I did not consent to my creation

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Mystics have described Heaven as annhiliation, as non-being.

We don’t know what Heaven is, but the metaphor of non-being or annhiliation is certainly within our tradition. Personally, I think non-being would be a better (image of) Heaven that sitting on a cloud!
 
You sound like you are either very depressed or worse in despair. Depression can give you those feelings. I know, because as a child I had them despite being raised by good Catholic parents and attending Catholic school. I always felt out of place or like I didn’t belong. I remember (and I hope that Jesus forgave me for this) telling my mother that I didn’t “ask” to be born when I was a teenager. I’m wondering too if you are on the young side.

Finally as an adult, I was able to face these feelings and it turned out that I was very depressed and needed anti depressants and therapy. It also turned out that my mother suffered from this, and now our daughter has the same problem.

I believe that Our Lord understands this, and in a way I can’t blame you for feeling this way since the world right now seems to be in a lot of chaos. It is definitely a “cross” to bear, but there is help with prayer and perhaps some pills. No one is worthless in God’s eyes.

Try praying the Rosary too and asking for St.Michael’s help. You were created for a purpose, even though you can’t see that now. I will be praying for you!
 
Irish_Hare said:
Thanks Jennet. I am tired of life. I am weary. I have no motivation to keep going. I didn’t ask to be part of this. I just want to go to sleep and cease to be. I know I don’t deserve heaven, but I don’t want hell. Hence annihilation is my fantasy.
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Irish:

Think about it. Annihilation would essentially be a hole in the fabric of time and all of temporal existence. How would your annihilation affect the universe? I contend that every living thing is extraordinarily important to the fabric of the rest of Creation. Therefore, your non-annihilation is incredibly important to us! It’s hard to think of yourself like that, isn’t it? In any event, we’d prefer for you to stick around for a bit! :eek:

God bless,
jd
 
I’ve seriously contemplated this question for a long time and was afraid of the blasphemous nature of my thoughts. It seems like a horrible irony that free will is forced upon us. I remember thinking in moments of despair as a teenager that I didn’t want to be a part of God’s narrative and why could I not be uncreated. If I am a free agent why is choosing or rejecting Christ compulsory. I don’t think there is an answer to this vexing question, but I understand your indignation at our lack of a third option.
 
bri89 said:
I’ve seriously contemplated this question for a long time and was afraid of the blasphemous nature of my thoughts. It seems like a horrible irony that free will is forced upon us. I remember thinking in moments of despair as a teenager that I didn’t want to be a part of God’s narrative and why could I not be uncreated. If I am a free agent why is choosing or rejecting Christ compulsory. I don’t think there is an answer to this vexing question, but I understand your indignation at our lack of a third option.
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Not believing in God or any of the Christian message is an option. Another option, not believing in free will at all, is an alternative some people choose. Maybe we choose our options based on preference. Maybe the real reason people don’t believe in God is to gain or retain the freedom to keep their options open-or to convince themselves of such at least. Just some thoughts.
 
po18guy said:
Had you been allowed the choice of being created or not, you would not be here! We, who are wont to use our free will wrongly, would reject even the love that we experience during and after our creation. Yet, we were created out of love - and nothing else. It is our response to that love which matters.

Atheists use almost your exact wording - atheists who are angry, but do not know Who, or just what to be angry at. Yet, they naturally gravitate toward religious forums to make their complaint! Odd, that.
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Love after creation, if one goes to heaven. Love during creation - no way. What we experience - creation - is cruelty in the name of possible perfected joy. But God is Reason, so it must be reasonable, even if I can’t see it.
 
We are made in the image and likeness of God. Since God cannot wish to annihilate himself, why should we wish to be annihilated? 😃
 
Irish_Hare said:
The soul is created at the moment of conception. In eternity, we are nothing more than a thought in the mind of God. At our conception, that thought inspires the creation of a unique human soul.
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Beautiful ! So really it is not God who you are mad at it is your parents since with out their participation in the act of God’s creation you would still just be a thought in the mind of God.

Think about this too however, aside from your not being willing to go down the road for “how can one talk with a non-being” honestly you are talking about mysteries outside of our understanding until we get to Heaven. We really don’t know if the third option does not exist since without God there is no existence ( no matter how much atheists wish to deny him). The fact that you ARE shows you that God loves you because he created you to be with Him but because of that love He will not force you to love Him since that would not be real love it would be more of a slave/master relationship. This weekend is the Divine Mercy Feast I highly recommend you get to know about this message. The Novena is powerful. To me it very much ties in with the teaching of St Terese’s little way ( Story of a Soul) and the message of the Sacred heart. I recommend that focusing on God’s love and Mercy makes you realize that His ‘yolk is light’ then you will rejoice that you were given the awesome choice you choose it freely.
Rely on God’s Mercy, throw yourself at His feet and ask Him to lift the dark night off your back ,reject Satan.
 
To complain of not consenting to be created is bizarre. It is impossible to be given a choice before you exist.

God knows some will reject the value of life but should He desist from creating everyone because a small minority don’t want to live? God is omniscient but the decisions of a non-existent person are intrinsically unknowable! As Lear said, nothing shall come of nothing. It is a logical impossibility to know anything about nothing or no one.

It is a lesser evil to create countless people who want to live rather than create no one. God is not compelled to create anyone or anything but His love is so great He is prepared to be rejected.Those who choose to live for themselves in hell reject Him but they are not the only ones.

Those who reject life don’t always realise they too reject God because they imply life with God isn’t worth having. Or they think it is better not to exist in case they go to hell! Or they think it is better not to exist because they don’t believe in God. In that case they have nothing to worry about. In their Godless scheme of things they are unlikely to survive after death anyway…

There is one consolation for those who believe in God and still wish they hadn’t been born. They are making a sacrifice for the benefit of all those who appreciate the gift of life. Without them we wouldn’t be here now! Let us hope and pray that will help them to understand how valuable they are… 🙂
 
tonyrey said:
To complain of not consenting to be created is bizarre. It is impossible to be given a choice before you exist.
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My understanding of the primary issue is that there also is no choice to cease to exists as far as the OP knows. If there were then I think that this would be a non-issue to him/her.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
My understanding of the primary issue is that there also is no choice to cease to exists as far as the OP knows. If there were then I think that this would be a non-issue to him/her.
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Given that one cannot rationally be thought to have the option to consent to one’s existence, why is it reasonable to expect that one should have the option to actualize one’s going out of existence?
 
Irish_Hare said:
I did not consent to be created or born. I find myself now, alive, and forced to make a choice: either to follow all that Christ has commanded in order to arrive, at the end of my earthly life, in eternal paradise, or, I can reject the plan of God and spend my eternity in a miserable and tormented state we call hell. Now I understand there is the issue as to how you consult a non-being about his prospective creation, but we shall leave that aside for now.

I hear a lot about God respecting our free will and wanting us to have a free choice, but where is the freedom in having been created and born without your consent, and then forced to decide on two hard options:
  1. To follow Jesus Christ: hard work in this life, paradise in the next;
or:
  1. A life lived for oneself, with sporadic pleasurable experiences now and then, but finishing in the eternal misery of hell.
I say that if God truly respected our freedom and choice, he would offer us a third option: annihilation. That way, those of us who choose not to be part of this creation and who do not wish to make the best of a bad situation (having been created and born into a fallen world) by choosing God and doing all that that entails, actually have a real choice: to go back to the state of non-being they ‘had’ before God created them.

I don’t think the Catholic faith has an answer to my question. I suppose some would say that I am sick, either simply through having been a member of the fallen human race, or else that I am mentally ill, depressed, for example. But I am saying if I don’t want to be on the bandwagon, then surely I should be allowed to get off? Or does God simply insist that he will ‘be all in all’ for good or bad. Either way, we will be in God’s love, either in the burning passion of heaven, or the scorching fire of hell. Thus, God does not merely propose eternal life to us, he boxes us in, forcing us to make a choice without leaving any option for those who do not wish to participate.
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There was time long ago when we didn’t have time, as persons, to think about such things, let alone sit around and discuss these thoughts.
 
I think that questions like this tend to find their roots in a dangerous focus on self. “I didn’t consent to my creation”…and yet, all of our lessons and teaching from God tell us that Creation isn’t about us to begin with. We find true peace and love in life as we learn better to serve others, and it is through doing so that we learn to see God and all His works in the lives we’re given, regardless of circumstances.

Yes, sometimes those circumstances are hard, and the lessons can be long in the learning, but that’s why God gave us all the tools we need to draw strength and closeness from Him to keep going.

Jesus already tells us that things aren’t going to be easy for those who would try to seek Him this way: “Take up your cross and follow me.” Irish, I’ll be praying for you and your strength in the days ahead. Love ya, sir / madame. As a fellow member in the Body of Christ, I’ll be sure to keep you in my intentions as I offer up my own sufferings during each day.
 
Gorgias said:
Given that one cannot rationally be thought to have the option to consent to one’s existence, why is it reasonable to expect that one should have the option to actualize one’s going out of existence?
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I’m not sure what you are asking me here.
 
Irish_Hare said:
I did not consent to be created or born. I find myself now, alive, and forced to make a choice: either to follow all that Christ has commanded in order to arrive, at the end of my earthly life, in eternal paradise, or, I can reject the plan of God and spend my eternity in a miserable and tormented state we call hell. Now I understand there is the issue as to how you consult a non-being about his prospective creation, but we shall leave that aside for now.

I hear a lot about God respecting our free will and wanting us to have a free choice, but where is the freedom in having been created and born without your consent, and then forced to decide on two hard options:
  1. To follow Jesus Christ: hard work in this life, paradise in the next;
or:
  1. A life lived for oneself, with sporadic pleasurable experiences now and then, but finishing in the eternal misery of hell.
I say that if God truly respected our freedom and choice, he would offer us a third option: annihilation. That way, those of us who choose not to be part of this creation and who do not wish to make the best of a bad situation (having been created and born into a fallen world) by choosing God and doing all that that entails, actually have a real choice: to go back to the state of non-being they ‘had’ before God created them.

I don’t think the Catholic faith has an answer to my question. I suppose some would say that I am sick, either simply through having been a member of the fallen human race, or else that I am mentally ill, depressed, for example. But I am saying if I don’t want to be on the bandwagon, then surely I should be allowed to get off? Or does God simply insist that he will ‘be all in all’ for good or bad. Either way, we will be in God’s love, either in the burning passion of heaven, or the scorching fire of hell. Thus, God does not merely propose eternal life to us, he boxes us in, forcing us to make a choice without leaving any option for those who do not wish to participate.
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I strongly suggest you read Eric Voegelin’s Science, Politics, and Gnosticism. You are pretty much pitch-perfectly instantiating his idea of gnostic man.

For the record, we do have an answer to it.
 
Irish_Hare said:
I’m not an atheist. I am a Catholic. However, I have a problem as I indicated in my first post. I believe in God, but my Catholic conception of God leaves me feeling deeply frustrated.

I feel like I have been dragged along to a party (creation) that I do not want to be part of, yet my host won’t respect my free will not to be there.
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Your plight reeks of chutzpah! You sound like the adage from the 1960’s: Stop the world! I wanna get off!"🤷 (Yawn)
If you are at all serious, and are not on this site just for the sake of argument, you need to see a priest. I suggest you get an appointment with one.
 
Irish_Hare said:
The soul is created at the moment of conception. In eternity, we are nothing more than a thought in the mind of God. At our conception, that thought inspires the creation of a unique human soul.
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Yet, there is no “moment of conception.” And even if you could pick one split-second in the process and decide that is “the moment” - it still involves Time. Your soul is not created from matter, it is created by God in Eternity, in which place, it is possible for a soul to consent to being in Time. There’s nothing even faintly heretical about it.

Now. You have expressed classic symptoms of clinical depression. This is an often fatal illness. Please take yourself to a medical expert. I don’t know why your life is so hard for you, but since it is quite possible you consented, if your life is hard, you must have a great and strong spirit to be willing to undergo the trial. You are too valuable to lose prematurely.
 
Khalid said:
Love after creation, if one goes to heaven. Love during creation - no way. What we experience - creation - is cruelty in the name of possible perfected joy. But God is Reason, so it must be reasonable, even if I can’t see it.
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Here is my thinking: God is love. His nature is love. He cannot violate His nature. All that God does is out of love - even His justice.
 
Well, the soul is imperishable, I believe. The body is perishable. Can you conceptualize what nothing is?
 
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