Please help: I struggle mightily with hell

[struggleMt71314]

Dear friends,

I am looking for some help on an issue of utmost importance to me. I am a Catholic who experienced a profound conversion to the Lord about 2 years ago. I have since stumbled in my faith quite heavily, and a lot has to do with this issue I am about to outline. From what I’ve seen on the Ask an Apologist section, there are others who struggle with this too. I just wasn’t very satisfied with the answers given by the apologists. I appreciate any help you can give me, and I am very aware that the Lord can work through any one of you to help my soul.

Without further adieu:

God was just fine on His own, He obviously didn’t have to create us. Apparently, it was an act of awesome goodness on His part that He wanted to share His blessed life with us. My main issue is that I just don’t see how that was a good act on His part.

I say this pretty much because of the existence of hell. Why would He create when He knows that He will ultimately put His creatures at risk of going to hell. Not only at risk, but at great risk, as we know that the Lord said that it is a hard and narrow road that leads to life, and there are few who find it. The Christian life is not easy at all, the Gospel is immensely challenging. So why does God have to make it hard on us in order for us to get to Heaven? To me, this can just lead to perhaps many souls being lost and this just seems intensely wrong. This seems to be in sync with Jesus saying that the path to destruction is broad and easy, and many will take it.

Obviously I’m so worried and frustrated about this issue, because I feel at major risk to go to hell under these conditions. This narrow road just seems too hard and unfair. I understand the reality of the original sin and the fall of man and that this is not how it always was, but if the original sin was going to mess things up so terribly I feel that God was MUCH better off not creating, especially if He foresees that many will go to hell. It seems unjust and unloving in my opinion. I am open to being wrong, but I just don’t see it. I’ve talked to people about this, so I’ve heard a lot of the common responses, so keep that in mind when responding if possible. I just haven’t heard an argument against this that makes sense to me. I also understand that God will help us along the narrow road, but that doesn’t really make it any easier if you know what I mean. By that I basically mean that it will still be hard. I know Jesus said His yoke is easy and burden light but I guess I just don’t understand that passage. Maybe He helps you once you make the very difficult step into His way so to speak. But anyways…

We already know that the Devil and his angels are in hell, so this can’t really be dodged by the hopeful claim that maybe no one is in hell. I mean, God could have preserved us, so to speak, of the pain of hell by just not creating us. As far as I’m concerned, even if 1 person ends up in hell, God’s creation is ruined. It doesn’t matter to me that if someone is in hell, it was their choice. Mainly because I find it hard to believe that someone would ever choose a life of eternal torment over eternal bliss. I don’t believe that anyone would EVER make such a choice. To me, it seems that everyone should go to Heaven since everyone in this world desires the good, and if God is the source of all goodness, everyone would want to be with God. If everyone wants to be with God, why can’t that be the reality? Why hell? What I just said could easily be the reality (that all go to heaven because all desire the good), just as easily as hell is the reality in my opinion. If God is all-powerful, it seems that He could do this.

I sense that I’m not making my point all that well (it’s much easier to speak it than to write it), so I’ll try to end with a helpful image:

I can’t imagine a parent ever wanting to put their child into a severely dangerous situation, even to the point of perhaps not having children so as to not put their potential child into a harmful situation. I simply feel that God has allowed us into a very dangerous situation, without asking us if we’d like to be born or not. I can see someone saying “This situation (ie. life) is only dangerous if we reject God and turn away.” Okay. My point is that it seems like God makes it dangerously easy to turn away, because the way that He wills for us is so darn difficult. I guess it just seems unfair on so many levels.

Another thought that just entered in:

How can God live with Himself knowing souls are suffering in hell forever? Especially knowing that He could have prevented this by simply not creating. I just don’t get it. He was fine on His own. Just because He may be able to lead a few souls into His heavenly bliss doesn’t make it worth the price of having many souls suffering forever, regardless if it is their choice or not. I still don’t buy that a soul would ever choose hell over heaven. There’s more than just a simple choice going on here. And, from what I can see, it seems unfair to us, the creation.

I hope this makes sense and is connecting with some people. I understand that not all people understand my point or agree with it, and that can be for many reasons. But I’ll stop there for now (this can easily be something that I can talk for a long time about from so many different angles).

I understand that there is a certain difficulty/danger in challenging God on this point, but this still bothers me.

It is very difficult for me to express my thoughts on this well. I hope you can understand the point I am trying to raise. And, again, I appreciate any help on this. I may not be online that often to monitor this post, but please post your thoughts and I will be around eventually to read them, and maybe respond to them (publicly or by PM) if any of them help or challenge me.

God bless you.

-struggleMt71314

 

[davidv]

Dear friends,

{snip}

God was just fine on His own, He obviously didn’t have to create us. Apparently, it was an act of awesome goodness on His part that He wanted to share His blessed life with us. My main issue is that I just don’t see how that was a good act on His part.
{snip}
-struggleMt71314

The extract above seems to be the key to your problem.

1. How do you know God was fine on His own?
2. To understand that creation is a good act one must truely understand what love is.

1 God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

Hell must exist if we are to be free to love God in return. To be forced to love is not love. Love must be freely given. The freedom to love must, by necessity, include the freedom to not love (hell).

 

[Fomalhaut]

Hi struggleMt71314 , thank you for this very detailed post. It’s a very interesting point for me. I’m not a believer but I’m interested in the christian belief system. I keep struggling with Hell as well. Free will or not, it seems harsh. The more I was asking questions on this forum, the more people were attenuating what Hell was. We got at a point where Hell wasn’t actually a place of eternal suffering, but more of a Godless place where souls go on their own, and the “suffering” is just remorse that they didn’t act good during their lives. It’s far from the lake of fire…

For me, the only way to make sense of the traditional vision of Hell is simply to accept that God might not be all loving. I’m sure many people here disagree, and I’ll follow this thread closely.

 

[Robertanthony]

God was just fine on His own, He obviously didn’t have to create us. Apparently, it was an act of awesome goodness on His part that He wanted to share His blessed life with us. My main issue is that I just don’t see how that was a good act on His part.

I say this pretty much because of the existence of hell. Why would He create when He knows that He will ultimately put His creatures at risk of going to hell. Not only at risk, but at great risk, as we know that the Lord said that it is a hard and narrow road that leads to life, and there are few who find it. The Christian life is not easy at all, the Gospel is immensely challenging. So why does God have to make it hard on us in order for us to get to Heaven? To me, this can just lead to perhaps many souls being lost and this just seems intensely wrong. This seems to be in sync with Jesus saying that the path to destruction is broad and easy, and many will take it.

Obviously I’m so worried and frustrated about this issue, because I feel at major risk to go to hell under these conditions. This narrow road just seems too hard and unfair. I understand the reality of the original sin and the fall of man and that this is not how it always was, but if the original sin was going to mess things up so terribly I feel that God was MUCH better off not creating, especially if He foresees that many will go to hell. It seems unjust and unloving in my opinion. I am open to being wrong, but I just don’t see it. I’ve talked to people about this, so I’ve heard a lot of the common responses, so keep that in mind when responding if possible. I just haven’t heard an argument against this that makes sense to me. I also understand that God will help us along the narrow road, but that doesn’t really make it any easier if you know what I mean. By that I basically mean that it will still be hard. I know Jesus said His yoke is easy and burden light but I guess I just don’t understand that passage. Maybe He helps you once you make the very difficult step into His way so to speak. But anyways…

We already know that the Devil and his angels are in hell, so this can’t really be dodged by the hopeful claim that maybe no one is in hell. I mean, God could have preserved us, so to speak, of the pain of hell by just not creating us. As far as I’m concerned, even if 1 person ends up in hell, God’s creation is ruined. It doesn’t matter to me that if someone is in hell, it was their choice. Mainly because I find it hard to believe that someone would ever choose a life of eternal torment over eternal bliss. I don’t believe that anyone would EVER make such a choice. To me, it seems that everyone should go to Heaven since everyone in this world desires the good, and if God is the source of all goodness, everyone would want to be with God. If everyone wants to be with God, why can’t that be the reality? Why hell? What I just said could easily be the reality (that all go to heaven because all desire the good), just as easily as hell is the reality in my opinion. If God is all-powerful, it seems that He could do this.

I can’t imagine a parent ever wanting to put their child into a severely dangerous situation, even to the point of perhaps not having children so as to not put their potential child into a harmful situation. I simply feel that God has allowed us into a very dangerous situation, without asking us if we’d like to be born or not. I can see someone saying “This situation (ie. life) is only dangerous if we reject God and turn away.” Okay. My point is that it seems like God makes it dangerously easy to turn away, because the way that He wills for us is so darn difficult. I guess it just seems unfair on so many levels.

Another thought that just entered in:

How can God live with Himself knowing souls are suffering in hell forever? Especially knowing that He could have prevented this by simply not creating. I just don’t get it. He was fine on His own. Just because He may be able to lead a few souls into His heavenly bliss doesn’t make it worth the price of having many souls suffering forever, regardless if it is their choice or not. I still don’t buy that a soul would ever choose hell over heaven. There’s more than just a simple choice going on here. And, from what I can see, it seems unfair to us, the creation.

I hope this makes sense and is connecting with some people. I understand that not all people understand my point or agree with it, and that can be for many reasons. But I’ll stop there for now (this can easily be something that I can talk for a long time about from so many different angles).

I understand that there is a certain difficulty/danger in challenging God on this point, but this still bothers me.

It is very difficult for me to express my thoughts on this well. I hope you can understand the point I am trying to raise. And, again, I appreciate any help on this. I may not be online that often to monitor this post, but please post your thoughts and I will be around eventually to read them, and maybe respond to them (publicly or by PM) if any of them help or challenge me.

God bless you.

-struggleMt71314

Struggle, you expressed thoughts that I entertain myself and that I’m sure many people, Catholics or not, entertain as well. Here’s the thing: to the best of my knowledge, you’ll never find a satisfying answer to your questions. All you’ll get is circular reasoning or platitudes. Hell doesn’t exist out of necessity but because God chose to create it. No one will ever convince me that a human being who has not asked to be born and can’t bring himself to love or trust God, that it’s perfectly acceptable for this person to suffer atrocious torments for ever and ever. I’m not talking about Charles Manson or Anton Lavey or Aleister Crowley here, but decent people who don’t acknowledge God. Life IS a raw deal for many. Given the choice, I’d choose to not exist.

 

[davidv]

Struggle, you expressed thoughts that I entertain myself and that I’m sure many people, Catholics or not, entertain as well. Here’s the thing: to the best of my knowledge, you’ll never find a satisfying answer to your questions. All you’ll get is circular reasoning or platitudes. Hell doesn’t exist out of necessity but because God chose to create it. No one will ever convince me that a human being who has not asked to be born and can’t bring himself to love or trust God, that it’s perfectly acceptable for this person to suffer atrocious torments for ever and ever. Life IS a raw deal for many. Given the choice, I’d choose to not exist.

Please show in Church teaching or Scripture that God created hell.

Hell is created by those who choose to love something other than of God.

 

[Robertanthony]

Please show in Church teaching or Scripture that God created hell.

Hell is created by those who choose to love something other than of God.

I’m not gonna play semantics with you. It says in scripture that Hell was prepared for Satan and his angels (and by extension for men whom God was gonna judge not worthy of his kingdom). “Create”, “prepare”, suit yourself. We all know Hell was not a spontaneous generation, God is the mastermind behind it.

 

[Robertanthony]

Hi struggleMt71314 , thank you for this very detailed post. It’s a very interesting point for me. I’m not a believer but I’m interested in the christian belief system. I keep struggling with Hell as well. Free will or not, it seems harsh. The more I was asking questions on this forum, the more people were attenuating what Hell was. We got at a point where Hell wasn’t actually a place of eternal suffering, but more of a Godless place where souls go on their own, and the “suffering” is just remorse that they didn’t act good during their lives. It’s far from the lake of fire…

For me, the only way to make sense of the traditional vision of Hell is simply to accept that God might not be all loving. I’m sure many people here disagree, and I’ll follow this thread closely.

Many people will water down the reality of Hell, will sugarcoat it to an extent to make it more acceptable, to spare God some of the epithets that readily come to mind when we think of hell: cruel, unjust, mean etc. Go read what St. Faustina or what the children of Fatima had to say about Hell.

 

[davidv]

I’m not gonna play semantics with you. It says in scripture that Hell was prepared for Satan and his angels (and by extension for men whom God was gonna judge not worthy of his kingdom). “Create”, “prepare”, suit yourself. We all know Hell was not a spontaneous generation, God is the mastermind behind it.

Then I won’t play semantics nor will I accept your interpretation of Scripture, which appears to be invalid question begging.

 

[twoshoes]

The extract above seems to be the key to your problem.

1. How do you know God was fine on His own?
2. To understand that creation is a good act one must truely understand what love is.

Hell must exist if we are to be free to love God in return. To be forced to love is not love. Love must be freely given. The freedom to love must, by necessity, include the freedom to not love (hell).

I agree 100% with this statement. To really know and love our Lord it must be freely given. We also must know God to the best of our ability. Only thru knowledge of God and his blessed nature can we fine our love for him. To know why God created us is not relivant to loving him.

When I returned to the church the first thing I did was ask God to know his love, then to earnestly search for it thru readings, prayer, and meditation. If you honestly search for his Love the Holy Spirit will guide you. Take the time to know him. Read About the Saints, read scripture, Pray you will find the things you think are road blocks are only bumps in the road designed to spur you on to deeper and more rewarding Love.

 

[Gliggle]

Dear Struggle,

I think you ask very sensible questions. I only disagree with you on one point. I can easily believe that people will choose endless suffering over eternal bliss because of their pride. I have seen people, even children, choose to suffer because of their pride many times in small things. I see no reason why this cannot be extended to big things. I think some humans are quite proud enough to swallow eternal suffering as long as they can maintain the image of their own grandeur and importance.

The rest though, I have also struggled with. Upon meditation, it seems to me that this is one of the ways God tests us, and asks us to trust in him. I think that there is more to this than we understand in this life. Trust that hell exists, that it is horrible, that it is eternal. But also trust that God knows what he is doing. Remember that phrase from the bible, something like “we see but through a glass darkly” and after we die it will all become clear. I think this includes our image of hell. Trust in God. And by no means am I suggesting you should stop pondering these things. But just trust that God has a wonderful plan, a myterious and wonderful plan that is not yet fully revealed to us.

edit: I should reference my quote
1 Corinthians 13:12
“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

 

[cheezey]

I agree 100% with this statement. To really know and love our Lord it must be freely given. We also must know God to the best of our ability. Only thru knowledge of God and his blessed nature can we fine our love for him. To know why God created us is not relivant to loving him.

When I returned to the church the first thing I did was ask God to know his love, then to earnestly search for it thru readings, prayer, and meditation. If you honestly search for his Love the Holy Spirit will guide you. Take the time to know him. Read About the Saints, read scripture, Pray you will find the things you think are road blocks are only bumps in the road designed to spur you on to deeper and more rewarding Love.

I like this. However, for me, the searching takes me farther away, somehow. The more I read and try to discern, the more ‘system overload’ I feel.
Struggle, is this true at all for you?

 

[cheezey]

…Trust in God. And by no means am I suggesting you should stop pondering these things. But just trust that God has a wonderful plan, a myterious and wonderful plan that is not yet fully revealed to us.

You were typing as I was, G. This is what I need to do, to avoid that ‘system overload.’
I just hope He wants me.

My prayers go with you, Struggle.
Gliggle said it well…

 

[vames]

Go read what St. Faustina or what the children of Fatima had to say about Hell.

Compare it to the many visions of people who claimed that they have seen the Purgatory and that it is a place of terrifying torture by fire, too, **only **because the seers were culturally conditioned by the Church to believe what Aquinas said - “the fire of Purgatory is the same as the fire of Hell and hence they are in the same place”. The same goes for most visions about Hell, all of them being the same product of an ancient representation about Heaven (a place above), Earth (the place in the middle, where we live) and Underworld (the place beyond, in the incandescent centre of the Earth). This representation was used to scare children and adults, by emphasizing that we should be good and obedient because otherwise we will be punished in Hell. Hence the content of all these visions and their popularity.

If you see how the Church’s thinking has evolved, you notice that this primitive representation has slowly changed to the point where is not the official teaching of the Church anymore. Purgatory and Hell are not “places” anymore, the “fire” isn’t an actual fire anymore, "this state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell” and “the chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God” (Catechism). Furthermore, hell is something reserved only for few souls (precisely the Charles Manson or Anton Lavey types that you mentioned), as Pope Benedict says on his encyclical “Spe Salvi”:

With death, our life-choice becomes definitive—our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell[37]. On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbours—people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfilment what they already are[38].
46. Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God.

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html

 

[Warandpeace]

The extract above seems to be the key to your problem.

1. How do you know God was fine on His own?
2. To understand that creation is a good act one must truely understand what love is.

Hell must exist if we are to be free to love God in return. To be forced to love is not love. Love must be freely given. The freedom to love must, by necessity, include the freedom to not love (hell).

God is fine on his own. The love between the Father and the Son is perfection.

 

[Warandpeace]

The CCC on Hell

1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."612 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.613 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.”

1034 Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.614 Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,"615 and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!"616

1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire."617 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

1036 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few."618

Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where "men will weep and gnash their teeth."619
1037 God predestines no one to go to hell;620 for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want “any to perish, but all to come to repentance”:621

 

[cornbread_r2]

If someone wants to be separated from God, then why would separation from God be regarded by those persons as a punishment?

The Catechism says that this separation is the chief punishment of Hell, not that it is the only punishment. As I understand it, after the resurrection of the dead, everyone’s soul, including those in Hell, will be reunited with their bodies. That implies the existence of a place as well as physical torments. That place and those physical torments cannot exist without God sustaining that existence.

 

[pink8888]

the following from padre pio:
(hopefully ease a bit of your fears)

“I believe that not a great number of souls go to hell.
God loves us so much. He formed us at his image. God loves us beyond understanding.
And it is my belief that when we have passed from the consciousness of the world,
when we appear to be dead, God, before He judges us, will give us
a chance to see and understand what sin really is.
And if we understand it properly, how could we fail to repent?”

“You will be surprised to find in Paradise souls you never expected to be there.”

 

[cornbread_r2]

the following from padre pio:
(hopefully ease a bit of your fears)

“I believe that not a great number of souls go to hell.
God loves us so much. He formed us at his image. God loves us beyond understanding.
And it is my belief that when we have passed from the consciousness of the world,
when we appear to be dead, God, before He judges us, will give us
a chance to see and understand what sin really is.
And if we understand it properly, how could we fail to repent?”

“You will be surprised to find in Paradise souls you never expected to be there.”

If the quotes from this page are accurate, then it would seem that Padre Pio’s is a minority opinion.

 

[Ion]

The only problem of the people who do not understand Hell is their attitude towards suffering.
Not to suffer is too important to them. This is typical in atheism, who “live the moment”.
Jesus showed us that not to suffer is not the most important thing. Many of us will have to go through the purgatory, and you can just try and stick your hand in the oven for couple of seconds to have the ideea. The people in Purgatory will suffer like Hell (actually the orthodox think it is the same place, but some people will make it out the Hell through the merits of the church). Do you think the people in purgatory will complain?
Jesus wants us in full control of ourselves, including the pains. If you love Him, you should get through anything to reach him.
You can take it like this: if you fail in the suferings of this world to reach Jesus, then you will have to live with them forever, because you loved the things that bring sufferings more.
For an atheist, the same, he doesn;t care about all the suffering he creates, then he will have it all. Comes very logical…

 

[tonyrey]

If the quotes from this page are accurate, then it would seem that Padre Pio’s is a minority opinion.

In view of the hideous amount of needless misery and suffering caused by the human race what alternative solution do you suggest? Is evil an illusion or a fact?