God and Possibility

[Charlemagne_III]

This may seem to others a weird thread. I don’t necessarily expect it to last very long. But I’m very interested in any thoughts about this question.

We are told that God is omniscient. Would it follow that if an innocent person died due to a violent act against him, he would be judged according to the state of his soul at that moment?

Or is it possible that God, being omniscient, knows what the state of his soul would have been at the natural end of his life had he lived to his natural end, and he would be judged based on the state of his soul at that time rather than at the time of his actual death?

 

[Rhubarb]

It’s a scary thought that we can be judged for potential crimes we haven’t commited. Especially when we all have the potential to commit crimes inside us.

 

[Cone]

It does seem rather arbitrary that a good Catholic, who went to mass every Sunday, partook of the sacraments, did his best to live by the word of God, but had one bad day then got hit by a truck before he could perform contrition, goes to hell due to the timing.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

It does seem rather arbitrary that a good Catholic, who went to mass every Sunday, partook of the sacraments, did his best to live by the word of God, but had one bad day then got hit by a truck before he could perform contrition, goes to hell due to the timing.

 

[John_Martin]

Sounds like the talk here is about some distant God somewhere rather than talking about your Friend. There is Purgatory: softvocation.org/2014/09/24/the-last-things-part-i/

 

[Charlemagne_III]

It’s a scary thought that we can be judged for potential crimes we haven’t commited. Especially when we all have the potential to commit crimes inside us.

But if God can see all the possible good that we would have done had we lived to die a normal death, he would be judging us for that too. That is not scary to me.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Sounds like the talk here is about some distant God somewhere rather than talking about your Friend.

I think distance is a relative term.

Those who die in a state of grace are close to God. Those who do not are distant.

 

[Stephen_says]

From the Catechism:

1021 Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ…

1022 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven—through a purification or immediately,—or immediate and everlasting damnation.

At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love.

But

1451 Among the penitent’s acts contrition occupies first place. Contrition is “sorrow of the soul and detestation for the sin committed, together with the resolution not to sin again.”

1452 When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called “perfect” (contrition of charity). Such contrition remits venial sins; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible.

If a person dies after a ‘bad day’, there is still hope if they are truly sorry for their sins. If they die after a ‘good day’, they have nothing to worry about. There is no alternate timeline where they would have lived any longer.

Peace

 

[Tomdstone]

This may seem to others a weird thread. I don’t necessarily expect it to last very long. But I’m very interested in any thoughts about this question.

We are told that God is omniscient. Would it follow that if an innocent person died due to a violent act against him, he would be judged according to the state of his soul at that moment?

Or is it possible that God, being omniscient, knows what the state of his soul would have been at the natural end of his life had he lived to his natural end, and he would be judged based on the state of his soul at that time rather than at the time of his actual death?

I believe that other Churches, such as some of the Eastern Christian Churches, take a more holistic view of the situation. They would question whether one mortal sin, such as eating a hot dog on an absitnence day of Lent and then being killed, would send you to hell. Actually, I don;t think that the Eastern Orthodox even accept completely the concept of mortal sin, at least as Roman Catholics have looked at it in the past. They would possibly say that God looks at the whole life of the person. Did he try his best to live a good Christian life day by day?
As far as God looking into the future and seeing what would have happened if the person had lived, I would say no. I don’t think that this is what omniscience means. IMHO.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

This may seem to others a weird thread. I don’t necessarily expect it to last very long. But I’m very interested in any thoughts about this question.

We are told that God is omniscient. Would it follow that if an innocent person died due to a violent act against him, he would be judged according to the state of his soul at that moment?

Or is it possible that God, being omniscient, knows what the state of his soul would have been at the natural end of his life had he lived to his natural end, and he would be judged based on the state of his soul at that time rather than at the time of his actual death?

It is worth noting that though the death may be unnatural, it does not “surprise” God - He knew it would happen before the universe was created. Two things to consider then: first, God has as much control over reality as He desires - that things happen as a consequence of our choices are because He allows this to be so. In this way, it would not be hard for God to “optimize” the universe to avoid such situations if He so chose. Whether and or to what extent He does that sort of thing I don’t know.

Second, if I die in an actual state of mortal sin, then I die rejecting God. That is what state of mortal sin means. For God to treat me as I might be should something else had happened (and something that He knew wouldn’t happen), and pretend that I am accepting Him when I am not would make little sense and would not in fact be something that I would, at that time, think was good.

Some of the posts here are talking about hell as a result of mortal sin as though it were a ticket handed out for traffic violation: you zone out and go above 80mph once and so the cop gives you a ticket, without regard to the fact that you normally drive within acceptable standards. But this is not how mortal sin works. If you commit an actual mortal sin, you have rejected God. Period. Completely. That’s what mortal sin means. If you have rejected God, you have rejected heaven, and would not appreciate being brought there even if you were, and in fact, since you have decided that what is good is bad, would find the experience rather painful and unpleasant.

Someone mentioned the Eastern understanding. I’m no expert, but so far as I understand the Easterners say that Hell and Heaven are ways of experiencing God that depend upon how we have formed ourselves - those who reject Him experience His presence as agony, and so Hell is, more or less, a place where they are put so as to minimize their pain, a sort of mental home type thing (easterncatholicspiritualrenewal.blogspot.com/2011/05/god-is-hell.html). From this view (again, understanding that I am no expert) it would make even less sense to say that God “sends people to hell or heaven” than it does using the standard Western description, and even if we do phrase it that way, there is no way that God would send someone to heaven who was currently rejecting Him - that just wouldn’t make sense from what Heaven and Hell are.

So in either case, no. Hell is not so much an assigned punishment because of things we did as a logical consequence of our acceptance or rejection of God, and without overriding us to change that, it does not make sense for God to send us to one place or the other because of how things might have been. Again, a mortal sin is not merely an action that we hopefully make up for later, it is an action by which we totally reject God, and it does not make sense to say that someone who is currently in a state of rejecting God could be in heaven. That’s just not what heaven is about.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I believe that other Churches, such as some of the Eastern Christian Churches, take a more holistic view of the situation. They would question whether one mortal sin, such as eating a hot dog on an absitnence day of Lent and then being killed, would send you to hell. Actually, I don;t think that the Eastern Orthodox even accept completely the concept of mortal sin, at least as Roman Catholics have looked at it in the past. They would possibly say that God looks at the whole life of the person. Did he try his best to live a good Christian life day by day?
As far as God looking into the future and seeing what would have happened if the person had lived, I would say no. I don’t think that this is what omniscience means. IMHO.

God is omniscient but cannot see into our future?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

If you commit an actual mortal sin, you have rejected God. Period. Completely. That’s what mortal sin means. If you have rejected God, you have rejected heaven …

Perhaps this is what Pascal meant when he said we should always live as if we have eight hours left to live. For if we die suddenly in a state of sin, we are lost.

How does it seem to you that God is fair when he takes someone in a state of sin, say someone who is caught in a fire and cannot repent, then takes another person who lived to old age and has a lengthy period of time on his deathbed to confess and repent his sins?

As Cone put it above, how is that fair to the person who dies suddenly and without opportunity to repent.

 

[tonyrey]

It’s a scary thought that we can be judged for potential crimes we haven’t commited. Especially when we all have the potential to commit crimes inside us.

If you mean crimes it is **possible **for you to commit then you are certainly not judged for them. It would unjust and inconsistent with God’s love for all of us.

 

[Aloysium]

God is all loving and all merciful. His compassion enters every aspect that is a person.

As I understand, it is more than a matter of would-have-beens, as it is the love within the person, their capacity to give of themselves.

I do not believe that what happens in one moment necessarily changes everything, even if it is the final moment. I believe He knows me in the totality of my existence.

In the last moment before oblivion and what will follow, I can still choose to turn to God; that choice within the context of my entire existence are known to Him to contemplate in eternity.

So the question returns to the person himself. God is all loving and wanting us to come to him. Do we choose Him or turn away.

 

[Tomdstone]

God is omniscient but cannot see into our future?

The real future, yes. The hypothetical non-existent future, which does not exist in reality, No. IMHO.
Mr. Charlemagne, please explain how would God see something which does not exist and never will exist? Since it does not exist, you would not be able to see it. Similar to since a square circle does not exist, an omniscient God would not be able to see a square circle.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Perhaps this is what Pascal meant when he said we should always live as if we have eight hours left to live. For if we die suddenly in a state of sin, we are lost.

How does it seem to you that God is fair when he takes someone in a state of sin, say someone who is caught in a fire and cannot repent, then takes another person who lived to old age and has a lengthy period of time on his deathbed to confess and repent his sins?

As Cone put it above, how is that fair to the person who dies suddenly and without opportunity to repent.

I’m going to start with a harsh sounding answer that I do not believe to be the whole picture, but that I do believe to be an important enough part of it to justify saying by itself:

I’m not sure I can actually see a reason why it wouldn’t be fair. None of us deserve the opportunity to repent. If we have it, it is a pure gift. It would be fair to offer it to no one, or to offer it only to a small set of people. None of have any claims on God, so we cannot say that we all deserve an opportunity to repent, or even that we all deserve to have the same opportunity to repent, since what we all deserves is 0.

Now, as it turns out, ignoring for the moment “death right after sin” cases, God offers not only the opportunity, but also the ability to repent to all of us, despite the fact that we in no way deserve it. The fact that He is much more merciful and generous than is required in this way hints that He may be so even in the extreme cases.

So for the question of people who die right after sin - it would not seem out of character for God to offer some time to repent. I would not be surprised if, for example, at the moment of our deaths (or rather, immediately before), God showed us in a flash the evilness of what we have done and offers us a chance to repent. I do not know that this happens. I cannot rightly say that I even particularly strongly suspect that it does. But something like that could happen.

Likewise, God can control absolutely any aspect of how the universe is operating at any moment, so He could arrange things so that those who would repent have an opportunity to do so, either in a flash or over time. Again, I cannot know this, and I have no strong reason to suspect this, but it is a possibility.

So what we know is that we are not owed anything at all, but that God has a habit of giving us more than we are owed (ie giving us anything at all), that it would be possible for God to give us all opportunities to repent, and that God is perfectly good, just, and merciful. Add all of this together, and the result that we can know that God will do what is best, and it seems like this may make some sort of final chance plausible, but also that we have no reason to be certain that it happens (because our knowledge of what is best is in no way complete), and every reason to be careful, considering the stakes.

Which makes Pascal’s advice rather good, I think.

 

[Aloysium]

God would know if we have reached perfection - becoming who we are meant to be and contributing all that we should.
At that point our existence in time is rather pointless. He decides, we shouldn’t.

 

[wittgenstein]

I think actions are evidence of what is in your soul. God being all knowing does not require evidence. If Hitler died before commiting the holocaust would he go to hell? I say yes.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The real future, yes. The hypothetical non-existent future, which does not exist in reality, No. IMHO.
Mr. Charlemagne, please explain how would God see something which does not exist and never will exist? Since it does not exist, you would not be able to see it.

O.K. Mr. Tom. The real future doesn’t exist either, at least not yet. And then it will become the present, but not for long as it instantly becomes the past.

If God can see the real future, he can see what would have been the real future if the person’s life had not been cut short. Just because we can’t imagine that kind of possible future does not place a limit on God’s ability to see that possible future as it would have unfolded.

We might keep in mind that God does not exist in real time, so there are no limits on what he can see as real or possible.

 

[Tomdstone]

O.K. Mr. Tom. The real future doesn’t exist either, at least not yet. And then it will become the present, but not for long as it instantly becomes the past.

If God can see the real future, he can see what would have been the real future if the person’s life had not been cut short. Just because we can’t imagine that kind of possible future does not place a limit on God’s ability to see that possible future as it would have unfolded.

We might keep in mind that God does not exist in real time, so there are no limits on what he can see as real or possible.

Not sure. Because almost anything is possible. What is possible is not what is real and what really happened. It would have been possible that I did not rob the bank, but unfortunately, I committed the sin and must pay for it. God knows that it would have been possible for me to have been good, but that doesn’t count. What counts is what I really did in the real world. IMHO.