"Obedience"

[guiltyofdoubt]

Does it not occur to you that Satan is whispering in your ears? “Enjoy me!”

The way for Satan to kill our souls is to convince us that what we are doing against God is “innocuous.” After all, he lied to Adam and Eve. Why should he lie to you?

So now my question becomes…

Why then does God allow “Satan” to tempt us, when not sinning is hard enough on its own?

Does God not want us to get to heaven…or only wants a very small number of us to get there?

Again, God’s ways are not our ways.

So maybe that’s the case.

You only addressed a very small portion of my post(s).

But do we have “Free Will” to be conceived? NO. Of course not.

Is it a gift? Life, I mean. I’m not so sure. Not if we can be persuaded by Satan to “give in” to human pleasures that would cause us to burn for ETERNITY. Its not like a prison sentence that ends at some point, and every Grave Sin is treated with the same Eternal Sentence. I don’t feel separated from God when I masturbate, for example. In fact, I THANK God that our bodies are made in such a manner. I THANK God that I find women - His creation - so attractive! Yet the Church say that those feelings will sentence me to Hell for ETERNITY, and DO separate me willingly from God. NO! Its very hard to accept, and to wrap my mind around.

If I dishonor my Parents, that gains the same Eternal damnation as a mass murderer?

Is God not able to control Satan? He allows Satan to gather our souls for what reason? So we can resist and “Prove” ourselves? Sounds very “Old Testament”, and more like a wrathful God than a merciful one. Sure seems like the deck is stacked against us humans.

 

[Oreoracle]

God does not go back on his word in creation or instruction.’

Of course he wouldn’t go back on his word. God would have that luxury, because he would know everything beforehand due to his omniscience. He obviously wanted Lucifer to become Satan because he knew such a thing would happen before he even created Lucifer.

I mean, you’d have to be pretty daft to accidently thwart yourself when you know everything beforehand. It would be like failing a test when you already have the answer key.

Again I have to disagree. You are making it too simple. He makes things as pleasurable as they are but it is we humanity that must discern whether this pleasure is good or bad for us.

But the fundamental question here is why would he make evil things pleasurable at all? We don’t choose for certain actions to be pleasurable, they simply are.

Why would you create beings, expect them to follow certain rules, and then intentionally design them to enjoy breaking the rules?

 

[ricmat]

This reminds me of an amusing Youtube video. God and Lucifer were having a discussion wherein God asked Lucifer why he didn’t simply obey him, to which Lucifer replies that he was given free will. God angrily responds “Yeah, but you don’t have to use it!”

So it’s a bit like putting a steak in front of a dog and punishing the dog if he attempts to eat it.

1. Free will allows us to choose correctly. This gift is better than making us robots with no free will. Either choice results in consequences, which have been explained in advance.

2 Choosing to do God’s will is choosing to do what’s best for us. Why wouldn’t we choose that?

1. What you call punishment (“Hell” I presume) is not so much burning fire or getting hit with a newspaper. It is the absence of God. Hell is for those who don’t want God. Tell me how it is that you would consider that punishment, considering your religious preferences?

 

[simpleas]

Interesting thread

 

[InflatusMaximus]

But the fundamental question here is why would he make evil things pleasurable at all? We don’t choose for certain actions to be pleasurable, they simply are.

Why would you create beings, expect them to follow certain rules, and then intentionally design them to enjoy breaking the rules?

But you are stuck on this “enjoyment” of breaking God’s Law. Some of the rule involve pleasure but some make a whole heck of a lot of sense. But you don’t even believe in God. You have an intellectual block so you aren’t going to understand why sin exists. He doesn’t intentionally “design” us to enjoy breaking the rules. We break them ourselves because we enjoy them. We fell, not God.

Now we can go round and round and round about why God does this. But you don’t think He even exists so why answer the question?

Because you have hardened your heart against Him, and you need to prove His non-existence to feel okay with that decision. Or is it that He wrote something on your heart when He created you and you are desperately seeking Him.

But in the meantime you perpetuate this unbelief because you can’t bring yourself intellectually capitulate. That is pride my friend and that is a dangerous position. I will pray for you.

I encourage you to attend Mass, just once even if you have been before. Talk to a priest not some jokers on this website. You seem to have a lot of questions.

 

[InflatusMaximus]

So now my question becomes…

Why then does God allow “Satan” to tempt us, when not sinning is hard enough on its own?

Does God not want us to get to heaven…or only wants a very small number of us to get there?

Again, God’s ways are not our ways.

So maybe that’s the case.

You only addressed a very small portion of my post(s).

Is God not able to control Satan? He allows Satan to gather our souls for what reason? So we can resist and “Prove” ourselves? Sounds very “Old Testament”, and more like a wrathful God than a merciful one. Sure seems like the deck is stacked against us humans.

So I am beginning to think we might be getting taken here. You are a convert from a conservative Lutheran Church? You are in RCIA but don’t want to ask these questions to them because you are embarrassed? All of these things coming up in your posts lead me to believe you didn’t pay attention even at the Lutheran Church. This is basic stuff you should be discussing with your RCIA class not us.

If you continue I am going to have to stop feeding you.

At least Oreoracle is honest and has legitimate questions regarding the faith. He seems to not go in the circles you are going.

 

[Oreoracle]

1. Free will allows us to choose correctly. This gift is better than making us robots with no free will.

But once you break down the idea of “free will”, it doesn’t seem to live up to its reputation. Most Christians I’ve talked to are willing to concede that our fates are pre-destined (due to God’s knowledge of the future). This means that the notion of free will is compatible with a deterministic universe, or at least indistinguishable from such a universe. So if we are free, it seems to be in a vacuous sense.

2 Choosing to do God’s will is choosing to do what’s best for us. Why wouldn’t we choose that?

Yes, but “best” by who’s standard? God’s?

1. What you call punishment (“Hell” I presume) is not so much burning fire or getting hit with a newspaper. It is the absence of God. Hell is for those who don’t want God. Tell me how it is that you would consider that punishment, considering your religious preferences?

If that were indeed Hell, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But this doesn’t seem to be the usual interpretation of Hell. For if that were Hell, the suffering there would be no greater than one’s suffering on Earth, and then the whole matter wouldn’t be such a fuss.

We break them ourselves because we enjoy them. We fell, not God.

But again, he created us knowing that we’d enjoy it. We didn’t choose to enjoy it. Indeed, even if we did, God would have foreseen even that.

The problem is that God knows the outcome of his creations beforehand. So if something happens, he implicitly condones it, or else he’d have made things differently. It doesn’t make sense to blame the creations, as they had no control over how they were made.

At this point you might appeal to free will as the previous poster did, and again I would inquire: to what extent are we free? God knows all we’ll do beforehand, so our world is indistinguishable from a deterministic universe. How is that freedom?

Now we can go round and round and round about why God does this. But you don’t think He even exists so why answer the question?

Frankly I think this is a basic question that any Christian worth his salt should be able to answer. You’ve indicated that I won’t understand the issue until I’m a Christian, but that’s a poor argument. You’re basically saying that the question can only be answered for people who don’t care to ask it.

It seems to be a way of avoiding a difficult question and deferring to answer until the other person is already convinced of your position. It’s dishonest.

 

[ricmat]

But once you break down the idea of “free will”, it doesn’t seem to live up to its reputation. Most Christians I’ve talked to are willing to concede that our fates are pre-destined (due to God’s knowledge of the future). This means that the notion of free will is compatible with a deterministic universe, or at least indistinguishable from such a universe. So if we are free, it seems to be in a vacuous sense.

Our fates are not pre-destined. I picture this as God having a VCR tape of everybody’s life. He can rewind it or fast forward it. He can see where we end up. He can also see every choice we made to get us to where we end up. But he didn’t make the decisions that got us there. We did.

Yes, but “best” by who’s standard? God’s?

God is smarter than we are. God is more powerful than we are. God loves us more than we love ourselves, and more than anyone else loves us. His judgement is never clouded, and he always wants the best for us. All of these things by a factor of zillions compared to us.

So who you gonna trust? Your standards, or God’s standards?

If that were indeed Hell, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But this doesn’t seem to be the usual interpretation of Hell. For if that were Hell, the suffering there would be no greater than one’s suffering on Earth, and then the whole matter wouldn’t be such a fuss.

Earth, for all it’s faults, still has “a lot of God” around. He holds the universe in existence. He is the ONLY source of love (we cannot “give” love without love first originating with God. The most we can do is pass it along - channel it so to speak). Those in Hell have locked the door from the inside to keep God out. Thereby, there is no love in Hell.

There is a really good book, short, and an interesting read that I’d recommend. You can pick it up at your local library. “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis. It’s not a theology book, but a short novel with some theological insights.

 

[St_Francis]

Guiltyofdoubt,
You pose a general question and then link it to a specific situation. I would like to treat them as two topics, using your situation as an example.

You see God as wanting obedience from us or He will send us to Hell. In reality, what He wants is for us to love Him so much that we *want *to obey Him. That is of course tye ideal.

If we fall short of the ideal, it does not necessarily mean we go to Hell; God will judge us by what is in our hearts and we will end up in the place appropriate for us. If we love Him, but rather imperfectly, we can spend eternity with Him, after a period of purgation in Purgatory.

Now, consider a car. A car comes with a manual which the manufacturer includes. The manual tells us important things like when to change the oil, switch around the tires, and other maintenance details. We also know of restrictions to our driving, like not taking a regular off-roading.

And we do those things, more or less, because we wantto protect our investment in the car. It is not fun to get the oil changed, but we do it lest the old oil destroy our engine, right?

And we refrain from doing some fun things with or cars because we don’t want to ruin them.

The car manufacturer tells us what will happen if we don’t maintain, or perform, certwin actions on our cars. The consequences stem naturally from the “disobedience,” no?

Now, imagine a young man who is married to a woman he loves very much. Does he look at other women with lust on his mind? Does he perform in solitude acts which he should share with her? Does he have affairs?

Of course not… but why not? Because he knows if he does those things, he will damage his relationship with the woman he loves so very much–he may even kill the relationship altogether.

Does he feel restricted in this situation? No, because he loves his wife. He values her above all else.

Now imagine a young man marries a woman he really loves, but he has been committing certain sexual sins, sins which he thought were harmless. Now he sees the damage they have brought to him. By discarding women, he created in himself an intolerance for imperfection. By using his imagination or other material to stimulate himself, he reduced his ability to be stimulated by an ordinary woman, the same woman night after night.

Now he understands the harm caused by his “enjoyment.”

We can obey God out of fear of Hell, but this is merely a first step. In the same way that we teach children good habits through “fear” of bad consequences, so does God. When we go to Confession, we should have perfect contrition, which is sorrow for having done that which offends the God we love, but we may have only imperfect contrition, where we go because we fear Hell. And God understands this, that we are like little children needing to learn, but He also wants us to be sincere in wanting to improve.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Is God not able to control Satan? He allows Satan to gather our souls for what reason? So we can resist and “Prove” ourselves? Sounds very “Old Testament”, and more like a wrathful God than a merciful one. Sure seems like the deck is stacked against us humans.

He who is on God’s side cannot lose!

Sorry I can’t answer every point you make.

Art is long and life is short … and mine is getting really short.

 

[ynotzap]

Obedience to God doesn’t effect Him, He needs no one, He is subsistant in Himself. But we poor ignorant and fallible human beings with all our defects don’t have a chance in Hades to live, love and be happy without His help and love. Obedience gives it to us by our humble submission to Him for our own good. The ten commandments is a re-iteration of the natural law which we needed to guide our impoverished minds of the truth, for our happiness, not God’s. So what you see is a complete distortion of God’s purpose in requiring obedience.
You see it as dominance. Dear God thank you ever so much for you patience with us.

 

[guiltyofdoubt]

So I am beginning to think we might be getting taken here. You are a convert from a conservative Lutheran Church? You are in RCIA but don’t want to ask these questions to them because you are embarrassed? All of these things coming up in your posts lead me to believe you didn’t pay attention even at the Lutheran Church. This is basic stuff you should be discussing with your RCIA class not us.

If you continue I am going to have to stop feeding you.

At least Oreoracle is honest and has legitimate questions regarding the faith. He seems to not go in the circles you are going.

If you read my posting history, you will learn I am the furthest thing from a troll…and these are legitimate issues to me.

I am a convert from LCMS…but keep in mind I haven’t actually practiced in over 20 years in that faith, though I was confirmed as a youth in that Church.

In the intermittent time, I have rarely gone to Church, and when I did, it has been to Catholic Mass as a favor to my family (Catholic wife, and as of more than 6 years ago, daughter who is being raised Catholic).

I lost someone very close to me in early 2013…my lifelong friend who was also a fervent Evangelical, but who went to LCMS with me as a kid. He was always trying to “save” me. Then he suddenly died.

I was in a bad place over his death (he was in his 40’s, with a young family) for most of 2013. I started asking questions of others, in psychotherapy, and of myself, and as Catholic Mass is the only church I’ve been attending for the past 20 years, and since my daughter was questioning why I never received communion when mommy did, I decided to look into Catholicism seriously, and that led to RCIA.

I have been attending Mass faithfully at least once per week since last August. Of course, I still don’t receive Eucharist, but I go. I enjoy the service very much.

However, I am also feeling very uneasy, and with a lot of church-inspired guilt, if what the Church teaches is to be believed.

Maybe my logic is circular to you. I apologize, but guess what? Its also circular to me. I just take the logical steps and keep ending up in the same place…at least as far as where MY logic takes it.

I wish I had the FAITH my friend had. Even as an anti-Catholic Evangelical. He still was certain about Jesus and God. I am struggling still. I want to believe with certainty in my heart, and without FEAR. Yet its not like I didn’t enjoy my “so-called sinful life” before. My marriage is good. I love my family. I can compartmentalize my sinful behavior without issue. Except now its an issue because of what I’ve learned…AS AN ADULT…in RCIA.

Its a different understanding of scripture and the teachings of the Church than what you perceive as a child or teenager.

Maybe my mind is just screwed up. I do feel tortured. I come here to pose questions to true believers, and others that would be embarrassing to bring up in an RCIA class that is all women except for myself. There is a little bit of anonymity here which allows me to be more open and honest about my thoughts. I appreciate the answers, and read them thoroughly. Believe me…this is NOT a troll.

 

[Oreoracle]

He can also see every choice we made to get us to where we end up. But he didn’t make the decisions that got us there. We did.

The thing about predetermination is that it’s independent of time. If I was predetermined to do something (that is, if a being can be certain that it will occur beforehand) 5 years ago, then I was also predetermined to do it 10 years ago. Indeed, I was predetermined to do it before I was born, and even before Earth existed. How am I responsible for something that was determined before my birth?

God is smarter than we are. God is more powerful than we are. God loves us more than we love ourselves, and more than anyone else loves us. His judgement is never clouded, and he always wants the best for us.

But to say that a being is infallible requires you to be at least as knowledgeable as that being so that you can corroborate what they say. Otherwise it’s just a matter of faith. That’s why I’m agnostic: even if a God existed and showed himself, we couldn’t be certain that he is who he says he is.

Let’s say that you knew everything, but the only other beings to exist were ignorant compared to you. Short of making those beings omniscient as well, how would you prove to them that you know everything? The ability to answer all of their questions doesn’t matter, because their imaginations are limited anyway. Heck, even if you lied, and you were merely quite knowledgeable rather than all-knowing, they probably wouldn’t know.

So who you gonna trust? Your standards, or God’s standards?

My issue is mostly with the intent of a statement like “God wants what’s best for us”. It attempts to cast God as a sort of father figure who’s sympathetic to your aspirations. But in fact he needn’t be sympathetic to your aspirations at all. His ends are quite different from ours, it seems. So from the average human’s perspective, God wants us to lead very difficult lives.

 

[Amandil]

You can’t look at something like “obedience” and think that it pertains to following an arbitrary set of rules and regulation that God set up but didn’t really need to.

“Natural law” is the same way.

You have to look at such terms as “obedience”, “freedom”, “free will”, “grace”, and God’s nature from an utterly different perspective than what we’re used to through human jurisprudence.

God created humanity with one end in mind and that is for us to share in His life.

He also created us with, as part of our essence or nature, free will. Why?

Because He wants us to share in His life. But what does that mean?

God’s very existence is love, “God is love”. Love, by definition cannot be free if its “programed” or coerced or forced upon us by something outside of ourselves. For love to be “true”, it must be freely received AND freely given without any concern for the self(agape love).

Thus the purpose or end to free will is for us to love God and others freely and completely without any concern for the self.

How does this relate to obedience and freedom?

When we obey God we are doing what is naturally in accord with our purpose and end. When we are in obedience to God, we are truly free because we are accomplishing the end for which He made us.

Sin is not based on freedom because it is a violation of our natural end. Sin is by definition the abuse of freedom. When we sin we receive the effects of sin(ccc 405), which weakens our will and darkens the intellect to see God’s truth effectively.

Thus we are compelled now, because of sin, to fight the inclination towards it, to submit to the obedience of faith and with the help of God’s grace, to resist sin and reconform our wills that of God’s will and how he created us to begin with.

Accepting God’s love and the assistance of His grace in the sacraments is what makes obedience to the divine will possible. And so long as we maintain the obedience faith, we are truly free.

 

[St_Francis]

The thing about predetermination is that it’s independent of time. If I was predetermined to do something (that is, if a being can be certain that it will occur beforehand) 5 years ago, then I was also predetermined to do it 10 years ago. Indeed, I was predetermined to do it before I was born, and even before Earth existed. How am I responsible for something that was determined before my birth?

God is outside of time, so He can see it all at once.

It’s kind of like watching a movie you already know the end of. You know the good guy is going to beat the bad guy, but if it’s well-done, you’re still on tenterhooks! And even tho you know what happens, you made none of those decisions, did you?

In the same way, God’s knowing my decision is not God’s making my decision.

But to say that a being is infallible requires you to be at least as knowledgeable as that being so that you can corroborate what they say. Otherwise it’s just a matter of faith. That’s why I’m agnostic: even if a God existed and showed himself, we couldn’t be certain that he is who he says he is.

God knows everything because He is the only Being Who was not created, and He created everything else that exists. He knows everything about Himself, and He knows everything about what He created.

This is something that we can understand through logic so we don’t need to be as knowledgeable as God to know He is all-knowing, anymore than we need to be as intelligent as someone else to know that they are more intelligent than we are.

My issue is mostly with the intent of a statement like “God wants what’s best for us”. It attempts to cast God as a sort of father figure who’s sympathetic to your aspirations.

Why would someone think this? Why would someone think that “wanting what’s hest for someone” means being “sympathetic to your aspiration”?

Is a parent “sympathetic to a child’s aspirations” or "wanting what’s best for the child when he takes a sharp knife away from the child or prevents her from sticking a fork into an electrical socket?

So, yes, God wants what is best fod us, buy what He knows is best for us is not always what we desire or aspire to.

But in fact he needn’t be sympathetic to your aspirations at all. His ends are quite different from ours, it seems. So from the average human’s perspective, God wants us to lead very difficult lives.

Have you noticed that life is very difficult? And that is for us, most of whom live in very technologically advanced societies where we do not have to walk a long way to get water, etc.

Most of what is good in life involves effort and self-discipline. What God wants for us, what is hest for us, does indeed involve effort and self-discipline, giving up certain things, going without other things, etc.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

God wants us to lead very difficult lives.

It’s the devil who wants us to lead very difficult lives, here and in the next world even more so.

It’s God who wants us to accept his burden, which is a whole lot lighter than the devil’s.

But an atheist refuses to see that. He has been conned by the devil.

 

[InflatusMaximus]

Frankly I think this is a basic question that any Christian worth his salt should be able to answer. You’ve indicated that I won’t understand the issue until I’m a Christian, but that’s a poor argument. You’re basically saying that the question can only be answered for people who don’t care to ask it.

It seems to be a way of avoiding a difficult question and deferring to answer until the other person is already convinced of your position. It’s dishonest.

But you are attempting to answer a question that takes years upon years as a practicing Christian to understand. You are asking questions not to seek the answer…for in your heart you truly know the answer for why else would you be on Catholic Answers Forum? You have hardened your heart.

I am not saying that the question can only be answered for people who don’t care to ask it, because you my friend are indeed asking it. You paint the last post as a cop-out, an avoidance. But I would have to ask you what are you avoiding. Your intellect is clouding your vision. You are a product of the Enlightenment. You are a modern day skeptic who is honored in the halls of secular society, you are a hero for you will never submit yourself to God.

Meanwhile He calls you every moment of the day and you don’t listen because you think He is this task master, someone who creates evil and good just to watch them like some omnipotent voyeur…but He isn’t that. You box Him in when He wants to throw open the doors of your heart.

The question you should be seeking an answer to is “Does God really exist?”

Not “If God exists then why does He do this…or that? If God exists (enter whatever metaphor you like) would a good God do that?”

Again it is not a cop-out it is a challenge get off your butt and go to church. Pick one. Go find Him. Quit asking silly questions.

And please don’t attack me as dishonest, for you don’t know me. But God does and He knows you and He wants you to love Him.

 

[ffg]

Of course he wouldn’t go back on his word. God would have that luxury, because he would know everything beforehand due to his omniscience. He obviously wanted Lucifer to become Satan because he knew such a thing would happen before he even created Lucifer.

I mean, you’d have to be pretty daft to accidently thwart yourself when you know everything beforehand. It would be like failing a test when you already have the answer key.

Oh there is so much and so little time! I love it! Great stuff!

‘Of course he wouldn’t go back on his word?..’

But all we see everywhere around us, even the most powerful that don’t have to do so, go back on their word!

Why? They are not perfect!

There is no ‘Of course’ because he knows!

It’s Of course, because He is perfect!

WANTED Lucifer to become Satan? WHAT!?

God didn’t create with perfection and love (yet secretly WANT Evil!). That would be not being honest with himself. Impossible for perfection! I see an excel circular reference here.

Remember LOVE cannot force? So WHO created Satan? Lucifer, by his choice!

Reality is they are one in the same, in the same way that I can be who I am, or go ruin a bunch of lives and be known as the ruiner of lives rather than my name.

Something though you are not considering is what ‘no time’ is. You comment like this stuff that happened outside of time, has a time element.

No time, is no time, period. God created time!

God does not thwart himself! He is the creator. There is no way shape or form that Satan has any power to do anything to GOD.

Thus Satan’s focus is creation!

 

[ffg]

why would he make evil things pleasurable at all?

I’ll touch on this one quickly -

Understanding that God does not make things evil, creation does.

To answer the question, is simply understanding us!

God makes things.

Not evil things.

Things.

Creation in our selfishness, in our pride, in our greed, abuse that which is so beautifully made by God, giving it an appearance of ‘bad’.

 

[Credo_in_Deum]

I have read it over and over again on these forums…that God created us to love Him, and to be Obedient. That we must “serve” Him.

Then its said we have free will.

That we can “choose” not to serve Him or be obedient.

But then we are punished. So its not really free will. We didn’t have free will in whether we wanted to exist in the first place. So we are thrust into this situation without choice, created pawns in a game of “Do what I say, or Burn eternally”.

Free will is the ability to do what you ought, not the ability to do what you want. Actions have consequences.