Is God responsible for evil for not offering Beatific Vision as a gift?

[ericc]

We wouldn’t go to Hell if we were never created.

Take it up with your parents.

You won’t go there if you don’t walk that path. Same what my doctor says when I told him my shoulder hurts if I do that certain movement. Don’t do. But if you insist, there you go!

 

[ANV]

Nor would you go to heaven.

Better not go to heaven then go to Hell.

 

[reggieM]

Better not go to heaven then go to Hell.

True, but we don’t have those options.
To be a human being, to have and experience life - that’s a gift that comes with responsibility.
Some would say “I didn’t ask to be born”. True, but who said that the only things that should happen are those you requested?

You have been given a precious gift - your life.
What you do with it means heaven or hell. There is no neutral option.

Many people want to annihilate their lives and they think they do so with suicide. But even having the freedom to destroy your own body is a gift. And our soul lives on, after suicide, so we can’t get rid of it.

So, why rebel against this gift? Why not appreciate it and be grateful for it?

You have the chance for heaven! Why complain about having been given that chance? Why not do everything you can to fulfill it?

 

[ANV]

True, but we don’t have those options.
To be a human being, to have and experience life - that’s a gift that comes with responsibility.
Some would say “I didn’t ask to be born”. True, but who said that the only things that should happen are those you requested?

You have been given a precious gift - your life.
What you do with it means heaven or hell. There is no neutral option.

Many people want to annihilate their lives and they think they do so with suicide. But even having the freedom to destroy your own body is a gift. And our soul lives on, after suicide, so we can’t get rid of it.

So, why rebel against this gift? Why not appreciate it and be grateful for it?

You have the chance for heaven! Why complain about having been given that chance? Why not do everything you can to fulfill it?

So you agree that this choice and game was imposed on us, I don’t choose Hell or Heaven, I don’t believe they exist. Responding to the logic of the argument only, if they do exist, and we have to choose between them, such a choice was imposed on us, we didn’t ask for it and we can’t quit it either.

 

[reggieM]

So you agree that this choice and game was imposed on us, I don’t choose Hell or Heaven, I don’t believe they exist. Responding to the logic of the argument only, if they do exist, and we have to choose between them, such a choice was imposed on us, we didn’t ask for it and we can’t quit it either.

The fact that you are alive today is not something you chose initially.
You did not choose to be born. But you live with that privilege and benefits of being alive.

To then say “I want the benefits but not the responsibility” wouldn’t follow.

Yes, life was “imposed” on you. As an atheist, you could blame your parents for that. Until you commit suicide, you’re saying every day “I want to be alive”.

So, you want the gift of life, but you complain that it requires a response to your Creator - who you don’t believe exists.

So, you don’t believe heaven or hell exists, and you don’t’ believe God exists. But understanding God is a good thing since you can see that God did not give us a choice about being born, nor do we have a choice to eliminate this gift He gave us.

 

[STT]

What are YOU talking about?

I am arguing that God is responsible for evil.

Or, better, why are you so angry with God?

I am not angry. I am just discussing.

How do you believe railing against him will benefit yourself?

How this could be related to the discussion of this thread?

 

[pianistclare]

We have all these threads where you ten to want us to turn away from God.
It doesn’t seem like a great discussion topic for believers. Which is what this site is all about.
If you’re not posting your own feelings, they why?
I’m not interested in odd hypotheticals.
I’m a believer.
God is pure goodness, pure love, He cannot possibly be responsible for evil.
I’m out.

 

[STT]

Your reasoning unfortunately doesn’t cut because we cannot simply behave well without Beatific Vision.

 

[STT]

The whole idea of around Beatific vision is that you wouldn’t sin when you receive it so Angels couldn’t possibly fall if they received the gift. Otherwise we all eventually fall after going to Heaven.

 

[STT]

Methinks you think too much. Do not make God into a fallible human, which is what you seem to have done.

Note that you are using purely human reasoning, and not enlightened reasoning.

What is enlightened reasoning?

 

[STT]

I would say this is essentially accurate. By creating us with free will, God did know that we have the capacity to choose against his will, which is evil. We will not know the beatific vision until we are with God in Heaven, so we have to try to get by without it. But you’re right, evil in this world is inevitable.

However, the way you phrased your last sentence makes God sound like an evil scientist bringing into being his little creatures in the worst circumstances possible, wringing his hands with glee when he sees all the trouble they’ll get into. Maybe I’m reading more into it than you intended, but it seems to me that all your threads show God in the worst possible light, and indicate to me that you have absolutely no understanding of how we Christians see God. What you’re [deliberately?] missing is God’s love. His purpose in creating us was to have us with him in paradise. He revealed himself to prophets throughout time, teaching us how to live the way we should. He gave us his law, He even sent his own son to die for us. Even now he helps us when we ask him to. In short, he has done and is doing everything he possibly can to help us.

I didn’t say that God is evil scientist. I said that God committed an evil by creating creatures who are not perfect and not offering them Beatific Vision.

Instead of asking all these purposeless questions, I sincerely encourage you, in fact I challenge you, to read the bible and see what you’re really missing. You call yourself Seeking The Truth. I don’t think you really are.

I am told that Bible is subject of proper interpretation, only members of the church are infallible.

 

[STT]

Yeah it would be great if God just gave us absolute heaven and sanctity from day 1.

It is not only about the fact that it would be great if we were in Heaven from day 1. It is about the fact that the act of creation is evil.

What about the value of free-will?

We apparently will have free will in Heaven too.

Is it even possible for God to give us what we don’t really want in our hearts or have not chosen for ourselves? Love by definition does not force you to choose it. You have to choose love.

You could still choose whatever good act or love as you want after getting Beatific Vision. I am just arguing that why we were not given Beatific Vision at first place. Why God left room for evil?

 

[STT]

Without free will there is no ability to be express charity, so it was necessary to have free will. There is no way to prevent evil while allowing free will.

Apparently there is a possibility to have free will and avoid evil always, by sharing Beatific Vision.

 

[STT]

Foreknowledge does not equate to cause.

That I know and it is not related to our discussion.

The path to heaven or hell is of you own choosing.

That is not related to our discussion either.

We are not owed Beatific Vision.

We are talking about the fact that God committed an evil by creating the universe.

Don’t wait for payment. If you want it bad enough, the path is there. No evil will happen if you don’t choose it. No one will force you to do evil. Mortal sins are done knowingly. If you don’t know, that knowledge can be found out. It is not hidden information. Intentional avoidance of knowledge doesn’t help you in claiming innocence either. The choice is yours. No one here can judge you because Christ himself will be the Judge. He has all the info since he knows your mind, heart and intention. We don’t. Try all your arguments with him when you see him. Have fun and good luck!

Interesting!

 

[Vico]

Vico:

Without free will there is no ability to be express charity, so it was necessary to have free will. There is no way to prevent evil while allowing free will.

Apparently there is a possibility to have free will and avoid evil always, by sharing Beatific Vision.

But the Beatific Vision cannot be shared without first being established in virtue through an act of free will.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . sharing Beatific Vision.

The way I see it:
Think of the Beatific Vision as something you do. You give everything, your mind, your consciousness, everything that you are over to God who brings it into being. You are united with Him in that moment and with everything else that has been brought into existence. In other words, it is that in which we are participating, and as long as we try to grab it for ourselves, it will remain elusive, because we remain centred on ourselves. Containing us is truth, beauty and joy, very different from a pleasurable imagining that we can contain.

 

[Lucretius]

@STT

God knew His creatures would eventually commit evil yet He created them.

What evidence do you have that this is true?

He also didn't offer Beatific Vision to His creature, the only way to prevent evil.

St. Athanasius teaches that God offered them Original Justice, which is roughly what you are talking about, yet man rejected it out of disobedience.

I recommend reading St. Athanasius’ work on this subject, On the Incarnation of the Word, for a better understanding of our theology of Original Sin.

Christi pax.

 

[fhansen]

We’re designed to earn the Beatific Vision.

 

[Vico]

so how does exacty Christ defeat sin and death and free us from it , yet we are still born with original sin

Catechism of the Catholic Church

• 420 The victory that Christ won over sin has given us greater blessings than those which sin had taken from us: “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20).
• 1505 … By his passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion.
• 1263 By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin…
• 1264 Yet certain temporal consequences of sin remain in the baptized, such as suffering, illness, death, and such frailties inherent in life as weaknesses of character, and so on, as well as an inclination to sin that Tradition calls concupiscence, or metaphorically, “the tinder for sin” (fomes peccati); since concupiscence "is left for us to wrestle with, it cannot harm those who do not consent but manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ."66 Indeed, "an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules."67

 

[Vico]

The church either has no clue …

There is an incomplete sentence. What is the “or” portion that should follow “either has no clue”?