Purpose of Life / Mercy of God

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smith500

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Since childhood I have had problems with basis theology that I have never had resolved. If there is an answer I’d be very grateful.

What right does God have to create us other than might makes right? We are thrown into the high stakes game of life without our consent. There are two possbile results: eternal life or eternal punishment. I frankly don’t care about eternal life: when someone is threating eternal fire the rewards are meaningless.

According to traditional theology, we can be thrown into the eternal fiire for such things as missing Mass on a Holy Day of Obligation, entertaining sexual thoughts by reading a romance novel or using aritficial birth control. As Catholics, we get the chance to repent through confession, but I’m not so keen on having nearly all my friends thrown into an eternal fire for reasons such as these. The Church says it is immoral to execute murderers, yet it creates non-Sunday Holy Days of Obligations which most Catholics do no observe and attaches a worse punishment than death: eternal fire! Isn’t this hypocritical? Could the Church create a new Holy Day of Obligation, but state in the Catechism that skipping that day would not be a grave sin?

How would you like it if I forced you into a high stakes game against your will where you would either win a $100 billion, or be sent to the torturers for the rest of your life if you lost. Wouldn’t you have the right opt out of the game? Would you love me or hate me for forcing you into the game. Would you hate me more knowing that a great percentage of people lost even if you figured out how to play the game right. Imagine if I told you you would have to listen to all sorts of people and you would have to figure out what the rules are.

If the God has foreknowledge of events, why would he put this game into play if a vast percentage would end up an eternal fire? What right do I have to procreate children if the path to eternal punishment is wide? Do I have the moral obligation to kill my baptized children to ensure they do not get thrown into an enternal fire? They might not get to live this live or be rewarded a greater place in heaven, but I’d gladly take the $100 billion and avoid an eternal file rather than continue on an obstacle course where I have as 1 in 100 chance of making $1,000,000 but a 99 out of one chance of being thrown in the fiery pit? I may lose my own life, but would save my children’s lives. (Dont’ worry this is only theoretical.)

Since I’ve been a child, I’ve been angry with God on this. I want to opt out of this cruel game, but I don’t have that choice.

I’d love a direct answer to these question.
 
Maybe it would help to consider that the very life that you want to separate from God, He gave you - it is His, and you wouldn’t have it otherwise! It’s not like the example you give with the high stakes game, as you have a choice to not be involved - you existed before and you will exist after.

God IS your life - there is no before.

And, the reason God did this was not power - it is LOVE He wanted us around Him, God created the first FAMILY - that’s where we got our culture of family from! God just wants family, and He gave us choice to join or not. If you don’t join, you have nothing taken away from you that was your to begin with.

There is a fundamental issue to grapple with here, and that is your willingness to Love. Loving God moves yo in one direction, not loving God moves you away.

You write as if God has taken something from you and forced a difficult decision, that IMHO is your mistake - God has taken nothing away from you. He gave you life, opportunity to love, and choice. He also has put a spark inside you, that deep down you want to love God - all mankind does. I know it’s there otherwise you would have turned away and been done with it. The spark keeps you from doing that (or if you have, from complaining about the predicament you believe God has put you in).
 
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smith500:
What right does God have to create us other than might makes right? We are thrown into the high stakes game of life without our consent. There are two possbile results: eternal life or eternal punishment. I frankly don’t care about eternal life: when someone is threating eternal fire the rewards are meaningless.
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Smith, you are certainly not alone in wondering about these nagging, legitimate questions. I don’t know if there is one clear and brilliant answer that will overwhelm your objections and fill you with understanding. But here are a few thoughts for your consideration:

Existence has purpose. God, as the author of existence, calls all things into being for His purposes – not for His entertainment; the perception of life as a “high-stakes game” may not be the most accurate way to look at it. We were not created to pursue whatever we think we want at any given point in time, but to share in the ultimate eternal reality, which is perfect love. Love requires free choice, experience, growth, and a willingness to place others above oneself. Love is not easy, but it is the highest and most compelling purpose of existence.

I don’t think of the two possible results, eternal life and eternal “punishment,” as some kind of arbitrary reward/punishment system. Eternal life is our calling, our reason for being, our destiny. To live in eternal communion with God and others is the reason we exist at all, and I believe it to be God’s supreme desire. He desires it more than we ourselves do. What we often call “eternal punishment” is really no more than the absence of God – and no one gets it unless he freely and emphatically chooses it. Those who choose themselves above all else, will reject the invitation to become “one with” God and others. That’s what love is – a one-ness with others.

I think that this thought of oneness with others will ultimately be repugnant to the stubbornly selfish – and they will decline heaven as something they cannot be happy with. This will be their own choice to separate from God and His communion of love. They will actually be more comfortable with what they have chosen.
According to traditional theology, we can be thrown into the eternal fiire for such things as missing Mass on a Holy Day of Obligation, entertaining sexual thoughts by reading a romance novel or using aritficial birth control. As Catholics, we get the chance to repent through confession, but I’m not so keen on having nearly all my friends thrown into an eternal fire for reasons such as these. The Church says it is immoral to execute murderers, yet it creates non-Sunday Holy Days of Obligations which most Catholics do no observe and attaches a worse punishment than death: eternal fire! Isn’t this hypocritical?
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I know there are some who think God (and the Church) is some kind of scorekeeper who just looks for infractions that disqualify people from heaven. Eternal fire for missing a Holy Day of Obligation? For reading risqué novels? I suppose that could well be true, but maybe not for the reasons you presume. In and of themselves, do instances like blowing off mass or indulging the sexual imagination represent an intentional “in your face” rebellion against God and his plan for humanity? If so, then yes, I guess you could say by doing those things, we are choosing deliberately to remain outside of communion with God and His purposes. But I would suggest that we rarely do these things in an attitude of outright contempt for holiness. Mostly, they are more like small “dings” on a new car – small, careless little imperfections that nevertheless steadily deteriorate the car’s finish, and allow rust to take hold and destroy it. So you cannot really say, “If you get a ding on your car, it goes to the scrapyard;” but you can say, “If you don’t avoid or repair the dings, one day your car will surely go to the scrapyard.” It is not a threat of punishment, but of natural, unavoidable consequence.

Smith, you have raised so many other good issues, but I just wanted to leave you a few starting thoughts rather than try to deal with everything in the same breath. I hope you find some of these thoughts helpful.
 
Your thoughts are logical, and the way I think would be just. You look at the big picture which is reasonable (and I have heard others with the same philosophy that you have:

“I would suggest that we rarely do these things in an attitude of outright contempt for holiness. Mostly, they are more like small “dings” on a new car – small, careless little imperfections that nevertheless steadily deteriorate the car’s finish, and allow rust to take hold and destroy it.”

I’m not advocating that people should be free to sin. I have problems with elements of the Church that publish and teach things like “French Kissing is a mortal sin”. Although I think both of us agree that the vast majority of unmarried couples are not kissing for outright contempt for holiness, their a clearly elements of the Church that make something much less than “outright contempt for holiness” the standard for a mortal sin.
 
as Father Corapi has taught on relavant radio and my belief as well - The meaning of life is Jesus Christ. Look at Jesus and you will find what you are searching for. And where He is so is the Father and the Holy Spirit. Also as a Catholic it would be pretty impossible to understand everything about God. We are not called to understand everything but to Believe everything the Church teaches. may the Lord be with you always =)
 
Smith, do you understand what it takes for a sin to be mortal?

It is mortal sin only that would condemn you to hell, and if you repent and confess it, it is forgiven. It’s not as “black and white” as you make out. God’s not crouching there, waiting to pounce on you the minute you sin. He may be “stalking” you, but only to “attack” you with the deepest love you can know.

You can find the following in paragraphs 1857 through 1859 of the Catechism:

For something to be a mortal sin, it must meet all of 3 criteria:

The sin must be grave.
It must be committed with full knowledge.
It must be committed with deliberate intent.

Your example of french kissing is a good one! because it is right in the middle, so to speak. It’s not a sin for married people to french kiss.

Unmarried people must ask themselves if it’s grave matter. I’m not a confessor so I can’t say with certainty; but I would expect it to be a venial sin in most cases - getting carried away, and stopping at that. I would call it grave if one of the people doing it is married or engaged; or if it is begun with the intention that it lead to (extramarital) sex.

The example I used above, of getting carried away, illustrates a lack of full knowledge. Once you realize you’re doing something sinful, if you don’t stop, you now have full knowledge. I hope you can see that the married person, and the seducer, already have full knowledge!

Last but not least, there is deliberate intent. If the unmarried person in my example believes the adulterer to be single, then there is no deliberate intent. Same for the person being victimized by the seducer.

When you add these three things up, you can see that committing a mortal sin is deliberately, knowingly turning your back on God.

Last, but definitely not least, if you repent, all you need to do is go to confession. Even if the only reason you repent is that you don’t want to go to hell, you will still be forgiven.

As an earlier poster said, God wants us all with Him. He is not out there looking for reasons to send people to hell. He’s looking for reasons to forgive people when they do wrong.

He’s our perfect Father. Think about that one - what is a perfect father like? He loves his children, and wants them to be happy. He doesn’t try to force them into a mold. He wants them to make their own choices. He wants to give them what they need to have a good life. He also wants to protect them from making wrong choices, because they lead to unhappiness. So he disciplines his children, but not with the punishments of a tyrant. He means every word when he says, “This hurts me more than it hurts you.”

I highly recommend that you read the section of the Catechism: “The Gravity of Sin.” It’s paragraphs 1854 - 1864. Hopefully, it will help.

And remember that Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you … For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Mt 11:29-30, RSV) The deeper I get in my Catholicism (I’m a recent convert), the more I see the truth of that.
 
Right away (before you admitted it) I could see your very angry with God. Probably with life as well. Well speaking as someone who used to wake up every morning with no faith in anything wishing I was dead there was only one truth I could never ignore. I’m alive. I’m not gonna drop dead. Your already in it. Your denying the beauty of it all, and looking at it with a very sterile view. It’s not a government, it’s life. It’s true, because it’s the culmination of all human life. God gave us the rules and we willingly imposed the rules on ourselves. At least the living did, cause humanity could have wiped itself out a long time ago.

I encourage you to go somewhere beautiful, somewhere outdoors, a lake, or a park or whatever. Stand there until you can appreciate all the beauty all around you. Think about all the people you love, and who love you. God gave you that.

Maybe lots of people will go to hell, but only by their choice. It’s not God who sends them there, they do. By making their choices. Because if you choose God then he teaches you. He gives you love and patience. He drags you kicking and screaming sometimes. Sometimes he even scares the sh*t out of you.

Do you know the only reason I can have so much patience, and love so many people, with all the hypocrites, war mongerers, murderers, etc… I’m an educated person. I see the lies being fed to us. I see all the bullsh*t in the world. People treat me like I"m stupid for believing in this and for not getting mad at the b.s. Well, I know in the end, those that make the world so hard… those that oppress… kill… start wars… fan the flames of hatred… lie to the people… well if they don’t repent they’ll go to hell. Which actually makes me feel sorry for the fools. Being well read in history and philosophy, following politics, watching the cycle of things, I see the ones who makes us suffer and struggle and make the world so hard. Yet I don’t care.

the path to destruction and it moves really fuc**** fast. When you live right, everything moves so slow you can see past all the deceptions. If you don’t want your friends to go to hell then be a good example. Be a good friend. Help them along the path towards God (without forcing them). People who try to save the world, they die…young. How many die meaninglessly?

The closer you get to God the more you will see the good and evil in man. In the world. The more it will affect you, chase you down. Drain you. Exuberate you. Give you hope. Make you sad. If you love God, and you love others, and understand what love is (by letting him teach you) the you’ll understand the necessity for hell.

while at the same time: God holds back the end of the world so that no one may suffer. He’s holding back the end of the world so everyone can get through. Some wait for the end, some learn to live. It’s your choice.

in closing, why live a catholic life? Because it’s the truth. God is real. The devil is real. There is a holy spirit, and there are evil spirits. Have an encounter or two with the devil and his angels, You’ll be loving God QUICK. Either that or just trust in God, and he’ll show you why.
 
Interesting dilema, but I think it evidences your misapprehension of the motivation behind all that God does.

His essence, goal and desire is to love the products of His creation.

He has revealed His wisdom through the ages of the means to be close to His perfect nature, and those means require us to deny our sinful, imperfect nature and submit to what is the perfect plan for our salvation (deliverance from sin). It is not a trap, but a roadmap to communion with God. In chosing to follow this plan, we do not make ourselves miserable, but are graced with the gift of His peace. God did not make us to be perfect, but with a free will that can chose either obedience to God’s will or selfishness, dishonesty and evil. Knowing that some would nevertheless reject these gifts, He delivered his own beloved Son to torment and death on human terms to redeem us to Himself.

God isn’t looking to trip us up or for an opportunity to cast us away in hell. He gives us every chance to know Him and conform our lives to His plan. He forgives our errors, failings and ignorance. He is truly the perfect
Father who brings forth life, fully anticipating the pain of broken relationships, yet offering endless opportunity for reconciliation and renewal and seeking in return nothing more than securing our peace and happiness and the chance to be in relationship with us.

WHAT AN AWESOME GOD WE HAVE!!!
 
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antonius:
…I know there are some who think God (and the Church) is some kind of scorekeeper who just looks for infractions that disqualify people from heaven. Eternal fire for missing a Holy Day of Obligation? For reading risqué novels? I suppose that could well be true, but maybe not for the reasons you presume. In and of themselves, do instances like blowing off mass or indulging the sexual imagination represent an intentional “in your face” rebellion against God and his plan for humanity? If so, then yes, I guess you could say by doing those things, we are choosing deliberately to remain outside of communion with God and His purposes. But I would suggest that we rarely do these things in an attitude of outright contempt for holiness. Mostly, they are more like small “dings” on a new car – small, careless little imperfections that nevertheless steadily deteriorate the car’s finish, and allow rust to take hold and destroy it. So you cannot really say, “If you get a ding on your car, it goes to the scrapyard;” but you can say, “If you don’t avoid or repair the dings, one day your car will surely go to the scrapyard.” It is not a threat of punishment, but of natural, unavoidable consequence…
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GREAT post Antonius–and this paragraph hit home with me and my tendency to grumble about and push back on “the technicalities.”
 
I agree. I think it was a rather brilliant post, and in fact, I have been thinking about it for a couple of days now, wanting to avoid those minor dings. Sometimes don’t you read things on here that just seem inspired?
 
Hello Smith,

I think you have to consider the choice set before God. As you have described, God could have chose to never bring man, angels, creation, free will ect. into existance. In this case there would be no eternal damnation and no eternally damned. However, God would also have no eternal Kingdom filled with saints who love Him. Obviously God chose to risk eternal damnation on those who would choose to hate Him to gain spiritual eternity bound to His beautiful bride which consists of those saints who do love Him.

You are right in stating that you had no choice between existing and never existing. It was God alone who made that decision. There is really nothing you can do to make it so you never existed. The best thing you can do with your existance is to love God with all your heart, teach your baptized children to love God with all their hearts and seek after an eternal life, with your family, bound to God which will fill your heart with tremendous joy for all eternity.

Please visit www.ILOVEYOUGOD.com
 
Smith, I think you have hit on what I consider a far more important question than that old favorite, “If God is good why do people suffer”.

Our nature is that of creatures. We are created and we are created according to God’s pleasure, so to speak.

I believe that evil, at its core, is a rejection of our nature as creatures. That could mean a rejection of our existence altogether or it could be a rejection of our necessary subordination to God. I suspect that very few people (at least those outside of hell) truly regret their very existence but we all rebel against the idea of being mere creatures subject to an absolute authority. Every sin is really some kind of act of defiance against our nature.

Our path to eternal salvation is really to ‘act naturally’ according to the nature God had in mind for us. The terribly irony of sin is that by regecting the nature of things as God designed, we have changed our nature. It is now a struggle to live as God would have us live.

But we are creatures. It’s of no benefit to us to be angry with God for making us or, as is more likely, to proclaim that God does not exist. God gave us the Church to help us live in right relationship to Himself. The Church shows us what we must do to truly ‘act naturally’ according to our regenerated natures.
 
Steven Merten:
Hello Smith,

I think you have to consider the choice set before God. As you have described, God could have chose to never bring man, angels, creation, free will ect. into existance. In this case there would be no eternal damnation and no eternally damned. However, God would also have no eternal Kingdom filled with saints who love Him. Obviously God chose to risk eternal damnation on those who would choose to hate Him to gain spiritual eternity bound to His beautiful bride which consists of those saints who do love Him.

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You run into a few problems with this scenario, too.
God, the nuns taught, created humans, “to know, love, and serve” Him. So a supposedly all-powerful Creator appears to have some kind of need for creatures and their adoration. Not only that, but He wants such worship to be voluntary so He gave us free will, which as you say, leads inevitably to Heaven and Hell.
But at bottom the fact remains that in order for some of us to make it to Heaven and sing His praises for eternity, others must be damned to Hell forever – and He created all of us not for our own benefit but for His own – “to know, love and serve Him.”

Of course it’s a rigged game, but it’s the only game.
 
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didymus:
You run into a few problems with this scenario, too.
God, the nuns taught, created humans, “to know, love, and serve” Him. So a supposedly all-powerful Creator appears to have some kind of need for creatures and their adoration. Not only that, but He wants such worship to be voluntary so He gave us free will, which as you say, leads inevitably to Heaven and Hell.
But at bottom the fact remains that in order for some of us to make it to Heaven and sing His praises for eternity, others must be damned to Hell forever – and He created all of us not for our own benefit but for His own – “to know, love and serve Him.”

Of course it’s a rigged game, but it’s the only game.
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I’m not so sure you can say God has a need for creatures to adore him because God does not have a need for creatures. I do agree with the part about God wanting our worship to be voluntary and thus giving us free will.

While I agree that free will did eventually lead to the possibility of hell, I’m not so sure that you can conclude that hell is** inevitable** for some creatures. The possibility that all creatures would ultimately chose heaven existed, at least in theory. To say otherwise seems to imply double predestination.
 
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