Large Christian cathedrals sometimes have paintings and representations of the horrors of hell. Some are in full view of the worshippers as they come before God. Here are some examples - ‘A Damned Woman Carried off by the Devil’, ‘The Last Judgement’, ‘Christ Cursing the Lost’, ‘The Tortures of the Damned’– and a woodcarving found in Worcester Cathedral – ‘Two Devils Roasting a Soul over Hell Fire’. These are just a selection of examples of how hell has been portrayed.
Being tortured without escape has to be the logical view of punishment, if we believe we have a soul that cannot ever be destroyed, an immortal soul. It means to be about to die of the torment, only to be regenerated by the fire for further torment, with this round of suffering continuing without end or release.
The human mind cannot grasp the concept of ‘endless’ pain and yet this doctrine is taught widely. The human heart rebels against such teaching. If you were to believe this, the teaching would destroy you as you thought of your loved one in these circumstances – tortured alive by God without end in a place that He had designed specifically for this purpose. This view of the future of the sinner is taught widely by the churches that came out of the Reformation and fellowships of Christian believers. In the Anglican community, the subject is under discussion. The hellfire preachers of the past used the topic as weapon to make people Christians through fear. Eternal hellfire is a continuing debate. Those who teach it believe it is taught in the Bible, and those who do not believe it, are seen as weakening Biblical teaching to make Christianity easier.
So the question is - What in fact does happen to sinners?
These people are variously described as the wicked, the unrighteous, the damned, the evil ones or the lost. There are four teachings found in Christianity. |
