Hell and Free Will

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adrian1

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I don’t understand why God create people knowing that they will refuse to be saved, and He will never, for all eternity, will never find a way to change their minds and souls. And i think the classic respond : “free will” is not satisfied.
 
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Well everything we see is the creation of God. If you dont want God, this means you are not accepting his creation as well so you will end up somewhere were God wont be with you. Our souls are eternal so when we die we will either be in eternal condition to accept God and the other who never did will not. Its like the story when people of hell come to visit heaven they dont like the beauty of it or the fact that God is ruling it so they would rather remain in hell.
 
Be careful with your wording as you are putting restrictions on the power of God. He clearly has ways of changing their minds, those just aren’t ways that are in His nature to use. He may also have other ways that are within His nature, but we don’t know that and it would be dangerous presumption to depend on it.
 
It’s so difficult to get to Heaven I am starting to feel sorry for those in Hell.
 
I don’t understand why God create people knowing that they will refuse to be saved…
In order to make some sense of this, you have to try to look at it outside the boundaries of time. God does “know” they’ll be damned in the sense that He’s looking into the future and seeing it. He knows they “will be” damned (from our temporal perspective) because they have made the choice to be damned. His knowledge of their damnation is the result of their choice for damnation. It is not something that is foreseen and can be avoided, it is what it is because it is what is/has/will happen in God’s eternal NOW. From our perspective we will be saved/damned in the future. From God’s perspective we are saved/damned, will be saved/damned, and have been saved/damned simultaneously because all moments of what we call time are equally present to Him.
He will never, for all eternity, will never find a way to change their minds and souls
It’s not a matter of “finding a way to change their minds.” God offers all of us the grace of repentance and conversion. Every second of our lives He is calling out to us to turn back to Him. When the person dies and is damned, they make a definitive decision to be cut off from Him. That means that, by their own act of the will, they have chosen to reject all of His graces. It’s not God’s fault they’re not willing to accept the grace of repentance and conversion any more than it is my fault if my son chooses to ignore my warnings and put his hand in the fire.
And i think the classic respond : “free will” is not satisfied.
I’m guessing you mean “satisfactory” here. (Not being snarky, just explaining my interpretation so you know where I’m writing from.)

Why is it not satisfactory? The only way for God to 100% ensure that no one will ever reject Him is to remove the capacity to reject Him. If we lack that capacity then that means that we are not truly free, any more than an AI that is programmed only to imitate love is free to hate.

Why do you reject free will as an explanation?
 
I don’t understand why God create people knowing that they will refuse to be saved
Does He, though?

It’s an open theological question. One perspective is that God omniscience doesn’t include counter-factuals – that is, things that do not exist. So, prior to the creation of the universe (and therefore, setting into place everything that does (or will) ever exist in the universe, He would not know what a person will choose.

By this train of thought, God shows love by creating, and then further by giving free will.
 
The human mind can never fully understand God. Complaining will not make Hell any less real.
 
He will never, for all eternity, will never find a way to change their minds and souls.
God is constantly finding ways to change our minds and turn away from sin. He constantly talks to us through prayer. He communicates to us through the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. He sent Jesus. He gave us Mary, the Holy Spirit, and the saints. We have the Word in the Bible. And He has given us all the tools we need to receive forgiveness through the Sacrament of Confession. To me, God is always finding ways to change minds and souls.
 
There are a finite amount of ways to persuade a person.

This happens with totality after death, but it also happens in smaller degrees in life. As a person becomes older and more experienced, their free will becomes more and more set and irreversible, although a person can always change their mind to the very end.
 
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One of the problems you are having is that you speak of God as if God is in time. God is outside of time, and all things are present to God at once. God is not in time, watching us as we make our choices, but impotent to change them.

Love is not love if it is not freely given. God created us with the potential to be “like Him”, in that we would love. If He “changed” us, then we would not freely be giving love; we would be automatons, here puppets on some cosmic strings that
God could put to “make us dance”.

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants”

Yes, there is free will. We can choose to love, to follow God, or we can choose to not follow. And God so loves us that He created us with the ability to choose, and He honors our choices, even those which dishonor Him.

And God does not send us to hell. We freely choose that, or choose God; we can’t blame Him as we freely make the choice.
 
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Yes, there is free will.
When you say Otjm free will, what kind of free will you are speaking about, libertarian free will or aided free will?
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LIBERTARIAN FREE WILL

Libertarian free
will is basically the concept that, metaphysically and morally, man is an autonomous being, one who operates independently, not controlled by others or by outside forces. According to the Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion (InterVarsity Press, 2002).
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AIDED FREE WILL

The divine initiative in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits the free response of man.

With other words, we freely will what God wills us to freely will.

This means, God enlightens us, makes us to see/ causes us to see, His will for us is the best and He gives us ‘the gift of power’ and ‘the gift of His will’ to freely choose what He wills us to choose.
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Thank you for your answer in advance.

Of course anyone’s answer is welcome.
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God bless
 
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There has been a veritable rash of threads about free will.

Free will = culpability.

No free will = license.

Which appeals more to the concupiscent human person?
 
God gave us free will because he loves us SO much!!! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: Would you rather be a living robot that acts like a slave and has no will of its own? The reason God gave us free will is that he loves us. Also, God doesn’t send souls to hell. The souls there send themselves there. I hope this helps!!! God bless!!! 🙂
 
By this train of thought, God shows love by creating, and then further by giving free will.
That is a good start of the train of thought, let’s complete it.

By this train of thought, God shows love by creating,

and then further by giving free will,

and then further by God gives His aids to use our free wills correctly by His supernatural intervention in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will (De fide),

and then further by CCC 308 For God is at work in us, both to will and to work for his good pleasure,

and then further by CCC 2022; The divine initiative in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits our free response.

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Free Will explains;

“God is the author of all causes and effects, God’s omnipotent providence exercises a complete and perfect control over all events that happen, or will happen, in the universe.”

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“All events preordained by God in accordance with His all-embracing purpose.

Hence Providence is at once universal, immediate, efficacious, yet all alike postulate Divine concurrence and receive their powers of operation from Him (I, Q. xxii, a. 3; Q. ciii, a. 6); efficacious, in that all things minister to God’s final purpose, a purpose which cannot be frustrated. (Contra Gent., III, xciv);”
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Nothing that is outside of God’s creating, sustaining, and governing will.
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As described above, our free wills and actions always in line with God’s will and this way we are all on the road home to Heaven.
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God bless
 
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Don’t blame the Lord for your sin; the Lord does not cause what he hates. Don’t claim that he has misled you; he doesn’t need the help of sinners to accomplish his purposes. The Lord hates evil in all its forms and those who fear the Lord find nothing attractive in evil. When, in the beginning, the Lord created human beings, he left them free to do as they wished. If you want to, you can keep the Lord’s commands. You can decide whether you will be loyal to him or not. He has placed fire and water before you; reach out and take whichever you want. You have a choice between life and death; you will get whichever you choose. The Lord’s wisdom and power are great and he sees everything. He is aware of everything a person does, and he takes care of those who fear him. He has never commanded anyone to be wicked or given anyone permission to sin. Sirach 15:11-20
 
He is aware of everything a person does,
Of course He is aware everything a person does, He Designed, Decreed, Foreordained for us and orders us everything/ every act we are doing or will do.

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The Divine will is cause of all things that happen, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 1 seqq.). Therefore all things are subject to fate.

The same is true for events in our lives. Relative to us they often appear to be by chance.
But relative to God, who directs everything according to his divine plan, nothing occurs by chance.

Hence if this divine influence stopped, every operation would stop.
Every operation,
therefore, of anything is traced back to Him as its cause. (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III.)

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence explains;

Life everlasting promised to us, (Romans 5:21); but unaided we can do nothing to gain it (Rom.7:18-24).
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It extends to all men (Romans 2:10; 1 Timothy 2:4), even to the reprobate Jews (Romans 11:26 sq.); and by it all God’s dealings with man are regulated (Ephesians 1:11).
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It extends to every individual, adapting itself to the needs of each (St. John Chrysostom, “Hom. xxviii in Matt.”, n. 3 in “P.G.”, LVII, 354).
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His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized.
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He directs all, even evil and sin itself, to the final end for which the universe was created.
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Evil, therefore, ministers to God’s design (St. Gregory the Great, op. cit., VI, xxxii in “P.L.”,
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God preserves the universe in being; He acts in and with every creature in each and all its activities.
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That end is that all creatures should manifest the glory of God, and in particular that man should glorify Him, recognizing in nature the work of His hand, serving Him in obedience and love, and thereby attaining to the full development of his nature and to eternal happiness in God.
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Hence Providence is at once universal, immediate, efficacious, yet all alike postulate Divine concurrence and receive their powers of operation from Him (I, Q. xxii, a. 3; Q. ciii, a. 6); efficacious, in that all things minister to God’s final purpose, a purpose which cannot be frustrated (Contra Gent., III, xciv);
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Evil He converts into good (Genesis 1:20; cf. Psalm 90:10); and suffering He uses as an instrument whereby to train men up as a father traineth up his children (Deuteronomy 8:1-6; Psalm 65:2-10;
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Nor would God permit evil at all, unless He could draw good out of evil (St. Augustine, “Enchir.”, xi in “P.L.”, LX, 236; “Serm.”

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12510a.htm
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God bless
 
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And you will never understand.
But Love God, keep on praying and stay away from sin and maybe in time you will have a glimpse of understanding.
 
I don’t understand why God create people knowing that they will refuse to be saved
That’s because you possibly do not understand the necessity of His potential actual children who can grow into His Oneness of having to have Free Will - along with what Free Willingly rejecting wanting to Be with Him is actually all about
 
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