God forced me into existence

[NoAvailableName]

Since the original poster doesn’t believe in God and is positing his existence in a hypothetical sense, I would like to add another hypothetical that the OP does not believe.

Suppose that, hypothetically speaking, the just punishment for preferring not to exist is hell.

With this hypothetical scenario, what should God do to someone who wishes not to exist?

A) let them not exist
B) send them to hell

 

[Tantum_ergo]

God allowed me to come into existence and now forces me to accept him or reject him. I have no choice and God refuses to grant me permission to opt out of his scheme.

I have no choice in the matter, God is forcing my hand.

Oh sugar. Honestly, you remind me of a 3 year old whining that Mommy is ‘forcing’ him to eat his dinner and that it is not fair, he would never have chosen zucchini, but if he does not eat it he won’t get dessert. And Mom won’t even let him take a punishment and let him have the dessert. . .he MUST eat the zucchini or else he doesn’t get dessert.

Wah. Totally forced to accept or reject Mom’s ‘arbitrary’ decision on a nasty veggie that he didn’t even choose. So unfair.

Isn’t it strange that a person can be considered ‘forced’ to choose between 2 completely different choices?

Doesn’t the whole ‘choice’ remove the idea of force when the choices are opposite?

Bliss or not-bliss.

And yet you want ‘nothing?’

Has it not occurred to you that rather than GOD being the one wanting, it might be YOU? I don’t mean this in a nasty way, but it does seem extremely strange for a ‘normal’ human being to hunger for ‘nothingness’ when given the choice to have absolute perfection.

It seems sick enough to reject goodness for evil, but at least, choosing evil is a ‘positive’ act.

Not a negative ‘tantrum’,

I highly doubt that you, Zatzat, at the age of say 3, with Mom putting a cookie in front of you and saying, “Hon, be a good boy and you’ll have a cookie for dessert” would have said, “You’re FORCING me to make a choice! I’ll accept neither having a cookie nor NOT having a cookie. I want to be ‘nothing’ and not be ‘forced’ into somebody else’s choice!!!”

 

[slywakka250]

God loved you into existence through your parents choice to cooperate with this process of creation… If you’re going to blame anyone, blame your parents!

God made heaven so wonderful, so beautiful, so holy and good that it is worth risking the possibility of hell for.

I would never blame my parents. They are in the same predicament as me, and are on their own journey of seeking truth, so I hold God as primarily responsible for my existence, not my parents.

God made heaven so wonderful, so beautiful, so holy and good that it is worth risking the possibility of hell for.

really? do you gamble much in this life? would you bet all your money on a casino game in which you didn’t even know the odds?? how about Russian roulette? God forces you play a more extreme version of Russian roulette, where the stake is not just your earthly life, but an eternal life as well!!

Now you’ll tell me its not a gamble at all, its a choice, and a beautiful one at that. But I still maintain its too much of a gamble. You yourself just said “risking the possibility of hell” in your response. do you know with certainty if you will have final perseverance? I know we pray and trust God a lot, but I still would prefer not to have had to take this risk at all, and seriously when ever I go to pray I can’t, and it makes me sad, because all I can think about is how God Forced me to take this huge risk by creating me!

 

[Loboto-Me]

If God is real, God forced me into existence. I didn’t have a choice in the matter.

I’ve been forced into existence, so that I may freely choose to reject him

My forced existence will have me languishing eternally in hell.

If God had not forced me into existence, I wouldn’t be able to reject him and I wouldn’t have to spend eternity suffering in hell.

God sounds rather selfish and cruel to me. Surely non existence would preferable to eternal torment?

Discuss.

Oh stop feeling so sorry for yourself and do something about it such as praying for faith from the heart. geesh that’s so “Today”… everyone trying to blame anyone other than themselves.

 

[Belloc_Fan]

This is a distinction without a difference. We certainly do have to be good enough for heaven! If anyone is to reject God and go to hell, there must be something different about the way they acted in comparison to those who accepted God choosing heaven. This is all I’m saying. What this difference consists of could be anything at all, but it likely involves what is willed in the deepest part of ones heart, ones true deepest desires and intentions, along with all of ones actions while they were alive. and yes this includes interior actions of the will involving faith and love, so I don’t see your point here.

It’s a distinction with an enormous distinction: it’s the difference between Catholicism and Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism, and the Council of Orange was convoked to settle the differences. The Reformers’ belief that Catholicism had slid into Pelagianism was largely responsible for the popularity of the Reformation. One could reasonably say that the distinction is one of the most important to arise within Christian history.

With Adam, mankind fell. We’re stained with original sin, we’re drawn towards sin, and barring the grace of God, we’re enslaved by sin. Christ, by grace through faith working in love, offers redemption. Our task is to accept that free gift, and love and obey God. We’re to behave as sons and daughters of God, instead of lawless rebels. Now certainly, you can accept Christ, and lose your salvation by going back to your lawless lifestyle, just as you can be disowned by your family if you’re sufficiently cruel or wicked. But that doesn’t mean that sonship and daughtership is based upon merit.

If we love God and love our neighbor, we’re saved. Because if we love God, we’ll accept Christ, we’ll strive out of love to please Him (just as one tries to be a good husband or boyfriend or son), etc. That’s the radical simplicity of the Gospel. There’s no, “you were 80% good and 20% bad, so you go to Heaven.” It’s either, “you loved and served God and neighbor” or you didn’t. If you did, it wasn’t because God made you a better person than the damned. It was because you responded to His grace, while the damned refused it.

Fr. William Most’s Grace, Predestination, and the Salvific Will of God is available for free online through Catholic Culture, and it explains all of this in much more depth – I don’t want to get this thread too off-topic, so you might just go there for more info. The last thing I’ll add is that faith and love are virtues which God creates within us with our consent: they’re not things which we form ourselves.

Again, I don’t disagree. Ideally we should all never sin. I simply doubt my ability to respond to God’s grace sufficiently to avoid hell. This is partly because I am very selfish and enjoy sinning, (through recognizing that I need to seek the truth, and stop sinning all the more if the truth convicts me ), but more importantly because I do not know just how difficult it is to get to heaven, just how good we need to be, i.e. (the odds and the risk is unknowable).

Right - this odds and risk business is the part which isn’t

With the odds unknowable, and the risk potentially very high, it is very sensible to wish that we had not been created in the first place.

And again, if salvation were based on being sufficiently “good,” we’d all have cause for despair. All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. This whole 80% good, 20% bad business completely misses Catholic soteriology.

Like I said before, God could have created only people whom he knew would freely choose him, or he could have created only people whom he knew would freely reject him. He likely created a mixed bag of both kinds.

This argument makes some pretty sweeping assumptions about the way that free will works, assumptions which I don’t feel comfortable making; namely, you’re assuming that when God creates free will, He fashions it in just such a manner to be either functional or defective in terms of ending in the result of salvation.

The question becomes, now, what ratio was on God’s mind when he created each and every man? He could have made sure he only created those who would choose him, or he could have made sure he was creating only those who would reject him. In his omniscience, he KNEW what the radio would be, thus establishing the odds and the risk of hell.

Same assumption as above, plus another logical fallacy. Even if, hypothetically, 90% of people went to Hell, that **wouldn’t **mean that each individuals chance of going to Hell was 90%. Two reasons. First, we’re each created individually. For example, maybe 30% people in a restaurant on a given night order the chicken. I don’t eat chicken. My odds of eating chicken in that restaurant aren’t 30%. They’re 0%. Second, salvation isn’t based upon risk and probability. This isn’t like choosing two socks blindly out of a drawer, and then calculating the odds of finding a matching pair. We choose to accept or reject God as surely as we choose to order or not order chicken. It’s either 100% or 0%, we respond to His grace or we don’t. So statistics are unhelpful here.

The point is, God in his omniscience KNOWS which ones, if any, will choose hell, and you DON’T KNOW, if you are one of those who will choose hell.

Are you saying that the damned can’t know that they’re going to Hell for rejecting God? Or simply that they blind themselves to that fact?

(cont.)

 

[Belloc_Fan]

I wish much that God had left me out of his mind when he created the human race.Its just too much!

Your despair is caused by your misunderstanding of soteriology. You’re trying to save yourself, and it’s just not possible. You’ll run yourself ragged and end up hating God. Luther had the same problem, and it lead him to the other extreme, with sola fide. Read up on what the Church actually teaches, and pray on it. It’s starkly different than your understanding… and given that you hate your understanding, this should come as wonderful news, I hope.

Certainly! In non-existence, it would be like being asleep. You would be annihilated, and would have no thoughts or concerns ever again. You wouldn’t be able to worry your lack of heaven either, because you aren’t around to worry about it.

And you get to reduce your risk of hell to zero. As I type this I feel a joy thinking this is possible! but alas its not.

If you just love and serve God, you can also eliminate the risk of Hell, and have Heaven, instead of annihilation, to look forward to. I don’t understand why this wouldn’t make you happier?

 

[Zatzat]

God loved you into existence through your parents choice to cooperate with this process of creation… If you’re going to blame anyone, blame your parents!

God made heaven so wonderful, so beautiful, so holy and good that it is worth risking the possibility of hell for.

I’d prefer non existence over the risk of eternal suffering in hell. If that means no chance of heaven. So be it, the risk of hell is too great.

 

[prolifewife]

I would never blame my parents. They are in the same predicament as me, and are on their own journey of seeking truth, so I hold God as primarily responsible for my existence, not my parents.

Really? If your parents hadn’t “done the deed” so to speak, God couldn’t have made you. That’s right, we are co-creators with God. You are here because your parents and God both willed it. If you’re going to blame one you have to blame the other also.

slywakka250:

really? do you gamble much in this life? would you bet all your money on a casino game in which you didn’t even know the odds?? how about Russian roulette? God forces you play a more extreme version of Russian roulette, where the stake is not just your earthly life, but an eternal life as well!!

Now you’ll tell me its not a gamble at all, its a choice, and a beautiful one at that. But I still maintain its too much of a gamble. You yourself just said “risking the possibility of hell” in your response. do you know with certainty if you will have final perseverance? I know we pray and trust God a lot, but I still would prefer not to have had to take this risk at all, and seriously when ever I go to pray I can’t, and it makes me sad, because all I can think about is how God Forced me to take this huge risk by creating me!

God gives us far more chances than Russian Roulette. Think of it more like a board game. Most of us don’t make it to the finish without several setbacks, but we are still on the path. Even if we stray from the path we get put back on with just a sigh of repentance. Most people will make it to Heaven eventually. Some will take a lot longer than others, but most will make it. Hell is only for those who don’t want to “play the game” in the first place. Who reject the game and say it’s worthless. Does that make sense?

 

[Zatzat]

Oh stop feeling so sorry for yourself and do something about it such as praying for faith from the heart. geesh that’s so “Today”… everyone trying to blame anyone other than themselves.

You don’t have a problem being forced into existence and then being forced into taking part in a supernatural game where your soul runs the risk of being eternally damned iin hell?

In essence, I hear Go saying;

’ love me or You’ll be tortured in hell for eternity.’

Yeah, that’s love…forcing someone into a situation they never asked to be in.

 

[Zatzat]

Really? If your parents hadn’t “done the deed” so to speak, God couldn’t have made you. That’s right, we are co-creators with God. You are here because your parents and God both willed it. If you’re going to blame one you have to blame the other also.

God gives us far more chances than Russian Roulette. Think of it more like a board game. Most of us don’t make it to the finish without several setbacks, but we are still on the path. Even if we stray from the path we get put back on with just a sigh of repentance. Most people will make it to Heaven eventually. Some will take a lot longer than others, but most will make it. Hell is only for those who don’t want to “play the game” in the first place. Who reject the game and say it’s worthless. Does that make sense?

You’ve proven my point precisely! We have no choice. We either love God or he will make sure we agonize in hell.

If we sit out of his game, God makes sure we agonize in hell.

God refuses to allow anyone to sit out on the sidelines…he makes you play and if your not good enogh at his game, he punishes you…forever.

 

[Betterave]

I have the option and the freedom to leave that state. The rules are not forced on me, I’m free to opt out by leaving.

Really. So where would you go? Just step over the border (assuming there is one) or step into the ocean (assuming there is one) and you’re magically really and truly ‘free,’ problem solved? I think not.

 

[JohnDamian]

If we sit out of his game, God makes sure we agonize in hell.

If you wish to sit out the game, then the “torments” of hell will not be a problem for you.

As you should know, the cheif torment of hell is seperation from God (CCC 1035). For someone who does not want God, such would not be torment.

 

[Betterave]

You don’t have a problem being forced into existence and then being forced into taking part in a supernatural game where your soul runs the risk of being eternally damned iin hell?

In essence, I hear Go saying;

’ love me or You’ll be tortured in hell for eternity.’

Yeah, that’s love…forcing someone into a situation they never asked to be in.

A good exercise for you, perhaps the only way for you to understand your error, would be to imagine what you might say in response to your own argument. It’s already obvious to almost all of the rest of us. Why don’t you give it a shot: you write and post a rebuttal to your own argument here. Then we’ll tell you if you get it right or not.

 

[prolifewife]

God refuses to allow anyone to sit out on the sidelines…he makes you play and if your not good enogh at his game, he punishes you…forever.

Yes it is asked that you play, but not even the Saints play the game well enough. We are saved through God’s mercy and love, not our merits. Yes, when we are in the wrong we are called to repent and try our hardest to sin no more. But it is not the number of times we fall that counts, it’s how many times we get back up and try again!

I do know what you mean, believe me I do. Sometimes I myself think it would be better to have never been than risk the fires of hell. BUT, God saw that that risk was nothing compared to His will for us to share in the glories and riches of heaven.

If you CHOOSE to sit on the sidelines and not choose to play on God’s team, then why should you want to suddenly be with Him for all eternity in heaven? If you don’t want Him now, why would you want Him then?

 

[slywakka250]

Belloc Fan:

That’s the radical simplicity of the Gospel. There’s no, “you were 80% good and 20% bad, so you go to Heaven.” It’s either, “you loved and served God and neighbor” or you didn’t. If you did, it wasn’t because God made you a better person than the damned. It was because you responded to His grace, while the damned refused it…

Exactly. There are some who respond to his grace, and others who don’t. But there certainly are inequalitities in this response Grace, as the Blessed Mother followed by many of the canonized saints, seem to have responsed at a much higher level, then one who repents at the last second of his life. The experience of God in the beatific vision as experienced by the Virgin Mary will be different than that experienced by someone who just barely made it to heaven.

So if the degree to which we respond to God’s grace can vary, then there is a point where we have not responded enough to make it to heaven. Tell me how our response to Grace is not the meassure of our merit or demerit??
Belloc Fan:

And again, if salvation were based on being sufficiently “good,” we’d all have cause for despair. All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. This whole 80% good, 20% bad business completely misses Catholic soteriology.

Do we not choose God or choose against him?? and is our choice not the criterion that establishes our union or seperation from God eternally??

Now what would our choice consist of but some action of our will?, as our will is all we have to make choices with. Therefore, it will be some difference in what is freely willed by some between what is freely willed by others which will determine one’ s eternal state.

The precise nature of what must be freely willed to attain salvation in every individual case is unclear, but there are two options and the line is drawn somewhere, and you must be on one side of the line by responding “good enough” right?
Belloc Fan:

Same assumption as above, plus another logical fallacy. Even if, hypothetically, 90% of people went to Hell, that wouldn’t mean that each individuals chance of going to Hell was 90%. Two reasons. First, we’re each created individually. For example, maybe 30% people in a restaurant on a given night order the chicken. I don’t eat chicken. My odds of eating chicken in that restaurant aren’t 30%. They’re 0%. Second, salvation isn’t based upon risk and probability. This isn’t like choosing two socks blindly out of a drawer, and then calculating the odds of finding a matching pair. We choose to accept or reject God as surely as we choose to order or not order chicken. It’s either 100% or 0%, we respond to His grace or we don’t. So statistics are unhelpful here.

Well, statistics are relevant because a statistic does indeed exist, namely, at the end of time you WILL be able to count the number of souls in heaven, and the number of souls in hell, and determine a real ratio. This was a ratio which God forknew when he set his creation in motion. do you dispute that there will be a countable population in heaven and hell at the end of time? This is a statistic.

Now I agree with you that it does not follow from this that your odds have any correspondance to the final statistic, being that you are completly free to choose 0 vs 100, chicken vs no chicken.

God does not infringe on our free will. We are certainly all free to go to heaven if we so choose, no matter what the final statistic may tell us about the odds.

HOWEVER, the final statistic does have meaning from an external perspective, See Summa(I.23.Article 7 Whether the number of the predestined is certain). Aquinas uses really strong language to demonstrate this point that this ratio not only has meaning but is directly willed and established by God.

God himself created MAN. he CREATED what’s in a man; He CREATED the inside and out of man’s heart, and how man makes his decisions and his responses to grace, etc. This being the case when he created the universe God being God, as he created man, knew how many would choose to to seperate from him, instead of serving him.

Now maybe he didn’t actually will the ratio in his mind, but that doesn’t change the fact that he knew what the result would be.

Therefore, God created the universe with a final result, a final statistic of those in hell and those in heaven.

While we may exist independantly from this statistic, it nevertheles stands, that this statistic represents a “risk level” of the universe. It is an insight into the very nature of the universe what ever this statistic is. It represents the true meaning of man, it measures the success of man in achieving his final end.

The risk is unknowable by us, it very well could be very very high, as some Catholics and some saints seem to believe.

Most people will make it to Heaven eventually. Some will take a lot longer than others, but most will make it.

You happen to believe that the risk is quite low, because you believe most will make it. How do you know this? There are many good Catholics who diagree. God does not reveal the numbers.

With an unknown risk of a terrible and fiery eternal fate, I’m still angry at God for subjecting me to existence, a gamble he didn’t have to take. He created man who he knew would fall into original sin, so most of the time we’d be very finite and limited, groping in the dark, with an eternal bet on the table, madness!! cruel!!

 

[prolifewife]

You happen to believe that the risk is quite low, because you believe most will make it. How do you know this? There are many good Catholics who diagree. God does not reveal the numbers.

No He doesn’t reveal numbers. That’s why they aren’t right either. We both are just guessing based on the facts we are given. If you fear God’s justice, you will fear hell and everyone else being there more. If you trust in God’s mercy, you will see heaven for more souls, yours included.

slywakka250:

With an unknown risk of a terrible and fiery eternal fate, I’m still angry at God for subjecting me to existence, a gamble he didn’t have to take. He created man who he knew would fall into original sin, so most of the time we’d be very finite and limited, groping in the dark, with an eternal bet on the table, madness!! cruel!!

Yes, God created you and me and everyone out of nothing. He risked you and me and everyone else calling Him cruel and mean and horrible blasphemies too. He risked all this because He wants YOU (and everyone) to live with Him forever in heaven. Can you bring a dog into existence? Would you die for a dog? Would you risk your good name and all your friends and family to save a dog? Yet God stooped that low, lower even, so we could go to the place he created for us. God only created heaven. Hell was created from the moment of the first angel’s fall, and was opened to us at the time of Adam and Eve’s fall. We made hell by separating ourselves from God through sin. We said, we’d rather be in this awful place than love you. God made Heaven, only heaven.

 

[Zatzat]

If you wish to sit out the game, then the “torments” of hell will not be a problem for you.

As you should know, the cheif torment of hell is seperation from God (CCC 1035). For someone who does not want God, such would not be torment.

That’s my point exactly. Living a life completely absent of God…being sent to hell where there is a complete absence of God…there’d be no difference.

However, some Catholics claim God will assure that I am tortured while in hell.

 

[prolifewife]

That’s my point exactly. Living a life completely absent of God…being sent to hell where there is a complete absence of God…there’d be no difference.

However, some Catholics claim God will assure that I am tortured while in hell.

There is one difference. You life a life absent of God now, but you do not know God. After death you WILL meet and know God and it will be excruciatingly painful to never see or be with Him again.

 

[Zatzat]

He risked you and me and everyone else calling Him cruel and mean and horrible blasphemies too. He risked all this because He wants YOU (and everyone) to live with Him forever in heaven.

Uhm, God has risked nothing. He’s apparently the most powerful being that could ever exist…either that, or he has exceptionally low self esteem so as to be concerned with being called cruel and horrible.

Can you bring a dog into existence? Would you die for a dog? Would you risk your good name and all your friends and family to save a dog? Yet God stooped that low, lower even, so we could go to the place he created for us. God only created heaven. Hell was created from the moment of the first angel’s fall, and was opened to us at the time of Adam and Eve’s fall. We made hell by separating ourselves from God through sin. We said, we’d rather be in this awful place than love you. God made Heaven, only heaven.

God didn’t stoop anywhere…it was an illusion…he’s apparently immortal.

 

[Zatzat]

There is one difference. You life a life absent of God now, but you do not know God. After death you WILL meet and know God and it will be excruciatingly painful to never see or be with Him again.

Why will I meet God? Seriously? So he can say " told ya so!"