A lot of people have questions about heaven, hell, and purgatory. To better understand hell, let’s review a bit. Everything about God and us centers on relationship. Heaven is complete and perfect union with God for eternity. Purgatory is union with God (through sanctifying grace), which is imperfect and incomplete.
Purification from our sins then brings about a perfect union with God. In contrast, hell is complete, total and absolute separation from God for all eternity. Don’t think of heaven, purgatory, and hell as physical places. View them as states of existence. Think of the time you fell in love and the total exhilaration you felt. Consider the moment a loved one died unexpectedly and the shock, loss and disorientation you experienced. Each brought about an internal experience that touched your whole being.
Given the above definition of hell, it is absolutely the most unfortunate and frightening eternity that anyone can experience. We simply have no human language to describe that horror. Those in the state of purgatory are happy—they know they are saved and will be with God in a perfect union. With hell, there is no hope and no future except eternity without God.
God is not near. God cannot be seen. God is gone. If purgatory’s pain is that of regret for what might have been, the pain of hell is simply indescribable hate and total isolation. People often smile and joke, “Well, if I’m in hell, at least I’ll have plenty of company.” This is wrong. There is no company in hell. There is no loving relationship ever. There is only total hate and isolation. The suffering accomplishes nothing, achieves nothing, and is for no purpose. It is the state of the damned.
Does God send people to hell?
God created us free. Even though we are wounded, we are still responsible for our actions according to conditions such as our knowledge and the amount of freedom we have. That’s why there is that incomplete union with God—a time of purification: purgatory. We are accountable.
However, there are some choices that people can make that are so anti-God, so anti-humanity and so terrible that the relationship with God is completely severed and cut off. People say, “Well a good God would not create a hell.” Remember, hell is not God’s creation. God wishes no one to hell. Jesus gave his life so that all would be saved. But every person has the power to love God or to reject God and to reject Jesus’ saving death. Those in the state of hell are there because they chose that separation.
Now, we wonder who would be so foolish to do such a thing. Few would stand in God’s face and say, “I hate and reject you.” But Jesus said, “What you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do to me” (Mt 25:40). To destroy other people is also a sin against God.
We don’t know if anyone actually makes that decision. There are people we often assume are in hell, like individuals in history whose actions have brought deliberate pain to millions of people. But we just don’t know for sure. Only God can know the human heart, a person’s responsibility and circumstances of his or her life. But if there are individuals who do reject God, then they create their own hell by their own actions and choices. The complete and total separation between them and God is of their making.
Who is in hell?
Are there more people saved than in hell? Well, no one knows. Only God can judge the human heart. The Church itself, while canonizing saints infallibly in heaven, has never said that any particular person is in hell. It can’t because only God judges. What about Judas? We can’t say. All people, no matter who or how bad, have the grace to say, “Lord, I’m sorry. Forgive me.” God’s mercy is never denied. It is our Christian hope that many more people are saved than those who choose hell.
3 thoughts on “Notes from a Friar: A Look at Hell”
If there is such a place as an eternal hell for unbelievers, then the good news that Jesus saved the world was a total failure of a purportedly soverign god
Exactly. Christ descended into hell (a state of awareness, not a “place”) per our Sunday Creed, and that happened truly and really “outside” of space and time, not one-and-done for “some” in the “past”, but in eternity which means, of course, for ALL eternity. Regarding the “complete rejection” of an infinite God of love by the imcomplete finite creatures we are, everywhere and ALL-ways on a path to healing in this spacetime life AND passing over in what appears to be death, remember Christ Jesus’ God of love is OUR (no exceptions listed, ALL of us) Father! Christ Jesus was revealing in His prayer for US the very nature AND limits of, shall I say, culpability with which we are God’s CHILDREN and FOREVER WILL BE as God’s gift of life to us (ALL of us by conception in the image and likeness of OUR Father) as finite limited co-creating creatures. (Forgive me, I know these sentences may be somewhat long, but it is somewhat (I under-hyperbolize) difficult to describe OUR Ineffable God effably in human words (I say redundantly). Agree?) Think differently (orthodoxy) for a change in action (orthopraxy) afterwards (the specific denotation of metanoia (repent) in the original inspired NT Greek) about hell as a permanent state of God-absent awareness. There is no “place” (speaking of “place” as a state of awareness) where God “isn’t” – God is deeper still than any “hell” of our own making in thought or action (Psalm 139 now and FOREVER) which can only be limited as we are limited. There is no unrecoverable or unredeemable “place” made by OUR limited co-creating skill and ability that is “out of reach” (I speak humanly) for OUR Infinite God of love (1 Corinthians 13). Is evil or an “eternally evil place” like a hell of OUR imagining even possible based on a human misunderstanding of God’s justice as everlastingly retributive and condemning? No, of course not. Basic Scriptural, Traditional, Theological Orthodoxy 101 clearly reveals that evil (the “no thing” absence of good), sin (the finite, temporary obfuscation of right thinking and response during (I speak of spacetime) this life AND passing over to eternal awareness), and death (the “forever” absence of life, if that was even possible per the life and teaching of Christ Jesus Who rose from the dead). (Look up the patriotic writings of St Gregory of Nyssa who is orthodox and has never been condemned as heretical.) God created the universe from the beginning as “good” (ALL things and ALL kinds of non-rational creatures) and “very good” (specifically US as rational creatures (will and intellect as were the angels) but embodied in creation) – Genesis 1,2. This Original Blessing is irrevocable, truly and really FOREVER. Given the above as background and replying to your comment about this article, say a young child (remember Christ Jesus is referring to US, ALL of us, as CHILDREN by directing US, ALL of us, to pray (to “tune in,” it’s literal meaning, to God Who is everywhere present in spacetime AND eternity) to OUR Father – again, Theology 101) yells at their father, “I hate you!” Does the father cast him out of the home and family permanently (I ask rhetorically)? This is, in many places, is analogous to the Protestant “dogma” of an “angry” God condemning us forever in divine retribution. Or, replying to you further, suppose a young child (again, we are ALL children of OUR Father) says to their father, “I’m running away from home!” Does the father say, “Geat! You’ve made your choice! I’ve noticed you’ve already packed so off you go!” Of course not! This is, in many places, is analogous to the current (is not the original understanding in many of the early patristic Fathers and Mothers of the Church closest in memory and practice to Jesus and Peter, eg the ultimate “universal restoration” revealed in Acts 3:21 that we read in our liturgy in the New American Bible Revised Edition) Catholic teaching of a retributive condemning God allowing us to separate ourselves (run away from heaven our true and real home and final state of awareness) forever beyond God’s love and mercy. Quite literally, hell No (again research and educate yourself on the original patristic understanding of evil, sin, and death as non-eternal realities in the writings of, for example, the non-heretical St Gregory of Nyssa et al)! So, here’s the truly and really Good News you commented on: God wants to (the Intent of the Father), can (the Design, Logos, Blueprint of the Son in ALL of creation, no exceptions, ALL “good” AND “very good”), and will (in the Experience of ALL the Saints in the Spirit in spacetime AND eternity) save (restore, heal in a “new heaven and a new earth … make ALL things new” Revelation 1:1,5) us ALL, ultimately at the end of the age, God Being ALL in ALL, no exceptions (1 Corinthians 15:28, Philippians 2:9-10, 1 Timothy 4:10 (not exclusively believers) etc.). The only “no thing” that God “rejects” is our human finite “rejection” (in our changeable and, therefore, redeemable and repentable partial knowledge, our relative mixed emotions “groaning” between a survival reaction based on fear and threat and a response based on expectant faith and love, and our incomplete physical power as forever limited co-creating creatures created by conception in God’s image in God’s Irrevocable Indestructable Goodness, Grace, Generosity – see Luke 15) as CHILDREN of God OUR Heavenly Father. In conclusion, therefore, the Heavenly Banquet (foreshadowed in the Mass) of the Lamb Who takes away (is ongoingly, here and now, penultimately in the process of doing) ALL the sins of the world (the entire cosmos and everything AND everyone who has ever, is, and will be created in it, ALL rational souls, embodied AND angelic) will not begin in eternity, where and when God’s Promise is fulfilled, until ALL seats are taken by ALL rational souls! That’s truly and really Amazing Grace that is saving a CHILD like me AND ÀLL OF US! OUR Father’s Love through His Son, Christ Jesus OUR Lord (again, ultimately ALL, as clearly and plainly revealed in Philippians 2:9-10), in the Spirit (Matthew 3:11, Luke 3:13, John 3:16, 1 Timothy 4:10 etc.) and OUR God’s Word is Undefeatable (Isaiah 55:11 etc.)! That’s why the Church has NEVER declared or will EVER declare or will EVER be able to declare ANYONE to exist in a permanent hell “state of consciousness.” Evil. sin, and death are not eternal. Can’t be. They had a beginning (eg as revealed in Genesis 3 AFTER God’s Irrevocable Original Blessing in Genesis 1,2) and they will ultimately have an end. Only God’s Unchabgeable, Absolute, Complete Love and Restorative Justice of God flowing from God’s Love and Life, giving OUR Abba Father God His due, are eternal. Having trouble continuing to resist God’s Irresistible Grace freely, fully, faithfully, fruitfully as God’s Bride in Christ? Research, ponder, and think differently afterwards reading the true and real denotation, meaning of Matthew 25:46 in the original inspired Greek language written in the inspired words AIONION KOLASIN. This should be just a starting “bread crumb” on your way in the Bread of Life to continue the journey you are on expressed in your comment to this article. Peace and all good.
I truly do not like autocorrect. “the patriotic writings of St Gregory” should be “the PATRISTIC writings of St Gregory” and “Geat!” should be “Great!” Additionally, here’s some more Eucharistic Food and Drink for thinking differently afterwards (repent): Even though many currently think about God as “angry” (Protestant “dogma”) or “offended” (Catholic preference, theory, teaching historically since around 543 AD) in a finitely projected human sense onto OUR Infinite God Who is in need of “no thing” as OUR Causa Sui (as written by St Thomas Aquinas in Latin, look it up), one cannot find support for these later connotations in the original Greek language denotations of 1 Corinthians 13, St Paul’s inspired Chapter on Love. Happy investigating! Again, Peace and ALL good! It’s truly and really ALL good and ultimately in peace. Just remember, sin does not dictate to God. Christ Jesus was not born humbly, did not live in poverty trusting in His and OUR Father’s care and provision, die in nakedness, rise in power, and ascend in glory to change God’s “angry” or “offended” Mind about us. No! Christ Jesus freely chose to come, sin or no sin, in love to change what needs to be changed in OUR minds about God. We can trust Him. His Love will transform the performance smoke of fear and threat into the prayerful incense of expectant faith and love! “Tune in” to OUR Father and may His Will be done “on earth as it is in heaven” in your life, more and more, as in mine. Thanks for posting!