Orthodox view of Hell

[Thekla]

If the hell of divine hatred ("The wicked, those who love violence, the Lord hates with a passion," Psalm 11) can be understood by the Orthodox, with no loss of pragmatic consequence for the human, as a hell of divine love, then perhaps one would be able to say that a heaven of divine love can be understood, with no loss of pragmatic consequence for the human, as a heaven of divine hatred? As Saint Basil the Great says, “The evils in hell do not have God as their cause, but ourselves." Would not the Orthodox also have to say that the goods in heaven do not have God as their cause, but ourselves?

If salvation is a synergistic process, where the real difference lies in a person's moral orientation, not determined by external input, then would an Orthodox person agree with the statement in John Milton's Paradise Lost that "The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven"? As Dr. Kalomiros says, "Love has bliss in it, hatred has despair, bitterness, grief, affliction, wickedness, agitation, confusion, darkness, and all the other interior conditions which compose hell."

If the River of Fire was a river of divine love or rather a river of divine hatred, would this distinction survive Pragmatic logic? Is it possible that we can have a true idea in our minds which relates to anything but conceivable sensible effects of things?

why only "moral" ?

certainly there is more to the human life, and the life in Christ, than 'moral, don't you think ?

 

[Ceridwen]

why only "moral" ?

certainly there is more to the human life, and the life in Christ, than 'moral, don't you think ?

I believe so. Friendship!