Why couldn’t God obliterate hell

[JonahKane]

If people freely choose to reject God and suffer in hell for it why can’t God just wipe them out of existence end there suffering and obliterate them they have made there decision why must they suffer for it?

 

[edward_george1]

This question, it seems, or some version thereof, gets asked about twice a week on here. There has been quite a bit of discussion of it. You might try the forum search function.

-Fr ACEGC

 

[Economist]

This question, it seems, or some version thereof, gets asked about twice a week on here.

And there has never been a satisfactory answer. Not even remotely satisfactory. The reason is simple: “God’s alleged nature is incompatible with useless, gratuitous suffering”. The suffering in hell (if true) cannot be redemptive, or educational in nature, since it does not end. The only “nature” would be vindictive and punishing - which cannot be compatible with “love”.

As a matter of fact, if I would be given the honor to have a conversation with God, my first question would refer to the “problem of evil”, and hell is just a subset of that question. But unfortunately such an honor is not granted.

 

[End_Timer]

The JW’s teach EXACTLY THAT & several more heresies

 

[JonahKane]

I do believe there are good reasons why God would allow hell namely that God is love and humans are free. Would you agree that God can’t force us to love him? Therefore hell exist because people freely choose to reject him.
My question is why can’t God obliterate the people who have rejected him so they don’t have to suffer

 

[Cruciferi]

Simply put, that’s a violation of Free Will and NOT in God’s nature.

He Doesn’t Do That Sort Of Thing.

 

[End_Timer]

Once you ARE, you’ll always be somewhere !

 

[Vico]

If people freely choose to reject God and suffer in hell for it why can’t God just wipe them out of existence end there suffering and obliterate them they have made there decision why must they suffer for it?

Eternal happiness is intended only for those that love God. God permits evil that some will have heaven (Beatific Vision), and created all souls immortal by nature.

Catechism

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.176 He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:

For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.177

366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235

 

[CRV]

My question is why can’t God obliterate the people who have rejected him so they don’t have to suffer

So do you think evil deeds should go unpunished? Do we humans not punish those who commit grave evil - murder for example?

If someone broke into your home and stole the TV for example, would you not expect them to be punished by our human laws and you be compensated for the theft of your goods?

Or is your attitude along the lines of “It’s ok, I forgive you , no need to spend time in goal or to compensate for the cost of a new TV”???

No? Well then, why do you expect God to have that attitude? Isn’t He as our creator and Father, entitled to receive reparation for the offenses we commit against Him?

Well God is also a Just God, but whilst His mercy does not want that, His Justice requires it.

The Problem of Evil by Peter Kreeft - the second last paragraph starting with - “The worst aspect of the problem of evil is eternal evil,” is relevant.

 

[QwertyGirl]

If someone broke into your home and stole the TV for example, would you not expect them to be punished by our human laws and you be compensated for the theft of your goods?

Not for eternity, no.

 

[JonahKane]

I think an analogy would help suppose a mom takes her two kids to Disney land one of the kids hits his sister the mom grounds the kid for 5 seconds and then goes to Disney land would that be fair wouldn’t an eternal award require an eternal punishment

 

[QwertyGirl]

Still is apples and oranges to me.

Take the person who lives to be 80 years old. Maybe half of their life, half of their waking hours, are spent being a really nasty person. Since you already sleep 8 hours a day that would mean approximately 26 1/2 years of their 80 year life was spent in wrongdoing. I can’t conceive of a loving God who would make eternal hell the consequence for that. I just dont buy it. Of course I’m not Catholic, so I don’t subscribe to the beliefs Catholics hold with regards to this concept. But I think my math explains why people like me don’t believe.

 

[John10]

God’s goodness doesn’t negate eternal punishment in hell; it demands it.

The punishment must also take into account who the victim is. Attacking somebody who is infinitely good, holy and perfect does entitle an never ending punishment.

Also even in human trials, the duration of an evil act does not correspond to the duration of the sentence. (Killing someone might take a couple of minutes, but will result in many years locked up in jail, would that also be unfair?)

 

[meltzerboy2]

According to Judaism, G-d may obliterate the souls of the truly wicked. It is not dogmatic in Judaism but one is allowed to believe that. It would be a divine act of mercy.

 

[tomo_pomo]

We will never know for sure. Divine justice is something we will never fully understand.

 

[JonahKane]

My view on hell is that God doesn’t send people there but people choose it hell has to exist because God is love and humans are free hell is a free choice to reject God

 

[yammerGee]

I think an analogy would help suppose a mom takes her two kids to Disney land one of the kids hits his sister the mom grounds the kid for 5 seconds and then goes to Disney land would that be fair wouldn’t an eternal award require an eternal punishment

This analogy always bothers me when I see it, because you could use this same logic to discredit the Sacrament of Confession.

• hit kid = sin mortally
• ground for 5 seconds = make you do penance
• go to Disney Land = state of grace → heaven

IE, “wouldn’t an eternal award require an eternal penance”?

So if the Sacrament of Confession is a suitable counterexample to this analogy, then this logic should not be considered a good argument against the idea of an eternal hell, on the notion that it would be too - dare I say - forgiving.

 

[stpurl]

Well, it’s because the wrongdoing doesn’t just occur ‘on earth’ for x number of years, but for eternity.

Let’s take out ‘right or wrong’ from the equation and just use, say, motion.

Say a person makes a motion with her/his hand in time on earth. The motion starts, occurs, stops. It ‘lasts’ for ‘a given time’.

Now, say that same person makes a motion with his/her hand at the moment of death. Time ceases to exist. The person is ‘out of time’ and the person is into ‘eternity’. Eternity is not ‘time that goes on and on and on’, eternity is an endless ‘now’. The motion that the person makes ‘in time’ is ‘carried into’ eternity. That motion goes on for an endless ‘now’. The person in eternity is no longer ‘in time’; whatever that person ‘is’, in his or her soul, will continue for eternity.

Now you see that unrepented (that is the key word here, unrepented) mortal sin (by definition, grave matter, full knowledge, and full consent) mortal sin which the person has on his/her soul at the point of death, and which as the person enters the Personal Judgment at the moment of death and the ‘step’ into eternity, is no longer a mortal sin that ‘occurred in time’ and ‘stopped with death’. It doesn’t stop. It is an endless, eternal, mortal deadly sin against God that will always be endless, deadly sin.

THAT is why Hell is needed, and justifiable.

Not to wickedly punish a person’s ‘over and done finite sin’ but a reality necessary and freely chosen by a person who continues and will always continue, eternally, to hate and reject God’s salvation through a deliberate, willful, unchangeable free decision to continue to reject God. . .forever.

 

[CRV]

Not for eternity, no.

Whilst the example I gave to illustrate Justice, it was an example of a situation in this life, a finite life, a finite action that had a start and a beginning and a finite justice & recompensation again which have a start and a finish. We are finite beings, our thoughts and understanding are limited. But God is infinite, His thoughts, knowledge and understanding are so beyond our comprehension, in this life we cannot know them. Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

You’re trying to fit God into how you understand reality, to fit how you judge things should work. Try seeing things from God’s perspective. Why would a loving God force a person who hates Him, doesn’t want to be with Him, prefers their own judgements, puts their own “authority” above Gods’ Authority, who spends their life turned away from Him, who rejects His love to at the end of this individuals life then force this person to spend an eternity with the One this individual hates?

Humans cannot truly understand the malice of the offense against the majesty of, purity and goodness of God when we commit grave sin, but if we could - then we would realize an eternity in hell is justified.

So as our reward in heaven is for eternity, so is the punishment of hell for eternity.

How Can A Loving God Send People To Hell? Karlo Broussard • 3/20/2019

 

[po18guy]

Divine justice. The flip side of mercy. Look it up.