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ANV
Guest
Also are all sins equal, are intended murder and rape equal to masturbation or premarital sex?
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MPat
Guest
What exactly would be illogical and unjust about it?
If someone has chosen not to be with God for all eternity, that is what he gets. In the process, he keeps sinning.
If you’d like to find out more, you might wish to look at blog posts by Edward Feser like edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2016/10/how-to-go-to-hell_29.html, edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2016/11/does-god-damn-you.html, edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2016/12/why-not-annihilation.html.
(Oh, and perhaps it would be more orderly and convenient if you would repeat the question in the post - then it would be possible to quote it.)
If someone has chosen not to be with God for all eternity, that is what he gets. In the process, he keeps sinning.
If you’d like to find out more, you might wish to look at blog posts by Edward Feser like edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2016/10/how-to-go-to-hell_29.html, edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2016/11/does-god-damn-you.html, edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2016/12/why-not-annihilation.html.
(Oh, and perhaps it would be more orderly and convenient if you would repeat the question in the post - then it would be possible to quote it.)
No, not all sins are equal. Catechism says in paragraph 1858 (vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6C.HTM): “The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.”.
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Vico
Guest
There is a self-exclusion from communion with God when we do not have charity by the time we die.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
1874 To choose deliberately - that is, both knowing it and willing it - something gravely contrary to the divine law and to the ultimate end of man is to commit a mortal sin. This destroys in us the charity without which eternal beatitude is impossible. Unrepented, it brings eternal death.
1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."612 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.613 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.”
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Tim_D
Guest
Ya’ll are giving this guy too much credit. He does not know the basics, yet tries to state things as if he knows it all.
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TK421
Guest
Perpetual sin incurs perpetual punishment. The obstinacy of the damned is eternal: they never stop hating God, and this elicits retribution. The sin never ceases, therefore the retribution never ceases.
Not all sins are equal.
Masturbation and premarital sex are grave sins: meaning they destroy charity in a serious way and deliberate way.
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venite_adoremus
Guest
OP, here are a couple of insights.
Heaven vs not-in-heaven at death. The default position is not-in-heaven, unless affirmative action has been taken during the allotted lifetime to know, love, and serve God. Eternal happiness is for those admitted to it by the grace of God.
The Catholic position is that the grace of God is known to be transmitted via the seven sacraments. How else the grace of God may be transmitted is up to God.
This does not mean that those who lacked such affirmative action, in the form of the Christian sacraments given to us by Jesus, are automatically damned. Hell is reserved for those who committed deliberate actions of their own free will. What we call “mortal” sins are those as defined above, by another poster…serious matter, full knowledge that it is serious matter, and deliberate embracing of the serious matter anyway. Many people, through “invincible ignorance,” will be received into heaven if they did their best. Not for us to say who or how many. Maybe even you.
What happens to everyone else? Like babies that die without baptism? We don’t know, and that’s why it’s called “limbo.” Don’t confuse with purgatory.
The sin may be finite, a quick start-finish action, like a single gunshot, but if it has infinite consequences, hey, you made your choice. Lucky for us sinners there’s a sacrament for that too.
Heaven vs not-in-heaven at death. The default position is not-in-heaven, unless affirmative action has been taken during the allotted lifetime to know, love, and serve God. Eternal happiness is for those admitted to it by the grace of God.
The Catholic position is that the grace of God is known to be transmitted via the seven sacraments. How else the grace of God may be transmitted is up to God.
This does not mean that those who lacked such affirmative action, in the form of the Christian sacraments given to us by Jesus, are automatically damned. Hell is reserved for those who committed deliberate actions of their own free will. What we call “mortal” sins are those as defined above, by another poster…serious matter, full knowledge that it is serious matter, and deliberate embracing of the serious matter anyway. Many people, through “invincible ignorance,” will be received into heaven if they did their best. Not for us to say who or how many. Maybe even you.
What happens to everyone else? Like babies that die without baptism? We don’t know, and that’s why it’s called “limbo.” Don’t confuse with purgatory.
The sin may be finite, a quick start-finish action, like a single gunshot, but if it has infinite consequences, hey, you made your choice. Lucky for us sinners there’s a sacrament for that too.
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TK421
Guest
But what ultimately damns the person (or anybody) is not the act of murder, but not repenting, since it is through this that we receive divine grace. Every sin imaginable is pardoned at Judgment except for the unpardonable sin.
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Mike_from_NJ
Guest
How do you know this to be true? We know of cases where people have only felt the need to apologize for things they’ve done wrong decades after they were done. Who is to say it’s absolutely impossible for someone to feel remorse for something they did in life after they’ve died?
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Bradski
Guest
You beat me to it, Mike.
There is always the prospect of parole. It would be entirely appropriate to punish someone to the full extent if they were not remorceful and did not meaningfully repent. But if, at some point a person does come to realise their mistake, then justice demands that we take this into account.
And purgatory is not a ‘holding cell’ where sinners can mull over what they have done and decide that maybe they are sorry after all.
If you commit a mortal sin and do not repent, the church teaches that you WILL go to hell. And I’ve never heard any suggest that there is a get-out-of-jail card one can play once you are there.
We all know the meaning of justice. We all know the dictionary definition and the legal definition. We all have a sense of what justice entails. Hell, by these definitions, is not just. Therefore God is not, by any sense of the word as we know it, just.
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TK421
Guest
Because divine revelation tells us so.
There is such a thing as being sorry, and then there is being sorry for being caught. We see examples of this in real life. If somebody rejects Gods permanently, because something or another about Him offends them, then they can’t have communion with him, and they incur retribution for sin. It isn’t a single act of sin but it is an eternal obstinacy.
We don’t know who does or doesn’t do this. Like you said, a person can go on in life for decades without having remorse or a desire for amendment, but then some new experience or new insight moves them to it, and they respond in a way that permits divine grace to enter into them.
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Bradski
Guest
So what happens if you repent after you have gone to hell?
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TK421
Guest
By definition of hell (since God knows past, present, and future) this can’t happen, otherwise they would not have gone to hell.
But, St Alphonsus Liguori, a Doctor of the Church, responds to that particular question, that if the devil were to plea for forgiveness, he would be saved. Perfect contrition entails that a soul isn’t doing it for fear of punishment or for motivation of reward, but for love of God.
But, St Alphonsus Liguori, a Doctor of the Church, responds to that particular question, that if the devil were to plea for forgiveness, he would be saved. Perfect contrition entails that a soul isn’t doing it for fear of punishment or for motivation of reward, but for love of God.
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CHRISTINE77
Guest
Too late!
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Mike_from_NJ
Guest
Q: What happens if a person repents after going to Hell?
A: They can’t.
Q: Why can’t a person repent after going to Hell?
A: Because if they didn’t they wouldn’t be in Hell.
Are you saying that if a person did acts worthy of going to Hell, but God saw that they would sincerely repent of those acts after they’d be sent to Hell that God would instead not send them to hell?
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Mike_from_NJ
Guest
Then you’re running completely counter to what TK421 is saying that a person in Hell is incapable of repenting after death, and that those people are committing an infinite sin by never repenting. Which of you two is right?
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reggieM
Guest
Repentance requires a body-soul connection in a temporal sphere.
Through repentance, the mind recognizes evil, then the heart is filled with sorrow, then there is a purpose of amendment.
In eternity, it is just the soul of a person - the pure intellect. There is no temporal sequence of time and there is no bodily (heartfelt) sorrow elicited. An eternal decision has already been decided - separation from God.
It’s the same reason why demons or Satan cannot repent. They are intellectual spirits and once they see the direction they’ve chosen, to reject God, it is eternal.
Satan and the fallen angels only committed that one sin - rejection of God. Repentance from that was not possible because the spiritual nature of angels apprehended all of the decision and consequences at one time, not over a sequence of changeable temporal events like we have on earth.
The same for us in eternity. We have either chosen God, or we belong to Satan.
And that’s another aspect - in Justice, those who have served Satan in life, belong to him, and God will honor that. Satan deserves the souls he has worked to possess and that won’t change. If Satan’s punishment is eternal, so is that of all who serve him by mortal sin.
Through repentance, the mind recognizes evil, then the heart is filled with sorrow, then there is a purpose of amendment.
In eternity, it is just the soul of a person - the pure intellect. There is no temporal sequence of time and there is no bodily (heartfelt) sorrow elicited. An eternal decision has already been decided - separation from God.
It’s the same reason why demons or Satan cannot repent. They are intellectual spirits and once they see the direction they’ve chosen, to reject God, it is eternal.
Satan and the fallen angels only committed that one sin - rejection of God. Repentance from that was not possible because the spiritual nature of angels apprehended all of the decision and consequences at one time, not over a sequence of changeable temporal events like we have on earth.
The same for us in eternity. We have either chosen God, or we belong to Satan.
And that’s another aspect - in Justice, those who have served Satan in life, belong to him, and God will honor that. Satan deserves the souls he has worked to possess and that won’t change. If Satan’s punishment is eternal, so is that of all who serve him by mortal sin.
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reggieM
Guest
It’s not a contradiction to say that a person’s sin is perpetual and they cannot repent.
The sin is a rejection of God’s mercy. The damned souls do not want to be forgiven. As pride caused them to choose their own way, against God, during life, they refuse to submit to God and be forgiven in eternity.
The sin is a rejection of God’s mercy. The damned souls do not want to be forgiven. As pride caused them to choose their own way, against God, during life, they refuse to submit to God and be forgiven in eternity.
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