Created in God's image, and fairness? (Heaven and Hell)

[LostSoul87]

I don’t understand how 70-80 years of life leads to fair judgment for an entire eternity. And it’s not even that long for some. For example, someone who’s 35 years old get unexpectedly hi by a car and dies. This person didn’t really believe. This person may have thought about it, talked about it, but just never really… got anywhere. So this person goes to hell? What kind of BS is that?

I can’t help but to think Catholicism is just flat or irrational when it comes to the heaven/hell belief.

God gave us minds to reason. If we truly are created in his image - does our own valid reasoning not account for what is ahead? If you were God, would you send this 35 year old to an eternity of torment?

I was also reading another post… someone talked about a husband going to heaven, with the wife and children going to hell. The husband, who found true love, could not possibly enjoy heaven. This “true love” which this husband found, why would something that Jesus taught us, and encouraged to seek, be taken away? I mean sure God can “heal” your sadness… but is it just me or would doing something like that just seem really, really wrong?

Take a look at parents who have children addicted to drugs. The majority of the parents still love their children, and no matter how much the kid tells the parent he/she hates them… the parent will still love them. I highly doubt these parents wish eternal torment upon their children.

Going back to being “created in Gods image” - why would reasoning like this not apply? Isn’t reasoning what separates the humans from the animals, and what determines what has an eternal soul and what doesn’t according to Catholicism?

I’m not a 35 year old, I’m just a 20 year old who’s a bit upset over the fact that because I’m not 100% sure on a belief, I might be screwed for eternity because of it. I mean what kind of… BS… is that? And what’s the point of saying “I believe” if it’s not true because “I just don’t know”? It’s not like that would help me out either.

 

[Tim_Kirchoff]

I don’t understand what you’re asking.

 

[mathematician]

Gerard W Hughes on “Uncle George”:

"God was a family relative, much admired by Mum and Dad, who described him as very loving, a great friend of the family, very powerful and interested in all of us. Eventually we are taken to meet ‘Good Old Uncle George’. He lives in a formidable mansion, is bearded, gruff and threatening. We cannot share our parents professed admiration for this jewel in the family. And at the end of the visit, Uncle George turns to address us. ‘Now listen, dear.’ he begins, looking very severe, ‘I want to see you here once a week, and if you fail to come, let me show you what will happen to you.’ He then leads us down to the mansion’s basement. It is dark, becomes hotter and hotter as we descend, and we begin to hear unearthly screams. In the basement there are steel doors. Uncle George opens one. ‘Now look in there, dear,’ he says. We see a nightmare vision, an array of furnaces with little demons in attendance, who hurl into the blaze those men, women and children who failed to visit ?Uncle George or to act in a way he approved. ‘And if you don’t visit me, dear, that is where you will most certainly go’, says Uncle George. He then takes us upstairs to meet Mum and Dad. As we go home, tightly clutching Dad with one hand and Mum with the other, Mum leans over and says, ‘And now don’t you love Uncle George with all your heart and soul, mind and strength?’ And we, loathing the monster, say, ‘Yes I do,’ because to say anything else would be to join the queue at the furnace. At a tender age religious schizophrenia has set in and we keep telling Uncle George how much we love him and how good he is and that we want to do only what pleases him. We observe what we are told are his wishes and dare not admit, even to ourselves, that we loathe him.

Uncle George is a caricature, but a caricature of a truth, the truth that we can construct a God who is an image of our tyrannical selves. Hell-fire sermons are out of fashion, but they were in fashion a few decades ago and they may very well come in again. Such sermons have a great appeal to certain unhealthy types of mind, but they cause havoc with the more healthy and sensitive."

Gerard W Hughes obviously doesn’t like Uncle George, and who can blame him, but he follows it up with a warning:

"Uncle George is one caricature of a false notion of God, but there are many others. We may get rid of Uncle George and put in his place a Santa Claus notion of God, a benevolent figure who enters our life occasionally to give us presents. He is nice to have around as long as everything is going well, but when disaster strikes we give up believing in him. Santa Claus is closer to God, who is love, than Uncle George, but bears little relation to the God of scripture who ‘counts the very hairs of our heads’ and who ‘created my inmost self and put me together in my mother’s womb’. " (Gerard W Hughes in God of Surprise)

Although God is not Uncle George, it shouldn’t necessarily be assumed that he has much interest in conforming himself to our notions of fairness (cf Matt 20.1-15). Ultimately he is sovereign, and not answerable to us.

 

[Thing]

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[BlaineTog]

I don’t understand how 70-80 years of life leads to fair judgment for an entire eternity.

How much time should be enough?

And it’s not even that long for some. For example, someone who’s 35 years old get unexpectedly hi by a car and dies. This person didn’t really believe. This person may have thought about it, talked about it, but just never really… got anywhere. So this person goes to hell? What kind of BS is that?

We don’t know whether they go to hell or not.

If you were God, would you send this 35 year old to an eternity of torment?

Hell is absence of God, the purposeful removal of yourself from God’s love. God doesn’t send you to hell, you send yourself to hell.

So, the question then is, did that 35 year old chose to enter God’s love, or did he push God away? Well, I don’t know, nor does anyone, because we’re limited in our information. It’s absurd to claim he did or didn’t.

I was also reading another post… someone talked about a husband going to heaven, with the wife and children going to hell. The husband, who found true love, could not possibly enjoy heaven.

Yes he could. Heaven is an ontological state, not a feeling. As such, Hell cannot ransom Heaven, since Heaven is beyond such feelings.

This “true love” which this husband found, why would something that Jesus taught us, and encouraged to seek, be taken away?

Because the wife rejected it. She threw it out like an apple core.

I mean sure God can “heal” your sadness… but is it just me or would doing something like that just seem really, really wrong?

It’s not a matter of healing your sadness, it’s that sadness simply doesn’t exist.

I strongly recommend reading, “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis. It’s short, interesting, and has a section on just this topic. The book is about a bus ride which takes a bunch of souls in hell up to heaven to try to give them one last chance.

Take a look at parents who have children addicted to drugs. The majority of the parents still love their children, and no matter how much the kid tells the parent he/she hates them… the parent will still love them. I highly doubt these parents wish eternal torment upon their children.

No one should wish eternal judgment upon anyone. I don’t see your point.

I’m not a 35 year old, I’m just a 20 year old who’s a bit upset over the fact that because I’m not 100% sure on a belief, I might be screwed for eternity because of it.

It doesn’t work like that. Getting into Heaven isn’t passing a theology test.

 

[fhansen]

If we know anything from Church teachings as well as our own experience, God is infinitely just, merciful, and loving. And we believe that there are various levels of culpability for sin depending on degrees of ignorance, which is going to vary with age among other things. Shouldn’t we be able to trust that a God like this will always do the right thing?

 

[Sarpedon]

I’m not a 35 year old, I’m just a 20 year old who’s a bit upset over the fact that because I’m not 100% sure on a belief, I might be screwed for eternity because of it. I mean what kind of… BS… is that? And what’s the point of saying “I believe” if it’s not true because “I just don’t know”? It’s not like that would help me out either.

Faith in the end is an act of the will along with consent of the intellect. “Consent of the intellect” does not mean that you are necessarily able to understand everything philosophically or theologically, or the ability to refute presumed paradoxes or arguments against God. This intellectual consent can be fulfilled by realizing your own fallibility and potential for error and trusting in God rather than in yourself. There is a much more complete discussion of this in the free will thread around page 15.

 

[mike7795]

I don’t understand how 70-80 years of life leads to fair judgment for an entire eternity. And it’s not even that long for some. For example, someone who’s 35 years old get unexpectedly hi by a car and dies. This person didn’t really believe. This person may have thought about it, talked about it, but just never really… got anywhere. So this person goes to hell? What kind of BS is that?

I can’t help but to think Catholicism is just flat or irrational when it comes to the heaven/hell belief.

God gave us minds to reason. If we truly are created in his image - does our own valid reasoning not account for what is ahead? If you were God, would you send this 35 year old to an eternity of torment?

I was also reading another post… someone talked about a husband going to heaven, with the wife and children going to hell. The husband, who found true love, could not possibly enjoy heaven. This “true love” which this husband found, why would something that Jesus taught us, and encouraged to seek, be taken away? I mean sure God can “heal” your sadness… but is it just me or would doing something like that just seem really, really wrong?

Take a look at parents who have children addicted to drugs. The majority of the parents still love their children, and no matter how much the kid tells the parent he/she hates them… the parent will still love them. I highly doubt these parents wish eternal torment upon their children.

Going back to being “created in Gods image” - why would reasoning like this not apply? Isn’t reasoning what separates the humans from the animals, and what determines what has an eternal soul and what doesn’t according to Catholicism?

I’m not a 35 year old, I’m just a 20 year old who’s a bit upset over the fact that because I’m not 100% sure on a belief, I might be screwed for eternity because of it. I mean what kind of… BS… is that? And what’s the point of saying “I believe” if it’s not true because “I just don’t know”? It’s not like that would help me out either.

You’re not screwed for eternity. You’re a lot closer to God by saying “you don’t know” than those who claim they know.

“If you were blind, you would have no guilt, but now that you say ‘we see’, your guilt remains.” - Jesus

There’s nothing to worry about!