The Fear of Hell

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ThinkingSapien said:
I conjecture that if one were to do a survey they would get very different results from the question of fear of hell v fear of God’s love. For the sake of avoiding confusion from other concepts and definitions of Hell I wonder if it would be better to directly refer to the absence of God’s love instead of hell when in dialog with those outside the Church.
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Hell is the absence of God. (And God is Love.)
 
Mount_Carmel said:
Hell is the absence of God’s Love. God though His Wisdom, [He sees the bigger picture, we don’t], has assented to us having latitude of will, as such we can either embrace Him or reject Him. If we reject Him we in effect ‘out of choice’ cut ourselves off from God’s Love. All that is Good is actively supported by His Love. Hell is the opposite.

Those visionaries who claim to have witnessed Hell often say that if everyone had a preview of it, there would be no Hell or Satan ‘jokes’.
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You wrote, “Hell is the absence of God’s Love.”

Hell is NOT the absence of God’s Love, spiritual death is.

God’s Love can either caress or burn, think about it.

God has been referred to as a “Consuming Fire of Love”, as I said, God can either caress or burn and when God “burns”, God, ultimately, burns away ALL of the crud, so to speak.

You also wrote, “God though His Wisdom, [He sees the bigger picture, we don’t],”

Since God DOES see the “bigger picture”, could very well be that God came up with a PLAN that many can not even imagine.

God wins, satan loses, a tie is absolutely and utterly unacceptable.
 
opusAquinas said:
Hell is the absence of God. (And God is Love.)
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As I have said, God’s Love can caress or burn and when God’s Love burns, It, ultimately, burns away ALL of the crud, so to speak, spiritual death is the absence of God’s Love.

Hell and spiritual death are not the same, they are different.

Actually, God and Love are interchangeable since God Is a Being of Love.

Jesus can be referred to as God-Incarnate or Love-Incarnate.

I can not “explain” how God can be a Being of Love but I can say that God Is a Being of Love, just as I can not “explain” how God Is a Trinity but I can say that God Is a Trinity.
 
Tom_Baum said:
As I have said, God’s Love can caress or burn and when God’s Love burns, It, ultimately, burns away ALL of the crud, so to speak, spiritual death is the absence of God’s Love.

Hell and spiritual death are not the same, they are different.

Actually, God and Love are interchangeable since God Is a Being of Love.

Jesus can be referred to as God-Incarnate or Love-Incarnate.

I can not “explain” how God can be a Being of Love but I can say that God Is a Being of Love, just as I can not “explain” how God Is a Trinity but I can say that God Is a Trinity.
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Hell is the absence of God.

If God is love than in hell there is no love. There is only hatred.

There will also be hellfire.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
I conjecture that if one were to do a survey they would get very different results from the question of fear of hell v fear of God’s love. For the sake of avoiding confusion from other concepts and definitions of Hell I wonder if it would be better to directly refer to the absence of God’s love instead of hell when in dialog with those outside the Church.
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That would be an odd way of putting it.

Hell is not the absence of God’s love.

Hell is the absence of love for God.

That’s equally the state of hell on earth.

If we choose not to love God in this life, we will experience a taste of the hell to come.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
What is “hellfire.” Because I don’t think that you are referring to the process involving rapid oxidation of a substance from which heat is released.
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As far as know, there is no definitive answer on the nature of this fire, it is a matter of theological debate. There are those who says that fire here is the torment caused by the remorse of conscience, those who say that it is some sort of literal fire that causes torment (certainly not the same type of fire as in this world), and probably some other interpretations that I am not aware of.
 
Tiago_Paolini said:
As far as know, there is no definitive answer on the nature of this fire, it is a matter of theological debate. There are those who says that fire here is the torment caused by the remorse of conscience, those who say that it is some sort of literal fire that causes torment (certainly not the same type of fire as in this world), and probably some other interpretations that I am not aware of.
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Yes, I think fire is a metaphor for the greatest possible suffering we could imagine … the eternal loss of favor with God by our own willful egos. When the people atop the Trade Towers on 9/11 were faced with being burned to death or leaping to their deaths, many obviously saw the leap as preferable to the burning. Leaping itself must have seemed as horrible as anything they could imagine, except that fire was even more horrible.

So we choose the fires (anguish) of hell by choosing to put ourselves as far away from God as we can get. But why anyone prefers hell to getting close to God escapes me. How can the human ego be so stupidly proud as to defy God’s wish for its own salvation?
 
Doesn’t a fear of hell become a lesser thought as one grows into adulthood?

Thinking on how I would be afraid of going to hell if I was to do something I knew was wrong as a child. The fear isn’t so much now as an adult…
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Yes, I think fire is a metaphor for the greatest possible suffering we could imagine … the eternal loss of favor with God by our own willful egos. When the people atop the Trade Towers on 9/11 were faced with being burned to death or leaping to their deaths, many obviously saw the leap as preferable to the burning. Leaping itself must have seemed as horrible as anything they could imagine, except that fire was even more horrible.

So we choose the fires (anguish) of hell by choosing to put ourselves as far away from God as we can get. But why anyone prefers hell to getting close to God escapes me. How can the human ego be so stupidly proud as to defy God’s wish for its own salvation?
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We see plenty of evidence of the lust for absolute power in this world. Why should it be different in the next, Charlie?

Hell is often regarded as too horrific to be true and heaven as too wonderful to be true!
Life is diluted to meaningless mediocrity in which good and evil are merely human conventions and nothing really matters. As one contributor to this forum remarked, our aversion to the torture of children is solely because we are sentimental!
 
tonyrey said:
We see plenty of evidence of the lust for absolute power in this world. Why should it be different in the next, Charlie?
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It truly does seem as though prideful stupidity is ubiquitous in created beings. 🤷
 
simpleas said:
Doesn’t a fear of hell become a lesser thought as one grows into adulthood?..
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There different levels of adulthood. I suspect you are somewhere in the midlevel, when life offers too many distractions to think much about eternity. But in later years I predict the fear of hell will return, when you have time to meditate on how good or bad you have been all your life. Anyway, that has been my experience. 😦
 
Charlemagne_III said:
There different levels of adulthood. I suspect you are somewhere in the midlevel, when life offers too many distractions to think much about eternity. But in later years I predict the fear of hell will return, when you have time to meditate on how good or bad you have been all your life. Anyway, that has been my experience. 😦
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Thanks for sharing your experience. I would say if I reach my twilight years, rather than reverting back into a fear, I’d hope I’d be free of it, at peace with God and the world. 🙂
 
tonyrey said:
Hell is often regarded as too horrific to be true and heaven as too wonderful to be true!
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The descriptions of heaven I’ve encountered have been nebulous and abstract. There’s not really been much said of it. So can’t be sure what about it is thought by some to be to good to be true.

While various denominations have had incompatible descriptions of hell the language used to describe it have been less abstract. Like the one in which every one wears garments made of fire and hooks in their flesh.
 
simpleas said:
Thanks for sharing your experience. I would say if I reach my twilight years, rather than reverting back into a fear, I’d hope I’d be free of it, at peace with God and the world. 🙂
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I’m not there yet. Hope to be before the end. 🤷
 
ThinkingSapien said:
The descriptions of heaven I’ve encountered have been nebulous and abstract. There’s not really been much said of it. So can’t be sure what about it is thought by some to be to good to be true.

While various denominations have had incompatible descriptions of hell the language used to describe it have been less abstract. Like the one in which every one wears garments made of fire and hooks in their flesh.
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Never saw that one in the Bible. Are you thinking Dante? 😉
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Never saw that one in the Bible. Are you thinking Dante? 😉
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Nope, not Dante. But it is from one of the Abraham faiths. One of the more vivid descriptions of hell that I’ve seen.

While Dante’s description was very *colorful * don’t think it has ever been presented as “truth.”

Pardon my mistakes. Sent from a mobile device.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
The descriptions of heaven I’ve encountered have been nebulous and abstract. There’s not really been much said of it. So can’t be sure what about it is thought by some to be to good to be true.

While various denominations have had incompatible descriptions of hell the language used to describe it have been less abstract. Like the one in which every one wears garments made of fire and hooks in their flesh.
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Yes we can imagine what hell will or should be like, yet we don’t have many images on what heaven will or should be like.

We seem to delight in the idea of an evil afterlife.
 
simpleas said:
Yes we can imagine what hell will or should be like, yet we don’t have many images on what heaven will or should be like.

We seem to delight in the idea of an evil afterlife.*
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I disagree. That’s not an indication of delight. It’s an indication that there’s more material to draw from about a picture of hell.

Glancing on what the bible says about an afterlife (good or bad) there’s descriptions of an eternal life (John 3:16) in paradise (Luke 23:43)with singing angels ( Rev. 4:8-11). and a description of a lake that burns with fire and sulfur , a second death (Rev 21:8) and eternal punishment (Matt 25:46). It seems the not-so-good afterlife has a more visual description and is more indicative of an experience.

Jumping over to another Abrahamic religion we find that the experience of the not-so-good afterlife to be much more descriptive than the better one.
Quran Surah 22:
  • 19 These twain (the believers and the disbelievers) are two opponents who contend concerning their Lord. But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads,
  • 20 Whereby that which is in their bellies, and their skins too, will be melted;
  • 21 And for them are hooked rods of iron.
  • 22 Whenever, in their anguish, they would go forth from thence they are driven back therein and (it is said unto them): Taste the doom of burning.
  • 23 Lo! Allah will cause those who believe and do good works to enter Gardens underneath which rivers flow, wherein they will be allowed armlets of gold, and pearls, and their raiment therein will be silk.
  • 24 They are guided unto gentle speech; they are guided unto the path of the Glorious One.
  • 25 Lo! those who disbelieve and bar (men) from the way of Allah and from the Inviolable Place of Worship, which We have appointed for mankind together, the dweller therein and the nomad: whosoever seeketh wrongful partiality therein, him We shall cause to taste a painful doom.
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Once again the description of the no-so-good afterlife is descriptive of an experience, while the experience of the better afterlife seems to be not so experiential.
    • here I am assuming by “evil” you mean “having bad consequences” instead of “having bad intentions.”
 
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