Just and afterthought or rather a question. I have never seen hellfire/eternal torture preached at Mass in any Catholic Church that I have ever attended. I started this thread under non-catholic religions because I have seen it among my evangelical friends and in their Churches. Have you ever seen this specific teaching at Mass?
Ones already dead before they ever get to Hell. Read what Jesus said about He!!l. The Church NEVER taught that babies are “thrown into Hell and tortured forever”. Don’t blame the loss of young people on something as far fetched as that! God Bless. Memaw
Unfortunately your reasoning is a fallacy. Since the Church didn’t teach against it, it must be permissible. Silence is not consent. Because it is impossible to list all the untruths in the world. It is not a major problem and no major heresies arose from that. You wouldn’t have a Council unless this is a major problem. Annihilation is followed by very few protestant denominations and proponents of it tend to look at one angle of it: God is too nice to do it for eternity. They equate eternity with time but eternity is not time-based. They overlook divine justice. Unrepentant sinners cannot be forgiven. It would be illogical. Evil doers can not go unpunished, it would be unjust. Annihilation as an escape from punishment can be seen as unjust and possibly promote bad behavior. After I do my evil deeds, I’ll just disappear. Isn’t that nice if it were true.
We are created in the image of God. The damned in hell no longer possess this image of God. What remain would basically be filth since all the holy attributes of God are gone, destroyed by sin, destroyed by the works of the devil. “Destroy” just mean the original is no longer there, damaged, mutilated, defaced, corrupted and so on. It is not non-existence. Contrast this against those in heaven receiving glorified bodies, better , stronger and sounding like a commercial. A destroyed city still show evidence of the destruction, rubble everywhere, A body that was destroyed, quartered still have pieces of the corpse or bones, teeth as remnants. A piece of steak that I destroyed with my teeth after I ate it, still exist in my tummy in a digested form or in my poo after I purged it out. It doesn’t vanish. It is just not steak anymore in the original condition. I think you were too keen to read destruction as “vanished”. But there is no necessity to.
If I am the priest, how much of hell can I touch on? It is where the devil and evil people ended up. We know it is there and it is unpleasant and that is mostly it.There is not much to talk about it other than a place/state that we don’t want to end up. But there are lots of stuff that he can preached of how NOT to go there.
But seriously, most people just don’t like to talk about sad subjects. We can talk about saints in heaven but we can’t named people in hell. Who and who is in heaven but we don’t do hell gossip. Unlike other topics, there is no way out of hell. One can not preach how to fix a hell problem other than not getting in. He can preach how to overcome sin but not how to get out of hell!At the Final Judgement, all souls will be reunited with their bodies prior to their final “sentence”. Why would God bother to reunite the damned souls with their bodies if their punishment only lasts for an instant? Why did Jesus call Hell “everlasting punishment”?“Matthew 25: [41] Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Annihilation is the spiritual equivalent to murder, or of a man committing suicide. It would not even be a punishment to those who ended their own physical lives in the first place. Would it? So, why should that even be considered to be a sin? If God is going to annihilate both body and soul, anyway, then He shouldn’t object to anyone else doing the same thing. Right?
"Mark 9: [42] And if thy hand scandalize thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life, maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into unquenchable fire: [43] Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished. [44] And if thy foot scandalize thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter lame into life everlasting, than having two feet, to be cast into the hell of unquenchable fire: [45] Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished.
I also believe they are related, but the mind is more or less the functioning part of a living brain, which is influenced by the soul. But, since the mind can be damaged along with the brain, I wouldn’t consider it to be part of the “soul”, itself. The soul is the spirit that God creates as an individual entity, to be joined with one specific body, for all eternity in the next life. Without both parts, we are not a complete human being. Each soul with its body, is separate and unique from all others.
I have never seen “eternal torture” preached anywhere, either during Mass, or in the Bible. But, I have seen the “eternal punishment” of Hell preached in both places. First of all, by Jesus in the Gospels. When I was young, it wasn’t unusual for a Priest to preach an occasional homily about the reality of Hell. The only ones that tended to squirm in their seats were the ones that knew they would continue to commit serious sins, as soon as they walked out of the Church. But, at least they weren’t being told that they’d just pop out of existence for doing it. They were told the truth, in the hope that it might put a little of the fear of God into them, since they didn’t seem to be moved enough by His love, that they could see every day in the Holy Eucharist.
He’s now a saint.St. Faustina was canonized by the Catholic Church while St. John Paul II (who you quoted earlier) was Pope.
Where is this firey Hell?
No one knows for sure except God, but the traditional thought is that it’s “under the earth” (or maybe within the earth?), if it’s even a “place” at all. Some people speculate that it’s a “state of being” rather than an actual physical “place”. That might work for a strictly spiritual existence, but doesn’t seem likely for after the resurrection when our souls will be reunited with our bodies. Other than those typical explanations, I really don’t have a clue.
OK, but when does soul die a first time ? Yes, think the unrighteous are thrown in the lake, body (resurrected), soul, mind, and spirit. All a second time so to speak, the previous in hell/gehenna awaiting judgement (save the body which dies/turned to dust on the earth the first time).
Ok, right, we have discussed that, the variance of time or suffering in the extinguishing process.Some die a slow, more painful death than others justly so, as annihilationists propose. At least we see each others points.
OK needs another reference point or a presumption one way or another. Again at least we see each others points .The only argument I have heard against yours is the supposed eternal existence of the fire as a place not consequence (eg- hell made you eternally dead, or you are “dead”,(a part from God) in an eternal hell). Of course as I recall you say “hell” is cast into lake of fire, extinguishing the place, yet does the lake of fire "flame out’’ cease at some point ?
So with the absence of God there is an absence of all love or just perfect love. If it is justr the latter then how will hell differ from this world? Would this be the death of altruism?
Did you even read my posts? You are actually making my point. The Catholic Church never did teach babies thrown in hell and tortured forever. But I have seen posts indicating that they do but mostly fundamentalist circles. This is why I posted on non-Catholic religions.
You do realize that the scriptures that you cite as written presuppose that the punishment is something opposite to everlasting life. If you follow the sentence structure the whole meaning becomes apparent. For example - If I were to say that door#1 is everlasting life and door number 2 is something other than everlasting life using the same sentence structure as the scriptures that you cite then death and not never ending torment becomes apparent. Everlasting punishment can refer to death which is supported by other scriptures such as Matthew10:28.
The passages I posted were quotes directly from Jesus that don’t “presuppose” anything of the sort. They are direct and succinct. Yet, you completely ignore the points that I made, to play grammar and word games? Someone already explained that a thing can be “destroyed” without being totally annihilated. The holy purpose that God created those souls to accomplish will certainly be “destroyed” when they choose to go to Hell, rather than fulfill their purpose, but their bodies and souls will remain intact.
What about this question?
God did not create Hell to ‘torture’ anyone. Please, stop saying things like that. Your “annihilation” would punish everyone, equally. All mortal sins would be punished by the “death of a soul”. No matter what their sins, or how serious they were? Fornicators and mass murderers all get the same sentence. That’s ‘humane’?
Hi TThe passages I posted were quotes directly from Jesus that don’t “presuppose” anything of the sort. They are direct and succinct. Yet, you completely ignore the points that I made, to play grammar and word games? Someone already explained that a thing can be “destroyed” without being totally annihilated. The holy purpose that God created those souls to accomplish will certainly be “destroyed” when they choose to go to Hell, rather than fulfill their purpose, but their bodies and souls will remain intact.
I would also appreciate it if you would address some of these other concerns that I posed, about the effects that your theory would have on many facets of human morality and justice. The repercussions and negative effects of such a belief cannot be ignored. It’s a serious theological problem that would just keep causing more and more negative effects, as time went on. People would keep looking for even more loopholes in God’s Law.
What about this question?
God did not create Hell to ‘torture’ anyone. Please, stop saying things like that. Your “annihilation” would punish everyone, equally. All mortal sins would be punished by the “death of a soul”. No matter what their sins, or how serious they were? Fornicators and mass murderers all get the same sentence. That’s ‘humane’?
How do you feel about the death penalty? Does it bother you, at all? In this world, the equivalent to your proposal of annihilation for souls would be the same as killing every serious criminal, instead of putting them in prison for ‘life’. No matter what the crime might be, the sentence would always have to be death. No ‘life sentences’ could be allowed for extenuating circumstances, either. Just annihilation, in this world and in the next.
The problem with annihilism is that there is nothing to punish after the soul vanishing act. Which contradicts scripture which says the punishment is eternal, the torment is eternal. Both of which can not be true if there is nothing to punish/torment. For unknown internal reason, CL just can not accept that annihilism contradicts Scriptures and he is trying word gymnastics to force annihilism equal to eternal punishment/torment. The soul doesn’t disappear into nothingness. This is a novel idea that markets hell will be empty eventually i.e. they all escaped divine punishment.