Question about Hell

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Flack

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Hey guys,

I understand that people are not “sent” to Hell by God but that, by the choices they made in their lives, they basically “chose” (not that anyone would voluntarily choose) to go to Hell, ie. they used their free will to decide where they will end up.

Now, is it true that God still loves those that are in Hell or is it like they no longer exist to Him? How about if someone in Hell really, truly feels bad for whatever got them there. They may say somehting like “God please forgive, I’m really sorry.” and God will reply with something like, oh I don’t know, “Too little, too late!” or “You snooze, you lose!”

So, basically what I’m asking is that have those in Hell reached the point of no return when it comes to God’s love? And if they didn’t, and God still loves them, why is it hopeless for them?

Thanks for any answers! 🙂

-Flack
 
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Flack:
Hey guys,

I understand that people are not “sent” to Hell by God but that, by the choices they made in their lives, they basically “chose” (not that anyone would voluntarily choose) to go to Hell, ie. they used their free will to decide where they will end up.

Now, is it true that God still loves those that are in Hell or is it like they no longer exist to Him? How about if someone in Hell really, truly feels bad for whatever got them there. They may say somehting like “God please forgive, I’m really sorry.” and God will reply with something like, oh I don’t know, “Too little, too late!” or “You snooze, you lose!”

So, basically what I’m asking is that have those in Hell reached the point of no return when it comes to God’s love? And if they didn’t, and God still loves them, why is it hopeless for them?

Thanks for any answers! 🙂

-Flack
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God Loves all His creatures. Even in Hell Go loves His creatures. If He ceased loving them they would cease to exist. However, to answer your question about a repentant sinner in Hell it is important to look at it from a couple of different perspectives.
  1. The parable of the rich man and poor Lazerus. The Rich man wants mercy but Abraham tells him that he has no consolation now after death.
  2. Outside of time there is no opportunity to gain merit or practice charity and thus there is no way for a person to work off their sins so to speak. Thus, as Trent tells us, there is no merit in the afterlife and because of this a person in Heaven cannot fall from grace and a person in Hell cannot merit salvation.
  3. The temporal life we live is filled with a lot of mini-choices that comprise one real choice and that is for God or against God. Not to fall into. Being mindfull not to fall into proportionalism it can be said that all the choices that we make here on earth equal one big choice when we die of loving God or not.
 
Many interpret that parable to refer to purgatory because in hell there is no love, and the man would not care about his loved ones. He would actually hate them and want them to go to hell too.

The basic answer to the question is, as mosher said in point 3, a person in hell never would repent… maybe somebody can explain it better, but a dead person has a fixed will. Those little choices mosher talked about all do sortof… in a very roundabout way “add” up to one big choice that a person has made for all time because he wants to make it for all time.
 
well first of all god takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and we are going to be judged on the word of god and how we lived our lives according to it and unbelivers and belivers are all going to be judged separtely .And yes god loves the people in hell also , God is love! , but those in hell cannot come out . There is heaven and hell and that is it . and we have a choice to which we would go to … These are the words of Jesus " I am the way the truth and the light , no man goes to the father except through me " Jesus is the only way to heaven and through we go to heaven and by denying him we go to hell , (getting off topic sorry) but yes god still loves them ,but we have a free will and God does not go against our free will, so those in hell chose to go there by thier actions of denying Christ and they cannot come back from hell… they are there forever .Jesus is the only way to heaven!! Jesus is the only way you are forgiven . Jesus is Lord!!! 👍 😃
 
We exist only through and because of God’s love for us. if he ceased to love us we would cease to exist. those in Hell continue their existence throughout eternity, therefore God continues to love them, although they have rejected that love entirely and perpetually refuse to return it.
 
The way that it was explained to me was that, once we die and pass out of temporality (time), our choice for or against God is fixed because in the afterlife, there is no time. This makes sense to me because, if it wasn’t so, one could spend eternity vacilating between choosing God and not. A truly unrepentant person could even concievably go on forever NOT making a choice for God.

As far as the location of the Rich Man in the parable, I have also heard that he may in fact be in hell, rather than purgatory. The fact that he wants to warn his brothers may be, rather selfishly, because he doesn’t want them to go to hell since, as he was a bad example to them in his own life, it would increase his own suffering, the thought being that the torment of souls in hell is proportionate to the evil they have done on earth. Judging by the selfish behavior he displays elewhere in the parable, even after he dies, this also makes sense.

Here is a great series of articles that discuss this whole subject.

rosary-center.org/ll57n1.htm
rosary-center.org/ll57n2.htm
rosary-center.org/ll57n3.htm
rosary-center.org/ll57n4.htm
rosary-center.org/ll49n6.htm
 
It has been said that if even one soul in hell were to repent, then hell would cease to exist but that doesn’t happen because those that are in hell, become part of hell.

As far as the Rich Man … he expression concern for his brothers. Compassion is a grace from God and those in hell are deprived from God’s graces for all eternity. Therefore, he can not be in hell and must be in purgatory.
 
God loves all souls and predestines no one to go to hell. However, as the CCC says - we must all accept God’s merciful love, we have to freely choose to love Him.

Even though God loves us we can turn away from Him and reject His love for us through mortal sin. If we are persistent in this to the end then at the moment of death we have chosen to remain seperated from God for all eternity - hell. Jesus gives us plenty of warning of this in scripture.

The soul will cast itself by God’s ordinance into hell as into it’s proper place. (Fire of Love - St. Catherine of Genoa). The soul will not be able to repent after death, and will no less want to.
 
Also, those going to Hell experience the Second Death (of the Book of the Apocalypse/Revelation) and ARE fixed as the person above mention - no more chance for salvation

(see Rev 2:11; 20:6, 14 ; 21:8 )

The righteous are given new and everlasting life 🙂

Both of these happen at their respective Resurrections
We have already made our choice before then.

Peace
 
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