The Problem of Hell

[VeritasSeeker]

Hey, I am writing a paper on the the problem of hell and wold like to hear your opinions/ answers on this “problem”, (anihilationism): We are finite beings and therefore can only sin a finite amount. So our temporal sins can only warrant a temporal punishment. Therefore, If God is all just, then hell cannot be eternal. This annihilationist view is held by Seventh day Adventists and Jehovah Witnesses. It must be admitted that this is, at least at first glance, a powerful argument. God could damn people for aeons and aeons and then annihilate them instead of damning them for eternity.

• Thanks in advance!

 

[tobbias88]

Wrong! We are not finite beings. Apparently once a spiritual entity is created, it exists forever even God cannot destroy it.
This is the case with the Fallen Angels; annihilation would have been much better for them but it is not possible.

You will never cease to exist. Time & space only exist on this plane; once you pass over you are in the dimension of eternity so your question has no validity. You will exist in perfect Bliss or total pain. The choice of course is ours.

 

[JohnDamian]

According to the CCC, (1035) …The cheif punishment of hell is eternal seperation from God…

People who choose to be seperate from God are seperate from God - I do not see how this could pose a problem for anyone.

 

[VeritasSeeker]

Wrong! We are not finite beings. Apparently once a spiritual entity is created, it exists forever even God cannot destroy it.
This is the case with the Fallen Angels; annihilation would have been much better for them but it is not possible.

You will never cease to exist. Time & space only exist on this plane; once you pass over you are in the dimension of eternity so your question has no validity. You will exist in perfect Bliss or total pain. The choice of course is ours.

(i won’t go into conditional immortality for the purposes of this thread).
However, from this life on earth, we can only sin a finite amount. So temporal sin does not warrant eternal punishment. It is unjust and not in line with an all just God. And Also as to your point that God cannot destroy our souls, i must say you are quite wrong. It is logically possible that God can destroy/annihilate our souls.

According to the CCC, (1035) …The cheif punishment of hell is eternal seperation from God…

People who choose to be seperate from God are seperate from God - I do not see how this could pose a problem for anyone.

I am looking for a more philosophical(one based on pure reason) answer to the question at hand. And the apparent contradiction between an all just God and eternal hell.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Well, look at it this way. We are indeed infinite beings, and the thing is, we keep on sinning infinitely if we reject God.

So hell being eternal is so because the sin is eternal. The person in hell didn’t stop sinning when he went to hell, he continues to sin, freely, and that is why he put himself in hell and why he will always continue in hell.

 

[VeritasSeeker]

Well, look at it this way. We are indeed infinite beings, and the thing is, we keep on sinning infinitely if we reject God.

So hell being eternal is so because the sin is eternal. The person in hell didn’t stop sinning when he went to hell, he continues to sin, freely, and that is why he put himself in hell and why he will always continue in hell.

But if the person continues to sin freely then there is a logical possibility that he would choose to stop sinning and repent. That is unless God has limited his freewill after he/she goes to hell.

 

[JohnDamian]

I am looking for a more philosophical(one based on pure reason) answer to the question at hand. And the apparent contradiction between an all just God and eternal hell.

God’s choice to create an immortal soul is a permenant choice; our choice to die outside of Grace is a permenant choice. God grants us the ability to reject him, if we do this in full knowlege we have chosen temporal things over eternal things. Remember, that for a sin to be Mortal it must be committed in full knowlege - so, if we in full knowlege and with full consent choose this life over the next, and choose ourselves over God we have to deal with the consequences. You can’t question the change once you’ve left the shop.

 

[VeritasSeeker]

God’s choice to create an immortal soul is a permenant choice; our choice to die outside of Grace is a permenant choice. God grants us the ability to reject him, if we do this in full knowlege we have chosen temporal things over eternal things. Remember, that for a sin to be Mortal it must be committed in full knowlege - so, if we in full knowlege and with full consent choose this life over the next, and choose ourselves over God we have to deal with the consequences. You can’t question the change once you’ve left the shop.

Philosophically and logically speaking it is not necessary that God create immortal souls for humans.(see conditional immortality). It is possible that God could annihilate the souls of the damned after they have suffered a set temporal amount of punishment. Let me attempt to put the argument in a more formal manner:

1. For a punishment to be considered just it must be proportionate to the sin committed.
2. Eternal punishment for temporal sin is disproportionate.
3. Therefore Eternal punishment for temporal sin is Unjust.
4. So if eternal punishment exists, then an all Just God does not exist.

 

[JohnDamian]

Philosophically and logically speaking it is not necessary that God create immortal souls for humans.(see conditional immortality). It is possible that God could annihilate the souls of the damned after they have suffered a set temporal amount of punishment. Let me attempt to put the argument in a more formal manner:

1. For a punishment to be considered just it must be proportionate to the sin committed.
2. Eternal punishment for temporal sin is disproportionate.
3. Therefore Eternal punishment for temporal sin is Unjust.
4. So if eternal punishment exists, then an all Just God does not exist.

It would be cruel for God to destroy the souls of those who are unrepentant; as God grants them free will they are free to choose against him, and free to choose eternity without him. If he imposed upon them extinction then the freedom of choice would be illusiory.

Your conception of eternal punishment is interesting, if the chief punishment of hell is absence from God, yet that is what is desired - is it punishment at all? Hell is the self-chosen path of exclusion from God.

The Catechism defines hell as “This state of definitive self - exclusion from commnion with God and the blessed…” (1033) - for our freedom this exclusion is possible.

 

[fhansen]

Hey, I am writing a paper on the the problem of hell and wold like to hear your opinions/ answers on this “problem”, (anihilationism): We are finite beings and therefore can only sin a finite amount. So our temporal sins can only warrant a temporal punishment. Therefore, If God is all just, then hell cannot be eternal. This annihilationist view is held by Seventh day Adventists and Jehovah Witnesses. It must be admitted that this is, at least at first glance, a powerful argument. God could damn people for aeons and aeons and then annihilate them instead of damning them for eternity.
Read the CCC on this topic. One thing we can be sure of is that, so long as Gods will is done, perfect justice is done, and all will be satisfied of this fact. The CCC quotes Julian of Norwich, a medieval British visionary who lived during the Black Plague and was burdened about the fate of so many dying around her. He answered her prayer for understanding with the simple yet profound assurance, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” The more we know of God, the more we trust that such a statement is true. Also, consider the idea that those in hell may still prefer continued existence-even there- so long as it’s apart from God.

Wrong! We are not finite beings. Apparently once a spiritual entity is created, it exists forever even God cannot destroy it.

I’m quite sure God can destroy anything He creates but simply deemed that He would *not *do so in the case of angels and men. But maybe there’s no difference in the end.

 

[fhansen]

Hey, I am writing a paper on the the problem of hell and wold like to hear your opinions/ answers on this “problem”, (anihilationism): We are finite beings and therefore can only sin a finite amount. So our temporal sins can only warrant a temporal punishment. Therefore, If God is all just, then hell cannot be eternal. This annihilationist view is held by Seventh day Adventists and Jehovah Witnesses. It must be admitted that this is, at least at first glance, a powerful argument. God could damn people for aeons and aeons and then annihilate them instead of damning them for eternity.

Read the CCC on this topic. One thing we can be sure of is that, so long as Gods will is done, perfect justice is done, and all will be satisfied of this fact. The CCC quotes Julian of Norwich, a medieval British visionary who lived during the Black Plague and was burdened about the fate of so many dying around her. He answered her prayer for understanding with the simple yet profound assurance, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” The more we know God, the more we should be able to trust that such a statement is true. Also, consider the idea that those in hell may still prefer continued existence-even there- so long as it’s apart from God.

Wrong! We are not finite beings. Apparently once a spiritual entity is created, it exists forever even God cannot destroy it.

I’m quite sure God can destroy anything He creates but simply deemed that He would *not *do so in the case of angels and men. But maybe there’s no difference in the end.

 

[BrixtonishBoy]

Hi, I’m a seventeen y/o from arborfield, england. I have thought about the same thing. I was raised a catholic, although now I am not so sure I am one, I am considering several other religions incuding atheism, satanism, and even Judaism. I think that if God is real, he was very cruel for kicking Satan into the worst place imaginable, nobody would enjoy tat because it isn’t supposed to be enjoyed. I kind of feel sorry for him getting punished like that just for not following God, that isn’t democracy, he should have gotten a say in who was his leader. Hell is a problematic concept for all of us, and it was one of the reasons I will probably leave Christianity soon:

 

[VeritasSeeker]

It would be cruel for God to destroy the souls of those who are unrepentant; as God grants them free will they are free to choose against him, and free to choose eternity without him. If he imposed upon them extinction then the freedom of choice would be illusiory.

Your conception of eternal punishment is interesting, if the chief punishment of hell is absence from God, yet that is what is desired - is it punishment at all? Hell is the self-chosen path of exclusion from God.

The Catechism defines hell as “This state of definitive self - exclusion from commnion with God and the blessed…” (1033) - for our freedom this exclusion is possible.

Let us try to stay on the justice problem, to be clear, which of the premises in the aforementioned argument do you deny?

Regarding your “other” arguments: On the traditional Christian model of hell, hell involves permanent, conscious suffering. Now you mentioned that the chief punishment of hell is the total exclusion of God. However this works in the annihilationist’s favor, for the traditional theistic doctrine of divine conservation states:
all things depend on God to conserve their existence from moment to moment, and so exist only so long as they are connected to God in some way.
But if hell is complete and utter separation or disconnection from God, then hell would be a state of non-existence.

Therefore, without delving into an argument about omnipresence and such(and thus away from the topic at hand), let us accept the traditional notion of hell. That is that Hell is an eternal state of conscious suffering.

 

[HickmanJosh]

Let us try to stay on the justice problem, to be clear, which of the premises in the aforementioned argument do you deny?

Regarding your “other” arguments: On the traditional Christian model of hell, hell involves permanent, conscious suffering. Now you mentioned that the chief punishment of hell is the total exclusion of God. However this works in the annihilationist’s favor, for the traditional theistic doctrine of divine conservation states:
all things depend on God to conserve their existence from moment to moment, and so exist only so long as they are connected to God in some way.

But if hell is complete and utter separation or disconnection from God, then hell would be a state of non-existence.

Not non-existence, non fulfillment, we are empty without God and so in hell we would be suffering such unfulfillment but because we chose it eternally, we would have know of the truth but ignored it, thus hell is eternal.

 

[JohnDamian]

Therefore, without delving into an argument about omnipresence and such(and thus away from the topic at hand), let us accept the traditional notion of hell. That is that Hell is an eternal state of conscious suffering.

I accept the Catholic definition of Hell, as a Catholic.

1. For a punishment to be considered just it must be proportionate to the sin committed.
2. Eternal punishment for temporal sin is disproportionate.
3. Therefore Eternal punishment for temporal sin is Unjust.
4. So if eternal punishment exists, then an all Just God does not exist.

1. Hell is proportional to the sin committed, a person on earth can commit an infinite sin, these sins are called mortal sins. They can be forgiven; but if they are not confessed / repented then they stand against you infinitely. To quantify these sins and say they are finite is just moral relativism and absurd.
2. Eternal punishment acceptable if someone **knowingly **chooses it. Without the ability to reject God, we would have no free will.

1. Untrue. This purports to know justice better than God. A person who knowingly jepordises themself in full knowlege of the consequences must deal with them.

1. Who is the author to say what is just?

 

[nate12387]

Here is how it has been explained to me.

Although we are finite beings, God is an infinite being and when we sin against an infinite God, our sin is infinite. This is why Jesus had to be fully God and fully Man in order to redeem the world.

Hopefully I can post again once I find my notes from a class I took.

 

[hatsoff]

Hey, I am writing a paper on the the problem of hell and wold like to hear your opinions/ answers on this “problem”, (anihilationism): We are finite beings and therefore can only sin a finite amount.

I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean. As others have pointed out, Christian tradition holds that we have immortal souls which will persist for eternity after our earthly death. So, in that sense we are not finite beings. As for sin, although it is obvious to me that no sin warrants eternal torture, I can find nothing special in this context about the difference between a finite number of sins versus an infinite, unending sequence of sins. Even if we were to sin every day for an eternity, I do not see that eternal torture is a just punishment.

Indeed, I would argue that any punishment bestowed by an omnipotent and omniscient creator-deity amounts to nothing more than revenge, since it is comparatively ineffective as a deterrent or a safeguard against third parties.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

But if the person continues to sin freely then there is a logical possibility that he would choose to stop sinning and repent. That is unless God has limited his freewill after he/she goes to hell.

Is that indeed a possibility? And is the free will really limited by God?

While we might speak (in our limited human way) of eternity as ‘time’, it will not be time as we know it.

While I expressed in the limited finite terms we have of the person ‘continuing’ to sin, viewing eternity as a ‘continuous’ field (which is all we personally can imagine), the fact will be more similar to a continuous “Now”.

IOW, the ‘infinity’ will not be a time period of days, weeks, months and years wherein at any given point the person ‘might’ repent. . .

but an eternal “Now”. It is the ‘now’ that the person has freely chosen and ‘continues’ in. That is not a denial of free will (for free will was used by the person to chose hell), it is not a possibility of ‘change’ though for change is limited to this ‘time-bound’ world. When time itself does not exist, how can one possibly experience a ‘time’ of ‘later’ of even a time of ‘difference’ where one could change? That again does not negate free will. Since one no longer exists in a ‘time’ world the trappings of time no longer ‘hold.’

 

[Tantum_ergo]

People need to be aware of the fact that eternity is not an endless stream of TIME. It is OUTSIDE TIME. Therefore to argue that ‘eternal punishment’ is unfair stems from a gross misunderstanding of what eternity is.

Also, the presentation of the words ‘punishment’ rather than ‘choice’ seem to imply that the poor, poor human is being ‘unfairly’ treated.

Note also that nobody comes on to say, “Hey, here are people being admitted to Heaven, to eternal bliss, even though they sinned during their lives. Well that just isn’t FAIR that their limited, finite ‘repentence for sin’ gets them ETERNAL REWARD. Unfair, unfair!”

 

[hatsoff]

Also, the presentation of the words ‘punishment’ rather than ‘choice’ seem to imply that the poor, poor human is being ‘unfairly’ treated.

How is “choice” any better? Even if some crazy person were to ask God to torture him eternally—although we should note that such is not the situation in most cases—God is still responsible for satisfying the request.