That does not indicate a shift in the will, it indicates a shift in capacity to express the will.Actually not really. My Dad’s “will” changed when he had a brain injury…
So I can assume you agree that external factors are necessary for a shift in will?To play along with your thought experiment, I don’t know how showing that external factors influence will helps your argument. If God allows the external factors to change in a way that makes it impossible to improve or rehabilitate yourself, I don’t see how that could be described as all loving.
There have been multiple reports of interactions with damned souls where they express this sentiment. They prefer to be damned and separated rather than to draw closer to God. One testimony I was discussing earlier put it this way:I see it to be impossible that such a person could exist.
This is the testimony of a damned soul to a woman who had been her acquaintance in life and was praying for her.Now He shows Himself merciful towards us by not compelling a closer approach than that afforded in this remote inferno. Every step bringing us closer to God would cause us a greater pain than that which a step closer to a burning furnace would cause you.
I don’t expect you to accept this as evidence, but I wanted to share it with you nonetheless. If you’re interested in more testimonies, Tan Books has an excellent compendium call The Dogma of Hell.Here we no longer receive graces. Moreover, should we receive them we would cynically refuse them. All the fluctuations of earthly existence have ceased in the other life. For years I was living far away from God. For, in the last call of grace I decided against God.
And is it loving to create a reality where that soul then suffers eternal torment? Or would it be more loving for the soul to be erased from existence? Because an omnipotent being would have the ability to do that, you know.I would argue that that answer to all three questions is no. It is not loving to force yourself on someone, it is not loving to disregard their wishes, and it is not loving to coerce them into some behavior you wish they would exhibit.
You are misunderstanding omnipotence.Because an omnipotent being would have the ability to do that, you know.
Do you have any thoughts about this perspective? About how our eternity is based on these choices – that we really do know right from wrong about, and are accountable for. They’re not a matter of ‘mistakes’ or confusion. We choose the wrong things all the time, and we know it. We don’t have to imagine it about a hypothetical ‘other’: we can recognize it in ourselves.I think the thing about “choosing”, is that it isn’t just standing in front of God and choosing to flick a switch like: “All else being equal, I’d rather experience pleasure in heaven than suffering in hell.” That’s not what true choice is… True ‘choice’ is about what we choose… when that choice comes at a cost. For example, can we really be said to ‘choose’ truth, if – when honesty will cost us something else we value, like popularity – we tell a lie?
No. In such a case, we showed our choice through our action, and when it came right down to it we preferred our own pride or comfort (popularity; whatever the motive for our lie) above truthfulness. The circumstances we experienced didn’t ‘force’ our choice – they just made our choice visible to us. And the reality tends to be that the choice comes down to love of self, or love of God & neighbour.
And the goal of human life is to become the kind of person who truly loves God and neighbour. The kind of person who, when it truly costs everything else , chooses to love God with all our heart, and all our mind, and all our soul, and all our strength. And the kind of person who loves our neighbour as ourself.
Because only when we are TRULY that kind of person – only when we are doing, here on earth, the will of Our Father in heaven – are we actually ‘choosing’ heaven. That is, heaven in the meaningful sense: eternal communion with our God who is love. Who IS choosing, and loving, the other. We have to enter into communion with Him here on earth: now, in this life. Today. This second.
It seems to me a fiction to tell ourselves that we can cultivate a character that is willfully ordered around love of self in this life, however that manifests in our particular circumstances – and then magically find after death that our eternal character is ordered towards love of other (the heavenly state). To think that we can become hellish (prideful, self-centred) in our choices in this life – and then to not experience the hellish state when our character is ‘fixed’ into the form we chose through our, well, choices.
I think it’s a good (if scary) exercise. To pray and figure out what we ACTUALLY choose, every day. Is it our popularity? Our pride and feeling good about our intellect? Our comfort and worldly experience of pleasures? What do we sacrifice? What do we choose?
I didn’t say anything about morality. I was discussing what is loving.Ability yes, nature no. Why would annihilation be more moral than pain?
Same question applies.I didn’t say anything about morality. I was discussing what is loving.
I’ve found that it’s frighteningly easy.How easy is it to go to Hell?
Because it would eliminate eternal suffering, of course. Isn’t that what you would want for your child’s soul?Same question applies.
Why would annihilation be any more loving?
But substituting in non-existing.Because it would eliminate eternal suffering, of course.
Really? You would rather see someone suffer eternal fires of hell than know that they just peacefully ceased to exist? Your kid, for example? Really? I hope not. Remember, we aren’t talking about a human being. We are discussing a soul.But substituting in non-existing.
I don’t see how one could be considered any better.