Who created hell?

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Who created hell?

I have been asked this question twice in the past few months, and I really don’t know the answer. Here are some of my thoughts.

God created all things, He created them good. Hell is not a good place.

All things that God created reflect Him in some way. Hell is the absence of God, so it can’t reflect God.

Someone told me that God created hell and there must be some good in hell. They also went on to say that everyone will be saved, even from hell. I know that this is wrong, but I was stuck on the question of who created hell. The only response I had was, what about the devil, will he got to heaven too, and they said no he’ll be on earth.

I’m really interested in the thoughts you have on the subject and most importantly is there any Church teaching on this subject that I can read.
 
tracydaisy said:
Who created hell?

I’m really interested in the thoughts you have on the subject and most importantly is there any Church teaching on this subject that I can read.
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In an address given to the general Audience, the late John Paull II instructed that hell is a freely chosen and eternal state of being, rather than a place one occupies:
…“hell is the ultimate consequence of sin itself… Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy”.
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“Eternal damnation”, therefore, is not attributed to God’s initiative because in his merciful love he can only desire the salvation of the beings he created. In reality, it is the creature who closes himself to his love. Damnation consists precisely in definitive separation from God, freely chosen by the human person and confirmed with death that seals his choice for ever. God’s judgement ratifies this state.
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ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2HEAVN.HTM#Hell
 
Hmmmn. I’ll try.

Hell is eternal separation from God. It is a choice we make.

So hell is a state/place that is made available for those who choose against Him.

I venture since God reated everything, then He also made hell available as an option.

Since He is perfectly loving and perfectly just, it seems that it had to be this way. If there was no way for people to choose against Him then we would be controlled robots. That would be unloving.
 
I would tend to say that hell was created by those who choose to turn their back on God. Starting with the very first beings that chose that Lucifer and the fallen angels. I don’t think God created it because as it says in Genesis God saw all things He had made and they were very good. Not neccesarily a physical place but possibly a state of being. This is definitely one of those mysteries of the faith in the sense we will never fully understand it with our finite minds.

God Bless
 
It is not good *to go *to hell, but that is our free choice, not God’s.
The existence of hell, however, in itself, is good, because God created it and everything He created is good. How could it be good? Because it is a place of punishment, effecting the justice of God. Anything which works for the justice of God is good.
 
Just a thought here… perhaps at the time God created hell it wasn’t evil or bad because evil didn’t exist yet.

You know that God of ours… always looking ahead. 🙂
 
The existence of hell, however, in itself, is good, because God created it and everything He created is good.
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Wrong! Hell has no existence!

In “On Being and Essence,” Aquinas explains that some things are only beings in the sense that we can make statements about them, like “it is hard to see in the dark.” But, because they are not things in themselves, but only the lack or privation of something, they are not beings in the ontological sense. Dark, in the example, does not actually exist; it is simply the lack of light.

Hell, in the ontological sense, does not exist; it is not a being and has no being. It is the lack of God’s presence, not a being in its own right. While we can talk of this lack of God, and thus it is a being in that sense, it is not a being in the strict sense, only a God-shaped gap.

This confusion, incidentally, is the fundamental error in Taoist and Zen philosophy. Those systems, you may know, conflate Being and Non-being as if they were two sides of the same coin; Zen also conflates Good and Evil and Pure and Impure.
 
tracydaisy:

Hell was created by God for the placement of those creatures who refuse to return the charity due to God for the graces He gave them. It’s true that God creates good things only, and in that He promises that those who deserve heaven are not disturbed by those who choose to follow the Law. A place needed to be created to live out the destiny they chose.

It is a definite place as Mary, time and again reveals to us on occasion through private revelations, and scripture in various places reveal. To their favor, even those exposed to empirical near death experiences have had the misfortune to have had this wake up call, some would say private revelation.

No, no one is saved who goes there. That’s the real end.

As an aside, hell and it’s objects makes an interesting subjective study. It does not seem to impose a restrictive solitary confinement to one creature, the spirits, but to them serves as an uncomfortable optional home of sorts. It would seem that being able to sniff meadow flowers in the alps, and have the cosmos as a playing field to while away the hours tormenting lessor beings is an appropriate “hell” for these creatures of privledge. The supernatural natures nor determined obstinancy of these beings was not lessened even though the potential for cosmic havoc is obvious, especially now that their orientation is changed.

Most probably, sin aside, they received this “torment” due to class as higher beings. The Church teaches that they suffer by not ever being able to see God and suffer from the effect of distancing from Him. The torment that this brings on doesn’t seem to have the immediate effect, at least not in the immediate (million years?). Perhaps later when the fun is over.

Man on the other hand, being a thousand times more fallible and potentially more susceptible to sin, due to his unique double nature, doesn’t seem to deserve any of this of course. He deserves the most extremes any creature could endure. In fact it goes beyond that. The body is rebuilt at every destruction to ensure every excruciating pain is relived. The less hated creatures are most grateful for this privledge and time killing(:() preoccupation. It would seem that torture doesn’t meet our definition.

AndyF
 
In a book written by a Roman exorcist, Fr. Amorth makes a nice little comment to a demon telling him that he(the demon) can go rest in a nice warm place that God created for him, the demon responded saying that it wasn’t God who created hell, it was all of us that sin against God.
 
Hastrman said:
Wrong! Hell has no existence!

In “On Being and Essence,” Aquinas explains that some things are only beings in the sense that we can make statements about them, like “it is hard to see in the dark.” But, because they are not things in themselves, but only the lack or privation of something, they are not beings in the ontological sense. Dark, in the example, does not actually exist; it is simply the lack of light.

Hell, in the ontological sense, does not exist; it is not a being and has no being. It is the lack of God’s presence, not a being in its own right. While we can talk of this lack of God, and thus it is a being in that sense, it is not a being in the strict sense, only a God-shaped gap.

This confusion, incidentally, is the fundamental error in Taoist and Zen philosophy. Those systems, you may know, conflate Being and Non-being as if they were two sides of the same coin; Zen also conflates Good and Evil and Pure and Impure.
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This is not quite correct either. The traditional idea of hell is in fact a place and in fact it must in some way be a place because of the resurrection of the body. It is only in modern times primarily with the communion theology of von Balthasaar and the Transcendental Thomism of Rahner that we find this idea of Hell only being a state of being (or more precisely existence). So, it is not wrong to say that hell is a place as such since the issue is not resolved by a long shot.

So, it is better to say that if hell is a place then it is good because it manifests the glory of God as a function of His infinite justice and mercy (as St. Thomas taught). And also it is better to say that if hell is not a place as such then it is a privation of some sort and was not created by anyone per se because it was not created as a place but only defines a lack of the consoling presence of God and the application of punishment imposed by his justice.
 
I would like to thank everyone for responding to my thread. There were many interesting posts. 🙂

I would like to especially thank JPII Tob and Setter. I really enjoyed your links. 👍

God bless everyone
 
I think it is a little silly to argue about the physical location of Hell. Purgatory, however, is in west-central New Jersey.
 
peter46 said:
In a book written by a Roman exorcist, Fr. Amorth makes a nice little comment to a demon telling him that he(the demon) can go rest in a nice warm place that God created for him, the demon responded saying that it wasn’t God who created hell, it was all of us that sin against God.
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This is what I’ve occasionally wondered. Did Hell sprang into being with our first sin, our first rebellion, from the moment we slapped God’s Hand away. Could it be that He didn’t create it in terms of willing it to be created, rather, that Hell (the place of God’s non-Presence) came to be as a result of our desire to not be in the Presence?
 
JKirkLVNV said:
This is what I’ve occasionally wondered. Did Hell sprang into being with our first sin, our first rebellion, from the moment we slapped God’s Hand away. Could it be that He didn’t create it in terms of willing it to be created, rather, that Hell (the place of God’s non-Presence) came to be as a result of our desire to not be in the Presence?
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If you are more interested in what Fr. Amorth says on the subject you recommend you read " An Exorcist Tells His Story".

I agree with you, I think that Hell came to be as a result of our choice not to be in His presence. Like Lucifer, he became so proud he couldn’t even humble himself enough to be on an equal level as us humans. So he decided to separated himself for all eternity from God.
 
Paul_Folbrecht said:
I think it is a little silly to argue about the physical location of Hell. Purgatory, however, is in west-central New Jersey.
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Really? I thought that west-central Jersey was the first through fifth levels of hell … I will have to check Dante.
 
peter46 said:
In a book written by a Roman exorcist, Fr. Amorth makes a nice little comment to a demon telling him that he(the demon) can go rest in a nice warm place that God created for him, the demon responded saying that it wasn’t God who created hell, it was all of us that sin against God.
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Yeah! I was about to write this! I think the priest that was actually doing the exorcism (when recounting the story to Fr. Amorth )said to the demon, “God has a place in Hell waiting for you!” and the demon laughed and replied, “Arrogant priest! God didn’t create Hell, He never even thought of it!”
That kept me up late when I read that.
 
I don’t think I have any reason to think this, but I’ve imagined hell as being in heaven in the presence of God and the angels etc, - is’nt there something in some Scriptures about the damned being tormented forever in the presence of those in heaven. I’d imagine then, that since hell is in the presence of God that God is present in hell but those trapped in hell are totally and eternally blind and deaf to Him, and to everything - but their own paranoia. The devil and demons are free to act on those souls paranoia. To a soul in hell, hell would appear to be infinite and eternal, as God is infinite and eternal in heaven, - but it would appear to those blind souls as being infinitely ‘dark and empty’, and consisting of ever increasingly, narrowing, worsening living-nightmares. as conversely, heaven is an ever-increasing constant new joy to its inhabitants. To a soul in heaven looking into hell, its inhabitants are visable and narrowly confined, firstly and immediatly, in Gods hands. They are justly in their condition, and are blind and deaf to all about them in heaven. And only seeing their own paranoia, so cannot be helped.
 
Wendy-Kay said:
Yeah! I was about to write this! I think the priest that was actually doing the exorcism (when recounting the story to Fr. Amorth )said to the demon, “God has a place in Hell waiting for you!” and the demon laughed and replied, “Arrogant priest! God didn’t create Hell, He never even thought of it!”
That kept me up late when I read that.
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Which is just really bad theology. Obviously the words of the demon were a lie. If God had not thought of it then He is not God - by definition.
 
mosher said:
Which is just really bad theology. Obviously the words of the demon were a lie. If God had not thought of it then He is not God - by definition.
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I Agree, Demons can only be expected to tell the truth when the truth propogates their other lies. 😉
 
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