Personal Dislike

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You just need to learn more for yourself what the Church has gradually come to know better: the true nature and will of God. He desires none to perish, loving man intensely. Hell can only be a choice.

And the more we love God-the more, IOW, that we come to gain the “knowledge of God” that Jesus came to reveal- the more we can’t help but love Him.

God was always on man’s side; enmity comes from man, not God. “They hated Me without reason” Jesus says of His persecutors, quoting Psalms, of those who wished to kill Him, and all humankind who He died for in spite of our sins, to show just how far He’d go to prove His love by dying an extremely humiliating and painful death in human flesh at the hands of His own creation.

This is our hero, totally contrary to the superstars and heroes of this world. A tortured and emaciated God on a cross, forgiving all the while. Read 1 Cor 13 to get an idea of the nature of God. God is love.
 
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Yes I do think you stand a great chance of going to Heaven just from fearing God even if you don’t feel emotional about Him right now. Jesus said what it is to love Him - follow His commandments. I will come back with the quote from Scriptures regarding this if you want but he did say this.
If you follow His laws you love Him. Tomas Aquinas said love is will (intent to do acts of love) and God Himself gave a lot of value to effort (Isra) of people following His rules. Love is a mystery and loving God is the ultimate state. It’s okay if you don’t just feel it. Actually many charismatic priests now saints in the East discouraged the search for an emotional connection with God and encourage people to stay rational. Hard for me heh, I am emotional. But look it is hard for you.
Fear of God is the root of all wisdom.
God bless!
 
EasternCelt said:
  1. There is no place where God is not. God is present in hell tormenting sinners.
  2. Most people don’t know about this “free choice”. The free choice is also not that easy because it requires a complete change in life and, even with this re-orientation, one mortal sin completely erases any progress made. Sorry, there’s not so much free choice about this.
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Hell is the total absence of God.
Although I’m vary aware of Hell I am focussed on Gods love of us and His Mercy…that love is overwhelming …if I focused only on hell and the many things you’ve mentioned I’d probably feel hopeless and afraid .
Look to the light ,become part of the light,look to the dark…
You’ve been given some great help by other posters here,along with that il remember you in mass tomorrow EC,God bless.
 
I agree with the responses that have said you don’t dislike God, rather you dislike the concept or model of God that has somehow been presented to you.

We are taught that God is love. Therefore, if you have ever felt genuine love for another person, or even an animal, on this earth, you have experienced the true God through your feeling. If you’ve ever loved your mother, father, child, spouse or romantic partner, close friend, even a pet, and received love in return from them, in a healthy way, then you have had some experience of God. Did you dislike that?

God is not present in Hell because Hell and its torments are defined as the total absence of God. All of the metaphors or representations of Hell, such as fire, physical tortures, ugly scary demons, etc. are expressions of the absence of God.

I hope you are able to reach a point where you do not worry so much about this and gain a clearer understanding of the nature of God.
 
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Here are two simple, but clear examples:

‘The strongest desire of a damned soul in hell is to die. (Men shall seek death and shall not find it. And they shall desire to die: and death shall fly from them Apoc. 9,6). For knowing it can never appease God’s anger, it desires death as the only means of escape. But it will desire this in vain; the damned person will live as long as God will live! Just as God forever preserves the saints in Heaven to delight them with new pleasures, so He will allow forever the damned to live in hell, to always torment them with new sufferings.’

St. Anthony Mary Claret

‘The wretched damned will curse their sins over and over again, yet they will remain for ever impenitent. They will roar with pitiful moans, they will shed tears enough to flood the earth. A time will come when they could say, I have suffered in these flames a thousand million years for every single mortal sin. In spite of this, they will not calm God’s anger nor move Him to pity.’

St. Anthony Mary Claret
 
Maybe it will be helpful to explain where my anxiety came from. I was an Eastern Orthodox Christian for six years before moving to the Eastern Catholic (Ukie) Church. The Orthodox bishops teach that heaven and hell are a matter of the soul’s perspective: all will stand in the Light of Tabor; to the healed at soul (through repentance, sacraments, etc.), this light is bliss and illuminating fire, but to the one whose soul was not healed, the light is consuming fire and searing pain because of the contact with God (true nature of the judgment). God is angry with no sinner because of the Cross and the Resurrection cleared the path for all to be risen from the dead universally.

This seems like a more free choice model than the coercive one of the Catholic Church; I don’t think the Catholic Church can speak of free will in salvation because God essentially has a gun to your head insisting that you better reciprocate his love or else. In the Orthodox setting, it’s much like treating an illness and salvation is ontological health through taking your medicine in the sacraments; Catholic salvation is much more juridical: you’d better appease the judge!
 
EasternCelt said:
This seems like a more free choice model than the coercive one of the Catholic Church; I don’t think the Catholic Church can speak of free will in salvation because God essentially has a gun to your head insisting that you better reciprocate his love or else.
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I don’t see Catholicism as God holding a gun to my head to do anything.

I also don’t see the Orthodox teaching as being all that different from the Catholic one. It refers to “the one whose soul was not healed”, which is similar to the Catholic concept of one who is so messed up with evil that they would reject the love of God.

You’re kind of making a mountain out of a semantics difference.
 
EasternCelt said:
Here are two simple, but clear examples:
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Hang on a second: your claim was that it’s Scripture and Church Fathers who teach these things. These quotes – which you claim are representative of your case – are neither Scriptural nor magisterial teaching.

Yes, I’m sure you can find folks who say just about anything you want to hear. That doesn’t mean that the Church teaches it, though.
 
Good point, Gorgias. And saints can be wrong, or simply be writing for a particular audience that doesn’t apply in this case, so the fact that it came from a saint doesn’t mean it’s perfect either.
 
I cannot write out all that is in that article which is pretty uniform. In your charity, read the entire work.
 
EasternCelt said:
I cannot write out all that is in that article which is pretty uniform. In your charity, read the entire work.
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That reads a bit like “I can’t be bothered to sift through the quotes and prove my assertion, so please do my work for me.”

In charity, if you’re going to make a claim, you have the responsibility to prove it. So far, you haven’t done so. Therefore, we don’t need to disprove your unsubstantiated opinion.

Blessings,
G.
 
He does and he doesn’t.

Both St. John of Damascus and St. Thomas Aquinas distinguish between God’s antecedent will and his consequent will.

The Antecedent will is not a choice, it is WILLINGNESS, or a good disposition. “I would if I could.” But it is not a choice to DO anything.

The consequent will is the choice to act. It is the will that x occur and not y.

Here’s an example- Antecedently, before any consideration of any individual, a judge wills the peace and good of his society. He doesn’t want to punish anyone, he wants everyone to get along. But in light of the fact that criminals lurk, he still chooses to send some to prison.

This is analogous to God- He is WILLING to save anyone. And this is the source of sufficient grace sent into the world unto men. But in light of the fact of the foreseen hardness of heart of the majority, he does not ACTUALLY CHOOSE to give some of them the additional grace necessary to CHOOSE sufficient grace. And paradoxically, these WOULD convert if he gave them the grace of conversion. And still many DO convert whom he enables to convert by his grace.

SO what is happening? The sovereign will of God and the interplay of fallen human freedom.

He is WILLING to save, but he does not in FACT CHOOSE to save all.

So, the bottom line is the universal salvific will of God is not to be seen as a CHOICE. It is God’s general disposition toward humanity, not a particular CHOICE to save individuals.
 
I am a biblical apologist and advocate before anything else. So I am having a hard time understanding what you are saying, as I am not a theologian.
 
We all have free will. We chose God or we reject God.

God is not going to force someone to accept Him.

No “selling” involved, it is the beauty of free will.
 
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