Philosophical opinions on Hell

[Saul.Tentmaker]

eternity is both a state and a measure of time.

St. Thomas Aquinas does not share your definition, except by analogy.

this is the bone of contention here. why in heavens name should a finite sin warrant an infinite punishment?

Because, though it is finite in terms of duration and quantity, it is eternal to its end, and this is the immeasurable injustice.

“Potentially”. You would punish a person for what he could potentially do, not for what he actually did. Thats grossly immoral.

Not if I exist outside of time, and so know all that is potential, but also all that is actual, and the actualization of all possibility. Then that which is an eternal offense at its end should be punsihed by an eternal punshment.

Granted, since I exist inside time, it would be grossly unjust to punish someone for something I think is eventual. God punishes for what He knows is inevitable (it is the end of the act), and what is eternal, for those in hell sin eternally.

The ideal hell would not be dissimilar to earthly life. Imagine your life extended to infinity. An Infinite number of Finite actions, with each mistake warranting a finite punishment. Finity within Infinity. That would be fair and just.

And in this you speak with wisdom. But, granted our nature, if we fall into mortal sin, that is to sin unto death, we will in this afterlife continue to sin, and this sin will continue to cause anguish, and so on for an infinite duration. As it is physical, there will be physical torment for such action. What you have created is analgous to hell.

People dont generally become progressively more evil.

This is a different topic, one that would best be relegated outside the topic of hell. But it is one that divides Christianity from many (if not most) other belief-systems. Humans are naturally sinful, and will, by their nature and if left alone, continue in worse and worse sin, should they have started such sin, forming addictions, and ultimately killing themselves, and this over and over. All one needs to do is look at a serious drug addict.

We have a certain degree of Free will. One that is confined within the limitations & demands of the flesh. Your lust, your greed, your aggression, they are not entirely your fault.

I accept fault for my lust, my greed, my aggression. They have no cause, as they are simply distortions of what is caused, my love, my hope, my righteousness. These God has created in me. These I, and others, destroy, but by our own free will. God is responsible, ultimately, for all in me that is good. I am responsible, ultimately, for all in me that is evil, save that I turn in love and faith to Christ Jesus, that he lift from me the chains of bondage.

 

[Wandered_Off]

It not just faith or no faith that determines heaven or hell.

That could well be. I came from a Protestant background, and sometimes I still think in those terms. They didn’t work for me then either.

You have the information to decide. You are of the opinion it’s not enough. You want ‘proof’.

I also have lots of information that tells me otherwise and no way to verify, so yes, proof would be appropriate IF free will is respected and not just a facade.

It’s no accident, it’s choice. Today you cannot ‘accidently’ choose hell.

Well, we just disagree here. Allah could send me to Hell if I chose to follow Catholicism, and that Hell would be an accidental outcome because the choice wasn’t what I thought it was. An atheist is accidentally choosing Hell if it exists because the atheist is NOT saying, “I willfully choose Hell.”

I think your basis for the argument boils down to you think it’s not fair?

Close. It’s an abuse of free will. However, I don’t think that choice is really being offered by God, so it’s all good.

 

[AgnosTheist]

Why? One word…Justice.

We are all accountable for our actions.

Would you just let the murderer of your child walk? Wouldn’t justice need to be served?

heres an idea:

**The Constitutional Right Against Excessive Punishment **

lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=nyu/plltwp

 

[AgnosTheist]

I found this interesting. How can a finite act cause an infinite offense. Would you agree or disagree that it would be similar to flunking(finite act) 1st grade grammer and it being on your permanent transcript with no way no way to change it. Whats done is done and there is no way to go back. This isn’t a perfect analogy but you get the drift.

records are one thing, punishments are another. its a world of difference, my friend.

 

[ricmat]

Wandered - let’s try a different approach.

Let’s say that you walk down the street today, and get hit by a bus

You find yourself standing before God, who says “Wandered, you’ve had X years to live your life, with opportunities to learn, and to ‘improve your nature before you die - at which point your nature is frozen for eternity.’ There are two doors before you. You may peek inside and observe, but then you must make a decision to go through one. I will honor your choice.”

So you peek through door #1. What you see depends on what you’ve learned during life, what you considered to be important.

Say, for example, you’re a radical feminist (note: this is for illustration only). You see the glory of womanhood, who are now in charge, free from the oppression of Men, with Men as their servants, waiting on the women hand and foot, and useful for nothing else. They rave at how smart they are, and how men are so dumb and useless. You see no love here, but you did away with that long ago.

Or say, you’ve spent your life writing the great American Novel (but nobody appreciates your talent). You look through the door and you see massive crowds of adoring fans, waving your last book in the air and waiting for you to show up so they can get your autograph, and award you the Nobel prize for literature. And promising to do the same for your next book.

Or say, you’ve spent your whole life pursuing money, status, and power. You look through door #1 and you see a Rolls-Royce with your name on it, and a corner office in the top floor of a large skyscraper - the door plaque says “Wandered - CEO”, and obsequious cronies ready to accede to your most trivial (or non-trivial) demands. You have 3 secretaries, all former Playboy bunnies.

Then you look through door #2. You see a much smaller group of people scrambling all over themselves to serve each other, humbly trying to be the lowest of the low. You see them praising God, giving glory to God, loving God and each other. You see their joy but you do not understand it. You haven’t practiced this yourself, or made yourself ready for it, despite your X years on earth. You realize that you were given many opportunities to pursue this path. But such things were not of interest to you. You can’t imagine that anybody in their right mind would want these things, or choose door #2.

So you choose door number 1. You are now “happy” (except that you have to keep your eyes open for those SOBs that want to take your job and your bunnies), but still, you miss something, the same thing you missed on earth but could never put you finger on. You and the others can see heaven in the distance, but cannot understand why those souls are so joyful. The thought that they might be happier than you are is almost like torture!

And the souls in heaven look down and see all. They pity those in Hell because they are all of a kind. Everybody there is interested in power, status, money, fame. They will do anything and everything to take it away from you. Lying, backstabbing, dis-loyalty, stealing, and it will last forever. Those souls are in Hell. But it can be seen as Hell only from the perspective of Heaven.

 

[AgnosTheist]

St. Thomas Aquinas does not share your definition, except by analogy.

Thomas Aquinas is irrelevant.

Here is an unbiased defintion:

Main Entry: **eter·ni·ty **

1: the quality or state of being eternal
2: infinite time
3plural : age 3b
4: the state after death : immortality
5: a seemingly endless or immeasurable time

webster.com/dictionary/eternity

Because, though it is finite in terms of duration and quantity, it is eternal to its end, and this is the immeasurable injustice

finite in duration and yet eternal to its end? Arent you contradicting yourself? please clarify. what do you mean by ‘eternal to its end’?

Not if I exist outside of time, and so know all that is potential, but also all that is actual, and the actualization of all possibility. Then that which is an eternal offense at its end should be punsihed by an eternal punshment.

to issue a just punishment you’ll have to step inside of time and make a punishment that is substantial to the amount of offense that have been committed in the past. not for something that is yet to be committed.

God punishes for what He knows is inevitable (it is the end of the act), and what is eternal, for those in hell sin eternally.

thats like punishing a baby for inevitably it will have to lie.

And in this you speak with wisdom. But, granted our nature, if we fall into mortal sin, that is to sin unto death, we will in this afterlife continue to sin, and this sin will continue to cause anguish, and so on for an infinite duration. As it is physical, there will be physical torment for such action. What you have created is analgous to hell.

are you saying that people will continue to sin in hell? and that people in hell are only punished everytime they sin?

I am responsible, ultimately, for all in me that is evil.

is stealing evil all the time? is murder evil all the time?

 

[iamrefreshed]

heres an idea:

**The Constitutional Right Against Excessive Punishment **

lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=nyu/plltwp

I don’t get your point.

 

[AgnosTheist]

I don’t get your point.

torture is considered excessive punishment. eternal torture is excessive unto infinity. hell is an eternal injustice. a loving god should be better than that.

 

[iamrefreshed]

torture is considered excessive punishment. eternal torture is excessive unto infinity. hell is an eternal injustice. a loving god should be better than that.

When you get your chance before Him you let Him know that

 

[Saul.Tentmaker]

Thomas Aquinas is irrelevant.

It is quite relevant, as the argument was Aquinas’s, and so, if you wish to address the argument, you must use his definitions.

Here is an unbiased defintion…

That doesn’t matter; it’s not the definition used in the argument.

finite in duration and yet eternal to its end? Arent you contradicting yourself? please clarify. what do you mean by ‘eternal to its end’?

Sin which is eternal to its end is a sin that requires a will to continue sinning eternally, or a will to enter into an eternal state of sin. All mortal sin has this attribute. And addiction is the prime example. One may become addicted to pornography right before one dies, so the duration of the sin may be short, but the will to sin eternally, if present (which it is outside of the grace of God, given through an act of faithful and perfect contrition, or through the sacrament of confession), deserves eternal punishment.

to issue a just punishment you’ll have to step inside of time and make a punishment that is substantial to the amount of offense that have been committed in the past. not for something that is yet to be committed.

Except the Judge is eternal, and so is our judgement. That is the point.

thats like punishing a baby for inevitably it will have to lie.

Not quite. Though I do agree that babies may end up in hell (though in a state apart from the beautific vision that still is a pleasant state, and maximally pleasant out of any state apart from the beautific vision), I don’t quite need to. Babies have not yet committed a sin unto death, that is, an injustice to God in their eternity that God would need to punish in His eternity. Their eternal punishment, should they not be baptized (and if you buy into Limbo), would be for their original sin, and not actual sins, and so would have to be of the most minor severity.

are you saying that people will continue to sin in hell? and that people in hell are only punished everytime they sin?

This implies a temporal nature to hell which is likely not present. The analogy, however, to a temporal existence, is still apt.

is stealing evil all the time? is murder evil all the time?

Both are always sins, but they are not always sins that are “eternal to their end”. For example, I may steal pencils from my workplace because I’m too lazy to go out and buy more pencils. This has not in itself an end in eternity, because it does not fix my will upon sinning eternally, though it may begin bending my will toward that end, and this is why it is venial. It leads to mortal sin. Stealing bread to feed my family is not even sin at all, as private ownership is mitigated when concerns of survival arise, as ownership is part of positive law, and need for survival is part of natural law.

Murder, if by the term you mean “killing an innocent”, is always sinful, and if done with knowledge of the gravity of the act, and with full consent of freedom of the will, is mortal, that is it forms a habit of malicious behavior, and ultimately a character of malice, which is a will toward sinning eternally.

A last note, by your definition of turture, God does not torture people in hell. The punishment is in perfect proportion to the offense, and it is not fitting for God to act in excess.

 

[cpayne]

torture is considered excessive punishment. eternal torture is excessive unto infinity. hell is an eternal injustice. a loving god should be better than that.

One of the problems with this thread is this persistent image of God creating Hell so that He can “torture” people throughout eternity. I think you might be the only one in this conversation with this image.

 

[Wandered_Off]

You find yourself standing before God, who says "Wandered, you’ve had X years to live your life, with opportunities to learn, and to ‘improve your nature before you die - at which point your nature is frozen for eternity.’

Now why would a God who designed me a dynamic nature yank away free will by freezing it? That’s like asking a first-grader to choose a favorite food and then forcing him to eat it for the rest of his life. At the time, he lacked perspective. “Freezing his nature” would be cruel, and it makes just about any conception of an afterlife hellish. That’s why God would never do that, unless God is malevolent. I simply can’t abide such a dim view of deity.

People change over time. What if at the end of my life I suffered from some kind of dementia and was on a strange kick where I only wanted something outlandish? There are all sorts of cases against the morality of “freezing nature eternally”. This is a flat-out hideous concept, and one that clearly originates from a finite human mind, not a divine, eternal perspective.

So you peek through door #1. What you see depends on what you’ve learned during life, what you considered to be important.

But that’s just it: I lacked perspective because certainty was withheld. Holding me irrevocably and eternally based on a decision I made in an environment of deliberately withheld certainty and conflicting information is monstrous. I believe God is not monstrous.

But it can be seen as Hell only from the perspective of Heaven.

If the people in Hell don’t know they’re in Hell, doesn’t that render the ‘punishment/justice’ aspect people here assert moot?

 

[cpayne]

Now why would a God who designed me a dynamic nature yank away free will by freezing it?

If He did not do so, people would continue to move away from Him (their source of good) throughout eternity. So out of love God stops them from doing so. A good article on this subject is by Eleonore Stump entitled something like “Dante’s Hell and the Love of God” (sorry, can’t remember exact title).

 

[AgnosTheist]

One of the problems with this thread is this persistent image of God creating Hell so that He can “torture” people throughout eternity. I think you might be the only one in this conversation with this image.

So what is the original purpose for creating hell?

 

[AgnosTheist]

When you get your chance before Him you let Him know that

If Jesus is really God and I get to meet him, I sure will tell him that.

 

[ricmat]

Now why would a God who designed me a dynamic nature yank away free will by freezing it? That’s like asking a first-grader to choose a favorite food and then forcing him to eat it for the rest of his life. At the time, he lacked perspective. “Freezing his nature” would be cruel, and it makes just about any conception of an afterlife hellish. That’s why God would never do that, unless God is malevolent. I simply can’t abide such a dim view of deity.

Ok - for the purpose of my illustration, assume that you still have free will. In my illustration, you would still not choose heaven.

People change over time. What if at the end of my life I suffered from some kind of dementia and was on a strange kick where I only wanted something outlandish? There are all sorts of cases against the morality of “freezing nature eternally”. This is a flat-out hideous concept, and one that clearly originates from a finite human mind, not a divine, eternal perspective.

But once you are outside of time, change does not exist. By definition. Only within time can anything change.

But that’s just it: I lacked perspective because certainty was withheld. Holding me irrevocably and eternally based on a decision I made in an environment of deliberately withheld certainty and conflicting information is monstrous. I believe God is not monstrous.

This isn’t like you make a decision in first grade that you live with forever. It’s a decision that you make over the course of your entire life. I think somebody else said this, but I agree - your life will be such that you have many chances, and will have enough knowledge to make the right decision. But God will not force you to make the right decision.

If the people in Hell don’t know they’re in Hell, doesn’t that render the ‘punishment/justice’ aspect people here assert moot?

As the above poster said, I think you’re the only one here who is obsessed with the punishment/torture aspect of Hell. Certainly that is one view of what hell is. Perhaps it is sometimes better to think of hell as “not the best choice” rather than punishment.

EDIT: SORRY I GOT YOU CONFUSED WITH AGNOS…

 

[ricmat]

So what is the original purpose for creating hell?

Souls live forever.

Souls that reject God to the end need a place to “reside” where they can be without the presence of God.

 

[Wandered_Off]

Ok - for the purpose of my illustration, assume that you still have free will. In my illustration, you would still not choose heaven.

That’s understandable, because as you said, I would have no idea which one actually IS Heaven… So how could I, except by sheer chance?

But once you are outside of time, change does not exist. By definition. Only within time can anything change.

So then your story about all the lying and backstabbing going on in Hell was what? Because that requires time too, as does having people in Heaven look down and pity the rest. Would we even have awareness outside of time? If so, that must be what total paralysis feels like.

As the above poster said, I think you’re the only one here who is obsessed with the punishment/torture aspect of Hell.

I think that comes from my fundamentalist Protestant background. That was drilled into us. Have you ever seen those Jack Chick gospel tracts? In addition to being laughably anti-Catholic, every last one ends with the threat of Hell for not complying. Imagine Sunday school looking like the “tract of the week” lesson. shudders

EDIT: SORRY I GOT YOU CONFUSED WITH AGNOS…

Heh… Well, it seems we have some views in common.

 

[cpayne]

So what is the original purpose for creating hell?

Love. (Post 93)

 

[AgnosTheist]

It is quite relevant, as the argument was Aquinas’s, and so, if you wish to address the argument, you must use his definitions.

‘Eternal Hell’ wasnt Aquinas’s idea. Just because you use his justifications for it doesnt mean you can impose him on me.

Sin which is eternal to its end is a sin that requires a will to continue sinning eternally, or a will to enter into an eternal state of sin. All mortal sin has this attribute. And addiction is the prime example. One may become addicted to pornography right before one dies, so the duration of the sin may be short, but the will to sin eternally, if present (which it is outside of the grace of God, given through an act of faithful and perfect contrition, or through the sacrament of confession), deserves eternal punishment.

ok so its really about the potential and not the actual.

Except the Judge is eternal, and so is our judgement. That is the point.

I understand your point. Thats why I say its unjust. Punishments should have nothing to with the lifespan of the judge.

Not quite. Though I do agree that babies may end up in hell (though in a state apart from the beautific vision that still is a pleasant state, and maximally pleasant out of any state apart from the beautific vision), I don’t quite need to. Babies have not yet committed a sin unto death, that is, an injustice to God in their eternity that God would need to punish in His eternity. Their eternal punishment, should they not be baptized (and if you buy into Limbo), would be for their original sin, and not actual sins, and so would have to be of the most minor severity.

with regards to “sin eternal to its end”, are you suggesting that being human in itself doesnt have the nature of a will to enter into an eternal state of sin? that only by committing a mortal sin is a person becomes trap into a will to enter into an eternal state of sin?

This implies a temporal nature to hell which is likely not present. The analogy, however, to a temporal existence, is still apt.

if those two things are not applicable in the biblical hell then its completely different to what I described.

For example, I may steal pencils from my workplace because I’m too lazy to go out and buy more pencils. This has not in itself an end in eternity, because it does not fix my will upon sinning eternally, though it may begin bending my will toward that end, and this is why it is venial.

lets get this clear. are you suggesting that stealing only becomes a mortal sin if you intend to continue stealing indefinitely?

Murder, if by the term you mean “killing an innocent”, is always sinful, and if done with knowledge of the gravity of the act, and with full consent of freedom of the will, is mortal, that is it forms a habit of malicious behavior, and ultimately a character of malice, which is a will toward sinning eternally.

what if you only intend to assassinate somebody which is upon the act of causing mass destruction & death? though you are not affected.

A last note, by your definition of turture, God does not torture people in hell. The punishment is in perfect proportion to the offense, and it is not fitting for God to act in excess.

my definition of torture:

Main Entry: 1tor·ture
2: the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure.

note: ‘or’ is a condtion which is true if one of the premises stands out, even if the rest does not.

does the biblical god inflict intense pain to punish people in hell?