Would God really send someone to Hell?

If God is all-good and all-loving, how could he send someone to hell? At first glance, it seems that he would not. But God is infinitely higher than we are, and our finite minds can only grasp a tiny bit of his infinite mystery. Therefore, we need to check our intuitions about what God would or would not do against what we know. In particular...

Would God really send someone to Hell?

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~Charles Dickens

I do my best, but I always fall short. My sinful nature leaves me little but to hope and pray for God's mercy.

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Everyone is the same boat.

People make a conscious choice to be in hell by rejecting God.

God is everywhere, but that doesn't mean that everyone can recognize and perceive Him.

And if God is love, they are rejecting love, and mercy, and forgiveness. They are wounded and suffering from their isolation.

That's what purgatory means to me--people are wounded and isolated, but God is there, and eventually, slowly, the warmth of His love heals their broken hearts.

How many people reject God so completely and irrevocably that the warmth of His love never heals them?

Well, that's up for speculation, but I would imagine my guess would be considerably lower than yours.

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I do not believe God sends anyone to Hell, we send ourselves there by not following Him.

Pope John Paul II said that God doesn't send anyone to hell, they go their on their own.

Their rejection of God is what puts them there, but we must always remember that God in his mercy, has given us salvation through Jesus Christ.

All we need to do is accept it.


Jim

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I have difficulty with the whole "you send yourself to hell" thing.

A person struggling desperately doesn't desire hell, nor do they hate God or desire to reject Him.

We speak like the people who go to hell are rotten and wicked, that they hate God and are lazy and deliberately live a wild life.

But if most people go to hell, that means even the strugglers go to hell, without hatred for God or rejection in their hearts. Just sin and weakness.

In that case, I'd say God does send them there, because they definitely wouldn't have chosen it for themselves. "I want to follow God and I try hard, but I fail. Oh, I guess I'd rather go to hell, then." Nope.

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As Catholics we believe that God is perfect in His love, His forgiveness, and His justice. We have to accept His love and pray for His forgiveness. In His perfect justice it is true that God does sent people to Hell and likewise it is true that people send themselves to Hell by leaving God no choice but to judgement with perfect justice. In our own struggles in the world and with sin we have to remember to leave the judgement of others to God.

Ran

I do too, mostly because that outlook seems to be a relatively recent invention. There will be a time of judgement, and at that time, the Judge will determine where our souls goes. If we were truly choosing, we would /know/ where our soul was destined for.

It is all remarkably confusing, and a little terrifying. We've been told by Saints that the vast majority of souls in the pews in a Sunday are destined for eternal torture. We've been told by Saints that something as small as saying a specific prayer for a person's soul as they lay dying with result in their being admitted to the Kingdom. Pope so-and-so affirms that if you die with a mortal sin (like say contraception, masturbation, etc) on your conscience you will be in the pit, then in seemingly the next breath they seemingly indicate that simply trying to love God is enough.

This is the same God that ordered Abraham to murder his son as actest, and the same God that invented a system in which the only means for the salvation of the race He invented would be through the execution of His own Son, who was also Him. Flowery language might sooth some people and put their minds at ease, but I suspect that every honest person has some serious questions for God. Approaching salvation with fear and trembling is absent in too many homilies these days.

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