A Question About Goodness

[HauntedJame]

I am not sure this is the right place to post this, but a friend of mine gave me this example and I struggled answering her.
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A woman lived her whole life for others. She gave the majority of her money to charities and lived on pittance. She never said a bad world, she loved to help people. She donated a piece of her liver to a neighbour and washed elderly neighbours’ flats. She never harmed anyone and was selfless. When the building caught on fire she went in to rescue a girl; she succeeded, but died as a result, giving her life to save another. But because she did not believe in God, would she go to Hell?

A serial killer finds Jesus. Would he go to Heaven?
I mean, I struggle to answer that. I’d say that they would both go to Heaven, because the woman lived her life in Christ’s example, even if she did not believe, whilst the serial killer repented and was forgiven…am I wrong? Seriously, because I have no idea! I hate it when people I know throw stuff on that on me, just because I was mostly raised Catholic!

 

[stringbeanduck]

To the woman. We can’t be sure who goes to heaven and vice versa. It is possible that the woman may be ignorant of God and never got to know Him on personal level. However if she truly rejected God despite being exposed much knowledge of Him, her chances of going wouldn’t be so great. People don’t go to hell for not knowing God, but by outright rejected Him and not wanting Him in their lives.

To the serial killer. If that person really recognizes the evil in their past actions(sins), and gives themselves totally to the Lord in search of mercy and forgiveness than they likely to find eternal salvation.

 

[Ponyguy]

The only correct answer possible is that we simply don’t know, and never will… barring some miraculous divine revelation, of course.

Perhaps the woman, deep in her heart, knew darn well about The Almighty One, but chose to keep her beliefs to herself to keep people from constantly bugging her about it.

Perhaps the serial killer claims to find Jesus in an effort to bluff and bluster his way out of execution.

There’s no telling what might or could have happened in the final femtoseconds of anyone’s life, so I refuse to speculate on the ultimate fate of anyone… not Judas Iscariot, or even such heinous semi-humans like Hitler and Stalin. Only The Big Guy knows for sure, and He ain’t tellin’.

 

[bnbkaine]

We rely deeply on the mercy of God. Only He knows, but I would hope that both would go. We should want all people to go to Heaven.

 

[HauntedJame]

See, this is really interesting! And the woman was an Atheist.

I asked some of my Lutheran friends this, as well as my “born again” acquaintences, and their reply was simple:

“No, she doesn’t because she doesn’t believe, but he does because he received Jesus”

Which to me seems unfair. I mean…God loves us all, and we are all God’s children. I like to think that if we live a life of giving and service to the world, we are good people and good people (in theory, all of this is just theory) goes to Heaven.

Of course, my friend who originally asked this question was present when I talked to these people and she, being agnostic, got really upset over their responses. I’ll paraphrase what she said. “Jesus might love you, but I think you are all idiots”. She was upset and I think that rather than idiots she meant that she certainly didn’t like them or their take on religion. Still…it is interesting asking Catholics about this…so far, you’ve all given me the best, most measured response.

Although a “YES” from God might have helped my agnostic friend to pick a side Large, verbal…maybe written in clouds…

Or I could just hire one of those planes and write it in the sky myself. God is too busy to worry about small petty things like this.

 

[JRKH]

Your OP is truly impossible to answer, as most all of these hypotheticals are, for we simply cannot know the indepth and true condition of the souls involved.
Plus - When someone tries to answer there will invariably be new information supplied in subsequent discussion. Case in point. In the OP you say that the good woman does not believe in God, but you don’t say any more. In you next post you mention that she is an atheist which sheds a little different light on the matter.
Someone who does not believe in God, may simply be someone who has not been exposed to theology, has never really thought about it, or looked briefly and simply decided it was to complex to figure out… In other words there are amny levels possible in the first statement.
An Atheist, on the other hand, is one who HAS looked at the issue and has rejected God, denied His existance and has closed the door on the matter. This is something quite different. This is rejection rather than ignorance.
Thare are literaly hundreds or thousands of possible prmutations in all of this, and that is why we cannot answer such scenerios with certainty.

Christ told the disciples that the “Queen of the South” (most likely a pagan) who came to hear the wisdom of Solomon would rise up and condemn the present generation. So there must be hope for those who truly seek Truth

A person who does not know the Father, but has not rejected Him either, yet does the Father’s will may yet be saved. One who knowing the Father rejects Him, also rejects His salvic Plan and therefore cannot be saved. One who Truly repents, even after committing many horrible sins, can yet be saved.

As I said earlier, the possible varioations are endless.

Peace
James

 

[DexUK]

I suppose it depends on the person’s reason for their atheism. If they wilfully reject God then one assumes that they wilfully reject all that is good. It strikes me as odd that anyone who carries out a lifetime of good works can truly be rejecting God in their lives, since, no matter what they might actually say, goodness can only come from God. I would suggest that underlying their stated beliefs (or lack thereof) that there is an instinctive, unrecognised, ‘baptism of desire’ going on - a desire to enact good and clearly a desire to live as God would ask us to live, even if they do so in a ‘cloud of unknowing’.

This is what faith ultimately comes down to: faith in the ultimate mercy of God, that He recognises goodness and forgives ignorance, etc. While we can’t know what fate awaits such a good, but atheistic, person and while we fear that they might not be rewarded with eternal life, we can only pray for the good of their soul. Not only is it good for that person, be they still alive or in purgatory, but it’s good for us, knowing that we too are carrying out a work of God’s mercy for others.

 

[HauntedJame]

Well, like I said, it wasn’t my question. It was a friends…and since I was retelling it, I did forget she was an aethist! Strange memory on me.

I’ve printed all this out for her to read…I just want to show her that not everyone thinks that the woman would burn in Hell!