Talk:Christian views on Hell

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A place?[edit]

Christian_views_on_Hell#Place The article said, "The Catholic Church has not defined whether hell can be considered a place: "The Church has decided nothing on this subject." I adjusted this earlier and recently it was reverted back to this misleading application taken out of context. However this appears very misleading-Why? 1) the subheading is "Name and PLACE of Hell" The paragraph this quote is in starts off by saying, "Where is hell?"-Thus the info in this section and paragraph is about the LOCATION of hell. Thus the quote in context says this, "Hence theologians generally accept the opinion that hell is really within the earth. The Church has decided nothing on this subject; hence we may say hell is a definite place; but where it is, we do not know." What can we conclude for the above? The the entire gist of this is about the LOCATION of hell-that is what the church has "decided nothing on" not the existence, as the article was saying before I adjusted it. Yes is good to differentiate between church and theologians but this quote is clearly about the location of hell. Thus I will correct it once again. Johanneum (talk) 16:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

You are right in saying that Hontheim did not, as the article wrongly stated, say that the Church has decided nothing on whether hell can be considered a place. What Hontheim said is that the Church has decided nothing on whether "hell is really within the earth". So the article did not report Hontheim accurately. Esoglou (talk) 20:50, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks it looks a lot better! Just wondering if the official position as express in Catechism should be added, let the reader decide then if literal or not: "Those are punished in hell who die in mortal sin; they are deprived of the vision of God and suffer dreadful torments, especially that of fire, for all eternity...The souls in hell are beyond all help...The souls in hell do not have supernatural faith. They believe, however, the truths revealed by Almighty God, not with divine faith, but because they cannot escape the evidence of God's authority...The punishment of hell is eternal." A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Revised Edition of the Baltimore Catechism, St. Anthony Guild Press, New Jersey (1949), pp144, 145 Johanneum (talk) 13:57, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think this quotation says anything about whether hell is best thought of as a place or as a state in which a person could find himself or herself. Perhaps it could be used elsewhere in the article, but a local, albeit national, catechism such as the Baltimore Catechism is less appropriate for an international ambience like Wikipedia than a catechism for the whole Church, such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Esoglou (talk) 14:14, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
The idea that Hell is a huge system of caverns located somewhere below the upper crust of the Earth, and where souls are tormented in eternal flames, tortured by devils, vultures and snakes etc ceased being viable with the advent of modern geology and physics. You won't find too many theologians this side of 1900 who have seriously tried to reconcile those "realistic Hell" notions with the findings of modern science. 83.251.170.27 (talk) 04:11, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

The material in this section is good. But I want to shift it around, because a section giving the Catholic view should start with the most-current and highest-authority sources in the Catholic system (i.e. Pope, Catechism, Doctors). However, the article does need material that historically Catholics certainly have spoken of Hell using the language of physical location. 58.173.223.5 (talk) 01:21, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Catholic. How Full is Hell?[edit]

I have added a section to the Catholic section, How Full is Hell? I did not want to call it "who goes to hell" because that would skew it too far into some positive discussion on salvation, but I can see that is kinda what it is.

To justify the section: an article on the Catholic conception of Hell needs to have material that links to redemption, purgatory, limbo of children, and to relevant papal encyclicals or statements, which is what I have tried to provide. Plus there are many other Wikipedia articles on related topics that need some anchor material to point to them.

I justify the paragraph on Balthasar because 1) it follows from the limbo material and is relevant to the topic, 2) his views are raised earlier in the article , and 3) it is in the news (at least, Pope Francis' claimed statements that no-one would go to hell, which surely are some garbled version of Francis' version of Balthasar.) ... Actually, maybe someone should add a link to that news story...

Please ignore this if it goes beyond what Wikipedia editing should relate to:- On the material on unbaptised dead childred: in the back of my mind is a picture of some distressed parent of a dead child, arriving at the Wikipedia page hoping for some succour. A page that merely concentrates on fire and brimstone is not what they need, and would cause that kind of reader (who we can fully expect) to be unnecessarily distressed, and it would misrepresent the Catholic position. So I think the material is appropriate and relevant. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 06:00, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

"How Full is Hell?" section[edit]

I see a section with that title, and I don't understand what it's doing there. I hesitate to just assume it's surely vandalism, but it certainly looks like it. The text following the words has nothing to do with how full or empty hell may be, and even if it did, that wouldn't be a very encyclopedic title for a section. Looks like either a joke or something you would see n a semi-inforal pamphlet answering FAQs about Hell or Christianity. The only scenario I can envision in which that would be an appropriate thing to see on a Wiki page is if there was a book or work of that name, and the paragraph was about that work.

Also, the part about "Protestant views on Hell" seems to suggest that whatever Luther or Calvin thought about it has much to do with what the average Protestant sect thinks about it today. As far as I can tell, it doesn't. It almost seems to imply that these are representative views for Protestantism in general. While Luther and Calvin may have been the Original Protestants, there is a whole gamut of different sects now, many of which have little relation to either of them in terms of Doctrine.


Idumea47b (talk) 06:30, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Inconclusive biblical references supporting a view[edit]

What troubles me is the following section: "In ancient Jewish belief, the dead were consigned to Sheol, a place to which all were sent indiscriminately (cf. Genesis 37:35; Numbers 16:30-33; Psalm 86:13; Ecclesiastes 9:10)"

Neither the Genesis, Numbers, Psalms or Ecclesiastes references suggesting anything about the indiscriminacy of ending up in Sheol. If anything, Psalms 86:13 is actually an argument to the opposite.Samuel-chapkovski (talk) 18:30, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 14 August 2020[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Consensus is that in this kind of usage, Hell should be treated as a place, and capitalised as such.  — Amakuru (talk) 07:49, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Christian views on Hell → Christian views on hell – In sources that talk about hell, even in the Christian context, this place or concept is not generally capitalized. Dicklyon (talk) 22:25, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

  • Data from nom – Book stats don't reveal any context in which capitalized Hell is common. Even Hell is and Hell's are more often lowercase hell. Books specifically on the Christian concept still don't cap it; see this book or this one. Dicklyon (talk) 22:46, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Keep - Even if we take the stance that Hell is mythological (or fictional), it is presented as being a place. We regularly capitalize mythological (and fictional) place names. Blueboar (talk) 22:45, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Keep, an RM? the hell you say! Lower cased in statements like that, upper cased when talking of the place per proper name per Blueboar. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:28, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment. Editors should realize that this RM also carries Heaven along with it, and may possibly decide the casing faith of Heaven and Hell on Wikipedia. If the deciding factor for some editors relies on the "not consistently upper-cased" language in the suggested guideline, let me play the Devil's advocate and point out that some other words that society and some style guides don't upper case are "Sun" and "Moon". But Wikipedia does. We make common sense exceptions to guidelines. The style guide draws the line at 'Sun' and 'Moon' because Wikipedians seem observant enough and have enough common sense (exactly what the language for exceptions calls for) (where?) {at the very top of every guideline page) to realize that the Sun and Moon deserve proper names. Since Wikipedia upper cases places in real life, religions, mythology, or fiction, 'Heaven' and 'Hell', when used as obvious descriptors of a place, arguably fit both the accepted Wikipedia criteria for 'places' and/or qualify for the same common sense exception as 'Sun' and 'Moon'. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:21, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per uniform usage. Elizium23 (talk) 03:26, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Move Per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS: Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia. I looked to the sources used for the article. The Bible, a primary source, is extensively quoted and most other references are aligned to a Christian denomination and cannot be considered independent of the subject. Working backwards through the list, here are the first five sources I thought to be (might be) independent and that I could view to determine how to capitalise "hell" in prose. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] (the second-last of these turned to be a source from the LDS Church) From the result (none capped "hell" in prose), it is clear that "hell" is not consistently capitalised in independent reliable sources - it isn't even always capped across ecclesiastically aligned sources. There is not uniform usage per the evidence - anybody who says otherwise can just go to ... (with a lower case). Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 10:25, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm leaning toward Hell in this specific kind of case. This is one of those inevitable occasional cases where we have "conflicting consistencies". I lean toward the view that the Christian Hell and Heaven are places, or at least spiritual states, with proper names, while we have common-noun usage in a construction like "The hell of Germanic paganism shaped views of the Christian one; even the word hell itself derives from Old English and pre-dates the Anglo-Saxons' conversion to Christianity." I think capitalizing when we are writing of a specific hell, that is actually named "Hell" in English, is most consistent with our treatment of other places, including legendary and fictional ones. We would end with a WP:CONSISTENT problem if we lower-cased those that are attested in actual religions. But it should not be capitalized if it is used as a stand-in word, a loose translation or comparison, of a non-Christian afterlife that is not normally named "Hell" (or "Heaven") in English: "The Tiān are the heaven, more or less, of Chinese Buddhism." However, if academic books and journals are not consistently capitalizing these terms when writing specifically about the Christian places/concepts, i.e., even when not writing in a comparative or metaphoric manner, then WP should not capitalize them. However, I'm skeptical that the source analysis so far is making this distinction, and I also believe that MOS:DOCTCAPS is clearly distinguishing proper-name particular things in religious scripture from common-name comparative, metaphoric, and pluralizable usage, e.g. "the Virgin Birth of Jesus" vs. "several religions posit virgin births". So, I'm at least weakly toward capitalization in this case.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:19, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
    •  SMcCandlish We actually have virgin birth of Jesus, not Virgin Birth... (t · c) buidhe 12:10, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
      • Really? I'm surprised Christians haven't raised holy hell about that (pun intended). It seems inconsistent with our treatment of other doctrinal terms of art, e.g. Annunciation, Eucharist, etc. I have to think that virgin birth of Jesus is mis-titled, especially given "Virgin Mary" (not "virgin Mary"); it's not the title of our article, but our use of the phrase at the article is capitalized: "Christians commonly refer to her as the Virgin Mary, in accordance with ...". Maybe the distinction is that in Christianity it's simply "the Virgin Birth", while our article title is more descriptive, "virgin birth of Jesus". If so, then it's not a good analogy for this case, and I should not have used it (maybe Last Supper is a better example). But it doesn't actually change my position (tentative as it may be). PS: This RM should probably also affect Purgatory and History of purgatory, where we are (now) using lower case, despite originally capitalizing to agree with the style that predominates in the Christian context (but lower-case for a metaphoric use like "in employment purgatory during the pandemic").  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:01, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Keep Hell is a specifical location in Christian mythology. Using lower-case letters for toponyms seems wrong to me. Dimadick (talk) 18:30, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Move per MOS:CAPS and Cinderella's argument. (t · c) buidhe 12:10, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Keep As mentioned above Hell is a specific place in Christian mythology and thus a proper noun. -DJSasso (talk) 12:21, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per pretty much everyone. This is specifically about the Christian concept of a place called Hell. JIP | Talk 18:37, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Quote from the CCC[edit]

@Binksternet: I believe User:LongIslandThomist914 is right: I support using the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Veverve (talk) 21:18, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

You support, then, a violation of WP:PSTS. We should not be bringing any primary source material into Wikipedia unless it is for very specific facts. Wikipedia should be based primarily on third party sources, analyzing primary ones. Basing a whole section on the Catechism isn't going to fly.
Of course, the solution is very easy: find an observer who analyzes the Catechism and describes how it relates to the world. Binksternet (talk) 21:23, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
I believe the catechism to be self-explanatory enough on this point. To quote PSTS: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources." Veverve (talk) 21:29, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
And also: "Policy: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them" Veverve (talk) 21:31, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

WP:USEPRIMARY : " primary sources may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person—with access to the source but without specialist knowledge—will be able to verify are directly supported by the source." LongIslandThomist914 (talk) 21:58, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, all of the guidance emphasizes that primary sources can be used, sparingly. Do you think a whole section based on one primary source is what they mean? Emphatically, I don't. The encyclopedia is supposed to give the reader some analysis of the Bible or the Catechism or whatever is the religious text source. It's not supposed to be straight copy and paste. Binksternet (talk) 20:56, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
The Catechism is a WP:TERTIARY source. Elizium23 (talk) 21:18, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
@Elizium23: The format is that of a compendium, but it is primary because it is a compendium written and commissioned by an association (the Catholic Church) to summarise its own history and beliefs. Veverve (talk) 23:44, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
Veverve, it is tertiary, because it draws on primary sources such as Sacred Scripture, Papal encyclicals, conciliar canons, and secondary sources such as the writings of the saints, and Church documents giving exposition of Scripture, and builds this into an encyclopedic, systematic document of the faith. Elizium23 (talk) 23:48, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
@Elizium23:I believe it has a historical value but is way too dependent on the Catholic Church to be something else than primary source, i.e. just like Aquina's Catena aurea it has a historical value and is more a kind of summary of Catholicism as well a propaganda or evangelisation material. Veverve (talk) 00:01, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
Veverve, how can a "summary" be a WP:PRIMARY source?! Elizium23 (talk) 00:02, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
Because it is not a neutral scholarly summary? Rather, it is a statement by the head of the church on the precepts of the church. Binksternet (talk) 02:59, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
It is quite the scholarly summary, compiled by the best minds of the Church, not just the Pope. And I don't know what the Precepts of the Church have to do with the quotes on Hell under discussion? Elizium23 (talk) 07:52, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
Lower case 'p' precepts, like directives. Binksternet (talk) 14:13, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
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