What if someone doesn’t want to go to Hell? Can God send them there anyways?Personally, I do not think God sends people to hell. I think people choose to go there. You can choose to be with God or not, By choosing not, you are pretty much choosing hell.
Could you explain it better?Hi,
I was just wondering if it is Jesus who sends people to Hell? I think a lot of Catholics sometimes try to sanitize hell. I don’t think it is a very sanitary place at all.
Joshua
How do you know that you are truly accepting God as He is and not some illusion that you have constructed yourself? It seems that a lot of people do this. A lot of people claim to accept God, but they don’t seem to be doing it in an authentic way. It reminds me of the times when Jesus talks about someone knocking at His Father’s door, and He says to them “I do not know you.”My personal take on it is that God is all that is good and all that is good is God. When passing into the next, if you have rejected God, then you have in fact rejected his goodness as they are one and the same. What is left is your soul encompassed by a place void of God and his goodness. That in itself is hell. But you also get to share that space with others who are full of hate, as well as with the rulers of that place - Satan and his minions.
Those who have an understanding of the nature of hell would not want to go there at all, of course.What if someone doesn’t want to go to Hell? Can God send them there anyways?
Jesus does indeed say to the wicked “depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25:41). God is just - He punishes the wicked and rewards the faithful - and God is merciful - He sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins, that we may have eternal life. But if you reject God’s Mercy, you receive the punishment for wickedness.What if someone doesn’t want to go to Hell? Can God send them there anyways?
I agree with you, joshrp, but I think I need to add a little note. There are those of us who seek Him sincerely but do not yet fully understand the Grace that has been given to us, the tremendous gift of Christ. As such, there is a difference between rejecting Christ (and perhaps substituting a self-constructed understanding of God, as you suggest), and embracing Christ without fully understanding whom or why. I think God’s Mercy is with the latter. He is not a capricious God, He holds us to account for what we know and what has been revealed to us - this is why the errors of those in authority are accounted much more severely to them.How do you know that you are truly accepting God as He is and not some illusion that you have constructed yourself? It seems that a lot of people do this. A lot of people claim to accept God, but they don’t seem to be doing it in an authentic way. It reminds me of the times when Jesus talks about someone knocking at His Father’s door, and He says to them “I do not know you.”
Those who have an understanding of the nature of hell would not want to go there at all, of course.
What other posters have been conveying is this:
*]God gives us a gift of sanctifying grace–the Holy Spirit dwelling in us–that we cannot earn, by way of baptism, to be in heaven at our deaths.
*]Christians are obligated to follow God’s commandments and to show their faith throughout their lives to keep sanctifying grace within us.
*]When a person commits a mortal sin, they *may *lose the sanctifying grace (having ignored the guidance of the Spirit inside them) and cut themselves off from God.
*]To restore sanctifying grace, a contrite heart and a confession of their sins will return grace back to them. For Catholics, a priest is needed. Protestants will only be liable for what they understand in the matter of repentance.
*]If a person is not repentant of mortal sin AND is aware of the graveness of the sin AND refuses to repent, they cut themselves off from God’s friendship, where, on death, an afterlife with the absence of God–hell–is the only destination we know from Catholic teaching.
*]God, however, defined the rules for us, not Himself. He can see in the heart of the person and decide on death if a person is still in His friendship. We just don’t know for sure if God would choose to do this.
…but John 3:17-18 are pretty important too—especially v18 in regards to this discussion…For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged ; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:17-18)