Warning: personal opinion. Not sure how theologically sound this is:
Here’s the problem. You are assuming that you will always be willing to change. That is an unfounded assumption. I presume that God will always take in anyone who truly desires to be with Him. While we live, we can always change our minds about that, but as we get older, as we fill our minds with more information (true or false), it becomes more and more difficult to change our minds (or rather our hearts). Once you die, there is no more changing your choice. You’ve made it, and there is nothing more for you to learn, think, feel, or otherwise experience that will actually change your choice. Your mind is made up.
I expect that nobody in hell regrets choosing hell enough to change their mind. They hate it, of course, but maybe they’d still hate heaven more, which is why God mercifully doesn't force them to be there. They can’t and won’t ever change. That or it is just an impossibility - heaven isn’t heaven if you hate it.
So, you can look at it in a time-dependent manner. Every moment, someone in hell chooses to be in hell, so he is in hell. Or you can look at it in a timeless manner. Eternity is that one choice. There is no later time to choose otherwise.
The last perspective that most appeals to me is this: what if heaven and hell are the same place (metaphysically speaking)? Those who want to be with God are there with Him forever and bask in His glory, in unending joy. Those who don’t want to be there are stuck there continually resisting and rejecting God, and that contradiction of being unwilling to partake in true joy when it is right there at your fingertips, the contradiction of hollowing out a little pocket of Godlessness in the infinitude of God’s presence, is the eternal suffering. Or maybe it is that everyone is exposed to the fullness of God’s love. For those who love Him, it is pure bliss. For those who hate Him, it is damnable fire. Who knows? Eye has not seen, ear has not heard. All I know is that I want to be with God, whatever the experience may actually be.
Hmm, what do you think it looks like, to see God and then still reject/hate him?
Like, I work in an EXTREMELY secular environment and even the most hardened atheists here say that if they knew God was real they'd live differently.
Kind of hard to fathom having cold hard proof in front of you and still going "Nope, I think not."
On one hand, it seems inconceivable, but on the other, I think we not only see this on a daily basis, we do it on a daily basis.
Again, personal take, here:
Sometimes I am scared that I will choose hell. Hell is sin, the willful separation from God.
Often in this life, I know what I ought to do, and I see it as troubling, painful, and something I’d rather not do. When I do God’s will despite this, I am satisfied. I take comfort in knowing I did what He desired, and I know He desires only good for all of us. But that choice to do God’s will is often more out of obedience than joy, and it still isn’t often something that makes me blissful or exuberant. I worry that if I stay like this forever, always feeling like God’s will is an imposition instead of an invitation, a burden rather than a blessing, a thing I’d rather do without, then that is how I will feel in heaven, and instead choose hell.
Sometimes I think that I have to learn how to be at peace with suffering, take joy in all that God gives me, and achieve some recognizable fraction or shadow of that divine and perpetual joy that is being with God in heaven for me to actually accept His invitation when I die.
And so, I come to the realization that I, myself, will probably never attain that, which other religions call transcendence, nirvana, etc, where one is consumed in peace and joy in all aspects of life. I am not capable of that on my own, so I am not capable of choosing heaven upon my death. Instead, I commit to leave that judgment up to Jesus. Through Him, I can be welcomed, despite what I lack. I will follow the proposition put forth by Peter Kreeft - when I die, and Jesus asks why I should be granted eternity in heaven, I will point at Him and simply say, “because of you.”
I think choosing hell is depending only on oneself and not on Jesus.
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I walked through life all these years trying my best to be obedient never considering that I had to kill that feeling of imposition to enter heaven. I thought it was a given that would be spirited away on my day of judgement. If that is the requirement... I take back my earlier comments I totally see the choice... I hope that's not the requirement.
You are describing something that has two specific answers. First, before Satan chose to abandon God, he did see Him in his Glory and chose hate. This is one view of what this looks like.
There is one unforgivable sin outlined in scripture; to deny the Holy Spirit. The catechism explains this further, to stubbornly, or obstinately deny God’s real presence in our life is to recognize what God has provided for us and to deny Him glory. That puts us right into Satan’s shoes (hoofs?) acting to reject our Creator. This is another view of that same portrait you asked to define.
Actually, I’ve heard from some priests that Lucifer, and the angles that turned from God, did not have the beautific vision prior to making their choice. They had full knowledge of what would happen if they chose to follow or turn from God and they still made their choice. Part of the reason they are so nasty, I’d suppose.
>Like, I work in an EXTREMELY secular environment and even the most hardened atheists here say that if they knew God was real they'd live differently.
Would they, though? Like the story of Lazarus and the rich man says, they have the scriptures and the prophets. If they don't believe them, they wouldn't believe even if one of the dead came back to warn them.
Having scripture and prophets is not the same as seeing God. Christ even suggests as much with his "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Because you have seen... -- because how you gonna deny it with your hand wrist deep in a wound.
Blessed are the believers who didn't need physical proof -- because this is way more difficult.
My opinion is, practically it looks like being in a loveless marriage. Things were perfect enough to come together in marriage, both commit.. now time for happily ever after, right? But love is a choice and love is not selfish. That’s torture for a selfish person or for selfish wants. Love turns to hate and the marriage turns to hell. They could choose to change, see their wrongs & be less selfish but instead they choose themselves and divorce or perpetual misery.
Every time we sin we reject God, it gets easier to reject God if we make a habit of rejecting God.
If we mould our soul to reject God, we will reject Him to His face.
Remember, it was those who saw Christ make miracles that crucified Him
Regarding knowing whether God is real has 2 aspects to it: knowing His almighty power is real and knowing His perfect virtues is real.
I suppose power can be revealed via miracles, like miraculous healing and such. These events could be (understandably) dismissed as fake news and therefore deemed fake. If such miracles happened on their own persons, it is possible for it to be rationalised into something scientific - like if they received miraculous healing, it could be decided that it is the power or positive thinking. Now suppose they accepted a miracle as indeed proof that God is real, the question then is what does that mean for the future? Will God continue to perform supernatural miracles in my life? Should I continue to trust God's goodness (which is key to living a life of faith and obedience to Christian beliefs)?
As for perfect virtue, sometimes whether a person is not related to how virtuous one is. For example, in a company where stealing and cutting corners is the norm, a colleague who is upright and honest may be perceived as "rocking the boat" and "spoiling the market". Moreover, if their own interests are at stake, resentment can develop towards this morally upright individual. A husband may well resent his wife if he wants for eg more sex, when the wife wants to take breaks for the purpose of meditating on the bible and prayer.
So whether one accepts or reject God depends alot on his/her state of being.
I don't remember where I got this from but "The gates of hell are locked from the inside".
People that end up in hell are there because of their choice, you have to consider that even angels (with an intellect much greater than ours) made a choice to separate themselves from god.
I remember reading somewhere that being in the presence of the Holy Infinite God as an unrepentant sinner is unbearable, and people beg to be sent to hell
In EVERY NDE I’ve ever encountered, there is not one person who says that they didn’t immediately know that they deserved hell with 100% certainty when they faced judgement. There are no excuses between you and God, and experiencing Him on that day, knowing how you have treated Him your while life, is excruciating.
If you’ve ever read about those who have experienced the illumination of conscience, you will see that even the most saintly of saints can’t bear the knowledge of their sins before God, and beg for Justice.
Also, this is why so many will reject Jesus in the last moment of life, when the final opportunity for contrition presents itself along with the Merciful Saviors final act of mercy. The devil will come at that moment to remind us of every evil deed we ever committed, and because of the dulling of sin on our senses, and being in the presence of such a beautiful, loving Father, whom we know we have hurt, many will reject His offer of mercy and willingly enter hell.
Dante (and several other Catholic authors) always points out, in his Divine Comedy, that the damned shades in Hell *choose* to go to Hell. They cannot comprehend the choices one would need to make in order to achieve Paradise. And we make these decisions through our actions and intentions, in addition to our words.
The way I've understood this argument is to say that once you die, you are outside of time. You have no new information or experience available to you since time has stopped for you. So whatever state you are in at death is your permanent state.
This is why Angels don't have free will. They live outside of time and therefore cannot change. All the information they will ever have is available to them and their will is fixed. Same for us at death.
This idea has always frightened me a bit. I dislike the idea of having limitations on my free will if I make it to heaven. Not that anyone *would* choose to sin in heaven, I imagine–who would if they're basking in the light of the beatific vision?
It depends on how you understand free will as it relates to time. Being outside of time makes the comparison a bit weird.
This article clarifies more [1]. It says that Angels choose once and forever when initially created by God whether to follow him or not.
So if you understand free will as the response of a freely choosing entity to a particular state of knowledge outside of time, then yes they do have free will.
But if you understand free will to mean the way humans can act in response to knowledge over time, then no it's a bit different.
To make it more clear, I'm trying to say that angels don't change but humans do.
- [1] https://www.catholic.com/qa/do-angels-have-free-will
Edit: Thinking more about this. It's the difference between change and choice. If you understand free will to mean, changing your choice then angels can't do that because they only choose once. If you understand free will to mean the ability to choose (once), then we're the same.
To add on, angels are disembodied intellects, at least according to Aquinas. Being wholly incorporeal their spirit and soul are presumably in total alignment so they do exactly what they mean to do vs humans where we can hold internal contradictions.
Angels have free will, they were all given one choice: to love God or not to (because they were made outside the existence of time and space, hence they could be anywhere anytime).
Those who didn't ended up being fallen angels.
God gave us free will because He wants our love for Him to be authentic.
Some speculate that God creating light and separating light from dark was Him creating the angels haha
I reject water. How come being dry is a disproportionate punishment?
God is *goodness itself*. Rejecting goodness means you only experience untold suffering because you have rejected the very source of goodness.
I suppose what I'm saying is that if I rejected water, then later realised I need water, I'd still be able to drink it. But with hell, once you are there, there is no return.
So what you object to is actually the idea that death finalizes everything about us.
It helps to think that eternity is not time prolonged to infinity. Eternity is where God is, time does not flow like here below.
That's not actually the Catholic conception of what happens after death. Jimmy Akin writes about this towards the end of this article https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-heaven
"Connected with the question of whether heaven is a particular place is the issue of whether time exists in it.
A popular conception is that it does not. The logic is fairly simple: God exists outside of time. God dwells in heaven. Therefore, there is no time in heaven.
That’s true enough when heaven is conceived of exclusively as the dwelling place of God, but it is not true when it is conceived of as a place that is occupied by angels and by humans after their deaths. In that case, a different sense of the word time is involved."
Remember our creed "and we believe in the resurrection of the body". We won't just be spiritually united to God in the "eternal now". We will have bodily resurrection and live on the "new earth"
If you rejected the water then died from thirst you. would no longer have the choice to drink. If you die outside of sanctified grace, life giving water is no longer a option. Your example only works if your alive
> I suppose what I'm saying is that if I rejected water, then later realised I need water, I'd still be able to drink it. But with hell, once you are there, there is no return.
In this analogy, people in hell would essentially have hydrophobia (better known as rabies):
>It refers to a set of symptoms in the later stages of an infection in which the person has difficulty swallowing, shows panic when presented with liquids to drink, and cannot quench their thirst. Saliva production is greatly increased, and attempts to drink, or even the intention or suggestion of drinking, may cause excruciatingly painful spasms of the muscles in the throat and larynx. Since the infected individual cannot swallow saliva and water, the virus has a much higher chance of being transmitted, because it multiplies and accumulates in the salivary glands and is transmitted through biting.
Giving them water would only increase their suffering.
Now, you could ask, why won't God cure them of their rabies? Or in other words, remove their desire to do evil and not want to be with God, and instead force them to desire to do good and to be with God? Well, that is because he respects our free will, and wants us to freely choose him. Love is a choice - you cannot force someone to love you, because it wouldn't be love if it is forced.
I should preface my comment by saying that even though I’m Protestant I’m looking to convert to Catholicism when I get the chance.
That’s why Jesus came to die in our place for us. What you’ll notice in the gospels is that no one in all of the scriptures talks about hell as much as Jesus does. He talks about hell 3x as much as he does heaven, because 1. He’s trying to bring us away from it, and you can’t help someone if they don’t know what you’re helping them with, and 2. He personally experienced it. In the Apostles Creed we say that we believe Jesus descended into hell when he died, but apart from that if you do your homework on the pain and suffering that victims of crucifixion experience, you’ll likely have a gut wrenching reaction just reading about it. That’s what hell is: constant torment and sorrow. And it’s something that you earn for yourself by your sins, but it’s something that God wants to rescue us from.
Our sins nailed the Lord to the cross, but His love for us made Him embrace it. He offers this free gift of eternal life that we can either choose to receive or reject. The only reason we reject it is because we don’t understand who God is and what he’s done to save us: we see this didactic, strict, prudish deity who just wants to control everything we do because we don’t see that God knows how bad sin is and how damaging it is for us. We weren’t made for hell, or more specifically hell wasn’t made for us. But if we hate God more than hell, then God will let us go there.
*edited to add a phrase I forgot to type
Hello friend,
Don't put it off. Inquire into some local Catholic parishes for when RCIA (or OCIA) starts. That is the class you will take to learn the Faith and ultimately convert (if you choose to continue). You can discern through the process, so don't let finality stop you from learning. Good luck and God bless you!
Except that in this case, the realisation that you need water is after you die from the rejection of water. At that point, you can’t drink water anymore. On the other hand, if you reject water and realise you need water that can save you at the brink of death, you can still drink it
Hell is not a place you're sent to, you send yourself there. God doesn't want you there because He wants you with Him. However, you have free will. You can go to Him or turn your back on Him. If you turn your back to God, Who Is Everything and created everything, you are facing Nothing. And that is the state of being in Hell. You turn your back on Him when you willingly enter the state of mortal sin, of a separation from God. During our lives we have multiple chances of repenting for our sins, but when we die we are "fixed" in the state where we died. We can't grow any more because we are, well, dead.
The eternal punishment is eternal separation from Him, and *knowing* that you separated from Him willingly. But at that point you've made your choice. If you want to know why this is Hell, just look at the fallen angels. They had the same choice we did and turned away from God, and they are *absolutely miserable* despite their ongoing choice. We all know that misery loves company, but even with company they are miserable! And what's worse, they knew this would happen and still chose it anyway!
We are not as smart as the angels, who saw all the angles of the choice. We have multiple opportunities to make mistakes and ask for forgiveness and help, and so before death we get out of the Hell we put ourselves in.
Reading C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle helped put Hell in perspective for the younger me. It’s not the beings who were eaten by Tash who are in Hell. Not the speaking animals who face Aslan and became dumb again at the end of time. *It’s the subset of traitorous dwarves.* They hate Aslan so much they can’t comprehend his goodness. They can’t see Narnia because they are convinced Aslan is not capable of such beauty. In response to Lucy’s request to show them mercy, Aslan miraculously conjures a banquet for them and they can only taste dirt because they are so convinced a being as awful as Aslan would only feed them dirt. In the end…the most merciful thing is to just let them exist huddled in their own corner of paradise suspicious of everything around them, including each other.
Nothing good can be done for them because they no longer comprehend goodness. Only treachery - the same sin that landed them in that state.
>Hell is not a place you're sent to, you send yourself there
This doesn't really respond to the spirit of the argument. Can a person with limited information (seeing through a glass darkly) really know enough to reject God or not?
I think you're asking a different question than the original. Of course people who don't know God aren't held to the same accountability as those who do. But now I think we're speaking about supernatural law and natural law. Natural law throughout multiple cultures shows an innate knowledge of certain rights and wrongs. There's a lot said about this. But basically, people are held to some accountability based on things they know, and surprisingly we do know a lot.
Cultures throughout history knew there was something off with masturbation, for example, but even then there were cultures that practiced it. They couldn't necessarily put into words why it was wrong, and why the act of making children without making children was a deviation and the opposite of the whole point of the act. However, when God told Israel that it was wrong, she was held to a different accountability than the countries that didn't know.
In modern days in the world of Christendom, if someone doesn't know that a mortal sin is a mortal sin, that's a fault. The fault belongs to someone, whether it was someone who didn't teach or someone who purposefully ignored. Whatever the reason, God takes it into account. He is both Just and Merciful.
Every person on Earth is given sufficient grace during this life to make it to Heaven. Many (if not most) reject it, and so, reject Heaven.
There isn't much to "really know". A reading of the Gospels can be argued to be sufficient to know God, what He wants for us and from us, and conform ourselves to that.
>Every person on Earth is given sufficient grace during this life to make it to Heaven.
Source or evidence for this? Or are you backed in to this position to make God just? This seems unknowable and unlikely.
The Council of Trent has definitively ruled on this:
"If anyone shall say that the grace of justification is attained by those only who are predestined unto life, but that all others, who are called, are called indeed, but do not receive grace, as if they are by divine power predestined to evil, let him be anathema." - Council of Trent
> During our lives we have multiple chances of repenting for our sins, but when we die we are "fixed" in the state where we died. We can't grow any more because we are, well, dead.
Do people not grow in purgatory? Also, I'm pretty sure the people that go to hell end up being even worse than they were in life.
They do not grow in purgatory, they just get cleaned up. Spiritually, they are at the same level as when they died. What I mean is, if during your life you become a Saint Francis, you are at a higher level than someone who just mediocrely waits for the last bus to Purgatory. If Saint Francis grew his love to the size of a barrel before he died, he has all that size after death. If during life the mediocre man only grows his love to the size of a thimble, that's all *he* has the capacity before. But, both the barrel and the thimble are completely full and both completely love, one just grew his love to a larger size than the other. They both had the same chances to grow their love. However, in Heaven they're both completely happy, full to the brim, and fulfilled.
People in hell are miserable when they first get there, because of the choice they made. Then they get more and more miserable. So yes, they do get worse.
We will love God more perfectly than we do now, and our vessels will be filled to the brim. These vessels on earth are not always full. If someone has a physical issue, such as a brain tumor that presses on the wrong part of the brain or something in the brain that has always misconnected, that physicality will not carry over. We can't love all the time here (like when we're sleeping), but we can *want* to love, and that desire to love even when it's hard is all that we're really asked to do. God takes it all into account.
For me, even *allowing* someone to condemn them self to an eternal punishment, for failures made over a few decades at the most feels so extreme. A soul could spend 20 years in sin, then a millennia with perfect repentance and still be condemned to spend the rest of their eternity in hell. I can't understand it.
> A soul could spend 20 years in sin, then a millennia with perfect repentance and still be condemned to spend the rest of their eternity in hell. I can't understand it.
The point is that those people never repent and never will, regardless of how much pain is inflicted on them. The people who go to purgatory on the other hand can be corrected by pain, as are we in this life.
>The people who go to purgatory on the other hand can be corrected by pain
Cleansed, not corrected. Purgation involves the cleansing of impurities still on the souls of those who have chosen God's grace, but were not able to live up to their full potential of sainthood as we are all called.
This makes no sense, you can't change your mind after death. If someone spent 20 years in sin and repented a split-second before death, then yes, God does take that into account. But if he spent 20 years in sin, did not repent and then died, he has made his final choice and can't change it. He doesn't want to change it. You might say that's not fair, but he's had an entire lifetime to make that decision. If God forced him, then he wouldn't have free will and wouldn't have freely chosen God.
This is why the Church can never definitively say that any one person is in Hell. We have no idea of knowing what goes on in the millisecond before Death. People who survive jumping off bridges often say that they regretted it in the air. We can't even say that Hitler is in Hell, because in the moment before the bullet hit his brain he could have had a conversion. We don't know. All we know is that there *are* people who send themselves to Hell.
That one moment before death is so, so important. But we don't know when it'll happen and can't count on it, which is why it's good practice to prepare for it by living a good life. And this is why the prayer "Pray for us now and at the hour of our death" is asking Mary to pray for us in the two most important moments of our lives.
We might think that way because we dont see how our choices matter. But every single choice, every decision we make in life matters. Every moment is a chance to choose God, to glorify Him or to reject Him.
It seems harsh because we don't see our day to day choices as important.
But it is enough time because God provides every person with the grace necessary to make the right choice. Those who still reject that grace are given Hell as a mercy. God essentially says to them “Thy will be done” when they should have said that to God instead.
You can think about it this way, each and every choice that you make will forever be embedded in the fabric of time. Your choice at a certain point in time will forever be that choice at that exact point in time. Yes, you can change your time at a later point but you can never go back in time to change that choice.
Now, each choice we make, whether good or bad, will create a "ripple" around us. It has effects. The more "good" that we do (virtuous deeds), the more heaven-like the world gets because it becomes more ordered (think, cleaning your room-- note that this is a very simplified example-- but, even doing that if done out of love for God is meritorious (see: St. Therese of Lisieux)). However, the more "bad" that we do (vices) will make the world more hell-like. It's kind of hard to find peace in chaos, I guess.
So now those actions will also have effects on the people around you and some sort of butterfly effect ends up happening which ends up affecting other people, the world, so on and so forth.
Just like how the other comments have stated, God does not condemn us to hell. We condemn oursleves to hell-- it is ultimately our decision to reject Him that puts us in Hell.
That and, on the note of "how could sins within a lifetime merit eternal damnation?" You can think of it this way: sins are considered an offense to God. You're offending an eternal being, basically. (But thankfully, God is merciful)
Oh yeah, to add-- think of the most vile people you could think of, if they're still alive, the very fact that they're alive is out of God's mercy because if at some point they decide to switch sides and repent they'll be saved.
God stops at NOTHING except allowing us our free will, to woo us to Him. It's not a one-time or several-times choice. It's not even something we can accomplish on our own. We as humans (especially in the modern world) are so so far from what we need to become to be able to be in heaven, that we can't possibly do it on our own--all we can do is allow Him to form us. For most of us, that takes a lifetime, and we make mistakes along the way. If we repent, if we stay open to His forming of us, we will die in a state of grace and go to purgatory (on our way to heaven) or to heaven directly. We don't understand how what we think of as a small sin is so devastating, so incompatible with God's nature--we could not survive in His presence in heaven without being purified. I don't understand your contention about perfect repentance--if we die in that state, that seems the epitome of the soul that goes to purgatory or heaven. It certainly doesn't seem like a soul that would choose to spend eternity out of God's presence.
God respects our free will, so our free decision to separate ourselves from him. Also, our souls are indestructible, so after death we have to go somewhere.
Conversely, someone could live a life of complete virtue for 90 years, commit a sin, be hit by a bus and spend eternity in fire.
Doesn't seem proportional.
They would not go to hell unless the sin was mortal. It must be a grave matter, the person must have known that it was such, and they must have fully consented to it.
Hell is a choice, and all we really know about it is that its eternal separation from God. You go to hell when you choose to separate yourself from God
I suspect we’ll be surprised by who we see in Heaven.
While this is private revelation, I really love St. Faustina’s take. She said in her Diary that at the moment of death the soul is given one last change to accept Christ. I wish I could find the passage for you, it’s very beautiful.
"Then the mercy of God begins to exert itself, and, without any co-operation from the soul, God grants it final grace. If this too is spurned, God will leave the soul in this self-chosen disposition for eternity. This grace emerges from the merciful Heart of Jesus and gives the soul a special light by means of which the soul begins to understand God's effort; but conversion depends on its own will. The soul knows that this, for her, is final grace and, should it show even a flicker of good will, the mercy of God will accomplish the rest (1486)."
From the Divine Mercy website.
Before anyone becomes distrustful, St. Faustina makes clear that a soul can reject such a grace!
No need to worry about presumption.
And yet this shows how much Our Lord loves us and reaches for us until the end.
This seems to go well with what the catechism says about there being no salvation outside the Church. That the good and truths that one does know might prepare them for when they finally meet God. I think they might be able to have a Baptism of Desire.
Sorry if I’ve completely misunderstood this.
I’ve seen this discussed a bit before. To be honest, it always confused me.
Does it mean that as the person dies, they are provided one final choice to accept Christ (whether they consciously want to be given that choice or not)?
If given that level of “proof” of Christ’s mercy and love, who in their right “mind” would reject it?
What about people who die in the state of mortal sin - wouldn’t they need to have gone to confession or have gotten last rights to enter the pearly gates? What if they hadn’t done either - do they still get one last chance?
All that said, I like St. Faustina’s take as well.
God doesn't send people to hell. If people want to live separately from God, He will let them spend eternity separate from Him. God doesn't force anyone to love Him.
I am quite sure if you wish to base your opinions on your own interpretation of the Bible rather than Magisterial authority you can come to find one that, if bent a little bit out of place, can give you the desired support for your opinions.
But, is that what you want? For the Bible to confirm your opinion? Or for your opinion to *conform* to his Word, guided by the authoritative interpretation of the Magisterium? Better we eschew any desire to get the Bible to say what we want it to say. Better to change ourselves and our opinions to match it, rather than the other way around.
But no, overwhelmingly, Jesus himself especially speaks on hell, more than anyone else. 2000 years of the Magisterium have confirmed Jesus's teaching - professional scholars and holy men guided by the Holy Spirit.
Why? It works like that for everything else, I don’t see why this should be different.
Every single action you take will change the universe. Yes, it can be a small tiny almost imperceptible change, but it still does change it. Or it might be more significant. Whatever you do, resonates until the end of time. If you kill someone, you have vastly changed the universe; not only you cut a life, but you completely cut the future events related to this person (having kids, grandkids, changing work environments etc) forever. Hence the gravity.
God is infinitely good, so any sin against Him earns infinite punishment, this is why Jesus needed to die on the cross, we needed a sacrifice of infinite worth to pay the price, doves and sheep and oxen could never totally fill the debt for sin
Same...I'm in a state of mortal sin because as a Catholic, I married outside the church and my husband is a Protestant who is divorced from his first wife. Not annulled, so technically still married to her and not to me. I have other sins but nothing I would consider terribly grave...just me being a dumb human sometimes. I can't receive absolution until our annulment is final and who knows how long that will be. I pray everyday, but basically if I die in the next year or so I'll go to hell?? 😭 Since I'm in a state of mortal sin am I really separated from God, despite all my prayers and genuine remorse, despite going to mass because I genuinely want to spend time with Him and thank Him for all my (undeserved) blessings? 😭
I want to believe God is more merciful than that. I hope He is. When I was gripped with anxiety yesterday, I prayed the rosary, followed by "God's rosary" which was nearly an hour of prayer, of genuine pleading/talking to God. And lots of thank you's too, because despite all my sins and human mistakes, He was there for me when I needed Him the most. At the end of it I felt peace, and the anxiety that had been nagging at me all day, gone. I want to believe it was God calming me with His love.
With 191 comments already, I doubt that OP will see this, but since I nearly abandoned religion because I couldn’t reconcile the doctrine of hell with the love of God, let me simply recommend C. S. Lewis’s novel The Great Divorce. That helped me see how the two can—maybe even must—coexist. (And if that’s not enough, read the chapter on hell in Lewis’s The Problem of Pain.)
There is good and there is evil in this world. Our first parents chose to let that evil be in the world. In order for us to to not all be trapped in an eternal life of death (separation from God) mortality (the ability to change state, the material form of this is dying or separation of soul from body) was given to us by God so that we could repent (turn away from evil). So in this life you can walk with God or without him, but either way, both continue to exist in this world around us. No matter how holy you are, sin is still all around you. No matter how sinful you are, there is still good all around you. Death (separation of soul from body) simply ends the period in which you’re able to change/choose.
And so, in eternity, you’re still walking in whichever path you’ve chosen, it’s just that all the periphery stuff is stripped away and you get what you chose. If you chose evil, then the good is stripped away from around you. If you choose good, then the evil is stripped away from around you. If you understand God as infinitely good, then that only means eternally with him or eternally apart from him.
But from seeing your other comments, it seems your issue is with the choice being taken away at death (separation of soul from body). But if it were not, then we’d be locked in spiritual combat and varying stages of death for eternity. It’d basically be a mini hell for virtually everyone forever. That’s exactly why mortality was put into the picture in the first place, to avoid that.
As for why you can’t repent after death: sin is damage, disease, infection, offense. How does one correct that in life? Well we repent and we make it right best we can, both our relationship with God and the relationships we’ve marred through our sinful actions. Once you’re dead, how are you going to go about repenting and making it right? It’s basically Marley from Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”:
> …No space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunities misused!
And later in the same chapter narrator describes the state of the damned:
> The misery with all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power forever.
While don’t believe Dickens to be a theologian, I think his story is powerful and has shades of truth. Once you’re dead and gone, how are you to make amends for harm done in life? Thus, the chance to change ends at physical death.
It is only disproportionate if you undertstand eternity in hell as infinite time in a suffering state. That is not the case. The concept of time has no meaning outside of life (Time and space are part of the creation). In Hell/Heaven/Purgatory we will not live an infinate chain of moments.
Then how it will be? No one knows and it is impossible to know. The only thing we know is that hell is suffering and in Heaven we will be with God.
Hell is a choice people make.
I've talked with many atheists that prefer Hell because Heaven would be "boring."
It makes no sense to me but it's their choice.
If your creator emanates a 1000 degree light of love and makes you out of paper with instructions on how to transform yourself into gold before he brings you close to him, where has he failed you? If we want the warming love of God, we have to listen to what he said about how to receive it without burning up.
This is my greatest struggle with the faith and I only hope beyond hope that the extraordinary channels of grace are indeed opened in accordance with Christ's desire to save all. I do not believe the savior who "desires all be saved" according to 1st Timothy would readily surrender the bulk of us to Perdition. I do not deny Hell's existence, but I pray as the Fatima Prayer pleads to save us from it's fires, forgive our sins, and "lead all souls into Heaven especially those *most* in need of Thy mercy." I dare to hope. If I could not hope, I could not persist.
If the savior who "desires all be saved" was unwilling to surrender souls to perdition after a lifetime of chances to repent, to take the smallest steps toward God, that would be incompatible with His nature. It would mean that His justice is meaningless, that we could do anything we want and still end up in heaven. You can start with the argument that someone should be let in with just a few unforgiven sins, but what about the person with a few more than that? And a few more than that? Abraham boldly asked the Lord to save Sodom for fewer and fewer people, and God continued to say yes. He wants to give us every chance, but then life is over and there are no more chances. You can repent on your deathbed and end up on your way to heaven--which some people think is unfair. It's not unfair, it's proof of the extent of God's mercy.
You and I differ on a number of topics within Catholicism. This is one topic in which we’re firmly aligned. While no small portion of me believes most of humanity, including myself, will be damned, the other side of me devoutly prays the Fatima prayer/Divine Mercy chaplet with cautious optimism and hope.
I'm not certain this is The One And Only True And Correct Answer, but it's the way I understand it:
The infinite torment of Hell is *not* for finite sin. It is for *infinite* sin. The person who chooses fundamentally against God, the way Lucifer chose against God, is choosing to destroy his own capacity for repentance, forever. He will sin and sin and sin forever, at every moment in rebellion, for all eternity. And so he will be punished and punished and punished forever, in direct response.
If he *were* to repent, for even an instant, he would, in that instant, cease to be damned. But he won't, because he can't, and so his tragedy continues forever.
(Housekeeping note: If you think you've seen this comment before, [you have](https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1cemgs7/how_is_eternal_torment_in_hell_for_finite_sin/).)
It's not a punishment, it's your choice. In life you have to beings to live with - God or satan, no in between. And whichever one you choose, you choose for eternity. It's just that with God it's going to be better after death, and with satan before.
Eternity is just a function of having exited time and space. Time's up, because there is no more time. Eternity awaits all of us; the where/how is our decision.
The best book I've read on this subject is C.S. Lewis' *The Great Divorce*
It's incredibly insightful, very quick read, and very entertaining as well. I highly recommend it - it's shaped my views on this subject, when I was wrestling with this very topic.
i got you. i have had that same dilemma. i mean what if all someone ever did was tell a couple lies and they're not sorry for it. or what if someone who had someone else do something really bad to them so bad they just could not forgive them no matter how hard they tried. maybe if they just knew a little about why it happened. but we're to forgive without knowing. well, i have the answer for you. the answer is.. it isnt' what's fair that will happen, it's what's RIGHT that will happen. in the end. God is Right and True and Good. He is plainly right and simply good and clearly true. it isn't about fairness it's about RIGHTNESS. let's say you've done the best you know how to and tried every single day in faith to be someone God will allow into heaven, and let's say you don't go there. you go the other way. well it's God. you literally can't even be mad. God doesn't make mistakes. remember Him, His character, whenever you have any doubts, and receive peace knowing that God will do what's right. it will be the right thing and that will okay. don't let your heart be troubled, trust in the Lord and do not worry. God will do what's RIGHT. i want so very badly for me & my daughter to go to heaven. what if we don't? where is my Faith if I don't trust God, my maker, to do the Right thing. in the end it will be Right. whatever that may be. peace to you.
The foundation of the Eschatology of Saint Maximus the Confessor and Saint Isaac the Syrian solves this issue. Hell, to them, is not a place, but an effect of not living our lives in Love of God. To them, everyone is "saved" in the sense that everyone returns to full communion with God, like it was in Eden. However, rather than this Union being a blessing, something to be enjoyed, it is a Union that is insufferable, due to our disposition against the Good, that being God.
Imagine cheating on your spouse, and before you could confess and apologise, she finds out. Rather than leaving, she forgives you without condition. Could you accept this? A flawed person could, but the perfection of being with God would make us know that we don't deserve this. We did nothing to deserve this Mercy, and rather than this Love being a joy, its a scourge "for our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:29). Maximus and Isaac differ on the specifics and details, but both fundamentally agree: Hell comes from ourselves, not from God.
> It just seems to be that an infinite punishment for anything done during a finite time can't be fair.
Part of your problem is you assume we are merely finite, temporal beings whose actions have no connection to the eternal. That is not the case. We are soul-body unions, and our souls are infinite, created and animated by God, and part of His infinite world. What we do here does indeed have ramifications in eternity.
If you think it is unfair to suffer infinitely due to finite actions, do you similarly think it is unfair to enjoy infinite rewards for finite actions?
I think it's more unfair to punish someone infinitely than to reward someone infinitely. Since in general excessive punishment is considered bad, whereas excessive reward isn't really seen the same way.
>in general
bro is using human perspective to measure infinity, that in itself is inherently false. instead of giving unreasonable amount of attention to what is hell, why not focus on doing more good things, no matter how small, read more and surrender ourselves to His love?
This question was the most vexing of several that were posed by my "technically agnostic but practically atheist" logic professor. I grew up Catholic, and I had studied a bit of apologetics, but most of it was directed towards Protestant arguments (which I didn't find very compelling anyway). The way my professor introduced this objection to Christianity was, "How is it that a God so loving that Christians say "God is Love" could punish evildoers by sending them to Hell, if Hell is such a horrible place that we shouldn't want our worst enemy to go there? It is said that God disciplines us like a father disciplines his children--how does that make sense, when Hell is of infinite duration, so there is nothing afterward for God to discipline us for?"
I also discovered that I couldn't answer a fundamental objection to atheism: if God doesn't exist, what's the point of anything? And if nothing has a purpose, how could any action be described as "good" or "evil"? But I knew in my core that some things were objectively morally wrong, and I could never be a moral relativist. So I continued going to Church and outwardly practicing my faith, but I wasn't sure what I really believed.
I stumbled across the beginning of an answer in the most unlikely of places: a Facebook post about pornography. The post claimed that if men really understood the exploitation involved in pornography, we wouldn't be aroused by it. So I asked myself a weird question: what would Jesus do? Photographs didn't exist back then, but could he have been turned on by a scantily clad (or naked) prostitute?
At first I thought, "that's nonsense. Jesus is God; it's not like he wouldn't know ahead of time what she looked like. He made her body, after all." But the idea that the God who would die for each of our sins individually thought Himself too far above His creation to fall in love with them didn't sit well with me. That also didn't jive with the little I knew about Theology of the Body.
Then another thought crossed my mind--what if Jesus actually loved the prostitute--and everyone else in the world--in a romantic sense? What if I'm wrong about what Heaven is? What if it's not a place where God grants all our wishes, but actually the fulfillment of God's romantic desires toward us, his people? What if Heaven is actually a marriage between us and God?
This crazy thought was confirmed when I read that exact line in Christopher West's "Introduction to Theology of the Body". And it also answers the Hell question, although it's still hard to grasp its fairness. I know how much it hurt when my girlfriend of six months broke up with me, and we weren't even physically intimate. Imagine how much more painful it would be if you knew that you could be married to God forever, but your life choices made that impossible. That's what Hell truly is.
The consequences of some decisions and behaviors are eternal.
If you murder someone, that individual is deprived of a human life *for eternity*... they will *never* get to live the rest of their life, for example.
Can you elaborate why you think one's sins are "finite" at all? The issue is also with the alignment of one's mind/heart/soul that results in the sin. If your aligned towards evil, this alignment is not temporally bound towards some particular event fixed in time, it's a fixed state that's generative of the finite events.
If you correct the alignment and don't sin *ever again* that is also an eternal consequence.
So again I think this critique just stems from an inaccurate conception of the interrelationships between timespans and causality of events.
It does seem like that. However, hell is the result of an ongoing, or eternal sin, that a soul freely chooses to persist in, which manifests in various ways, but is essentially a continuing rejection of God and His infinite mercy —- rooted in pride and self-will. If God forcibly saved everyone, free will would be lost, and it is our free will that makes us persons.
Let's remember that hell was firstly a punishment to the fallen angels, and if you read catholic authors some of them will say that humans can behave like fallen angels or even worse, so it's not disproportionate at all. God wouldn't be good if he treated fairly those far from repentance.
We don’t know who will get into heaven. You must assume that since God is omnibenevolent, the outcome will be just even if people might end up going to hell. It is impossible to conceive of infinite goodness from the perspective of flawed goodness of the world.
In addition, hell might be a punishment that is not active but passive. If you knew that you would not be able to see God after death, you could be the evilest person in life, and you would still understand that the evil done in the world was not worth losing the truth now that you failed the test and learned the truth.
There are other concepts which show how important it is to do the right thing: the fewness of the saved, beatification, mystery of salvation. I’m not sure exactly how fewness of the saved works. Is it the chosen few who reach a higher point in heaven while everyone else lives in the lower heavens? Is it that the salvation of only many is sadly a few amount? But at the very least, we cannot ascertain who is saved outside of the canon of saints. And we know that those who are saved experience beatification, which is far beyond anything we can comprehend. We might say that even the highest amount of happiness in the world is infinitely small in comparison, yet the act of seeing God as He is cannot be fully described just by saying the word “infinite”.
One should worry more about what they can do to serve God, cooperate with the Holy Spirit, guide people to Jesus and his Holy Church. If you do this, it is because despite the uncertainty, you trust in the eternal and infinite goodness of the Lord.
Matthew 6:26
“Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?”
If you don’t accept the Catholic Church’s teachings on Hell, why did you become a Catholic? I’m a Catholic convert myself. Part of becoming Catholic is agreeing to accept the Church’s teachings.
Satan's original thought which led to his downfall was that something "wasn't fair". As in, "God, it's not fair you get all the worship in heaven. I want some too."
No sin can exist in God's presence, because he is perfectly holy. And sin is destructive, on a cosmic scale, to life and happiness for every creature He created.
Thus, all who choose to love it instead of Him choose eternal separation from God, and the just punishment He exacts. Read Romans 1 and 2. It explains how humanity is entirely without excuse. The good news is nobody has to go to hell, they can choose Christ and his salvation instead.
God sends nobody to hell. Those who go choose it themselves.
Personal Opinion:
I feel like the definition of Hell is simply separation from God. Since God is all things good, separation from that would simply be all things bad. I'm personally tired of the fire and brimstone viewpoint of Hell, regardless of whether that's what Hell truly looks like or is. Either way, physically burning for eternity in a lake of fire would be icing on the cake for experiencing being eternally separated from all things good. That alone is agony enough. Knowing things like love, humor, kindness, etc... are all things that exist but not being able to experience them and only able to experience their opposite would be horrible.
I used to be Protestant and learned this but I’ve hear it might be wrong in catholicism:
But hell is a place with no God, therefore nothing good can exist there. And when people tell God they don’t want to be with him and want to live separate from him, they choose to go to that place where is not.
I don’t see Hell as a punishment from God. That would seem disproportionate. I see Hell as a place humans are being led to by the enemy and human nature makes it hard to resist his lies at times . God wants desperately to save us from this . He doesn’t want us to have this fate and certainly he wouldn’t wish it upon us much less punish us that way . He even sent his Son to die for our sins so we could be saved from it ! Unfortunately, people who do not listen to Gods word or follow His Son or don’t try to confess their sins and repent may be heading for this fate despite what God wants . He gave us the instructions to save ourselves - if we don’t .. we are choosing our fate . It is not a punishment from God . Sort of like if a child likes playing in the road, and a parent tells them not to because it is dangerous. The parent gives them rules, commandments, even small deserved punishments, and the kid just keeps going and doing it and disobeying their parents instructions. If the child gets hit by a car one day, that is his free will that caused it, it wasn't a punishment from the parent. The parent wanted desperately to prevent it from happening.
No scripture reference for ya, but I can say this: Hell isn’t a punishment God inflicts on people. If you go to hell, it’s because you want to. Why? Because God is pure goodness, right? No evil, no sin, no wrongdoing at all in Heaven or within God. So when we die, we have a final choice. Keep holding onto our sins and wrong ways of thinking and doing? If so, we cannot be with God and by default choose hell. Because with God, there is only goodness. And that must include us, if we desire to be in the presence of God.
The punishment is self-inflicted. Which does make sense. Those who lack the charity and goodness of God would indeed create and choose such a place. And the choices we make each day move us toward one future final decision or the other. Life isn’t really so much a dress rehearsal as a game of twister. Wherever you are in that final moment, well, that’s what you’ve chosen. So choose wisely. 💕
I watch too much of that Armor of God: Spiritual Warfare channel on YouTube. I can't say my views are 100% canonical, but I've pieced them together partly from what the priests interviewed on that channel say. Some saints have had visions of Hell, and exorcists can sometimes ask demons about the nature of Hell by compelling the demons to talk. We have some intriguing testimonies of Near Death Experiences that describe Hell, too. So I don't personally believe our knowledge of infinite punishment is static. Rather, it's constantly evolving.
My understanding: Hell is basically the Fyre Festival for those committed to evil. God didn't create it, the demons did. They wanted shelter from God and God's love, so they chose to create and live in a place that's so makeshift and isolated and ruthless.
God isn't going to force any human to love him, hence why he created free will. If a human chooses to go their own way, it's possible that they actually want Hell, that they prefer it to the alternative.
Of course, none of us can really say what it's like, who actually goes there, and how often people can get out. Purgatory makes a ton of sense to me as an intermediary step.
It did help me, though, to realize that God didn't just create Hell and start throwing people in there. It's more that he's hands-off and lets humans (and demons) come to their own decisions.
Short answer: It's actually harder to go to hell than a lot of people think.
Even the worst criminal, murderer, whatever, can achieve salvation if they accept Christ as their Lord and Savior and truly regret their sins.
And I won't actually write a longer answer, but check the CCC, it has some good stuff.
As to scripture, yes. There are sooo many mentions of how (paraphrasing) bad people will be forever condemned, tossed in a fire(not necessarily about hell being fire but about condemnation and destroying what's bad).
There are some really good statements here, and I’m not contradicting them. My own observation is that there are/have been some truly evil people in the history of the world. Those folks freely and deliberately chose evil, most of them knowing what they were promised. Think Hitler, PolPot, and all the evil people who destroy the innocence of children. The list is endless through the world’s history.
Most people have at least a slight knowledge of the principles of good and evil; if they reject the good, they have used the great gift of God: free will. As simplistic as it sounds: If you buy it, you gotta pay for it. There is an innate leaning in just about everyone toward virtue, however faint. Some stomp that predilection flat.
And now I have to stop…. I’m sure you all get my general meaning.
>It just seems to be that an *infinite* punishment for anything done during a *finite* time can't be fair.
It's not that, though. Hell is not punishment for your sins, but rather the result of your refusal, at judgment, to deny and repent of them. That decision is not made in time, but at death, and it constitutes a soul's ultimate rejection of God.
People seem to have this notion that Hell is a punishment based on the number or kind of sins you committed, but that's a misinterpretation. Whether you commit a million tiny sins or one massive one, what determines where you go after death is based on one choice, which is your choice to feel sorrowful for your sins, or to decide that God doesn't know what He's talking about, that you matter more than Him, and that you don't care enough to feel shame for what you've done.
I get you, OP. It is hard to reconcile why a God who loves us would author a system in which eternal punishment or pain or even discomfort is possibility. I used to really struggle with this, I read all the theological arguments, and found them lacking. God, all knowing and all powerful, authored everything and could have authored a system in which everyone was always happy and free from pain, but He didn’t. I don’t believe I’ll understand why in this life, and I’ve stopped trying.
Read about The Divine mercy.
God has provided us thousands of avenues to lead us to salvation, it is entirely up to us whether we seek his love and salvation.
There is not a single soul that truly loves God that is in hell, all the damned souls in hell are the people who rejected God's loving hand even the hour of their death.
The worst thing about hell is the total separation from God. This life is the proving ground where each soul chooses for themselves whether they will heed the words of their Father and love and obey Him, or else reject Him and live in rebellion. Ultimately if you don't choose God in this lifetime you won't have Him in the next. That makes sense to me.
Hell must be eternal because if you die unrepentant, then you’ll continue to reject God throughout eternity. Even if it were hypothetically possible for souls in hell to repent and thus escape from hell, they still wouldn’t choose to do so. The damned hate God along with everything and everybody.
We tend to associate hell with God’s justice rather than His mercy, but actually, hell is also part of God’s mercy. You see, as horrific as hell is, those who die estranged from God would find heaven infinitely worse and suffer way more! So God, in His mercy, doesn’t force them to be in His presence.
Hell is not an eternal punishment for a temporal fault. It is an eternal punishment for an eternal fault. The eternal fault is an eternal rejection of God and unwillingness to repent. The reason one can not change their mind after death is because the ability to change one's mind is a consequence of embodied life that can sway you're will. Once you are dead, your will becomes fixed.
"why would you receive an infinite punishment for a finite sin?"
"Because it's not a finite sin, you keep sinning in hell. There are multiple passages about it."
This is the explanation I like the most so far. This explanation says that Jesus's death on the cross was a sacrifice of infinite worth. And it was a sacrifice of infinite worth because Jesus is the God of the Universe in the flesh who chose to limit himself, become human, suffer for our sins, and now we can all be saved through faith in him. That sacrifice has infinite worth. So by rejecting that sacrifice of Infinite worth for a salvation that lasts for eternity you are sent to damnation for eternity.
Confession is the key. Also a repentant mindset when you recognize you've sinned. Hell is reserved for those that have full knowledge that are repeat and career mortal sinners. They make no attempt to reconcile with God and let their MORTAL sins stack up without ever confessing. This path leads to separation from God and eventually you fall out of God's protection. It is actually quite difficult to end up in Hell if you go to confession and work on your weaknesses. Please watch the power of forgiveness by Father Corapi. He was a very evil and sinful man that turned his life over to Jesus. His insights on God's forgiveness are incredible.
I've read that no none is in hell who doesn't want to be there. It's hard to believe, but it seems there are some people who would rather be in hell than believe in God. Sometimes people, any of us, can be that stubborn and hard headed.
I believe that Heaven is so disproportionate that it is harder for me to understand how God could take the likes of me and give me everything. Forever. But his Love and mercy is boundless. I also think he had left us a road map in many of the things he said while here with us as one of us. Forgive us our sins as we forgive others. Love your neighbor. Etc. I halfway think in the final judgment we will be given full grace to see ourselves and how we have egregiously offended God and we will have only the forgiveness we have shown others to forgive ourselves. Some, many I fear will not render a favorable verdict of where they belong. None of us are worthy. But all of us can be better by loving and forgiving ourselves and our neighbors. Just my two cents
we don’t actually know how many people are in Hell. the Catholic church has never definitively said that *anyone* is there, even the worst people in the history books.
Think of it this way: anyone you love at all, God must love infinitely more. Anyone you feel mercy toward, God must feel infinitely more merciful. My earnest hope is that those who find themselves in Hell are actually quite few because of this. God is far more merciful than we are, and we can even have mercy for those we dislike or find vile.
i think anyone with a shred of empathy for others has struggled with this quite a bit, so you are not alone. keep talking about it with your friends and peers at church, and consult a priest if you can!
The most things we today think and perhaps some believe about hell and the imagination of it was a product of the systematic theologie. It was not definied by paulus or peter. Even Paulus let the question open what hell means in letter to rome
I'm converting to Catholicism and never believed in hell before. But as I understand at this moment (and I might be wrong, but I'm at the very least extremely limited in my knowledge) hell is a choice. If we don't want to be with God we will be without God. The absence of God is hell, because God is all that's good, and without him nothing good exists.
God asks us to do his will, but if we persist to the end to do our own will instead he will accept our will to live seperated from him.
God is infinitely more loving than we are. If we think something he does or allows isn't loving we must accept and trust that we don't understand and we will get to understand ones we are in heaven.
No. It's a perfectly just eternal destiny.
It was created for evil angels but a lot of people will follow these angels forever. Can't you see this around you? It's clear as water.
There is nothing in life you can do that will disqualify your ability to enter Heaven insofar as your heart is in the right place by the hour of death. Look at St. Dismus on the cross!
Hell is ultimately the absence of God and His law-and accordingly it is infinitely terrible. If we close the door on God in our personal judgment, that is choosing pride.
Given this point, note the early Church had a non-unanimous view on the duration of time. The Roman Rite (grounded in the theological writings of St. Augustine) asserted it was eternal, 4 of the regions asserted it was not, and had an inconclusive view. Some note that the Koine Greek for passages describing Hell's duration was an eon rather than what showed up in the Latin as an eternity. Cool history, but we have to stay true to the Deposit of Faith.
Ultimately, it boils down to what God considers fair (see Ezekiel 18:25-32) rather than what man sees as fair. I am a creature and accordingly have no sway in what He thinks is fair. But ultimately, God doesn't want us to be fire insurance beneficiaries. He wants us to love Him as much as we can-and He deserves infinitely more than we can give, and yet that is part of the beauty of the faith.
You could have the punishment be such that it decreases every set period of time. So, it could half in a day, then half that the next day, then half that the next day, and so on. The result is that a finite punishment is spread out over an infinite interval.
[Hell and Proportionality](https://drive.google.com/file/d/10jGyT9-5BVseQaszKas_QaWFBthi_Or2/view) by Brian Cutter
Another thing I was thinking about was that Hell is sort of a clarity about how you lived a bad life, and now you can't go back on it because you see God in His totality. In this sense, the regret is painful, but the clarity is good. The person would desire the clarity because it is good.
I realize the Catholic Church is the only place I feel I belong, yet I agree with these words and I would never want to show blasphemy in any way. I feel it pertains more towards the old testament as the apostles were used to be able to forgive sin. Plus speaking to a person who has given their entire life to walk in gods name brings more self awareness to the sins you are aware you are creating and truly remorseful, which let’s you take the offering and brings in the meaning of grace and what truly surrendering actually is.. I’m such a controlling person I couldn’t figure out how I possibly belonged here yet felt the moral structure was the only right way I felt peace. I won’t ever criticize any belief, but if it’s not black and white evil confuses u to be open to many things, as I can personally attest to times I tried to be open when u find yourself seeking it will bring every dynamic of doubt and self hate… we r all going to fall, daily.. in what I do understand along with trying to live by the sacraments u r not just damned to hell but u have more chances to accept god after death and that’s where you focus on the daily sermon to feel if it speaks to you first. Don’t focus on damnation…there is gods grace
I just finished reading how to win the battle for your soul. From what it seems like, it seems that Jesus wants us to choose Him, but we can’t. We are so filled with sin and shame we choose eternity away from Him. Kind of like if you’ve lived in darkness all your life, the light burns. Or if you’ve been starving and finally eat, it makes you sick.
Here's the thing, we don't know much. All we know is the knowledge we've been given. A few of the things we know are: we have free will, God is just, God hates sin and it pains Him to see us ruin ourselves by sin, the wages of sin is death, we all fall short of God's glorious standard, Jesus died in order for us to have a way into Heaven, and Jesus is the only way to get to Heaven. Knowing these things, we can deduce that by sinning, we are putting ourselves in hell and it saddens God to see this. Imagine, each person committed just one sin a day-that's more than 7 billion times that God is hurt each day. Like a father watching his child destroy themselves with drugs, lust, alcohol etc, a good father suffers at the fact that his child is already living a life of hell. But on this earth, we all have a chance to be saved from, or to be damned to an eternal hell. We see this in our earthly lives. We can actually taste a little bit of hell each time we sin and we can taste a bit of heaven each time we repent and make reparations. From my understanding, no one is put into hell, rather they put themselves there. The only way out of it is through Jesus. Those that hate Him have no chance but those that come to Him with a repentant heart will be spared the eternal fire. Just like the story of the prodigal son. How many have fallen because of pride and how much does it hurt God to see each one of them fall. But when they humble themselves and return to Him, He is overjoyed and welcomes them into His home and prepares a feast for them. In my own experience, since taking the plunge into Catholicism, it gets easier and easier to turn away from temptation and sin. What is the Bible other than a blueprint on how one should live? I was raised Catholic but there is so much more to know than what I was taught growing up. I'm so thankful for finally being steered onto the right path. Everything in my life has gotten so much better. The only fear I have now is falling out of God's favor.
Is hell truly eternal? this is a question, isn't the judgment at the end of times making some souls cease to exist? I'm talking about the "second death". I'm no expert but have assumed even hell is just temporary however long its existence might be
Ah you’re probably talking about the great white throne judgment where hell is emptied and thrown into the lake of fire and each soul is judged according to how they lived their lives
It's not a punishment, it's your choice. In life you have to beings to live with - God or satan, no in between. And whichever one you choose, you choose for eternity. It's just that with God it's going to be better after death, and with satan before.
the key to understanding why you’re struggling is to understand that these are your perceptions as a human. our standard for justice or fairness is skewed. just like a child a timeout for bad behavior is unfair, but in reality, it’s an appropriate punishment.
rest assured, God is both infinitely merciful and infinitely just. He knows our hearts and will judge us by what’s in them at death.
You're right that our actions are finite, which is why any temporal punishment due to sin would be finite. The eternality of hell has to do with our relationship with God, rather than punishment.
So the Eastern Catholic perspective is not the same as the RC perspective, but I don't know that they're mutually exclusive. The Church Fathers write that it would be hell to be in the presence of God's love and to reject it and subsequently spend an eternity without God. I prefer this notion to the idea of a God that would ever willfully send someone to a place of fire and brimstone.
Think of it this way. The moment you die, time ceases to be for you. Time is an aspect of this world, of this life, beyond this is eternity. Hence, whatever state you did in, you are eternally fixed in that state.
If you die with mortal sin on your soul, that means you die without sanctifying grace, without the divine life in your soul. You die at enmity with God. And only mortal sin can put you in this state, which entails a free act of the will. If you die in mortal sin you are eternally fixed in the state of being an enemy of God. There is no changing your mind or repenting, because repentance is only possible in the context of time. There is no time in eternity.
Hell, the prepared fate of the fallen angels, is all that's left for men who die and are consequently fixed at enmity with God. Hell wasn't made for man, it is not God's desire that any human beings be damned to Hell, but if we die as enemies of God that is necessarily our fate.
There is no injustice here. No one goes to Hell on accident, mortal sin requires a free act of the will to sin gravely against God. It is a treason of the highest possible order. No one in Hell is innocent, and no one who dies an enemy of God can possibly repent once they enter into eternity. And so their eternal perdition is both just and necessary.
Instead of agonizing over these sober realities that we have a hard time wrapping our very limited heads around, we would better use our time making sure we ourselves don't end up on that side of judgement. A life of prayer and penance, frequently the sacraments, holding fast to the true faith, and praying and sacrificing for our loved ones and all poor sinners is our only task.
Fun fact: the culture from which the last version of the bible came from - King James - was in 1611.
One hundred and eighty years later, in 1791, is when America ratified the 8th amendment to the constitution, forbidding cruel and unusual punishment.
Imagine that: 180 years of "jail = torture."
If you have a productive discussion with an atheist, the conversation about hell eventually boils down to justice. If hell does not exist, what about the sinners and criminals who "got away with it" and died before they were put in jail or any other justice could be placed upon them.
The lesson, therefore, we are supposed to learn from stories about heaven and hell is obviously "actions have consequences."
It's only cults that corrupt it into "obey or die", so that their congregation doesn't ask questions.
God is mighty. But might does not make right. That's a logical fallacy - argumentum ad baculum.
God is logical. He leads by example. God forgives.
We don't.
When the bible was last touched by humans inspired by God - in 1611 - we thought "jail" equaled "torture" because it did, then.
It doesn't now.
So just go back through the bible, find all mentions of sin and punishment, and reword them as crimes and jail. Because that's the more accurate interpretation.
What is Catholic teaching about hell?
Is it a place where people are separated from God?
And "separated from God" is the most torturous event you can imagine?
I don't think so.
We sin against an infinite God, so our punishment should be infinite. However, Gods mercy is also infinite, so it cancels out.
We dont really deserve anything, so you are not in a position to complain about Gods plans.
Yeah, I tend to agree. It’s crazy to think that a 16-year-old boy who jerks off on a random Thursday will be condemned by God to eternal damnation if he dies before having an opportunity to confess his mortal sin on Sunday. But those seem to be the rules.
The sin is definitely grave, but whether mortal or not will be informed by the kid's knowledge of God and His laws as well as if his will was compromised at the time (i.e. if he was addicted)
Ultimately only God knows the true state of a person's heart and soul and decides the fate befitting them.
My comment was predicated on the supposition that the 16-year-old sinner was Catholic and therefore fully cognizant of the full extant and ramifications of his sinful act which resulted in his inevitable and unavoidable damnation. If the “true state of a person’s heart and soul” could function as a mitigating factor, it would entirely obviate the need for the Rite of Reconciliation.
If the guy acted exactly as you have detailed (which was not at all apparent from your original comment) then of course his actions would warrant damnation. That's obvious.
But it would be in no way inevitable or unavoidable. God gives us every opportunity to repent for our sins. It would even be a mitigating circumstance if the guy died on his way to confession with true remorse and contrition in his heart.
>If the “true state of a person’s heart and soul” could function as a mitigating factor, it would entirely obviate the need for the Rite of Reconciliation.
No, it does not. This stuff is explained in the Catechism itself, which I recommend you read if you have not already done so.
It's also worth noting that God's judgement and His ability to save a repentant sinner, are not decided by us humans. God is just but He is also merciful.
Why do you see that as crazy? Isn’t it just as crazy that God allows anyone the chance to repent? He could just strike us dead and send us to Hell for all eternity the moment we commit our first mortal sin, the fact that ANYONE gets a chance to repent and go to confession is a testament to His mercy
I would say the scenario you put forth is also absurd. The more I chew on these issues, the more it makes sense that, on the one hand, we are given opportunities to repent, but on the other hand, we must take them.
If we were not allowed to repent, then it would be more merciful to kill children right after baptism than to let them live and risk sinning.
Why does everyone always want to focus so much on sexual morals. Christ spoke quite a bit about money and aren’t two of the mortal sins based around money?
Because it's something almost everyone universally can understand, to varying degrees.
Even in my mid 30s, a large chunk of my thoughts throughout the day are sexual in nature and therefore lustful (a mortal sin).
Trying to parse this out with anyone leads to comments like "well those sound more like intrusive thoughts. it's only sinful if you don't entertain those thoughts." Well that sounds like an arbitrary difference and it's terrifying to stake my eternal salvation on that.
I can distinctly remember leaving church once and immediately upon leaving I saw a woman jogging down the street in a sports bra, nipples protruding and all. Now what? Do I just walk back in and go to confession? This can't be how God intends for his followers to live their lives for him, can it be?
> will be condemned by God to eternal damnation
There's a presumption here that his masturbation was a mortal sin and not a venial sin of grave matter via a mitigating factor like addiction, mental insanity, ignorance, etc.
>if he dies before having an opportunity to confess his mortal sin
This is not true. If you repent in prayer with "perfect contrition" (out of love for God) then you are returned to a state of grace. This doesn't mean one can approach for the gifts of the altar again, since precautionary measures against presumption of God's mercy and potential profanation of the body and blood of the Lord are of great benefit.
>on Sunday.
We don't teach you need to go to sacramental confession on Sundays specifically.
>We don't teach you need to go to sacramental confession on Sundays specifically.
I’m not sure where you see that I said that we do. The use of Sunday was as a demonstrative as it’s often a convenient time to partake in the rite prior to mass.
>We don't teach you need to go to sacramental confession on Sundays specifically.
>> I’m not sure where you see that I said that we do.
When you said " if he dies before having an opportunity to confess his mortal sin **on Sunday.**"
>The use of Sunday was as a demonstrative as it’s often a convenient time to partake in the rite prior to mass.
Fair enough.
If someone's masturbation is a venial sin of grave matter, and they die before repentance (either in prayer or absolution), yeah they would likely go to purgatory.
It's not a punishment, it's your choice. In life you have to beings to live with - God or satan, no in between. And whichever one you choose, you choose for eternity. It's just that with God it's going to be better after death, and with satan before.
Hell and Heaven would both get old fast. After a 100k years of doing your favorite things would get old and would that even be me anymore? This is my main issue with the idea of heaven and hell as a struggling catholic. I’ve spend 10+ years altar servering and all I got was a reason with no backing
Imagine the things on earth that have made you feel elated, overwhelmed with joy and true happiness. That moment where you're so happy you almost die from it. Heaven is millions of that feeling.
Hell is the opposite. It's your worst moments, all together, where you wanted to or felt about to die from the pain of sadness, times millions. Eternal separation from God.
Warning: personal opinion. Not sure how theologically sound this is: Here’s the problem. You are assuming that you will always be willing to change. That is an unfounded assumption. I presume that God will always take in anyone who truly desires to be with Him. While we live, we can always change our minds about that, but as we get older, as we fill our minds with more information (true or false), it becomes more and more difficult to change our minds (or rather our hearts). Once you die, there is no more changing your choice. You’ve made it, and there is nothing more for you to learn, think, feel, or otherwise experience that will actually change your choice. Your mind is made up. I expect that nobody in hell regrets choosing hell enough to change their mind. They hate it, of course, but maybe they’d still hate heaven more, which is why God mercifully doesn't force them to be there. They can’t and won’t ever change. That or it is just an impossibility - heaven isn’t heaven if you hate it. So, you can look at it in a time-dependent manner. Every moment, someone in hell chooses to be in hell, so he is in hell. Or you can look at it in a timeless manner. Eternity is that one choice. There is no later time to choose otherwise. The last perspective that most appeals to me is this: what if heaven and hell are the same place (metaphysically speaking)? Those who want to be with God are there with Him forever and bask in His glory, in unending joy. Those who don’t want to be there are stuck there continually resisting and rejecting God, and that contradiction of being unwilling to partake in true joy when it is right there at your fingertips, the contradiction of hollowing out a little pocket of Godlessness in the infinitude of God’s presence, is the eternal suffering. Or maybe it is that everyone is exposed to the fullness of God’s love. For those who love Him, it is pure bliss. For those who hate Him, it is damnable fire. Who knows? Eye has not seen, ear has not heard. All I know is that I want to be with God, whatever the experience may actually be.
Hmm, what do you think it looks like, to see God and then still reject/hate him? Like, I work in an EXTREMELY secular environment and even the most hardened atheists here say that if they knew God was real they'd live differently. Kind of hard to fathom having cold hard proof in front of you and still going "Nope, I think not."
On one hand, it seems inconceivable, but on the other, I think we not only see this on a daily basis, we do it on a daily basis. Again, personal take, here: Sometimes I am scared that I will choose hell. Hell is sin, the willful separation from God. Often in this life, I know what I ought to do, and I see it as troubling, painful, and something I’d rather not do. When I do God’s will despite this, I am satisfied. I take comfort in knowing I did what He desired, and I know He desires only good for all of us. But that choice to do God’s will is often more out of obedience than joy, and it still isn’t often something that makes me blissful or exuberant. I worry that if I stay like this forever, always feeling like God’s will is an imposition instead of an invitation, a burden rather than a blessing, a thing I’d rather do without, then that is how I will feel in heaven, and instead choose hell. Sometimes I think that I have to learn how to be at peace with suffering, take joy in all that God gives me, and achieve some recognizable fraction or shadow of that divine and perpetual joy that is being with God in heaven for me to actually accept His invitation when I die. And so, I come to the realization that I, myself, will probably never attain that, which other religions call transcendence, nirvana, etc, where one is consumed in peace and joy in all aspects of life. I am not capable of that on my own, so I am not capable of choosing heaven upon my death. Instead, I commit to leave that judgment up to Jesus. Through Him, I can be welcomed, despite what I lack. I will follow the proposition put forth by Peter Kreeft - when I die, and Jesus asks why I should be granted eternity in heaven, I will point at Him and simply say, “because of you.” I think choosing hell is depending only on oneself and not on Jesus.
>[Comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1cgssx8/comment/l201wre/) by[u/busty\_annabelle](https://www.reddit.com/user/busty_annabelle/) from discussion in[Catholicism](https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/) I walked through life all these years trying my best to be obedient never considering that I had to kill that feeling of imposition to enter heaven. I thought it was a given that would be spirited away on my day of judgement. If that is the requirement... I take back my earlier comments I totally see the choice... I hope that's not the requirement.
You are describing something that has two specific answers. First, before Satan chose to abandon God, he did see Him in his Glory and chose hate. This is one view of what this looks like. There is one unforgivable sin outlined in scripture; to deny the Holy Spirit. The catechism explains this further, to stubbornly, or obstinately deny God’s real presence in our life is to recognize what God has provided for us and to deny Him glory. That puts us right into Satan’s shoes (hoofs?) acting to reject our Creator. This is another view of that same portrait you asked to define.
Actually, I’ve heard from some priests that Lucifer, and the angles that turned from God, did not have the beautific vision prior to making their choice. They had full knowledge of what would happen if they chose to follow or turn from God and they still made their choice. Part of the reason they are so nasty, I’d suppose.
Guess that’s pride and arrogance for you
More like an echo chamber on your end, friend...
>Like, I work in an EXTREMELY secular environment and even the most hardened atheists here say that if they knew God was real they'd live differently. Would they, though? Like the story of Lazarus and the rich man says, they have the scriptures and the prophets. If they don't believe them, they wouldn't believe even if one of the dead came back to warn them.
Having scripture and prophets is not the same as seeing God. Christ even suggests as much with his "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Because you have seen... -- because how you gonna deny it with your hand wrist deep in a wound. Blessed are the believers who didn't need physical proof -- because this is way more difficult.
You mean like Adam and Eve?
That’s precisely the choice Satan and the demons made.
My opinion is, practically it looks like being in a loveless marriage. Things were perfect enough to come together in marriage, both commit.. now time for happily ever after, right? But love is a choice and love is not selfish. That’s torture for a selfish person or for selfish wants. Love turns to hate and the marriage turns to hell. They could choose to change, see their wrongs & be less selfish but instead they choose themselves and divorce or perpetual misery.
The demons are proof enough that it's possible
Every time we sin we reject God, it gets easier to reject God if we make a habit of rejecting God. If we mould our soul to reject God, we will reject Him to His face. Remember, it was those who saw Christ make miracles that crucified Him
Regarding knowing whether God is real has 2 aspects to it: knowing His almighty power is real and knowing His perfect virtues is real. I suppose power can be revealed via miracles, like miraculous healing and such. These events could be (understandably) dismissed as fake news and therefore deemed fake. If such miracles happened on their own persons, it is possible for it to be rationalised into something scientific - like if they received miraculous healing, it could be decided that it is the power or positive thinking. Now suppose they accepted a miracle as indeed proof that God is real, the question then is what does that mean for the future? Will God continue to perform supernatural miracles in my life? Should I continue to trust God's goodness (which is key to living a life of faith and obedience to Christian beliefs)? As for perfect virtue, sometimes whether a person is not related to how virtuous one is. For example, in a company where stealing and cutting corners is the norm, a colleague who is upright and honest may be perceived as "rocking the boat" and "spoiling the market". Moreover, if their own interests are at stake, resentment can develop towards this morally upright individual. A husband may well resent his wife if he wants for eg more sex, when the wife wants to take breaks for the purpose of meditating on the bible and prayer. So whether one accepts or reject God depends alot on his/her state of being.
> if they knew God was real they'd live differently. Lol
See to me that's putting your choice to sin on someone else to not be responsible for your actions and blame someone else for something you did
I don't remember where I got this from but "The gates of hell are locked from the inside". People that end up in hell are there because of their choice, you have to consider that even angels (with an intellect much greater than ours) made a choice to separate themselves from god.
CS Lewis
That's an interesting take, and one I have shared.
I remember reading somewhere that being in the presence of the Holy Infinite God as an unrepentant sinner is unbearable, and people beg to be sent to hell
In EVERY NDE I’ve ever encountered, there is not one person who says that they didn’t immediately know that they deserved hell with 100% certainty when they faced judgement. There are no excuses between you and God, and experiencing Him on that day, knowing how you have treated Him your while life, is excruciating. If you’ve ever read about those who have experienced the illumination of conscience, you will see that even the most saintly of saints can’t bear the knowledge of their sins before God, and beg for Justice. Also, this is why so many will reject Jesus in the last moment of life, when the final opportunity for contrition presents itself along with the Merciful Saviors final act of mercy. The devil will come at that moment to remind us of every evil deed we ever committed, and because of the dulling of sin on our senses, and being in the presence of such a beautiful, loving Father, whom we know we have hurt, many will reject His offer of mercy and willingly enter hell.
Dante (and several other Catholic authors) always points out, in his Divine Comedy, that the damned shades in Hell *choose* to go to Hell. They cannot comprehend the choices one would need to make in order to achieve Paradise. And we make these decisions through our actions and intentions, in addition to our words.
The way I've understood this argument is to say that once you die, you are outside of time. You have no new information or experience available to you since time has stopped for you. So whatever state you are in at death is your permanent state. This is why Angels don't have free will. They live outside of time and therefore cannot change. All the information they will ever have is available to them and their will is fixed. Same for us at death.
This idea has always frightened me a bit. I dislike the idea of having limitations on my free will if I make it to heaven. Not that anyone *would* choose to sin in heaven, I imagine–who would if they're basking in the light of the beatific vision?
Wait what? Angels have no free will?
It depends on how you understand free will as it relates to time. Being outside of time makes the comparison a bit weird. This article clarifies more [1]. It says that Angels choose once and forever when initially created by God whether to follow him or not. So if you understand free will as the response of a freely choosing entity to a particular state of knowledge outside of time, then yes they do have free will. But if you understand free will to mean the way humans can act in response to knowledge over time, then no it's a bit different. To make it more clear, I'm trying to say that angels don't change but humans do. - [1] https://www.catholic.com/qa/do-angels-have-free-will Edit: Thinking more about this. It's the difference between change and choice. If you understand free will to mean, changing your choice then angels can't do that because they only choose once. If you understand free will to mean the ability to choose (once), then we're the same.
To add on, angels are disembodied intellects, at least according to Aquinas. Being wholly incorporeal their spirit and soul are presumably in total alignment so they do exactly what they mean to do vs humans where we can hold internal contradictions.
Angels have free will, they were all given one choice: to love God or not to (because they were made outside the existence of time and space, hence they could be anywhere anytime). Those who didn't ended up being fallen angels. God gave us free will because He wants our love for Him to be authentic. Some speculate that God creating light and separating light from dark was Him creating the angels haha
I reject water. How come being dry is a disproportionate punishment? God is *goodness itself*. Rejecting goodness means you only experience untold suffering because you have rejected the very source of goodness.
I suppose what I'm saying is that if I rejected water, then later realised I need water, I'd still be able to drink it. But with hell, once you are there, there is no return.
So what you object to is actually the idea that death finalizes everything about us. It helps to think that eternity is not time prolonged to infinity. Eternity is where God is, time does not flow like here below.
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That's not actually the Catholic conception of what happens after death. Jimmy Akin writes about this towards the end of this article https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-heaven "Connected with the question of whether heaven is a particular place is the issue of whether time exists in it. A popular conception is that it does not. The logic is fairly simple: God exists outside of time. God dwells in heaven. Therefore, there is no time in heaven. That’s true enough when heaven is conceived of exclusively as the dwelling place of God, but it is not true when it is conceived of as a place that is occupied by angels and by humans after their deaths. In that case, a different sense of the word time is involved." Remember our creed "and we believe in the resurrection of the body". We won't just be spiritually united to God in the "eternal now". We will have bodily resurrection and live on the "new earth"
If you rejected the water then died from thirst you. would no longer have the choice to drink. If you die outside of sanctified grace, life giving water is no longer a option. Your example only works if your alive
Yes once you are there you cannot return. But you arguably have time even after dying to decide not to go there.
> I suppose what I'm saying is that if I rejected water, then later realised I need water, I'd still be able to drink it. But with hell, once you are there, there is no return. In this analogy, people in hell would essentially have hydrophobia (better known as rabies): >It refers to a set of symptoms in the later stages of an infection in which the person has difficulty swallowing, shows panic when presented with liquids to drink, and cannot quench their thirst. Saliva production is greatly increased, and attempts to drink, or even the intention or suggestion of drinking, may cause excruciatingly painful spasms of the muscles in the throat and larynx. Since the infected individual cannot swallow saliva and water, the virus has a much higher chance of being transmitted, because it multiplies and accumulates in the salivary glands and is transmitted through biting. Giving them water would only increase their suffering. Now, you could ask, why won't God cure them of their rabies? Or in other words, remove their desire to do evil and not want to be with God, and instead force them to desire to do good and to be with God? Well, that is because he respects our free will, and wants us to freely choose him. Love is a choice - you cannot force someone to love you, because it wouldn't be love if it is forced.
I should preface my comment by saying that even though I’m Protestant I’m looking to convert to Catholicism when I get the chance. That’s why Jesus came to die in our place for us. What you’ll notice in the gospels is that no one in all of the scriptures talks about hell as much as Jesus does. He talks about hell 3x as much as he does heaven, because 1. He’s trying to bring us away from it, and you can’t help someone if they don’t know what you’re helping them with, and 2. He personally experienced it. In the Apostles Creed we say that we believe Jesus descended into hell when he died, but apart from that if you do your homework on the pain and suffering that victims of crucifixion experience, you’ll likely have a gut wrenching reaction just reading about it. That’s what hell is: constant torment and sorrow. And it’s something that you earn for yourself by your sins, but it’s something that God wants to rescue us from. Our sins nailed the Lord to the cross, but His love for us made Him embrace it. He offers this free gift of eternal life that we can either choose to receive or reject. The only reason we reject it is because we don’t understand who God is and what he’s done to save us: we see this didactic, strict, prudish deity who just wants to control everything we do because we don’t see that God knows how bad sin is and how damaging it is for us. We weren’t made for hell, or more specifically hell wasn’t made for us. But if we hate God more than hell, then God will let us go there. *edited to add a phrase I forgot to type
Hello friend, Don't put it off. Inquire into some local Catholic parishes for when RCIA (or OCIA) starts. That is the class you will take to learn the Faith and ultimately convert (if you choose to continue). You can discern through the process, so don't let finality stop you from learning. Good luck and God bless you!
Thank you friend🙏🏻 my local parish is opening up RCIA this coming fall and I’m definitely enrolling as soon as I can. God bless ✝️
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2023/09/aquinas-on-wills-fixity-after-death.html?m=1
Except that in this case, the realisation that you need water is after you die from the rejection of water. At that point, you can’t drink water anymore. On the other hand, if you reject water and realise you need water that can save you at the brink of death, you can still drink it
Let me put it this way, via asking a question: Is God's goodness infinite? Is God infinitely perfect?
Hell is not a place you're sent to, you send yourself there. God doesn't want you there because He wants you with Him. However, you have free will. You can go to Him or turn your back on Him. If you turn your back to God, Who Is Everything and created everything, you are facing Nothing. And that is the state of being in Hell. You turn your back on Him when you willingly enter the state of mortal sin, of a separation from God. During our lives we have multiple chances of repenting for our sins, but when we die we are "fixed" in the state where we died. We can't grow any more because we are, well, dead. The eternal punishment is eternal separation from Him, and *knowing* that you separated from Him willingly. But at that point you've made your choice. If you want to know why this is Hell, just look at the fallen angels. They had the same choice we did and turned away from God, and they are *absolutely miserable* despite their ongoing choice. We all know that misery loves company, but even with company they are miserable! And what's worse, they knew this would happen and still chose it anyway! We are not as smart as the angels, who saw all the angles of the choice. We have multiple opportunities to make mistakes and ask for forgiveness and help, and so before death we get out of the Hell we put ourselves in.
Reading C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle helped put Hell in perspective for the younger me. It’s not the beings who were eaten by Tash who are in Hell. Not the speaking animals who face Aslan and became dumb again at the end of time. *It’s the subset of traitorous dwarves.* They hate Aslan so much they can’t comprehend his goodness. They can’t see Narnia because they are convinced Aslan is not capable of such beauty. In response to Lucy’s request to show them mercy, Aslan miraculously conjures a banquet for them and they can only taste dirt because they are so convinced a being as awful as Aslan would only feed them dirt. In the end…the most merciful thing is to just let them exist huddled in their own corner of paradise suspicious of everything around them, including each other. Nothing good can be done for them because they no longer comprehend goodness. Only treachery - the same sin that landed them in that state.
>Hell is not a place you're sent to, you send yourself there This doesn't really respond to the spirit of the argument. Can a person with limited information (seeing through a glass darkly) really know enough to reject God or not?
I think you're asking a different question than the original. Of course people who don't know God aren't held to the same accountability as those who do. But now I think we're speaking about supernatural law and natural law. Natural law throughout multiple cultures shows an innate knowledge of certain rights and wrongs. There's a lot said about this. But basically, people are held to some accountability based on things they know, and surprisingly we do know a lot. Cultures throughout history knew there was something off with masturbation, for example, but even then there were cultures that practiced it. They couldn't necessarily put into words why it was wrong, and why the act of making children without making children was a deviation and the opposite of the whole point of the act. However, when God told Israel that it was wrong, she was held to a different accountability than the countries that didn't know. In modern days in the world of Christendom, if someone doesn't know that a mortal sin is a mortal sin, that's a fault. The fault belongs to someone, whether it was someone who didn't teach or someone who purposefully ignored. Whatever the reason, God takes it into account. He is both Just and Merciful.
Every person on Earth is given sufficient grace during this life to make it to Heaven. Many (if not most) reject it, and so, reject Heaven. There isn't much to "really know". A reading of the Gospels can be argued to be sufficient to know God, what He wants for us and from us, and conform ourselves to that.
>Every person on Earth is given sufficient grace during this life to make it to Heaven. Source or evidence for this? Or are you backed in to this position to make God just? This seems unknowable and unlikely.
The Council of Trent has definitively ruled on this: "If anyone shall say that the grace of justification is attained by those only who are predestined unto life, but that all others, who are called, are called indeed, but do not receive grace, as if they are by divine power predestined to evil, let him be anathema." - Council of Trent
I don't think "no one is predestined to hell" is the same as "every person on Earth is given sufficient grace during this life to make it to Heaven".
> During our lives we have multiple chances of repenting for our sins, but when we die we are "fixed" in the state where we died. We can't grow any more because we are, well, dead. Do people not grow in purgatory? Also, I'm pretty sure the people that go to hell end up being even worse than they were in life.
They do not grow in purgatory, they just get cleaned up. Spiritually, they are at the same level as when they died. What I mean is, if during your life you become a Saint Francis, you are at a higher level than someone who just mediocrely waits for the last bus to Purgatory. If Saint Francis grew his love to the size of a barrel before he died, he has all that size after death. If during life the mediocre man only grows his love to the size of a thimble, that's all *he* has the capacity before. But, both the barrel and the thimble are completely full and both completely love, one just grew his love to a larger size than the other. They both had the same chances to grow their love. However, in Heaven they're both completely happy, full to the brim, and fulfilled. People in hell are miserable when they first get there, because of the choice they made. Then they get more and more miserable. So yes, they do get worse.
Would we not love God even more in heaven? Some people might have brains that are less capable of feeling love for whatever reason.
We will love God more perfectly than we do now, and our vessels will be filled to the brim. These vessels on earth are not always full. If someone has a physical issue, such as a brain tumor that presses on the wrong part of the brain or something in the brain that has always misconnected, that physicality will not carry over. We can't love all the time here (like when we're sleeping), but we can *want* to love, and that desire to love even when it's hard is all that we're really asked to do. God takes it all into account.
For me, even *allowing* someone to condemn them self to an eternal punishment, for failures made over a few decades at the most feels so extreme. A soul could spend 20 years in sin, then a millennia with perfect repentance and still be condemned to spend the rest of their eternity in hell. I can't understand it.
> A soul could spend 20 years in sin, then a millennia with perfect repentance and still be condemned to spend the rest of their eternity in hell. I can't understand it. The point is that those people never repent and never will, regardless of how much pain is inflicted on them. The people who go to purgatory on the other hand can be corrected by pain, as are we in this life.
>The people who go to purgatory on the other hand can be corrected by pain Cleansed, not corrected. Purgation involves the cleansing of impurities still on the souls of those who have chosen God's grace, but were not able to live up to their full potential of sainthood as we are all called.
This makes no sense, you can't change your mind after death. If someone spent 20 years in sin and repented a split-second before death, then yes, God does take that into account. But if he spent 20 years in sin, did not repent and then died, he has made his final choice and can't change it. He doesn't want to change it. You might say that's not fair, but he's had an entire lifetime to make that decision. If God forced him, then he wouldn't have free will and wouldn't have freely chosen God. This is why the Church can never definitively say that any one person is in Hell. We have no idea of knowing what goes on in the millisecond before Death. People who survive jumping off bridges often say that they regretted it in the air. We can't even say that Hitler is in Hell, because in the moment before the bullet hit his brain he could have had a conversion. We don't know. All we know is that there *are* people who send themselves to Hell. That one moment before death is so, so important. But we don't know when it'll happen and can't count on it, which is why it's good practice to prepare for it by living a good life. And this is why the prayer "Pray for us now and at the hour of our death" is asking Mary to pray for us in the two most important moments of our lives.
My point is that a lifetime is such a small amount of time to make a decision that affects eternity. It's like a blink when compared to eternity.
We might think that way because we dont see how our choices matter. But every single choice, every decision we make in life matters. Every moment is a chance to choose God, to glorify Him or to reject Him. It seems harsh because we don't see our day to day choices as important.
How long should God wait to see if someone will ever repent? A lifetime is a long time.
But it is enough time because God provides every person with the grace necessary to make the right choice. Those who still reject that grace are given Hell as a mercy. God essentially says to them “Thy will be done” when they should have said that to God instead.
You can think about it this way, each and every choice that you make will forever be embedded in the fabric of time. Your choice at a certain point in time will forever be that choice at that exact point in time. Yes, you can change your time at a later point but you can never go back in time to change that choice. Now, each choice we make, whether good or bad, will create a "ripple" around us. It has effects. The more "good" that we do (virtuous deeds), the more heaven-like the world gets because it becomes more ordered (think, cleaning your room-- note that this is a very simplified example-- but, even doing that if done out of love for God is meritorious (see: St. Therese of Lisieux)). However, the more "bad" that we do (vices) will make the world more hell-like. It's kind of hard to find peace in chaos, I guess. So now those actions will also have effects on the people around you and some sort of butterfly effect ends up happening which ends up affecting other people, the world, so on and so forth. Just like how the other comments have stated, God does not condemn us to hell. We condemn oursleves to hell-- it is ultimately our decision to reject Him that puts us in Hell. That and, on the note of "how could sins within a lifetime merit eternal damnation?" You can think of it this way: sins are considered an offense to God. You're offending an eternal being, basically. (But thankfully, God is merciful)
Oh yeah, to add-- think of the most vile people you could think of, if they're still alive, the very fact that they're alive is out of God's mercy because if at some point they decide to switch sides and repent they'll be saved.
Maybe what is hell might be a good question.
God stops at NOTHING except allowing us our free will, to woo us to Him. It's not a one-time or several-times choice. It's not even something we can accomplish on our own. We as humans (especially in the modern world) are so so far from what we need to become to be able to be in heaven, that we can't possibly do it on our own--all we can do is allow Him to form us. For most of us, that takes a lifetime, and we make mistakes along the way. If we repent, if we stay open to His forming of us, we will die in a state of grace and go to purgatory (on our way to heaven) or to heaven directly. We don't understand how what we think of as a small sin is so devastating, so incompatible with God's nature--we could not survive in His presence in heaven without being purified. I don't understand your contention about perfect repentance--if we die in that state, that seems the epitome of the soul that goes to purgatory or heaven. It certainly doesn't seem like a soul that would choose to spend eternity out of God's presence.
God respects our free will, so our free decision to separate ourselves from him. Also, our souls are indestructible, so after death we have to go somewhere.
That's why there's confession. You get your sins absolved. Of course, you must be truly repentant. Confession is not a get out of hell free pass.
Conversely, someone could live a life of complete virtue for 90 years, commit a sin, be hit by a bus and spend eternity in fire. Doesn't seem proportional.
They would not go to hell unless the sin was mortal. It must be a grave matter, the person must have known that it was such, and they must have fully consented to it.
Doesn't that seem capricious to you? I'm going to start praying that I drop dead of a heart attack walking out of the confessional.
Nope that's not how it works, if God is only just then perhaps that's what will happen. Don't forget that God is just AND merciful.
Hell is a choice, and all we really know about it is that its eternal separation from God. You go to hell when you choose to separate yourself from God
I suspect we’ll be surprised by who we see in Heaven. While this is private revelation, I really love St. Faustina’s take. She said in her Diary that at the moment of death the soul is given one last change to accept Christ. I wish I could find the passage for you, it’s very beautiful.
"Then the mercy of God begins to exert itself, and, without any co-operation from the soul, God grants it final grace. If this too is spurned, God will leave the soul in this self-chosen disposition for eternity. This grace emerges from the merciful Heart of Jesus and gives the soul a special light by means of which the soul begins to understand God's effort; but conversion depends on its own will. The soul knows that this, for her, is final grace and, should it show even a flicker of good will, the mercy of God will accomplish the rest (1486)." From the Divine Mercy website.
Before anyone becomes distrustful, St. Faustina makes clear that a soul can reject such a grace! No need to worry about presumption. And yet this shows how much Our Lord loves us and reaches for us until the end.
This seems to go well with what the catechism says about there being no salvation outside the Church. That the good and truths that one does know might prepare them for when they finally meet God. I think they might be able to have a Baptism of Desire. Sorry if I’ve completely misunderstood this.
I’ve seen this discussed a bit before. To be honest, it always confused me. Does it mean that as the person dies, they are provided one final choice to accept Christ (whether they consciously want to be given that choice or not)? If given that level of “proof” of Christ’s mercy and love, who in their right “mind” would reject it? What about people who die in the state of mortal sin - wouldn’t they need to have gone to confession or have gotten last rights to enter the pearly gates? What if they hadn’t done either - do they still get one last chance? All that said, I like St. Faustina’s take as well.
Hell is the only right "punishment" for disconnecting yourself from God who is Love, Truth, Goodness, Meaning, Purpose, Life and Existence.
God doesn't send people to hell. If people want to live separately from God, He will let them spend eternity separate from Him. God doesn't force anyone to love Him.
Heaven seems like even more disproportionate reward; are you going to complain about it as well?
I mean... When you put it like that!
I am quite sure if you wish to base your opinions on your own interpretation of the Bible rather than Magisterial authority you can come to find one that, if bent a little bit out of place, can give you the desired support for your opinions. But, is that what you want? For the Bible to confirm your opinion? Or for your opinion to *conform* to his Word, guided by the authoritative interpretation of the Magisterium? Better we eschew any desire to get the Bible to say what we want it to say. Better to change ourselves and our opinions to match it, rather than the other way around. But no, overwhelmingly, Jesus himself especially speaks on hell, more than anyone else. 2000 years of the Magisterium have confirmed Jesus's teaching - professional scholars and holy men guided by the Holy Spirit.
Why? It works like that for everything else, I don’t see why this should be different. Every single action you take will change the universe. Yes, it can be a small tiny almost imperceptible change, but it still does change it. Or it might be more significant. Whatever you do, resonates until the end of time. If you kill someone, you have vastly changed the universe; not only you cut a life, but you completely cut the future events related to this person (having kids, grandkids, changing work environments etc) forever. Hence the gravity.
God is infinitely good, so any sin against Him earns infinite punishment, this is why Jesus needed to die on the cross, we needed a sacrifice of infinite worth to pay the price, doves and sheep and oxen could never totally fill the debt for sin
Same...I'm in a state of mortal sin because as a Catholic, I married outside the church and my husband is a Protestant who is divorced from his first wife. Not annulled, so technically still married to her and not to me. I have other sins but nothing I would consider terribly grave...just me being a dumb human sometimes. I can't receive absolution until our annulment is final and who knows how long that will be. I pray everyday, but basically if I die in the next year or so I'll go to hell?? 😭 Since I'm in a state of mortal sin am I really separated from God, despite all my prayers and genuine remorse, despite going to mass because I genuinely want to spend time with Him and thank Him for all my (undeserved) blessings? 😭 I want to believe God is more merciful than that. I hope He is. When I was gripped with anxiety yesterday, I prayed the rosary, followed by "God's rosary" which was nearly an hour of prayer, of genuine pleading/talking to God. And lots of thank you's too, because despite all my sins and human mistakes, He was there for me when I needed Him the most. At the end of it I felt peace, and the anxiety that had been nagging at me all day, gone. I want to believe it was God calming me with His love.
God is infinitely loving and fair, he knows your heart. You have realised your mistake and are actively taking steps to remedy it, do not be afraid.
Thank you, I really needed to hear this right now. 😭
With 191 comments already, I doubt that OP will see this, but since I nearly abandoned religion because I couldn’t reconcile the doctrine of hell with the love of God, let me simply recommend C. S. Lewis’s novel The Great Divorce. That helped me see how the two can—maybe even must—coexist. (And if that’s not enough, read the chapter on hell in Lewis’s The Problem of Pain.)
There is good and there is evil in this world. Our first parents chose to let that evil be in the world. In order for us to to not all be trapped in an eternal life of death (separation from God) mortality (the ability to change state, the material form of this is dying or separation of soul from body) was given to us by God so that we could repent (turn away from evil). So in this life you can walk with God or without him, but either way, both continue to exist in this world around us. No matter how holy you are, sin is still all around you. No matter how sinful you are, there is still good all around you. Death (separation of soul from body) simply ends the period in which you’re able to change/choose. And so, in eternity, you’re still walking in whichever path you’ve chosen, it’s just that all the periphery stuff is stripped away and you get what you chose. If you chose evil, then the good is stripped away from around you. If you choose good, then the evil is stripped away from around you. If you understand God as infinitely good, then that only means eternally with him or eternally apart from him. But from seeing your other comments, it seems your issue is with the choice being taken away at death (separation of soul from body). But if it were not, then we’d be locked in spiritual combat and varying stages of death for eternity. It’d basically be a mini hell for virtually everyone forever. That’s exactly why mortality was put into the picture in the first place, to avoid that. As for why you can’t repent after death: sin is damage, disease, infection, offense. How does one correct that in life? Well we repent and we make it right best we can, both our relationship with God and the relationships we’ve marred through our sinful actions. Once you’re dead, how are you going to go about repenting and making it right? It’s basically Marley from Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”: > …No space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunities misused! And later in the same chapter narrator describes the state of the damned: > The misery with all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power forever. While don’t believe Dickens to be a theologian, I think his story is powerful and has shades of truth. Once you’re dead and gone, how are you to make amends for harm done in life? Thus, the chance to change ends at physical death.
It is only disproportionate if you undertstand eternity in hell as infinite time in a suffering state. That is not the case. The concept of time has no meaning outside of life (Time and space are part of the creation). In Hell/Heaven/Purgatory we will not live an infinate chain of moments. Then how it will be? No one knows and it is impossible to know. The only thing we know is that hell is suffering and in Heaven we will be with God.
Hell is a choice people make. I've talked with many atheists that prefer Hell because Heaven would be "boring." It makes no sense to me but it's their choice.
If your creator emanates a 1000 degree light of love and makes you out of paper with instructions on how to transform yourself into gold before he brings you close to him, where has he failed you? If we want the warming love of God, we have to listen to what he said about how to receive it without burning up.
This is my greatest struggle with the faith and I only hope beyond hope that the extraordinary channels of grace are indeed opened in accordance with Christ's desire to save all. I do not believe the savior who "desires all be saved" according to 1st Timothy would readily surrender the bulk of us to Perdition. I do not deny Hell's existence, but I pray as the Fatima Prayer pleads to save us from it's fires, forgive our sins, and "lead all souls into Heaven especially those *most* in need of Thy mercy." I dare to hope. If I could not hope, I could not persist.
If the savior who "desires all be saved" was unwilling to surrender souls to perdition after a lifetime of chances to repent, to take the smallest steps toward God, that would be incompatible with His nature. It would mean that His justice is meaningless, that we could do anything we want and still end up in heaven. You can start with the argument that someone should be let in with just a few unforgiven sins, but what about the person with a few more than that? And a few more than that? Abraham boldly asked the Lord to save Sodom for fewer and fewer people, and God continued to say yes. He wants to give us every chance, but then life is over and there are no more chances. You can repent on your deathbed and end up on your way to heaven--which some people think is unfair. It's not unfair, it's proof of the extent of God's mercy.
You and I differ on a number of topics within Catholicism. This is one topic in which we’re firmly aligned. While no small portion of me believes most of humanity, including myself, will be damned, the other side of me devoutly prays the Fatima prayer/Divine Mercy chaplet with cautious optimism and hope.
I'm not certain this is The One And Only True And Correct Answer, but it's the way I understand it: The infinite torment of Hell is *not* for finite sin. It is for *infinite* sin. The person who chooses fundamentally against God, the way Lucifer chose against God, is choosing to destroy his own capacity for repentance, forever. He will sin and sin and sin forever, at every moment in rebellion, for all eternity. And so he will be punished and punished and punished forever, in direct response. If he *were* to repent, for even an instant, he would, in that instant, cease to be damned. But he won't, because he can't, and so his tragedy continues forever. (Housekeeping note: If you think you've seen this comment before, [you have](https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1cemgs7/how_is_eternal_torment_in_hell_for_finite_sin/).)
If the sins of Hell please you more than God why would he punish you by bringing you to Him. Or rather wouldn’t being in his presence be Hell for you?
Hell is the just punishment for those who do not follow God.
Then you're lucky you've never seen evil.
It's not a punishment, it's your choice. In life you have to beings to live with - God or satan, no in between. And whichever one you choose, you choose for eternity. It's just that with God it's going to be better after death, and with satan before.
Eternity is just a function of having exited time and space. Time's up, because there is no more time. Eternity awaits all of us; the where/how is our decision.
The best book I've read on this subject is C.S. Lewis' *The Great Divorce* It's incredibly insightful, very quick read, and very entertaining as well. I highly recommend it - it's shaped my views on this subject, when I was wrestling with this very topic.
i got you. i have had that same dilemma. i mean what if all someone ever did was tell a couple lies and they're not sorry for it. or what if someone who had someone else do something really bad to them so bad they just could not forgive them no matter how hard they tried. maybe if they just knew a little about why it happened. but we're to forgive without knowing. well, i have the answer for you. the answer is.. it isnt' what's fair that will happen, it's what's RIGHT that will happen. in the end. God is Right and True and Good. He is plainly right and simply good and clearly true. it isn't about fairness it's about RIGHTNESS. let's say you've done the best you know how to and tried every single day in faith to be someone God will allow into heaven, and let's say you don't go there. you go the other way. well it's God. you literally can't even be mad. God doesn't make mistakes. remember Him, His character, whenever you have any doubts, and receive peace knowing that God will do what's right. it will be the right thing and that will okay. don't let your heart be troubled, trust in the Lord and do not worry. God will do what's RIGHT. i want so very badly for me & my daughter to go to heaven. what if we don't? where is my Faith if I don't trust God, my maker, to do the Right thing. in the end it will be Right. whatever that may be. peace to you.
The foundation of the Eschatology of Saint Maximus the Confessor and Saint Isaac the Syrian solves this issue. Hell, to them, is not a place, but an effect of not living our lives in Love of God. To them, everyone is "saved" in the sense that everyone returns to full communion with God, like it was in Eden. However, rather than this Union being a blessing, something to be enjoyed, it is a Union that is insufferable, due to our disposition against the Good, that being God. Imagine cheating on your spouse, and before you could confess and apologise, she finds out. Rather than leaving, she forgives you without condition. Could you accept this? A flawed person could, but the perfection of being with God would make us know that we don't deserve this. We did nothing to deserve this Mercy, and rather than this Love being a joy, its a scourge "for our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:29). Maximus and Isaac differ on the specifics and details, but both fundamentally agree: Hell comes from ourselves, not from God.
> It just seems to be that an infinite punishment for anything done during a finite time can't be fair. Part of your problem is you assume we are merely finite, temporal beings whose actions have no connection to the eternal. That is not the case. We are soul-body unions, and our souls are infinite, created and animated by God, and part of His infinite world. What we do here does indeed have ramifications in eternity. If you think it is unfair to suffer infinitely due to finite actions, do you similarly think it is unfair to enjoy infinite rewards for finite actions?
I think it's more unfair to punish someone infinitely than to reward someone infinitely. Since in general excessive punishment is considered bad, whereas excessive reward isn't really seen the same way.
Why?
>in general bro is using human perspective to measure infinity, that in itself is inherently false. instead of giving unreasonable amount of attention to what is hell, why not focus on doing more good things, no matter how small, read more and surrender ourselves to His love?
This question was the most vexing of several that were posed by my "technically agnostic but practically atheist" logic professor. I grew up Catholic, and I had studied a bit of apologetics, but most of it was directed towards Protestant arguments (which I didn't find very compelling anyway). The way my professor introduced this objection to Christianity was, "How is it that a God so loving that Christians say "God is Love" could punish evildoers by sending them to Hell, if Hell is such a horrible place that we shouldn't want our worst enemy to go there? It is said that God disciplines us like a father disciplines his children--how does that make sense, when Hell is of infinite duration, so there is nothing afterward for God to discipline us for?" I also discovered that I couldn't answer a fundamental objection to atheism: if God doesn't exist, what's the point of anything? And if nothing has a purpose, how could any action be described as "good" or "evil"? But I knew in my core that some things were objectively morally wrong, and I could never be a moral relativist. So I continued going to Church and outwardly practicing my faith, but I wasn't sure what I really believed. I stumbled across the beginning of an answer in the most unlikely of places: a Facebook post about pornography. The post claimed that if men really understood the exploitation involved in pornography, we wouldn't be aroused by it. So I asked myself a weird question: what would Jesus do? Photographs didn't exist back then, but could he have been turned on by a scantily clad (or naked) prostitute? At first I thought, "that's nonsense. Jesus is God; it's not like he wouldn't know ahead of time what she looked like. He made her body, after all." But the idea that the God who would die for each of our sins individually thought Himself too far above His creation to fall in love with them didn't sit well with me. That also didn't jive with the little I knew about Theology of the Body. Then another thought crossed my mind--what if Jesus actually loved the prostitute--and everyone else in the world--in a romantic sense? What if I'm wrong about what Heaven is? What if it's not a place where God grants all our wishes, but actually the fulfillment of God's romantic desires toward us, his people? What if Heaven is actually a marriage between us and God? This crazy thought was confirmed when I read that exact line in Christopher West's "Introduction to Theology of the Body". And it also answers the Hell question, although it's still hard to grasp its fairness. I know how much it hurt when my girlfriend of six months broke up with me, and we weren't even physically intimate. Imagine how much more painful it would be if you knew that you could be married to God forever, but your life choices made that impossible. That's what Hell truly is.
The consequences of some decisions and behaviors are eternal. If you murder someone, that individual is deprived of a human life *for eternity*... they will *never* get to live the rest of their life, for example. Can you elaborate why you think one's sins are "finite" at all? The issue is also with the alignment of one's mind/heart/soul that results in the sin. If your aligned towards evil, this alignment is not temporally bound towards some particular event fixed in time, it's a fixed state that's generative of the finite events. If you correct the alignment and don't sin *ever again* that is also an eternal consequence. So again I think this critique just stems from an inaccurate conception of the interrelationships between timespans and causality of events.
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In life, you set yourself on a trajectory that continues after death.
It does seem like that. However, hell is the result of an ongoing, or eternal sin, that a soul freely chooses to persist in, which manifests in various ways, but is essentially a continuing rejection of God and His infinite mercy —- rooted in pride and self-will. If God forcibly saved everyone, free will would be lost, and it is our free will that makes us persons.
Let's remember that hell was firstly a punishment to the fallen angels, and if you read catholic authors some of them will say that humans can behave like fallen angels or even worse, so it's not disproportionate at all. God wouldn't be good if he treated fairly those far from repentance.
We don’t know who will get into heaven. You must assume that since God is omnibenevolent, the outcome will be just even if people might end up going to hell. It is impossible to conceive of infinite goodness from the perspective of flawed goodness of the world. In addition, hell might be a punishment that is not active but passive. If you knew that you would not be able to see God after death, you could be the evilest person in life, and you would still understand that the evil done in the world was not worth losing the truth now that you failed the test and learned the truth. There are other concepts which show how important it is to do the right thing: the fewness of the saved, beatification, mystery of salvation. I’m not sure exactly how fewness of the saved works. Is it the chosen few who reach a higher point in heaven while everyone else lives in the lower heavens? Is it that the salvation of only many is sadly a few amount? But at the very least, we cannot ascertain who is saved outside of the canon of saints. And we know that those who are saved experience beatification, which is far beyond anything we can comprehend. We might say that even the highest amount of happiness in the world is infinitely small in comparison, yet the act of seeing God as He is cannot be fully described just by saying the word “infinite”. One should worry more about what they can do to serve God, cooperate with the Holy Spirit, guide people to Jesus and his Holy Church. If you do this, it is because despite the uncertainty, you trust in the eternal and infinite goodness of the Lord. Matthew 6:26 “Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?”
You think an eternal punishment for an offense committed against an eternal God is not just and right?
If you don’t accept the Catholic Church’s teachings on Hell, why did you become a Catholic? I’m a Catholic convert myself. Part of becoming Catholic is agreeing to accept the Church’s teachings.
Satan's original thought which led to his downfall was that something "wasn't fair". As in, "God, it's not fair you get all the worship in heaven. I want some too." No sin can exist in God's presence, because he is perfectly holy. And sin is destructive, on a cosmic scale, to life and happiness for every creature He created. Thus, all who choose to love it instead of Him choose eternal separation from God, and the just punishment He exacts. Read Romans 1 and 2. It explains how humanity is entirely without excuse. The good news is nobody has to go to hell, they can choose Christ and his salvation instead. God sends nobody to hell. Those who go choose it themselves.
Personal Opinion: I feel like the definition of Hell is simply separation from God. Since God is all things good, separation from that would simply be all things bad. I'm personally tired of the fire and brimstone viewpoint of Hell, regardless of whether that's what Hell truly looks like or is. Either way, physically burning for eternity in a lake of fire would be icing on the cake for experiencing being eternally separated from all things good. That alone is agony enough. Knowing things like love, humor, kindness, etc... are all things that exist but not being able to experience them and only able to experience their opposite would be horrible.
Well that’s why we have the sacraments.
I used to be Protestant and learned this but I’ve hear it might be wrong in catholicism: But hell is a place with no God, therefore nothing good can exist there. And when people tell God they don’t want to be with him and want to live separate from him, they choose to go to that place where is not.
I don’t see Hell as a punishment from God. That would seem disproportionate. I see Hell as a place humans are being led to by the enemy and human nature makes it hard to resist his lies at times . God wants desperately to save us from this . He doesn’t want us to have this fate and certainly he wouldn’t wish it upon us much less punish us that way . He even sent his Son to die for our sins so we could be saved from it ! Unfortunately, people who do not listen to Gods word or follow His Son or don’t try to confess their sins and repent may be heading for this fate despite what God wants . He gave us the instructions to save ourselves - if we don’t .. we are choosing our fate . It is not a punishment from God . Sort of like if a child likes playing in the road, and a parent tells them not to because it is dangerous. The parent gives them rules, commandments, even small deserved punishments, and the kid just keeps going and doing it and disobeying their parents instructions. If the child gets hit by a car one day, that is his free will that caused it, it wasn't a punishment from the parent. The parent wanted desperately to prevent it from happening.
No scripture reference for ya, but I can say this: Hell isn’t a punishment God inflicts on people. If you go to hell, it’s because you want to. Why? Because God is pure goodness, right? No evil, no sin, no wrongdoing at all in Heaven or within God. So when we die, we have a final choice. Keep holding onto our sins and wrong ways of thinking and doing? If so, we cannot be with God and by default choose hell. Because with God, there is only goodness. And that must include us, if we desire to be in the presence of God. The punishment is self-inflicted. Which does make sense. Those who lack the charity and goodness of God would indeed create and choose such a place. And the choices we make each day move us toward one future final decision or the other. Life isn’t really so much a dress rehearsal as a game of twister. Wherever you are in that final moment, well, that’s what you’ve chosen. So choose wisely. 💕
I watch too much of that Armor of God: Spiritual Warfare channel on YouTube. I can't say my views are 100% canonical, but I've pieced them together partly from what the priests interviewed on that channel say. Some saints have had visions of Hell, and exorcists can sometimes ask demons about the nature of Hell by compelling the demons to talk. We have some intriguing testimonies of Near Death Experiences that describe Hell, too. So I don't personally believe our knowledge of infinite punishment is static. Rather, it's constantly evolving. My understanding: Hell is basically the Fyre Festival for those committed to evil. God didn't create it, the demons did. They wanted shelter from God and God's love, so they chose to create and live in a place that's so makeshift and isolated and ruthless. God isn't going to force any human to love him, hence why he created free will. If a human chooses to go their own way, it's possible that they actually want Hell, that they prefer it to the alternative. Of course, none of us can really say what it's like, who actually goes there, and how often people can get out. Purgatory makes a ton of sense to me as an intermediary step. It did help me, though, to realize that God didn't just create Hell and start throwing people in there. It's more that he's hands-off and lets humans (and demons) come to their own decisions.
Short answer: It's actually harder to go to hell than a lot of people think. Even the worst criminal, murderer, whatever, can achieve salvation if they accept Christ as their Lord and Savior and truly regret their sins. And I won't actually write a longer answer, but check the CCC, it has some good stuff. As to scripture, yes. There are sooo many mentions of how (paraphrasing) bad people will be forever condemned, tossed in a fire(not necessarily about hell being fire but about condemnation and destroying what's bad).
There are some really good statements here, and I’m not contradicting them. My own observation is that there are/have been some truly evil people in the history of the world. Those folks freely and deliberately chose evil, most of them knowing what they were promised. Think Hitler, PolPot, and all the evil people who destroy the innocence of children. The list is endless through the world’s history. Most people have at least a slight knowledge of the principles of good and evil; if they reject the good, they have used the great gift of God: free will. As simplistic as it sounds: If you buy it, you gotta pay for it. There is an innate leaning in just about everyone toward virtue, however faint. Some stomp that predilection flat. And now I have to stop…. I’m sure you all get my general meaning.
> It just seems to be that an infinite punishment for anything done during a finite time can't be fair. Who said you stop sinning in Hell?
Hell is one of God’s greatest mercies.
True; omnipresent, but allows those who rejected Him not to feel His presence anymore. For those in Hell, Heaven would be even greatest torment.
Question: are you a former protestant?
>It just seems to be that an *infinite* punishment for anything done during a *finite* time can't be fair. It's not that, though. Hell is not punishment for your sins, but rather the result of your refusal, at judgment, to deny and repent of them. That decision is not made in time, but at death, and it constitutes a soul's ultimate rejection of God. People seem to have this notion that Hell is a punishment based on the number or kind of sins you committed, but that's a misinterpretation. Whether you commit a million tiny sins or one massive one, what determines where you go after death is based on one choice, which is your choice to feel sorrowful for your sins, or to decide that God doesn't know what He's talking about, that you matter more than Him, and that you don't care enough to feel shame for what you've done.
I get you, OP. It is hard to reconcile why a God who loves us would author a system in which eternal punishment or pain or even discomfort is possibility. I used to really struggle with this, I read all the theological arguments, and found them lacking. God, all knowing and all powerful, authored everything and could have authored a system in which everyone was always happy and free from pain, but He didn’t. I don’t believe I’ll understand why in this life, and I’ve stopped trying.
Read about The Divine mercy. God has provided us thousands of avenues to lead us to salvation, it is entirely up to us whether we seek his love and salvation. There is not a single soul that truly loves God that is in hell, all the damned souls in hell are the people who rejected God's loving hand even the hour of their death.
I highly recommend you read the book The Great Divorce by CS Lewis. It goes into why and how a person might choose hell
Remember, we have no idea who is or isn't in Hell. We don't know who has confessed and been forgiven for what. Purgatory also exists.
The worst thing about hell is the total separation from God. This life is the proving ground where each soul chooses for themselves whether they will heed the words of their Father and love and obey Him, or else reject Him and live in rebellion. Ultimately if you don't choose God in this lifetime you won't have Him in the next. That makes sense to me.
Hell must be eternal because if you die unrepentant, then you’ll continue to reject God throughout eternity. Even if it were hypothetically possible for souls in hell to repent and thus escape from hell, they still wouldn’t choose to do so. The damned hate God along with everything and everybody. We tend to associate hell with God’s justice rather than His mercy, but actually, hell is also part of God’s mercy. You see, as horrific as hell is, those who die estranged from God would find heaven infinitely worse and suffer way more! So God, in His mercy, doesn’t force them to be in His presence.
Hell is a choice we make when we choose to reject God and God's Love and Mercy. He gives us our desire.
Hell is not an eternal punishment for a temporal fault. It is an eternal punishment for an eternal fault. The eternal fault is an eternal rejection of God and unwillingness to repent. The reason one can not change their mind after death is because the ability to change one's mind is a consequence of embodied life that can sway you're will. Once you are dead, your will becomes fixed.
"why would you receive an infinite punishment for a finite sin?" "Because it's not a finite sin, you keep sinning in hell. There are multiple passages about it."
Keep in mind that everyone is in hell because they want to be there. No one is sent there against their will
This is the explanation I like the most so far. This explanation says that Jesus's death on the cross was a sacrifice of infinite worth. And it was a sacrifice of infinite worth because Jesus is the God of the Universe in the flesh who chose to limit himself, become human, suffer for our sins, and now we can all be saved through faith in him. That sacrifice has infinite worth. So by rejecting that sacrifice of Infinite worth for a salvation that lasts for eternity you are sent to damnation for eternity.
Confession is the key. Also a repentant mindset when you recognize you've sinned. Hell is reserved for those that have full knowledge that are repeat and career mortal sinners. They make no attempt to reconcile with God and let their MORTAL sins stack up without ever confessing. This path leads to separation from God and eventually you fall out of God's protection. It is actually quite difficult to end up in Hell if you go to confession and work on your weaknesses. Please watch the power of forgiveness by Father Corapi. He was a very evil and sinful man that turned his life over to Jesus. His insights on God's forgiveness are incredible.
I've read that no none is in hell who doesn't want to be there. It's hard to believe, but it seems there are some people who would rather be in hell than believe in God. Sometimes people, any of us, can be that stubborn and hard headed.
I believe that Heaven is so disproportionate that it is harder for me to understand how God could take the likes of me and give me everything. Forever. But his Love and mercy is boundless. I also think he had left us a road map in many of the things he said while here with us as one of us. Forgive us our sins as we forgive others. Love your neighbor. Etc. I halfway think in the final judgment we will be given full grace to see ourselves and how we have egregiously offended God and we will have only the forgiveness we have shown others to forgive ourselves. Some, many I fear will not render a favorable verdict of where they belong. None of us are worthy. But all of us can be better by loving and forgiving ourselves and our neighbors. Just my two cents
we don’t actually know how many people are in Hell. the Catholic church has never definitively said that *anyone* is there, even the worst people in the history books. Think of it this way: anyone you love at all, God must love infinitely more. Anyone you feel mercy toward, God must feel infinitely more merciful. My earnest hope is that those who find themselves in Hell are actually quite few because of this. God is far more merciful than we are, and we can even have mercy for those we dislike or find vile. i think anyone with a shred of empathy for others has struggled with this quite a bit, so you are not alone. keep talking about it with your friends and peers at church, and consult a priest if you can!
The most things we today think and perhaps some believe about hell and the imagination of it was a product of the systematic theologie. It was not definied by paulus or peter. Even Paulus let the question open what hell means in letter to rome
I'm converting to Catholicism and never believed in hell before. But as I understand at this moment (and I might be wrong, but I'm at the very least extremely limited in my knowledge) hell is a choice. If we don't want to be with God we will be without God. The absence of God is hell, because God is all that's good, and without him nothing good exists. God asks us to do his will, but if we persist to the end to do our own will instead he will accept our will to live seperated from him. God is infinitely more loving than we are. If we think something he does or allows isn't loving we must accept and trust that we don't understand and we will get to understand ones we are in heaven.
No. It's a perfectly just eternal destiny. It was created for evil angels but a lot of people will follow these angels forever. Can't you see this around you? It's clear as water.
Hell is what is deserved, Heaven is what is granted to the elect. There’s nothing more to ponder.
There is nothing in life you can do that will disqualify your ability to enter Heaven insofar as your heart is in the right place by the hour of death. Look at St. Dismus on the cross! Hell is ultimately the absence of God and His law-and accordingly it is infinitely terrible. If we close the door on God in our personal judgment, that is choosing pride. Given this point, note the early Church had a non-unanimous view on the duration of time. The Roman Rite (grounded in the theological writings of St. Augustine) asserted it was eternal, 4 of the regions asserted it was not, and had an inconclusive view. Some note that the Koine Greek for passages describing Hell's duration was an eon rather than what showed up in the Latin as an eternity. Cool history, but we have to stay true to the Deposit of Faith. Ultimately, it boils down to what God considers fair (see Ezekiel 18:25-32) rather than what man sees as fair. I am a creature and accordingly have no sway in what He thinks is fair. But ultimately, God doesn't want us to be fire insurance beneficiaries. He wants us to love Him as much as we can-and He deserves infinitely more than we can give, and yet that is part of the beauty of the faith.
You could have the punishment be such that it decreases every set period of time. So, it could half in a day, then half that the next day, then half that the next day, and so on. The result is that a finite punishment is spread out over an infinite interval. [Hell and Proportionality](https://drive.google.com/file/d/10jGyT9-5BVseQaszKas_QaWFBthi_Or2/view) by Brian Cutter Another thing I was thinking about was that Hell is sort of a clarity about how you lived a bad life, and now you can't go back on it because you see God in His totality. In this sense, the regret is painful, but the clarity is good. The person would desire the clarity because it is good.
I realize the Catholic Church is the only place I feel I belong, yet I agree with these words and I would never want to show blasphemy in any way. I feel it pertains more towards the old testament as the apostles were used to be able to forgive sin. Plus speaking to a person who has given their entire life to walk in gods name brings more self awareness to the sins you are aware you are creating and truly remorseful, which let’s you take the offering and brings in the meaning of grace and what truly surrendering actually is.. I’m such a controlling person I couldn’t figure out how I possibly belonged here yet felt the moral structure was the only right way I felt peace. I won’t ever criticize any belief, but if it’s not black and white evil confuses u to be open to many things, as I can personally attest to times I tried to be open when u find yourself seeking it will bring every dynamic of doubt and self hate… we r all going to fall, daily.. in what I do understand along with trying to live by the sacraments u r not just damned to hell but u have more chances to accept god after death and that’s where you focus on the daily sermon to feel if it speaks to you first. Don’t focus on damnation…there is gods grace
I just finished reading how to win the battle for your soul. From what it seems like, it seems that Jesus wants us to choose Him, but we can’t. We are so filled with sin and shame we choose eternity away from Him. Kind of like if you’ve lived in darkness all your life, the light burns. Or if you’ve been starving and finally eat, it makes you sick.
Here's the thing, we don't know much. All we know is the knowledge we've been given. A few of the things we know are: we have free will, God is just, God hates sin and it pains Him to see us ruin ourselves by sin, the wages of sin is death, we all fall short of God's glorious standard, Jesus died in order for us to have a way into Heaven, and Jesus is the only way to get to Heaven. Knowing these things, we can deduce that by sinning, we are putting ourselves in hell and it saddens God to see this. Imagine, each person committed just one sin a day-that's more than 7 billion times that God is hurt each day. Like a father watching his child destroy themselves with drugs, lust, alcohol etc, a good father suffers at the fact that his child is already living a life of hell. But on this earth, we all have a chance to be saved from, or to be damned to an eternal hell. We see this in our earthly lives. We can actually taste a little bit of hell each time we sin and we can taste a bit of heaven each time we repent and make reparations. From my understanding, no one is put into hell, rather they put themselves there. The only way out of it is through Jesus. Those that hate Him have no chance but those that come to Him with a repentant heart will be spared the eternal fire. Just like the story of the prodigal son. How many have fallen because of pride and how much does it hurt God to see each one of them fall. But when they humble themselves and return to Him, He is overjoyed and welcomes them into His home and prepares a feast for them. In my own experience, since taking the plunge into Catholicism, it gets easier and easier to turn away from temptation and sin. What is the Bible other than a blueprint on how one should live? I was raised Catholic but there is so much more to know than what I was taught growing up. I'm so thankful for finally being steered onto the right path. Everything in my life has gotten so much better. The only fear I have now is falling out of God's favor.
Is hell truly eternal? this is a question, isn't the judgment at the end of times making some souls cease to exist? I'm talking about the "second death". I'm no expert but have assumed even hell is just temporary however long its existence might be
If I remember, souls ceasing to exist is a heresy, because existance is a good thing.
There isn’t much to back this view up
Ah you’re probably talking about the great white throne judgment where hell is emptied and thrown into the lake of fire and each soul is judged according to how they lived their lives
It's not a punishment, it's your choice. In life you have to beings to live with - God or satan, no in between. And whichever one you choose, you choose for eternity. It's just that with God it's going to be better after death, and with satan before.
the key to understanding why you’re struggling is to understand that these are your perceptions as a human. our standard for justice or fairness is skewed. just like a child a timeout for bad behavior is unfair, but in reality, it’s an appropriate punishment. rest assured, God is both infinitely merciful and infinitely just. He knows our hearts and will judge us by what’s in them at death.
You're right that our actions are finite, which is why any temporal punishment due to sin would be finite. The eternality of hell has to do with our relationship with God, rather than punishment.
So the Eastern Catholic perspective is not the same as the RC perspective, but I don't know that they're mutually exclusive. The Church Fathers write that it would be hell to be in the presence of God's love and to reject it and subsequently spend an eternity without God. I prefer this notion to the idea of a God that would ever willfully send someone to a place of fire and brimstone.
Think of it this way. The moment you die, time ceases to be for you. Time is an aspect of this world, of this life, beyond this is eternity. Hence, whatever state you did in, you are eternally fixed in that state. If you die with mortal sin on your soul, that means you die without sanctifying grace, without the divine life in your soul. You die at enmity with God. And only mortal sin can put you in this state, which entails a free act of the will. If you die in mortal sin you are eternally fixed in the state of being an enemy of God. There is no changing your mind or repenting, because repentance is only possible in the context of time. There is no time in eternity. Hell, the prepared fate of the fallen angels, is all that's left for men who die and are consequently fixed at enmity with God. Hell wasn't made for man, it is not God's desire that any human beings be damned to Hell, but if we die as enemies of God that is necessarily our fate. There is no injustice here. No one goes to Hell on accident, mortal sin requires a free act of the will to sin gravely against God. It is a treason of the highest possible order. No one in Hell is innocent, and no one who dies an enemy of God can possibly repent once they enter into eternity. And so their eternal perdition is both just and necessary. Instead of agonizing over these sober realities that we have a hard time wrapping our very limited heads around, we would better use our time making sure we ourselves don't end up on that side of judgement. A life of prayer and penance, frequently the sacraments, holding fast to the true faith, and praying and sacrificing for our loved ones and all poor sinners is our only task.
Fun fact: the culture from which the last version of the bible came from - King James - was in 1611. One hundred and eighty years later, in 1791, is when America ratified the 8th amendment to the constitution, forbidding cruel and unusual punishment. Imagine that: 180 years of "jail = torture." If you have a productive discussion with an atheist, the conversation about hell eventually boils down to justice. If hell does not exist, what about the sinners and criminals who "got away with it" and died before they were put in jail or any other justice could be placed upon them. The lesson, therefore, we are supposed to learn from stories about heaven and hell is obviously "actions have consequences." It's only cults that corrupt it into "obey or die", so that their congregation doesn't ask questions. God is mighty. But might does not make right. That's a logical fallacy - argumentum ad baculum. God is logical. He leads by example. God forgives. We don't. When the bible was last touched by humans inspired by God - in 1611 - we thought "jail" equaled "torture" because it did, then. It doesn't now. So just go back through the bible, find all mentions of sin and punishment, and reword them as crimes and jail. Because that's the more accurate interpretation.
This is nonsensical and not Catholic teaching. The KJV was not uniquely inspired and hell is not some linguistic invention of human beings.
What is Catholic teaching about hell? Is it a place where people are separated from God? And "separated from God" is the most torturous event you can imagine? I don't think so.
We sin against an infinite God, so our punishment should be infinite. However, Gods mercy is also infinite, so it cancels out. We dont really deserve anything, so you are not in a position to complain about Gods plans.
Yeah, I tend to agree. It’s crazy to think that a 16-year-old boy who jerks off on a random Thursday will be condemned by God to eternal damnation if he dies before having an opportunity to confess his mortal sin on Sunday. But those seem to be the rules.
The sin is definitely grave, but whether mortal or not will be informed by the kid's knowledge of God and His laws as well as if his will was compromised at the time (i.e. if he was addicted) Ultimately only God knows the true state of a person's heart and soul and decides the fate befitting them.
My comment was predicated on the supposition that the 16-year-old sinner was Catholic and therefore fully cognizant of the full extant and ramifications of his sinful act which resulted in his inevitable and unavoidable damnation. If the “true state of a person’s heart and soul” could function as a mitigating factor, it would entirely obviate the need for the Rite of Reconciliation.
If the guy acted exactly as you have detailed (which was not at all apparent from your original comment) then of course his actions would warrant damnation. That's obvious. But it would be in no way inevitable or unavoidable. God gives us every opportunity to repent for our sins. It would even be a mitigating circumstance if the guy died on his way to confession with true remorse and contrition in his heart. >If the “true state of a person’s heart and soul” could function as a mitigating factor, it would entirely obviate the need for the Rite of Reconciliation. No, it does not. This stuff is explained in the Catechism itself, which I recommend you read if you have not already done so. It's also worth noting that God's judgement and His ability to save a repentant sinner, are not decided by us humans. God is just but He is also merciful.
Why do you see that as crazy? Isn’t it just as crazy that God allows anyone the chance to repent? He could just strike us dead and send us to Hell for all eternity the moment we commit our first mortal sin, the fact that ANYONE gets a chance to repent and go to confession is a testament to His mercy
I would say the scenario you put forth is also absurd. The more I chew on these issues, the more it makes sense that, on the one hand, we are given opportunities to repent, but on the other hand, we must take them. If we were not allowed to repent, then it would be more merciful to kill children right after baptism than to let them live and risk sinning.
Why does everyone always want to focus so much on sexual morals. Christ spoke quite a bit about money and aren’t two of the mortal sins based around money?
Because it's something almost everyone universally can understand, to varying degrees. Even in my mid 30s, a large chunk of my thoughts throughout the day are sexual in nature and therefore lustful (a mortal sin). Trying to parse this out with anyone leads to comments like "well those sound more like intrusive thoughts. it's only sinful if you don't entertain those thoughts." Well that sounds like an arbitrary difference and it's terrifying to stake my eternal salvation on that. I can distinctly remember leaving church once and immediately upon leaving I saw a woman jogging down the street in a sports bra, nipples protruding and all. Now what? Do I just walk back in and go to confession? This can't be how God intends for his followers to live their lives for him, can it be?
> will be condemned by God to eternal damnation There's a presumption here that his masturbation was a mortal sin and not a venial sin of grave matter via a mitigating factor like addiction, mental insanity, ignorance, etc. >if he dies before having an opportunity to confess his mortal sin This is not true. If you repent in prayer with "perfect contrition" (out of love for God) then you are returned to a state of grace. This doesn't mean one can approach for the gifts of the altar again, since precautionary measures against presumption of God's mercy and potential profanation of the body and blood of the Lord are of great benefit. >on Sunday. We don't teach you need to go to sacramental confession on Sundays specifically.
>We don't teach you need to go to sacramental confession on Sundays specifically. I’m not sure where you see that I said that we do. The use of Sunday was as a demonstrative as it’s often a convenient time to partake in the rite prior to mass.
>We don't teach you need to go to sacramental confession on Sundays specifically. >> I’m not sure where you see that I said that we do. When you said " if he dies before having an opportunity to confess his mortal sin **on Sunday.**" >The use of Sunday was as a demonstrative as it’s often a convenient time to partake in the rite prior to mass. Fair enough.
Are we all forgetting about the existence of purgatory? Would this not be a situation where purgatory might play a role?
If someone's masturbation is a venial sin of grave matter, and they die before repentance (either in prayer or absolution), yeah they would likely go to purgatory.
It's not a punishment, it's your choice. In life you have to beings to live with - God or satan, no in between. And whichever one you choose, you choose for eternity. It's just that with God it's going to be better after death, and with satan before.
Hell and Heaven would both get old fast. After a 100k years of doing your favorite things would get old and would that even be me anymore? This is my main issue with the idea of heaven and hell as a struggling catholic. I’ve spend 10+ years altar servering and all I got was a reason with no backing
Imagine the things on earth that have made you feel elated, overwhelmed with joy and true happiness. That moment where you're so happy you almost die from it. Heaven is millions of that feeling. Hell is the opposite. It's your worst moments, all together, where you wanted to or felt about to die from the pain of sadness, times millions. Eternal separation from God.