Is the fires of hell God's mercy?

[MainBrain]

Someone in a YouTube comment wrote that the fires of hell is God’s mercy in that they distract the lost soul’s realization of their eternal absence from God. I hope I got their post correct.

This sound strange to me. Has anyone read anything like this?

 

[Della]

I’ve never heard that before, either. It sounds like speculation or perhaps something one of the saints wrote, probably taken out of context and/or misquoted. It sounds like a way to mitigate the major suffering of hell–separation from God, which certainly sounds better than suffering all the sufferings of hell, whatever they are (we can’t say for certain). I wouldn’t count on it, though if I knew I was destined for the infernal regions.

 

[Richca]

Someone in a YouTube comment wrote that the fires of hell is God’s mercy in that they distract the lost soul’s realization of their eternal absence from God. I hope I got their post correct.

This sound strange to me. Has anyone read anything like this?

No, I’ve never read something like this. The fires of hell pertain to God’s justice and punishment though even this punishment of hell is tempered with God’s mercy in that the fallen angels and souls in hell are not punished as much as they deserve as some of the saints and doctors of the Church have said.

 

[PraiseChrist]

Someone in a YouTube comment wrote that the fires of hell is God’s mercy in that they distract the lost soul’s realization of their eternal absence from God. I hope I got their post correct.

This sound strange to me. Has anyone read anything like this?

No I haven’t heard of that. The pain of sense (like the fires, ect.) is only meant to serve as an addition to the pain of loss (losing God, the ultimate good, forever), as a form of pure justice.

That being said, the Passion is compared to hell. Christ accepting the passion was like the pain of sense (burning sense of the wounds and scourging), with the abandonment by God the Father (pain of loss), for our sake. The difference is that Christ didn’t deserve the Passion, but we deserved hell from our mortal sins

 

[GEddie]

If Hell really is in Michigan, then it freezes over every year.

Seriously though, there is no direct equivalence between the suffering of human bodies, and the experience of the spiritual body. Any attempt to interpret the next life will be incomplete.

ICXC NIKA

 

[brad90956]

Someone in a YouTube comment wrote that the fires of hell is God’s mercy in that they distract the lost soul’s realization of their eternal absence from God. I hope I got their post correct.

This sound strange to me. Has anyone read anything like this?

I haven’t heard that exact saying but I have read something similar. I’m sorry, I can’t remember where I read it but it went something like this…God is love and mercy but He is also about justice. For souls that have denied God, not repented or turned back to Him, God sends them to Hell because just being in God’s presence brings them more pain than Hell. He is being merciful to them by not allowing them to be in His presence.

It is similar to the Souls in Purgatory. St. Catherine of Siena (Treatise on Purgatory) says a soul chooses Purgatory to be purified because they do not want to be in God’s presence with the slightest stain of sin on their soul.

No tongue can tell nor explain, no mind understand, the grievousness of
Purgatory. But I, though I see that there is in Purgatory as much pain as
in Hell, yet see the soul which has the least stain of imperfection
accepting Purgatory, as I have said, as though it were a mercy, and holding
its pains of no account as compared with the least stain which hinders a
soul in its love. I seem to see that the pain which souls in Purgatory
endure because of whatever in them displeases God, that is what they have
willfully done against His so great goodness, is greater than any other
pain they feel in Purgatory. And this is because, being in grace, they see
the truth and the grievousness of the hindrance which stays them from
drawing near to God.

To return to our matter which is the Purgatory of the soul separated from
the body when it is no longer clean as it was created. Seeing in itself the
impediment which can be taken away only by means of Purgatory, it casts
itself therein swiftly and willingly.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

God’s mercy is given to us in salvation through Jesus Christ.

While we were yet still sinners, God humbled Himself and became man in Jesus Christ.

Although He was divine in nature, he took on human nature. He was born as a human. Grew up as a human, eating sleeping and suffering colds and scrapes. He became an adult and lived and worked along side human beings. He then was put to death by human beings.

I don’t know what more God can show in how merciful he is?

As St Pope John Paul II said, God does not send souls to hell, they go there on their own.

God’s justice is not retributive justice, but restorative justice.

God wants us all, to be in heaven with Him. Many refuse and God allows them to remain separate from Him, which is what hell actually is.

Jim