Posted on 03/28/2007 4:32:53 AM PDT by MarkBsnr
HELL is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, Pope Benedict XVI has said. Addressing a parish gathering in a northern suburb of Rome, the Pope said that in the modern world many people, including some believers, had forgotten that if they failed to "admit blame and promise to sin no more", they risked "eternal damnation - the inferno". Hell "really exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more". The Pope, who as cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was head of Catholic doctrine, noted that "forgiveness of sins" for those who repented was a cornerstone of Christian belief. He recalled that Jesus had forgiven the "woman taken in adultery" and prevented her from being stoned to death, observing: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." God had given men and women free will to choose whether "spontaneously to accept salvation...the Christian faith is not imposed on anyone, it is a gift, an offer to mankind". Vatican officials said the Pope - who is also the Bishop of Rome - had been speaking in "straightforward" language "like a parish priest". He had wanted to reinforce the new Catholic catechism, which holds that hell is a "state of eternal separation from God", to be understood "symbolically rather than physically". Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, a church historian, said the Pope was "right to remind us that hell is not something to be put on one side" as an inconvenient or embarrassing aspect of belief. It was described by St Matthew as a place of "everlasting fire" (Matthew xxv, 41).
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
The media seems to think it's news when the Pope says he believes the Bible.
In their iopinion, it's quaint.
Hell is a place?
Hmm. Good point.
I'm going to have to look at his actual speech.
Pretty sure the Pope isn't espousing Annihilationism. What else do you envision Hell being, besides a "place"?
I find it amusing that many folks who poopoo the notion of Hell are usually familiar with the nature of black holes ... where time is stretched into infinity at the horizon of a star (hot, don'tchaknow) with such powerful gravity that even light will not escape it, where being inside would allow viewing of what is outside but outside cannot see inside.
Then we should speak of Hells, not Hell, and acknowledge that there must be billions of places that qualify as "hell."
Your theory would make Hell(s) temporary, as black holes are not permanent, eternal structures in the created finite, universe.
You treat spiritual separation from God as a physical "place" where God isn't, and subject that which is spiritual (i.e. love) to gravitational laws!spiritual!
If Hell is a "place" then it is part of a created universe where God is not!
Besides, God did create hell (eternal lake of fire) -- for the devil and his angels, who are noëtic beings without a body.
What would real fire and a real lake do to evil spirits? Why would there be a physical place for spiritual beings? Why would there be "real" (material) fire for that which is not material?
Which part don't you understand?
Understand? I didn't missunderstand, I was questioning your projection of so much motive.
Seriously ... Do you think Heaven and Hell exist in space and time, the same as (let us say) Chicago? Do the terms of physical the physical realm really apply to the spiritual realm?
Here is an article that makes it clear it is not a Catholic or Orthodox doctrine to consider hell a "place." From the source:
My motive? I was responding to this ridiculous association of yours that somehow hell is a 'place' identical with a black hole.
My point exactly.
Nicely put. I wonder what the New Testament free thinker types would make of this.
This is a poorly written, fallacious opening sentence. In fact, it's contradicted by the pope later on in the text. He says that hell is not a literal "place", but a state of existence in which man is totally and eternally seperated from God. He also doesn't say that they physically "burn" there, either. The author of this article is a moron.
I couldn't agree more.
I think that's pretty obvious. They probaly think Heavan is a 'place' as well.
It's funny; you can never seem to really understand exactly what they believe in. Every time you zoom in, they revert back to "we believe in the Bible."
Like latter day Luthers or copycat Calvins, they know what they don't want - external objective authority that lays out the thoughts, beliefs and behaviours that the Lord God Almighty expects of us. Every one considers him/herself as equally or better qualified than the Magisterium to interpret Scripture, pointedly ignoring the admonishment in Scripture itself.
Apostacy and heresy aplenty, here.
It's totally narcissistic, it's the me-me-me "trinity," and as such contrary to the spirit of what the Lord taught.
The pertinent words are in the penultimate paragraph:
"E’ venuto Gesù per dirci che ci vuole tutti in Paradiso e che l’inferno, del quale poco si parla in questo nostro tempo, esiste ed è eterno per quanti chiudono il cuore al suo amore."The English translation is
"Jesus came to tell us that He wants us all in heaven and that hell - of which so little is said in our time - exists and is eternal for those who close their hearts to His love."Nowhere in the original Italian is the word that means "place." The most common Italian words that mean place are "luogo" and "posto."
Thank you! Someone else correctly commented that this article by Richard Owen was poorly written by someone who basically doesn't know what he is talking about. Heaven and Hell are the states (conditions) of our souls after death. The unrepentant soul eventually will exist in hell (separation from God, spiritual torment); the repentant soul will eventually exist in heaven (spiritual bliss, joy). The Orthodox and Catholics offer commemorative services for the repentant souls as both particular Churches have always recognized an intermediate state between the particular and final judgments, although the exact terminology of that state has not been agreed on.
He had wanted to reinforce the new Catholic catechism, which holds that hell is a "state of eternal separation from God", to be understood "symbolically rather than physically".
The only "new Catholic catechism" I know of is close to 15 years old. And it never says hell is to be understood "symbolically rather than physically"; in fact, it doesn't use the word "symbolic" or "symbolically" in reference to hell at all.
So what's he talking about?
It's really amazing how much the MSM can muddle the Vatican, and indeed almost anything else they report on.
Oh, without a doubt. How can separation from God be "symbolic?" Maybe he wanted to say "spiritual" but couldn't think of the word? :)
Like any "state" of existence, hell it can co-exist right next to and in the presence of another state. Someone who is in a bad state (i.e. mood) can find even the most enjoyable cirucmstances annoying and unbearable. If somone is unhappy there is nothing worse tha being surrounded by happy people (especially if you can't change!).
new Catholic catechism...
It seems this individual never really read the Catechism, but he didn't mind writng about it.
What do you suppose Jesus did with his body when he left His grave, stuffed it in a dumpster somewhere???
And Jesus really didn't go to prepare a place for us???
If Jesus body wasn't ressurrected, where did it go??? If heaven is a state of mind, why did people see Jesus going up???
No one can ascend to heaven before Jesus decends first...Sounds like a place to me...
As to what happened to His Body, neither you nor anyone else knows. To say that He literally sits to the right of the Father suggests that God the Father also has a body (Mormonism alert!) when we know that he is a Spirit (who also has a "Spirit").
In other words, don't read into anything you read in the Bible.
Nobody (on our side) ever said heaven (or hell) was a "state of mind".
Heaven really exists, and it really exists in some sense is physical, because there are real, physical, glorified, human bodies there right now.
(It doesn't follow that it physically exists in our universe, such that you could build a spaceship and fly there, however.)
Right, and probably doesn't believe very much of the rest of the bible either.
The gentle and loving Jesus Himself warned sinners of the reality of hell by his parable of the rich man and the beggar. But modernist apologists have twisted His warning around to simply mean that hell is just an unpleasant state of mind for unrepentant sinners, and that a loving God would not condemn any sinner no matter how vile to eternal damnation in a literal hell.
Wrong, and millions of unrepentant sinners will no doubt be condemned to hell because they willingly accepted the modernists' false interpretation of Christ's parable and the many other biblical references to hell. If the deceived are punished severely for believing the lies of Satan's servants, how much more severe will the penalty be for those who knowingly propagate those lies?
The Apostle John knew because he witnessed Jesus's glorified and ascended body with his own eyes on the Isle of Patmos. He then described in the first chapter of the Apocalypse His ascended and glorified body as He now sits at the right hand of the Father making intercession for our souls.
Jesus Christ's body in not now an ethereal spirit as it was before His advent on earth. Ever since He divested Himself of His divine spiritual body and came to earth born of the Virgin Mary in a sinless human body He lived first in a human body like our own except for our ability to commit sin, and since His resurrection and ascension He has been and eternally will be living in a glorified divine body similar to the glorified human body which we will inhabit in Heaven forever if we are a member of His spiritual body on earth, aka His blood-bought bride the Church.
(It doesn't follow that it physically exists in our universe, such that you could build a spaceship and fly there, however.)
Seems a number of your fellow compadres' don't actually agree with the even partial physical existance of heaven
I can't imagine why you would think heaven is not physical...The bible clearly says that our dead bodies will be physically resurrected (and changed)
I'd be interested in what a Catholic actually sees when he envisions the Trinity in his/her head...
To say that He literally sits to the right of the Father
Now my bible doesn't say that...That would imply 2 personages...And maybe, maybe not...
My bible says Jesus sits AT the right hand of the Father...NOT to the right of the Father...Is there a difference??? Could be...
The way I see it is that there is ONE Throne in heaven for ONE God...Could be Jesus sits on the same Throne as the Father (You have seen me so you have seen the Father)...
It makes no sense at all that the entire bible is a metaphor, especially since no one understands the metaphor...And why write a metaphor for everything when it would be just as easy to write the actual truth???
If hell isn't a place, then it is either everywhere or nowhere.
St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine and St. Gregory The Great all said that hell is a place, but that its location has not been revealed to us.
Remember that the Church teaches that on the Last Day, the souls of the elect will be reunited with their mortal bodies and that the souls of the damned will also be reunited with their mortal bodies.
The bodies of the damned will be located somewhere, and the place where they are located is Hell.
I think ya’ll insult God saying He would actually punish
someone eternally. Its at this point you accuse a loving God of injustice and cruelty.
The Catechism says:
1034
Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna,” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.614 Jesus solemnly proclaims that he “will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,”615 and that he will pronounce the condemnation: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!”616
614: Cf. Mt 5:22, 29; 10:28; 13:42, 50; Mk 9:43-48.
615: Mt 13:41-42.
616: Mt 25:41.
“Fire” carries with it the idea that it is located somewhere. Physical fire, that is. Spiritual fire? It may or may not have a physical aspect to it.
Again, I would argue that the doctrine of the resurrection implies that the damned will suffer both physical and spiritual fire.
If Christians don’t have Hell, they have no way to scare people enough to believe. The New Testament, and Jesus therein, talk about it as a place of flaming torture, and Jesus doesn’t seem the least bit offended by it.
I think that the poster who questioned Hell being described as a place is questioning the use of a physical term being applied to a metaphysical condition.
I don’t even know if that is the correct terminology. I just clicked on this thread because I was waiting for someone to make fun of Rudy Giuliani for being a Catholic and ask whether or not he was going to Hell.
God establishes what is just and what is unjust.
He, by definition, cannot act unjustly.
The essence of infernal punishment is separation from God. Separation from God is what the reprobate want. Effectively, it makes no sense to accuse God of injustice and cruelty for giving someone -- a rational being who has had adequate opportunity to make a reasoned choice -- what they want.
Should he attempt to force them into accepting what they have spent much of their lives trying to avoid and resist?
Kosta50 is not Catholic but Eastern Orthodox, therefore he's not exactly my compadre ... yet. :-)
I can't imagine why you would think heaven is not physical...The bible clearly says that our dead bodies will be physically resurrected (and changed)
Exactly. All orthodox Christians believe this has already happened with Jesus, and even if someone wants to quibble that Jesus is a Divine Person and is therefore a special case, Catholics and Orthodox believe that Mary is also physically in heaven body and soul. (And there's an argument that can be made for Enoch, Elijah, and Moses being there also.)
Heaven and hell is what the soul experiences in the presence of God. It is very easy to imagine that heaven and hell can be just a soul away.
"Incorporeal things are not in place after a manner known and familiar to us, in which way we say that bodies are properly in place; but they are in place after a manner befitting spiritual substances, a manner that cannot be fully manifest to us." [St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Supplement, Q69, a1, reply 1]"[ EWTN ]
This statement is fully orthodox and in line with the teaching of the Eastern Church.
Can we say that God answers their prayers to be separated from Him?
Eternal punishment for avoiding and resisting your brand of salvation story is, in my opinion, just plain silliness and an insult to God. If that's where your faith is, fine. Whatever gets you thru the day.
Why would God force something on a person that's not truth?
Ageed. I just don't happen to believe what you believe He's established.
Don't believe NT writings are inspired.
If he only knew that salvation is in Christ Jesus.
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