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

[bisco]

wow, that’s quite a list of anti catholic teaching you’ve got going there. well behind? you think that a protestant doctrine you agree with puts the church founded by Jesus Christ ‘well behind’? it’s about truth, not making up nice little doctrines to make people feel good. although, that does bring in the parishioners and keeps the coffers overflowing.

 

[Amandil]

I wouldn’t call arte a “protestant”, but it’s clear by his own admission that he stands by beliegs which are obviously and objectively heretical.

He apparently believes that truth is told not by the Church but by the clock or calender.

 

[bisco]

agreed, but thanks be to God, Jesus loves him!

 

[OneSheep]

Yeah, I don’t think God would hold a person to a teaching they never knew about, but many people do hear of christianity and don’t bother to find out about it. Us on the other hand do know, and we try to remain obedient, but we fall, then we get up, but if we fall again without repenting, God will toss us into the fires of hell? No, I think not, like you said God Judges us by what we understand and our faith in him.

I don’t understand separation from God, I try my best in my life, and I hope this is enough for God.

Hi Simpleas!

Can you understand, though, why a person thinks that someone can be separated from God? I mean, when we sin, we sense that God is very angry at us, that we have driven a wedge between ourselves and God, right? When I was younger, the separation seemed very real, and it made sense. “Of course God is mad at me, of course He disowns me, I broke His rules, I did a bad thing.” In fact, there is anger, it is the anger and condemnation of our own healthy consciences against ourselves.

For me, it took forgiveness of everyone (including myself and my own drives) I resented in any way, to any degree, to discover a God beneath the conscience whose Love is unbreakable and never leaves us. Indeed, it is through forgiveness that I also saw God in even the “worst” of sinners. So, how can we be separated from God when God is within everyone? We are nothing without God.

Now, I will admit that we unwittingly reject God, but that is the topic of the other thread, and I am open to the possibility that a person may choose an eternity away from God. I just cannot fathom how or why anyone would do so.

 

[rinnie]

Hi Simpleas!

Can you understand, though, why a person thinks that someone can be separated from God? I mean, when we sin, we sense that God is very angry at us, that we have driven a wedge between ourselves and God, right? When I was younger, the separation seemed very real, and it made sense. “Of course God is mad at me, of course He disowns me, I broke His rules, I did a bad thing.” In fact, there is anger, it is the anger and condemnation of our own healthy consciences against ourselves.

For me, it took forgiveness of everyone (including myself and my own drives) I resented in any way, to any degree, to discover a God beneath the conscience whose Love is unbreakable and never leaves us. Indeed, it is through forgiveness that I also saw God in even the “worst” of sinners. So, how can we be separated from God when God is within everyone? We are nothing without God.

Now, I will admit that we unwittingly reject God, but that is the topic of the other thread, and I am open to the possibility that a person may choose an eternity away from God. I just cannot fathom how or why anyone would do so.

Well we did make a lot of progress didn’t we

 

[chefmomster2]

Forgive me if this has already been posted. I must admit that I did not read the entire 11pages.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is very, very clear on this point.

I. The Particular Judgment

1021 Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ.590 The New Testament speaks of judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith. the parable of the poor man Lazarus and the words of Christ on the cross to the good thief, as well as other New Testament texts speak of a final destiny of the soul -a destiny which can be different for some and for others.591

1022 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: **either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification592 or immediately,593-or immediate and everlasting damnation.**594

(592 Cf. Council of Lyons II (1274): DS 857-858; Council of Florence
(1439): DS 1304- 1306; Council of Trent (1563): DS 1820.
Cf. Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (1336): DS 1000-1001; John XXII, Ne
super his (1334): DS 990.)

IV. Hell

1033… Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.611 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."

1034 Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.612 Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,"613 and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!"614

1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire."615 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

I see no wiggle room in these teachings. We can’t know what God’s immediate judgment will be nor how many souls might be separated from Him, but this separation is immediate and everlasting.****

 

[Tom_Baum]

Hello Tom.

This whole post proves the theory that if you fall for one error, it effects the way you see God on the whole. You are in the process of changing God to suit your errors. It is the same thing when the Protestants eliminate Marian doctrine from their thinking. All of a sudden their understanding of God changes and He morphs into a person suitable to their means. They adjust their theology accordingly. It is a process. That is why we eliminate errors, because you can’t be a little bit pregnant. Eventually you deliver the whole baby!

Thank you God for the gift of faith.

Glenda

One of the things that does effect and/or affect the way I see God is that I have met God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Another one of the things that effects and/or affects the way that I look at God is that I have met satan.

And two more of the things that effect and/or affect the way I look at God and what has been revealed to us thru the bible is that I have experienced hell and spiritual death.

So as far as “This whole post proves the theory”, it may very well prove “your theory” but that doesn’t mean that your theory is correct or even applicable.

 

[rinnie]

Cont’d

NO, YOU ARE COMPLETELY WRONG. People choose contraception in order to have fewer children. We were a Catholic family of 10, my mother and father and 8 children. You don’t see many families that large these days. I am a returned Catholic and I attended a course for returned Catholics. I was amazed to see how much change there was in the Church since I had left. One change was lay people having more say in the running of the Church. I remarked on this to the female instructor and she said lay Catholics were now pushing reform from the bottom – up. One such push was the contraceptive pill. She said that most married Catholic women were taking the pill. I have since heard it being called a “Vatican Bypass”. I have no problem with Catholics using contraception.

By “babies dying early”, do you mean abortion? Unless there are very serious medical reasons concerning the baby or the mother, I have a BIG NO on abortion. It’s tantamount to murder.

“Spared this horrible life, right” - what a terrible remark to make. When I try to evangelise, people often say: If God wants us all to go to Heaven, why not just put us there NOW? Or, they mention all the suffering in the World. I tell them that all the suffering is just nature. God put us here for a reason. That reason is to experience this life with all its ups and downs. God even put himself on Earth as a human being so you would see that He had experienced this life. He also died a horrific death for us. My own take on it: Before we go to Heaven, a part of the journey there is to live in this imperfect universe. Our enjoyment in Heaven is made all the more complete by experiencing this imperfect life.

I did not say: “Christianity’s beliefs are ridiculous”. I said that “Christianity’s belief in original sin is ridiculous”. How can a baby be born with sin on its soul? My main concern when I wrote this was that babies who were not baptised could not go to Heaven - they went to Limbo. Can you imagine the amount of grief that parents suffer when they loose a baby? This happened to my best friend so I saw the grief first hand. If the parents are practising Catholics, that grief is compounded by the fact that even if they go to Heaven, they believe that they will never see their baby again because their baby is in Limbo. DOES OUR CHURCH STILL BELIEVE IN LIMBO? I did a lot of research on the subject (that’s why this post is late) including research into other Christian religions. In some websites it stated: “The Catholic Church no longer believes in Limbo and that Pope Benedict XVI had declared this”. I did not find evidence for this on any Catholic website. I found this through the Vatican’s Catechism website: The Church held an International Theological Commission on 19 January 2007 to discuss the hope of salvation for infants who die without being baptised. Pope Benedict XVI approved the report. I quote from the Commission’s Report:

“People find it increasingly difficult to accept that GOD IS JUST AND MERCIFUL if he excludes infants, who have no personal sins, from eternal happiness, whether they are Christian or non-Christian.”

“The study was made in part because of the pressing pastoral needs caused by the increase in the numbers of abortions and the growing number of children who die before being baptized”. Words such as “practical and pastoral perspective” and “pastoral priority in the modern era” are also included in the Report. I can only assume this indicates that Catholic lay people are pushing their Parish Priests for reform in this area because they can no longer accept that non baptised babies go to Limbo.

“The conclusion of this study is that there are theological and liturgical reasons to HOPE that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness, even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in Revelation. However, none of the considerations proposed in this text to motivate a new approach to the question may be used to negate the necessity of baptism, nor to delay the conferral of the sacrament”

As I do not believe in original sin, my baptism did not wash original sin away because there was no sin to wash away.

I did not say “that we are descended from apes”. I said “that we were descended from an ape like creature”. This is a very important distinction when discussing the Theory of Evolution. The “get over it” remark was my anger at the revolting comment by Amandil that we should be grateful that God didn’t put us all in hell because of original sin.

Cont’d

Arte how about opening a post on Original Sin. If you do could you answer me a few questions.

They are this.

IF you disbelieve in Original Sin, Why?

l. Is there death?
2. Do we have to work for a living?
3. Are we at war with Nature?4. Do we suffer Pain? illness?

And why does the word of God say death entered through Sin of ONE man Adam, and One Man, Christ took it away?

Hope to see you open another thread. Thanks, and sorry for off thread question.

 

[bisco]

alrighty then, maybe you could introduce us?

 

[rinnie]

no, i can’t agree with that, unless i’m incorrect about church teaching. i think you have to repent while you’re alive and purgatory is a cleansing. but apologies if i’m missing your point. my quote that you responded to was in reply to tom.

You are not wrong. But what I am saying there are times you may not be able to repent or confess in the way we are taught.

Like say you have committed Mortal Sin, and cannot get to a Priest in time. As long as you have remorse for your sin and are sorry at the time of your death, you can be forgiven here on earth without Confession and Absolution to a Priest. (to put it easier, say you would have lived God knows you would have eventually gone back to him and repented through the Church Mortal sin). And again if you know you must as a Catholic.

Botttom line you cannot die in sin and not want to be forgiven, and die in mortal sin, remain in mortal sin and enter Purgatory. Purgatory is a happy place, because you KNOW you have been forgiven, are going to heaven, but not yet!

Does that make it easier?

Purgatory is the cleansing of any remaining stain you could say of sin.

 

[rinnie]

I wouldn’t call arte a “protestant”, but it’s clear by his own admission that he stands by beliegs which are obviously and objectively heretical.

He apparently believes that truth is told not by the Church but by the clock or calender.

But isn’t a true Catholic someone who believes and accepts the teaching of the CC.

And isn’t a Protestant someone who protests PROTESTant someone who disagrees with a teaching of the CC?

As does not Christ teach the CHURCH is the Pilar of all truth. The Catholic Church? Was Peter not a teacher of the RCC?

 

[Tom_Baum]

Arte how about opening a post on Original Sin. If you do could you answer me a few questions.

They are this.

IF you disbelieve in Original Sin, Why?

l. Is there death?
2. Do we have to work for a living?
3. Are we at war with Nature?4. Do we suffer Pain? illness?

And why does the word of God say death entered through Sin of ONE man Adam, and One Man, Christ took it away?

Hope to see you open another thread. Thanks, and sorry for off thread question.

As for your question, “And why does the word of God say death entered through Sin of ONE man Adam, and One Man, Christ took it away?”

Doesn’t the “word of God” say that death came to all thru one and life came to ALL THRU ONE?

 

[bisco]

You are not wrong. But what I am saying there are times you may not be able to repent or confess in the way we are taught.

Like say you have committed Mortal Sin, and cannot get to a Priest in time. As long as you have remorse for your sin and are sorry at the time of your death, you can be forgiven here on earth without Confession and Absolution to a Priest. (to put it easier, say you would have lived God knows you would have eventually gone back to him and repented through the Church Mortal sin). And again if you know you must as a Catholic.

Botttom line you cannot die in sin and not want to be forgiven, and die in mortal sin, remain in mortal sin and enter Purgatory. Purgatory is a happy place, because you KNOW you have been forgiven, are going to heaven, but not yet!

Does that make it easier?

Purgatory is the cleansing of any remaining stain you could say of sin.

thanks rinnie, that sounds like the way i understand it!

 

[Amandil]

But isn’t a true Catholic someone who believes and accepts the teaching of the CC.

And isn’t a Protestant someone who protests PROTESTant someone who disagrees with a teaching of the CC?

As does not Christ teach the CHURCH is the Pilar of all truth. The Catholic Church? Was Peter not a teacher of the RCC?

Protestantism proper has a very specific theology behind it whereas it seems that arte is simply picking and choosing which doctrines he prefers and disposing of the ones he rejects. It makes one wonder if there is some cognitive dissonance when he professes the Nicene Creed or receives the Eucharist at Mass considering that he is clearly in open rebellion against the Church’s teaching.

The second consequence of his rejections to the Church’s teaching and their Biblical source implies that he essentially believes God to be a fraud and a liar.

Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, explicitly wrote, “all Scripture is inspired and profitable…” All of Scripture would necessarily include Genesis 1-11 and the stories of creation, Adam & Eve, the Fall, and the story of Noah. This is not simply a matter of taking a black marker and redacting certain verses but instead he’s ripping out entire chunks of Scripture.

Thirdly, Jesus’s humanity in the Incarnation is necessarily traced back through Abraham and Noah to Adam. To reject Adam and Noah is in a way a rejection of Jesus’s humanity itself.

Fourthly, to reject Original Sin is to reject Jesus and His mission. Jesus no longer came to save us from the dominion of sin, He’s instead simply a nice moral teacher.

The implications of his rejection of the Church’s teaching on contraception are another matter. I wonder if he has even bothered to read Humane Vitae, JP II’s “Theology of the Body”, or anything from Dr. Janet Smith regarding the issue.

 

[Godspells]

Arte how about opening a post on Original Sin. If you do could you answer me a few questions.

They are this.

IF you disbelieve in Original Sin, Why?

l. Is there death?
2. Do we have to work for a living?
3. Are we at war with Nature?4. Do we suffer Pain? illness?

And why does the word of God say death entered through Sin of ONE man Adam, and One Man, Christ took it away?

Hope to see you open another thread. Thanks, and sorry for off thread question.

None of these questions have anything to do with original sin.

The real question: Are you guilty for crimes you did not commit?

If you say no, then you do not believe in original sin. Although we can distinguish between what is the “guilt” of “the” original sin and the “curse” of “the” original sin. One can suffer the curse of a father leaving his son a mound of debt, yet that son is not guilty of accumulating that debt.

This is one real problem I see in catholic theology. There is constantly an emphasis on the judicial lens of the Christian faith, but it is often more useful to look at it through the medical lens.

On this thread there is a tendency of viewing hell as a punitive punishment rather than a consequential one. If I steal $100 and am caught and the judge orders me to pay back the $100 and $100 more for trying to steal it, that is a fair and equitable punishment, but it is punitive.

However, if I have E-Coli, and the doctor tells me to take this medication and I refuse, I’m going to be punished by the unfiltered symptoms of the disease, but it is a consequential punishment, not a punitive one.

Hell, specifically, is the terminal state of untreated sin. It is not a judicial punishment because no temporal sin warrants eternal punishment as that would violate “an eye for an eye” (punishment should fit the crime). So in that case, the punishment is perfect, because the warning of allowing unrepentant sin to persist until death would engender eternal torment was given in the Gospel. But it can also be relented without compromising the perfection of punishment as God has no obligation to punish the wicked. He made a covenant with the righteous not the wicked.

 

[Amandil]

Gospells:

This is one real problem I see in catholic theology. There is constantly an emphasis on the judicial lens of the Christian faith, but it is often more useful to look at it through the medical lens.

A terrible mischaracterization

There are no “problems” in Catholic theology because we don’t emphasize a “judicial lens” but a Covenantal one. Naturally any covenant comes with certain moral obligations which must be met to maintain the relationship. Catholic theology is based upon a familial and even a nuptial lens, not a judicial one.

The “judicial lens” of interpretation came courtesy of Martin Luther and John Calvin (a lawyer).

 

[glendab]

Hello Arte.

Cont’d

I have addressed the issue of original sin and baptism already. Unfortunately, I am not a young person. I am 63 years old. I fail to see how renouncing original sin will have eternal consequences (I guess you mean hell) for me. I am very grateful for your prayers. I will pray for you also as we all need prayers. You and other members on this forum have often said that my beliefs make me a Protestant or as you put it a “full blown Protestant”. The insinuation in yours and others comments is that Protestants are not worthy Christians and cannot go to Heaven. This is out and out bigotry and is a sin. Our Church tells us to respect other religions including non Christian religions. Protestants are Christians so your lack of respect for them increases your disrespect. In my research on original sin and Limbo, no Protestant or Eastern Orthodox denomination accepts the concept of Limbo. None even offers it as a possibility. They believe that the souls of babies, who die before baptism, are immediately translated to the presence of God. Therefore, in this very important area of Church doctrine, we Catholics are well behind the Protestants and have been for a long time.

With the exception of two Catholic beliefs namely Limbo and the use of contraception, my disbeliefs are general to most denominations of Christianity. I do not believe in:

1. Hell.
2. The Genesis account for the creation of the Universe and Earth.
3. Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden
4. Original Sin especially where "it infects” every human throughout time.
5. Limbo
6. Noah’s Ark and the Flood.
7. Any passage in the Old Testament where God supposedly helps or condones the murder of men, women and children, rape, forced marriages, and pillage.
8. The fear of God.
9. That God gets angry, wrathful, or jealous.
10. That the devil is a fallen archangel and his demons are fallen angels. I do believe in the devil and that he tries his best to lead us astray and do evil acts. My Parish Priest said that humans can do any manner of evil because it is innate inside us. This is likely the case but I also believe in an exterior evil entity – the devil.
11. A ban on contraception.

Thank you for the thought out reply and your honestly. It is admirable to see such candor. I guess that pretty much clears it up for me. I understand your point of view now that you have stated clearly what you have trouble with. I recommend that you take your dis-belief to your Parish Priest and maybe talk to him face to face for a while. He may be able to help you. But then again, since you have no belief that there is a Hell, you have nothing to fear about the rest. Saved. Your pretty much saved in that sense. And once saved, always saved, so no need to talk to a Priest about what you cannot accept or believe about the Catholic faith.

Thank you again for you honestly and candor. I learned much.

Glenda

 

[simpleas]

Hi Simpleas!

Can you understand, though, why a person thinks that someone can be separated from God? I mean, when we sin, we sense that God is very angry at us, that we have driven a wedge between ourselves and God, right? When I was younger, the separation seemed very real, and it made sense. “Of course God is mad at me, of course He disowns me, I broke His rules, I did a bad thing.” In fact, there is anger, it is the anger and condemnation of our own healthy consciences against ourselves.

For me, it took forgiveness of everyone (including myself and my own drives) I resented in any way, to any degree, to discover a God beneath the conscience whose Love is unbreakable and never leaves us. Indeed, it is through forgiveness that I also saw God in even the “worst” of sinners. So, how can we be separated from God when God is within everyone? We are nothing without God.

Now, I will admit that we unwittingly reject God, but that is the topic of the other thread, and I am open to the possibility that a person may choose an eternity away from God. I just cannot fathom how or why anyone would do so.

No, I actually am finding it hard to understand how people believe they separate themselves from God. I never thought of God as being angry or I’d driven a wedge between myself and God. I thought of it more like God would be disappointed in me if I sinned against another person either through word, thought or action.

Did you miss post #704? Its was a while ago!

 

[simpleas]

Forgive me if this has already been posted. I must admit that I did not read the entire 11pages.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is very, very clear on this point.

I. The Particular Judgment

1021 Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ.590 The New Testament speaks of judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith. the parable of the poor man Lazarus and the words of Christ on the cross to the good thief, as well as other New Testament texts speak of a final destiny of the soul -a destiny which can be different for some and for others.591

1022 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification592 or immediately,593-or immediate and everlasting damnation.594

(592 Cf. Council of Lyons II (1274): DS 857-858; Council of Florence
(1439): DS 1304- 1306; Council of Trent (1563): DS 1820.
Cf. Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (1336): DS 1000-1001; John XXII, Ne
super his (1334): DS 990.)

IV. Hell

1033… Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.611 **To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever **by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”

1034 Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.612 Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,"613 and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!"614

1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire."615 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God**, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

I see no wiggle room in these teachings. We can’t know what God’s immediate judgment will be nor how many souls might be separated from Him, but this separation is immediate and everlasting.**

1033= This talks of a state of hell, not a place? So after death our soul maybe in a state of separation from God, rather than a place of hell.
But then Jesus talks about his angels gathering the evil doers and throwing them into the furnace, so this is the place of hell it seems.

 

[simpleas]

Thought I’d share this from our Pope :

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=908655

And if anyone has a sense of humour…

Our priest told us this :

A Protestant man dies, he gets to the gates of Heaven and St Peter is there to welcome him. St Peter shows the man into Heaven, and while walking around the notices a very high wall stretching as far as the eye could see. The man asks St Peter, “why is there a wall there, what is it for?” And St Peter replies, " Oh that is for the Catholics, you see they believe they are the only ones that made it to Heaven"…

Serious note

What will purgatory look like, is it some sort of waiting room, another “life” that must be lived to cleanse our souls before we can see God in his form?