Which version of hell would be most "just"?

[Blue3]

Which version of hell would be most "just"?



Hell as a place of fiery eternal torture, cast out of God's presence, whether it's uninformly pure torment or something along the lines of Dante with punishments related to but much worse than the person's chief sins

Hell as a place of fiery eternal suffering and shame, being unable to tolerate God's presence and the presence of all you've hurt as all your inner thoughts and secret dreams and hidden actions are exposed naked to all

Hell as a place of cold, dark, eternal separation from God, all others, the senses, and the source of life and goodness and love

Hell as the complete and final destruction of the soul

Hell as reliving your life for eternity, but all future times only passively without free will, and directly feeling all the suffering that your actions or lack of action cause to others, near and far, sooner and later

Hell as being an invisible, powerless spirit that can't communicate with or see other spirits, or even have enough power to move yourself, trapped within your decaying body and eventually blown around by winds and waves and fires, not sensing anything beyond your immediate surroundings, witnessing the slow decay and destruction of the physical world and universe you've become bound to forever

Some other form of Hell, or combination of the above?

[Ferguson97]

No version of an infinite Hell is just.

[Skill and Chance]

No version of an infinite Hell is just.

Not even pure "when you're dead, you're dead" annihilationism with only the righteous/saved/elect experiencing anything at all after Earthly death/some momentary final judgment?  Obviously, I don't decide the matter, but that personally feels like the most just version of hell to me.  You either accept or reject the gift of eternal life.  The end. 

[Adam_Trask]

My opinion on the most just version – and at the risk of being heretical, the true nature – of hell is not described in the poll.

I think the most just hell is  more akin to purgatory than to eternal damnation. I believe in apokatastasis – the idea that all things will be redeemed and returned to their original perfection.


I think I get here through a recognition of the inevitability of sin. To me, we're all living a kind of chiastic life. When we're born, we're moving out from God. But that in our lives, or through our death, we begin turning back towards him.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

No version of an infinite Hell is just.

Catherine of Genoa's Treatise on Purgatory actually goes out of its way to specify that she doesn't think the experience of being in hell is subjectively as bad as it could be, because an infinite amount of torment for an eternal amount of time doesn't strike her as compatible with the idea of a merciful God.

[afleitch]

An infinite hell would be grossly disproportionate to whatever actions in whatever timescale a person has committed to earn that punishment.

It also makes god less forgiving or rehabilitative than humans.

Pain/loss experienced exclusively in a place of pain/loss lacks context as to become meaningless. Ditto heaven which in some interpretation is nothing more than a perpetual junkie fix.