What is the nature of Hell?
Is Hell a place of eternal conscious torment?
Hell is described as a place of darkness, fire, brimstone, where the wicked will suffer forever.
Revelation, 14:11
“And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.”
If this is true, isn’t it a contradiction of God’s infinite love and mercy?
How could a loving God torture people forever in Hell?
1. God is love and justice and fully good.
2. To punish evil, God created Hell.
3. For a punishment to be fair, it cannot exceed the gravity of the sin.
4. Because human life is temporary, sins are limited in time and space.
5. However, Hell is an infinite punishment for finite sins.
6. If Hell exists and has been created by God, then God is not fair, is not love, and is not good, because the nature of Hell contradicts God’s essences.
7. Either Hell as an eternal punishment does not exist, or God is not fair.
How could a merciful God refuse to forgive people in Hell?
1. God is merciful and can forgive all sins.
2. However, people suffer in Hell for all eternity.
3. People can pray to God in Hell and ask for forgiveness.
4. God refuses to hear the pleas of hellpeople.
5. Either Hell as an eternal punishment does not exist, or God is not infinitely merciful.
Is Hell annihilation, to cease to exist?
Jesus-Christ says only the good people will get eternal life. If so, then sinners will die. If sinners live in eternity in Hell, then they will also get eternal life, which contradicts Jesus’s teaching.
Revelation, 21:8
“But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Why would God destroy what He has created?
1. God is eternal, omniscient and He is the creator. God cannot “change his mind”.
2. What God has created, He intended to create it from all eternity.
3. If God decides to destroy what He has created, then He changed his mind.
4. Either God is not omniscient and can change His mind, or He does not destroy what He has created.
Isn’t the soul immortal?
1. Humans have souls.
2. The soul, because it is spiritual, is immortal.
3. If annihilation is true, then the soul is mortal.
4. Either the soul is actually mortal and it contradicts the doctrine of the immortal soul, or the soul is really immortal and annihilation is false.
Is Hell actually a choice, a “happy” place?
People voluntarily and eternally choose Hell because they know that being in Hell will make them more happy than being in Heavens.
God is good and loves His creatures, even evil creatures, so He lets them free to choose good or evil. God does not punish them, rather it’s hellpeople who punish themselves by refusing God.
Hellpeople, still in the image of God, also get their eternal life.
However, it does not mean that Hell is objectively a “good” place, rather that what is deemed good depends on the person.
Good people love God and want to be with Him. They will cultivate their virtues and be forever happy in the divine presence.
Evil people hate God and want to live on their own, separate from Him. Because God is the source of all goodness, they will love evil and develop many disorders and madnesses. They will still have their own kind of twisted happiness.
On Earth, we can see this same difference between good people and evil people: the first try to be moral and be charitable, while the second seem to love to cause suffering and chaos.
Some people love to take care and save, other love to kill and torture.
Some people try to be virtuous, others indulge in mortal pleasures (lust, greed, pride, gluttony,...).
When the Bible describes hell as a death, it means the spiritual death of evil people, meaning their separation from God; indeed, good people need the spiritual bread from God to be spiritually alive. Without God, hellpeople will feel the anguish of loneliness.
Without God, who gives us life and love, we are nothing, we are dead.
The Bible also describes Hell as fire and suffering. It is actually written from the perspective of Heavens. If people of Heavens would go to Hell, separate from God, they would suffer terribly, as if they were engulfed in fire.
However, from the perspective of Hell, this fire, this darkness, is sweet pleasure.
In contrast, if hellpeople were put in Heavens, they would suffer terribly, being smothered by love and blinded by light.
Matthew 8:12: "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
The weeping comes from the sadness of being separate from God; because without God, our lives are meaningless.
The gnashing of teeth is the regret; not regretting that they have committed sins, because that would be repenting, and God, who is merciful, would eventually accept them in His kingdom; but regret from being judged. Evil people hoped to commit their abominable deeds without consequences, so they truly regret that Jesus-Christ exists and He is The Judge.
In prison, some criminals are truly sorry for what they have done and are willing to pay for their crimes; but other criminals regret having been caught, they think on how to flee better next time.
What do you think of all of this? Please write your thoughts.
