Need apologetics help about existence of hell

[PraiseChrist]

Hi,

This is another question regarding the problem of evil, so if you have weak faith, I would say to wait until someone answers the objection.

Objection to be answered:
God does not allow any evil, especially the evil of death, without willing a greater good to come from it (see Rm 8:28).This is true,

1. But how is it a greater good that God would create someone, and allow them to reject Him, because it seems there is no good from that at all.
2. How is it a greater good that God would create us with free will, than not create those who will be damned at all, since his omniscience knows who will reject Him?

Thanks for any replies.

 

[catholic1seeks]

I don’t know how to argue about what is a greater good. It seems to God that free will is a greater good.

Hell is a natural result of the human will.
No one is forced into hell. In other words, we get what we want.

 

[e_c]

Objection to be answered:
God does not allow any evil, especially the evil of death, without willing a greater good to come from it (see Rm 8:28).This is true,

1. But how is it a greater good that God would create someone, and allow them to reject Him, because it seems there is no good from that at all.
2. How is it a greater good that God would create us with free will, than not create those who will be damned at all, since his omniscience knows who will reject Him?

Thanks for any replies.

The Thomistic answer is that it is good for God to express His justice in condemning the reprobate, just as it is good for God to express His mercy in saving the elect. “As you have us to show them your holiness, so now use them to show us your glory,” says the Psalmist. However, we are careful to note that the individual sinner is responsible for his own damnation.

This is a very classic question. A good, holistic answer will touch on so many doctrines and subtleties, that it is too much to post here. Hopefully this little bit has helped. The gentleman in your tagline also was interested in this question.

However, Ignatius of Loyola recommends not talking about it with most people - as you have wisely cautioned in your OP. It is easy to misunderstand.

 

[PraiseChrist]

Thank you both for the answers, I think that it does help

The gentleman in your tagline also was interested in this question.

Indeed a very meek and gentle person!

 

[PraiseChrist]

The Thomistic answer is that it is good for God to express His justice in condemning the reprobate, just as it is good for God to express His mercy in saving the elect. “As you have us to show them your holiness, so now use them to show us your glory,” says the Psalmist. However, we are careful to note that the individual sinner is responsible for his own damnation.

This is a very classic question. A good, holistic answer will touch on so many doctrines and subtleties, that it is too much to post here. Hopefully this little bit has helped. The gentleman in your tagline also was interested in this question.

However, Ignatius of Loyola recommends not talking about it with most people - as you have wisely cautioned in your OP. It is easy to misunderstand.

Hi,
Where did you get these good answers from the saints from? Did St Thomas write that in the Summa, and did St Ignatius write that in a certain spiritual book?

Thanks

 

[e_c]

newadvent.org/summa/1023.htm#article5

Especially the reply to Objection 3.

ccel.org/ccel/ignatius/exercises.xix.v.html

Fourteenth and Fifteenth Rules.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

The Thomistic answer is that it is good for God to express His justice in condemning the reprobate, just as it is good for God to express His mercy in saving the elect. “As you have us to show them your holiness, so now use them to show us your glory,” says the Psalmist. However, we are careful to note that the individual sinner is responsible for his own damnation.

This is a very classic question. A good, holistic answer will touch on so many doctrines and subtleties, that it is too much to post here. Hopefully this little bit has helped. The gentleman in your tagline also was interested in this question.

However, Ignatius of Loyola recommends not talking about it with most people - as you have wisely cautioned in your OP. It is easy to misunderstand.

The damnation of the “reprobate” glorifies God about as much as the use of chemical weapons glorifies Bashar al-Assad, or beheadings and mass shootings glorifies ISIS. So, not at all, rather the opposite.

We can learn about the dignity and nobility of a person by seeing how they treat their enemies. We can see and know quite a lot about a person’s character by seeing how they treat their children. What does the damnation of the reprobate teach us about the person and character of God?

Some Catholics astound me. They’ll weep bitter tears for aborted embryos and hold signs up protesting the execution of brutal repeat murderers and rapists, but are perfectly content with the thought that most of humanity will end up being tortured relentlessly for eternity by God though he has always known this and chose to uniquely create these objects of torture anyway.

 

[LethalMouse]

The damnation of the “reprobate” glorifies God about as much as the use of chemical weapons glorifies Bashar al-Assad, or beheadings and mass shootings glorifies ISIS. So, not at all, rather the opposite.

We can learn about the dignity and nobility of a person by seeing how they treat their enemies. We can see and know quite a lot about a person’s character by seeing how they treat their children. What does the damnation of the reprobate teach us about the person and character of God?

Some Catholics astound me. They’ll weep bitter tears for aborted embryos and hold signs up protesting the execution of brutal repeat murderers and rapists, but are perfectly content with the thought that most of humanity will end up being tortured relentlessly for eternity by God though he has always known this and chose to uniquely create these objects of torture anyway.

Could always be the eastern version of hell as I don’t think descriptive hell is defined infallibly anywhere.

Ergo in the eastern view it is the same place as heaven only God has His back turned to you basically.

 

[fladreamer]

newadvent.org/summa/1023.htm#article5

Especially the reply to Objection 3.

ccel.org/ccel/ignatius/exercises.xix.v.html

Fourteenth and Fifteenth Rules.

About your first link: no amount of verbosity will make one sin=an eternity of terror, despair, unrelenting torment, with the presence of Satan and all the demonic hierarchy just, reasonable or worthy of an omnibenevolent, omniscient, prescient, omnipotent, perfect being who IS love. Sorry.

 

[fladreamer]

Could always be the eastern version of hell as I don’t think descriptive hell is defined infallibly anywhere.

Ergo in the eastern view it is the same place as heaven only** God has His back turned to you basically**.

God apparently being immaterial, pure spirit, how exactly does that work?

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Could always be the eastern version of hell as I don’t think descriptive hell is defined infallibly anywhere.

Ergo in the eastern view it is the same place as heaven only God has His back turned to you basically.

Granted, that’s fair. If hell isn’t really such a bad place after all, then I guess my objection doesn’t stand.

 

[Bradski]

Granted, that’s fair. If hell isn’t really such a bad place after all, then I guess my objection doesn’t stand.

Obviously I don’t think it exists at all. But that doesn’t stop me being concerned at the lack of concern people show to those who they think are either there or who they think might possibly end up there.

It is also bewildering to me how blasé people are at the prospect of themselves ending up there. If there was a one in a million chance of me being sent to hell (or at least some people’s idea of it) just for a day, I wouldn’t be able to function. In which case I can only see two options:

1. People agree with me and think it doesn’t exist.
2. They think it exists but don’t believe for one second that they will end up there (‘When the time comes I will genuinely repent and God will allow me into heaven’). That is, it’s not for them. It’s there for all the bad people.

I’ll go with 2. But I don’t know how that allows people to sleep at night knowing that even one person might be there.

 

[Cheiron]

The damnation of the “reprobate” glorifies God about as much as the use of chemical weapons glorifies Bashar al-Assad, or beheadings and mass shootings glorifies ISIS. So, not at all, rather the opposite.

We can learn about the dignity and nobility of a person by seeing how they treat their enemies. We can see and know quite a lot about a person’s character by seeing how they treat their children. What does the damnation of the reprobate teach us about the person and character of God?

Some Catholics astound me. They’ll weep bitter tears for aborted embryos and hold signs up protesting the execution of brutal repeat murderers and rapists, but are perfectly content with the thought that most of humanity will end up being tortured relentlessly for eternity by God though he has always known this and chose to uniquely create these objects of torture anyway.

Obviously I don’t think it exists at all. But that doesn’t stop me being concerned at the lack of concern people show to those who they think are either there or who they think might possibly end up there.

It is also bewildering to me how blasé people are at the prospect of themselves ending up there. If there was a one in a million chance of me being sent to hell (or at least some people’s idea of it) just for a day, I wouldn’t be able to function. In which case I can only see two options:

1. People agree with me and think it doesn’t exist.
2. They think it exists but don’t believe for one second that they will end up there (‘When the time comes I will genuinely repent and God will allow me into heaven’). That is, it’s not for them. It’s there for all the bad people.

I’ll go with 2. But I don’t know how that allows people to sleep at night knowing that even one person might be there.

I agree with both of you. I remember very well the burning of the Jordanian pilot by ISIS. Imagine that for all eternity. No crime is bad enough to justify such a punishment. Yet God, both prosecutor and judge, will sentence you to that for simply not believing in Him. (btw, why isn’t there a court of appeals?)

I wanted to respond earlier, but I was a bit shocked when I read this:

The Thomistic answer is that it is good for God to express His justice in condemning the reprobate, just as it is good for God to express His mercy in saving the elect. “As you have us to show them your holiness, so now use them to show us your glory,” says the Psalmist. However, we are careful to note that the individual sinner is responsible for his own damnation.

So God knowlingly creates people who don’t believe in Him, sends them to hell for it and some theologians even call that justice and those people’s own fault?! That’s cold.

 

[GEddie]

God apparently being immaterial, pure spirit, how exactly does that work?

Not having spiritual senses, there is no true way to answer that question, however, it can be imagined that it is the eternal version of the “silent treatment” from a spouse or loved one.

ICXC NIKA

 

[fred_conty]

Hi,

This is another question regarding the problem of evil, so if you have weak faith, I would say to wait until someone answers the objection.

Objection to be answered:
God does not allow any evil, especially the evil of death, without willing a greater good to come from it (see Rm 8:28).This is true,
1. But how is it a greater good that God would create someone, and allow them to reject Him, because it seems there is no good from that at all.
2. How is it a greater good that God would create us with free will, than not create those who will be damned at all, since his omniscience knows who will reject Him?

Thanks for any replies.

Romans 8:28

We know that by turning everything to their good God co-operates with all those that love him, with all those that he has called according to his purpose.

There is an alternate for this passage from Jerusalem Bible.

We know that for those who love God everything conspires for good, for all those he has called according to his purpose.

Answer to 1. It is for the greater good of all mankind. It many not be for the greater good of the individual. Because to reject him means he was given the power to accept or reject. It was his misfortune that he used his decision to reject. But would it be possible for God to take away his decision power when it is the very nature of a human being to have that power. If it were removed, then that man would no longer be truly man but would be something else. And it would not be right for that power to make a decision to be taken away from everyone just because of some men making misuse of that power.

The answer to 2. I take it the question is “why doesn’t God just not create those who will go to hell?” Because that would not be plausible.
It would change the chain that links us together and it would or could change the outcome of everyone’s life.

Let’s say that John was an evil person who had two brothers. He had a lot of influence on his brothers. One brother, Joe, might go down the right path because he saw his brother John go down the wrong one and what bad effects it was having on John. So Joe’s life would have changed for the better.

The other brother of John, Henry, was a good person, but because of the bad influence of John, Henry then turned and went down hill with John.

Now who should be eliminated? John & Henry. Ah, but if John is eliminated, then Joe would have to be eliminated too since it was John’s bad life that influenced Joe to turn good. But without John, Joe would be bad too.

So in the end, all three would be eliminated from creation. And this makes it impossible to mess with deciding who to create and who not to create since it changes things considerably. It would rob some of being created who should be but can’t be. Which means human generations down the chain are also eliminated.

And in addition, if we put our mind to it, there could be all sorts of interconnections down the chain of mankind who would not be created because of their connection of generations before them. It would be involved and complicated depending on who was eliminated.

Not to mention that even those that would not go to heaven would still have a significant play in changing many others for the better at some points in their lives tho this may play out just the opposite for some.

Now if we carried this out to the fullest, there could be many more difficult and mixed situations of similar kind invented to show just how this is practically impossible and remain fair to all concerned. For example, three daughters and five sons and 2 cousins and 3 uncles and aunts and dozens of friends and in-laws. Put all those together in this human jigsaw of elimination and it is not only unfair but a nightmare.
Just a thought … we have 7 billion people on our earth right now. In the end using this thought process, they may all have to be eliminated…no joke.

 

[fladreamer]

Romans 8:28

There is an alternate for this passage from Jerusalem Bible.

Answer to 1. It is for the greater good of all mankind. It many not be for the greater good of the individual. Because to reject him means he was given the power to accept or reject. It was his misfortune that he used his decision to reject. But would it be possible for God to take away his decision power when it is the very nature of a human being to have that power. If it were removed, then that man would no longer be truly man but would be something else. And it would not be right for that power to make a decision to be taken away from everyone just because of some men making misuse of that power.

The answer to 2. I take it the question is “why doesn’t God just not create those who will go to hell?” Because that would not be plausible.
It would change the chain that links us together and it would or could change the outcome of everyone’s life.

Let’s say that John was an evil person who had two brothers. He had a lot of influence on his brothers. One brother, Joe, might go down the right path because he saw his brother John go down the wrong one and what bad effects it was having on John. So Joe’s life would have changed for the better.

The other brother of John, Henry, was a good person, but because of the bad influence of John, Henry then turned and went down hill with John.

Now who should be eliminated? John & Henry. Ah, but if John is eliminated, then Joe would have to be eliminated too since it was John’s bad life that influenced Joe to turn good. But without John, Joe would be bad too.

So in the end, all three would be eliminated from creation. And this makes it impossible to mess with deciding who to create and who not to create since it changes things considerably. It would rob some of being created who should be but can’t be. Which means human generations down the chain are also eliminated.

And in addition, if we put our mind to it, there could be all sorts of interconnections down the chain of mankind who would not be created because of their connection of generations before them. It would be involved and complicated depending on who was eliminated.

Not to mention that even those that would not go to heaven would still have a significant play in changing many others for the better at some points in their lives tho this may play out just the opposite for some.

Now if we carried this out to the fullest, there could be many more difficult and mixed situations of similar kind invented to show just how this is practically impossible and remain fair to all concerned. For example, three daughters and five sons and 2 cousins and 3 uncles and aunts and dozens of friends and in-laws. Put all those together in this human jigsaw of elimination and it is not only unfair but a nightmare.
Just a thought … we have 7 billion people on our earth right now. In the end using this thought process, they may all have to be eliminated…no joke.

That sounds complicated. I propose annihilation for every soul that God doesn’t deem worthy to be in his presence. Of course, to not let anyone off the hook that easily, a penal system in the form of a temporary hell could be an option. The worst of the worst in humanity could spend thousands, millions of years in absolute agony of body and soul. A Catholic who slept in instead of going to mass (and who dies before he gets a chance to confess or to be perfectly contrite) gets maybe 500 000 years of hell before God stops sustaining his existence. God is good, perfect, loving, and his justice is not mocked. Perfect scenario, wouldn’t you say? Do you think that version of justice is inferior to God’s (as taught by the Catholic Church), and if so, why?

 

[mikekle]

No one is forced into hell. In other words, we get what we want.

So, for the most part, a person who lives their earthly life without having God in it, to them, hell would just be an extension of their earthly life, and since they did not know God in life, death would be no different for them, basically an existence without God.

To them, being in heaven, may actually be more horrible than hell, since God is someone they do not know.

 

[CRM_Brother]

Hi,

This is another question regarding the problem of evil, so if you have weak faith, I would say to wait until someone answers the objection.

Objection to be answered:
God does not allow any evil, especially the evil of death, without willing a greater good to come from it (see Rm 8:28).This is true,

1. But how is it a greater good that God would create someone, and allow them to reject Him, because it seems there is no good from that at all.
2. How is it a greater good that God would create us with free will, than not create those who will be damned at all, since his omniscience knows who will reject Him?

Thanks for any replies.

I did a paper on this for a class during my Philosophical Studies. I won’t give you the entire drawn out explanation here, but I will summarize. I can email you the full paper if you are interested.

Basically, according to Aquinas, everything God creates, he creates completely good. Because of His love for us, he allows us free will. This allows us to freely choose Him. If we do not, then we do not truly bring evil into the world, as evil is not a thing per se, that is, existing under its own power, but rather He simply allows the good inherent in a person to fall short of its perfection.

Even if a person rejects Him, thus lessening the degree of perfection in his soul, that is, the degree of goodness, he or she still partially retains the goodness inherent in his or her creation. Therefore, even a person who rejects God contributes goodness to the world in his or her very existence. If that person never existed, the world, as a whole, would had never experienced that goodness, however small it was. This is the greater good to come from the evil action.

 

[animalis]

Objection to be answered:
God does not allow any evil, especially the evil of death, without willing a greater good to come from it (see Rm 8:28).This is true,

1. But how is it a greater good that God would create someone, and allow them to reject Him, because it seems there is no good from that at all.
2. How is it a greater good that God would create us with free will, than not create those who will be damned at all, since his omniscience knows who will reject Him?
3. “because it seems there is no good from that at all”, rather it was all good because God gave his all for the good of the one who rejected him.
4. “since his omniscience knows who will reject Him” but the fallen angel, who has a higher dignity and intellect saw it clear to reject God. Moreover, according to at least the Alexandrian School, it was the faith of the early church to profess that the reprobate took on a simultaneous ‘drama’ with the fallen angels: in other words they lived out the life of the devils by simultaneous utility and functionally - His omniscience knew rejection but the drama did ensue from a prior angelic dignity that could not be made void - due to the excellence of an angel. We mortal men on earth carry out that same drama.

The point is God cannot deny himself nor the drama of the angelic life, and the reprobate suffer the consequences by obstinate consent in the joining of the demonic league.

In reply to 2, God gave his all to the drama, and the drama rejected all by deicide. The greater good is the gift itself to the drama regardless of our choice to choose it. And there is no regard for we cannot choose anything good without prior grace.

 

[fred_conty]

That sounds complicated. I propose annihilation for every soul that God doesn’t deem worthy to be in his presence. Of course, to not let anyone off the hook that easily, a penal system in the form of a temporary hell could be an option. The worst of the worst in humanity could spend thousands, millions of years in absolute agony of body and soul. A Catholic who slept in instead of going to mass (and who dies before he gets a chance to confess or to be perfectly contrite) gets maybe 500 000 years of hell before God stops sustaining his existence. God is good, perfect, loving, and his justice is not mocked. Perfect scenario, wouldn’t you say? Do you think that version of justice is inferior to God’s (as taught by the Catholic Church), and if so, why?

Yes, that is the point, it is complicated, and even more than that.

Annihilation is not what the OP was posting about. It was about prevention of existence before it got to annihilation.