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grannymh
Guest
I believe that God has a loving relationship with every human being, past, present, and future.
Am I right or wrong?
Am I right or wrong?
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Link0126
Guest
I would say that he desires to but gives us free choice to allow that to happen or not.
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Hecares
Guest
God wants to have a loving relationship with each human being. He never stops loving us and offering us the gift of a loving relationship with Him. However we have to accept the gift for it to become a relationship. It requires two to make a relationship. (two to tango!)
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MarcoPolo
Guest
Yes. John 3:16. 
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grannymh
Guest
A Protestant, who was comforting her dying friend, taught me to say John 3: 16 & 17, which I do. It seems to me, that in the midst of a difficult apologetics discussion, going back to the basic love of God and Christ’s purpose would be appropriate.Yes. John 3:16.
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fhansen
Guest
Yes, He’s not an impersonal God, as Jesus demonstrated. And even at that, Scripture tells us that “in Him we live and move and have our being.”, implying that the relationship is really already there, in one sense, although severed by the fall. Being kicked out of the garden means a sort of schizophrenia, to be separated, internally, from the God who’s part of our beings, which also meant separation from our very own selves.This, IMO, relates to St Augustines’ statement, “I found thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking thee without that wert within.”
Either way, the purpose of the New Covenant is the restoration of this lost relationship:
**33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD. ** Jer 31:33-34
Only with this direct relationship can man be who he was intended to be-to have the integrity and happiness God desires for him.
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thistle
Guest
How would that work for all those in Hell who are eternally separated from God?
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grannymh
Guest
What a good question! I have been thinking about that and am not sure of an answer which would please everyone.
My gut instinct is to search out the difference between God, the Creator, and Adam, the created–the difference between God’s nature and Adam’s nature. One of the more fascinating tenets of Catholicism is that God called Adam (and his descendants) to share in His life through knowledge and love. (CCC 356) “Called” is a great action word. Just finished Harry Potter, book six, with all its calls to action which accounts for my current sensitivity to action.
To avoid comments about my reading habits, God calling Adam to action is nowhere near the same level as a fiction/fantasy. God is the transcendent, pure spirit without material/physical restrictions. Adam, in whom was the whole human race as one body of one man, (CCC 404) was very limited in comparison. Yet, it is God calling Adam to eternal union with the Beatific Vision which gives us the dignity of person.
(CCC 355-358)
Perhaps, to find the answer to the basic question – How does God’s loving relationship work with humans? – we should first examine the nitty-gritty of the unique relationship between the Creator and the created.
What do you think?
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MarcoPolo
Guest
I would say God loved them too. They didn’t love back.
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thistle
Guest
I agree he loves everyone who is alive or those who are dead but saved.
However the souls of those in Hell are also immortal so that would mean the loving relationship from God’s side has also stopped as they are in Hell forever.
While alive people can choose to love God or not but if they go to Hell that choice stops.
I’m therefore interested to know if God loves those in Hell who forever cannot love God anymore. No choice for them but what about God?
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grannymh
Guest
But what about God? you ask. This may sound very awkward but, in my humble opinion, one has to establish the nature and relationship capabilities of both God *and *Adam. While it is true that we inherited a wounded human nature from Adam, we can’t automatically throw away both God’s and Adam’s actions before Original Sin.
What was God’s intention in creating human nature? Were God’s intentions based on conditions? There are many ways to answer those two questions. Therefore, we have to shift away from the *either-or" response, i.e., the normal mutually exclusive “or” type of answer.
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thistle
Guest
I honestly have no idea what you are asking.
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grannymh
Guest
My Irish Mother would say: “There is more than one way to skin a cat.”
We humans have an insatiable curiosity which is one of the gifts of our nature. Yet, we are not exact clones of each other; we think differently at times. One definition of a genius is a person who rearranges the ordinary. What I am asking is that we step back from looking at God’s attributes, such as love, from our point of view.
“Ah” one says. “We cannot know the mind of God.” True. But “not knowing the mind of God” is itself a proof of the difference between God and our human nature. Notice the wording of Satan’s temptation in Genesis, chapter three. He did not ramble on and on about the value of organic fruit. Eve had eyes and could see for herself. His pitch was that when the fruit is eaten, humans would be like gods who know what is good and evil (absence of good). The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition explains Adam’s yielding to temptation this way. “In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned Him.” (CCC 398. Italics are in its text.)
As part of his creaturely status, Adam knew right from wrong and that he had to live in free submission to God in order to be in His eternal friendship. It was not so much that the “fruit” offered more knowledge of good and the absence of good, it was the concept of being like God which clinched the deal.
There appears to be an unsolvable conundrum about God’s loving relationship with humans who freely choose, like Adam, to go against their own good. (please refer to CCC 397-409) My German Dad shared his own procedure when faced with conundrums. He advised to stop banging one’s head against a brick wall and instead try to find a way around it.
Being my parents’ daughter, I propose unusual questions which could help us get past the hell difficulty. My first questions, off the top of my head, are in posts 8 and 11.
Your question “but what about God?” in post 10 cannot really be answered until one knows Who God is, i.e., what is His nature, etc.? Is He like us with our intentions and the conditions we often detail when it comes to our action? Yes, I am very curious.
By the way, there is another saying about a cat – Curiosity killed the cat. Satisfaction brought it back.
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grannymh
Guest
I am looking for a different approach to “God is love, yet hell exists” problem because my sense is that people do not wholeheartedly accept the free will cause. The mind accepts the truth of free will, but our heart…our heart longs for deeper reasons.
To me, those deeper reasons can be found at the beginning point of humanity. This is when our human nature began with the creation of Adam. When Adam freely yielded to temptation, his wounded nature was transmitted to us (as his direct descendants) through procreation. That all sounds complicated until one takes a serious look at the human nature created by God in the person of Adam.
Too often, we look at our relationship with God from our material/physical position without taking time to realize what a marvelous being we are. We describe God with our human adjectives instead of meditating on Genesis 1: 1. At the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we routinely profess the Nicene Creed without truly thinking about “all that is seen and unseen” which ends the first sentence of the Creed.
Because I have a nitty-gritty personality, I see things a tad different from what others see. Thus, I would like to know what others find out when they read the origin of human nature in the first three chapters of Genesis and when they slowly read paragraphs 355 - 421 in the *Catechism of the Catholic Church, *
Second Edition. Link to Catechism. scborromeo.org/ccc.htm
Start by putting “paragraph 355” in search bar.
Both sources of information are wonderful.
To me, those deeper reasons can be found at the beginning point of humanity. This is when our human nature began with the creation of Adam. When Adam freely yielded to temptation, his wounded nature was transmitted to us (as his direct descendants) through procreation. That all sounds complicated until one takes a serious look at the human nature created by God in the person of Adam.
Too often, we look at our relationship with God from our material/physical position without taking time to realize what a marvelous being we are. We describe God with our human adjectives instead of meditating on Genesis 1: 1. At the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we routinely profess the Nicene Creed without truly thinking about “all that is seen and unseen” which ends the first sentence of the Creed.
Because I have a nitty-gritty personality, I see things a tad different from what others see. Thus, I would like to know what others find out when they read the origin of human nature in the first three chapters of Genesis and when they slowly read paragraphs 355 - 421 in the *Catechism of the Catholic Church, *
Second Edition. Link to Catechism. scborromeo.org/ccc.htm
Start by putting “paragraph 355” in search bar.
Both sources of information are wonderful.
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fhansen
Guest
What I find are people who hadn’t yet become comfortable in their own skins-who wanted to be “more” than they were because they couldn’t help but feel worthless if they had to recognize and acknowledge their inferiority relative to God. They not only preferred themselves to God, as the Catechism states, but similarly they preferred believing He wasn’t God; this is the first act of unbelief, which is why faith is the initial act of the restoration of justice to man, BTW. In any case they denied their creaturely status, preferring to be God by denying His godhood, rather than to be like God on His terms, and therefore they denied their limitations-limitations were just too unnecessarily and unjustly confining for a god.
The reason for this quite unreasonable behavior was simply that they were not God, the one good they could not possess, and therefore they lacked His perfect wisdom-a wisdom which would’ve dictated that nothing can remain good to the extent it lies outside His will. What they needed to learn was the value of His will, the “value of God”, so to speak, which coincides, at least in part, with coming to know the value of love, like the Prodigal coming to learn the value of home with the Father.
Humankind must come to know their need-our need -for God. Just some thoughts.
The reason for this quite unreasonable behavior was simply that they were not God, the one good they could not possess, and therefore they lacked His perfect wisdom-a wisdom which would’ve dictated that nothing can remain good to the extent it lies outside His will. What they needed to learn was the value of His will, the “value of God”, so to speak, which coincides, at least in part, with coming to know the value of love, like the Prodigal coming to learn the value of home with the Father.
Humankind must come to know their need-our need -for God. Just some thoughts.
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grannymh
Guest
From post 10.
What was God’s intention in creating human nature?
Why, when God did not need us for His existence?
Yet, God created us to share in His life through knowledge and love. It was for this end that we are created and this is the fundamental reason for our dignity. (Please refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, paragraphs 256 - 361, “In the Image of God”
St Catherine of Siena asked of God: "What made You establish man in so great a dignity? The answer was incalculable love. By love, God gave us a human nature capable of tasting eternal Good. (from the addition to CCC 356)
Were God’s intentions based on conditions?
God’s intentions for us are based on conditions in the sense that we are not equal to God. Even though our first father Adam wanted to be equal. Adam had limitations which he needed to freely recognize. He was the the created one. The condition for being the partner in God’s perfect friendship was that Adam, and consequently us, had to live in free submission to God.
Adam’s freedom was a pure gift from God. It enabled him to choose to live according to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom. Abusing this freedom, Adam broke the relationship between God and Himself. Adam changed. God did not change. In fact, God immediately promised a Redeemer Who could make amends for the broken relationship. Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases Original Sin and turns a person back toward God. (CCC 396 - 406)
God is constantly calling us to share in His Divine Friendship. At some point, humans stop making choices; they make a final decision. It is a decision freely made. The decision is like Adam’s disobedience. The person prefers himself or herself over and against God. This goes against the requirements of human’s creaturely status and therefore against the person’s own good. The incalculable love of God does not change. By serious sin, the person is changed from being within a loving relationship to being alone. The person steps into the absence of eternal good.
As the loving Creator, God gave Adam freedom just as He continually gives us freedom to permanently remain in or leave the relationship. In my humble opinion, the answer to your post 10, is that the relationship per se ends, but God’s incalculable love remains as He is the Creator. And we being created, through the finality of death, continue according to our last decision.
In previous posts, I have tried to change the approach away from the relationship per se. Yes, as someone has said, it takes two to tango. However, I think it is important to first focus on God as the Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen (Nicene Creed said at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass) and then on the “partner” the created human person.
What was God’s intention in creating human nature?
Why, when God did not need us for His existence?
Yet, God created us to share in His life through knowledge and love. It was for this end that we are created and this is the fundamental reason for our dignity. (Please refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, paragraphs 256 - 361, “In the Image of God”
St Catherine of Siena asked of God: "What made You establish man in so great a dignity? The answer was incalculable love. By love, God gave us a human nature capable of tasting eternal Good. (from the addition to CCC 356)
Were God’s intentions based on conditions?
God’s intentions for us are based on conditions in the sense that we are not equal to God. Even though our first father Adam wanted to be equal. Adam had limitations which he needed to freely recognize. He was the the created one. The condition for being the partner in God’s perfect friendship was that Adam, and consequently us, had to live in free submission to God.
Adam’s freedom was a pure gift from God. It enabled him to choose to live according to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom. Abusing this freedom, Adam broke the relationship between God and Himself. Adam changed. God did not change. In fact, God immediately promised a Redeemer Who could make amends for the broken relationship. Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases Original Sin and turns a person back toward God. (CCC 396 - 406)
God is constantly calling us to share in His Divine Friendship. At some point, humans stop making choices; they make a final decision. It is a decision freely made. The decision is like Adam’s disobedience. The person prefers himself or herself over and against God. This goes against the requirements of human’s creaturely status and therefore against the person’s own good. The incalculable love of God does not change. By serious sin, the person is changed from being within a loving relationship to being alone. The person steps into the absence of eternal good.
As the loving Creator, God gave Adam freedom just as He continually gives us freedom to permanently remain in or leave the relationship. In my humble opinion, the answer to your post 10, is that the relationship per se ends, but God’s incalculable love remains as He is the Creator. And we being created, through the finality of death, continue according to our last decision.
T
thistle
Guest
CCC 293 Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: “The world was made for the glory of God.”
St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things “not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it”, for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: “Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand.” The First Vatican Council explains:
This one, true God, of his own goodness and “almighty power”, not for increasing his own beatitude, nor for attaining his perfection, but in order to manifest this perfection through the benefits which he bestows on creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel “and from the beginning of time, made out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal. . .”
CCC 294 The glory of God consists in the realization of this manifestation and communication of his goodness, for which the world was created. God made us “to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace”, for “the glory of God is man fully alive; moreover man’s life is the vision of God: if God’s revelation through creation has already obtained life for all the beings that dwell on earth, how much more will the Word’s manifestation of the Father obtain life for those who see God.” The ultimate purpose of creation is that God “who is the creator of all things may at last become “all in all”, thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our beatitude.”
CCC 295 We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance. We believe that it proceeds from God’s free will; he wanted to make his creatures share in his being, wisdom and goodness: “For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” Therefore the Psalmist exclaims: “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all”; and “The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.”
St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things “not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it”, for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: “Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand.” The First Vatican Council explains:
This one, true God, of his own goodness and “almighty power”, not for increasing his own beatitude, nor for attaining his perfection, but in order to manifest this perfection through the benefits which he bestows on creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel “and from the beginning of time, made out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal. . .”
CCC 294 The glory of God consists in the realization of this manifestation and communication of his goodness, for which the world was created. God made us “to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace”, for “the glory of God is man fully alive; moreover man’s life is the vision of God: if God’s revelation through creation has already obtained life for all the beings that dwell on earth, how much more will the Word’s manifestation of the Father obtain life for those who see God.” The ultimate purpose of creation is that God “who is the creator of all things may at last become “all in all”, thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our beatitude.”
CCC 295 We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance. We believe that it proceeds from God’s free will; he wanted to make his creatures share in his being, wisdom and goodness: “For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” Therefore the Psalmist exclaims: “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all”; and “The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.”
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ConstantineTG
Guest
Yes. But in never is personal. Jesus asks us to love our enemies and to love the least of our brethren, and to love one another. Because in others we find God. So a relationship with God is a relationship with all who God loves. It never is personal.
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fhansen
Guest
What does that mean, ‘It never is personal’? I tend to believe the opposite-it’s always personal-that it must be, in fact.
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bsy
Guest
YES, I do believe in intimacy with God.
Scripture teaches us to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Paul preached that love is the greatest among faith and hope.
And may I add, to love God as a child who is all believing and all trusting.
I have received many miracles from God.
In 2004, I was saved by an angel who pulled me to the other side of the street. Then, I witnessed the crime that should have happened to me.
Scripture teaches us to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Paul preached that love is the greatest among faith and hope.
And may I add, to love God as a child who is all believing and all trusting.
I have received many miracles from God.
In 2004, I was saved by an angel who pulled me to the other side of the street. Then, I witnessed the crime that should have happened to me.
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