Predestination predicament in Matthew 26:24

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In Matthew 26:24, Christ says that it would have been better if Judas had never been born. This creates a problem because if God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omni benevolent He would know prior to creating a soul such as Judas that at the end of time, despite His best efforts, that such a soul would exist eternally in Hell. If God knows before creating a soul that the person will end up in Hell eternally, and with the sacrifice of His Son demonstrating that He does not wish anyone to be in Hell, why does He create that person to begin with if such is to be their final state and it is known to God beforehand? If it is better for that person to have never been born, why doesn’t God make it so? This almost implies that either God destines certain people for Hell or that at the end of time no one will be in Hell. Neither conclusion seems correct.

I tried to resolve the problem with a few complicated, theological conjectures – such as supposing that in order to “know” something, by definition, it must be true in actuality (i.e. God cannot “know” that 2+2=6) and prior to a being’s transition from a thought in the mind of God to actual being in the world their final state is merely potential and therefore cannot be “known” by definition - but nothing conclusive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
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mike182d:
In Matthew 26:24, Christ says that it would have been better if Judas had never been born. This creates a problem because if God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omni benevolent He would know prior to creating a soul such as Judas that at the end of time, despite His best efforts, that such a soul would exist eternally in Hell. If God knows before creating a soul that the person will end up in Hell eternally, and with the sacrifice of His Son demonstrating that He does not wish anyone to be in Hell, why does He create that person to begin with if such is to be their final state and it is known to God beforehand? If it is better for that person to have never been born, why doesn’t God make it so? This almost implies that either God destines certain people for Hell or that at the end of time no one will be in Hell. Neither conclusion seems correct.

I tried to resolve the problem with a few complicated, theological conjectures – such as supposing that in order to “know” something, by definition, it must be true in actuality (i.e. God cannot “know” that 2+2=6) and prior to a being’s transition from a thought in the mind of God to actual being in the world their final state is merely potential and therefore cannot be “known” by definition - but nothing conclusive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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God has chosen to endow us with Free Will. With God’s grace we are free to make our own decisions. Some of us will make good ones, others bad ones. God knows that, of course – but He chose NOT to make atomatons of us.
 
vern humphrey:
God has chosen to endow us with Free Will. With God’s grace we are free to make our own decisions. Some of us will make good ones, others bad ones. God knows that, of course – but He chose NOT to make atomatons of us.
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This is true. But, if God knows that the free-will of a specific person will ultimately lead to their destruction and eternal suffering in Hell before creating that person, why would he continue to create that person knowing what will necessarily become of them?
 
I suppose this would boil down to that God knew that Judas would do what he did, but that it was of Judas’ own free will that he did it.

By Judas’ decision, it would have been better for him not to have been born, not that it was a mistake of God’s to create him.

There also is the possiblilty that life itself is a gift, regardless of where we end up.
 
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mike182d:
This is true. But, if God knows that the free-will of a specific person will ultimately lead to their destruction and eternal suffering in Hell before creating that person, why would he continue to create that person knowing what will necessarily become of them?
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Because if He didn’t, then we wouldn’t have free will, would we?

The Gospels make it clear that while we cannot be saved without God’s grace, our own choices are critical.
 
Our pastor gave an interesting remark on Jesus’ choosing of Judas as an apostle this week, that I had never heard or thought of. The point of discussion was that Jesus apparently made a bad choice in Apostle selection there, how could that be?

He said that the divinity and humanity inside Jesus are separate enough that the divinity does not cloud Jesus the man’s nature to live life the way we do - which means making selections of people that are wrong. While we don’t completely understand what it means for Jesus to be divine and human all in 1, if the divine was always at the forefront Jesus really would have been far from human all the time, and that wasn’t true. And it was necessary for Jesus to live life the way we do, while not sinning, still living the life we do - suffering, weeping, etc.

I thought it was an interesting point to think about.
 
Had Judas not deported Jesus, the Pharisis would have still crucified our Lord, one way or another, someone would have been the conduit! Judas was just him; the conduit!

God bless
 
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awalt:
Our pastor gave an interesting remark on Jesus’ choosing of Judas as an apostle this week, that I had never heard or thought of. The point of discussion was that Jesus apparently made a bad choice in Apostle selection there, how could that be?

He said that the divinity and humanity inside Jesus are separate enough that the divinity does not cloud Jesus the man’s nature to live life the way we do - which means making selections of people that are wrong. While we don’t completely understand what it means for Jesus to be divine and human all in 1, if the divine was always at the forefront Jesus really would have been far from human all the time, and that wasn’t true. And it was necessary for Jesus to live life the way we do, while not sinning, still living the life we do - suffering, weeping, etc.

I thought it was an interesting point to think about.
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Pretty close to heresy, actually.

From John 18:
10 Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. 6 11 Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its scabbard. Shall I not drink the cup 7 that the Father gave me?”
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Jesus, as we say in the Mass, freely accepted His death. He made no mistake in choosing Judas – Judas was the necessary instrument by which he was delivered unto death.
 
this is how I have always seen free will + god knowing all before the begining of time question/contradiction…

If this is not catholic teach, please correct me as this is mearly my own interpretation and therefore should eb looked at as simply that…

In any case… here I go…

Have you ever heard the saying for everyhting that happens, there is an infinite amount of other things that could happen…

it is sorta based on that…

imagin a map…

At birth, you are at point A) Heaven is point B) and hell is poitn C)…

Between these points there is an enormous amount of roads, side roads, towns… so on and so forth, liie on any map… you are only allowed to go on direction… from point A) to point B or C. You take this road fork at that road and eventually you will end up at one of those two places…

each choice we make is like the differant forks in the road… we may have twenty differant choices, but can only choose one… for us on the street level, we realy do not know which road realy goes where, we jsut go the direction we think we are suppose to go…

if someone were looking form above, or at a map, they would see each of the differant roads we have availible to us, and where they lead… they will know that from a ceartain place, they know hwo to get there… they know ever outcome of each path… but we are still left to choice in picking which road to go…

Thats kinda how I resolve the choice/god knows everyhting…

we cant know where our choices will lead, but god does… he also knows every possible deviation we can make… however, he lets us choice which path to take primarily he wants us to come to him on our own, not forced to by him.

No choices we make suprise him because he is looking at the road map…

anyway, may be alittle confusing, but hopefully that helps… And if I am way off in regards to catholic teaching… please let me know…

Cheers
 
jjoshjl:
No choices we make suprise him because he is looking at the road map…

anyway, may be alittle confusing, but hopefully that helps… And if I am way off in regards to catholic teaching… please let me know…

Cheers
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Well, I don’t know that Benedict XVI would phrase it exactly like that – but I don’t think he would say you were wrong.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon12.gif

One of the great problems with Pre-destination (as applied to individual salvation) and “Once Saved, Always Saved” (OSAS) is that it either denies free will, or denies the existance of sin (because if you cannot lose salvation by your own acts, there is no sin.)
 
Jesus chose Judas knowing that with his free will he would betray Christ. That doesnt make Jesus wrong or anything.

While Judas had many properties that were right for being an apostle, he too was human and with his free will chose to betray Christ.

Did not Peter DENY knowing Christ.

BUT Peter repented, Judas did not and thus went to hell. Causing Jesus to remark (with future knwoledge of this) that it would have been better for him not to have been born.
 
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mike182d:
In Matthew 26:24, Christ says that it would have been better if Judas had never been born.
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He does not claim this is POSSIBLE, however. You have simply assumed that. The rest of your argument vanishes…

BTW please state your specific problem in the form of a syllogism and we will have a much easier time helping you.
 
In Matthew 26:24, Christ says that it would have been better if Judas had never been born.
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There is a difference between a person being born and their soul being created. For example, a child that was misscarried was not born yet his soul was created.

Is your question why does God create souls that He knows will disobey him and be damned eternally? The basic philosophical answer might be that existence (however miserable it may be) is better than non-existence.
 
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