Years ago at the seminary I had a priest take the exact opposite view. He said that these are so opposed to God that being in His presence would burn more than anything else.
An interesting take on it, but I believe God is not malicious and would not force His love/presence on anyone who did not want it unconditionally. On a side note, David wrote in the Psalms about the presence of God being everywhere, including Hell.
Psalm 139:8 "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there."
This may be a slightly more nuanced view that warrants some thought.
I would take issue with the idea that people can be ‘so opposed to God’. How can we define this? Is there a level of disobedience to God’s Word, or is this simply the rejection of his grace through Christ? We must bear in mind that in the face of God’s judgement, we all deserve to perish in hell. It is by grace alone we find salvation.
God is the locus of all good, and he is undeniably omnipresent in our world. No matter how much a human being suffers in this universe, he is surrounded by God. This is what makes it hard to imagine a place without God’s love, because we have no way of experiencing such a place in this life, no matter how terrible the world may seem.
I think it therefor plausible that the ultimate state of bliss would be as close to God as possible, and the ultimate state of suffering would be as far from God as possible. Note that this doesn’t necessarily interfere with God’s omnipresence, since we are talking and spirit states rather than locations here. The reason why it is logical not to capitalize heaven or hell is because they do not possess the properties of actual ‘places’ as we understand that word. Heaven and hell do not have county lines where they end, neither in space nor time, whereas you can actually leave the location of ‘New York’, and New York has a finite existence in time, ceasing to exist at the end of the world or sooner.
Now, while I would say I have a problem with believing we humans are burned in Gods’ presence, there may be merit to that applying to fallen angels. We simply don’t know enough about these angelic realms to say definitively, but notice that Michael in the Book of Jude responds to satan by saying “The Lord rebuke you!”. We can only conclude God has a definite negative effect on these entities.
Here is a most interesting verse to look at in Matthew. Jesus sends the 12 disciples bearing his message to ‘the lost people of Israel’, with the power of miracles as a sign of the Son, the prophetic savior.
“If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.”
This is very telling. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in an act of divine judgement for their sins. Sins so grievous, there had been an outcry against them in the land. The people there were undoubtedly the worst on earth. God’s punishment upon them is described as such.
“Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.”
The cities have been burned to nothing, vaporized. Why, after such absolute destruction in response to great sin, does Jesus say that the judgement for those who will not hear His message will be even more unbearable than the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah? Why is rejecting the message of the Son worse than the egregious acts of the cities God laid waste to?
I think what this is telling us is that God’s judgement for our sins could take the form of all manner of horrible fates, from being burned with fire to being swallowed by the earth. However if grace is offered by God and rejected, our judgement is even less bearable, for we have turned our backs on God, and chosen to be without Him. The worst fate one can face is an eternity removed from God because we refused to hear the message of the Son.
And you believed him???
After these people get a taste of hell, there is not a single person who would chose hell over heaven/Jesus...
I believe in a literal heaven and hell. If I’m wrong - I lose nothing - if you’re wrong - you lose everything. Choose wisely!