Good afteroon firstmode! I’m glad to meet you and hope you are having a good day.
I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a Mormon Church). Of the Christian churches, our belief about hell is somewhat unique. In the spirit of your request, I am simply posting a response for informational purposes and not as a refutation to anyone elses beliefs. In the same vein, if there are refutations to my post, I do not intend to defend it.
In Mormon understanding there are two understandings of hell. To illustrate this, let me explain a bit about the Mormon conception of our afterlife. We believe that when we die, our spirit is separated from our body. Our body goes in to the earth and rots. Our spirit, however, goes to the Spirit World. This is best explained as a temporary waiting place where spirits continue to live and and interact until the Resurrection and Final Judgment. In the Spirit World, in this temporary resisdence of the spirits, there are two divisions. Spirit Prison and Paradise.
Paradise is where the “…spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness…a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow” (Alma 40:12).
Spirit Prison (or hell) is where you will find “…[those] who received not the gospel of Christ, neither the testimony of Jesus. These are they who deny not the Holy Spirit. These are they who are thrust down to hell. These are they who shall not be redeemed from the devil until the last resurrection, until the Lord, even Christ the Lamb, shall have finished his work” (D&C 76:82-85).
The hell in this sense, has an end. People who accept not the Atonement of Jesus Christ, will need to suffer the penalty of their own sins. Once the penalty has been paid, however, they will be “…resurrected to a degree of glory of which they are worthy” (
lds.org).
The second sense of the Mormon understanding of hell is the permanent place where those who have blasphemed against the Holy Ghost (Sons of Perdition) go. Because they have “den[ied] the Son after the Father has revealed him” and “breaketh [the] law, and abideth not by law, but seeketh to become a law unto [themselves], and willeth to abide in sin, and altogether abideth in sin” they “cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice, nor judgment. Therefore, they must remain filthy still” and they will “reign with the devil and his angels in eternity, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, which is their torment” (D&C 76:43, 44; D&C 88:35).
In Mormon understanding, very few will actually suffer the fate of the permanent hell, or outer darkness. For most people in hell, hell will be a temporary thing until justice has been satisfied, and they will inherit some degree of glory although they will not be partakers of the fullness of God’s glory or capable of receiving all that the Father has; this reward being reserved for those who were valiant in following Jesus Christ and His gospel, and endured to the end of their lives. However, in the end, all but the Sons of Perdition, will be happy to the extent that they have chosen happiness.
Thank you for the question and for the opportunity to share and to receive different understandings on hell.
Kind Regards,
Finrock