Is it possible that hell is empty? Theologians have a problem with this.

Some believers have a theory that hell is empty. They claim that God, in His great mercy and love, will certainly not send anyone there and that we will all end up in heaven.

In this context, some also perceived the Pope’s words quoted at the beginning of the text. However, priest Ľubomír Hlad, who teaches dogmatic theology at the Roman Catholic Cyrilo-Method Faculty of Theology of the Comenius University, perceives the Pope’s words as his desire for hell to be empty. “I don’t feel that he holds the thesis about the non-existence of hell,” he stated.

Štefan Paločko does not think that the Pope’s statement in the TV show deserves significant attention. “The mere fact that a person holds the office of pope does not add to his theological education or character in any way. Therefore, in his private statements, the theological significance of his statements does not exceed his natural human dispositions,” said Polačko.

Even the revelation and seeing God’s love face to face does not necessarily mean for the human self (soul) a willingness to bow to God and love him.

Peter Olas perceives the statements of Francis in the sense that the Pope likes to play with the idea that God wants and knows how to save us and that he invents all kinds of ways to get us from the path of sin to the path to him. “It is an expression of great hope in God’s goodness,” thinks the biblical scholar.

So is it possible that hell is empty, or that there are only devils and demons?

The theologian Hlad says that this topic has been discussed since the time of Origen (he lived at the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries), who advocated the teaching of the so-called apokatastasis, i.e. about the restoration of everything at the end of time, the reconciliation of everything with God, including the fallen angels.

This theory was revived by the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1985), when he says that the Son descends into “the finality of death, stripped of all power, completely powerless, thus accepting death together with sinners, thereby showing solidarity with people who have rejected communion with God and other people and thus empties hell”.

Ľubomír Hlad views this theory – which has its positives and justifications, but also weak points – as Balthasar’s opinion.

It underlines the universal salvific will of God and the fact that salvation and damnation are not two equal possibilities for man. Thus, eternal salvation represents the will of God, while damnation is a human possibility.

The weakest point of this theory is that it did not allow for the real possibility of human downfall, the will to live and act against God, or to live in separation from him, which is not sufficiently in line with biblical anthropology. However, according to Ľubomír Hlad, God respects the free will of man in all his power.

“In this context, it should be noted that through sin and radical rejection of God’s love, a person destroys himself to such an extent that at the end of his life, he is incapable of loving either God or his neighbor,” the theologian explains.

The Czech Cardinal Špidlík used an example for this, where he says that we know from human experience that if, for example, someone betrays his spouse and he shows love to him despite everything, then the sinner can hate even these expressions of love.

It is similar in the case of God. “Even the revelation and seeing God’s love face to face does not necessarily mean for the human self (soul) a willingness to lean towards God and love him,” said the cardinal.

If there were no hell, God would deny man’s free will

Štefan Paločko from the Greek Catholic Faculty of Theology recalls that Christ taught that hell exists, that it is eternal, and that there are people who leave this world in a state of grave sin.

“These facts cannot be disputed if we want to remain in harmony with what Christ left us. The theory according to which no one is finally in hell would necessarily have to be built on the assumption that no person has left this world in actual grievous sin.”

Being in heaven and at the same time definitively preferring something temporary and ephemeral is an internal contradiction.

According to the Greek Catholic priest, the idea that someone who died in a grave sin, for which he did not confess or at least did not sincerely repent, would be saved from hell, results from a misunderstanding of the nature of sin.

Sin is a state in which a person prefers a created thing over God himself, which can be temporary enjoyment, relationship, possessions, awards, or earthly life.

“Being in heaven, that is, enjoying harmony with God and communion with him, and at the same time definitively preferring something temporary and transitory to God as a source of eternal happiness is internally contradictory. Such a possibility is internally excluded,” explains theologian Paločko.

If we were to accept the theory that everyone will eventually end up in heaven, including people who reject God, according to the theologian, this would mean that God arbitrarily decides who will be in heaven and hell. Although he indeed desires to have all people there.

“But the treasure of faith, as well as common sense confirming the free will of man, teach us that the decision of who ends up in heaven and who in hell depends on the decision of man and not of God. If a person’s free choice is to be real, the alternative of eternal damnation must also be real. Without this alternative, the possibility of free choice would be just a fiction for God,” adds Paločko.

Jesus also spoke about damned people, the saints also saw them

According to Paloček, we cannot even theoretically think that no person left this world with a grave sin or in rebellion against God, because even Jesus speaks of the damned and describes their state of suffering.

This would mean that Jesus’ warning about hell would be just an unrealistic scare, similar to parents scaring disobedient children with non-existent ghosts. “Such an interpretation, however, would be quite undignified, even infantile, and would suggest a very primitive practice to Christ.”

Definitive rejection of God is a real possibility, and many angels who are at a higher level of intelligence than humans have done so, despite knowing that they will be damned.

In this context, biblical scholar Peter Olas adds that the people we would like to send there quickly may not be in hell at all. “It can be an expression that God sees things even more completely differently and more mercifully than we do. Nevertheless, all of Jesus’ words from the Gospel about the existence of hell and the need for our own decisions about where we want to belong forever apply.

Ľubomír Hlad states that even though the church holds the doctrine of the possibility of damnation, it has never said of anyone that they are in hell. On the contrary, the church speaks of those who are glorified in heaven.

Hunger reminds us of a quote by Cardinal Korec, who said that damnation is not the most suitable kerygmatic topic, i.e. the topic for the first proclamation, but it is also necessary to talk about this tragic possibility that a person has, which makes this topic an impetus for responsibility, searching, authentic living human life.

The Last Judgment by Michelangelo. 

Finally, some saints also had visions of hell. For example, the holy sister Faustína Kovalská described the horrors she saw there.

“I, Sister Faustína, was by God’s order in the abysses of hell so that I could testify to souls that hell exists! I can’t talk about it now, but I have a command from God to put it in writing.

The Satans therefore hated me, but at God’s command, they had to obey me. What I wrote is only a faint shadow of everything I saw there. And I knew one thing in particular: in hell, there are the most souls who did not believe that hell exists!”

Children in Fatima also mentioned seeing hell. Sister Lucia described it this way:

“The Virgin Mary spread her hands and a glow burst from her fingers, which seemed to have pierced the depths of the earth. A reflection of radiance seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw a sea of ​​fire, devils, and souls, as if they had been translucent coals of a black or bronze color, but with human appearance.

Souls floated in this conflagration, lifted aloft with flames, but then falling again on all sides, like sparks in great fires.

They were without weight and balance. Screams, moans of pain, and despair caused terror and trembling. Under the influence of this vision, I cried out in despair. All the bystanders heard it. Devils were distinguished by having the terrible and ugly features of terrible and unknown animals. But they were translucent like hot coals. We were so frightened that we raised our eyes to the Virgin Mary and begged for help.”

The Virgin Mary said to the children: “You have seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners go.”

According to the teachings of not only the Catholic Church, hell is real, and, unfortunately, according to several mystical visions, it is not empty either. As priest, Peter Fogaš pointed out in his blog in 2012, “While our ancestors were preached about hell often and colorfully, we are hardly told about it at all”.