Nasor said:
Many people believe that God is omnipotent and all-loving. If this is true, why would he not allow people out of hell? Christianity seems to take a very firm stance that a person (except Jesus, I guess) can never get out of hell once they end up there, but this doesn't seem to fit with the idea of an all-powerful God who loves everyone. If God is loving, why not forgive people for their mistake and let them into heaven? Or do you believe that God is somehow incapable of letting people out of hell? Does God stop loving people after they die?
If it be the case that a person cannot leave hell once arrived, that fact is not based on the choice of God. It is the one who choses Hell who arrives there. While we are here, we are free to make choices and to amend bad choices; i.e., either "Thy will be done", or "
My will be done". Once the threshold of death has been crossed, however, the selfishness of the individual damns himself; God condemns no one. The problem is not with God: it is with us. If we choose, we can have whatever we like; God will not stop us from having it. But our eternal salvation or damnation depends on our acceptance of His generous, free mercy. The only thing our wills are good for are giving them back to Him. God is Absolute Being; God is also Absolute Truth and Goodness. If, then, we leave that path--perferring falsehood to truth, perferring evil to good, preferring our selfishness to love--then, by default, we begin to unravel our own existence. Hell, then, is not a "place" where one is "trapped", but rather a state of non-entity. The choice is, essentially, "to be, or not to be?" If we choose to "be", then we shall find God and His Heaven; if we choose to "not-be", we have already damned ourselves.
As for your saying that Christianity takes a very firm stance on the alleged condemnation, perhaps you are referring to Protestant Christians/Fundamentalists. As a Roman Catholic--and a humble lover of theology--I know nothing of it.
And, yes, in a sense, God is incapable of letting people out of their Hell, not because He does not love them, but because He does love them. The reason is this: if He loves them, He will not force them into loving Him; but that is what Heaven is: loving Him. The hellish creature is the one who loves himself above and before God, and God cannot change the hellish creature's mind because He has given him free will--a will which may choose to either be with Him (i.e., Heaven) or be without Him (i.e., Hell). In this light, it may be safe to say that God is incapable of "letting" hellish creatures out of Hell; because the truth is, they do not want out of Hell.
Another point to be made is that a purely spiritual being is said to be eternal. Grant that premise, and it follows that when a purely spiritual being makes a choice, that choice holds forever and can never be altered. E.g., Lucifer is eternally evil and can never turn back because he has once made the choice of his own pride and hatred of matter (for Christ is part matter) over the love of God. We are given grace in Christ, however, while in the flesh to be bound within space and time to experience the loving mercy of God; for since we are bound by said "time", we are able to have chances given over and again to repent. But again, once we cross the threshold of death, depending on our state of mind and being before that departure outside of space and time, we are stepping out of time and into eternity, where, like the angels, we have only one choice: to say either Yes, or No. If we say Yes, then we have found Heaven. If we say No, then we are trapped in our Hell. Hell is not a physical place anymore than selfishness is a place. And Hell is, in fact, selfishness. Hell is anti-love, anti-God, pro-Self. And insofar as we are "Our Own Masters", it then follows that we are our own slaves. And Hell is essentially that: eternally slavery to myself, and by my own choice. God is, as you've said, all-loving. So why should He want to condemn anyone? Indeed, He does not condemn anyone at all: it is we who condemn ourselves. For we, to whom He has given free will illuminated by Reason, may either choose God, or not.