A couple of theological questions

[DetectiveNiko]

I didn’t want to make multiple post so I will just post a couple of questions that have come to my mind that I don’t think I can answer well, or at all.

1. Is it fair of God to give people different amounts of grace of knowing God on this earth ?
   Like for example how someone might not know about God because he was never told about the gospel and he will not be as happy as people who are able to know God. (Answered)

2.When it comes to objective morality, how do we respond when someone says that morality is just a
subconcious type of will of everyone not to do what you don’t want other to do to you, therefore that thesis explains exsistance of morality without a God.

1. Another morality question I came to wonder. If morality is not evolved, why do animals show signs of morality. (They don’t kill their own species most of the time,they show compassion etc.)

4.Somehow related to my first question, is it fair of God to give us different times of attaining salvation? (For example, someone might die early in their life, while someone might have a lot of time to make a choice for God. )

1. When it comes to the question of why God seems to be so hidden, one of the answers people give is in order not to interfere with out free will choice of choosing him. (Because if he were to constantly show himself, we would choose him more out of not wanting to go to hell, not because we love him )
   So then, if the devil clearly menaged to not choose God with his free will, despite having beatific vision, why don’t we get the beatific vision given to us immidiately so that we could see how bad sin really is. (Or is this a consequence of original sin as my original answer was )

I know these questions seem heavily atheistic, but its just a few questions I have had on my mind for some time now, I could have posted theese as seperate, but I feel like I would induce too much traffic. Most of these fall under the same category anyway.

 

[superblue]

a couple of really good stiff drinks, answers all these questions rather easily. I would suggest a couple of Long Island Ice Teas.

 

[pianistclare]

PLease do make separate threads. You’ll be much more able to focus on the answers.

Has no one ever told you life is not fair? God gives us what we need to for our own sanctification.
We receive grace through the sacraments, want more? Receive Eucharist, go to confession.
God expects us to do some of the heavy lifting.

 

[DetectiveNiko]

Well my opinion was that life was too easy for Cathlics, while some people didn’t even get a chance to know what a catholic is, because some people still live in tribes, and they , therefore, don’t experience grace that much (if at all )

 

[pianistclare]

But you forget the Church does not say those people cannot attain heaven.

 

[DetectiveNiko]

I know they attain heaven, but it seems like they don’t get to know any of the truth, and are only lead by instincts of what is good and bad. It just kinda feels sad when I see us having the eucharist and everything, while their reward is nothing ( on this earth ) just because they were born elsewhere

 

[pianistclare]

Well, want to become a missionary then?
Ready to go out there and convert?
I think God has it well in hand.

 

[fide]

God blesses some, and not others, so that those who are blessed might be a blessing for those who are not blessed. In this way the blessed learn generosity and compassion, and the unblessed learn gratitude and holy charity. God makes some rich, and others poor, so that those rich might share their wealth with the poor ones. God makes some healthy and strong, and others sickly and weak, so that the strong might be strong for the sake of the weak, and the weak might find strength through the sharing of the strong.

In others words, God wants the salvation of all, and so He chooses some - even only a few - so that they might donate the gifts of their election - they might become as the unchosen - so that those unchosen might receive the gifts of the chosen, and thus become chosen. This is what Jesus - God the Son made man - did. He, the chosen one, became as a sinner, and died as a sinner, so that all the unchosen ones, all of us, might by His grace overabundantly given, His life-blood out-poured into the earth, might become chosen, and sons and daughters by adoption.

In the economy of God, then, the saved become debtors: the saved ones are given a cross on which to die to themselves in order to live in Christ, on-mission, on His mission to the lost of this world.

In the economy of God, He wills blessings for all! But He works it in such a way as to draw human hearts into His Heart of mercy and love. He “distributes” His blessings in a way intended to draw all into His will. Thus all come to learn a “theology of the body” - when one member suffers, all suffer; when one member is blessed, the whole body shares the blessing, and the whole body - and thus all humanity - might come into the beatitude of God’s intention.

 

[DetectiveNiko]

Well I wouldn’t mind, although I am bad at interacting with new people, as can be clearly seen from theese posts ;/
My question was more of the likes of :
Why don’t they have that grace in the first place, since God wants a relationship with everyone. If he never gives them an oppurunity to meet him in his life, how are they supposed to have a relationship ?

 

[DetectiveNiko]

That somewhat helps with it, thanks a lot <3

 

[pianistclare]

We can’t assume He never interacts with them or they with Him.
They may have, culturally, a different way of doing so.
A person who is kind, loyal, brave, just, and loving to his family and peers is behaving in what we term a Christian sort of way.
God still communicates with them, as He does with everybody. Some people like atheists, don’t both to pick up the phone. The person who lives out these good qualities pleases God and answers the call.

The call to holiness.
We Baptized Christians (Catholics especially) are the ones who are referred to in the passage "To whom much is given, much will be expected’.

 

[DetectiveNiko]

I guess thats true in a way, thanks for answering that question.

 

[Gorgias]

2.When it comes to objective morality, how do we respond when someone says that morality is just a subconcious type of will of everyone not to do what you don’t want other to do to you, therefore that thesis explains exsistance of morality without a God.

So, they’re saying that the ‘Golden Rule’ is intrinsic to human nature?

Catholics say that, too. We call it the ‘natural moral law’:
Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1954 Man participates in the wisdom and goodness of the Creator who gives him mastery over his acts and the ability to govern himself with a view to the true and the good. The natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie:

The natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin . . . But this command of human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter of a higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be submitted.

1955 The “divine and natural” law6 shows man the way to follow so as to practice the good and attain his end. The natural law states the first and essential precepts which govern the moral life. It hinges upon the desire for God and submission to him, who is the source and judge of all that is good, as well as upon the sense that the other is one’s equal. Its principal precepts are expressed in the Decalogue. This law is called “natural,” not in reference to the nature of irrational beings, but because reason which decrees it properly belongs to human nature.

So, your answer is: if it’s intrinsic to human nature, then it’s part of our created self. Therefore, it’s implicitly a statement about God (since He created the universe).

1. Another morality question I came to wonder. If morality is not evolved, why do animals show signs of morality. (They don’t kill their own species most of the time,they show compassion etc.)

Those aren’t expressions of morality, since animals do not have reason. They act, and certainly they react to their environments, but that doesn’t mean that they are rational or that they are moral agents.

In other words, when your dog licks your face, he really isn’t thinking “I love you!”

4.Somehow related to my first question, is it fair of God to give us different times of attaining salvation? (For example, someone might die early in their life, while someone might have a lot of time to make a choice for God. )

Why would it be ‘unfair’?

So then, if the devil clearly menaged to not choose God with his free will, despite having beatific vision, why don’t we get the beatific vision given to us immidiately so that we could see how bad sin really is.

Satan didn’t have the Beatific Vision. Therefore, no conundrum.

 

[Hereiam]

Agreed. But, point of theology: we receive Grace in many ways outside of the sacraments; the Grace we receive through the sacraments is Sanctifying Grace.

 

[DetectiveNiko]

You sir are a godsend. You answered things very clearly, thank you !

Why would it be ‘unfair’?

I was a bit confused if for example some person has 50 days to make the decision to follow God. And he suceeds on the last day, but if somebody has 49 days to live they don’t but they would have if God gave them 50 days.
Just a bit of a hypothethical question, since I was always concered with how children that die choose for God and against God when they die before they can conciously think about it.

Satan didn’t have the Beatific Vision. Therefore, no conundrum

I actually didn’t know that, guess I was misinformed. I thought all angels get beatific vision. I guess they are just higher beings than us, but still subject to finding things about God.

 

[Gorgias]

You sir are a godsend. You answered things very clearly, thank you !

Thank you!

I was a bit confused if for example some person has 50 days to make the decision to follow God. And he suceeds on the last day, but if somebody has 49 days to live they don’t but they would have if God gave them 50 days.

Can’t you say that about every person who ever lived, though? "If they’d have had just one more day on earth, they could have (converted / repented / gone to confession)? If it applies to all, equally, then it’s not unfair.

Just a bit of a hypothethical question, since I was always concered with how children that die choose for God and against God when they die before they can conciously think about it.

You’re talking about those children who die unbaptized? The Church says that we hold out hope that God saves them by His own initiative. After all, God is not held captive by the laws that He lays down for us – He can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants. So, we believe that He has mercy on those who die without personal sin and without baptism.

I actually didn’t know that, guess I was misinformed. I thought all angels get beatific vision.

They received the Beatific Vision after choosing God. Those who chose not to follow God never had it (and never will).