Father Peter Heers Declares: "God Did Not Create Hell"

Father Peter Heers was recently on a podcast with David Patrick Harry discussing end time prophecies made by various Orthodox Church Fathers. During this discussion he declared that God did not create hell.

End Time Prophecy and Orthodox Eschatology with Fr. Peter Heers 

47:21 People will freely choose the Antichrist. They freely choose to go to hell too. Nobody's in hell that doesn't want to be in hell. 

Right 

Nobody's sent by by God to Hell. God didn't create hell. 

Nobody is sent by God to hell and God did not create hell? Really? Let us hear the words of Jesus Christ. 

Matthew 25:21 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

Jesus says the everlasting fire, that is hell, was prepared for the devil and his angels. He also says the Kingdom was prepared for the saints.

Matthew 25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

Was the Kingdom created by God? Surely Fr. Heers would say yes. So what is his problem with God creating hell? Does Hell exist? Yes. Is there anything that exists that was not created by God? No. Therefore God created hell.

Everything that ever was or is or will be is created by God, including hell (Colossians 1:16). John 1:3 says, “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” God alone has the power to cast someone into hell (Luke 12:5). Jesus holds the keys of death and Hades (Revelation 1:18).

Jesus said that hell was “prepared” for Satan and the demons (Matthew 25:41). It is a just punishment for the wicked one. Hell, or the lake of fire, will also be the destination for those who reject Christ (2 Peter 2:4–9). 

https://www.gotquestions.org/did-God-create-hell.html

While it may be true in a sense that we choose hell by our actions it is also true God weighs those actions and casts all those not found in the Book of Life into hell along with the devil.

Revelation 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Did they cast themselves? Did they run and jump into the Lake of Fire? No. God sent them there. He cast them into the flames. Therefore God sends people to hell. 

The problem here is that despite 2,000 years of teaching the Orthodox Church, for some reason, does not have a coherent eschatology. In fact their eschatology is completely divorced from the Scriptures and wholly reliant on what men like St. Issac the Syrian have to say. Thus there are "hopeful" universalists, there are believers in aerial toll-houses, and there are some who think hell is simply experiencing God's presence negatively alongside the saints who experience it positively. That final view is known as the River of Fire and it's a good bet Fr. Peter Heers believes that heresy. 

Here is Orthodox writer Vladimir Moss refuting that abominable teaching which essentially denies that God is just and God punishes. 

https://www.orthodoxchristianbooks.com/articles/837/-river-fire-revisited/

Sadly too many modern Orthodox, including David Patrick Harry, Jay Dyer, and Father Seraphim Rose, have been hoodwinked by this heresy and other eschatological heresies including aerial toll-houses.  

St. John Chrysostom: Always Meditate on Hell

In his second homily on 2 Thessalonians St John Chrysostom exhorts his hearers to always mediate on hell as a means of keeping oneself from sin.

All this was said to them, but it applies also to us. When therefore we are in affliction, let us consider these things. Let us not rejoice at the punishment of others as being avenged, but as ourselves escaping from such punishment and vengeance. For what advantage is it to us when others are punished? Let us not, I beseech you, have such souls. Let us be invited to virtue by the prospect of the kingdom. For he indeed who is exceedingly virtuous is induced neither by fear nor by the prospect of the kingdom, but for Christ's sake alone, as was the case with Paul. Let us, however, even thus consider the blessings of the kingdom, the miseries of hell, and thus regulate and school ourselves; let us in this way bring ourselves to the things that are to be practiced. When you see anything good and great in the present life, think of the kingdom, and you will consider it as nothing. When you see anything terrible, think of hell, and you will deride it. When you are possessed by carnal desire, think of the fire, think also of the pleasure of sin itself, that it is nothing worth, that it has not even pleasure in it. For if the fear of the laws that are enacted here has so great power as to withdraw us from wickedactions, how much more should the remembrance of things future, the vengeance that is immortal, the punishment that is everlasting? If the fear of an earthly king withdraws us from so many evils, how much more the fear of the King Eternal?

Whence then can we constantly have this fear? If we continually hearken to the Scriptures. For if the sight only of a dead body so depresses the mind, how much more must hell and the fire unquenchable, how much more the worm that never dies. If we always think of hell, we shall not soon fall into it. For this reason God has threatened punishment; if it was not attended with great advantage to think of it, God would not have threatened it. But because the remembrance of it is able to work great good, for this reason He has put into our souls the terror of it, as a wholesome medicine. Let us not then overlook the great advantage arising from it, but let us continually advert to it, at our dinners, at our suppers. For conversation about pleasant things profits the soul nothing, but renders it more languid, while that about things painful and melancholy cuts off all that is relaxed and dissolute in it, and converts it, and braces it when unnerved. He who converses of theaters and actors does not benefit the soul, but inflames it more, and renders it more careless. He who concerns himself and is busy in other men's matters, often even involves it in dangers by this curiosity. But he who converses about hell incurs no dangers, and renders it more sober.

But do you fear the offensiveness of such words? Have you then, if you are silent, extinguished hell? Or if you speak of it, have you kindled it? Whether you speak of it or not, the fire boils forth. Let it be continually spoken of, that you may never fall into it. It is not possible that a soul anxious about hell should readily sin. For hear the most excellent advice, Remember, it says, your latter end Sirach 28:6, and you will not sin forever. A soul that is fearful of giving account cannot but be slow to transgression. For fear being vigorous in the soul does not permit anything worldly to exist in it. For if discourse raised concerning hell so humbles and brings it low, does not the reflection constantly dwelling upon the soulpurify it more than any fire?

Let us not remember the kingdom so much as hell. For fear has more power than the promise. And I know that many would despise ten thousand blessings, if they were rid of the punishment, inasmuch as it is even now sufficient for me to escape vengeance, and not to be punished. No one of those who have hell before their eyes will fall into hell. No one of those who despise hell will escape hell. For as among us those who fear the judgment-seats will not be apprehended by them, but those who despise them are chiefly those who fall under them, so it is also in this case. If the Ninevites had not feared destruction, they would have been overthrown, but because they feared, they were not overthrown. If in the time of Noah they had feared the deluge, they would not have been drowned. And if the Sodomites had feared they would not have been consumed by fire. It is a great evil to despise a threat. He who despises threatening will soon experience its reality in the execution of it. Nothing is so profitable as to converse concerning hell. It renders our souls purer than any silver. For hear the prophet saying, Your judgments are always before me. From Psalm 17:22, Septuagint For although it pains the hearer, it benefits him very much.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/23052.htm