Hell
Hell,
in theology, any place or state of punishment and
privation for human souls after death. More strictly,
the term is applied to the place or state of eternal
punishment of the damned, whether angels
or human beings. The doctrine of the existence of
hell is derived from the principle of the necessity
for vindication of divine justice, combined with
the human experience that evildoers do not always
appear to be punished adequately in their lifetime.
Belief in a hell was widespread in antiquity and
is found in most religions of the world today.
Among
the early Teutons the term hell signified a place
under the earth to which the souls of all mortals,
good or bad, were consigned after death; it thus
denoted a conception similar to that of the Hebrew
Sheol. Among the early Jews, as in other Semitic
nations, existence in Sheol was regarded as a shadowy
continuation of earthly life where all of the problems
of earthly life came to an end. Later the dictum
of the prophet Isaiah that the king of Babylon
shall be "brought down to Sheol, to the depths of
the Pit" (14:15) gave rise to the concept of various
depths of Sheol, with corresponding degrees of reward
and punishment.
Early
Christian writers used the term hell to designate
| 1 |
the
limbo of infants, where the unbaptized enjoy a natural
bliss but are denied the supernatural bliss of the vision
of God; |
| 2 |
the
limbo of the fathers, in which the souls of the just
who died before the advent of Christ await their redemption,
and which is mentioned in the Apostles' Creed, "He [Christ]
descended into hell"; |
| 3 |
a
place of purgation from minor offenses leading inevitably
to heaven and |
| 4 |
the
place of punishment of Satan
and the other fallen
angels and of all mortals who die unrepentant of
serious sin. The last of these interpretations has the
greatest acceptance today. |
-
Pic -
Italian
painter Luca Signorelli completed this fresco, The
Damned Cast into Hell, between 1499 and 1504. It
is in the cathedral in Orvieto, Italy.
|
The
duration of the punishments of hell has been a subject
of controversy since early Christian times. The
3rd century Christian writer and theologian Origen
and his school taught that the purpose of these
punishments was purgatorial, and that they were
proportionate to the guilt of the individual. Origen
held that, in time, the purifying effect would be
accomplished in all, even devils; that punishment
would ultimately cease; and that everyone in hell
eventually would be restored to happiness. This
doctrine was condemned by the Second Council of
Constantinople in 553, and a belief in the eternity
of the punishments in hell became characteristic
of both the Orthodox church and the Roman Catholic
church. It also passed into the creeds of the churches
of the Reformation but the doctrine of hell was
rejected by many of the more radical thinkers of
the Renaissance.
In
modern times the belief in physical punishment after death
and the endless duration of this punishment has been rejected
by many. The question about the nature of the punishment of
hell is equally controversial. Opinions range from holding
the pains of hell to be no more than the remorse of conscience
to the traditional belief that the "pain of loss" (the consciousness
of having forfeited the vision of God and the happiness of
heaven) is combined with the "pain of sense" (actual physical
torment).
"Hell,"
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