes…what do you all think
 
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Arrowood:
Is God’s mercy available in Hell
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Deep question…here’s my two cents…

Hell is ultimately the result of choosing self over God. Dying in such a state, God gives the person exactly what they want, self separated from God. In such a state the person’s entire desire is directed toward’s themselves - if it was “hard” for them to choose God in this life, it is impossile in hell because their love of self is total and all encompassing - their will if fixed, the chance at redemtion God so gernerously offered time and time again has been rejected, they have given themselves over to themselves forever, and by their own choice are eternally self-excluded from God.

This theology explains (to me at least) why God doesn’t just blank them out of existance, it explains why hell is eternal. God gives them exactly what they want - and their “love” of self is so completely total in hell, that despite the unbelievable sufferings there, they still want to exist in it because of their self “love” (if one can call it that). I use the term “love” here in the disordered twisted sense of the Deceiver - not the true sense of Love which is God.

Further, since every soul in hell knows exactly why they are in hell, and that their being there is their own choice, their self-love won’t allow them to admit they made the wrong choice, so repentance is out of the question.

And I think they do grow in their hatered of God simply for His being God. Their “love” of self is so disordered that they detest God for being all good (which they know longer understand what “good” even is, just that it is something that isn’t them) and for having the audacity to be more powerful than they.

For what I think is brilliant insight into hell - and an entertaining read to boot - check out The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. It’s a fictional book, but a facinating parody of the workings of hell.

Peace,

DustinsDad
 
Hello Arrowood,

God’s mercy, even in the face of repentance, is not available in hell because Jesus teaches us it is not. Some times you just have to have faith and believe in what the Teacher tells you.

LUKE 16:19 The Rich Man and Lazarus

“There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.’ Abraham replied, ‘My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here,** whereas you are tormented. Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours**.’ He said, 'Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’ But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’ He said, ‘Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’”

Peace in Christ,
Steven Merten
www.ILOVEYOUGOD.com
 
If God wanted the whole world to repent and love Jesus He wouldn’t have to wait until people were in Hell - he could come right down here now and make such an uneblievable presence everyone would instantly believe forever. So it’s not about finding ways to MAKE us repent, God has another plan, and like a good parent He is not shoving this down our throat.
 
God is perfectly just. Therefore, he would not make our ultimate fate dependent upon something which we are incapable of doing in this life. We must assume that however flawed our judgment is now, however corrupt because of sin, we are capable of making the ultimate choice for or against him.

Hell is also in the mercy of God: God is one; his judgment and his mercy are one. “Our God is a consuming fire.” (Heb. 12:29)
 
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Arrowood:
I have a moral theology class this year (juniors in high school) who are having a hard time swallowing that once a person is in Hell, there is no more opportunity for salvation. I have told them that God’s judgment of us after we die respects our freely made choice to have a relationship with Him or to refuse His love and mercy. That opened their eyes a lot. However, they still don’t see why someone couldn’t repent of their sins once they now beyond a doubt that God is real. We’ve had the discussion about this life being our time to choose, and why God would want us to choose when His existence is veiled to us. They’re still not buying it.

There are plenty of souls that know God exists and still choose to reject Him.
Basically, he is saying that truth, mercy, and salvation are offered, but those in hell are unable to receive it. I wanted to get some reaction to this idea. Where better to go than Catholic Answers forum?
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How can salvation be offered to those already damned? Our will is sealed at death.
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Thank you all for your replies so far.

Allen537: The Catechism was our starting point, but I have students that are rejecting the Church’s teachings, and other students who are trying to use reasoning (ala Saint Thomas Aquinas) to defend the Church. I know that at some point reasoning fails and faith must take over, but many of my students are not there yet. We’re still battling the Enlightenment, as well as Subjectivism. I encourage my students to use science, reasoning, and faith to explore the truth.

DustinsDad: I think your line of thinking is the same as this student’s. I used Saint Augustine’s teaching of evil being an absence or distortion of good, and this student ran with that truth in his thoughts about Hell.

Steven Merten: That’s the first Scripture verse I thought of in response to his note.

Just a clarification: The question is NOT whether or not someone in Hell can achieve salvation. I made it very clear that our wills are sealed (as fix put it) once we die. The author of this note (in the first post) is actually arguing against those students who reject this truth and believe that salvation is possible after a soul is in Hell. He’s just trying to find an argument that reconciles God’s mercy with His justice.
 
Sir Knight:
Why doesn’t God give people a second chance then after they die? .
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He does, it is called Judgement. When the soul dies it is given the complete knowledge required to make a fully informed rational free will choice between God and the opposite of God - deprivation and separation from God – for all eternity. This choice is not made in the limits of human earthly knowledge and intellect, it is made with the full knowledge possible only after death. Once the choice is made it is irrevocable and eternal. That is the full dimension of free will, and without that possibility the free choice for God, for love would not be possible.
 
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puzzleannie:
He does, it is called Judgement. When the soul dies it is given the complete knowledge required to make a fully informed rational free will choice between God and the opposite of God - deprivation and separation from God – for all eternity. This choice is not made in the limits of human earthly knowledge and intellect, it is made with the full knowledge possible only after death. Once the choice is made it is irrevocable and eternal. That is the full dimension of free will, and without that possibility the free choice for God, for love would not be possible.
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[1022](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/1022.htm’)😉 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification594 or immediately,595 – or immediate and everlasting damnation.596
 
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