Hell: It’s Your Choice

Hell is a choice. As St. Augustine famously pointed out, God created us without our consent, but he will not save us without our consent.

By Deacon Frederick Bartels
14 June 2024

God Honors Freedom

With the view in mind that hell is a choice people make, some explain the reality of hell by saying that God cannot force people to choose him. But that view is inaccurate. We do not say that God cannot force people to choose him, but rather that God chooses not to force people to love him. It seems reasonable to say, given his omnipotence, that God could force people to choose him. However, doing that would seem to conflict with his very nature, which is love.

It would also conflict with God’s justice. For justice is exercised in giving to others their proper due. It would be unjust to force one person to love another, if it were even possible to do so, like making them drink a magic love potion.

Forcing men to love God would also conflict with human freedom. God created us with the freedom to choose to love him or reject him. He honors that freedom. With that gift, there exists the terrible danger of choosing against him, one which can have eternal consequences played out in the reality of hell. And yet love, as we all know, cannot be forced. It must be freely accepted and freely reciprocated to qualify as love. Forced love is nothing other than slavery.

What about Grace?

Doesn’t God give everyone grace and, if so, would that not move everyone, without exception, to love God?

It’s true to say that God gives people the actual grace they need to repent of sin and turn to him, for he “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). However, this grace does not overpower or subdue human freedom. Each person must nevertheless freely choose God. As is often said, grace builds on human nature, it doesn’t destroy it.

What about predestination?

What does predestination mean? Does God predestine some to heaven and others to hell, as John Calvin taught? Or does predestination mean something different? Paul mentions it here:

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom 8:29-30).

In simple terms, God wills all men to share in his own blessed life (cf. CCC 1). He desires (predestines) everyone to be saved. Those he calls are justified by the free gift of grace through faith in Christ (Eph 2:4-8). Those who cooperate with God’s grace and persevere to the end will be saved and glorified.

However, again, that does not mean God subdues man’s freedom and the ability to choose for or against his life and love. He did not create us as incarnate robots governed by programming.

As the Catechism teaches, “To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of ‘predestination’, he includes in it each person’s free response to his grace” (CCC 600).

Predestination, then, does not mean God forces people into heaven, nor does it mean God forces people into hell. The choice of either is always up to us.

What about Hell?

How do people end up in hell?

There are many warnings in the New Testament about the loss of the kingdom of God and the reality of hell. Jesus clearly warned about this danger, as when he spoke about “Gehenna” and the “unquenchable fire.” He gave us these warnings out of love.

People don’t accidentally find themselves in hell, as if they made some mistake and thus were unwittingly stricken from the kingdom of God. It’s something they choose through mortal sin, which is itself a rejection of God. The Catechism says this about it:

“Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back” (CCC 1861).

Does God Inflict Vengeance on Those in Hell?

We should also avoid thinking about hell in terms of God inflicting vengeance on people and tormenting them for all eternity, as if the punishment (pains) of hell were inflicted from without. On the contrary, the pains of hell arise from within, from the very nature of sin, as a consequence of the personal choice to reject God:

“These two punishments [both purgatory and hell] must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin” (CCC 1472).

But What is Hell?

It must be admitted that in many ways it’s a mystery. Nevertheless, we know it exists, that it’s an eternal state, and that it’s not going to be satisfying, to say the least.

“The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.” The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs” (CCC 1035).

The chief suffering in hell, then, is eternal separation from God, who is alone the source of all love, goodness, happiness, truth, and beauty.

Use Freedom Wisely and Responsibly

Finally, the reality of hell calls all men to responsibly use their freedom in view of their eternal destiny. Life is not a game. We are not here to enjoy every pleasure, please ourselves, deceive others for our own gain, and follow every whim or fancy. If anything, the gospels teach us that.