What is hell?

[WesleyF]

What is hell? How does eternal punishment fit in with God’s love?

 

[jean8]

What is hell? How does eternal punishment fit in with God’s love?

wesley,
The Bible has much to say about ‘Hell.’
Hell is eternal separtion form God 2 Thess.1:7-9
Rom.1:18-20, list a number of sins that would send a person to hell.
Jude 1:7 “In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves over to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer punishment of eternal fire.”

The Bible also teaches repentance. Praise God. .

jean

 

[AdriannaJean]

Hell is simply a place where God is not. It is not that God is not capable of being there, He simply chooses not to be because the people in it have rejected Him and His love.

There are many allusions to physical suffering in Hell, but the best way I have had it explained to me is this:

“Sometimes the worst pains in life are not physical, but emotional. Surely the greatest pain is realizing that someone has loved you all along, and that you have rejected them not love them back. That is Hell.”

Hell is a part of God’s love, oddly enough. God loves us enough to give us Free Will. That includes the ability to love Him or not. Obviously He would rather we love Him and be with Him, but He loves us so much, that if we choose not to love him, He gives us a place where He is not. Sure, that place sucks, but we put ourselves there.

 

[gookykookypig]

Hell is the void of God’s grace but externally or internally.

 

[John7]

What is hell?

Matthew 10:28
“Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul
but rather fear Him who is able to **destroy **both soul and body in hell”

hell (here ‘gehenna’, lake of fire) is where a soul & body can be/go into > ‘apolesas’, meaning: destroyed / lost (lose one’s life) / perish / bring to ruin

might be more to hell than that but that’s what I’ve learned so far

 

[Holly3278]

From the Catechism:

IV. 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

Father, accept this offering
from your whole family.
Grant us your peace in this life,
save us from final damnation,
and count us among those you have chosen.622612 1 Jn 3:14-15.
613 Cf. Mt 25:31-46.
614 Cf. Mt 5:22,29; 10:28; 13:42,50; Mk 9:43-48.
615 Mt 13:41-42.
616 Mt 25:41.
617 Cf. DS 76; 409; 411; 801; 858; 1002; 1351; 1575; Paul VI, CPG § 12.
618 Mt 7:13-14.
619 LG 48 § 3; Mt 22:13; cf. Heb 9:27; Mt 25:13,26,30,31-46.
620 Cf. Council of Orange II (529)S 397; Council of Trent (1547):1567.
621 2 Pet 3:9.
622 Roman Missal, EP I (Roman Canon) 88.

 

[Holly3278]

Also, check out what the Baltimore Catechism has to say:

baltimore-catechism.com/lesson37.htm

 

[thistle]

What is hell? How does eternal punishment fit in with God’s love?

God gave you free will to choose eternal love with him in Heaven or eternal damnation. Its not God’s choice. Its yours or do you think he should have created us like a bunch of robots with no free will??

 

[Peter_Dawson]

What is hell? How does eternal punishment fit in with God’s love?

It is the place where God gives people what they want – separation from His grace.

I think that when God gives them total deprivation of grace, they find God and all of the places and people where grace is, detestable. They then RUN to Hell, flags flying, and in their gracelessness the graceless make Hell an eternal Bedlam for each other.

However, in their gracelessness they despise God so utterly that they prefer the eternal Bedlam of Hell to being in God’s presence.

So, oddly, the suffering damned will prefer the Hellish Bedlam of Hell.

Hell will have no walls.

So, it will be just.

 

[WesleyF]

What does the “fire” of hell refer to? What do the “worms” refer to? (Mark 9:48)

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)

To whom does “him” refer to? God or Satan? According to Peter Kreeft, it refers to Satan.

 

[John7]

What does the “fire” of hell refer to? What do the “worms” refer to? (Mark 9:48)

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)
To whom does “him” refer to? God or Satan? According to Peter Kreeft, it refers to Satan.

I thought ‘him’ was the LORD because of the verse below. God has the power to cast souls in hell because they are his.
Ezekiel 18:4 Behold, **all souls are mine **(the LORD’s); as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
as for the ‘worm’ and the ‘fire’ in Mark 9:48, Jesus is quoting Isaiah 66:24,
And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.The fire in Mark 9.48 is the ‘hell fire’ or fire of Gehenna in verse 47. As for the worm…got me, might have to do with it being a figure of the destructive properties of a worm on a corpse or something.

 

[redrosetea]

Just think how dismal and dangerous and ugly any place would be without God…No goodness, kindness, love, compassion,or joy…it is beyond comprehension…even in the Nazi death camps there was still goodness and kindness among those imprisoned, toward one another

 

[gookykookypig]

What does the “fire” of hell refer to? What do the “worms” refer to? (Mark 9:48)

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)

To whom does “him” refer to? God or Satan? According to Peter Kreeft, it refers to Satan.

For me its God, we do not know. It also perfectly suits to Satan for he comes only to steal and kill and “destroy”.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;
I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
(John 10:10)

But come to think of it, we do not have to fear the devil. We only have to “resist” him (1 Peter 5:8-9, James 4:7)

.

 

[catching]

I think hell is still a mystery like heaven or life after death. I think no one knows what is hell? They answered about hell according to bible and no one sure about it.

 

[budgie2]

I once asked God to show me what hell was like or something like that or tried to imagine it. If one soul suffered for eternity then that would be equal or greater to the suffering of the whole world put together. I can’t imagine hell. Better to have your soul destroyed. Some people say hell is separation from God. I do not believe God sends a soul to hell but he may send the devil in a person to hell. Anything of good in a person should surely be saved as God would not destroy what is good in a person. So God may separate the wheat and the chaff in a person. That’s my theory.

 

[jean8]

I think hell is still a mystery like heaven or life after death. I think no one knows what is hell? They answered about hell according to bible and no one sure about it.

Hell is separation from God for all eternity.
You should spend your time seeking knowledge of heaven and your Savior, Jesus Christ, the son of God whom he has sent to save everyone.
read Jn.3:16

jean

 

[jean8]

I think hell is still a mystery like heaven or life after death. I think no one knows what is hell? They answered about hell according to bible and no one sure about it.

Are you a practicing Christian? :0r you may be someone who just likes asking juvenile questions.
A child who has attended sunday school knows what hell is.
Maybe your wondering if we know?
It’s like askng a person who is on a diet if they are hungry.

God bless as you search for what- ever?

jean

 

[budgie2]

If hell is an absence and separation from God then we cannot imagine it now. Even though we may not always feel God we are surrounded by his creation, the world, the sun and the cosmos, plants, animals, human beings. I think hell may be also an absence of God’s creation and a place of nothingness, like a nuclear fall out.

 

[Waacm]

What WesleyF is asking is for something more specific. We all know that Hell is being separated from God’s grace. He (and myself) want to know specifically what Jesus was thinking when he spoke about the “worm” and the “fire.”

What I want to find out is if we are destroyed in hell, or if it is a punishment for eternity. I can see it either way, but it would seem sick and cruel of God to keep people in that state forever while their friends and family reside above them in paradise. I understand also that they asked for it the way they lived their life, but that still doesn’t seem justifiable to sentence that person to pain for eternity.

Essentially, I just really want to know what people of old thought of when Jesus and Isiah spoke of the worm and the unquenchable fire. Maybe they understood it as a metaphor of great emotional pain? Maybe they took it literally? If they did take it literally, what does that literally mean? We aren’t worms…

Thanks, I hope I am not resurrecting a dead topic, I just found this searching around.

 

[Polaris]

The eastern orthodox church to me has a much better understanding of hell and heaven, and I have heard the same from eastern catholics too but they often dance at the edge. It is not the absurd idea adopted by the west of a place or state “absent of God”, it is fact the same place or state. A classic example they use is from St Ignatius of a sword in a fire. If you are good and have lived your life trying to form your will according to Gods will you we be like a properly forged sword, and in the fire thats is the all consuming God you will take on the features of God, you will burn with light and heat like God but be undamaged, however if you live your life in sin you will be like an improperly forged sword set into a fire and you will not take on the features of the Lord but be destroyed in the fire.

If you would like to learn more, I just found this site.

aggreen.net/beliefs/heaven_hell.html

Its not perfect but its a good begginers defense for the Orthodox understanding, ignore what he says about Catholic and Protestant. No apologist ever really understand what the other church teaches very well.