God's love and our link to God is required for us to exist, but if hell is the absence of God would that not mean that people who go to hell cease to exist?
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When you say "our link to God" perhaps you've been stuck on a false notion. God does not need our existence but we need God's existence. God does not depend on us for anything, but we depend on God for everything. So this "link to God" to which you refer can be thought of as a one-way link, inasmuch as it is our reliance on God for everything. However, when considered as our act of prayer and God's response to prayers as His gift of grace to us, it's not a one-way link. So what are you talking about?
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In hell, there is no more opportunity to pray to God, so those who are in hell have no more opportunity to receive His grace. This world is our time for mercy; after this comes the judgment, which is the time for justice. It is a terrible thing to be touched by the hand of God.
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In eternity the glory of salvation is founded on being saved from the alternative and that alternative (hell) is as eternal as the glory of heaven. All the saved in heaven will rejoice at the reality of hell's existence because it manifests the eternal goodness and wisdom of God. All the saved in heaven will have full knowledge of the opportunity passed up by those who are damned and being saved will be one and the same as accepting this finality and permanence. Anyone on the way to heaven who cannot accept God's eternal and perfect wisdom will have to remain in Purgatory until such time as they leave their erroneous opinions behind them, since such erroneous opinions are imperfections, and nothing imperfect is possible in heaven.
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Perhaps Lucifer and his demons only exist because hell is an endgame that hasn't been enacted yet?
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There was a Pope who held the heresy that hell is not effective until the general judgment at the end of the world. A saint counseled him as he lay dying and he fortunately repented of his error before he died. The Church has always taught that the moment a man dies he goes to his particular judgment and if he is condemned there his soul goes directly to hell, that is, without his body. After the general judgment all those who inhabit hell will receive their bodies back and will continue to experience the torments of hell with the full complement of sensual pain because they will have their bodies again. The devils have no body so they won't be getting one, however, they will manifest themselves to the people in hell in their various hideous forms in order to inflict torments on the damned.
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A man complained to Padre Pio that his friend does not believe in hell. Padre Pio told him,
That's okay, tell him he can believe as he likes for now, but he will have no doubt how real hell is the moment he arrives there..
Because purgatory is the suffering to purify the soul for heaven. That is suffering with a purpose and it is consistent with the way God made creation. But hell and eternal suffering seems pointless. Justice perhaps?
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Purgatory, correct. The pains of purgatory are the same as the pains of hell, however, there is a difference in two ways, first, those in purgatory don't have their body back yet just as those in hell don't, but in purgatory there is the awareness that the suffering will eventually come to an end and then there will be eternal bliss. Since this time or duration (there is no time really after death, but that's another topic) will transpire in the spiritual existence of the disembodied soul, the awareness of the passing nature of purgatory will be an enormous consolation for the inhabitants thereof, and an enormous torment for those who were so unfortunate as to not make it to purgatory. Therefore, the second difference comes from the additional intellectual torment that the damned already suffer even before they suffer with their bodies, and the souls in purgatory don't have that manner of suffering to endure. One way of suffering is the pain of being in this place of purification (purgatory) or of damnation (hell), while the other way of suffering is due to the knowledge that this purification will eventually (as it were) end, a sort of negative suffering or consolation, or else the knowledge that this eternal judgment will never come to an end and it will only get worse when one's body is reunited.
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I wonder if the souls in hell will try to run away from their bodies when they're being returned.
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If hell were to be extinguished then God's perfect justice would be less than perfect, which is impossible. All the persons in hell are there because that is what they have chosen with their free will. No one goes to hell when they don't deserve it, and they become deserving of it when that is what they have chosen.
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Furthermore a lot of sin, especially like the previously mentioned child molester, is often the cause of the perpetrator themselves being victimized when they were young. Corrupted. They didn't know any better. It doesn't excuse the action of course but it makes hell seem pointless.
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The sin that was perpetrated during his childhood on a person is the cause of his injury. Such an experience is less than ideal, certainly, and it can have life-long implications. Anyone with such a handicap should take measures to seek help and take care not to perpetuate this injustice on others. God only knows the interior disposition of anyone. It's a big leap from there to say "it makes hell seem pointless." No one goes to hell who doesn't deserve it. It's not the place of the Church to pronounce on who is or who is not in hell.
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Ultimate justice is a principle that is necessary for man to live a moral life. Without the responsibility to become accountable for one's actions or sins, there would not be any reason to try to do the right thing.
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Because that person isn't entirely functional is it fair to condemn them to an eternity of torture and suffering?
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It isn't our place to say whether "that person" goes to hell. Certainly God knows whether he was "entirely functional" or not. It's nice that God's the one who has to make this decision. No doubt there are many degrees of perfect or imperfect functionality, and perhaps some of them are not relevant, God only knows. But one thing is sure: Nobody Goes to Hell Who Doesn't Deserve it.
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The person ceasing to exist makes more sense.
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It seems to me you could only be saying that because you've become dug in to an erroneous notion of being, justice and eternity. You can't just have "the person" that is one individual, being snuffed out completely. What about everyone else? One of the principle errors of liberalism is for the exception to become the rule. So then if one person ceases to exist, then ultimately everyone ceases to exist, because there are no exceptions to perfect justice, otherwise it wouldn't be perfect.
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I am aware though how human this notion is, because I am applying what I would do if I had the power of life and death over said molester. They don't need torture they need a swift end.
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We can rest assured that God knows what He is doing. If He can take that said molester and put him in purgatory till the end of the world by which "time" he would be made perfect, then that's God's business, not ours. But consider the young girl in 1917, a friend of Lucia of Fatima about whom Lucia asked Our Lady if she was in heaven, and was given the reply that the girl (who couldn't have possibly done anything so terrible as molesting children!) would be in purgatory till the end of the world -- it doesn't look too good for the pervert.
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Topic: What is Hell? (Read 2106 times)