On Hell and Forgiveness

[Neo-Scholastic]

If I were to die tomorrow and realize I was wrong, and I begged god for forgiveness but he refused, how could my exile be considered self-imposed?

Dante’s Inferno poetically presents the answer. Those in Hell love sinning more than they love God and thus cannot turn toward the Good and Truth that could otherwise be theirs. You would be begging to enter Heaven but asking to take your sin in with you. It is like the proverbial monkey trap. The monkey won’t drop the fruit bait and as such, he cannot pull his fist out of the narrow hole in the coconut.