The Existence of Hell
One theological idea that I always struggled with is the thought that Hell is possible.
Most folk who believe in Hell will define it as your consciousness existing with the absence of God. A Godless existence.
That, however, is a strange notion, being that God is existence itself. Nothing can exist outside of God.
So if God is existence itself, then Hell is seemingly impossible unless God created it, which those who believe in Hell maintain God did not. They claim it to be a creation of the souls sent there, those who they also say lack the power to create such a place.
M. Scott Peck says that the devil (the personification of Hell) is a spirit of pure unreality. Pure unreality is all that which is composed of prestige, things that hinge on a status mindset.
Given all this, the best definition of Hell that I have ever heard, and I forget exactly where I heard it, is the following. That Heaven and Hell are the same places. Both Heaven and Hell are a room that contains a table filled with food that keeps on replenishing itself. And the difference between Heaven and Hell is that in Hell, everyone in the room is scared that the food won’t replenish itself, and so they try to grab as much food off of the table as they can; and as I said before, Heaven is the same room, with the same table of food that keeps on replenishing itself, but in Heaven, everyone, by God’s grace, can see that the food on the table will replenish itself, so they spend their time feeding one another.
Maybe we can make our world more like Heaven. It’s just a matter of opening our eyes and seeing that we’re all here together, and things will replenish themselves, so it makes sense to share.
