For those who believe in double predestination, is there a reason why God would want to send a soul to hell?

[KathleenGee]

We believe that all people were created out of God’s great love, His greatest characteristic, if I could use the term.

We are made in the image of God in that we are given free will and intellect.

It is being obedient to God’s will that we enter heaven. And we must learn to know what is God’s will is for our lives, first in loving Him and wanting to be in all eternity with Him, and to avoid sinning against the commandments.

God wills all people to be with Him for all eternity in total bliss. God wills all people be with Him forever.

But because we have free will, it is up to us to decide whether we want Him and deny ourselves to seek Him, His will. He did not make us puppets, He wants to be loved back in return although He does not need us. Thus He truly created us out of love and made us free.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Your question assumes that God should save anyone. From the Protestant perspective, we believe the Bible teaches that all of us are sinners and deserving of Hell. That God saves us, regardless of our lack of ability to earn salvation through rituals or works, is His mercy and nothing else.

Those who are predestined to Hell (known in Protestant theology as reprobation) go to Hell as punishment for their sin. Those who are elected to salvation are the undeserving recipients of God’s unmerited grace and mercy.

A fact many over look is that God is just as much glorified by the prosecution of a sinner as He is by their salvation.

As far as “Those who are predestined to Hell (known in Protestant theology as reprobation) go to Hell as punishment for their sin. Those who are elected to salvation are the undeserving recipients of God’s unmerited grace and mercy.”, are you saying that those that go to hell are deserving of it and those that are saved are undeserving of it?

Maybe we should pray that ALL OF US wind up on the undeserving side of things, what do you think?

Also concerning, “A fact many over look is that God is just as much glorified by the prosecution of a sinner as He is by their salvation.”, is this in the eyes of us blood sucking human beings, seeing as by “prosecution of a sinner” you mean going to hell for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and…, this is what you mean by “prosecution of a sinner”, isn’t it?

One of the things, not the only thing, that truly amazes me is that some speak of God’s INFINITE MERCY and yet what they say doesn’t seem to have any thing at all to do with even a thimble full of mercy much less INFINITE MERCY.

 

[Tom_Baum]

God saves people all the time, but He doesn’t save everyone. He doesn’t have to. The people who go to Hell go there based on their own choosing (i.e. choosing to live wicked lives and to ignore God’s calling to repentance). So why does He punish people for ever? [by the way, you didn’t have to write that eight times] …because that’s the extent of what sin deserves. When the life of wickedness is rebellion against an endlessly Worthy God, at what point can man find fault with Him?

A God that must punish sin is a God that hates sin. …and if you say “No! God cannot hate because He’s too Loving!”, I would say to you that God must hate sin because He’s Holy. You see, I love children, therefore I hate abortion. I love honesty, therefore I hate dishonesty. If I love what is good, I have to hate what is evil. So, to paint God as a God who doesn’t hate sin is, like I said, a presentation of God that lacks any sort of Holiness.

As far as " [by the way, you didn’t have to write that eight times] ", I didn’t actually count it when I typed it, I was just trying to get the point across that FOREVER lasts quite a bit longer than the time it took you to read it eight times and if the repetitions bothered you, and I hope they bothered you and others, than shouldn’t thinking of a fellow human being being in a horror beyond our comprehension, for ever and ever and…, get people to at least think about it rather than just parroting what they have heard.

Or are we just heartless and selfish and unthinking or will this just kick in fully after we die?

FOREVER also means that God is incapable of doing something in His Way that we, as humans (some of us anyway), think God incapable of doing and that is that God can not only “clean up”, so to speak, ALL but the ALL agreeing with it and being quite pleased with it.

Actually, I do NOT think of God as a loving God at all but that God Is a Being of Love.

That God Is a Being of Love, I believe, is something that is beyond the “conceptionability” of us humans.

Also the “fact” that God Is a Being of Love as opposed to God being a loving God puts things in quite a different perspective.

 

[Tom_Baum]

We believe that all people were created out of God’s great love, His greatest characteristic, if I could use the term.

We are made in the image of God in that we are given free will and intellect.

It is being obedient to God’s will that we enter heaven. And we must learn to know what is God’s will is for our lives, first in loving Him and wanting to be in all eternity with Him, and to avoid sinning against the commandments.

God wills all people to be with Him for all eternity in total bliss. God wills all people be with Him forever.

But because we have free will, it is up to us to decide whether we want Him and deny ourselves to seek Him, His will. He did not make us puppets, He wants to be loved back in return although He does not need us. Thus He truly created us out of love and made us free.

And since “God wills all people to be with Him for all eternity in total bliss. God wills all people be with Him forever.” and that “My Ways are not your ways and My Thoughts are not your thoughts” could be that God came up with a PLAN before creation itself that will bring God’s Will to Fruition.

Who knows, could be one of the reasons that when God-Incarnate was asked to teach us how to pray, He said, “…Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”, what do you think?

If nothing else, at least those that pray the “Lord’s prayer” are praying for God’s Will and you made mention of what “God wills” in what you wrote.

 

[KathleenGee]

Amen, to that, Tom.

There has come about a false translation of the kingdom’.

Essentially the kingdom is living the life of Christ. He is within us and lives through us in the Eucharist.

But the kingdom of heaven is among us, not within. We are to not be covered bushels, but a light to the world, salt to the earth. Salt is the only chemical element that never looses its taste. We are to live the totality of Christ with no picking and choosing of those elements found in the full deposit of Christ found in the Church, We are to likewise extend the fullness of Christ and His light to the world, to those among us.

As Christ said, I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me thirst, I was in prison and you visited me…and the kingdom of heaven is refused to those who do not treat their neighbor as Christ.

(Other churches and religions have some to alot of the Truth of Who Jesus is, but the Roman Catholic Church, that retains the seat of Peter, that was given the Keys to the Blood, the entrance into heaven, has the most fullness of faith.)

So to think we are predestined to heaven or hell really takes out the reality that we are made in the image of God, free will and intellect.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Amen, to that, Tom.

There has come about a false translation of the kingdom’.

Essentially the kingdom is living the life of Christ. He is within us and lives through us in the Eucharist.

But the kingdom of heaven is among us, not within. We are to not be covered bushels, but a light to the world, salt to the earth. Salt is the only chemical element that never looses its taste. We are to live the totality of Christ with no picking and choosing of those elements found in the full deposit of Christ found in the Church, We are to likewise extend the fullness of Christ and His light to the world, to those among us.

As Christ said, I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me thirst, I was in prison and you visited me…and the kingdom of heaven is refused to those who do not treat their neighbor as Christ.

(Other churches and religions have some to alot of the Truth of Who Jesus is, but the Roman Catholic Church, that retains the seat of Peter, that was given the Keys to the Blood, the entrance into heaven, has the most fullness of faith.)

So to think we are predestined to heaven or hell really takes out the reality that we are made in the image of God, free will and intellect.

“predestined” simply means “God knows” as in God is Omniscient, no more, no less, either God is Omniscient or God isn’t, there is no such thing as partial Omniscience.

God-Incarnate, Jesus, did not just visit the “abode of the dead” in relation to His work on the cross.

 

[South_Bound]

“predestined” simply means “God knows” as in God is Omniscient, no more, no less

The word you’re looking for is foreknew. Predestined means that God chose who will be saved and planned their salvation and either has saved them or will save them.

Ephesians 1:3-14 is a good example of this:

3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9making knownc to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

11In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is the guaranteed of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.

(Bolding mine)

 

[KathleenGee]

I wonder what translation. I read recently it was the Geneva Bible of the 1500’s who put out, ‘vain repeititions’…man made quote reflecting bias.

The working of the Holy Spirit works to bring about understanding and love among brethren.

 

[KathleenGee]

It is the Calvinists, 1500 years later, that got rid of the concept that man was created with a free will.

The epistles speak of those who come to the Father’s love…in other words, they are freely responding to His love…

If Calvinists get rid of the truth that we are created with free will, then it puts judging others’ salvation in their hands and not God’s and the working of grace through prayer and conversion.

Only God can judge.

 

[South_Bound]

It is the Calvinists, 1500 years later, that got rid of the concept that man was created with a free will.

The epistles speak of those who come to the Father’s love…in other words, they are freely responding to His love…

If Calvinists get rid of the truth that we are created with free will, then it puts judging others’ salvation in their hands and not God’s and the working of grace through prayer and conversion.

I’d like to read more about what the Bible has to say about free will. Do you have any verses in mind?

 

[Tom_Baum]

The word you’re looking for is foreknew. Predestined means that God chose who will be saved and planned their salvation and either has saved them or will save them.

Ephesians 1:3-14 is a good example of this:

(Bolding mine)

I was not looking for the word “foreknew”, what I wrote, ““predestined” simply means “God knows” as in God is Omniscient, no more, no less, either God is Omniscient or God isn’t, there is no such thing as partial Omniscience.”", is exactly what I meant to write.

Either God knows absolutely everything or God doesn’t, God is either Omniscient or God isn’t.

Or are you thinking of those that God knows will never repent this side of breath as God having double foreknowledge of?

You spoke of “Ephesians 1:3-14” which is concerned with some who seem to have been chosen by God for some specific “job” and my view of “predestination” is not just limited to that but to the aspect of God which is called Omniscience.

Some seem to think of “predestination”, God knowing absolutely everything about everyone and choosing some of these for a very specific purpose, as nothing more than us being a bunch of “puppets on the strings of God”, not only are they wrong but they are wrong for a very good reason, it is beyond our (humans) ability to conceive of and make sense of this ability, Omniscience.

How can a Being know everything we will ever do and yet we have free will, like it or not there are some things about God that we can not comprehend even a little of and this is one of them, this is one of the reasons that I say that God will NOT fit into any box that we try to construct for God, no matter how nice it is, in our opinion.

Ever heard of the prayer, “God, please do not let me get in the way of Our job that You chose me for”?

 

[KathleenGee]

In answer to where we can find this in Scripture, again a Catholic does not read the Bible as text or as fragmented parts.

We read the Sacred Scriptures as all words and phrases of the whole, because in essence Scripture is Logos, the Living Word of God, Jesus Christ.

We look to Sirach 15:14, ‘God willed that man should be left in the hand of his own counsel’, so that man may freely seek the Lord.

In Galatians 5:1, ‘For freedom Christ has set us free’. We reflect in much of Scripture how man is drawn to the Lord…and many contrary examples of those who freely turn away from God.

But you must go to the very essence of God and He is LOVE. God does not create only to condemn.

 

[Tom_Baum]

In answer to where we can find this in Scripture, again a Catholic does not read the Bible as text or as fragmented parts.

We read the Sacred Scriptures as all words and phrases of the whole, because in essence Scripture is Logos, the Living Word of God, Jesus Christ.

We look to Sirach 15:14, ‘God willed that man should be left in the hand of his own counsel’, so that man may freely seek the Lord.

In Galatians 5:1, ‘For freedom Christ has set us free’. We reflect in much of Scripture how man is drawn to the Lord…and many contrary examples of those who freely turn away from God.

But you must go to the very essence of God and He is LOVE. God does not create only to condemn.

As far as “In answer to where we can find this in Scripture, again a Catholic does not read the Bible as text or as fragmented parts.”

I am Catholic and catholic and I read the bible the way that I read the bible not in any “set in concrete” way that others tell me that I have to read it.

I happen to believe that Jesus was telling the truth when He said that He would send the Holy Spirit to “guide us…”, “us” meaning us, that this offer was to all of us not some of us.

God made us as human beings, not as parrots, not even as Catholic parrots.

Also, concerning “But you must go to the very essence of God and He is LOVE. God does not create only to condemn”, as I have said many times, Love is NOT an attribute of God but is God’s Very Being and as far as “condemn”, condemn does not necessarily mean what it appears to mean on the surface but can mean to judge and as I have also said many times, I am thankful that GOD Is our Judge and that none of us are our judge or judges.

 

[KathleenGee]

Thanks, Tom for the response.

I refer back to CCC108. 'Still, the Christian faith is not a “religion of the book.” Christianity is the religion of the “Word” of God, “not a written and mute word, but incarnate and living.” If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, “open our minds to understanding Scripture”.

There are 3 criteria for interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Holy Spirit, Vatican II.

1. Be especially attentive “to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture.” Christ is the center and heart of Scripture.
2. Read the Scripture within ‘the living Tradition of the whole of the Church’. We are not called to fragmentation but to communion with the Lord and all believers.
3. Be attentive to the analogy of faith…coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation.