Moral culpability for crazy tyrants like Saddam Hussien and Hitler?

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godbless

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My priest and I were talking and he suggested that Saddam Hussien didn’t know any better in commiting the atrocities that he did because he grew up around extreme sadistic violence. He said that Saddam killed his first person at age 12. He had witnessed many gruesome acts of violence and thought that was normal. He is probably also mentally ill. His whole family was terrible.

We talked about Adolf Hitler and how he was crazy and became fixated on hatred of Jews. He probably had some negative experiences and was also subject the schitzophrenia, which we now know is cause by factors often outside of our individual control. That’s why we can’t assume anyone is in Hell, no matter how bad they look to us.

What do you think?
 
We can make excuses for people all we want–but the fact of the matter is they had a great multitude of extremely grave sins–not to mention the fact that they professed/profess false religions, superstitions, and other errors (Sadam isn’t even Baptized, does he at least implicitly desire it? hopefully–because due to original sin, neutrality leads to damnation). All of these things provide huge obstacles to salvation. We cannot declare them in Hell, but we should also not have good hope for their salvation. Pray for God’s mercy.
 
I don’t think we can assume any one, individual person is in hell because of the reasons you mentioned. But, I think there is a danger in the idea that maybe no one is in hell. A nun that ran my RCIA said, “I believe in hell, I’m just not sure that anyone goes there.” That seems to go against the words of Jesus where he said that the gate leading to heaven is very narrow, and only a few people get through it, but the gate leading to destruction is wide and many people go through it.

And, may I add, that it’s not because God “damns” them, but because of their own choices made during their lifetime. God doesn’t send people to hell. On the contrary, He does everything He can to prevent it. People who go to hell go because they have chosen to ignore God their whole lives.
 
At the risk of sounding blashemous, does God say, “Where did I go wrong?” each time a person winds up in hell? And I am aware that God (ans his son, Jesus) never goes wrong, so much, the better.
 
godbless said:
My priest and I were talking and he suggested that Saddam Hussien didn’t know any better in commiting the atrocities that he did because he grew up around extreme sadistic violence. He said that Saddam killed his first person at age 12. He had witnessed many gruesome acts of violence and thought that was normal. He is probably also mentally ill. His whole family was terrible.

We talked about Adolf Hitler and how he was crazy and became fixated on hatred of Jews. He probably had some negative experiences and was also subject the schitzophrenia, which we now know is cause by factors often outside of our individual control. That’s why we can’t assume anyone is in Hell, no matter how bad they look to us.

What do you think?
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Exactly. To understand all is to excuse all.
We should speak out against the wicked man whilst he is destructively committing his terrible sins, but we shouldn’t presume to know how God will judge him.
 
Malcolm_McLean said:
Exactly. To understand all is to excuse all.
We should speak out against the evil man whilst he is destructively committing his terrible sins, but we shouldn’t presume to know how God will judge him.
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But he will. He also did the sin of suicide. So he is roasting in hell as the Devil’s own weinerschitzel, Satanic style.
 
Neo_Canaan said:
But he will. He also did the sin of suicide. So he is roasting in hell as the Devil’s own weinerschitzel, Satanic style.
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On what authority do you make this statement? What if Hitler were totally insane? He thought he was was doing the right thing for the German people. Our Church says that the sin of suicide doesn’t lead to Hell if someone is insane. If you’re insane you don’t carry the moral burden fully for your actions. Our criminal justice system also recognizes this truth.
 
godbless said:
My priest and I were talking and he suggested that Saddam Hussien didn’t know any better in commiting the atrocities that he did because he grew up around extreme sadistic violence. He said that Saddam killed his first person at age 12. He had witnessed many gruesome acts of violence and thought that was normal. He is probably also mentally ill. His whole family was terrible.

We talked about Adolf Hitler and how he was crazy and became fixated on hatred of Jews. He probably had some negative experiences and was also subject the schitzophrenia, which we now know is cause by factors often outside of our individual control. That’s why we can’t assume anyone is in Hell, no matter how bad they look to us.

What do you think?
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From reading this and your other recent posts I get the sense that you are really struggling with the concept of eternal damnation. We are told that the gate is narrow and few will enter. That leads me to believe that there are souls in hell, many of them. You are right I do not know if hell has any souls in it any more than you know that it is empty. Only God knows that. However, we do know that Catholic teaching says that people who die in a state of unrepented mortal sin go to hell. Period. We don’t know who repents and who doesn’t. I’m sure our infinitely merciful and just God will take into account those people who truly do not know (because they are “crazy”) the difference between right and wrong. But, IMHO, racism and hate are toeholds of the devil, if you do not repent them, they will consume you. That doesn’t make you crazy, just extremely sinful.

This is the way I look at it. Salvation is not a right, it is a gift. Some people reach out and accept the gift, others don’t. Those who do not will not be able to reside with God in heaven, thus they condemn themselves to hell.
 
godbless said:
My priest and I were talking and he suggested that Saddam Hussien didn’t know any better in commiting the atrocities that he did because he grew up around extreme sadistic violence. He said that Saddam killed his first person at age 12. He had witnessed many gruesome acts of violence and thought that was normal. He is probably also mentally ill. His whole family was terrible.

We talked about Adolf Hitler and how he was crazy and became fixated on hatred of Jews. He probably had some negative experiences and was also subject the schitzophrenia, which we now know is cause by factors often outside of our individual control. That’s why we can’t assume anyone is in Hell, no matter how bad they look to us.

What do you think?
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I think you have just pointed out what makes our Faith so wonderful. We don’t presume that someone is in Hell - we leave that judgement to God and we pray for their eternal soul.

While I think it would be pretty easy to assign any and all negative behavior to ‘they must be nuts’ category we do have to be careful that we don’t completely overlook how important it is to step up to the plate and take responsibility for our actions.
 
LSK said:
I think you have just pointed out what makes our Faith so wonderful. We don’t presume that someone is in Hell - we leave that judgement to God and we pray for their eternal soul.

While I think it would be pretty easy to assign any and all negative behavior to ‘they must be nuts’ category we do have to be careful that we don’t completely overlook how important it is to step up to the plate and take responsibility for our actions.
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Very nicely put, Leslie. I like the way you worded your post, it seems very balanced.
 
LSK said:
I think you have just pointed out what makes our Faith so wonderful. We don’t presume that someone is in Hell - we leave that judgement to God and we pray for their eternal soul.

While I think it would be pretty easy to assign any and all negative behavior to ‘they must be nuts’ category we do have to be careful that we don’t completely overlook how important it is to step up to the plate and take responsibility for our actions.
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Then how come a lot of people cheered and rejoiced when they heard Hitler was dead? And Saddam’s offspring?
 
Godbless,

I think they were not always crazy. At some point, I think, they chose to “go over to the dark side;” their insanity resulted from this. A mere lunatic would never have gotten into such a position of power.
  • Liberian
 
Mental illness can certainly be a mitigating factor that reduces culpability for sinful actions - but there is little evidence that either of the individuals in question suffered from this type of mental illness.

Being free from concience because you’ve trained yourself to ignore it does NOT reduce culpability. All kinds of people reach this state in modern culture with respect to things like sexual sin. What this is is a sign of death of the soul. I believe it is a predisposition towards damnation, not an excuse that prevents it.

Hitler & Saddam are almost without doubt hideously evil men. No, we don’t know that Hitler is in Hell (and his having taken his life definitely doesn’t guarantee this either), but we can say that his actions suggest a soul so twisted with complete evil that for him to repent and seek God would have been a monumental miracle. But, who knows!

For a lot of reasons, it doesn’t really jive with Catholic theology, or the private revelations of many saints and visionaries, to suggest that Hell is empty. There have been souls that reject God completely. There will be more. For me, and many others, I think, seeing Hell as ultimately a chosen state is really the only way to make sense of it. We can’t conceive of Hell as a punishment in the sense of souls repenting there and being ignored by God because that isn’t what it is. Nobody who ends up there repents… ever.
 
Paul_Folbrecht said:
Mental illness can certainly be a mitigating factor that reduces culpability for sinful actions - but there is little evidence that either of the individuals in question suffered from this type of mental illness.

Being free from concience because you’ve trained yourself to ignore it does NOT reduce culpability. All kinds of people reach this state in modern culture with respect to things like sexual sin. What this is is a sign of death of the soul. I believe it is a predisposition towards damnation, not an excuse that prevents it.

Hitler & Saddam are almost without doubt hideously evil men. No, we don’t know that Hitler is in Hell (and his having taken his life definitely doesn’t guarantee this either), but we can say that his actions suggest a soul so twisted with complete evil that for him to repent and seek God would have been a monumental miracle. But, who knows!

For a lot of reasons, it doesn’t really jive with Catholic theology, or the private revelations of many saints and visionaries, to suggest that Hell is empty. There have been souls that reject God completely. There will be more. For me, and many others, I think, seeing Hell as ultimately a chosen state is really the only way to make sense of it. We can’t conceive of Hell as a punishment in the sense of souls repenting there and being ignored by God because that isn’t what it is. Nobody who ends up there repents… ever.
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And neither will Hitler. He will NEVER repent.
 
Neo_Canaan said:
And neither will Hitler. He will NEVER repent.
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Neo, the fact that you obviously wish that he hadn’t is a sin. Have you ever considered that? Wishing for the damnation of any soul is a serious sin.
 
We have no idea about Hitler. We do know that he was a man who did evil to many, many people. I’m not sure if he’s any different than people who do evil on a smaller scale, except that he had the oratorical ability to inspire Germans to his way of thinking, acquire power at a certain moment in history, and use his power to bring chaos and suffering to a whole lot of people. In another era maybe he would have remained an itinerant starving artist who resented Jews.
 
Neo Canaan,

In the Gospel Jesus tells us to “Judge not lest ye be judged.” (Matt. 7:1) If that ain’t clear enough for you then you have a very limited understanding of the God of Christianity.
 
godbless said:
My priest and I were talking and he suggested that Saddam Hussien didn’t know any better in commiting the atrocities that he did because he grew up around extreme sadistic violence. He said that Saddam killed his first person at age 12. He had witnessed many gruesome acts of violence and thought that was normal. He is probably also mentally ill. His whole family was terrible.
Click to expand...
God always sends sufficient grace to fend off temptation. Some he would have received from a virtuos life and a token effort, and a request for wisdom through prayer, as well as any other means available to us all. What he goes through now could very well be temporal cleansing. Who can say as he is here, therefore this fig tree has a chance to change and join the saints. The Book of Sirach has a complete section for those in his authoritive position seeking wisdom. Same went for Hitler, but I admit his father was a very bad influence combined with a weak willed mother, his chances weren’t good.

The sad part is that all this, including the genocide of Kurds was well known to Reagan prior to his allying himself with this man.
As such, this man was used by the US for strategic or political purposes. Sirach again has good advice in regards on choosing friends and lists who to avoid. It has a section on how to judge good personal intentions as well.

His case is one where conflict of interest has been placed on the back burner. A neutral nation should try him.

AndyF
 
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