The thread is long. I doubt you really read it to the end to understand what you were saying above.
Andy, I do not think you understand what Hell is.
You forgot the final chapter in your accurate analysis of the human condition and the realisation of human inability to save one self.
No I did not. God at all times gives us the Grace to be perfect and gives us no test that we can not pass. We are saved by grace but it requires our works or in other words our utter submission to the will of the master. Since I sin everyday it is clear that I activly choose to resist and refuse grace from God daily it speaks to my character. My character in having actively chosen sin reveals that I sin against the holy spirit, the unforgivable sin. I warrant hell, it is only when I perfectly submit to God and sin no more do I have any chance of heaven. It is not depair to know one’s self and accept it. I may hope that I will change but I know it is my fault, and my fault alone that I burn in hell if I die today. God is infinitly good, and I am infinitly evil by my own choice. That is what it comes down to and from my experience most are in the same boat.
I also want it known that I still think it is good to be christian even if we are going to hell, and that we should help each other because when we do we make it easier for another to go to heaven whose character is strong and pure enough to make it there.Have you ever heard of the pelagian heresy? I think you are getting dangerously close to the the thinking of brother Pelagius who thought that God had given us everything we need in order to succeed, that we choose to follow Him or not and are totally capable of choosing and becoming holy and perfect because God would not demand something impossible of us. We are created with free will to choose.
no we believe that anyone who dies in a state of unrepentant mortal sin goes to hell. Mortal sin can only be committed by someone who commits a gravely evil act, knowing its seriousness, and does it freely and willfully. Unrepentent means that God judges each person at the moment of death, giving them full knowledge of Him, of their sins as well as their good actions in life, and all the knowledge necessary to choose between union with him, or rejection of him, for all eternity, and the unrepentent person chooses hell (rejection).
Yes I have, but in no way am I dening original sin, it is real and by itself warrants hell. I am also not denying grace, what I am saying is that by sinning daily that I have actively chosen sin. I can not sin and say I did not choose that sin, that is to believe in predetermination and to abandon the concept of a free will. Gods Mercy comes at a price. he does not show it to anyone who chooses sin. Jesus did not say go and try to sin no more, He said Go and sin No More. We have the choice to be sinless, but so many of us including me choose to sin.
Yet the answer from St. Augustin was also that we cannot choose not to sin. Why? because our will has been impaired… weakened. He talkes of us as sick and in need of a doctor. Our sight being blurred…
This sounds like once saved always saved to me or maybe determinism or maybe even Universal Salvation because it sounds like you are dening free will?
I can not say that I will ever be without sin because I am guilty of original sin and personal sin, to deny that would be another sin. Im not sure by your words but you seem to imply that God does not give us the grace to avoid every sin, which denies the infinte Goodness of God. He has promised not to give us a cross we could not bare and never to abandon us. I have the sole responsability of being open to and accepting that grace, that is all, and if I ever do completely I will not sin. Yet I continue to sin which means I am not open to Gods grace completely.