An Omniscient God and a Fiery Hell?

[Story]

I normally have to wrestle with second graders on this idea…same song, different verse…

“Specifically, there are two things wrong with your comparison. First of all, let’s say that for the child’s entire life, no one has ever told him he has a father, and yet at the same time this child’s father expects his son to completely obey him. The child is taught to share, to play nicely, to be honest, and to follow other good virtues, yet this is taught from people outside the house. Meanwhile, his father also has rules, namely, that the child has to acknowledge he has a father and remember his birthday every year. The child does not obey as he has never had any way of knowing since no one has ever told him, and because of this, as soon as the child turns 18 (meaning death for our intents and purposes) his dad comes out of the attic and whips his child for eternity for not obeying. Was it the child’s fault? Did the child trully turn away as you say?”

Take the first part, well heck, take it all. For those of us who don’t know God, we already know what is expected of us. We don’t kill, ect. The idea of whether or not you need to know God to get to heaven or hell is not true in this case. Invinsible ignorance plays a role there…

But the question is rather whether or not you merit hell for actions you would not have taken had you known God in the first place.

No. You do not have the full truth, yet. You are ignorant of those expectations and are not, therefore, judged by those expectations. He may ask you if you knew better than to do those… but that is a matter between you and him.
…and you will be judged against what you knew during that point in your life.

“Meanwhile, his father also has rules, namely, that the child has to acknowledge he has a father and remember his birthday every year. The child does not obey as he has never had any way of knowing since no one has ever told him,”

You won’t be judged on what you don’t know. Human beings may be that cruel, but if God is All Loving towards His Creation, you will not be held to the same high standards as the other children. For you, you would be looking from the outside in, you would not know that was your father at the table eating his birthday cake.

" and because of this, as soon as the child turns 18 (meaning death for our intents and purposes) his dad comes out of the attic and whips his child for eternity for not obeying. Was it the child’s fault? Did the child trully turn away as you say?"

This is making the father (or in this case the Father) an unreasonable parent. Did your parents whip you for not obeying something you honestly didn’t know? Mine did not… and I would hate to think my parents could out-do God in parenting.

Your second example is a more confusing example, albeit I understand the point you are making, but this story above is easier to disect.

 

[Liberanosamalo]

Well, if there wasn’t a hell, Jesus probably wasn’t too smart to suffer and die to save us from it. What a waste of time! Gosh!

Actually, there is a hell. But there’s only two people there. Hitler and Stalin. Well, maybe three. Pol Pot too.

No one else will ever go there. Go and do whatever you want. There are no eternal consequences to your actions. You’re quite safe.

(I know this is vastly unfair to any victims out there. You’ll just have to suck it up and learn to love your tormenters in Heaven.)

 

[LilyM]

You know, I just love it when people here give me the perfect answer to precisely the question I didn’t ask. So, before this thread is completely ignored and goes extinct, let me redress it in its correct context using your own analogy:

Specifically, there are two things wrong with your comparison. First of all, let’s say that for the child’s entire life, no one has ever told him he has a father, and yet at the same time this child’s father expects his son to completely obey him. The child is taught to share, to play nicely, to be honest, and to follow other good virtues, yet this is taught from people outside the house. Meanwhile, his father also has rules, namely, that the child has to acknowledge he has a father and remember his birthday every year. The child does not obey as he has never had any way of knowing since no one has ever told him, and because of this, as soon as the child turns 18 (meaning death for our intents and purposes) his dad comes out of the attic and whips his child for eternity for not obeying. Was it the child’s fault? Did the child trully turn away as you say?

Now before I get into the second issue you failed to address (and the very subject of this thread), let’s get a few metaphors down. The analogy will be slightly different from the last one and the symbolism different, so…here the lawn mower will symbolize the mental wiring to believe in God; plumbing in the household will symbolize the mental capacity to act morally; the elder son in the analogy will symbolize prophets and moral teachers; and going upstairs to see the father will symbolize dying and being judged before God. Now with all those symbols down…

Let’s say the father is upstairs and tells his older son to go down stairs and tell his brother that he has a bunch of chores to do. Now the father knows that their house has no plumbing nor an available lawn mower, yet still his older son goes down stairs and tells his brother that he must mow the lawn and wash all the dishes (like his father said), even though the father knew ahead of time (he’s omniscient after all) that the younger son wouldn’t be able to obey his commands in the slightest. So later on that day, the younger son goes upstairs and his thrown into the house’s coal furnace for all eternity. Was it the child’s fault? Did he trully turn away from his father?

If God knows ahead of time that a person’s mental wiring or surroundings will prevent them from believing in him (like in the first analogy) or acting morally (like in the second analogy), why must people go to a place called hell where they suffer for eternity?

Omniscient God or fiery Hell: until my actual question is answered I can’t logically believe in both thank you.

You think God sends people to hell if they’ve not been taught that He exists? Or if they’re not ABLE to do the right thing (assuming there’s a real disability there such as mental illness or something)? Of course not!

It is only those who knowingly and wilfully turn their back on God (either by choosing something else over Him or more directly) who are damned. You can be sure that He takes into account our state of knowledge and our capacities to do good.

 

[StCsDavid]

God created a world free of suffering. Adam and Eve had the choice of remaining in the paradise they were created in or turning away from God. You and I are the simply the inheritors of their decision that effected every generation after them. God so loved us that He gave humanity a second chance to be with Him.

I developed this thought further in my most recent blog.

 

[blessedstar]

Should I destroy those who do not love me?

Clearly the answer I give myself to that question is ‘No’.

God answers Himself the same way, He creates but He does not take away. Men destroy themselves and God always gives, it is men who take away.

God loves so much that even though men would rather destroy themselves He still gives them the gift of life and this is the second greatest gift God gives to us because the greatest gift is faith and God only gifts faith, the greatest gift to those who will believe and will be recreated. But God gives life to all and does not take anything away, but men take away from themselves and they take it away from themselves eternally.

Every suffering on this earth is a debt due to sin. Every man who does not love carries the debt of not living in love for all eternity and they choose this themselves neither wanting to love nor be loved.

People will be surprised who got to heaven and might also look around and not find some they thought ought to be there. We cannot judge by appearances

How can it be that God is at fault in any way? God is never at fault. Why is it we do not understand this mystery? We are dulled in mind, spirit and conscience because of the fall. Did we understand God and the mysteries in the beginning? Yes we did, man walked with God and contemplated Him and then sinned against Him. Did evil entering the world at the fall cause a permenant rift with God? No God sent His only Son to save us and repair our relationship with God. Does this mean we understand God fully now? No we are dulled in mind, spirit and conscience and do not fully understand God. How will we understand the mysteries? By prayer and the grace of God. Do we have a right to understand the mysteries? No we have no right for all have sinned.

If we do not understand it is by no means a right to distrust God. In truth it is all the more reason to trust Him and seek His wisdom.

God left the Advocate. Pray to the Holy Spirit and persevere.

 

[spauline]

God can only expect men to seek out the light that is available to them in a reasonable way. For example, God cannot expect a Peruvian Indian in 1000 AD to celebrate Christmas because Peruvians will not even hear of Christ for another 500 years.

The bare minimum dispositions a person must have to be saved is to care more than anything else what the religious meaning of life is, to exercise REASONABLE dilligence in finding these truths, and to seek help from the divine as they perceive it to live them. For those who have this disposiiton at death, they will be saved, regardless of whether they are Hindu, or Catholic, or anywhere in between.

But it would seem problematic that atheists, relativists and agnostics have these characteristics.

But there can be emotional and psychological and intellectual barriers that are beyond any serious fault of the individual that diminish their culpability.

But to address the first question, that God knows the fate of all, since He is present to every instant of existance, does indeed seem unfair. In the end, it is a mystery. The short answer is, God loved us so much that He wanted to allow a fall in order that He might love us to a greater degree than if we had never fallen, namely to suffer for us, and to give us this power, to love him and neighbor to a greater degree than if we had never fallen, and that is to love so hard that we suffer. If a husband never had to take pain in loving his wife, his love would not be as great. A world in which Adam and Eve never fell would not be as beautiful as this fallen world when Christian martyrs praised God and prayed for the soldier who were killing them, and the love and humility they exuded led their executioners to conversion. But for some reason, it seems that at least some people would persist in infinite insult of God by preferring inferior goods. God decided to allow it.

So, in the end, the person who complains that some people end up in hell is like saying that I blame God because He wanted to love us more by suffering for us and giving us this same power.

 

[Riley259]

Except that it is. The self-conscious choice is choosing self over God. In fact, it’s being entirely self-conscious, that is, thinking only of self.

To quote Peter Kreeft in his book *Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven, *“The damned hate God because God demands they repent, and that hurts their pride, it is the death of their egotism. They see God as the enemy of what is dearest to them: their own demand to be their own God.”

There also seems to be a misunderstanding of what Hell is.

Now, God is the same eternally–yesterday, today, and forever. What is different is us.

To quote Kreeft again, “Though the damned do not love God, God loves them, and this is their torture. The very fires of Hell are made of the love of God! Love received by one who only wants to hate and fight thwarts his deepest want and is therefore torture. If God could stop loving the damned, Hell would cease to be pure torture. If the sun could stop shining, lovers of the dark would no longer be tortured by it. But the sun could sooner cease to shine than God cease to be God.”

Look at it this way. To those who love God with their whole hearts and mind, God’s love is pure bliss. To those who hate God, God’s love is pure torture.

It’s not like the damned stand outside the gates of Hell, take a peek inside, and say, “Oh goody! I can hardly wait to go there! Yup, that’s my self-conscious choice!” Because, you see, one cannot stand outside the love of God. It is *our reaction *to that love that is heaven or hell.

A very insightful view of hell…in fact, I’ve read quite a few insightful views of this very misunderstood doctrine in this thread. Thanks everyone for your contribution - it not only helps the OP but others like myself who always have nagging doubts about this particularly difficult doctrine.

 

[blessedtoo]

If God were an omniscient being – all-knowing that is, how could he in all his infinite mercy allow for people to be created who he would know would end up in hell? If he knows everything that will happen, the whole timeline before it is acted out, than he will know which beings will have internal weaknesses preventing them from achieving salvation.

Let’s say I have been given the gift of foreknowledge. I am going to have 8 children but I know that 2 of them will turn away from me, refuse my love and choose to completely separate themselves from me. The other six will respond to and return my love, stay close to me and live fruitful and joyful lives. Do I choose to deny life to the six who want my love because two refuse?

Arrogance, drunkedness, stupidity, foolishness, greed, envy, lust, cruelty, pride, insatiability, inability to believe in Him at all…

These can all be simply the result of mental disorders, brain-damage, bad environments, and a plethora of factors we have no control over, so why must these people burn in the fires of eternal damnation?

You have two different issues here. All those sins you mentioned might be the result of mental illness. If they are, their severity will certainly be mitigated by the fact that a person whose free will is diminished by mental incapacity is certainly not held accountable in the same way as someone with full knowledge and comprehension. Even our legal system recognizes this with plenty of flexibility for the mentally disabled.

If some people are “saved”, why do the rest have to spend the whole of eternity suffering when God could simply be merciful and re-arrange their neurons to be good and faithful Catholics?

Other posts have responded regarding free will. I would just add that God did not create robots with which to tinker. We are not God’s miniature “HAL’s” (2001 reference!). You can not have a relationship with an automaton. God created us to have a relationship with Him. This requires from us a choice. Do we want that or not?

There are so many people who simply have no access to “the truth.” I’m lucky enough to come on here as often as I wish, both because I have the chemical tendency to need answers as well as something people for thousands of years weren’t lucky enough to have (I need not name it as you are looking at one).

We are all made in the image and likeness of God. While it’s true that many will not hear the truth, every human has the capacity to intuit God. We can certainly observe this throughout human history before the one true God revealed Himself. All humans who strive to find the truth of God have the potential to find Him.

“To know all is to forgive all”

You can not forgive someone who does not seek forgiveness. God is all merciful and yearns for all of us to turn to Him in repentence. If we choose to reject this mercy, He will not force it upon us.

 

[Kathrin]

Actually, there is a hell. But there’s only two people there. Hitler and Stalin. Well, maybe three. Pol Pot too.

Well, if you “put” Hitler and Stalin in there where do you draw the line?
And why not assume they were, yes CRUEL and TERRIBLE but maybe just blinded, sick, insane?
I believe even for those people there can be forgiveness.

(Ok, now there will probably be even MORE victims and family members of victims out there who will want to tear me apart? I am not intending to offend anybody.)

Kathrin

 

[Liberanosamalo]

First I was being facetious. I really believe there are more than three people in hell. The saints have seen images and it was full.

Secondly, I’m sure forgiveness is open to all (I count on it personally), but those particular individuals did not seem to seek it out or ask pardon of their victims in any way.

 

[TraditionalCath]

I’ve been trying to reconcile this for a long time and still can’t think of any satisfying answer:

If God were an omniscient being – all-knowing that is, how could he in all his infinite mercy allow for people to be created who he would know would end up in hell? If he knows everything that will happen, the whole timeline before it is acted out, than he will know which beings will have internal weaknesses preventing them from achieving salvation.

Arrogance, drunkedness, stupidity, foolishness, greed, envy, lust, cruelty, pride, insatiability, inability to believe in Him at all…

These can all be simply the result of mental disorders, brain-damage, bad environments, and a plethora of factors we have no control over, so why must these people burn in the fires of eternal damnation? If some people are “saved”, why do the rest have to spend the whole of eternity suffering when God could simply be merciful and re-arrange their neurons to be good and faithful Catholics?

Please, I don’t want any lame answers about seeking truth and wisdom or carrying your own cross. There are so many people who simply have no access to “the truth.” I’m lucky enough to come on here as often as I wish, both because I have the chemical tendency to enjoy this as well as something people for thousands of years weren’t lucky enough to have (I need not name it as you are looking at one).

I can’t escape from asking these questions, they originate in the chemical pathways of my mind, so did God know a thousand years ago whether I was bound for hell???

As the French Proverb says:

“To know all is to forgive all.”

So how can infinite knowledge and infinite punishment exist?

:dts:

God is merciful. don’t forget that. we are all capable of commiting terrible sins against Him. yet, in His infinite mercy, He does forgive us. I think you don’t understand God, and that is why you feel harsh towards him. man puts himself in hell not God. if man is judged unfavorably and ends in hell, well, that is his own fault. its not God’s fault at all. He is just and merciful and does not wish anyone to go to hell.

But, since we have the capacity to put ourselves there, because we reject God and we do things that warrant us going there, we have no one to blame but ourselves. period. we know the difference between right and wrong. some mental illness is a legitimate reason for some peoples actions, and God judges them also. but whether He sends that soul to hell is up to Him. since we do not know who goes to hell or not, there is no point in even speculating because its not up to us to try to figure out who goes to hell and what put them there. trust me, if the soul is in hell then it deserves to be there.

if people continue to reject God and do things that are so atrocious as to put them in hell, and He decides that that is where they deserve to be, then you can absolutely guarentee that that is where they deserve to be. God is also a just God, and He does things justly. so if anyone has an issue with going to hell, then i suggest one tries to avoid going there by living a Christian life and doing things that are pleasing to God.

If God let the unjust get away with their bad actions, then what woudl that say? tell me? we as humans have a just system, we have the courts to put away criminals for their actions. if they weren’t criminals and didn’t commit any crimes, then they wouldn’t be there would they? no. same thing can be said about God. He is just and anyone who has been judged as deserving of hellfire deserves it.

so why not put your faith and trust in God and live a life pleasing to Him, and not worry about who goes to hell or not?

To help you understand a bit more about hell, check out these links. one of them tells you also about salvation.

Check out these links from the CA library:

The Hell there is! ( From CA library )

catholic.com/library/Hell_There_Is.asp

Salvation: ( From CA library )

catholic.com/library/salvation.asp

 

[aspawloski4th]

think of it this way. if the bad were put with the good for eternity, even in heaven it would turn heaven into hell. the good and bad are with eachother here , thats true in heaven too, heaven wouldnt be as good as they make it out to be. Ill be plenty content not to spend eternity with hitler, stalin, and charles manson. thats my unique way of looking at it. thankyou mom.

 

[TraditionalCath]

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=2497521#post2497521

this post seems to be a duplicate of the one he made above.

 

[TraditionalCath]

this is a duplicate post of his. he posted the same one in apologetics, but not in moral theology. duplicate thread:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=170814&page=2

 

[Em_in_FL]

I posted this on a similar thread…
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=2461685#post2461685

I’ll requote it here and bold the point I want to make…

This is a very difficult subject… a subject that truly keeps people away from faith, so it’s not one to be taken lightly by simply saying “Hell exists, so there”… that kind of teaching turns people away.

Yes, Hell exists… but MUCH more needs to be said.

Some people simply cannot rationalize that God (logically being an all-loving creator) could allow Hell to exist. That very concept makes people fearful of the idea of God.

It needs to be emphasized that God does not WANT Hell to exist. He yearns and longs for each and every single solitary soul to be with Him.

Hell is where souls go who do not want to be with God… by their own will and choice. God pushes no one away… if a soul wants to be with God, then He invites them.

One aspect of Hell that I don’t think is discussed often enough is the “life” that the souls in Hell have to endure.
I have every reason to believe Hell is a horrible place (fire and brimstone and whatnot).
But I also have every reason to believe in the infinite mercy of God.

**God is actively giving each and every soul “life”… without God we do not have “life”.
I personally believe that one aspect of God’s infinite mercy is that He lowers the “life” given to the souls in Hell.
What an extreme mercy it would be if those souls in Hell didn’t have the “life” required to feel the pain of Hell!! Those precious souls that God still loves and He doesn’t want them to suffer… yet, they still choose to not be with Him… He still has mercy on them.
**
Just my personal thoughts on the subject…

 

[Liberanosamalo]

Hell’s horrible punishment is eternal separation from God. God does not push away those who are separated through no fault of their own. If they lived as good a life as they could with the information available to Him, He will accept them too. The Catholic Church has always taught that. But that is also why Christ commanded us all to go out and make disciples of all nations, so that people would at least have the chance to know God’s personal love.

As for those who reject God’s love, He is not a rapist. He will not force Himself on us like that. Maybe some of you have never met anyone who is truly evil and makes an effort to defy God and lead others away. I know someone who has dabbled in the occult and actively prevented both children from being baptized or going to church. The oldest is a teen now and is beginning to search out God on his own. And he’s one of the most honest and moral teens I know, despite his upbringing. But his father continues to mock Catholics in particular and sneers at supposedly intelligent people who believe all that mumbo jumbo. He’s done some truly evil things in his life. Some day he will be surprised to find that God was keeping score. (His brother is a devout Catholic, by the way.)

Think of it in imperfect human terms. I’ll use my own situation as an example. I married someone and loved him completely. Tried to give him a home, a family, fidelity, and all the good things a wife tries to give. But that somehow wasn’t enough for him. So he systematically destroyed our relationship through all the ways bad husbands do that. A few times he said a half-hearted I’m sorry, but he wasn’t really, because the behavior didn’t change. Eventually he left his home and struck out on his own. He cut himself off from the love of his wife completely. Now he is alone. He’s also miserable. The life he chose apart from his family hasn’t made him happy. But it was his free choice. A hell of his own making. And that’s the way he’ll live out the rest of his life.

I’m sure you can all see the parallel in a soul that rejects God’s love and ends up elsewhere. (Don’t suggest that if he was sorry I’d take him back like God would. That’s where the metaphor ends. I won’t ever fall for his fake penitence and other lies again. Only God can see into someone’s heart to see if they are truly sorry or if they’re just being manipulative to cover all their bases.)

 

[SumEns]

Boy this one is a classic. The old free will vs. omniscience/determinism. Well, here is AN example of how you can get through this. First, it is accepted that God is omniscient, omnibenebolent, omnipotent, omnipresent, etc.and we have a free will. Further, God is outside of time, that is, not in any timeline whatsoever. There are two major points here…

1. God is not predicting the future, or just “knowing” the future. God is outside of time. For him there is not a linear progression of time. He is not sitting aroung, metaphorically speaking of course, saying in five minutes peron ‘X’ will to action ‘A’. He does not see things as past, present and future. All is known instantly, and all is seen (past to future) simultaneusly. So how does this help with free will, on to the next point…
2. The easiest way to put it, without having to get into all of the philosophical verbage (we philosophers do like to be wordy, if you can’t tell ), is to imagine that you are in a railroad car, on a track. Up on the track you can go either left or right. You want and will to go left, but the track goes right. My will was free. I wanted to go left and tried to will it but it did not happen. It may not be the best anology, but it is still accurate. Because God is omniscient, he knows, as a matter of fact, what we will do. However, we still have a choice. If this is not clear, let me know and I will do what I can.

As far as mental disorders go, that is a completely different story. If one is compelled to do some act to the where they just do it, they are not doing it freely. In order for an act to be free, and a person culpable, they must be able to freely choose that option, even if it is an impossible desire (i.e. to fly by flapping your arms). This may lead you to ask why then do we hold, say, serial killers responsible for their actions? Simple. We are not God. We cannot see into the minds of man. We must assume that it was done freely because we cannot know otherwise.

 

[Kathrin]

You want and will to go left, but the track goes right. My will was free. I wanted to go left and tried to will it but it did not happen. It may not be the best anology, but it is still accurate. Because God is omniscient, he knows, as a matter of fact, what we will do. However, we still have a choice. If this is not clear, let me know and I will do what I can.

One thing really isn’t quite clear to me (apart from that, this is a very interesting way of looking at things, the whole out-of-time perspective, I kind of believe that too).
(Ever read “Conversations with God”?)
ok but now my question. So we are on a track, in a railroad car. The track goes right (meaning, I assume, our path in life goes right, that is, either to heaven or to hell, for example). We want to go left, it is our will to go left, but we can’t - did i understand that right? - because we can’t change the track?
I don’t understand where that would leave ANY free will at all?

Kathrin

 

[SumEns]

One thing really isn’t quite clear to me (apart from that, this is a very interesting way of looking at things, the whole out-of-time perspective, I kind of believe that too).
(Ever read “Conversations with God”?)
ok but now my question. So we are on a track, in a railroad car. The track goes right (meaning, I assume, our path in life goes right, that is, either to heaven or to hell, for example). We want to go left, it is our will to go left, but we can’t - did i understand that right? - because we can’t change the track?
I don’t understand where that would leave ANY free will at all?

Kathrin

Sorry, I have not read that.

As far as your question…maybe it would be more clear if we used a moral example. If someone were to put your arm in a contraption to which you could not escape that had a knife at the end of it, and an innocent person under it and a madman to the side with the controls for the robotic are to which you are affixed. He tells you that you are going to kill the innocent person. He will make sure you do, he has the control. Surely, you do not want to harm this innocent person. You will to do the opposite, to help them and to escape. The madman puts the control on a 30 second timer. It will happen, whether you want it to or not, whether you will against it or not. You are free in your choice. He may be taking away the possibility for you to actualize your will and get what you want, but you can still will and want it to happen. 30 seconds later, it happens, but you did not want it to. Having a free will does not mean that whatever you will happens. I can will to be rich, but it will not happen. God knows that the timer went off. He also knows you chose to do otherwise. We are free to make our choices, regardless of whether or not it can actually happen. Referring to the orginal sample, I can will to go right, but if it just cannot happen, it will not.

Sorry for the gory example, and I do not mean to say God is a madman (far from it), but maybe this will help.

 

[TraditionalCath]

QUOTE=Liberanosamalo

"Actually, there is a hell. But there’s only two people there. Hitler and Stalin. Well, maybe three. Pol Pot too.

No one else will ever go there. Go and do whatever you want. There are no eternal consequences to your actions. You’re quite safe. "

actually, if you chose to separate yourself from God and you continue to reject Him, and live in a state of serious sin (mortal ) and don’t confess it and clean up your life and live it pleasing to God, well, then there are serious consequences to those actions. so the do as you please argument is erroneous. and there are eternal consequences for choosing to willfully separate yourself from God.