Fire and Brimstone

I can only say what I believe the general Orthodox view to be (open to correction, see my signature below).
Hell is not a torture chamber created by God to torture us, but the natural result of refusing to repent and turn to Christ, like a deep sea diver cutting off his own oxygen supply and refusing to reconnect, wanting to enjoy the deep sea without being tied to his lifeline. Whether or no the fire and brimstone are literal, the level of suffering is probably best communicated to us in those terms. (Though I personally suspect that a lot of things in Scripture are more literal than many modern believers would like to admit.)

A person makes his choices in this world. Those choices matter, and we are taught that they impact us on an eternal vector. So our bad choices would seem to have some kind of effect that God may alleviate as He can, but neither will He nullify our choices. So we need to fear eternal consequences. The consequence of ultimately rejecting God is eternal death.

Even if God will save everyone, we are not to embrace Universalism, which is a heresy. It is too dangerous an idea; we would become lax and permissive in that presumptive certainty that everything will turn out well no matter what we do.

A way I've heard it expressed - but as Russ mentioned, I can be corrected on this:
Hell is neither the absence of God, nor the ontological separation of the soul from the presence of God, but rather the opposite—Heaven and Hell are the fully manifest divine presence, experienced either pleasantly as peace and joy or unpleasantly as shame and anguish, depending upon one's spiritual state and preparedness.
'fire and brimstone' is a reference to God's presence being a "consuming fire" for the unprepared.

hell is the fire of God’s presence confronting the unrepentant. so they experience His love as wrath and judgment.

RileyG said:

I'm just curious, what is the Orthodox response regarding the traditional Fundamentalist Protestant view of hell as "fire and brimstone" where the damned are tortured and tormented for all eternity?

It is my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, God does NOT torture those he loves, and he loves ALL creation.

Click to expand...

I would sum it up this way: "it's all relative"
Heaven and Hell are essentially the same place
It's the experience of being in the presence of God
The news cycle is 100% True - there's no #fakenews in Heaven
Some people will call that Heaven, and others will call that Hell


Also, I suspect that the sinful nature may be in some sense "spiritually combustible"
Like Thermite
While the eternal, more like a diamond
What makes the one shine may have a radically different effect upon the other
Without any particular malice on the part of the "Fire"
(who, afterall, DID warn us...)
This is more or less my own supposition though based on the Orthodox writings
But to me, it makes sense

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Another way to put it - if a man stores his treasures in Hell, and then goes to Heaven, what does he call Heaven?

I will add as well that you can think of hell as separation, but it’s a relational one, not a spatial one.

no problem!

"The fires of hell is the presence of God." - St. Isaac of Syria or was it Ephraim of Syria?

Justin-H.S. said:

"The fires of hell is the presence of God." - St. Isaac of Syria or was it Ephraim of Syria?

Click to expand...

St Isaac - I was looking for a commentary on what he said earlier but couldn't find it; thank you

God is Love, and that is terrifying for the unprepared.
I wish I could think of an analogy. Perhaps there are people who experience an existential sorrow when they are incapable of receiving or reciprocating the love of their partner; this may be a taste of what is to come.
An analogy which served me well was that of Zeus and Semele. Semele, tricked by Hera (of course), requested that Zeus (disguised as a mortal) would reveal himself in his true form. Zeus, reluctantly did so, and the power of his divinity was too great for Semele to bear and she was consumed in the glory of the divine fire.
I think it is typically human of us to wish evil upon people we do not like, to delight in their destruction and to imagine a place of hell filled with little men with pitch forks.
Orthodoxy represents something else to me, an alternative to the base delights of fear and hatred, with which I was made familiar through my rearing in the west. Rather, the contemplation of the divine love causes greater existential dread than any mortal flame or cloven hoofed farmyard associate