toldailytopic: Hell, what is it really like?

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Nathon Detroit

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The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for May 7th, 2010 10:33 AM


toldailytopic: Hell, what is it really like?






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grit

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um... a discussion board where members must continually be present and actually have every needed answer other members are looking for, but none of them can actually communicate any answer to any other member effectively except for "Ouch!"?
 

bybee

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One of my biggest fears in this life is to be lost. It can reach quite irrational proportions. I expect Hell will be to be lost for an eternity where there is no shelter and no one knows you. bybee
 

jamie

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Hell from the Greek word hades simply refers to physical death. Jesus died and went to hell, he just didn't stay there.

Hell from the Greek word gehenna refers to the second death at the end of the white throne judgment period.

Hell from the Greek word tartaros refers to the place of restraint for sinful angels awaiting judgment by the saints.

Jamie
 

Traditio

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St. Augustine rightly says that there is a kind of natural law, ultimately reiterating what the Stoics had said before. The law of nature is this: You ought not to fix your will upon mutable goods, or else you will be punished, and justly so, not by any external punishments, but by the loss of those self-same goods upon which your will had been fixed so steadfastly.

To love God is to will an immutable Good which is ever unchanging and unfailing. It is to will the Good forever and ever. As such, heaven is a kind of perfect happiness, because heaven is nothing but union with God, that is, The Supreme Good.

As such, Hell is nothing other than complete misery, that is, a kind of total aversion from the Supreme Good. It is a kind of confusion, an internal contradiction. It is an eternal search and longing for lesser goods, yet always to find oneself absent from them, because they have passed away. It is to long inwardly and unknowingly for God, yet always to miss Him. It is to be so close to Happiness, yet entirely to be blind to Him.

Nothing separates Lazarus from the Rich Man. The great chasm between Lazarus and the Rich Man is the Rich Man's own free will. The Rich Man cannot cross because he always has and currently does long for riches, for food, for fancy things, etc...but in longing for these things, he misses that all of these things are mere reflections of The Beautiful, and that these things are to be willed only insofar as they are imperfect footprints of Him who created them.

To understand what Hell is really like, I strongly suggest that y'all read the Republic and the Symposium respectively by Plato. To be in Hell is to be divided against and disharmonious with oneself. To be in Heaven is to be unified to the One, the Plenum, The Beautiful, etc.

Even if I spend my life a poor man, I will never regret studying philosophy on account of any wordly opportunities I may have missed for the sake of it. To learn philosophy is to learn how to die.
 

Traditio

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It's like whatever you think it is.

I think there's some truth to this. St. Augustine raises an incredibly good point. The rich man thinks that he's on fire. What does that even mean for an incorporeal soul? He thinks that he's on thirsty, that he needs water. Uh...no, he doesn't. He doesn't have a body. His feelings of thirst, being on fire, etc. are the constructs of his own mind. He's imagining it. What he's feeling isn't fire, but the pains of the damned, that is, the separation from the Eternal Happiness.

Yet, for him, he experiences this separation precisely insofar as he's still wanting the lesser goods, and he's still attatched to those goods. He's still attatched to food, to drink, etc. He's still attached to corporeal things. Consequently, he experiences his suffering precisely in the sense that he wants to drink, but there's nothing to drink, because he doesn't have a body. Consequently, he feels an insatiable thirst.

It's one of St. Augustine's arguments for an active theory of perception as opposed to something much more passive like Aristotle's.
 

elohiym

Well-known member
Hell is annihilation.

Mal 4:1-3

1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
3 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.

2 Peter 3:10-13

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Are YOU ready for that day?
 

Aimiel

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Darkness. Torment in flames. Eternally. Worms eating your flesh, which never die. Singular, solitary, lonely and regrettable emptiness, without hope of escape. Total depravity.
 

Son of Jack

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All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone. - Pascal

The reason Pascal believed this was because it would give men a vision of Hell on earth, which, in turn, would lead men to Christ.

I recently saw an episode of Law and Order: SVU and they were talking about the punishment of solitary confinement. I began to wonder if that's what Hell might be like.

Imagine being completely alone...forever...
 

elohiym

Well-known member
Darkness. Torment in flames. Eternally. Worms eating your flesh, which never die.

No. That is merely figurative language used to describe annihilation.

Nobody will live eternally in a place called hell. The only eternal life is in Christ.

Your hell is a myth.
 

elohiym

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Imagine being completely alone...forever...

Imagine having body and soul destroyed for eternity in hellfire.

Mat 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
 

Son of Jack

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Hell is annihilation.

Mal 4:1-3

1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
3 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.

2 Peter 3:10-13

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Are YOU ready for that day?

Do you mean literal annihilation?
 

elohiym

Well-known member
Isa 33:14 The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?
 

Aimiel

Well-known member
Sorry, but were annihilation the business of hell... then this verse would be a lie:

Revelation 14:11
And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

... but, since God doesn't lie, your imagined 'poof' or disappearing act must be imagined, since it isn't Scriptural.
 

elohiym

Well-known member
Daniel 3:20-27

20 And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace.
21 Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
22 Therefore because the king’s commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
23 And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
24 Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king.
25 He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.
26 Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, came forth of the midst of the fire.
27 And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king’s counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.


Are YOU ready? Can you dwell in everlasting burnings with God? Sinners will perish in that hellfire. Only those who do the will of the Father will live through the fire of his judgment.

The day of the LORD is coming.
 
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