What is the source of pain in Hell?

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Rosaline_L

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Is it because of eternal separation from God or is it simply the punishment?
 
Without God we cannot be happy as all joy comes from him. Hell is the eternal separation from God. How we are to understand this isn’t at all clear. Scripture refers to an everlasting fire, yet it also refers to outer darkness, and a second death. The primary punishment is the pain of separation, I understand.
 
Rosaline_L said:
Is it because of eternal separation from God or is it simply the punishment?
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Modern Catholic Dictionary:

FIRE OF HELL. The physical reality, outside the person, by which those in hell are punished besides their loss of the vision of God. It is called fire in the Scriptures to emphasize the excruciating pain it causes, and to identify it as some external agent tormenting the lost. But it is not ordinary fire, since it does not consume what it burns, and, although material, it can affect the purely spiritual substance of the soul.
 
The primary sources of pain in Hell are:

1 - Unending separation from God, for whom we were created and form whom we receive all that is good.
2 - The fires of Hell, which are the punishment due for our sins.
3 - The unyielding regret for our sins and hatred of Him who made us.
4 - The company of the demons and other damned souls. (Less a physical pain than a mental one, probably, but who knows).

Saints also speak of the stench of Hell, the sounds of endless torment (wailing, screams, etc.), and various other pains specific to individuals based on the nature of their sins.
 
After the resurrecton of the body, there can be physical pain. You ask (in the title) what is the source of pain in Hell. Probably the same sources we experience in this world. Deep wounds, broken bones, burns, tooth aches, muscle cramps, kidney stones, tiredness/exhaustion, vomiting, sand in your eyes, difficulty breathing, … Who needs a lake of fire? We have ample sources of pain here and now. Imagine, if you can, that it could be worse, and for eternity.
 
Rosaline_L said:
Is it because of eternal separation from God or is it simply the punishment?
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Those in hell have no merit because they do not participate in the life of God and have no beatific vision. This is the chief suffering.

Catechism
1028 Because of his transcendence, God cannot be seen as he is, unless he himself opens up his mystery to man’s immediate contemplation and gives him the capacity for it. The Church calls this contemplation of God in his heavenly glory “the beatific vision” …

1035 … The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, …

1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor , the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.46

1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an “adopted son” he can henceforth call God “Father,” in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.

2025 We can have merit in God’s sight only because of God’s free plan to associate man with the work of his grace. Merit is to be ascribed in the first place to the grace of God, and secondly to man’s collaboration. Man’s merit is due to God.
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Catholic Encyclopedia
The pains of hell differ in degree according to demerit. This holds true not only of the pain of sense, but also of the pain of loss. A more intense hatred of God, a more vivid consciousness of utter abandonment by Divine goodness, a more restless craving to satisfy the natural desire for beatitude with things external to God, a more acute sense of shame and confusion at the folly of having sought happiness in earthly enjoyment — all this implies as its correlation a more complete and more painful separation from God.
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Hontheim, J. (1910). Hell. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07207a.htm
 
The idea of hell people get is the Divine Comedy.

Throw that out the window.

Chances are it’s a dark place where people stand completely motionless as the eternal dread sets in. The dread they are a universe away from the best party.

There’s no point to talk, nothing to say. There is eternal despair.
 
Eternal separation from, God gives us joy and if you are in hell you can’t be happy, the fires of hell and the demons also make it painful.
 
Nobody came out of there (except Christ) to inform us. And He didn’t present Hell to the Apostles. And if some people gather informatiom from.occult sources (eg the damned souls telling them) I wonder how can we trust them since the devil, under whom they are now subjected being already in Hell, is the father of all lies.
The details.of Hell are not important. The details of Heaven are because that is where we are aiming to or should aim to.
 
Christ did not visit the Hell of the damned souls. Hell is defined as separation from God. If God (Christ) had entered Hell, it would cease to be Hell.

Christ visited Sheol, the place of all dead souls then, where the righteous dead were waiting for him.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Christ did not visit the Hell of the damned souls. Hell is defined as separation from God. If God (Christ) had entered Hell, it would cease to be Hell.

Christ visited Sheol, the place of all dead souls then, where the righteous dead were waiting for him.
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How do we know this? The Apostle Creed says “He descended into Hell”. The Sheol.explanation is a later day justification made out of fear of people.who promise to follow Him on His Cross imho. We people prefer the better version of it all. The idea that the Messiah would descend to Hell to gather His loved ones scares us because as Christians we have to follow Him and THAT is scary.
By the fear of offending His great Sacrifice I choose to dismiss completely any theology that diminishes the depth of His Sorrow.
 
I’ll stick with the Catechism:

Christ Descended into Hell

and here is the relevant paragraph:
633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”: “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.” Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.
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We know this because God is the supreme Good and his absence from Hell is what makes it Hell.

The ONLY thing we know with certainty about Hell is that it is separation from God. All the fire, physical torture, etc stuff is just hypothesis or private revelation.

Logically, if God went to Hell, it would no longer be Hell. Jesus could not possibly have visited the Hell of judgment.

You can think what you want, but claiming Jesus went to the Hell of judgment appears to contradict the very definition of Hell according to the Church.
 
Mary888 said:
The Sheol.explanation is a later day justification made out of fear of people.who promise to follow Him on His Cross imho.
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I hope you are not saying people are actually expected to follow Christ into the Hell of judgment so they made something up to skip over that point. That seems very far-fetched and very much at odds with the Catechism.
 
Mary888 said:
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Tis_Bearself:
Christ did not visit the Hell of the damned souls. Hell is defined as separation from God. If God (Christ) had entered Hell, it would cease to be Hell.

Christ visited Sheol, the place of all dead souls then, where the righteous dead were waiting for him.
Click to expand...
How do we know this? The Apostle Creed says “He descended into Hell”. The Sheol.explanation is a later day justification made out of fear of people.who promise to follow Him on His Cross imho. We people prefer the better version of it all. The idea that the Messiah would descend to Hell to gather His loved ones scares us because as Christians we have to follow Him and THAT is scary.
By the fear of offending His great Sacrifice I choose to dismiss completely any theology that diminishes the depth of His Sorrow.
Click to expand...
consider this explanation Did Sheol Become Gehenna After the Resurrection? | Catholic Answers

as in Gehenna vs Sheol/Hades AFTER the death/resurrection of Jesus, and After the OT deaths who died in righteousness were settled leaving behind the damned
 
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