Maybe it is kind in the sense that G-d is giving the souls in hell what they have freely chosen by separating themselves from Him in the present life. Further, it would not be kind to expose them to the presence of G-d since this would be too brilliant and disturbing for them to submit to and appreciate.
I meant it in the sense that for the first 15 billion years of the universe I didn’t exist. And then I was born. In another 50 or so years I will no longer exist, atleast in a physical sense. Life is easily explainable when it is impersonal, and something completely seperate from yourself. It is easy to think that life exists on some distant planet. It makes complete sense that through chance and science, matter might form into a basic amino acid or DNA, and subsequently evolve. It is completely logical, and even probably. It makes sense to say advanced life like apes and even humans developed through this evolution. The brain as an organ makes perfect sense, and to say it is the source of all sensory perception and memory makes sense. Considering everything objectively, and as an uninterested observer from the outside, everything makes sense.
The Orthodox have an idea that Heaven and Hell are really the same thing, just the Presence of God. The only difference is, the souls in Heaven love Him, and the souls in Hell hate Him. This makes sense also of Purgatory, I think. Those who loved Him, but imperfectly, would have their imperfections burned away by Him. It says in your Scriptures, “Our God is a consuming fire.”
It seems to me any philosophy that denies the reality of hell denies the reality of free will, and by denying the reality of free will, denies the reality of love.Unitarians are Unitarian /Universalists. Universalism believes that eventually all will be saved. Unfortunately, I am using a tablet and cannot post sites. However, if you google," universalism yale pantheon " and go to that site you will see scriptural evidence for such a position. On a personal note, such a position seems rational to me because to posit an eternal hell created by God, is an insult to God.
PS: Perhaps you should add to your name “except for those in hell”.
O.K.
Thanks for the elucidation!God’s existence or lack of existence is completely independent of my existence, but whether I believe in God’s existence, and question it is completely dependent on my existence. The timing of your post fits in well with my last post. It is only a subjective knowledge of life that makes me think about God’s existence. It doesn’t matter how much you throw objective arguments at me, they never become a subjective knowledge. You could point to the unmoved mover, and someone could easily explain things in a very rational and material sense. So it will always be irrelevant to me. You could point to the design of the universe and say that it is irrational to say that something so perfectly ordered came about through chance. It is easy to respond that it is perfectly logical. God is superfluous from an objective view, because science explains everything.
There are a few typos here that change the meanings of sentences. First, I meant that it is easy to say advanced life ‘evolved’, not devolved. Second, the thread I referred to where I posted something similar is the reincarnation thread here on the philosophy forum, not a thread on the incarnation. That is all for now.
I’m a response from a person who claims to consist of nothing more than inanimate materials!You were expecting a response from inanimate materials?
You are assuming that evil persons don’t choose to be independent. Hell has its compensations!
You miss the point in its entirety.
Thus the state of hell is properly defined as a state in which the soul is separated from God. This would be nonsense, considering God’s omnipresence and the fact that only God is (implying the very existence of the soul is contingent to its unity to God), unless it was by a special grace springing forth from God’s own benevolent will.
I don’t think so. But I am going to answer you one more time, and then leave off this part of the discussion, because it does not tend to edification.
God is Love. There are no conditions attached to that statement. However, the notion of “unconditional love” is very human, humanistic, psychology-based. It isn’t found anywhere in Scripture or in Catholic Doctrine, so we must assume it is a human attempt to understand what may be beyond human comprehension.
Scripture says God creates evil, and the meaning of that particular passage is clarified by the Church: God does not create the evil of malice, but He creates the evil of punishment. So there is your answer to the question you asked above: the cause of their damnation is their own malice, so that is self-inflicted, but the punishment of that malice is torment in fire, and that is inflicted by God.
But they have no comprehension of what that might mean, as Scripture says, “the wicked will never understand.”
This is where my belief is more or less the opposite of yours and apparently meltzerboy’s. The souls in hell cannot experience love, since they have rendered themselves unlovable. For an unlovable soul to experience love is like a square being a circle. So it is not a question of God not allowing them to experience His love, rather it is the fact that they have freely rejected all possibility of such experiences. For God to give them the experience of His love would be mercy, and in such a case they would not be in hell, but they have rejected all Mercy. So God does not love them. God cannot love them any more than God can make a square a circle.
Utterly false. You are right, it is nonsense. Hell is defined as definitive self-exclusion from God’s Love and Mercy. It is not defined as self-exclusion from God’s Presence, because that is impossible. God is present to the souls in Hell in His Justice. In fact, they can never forget God in Hell, they only wish they could. There is no “special grace” given to the souls in Hell. That, in fact, is an insult to the very concept of grace. Special graces are granted to souls who love God, for carrying out specific tasks of Love. There is no Love in Hell; there is no grace in Hell; there is none of God’s benevolence, in Hell. There is only torment.
Yes, entirely different. And the whole difference is the presence or absence of Love.
The Sin against the Holy Ghost is a final decision to reject all grace and all love. That is a free-will decision, so they have already exercised their free will, who are in Hell.
This is a fascinating interpretation. It seems to me, however, that it is based on a literal interpretation of what you point out appears in the Hebrew Bible. IOW, you evidently believe in a literal hell-fire that consumes people’s bodies and souls for all eternity. This is not the Jewish interpretation of passages that mention the consumption by fire. Judaism is unwilling, for the most part, to speak of G-d’s justice in terms of eternal damnation. This is because the concept of justice itself incorporates the never-ending mercy of G-d. It is not a dichotomy as you seem to suggest. So how would a truly evil person be dealt with, if not by means of an agonizingly slow and eternal decomposition of their body and soul? Some in Judaism say that the soul of such people may be annihilated, totally consumed by the (metaphorical) fire: that is, a quick and painless death of the soul. But for the most part, we were and are silent about this, trusting that G-d has a way of doling out rewards and punishments with both justice and mercy that is beyond our comprehension.
Both of you appear to be willing to leave it up to God to decide, finally, what happens to souls. And that is commendable. I, too, leave all right to final judgment on any of these matters, in God’s hands. And He is Infinite Mercy!!!