I have made the point a couple of times elsewhere that I can imagine Hell as simply being a place (or state) of Godlessness. Suppose one accepts that the good of the universe, the beauty and the wonder, is of God. Opposites exist. A is not non-A. Evil then exists, as dark exists to light, and might seem sufficient then as a way to describe those things that are not of God.
If one then also accepts that something of a person survives the death of the body, is it too far-fetched to believe that that something will arrive at a state either of God or a state of Godlessness? If, for example, the essence of a person is decidedly evil (think Hitler) and unconnected in any way with the good and beauty and wonder of the universe we associate with God, would that essence, in its final form (that is to say now beyond the brain-required abilities of reason and volition and therefore no longer alterable) be able to connect in any way with God? Or would that essence know no other state than that of Godlessness?
Are the descriptions of Hell (from the Bible as well as the poets) mere metaphors, attempting to describe an otherwise unimaginable state of total Godlessness - a state, in other words, completely and utterly devoid of anything good?
But isn’t God supposed to be omnipresent and omniscient? How can this be if there is somewhere that God isn’t?
Also, I thought that God created everything. If God created hell, then surely there is something of God in hell. Alternatively, if God didn’t create hell, are there other things that God didn’t create?
I like this. One tweak I would add is that in the context of Christianity, it seems to me that hell is the [i]rule[/i] and not the [i]exception[/i]: that is, what you're calling Godlessness is the default or natural thing that happens to a soul when a person dies, and the pleasent alternative is a something that happens to people due to a special intervention from God.
Well, they simply have to be metaphor to an extent, since a soul can't burn. Imagining anything without the context of a physical body would be next to impossible for a human, so reliance on metaphor is necessary. About all we can say with any confidence is "It sucks".
This is a good question. Is it possible, then that God is the abscence of the experience of God? That is, God is still ‘there’ in the same sense that He is anywhere else, but the human soul can no longer detect him. There is some precedent for the idea that all people, all the time, have some basic experience of the presence of God.
Hi, Delboy. Well I’m not sure what God created or did not create. Rather than take a literal view of the Bible, I’m interested in seeing whether there’s some kind of rational/logical model of Hell that we can come up with that might help substantiate the concept of Hell as it appears in the Bible.
And I’m wondering if, if we postulate God as perfect (perfectly good), evil wouldn’t necessarily exist as, if nothing else, a theoretical concept that must exist because its opposite (good) exists (with the existence of God). And could its introduction into the universe be a result not of God (who remains perfectly good), but instead as a result of man’s power of volition, evil made manifest by man’s turning away from God (as symbolized, perhaps, by the Genesis story of the Garden)? Now we have the presence of evil, but a presence that came about as a result of man. God’s creation of man’s power of volition was not, in and of itself, an evil creation or an evil act. It was what man did with it that made evil manifest.
And since a perfect God, perfectly good, (if we accept this as an apt description of God) could not logically accept an imperfect being without having its perfect condition compromised, then it seems as though there’s room for the idea of a Godless condition or Godless state, doesn’t it?
I like Ucc’s idea here. I think we need to be careful with words like “somewhere†or “anywhere†because they imply spatial ideas. I’m thinking of Godlessness as more of a condition or state, timeless and spaceless.
If God had a sense of humor, I’d imagine heaven and hell as the same place. It would be great for those who loved God and be a very (very, VERY) pro-Christian place. It be heaven for those devout. On the other hand, the poor chaps who dislike the Christian dogma would be suffering. God would, of course, exist. Heh, well we can always imagine.
This would seem to imply that God is in the impure, too, for He is everywhere. He just made the divison. If there really was a Hell, it would be one that you created for yourself, forcefully pushing away God and thus suffering from lack of being with Him.
In short, I agree with most of what was said earlier here.
To add an exquisite edge to the suffering, one must also be aware of what they are without.
I experimented a lot as a youngster in my astral/spiritual quest days, and often got flung from one evil plane of consciousness to another.
The one I recall as being the most excruciatingly hellish was not where there was the deepest presence of evil but where I felt as though I was locked in a plane of consciousness (like a large block of melted glass) while being just out of reach from everything that was “heavenly”.
This is new age Christianity – a concept that has increasingly whitewashed the ‘bad’ from the original image of god and marketed him as being the spiritual equivalent of Father Christmas.
The Judaic god originally was a god of respect (authority) and fear – not new age love, beauty and peace.
And in many other non-christian religions/beliefs, god’s actions can only be described as both good and evil.
In Hinduism for instance, god incarnates as horrible beasts then rips people apart with his teeth and claws. (e.g. Oppenheimer’s famous Bhagavad-Gita quote: “I am Death the destroyer of worldsâ€). Why strip god of half of his creation?
I prefer the eastern explanation that there is god (reality) and maya (illusion).
What is real is the only thing that exists; what is unreal does not exist.
The Course of Miracles (a 1970’s merging of new age concepts/Christianity and eastern religions) puts it well by saying:
[size=117]“Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Therein lies the peace of God.”[/size]
Aren’t scholars still fighting over the original meaning of “hell”. The greek translation was thought to more accurately refer to grave/burial plot (underground) but political pressures of the day demanded a more exaggerated punishment for non followers – hence we get eternal torture in the underground.
PS I’m a non believer (of both standard religion and secular religion i.e. philosophy) but I appreciate good stories and poetry.
Yes, yes - this is very close to what I am thinking when I am imagining what Hell might truly be.
Well, concepts dealing with the nature of God are problematic, I think. I’ve always liked Abraham Heschel’s word: “ineffableâ€. But how man might be related to God might be something more describable. I can imagine the nature of the relationship (down to specific actions) as being either in some kind of concordance or not. The ideas of good and evil might just describe whether something is in harmony with God or not in harmony. Maybe your description of real ideas and unreal ideas is another way of saying this.