Is it possible that God can relent on the eternal punishment in Hell?

[glendab]

Hello Arte.

Given that the vast majority of mankind is going to end up in hell, I fail to see why God’s creation of us is utterly gratuitous. It would have been more gratuitous and moral not to create us! I do not believe in original sin. The mere thought of its consequences on babies and mankind rippling through time is completely immoral…I have read some ridiculous beliefs in other religions and Christianity’s belief in original sin is just as ridiculous. You descended from an ape like creature – get over it…I can see where you are going now with cI would hope that we all learn something from this forum. I most certainly have including learning from your posts. Our religious positions do need to be challenged so that we can evangelise more effectively.

I’ve cut down your post to a few serious points. First, you cuss God for creating you and others because as you predict, “the vast majority of mankind is going to end up in hell.” Another major fault, that of utterly judging all of mankind and despairing of God’s saving graces poured out upon the Cross. You cuss your own life with “it would have been more gratuitous and moral not to create us!” also a valid excuse used quite often to justify one’s person choices of contraception I might add. The babies are better off not being made or dying early so they are spare this horrible life, right? You’re calling God immoral. THAT IS CURSING GOD, which is a blasphemy. Then you say that Christianity’s beliefs are ridiculous. You’ve renounced Original sin, and that means your own Baptism to wash it away and it gets worse. You say we are descended from apes and that we should get over it.

Well Arte, I wouldn’t have a problem with your statements except your religion is listed as Catholic. You have renounced Original sin which has double effect: it also renounces your Baptism and I think you are probably a young person and don’t realize the gravity of what you are doing, but it can and probably will have eternal consequences for you. That is your choice. I can only feel sorry for you. I can pray you change your mind but it seems that your preference for Scriptures will lead you down the road to full blown Protestant and smug about it. Oh well. Again your choice.

While you are at it, can you tell us what other of our Catholic beliefs you really don’t believe?

Glenda

 

[bisco]

Doing nothing bad? He walked over a brother Israelite every day as if he didn’t exist. Watched him starve as he ate lavishly.

“Whatever you did to the least of my brethern, you did it to Me.”

in our own way, don’t we do that everyday?

 

[Amandil]

in our own way, don’t we do that everyday?

Many of us do, although we are too caught up in our own worlds to see the Lazarus stuck by the side of the road or begging for food on the sidewalk, some of us want to do something yet lack the resources and/or regret not being prepared when we encounter him.

I don’t know what God will say to those who were just utterly indifferent(like the rich man) compared to those who simply had good intentions yet failed to act when they saw Lazarus in need. Either way I quake to think that any of it would be good.

 

[bisco]

agreed. and i was comparing it to someone who actually went of of their way to do evil, which i have been guilty of.

 

[Amandil]

Given that the vast majority of mankind is going to end up in hell…

Nowhere did I say “that the vast majority of mankind is going to end up in hell…” I said “many”, no different than what Scripture records Jesus as saying. What quantifies as “many” we do not know. What we do know is that the quantity is not our concern.

arte:

I fail to see why God’s creation of us is utterly gratuitous.

God was/is under no obligation or necessity to create any of us. You did nothing to earn your life, it is a pure gift of which you are obligated for honor’s sake to return to Him.

“Great are you, O Lord, and exceedingly worthy of praise; your power is immense, and your wisdom beyond reckoning. And so we men, who are a due part of your creation, long to praise you – we also carry our mortality about with us, carry the evidence of our sin and with it the proof that you thwart the proud. You arouse us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” St. Augustine-Confessions

arte:

It would have been more gratuitous and moral not to create us!

If I didn’t know better I would call this blatant ingratitude, clearly there is something more to evoke this level of cognitive dissonance.

arte:

I do not believe in original sin. The mere thought of its consequences on babies and mankind rippling through time is completely immoral. Your belief that we all deserve to be in hell because of original sin is typical of these consequences. I have read some ridiculous beliefs in other religions and Christianity’s belief in original sin is just as ridiculous.

This is interesting because you say:

arte:

I absolutely love reading St Pauls’ letters. They are fantastic.

And you cite from Romans from which Paul expresses the essential fact of Original Sin:

Romans 5:
[12] Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned –
[13] sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.
[14] Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
[15] But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
[16] And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification.
[17] If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
[18] Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.
[19] For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.

And again in 1 Cor 15:
[22] For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

The only “immorality” due to Original Sin is on our part, not God’s.

And if Original Sin is “ridiculous”, then why did Christ come to die on the cross?

 

[Amandil]

arte:

Notwithstanding this, I do not need to know the teachings of Thomas Aquinas to debate a religious subject using common sense.

So far what you call “common sense” hasn’t done you any service.

arte:

Your sentence: “That God limits His own power to permit humans to freely choose to love Him while accepting that many of them will refuse Him and therefore choose hell requires omnipotence”. True – you did not say that “God does not coerce" but for want of other words, you are stating just that: “God limits His own power TO PERMIT HUMANS TO FREELY CHOOSE to love Him”. By permitting humans to freely choose, you are essentially saying that “God does not coerce” humans.

Not at all. Because you’re not distinguishing between necessities(both external and internal) and those operations which are voluntary and that coercion is not contrary to those acts which are voluntary.

arte:

Isn’t this like “having your cake and eating too”?

No.

arte:

I believe that Saint Paul in Romans 8:29-30 is saying that all Christians have been chosen beforehand by God. I believe for Divine Election the better choice for Scripture would be Genesis 25 and Romans 9. Am I correct?

They’re not mutually exclusive. Scripture chapters don’t exist in a vacuum but as a coherent whole.

arte:

You are completely wrong. It’s your inability to draw proper distinctions.

Whatever you say. I’m not the one throwing around baseless accusations based upon things which you haven’t said.

arte:

You have said this to me before. This is a philosophical debate and people are going to post challenging statements. I would hope that we all learn something from this forum. I most certainly have including learning from your posts. Our religious positions do need to be challenged so that we can evangelise more effectively.

I said it because you were attempting to lump me in with some heretical doctrine. You’ve been proven incorrect.

The positions I posit are not “my positions” but are those of the Catholic Faith, something which you profess to be a part of. I would hope that if you attend Mass weekly and say the Nicene Creed after the homily that you would follow your own profession:

“I believe in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.”

Which would mean that you submit yourself in humble obedience to all that the Church has taught as being from God.

By what you’re professing here in this thread you have serious problems and no small amount of cognitive dissonance regarding several and varied Church teachings.

Perhaps you should stay away from modernist ideologies which claim to be “Catholic” and instead concentrate on those saints and sages of the Church which are more grounded in the Truth.

 

[rinnie]

That is fine. I just wanted to share that I had never thought I should go to confession in fear of being sent to the fires of hell. It was always for my love of God, desiring his forgiveness and feeling his love upon absolution.
I never have believed that God wasn’t in my life.
I agree about protection from God.

Just our of curiosity, you never felt that you needed to be given forgiveness for something just in case it could be your last day on earth?

I understand it is your love of God that sends you to confession, because you want to be with him in heaven. But have you never felt that your love of self has put you in the position of separating yourself from God, and that fear of separating yourself from God is what sent you to confession?

Just curious, not accusing you of anything, just trying to understand more clear.

I just find it ironic that you never felt fear of being separated from God and sent to hell if you were in a state of mortal sin at the moment of your death.

Do you believe that God is a part of your life, and you are not separated from him if you are in a state of mortal sin? Again just asking your opinion, thanks.

 

[rinnie]

The picture of hell isn’t a really nice one, souls screaming in pain, possibly now begging for mercy to which God will eternally ignore?
Hard to think that in a moment, in which ever situation a person falls from grace, dies without confession, God will see them burn away in pain forever.
None of us are ever a saint or a perfect person in this life. I’m not saying we should think we can sin and get away with it because God loves us, but we are weak to a degree as we aren’t God, and I think God is fully aware of that fact.

Nice that you met someone who is giving all their life to God, in service to others.

I wonder why sometimes that St Michael the archangel prayer is not said at every mass.

What makes you think someone would beg for mercy to God, when what sent them to hell was their resistance to God in the first place? They are separated from God because they themselves wanted this.

No one ever said that if a person falls from grace with sin, and does not have a chance to repent and confess that sin, will go to hell.

If a person refuses to repent and chooses to continue a mortal sin, and is not sorry for that mortal sin, even at the moment of their death, then they are out.

Do you understand that there is only one unforgivable sin? But if a person dies in a state of mortal sin, it means that they had many chances to repent, and would not do so, nor will do so, even when they meet God face to face.

For instance is someone maybe commits adultery, and knows they are wrong, are sorry and maybe are planning to go to confession but dies before, God knows the true remorse they are carrying and will judge accordingly.

That is why the RCC believes in Purgatory, People who die who still have sinned, have been forgiven by God, but still have some final cleansing to be done. We don’t believe that all people who die have reached sainthood here on earth, and need time in a state of purgatory to get there.

 

[rinnie]

agreed. and i was comparing it to someone who actually went of of their way to do evil, which i have been guilty of.

But the point is do you regret the evil you have done? Are you feeling remorse for it, or would you just Love to continue that evil out day after day until the day you die?

Or do you own it, admit your failure, and ask God to forgive you? And mean it when you do so?

Do you see the difference? And trust me God does also.

 

[bisco]

absolutely. but this can only occur prior to death, no?

 

[rinnie]

absolutely. but this can only occur prior to death, no?

If you are speaking to me it depends what you mean by prior to death. To be more clear, and make it easy, I have a conscience, and in my mind I know if I did wrong, even if I enjoyed the wrong I did, and know the wrong I did will carry consequences. Either in this world or the next. Even though I know its wrong, and know in the end it will bite me. All sin does that. Your guilt of any sin eats you alive, the longer you carry it the stronger it gets.

The word of God states Amen I say to you, you will not be released UNTIL you have paid the last penny.

This is what we call Purgatory. Purgatory is a type of TEMPORAL punishment, not Hell which is a type of PERMANENT punishment.

Now the way I understand it I can actually die in a state of sin, and not even realize it, it comes down to the day God judges me on my death.

Lets say he finds me guilty of something I am not even aware of. If he calls me on it, is my response going to be to deny or to own it, accept my guilt, and accept what my temporal punishment is from God.

Or do I refuse to own it, refuse to admit my guilt, or apologize for it, and say if I caused that much pain and could go back and do it all over again I would. God knows what we will say before we say it, and gives us the chance. But bottom line, refuse to repent and you are out.

Bottom line IMO the only way to die in a state of Moral Sin is to be unwilling to accept you Judgement, and unwilling to regret your wrongs or admit them.

Remember the only Sin God will not forgive is the sin of unwilling to accept the Holy Spirit and repent your sin.

Remember Mortal sin is to sin, know that you separated yourself from God, and could care less. The love for Sin is stronger then your Love for God. Even when we commit mortal sin in this world, we put our love for sin over our love for God, but it is eventually our Love for God that wins out our Love for Sin, that reunites us with God. OR we Love our Sin more then God, refuse to EVER REPENT, and choose Sin.

 

[bisco]

well, that wasn’t easy, but it was edifying, thank you. so we can repent before death (death meaning our final earthly breath) or we can repent at the time of judgement? how does this play into the o/p’s question?

 

[simpleas]

Just our of curiosity, you never felt that you needed to be given forgiveness for something just in case it could be your last day on earth?

I understand it is your love of God that sends you to confession, because you want to be with him in heaven. But have you never felt that your love of self has put you in the position of separating yourself from God, and that fear of separating yourself from God is what sent you to confession?

Just curious, not accusing you of anything, just trying to understand more clear.

I just find it ironic that you never felt fear of being separated from God and sent to hell if you were in a state of mortal sin at the moment of your death.

Do you believe that God is a part of your life, and you are not separated from him if you are in a state of mortal sin? Again just asking your opinion, thanks.

Hi,

Just our of curiosity, you never felt that you needed to be given forgiveness for something just in case it could be your last day on earth?

No I would not say that, I was explaining how I came to understand why I should need to go to confession, and fear of being sent to hell was never a motivator.

On my death, I would hope that I wasn’t in a state of mortal sin, but if I was, I hope also that I trust in God’s mercy and my act of contrition (if time) would be pleasing to God. I wouldn’t want to be in a panic that I could not get a priest in time.

Not sure I understand the separation from God tbh, I believe we resist God’s grace’s, but to be separated from him is strange to me, in a weird way, because I hear of it on CAF alot, but it’s never been something I’ve feared.

 

[simpleas]

What makes you think someone would beg for mercy to God, when what sent them to hell was their resistance to God in the first place? They are separated from God because they themselves wanted this.

No one ever said that if a person falls from grace with sin, and does not have a chance to repent and confess that sin, will go to hell.

If a person refuses to repent and chooses to continue a mortal sin, and is not sorry for that mortal sin, even at the moment of their death, then they are out.

Do you understand that there is only one unforgivable sin? But if a person dies in a state of mortal sin, it means that they had many chances to repent, and would not do so, nor will do so, even when they meet God face to face.

For instance is someone maybe commits adultery, and knows they are wrong, are sorry and maybe are planning to go to confession but dies before, God knows the true remorse they are carrying and will judge accordingly.

That is why the RCC believes in Purgatory, People who die who still have sinned, have been forgiven by God, but still have some final cleansing to be done. We don’t believe that all people who die have reached sainthood here on earth, and need time in a state of purgatory to get there.

I don’t know, maybe I can only see God as a loving parent that would forgive a person even after their death, I can not know for sure, but not everyone wills to resist God.

Not everyone is catholic, and so not everyone has chances to repent in the way our faith tells us, but does this mean that the uncatholic, un-repented will indefinately be put in hell for eternal punishment?

Purgatory sounds like the place most all of us will go on our journey to God.

 

[bisco]

i think the church teaches that people outside the church can be saved, but still through the church and Jesus Christ. it seems to me that most (all?) in hell would repent if they could, like the rich man and lazurus. “father abraham, send lazurus to cool my tongue”, “even if he wanted to, a chasm has been fixed between the two places that none can cross.”

 

[Tom_Baum]

i think the church teaches that people outside the church can be saved, but still through the church and Jesus Christ. it seems to me that most (all?) in hell would repent if they could, like the rich man and lazurus. “father abraham, send lazurus to cool my tongue”, “even if he wanted to, a chasm has been fixed between the two places that none can cross.”

As far as “a chasm has been fixed between the two places that none can cross”.

This was spoken before Jesus went to the cross.

 

[bisco]

correct, but it was meant as a warning. be careful how you live your life, blessed are those that hear my words and act on them. do you think all of Jesus’ words before he went to the cross are without merit after?

 

[Tom_Baum]

I do NOT believe in a god that is worse than all of the human race either collectively or individually.

I really should write the sentence above with a large G but I refuse to because the God that I met is nowhere, not even close, to being a being that some think god to be.

“My Ways are not your ways and My Thoughts are not your thoughts”.

God did NOT ask us to be better and/or more forgiving and/or more merciful than God.

Sometimes it seems to me that many of those who believe in God will be more surprised when they actually meet God than many of those who do not believe in God.

Some people sure do have a despicable “conception” of God and, sad to say, think that it is a “conception” of God that is just wonderful.

 

[Tom_Baum]

correct, but it was meant as a warning. be careful how you live your life, blessed are those that hear my words and act on them. do you think all of Jesus’ words before he went to the cross are without merit after?

I do NOT think that any “of Jesus’ words before he went to the cross are without merit”.

As a matter of fact, I think that the words that we are speaking of and what I said about them being said before Jesus went to the cross, points out that Jesus going to the cross and accomplishing what Jesus accomplished on the cross shows that Jesus did something that only God could do, at least I think/believe that Jesus accomplished this even tho many seem to not believe this.

 

[Tom_Baum]

well, that wasn’t easy, but it was edifying, thank you. so we can repent before death (death meaning our final earthly breath) or we can repent at the time of judgement? how does this play into the o/p’s question?

You know there is a lot written in the bible.

One of those things is something that is written concerning what many speak of as our physical death.

I don’t know the exact quote offhand but it goes something like this: “What appears to the foolish as death is only sleeping”.

Sometimes the more that we try to “box God in” the more “foolish” we may become.

God Is God and we’re not and it is God’s Plan not ours and I would say that God has had God’s Plan since before creation itself and God’s Plan will come to Fruition.

And since it so clearly says that “It is GOD’S WILL that ALL be saved”, somehow or another God’s Will will come to Fruition in God’s Plan.