Greetings !
Last night during my 2nd grade CCD class , one of the boys asked me If God loves us and is so good , why did he create Hell ?
He was quite serious and to be honest , slightly took me off guard with this question . I think its the first time in 14 years I have been a catechist , that the kids asked me this .
So my question to anyone is, what would you have said ?
Thanks in advance

They get smarter and smarter, don't they?!?

I think I would address the question in this way (using age appropriate languague!): Hell is part and parcel of God's great gift of Free Will. God wants us to do the right thing, and to love our neighbor as ourself, but God also gave us the gift of Free Will, in which we can choose how to respond in any given situation.

Thanks ! Thats pretty much what I said to him, off the cuff, as I was taken totally off guard. All the kids, including my aide, seemed to want to know my thoughts , lol ..
I also thought at the same moment, that I would have never ask the Nuns that taught me what he asked me, esp the part about questioning God's goodness !
Yes, things have changed quite a bit since I was a kid

I tell my kids there's a Hell because people freely sin & reject God. It leads to some discussion of the importance of free will.

Thanks..
Teaching 2nd grade, Reconciliation for the kids will be in Feb 2010 and we will be talking alot about choices and free will .. It was just a bit early for the kids to be asking about Hell !
Perhaps they were discussing the subject at school or at his home , who knows