Hell

1. The Reality of Hell

a. Dogma: “The souls of those who die in the condition of personal grievous sin enter hell.”

b. Hell is a place of eternal punishment inhabited by those rejected by God.

-Eternal = forever, without end

-Rejected = condemned, damned, “unknown”

c. Some people deny the reality of hell, but the Catholic Church clearly and dogmatically teaches its existence.

Although: the church does NOT say definitively that any particular human soul is actually in hell.

Only that Hell exists and that the Devil is certainly there, along with the demons (fallen angels)

d. The Athanasian Creed states that “those who have done evil will go into eternal fire”.

e. The Church declares dogmatically in “Benedictus Deus” (a Dogmatic Constitution):

“According to God’s ordinance, the souls of those who die in personal grievous sin descend immediately into hell, where they will be tormented by the pains of hell.”

f. Of course, there are numerous references in the New Testament of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to hell and its unending punishments for those who persist in sin.

For example: “everlasting fire”, “pains”, “gnashing of teeth”, “weeping and wailing”, “where their worm dies not”, etc.

Jesus clearly teaches that hell exists.

g. The Fathers of the Church clearly and unanimously affirm the reality of hell.

From the earliest times in the Church, we Catholics have believed, following the teaching of Jesus himself, that hell is real and that it is a place of eternal punishment for those souls rejected by God.

h. So, we have the Authority of Jesus Himself, as well as the Authority of all of the Fathers of the Church.

And we have the Authority of the official teaching of the Catholic Church teaching the same thing.

These ALL clearly teach that hell and its punishments are real and we will go there if we die in the state of mortal sin.

THINK ABOUT IT, FOLKS.

If you died right now, where would you go?

To heaven or to hell?

And, if the answer is “to hell”, what is your reason for not going to Confession ASAP?

Is that pleasure right now worth an ETERNITY of remorse and suffering?

2. The Nature of the Punishment of Hella. There are two types of punishment in hell:

1. “Poena Damni”: “the pain of loss”:this is the primary punishment and pain of hell.

It is the DEEP AND ABIDING REMORSE for having lost God forever.

We are by our very nature meant to spend eternity with our loving Father, God.

The main suffering of hell consists in knowing that we could have gone to heaven [and been happy]…

…but we freely chose, by our actions, to sin.

And we have thereby forever lost the possibility of being with God or with those whom we love.

The souls in hell experience this deep regret for having lived the way they lived and for now being forever separated from God and their loved ones.

2. “Poena Sensus”: “the pain of sense”: this is the suffering which is caused by outside material things.

Scripture speaks repeatedly of the “fires of hell”.

This “hell fire” is not like earthly fire.

Think of Moses and the burning bush.

Hell fire burns without consuming what it burns.

It is in this way that the fire can continue to burn forever.

The victim continues to burn without being consumed by the fire.

3. There is both a real and a metaphorical understanding of this fire.

First sense: a “real” fire of some kind.

And, second sense, the “burning of remorse”, which means the “burning” of our conscience.