Can we really choose to die in a state of grace?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Abigail
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
A

Abigail

Guest
Everyone sins. When we confess our mortal sins and receive absolution, those sins are forgiven and we regain our friendship with God and go to Purgatory/Heaven if we die. If we die before we repent and receive absolution, we are separated from God and go to Hell.

But, God decides WHEN we die. Why would He decide a person should die while in mortal sin? Would not a loving God choose a time when a person is in the state of grace? That would mean that only those who are continually and intentionally in mortal sin would go to Hell. It would seem there would be few people who wouldn’t be in a state of grace at least at some time, and would not a loving God choose that time for their death and thus save them from eternal damnation? :confused:
 
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
A. Positive and Direct Suicide perpetrated without God’s consent always constitutes a grave injustice towards Him. To destroy a thing is to dispose of it as an absolute master and to act as one having full and independent dominion over it; but man does not possess this full and independent dominion over his life, since to be an owner one must be superior to his property. God has reserved to himself direct dominion over life; He is the owner of its substance and He has given man only the serviceable dominion, the right of use, with the charge of protecting and preserving the substance, that is, life itself. Consequently suicide is an attempt against the dominion and right of ownership of the Creator. To this injustice is added a serious offense against the charity which man owes to himself, since by his act he deprives himself of the greatest good in his possession and the possibility of attaining his final end. Moreover, the sin may be aggravated by circumstances, such as failure in conjugal, paternal, or filial piety, failure in justice or charity, if by taking his life one eludes existing obligations of justice or acts of charity which he could and should perform. That suicide is unlawful is the teaching of Holy Scripture and of the Church, which condemns the act as a most atrocious crime and, in hatred of the sin and to arouse the horror of its children, denies the suicide Christian burial. Moreover, suicide is directly opposed to the most powerful and invincible tendency of every creature and especially of man, the preservation of life. Finally, for a sane man deliberately to take his own life he must, as a general rule, first have annihilated in himself all that he possessed of spiritual life, since suicide is in absolute contradiction to everything that the Christian religion teaches us as to the end and object of life and, except in cases of insanity, is usually the natural termination of a life of disorder, weakness, and cowardice.
Click to expand...
oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Suicide

So no, absolutely any form of suicide is a sin.
 
Oh, my! That wasn’t where I was going with this at all! :eek: I wasn’t implying that someone could wait until they were in a state of grace and then kill themselves so they could die in it.

My dilemma is that even though we live a good Catholic life, and go to confession as soon as possible if we commit mortal sin in an attempt to stay in a state of grace so that when we die we will go to Purgatory/Heaven, if God decides to end our life while we are in mortal sin, we will go to Hell. So whether we go to Purgatory/Heaven or Hell isn’t really related to how we live, but to when God decides that we die.
 
People are exercising free will all of the time, and that could cause our death. I’m not sure that God decides when we die. He knows when, but does he really WILL it?

I am driving to the store - drunk driver runs a stop sign and kills me. That was because the driver hit me after drinking too much. Is there more to it than that?
 
When you kill yourself it’s suicide, regardless of the condition, and because suicide is grave matter, you lose your state of grace, at least it would seem to me.
 
Starwynd said:
When you kill yourself it’s suicide, regardless of the condition, and because suicide is grave matter, you lose your state of grace, at least it would seem to me.
Click to expand...
Grave matter, but not always mortal sin due to the 3 conditions.

In ‘the old days’ it doesn’t seem like much thought was given to the 3 conditions, as suiciders could not even have the rite of Christian Burial.
 
Starwynd – please read my earlier reply. My question is not about a person choosing to die or commit suicide, but about the time at which GOD chooses to end a person’s life.

Even if we choose to avoid sin and live in a state of grace 99% of the time, the argument could be made that our choosing to lead a good life really doesn’t affect whether we go to Purgatory/Heaven or Hell. That the choice is really made by God, based on when he decides we die. Perhaps God’s decision is based on his observation of the way we live, so that the better our life, the more likely we are to be allowed to die in a state of grace.

PaulinVA suggests that God doesn’t specifically decide when individuals die, that death is a result of actions of others that are the result of our fallen nature. But even if that is so, could not God intervene to prevent people being killed while they were in mortal sin? And would He not want to do so?
 
Thanks, Starwynd, I see where what I wrote in the title could be confusing…

By us “choosing to die in a state of grace,” I was referring to our choosing to remain in a state of grace as much as possible, hoping to be in a state of grace when we die. But even if we sinned very little, our desires and efforts to remain in the state of grace would fail if God chose to take us during a a time, however short, before we confessed mortal sins, however few.

I guess what I’m trying to explore is the old concept of whether we can “earn” Heaven. On the one hand it would seem that staying in a state of grace 99% of the time would increase your chances, but not if God decides otherwise and decides to end your life during the 1% of the time you are not…unless, God takes into consideration the amount of time you have spent in a state of grace in determining when you will die.

🤷
 
Sure. I wasn’t trying to be combative, I was just a bit confused in what you were trying to say. Sorry about that.
 
Abigail said:
Thanks, Starwynd, I see where what I wrote in the title could be confusing…

By us “choosing to die in a state of grace,” I was referring to our choosing to remain in a state of grace as much as possible, hoping to be in a state of grace when we die. But even if we sinned very little, our desires and efforts to remain in the state of grace would fail if God chose to take us during a a time, however short, before we confessed mortal sins, however few.

I guess what I’m trying to explore is the old concept of whether we can “earn” Heaven. On the one hand it would seem that staying in a state of grace 99% of the time would increase your chances, but not if God decides otherwise and decides to end your life during the 1% of the time you are not…unless, God takes into consideration the amount of time you have spent in a state of grace in determining when you will die.

🤷
Click to expand...
You know, I am very conservative and boarderline scrupulous but I do have to comment here. I am very much aware of the teachings of the Church on mortal sin and the consequences of dying in such a state. But the God that I worship sees the whole person and knows us better than we know ourselves. He is infinite mercy and infinite justice and God is love. If a person were to live a life of prayer and let’s say, being realistic, that for 80 % of their lives they chose God and resisted temptations. Your question remains: Would that person who would visit the confessional the next Saturday be damned to hell should he die beforehand?

I would have to say that it goes infinitely deeper than that. First off, to be in mortal sin requires that one gives full consent to the eternal separation of God. Anything less could not be total rejection since the will would be diminished in culpablility. So, let’s say that I teach religious education, volunteer at Mass, visit prisoners, share love as much as I can and basically emulate the light of Christ as much as my weak humanity will allow. Those times when I fail, I routinely go to confession and am truly contrite for those stupid temptations that I gave in to. This is who I would be and God knows the inner most parts of my heart.

In my weakness on a Wednesday afternoon I succomb to grave matter and I am truly sorry but instead of scheduling an immediate confession I tell God that I will definitely be there on Saturday. On friday morning, I am killed in an auto accident.

We are bound by the commands of God but God is not. Am I at that point eternally separated from God? Were all of my choices for God in vain so as to have one grave act condemn me for all eternity?

You know, I don’t know that answer. But I have to reassure myself that the God that I worship, the God who became Man and died for me, the God who knows how sympathetic I can be for everyone, would be infinitely more compassionate and find anything within His omniscience to find me free of eternal separation. I am not relying on presumption. I am merely saying that God is God. The Church teaches that there is a hell but there is no official mention of anyone being there and private revelation could be there as a deterrant in order that we live the holy life that God expects for us to live.

God is love and love would do anything and look everywhere within the depths of my soul to find the reconciliation that Jesus won for us as He hung on the cross and died.

That is my thought. It does not contradict Church teachings. My thought just steps back and allows me to realize that God created me good and when I take my last breath He will know how full my consent was to remove myself from Him…and if He finds that I did He is infinitely just…teachccd
 
My wife and I were just talking about this.

Jesus died for all of my sins. Even for the grave sin I could have committed and didn’t get a chance to confess before death.

So, is that sin forgiven? It has been “paid for”.
 
Abigail said:
By us “choosing to die in a state of grace,” I was referring to our choosing to remain in a state of grace as much as possible, hoping to be in a state of grace when we die. But even if we sinned very little, our desires and efforts to remain in the state of grace would fail if God chose to take us during a a time, however short, before we confessed mortal sins, however few.
Click to expand...
Abigail - I believe that in the end - whatever age or circumstance in which we die - be it prepared to the max and waiting in bed wide eyes open for it or unexpectedly when a Steinway piano drops on our head - what matters is that we desired to know God and tried as we were able to do what is right. In the end - only God knows our desire and our ability to try. He hears the faintest stirrings in your heart for Him and that is what he knows and loves. Confession is an important component to loving Him. This we do as He gives us grace to.
 
Teachccd and PaulinVA,

Thanks for your comments - this is the meat of the matter I was trying to get at.

Here’s my dilemma. I know a lot of very conservative/traditionalist Catholics who are horrified by the so-called “liberal” concept of the fundamental option – that if we generally choose God, he will take our other choices into consideration and not send us to Hell on a “technicality.” Although the fundamental option concept is clearly open to abuse, the alternative doesn’t sound like the loving God who created us and wants us to know and love Him, and be with Him forever.

The situation where one commits a mortal sin and repents of it, intending to go to confession, but is killed before he can get there is not nearly as difficult as the situation of a normally devout person who commits a mortal sin and dies WITHOUT repenting of it and intending to go to confession. Now, some will say that couldn’t or wouldn’t happen to someone who genuinely loves God and exists in a state of the grace most of the time, but I beg to differ. There are times when even the best of us are seemingly tested beyond our strength and become impatient and angry with the just demands of our Lord. We all have our weak moments. I can easily imagine a young man meeting a young woman, being attracted to her, knowing sleeping with her was a sin, doing it anyway with full knowledge and consent, and telling God in the morning that he was sick and tired of following rules he didn’t like and that he wasn’t going to go to Church or be “religious” anymore if it meant he couldn’t have any fun. That God could go jump in a lake. Of course, later in the week (or maybe months or years later) he will think it over and realize he is wrong. But what if God calls him in the meantime? And WOULD God want to call him then, or wouldn’t He want to wait until he repented?

It seems that our place the afterlife might be a bit more complicated than just “dying in a state of grace.”
 
Yes, I would agree that the fundamental option is subject to abuse. The Church clearly teaches that we can reject God in a single act that constitutes grave matter and the other two criterion. But in the example that you pose whereby someone rejects God for a period of time due to their perception of a strict God who allows him no fun, then again there can be mitigating circumstances. What caused someone who is normally following God to move into this area of rejection? Is the thinking rational or was there some type of coercion or compulsion that led to this? Remember that our God is not in time. A momentary rejection is not any “longer” than a rejection of ten years in God’s view. So to commit a sin on Wednesday and go to confession on Saturday is no different than committing a sin in 2008 and going to confession in 2018 as far as God knows you in completion. Your repentance, even if done years later, is in the view of God’s eternal now. He sees all things at once and so time is of no essence. I must clarify that one who knows that he or she is in the state of mortal sin should get to confession as soon as possible and not presume God’s mercy.

This is a very tricky issue and that is why we can never judge anyone’s soul and why we must know that God is slow to anger and rich in kindness. When one is truly in the state of mortal sin then that person gave “full consent” to reject God and separate himself from God. Full consent cannot be hampered by any external circumstances that would alter the rational thought process. Things like acquired force of habit, despair, anxiety, poor conscience formation are a few things that would inhibit a rational choice.

Yes, mortal sin exists and yes there are those who commit mortal sin. There is no doubt about that and the intent of my post is not to undermine that very real fact. I’m just trying to say that we cannot know the mind of God or what infinite love is. We cannot know infinitle mercy nor the infinite justice of God. This is a chasm away from our understanding. That is why we have the ten commandments and the command of love. We are to love God with all of our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves.

God made us and understands us completely. If one rejects God and God acknowledges that rejection and allows that person eternal separation (hell) then one can rest assured that whatever grave matter that person chose was done from the very depths of their heart and they rejected God fully and completely. God will respect that rejection and allow that person to eternally remain in that state.

Again, my intent is not to undermine the seriousness of mortal sin but I also do not want to undermine the compassion and infinite love and wisdom of our God…teachccd
 
I also enjoyed PaulinVA and teachccd’s answers and thought they were very balanced.

The premise of this thread is that God is the one who determines when we die. Like PaulinVA, I’m not so quick to go there and accept that idea. And because there is alot of gray here, I’m also not inclined to take this idea one step further and make the conclusion that it is God who decides if a person dies in a state of grace or mortal sin. That also would be false if the premise is false.

Somewhere the answer is in the middle between two extremes. I liked teachccd’s idea that if a person knowingly is not in a state of grace, that they should ask for forgiveness sincerely as soon as possible and accept the grace available to them though the sacraments.
 
In the prayers for the dead which we use in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, there’s a passage I always find comforting, where the priest asks God to forgive the deceased his/her sins “both voluntary and involuntary”; and in another place:
Priest: As a good and loving God, forgive every sin he (she) has committed in thought, word or deed, for there is no one who lives and is sinless. You alone are without sin. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your word is truth.
Click to expand...
👍
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top