Problem of Hell - Christianity

Christianity

See also: Hell in Christianity

In Christianity, Hell has traditionally been regarded as a punishment for wrongdoing or sin in this life, as a manifestation of divine justice. Nonetheless, the extreme severity or infinite duration of the punishment might be seen as incompatible with justice. However, Hell is not seen as strictly a matter of retributive justice even by the more traditionalist churches. For example, the Eastern Orthodox see it as a condition brought about by, and the natural consequence of, free rejection of God's love.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that hell is a place of punishment brought about by a person's self-exclusion from communion with God.

In some ancient Eastern Christian traditions, Hell and Heaven are distinguished not spatially, but by the relation of a person to God's love.

I also maintain that those who are punished in Gehenna, are scourged by the scourge of love. Nay, what is so bitter and vehement as the torment of love?...It would be improper for a man to think that sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the love of God...it torments sinners...Thus I say that this is the torment of Gehenna: bitter regret. —St. Isaac of Syria, Ascetical Homilies 28, Page 141

Read more about this topic:  Problem Of Hell

Famous quotes containing the word christianity:

    “In great cities men are brought together by the desire of gain. They are not in a state of co-operation, but of isolation, as to the making of fortunes; and for all the rest they are careless of neighbours. Christianity teaches us to love our neighbour as ourself; modern society acknowledges no neighbour.”
    —Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)

    “There is the Christianity of tenderness. But ... it is utterly pushed aside by the Christianity of self-glorification: the self-glorification of the humble.”
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    “Wherever there are walls I shall inscribe this eternal accusation against Christianity upon them—I can write in letters which make even the blind see ... I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty—I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind....”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)