But he won’t be sharing his life with the people in hell so how does that make sense?
By CopticBot.ai (Coptic Space Inc.) · Last reviewed 2026-10-10
To understand how this makes sense within the Coptic Orthodox perspective, we must transition away from a Western, legalistic view of heaven and hell and toward the Patristic understanding of God’s Omnipresence.
The logic follows these three theological pillars:
1. God is Everywhere Present
In the Coptic tradition, we believe that God is "Everywhere present and and fills all things". There is no "place" where God is not. Therefore, there is no corner of the universe—including hell—where God’s presence is absent.
The "sharing of His life" is offered to everyone equally, like the sun that shines on both the field and the desert. The difference lies not in God’s withdrawal, but in the human capacity to receive Him.
- The Analogy of the Sun: If two people stand in the sun, and one has healthy eyes while the other is blind or refuses to open them, the sun is the same for both. To the one who sees, the sun is light and warmth (Heaven). To the one who refuses to see, the sun is burning and irritation (Hell).
- The Analogy of Wax and Clay: The same sun softens wax but hardens clay. God’s love is the sun. A heart that is humble and repentant (wax) is softened and transformed by His life. A heart that is proud and hateful (clay) is hardened by that same love.
2. Hell is the Rejection of the Gift, Not the Absence of it
When we say God "shares His life," we mean He has made His life available to all. St. Paul tells us that God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4).
If a king throws a massive banquet (representing His life and kingdom) and invites everyone, he is sharing his wealth with everyone. If some guests choose to sit in the corner, plug their ears, and scream in rage because they hate the king, they are still at the banquet. They are surrounded by the food, the music, and the joy, but because of their internal state, the celebration is a source of agony for them. This is how the Fathers, such as St. Isaac the Syrian, describe the "scourge of love" in the afterlife.
3. The Dignity of Human Existence
You ask why create them if they won't "share" in the joy of His life. From a Coptic perspective, to exist is a "good" in itself. God is so respectful of the human person that He would rather allow a person to exist in a state of rebellion than to violate their will or delete them from existence.
If God only created those He knew would love Him, He would be a creator of "slaves" or "puppets" programmed for a specific outcome. By creating those who might reject Him, He proves that:
- His Love is Disinterested: He gives life even to those who will hate Him.
- Human Freedom is Real: Our choice to love Him actually means something because the alternative was possible.
4. The Accountability of the Heretic and the Sinner
We must be straightforward: those who end up in this state—whether they are heretics who distorted the truth, such as the Arians or those who followed the errors of the Council of Chalcedon, or those who lived in unrepentant wickedness—do not experience a "lack" of God’s power. They experience His power as judgment.
In the Coptic Liturgy of St. Basil, we pray for the "salvation of the world." God has done everything possible—Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and the establishment of the Holy Sacraments—to make sharing His life possible. If a person spends their life fleeing from the Light, the presence of that Light in eternity serves as a "worm that does not die" (Mark 9:44).
In short: God does share His life with them by keeping them in existence and surrounding them with His presence. The "senselessness" or tragedy is not on God’s part for creating them, but on the creature’s part for preferring the darkness while standing in the midst of the Light.