Making Hell make sense

[Thorolfr]

People know that what they are going to do offends God to the core, but they do it anyways. Acts that are contrary to love.

There are many people who don’t believe that many things the Catholic Church considers to be sins are really sins at all and I’m not convinced that they know to their core that these things offend God. For example, according to polls, an overwhelming majority of Americans, including many Protestants, do not believe that there is anything wrong with using artificial birth control. If those people die, are they going to go to hell because they chose and wanted to go there by using artificial birth control?

 

[LittleFlower378]

I’m sure there are many people as you say, don’t fully understand that contraception is gravely immoral in today’s society. Objective mortal sin still huts the Body of Christ. Only God knows people’s culpability. There is invincible ignorance but there is also vincible ignorance. I’m sure many people know contraception is wrong but do it anyways.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

Catholic moral teaching is nuanced and has long understood that there is a subjective element as well as the objective.

Even Thomas Aquinas noted how ignorance and passion can reduce culpability of sin.

No one goes to hell merely due to a lack of knowledge. That much, I think everyone on here can agree to. This goes to the non-Christian, as well as the Christian who may not truly understand that a particular action is wrong.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

And as @magnanimity has pointed out, it’s often too simplistic to simply lay out a Catechism quote without knowing the greater context.

The understanding of hell has most definitely evolved – even changed – over time. It used to be common to talk about a pain of sense as well as loss. In fact, many early fathers and thinkers like Aquinas even thought at length about the nature of “fire” in hell.

But in the last 100 years or so, even the official Magisterium has moved away from the idea of hell as punishment, and the pain of sense. Instead, there is now more of an emphasis on hell as a self-imposed state.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

I do accept the church’s infallibility,

BUT I do think one downside in Western Catholicism is an over-emphasis on delineating specific doctrines, as if Faith were just a matter of going down the checklist of specific points of belief.

It certaintly includes this, and clarification is needed, especially when people challenge beliefs. But when a question is brought up, and “dogma” is the answer is not very helpful to people who are either (1) discerning Catholicism in general or (2) having difficulty with a belief in particular.

I think this is one reason it might be more possible in the Christian East to have more various views on hell, since the approach to faith is mystical.

 

[Pug]

Here is a tangent off LittleFlower 378: Say a brother does a subjective mortal sin. Does that affect the body of Christ?

Surely it does, since a brother is cut off. How painful that is in a family! The reason hell is bothersome to some (maybe me) is that my brother or sister might be missing in heaven. How will we be happy then? It is hard to understand. Perhaps the beatific vision will erase any concern or worry for the missing one. All tears are to be wiped away. But it is hard to understand no tears without my brother or sister.

So, as another poster mentioned, maybe the objection is about heaven and not hell.

 

[TMC]

The reason hell is bothersome to some (maybe me) is that my brother or sister might be missing in heaven. How will we be happy then?

Maybe heaven and hell are not spatially distinct. It could be that you can still interact with your brother, as you do here, while he is not in communion with God, and you are. We know that is possible in this life, why not in the next? After all, the primary punishment of hell is separation from God, and that does not require separation from you.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

He would be suffering and since he is deprived of the grace of God, he wouldn’t be pleasant to talk too, hypothetically speaking.

 

[Pug]

Good thought, especially since I am in the love of God like a fire camp. But my brother would be in pain, in torment, suffering. If that were the case right now (thankfully my brother is fine), I would not be very happy. I know, eye has not seen, but I wonder how I’d be happy with my brother suffering.

 

[awesomecatholic]

God gave us free will. Evil people to choose to offend God and do not repent before they die. They may not be saying specifically that they choose Hell, but evil people make a choice and don’t even realize it

 

[Magnanimity]

@Pug and @TMC, I love where y’all are going with this line of thought! Recently, in another thread that @RealisticCatholic had going, I shared some wonderful quotes from Sts Catherine of Sienna and Teresa of Avila that are very much in line with your thinking here. Great stuff and I imagine it’s so very near the truth of where this is all headed. The possibility of Hell for myself but especially for the other should be absolutely intolerable to me. As in, no one gets left behind. None of us rests until hell is emptied of human souls and evil is self-consumed.

 

[TMC]

@Pug and @TMC, I love where y’all are going with this line of thought! Recently, in another thread that @RealisticCatholic had going, I shared some wonderful quotes from Sts Catherine of Sienna and Teresa of Avila that are very much in line with your thinking here. Great stuff and I imagine it’s so very near the truth of where this is all headed. The possibility of Hell for myself but especially for the other should be absolutely intolerable to me. As in, no one gets left behind. None of us rests until hell is emptied of human souls and evil is self-consumed.

Yes, I particularly agree with your text that I bolded.

 

[Pug]

Dear Father in heaven, may this move us to more fervently pray for all souls in need!

 

[CRV]

The reason hell is bothersome to some (maybe me) is that my brother or sister might be missing in heaven.

But it is hard to understand no tears without my brother or sister

How will we be happy then?

Perhaps the beatific vision will erase any concern or worry for the missing one.

You answered your own questions. Our goal on earth is to reach Heaven where God will be all in all. Regardless of what “mansion/room” God has prepared for us, we will be completely and perfectly happy. There is no room for sadness (the opposite of joy) in heaven.

Think of this example - Everyone in the family is invited to a party. For whatever reason, your brother/sister refuses to go. You still go. Are you not going to enjoy the party just because your brother/sister refused to go? No, you respect their decision not to attend, and enjoy yourself at the party. God respects the choices we make in life.

 

[Magnanimity]

There is no room for sadness (the opposite of joy) in heaven.

This is true, and yet how could every tear be wiped away if your daughter (for example) is not in His Father’s house?

Think of this example - Everyone in the family is invited to a party. For whatever reason, your brother/sister refuses to go. You still go. Are you not going to enjoy the party just because your brother/sister refused to go?

I’ve heard the party example many times before. Church leaders I greatly respect (Bishop R. Barron) use it. And yet, the analogy Christ draws on is that of family and the place is not a party, as you note above—it’s a house (home) where we all belong. You do not belong there any more than your daughter (are not more entitled than she). And, again, how could one rest knowing his daughter was “out there?” Away from home. Away from her own beatitude. I challenge you that if you’re a parent, you would find that situation to be insufferable. You would never rest, and your sorrow would not leave you (as it shouldn’t).

 

[thistle]

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.

You have moved the goalposts. My comment was about the existence of Hell, not about who may or may not be there.

However, as you have now brought that up we know from Jesus’ own words there are many in Hell.

Matt 7:13
"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.

 

[LittleFlower378]

Of course we have to believe that people are in hell.

 

[TMC]

You have moved the goalposts. My comment was about the existence of Hell, not about who may or may not be there.

I’m sorry if I misunderstood your post. Because you were responding to the statement that we do not know the nature of hell or whether anyone goes there, I thought you were saying Catholics cannot believe that everyone can be saved. So do we agree that the Church allows the belief that all may be saved?

 

[thistle]

I’m sorry if I misunderstood your post. Because you were responding to the statement that we do not know the nature of hell or whether anyone goes there, I thought you were saying Catholics cannot believe that everyone can be saved. So do we agree that the Church allows the belief that all may be saved?

The Church has no position on this other than that nobody is predestined to go to Hell.
We know that many will be in Hell because Jesus said so. The Church does not teach who is in Hell.

 

[TMC]

The Church has no position on this other than that nobody is predestined to go to Hell.
We know that many will be in Hell because Jesus said so. The Church does not teach who is in Hell.

OK, so we do disagree. I do not believe that the Church teaches that we know that anyone is in hell - not just any particular person, but anyone at all. Catholics are free to believe that all will be saved in the end. That is my understanding of Church teaching.