What is hell like?

[Stella]

Different Saints have had different visions of hell, some recounted in this article. I remain hopeful that 'all will be saved' but my image of the worst sort of torment would be a state of depression. Although I've not suffered with it myself, I've been associated with loved ones that have and it seems soul destroying.

In the history of the Catholic Church various saints and blesseds have described what hell is like and even exactly where “bad Christians” would be placed, based on visions and messages they received during their lives.

Hell’s structure
St. Teresa of Ávila, a doctor of the Church, related in her “Autobiography” that when the Lord showed her hell it seemed to her that she was in an “entrance that seemed to me like a very long, narrow alley, like a very low, dark, and narrow furnace: The floor seemed to me to be like mud, with a pestilential smell.”

St. Frances of Rome was also at the entrance to hell. According to the testimony of her confessor, Father Juan Mattiotti, there she “saw an extremely great and terrible abyss.” In addition, there was a sign with this warning: “This is hell, where there is neither rest, nor consolation, nor hope.”

According to an account by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, the hell she saw had “the shape of an immense, dark building, illuminated with a metallic light.” Emmerich said that it had an entrance with “huge black doors with locks and bolts.” But the angels knocked them down and the enemies worshipped Christ when he descended into hell.

The blessed said that there are prisons, caverns, deserts, and lakes that lead to “disgust and horror.” St. Faustina Kowalska said that in hell “there are caverns and torture pits where each type of agony differs from the other.”

The torments according to God the Father
Something unusual in the lives of some saints is that God the Father himself speaks to them directly. A very particular case was that of St. Catherine of Siena, a doctor of the Church. In her work called “The Dialogue,” the saint narrates that the eternal Father indicated to her the four main torments of hell, from which all other pains are derived.

According to the saint, God the Father said that the first torment is that condemned souls are deprived of him. This causes them such pain that they would prefer fire and cruel torments to be able to see him. This agony activates the second torment, which is the pain of the worm of conscience, because they are aware that because of their own fault they cannot be with him.

The third torment is the vision of demons because “by seeing them they know themselves better, that is, they know that because of their fault they are worthy of them,” the eternal Father revealed to her. Furthermore, in the demons these souls see their own figure so horrible “that the human heart cannot imagine it.”

The fourth torment is fire. God the Father told her that the soul is immaterial and cannot be consumed, but that he in his divine justice has “allowed it to burn with suffering, to afflict it and not to consume it.” He then emphasized that the fire makes the soul suffer with great sorrows, in various forms and depending on the variety of the sins and the severity of the guilt.

The place of ‘bad Christians’ in hell
In the “Golden Legend” of Blessed Santiago de la Vorágine it says that one day St. Macarius the Abbot, a great demon-fighter, found a skull. The saint, after praying to God, asked who the skull belonged to and where his soul was.

The skull responded that it belonged to a pagan man and that his soul was at the bottom of hell. Then the abbot questioned him about who was below his soul. The skull told him that at the bottom were the souls of “bad Christians” because “during their lives they treated with disregard the blood of Christ with which they were redeemed.”

Prayer, sacrifice can help sinners repent and avoid hell
On July 13, 1917, Our Lady appeared to the three Fátima children, Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos. The former two are now canonized saints and the latter has been declared venerable.

Our Lady urged the children to “make sacrifices for sinners, and say often, especially while making a sacrifice: O Jesus, this is for love of thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news ... lic-saints

[Kage_ar]

We do not know.

God did not find this knowledge was important for us.

As evidenced in your post, there are many speculations and private revelations, none of them are dogma.

[JanetM]

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"

"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.

"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"

"A pit full of fire."

"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"

"No, sir."

"What must you do to avoid it?"

I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: "I must keep in good health and not die.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

[peregrinator]

God did not find this knowledge was important for us.

He spoke quite a bit about hell and its torments in the Gospels.

[Kage_ar]

God did not find this knowledge was important for us.

He spoke quite a bit about hell and its torments in the Gospels.

I should have been much more specific - He did not feel that the level of specific detail that we humans crave is necessary. He said what He said, and did not elaborate.

[peregrinator]

I should have been much more specific - He did not feel that the level of specific detail that we humans crave is necessary. He said what He said, and did not elaborate.

The Church has been interpreting Our Lord's words for 2000 years, it would be strange if this one topic were off-limits.

[Kage_ar]

I should have been much more specific - He did not feel that the level of specific detail that we humans crave is necessary. He said what He said, and did not elaborate.

The Church has been interpreting Our Lord's words for 2000 years, it would be strange if this one topic were off-limits.

Has the Church defined what hell is like (any further than the things that we are told in Scripture)?

[peregrinator]

The Church must define things in order to interpret them?

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Ott lists only three doctrines concerning Hell:

1. The souls of those who die in the condition of grievous personal sin enter Hell. (De fide.)
2. The punishment of Hell lasts for all eternity. (De fide.)
3. The punishment of the damned is proportioned to each one's guilt. (Sent. Communis.)

And Pohle/Preuss in Eschatology: "Though the Church has defined nothing with regard to the nature of the punishment which the wicked are compelled to suffer in Hell, theologians usually describe it as partly privative and partly positive."

[Doom]

The Church must define things in order to interpret them?

"Where the worm does not die and the first isn't quenched" and "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" This is all we are told about hell. Do you think this is deeply descriptive like what we get in Dante or in various private revelations? The purpose of private revelations about hell is to warn those specific individuals who receive them, so they may in turn warn others, but you can't take these revelations 100% literally because a lot of private revelations is up to the interpretation of the seer, and frankly private revelations often contradict each other.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Private revelations, even authentic ones, are adapted to the one receiving them, or filtered through their preconceptions. Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur.

[peregrinator]

The Church must define things in order to interpret them?

"Where the worm does not die and the first isn't quenched" and "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" This is all we are told about hell. Do you think this is deeply descriptive like what we get in Dante or in various private revelations? The purpose of private revelations about hell is to warn those specific individuals who receive them, so they may in turn warn others, but you can't take these revelations 100% literally because a lot of private revelations is up to the interpretation of the seer, and frankly private revelations often contradict each other.

To be clear, I didn't say anything about private revelations. I was responding to the claim that we shouldn't seek to speculate on what Our Lord's words about hell might have meant. A priest interprets the Gospel for his hearers (explicitly or implicitly) every time he preaches. He has the authority to preach on these passages about hell, too. And he can draw on the work of theologians or from authentic private revelation if he judges it appropriate for his congregation. Maybe many people today won't receive it (in which case it might be better not to dwell on it too much).

[Doom]

That isn't how I interpreted what she said, what she said is basically what I said, that we aren't given much information about the nature of hell, not that the topic is completely off limits. We are told enough to know that we don't want to end up there, which is sufficient, anything more and we would likely be so consumed with despair that we could barely function, assuming we didn't just completely lose our minds and sanity altogether.

[peregrinator]

That isn't how I interpreted what she said, what she said is basically what I said, that we aren't given much information about the nature of hell, not that the topic is completely off limits. We are told enough to know that we don't want to end up there, which is sufficient, anything more and we would likely be so consumed with despair that we could barely function, assuming we didn't just completely lose our minds and sanity altogether.

You're both saying we shouldn't delve more deeply into the subject - unless I've misunderstood. But the Church has never said that we shouldn't.

[Riverboat]

Does teacher inservice count?

[Doom]

That isn't how I interpreted what she said, what she said is basically what I said, that we aren't given much information about the nature of hell, not that the topic is completely off limits. We are told enough to know that we don't want to end up there, which is sufficient, anything more and we would likely be so consumed with despair that we could barely function, assuming we didn't just completely lose our minds and sanity altogether.

You're both saying we shouldn't delve more deeply into the subject - unless I've misunderstood. But the Church has never said that we shouldn't.

The NATURE of hell, what are the punishments, who is in there, is it physical fire, physical torture,or is it more psychological etc the NATURE of hell, not questions about hell. The two are not the same. God has given us the level of detail we need, there is such a thing as an inappropriate curiosity, where we ask about things that we are not meant to know. Jesus was not afraid to respond to questions by saying bluntly "It is not for you to know”

[peregrinator]

OK, I'm still not totally clear on what you're objecting to. Our Lord refers to a "worm" among the punishments of hell ("where their worm dieth not" Mark 48:9b), but doesn't go into any detail; but theologians (e.g. St. Thomas) have explained that this is the worm of conscience. It's not obvious from the text, since St. Augustine finds it ambiguous, so it must come from someone thinking about this particular punishment, which if I understand you correctly, belongs to the "nature" of hell. Is this OK? Is it an example of inappropriate curiosity?

https://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.XP_Q97_A2.html

[Kage_ar]

That isn't how I interpreted what she said, what she said is basically what I said, that we aren't given much information about the nature of hell, not that the topic is completely off limits. We are told enough to know that we don't want to end up there, which is sufficient, anything more and we would likely be so consumed with despair that we could barely function, assuming we didn't just completely lose our minds and sanity altogether.

You're both saying we shouldn't delve more deeply into the subject - unless I've misunderstood. But the Church has never said that we shouldn't.

The NATURE of hell, what are the punishments, who is in there, is it physical fire, physical torture,or is it more psychological etc the NATURE of hell, not questions about hell. The two are not the same. God has given us the level of detail we need, there is such a thing as an inappropriate curiosity, where we ask about things that we are not meant to know. Jesus was not afraid to respond to questions by saying bluntly "It is not for you to know>"

I need to just put Doom on retainer to say what I mean

[Kage_ar]

I've not yet had time to read this article:

https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries ... ng-on-hell

[peregrinator]

I've not yet had time to read this article:

https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries ... ng-on-hell

I thought Akin had given up on Popesplaining but it appears not.

If we shouldn't speculate on the number of souls who go to hell then we surely shouldn't speculate that the number is zero, and make a liar out of Our Lord.