Freedom of choice and hell as a consequence of sin
Let's try to look at everything in order.
God created only that which is light, good and good, including man. But it was not for nothing that he sculpted his arms, legs, and head from the dust of the earth. Man is specially designed. In the image of God.
And God gave this creature, remarkable in its design, freedom of choice.
We are not some kind of automatic machines: I pressed the “soda” button - and the wish is fulfilled, I installed the “love” program - we will “multiply love”, as was the Father’s plan.
No. A person chooses for himself: with God or not? If with God - then heaven and eternal bliss.
What if without God? Then he predicts himself to decay and eternal torment. It is truly torture to be separated from the source of Life.
Therefore, the underworld is not only a vivid image, a place, but also a state of mind.
Who created hell?
Who created hell?
Hello , dear visitors of the Orthodox website “Family and Faith”!
A visitor to our site, Natalya, asked priest Dimitry Sinyavin (the site’s confessor) the following questions regarding eternal life:
- Good afternoon. How to correctly understand these words about allowing hell?
“The holy Fathers teach that for such [sinners], and precisely because of love for them, the Lord allowed hell.”
And d was created by itself, and God allowed it? Or did God himself create hell? What does “allowed hell” mean? In the Gospel of Nicodemus, hell appears as a living being. Who created it? Only God is the Creator of living beings. How then to understand this? And what does “allowed hell” mean? Thank you.
Answered by priest Dimitry Sinyavin
- Hello, Natalia!
Indeed, God allowed hell out of His mercy. God did not create evil, but allowed it, because he gave freedom to the angels so that they could show their Love for God, but not all angels chose to be with God. One angel, Denitsa, became proud and wanted to become God himself, some of the angels supported him, and he sinned against God and went to war against Him. Archangel Michael defeated them and cast them down from heaven to the underworld. This is how evil and demons appeared. Demons are fallen angels. Man was also created free, and also chose evil, followed the advice of demons.
Why did the Lord give freedom to angels and people?
The Lord knew that only a free person can show true love and improve in it. If schematically, it will look something like this. Let's draw a line and put a dot in the middle. Let's write evil on the left and good on the right. Next to the point we will draw a vector directed towards good. The Lord created man in such a way that it was natural for him to do good, he was directed towards good, this is the path of spiritual improvement. When a person sinned, he turned the vector in the opposite direction and it became more natural for him to do evil. Our task is to again turn our direction towards God, towards good.
Why did the Lord allow hell?
I'll give you an example. When a person does something very bad, very shameful, he tears out his hair, ready to fall into the ground. In this way, it is easier for a person, since he muffles his conscience with bodily suffering. Torment of conscience is much more painful than bodily suffering. In that life, a person’s conscience for the sins he has committed will be fully tormented, so it will be easier for a person when he experiences suffering, muffling his conscience a little. A person will be tormented most of all by the fact that he could have chosen good and been with God in eternal life, but did not do so. Therefore, before it’s too late, let’s choose good and, with God’s help, strive for good.
Hell is a place where God has limited his presence. A sinful, unrepentant person cannot be with God, since he himself does not want to be with Him. Example. One man did his friend a great evil in return for good, and he does not want to meet him at some kind of festive feast, unless he intends to repent, ask him for forgiveness, and reconcile with him.
With God blessing!
and what do small children suffer?
the Lord did not hear and took his son...
<< To the main page Questions for the priest >>
If God did not create Gehenna, does it not exist?
Some people will think: well, if God did not create Sheol, then it does not exist?
No, this is a fallacy.
Hell is actually more real than we think. And for each individual person it begins where sin appears.
If we do not repent and sin consciously, then we deliberately separate ourselves from God. Consequently, such a person does not want to be with God, the source of life. That is, the sinner predicts himself to be isolated. By doing this, he, figuratively speaking, lays the foundation for his own Sheol.
What does Paradise look like?
Paradise was described in a completely different way, there is lush vegetation, many springs, beautiful gardens in which birds of paradise fly. There are many different flowers and plants there, and fruit trees grow in those places. The sky there is blue and clear. The wind brings pleasant coolness.
The Almighty is described as the wisest of all sages, his voice sounds from Heaven, he is sonorous and kind. God communicates with the souls of the dead on a variety of topics, for there is nothing that he does not know, because the Creator speaks all languages and sees the life of everyone.
A person can go to Hell or Heaven depending on the kind of life he has lived. Everyone will be judged by his actions and no one will be able to escape punishment. And those who did good deeds will be rewarded for them. From the research of scientists, it became clear that people should not lose faith in the underworld of sinners and in the heavenly refuge for the righteous, since most likely they really exist.
Those who visited Hell realized what a terrifying fate they had prepared for themselves, and began to sincerely repent of their sins. Many trials await them there, including the test of loneliness; they will be deprived of all the pleasures that exist in Paradise.
Holy Scripture and understanding of the underworld
Holy Scripture helps to understand the genesis of hell.
In the Old Testament tests it was understood as the place of residence of the departed. Moreover, regardless of whether they sinned or lived righteously.
But the incarnation of Christ changed a lot, including in the understanding of the underworld and the habitat of the righteous. Let us remember the Gospel parable about the rich man and Lazarus. It gives a clear understanding that after death everyone will receive what they deserve: some, like a beggar, will fall “into Abraham’s bosom,” while others will face Gehenna and eternal torment.
What does Hell look like?
So what was described to scientists by those who experienced clinical death, first of all, it is worth assuming that Hell consists of several circles, since people’s sins are not the same, someone killed an animal or a person, and someone stole something small , then it is natural for the wave that after death they will not face the same punishment, and this explanation fits well with the theory according to which people who visited the next world described Hell differently.
Someone associated it with a city of ghosts, there are abandoned and dilapidated streets, they are littered with construction debris. The vegetation there is minimal and all dried up, you can only find tumbleweeds, there are many stray dogs in this city and almost no residents, and those that exist are silent and joyless. Everything around there is deserted and goosebumps run down the skin of those who see it - this is a gloomy and dull place. It is very windy in those places and only the wind howls.
Others described a completely different picture, there were some thorny plants without leaves, the area was all burnt out in the sun, there are no water sources in those places, there is drought and emptiness all around, the air is very heavy, nature resembles a desert, there is only dried up earth and not a single living soul. Dead silence is terrifying.
Hell. History of the idea and its earthly incarnations
The Alpina Non-Fiction publishing house presents the anthology “Hell. The History of an Idea and Its Earthly Incarnations,” compiled by American medievalist and historian of religion Scott Bruce (translator Sasha Moroz).
"Hell" will take you through three thousand years of eternal torment - from the Old Testament Sheol and Gehenna to the newest versions of hell on Earth. You will cross the Acheron River in the same boat with the hero Aeneas and set foot on the shores of Hades; meet the devil in the form of a giant thousand-armed monster, as a monk who lived in the 12th century imagined him; you will go through nine circles of Dante’s underworld, in which gluttons, liars, heretics, murderers and hypocrites endure eternal torment for their sins; You will witness the debate that roiled Victorian England as scientific evidence led people to question the idea of punishment after death. A unique anthology of the most important texts about hell, compiled by Fordham University professor Scott Bruce, shows us how the idea of posthumous retribution for earthly sins influenced - and continues to influence - the minds of people.
We invite you to read a fragment of a medieval Irish description of hell.
In the 8th century An unknown monk composed an epic about the sea voyage of Brendan, the legendary Irish saint, who, along with sixteen brothers, searched for the Promised Land. Irish monks in the early Middle Ages often went into self-imposed exile as an expression of religious devotion. These monks typically sought to find a new home in distant lands, such as Europe, while The Voyage of St. Brendan describes a saint who sailed on an unknown sea, encountering mysterious islands and various monsters along the way. Towards the end of the voyage, Brendan's ship approached the outskirts of hell, where the saint and his companions experienced three encounters: with hostile fiery giants (similar to the Cyclopes from Homer's Odyssey), who threw molten slag at Brendan's ship; with demons who threw one of his brothers from a huge volcano; and with Judas Iscariot, who was given respite from his suffering on a cliff on the high seas and spoke to Brendan during a storm. Drawing on ancient predecessors and the tradition of immram in pre-Christian Irish mythology, these descriptions of hell on a stormy sea, unusual for their time, were still popular with medieval readers.
After eight days, they saw an island not far away, all covered with stones and metal slag, inhospitable, devoid of vegetation, on which there were forges everywhere. The venerable father said to his companions: “Truly, brothers, this island promises us disaster, so I don’t even want to get close to it, but the wind is carrying us straight there.” As they hurried past, they heard a sound made by a blacksmith's bellows, like the whistle of a thrown stone, as well as thunder-like blows of hammers on iron and anvil. Hearing this, the venerable father strengthened himself and made the sign of the cross in all four directions, saying: “Lord Jesus Christ, deliver us from this island.”
The man of God had barely finished his prayer when one of the inhabitants of this island came out as if on some business. He was very shaggy, hot-tempered and gloomy. When he saw the servants of God sailing past the island, he returned to his forge. The man of God strengthened himself and said to the brothers: “Sons, raise the sail as high as possible and sail faster, and then we will pass this island.” As soon as he said this, the same barbarian approached the shore. He carried in his hands pliers with an incredibly large piece of red-hot flaming ore. He immediately threw this ore at the servants of the Lord, but did not kill them. She passed them at a distance of just over one stage. And in the place where she fell into the sea, everything began to boil, as if a fragment of a fiery mountain had fallen, and smoke poured out of the sea, as if from a fiery furnace.
When the man of God was far away, at a distance of one mile from that place, everyone who was on this island appeared on the shore, and each of them carried a piece of ore in his hands. One after another they threw it into the sea after the servants of God, constantly returning to their forges and heating the slag, and it seemed that the whole island was burning like a furnace, and the sea was heating up like a cauldron full of meat standing on a large fire. And throughout the day, deafening screams were heard from this island. Although he had already disappeared from sight, the brothers’ ears could hear the screams of the local inhabitants, and their nostrils smelled a strong stench. Then the holy father strengthened his monks with the words: “O soldiers of Christ, we will be zealous in the true faith and with spiritual weapons, for we are now within the bounds of the underworld. Therefore, watch and act wisely."
The next day they saw a mountain not far away in the north, rising in the middle of the Ocean. It was as if shrouded in fog, for smoke rose from its top. And then the wind began to blow them towards this island until the ship stopped not far from it. The mountain was so high that they could barely see the top. It was the color of coal and rose vertically, like walls.
One of the brothers, the last of the three monks who went to fetch Saint Brendan from his monastery, got off the ship and began to make his way to the foot of the mountain. Then he began to shout: “Woe is me, father, I have lost you, and I do not have the strength to return!” The brothers immediately set sail from this island and began to pray to the Lord: “Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us!” The venerable father, together with his companions, saw how the unfortunate man was taken away by demons to execution and how he burned among them, and said: “Woe to you, my son, for you have received a well-deserved punishment.”
Then a fair wind carried them south. When they turned around to look at the island, they saw that the smoke around the mountain had cleared, and it was spewing flames up to the sky and breathing it back in again, so that the whole island all the way to the sea turned into a bonfire.
And so, after Saint Brendan had sailed south for seven days, he noticed something in the sea whose outline resembled a man sitting on a rock, and in front of him a cloth the size of a cloak, hung between two iron forks. It moved along the waves, like a ship when it gets into a strong storm. Some brothers said it was a bird, others believed it was a ship. The man of God, hearing them discussing this among themselves, said: “Stop arguing and sail to this place.”
When Saint Brendan and his companions approached there and stopped, they saw a man sitting on a rock, rough and ugly. And when the waves hit him from all sides, they covered his head, and when the water sank down, the bare rock on which this unfortunate man was sitting was exposed. A piece of cloth was hung in front of him, sometimes the wind took it away, and sometimes whipped the unfortunate man in the eyes and face.
Blessed Brendan began to ask him who he was, and for what crime he was sent here, and how he deserved such a punishment. He said: “I am the most miserable Judas, the most wicked merchant. It is not because of my own merit that I am in this place, but because of the inexhaustible mercy of Jesus Christ. This is not the place I should have been, but I am here thanks to the generosity of the Redeemer on the occasion of the glorious day of the Lord’s Resurrection.” And then it was Sunday. “When I am here, it seems to me that I am in a sweet Paradise, for I am afraid of the torment that awaits me this evening. After all, day and night I burn in the middle of the mountain that you saw, like a piece of lead melted in oil. Leviathan is there with his retinue. I saw it when it consumed your brother. This is the destructive Underworld, emitting flames. This happens every time she swallows wicked souls. Here I experience relief from evening to evening every Sunday, as well as on the Nativity of the Lord until the Epiphany and from Easter to Pentecost and from the Purification to the Ascension. The rest of the days I am tortured in the abyss of the Underworld along with Herod, Pilate, Annas and Caiaphas. Therefore, I pray to you in the name of the Redeemer of this world, that you will have mercy on me and intercede for me before the Lord Jesus Christ, so that I may remain in this place until the sun rises, and in your presence the demons will not torment me and will not return me to my unlike fate, which I gained by paying an incredible price.” Saint Brendan told him: “It will be the will of the Lord. This night the demons will not torment you until the morning.”
Again the man of God asked him: “Why do you need this piece of cloth?” He replied: “I gave this piece to a leper when I was treasurer for the Lord. But what I gave was not mine, but it belonged to the Lord and his brothers. Therefore, he does not serve me as any consolation, but only as a great hindrance. I gave the iron forks on which the matter rests to the priests of the temple in order to support the cauldrons. The stone on which I am sitting is what I threw into a hole on the high road under the feet of passers-by before I became a disciple of the Lord!”
When the evening hour covered the Tethys Sea with shadow, suddenly an innumerable multitude of demons appeared on its surface, exclaiming: “Get away from us, man of God, for we cannot approach our brother until you move away from him, and we cannot appear before our lord until we return our brother. You are depriving us of our share. Don't defend him tonight." And the man of God said to them: “I am not protecting him, but the Lord Jesus Christ has granted him deliverance for this night until the morning.” The demons said: “How can you pronounce the name of the Lord over him, because it was he who betrayed Him!” And the man of God answered them: “I command you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ not to cause him any harm until the morning.”
How do Evangelical Christians differ from Catholics and Orthodox Christians?
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| 14 Oct 2017
How do Evangelical Christians differ from Catholics and Orthodox Christians?
Evangelical Christians are Christians who belong to one of several independent Christian churches. Evangelical Christians, Catholics and Orthodox Christians, adhere to the fundamental principles of Christianity. For example, they all accept the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, adopted by the first Council of the Church in 325. They all believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in His divine essence and future coming. All three schools accept the Bible as the Word of God and agree that repentance and faith are necessary to have eternal life and escape hell. According to Operation Peace, there are about a billion evangelical Christians, more than a billion Catholics and 250 million Orthodox Christians worldwide. However, the views of Catholics, Orthodox and Evangelical Christians on some issues differ. Evangelical Christians value above all else the authority of the Bible and the right of every person to understand it without the mediation of a special caste of priests. Orthodox and Catholics value their traditions above the authority of the Bible, and also claim that only the leaders of these Churches can interpret the Bible correctly. The main differences between these three faiths are rooted in this fundamental fact. Below are answers to some questions you may have about the differences between the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Churches, but first a brief history of evangelical Christians.
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How did the devil get to heaven?
— If in order to stay in paradise you must agree with the will of God, then how did the serpent-devil get into paradise, who actually walked around there (not yet cursed to crawl on his belly), not even embarrassed by the presence of God?
“Indeed, on the first pages of the Bible we read about how Adam and Eve talked with God in paradise, and this communication with Him “in a thin voice” was blissful for our first parents. But at the same time, there is someone in heaven who does not perceive heaven as such - this is the devil. And in paradise he tempts Adam and Eve with evil.
Theology does not talk about how the devil got to heaven.
There are suggestions that for the devil, who inhabits the serpent, perhaps this place was not yet literally closed, there was no finality in deciding his fate.
Because God, perhaps, expected a change from the devil. But the deception of a person by the devil entails the final curse of God against the devil. After all, before this we never hear words of curse towards him. Maybe God, as one who loves his creation, also gave him the opportunity to stay in paradise? But the devil did not take advantage of this opportunity for good.
House, Garden, City, Kingdom, Wedding Feast
In our country, the word “metaphor” is often associated with something non-specific and unrealistic. In fact, we are talking about things that are extremely concrete and real. You cannot explain to an African what snow is like without resorting to allegory, but you (unlike your interlocutor) know that snow is absolutely real, you remember how it melts in your hands and crunches under your feet. Paradise is absolutely real, extended, undeniable - more real than the world in which we live now - but we can only talk about it allegorically. Various metaphors can be useful because in our world, in our experience, there are glimpses of heaven - we live in a fallen world, but not in hell, and those good and good things that we know can serve as pointers to us.
For we know, says the apostle, that when our earthly house, this hut, is destroyed, we have from God a dwelling in heaven, a house not made with hands, eternal. That is why we groan, desiring to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling (2 Cor 5 :1,2). Paradise is our home; we are meant for him and he is meant for us. We do not go to a distant country; on the contrary, we are returning home. Sergei Yesenin has famous lines: “If the holy army shouts: / “Throw away Rus', live in paradise!” / I will say: “No need for paradise, / give me my homeland.” This may be great poetry, but it is a misconception of heaven. Paradise is our true Motherland, and what is sacred in Holy Rus' carries within itself reflections of paradise, points to paradise and will certainly be in paradise. It may be recalled that at the other end of Christian Europe, in the Celtic world, holy places, such as the famous monastery of Iona, were called "subtle" - places where the heavens "shine through" the earth's landscape - to those who have eyes to see them. The beauty of the universe - like the beauty of the Church - helps us, although “guessily, as through a dark glass,” to see reflections of paradise.
Scripture calls heaven a city—the heavenly Jerusalem. It must be said that the “city” in biblical times was not like a modern metropolis, where people, even crammed into a subway car, remain strangers to each other. The city was an organism, a unity in which people were bound together by bonds of mutual loyalty, common memory and common hope. The saved, as the prophet says, are written in the book to live in Jerusalem (Isaiah 4 :3). By entering the Church, we acquire heavenly citizenship; we have a hometown, where, as the apostle says, we are no longer strangers and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household (Eph 2:19 ).
Another image of heaven is a garden. The Persian word “paradise,” which has entered many languages to denote paradise, originally meant “a garden fenced on all sides.” The garden is full of plants, birds, and often domesticated animals. A garden is an image that speaks of nature. Poets, artists and composers have always tried to convey a sense of amazed awe at the beauty and majesty of the natural world. As someone said, trying to convey his feelings from visiting an ancient cathedral, “this is the kind of place where an atheist feels uneasy.” Nature is a huge cathedral, and when we enter the arches of the winter forest, we understand that we are in a temple. The beauty of nature points to the beauty beyond, as one man said when describing the view before him, “it’s like heaven for those who believe in heaven.” But in nature - as we see it now, in our fallen world - there is not only beauty, but also threat, parasites and stings, fangs and claws. Worse, man, in his relationship to nature, is more often a predator and robber than a gardener. But the Garden is not a wild forest into which the hunter enters to kill or be killed. In the Garden, the relationship between nature and man becomes harmonious. As the prophet Isaiah speaks of this world to come, Then the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid; and the calf, and the young lion, and the ox will be together, and a little child will lead them. And the cow will feed with the she-bear, and their cubs will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. And the child will play over the asp's hole, and the child will stretch out his hand into the snake's nest. They will not do evil or harm in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea (Isa. 11:6—9).
Another image of heaven is the image of the Kingdom. Nowadays, “kingdom” is often understood as “country”, “territory”. In Gospel times, it was about something else—dominion. We belong to the Kingdom of God if our King is Christ. As He himself says, the Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21). This is a reality in which Christ is Ruler and lawgiver, a reality in which His love reigns.
Christ speaks of heaven as a wedding feast. It can be difficult for the modern reader of Scripture to understand the meaning of these two images—the feast and the marriage. Let's start with the feast. In first-century Palestine, people perceived the value of food very differently; they ate in moderation - often forced, due to lack of food, sometimes voluntarily, taking on a fast. Now, when food is sold on every corner, we have lost consciousness of its value, and only church fasts can restore to us an understanding of what a feast is, a joyful acceptance of the abundance of God's gifts.
But food had another function, lost in modern society. Today we live in a fast food culture, often eating alone or on the go, and we don't care about the person we happen to share a table with at a fast food cafe. But for the people of that time, eating with someone was the deepest manifestation of human communication and community. Something similar has survived in our time, when the family gathers around the same table. All of us gathered at the table, family or close friends, share not only food, but also each other’s lives. The feast was the opposite of not only hunger, but also loneliness; it satisfied the need not only for food, but also for human brotherhood.
This especially applied to the wedding feast, when the love of a young man and a girl united not only them, but also their families - people became relatives to each other. Marriage was an expression of what Biblical Hebrew called chesed—faithful, unfailing love. The vague yearning of first love, the expectation of something great, was realized when the lovers became spouses and started a family. A happy family, full of love and care, is an image of heaven; The closeness and understanding that exists between loved ones represents an image - albeit imperfect and damaged - of that love that will be the air and light of the next century.
You can starve and thirst not only for food and drink, but also for love, truth, beauty, meaning. The Lord himself uses this image of thirst and hunger when he says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied (Matthew 5 :6). In Paradise the deepest thirst of the human heart will be quenched - we will come to the very Source of all goodness, beauty and truth, never to leave Him again.
Hell in Buddhism
Naraka is a Buddhist world where all the souls of sinful beings who spoiled their karma during life go. Unlike Christian and Muslim dogmas, hellish torment in Buddhist Naraka is not eternal, although it lasts a long time. After overcoming all the prepared trials in hell, the soul’s negative karma is exhausted, and it can be reborn in the world as a higher being.
Naraka is located under the mythical continent of Jambudvipa. Hell has the structure of a truncated pyramid and is divided into levels: eight cold, eight hot. For example, in the cold layers there is a hell of blisters, shaking from frost and a lotus hell with a snowstorm. And in the fiery layers there is a hell of screams, a hell of great heat and avichi - the deepest layer, where sinners face the most excruciating pain and agony, which will last until the purification of karma and rebirth. It is interesting that in Buddhism there is a doctrine of the infinity of worlds, which means that each of them has its own Naraka.
