FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD
Why is there Hell?
Some people do not believe in God and they are called “atheists.” Some atheists leave their religion because of our view of hell. It seems that in their perspective it is as if we will ask God for mercy and if we do not worship Him, God will do something bad to us.
If we notice, there is nothing in their explanation of the mercy and love that God first gives to people. However, it does not provide consistent information regarding hell. Perhaps, it is good to see a saint and mystic, St. Faustina, who wrote “Diary – Divine Mercy in My Soul” based on the private revelations she received from Jesus. St. Faustina said,
Diary, 1698
“Although a person is at the point of death, the merciful God gives the soul that interior vivid moment, so that if the soul is willing, it has the possibility of returning to God. But sometimes, the obduracy in souls is so great that consciously they choose hell; they [thus] make useless all the prayers that other souls offer to God for them and even the efforts of God Himself… [1].”
If we notice from what she said, even if a person is close to death, he is still given many graces because of God’s mercy and love where this person sees the truth and his sins. He is given a real opportunity to repent which causes him to receive the salvation that God always offers him. But, because we have freedom, a person is free to give “yes” to God or to give “no” to Him even if the person knows that it is not right for him. God’s Mercy and Love were not lacking, but the people who chose hell ignored them. According to the teachings of the Catholic Church,
CCC 1033
1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him… To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell [2].”
We need to understand that God does not want to punish us. This is the reason why He gives us His grace and He always reveals the truth to us through our conscience, though sometimes, we do not listen to Him because we choose to sin. However, even at the end, even before we die, we still have the opportunity to repent and turn back. God wants everyone to be saved. However, it is the person who does not want to be saved because they desire to live without God. This eternal state is hell.
Some atheists may say that even though there is nothing wrong with God’s justice, the punishment or the suffering experienced by those in hell is not fair. For example, if there is a parent and their child does not love them, should they hurt their children or torture them just to force them? This is not correct, but neither is this analogy correct when it comes to God. To understand this better, let’s look at what they say is punishment. They blamed God for the one thing that went bad in their lives, but they didn’t think that maybe, it was the natural consequence of their examples.
Let’s look at some analogies. If someone cuts himself with a knife, the natural consequence is that he will be hurt and he will lose blood. If a person jumps from a high place, the natural consequence is that he will break bones, he will be injured, and may even die. It was not done by other people, but it was the effect that he made as if he had punished himself. The Catholic Church does not teach that God is a cruel punisher because the truth is, what those in hell experience is the natural consequence of their desire to not join God in heaven. God is Love. Jesus is the Prince of Peace and our Light. Heaven is eternal happiness. Aren’t suffering, miseries, and darkness the natural consequences of the person who doesn’t want them?
In the belief of atheists, a loving God is opposed to a religion that only threatens those who believe in Him. But, Christianity is not based on fear. The truly loving parents will tell us the danger of not following the road signs and rules, of not following the COVID protocols, and so on, because they don’t want us to be harmed. God is like this and even more. He reveals to us the truth about hell because of His love for us. He is merciful in that even though we hurt Jesus because of our sins, He still offered Himself on the Cross for our salvation.
Along with God’s respect for our dignity, He will not force us to love Him. This is because true love can only be seen in a person who has freedom, and God has given us this freedom completely. It is the freedom to choose Him or reject Him, but He makes many ways for us to know Him. God moves, He always knocks on everyone’s heart, but people still reject Him despite everything. If it hurts to be denied, exchanged, and rejected for us, what else does God feel for the person He gave life to? They choose their own desires even though God has given them everything. We can have the hope of going to heaven to be with Him. Let’s believe in Him and persevere in our faith in Him. May we also pray for our conversion, and may we see God’s love in our lives. Amen +
References:
[1] Diary – Divine Mercy in My Soul, 1698:
http://www.seraphim.my/divinemercy/diary/text/DiaryVI.htm
[2] The Catechism of the Catholic Church on hell:
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a12.htm#1033
Why is there Hell?
Sancte Michael Catholic Defense 
Happily, there is no hell, and the sadistic ideas of ignorant people will never come true.
and this “it seems that in their perspective it is as if we will ask God for mercy and if we do not worship Him, God will do something bad to us.”
is exactly what your bible promises. There is no love in a being that has to eternally torture those that disagree with it. The analogy of your god being a parent always fails, since no sane parent would so such things.
Your god is depicted as being unjust and unfair constantly with it murdering children for the actions of others. I am quite happy I left this nonsense behind.
“Along with God’s respect for our dignity, He will not force us to love Him.”
The bible doesn’t agree with this considering that both Jesus and Paul say tht this god has chosen some to allow to accept it and then damns the rest for no reason.
“If it hurts to be denied, exchanged, and rejected for us, what else does God feel for the person He gave life to? ”
I’m quite happy I never asked for such disgusting things as a person given as a blood sacrifice by torture to “forgive” me of my actions. I’m responsible for those, no one else. Your god required this nonsense, no one else, so you can’t blame humans for what it demanded.
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Thank you for your reply. I appreciate your effort to express your thoughts on the issue of hell. At the same time, I will share my replies as well with some of the things that you have said.
Though you mentioned some other things, it seems that its foundation is the idea that there is a contradiction in the essence of God, who is all Good, and/or the Scriptures. However, to say that there is a contradiction means that there is no way to show that both of the things mentioned (in this case, God’s existence or the claims of Christianity and the reality of evil) can be explained coherently. As such, if there is a way that it can be explained where there is no incoherence, then there is simply no contradiction. I will be dividing my replies on four points though not all points may have the same length when it comes to my explanation.
Nature of hell:
In your comment, you said that the Bible teaches that what I addressed, such as the view that God will do something bad to us if we do not worship Him, is actually the case. However, as I explained in my post, for us to have a better understanding of hell, we should think of it as a natural consequence of our actions, which is in terms of Catholic theology and Scriptures, mortal sins in contrast to venial sins. So, mortal sins are done when three conditions are met:
1. The nature of sin in question is a grave sin.
2. The person who did the grave sin is knowledgeable of the gravity of sin.
3. The person who did the grave sin truly consented to this action.
If one of these conditions are not met, then it’s not a mortal sin, hence it’s a venial sin. Now, I mentioned some analogies in my blog post that are closer to what happens in hell. (Btw, I’m not looking exactly at my post right now so my analogies may differ slightly from what I first gave) Imagine that a person chooses to cut himself with a knife. You would say, “it’s unjust that the person got some wounds and cuts and that blood came off him.” It’s because these effects are the natural consequence of such an act. Or, if a person decides to jump off a building, the natural consequence of such an action is that his bones will be broken, and he may die. These are just some of the effects that are the natural consequence of the actions based on the nature of the actions themselves. In light of this, it’s clear that the analogy of a mother who tortured her son because of the son’s disobedience is not the natural consequence of the action of disobedience. That’s why this action doesn’t necessarily follow. When we look at the example of the prodigal son in the Scripture in one of the parables of Jesus Christ, we can actually see an inference related to the point that I (and others) am making here. In the parable, the prodigal son went away from the father, and after a while, the son had a life of misery. Suppose we imagine a different kind of scenario, let’s say that the prodigal son never went back to the father “forever”, it seems that he will be in misery forever. And, when the son was in misery, it’s not because of the father, but this was the natural consequence of the action of the prodigal son. Of course, whether we use the original story in the parable of the prodigal son or this hypothetical scenario, you may say that this is not equivalent to “eternal punishment.”
But, the reason is because the father in the parable is merely a human being. And, according to the Catholic Church and even other Christians and classical philosophy, God is not a “being” among all other beings in the universe. God is the Transcendent Being. God is Pure Existence. He just Is Goodness by the very nature of God. So, as I mention in this blog post, to make a free and conscious choice of committing grave sin endangers his or her particular soul because the natural consequence of rejecting eternal life and eternal happiness from God is eternal misery. This is why the analogy of God (thinking as He is just like “a being”) who just sees someone rejecting Him (let’s not even consider for now whether the analogy used by atheists involve a someone who qualifies for mortal sins or not) will suddenly torment eternally the person. Rather, the understanding that we should have is that people who choose to be in hell are those who reject the “Eternal Good”, and hell just is the natural consequence of the privation of that Eternal Good. I have no problem with the analogy of a mother telling her son about the danger of COVID as an analogy to God revealing to us the danger of hell. However, the idea that a mother suddenly torments the child for eternity because of disobedience is not an analogy to hell because that analogy does not express the “natural consequences” that I mention in other analogies and in this reply of mine. With that in mind, not just that we have an explanation as to why God is not “guilty” of doing evil to a person in hell, we should also consider the point that I made in my post that God reveals Himself to the person just moments prior to his or her death. This is the point made by St. Faustina who received private revelations from Jesus, and this point is consistent with Scriptures and with Catholic teachings. Of course, the point of this post is “not” to defend private revelations but the purpose is to explain the nature of hell that is different from what unbelievers may immediately have in mind.
Murdering other people for the action of others:
This point that you raised is based on the “problematic passages” that one may see in the Scriptures. If you would like a more in-depth explanation of them, especially since showing an interpretation that is consistent with Christianity means that there is no contradiction present, I will recommend the book of Trent Horn, “Hard Sayings.” Anyway, it is important to recognize that God did not murder these children. To say that a person murders another involves the person making the direct act with the intent of killing this other person. God did not descend from heaven to “murder” the children or other people. The reason why I also explained this was to show that just because there were “killings” in the Scriptures, even murder that was done by other people, it doesn’t follow that God is the One who committed the “murder” based on how we define the word “murder.” Moreover, like in the example of the firstborn children, the reason why they died was because the Pharoah did not listen to the warning from God and from Moses. We can even think of it as if we can see the desires of the heart of the Pharoah in such a way that even if God spoke to him, he would still not make the Israelites free even if his children and the firstborn children of the Egyptians would die. In an objection raised by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae about the problem of evil, it states:
“Reply to Objection 1. As Augustine says (Enchiridion xi): “Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.” This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good.”
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article3
We also believe that God, out of His omnipotence and goodness, can bring good even out of evil. This is why I also reject the analogy that God just looks at people who are suffering and who do nothing about it. That’s not how we view God and as such, that objection does not even object to our perspective of God. Rather, God can bring goodness out of evil, and only God has the capacity to do so. We have the hope that amidst the sufferings experienced by these children that they can enter the Kingdom of God in heaven. Of course, in the Catholic teaching, there is a difference between the permissive will of God and the active will of God. So, God did not actively “will” that they died (as if God really wants them to die). But, due to our freedom, God allows it and we have confidence that God can and will bring good out of this evil. A short post about this is seen in the link below:
https://www.catholic.com/qa/how-to-explain-egyptian-firstborn-childrens-death
The article below addresses some objections on the Scriptures and the problem of evil:
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/how-to-refute-the-claim-the-bible-teaches-evil
The author of the article above is the same author of “Hard Sayings: A Catholic Approach to Answering Bible Difficulties.”
Predestination:
I think that you mentioned something about the “predestination” which sounds more like “double predestination” taught by John Calvin (and other Calvinists that came after him) and/or the Baptist traditions. Catholics do not believe in double predestination especially in this post, I share the view of St. Faustina where even the worst sinners were given that vivid moment where they had more knowledge that was more than sufficient to know the truth and to repent of their sins. I am unsure if this idea is consistent with double predestination since in the Catholic teaching, God gives sufficient grace to everyone for their salvation. So, God “predestines” everyone for their salvation, but we have free will with regards to whether we will accept God’s salvation or not. I will just recommend this article below that shows why the Bible doesn’t teach predestination and what the Catholic Church teaches about it.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/is-gods-election-of-the-faithful-unconditional
Obligation to love God:
You mentioned something about the crucifixion of Jesus. I won’t be making a comment on how we should understand the atonement. At the same time, you said that we can’t blame humans for what God demands. However, having the understanding of God as Pure Goodness, Pure Existence, Subsistent Being, Pure Actuality, etc, leads us to the view that we should desire God. God, as I explained above, is not a “being” among all other beings. This is why no beings in this universe can make the claim that we should worship them like how we worship God. It’s because we are not pure goodness. As understood by Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic Church and others, good is that which we desire. Even if one believes in “subjective goodness”, even if we think of people who are so mistaken in their views, we cannot reject the principle that the good is that which we desire. Even a fictional villain who imagines world domination (despite the fact that invading the whole world is bad) is doing it because this villain thinks that it’s “good.” Of course, we can be mistaken because we may choose to do wrong things because we perceive them as “good”. As such, it follows according to justice that because God is All Good (and God is not just a “being” who just happens to be more good than others but He is Supreme and Pure Goodness because He is Pure Existence), then we should seek to love God. This is just a brief explanation, and I’ll recommend the article below which gives a more in depth explanation of it and the reasoning why this is the case (and why God is not narcissist or egostistical because God’s nature is different from us).
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-it-egotistical-for-god-to-demand-your-love
Links of posts:
Below, I will give more links that will be helpful. I hope it’s just ok since I recognize that the problem of evil is a big topic of its own, and it’s important to spend some time reading up on it and consider different perspectives on this issue.
Below is an article as to how the reality of evil points to God’s existence:
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-evil-proves-gods-existence
Below is an article that addresses the “logical problem of evil”.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-problem-of-evil
Below is an article that addresses the “evidential” problem of evil. The evidential problem of evil is different from the “logical” problem of evil because the evidential problem shows that God’s existence is “unlikely”, not “logically impossible.” So, this article addresses this objection:
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/why-horrible-suffering-does-not-disprove-gods-existence
Below is a YouTube video that speaks of the Problem of Evil based on the thoughts of Pat Flynn and Gaven Kerr, a respected Thomist.
Lastly, this is not necessarily a response to a particular objection but this blog post from the Thomist, Dr. Edward Feser, reflects on a book that is about the experience of a Christian who endured many sufferings.
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/12/unbroken-and-problem-of-evil.html
You may also look at “near death experiences”, and how some experiences point to “hell.” These are based from peer-reviewed articles.
https://www.magiscenter.com/blog/credible-near-death-experience-stories
https://www.magiscenter.com/blog/negative-near-death-experiences-and-hell
I appreciate your reply and thank you for your comments. Hopefully, you may read some of the links I provide here. I also recognize that my reply may have been too lengthy, but I hope it’s something you may at least consider. Thank you.
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