If God Wants All to Be Saved, Why Do People Reject God?

[jinc1019]

According to Catholicism, God wants to save all people. Everyone who receives the sacraments without resisting receives God’s grace. Grace is made available to everyone through the church.

If all this is true, why do some people who grow up in the church, receive baptism and the other sacraments, and live in a household of faith choose to reject God? If it’s not because of God’s choice, then it must be a choice of the individual, right? But why do some individuals make those choices and others don’t? If it’s something about that person’s DNA that makes him or her more likely to reject God, then doesn’t that simply mean that God designed some people to choose to reject Him, since God is the Creator of all?

Logically, I can’t see any way around it. It seems like God chooses who will be saved and who won’t. What am I missing?

 

[Wesrock]

According to Catholicism, God wants to save all people. Everyone who receives the sacraments without resisting receives God’s grace. Grace is made available to everyone through the church.

If all this is true, why do some people who grow up in the church, receive baptism and the other sacraments, and live in a household of faith choose to reject God? If it’s not because of God’s choice, then it must be a choice of the individual, right? But why do some individuals make those choices and others don’t? If it’s something about that person’s DNA that makes him or her more likely to reject God, then doesn’t that simply mean that God designed some people to choose to reject Him, since God is the Creator of all?

Logically, I can’t see any way around it. It seems like God chooses who will be saved and who won’t. What am I missing?

It’s both. God chooses who will be saved in creating the reality he does, but in his creative act he accounts for human agency and choice, such that if anyone rejects the sufficient grace God sends them it’s through their own agency. God also understands where people are coming from, what knowledge they have, what choices are truly deliberate, what weaknesses they are predisposed to, and doesn’t ignore those factors in his judgment.

 

[jinc1019]

Thanks for replying. If what you’re saying is true, why do some people choose to reject God? If they have “sufficient” grace to say “yes” to God, then they must choose to reject God for some reason, unless you’re saying the choice is totally arbitrary?

 

[Wesrock]

Edit: I started writing this up before your more recent post. This was an independent thought, not a response to that.

We also need to accoint for the difference between God’s antecedent will and his consequent will.

It might be my antecedent will for my child to never make mistakes. However, it might also be my consequent will to allow my child to make them. While God desires all men be saved, he also desires that we exercise freedom and agency, for that agency is part of what it is to be human.

 

[Wesrock]

Thanks for replying. If what you’re saying is true, why do some people choose to reject God? If they have “sufficient” grace to say “yes” to God, then they must choose to reject God for some reason, unless you’re saying the choice is totally arbitrary?

The answer to that would vary by the person. Generally speaking, they reject God as their final end and the highest good. They put other, lesser things first. Because they have the agency to choose what to put first. They have the agency to say, “my way is most important, my way is right.”

 

[SeekSalvation]

Thanks for replying. If what you’re saying is true, why do some people choose to reject God? If they have “sufficient” grace to say “yes” to God, then they must choose to reject God for some reason, unless you’re saying the choice is totally arbitrary?

You may as well be asking why Adam and Eve made their choice to reject God’s definition of Good and Evil. It’s the same question. Adam and Eve lived and walked within God’s presence in the Garden of Eden and still decided they would choose their definition of Good and Evil over God’s definition. God gave us all freewill. That’s your answer.

Matthew 7:13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.”

 

[jinc1019]

Right, but you still haven’t answered the fundamental question: Why do they do this? Why do they choose to put the lesser things first? Why don’t other people put in nearly identical situations make the same choices?

 

[jinc1019]

You’re right that the question is exactly the same for Adam and Eve. Why did they make the choice they did? You said, “free will,” but that’s not an answer. That explains HOW they made the choice, but it doesn’t explain why.

 

[Wesrock]

Right, but you still haven’t answered the fundamental question: Why do they do this? Why do they choose to put the lesser things first? Why don’t other people put in nearly identical situations make the same choices?

Because the lesser good seems better at the time.

Why don’t you give your thoughts or concerns avout why they make other choices?

 

[jinc1019]

“Because the lesser good seems better at the time” doesn’t explain why it seems better to them and not to others who choose God and reject sin in similar circumstances.

Logically, I think the only explanation is that God chooses some people to come to faith and chooses for some people not to come to faith. Humans make choices, but those choices are the result of God’s decision. I have yet to find a compelling alternative, although I am most certainly open to it, which is why I made my initial post.

 

[Calliope]

Logically, I think the only explanation is that God chooses some people to come to faith and chooses for some people not to come to faith. Humans make choices, but those choices are the result of God’s decision. I have yet to find a compelling alternative, although I am most certainly open to it, which is why I made my initial post.

As someone who experienced that situation, I have wondered the same thing. I was raised in a faithful family, went to Catholic school, received all the sacraments, everyone in my family remained Catholic, I never really believed and ultimately left the faith.

I have no idea why I cannot believe. I tried. I prayed for faith, did penance, prayed before the Blessed Sacrament etc etc. To no avail.

I wanted to believe, to be part of, to be saved, to live for God. I even seriously considered becoming a sister. There is no logical reason for my lack of faith that I can see. Not sure if there is any connection but I do also have mental illness (but to be fair, so does a sister who has remained in the faith) and am a recovering addict. Could be a mental issue?

 

[catholicray]

Sin and the journey of life are solid context for understanding your question.

 

[jinc1019]

Very sorry to hear all this Calliope! I’ll be praying for you. Nothing is impossible with God. Don’t stop praying for faith!

 

[jinc1019]

Sure, but people come to faith in all sorts of contexts. It doesn’t explain why people in nearly identical situations come to faith while others don’t.

 

[whatistrue]

It doesn’t explain why people in nearly identical situations come to faith while others don’t.

You said in another reply that free will is not an answer. But it is the only answer we can get. Different people have different motives and we cannot ever get inside another’s head to truly understand why they make the choices they make, It reminds me of the lyrics to a song that my wife really likes:

God is Great,
Beer is Good,
People are Crazy.

 

[Wesrock]

According to Catholicism, God wants to save all people. Everyone who receives the sacraments without resisting receives God’s grace. Grace is made available to everyone through the church.

If all this is true, why do some people who grow up in the church, receive baptism and the other sacraments, and live in a household of faith choose to reject God? If it’s not because of God’s choice, then it must be a choice of the individual, right? But why do some individuals make those choices and others don’t? If it’s something about that person’s DNA that makes him or her more likely to reject God, then doesn’t that simply mean that God designed some people to choose to reject Him, since God is the Creator of all?

Logically, I can’t see any way around it. It seems like God chooses who will be saved and who won’t. What am I missing?

You’re… on a track near the truth, though I think you’re missing the mark. God does not move people to reject him, though he creates people even while knowing they will reject him of their own agency. There are two main schools of thought regarding the cooperation of man’s free will in God’s providence over creation. There is the Thomist school (sometimes called the Dominican school) and the Molinist school (sometimes called the Jesuit school). Have you read up on these?

 

[Nita]

…It doesn’t explain why people in nearly identical situations come to faith while others don’t.

There really are no “identical” situations. Several things immediately come to mind for me.

1. In situations where the external circumstances seem similar, the parents are different.
   Even in the case of siblings who have the same parents. Time has passed between their births, so from birth onward the second child experiences parents who are older with more experience & hopefully wiser; Mom’s busier now with two to care for so less individual attention for the 2nd newborn; external circumstances may also have changed and had effects; etc. etc…
   No two days are ever identical. Thus, what the second child experiences as a newborn and on subsequent days will be different --not identical – from what the first child experienced on his first and subsequent days.
2. We may be born blank slates, but that doesn’t last long. From very young on (toddler even) we begin making choices and those choices will have a formative effect in the development of our person-ality.
   Situations that instigate choices will be different for each individual.

As I said to begin with, there really are no identical situations – no matter how similar they may appear on the outside.

 

[jinc1019]

I understand that people have different motives, and I understand that can’t always fully grasp those motives, but there must be some reason for those motives to exist. Perhaps it’s related to our DNA, for example. It doesn’t really matter to me what the reasons are. What matters to me is why those reasons exist. If God truly does give everyone the ability to choose Him, then there must be some reason why those people choose to reject him, and the only underlying cause I can think of is that some people are biologically predisposed to reject God, assuming we adopt the “free will” view of salvation.

Does the Bible ever explain why people don’t choose God?

 

[jinc1019]

t him, though he creates people even while knowing they will reject him of their own agency. There are two main schools of thought regarding the cooperation of man’s free will in God’s providence over creation. There is the Thomist school (sometimes called the Dominican school) and the Molinist school (sometimes called the Jesuit school). Have you rea

A little, yes. I’m sure I could read more, though.

 

[jinc1019]

Technically, I’m sure you’re right, but I think you’re missing the larger point here. There are plenty of situations in which people grow up in faithful homes, attend church regularly, receive the sacraments, etc., and then choose to reject God. Obviously, there is a reason for that, and I don’t think we can say it’s the parents or home life. I think it’s pretty obvious that some people, no matter how much time they spend in church, won’t come to faith. The question is, why? Unless you think the decision is arbitrary, it seems like the most obvious answer is people choose God because God chose them in some fashion (either by making them in such a way that they freely choose God or by effectually calling them by the power of the Spirit).