Does God violate our free will by making us die

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oliver109 said:
God deciding that one dies after sinning is effectively God giving up on a sinner and not wanting to give them another chance.
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and that is why we have purgatory. Only mortal sin separates us from God for eternity. Perhaps you don’t have a clear understanding of what mortal sin is?

I wouldn’t say that God ‘decides’ when someone dies. I would say that God knows when someone will die. But truthfully, we are all going to die sometime. Everyone but the innocent child knows that. So when someone commits mortal sin they are doing so in spite of the knowledge that they are going to die.

So I guess, it is our fault if we die with a mortal sin on our soul, not God’s decision.
 
oliver109 said:
…God giving up on a sinner and not wanting to give them another chance.
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So you want infinite chances? You want a consequence-free existence? What exactly is it that you want?

Free will is not the freedom to have whatever we will, it is the freedom to choose between available alternatives. An alternative you wish for not being available to you is not a violation of your free will.
 
oliver109 said:
It is our choice to commit the sin but it is not our choice to die after commiting it.
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So what I hear you saying is two things:
  1. we should not die
  2. we are not responsible for the way we live
Good luck with that.
 
I heard a story, long ago (maybe others can give more details or correct my bad memory). It was said that a woman went to the Cure of Ars (St. John Vianney) and was very worried about her husband’s salvation. He had been a wicked man, and had recently died from a fall from a horse. The saint answered her that he had been given a revelation that between saddle and ground, the man had asked for forgiveness and forgiveness had been granted.
 
No one ever asks why choosing beatitude should be eternal and whether we are responsible for that choice.
When asked if we are responsible for all the good that happens we tend say “well heck yea, duh.”
That’s taken for granted.
The problem with the problem of evil is, we don’t have any problem with the good.
 
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Actually, “Will” and “Free Will” are only concerning things which we are capable of effecting (making happen) ourselves, but not about things outside our capacity - those belong to the Will of the being that is capable of making them happen.
Living or dying is not something we can do for ourselves, but is done to us - we “suffer death”, and therefore it is not a matter of will, if we should “wish we still lived” or “wish we lived ling enough to be repentant, because we want to sin right now”. Sinning and contrition and penance are matters of our will, but not the timing of dying. I would say, if a person wants to not be caught in the OP’s dillema it would be good to spend every hour of the day in prayer and contemplation of God rather than in checking out the temptation options provided by the secular culture.
 
I am saying we should not die in a state of sin unless we specifically choose to like the person who sins seriously then commits suicide. we are responsible for how we live but it is fundamentally God who forces us to die after we sin.
 
oliver109 said:
I am saying we should not die in a state of sin unless we specifically choose to like the person who sins seriously then commits suicide. we are responsible for how we live but it is fundamentally God who forces us to die after we sin.
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Do you agree that death is a fact of life? I hope you do. It seems to be unavoidable.
If it is, and you agree that we are responsible for how we live, then I’m not sure what your question is.
You are bemoaning something you are powerless to change (death), and using that to mitigate responsibility.
Why should the fact of death mitigate your responsibility?
 
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oliver109 said:
they essentially did not choose to die in mortal sin
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But they chose to perform a mortal sin and live in mortal sin.

Anybody old enough to commit a mortal sin is old enough to know everybody will die.

And the fact is, lots of things are out of our control. But that doesn’t make God “mean”. Quite the opposite. He gave us all the helps we need to navigate this life, such as information (the commandments), assistance when we do make mistakes (sacrament of reconciliation), and the fact that He came and lived among us as a person and suffered all the things we did.
 
Human death is so different to plant death as our souls are separated from our bodies, who asks for that? especially when our soul is still in need of much repentance.
 
oliver109 said:
we are responsible for how we live but it is fundamentally God who forces us to die after we sin.
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God who forces? No. Do you imagine that doing something so unnatural as sin is without cost? It that it should be? Everything has a price. Our redemption had a price. Romans 6:23:
“6:23 For the wages of sin is death. But the grace of God, life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
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I don’t think sin should be punished, in Norway for example prisoners are kept in jails that are spacious and situated in pine plantations where the inmates can keep chickens. St Isaac of Nineveh said that all of humanities sins are as significant as a handful of sand thrown into the ocean.
 
There is no such thing as dying without having the opportunity to repent. A person can do it any time and God always intervenes immediately before a person’s death.
 
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What about a person who has just sinned and is suddenly shot in the head by a sniper?
 
They are given the opportunity to repent before their death. God is omniscient and transcends time and knows the appointed time that each person is going to die. He knew before the universe existed. People do not (ever) go to hell because of an accident or bad luck. Our lives are not numbers in a lottery. They are precious to Him.
 
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oliver109 said:
if someone dies after committing mortal sin and they go to hell they essentially did not choose to die in mortal sin as in reality they did not choose to die at all
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You don’t have the choice to schedule your death; but you do have the choice of whether to live your life in virtue or in sin.
 
What I am arguing for is the motion that we should have the choice about the scheduling of our death, for many of us death comes very inconveniently.
 
oliver109 said:
What I am arguing for is the motion that we should have the choice about the scheduling of our death,
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Why should we have this ‘choice’? Why is it reasonable that this isn’t something that’s necessarily out of our direct control?
 
oliver109 said:
What I am arguing for is the motion that we should have the choice about the scheduling of our death, for many of us death comes very inconveniently.
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yes, as St. Augustine said, “cure me of sinning, but not just yet.” So inconvenient.
 
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