How was it even possible for Satan to fall/reject God?

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RealisticCatholic said:
Wouldn’t we have to say it is because one person perceives the first option as better; and the second person perceives the other option as better?
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I know it’s better to eat brown bread, but i like eating white.
 
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But what if I don’t like eating white bread? Then I’m more easily able to to choose brown bread.

My issue is here: Why does someone like eating white bread, while another person does not?

And I think this thinking can apply to moral acts as well.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
But what if I don’t like eating white bread? Then I’m more easily able to to choose brown bread.

My issue is here: Why does someone like eating white bread, while another person does not?

And I think this thinking can apply to moral acts as well.
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The point of the analogy was to show that for some people instant gratification is more important to them than living healthier lives and that pleasure is often the higher priority for some than making a sacrifice.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
But isn’t it true the will follows what the intellect proposes as the best good in a situation? For example, even if the will decides to no longer consider an action, this must be because the intellect first proposes that it is good to no longer consider an action.
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The intellect is a window or telescope directed by the will. The will chooses from what the intellect sees, and the intellect proposes many goods to the will, but the aim of the intellect is ultimately moved by the will and not the other way around; this is how the intellect can be “darkened” by sin, shutting out good things that it might otherwise see because the will has turned it away from them. Obviously for the will to choose it must first see by the intellect, and this is the initial “proposal”, but the intellect as an active power is guided by the will.

The will can perceive two goods and choose the lesser, and in doing so sins when the higher good in question is God and the lesser is some worldly thing.

continued…
 
I recommend reading Question 82 of the First Part of the ST, all the articles are relevant in some way I think.

Here is a bit from Article 2 which I think is especially relevant:
For there are certain individual goods which have not a necessary connection with happiness, because without them a man can be happy: and to such the will does not adhere of necessity. But there are some things which have a necessary connection with happiness, by means of which things man adheres to God, in Whom alone true happiness consists. Nevertheless, until through the certitude of the Divine Vision the necessity of such connection be shown, the will does not adhere to God of necessity, nor to those things which are of God. But the will of the man who sees God in His essence of necessity adheres to God, just as now we desire of necessity to be happy. It is therefore clear that the will does not desire of necessity whatever it desires.
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I think this highlights how the will does not necessarily turn to God until the person is united with the Divine Vision, which is Beatitude.

Peace and God bless!
 
IWantGod said:
The point of the analogy was to show that for some people instant gratification is more important to them than living healthier lives and that pleasure is often the higher priority for some than making a sacrifice.
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It’s like people who smoke weed even though it can drive people to psychosis. Their main focus is the immediate high rather than the psychosis that everybody is warning them about.
 
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IDK It’s just I find it very hard to blame someone for such a preference. It’s as if they do not have enough adequate information at their disposal. Including the knowledge it’s not worth it to go after this immediate happiness in place of the greater good.

Do you not find it troubling that someone could go to an everlasting state or place of torment?

I tried imaging what it would be like to be locked in an enclosed box for 24 hours. Then I imagined a week. A month would be completely unbearable. Now imagine, not a hundred years, but for all your everlasting life… completely shut off from the world, unable to end your life or your torment. Forever fixed in that dark box. How is that just? How is that fair? How is that love?

And hell is even worse then that. So I am told…
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
Wouldn’t we have to say it is because one person perceives the first option as better; and the second person perceives the other option as better?
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It seems to me as though you’re looking for a deterministic answer when there isn’t one to be found. Choice is not merely a series of calculations culminating in a necessary answer based on the (name removed by moderator)ut variables. These variables inform the decision of the will, but ultimately the will sets its own course. The one thing that is necessary is that the will chooses “good”, as that is what the will does, but except when knowledge is utterly perfected by the Divine Mind (so nothing but the Divine Nature appears “good” in itself by comparison) the will must set its own determination of the good. In creatures without Divine Vision there is always the choice between the created good and the supernatural Good, because creaturely eyes by definition can’t clearly perceive the supernatural Good.

Peace and God bless!
 
RealisticCatholic said:
IDK It’s just I find it very hard to blame someone for such a preference.
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It’s not so much a matter of blame, it just a natural consequence of sin. God isn’t really in the blaming game , he is just telling us how it is. If you live this way it will lead to eternal suffering and if you walk this way it will lead to eternal pleasure.

You keep asking why do people choose sin, and i ask you, why do you choose sin?
 
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@magnanimity @IWantGod @Ghosty1981 and others interested:

I just purchased this book, with this summary of its contents:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

The book is encountering the same dilemma I have been dealing with regarding hell in my past few CAF threads on hell. See how it points out the dilemma:
If the human soul is made for good, then how do we choose evil? On the other hand, perhaps the human soul is not made for good. Perhaps the magnitude of human depravity reveals that the human soul may directly choose evil. Notably, Thomas Aquinas rejects this explanation for the prevalence of human sin. He insists that in all our desires we seek what is good. How, then, do we choose evil? Only by mistaking evil for good. This solution to the difficulty, however, leads Aquinas into another conundrum. How can we be held responsible for sins committed under a misunderstanding of the good? The sinner, it seems, has simply made an intellectual blunder.
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Maybe reading this would be helpful. Just purchased it. Thought some of you would be interested…
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
It’s as if they do not have enough adequate information at their disposal.
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Once again, you’re treating God like a Prosecutor. People don’t accidentally go to Hell. God will make sure that they have every option to be saved.
RealisticCatholic said:
Do you not find it troubling that someone could go to an everlasting state or place of torment?
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It’s not my cup of tea but it’s what THEY WANTED.
RealisticCatholic said:
How is that just? How is that fair? How is that love?
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Are you talking with a Priest? I don’t think that this Forum is helping you.
 
I think i bought this book before but didn’t have a chance to read it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
 
It’s not my cup of tea but it’s what THEY WANTED.
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Maybe re-read the description of the eternal enclosed box and truly consider if this could be what anyone wants…

“Sure, no one wants or chooses the consequences of their sin”

But then to this I would say that the consequences are a necessary part of the information in order to make an adequate choice. Who would choose sin if they truly knew they’d spend an everlasting life in a box, with no escape? (or how ever you want to describe the torments of hell. Compared to many things I read, the eternal box is mild).
 
Are you talking with a Priest? I don’t think that this Forum is helping you.
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My Faith is strong. I’m just trying to understand all of this on Thomistic thinking because I’m becoming a huge Aquinas fan.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
Maybe re-read the description of the eternal enclosed box and truly consider if this could be what anyone wants…
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I would guess that if you polled and questioned the denizens of Hell, they’d prefer being tormented for eternity rather than be even an inch closer to God.
 
That could be true. It remains to be seen how sane these people are and, in that case, if they should have ever ended up in hell in the first place.

See the book I posted above, which briefly states the dilemma. You might be interested in that book as well.
 
The book arrived today. I will read it ASAP and then deliver any results and share.
 
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