Is hell the natural fate of man?

Light of the East · **Posted:** Fri Jan 03, 2020 10:10 pm

Gandalf the Grey wrote:

Ed-

Then the question, it seems to me, is that is the Redemption instantly and collectively applied to all regardless of the faith and obedience of the individual, or is the Redemption applied individually as they approach the Church to be united to Him Who called them?

And I have a serious problem reconciling the notion that in eternity-whether they are in hell or heaven-that they can and will "change their mind" in regards to God because a defining characteristic of eternity is not only it's non-temporal-ness but also that it's immutable-there is no change(because time is what we use to measure change). That would seem to me to include any change in the state of the will.

The state of eternity is such that it is a fuller state of being than the temporal.

Meaning that if someone loves and accepts God in this life, they're only going to love and accept God more fully in the next; and conversely if soneone despises or rejects God in this life, they're only going despise and reject God more fully, not less, in the next.

Or else you're necessarily allowing the real possibility that in eternity that if someone in hell can "change their mind" and choose heaven, then you'd have to admit that someone in heaven can "change their mind" and chose hell. Or how is it that one can change only in one direction but be irrevocably set against change in the other?

Do you not see that serious difficulty?

I just read a new article on DBH's book and it has a really good description of God's dealing with both the correction of sin (justice) and the universal love of God. Perhaps it will help you understand a bit better what we believe:

God is heaven-God is hell

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"I want to emphasize the point: Hart does not reject the doctrine of hell. He does not deny the reality of damnation. He simply names the inherent limits of that reality—and the limitlessness of the God who determines those limits. I think, as Hart obviously does, that the doctrine of hell is absolutely necessary, for at least two reasons. First, because it is a way of remaining aware of what we have done and can do to ourselves by resisting grace, by turning from the good. Second, because without it, God’s character is impugned. God cannot fail to do justice for those who were wronged, even as he has mercy on those who did the wrong. Hell, then, is not so much for sinners as it is for those who sinned against sinners, those who took advantage of others’ brokenness or oppressed them in their misery. God damns the abusers, the victimizers, the violators. And he damns them both for their own sake and for the sake of those abused, victimized, and violated. No wrong can go unanswered."

And this is precisely why it is important that you are a Christian....for to willingly not be one, to turn from God, to hate Him, or worse, to actively oppose Him by acts such as devil worship, etc., is to commit an act that will be answered with justice. Dee has kept saying this and you are not listening.

There is a reason that in Orthodoxy we speak of the "fearsome and dread judgment seat of God." All sins are answered with justice. Please don't say that we teach otherwise.

Peregrinator · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 6:27 am

Light of the East wrote:

Actually, I do. You see, unless something is set out as dogma in either the Sacred Scriptures or the Bible, then it is an opinion.

I'm assuming you mean "Sacred Tradition" here (since "Sacred Scriptures or the Bible" is redundant). But in any event, the teachings of the Fathers and the Doctors of the Church (in this case, the Universal Doctor!) can't be reduced to mere opinions with which every Christian has a right to disagree.

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My response was about the idea of the passage of time (or the lack thereof) in the next life. We simply do not know in what form time exists in eternity, or if it exists, or how.

Time doesn't exist in eternity at all, but only God is actually in eternity. The blessed in heaven are in aeviternity.

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Except those passages that refer explicitly to everlasting (only God is eternal) hell, yes.

Kindly name a few passages and let's discuss them. (You must think that those supporters of Apokatastasis are either blind, stupid, or deliberately ignoring them.)

E.g. Mark 9:43-50

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Where did the Church ever allow a heresty to continue for more than 100 years? Only once, the iconoclast heresy of the ninth century.

Also the Modernist heresy of today. I'm sure there are other examples. But lack of condemnation isn't a good argument for the orthodoxy of a teaching. And conspiracy theories about the Emperor aside, the fact remains that the Church has considered the Apokatastasis heretodox from the 6th century, and it's only now that it's being revived.

Peregrinator · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 6:32 am

Closet Catholic wrote:

Light of the East wrote:

I reject the Evangelical paradigm with which I grew up, that Christ was our substitute, who took on our behalf the beating we deserve. It is much, much better than that.

Yes, and so does practically everyone else here. You are conflating an evangelical (or more accurately, a Calvinist) notion of penal substitution with the substitutionary atonement taught by the Catholic Church, where Christ indeed is our substitute in that he gave himself on our behalf. And through participation in Him, we are granted his gifts.

Because to the Orthodox, Calvinism is the logical conclusion of St. Augustine's theology, therefore Augustine must be rejected, regardless of the esteem in which the Church has held him, regardless of whether the Church has adopted his teaching as her own.

Gandalf the Grey · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 9:32 am

Denise Dee wrote:

Because you WON’T get away with those injustices, you WILL reap what you sow. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that, Gandalf.

You claim that....you you also contradict yourself.

Again, you're just trying to have it both ways.

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You believe that we reap what we sow, Gandalf, and I believe that we reap what we sow. So stop pretending that I don’t believe that we reap what we sow.

No, I believe that you reap what you sow(eternal damnation through total rejection of God).

You appear to believe that you don't really reap what you sow because this thing called "God's absolute love" totally negates your choice of that total rejection of God.

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The only difference between what you believe and what I believe is that you believe God never gives up on us until the day we die, whereas I believe that God NEVER gives up on us.

Wrong, that's not what I believe at all. I agree that God doesn't give up on us.

But just because God doesn't give up on us doesn't mean that we can't irrevocably give up on God. Love, in order to be love, has to exist in a relationship between the lover and the beloved. If there's no relationship, it's just love unrequited. Mercy is completely ineffectual as a gift without it being accepted.

You keep wanting to pretend as if because God's love and mercy exist and are offered that it necessarily follows that they're instantly applied. They're not.

You keep forgetting that there are conditions which must exist before those things can be applied, such as the Savior's own words: "repent, and believe in the Gospel."

Redemption and salvation are not the same thing. The former is what God does for us, the latter is what we have to do in order so that the former can be applied to us, so that we can be reconciled to God.

No reconciliation, no salvation.

Those in hell are those who irrevocably refuse to be reconciled to God. God's love can't do anything for them because they don't want it to. God's unrequited love for them just becomes their everlasting torment.

It's the reason why every artistic representation of hell has the gates of hell locked from the inside. God's not trying to keep the damned locked in, the damned are trying to keep God locked out.

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His mercy and grace are always available to all of us, and He doesn’t withdraw his mercy and grace just because our physical body dies.

Right. And the fires of His mercy and love are the very Source of the torment of the damned. Thus they hate it, and Him, because He won't relent and leave them alone to their favorite loves of sin.

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You seem to be thinking that the only reason you don’t take whatever you want, whenever you want, from whomever you want to take it from, is because you think you’d be eternally punished if you did, and that if there was only a “slight” temporary punishment for taking whatever you want, whenever you want, from whomever you want to take it from, then you WOULD take whatever you want, whenever you want, from whomever you want to take it from. If that’s what you think, then you don’t understand what love is.

Not only are you wrong, and committing the fallacy of psychological projection, you completely missed the point I was making.

You consistently tried to pawn off the idea that the only way someone can choose hell was if they were "insane" like it's something inconceivably irrational. There's nothing inherently irrational about the psychopathic tendency, towards the tendency of sheer, naked, self-interest.

Not to mention that you exposed the weakness in your position, through your own admission, that people possessed by such a blind, naked self-interest don't know what love is. And I would absolutely agree with you.

And it's precisely the reason why the damned would never be saved and always choose hell.

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You seem to believe that if someone lives a sinful life (as we all do, as we are all sinners), there are only two possibilities: they suffer in Hell eternally with no possibility of God’s grace or mercy, or they go to heaven after ‘a slight stint in a "pergatorial" holding cell before walking straight into Heaven’. But that is not what either universalists or traditional Catholics believe.

Yeah, no. I don't think that you're in any way a competent authority to speak for traditional Catholics.

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What do you think purgatory is? If you want to understand universalism, stop thinking that those are the only two possibilities!

I know exactly what Purgatory is. And you're seriously mistaken if you think that it exists to, or even deal with, the forgiveness of sins.

In fact if you do believe that it exists to deal with the forgiveness of sins, then you're in fact wading in waters that are at least heterodoxical, if hot heretical.

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Why would you assume that the only possible alternative to suffering eternal damnation is merely ‘to suffer a slight stint in a "pergatorial" holding cell before walking straight into heaven’?

I don't.

FYI, what I do believe is aligned with the Savior's own words in Sacred Scripture, and in line with Sacred Tradition and the consensus of the Sensus Fidelum if the 2000 years of the Church, not just a bi-product of my own personal value-structures which I then use as a filter through which I pick and choose what aspects of Catholic teachings I accept while rejecting others that I deem irrelevant.

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You are very determined to misunderstand universalism, Gandalf.

[/quote][/quote]

Pointing out obvious inconsistencies between an obscure an unsubstantiated doctrine vs the established teaching of the Church isn't being "very determined to misunderstand" that obscure and unsubstantiated doctrine.

You're not expressing anything in regards to the merits of my objections, you're only voicing your own displeasure with me not "seeing" it the way that you do. Which is fine, you can be displeasured, but I don't see how that remark gets you any closer to gaining my sympathy for your position.

Could it also be that perhaps you're the one who is determined to misunderstand universalism? Does that seem like a fair statement to make against you?

Light of the East · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 11:10 am

Peregrinator wrote:

Light of the East wrote:

Actually, I do. You see, unless something is set out as dogma in either the Sacred Scriptures or the Bible, then it is an opinion.

I'm assuming you mean "Sacred Tradition" here (since "Sacred Scriptures or the Bible" is redundant). But in any event, the teachings of the Fathers and the Doctors of the Church (in this case, the Universal Doctor!) can't be reduced to mere opinions with which every Christian has a right to disagree.

Well, I find this interesting as there appears to be a conflict between a Doctor of The Roman Church and the Infallibility of the Holy Father. Specifically, as I understand it, St. Thomas Aquinas denied the Immaculate Conception, yet it was declared an infallible teaching. Seems problematic to me.

But more than that, buy what standard do we take the musings of St. Thomas Aquinas on things such as Divine Simplicity, time (and the lack thereof) in eternity, and other theological understandings not specifically outlined in the Sacred Scriptures and place upon them the imprimatuer of divine revelation such as the Scriptures?

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My response was about the idea of the passage of time (or the lack thereof) in the next life. We simply do not know in what form time exists in eternity, or if it exists, or how.

Time doesn't exist in eternity at all, but only God is actually in eternity. The blessed in heaven are in aeviternity.

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Except those passages that refer explicitly to everlasting (only God is eternal) hell, yes.

Kindly name a few passages and let's discuss them. (You must think that those supporters of Apokatastasis are either blind, stupid, or deliberately ignoring them.)

E.g. Mark 9:43-50

This is one of the major problems of interpretation that has been simply overlooked or misunderstood for centuries. Jesus came to save His people, the Jews. That was the primary mission. They had an opportunity to be the center of The Way, the specific people of the revealed God, the center of all belief. They blew it.

There are, as I see it, two misunderstandings present within this context. Let's take, for instance, on of the favorite passages of the nutty Premillenialists - Matthew 24. This chapter has been used, along with a complete and utter misunderstanding of 1 Thessalonians 4:17, to "prove" the idea of a "Rapture of the Church." Yet when you carefully read the passages in Matthew 24, taking special note of the "time indicators" in the first three verses, you see that Jesus is speaking of the judgment that was about to fall on Jerusalem in AD 70. With the final Judgment of Israel by the armies of Titus, the Parousia took place, the Kingdom of God was fully manifest (Yes, I am a Preterist heretic as well - ) and the Kingdom on earth began in earnest. Up until that time, the Kingdom was still possible for the Jews if they had repented nationally of killing the Messiah (Luke 13: 6-9)

You see, you cannot take these things out of context of the whole Bible. That is the problem with so much of what passes for "Bible Study" and or "theology."

Now, to your passage: Verse 42 gives us the clue as to what Jesus is speaking about. Mark 9:42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.

Broken down: And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones (that is, the disciples, the "little ones" standing right there [these] with Jesus) that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. (Jesus is warning the unbelieving and hate-filled Jews against persecuting His people, as they would do beginning with Deacon Steven. It would have been better to be drowned than to have gone through the absolute horrors of the Seige of Jerusalem in which women were reduced to eating their children and the Temple profaned by Roman savages. Even worse that all that was the desecration of having so many bodies cast into Geheena after the siege, for Geheena was where both garbage and corpses were burned.

In other words, there were two choices given by Christ to the listeners on that day: speaking in hyperbole, it would even be preferable to maim yourself so as to avoid this and enter into the life of the Kingdom which was to come in AD 70 (and did come for those who were trapped in Jerusalem but fled to Pella when the armies of Titus pulled back from the walls temporarily) than to be killed and tossed onto the garbage dump by the Roman armies after Jerusalem fell.

Has nothing to do with hell. And the Jews listening would not have understood this in the manner you present, for the idea of a burning eternal hell was not taught in that century except by pagan religions and those paganized Jews who had incorporated it into their teachings.

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Where did the Church ever allow a heresy to continue for more than 100 years? Only once, the iconoclast heresy of the ninth century.

Also the Modernist heresy of today. I'm sure there are other examples. But lack of condemnation isn't a good argument for the orthodoxy of a teaching. And conspiracy theories about the Emperor aside, the fact remains that the Church has considered the Apokatastasis heretodox from the 6th century, and it's only now that it's being revived.

It should have never been suppressed in the first place!

As I continue to study this issue, I more and more see that the idea of an eternal punishment rather than a corrective punishment comes from a very misanthropic understanding of just what we are a human beings. Having been a Calvinist for 13 years, I can say with certainty that this miserable understanding of us reaches an apex in Calvinist doctrines. Whether Luther said it or not is up for debate, but the fact remains that in the West, sinners are seen as s**t in the eyes of God. What a miserable anthropology! And where did this all start?

Sorry, but it's Augustine. That is indesputable. In his opinion, mankind is totally depraved, worthless, and deserving of eternal hell. David Bentley Hart, who is far more studied on the issue than I, said that for all his brilliance (given the man his due) it is a shame that Augustine didn't die 20 years sooner than he did and spare the Church a lot of havoc and grief. Perhaps you could explain to me why the Roman West accepted Augustine's NEW TEACHINGS (which when they reached Constantinople, horrified the Orthodox bishops there upon reading some of them) as they did with other controversial writings. They just went right along with them without so much as a question about them. I find that odd.

Light of the East · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 11:25 am

Gandalf the Grey wrote:

Wrong, that's not what I believe at all. I agree that God doesn't give up on us.

But just because God doesn't give up on us doesn't mean that we can't irrevocably give up on God. Love, in order to be love, has to exist in a relationship between the lover and the beloved. If there's no relationship, it's just love unrequited. Mercy is completely ineffectual as a gift without it being accepted.

But you have no proof of this. You, nor anyone else has been to the other side and been told this. There is nothing in the Bible that indicates this. This is at best conjecture, which is understandable, seeing how many people resist the Gospel even to the point of being on their deathbed. But the presence of God is a different situation, and I cannot imagine that the same soul that was so recaltricent here on earth would remain so in the presence of love and beauty.

You keep wanting to pretend as if because God's love and mercy exist and are offered that it necessarily follows that they're instantly applied. They're not.

Oh, yes. The minute the soul comes into the fire of God's love, i.e., the moment of death, that work begins. What we do not believe is that the work is done instantly. Deeply rebellious sinners are going to take a much greater work than someone who once stole a nickel as a child and never repented of it. Justice, remember?

You keep forgetting that there are conditions which must exist before those things can be applied, such as the Savior's own words: "repent, and believe in the Gospel."

And as I said before, you have no proof that the soul cannot repent after death, just the opinions of men who have not been "Over the Rainbow Bridge" to see the other side

Redemption and salvation are not the same thing. The former is what God does for us, the latter is what we have to do in order so that the former can be applied to us, so that we can be reconciled to God.

No reconciliation, no salvation.

Those in hell are those who irrevocably refuse to be reconciled to God. God's love can't do anything for them because they don't want it to. God's unrequited love for them just becomes their everlasting torment.

It's the reason why every artistic representation of hell has the gates of hell locked from the inside. God's not trying to keep the damned locked in, the damned are trying to keep God locked out.

Yes, they are......here on earth. And some strive all their lives to avoid Him, refuse Him, and even hate Him. But they do so out of being in a state of deception, both from their sins as well as from environmental issues and the deception of the evil one. All that changes upon the last heartbeat.

So you tell me this.....how just would our just God be if He allows all this deception to go on which leads so many astray from Him or to not want Him, and then condemns them because in their blindness they couldn't come to the point of surrendering to Him? Is that really just? Oh, I suppose it's just if we are just dungpiles, as Luther said, worthless pieces of s**t who have nothing of value to God.

That's really what I see in the hellist position - mankind is worthless and we should be really, REALLY happy that God even saves 1% of us (according to certain Roman Catholic visionaries - funny how the Orthodox visionaries never get such nasty visions, isn't it?).

I find it putrid, myself, and share in David Bentley Hart's disgust at such an insulting depiction of our loving heavenly Father as being either incompetant to fully save all, powerless to save all, or just not giving a good damn about the majority of human beings.

Gandalf the Grey · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 11:29 am

Ed-

I've seen you do this thing over and over where you take your understanding of Augustine, not through Augustine himself, but through the ideological perspective of Calvin, and then ascribe it to the "Western" or "Catholic" position. And I have to say that it's such a disturbingly inappropriate misapprehension of both Augustine and the Catholic Church that it's bordering on being unethical in it's intellectual dishonesty.

And St. Thomas Aquinas didn't deny the Immaculate Conception. He denied eight erroneous ideas regarding the Immaculate Conception, and the ninth idea that he affirmed as what the Immaculate Conception would mean is the doctrine that was made Dogma. So you're attempt at neutralizing Aquinas via an incomplete statement of just falls flat.

Denise Dee · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 1:35 pm

Gandalf the Grey wrote:

I agree that God doesn't give up on us.

Gandalf the Grey wrote:

God's love can't do anything for them because they don't want it to.

But they can change. You, Gandalf, didn’t want God’s love to do anything for you. But you changed. Why would you assume that other people can never change, when you yourself changed? Why would you think that you’re somehow different from “them”?

You agree that God NEVER gives up on us. So that’s a long time for God to bring “them” to see the error of their ways. He managed to bring you to see the error of your ways in a relatively short time, why do you think He would fail to bring “them” to the light of His love eventually?

Gandalf the Grey wrote:

I know exactly what Purgatory is

Really! You’re the first person I’ve ever known to make that claim. So what exactly do people do in purgatory? What exactly happens in purgatory to make people able to enter Heaven? Where did you get your knowledge about purgatory from?

Light of the East · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 1:43 pm

Gandalf the Grey wrote:

Ed-

I've seen you do this thing over and over where you take your understanding of Augustine, not through Augustine himself, but through the ideological perspective of Calvin, and then ascribe it to the "Western" or "Catholic" position. And I have to say that it's such a disturbingly inappropriate misapprehension of both Augustine and the Catholic Church that it's bordering on being unethical in it's intellectual dishonesty.

And St. Thomas Aquinas didn't deny the Immaculate Conception. He denied eight erroneous ideas regarding the Immaculate Conception, and the ninth idea that he affirmed as what the Immaculate Conception would mean is the doctrine that was made Dogma. So you're attempt at neutralizing Aquinas via an incomplete statement of just falls flat.

Okay, that's fair dinkum because I haven't really read all of Aquinas (a bit here, a bit there) and really have limited time to do so with all my other pastimes. (Although, to be honest, I should put him on the high priority list if I am going to quote or criticize something he said)

As for Augustine, it's not just Calvinism....the whole set of ideas bled on down into Evangelicalism in a dilute sort of form.

You act as if I haven't done a lot of reading, studying, and comparing of the different positions between East and West. I would counter by saying that you probably haven't studied the Eastern views on these subjects. The approaches are vastly different, and I continue to see this in various posts, sermons, and readings I encounter from both sides. There is simply a world of difference between the two.

Jack3 · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 7:38 pm

Gandalf has a point. You can call them out if they misrepresent your view or a Byzantine view. They called you out for very grossly misrepresenting their view.

In the political atmosphere of my country, one party calls all its critics "terrorists" and "agents of Pakistan". Another party accused its critics of hate, intolerance and fascism. The point I'm making is not a political one, but that we should not distort the views of those who disagree with us to make them seem more extreme and bad.

Denise Dee · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 7:38 pm

Gandalf the Grey wrote:

And it’s precisely the reason why the damned would never be saved and always choose hell.

Many people don’t believe Hell exists.

How could anyone choose Hell if they don’t believe Hell exists?

I can see how you could believe they end up in Hell even though they don’t believe Hell exists, but they couldn’t possibly CHOOSE Hell if they don’t believe Hell exists.

Jack3 · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 7:41 pm

Also, Ed,
How much have you read books defending Augustine? Not the ones criticizing him, but those defending him?

Light of the East · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 8:23 pm

Jack3 wrote:

Also, Ed,
How much have you read books defending Augustine? Not the ones criticizing him, but those defending him?

Fair Dinkum. You have one in mind?

Jack3 · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 8:33 pm

I'm not well-read there, but other posters will be able to help you.

Pro-Zak · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 9:04 pm

97% of all mankind is damned, :), I'm sure the Church does not teach that! :shock:

Light of the East · **Posted:** Sat Jan 04, 2020 9:48 pm

Pro-Zak wrote:

97% of all mankind is damned,

, I'm sure the Church does not teach that! :shock:

I didn't say that, did I?

But if you read the sermon of St. Lawrence of Port Maurice on HOW MANY ARE THE DAMNED, that is pretty much the figure he gives. And there are other highly venerated men and women who have said much the same ("I saw sinners dropping into hell like snowflakes" Sound familiar?)

And since the Church has been silent on such pronunciations, I would have to say that implicitly She agrees with them

Jack3 · **Posted:** Sun Jan 05, 2020 12:35 am

I recall Father saying that the Church does not have definitive teaching on the proportion of the damned. Multiple views exist. The Roman liturgy says that Judas is in hell, so it's not empty.

Pro-Zak · **Posted:** Sun Jan 05, 2020 1:21 am

Light of the East wrote:

Pro-Zak wrote:

97% of all mankind is damned,

, I'm sure the Church does not teach that! :shock:

I didn't say that, did I?

But if you read the sermon of St. Lawrence of Port Maurice on HOW MANY ARE THE DAMNED, that is pretty much the figure he gives. And there are other highly venerated men and women who have said much the same ("I saw sinners dropping into hell like snowflakes" Sound familiar?)

And since the Church has been silent on such pronunciations, I would have to say that implicitly She agrees with them

Perhaps they are venerated for reasons other than mathematics...

Pro-Zak · **Posted:** Sun Jan 05, 2020 1:23 am

Even if the Church proclaimed that 97% of all humanity will be saved, the devil would have little trouble convincing most of us that we are among the 3%.

Denise Dee · **Posted:** Sun Jan 05, 2020 2:03 pm

Jack3 wrote:

I recall Father saying that the Church does not have definitive teaching on the proportion of the damned. Multiple views exist. The Roman liturgy says that Judas is in hell, so it's not empty.

How could whoever authorised the Roman liturgy possibly know that “Judas is in hell”?

The Catholic Church teaches that we cannot judge or determine whether any particular person has been condemned to hell.

Is hell the natural fate of man?

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