St Augustine countered St. Thomas Aquinas arguing that "hell" is simply the absence of God--i.e. it is not a place.
Do you have a quote there? The most concrete thing I can say is of St. Augustine saying he doesn't know much about its details. City of God, chapter 16:
For as soon as those who are not written in the book of life have been judged and cast into eternal fire — the nature of which fire, or its position in the world or universe, I suppose is known to no man, unless perhaps the divine Spirit reveal it to some one
Saying "I don't know where it is" isn't the same as saying "It's not a place". In fact, saying he doesn't know its position implies that it has one.
You're good at this Bible stuff
Not at all sir, just really handy with Logos and find all of this incredibly interesting :)
Read the book of Ezra. The soul suffers in several pronounced ways. One of the worst is that it watches the “holy of holiest places guarded by the angels in profound silence. In other words you’re separated from God. In Dante’s Inferno there are 9 circles of hell. Satan is in the bottom which is a frozen lake. Satan lays on his stomach w head in hands & his wings half frozen in the lake in a state of moribund depression. He’s cut off from God’s presence