I've discussed the reality of hell a number of times on this blog, and I've seen an increasing number of good discussions on others, where finally people are beginning to take this seriously again.
I wrote the following as a comment on one blog:
Remember that even the crassest sinning unbeliever is still existing within the Body of God while he is still alive. He is swimming in God's grace even if he ignores it, and people he does not know pray for him and his soul, and the Holy Spirit attempts to speak to him. Once in hell it is by definition the complete absence of God because a life of total denial does lock the door upon oneself in hell, where God truly is absent.
I'd like to add a little more to this, because I think it will help people to understand and avoid error.
Like I stated above, it's good to remember that just as not everyone has to be a farmer in order to obtain food, even the worst sinner and denier of God nonetheless gains benefit from God so long as the person is alive. For one, he has a guardian angel, whether he believes in that angel or not. The guardian angel still works to send the person into the way of grace, so long as he or she is alive. People who do believe and worship God create a society that even the worst sinner derives benefits from, if in no other way than sponging off of other people's charitable spirit. The Holy Spirit permeates life, and constantly breathes to bring the message of God to everyone who lives. Even if the sinful person ignores the Holy Spirit, including with the popular little bratty Internet denials of the Spirit, the Spirit does not stop bringing the potential for the life changing event in front of the steps of the living person. So a life is still lived within the beneficence of God, even if it is denied and sponged off of others.
At some point, of course, the person dies. Here is where people don't understand how a person's arrival in hell is truly self made. It's not like God is administering the "uber" punishment. God is giving the person what he or she most ardently pursued in life - an eternal existence without God. So away goes the guardian angel. Away goes the devout society around him or her that brought second hand graces to the sinner. Away goes the whispering of the Holy Spirit in the person's ear. And away goes the feeling of numinosity of life that affects even the non-believer, because life within God no longer exists in hell. Hell is the place where there is no presence of God whatsoever. People don't realize the horror of it because they don't realize how much they DO dwell within God, even when they are in the midst of the most horrendous, horrible, cruel and selfish lifestyle. It really drives it home that they don't know what they have till it's gone. When one falls into hell one then truly understands how much of God was within reach throughout their sinful lives. That ought to make everybody's hair stand on end. That is why the physical punishment is so unbearable, because the fuel for that is the realization of how it feels to exist eternally but outside of God's embrace. There is not a trace of heavenly being in hell - not because God is being a big meanie, but because hell is the place where those who lived without God finally achieve the perfection that they thought they had all on their own - a place of being perfectly and totally without God. That is why Jesus is very hard and plain about how a person should cut off even a body part off their own living body if they are leading a child to sin. Jesus was trying to get across the very miserable and unbearable eternal state of existance of being without God for those who lived as though they were their own gods.
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