by marblaze

Created on: February 16, 2007   Last Updated: May 11, 2007

Hell is mentioned several in times in the Bible and Christian Churches recognised its existence. In other words there are those who would go to hell and those to heaven. Nonetheless, both groups are loved by God. Those who would go to heaven deserve heaven and those going to hell are better off in hell than in heaven. Or simply if you end up in hell it is because relative to your circumstance hell is better than heaven.

The point being is that, hell is not eternal damnation as commonly believed. God is love and His love is UNCONDITIONAL. All His actions are motivated by this unconditional love, hence when God decides that a soul should go to hell it is because God loves him so much.

The pre-Vatican view of hell as eternal damnation into everlasting fire is the more common understanding of it. This kind of concept of hell made a very backward kind of Christian. A person who has such kind of belief would say to himself: 'I will do good because I don't want to rot in hell; I will attend mass because I don't want to go to hell; I will honour my parents because if I don't God will punish me into everlasting fire in hell'. Notice that the motivation is always fear of hell and the intention is purely personal salvation. Indeed a very shallow kind of faith.

A mature Christian would say, I will do good because it is for the benefit of everyone, I will attend mass because I love to listen to the Word of God and I want to congregate with my fellow Christians, I will honour my parents because I love them and I want to let them feel how I appreciate the love they lavished to me specially when I was a baby. Note that the person motivation is purely love, hell does not even comes across his mind.

Following are two analogies that would prove that souls in hell are not being punished but rather loved.

1. Imagine yourself as very dirty, i.e. your smell is very bad and your appearance is that who haven't bathed for so long. Then you find yourself in the company of very clean people. Do you think you would be comfortable in their company? Of course you wouldn't. You would rather be in the company of others who smell and look like you.

2. Heaven is just like learning how to read. A person who devoted much time in learning how to read and having learned so would be very happy when someone would give him some very nice books as gifts. On the other hand a person who did not bother learning how to read would never appreciate gifts in form of books. In similar manner a very sinful person would never appreciate heaven.

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