The Population of Hell (and eternity of hell)

[opusAquinas]

firstthings.com/article/2003/05/the-population-of-hell

Mention should here be made of a minority opinion among some of the Greek Fathers. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory Nazianzen, and Gregory of Nyssa sometimes speak as though in the end all will be saved. Origen, the most prominent representative of this view, is generally reported as teaching that at the end of time, the damned, now repentant and purified, will take part in the universal restoration of all things ( apokatastasis ). Three centuries after Origen’s death his views on this and several other topics were condemned by a local council of Constantinople convened by the Emperor Justinian in a.d. 563. Even in his lifetime, however, Origen claimed that his adversaries had misunderstood or misrepresented him. A number of distinguished scholars down through the centuries have defended his orthodoxy on the fate of the damned. The doctrine of the eternity of hell has been firmly in place at least since the seventh century, and is not subject to debate in the Catholic Church.

comments?

 

[glendab]

Hello Opus.

It has come to my attention in the study of history that over the centuries old errors get new wheels and if forgotten about among the current scholars and academics and theologians find some form of credibility until some remembers once again the original error that the “new” theological discussions are about. Then the Church reminds everyone that it is indeed an error and corrects everyone. Some accept it and some don’t. One other thing. Protestants study our Fathers and Councils and Creeds and history searching for things to make their particular denominations current theology credible. They find the same old errors, ignore the condemnations of the Church and then act as if we in the Church believed this all along but denied it only when they said it was truth. There are others who search into past errors looking for things to build with or for various proofs of their own errors, but the Church knows this too. Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity saith the Prophet. Nothing new under the sun. The Church cannot deceive nor be deceived. And we aren’t.

Glenda

 

[glendab]

P.S. The essay is a good one. Thanks for the link.

 

[svid2]

Pax Christi!

Following this.

God bless.

 

[esieffe]

**" In Philippians 2:9-10 he predicts that eventually every knee will bow to Christ and every tongue confess him. But this need not mean a confession that proceeds from love.

In the Gospels the devils proclaim that Jesus is the Holy One of God, but they are not saved by recognizing the fact."**

My heart tells me that the natural consequence of those who see that they were wrong at the end, at worst would be the eternal absence of God. Not perpetual torture. The truly wicked might suffer worse.

Those who are still alive and roam the earth who are wicked, often feel the heavy weight of sin, which can be crushing. A child who stubbornly refuses to obey his parents, feels the consequences of his choices until he or she understands and takes to their heart the correctness of what the parents are trying to convey.

Perpetual torture for anyone accept say demons, serves no purpose in my mind. **I am thinking outloud here. This is simply supposition, the bantering of thoughts. ** Personally, I am not leaving salvation up to chance, I would be a fool to do so. Even as I speculate, I take Church doctrine and dogma on faith. However, is it sinful to wonder about the NATURE of the final judgement, or hell?

 

[glendab]

Hello Esieffe.

**" In Philippians 2:9-10 he predicts that eventually every knee will bow to Christ and every tongue confess him. But this need not mean a confession that proceeds from love.

In the Gospels the devils proclaim that Jesus is the Holy One of God, but they are not saved by recognizing the fact."**

My heart tells me that the natural consequence of those who see that they were wrong at the end, at worst would be the eternal absence of God. Not perpetual torture. The truly wicked might suffer worse.

Those who are still alive and roam the earth who are wicked, often feel the heavy weight of sin, which can be crushing. A child who stubbornly refuses to obey his parents, feels the consequences of his choices until he or she understands and takes to their heart the correctness of what the parents are trying to convey.

Perpetual torture for anyone accept say demons, serves no purpose in my mind. **I am thinking outloud here. This is simply supposition, the bantering of thoughts. ** Personally, I am not leaving salvation up to chance, I would be a fool to do so. Even as I speculate, I take Church doctrine and dogma on faith. However, is it sinful to wonder about the NATURE of the final judgement, or hell?

It is natural curiosity to wonder about things. Being curious isn’t a sin, but not everything we think of is okay to think. Natural curiosity is the hallmark of a true philosopher. But prudence in speculations is wise. Always find out the Truth from solid Catholic sources when you mind wonders about stuff. It could cost your Eternity to follow after the follies of others. Hell is just that Hell and the language used to describe it may not be very appealing, but they use it for a reason. If the only thing keeping some from sinning mortally is fear of Hell and it torments, it is good thing. It may not be the best of motives and certainly not Saintly, but it is sufficient to keep out of major trouble. Serious doubts about your faith can arise from too much curiosity and speculations. Careful with it. God died for you. Don’t lose you faith.

Jesus didn’t sugarcoat Hell. He wasn’t waiting for the Hallmark Seal of Approval from His audience before delivering the Sermon on the Mount. He cast out demons, He healed,He gave us the Sacraments. He challenged those in Authority who misused religion for their own ends. The list could go on. When He spoke people listened with a level of obedience much lacking in our day. Just imagine what your soul would experience if you heard and saw God with your own eyes talking about Hell. You wouldn’t doubt for an instant its existence. Listen for God’s voice in the voice of the Church and her Shepherds. It is there. Hear Him.

Glenda

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I’ve said before the night my father died he appeared in my room. At the end he gave this absolutely terrifying scream, and it was obvious something was coming for him. His “eyeballs” were literally popping out of his head (mind you he didn’t have any eyeballs, since he was spiritual or ghostly, but you’ll get the drift).

As far as I’m concerned he saw either Hell or some sort of demonic reality approaching. The scream was so terrifying that I started to scream.

He wasn’t just looking at possible separation from God. Whatever it was that was approaching was terrifying him to the core.

Then he just disappeared.

Since then I’ve sometimes wondered if, 35 years or so later, he is still undergoing the sort of punishment that seems to be evidenced by the vision at Fatima as given to the two children, or whether he gets a reprieve at some stage.

“She (Mary) opened Her hands once more, as She had done the two previous months. The rays [of light] appeared to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned]. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke. Now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons were distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. That vision only lasted for a moment, thanks to our good Heavenly Mother, Who at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear.”

You’ll notice that Sister Lucia said she and the other children trembled with fright, and that had the vision been prolonged past the very short time allocated, they would have died of terror and fear. My father couldn’t die spiritually since he was already dead, having died just a few minutes before (I’d presume). So all he could do was scream.

I didn’t see anything else incidentally. Just him.

So, is there a reprieve is what the OP is asking. I don’t know. I suppose for what might be called the ordinary sinners - those who ignored God, thought Christ was unimportant, blundered into the wrong bed, cheated on their tax, bullied other kids at school, sometimes kicked the dog - I don’t know. I don’t see how they can end up in the same level of Hell as Adolf Hitler, or Josef Stalin, or a sadistic torturer.

What I do know is that it’s terrifying, and it’s more than just “separation from God”. That’s a bit of a cop out really.

There’s real terror involved, and as Sister Lucia “shrieks and groans of pain…”.

 

[mikekle]

I’ve said before the night my father died he appeared in my room. At the end he gave this absolutely terrifying scream, and it was obvious something was coming for him. His “eyeballs” were literally popping out of his head (mind you he didn’t have any eyeballs, since he was spiritual or ghostly, but you’ll get the drift).

As far as I’m concerned he saw either Hell or some sort of demonic reality approaching. The scream was so terrifying that I started to scream.

He wasn’t just looking at possible separation from God. Whatever it was that was approaching was terrifying him to the core.

Then he just disappeared.

Since then I’ve sometimes wondered if, 35 years or so later, he is still undergoing the sort of punishment that seems to be evidenced by the vision at Fatima as given to the two children, or whether he gets a reprieve at some stage.

You’ll notice that Sister Lucia said she and the other children trembled with fright, and that had the vision been prolonged past the very short time allocated, they would have died of terror and fear. My father couldn’t die spiritually since he was already dead, having died just a few minutes before (I’d presume). So all he could do was scream.

I didn’t see anything else incidentally. Just him.

So, is there a reprieve is what the OP is asking. I don’t know. I suppose for what might be called the ordinary sinners - those who ignored God, thought Christ was unimportant, blundered into the wrong bed, cheated on their tax, bullied other kids at school, sometimes kicked the dog - I don’t know. I don’t see how they can end up in the same level of Hell as Adolf Hitler, or Josef Stalin, or a sadistic torturer.

What I do know is that it’s terrifying, and it’s more than just “separation from God”. That’s a bit of a cop out really.

There’s real terror involved, and as Sister Lucia “shrieks and groans of pain…”.

That is very scary to think about, I have alot of fear about this very thing, dying and then waking up, or realize Im going somewhere VERY VERY bad and its happening RIGHT NOW! Ive been woken up with bad dreams about this many nights, cant get back to sleep.

Did you see your father as a kind of wispy ghost type of figure in the room, or did he look like a person standing there? Did it appear to you that he knew he had died, or did this happen fast, as soon as you saw him, he became terrified about whatever was coming for him? Was he looking in a particular direction or…??

 

[Bob_Crowley]

That is very scary to think about, I have alot of fear about this very thing, dying and then waking up, or realize Im going somewhere VERY VERY bad and its happening RIGHT NOW! Ive been woken up with bad dreams about this many nights, cant get back to sleep.

Did you see your father as a kind of wispy ghost type of figure in the room, or did he look like a person standing there? Did it appear to you that he knew he had died, or did this happen fast, as soon as you saw him, he became terrified about whatever was coming for him? Was he looking in a particular direction or…??

He looked like a person, namely him. He was clearly visible, but I could also see through him if I wanted. I had this two shelf book case made of chipboard, with a big dip in the middle shelf due to the weight of the books (and of course the fact it was made of chipboard). I can still remember being able to look through him and see the book case.

About the closest thing I can describe is if you imagine someone’s circulatory system - heart, arteries, veins, capillaries and then imagine them in mild fluorescent white, shimmering somewhat. Whether this has to with the Biblical statement “the life is in the blood” I don’t know. But that’s about as close as I can describe the apparition.

He was certainly aware he’d died - at one point I asked him (since being visited by recently dead relatives was not exactly a routine event in my life), “What is this!? A dream or something?!” to which he looked a bit bemused, and replied, “No, it’s not a dream. I died tonight.”

And he had too. The first actual notification I received of his death was when my uncle (mother’s brother) turned up to tell me he’d died. He informed me it was rather grim as his body wasn’t found for four days. Then the penny dropped, and I counted back four days, and I still remember thinking “Then what the hell was that the other night??”.

Had I had enough presence of mind to note the time, I think I could have given the coroner a very accurate time of death. But I didn’t think of it at the time.

At another point I pointed out how difficult he’d made things for me, to which he replied, “It wasn’t easy for me either you know. And I never had a chance to see anything like this.”

 

[esieffe]

I’ve said before the night my father died he appeared in my room. At the end he gave this absolutely terrifying scream, and it was obvious something was coming for him. His “eyeballs” were literally popping out of his head (mind you he didn’t have any eyeballs, since he was spiritual or ghostly, but you’ll get the drift).

As far as I’m concerned he saw either Hell or some sort of demonic reality approaching. The scream was so terrifying that I started to scream.

He wasn’t just looking at possible separation from God. Whatever it was that was approaching was terrifying him to the core.

Then he just disappeared.

.

I have really only had one, what I would call “demonic/ hell” dream or experience. I don’t think it was a dream though, because I could still see what was going on when my parents and sister burst into my room.

I had just graduated high school. This was when I first became interested in converting to Catholicism. I was wearing a relic with Pope Paul VI’s vestment piece in it.

I dream all the time, yet I never forgot this, experience. I woke up one night, and smelled excrement. I turned the light on to make sure I had not had an accident, and no, everything was fine. I thought it might be a problem with the vent stack in the bathroom. Then I closed my eyes, and then in my mind there were flames all around my bed. I sat right up and instead of being in my room, I was in this black pit with holes all around it, like the inside of a commercial dryer. I was in utter terror. I screamed at the very top of my lungs.

Mom, Dad, and my little sister all got up at the same time and rushed into my room and turned the lights on. It was only then it vanished. I said I was sorry and it must have been a bad dream. “Well it must of been a hell of a bad dream” my father said. “You were screaming your head off.” It took me weeks to get over it. Friends thought might be an attack of some sort… but from where?

Now I wonder after your experience if it wasn’t “hell” that I was seeing.

 

[thinkandmull]

The epistle of Jude definitely says people are in hell

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Now I wonder after your experience if it wasn’t “hell” that I was seeing.

I think you were being harassed with a vision of something like hell, possibly as a witness to the devil’s displeasure regarding your new found enthusiasm for the Catholic Church.

Like you, I’ve only had the one incident with clear overtones of hell, and even then it was at the very end when my father screamed his head off. Unlike you there were no other visual symbols - no flames, no dark pit etc. Although there was a strong stench afterward for a short time, which I’ve not made a point of mentioning before.

I’ve had other spiritual experiences, some of which I’m sure were divine or angelic, and others demonic. But the incident with my father was one of a kind.

I think in my father’s case the simplest explanation is probably the correct one - he appeared in my room starting with an apology for 25 years of deliberate cruelty (we are informed judgement takes place immediately after death), we argued and conversed, he made a few predictions, a couple of which have already occurred eg. I’d become a Christian, and that I’d meet a pastor, whom I would think was great, but who would also discourage me. He also indicated a certain other pastor, who apparently grew up not that far from me and would have a hand in wrecking a future “career”. I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure he was involved. There were a few other things he said as well.

Then at the end I saw his reaction to his approaching judgement - terror.

And since hell was in close proximity at that point, I got hit with the smell.

But as I said, it’s the only time I’ve had any experience remotely like it. I’m not really interested in a repeat.

 

[mikekle]

I have been on the fence about heaven and hell, but reading these threads have made me start to wonder if its all true, and also wonder why God would permit someone to spend eternity in such a place, no matter what they did!!! Geez, look what what Satan did, and after 2000 + years, hes still free to roam around, having all the powers and abilities he had as a servant of God…anyone else see a problem with this? LOL

I know alot of people on here say people send themselves to hell, but NO ONE would choose to spend any amount of time in such a place of their own free will, so I dont buy that…only one entity sends a person to Hell, but to avoid it, all you have to do is worship God…???..where is our free will in this? If you dont make the ‘right’ choice, you end up suffering for eternity, This is really making me question whether I should be a Christian or not.

 

[Kay_Cee]

I know alot of people on here say people send themselves to hell, but NO ONE would choose to spend any amount of time in such a place of their own free will

Lucifer did.

 

[Ion]

No amount of population or duration of sufferings in Hell can equal the Passion of Christ.

 

[thinkandmull]

I have been on the fence about heaven and hell, but reading these threads have made me start to wonder if its all true, and also wonder why God would permit someone to spend eternity in such a place, no matter what they did!!! Geez, look what what Satan did, and after 2000 + years, hes still free to roam around, having all the powers and abilities he had as a servant of God…anyone else see a problem with this? LOL

I know alot of people on here say people send themselves to hell, but NO ONE would choose to spend any amount of time in such a place of their own free will, so I dont buy that…only one entity sends a person to Hell, but to avoid it, all you have to do is worship God…???..where is our free will in this? If you dont make the ‘right’ choice, you end up suffering for eternity, This is really making me question whether I should be a Christian or not.

You’ve forgotten about temptation and the beauty of defeating it

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I have been on the fence about heaven and hell, but reading these threads have made me start to wonder if its all true, and also wonder why God would permit someone to spend eternity in such a place, no matter what they did!!! Geez, look what what Satan did, and after 2000 + years, hes still free to roam around, having all the powers and abilities he had as a servant of God…anyone else see a problem with this? LOL

I know alot of people on here say people send themselves to hell, but NO ONE would choose to spend any amount of time in such a place of their own free will, so I dont buy that…only one entity sends a person to Hell, but to avoid it, all you have to do is worship God…???..where is our free will in this? If you dont make the ‘right’ choice, you end up suffering for eternity, This is really making me question whether I should be a Christian or not.

Well, I can assure you that God is real, and so is the devil. You’re right in one way - nobody deliberately sets out to go to Hell, if they’re in their right mind. No one sits down and writes out a policy statement - “my mission in life is to go to Hell”.

This is one difference between humans and demons. The demons are evil, and they know it. They can also see the reality of hell, and spend time in it. That’s why they scream when they’re exorcised. They know where they’re going, and they don’t want to go. I remember talking to a Protestant exorcist, who claimed he’d seen clients floating up near the ceiling. And Catholic exorcists would say the same.

But he also said, “You should see them (demons) carry on! They don’t want to go!”

But at least they don’t disguise evil actions under the cloak of idealism, which humans do.

Adolf Hitler would not have thought he was serving the devil, or heading for Hell. He’d have thought he was pursuing the greater good of Greater Germany; racial purity; the Aryan superman, or some other rubbish. But his actions were evil, and he destroyed millions in the name of his ideology. So what’s a fitting punishment?

And would he really want to change? Even after he saw the results of his actions?

In the case of the devil, true, he’s allowed to roam the world and tempt souls. But his final fate is the lake of fire, like molten glass. That doesn’t sound like fun to me. And it’s probably visible to him, acting as a goad.

So why did God make him? I asked my old pastor that question one day, and he thought about it for a minute. Then he just shrugged, and said, “Oh, he’s got a job to do I suppose.”

I think Calvin at one point called Satan “the minister of God’s wrath”, and I suppose there’s some truth in that. God, who is love, wouldn’t get any joy out of punishing sinners. There’s an OT quote somewhere where God speaks through a prophet “I take no delight in the death of the wicked”.

So He lets the devil do the punishment, since being evil, he enjoys it. No good man would enjoy torture - only an evil man would enjoy it. A good God would not enjoy torturing His enemies, but an evil spiritual being would. So the devil’s got a purpose.

But it’s our choice that sends us to where we go.

As for “making the right choice” (that is, believing in God as though that’s the only critieria), that’s not the whole story. When my father appeared in my room, one of the things I accused him of was wrecking my vocational / career options. His reply wasn’t what I expected.

He didn’t even care much. He said “It’s (career, social status, position in society, personal power etc) not even important!”

I blurted back, “Then what is!”

He replied** “How you treat other people”.**

I think you’re going to find that “how we treat other people” will be far more important in God’s economy than mere faith. Christ Himself made it pretty clear there would be many who would claim they drove out demons in His name etc, but He would condemn them, basically because of how they treated other people, particularly the “least of these my brothers”.

That’s going to come into it in a big way, and the Scriptures say so, point blank.