How could I be happy?

[Laurie_Gibson]

What a lot of answers – thanks.

MarcA You say

Ah, but if you agree with God that it is perfectly just for your wife to be in Hell you realize that God will ensure your perfect happiness?

But as I love my wife more than any other person how can God make me happy even if agree the punishment is just? Will I have ceased to care for her? How could that be?

Chipper – By happy I do not mean the frivolous type of temporary pleasure you might get at a party but the deep feeling of contentment you get when your life is going well.
Questionner – the query I pose is hypothetical – but describes a situation that must occur sometimes.
Desertsailor – if the people in Heaven do not think about those in Hell – particularly those they loved on earth, then the people in Heaven have become morally insensitive – to say the least!
Nita – If a friend of mine tried to abuse my child I would see him locked up! However I would be so very unhappy that a person I cared for had gone astray in this horrible way. And the more I cared for him the unhappier I would be.
JRKH – However much my wife deserves Hell – let’s assume she does – that would not stop me being devastated by her pain. How could it be otherwise if I had shared a life of love with her on earth?
WatchfulP – The same point applies. The dammed may be in Hell for a reason, it might be just, they may have chosen it, etc etc but none of that alters the fact that, if the woman who I Ioved more than any other person on earth, is in eternal pain, THAT would cause me devastating distress. How could it not?

So my question still does not seem to have an answer.

Laurie

 

[Tantum_ergo]

What a lot of answers – thanks.

MarcA You say

Ah, but if you agree with God that it is perfectly just for your wife to be in Hell you realize that God will ensure your perfect happiness?

Chipper – By happy I do not mean the frivolous type of temporary pleasure you might get at a party but the deep feeling of contentment you get when your life is going well.
Questionner – the query I pose is hypothetical – but describes a situation that must occur sometimes.
Desertsailor – if the people in Heaven do not think about those in Hell – particularly those they loved on earth, then the people in Heaven have become morally insensitive – to say the least!
Nita – If a friend of mine tried to abuse my child I would see him locked up! However I would be so very unhappy that a person I cared for had gone astray in this horrible way. And the more I cared for him the unhappier I would be.
JRKH – However much my wife deserves Hell – let’s assume she does – that would not stop me being devastated by her pain. How could it be otherwise if I had shared a life of love with her on earth?
WatchfulP – The same point applies. The dammed may be in Hell for a reason, it might be just, they may have chosen it, etc etc but none of that alters the fact that, if the woman who I Ioved more than any other person on earth, is in eternal pain, THAT would cause me devastating distress. How could it not?

So my question still does not seem to have an answer.

Laurie

But as I love my wife more than any other person how can God make me happy even if agree the punishment is just? Will I have ceased to care for her? How could that be?
**Here is a part of your problem, Laurie. You ‘love your wife more than any other person’ and apparently you love her more than God. You have made her your ‘god’ and that could be a reason that you find ‘fault’ with God’s judgment against your ‘god’. Now suppose your wife came to you and said, “Laurie, I have been cheating on you all through our marriage, the children aren’t yours, I’ve just emptied your bank account and now I’m going to shoot out both your kneecaps and leave you to die slowly.”

You ‘love’ your wife but she has done terrible things to you. You might even ‘forgive’ her on YOUR part but what if she isn’t sorry: What if she is NEVER sorry? Is she supposed to come into heaven (full of unrepented sin) there to scream in God’s face “FU” and to continually scream her hatred of you? How do you think that affects YOUR heaven? And imagine that for eternity. Is that fair to God? to you? is it even fair to your wife to ‘force’ her into heaven where she is eternally miserable and where you have now given her the POWER to make EVERYBODY ELSE MISERABLE?

If nobody else has suggested it, please read C.S. Lewis “The Great Divorce” (it is not a long read). Because basically what you are positing was addressed in that.

Pay particular attention to the story of the mother who wanted to be with her son–and ONLY her son, and to the woman whose husband wanted her to FEEL SORRY FOR HIM. Those will give you an excellent idea of the fallacies of the arguments you are advancing.

There was an interesting idea earlier. Let’s run with it.

Suppose your wife starts sexually abusing your child. And she isn’t sorry. And even though you arrange treatment and supervision and care she is cunning. . .and she will manage to keep on abusing your child.

You love your wife–but what of your child’s safety? Isn’t that more important? By ensuring his safety, you are making your wife ‘unhappy’. . .but you LOVE her. Is your ‘love’ so much that you will cause physical, emotional and psychological damage for your child in order to make your wife ‘happy?’

If you would ‘save’ your child, then it means that you understand that there are SOME things which your wife might want to be ‘happy’ but which would not be acceptable as they are gravely sinful.

And you could then see that the same holds for you–that there are some things which YOU want in order to be happy (you want your wife not to be in hell if you’re in heaven because you think you’d be unhappy without her) but that if she has placed herself in hell, what you ‘want’ is not acceptable as it is gravely sinful (the ideas that God would be ‘unjust’ or that you --in heaven–would not be ‘satisfied’ without your wife are indeed gravely sinful as they impugn God’s justice and make your wife’s presence your paramount god and idol).

 

[JRKH]

What a lot of answers – thanks.

JRKH – However much my wife deserves Hell – let’s assume she does – that would not stop me being devastated by her pain. How could it be otherwise if I had shared a life of love with her on earth?
WatchfulP – The same point applies. The dammed may be in Hell for a reason, it might be just, they may have chosen it, etc etc but none of that alters the fact that, if the woman who I Ioved more than any other person on earth, is in eternal pain, THAT would cause me devastating distress. How could it not?

So my question still does not seem to have an answer.

Laurie

Laurie,
You did not answer the question that I put to you.
Did you do everything within you power to try to get your wife got to heaven?

Peace
James

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

More posts – thanks – and my reponses.

Tantum – No, this hypothetical person does not love his wife more than God. Nor is he doubting that she deserves to go to Hell. However she is the person that he loves more than anyone other human so the question remains – how could he be happy in Heaven?
Also this wife is not wicked like Hitler nor has she done anything like the crimes of the wife you so graphically describe. She died an atheist, used contraceptives, and, committed other sins so, according to your church she goes to Hell.

JRKH – the wife is hypothetical but no doubt the husband did all he could to convert his wife – but failed.*

 

[Tantum_ergo]

More posts – thanks – and my reponses.

Tantum – No, this hypothetical person does not love his wife more than God. Nor is he doubting that she deserves to go to Hell. However she is the person that he loves more than anyone other human so the question remains – how could he be happy in Heaven?
Also this wife is not wicked like Hitler nor has she done anything like the crimes of the wife you so graphically describe. She died an atheist, used contraceptives, and, committed other sins so, according to your church she goes to Hell.

Wait a minute. Laurie, your wife may have died an atheist, used contraceptives and committed other sins. . .but “OUR” church does NOT 'condemn her to hell.*

You don’t know if she:

1. Fully understood that what she was doing was wrong.
2. Freely chose to do wrong.

And above all, you don’t know whether before she died SHE REPENTED.

God does not ‘send people to hell for mortal sin.’ People place themselves there freely.

Your wife would never be in hell ‘unwillingly.’

So. . .suppose you are in heaven yourself and suppose that your wife not only knew that she was doing wrong, she never repented and she willingly chose hell.

I do hope this makes things clear to you. “Our Church” doesn’t go around making blanket lists of ‘bad things’ so that we can scream, “Do this and you’re in hell”.

Now I can understand, as a mother myself, that should my children wind up in hell I would be (if I knew this on EARTH) pretty devastated. . .because on earth I am bound to a FINITE view.

In Heaven though we will have God’s INFINITE view. What seems ‘impossible’ for us NOW will seem not only possible but JUST, WISE, AND GOOD there.

Do we ‘know everything’ about God here? Heck no. We don’t understand the Mystery of the Trinity, we don’t understand God’s infinity. Heck, we don’t even understand all EARTHLY things, we don’t know how our brain fully works. Now you are expecting to use your finite senses to make a JUDGMENT on God’s infinite will. . .and that doesn’t make sense.

IF we were to be bound to our FINITE view we would not be able to accept God’s INFINITE justice because WE WOULD NOT UNDERSTAND IT. That’s your problem right now–you’re finite, He is infinite, and you are only judging by your FINITE view. You simply won’t open yourself up to the possibility that your FINITE view is not the INFINITE view, and so you make yourself unneccesarily upset by your wrong conceptions. Remember, the Catholic Church has never mentioned ANY PERSON as being known to be WITHOUT DOUBT in Hell–NOT EVEN JUDAS. Yet you are putting your feelings for your wife ‘over’ your trust in God and your understanding of God’s mercy . .over a hypothetical based on misunderstandings of Catholic teaching and the nature of God.

Can’t you just accept that God is good, and that if you are united with Him and share His INFINITE view instead of your petty FINITE view that He will make things clear to you? That you will not be held hostage to the TYRANNY of somebody trying to make you feel that nobody in heaven can be ‘happy’ if anyone is in hell? You might not realize it but you are making Satan more powerful than God if you think that Satan’s having your wife’s soul in hell will have the power to make YOU UNHAPPY IN HEAVEN.

JRKH – the wife is hypothetical but no doubt the husband did all he could to convert his wife – but failed.

 

[thenobes]

Laurie,

This inordinate respect you have for your wife’s senses/feelings and lack of respect for her free will, will haved been purged away in purgatory.

peace
steve

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

Tantum - your correction to my statement re Hell is interesting. Thanks.

The rest just comes down to this- YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW I COULD BE HAPPY IF MY WIFE WAS IN HELL. You just reckon that I would because God is infinite. Fair enough - God is infinite so 2 + 2 = 5 in Heaven!

The person I love best of all humans is eternally suffering. I assume in Heaven I will remember her, feel the same way about her and that I have not been brainwashed or changed. So it follows as night follows day that I could not be happy and all the INFINITEs [In capital letters] cannot change that! My brain might be finite but it can still recognise a contradiction.

In fact the situation is worse because there is one who loves my wife more than I do - namely God. He would be even more devastated by the suffering eternal and awful of my wife and all the others in Hell, including Satan. And, of course, in Heaven we would be more morally sensitive than we are on earth so the suffering in Hell would affect us even more. [This point applies even if the suffering is merited, chosen or whatever]

A problem.

Laurie

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Tantum - your correction to my statement re Hell is interesting. Thanks.

The rest just comes down to this- YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW I COULD BE HAPPY IF MY WIFE WAS IN HELL. You just reckon that I would because God is infinite. Fair enough - God is infinite so 2 + 2 = 5 in Heaven!

The person I love best of all humans is eternally suffering. I assume in Heaven I will remember her, feel the same way about her and that I have not been brainwashed or changed. So it follows as night follows day that I could not be happy and all the INFINITEs [In capital letters] cannot change that! My brain might be finite but it can still recognise a contradiction.

In fact the situation is worse because there is one who loves my wife more than I do - namely God. He would be even more devastated by the suffering eternal and awful of my wife and all the others in Hell, including Satan. And, of course, in Heaven we would be more morally sensitive than we are on earth so the suffering in Hell would affect us even more. [This point applies even if the suffering is merited, chosen or whatever]

A problem.

Laurie

**No, not a problem. God cannot suffer (though God the Second Person of the Trinity did suffer as a Man–a contradiction and a mystery). But God does not suffer.

And those in Heaven are not affected by suffering in the sense that we are affected on earth.

Have you looked into C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce" as I requested?

I think that you are trying to build (unwittingly I hope) this kind of false dilemma or dichotomy whereby you using your finite (being an older person I tend to capitalize for emphasis but point taken, I will bold instead) intellect are positing falsehoods for truths.

You posit that God will be ‘devastated’ by suffering. We know that this is not the case. God does not suffer. Therefore God will not be devastated by suffering.

You posit that your feeling toward your wife ‘will not change’. In fact, it will. However your love for her will be made perfect. It is not perfect now, it is imperfect. In the perfection of your love you will be able to look upon her suffering (if she has chosen so freely and willingly) from Heaven and be able to love her perfectly as God does. And He does so without suffering or pain even when His creation has disobeyed Him.

Please also check out C. S. Lewis “The Problem of Pain.”

You can’t ‘wrap your mind around this’ because you stubbornly insist that the way you feel now is the ‘only correct way’ you could ever possibly feel and that if God feels any different, He isn’t really God. That basically is what you’re arguing even though you might not see it. Basically you’re saying, “If God has my wife in hell and me in heaven, I will suffer and it’s not fair, and I’m suffering because I’m such a prince of a fellow, I love her so much. And everybody else in heaven must suffer too because in heaven we’re all so much more moral so we’d suffer more.”

But in heaven we do not suffer. Don’t just take my word for it, take Scripture itself. We are told that ‘every tear will be wiped away’. Umm. . .well. Looks like when you go even if your last minutes on earth are wailing, "Oh wah, what if my wife is in hell and I’m in heaven, I will suffer in heaven without her, it is so unfair" --well, in heaven you will be freed from your false assumptions and see things through the eyes of God (who does not suffer).

Of course, if you won’t even admit that you may not suffer in heaven because you’ll have an ‘infinite’ point of view rather than your current stubborn, finite and theologically incorrect one. . .then all you’ll do is say, “You can’t convince me.” Maybe I can’t. I can give you the information (as I said, it’s both Scriptural and traditional) but if you don’t accept it, you don’t accept it. It doesn’t make you 'right though. And I’m not ‘wrong’ if you refuse you accept my words (on behalf of the Church); the Church remains perfectly correct in its teachings no matter if some people refuse to accept them. One can only hope that you will open your mind as well as your over-active heart and accept that your whole premise is flawed from the start:

God does not 'send people to hell."
People choose hell freely.
God does not suffer.
People in heaven do not suffer.
Here on earth we 'see in a glass, darkly. But in heaven we will see ‘face to face’.

You didn’t address what I said on the topic : Is Satan more powerful than God? You see, Satan wants people to suffer and be unhappy. Your position is that you will be unhappy in Heaven even if you are there with God if your wife isn’t with you. So you’re saying God is not powerful enough to keep you from suffering, and Satan is more powerful than God because he can make people in heaven unhappy.

What of that? What is your response?

 

[Desertsailor]

Tantum - your correction to my statement re Hell is interesting. Thanks.

The rest just comes down to this- YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW I COULD BE HAPPY IF MY WIFE WAS IN HELL. You just reckon that I would because God is infinite. Fair enough - God is infinite so 2 + 2 = 5 in Heaven!

The person I love best of all humans is eternally suffering. I assume in Heaven I will remember her, feel the same way about her and that I have not been brainwashed or changed. So it follows as night follows day that I could not be happy and all the INFINITEs [In capital letters] cannot change that! My brain might be finite but it can still recognise a contradiction.

In fact the situation is worse because there is one who loves my wife more than I do - namely God. He would be even more devastated by the suffering eternal and awful of my wife and all the others in Hell, including Satan. And, of course, in Heaven we would be more morally sensitive than we are on earth so the suffering in Hell would affect us even more. [This point applies even if the suffering is merited, chosen or whatever]

A problem.

Laurie

What if God told you she’s in hell for cheating on you? Would that change your perspective?

 

[JRKH]

JRKH – the wife is hypothetical but no doubt the husband did all he could to convert his wife – but failed.

Thanks. You asked if the OP how you could be happy in heaven if your wife (whom you loved) is in hell. So I will continue to treat this as you - and your “wife” even if hypothetical - OK?

Now You as a good husband did your best to bring them into the faith, or back to the faith, but failed, not because YOU failed but because she failed to accept God’s salvic plan for her.
In other words you did everything you could to get her to heaven - Just as God does everything He can. Unfortunately it is sometimes not enough. Yet our affection for another here on earth must not detract from our Love of God. In the finall analysis we must Choose God over all else and desire only that which He desires.

St Catherine of Sienna in “Dialogues” puts it this way (God answering her question):
"So you see that in those bonds of love in which they finished their life, they go on and remain eternally. They are conformed so entirely to My will, that they cannot desire except what I desire, because their free-will is bound in the bond of love, in such a way that, time failing them, and, dying in a state of grace, they cannot sin any more. And their will is so united with Mine, that a father or a mother seeing their son, or a son seeing his father or his mother in Hell, do not trouble themselves, and even are contented to see them punished as My enemies.

You can read more on this HERE

Peace
James

 

[JRKH]

Tantum - your correction to my statement re Hell is interesting. Thanks.

The rest just comes down to this- YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW I COULD BE HAPPY IF MY WIFE WAS IN HELL. You just reckon that I would because God is infinite. Fair enough - God is infinite so 2 + 2 = 5 in Heaven!

The person I love best of all humans is eternally suffering.** I assume in Heaven I will remember her, feel the same way about her and that I have not been brainwashed or changed.** So it follows as night follows day that I could not be happy and all the INFINITEs [In capital letters] cannot change that! My brain might be finite but it can still recognise a contradiction.

I recognize that you are stuggling with this. We all do. But I think that the bolded section above is significant. You are assuming that you are not “changed” in heaven. This is not true. If you make it to heaven you WILL be changed. You will be perfected and your will
will be so united with God’s that you will want only what He wants. Rejoice in what He rejoices in and hate what He hates.
So since your assumption of “no change” is false, it does not follow in the way you imagine.

In fact the situation is worse because there is one who loves my wife more than I do - namely God. He would be even more devastated by the suffering eternal and awful of my wife and all the others in Hell, including Satan. And, of course, in Heaven we would be more morally sensitive than we are on earth so the suffering in Hell would affect us even more. [This point applies even if the suffering is merited, chosen or whatever]

A problem.

Laurie

Yes I think God’s “sadness” or “disappointement” or whatever, over the lost souls is made worse because they choose it themselves.
Yet what is to be done?
You said that you did all that you could to convert your wife - she refused.
You undoubtedly explained to her that her stubborness would result in her damnation and she ignored you or laughed at you or scoffed at you and your “silly superstitions”.
When God would likewise try to encourage her to believe, she ignored, and scoffed at Him too.
She chose not to believe in and Love God, and she chose not to love you enough to want to come to heaven with you. So consider this while you feel sad in heaven - you did not desert her, she deserted you.

Peace
James

 

[UnreadApologist]

The rest just comes down to this- YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW I COULD BE HAPPY IF MY WIFE WAS IN HELL. You just reckon that I would because God is infinite. Fair enough - God is infinite so 2 + 2 = 5 in Heaven!

The rest doesn’t come down to this at all. The reality is that your question is only unanswerable because you have constructed it that way, though for what purpose I’m not at this juncture sure. It’s a trick question. That’s the problem with hypotheticals.

If a hypothetical person loves his wife to the degree you describe, that his happiness is dependent on her, then the hypothetical response is that he has turned his wife into an idol.

The only happiness there is is in God. In God alone does Man meet his telos. Your hypothetical wife is simply irrelevant to your happiness. And that’s both in this life and in the next. You can be happy with or without a wife here, you can be happy with or without a wife there.

But no, no, no, you say she’s NOT an idol and that he doesn’t “love” her in an unhealthy way, where he’s made his happiness dependent on her. That, sir, is utter garbage and you know it. The man you’ve presented very clearly has made his happiness dependent on her instead of God, which is precisely what we mean by idolatry. The replacing of God with something not God, where only God should be. Your question, and subsequent addendum, contradict each other. It’s very much like one person asking, “If God told you that 2+2=5, would you accept it?” and when the other person answers, “God would never tell me that, God doesn’t tell us things that are false,” the first person insisting that, “Well, in this hypothetical example, God does.” It’s nonsensical, it has no meaning. Your question is similar.

What this comes down to is that you’re question is tripe. The man you’ve portrayed wouldn’t be in Heaven in the first place, he does not love God enough. If he were a man who loves God more than his wife, it wouldn’t be an issue. He would be happy, regardless of his wife’s state. Why? Because happiness is through God, not through us.

The REAL question here is: Why would you be UNHAPPY if your wife was in Hell, but you were with God? Why is your wife more important to you than God? How does your question even make sense, if God is the source of all happiness and you are not idolizing your wife?

 

[JRKH]

The rest doesn’t come down to this at all. The reality is that your question is only unanswerable because you have constructed it that way, though for what purpose I’m not at this juncture sure. It’s a trick question. That’s the problem with hypotheticals.

If a hypothetical person loves his wife to the degree you describe, that his happiness is dependent on her, then the hypothetical response is that he has turned his wife into an idol.

**The only happiness there is is in God. ** In God alone does Man meet his telos. Your hypothetical wife is simply irrelevant to your happiness. And that’s both in this life and in the next. You can be happy with or without a wife here, you can be happy with or without a wife there.

But no, no, no, you say she’s NOT an idol and that he doesn’t “love” her in an unhealthy way, where he’s made his happiness dependent on her. That, sir, is utter garbage and you know it. The man you’ve presented very clearly has made his happiness dependent on her instead of God, which is precisely what we mean by idolatry. The replacing of God with something not God, where only God should be. Your question, and subsequent addendum, contradict each other. It’s very much like one person asking, “If God told you that 2+2=5, would you accept it?” and when the other person answers, “God would never tell me that, God doesn’t tell us things that are false,” the first person insisting that, “Well, in this hypothetical example, God does.” It’s nonsensical, it has no meaning. Your question is similar.

What this comes down to is that you’re question is tripe. The man you’ve portrayed wouldn’t be in Heaven in the first place, he does not love God enough. If he were a man who loves God more than his wife, it wouldn’t be an issue. He would be happy, regardless of his wife’s state. Why? Because happiness is through God, not through us.

The REAL question here is: Why would you be UNHAPPY if your wife was in Hell, but you were with God? Why is your wife more important to you than God? How does your question even make sense, if God is the source of all happiness and you are not idolizing your wife?

Though I fear your answer here is not as charitable as it could be, I must agree with your assessment. I even bolded some of the essential points in the above. It all boils down to where this person has placed the “treasure” of his love. Is it with God or with his wife? Which is not to say he cannot or should not love both, but he should love his wife from and for his love for God. They should not be independant.

I will say though in defense of the OP, that these can be questions that real, honest, sincere people struggle with because of our limited capacity to understand. It’s difficult to to shift our “world view” from the finite to the infinite; from “man think” to “God think”.

In your defense I will say you have brought up several good points that I hope Leslie will take to heart in spite of the somewhat “blunt” way they are expressed.

Peace
James

 

[UnreadApologist]

Though I fear your answer here is not as charitable as it could be,

I worried about that. Uncharitability is something I struggle with, and I have a hard time gaging what is and what is not uncharitable. I come from a family where argumentation and debate were frequent and we grew thick skins as a result.

Laurie, if I have offended, I apologize. I also apologize for writing “you’re” instead your in the first sentence of the second to last paragraph. Argh I hate that! I believe my points still stand, however. What you’re describing simply is not a feasible situation, that is why it cannot be answered to your satisfaction. I understand these are difficult issues, and that there are legitimate hypotheticals that might arise and which would be similar. But this one seems to me to have been constructed in such a way as to be unanswerable. And I do wonder if that was intentional.

 

[Major_Minor]

A lot of answers… not one person mentioned the parable about Lazarus and the rich man?
Luke 16:19-31
It doesn’t answer the “why” part of why there is no bridge… but traditionally if you are in heaven it’s understood you are enjoying the “beatific vision” of God and His glory.

There are stories of saints communicating with those still alive on earth but the gap between heaven and hell is not bridged (for whatever reason) according to the Gospels.

 

[Major_Minor]

Tantum - your correction to my statement re Hell is interesting. Thanks.

The rest just comes down to this- YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW I COULD BE HAPPY IF MY WIFE WAS IN HELL. You just reckon that I would because God is infinite. Fair enough - God is infinite so 2 + 2 = 5 in Heaven!

The person I love best of all humans is eternally suffering. I assume in Heaven I will remember her, feel the same way about her and that I have not been brainwashed or changed. So it follows as night follows day that I could not be happy and all the INFINITEs [In capital letters] cannot change that! My brain might be finite but it can still recognise a contradiction.

In fact the situation is worse because there is one who loves my wife more than I do - namely God. He would be even more devastated by the suffering eternal and awful of my wife and all the others in Hell, including Satan. And, of course, in Heaven we would be more morally sensitive than we are on earth so the suffering in Hell would affect us even more. [This point applies even if the suffering is merited, chosen or whatever]

A problem.

Laurie

Where is the 2+2=5 coming in?

Basically when you say “Your church” believes this or that and the way you’re wording your responses it makes me wonder what you’re doing here…

I doubt you’re sincerely asking this question or even trying to enter a genuine dialogue…Frankly it looks more to me like you’re trying to cause grief for others while simultaneously portraying yourself as the more soulful compassionate one for caring for this hypothetical wife and inferring others are moral monsters for not answering the question the way you want it to be answered. I find your posture of being passionate about abstracts while being indifference to the feelings of others negates your posture of moral superiority

A problem.

 

[UnreadApologist]

I doubt you’re sincerely asking this question or even trying to enter a genuine dialogue…Frankly it looks more to me like you’re trying to cause grief for others while simultaneously portraying yourself as the more soulful compassionate one for caring for this hypothetical wife and inferring others are moral monsters for not answering the question the way you want it to be answered. I find your posture of being passionate about abstracts while being indifference to the feelings of others negates your posture of moral superiority

I see I am not alone in questioning the legitimacy of this question and its construction. Good.

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

Lots of responses again. I only have time for a few quick responses.

1] It is claimed that this man does not love God because he is so upset by the suffering of his wife. That he has made his wife into an idol. I cannot see either claim being correct.

A man might love his son more than his mum but, if his mum was in agony, he would be devastated. Also you can love a person without turning them into an idol or loving them more than God.

2] Changing in Heaven. Yes, of course, a person is changed in Heaven. For the better! So if they are now completely insensitive to the eternal agony of their wife this would not be true. And that change surely does not ammount to amnesia about their life on earth?

3] My motivation. [If you cannot kick the ball kick the man!] This is a site where the beliefs of the Catholic Church are discussed. Unbelievers are welcome provided they obey the rules and are polite etc. I have great respect for the Catholic Church but your views on Hell are a scandal - hence this thread.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Lots of responses again. I only have time for a few quick responses.

1] It is claimed that this man does not love God because he is so upset by the suffering of his wife. That he has made his wife into an idol. I cannot see either claim being correct.

A man might love his son more than his mum but, if his mum was in agony, he would be devastated. Also you can love a person without turning them into an idol or loving them more than God.

Okay, here’s my :twocents:

You said, “A man might love his son more than his mum but, if his mum was in agony, he would be devastated.”

Right, but you need to take several things into account here:

1. Since you are with God, you are perfectly knowledgeable of exactly why your wife is in Hell and since you are conformed to God’s will you agree completely that she deserves it.
2. With this in mind, you can live in Heaven in total bliss and happiness since you are with God, who you love more than your wife, forever.

What I mean explained a little better:

Let’s use your analogy with the Mother and the son. In our world, we are devastated that the Mother dies even if we can be with our son. However, let’s say the son knew exactly why the Mother was dead. He also knew that she deserved it. He managed to convince you of this fact. In this way you accept your Mother’s death, and now can be perfectly happy that you are aligned with the will of your son.

Actually, the analogy fails on that last bit, because I’m assigning human analogies to God. From the Heavenly persepective, and using the original analogy, your Mother’s suffering does not give you joy, but it does not cause suffering because it is pure joy to be aligned with the will of God.

Ultimately, we don’t know EXACTLY how this will work (though I think what I said makes sense). We trust however that God has a better plan than we do.

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

1. Since you are with God, you are perfectly knowledgeable of exactly why your wife is in Hell and since you are conformed to God’s will you agree completely that she deserves it.
2. With this in mind, you can live in Heaven in total bliss and happiness since you are with God, who you love more than your wife, forever.

Hi Marc - your point does not work. This man agrees with his wife being in Hell but that does not make him happy. As I have mentioned before if my wife was justly imprisoned I would still be made unhappy by her confinement.

Laurie