Problems with God the Father

[Polaris]

During Easter this really bothers me a lot so here goes. How can we consider our God the Father a loving face of God? How can I trust God the Father, whose sense of Justice for a curse that he placed on all humantiy for the actions of one was only satisfied by an innocent victim being tortured to death and suffering for all eternity for something He did not even do and also the a mount of satisfaction he recieved from torturing another innocent who did not share in that curse form God, Mary whom I also love deeply.

 Jesus loved me enough to do this for me and Mary aided him so selflessly that I can not help but love them both but I still suspect God the Father and I worry. I try to love Him and I put my faith in what Jesus said about the Father.  Yet my mind will not follow nor my Heart. He seems like a cruel dictator who delights only in our suffering from the moment of our creation. Is heaven really all that great too?  Do I really want ot be in the prescence of a being that has a blood lust that strong and who does not evem mourn the aborted burning in hell while they are out of the protective hands of Jesus.  Also If I am part of the body of Christ will not my suffering continue for all eternity as his does?  Is there really a difference between heaven and hell?  It just seems that suffering is eternal no matter what we do.

Im just wondering if anyone else ever felt this way and how they dealt with it or over came it to see Him as loving as Jesus.

 

[nichjake]

I suppose you just have to trust that he does these horrible things to test us and make us realize how good the good things in life really are. I’m sure someone who is religious will chime in but thats my best guess. If everything in life was good and nothing bad ever happened imagine how empty inside we’d all be from not experiencing pain or sadness, we wouldn’t know good from bad because everything would be the same.

Yeah, thats was my random attempt to contribute to something religious on this forum…excuse the rambling if its way off base or completely incoherent

 

[a_cermak]

This is why many people reject the concept of the Penal Atonement, the idea that Christ was a sacrifice needed to right God’s honor. It borders on divine child abuse if looked at the wrong way.

There are other opinions on soteriology though. One is that Christ was sent, not to be tortured for God’s honor, but to teach us to face temptation. After all, Christ was tempted with riches, power, even the option to save his own life but he denied them all. Still another view is that God gave his son as an example of his love for all of us and that Christ freely gave himself up as an example of self-sacrificial love. I’m pretty sure there are 2 or 3 other classical views of soteriology. I just can’t remember them right now.

 

[1ke]

Polaris,

I think you need to go talk to a priest in person and also find a Spiritual Director.

You have some very serious misconceptions about God, and I don’t think a public internet forum is going to get you the kind of one-on-one spiritual guidance you need to help you resolve your issues and fears.

 

[zachh]

It is not God who has cursed us but we who have cursed ourselves. With original sin humanity separated itself from God’s love. We turned away from our Father, but He isn’t giving up without a fight. He spoke to us through the prophets, burning bushes, and through the archangel Gabriel when he told the Virgin Mary the good news.
The Nicean Creed:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
one in Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation,
he came down from heaven:

By Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, God created a way for all of humanity to reconcile their sins against Him: the sacraments instituted through Christ’s Church. He has given us everything, yet we still rebel against him. He gave us a way that we can be forgiven, but we also need reconciliation for our sins. Through God’s grace and the holy sacraments can we be made ready to share in His paradise.
Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Before so great a sacrament, the faithful can only echo humbly and with ardent faith the words of the Centurion: “Domine, non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum, sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea” (“Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul will be healed.”).219 And in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom the faithful pray in the same spirit:

*O Son of God, bring me into communion today with your mystical supper. I shall not tell your enemies the secret, nor kiss you with Judas' kiss. But like the good thief I cry, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."*

Our sins may be forgiven, but our injustices to God still separate us. By God’s grace we can atone for our sins through confession and repentance. Always remember: it is not God who is imperfect but us.

 

[Gnosis]

I think we need to remember that St. Paul, who does the primary exegesis of the meaning of cross, uses several models to explain exactly what Jesus’ death meant, one being the model of God as the divine judge and Christ taking our place in the courtroom, so to speak.

Paul uses metaphors and models to try and help us better understand something that is, in essence, a mystery. This means we should try to understand it, but also accept that its full comprehension will always allude us.

The most important thing, I feel, is that we are uniting ourselves to Christ with our spirit so that we share both in his crucifixion and resurrection. Personally, I don’t subscribe to the divine appeasment model. The Father gets no satisfaction from Christ’s death. Through Christ a way was opened in which we could participate in the death of that “mask of Adam” which covers our hearts and keeps us in the ways of sin.

I feel that Christ drew out the evil of the world, something like how one sucks the poison out of a snake bite. His death demonstrated the cruelty and injustice of the world; his recurrection demonstrated the prevalence of God’s justice and light over this darkness. If we unite ourselves with him we can put to death all of our false identities rooted in a dark and confused world, and reveal our true identity rooted in the Holy One.

 

[heisenburg]

Very Watered down… but something to consider…

Keep in Mind that Jesus is God… He is one part of God… He is not a lesser form of God the Father. Furthermore, we do not have a tri-god religion. It is very hard to understand, maybe impossible… But i think (i believe Jimmy Akin said this, may have been Tim Staples)

God is One God… A rock is One entity, and No person… You are one entity and One Person… God is Three Entities in One Person.

But he is one…

So, Did God Sacrifice his son for us? Yes… But a more important way to think about it is this… Since Jesus is One Entity of the Triune God, and since there ultimately is only One god, with Three Natures In a way, God Sacrificed Himself for us…

In other words… In stead of God the father creating problems for Love… the Sacrifice at Calvary was the most perfect act of Love and SELF sacrifice for US…

Hope that helps… (to others, correct me if my thoughts are off base…)

In Christ

 

[Spirithound]

Keep in Mind that Jesus is God… He is one part of God… He is not a lesser form of God the Father. Furthermore, we do not have a tri-god religion. It is very hard to understand, maybe impossible…

God is One God… A rock is One entity, and No person… You are one entity and One Person… God is Three Entities in One Person.

So, Did God Sacrifice his son for us? Yes… But a more important way to think about it is this… Since Jesus is One Entity of the Triune God, and since there ultimately is only One god, with Three Natures In a way, God Sacrificed Himself for us…

Jesus is not “one part of God”. He is one Person in the Godhead.
God is One Entity in Three Persons.
One God, One Nature, Three Persons, so yes, God did sacrifice Himself for us.

 

[Verisimilitude]

During Easter this really bothers me a lot so here goes. …How can I trust God the Father, whose sense of Justice *for a curse that he placed on all humantiy for the actions of one *was only satisfied by an innocent victim being tortured to death and suffering for all eternity for something He did not even do and also the a mount of satisfaction he recieved from torturing another innocent who did not share in that curse form God, Mary whom I also love deeply.

 ...but I still suspect God the Father and I worry. I try to love Him and I put my faith in what Jesus said about the Father.  Yet my mind will not follow nor my Heart. *He seems like a cruel dictator who delights only in our suffering from the moment of our creation.* Is heaven really all that great too?  Do I really want ot be in the prescence of a being that has a blood lust that strong and *who does not evem mourn the aborted burning in hell while they are out of the protective hands of Jesus*.  ... Is there really a difference between heaven and hell?  *It just seems that suffering is eternal no matter what we do.*

Im just wondering if anyone else ever felt this way and *how they dealt with it or over came it *to see Him as loving as Jesus.

Comment smade on highlighted post sections.

I do not see it as a curse placed on humanity. Humans were created in the image of God. As a rational being He could not refuse us the choice to decide for ourselves: aka free will. He warned us that if we ate of that fruit, we would surely die. I think that means He knew that we would be unable to always make wise decisions so He warned us against making that particular choice. Giving us that choice is not a curse, it was in our being at creation. What most call original sin, I call inherited choice, because I personally do not think a new born baby, much less an aborted baby has any sin to pay for.

God is perfect and does not delight in our suffering. I think He suffers along with us because we separate ourself from him when we fail. He made us perfect as well- in His image. To this day we are each born perfect in that image. God has free will too, exampled by His son. Christ showed that humans can be perfect in this life. How can perfect be more perfect? By creating a perfect being who can strive for perfection when that being falters due to a bad choice in our free will.

Proof that God mourns for humanity, to include aborted babies: remember the rainbow after the flood. Why did He set the bow in the sky? It is more than just a promise not to flood the Earth. Christ wept for Jerusalem is another proof. I won’t get into the trinity argument, but suffice it to say there is one God: Christ is in the Father and the Father in Him. God is Spirit.

I have my own issues with eternal suffering, and working through them myself. I’ll just reference the Sermon on the Mount.

I am still trying to overcome and deal with it. For a while I threw out the baby with the bathwater with respect to my faith, but that was less wise than playing in dirty water I have since realized. I personally think God allows us to question everything to a large degree. There is danger in anything. It is dangerous to come to a conclusion and never question it again- becasue the conclusion can be wrong no matter how inspired it may seem at the time. There is also a danger in questioning too much and never concluding anything. There is a balance to everything. Wisdom is knowing when, our heart is knowing what. That is how I see it at least.

God is not your enemy, He is your Creator. Christ did something else almost as significant as taking on the sins of the world. He made God the Father personal to every human. It was not that way before Jesus’ ministry. It is why I think Jesus used certain parables. Would a father give his child a snake when he asks for a fish?

Ask (pray to) your Father for a fish (Wisdom).
Ask and you shall receive. Knock and it shall be opened.
Believe it.

 

[Polaris]

Thanks for all the replies I am checkng them out. Im interested in checking out the church’s stance on Penal Atonement or Divine Retribution. I thought we had to believe in that.

Jesus is not “one part of God”. He is one Person in the Godhead.
God is One Entity in Three Persons.
One God, One Nature, Three Persons, so yes, God did sacrifice Himself for us.

Jesus has two natures True God and True Man. Yeah the Trinity is a confusing subject to say the least.

 

[AndyF]

Polaris:

We start our Faith as an empty shell. Remember before we start that nothing we can do on our own merit alone will gain us our last end, heaven. We cannot even avoid sin without the grace of God. Grace is a quantitive gift in that sense and what we merit and strive for is grace.

We start by taking the initiative in prayer, following the commandments, being humble, thinking of others before self, and following the obligations of the Church. This makes the Father take notice in us, we are selected to warrant a certain quantity of grace. WE act first and wait and trust and hope.

Now as we progress God gives us the grace of moving us away from a fear of God to a love of God. Our Faith is advanced only through the will of God. As we progress in Faith, more in spiritual personal revelation will be made known to us and self contentment is experienced, and we will come to realize things that we were uncertain of.

If I understand you correctly you are refering to things that happen to people. These things are temporal opportunities for us
to act, and they may be unplanned calamities such has weather or the result of the compounding of someone’s sin, ie: a family left destitute because the breadwinner was murdered, or deformities of newborns,abortions, tc,etc. If we notice something horrible happening, the thought that should form is “what can I do here”, not “why doesn’t someone do something here”.

Hell is a place that is the opposite of heaven in every way, and logically follows from a precept that maximum all Good of a loving Father must also exist a place where there is an absolute maximum absence of it. No one goes there unless they want it. Those who are not qualified for heaven have chosen to go there, as there is nowhere else except purgatory which is a cleansing place for those destined for heaven. Purgatory was made for temporary stay only.

The aborted aren’t burned in hell. God’s merciful love for children
ensures us that unBaptised children although kept from the beatific vision of God are destined to an eternity of contentment and natural happiness.(most theologicaly accepted).

A mother carrying a child and gravely ill and not assured of her future can ask someone, or simply request Christ baptise her child by desire and the child is accepted. If born, being his representative, all she needs is to baptise him by water and he is accepted. There is every opportunity for someone to care for a child who is destined for heaven and take the appropriate action.

I see God as one who does not act with ill intent, but withholds according to what we desire. If we desire evil then that measure of evil counters that measure of grace we possess and cannot reside in the void with evil. So if you have “n” amount of grace and choose an evil, then you are discredited by “n-1” amount of grace equivalent to the seriousness that God is offended, and that allows more evil to fill that void. This is a simplistic way of putting it, but it helps formulate a concept. If mortal sin, then one is scratched off the “destined for heaven” list, and every good he does is not credited to him until the offender receives the sacrament of Penance, then all the credited good is restored and he is once again entered on the list.

Christ is eternally happy. He chooses to suffer along with us now in our afflictions and ordeals before his second coming and promised to be with us until then and stand by his Church helping us through it by the Sacraments he provides. But when that comes the elect will be eternally happy along with him and all suffering will end.

Hope this helps.

AndyF

 

[heisenburg]

Jesus is not “one part of God”. He is one Person in the Godhead.
God is One Entity in Three Persons.
One God, One Nature, Three Persons, so yes, God did sacrifice Himself for us.

Thus continuing to show the complexity of the trinity

Something I will never claim to truly understand, and thank you for clarifying…

Point being the same though… it can still be view as God in a way Sacrificing himself … Anyway… Again… thanks for the clarification

In Christ