Degrees Of Hell ?

Then I won't let you borrow my teenager at 7 am any given weekday morning.

I'm being flip (as my Superior General used to say) because I'm way too theologically ignorant to offer any kind of knowledgeable post. I leave that to Roger and III and Pat--they're the ones I listen to.

There's a whole bunch to this question, Come Back. May I ask a couple questions for clarification first, please?

Come Back Kid said:

God being the loving, merciful God, we know He is, almost has to have degrees of suffering.

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Why do you reach this conclusion? Actually, not altogether sure I know what you mean. Do you mean He Himself experiences degrees of suffering, or inflicts it on man, or...?

Come Back Kid said:

The Bible says that men, in the new world, will be able to look into hell.

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What's your Scripture reference for this? Curious that in Jesus' parable of Lazarus and the rich man, the rich man can see Lazarus reposing in Abraham's bosom from his place of torment, but there's no indication that Lazarus is aware of the rich man from Abraham's bosom.

Come Back Kid said:

I also have a problem with God blinding some men to the Truth...

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Yeah, this is tough. God's discretion as revealed in Romans 9 regarding Esau and Pharoah are uncomfortable, but they need to be dealt with.

Come Back Kid said:

Degrees, or not, I want NO part of hell.

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As a Christian, you won't. Revelation 20:14 speaks of the second death being cast into Hell. Revelation 20:6 (and 2:11, for that matter) tell you that you won't be subject to the second death. Hell, like Heaven, is an absolute state--either you're there or you aren't, in my understanding.

I understand this is only a partial response, but I'm not completely sure where you're coming from on it. Fascinating question, though. A little more information, maybe...?

callalily61 said:

I leave that to Roger and III and Pat--they're the ones I listen to.

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How'd I make that list? Was it a typo? In any event, I happen to have two pennys in my pocket . . .

Quick overview of what I see in Scripture:

1. Before Jesus paid for the sins of the world, when people died they all went to Sheol (The Grave), which is divided into two sides. The good side was called Paradise or Abraham's Bosom. The bad side was called Gahena or Hell. Souls went there to wait for judgment and were either in comfort or torment. I think the torment is expressed in scripture symbolically as darkness and thirst - an absence of the presence of God. Dead people retain their self-awareness.
2. When Jesus paid for the sins of the world, he decended into Paradise and led those who were waiting into Heaven, since their sins had been paid for. Personally, I still think the Hebrews 12 "faith" is the standard of where one goes when one dies. When someone dies "in faith" now, they are taken directly to Heaven to await the resurrection.
3. There will be a final judgment and a new heaven and new earth. Satan will be tossed into the river of fire. There will be a physical resurrection and God's dwelling will be with his people. Revelation talks about those who chose not to be God's people as being "in the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth", in other words, regret.

There are many subtleties I left out, especially the Millenial Reign (which I think might have an opportunity for second chances, but that's a much more complicated discussion).

As far as "degrees of hell", I think it's comparable to the idea of "crowns" in Heaven. I think the idea is, whatever we do with our lives on Earth echoes throughout eternity - it's not forgotten and it's all the more important because what we do here, we do by faith.

So when we hang out with Jesus in the new Jerusalem and we see his nail scars, we can say "I loved you even when I hadn't seen you, and look at all the wonderful things you did in my short life on Earth", or we can say "I loved you, but I really didn't do much to show it and pretty much lived for myself on Earth."

Similarly, I think those who die without Faith will understand fully 1) who Jesus was, and 2) the true nature of sin, and will have to carry that around. I think it's a big part of why God says he will "wipe away every tear", because we'll mourn our own sins and those we've lost, but He promises to comfort us even in the midst of that knowledge.

Hell is 1492°F.

Shadow_Ferret said:

Hell is 1492°F.

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I thought that was when Colombus sailed the ocean blue?

Shadow_Ferret said:

Hell is 1492°F.

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The average temperature of Buffalo in August. So I'm getting used to this for... (runs off to make a Good Confession).

And no, III, that was NOT a typo.

Come Back Kid said:

I know I sometimes question some things better left alone but here goes. God being the loving, merciful God, we know He is, almost has to have degrees of suffering.
The Bible says that men, in the new world, will be able to look into hell. Unless my mind changes, I think I will pass on that.
I also have a problem with God blinding some men to the Truth, thusly, I assume they go to hell. I know the devil uses things like that to make God seem unjust.
I know Him to be Love, Kindness and The Perfect Judge.
I might just be wasting space with this post or I might get opinions from others. I do know this much---We can not assume His judgement is flawed, in any way.
As I heard someone say, "Comparing us to God is like a gnat to a 747.
Jim

Degrees, or not, I want NO part of hell.

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I don't blame you for wanting nothing to do with hell. It's terrible to think of what existance wwould be like without His common grace. God gives this to all of mankind, despite our unworthiness for His favor. Consider this-

Somewhere, right now as we read, is the most miserable person on the planet. This person is under the greatest misery imaginable. Yet, said person has the benefit of God's common grace- light, air to breathe, water and food, the feel of softness... the breath of life. Not so in hell- these common graces are denied to its denizens.

Bear in mind that for some, hell is unavoidable. The resurrection is for all- some rising to His honor, others to His dishonor. Just as God loved Jacob and hated Esau, so the Lord, through His sovereign will, chooses some and refuses others. It is good that you'd not want a part of hell, but merely that desire is not a guarantee of salvation.

Salvation is found through trusting in Christ Jesus for the redemption of your soul. We can easily see our own wickedness, unfaithfulness and sinful desires and conclude that we're not on God's sheep list. But through the glorious life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, He paid the price for our sin- even unto hell itself.

Therefor, repent and seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Call upon the name of the Lord with fear, love and thanksgiving; trust in His righteousness, holiness and strength, and you shall be saved. Look to Christ alone, longing to be with Him in glory, and the Master shall call you by name to His side.

Theognome

III said:

I thought that was when Colombus sailed the ocean blue?

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Weird how that works out, huh?

Chapter and verse?

The bible never claims that hell is "unavoidable" for some people...that is the theological view known as Calvinism. It is countered by the clear teachings of scripture.

Christ is the "savior of all, specially those that believe." Christ sacrificial death was paid for all, but it must be applied to the individual by faith (specially those that believe).

The clear teaching of scripture is that God calls out to man and extends his mercy but man refuses.

The idea that the individual man is predestined by God to Heaven or Hell and can do nothing to change it is foreign to scripture. In fact, in every place where the word predestined or predestinated occurs, a careful examination will show that it refers to gifts given by God to the believer in Jesus Christ...example: "having an inheritance, being predestinated" Eph 1.
An inheritance has been predestined by God to every one in the body of Christ. Likewise believers are predestined to "be conformed to the image of his son"-Rom 8..."be adopted as children"-Eph 1.

Sanctification is more than Justification--being made innocent of sin through christ.

Adoption into his family as a child is more than Justification. And receiving an inheritance in heaven is more than Justification. these are all extra gifts "predestined" to those in the body of Christ.

What of the elect? The elect is every member of the body of christ. God elected the body of Christ to receive all things, etc...just as I might elect to give the republican party some gift...but I came into the republican party by choice...just as the individual comes into the body of Christ by choice.

Truely God must draw man or he will never come, but when God draws, man must respond to that drawing and freely receive the love of the truth (2thess 2) to be saved.

James
Pastor: Grace Baptist

I'll be happy to respond to this, but it will be tomorrow as it is past midnight. Also, I'll start a new thread rather than hijack Come Back Kid's thread with a post that doesn't address his topic.

Theognome

callalily61 said:

I'm being flip (as my Superior General used to say) because I'm way too theologically ignorant to offer any kind of knowledgeable post. I leave that to Roger and III and Pat--they're the ones I listen to.

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Lily, thanks for that vote of confidence--but what little I'd have to offer on this topic has already been more than covered by our terrific posters here.

Interesting subject. I wish I lived a contemplative life and could spend hours and hours just thinking about this.

One thing I noticed:

I also have a problem with God blinding some men to the Truth,

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I'm no scholar, this is my opinion, but like Paul, I believe I have the Spirit in me, too.

God doesn't blind man. He blinds himself.

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In my mind, salvation is a gift.

Degrees of Hell? Degrees? As in some is bad, some is reaaally bad, and some is so bad you can't imagine it? I don't think so. But I'm not God. It could be - but why? And why do I need to know? Personally, I don't need to know and I'm not even curious.

as always - YMMV

I think the descriptions in the bible of both Heaven and Hell are attempts to explain the inherently inexplicable. As humans, we don't have the referents to truly understand what eternity will be like.

Is Hell a literal place of burning fire or is separation from God so traumatic that it just feels like a fire that burns forever? I don't know, and I can't know.

Every one of us humans (Christian or not), is bathed in God's love constantly. What will it be like to suddenly be cut off from that? I don't know. It's only happened to one human -- Jesus Christ and his pain was intense.

Here's another analogy that is probably as poor as any other, but it helps me to understand Hell.

We are constantly bathed in the warmth of this good Earth. Even in the dead of winter, most of us keep quite toasty in our homes. But what if we were suddenly cut off from that and encased on a block of dry ice, alive and unable to die. The pain would be intense. In fact, dry ice is so cold, we don't have a referent for it and our bodies feel it as burning.

That's what I think Hell will be. Not a literal cold, but an absence of God's Presence that is so profound, it will be unendurable suffering. And God is not condemning us to that. Those of us who do not accept him are choosing it of our own accord. God will not force his presence on any and those who walk away will suffer of their own volition.

A couple of things to keep in mind.

There are several words, and I think in one place, a phrase, that are translated as Hell.

One of the places translated as Hell is an actual physical site, one that's been and is being excavated.

Also keep in mind that the "degrees of Hell" as in Dante are largely extra-Biblical, though certainly based on statements in the Bible, but largely, drawing on apocrypha and the church fathers.

Finally, for me, one of the best conceptualizations of Hell I know of is from Marlowe's play, Dr. Faustus, wherein a devil repeatedly tries to tell Faustus the truth about Hell, and Faustus, out of pride, fails to heed him:

"Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?"

translation alert -

do i not know what i'm talking about? - the dev.

"Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?"

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right medi?

In reading all of this, I am reminded of something I learned in Sunday school.

From Hitler's terrible deeds....to the white lie I told to my mother about the scratch on her rocking chair, God looks upon all sins as equal. They are all reviling to him, from the 'greatest' of sins to the 'smallest' of sins.

So without being saved, we are punished equally for every sin, punished the same as a murderer and rapist because sin is SIN is SiN is siN is sIn is Sin. There is no minimizing it, no making it look better or worse.

What I think I'm getting at is this - When ALL sin is equally bad in God's eyes (from Hitler to yes, rocking chair), why would some be punished in greater degrees of hell than others?

There is no such thing as a 'little' sin.

I agree with Roger on this one as far as hell goes too. Being away from God and fully knowing His glory and His love would truly be eternal torment beyond imagination.

CandlestickJay said:

In reading all of this, I am reminded of something I learned in Sunday school.

From Hitler's terrible deeds....to the white lie I told to my mother about the scratch on her rocking chair, God looks upon all sins as equal. They are all reviling to him, from the 'greatest' of sins to the 'smallest' of sins.

So without being saved, we are punished equally for every sin, punished the same as a murderer and rapist because sin is SIN is SiN is siN is sIn is Sin. There is no minimizing it, no making it look better or worse.

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You have got to be kidding... sorry, but you have. For example, me covering up some minor indiscretion of a work colleague is the same as a rapist or a murderer?

However, shocking as that mindset is, this is not why I posted - it was to ask a question.

A student of mine, a fairly troubled young woman from a very difficult background, told me that this life is Hell and that only the good die young because heaven needs more Angels (this based on the fact that a friend of hers had died quite young in the last couple of years).
This view obviously gave her some comfort in the face of her friend's death. Given this young woman's family history and circumstances I would doubt that she would have known anyone without sin of some kind (as per the definitions above) I would be interested as to how the contributors to this forum would unpack this, given that three weeks before this she had professed an absolute denial of the existence of God.

Also don't the Catholics have degrees of sin - and penance - where do you stand on that?

I don't mean to be adversarial, but the quoted stuff above is genuinely shocking to me. If moderators feel this post inappropriate or overtly adversarial then please remove it.

Os,

This is in fact straight Christian doctrine. All sins are equally reprehensible in God's sight. Likewise, all sins are equally forgivable. Getting to heaven is not a matter of doing more good than bad. The Bible says that NO ONE has done good and all of our deeds are like filthy rags to God.

What this means is that the vilest sinner and the purest saint BOTH need God's grace in equal measure. It means that no one can be good enough on their own, and no one is so evil that they can't be forgiven.

oscuridad said:

You have got to be kidding... sorry, but you have. For example, me covering up some minor indiscretion of a work colleague is the same as a rapist or a murderer?

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I agree with CandlestickJay. If we were to use the qualities and judgement of man as a yardstick into the mind and nature of God, then your objection would be reasonable. However, the justice of man and the holy justice of God are utterly incomparable, and thus her position is very consistant with the nature of God as He has revealed it in His Word.

oscuridad said:

A student of mine, a fairly troubled young woman from a very difficult background, told me that this life is Hell and that only the good die young because heaven needs more Angels (this based on the fact that a friend of hers had died quite young in the last couple of years).
This view obviously gave her some comfort in the face of her friend's death. Given this young woman's family history and circumstances I would doubt that she would have known anyone without sin of some kind (as per the definitions above) I would be interested as to how the contributors to this forum would unpack this, given that three weeks before this she had professed an absolute denial of the existence of God.

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I'd unpack this as one of the various New-Age belief variants, and has nothing to do with Christianity.

oscuridad said:

Also don't the Catholics have degrees of sin - and penance - where do you stand on that?

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Yes, there are doctrines in the Catholic religion addressing this. Such doctrines were established through a variety of councils and papal decrees, primarily the SIxteenth Council of Carthage, the Indiculus, the Second Council of Orange, the COuncil of Trent and the Humani Generis of Pope Pius XII. Basically, they divide sin into three doctrines- material, internal and mortal. Each of these is further sub-divided into more defined groups. My personal take on it is that it's for the most part, nonsense.

Theognome

thank you both, your responses make things much clearer, no easier to digest (for me, at least), but contextualised and clarified, so thank you.

For one thing, thank you Roger and Theognome for backing me up on this. I very much appreciate it.

Second in regards to Os,

oscuridad said:

A student of mine, a fairly troubled young woman from a very difficult background, told me that this life is Hell and that only the good die young because heaven needs more Angels (this based on the fact that a friend of hers had died quite young in the last couple of years).
This view obviously gave her some comfort in the face of her friend's death. Given this young woman's family history and circumstances I would doubt that she would have known anyone without sin of some kind (as per the definitions above) I would be interested as to how the contributors to this forum would unpack this, given that three weeks before this she had professed an absolute denial of the existence of God.

Also don't the Catholics have degrees of sin - and penance - where do you stand on that?

I don't mean to be adversarial, but the quoted stuff above is genuinely shocking to me. If moderators feel this post inappropriate or overtly adversarial then please remove it.

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As to the story, my take on that is this -

Mankind is constantly trying to figure out the whys of life. The greeks had how many gods? The romans? The nordic peoples? So when things go wrong, or when things happen, mankind tends to attempt to find answers to explain why - even if it does not correlate to their professed faith or lack thereof.

God's ways are not our ways. He does not see things the way we do. I rather liked Theognome's yardstick comparison. We are unable to see what great plans are in store for us, what plans have been built and prepared for us through the events in our lives, no matter how happy, no matter how tragic. If instead of making up answers for the reasons things happen, we looked to God and trusted in His ways (because they are infinitely better and more knowledgeable than hours) we just might find that these very events we hated and did not understand were exactly what we needed to be led to Him.

Moving on.

Catholics - I've got friends who are Catholic. But I'm not a Catholic, therefore, that holds no sway over me.

I can understand how this could be shocking to you. The idea that in God's eyes (before salvation) WE, in all of our petty 'little' sins, are equal to that which man views as the GREATEST of all evils (murder, rape, pillage, etc.) is hard to comprehend.

But this fact, in and of itself, is the greatest joy of all, because it highlights the fact that all sins are forgiven - from 'great' sin, to 'small' sin.

Jumping in here just because Catholic teaching was mentioned up above. The original question still confuses me, so this is probably not relevant to it.

Theognome said:

Yes, there are doctrines in the Catholic religion addressing this. Such doctrines were established through a variety of councils and papal decrees, primarily the SIxteenth Council of Carthage, the Indiculus, the Second Council of Orange, the COuncil of Trent and the Humani Generis of Pope Pius XII. Basically, they divide sin into three doctrines- material, internal and mortal. Each of these is further sub-divided into more defined groups. My personal take on it is that it's for the most part, nonsense.

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The primary division in Catholic teaching is between venial and mortal sin. The other descriptors are useful sometimes for pastoral counsel or individual examination of conscience, but not really essential.

Mortal sin is defined as grave matter + full knowledge + freely chosen. If any one of those elements is lacking, the sin is venial. (Oscuridad: the concept of grave matter is the one you're referring to above.)

Venial sin wounds the relationship with God, but the soul remains in a state of sanctifying grace; mortal sin severs the relationship, until it's healed by repentance and forgiveness. (This doesn't really apply to the question re levels of Hell. Dying in a state of unrepented mortal sin would cause a person to go to Hell, but different levels of Hell would only be speculation, not official teaching.)

Echoing Roger above, this is not to say that anyone can be "good enough" on their own. Sanctifying grace is still a free, unmerited gift of God. But the gift also has to be accepted, not just once but continuously throughout life.* Mortal sin is a rejection of the gift.



*Yes, I know there are differences of belief on that point, also.

Roger J Carlson said:

Os,

This is in fact straight Christian doctrine. All sins are equally reprehensible in God's sight. Likewise, all sins are equally forgivable. Getting to heaven is not a matter of doing more good than bad. The Bible says that NO ONE has done good and all of our deeds are like filthy rags to God.

What this means is that the vilest sinner and the purest saint BOTH need God's grace in equal measure. It means that no one can be good enough on their own, and no one is so evil that they can't be forgiven.

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Quite so, Roger.

I hope you're doing much better.