Making Hell make sense

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What we can do is pray for those most need of Gods mercy. I know the majority are stubborn and don’t want to change for the better, but have faith in God. May God have mercy on all of us! We need to inform people about Gods love for us more often. Satan and all the evil spirits prowl around the world seeking the ruin of souls. Remember we are just on this earth temporary, God wants to share eternal happiness with all of us. Many are so into what goes on in this world that they forget about what really matters. Sure we suffer, but I would rather suffer for God than to suffer for the world. God in the end will give us peace, but not as the world gives us; if we choose to do His will.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
In other words, did he accept the scriptural data based on his understanding it to be an eternal hell, and yet did he have difficulty with it?
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Many scholars have made much of the fact that St Augustine attributed an enormous amount of guilt to Adam and thereby extended that guilt to all his descendants. DB Hart makes much out of Augustine’s usage of a Latin translation of the book of Romans (he didn’t read Greek) and a verse such as Rom 5:12 goes to mean, for Augustine, that the guilt of the sin of Adam extends all the way down—we inherit it. I remember in Von Balthasar’s book Dare We Hope he believes that a great error of Augustine was to focus far more heavily on the sin of Adam than on the redemption of Christ.

And yet, St Augustine does seem to acknowledge the flip side nature of mercy and justice in places. For example, he says, “the soul of Christ made its way into that region in which sinners are tormented, in order that he might redeem as many of them from their tortured as he, in his justice that is hidden from us, saw fit to redeem.” De Genesi ad Litt. XII

And at one point Von Balthasar notes his surprise at St Augustine seeing the justice and mercy of God as non-exclusive in various commentaries on the Psalms. St Augustine asserts that “God is omnipotent: he lets go of neither justice in showing mercy nor mercy in judging justly.” Dare We Hope, p. 116.

So, I haven’t come across much torment within the mind and soul of St Augustine for his vision of Hell, although the above at least mitigates against seeing him as presenting a vision of God that would suggest an easily conceived god of finite mercy. At least there’s that…:man_shrugging:t2:
 
po18guy said:
Hmmm…never seen that in any catechism - it sounds like universalism, which is not consistent with the Catholic faith. Check again.
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I think that @RealisticCatholic’s description is consistent with the Catechism. The Catechism discusses the role of sin, but clearly defines hell as a free choice to be separated from God:
To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell”.
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True, but 1) culpable negligence in seeking the truth is one cause and 2) his/her statement seems to imply that our default before God is heaven.

Not so.
 
po18guy said:
True, but 1) culpable negligence in seeking the truth is one cause and 2) his/her statement seems to imply that our default before God is heaven.

Not so.
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I think that the “default” is an open question. I read Catholic theology as saying that any baptized person has sanctifying grace, which much then be destroyed to result in Hell. And Catholic theology makes that grace available even to the non-baptized. Grace cannot be earned, but it is freely given. So while the idea that hell is the default can fit within Catholic tradition, and is held by many, the idea that heaven is more likely also fits into Catholic tradition, and has also been held by many.

Put another way, the Church teaches that Catholics must believe in Hell, but I don’t think the Church teaches that Catholics must believe that Hell is the default or the norm.
 
Do you also ask the same question about eternal beatitude?
If not, why not?
Given your own question, how does heaven make any sense?
 
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By analogy, in high performance driving or racing, if one focuses on the ditch, he will end up there. Our cultural focus on sin and hell is upsetting, frankly. What is lost in this obsession, this downward gaze, this glance away from goodness?

Virtues and heaven.

Self is hell.
God is heaven.

We choose our orientation, as we have free will. Baptism restores our state of grace, but does not and cannot touch our concupiscence. We are inclined toward sin. How does that get us to the Kingdom? Where we are likely to end up depends on our hearts, the Sacraments (which exist for valid and crucial reasons) and God’s grace and ultimate mercy.

Mea maxima culpa, inasmuch as I failed to note that this is posted under “philosophy” - most of which simply makes my head hurt.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
It’s not getting to the heart of it.
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To me, that is the heart of it. People have made bad and stupid choices as long as there have been people. Just because you cannot comprehend why someone would make that choice does not mean it isn’t made repeatedly by numerous people every day.
 
These questions always boil down to a simple answer.
The problem with evil is that we have no problem with good.

God is either forcing both down our throats,
or
We freely accept our human responsibility, acknowledging the radical possibilities that being human opens up.

You can’t just isolate hell and make it a stand-alone problem. Hell only makes sense because union with God is so good.
And if you don’t freely choose heaven, you don’t really have it. And for me personally, I don’t want “meh” for heaven, I desire to conform my will with God’s in freedom and responsibility.
 
Conformity to Christ means to think and act as he does.
Christ comes into the human condition and freely accepts responsibility for all-of-it.
Christ does not pick and choose the good stuff and look for escapes from other things that are less palatable.

Like Christ, an integral part of being human is to accept what is, not what we would rather have. Part of human existence is the radical possibility of sin and it’s consequences. By conviction, we come to realize and admit that we abuse our free will and choose poorly. We can’t come to conformity with Christ without taking responsibility for sin and it’s consequences. It’s part of who we are, unfortunately. And only in Christ can we be taken out of sin into beatitude, by following his way in fidelity.

The cardinal vice is pride. The virtue opposed to pride is humility. “Humus”. Earth. Well grounded. Knowing who you are and accepting responsibility for your choices. Appreciating the awesome possibilities that following Christ offers.

Following Christ is not only comforting and edifying. It is that. And it is also threatening to our fallen human way of thinking and acting. And that’s good.
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
To me, in order for a doctrine or understanding of hell to be coherent, it has to show that someone knowingly and freely chooses hell, such that the individual is getting what he wants.

How can someone choose hell, even knowing God is his ultimate good and happiness?
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These are very interesting questions. I come at this problem of hell much like DB Hart does. I always want to press people on the question—toward what would a human orient her will in Hell? What would be the will’s proper object in such a state of existence? We were made for beatitude, made for God (Goodness). So what (quite literally) is going on in Hell? What are people doing and being?

@John_Martin here at CAF uses a good analogy. (Hopefully I won’t misrepresent him!) But he puts it like Eastern thinkers do—so not so much the prison concept—but rather the claim that God is the source of all light. As one is turned toward that light, it’s illuminating. However, if one turns away from that light, it’s burning (it’s hell). But God remains the source/light no matter what condition the human is in. So it’s hell (or heaven) merely from the human’s perspective and orientation to the light.

This reminds me of Ratzinger and CS Lewis and others who suggest a closeness of the divine presence even to those who are in Hell. However, a ramification of this view certainly seems to be that the forever and inescapable punitive, prison concept of Hell is not compatible with these views. Since humans cannot stand intense torment and suffering and go to great lengths to escape it here on earth (drugs, alcohol, porn, suicide), then this is likely a permanent aspect of humanity.

So there are two sides to consider, merely from the aspect of the individual human. The ever-present orientation of her will toward some good(s). How does this fit with being “in Hell?” And, humans utterly reject loneliness/despair/torment/suffering in their lives. When humans are miserable, they tend to anesthetize themselves or they reorient themselves toward the good. How does this aspect of humanity fit with being “in Hell?”
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
There are Catholics on here more researched into this issue than I am.

They rightly point out the Tradition of the church has often included various divergences on the nature of hell and if anyone goes there.
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This has zero to do with any Church tradition. This is Church DOGMA, meaning it is an infallible teaching.
All Catholics are bound to believe in Hell. End of story.
 
LittleFlower378 said:
One must be Baptised to go to heaven, so there must be a formal baptism, or a baptism of desire, or a baptism of blood.
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So, the Buddhist, the Muslim, the Hindu, etc. all choose and want to be in hell by not being Christians?
 
Yes, it makes much more sense, because we’re made for the good. God made us to want the good. And eternal beatitude is man’s natural fulfillment.
 
thistle said:
This has zero to do with any Church tradition. This is Church DOGMA, meaning it is an infallible teaching.
All Catholics are bound to believe in Hell. End of story.
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The Church teaches that Catholics must believe in hell. The Church does not teach that Catholics must believe anyone is in hell. In fact, Catholics are taught to hope and pray that all are saved. There have been plenty of Catholics who have believed that all are saved, with Origen being the most prominent example.
 
Thorolfr said:
So, the Buddhist, the Muslim, the Hindu, etc. all choose and want to be in hell by not being Christians?
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Not necessarily. I don’t want to turn this into an EENS thread, but suffice to say that the Church teaches that non-Christians can be saved (not that they will, necessarily, but they can).
 
They could implicitly have a baptism of desire or of blood and be saved.
 
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