A pivotal work in Western Christianity is volume of books by Augustine called Confessions. Recently I have begun to read some of Confessions and have come across a little section that I found rather interesting.
From the second chapter of the first book, Augustine wrote:
"And how shall I call upon my God -- my God and my Lord? For when I call on him I ask him to come into me. And what place is there in me into which my God can come? How could God, the God who made both heaven and earth, come into me? Is there anything in me, O Lord my God, that can contain thee? Do even the heaven and the earth, which thou hast made, and in which thou didst make me, contain thee? Is it possible that, since without thee nothing would be which does exist, thou didst make it so that whatever exists has some capacity to receive thee? Why, then, do I ask thee to come into me, since I also am and could not be if thou wert not in me? For I am not, after all, in hell -- and yet thou art there too, for 'if I go down into hell, thou art there.' Therefore I would not exist -- I would simply not be at all -- unless I exist in thee, from whom and by whom and in whom all things are. Even so, Lord; even so. Where do I call thee to, when I am already in thee? Or from whence wouldst thou come into me? Where, beyond heaven and earth, could I go that there my God might come to me -- he who hath said, 'I fill heaven and earth'?"
How about that? Augustine, a HUGE pillar of the Western Church writes that there is no place in which God is not present - not even hell.
If God is in hell, then is it really hell?
From the second chapter of the first book, Augustine wrote:
"And how shall I call upon my God -- my God and my Lord? For when I call on him I ask him to come into me. And what place is there in me into which my God can come? How could God, the God who made both heaven and earth, come into me? Is there anything in me, O Lord my God, that can contain thee? Do even the heaven and the earth, which thou hast made, and in which thou didst make me, contain thee? Is it possible that, since without thee nothing would be which does exist, thou didst make it so that whatever exists has some capacity to receive thee? Why, then, do I ask thee to come into me, since I also am and could not be if thou wert not in me? For I am not, after all, in hell -- and yet thou art there too, for 'if I go down into hell, thou art there.' Therefore I would not exist -- I would simply not be at all -- unless I exist in thee, from whom and by whom and in whom all things are. Even so, Lord; even so. Where do I call thee to, when I am already in thee? Or from whence wouldst thou come into me? Where, beyond heaven and earth, could I go that there my God might come to me -- he who hath said, 'I fill heaven and earth'?"How about that? Augustine, a HUGE pillar of the Western Church writes that there is no place in which God is not present - not even hell.
If God is in hell, then is it really hell?