Love as Hell

The official teaching of the Orthodox Church on Heaven and Hell is that they are not places so much as states of being. God is “present in all places and filling all things,” and that what we interpret as salvation or damnation is actually our response to, and experience of, God’s unconditional love.

The Orthodox Church’s view of Heaven and Hell is very different from what most people in America are used to. The teaching on Hell that most know (or think they do) is of eternal punishment inflicted on sinners by an angry God. This teaching is frequently criticized on social media by atheists. To counter their criticism, I point them to the actual, authoritative teaching of the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

When confronted by the authentic Christian teaching on Hell, typical reactions are:

  • “How can love be punishment?”
  • “If Gods sends me to Hell, is that unconditional love?”
  • “Isn’t infinite punishment for finite actions unjust tyranny?”

To explain the Orthodox concept of Hell better, I wrote the following example of how love can feel like punishment. Further down is an explanation from the official OCA Website in more formal language. Here goes my own explanation:

You are married to a good spouse. A kind, loving person who has never done anything wrong to you. Your spouse loves you unconditionally. And you are so over it. You treat your spouse like garbage, because you are totally done with the relationship. You’d like to move on, but you are trapped over finances, housing, whatever. There is no escape. You have to stay there, and you hate every single minute of it. You cheat on your spouse. You embarrass your spouse in public. You launch into vicious tirades, calling your spouse every name you can think of. You hate your life, and you blame your spouse for everything wrong. No matter what horrible things you do, all your spouse does is give you even more love in return. It’s nerve wracking. The love you get just makes you feel worse about all the crap you have done and keep doing. You wish you could just punch this person in the face for loving you. What a pathetic loser someone has to be to keep loving you when you treat him/her this way! It would be easier if your spouse hated you, because then you wouldn’t feel so rotten about all bad things you have done. Your spouse’s good qualities really make your blood boil. You are desperate to get away from the goodie-two-shoes routine. Being around your spouse makes you confront how much of an ass you really are, and deep down inside – that is incredibly painful. Just hearing your spouse’s voice makes your skin crawl. Talking to your spouse causes chest pain and your stomach gets all tied in knots. The pain gets worse and worse every day. The longer you are trapped in this situation, the more you scream inside. The more frenzied your psychological state becomes. You’ll do anything to make it stop. Eventually, you feel yourself losing touch with reality. All because your spouse loved you unconditionally, and you could not bear it.

You can substitute parent, sibling, friend, or God for spouse and the story is the same. People throw away love all the time. Especially children, who too often hurt their parents and themselves for unfathomable reasons. Based on prior experience, many atheists, or those troubled by Protestant notions of Hell, will say to the above story, “I’d divorce my spouse and move on!” Sure, if you could. But the key point of the story is – you can’t. God is everywhere and filling all things. In the world to come, you just go on hating and raging against Him forever while all He is doing is loving you in return.

It is a given that this concept of Hell will be rejected and ridiculed by most atheists. That is fine. All we can do is expose them to the truth. The rest is up to them and God.

For a more official explanation of this teaching, here is an excerpt from the OCA Website:

Thus it is the Church’s spiritual teaching that God does not punish man by some material fire or physical torment. God simply reveals Himself in the risen Lord Jesus in such a glorious way that no man can fail to behold His glory. It is the presence of God’s splendid glory and love that is the scourge of those who reject its radiant power and light.

. . . those who find themselves in hell will be chastised by the scourge of love. How cruel and bitter this torment of love will be! For those who understand that they have sinned against love, undergo no greater suffering than those produced by the most fearful tortures. The sorrow which takes hold of the heart, which has sinned against love, is more piercing than any other pain. It is not right to say that the sinners in hell are deprived of the love of God . . . But love acts in two ways, as suffering of the reproved, and as joy in the blessed! (Saint Isaac of Syria, Mystic Treatises).

This teaching is found in many spiritual writers and saints: Saint Maximus the Confessor, the novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky. At the end of the ages God’s glorious love is revealed for all to behold in the face of Christ. Man’s eternal destiny—heaven or hell, salvation or damnation—depends solely on his response to this love.

Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America


If you post a disagreement with this teaching, please also post, at minimum, your canonical Orthodox jurisdiction and, preferably, a link to the teaching of your jurisdiction on Hell. All canonical Orthodox jurisdictions have at least basic teachings online. You are free to disagree with this post, and we publish disagreements, but we will pay less attention to heterodox opinions and those who claim to be Orthodox but are not part of the canonical Church.

Oh hi there 👋
It’s nice to meet you.

Sign up to receive awesome content in your inbox, every month.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.