Does God or Satan torture in hell?
- Thread starter dog8food
- Start date
- Status
arapahoepark
Puritan Board Doctor
Hell is God's wrath, not the absence of God. That is some sort of ooey gooey, squishy, lovey dovey, evangelicalism and its recent doctrine.
dog8food
Puritan Board Freshman
So how then is anyone cast out of God's presence if he is present in hell?
C. M. Sheffield
Puritan Board Graduate
The Bible speaks nothing of "torture" in hell. It rather uses the word "torment." Those consigned to hell are tormented with fire and brimstone (Rev. 14:10).
Warren
Puritan Board Freshman
The Devil won't have any power in the lake of fire. Revelation 20 promises the former things will be thrown into the fire and tormented, and they'll pass away, satan among them. The accuser's power is to accuse and deceive, which won't serve him in hell.
People will choose sin over life, but at the end they'll have to bow to Christ Jesus anyway, and in their unconverted hearts they'll confess to Jesus they deserve hell... This pierces pretty deep.
People will choose sin over life, but at the end they'll have to bow to Christ Jesus anyway, and in their unconverted hearts they'll confess to Jesus they deserve hell... This pierces pretty deep.
Warren
Puritan Board Freshman
God's present, because He's present everywhere, but that's different from dwelling, fellowship, or abiding with souls in hell. God dwells with men in the New Jerusalem. Those in hell are tormented by the wrath of God, Where their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched (Mark 9), but His Spirit doesn't strive with them.
Peairtach
Puritan Board Doctor
When we use the expression "the presence of God" we are talking about His presence to bless.
God is present everywhere, but when we talk about being forsaken by God, we are talking about the absence of His presence to bless.
God is present in Hell, but not present to bless, so those in Hell are cut off from His comfortable presence.
E.g.
Juan
The Spirit upheld Christ as he continued to do the Father's will, but in the midst of that He experienced Godforsakenness on behalf of His people.
The word "torture" may suggest the unjust infliction of pain, or the infliction of pain in order to obtain some unworthy goal or - in extremis - worthy goal. It is not an appropriate word for the experience of God's wrath in Hell.
God is present everywhere, but when we talk about being forsaken by God, we are talking about the absence of His presence to bless.
God is present in Hell, but not present to bless, so those in Hell are cut off from His comfortable presence.
E.g.
Juan
The Spirit upheld Christ as he continued to do the Father's will, but in the midst of that He experienced Godforsakenness on behalf of His people.
The word "torture" may suggest the unjust infliction of pain, or the infliction of pain in order to obtain some unworthy goal or - in extremis - worthy goal. It is not an appropriate word for the experience of God's wrath in Hell.
Ed Walsh
Puritan Board Graduate
One of my favorite questions from Fisher's Catechism is the following (Q. 40):
Note: Question 39 is for context.
Q. 39. How is he [God] present in heaven?
A. By the most bright and immediate displays of his glory; all the
inhabitants of the upper sanctuary seeing him as he is, and enjoying
him without interruption for ever, 1 John 3:2; Psalm 16:11.
Q. 40. How is he present in hell?
A. In a way of tremendous power and justice, upholding the
damned in their being, that they may lie under the strokes of his
vindictive wrath for evermore, Psalm 90:11; Matt. 25:46.
God is omnipresent, so there is nowhere where he is not, understood in that general sense.
Rev 14:10 "The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb"
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
This question is where the light of the Reformed shines upon all in Catholic orthodoxy. Jesus was forsaken in His humanity and not in His divine essence. This distinction is essential though we dare not separate the humanity from His divinity.
Last edited:
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Assessor
When we are talking about hell, do we mean before or after the Great Judgment?
In any case, hell isn't a torture chamber. God is "present" but not to bless (as others have said).
In any case, hell isn't a torture chamber. God is "present" but not to bless (as others have said).
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
I would think the place is the same though that place will be populated with the resurrected bodies of the souls who are there now.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Assessor
Speaking of "place," is hell currently located within our space-time cosmos?
D
Deleted member 6112
Guest
If souls have localities, then it would have to be a place, no?
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
Only God is outside of time and space.
D
Deleted member 6112
Guest
The souls in the current intermediate (pre-final judgment) hell are tormented by God. Fire is a picture of this torment (souls can't be burned because they are immaterial).
After the judgment, the damned will be tormented in body and soul by God for all of eternity. I don't think the Scripture requires that fire be involved in that bodily torment, but I wouldn't rule it out.
After the judgment, the damned will be tormented in body and soul by God for all of eternity. I don't think the Scripture requires that fire be involved in that bodily torment, but I wouldn't rule it out.
Peairtach
Puritan Board Doctor
He experienced in His human nature what it was to be forsaken by God i.e. experience God's wrath and the absence of His comfortable presence, but even in the midst of this awful experience on behalf of all His sinful people, His human nature, because He was without sin and God delighted in Him, was mysteriously upheld for the task - just as with all that Christ did - by the Holy Spirit.
Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk 2
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Assessor
So "hell" is in our universe?
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
Where else could it be? It is only logical that anything that was made exists within the universe God made.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Assessor
So, it is logically possible that if I dig deep enough I will find hell?
I am not being snarky. I am just fleshing out a position.
Peairtach
Puritan Board Doctor
Are Heaven and Hell in our universe, or in a different dimension - whatever that would mean?
E.g.Propositional language is used of Heaven
Whether or not, Heaven is clearly a good place to be and Hell a bad place to be.
Maybe a new thread should be started on where Heaven and Hell are, as it goes beyond the OP.
E.g.Propositional language is used of Heaven
Whether or not, Heaven is clearly a good place to be and Hell a bad place to be.
Maybe a new thread should be started on where Heaven and Hell are, as it goes beyond the OP.
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
I think hell would be any place God put it...maybe behind the moon? Also even if you found the place I do not think you would see the souls there because they are In my most humble opinion invisible to the eye.
arapahoepark
Puritan Board Doctor
So was that the mission of Apollo 13? Did they succeed?
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Assessor
My point was that if you say hell is in our space-time universe, then you are committed to saying it is "logically" possible (albeit physically implausible) that we could discover it.
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
I just edited my post above that addresses this...."Also even if you found the place I do not think you would see the souls there because they are In my most humble opinion invisible to the eye."
2Ths.1:9, "...punished with everlasting destruction [away] from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power."
Scripture's various descriptions of the estate of the damned are not intended to supply men with a "brochure version" of the "place of [their] torment," Lk.16:28. By many fear-and-disgust inducing depictions, the godly (and those who would be) are warned from the brink and the broad way of destruction.
Does Is.66:24 teach that hell is close enough to heaven men may see it from a certain "balcony" off the side of heaven's Temple?
Descriptions of the afterlife--both heaven and hell--are accommodated to our present frame of understanding. The same was true regarding Israel's hope in the coming Messianic age: it was couched in terms of the old order, but with hints that the old wineskins would burst if forced to contain the new reality.
My sense of 2Ths.1:9 is that of an almighty, everlasting SHOVE. "Get away from Me!" Think of a place that is as far away from God as possible; and then think of that place receding still further, forever receding into the distance. At the same time, the wrath of God (his presence) is pushing that "place" and the people there away, away, away, away, dead, deader, deadest, still more dead, gone, and ever goner....
This is not the only way to think of hell. I favor Jonathan Edwards' description of hell as a place of "perfect malice and contention." There will be no parties, no fun, no friendships in the cold alienation, misery, and dissolution there.
Scripture's various descriptions of the estate of the damned are not intended to supply men with a "brochure version" of the "place of [their] torment," Lk.16:28. By many fear-and-disgust inducing depictions, the godly (and those who would be) are warned from the brink and the broad way of destruction.
Does Is.66:24 teach that hell is close enough to heaven men may see it from a certain "balcony" off the side of heaven's Temple?
Descriptions of the afterlife--both heaven and hell--are accommodated to our present frame of understanding. The same was true regarding Israel's hope in the coming Messianic age: it was couched in terms of the old order, but with hints that the old wineskins would burst if forced to contain the new reality.
My sense of 2Ths.1:9 is that of an almighty, everlasting SHOVE. "Get away from Me!" Think of a place that is as far away from God as possible; and then think of that place receding still further, forever receding into the distance. At the same time, the wrath of God (his presence) is pushing that "place" and the people there away, away, away, away, dead, deader, deadest, still more dead, gone, and ever goner....
This is not the only way to think of hell. I favor Jonathan Edwards' description of hell as a place of "perfect malice and contention." There will be no parties, no fun, no friendships in the cold alienation, misery, and dissolution there.
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
Scripture teaches the reprobate get a body in the Resurrection, and though we have no map or brochure other than the logical and necessary inference of such we can deduce it is a place.
True.
But what sort of "place" is it? Let's consider my picturesque description of 2Ths.1:9. Imagine an inflated beach ball; let's make it represent "reality." At the center is heaven, and God in his blessed presence. Get away from Me! saith the Lord, and the wicked go hence, to the periphery--an ever expanding, ever departing limit.
So, the "place" for the wicked is the skin of that beach-ball analogy. And it's a lake of fire. And it's a rotting pile of garbage. And it's close enough that spoken conversation can be had by souls far separated by an unbridgeable chasm. And it's a perfectly silent chamber.
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
Of course I agree Rev. Buchanan and only wished to convey that hell is a physical place somewhere just as much as heaven is somewhere where Our Lord Jesus resides in a physical body today.
- Status
