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To: D-fendr; kosta50
Both West and East teach Hell as a state rather than a “place”.

Hmmm...that's not what NewAdvent teaches.

NewAdvent, the scriptures, the Fathers and the Creeds all indicates hell is far more than a "state".
8,006 posted on 10/02/2007 5:07:32 PM PDT by HarleyD
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To: HarleyD; kosta50

The idea of “place” connotes corporeal, specific location in time and space. I don’t think even Protestants theologians would agree with this attributes for Hell. So any use of “place” in describing Hell would have involve differences.

As far back as St. Acquinas:
“Incorporeal things are not in place after a manner known and familiar to us, in which way we say that bodies are properly in place; but they are in place after a manner befitting spiritual substances, a manner that cannot be fully manifest to us.” [St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Supplement, Q69, a1, reply 1]

And as recent as Pope John Paul II:
“In a theological sense however, hell is something else: it is the ultimate consequence of sin itself, which turns against the person who committed it. It is the state of those who definitively reject the Father’s mercy, even at the last moment of their life...

“Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy. This is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the truths of faith on this subject: “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell’”


8,008 posted on 10/02/2007 5:21:12 PM PDT by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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