The Fear of Hell

[Charlemagne_III]

I agree with the proviso that He doesn’t always make it known to us in this life because otherwise we would be infallible!

Truth always draws us to itself. If we are not infallible it is because we are frail both in our intellect and in our will. In our intellect because the finite cannot grasp the Infinite without help. In our will because we do not even want to grasp the Infinite.

Sin is not in the intellect per se, but in our **willful refusal to see the truth **when God draws us to it.

As in the case of Adam and Eve willfully refusing to see God’s truth while they were open to seeing the Serpent’s lie.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Sin is not in the intellect per se, but in our **willful refusal to see the truth **when God draws us to it.

As in the case of Adam and Eve willfully refusing to see God’s truth while they were open to seeing the Serpent’s lie.

From today’s reading: Acts 9

. . . . On his journey, as he was nearing Damascus,
a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him.
He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him,
“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
He said, “Who are you, sir?”
The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.”
The men who were traveling with him stood speechless,
for they heard the voice but could see no one.
Saul got up from the ground,
but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing; . . .
. . . So Ananias went and entered the house;
laying his hands on him, he said,
“Saul, my brother, the Lord has sent me,
Jesus who appeared to you on the way by which you came,
that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Immediately things like scales fell from his eyes
and he regained his sight.
He got up and was baptized, . . .

In the presence of God, our blindness is revealed. That would seem to be how Hell works. In life, through God’s grace, the Serpent’s lies fall like scales from our eyes.
And then, we must act and do His will.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Even if someone has had an “experience” of whatever kind, such that they “experienced Hell,” that no more means they know Hell than someone who has driven through Hell, Michigan!

I have never driven thru or been to Hell, Michigan but just how do you “know” what you claim to know in what you say here?

You believe what you say here and that is fine but, again, how could you possibly “know” it?

If you ever “experience” hell and think/believe that you know no more about hell than before you “experienced” hell than you can truthfully say that you know no more about hell than before your “experience” but I do know “more” about hell now than I did before I experienced hell.

Your believing or disbelieving changes absolutely nothing concerning that.

I have thought (pondered) about some of my experiences and I, most definitely, say that my experiences truly have influenced my thinking.

It is written that “Mary pondered …”, don’t you think that what she experienced, influenced her thinking in her ponderings?

Hell, the true one, is eternal and final. No-one breathing in a standard human soma has been there, the town in Michigan notwithstanding.

As far as, “No-one breathing in a standard human soma has been there”, are you saying that this is something that is impossible for God to do?

BTW, altered states of consciousness (such as near-death or meditation) are just as much “head knowledge” as that gained in school. Just a different part of the head!

ICXC NIKA

You or anyone else believing or not believing what I claim to have experienced adds nothing to or takes away anything from whether or not what I say is true and I was not in an kind of “altered states of consciousness (such as near-death or meditation)”.

God does not need your permission, my permission or anyone else’s permission to grant to anyone any experience that God so desires to grant to someone.

 

[Tom_Baum]

This is very Catholic.

You wrote this in response to, “I was taught in second grade that God Is Love and I accepted that but I did not have a clue that it was/is quite literal until I met God the Father.”

Are you saying that it is “very Catholic” to meet God the Father in this life?

I could be wrong but I do not believe that a lot of people meet God the Father in this life.

Egg-zactly.

Head knowledge is pretty good knowledge.

The trip from the head to the heart can be the longest and shortest of one’s life and also the hardest and easiest of one’s life.

And as I have said before, I do NOT believe that “knowing and believing” mean the same thing, even believing something fervently is just believing it, not knowing it.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

And as I have said before, I do NOT believe that “knowing and believing” mean the same thing, even believing something fervently is just believing it, not knowing it.

You are right. Believing and knowing are not the same thing.

But to be open to believing often opens the door to knowing.

To be closed to believing means we will never know.

 

[tonyrey]

St Thomas makes it quite clear than genuine unbelief is not a sin and it is not culpable:

The quote wasn’t finished because it sufficed to prove that genuine unbelief is not a sin.

1. It is not God who punishes us but the fact that we are members of the human family adversely affected by the sins of our ancestors.
2. St Thomas has already refuted the notion of guilt due to unbelief. The bloodstained history of humanity is irrefutable evidence of suffering inflicted on others through no fault of their own.
3. There is not one jot of evidence for the gratuitous assertion that anyone is on their way to eternal torment. It is gratuitous nonsense to claim the tiniest sin, or even just original sin, is enough for God to punish anyone forever…

I won’t allow myself to answer the second part in detail because I do not want this valuable discussion to get wiped out by the censors. I will say that it doesn’t seem beyond the realm of reasonable possibility to have created only those free and rational creatures whom God has always known would ultimately love him, given the omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence of God.

Thereby depriving countless individuals of the opportunity to exist simply because **their ancestors **would be evil? It would be monstrous injustice to penalise the unborn for events beyond their control. In fact you are advocating the very atrocity of which you accuse God! At least He gives everyone an equal opportunity whereas if you had the power you would implement a moral Holocaust that disregards human rights and the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.

 

[Bradski]

It would be monstrous injustice to penalise the unborn for events beyond their control.

Original sin, anyone?

There appears to be a choice here. God can allow evil people to exist thus not punishing their descendants. But as God knows that that person will take a child’s life, by allowing him to exist, he is punishing the child and the potential descendants of that child.

Looks like a lose-lose situation to me.

But hang on…what if God knows that the evil person will have no descendants (and He obviously does), then not allowing him to exist will have no bad repercussions and only good ones.

There are plenty of examples of serial killers who had no progeny, so your theory doesn’t seem to hold water. Guess there must be some other reason.

 

[PRmerger]

Original sin, anyone?

Original sin isn’t our punishment for the crimes of someone else, Bradski.

Original sin is simply a consequence of the choices of our original parents.

It is a loss of sanctifying grace.

Kind of like a spiritual genetic defect we are all now born with.

 

[PRmerger]

Original sin, anyone?

There appears to be a choice here. God can allow evil people to exist thus not punishing their descendants. But as God knows that that person will take a child’s life, by allowing him to exist, he is punishing the child and the potential descendants of that child.

Looks like a lose-lose situation to me.

But hang on…what if God knows that the evil person will have no descendants (and He obviously does), then not allowing him to exist will have no bad repercussions and only good ones.

There are plenty of examples of serial killers who had no progeny, so your theory doesn’t seem to hold water. Guess there must be some other reason.

There is no “God knows what someone will do or not do”. To God, all is in the Eternal Now.

So God is no more responsible for the sins that you are going to do tomorrow, than He is for the sin you may be choosing at this very moment.

 

[Bradski]

Tony said that is not reasonable for God not to bring someone into existence because that would mean all that persons progeny would then not exist. And that would be unfair on them.

Let’s take Martin Bryant as an example. He massacred 35 people in Tasmania a few years ago. Go knew he was going to do this and He knew that Bryant would not have any descendants. If God had decided that Bryant should not exist, then there would be countless descendants of all those killed who would have the opportunity for life. And no descendants of Bryant who would miss out.

Tony is wrong.

 

[tonyrey]

Original sin, anyone?

There appears to be a choice here. God can allow evil people to exist thus not punishing their descendants. But as God knows that that person will take a child’s life, by allowing him to exist, he is punishing the child and the potential descendants of that child.

Looks like a lose-lose situation to me.

You are assuming that this is the only life we have. It would be a far greater punishment to deprive countless people of the opportunity to exist at all.

But hang on…what if God knows that the evil person will have no descendants (and He obviously does), then not allowing him to exist will have no bad repercussions and only good ones.

There are plenty of examples of serial killers who had no progeny, so your theory doesn’t seem to hold water. Guess there must be some other reason.

It would be very odd if only good people had children. In fact it would cast doubt on whether we have free will at all.

It is also simplistic to classify everyone as good or evil. How does one determine whether a person is sufficiently evil not to be allowed to exist? It is of course quite possible there is already a limit to the amount of needless suffering one individual can cause.

There is no yardstick by which we can decide precisely where to draw the line between freedom and justice. In fact these very concepts transcend human conventions. Otherwise all our moral judgements are arbitrary and every one of us without exception is in a lose-lose situation! There is no heaven, no hell, no goodness, no evil, no freedom, no reason, no purpose, no meaning, nothing…

 

[PRmerger]

Tony said that is not reasonable for God not to bring someone into existence because that would mean all that persons progeny would then not exist. And that would be unfair on them.

True. True.

Let’s take Martin Bryant as an example. He massacred 35 people in Tasmania a few years ago. Go knew he was going to do this and He knew that Bryant would not have any descendants. If God had decided that Bryant should not exist, then there would be countless descendants of all those killed who would have the opportunity for life. And no descendants of Bryant who would miss out.

Tony is wrong.

There is no “God knew he was going to do this”. There is only the Eternal Now for God.

So God no more is responsible for Martin Bryant’s choices when He created Bryant, than He is responsible for your choices at this very moment. It’s all happening in the Eternal Now.

 

[PRmerger]

It would be very odd if only good people had children. In fact it would cast doubt on whether we have free will at all.

Trenchant point.

It is also simplistic to classify everyone as good or evil. How does one determine whether a person is sufficiently evil not to be allowed to exist? It is of course quite possible there is already a limit to the amount of needless suffering one individual can cause.

Indeed.

 

[tonyrey]

Tony said that is not reasonable for God not to bring someone into existence because that would mean all that persons progeny would then not exist. And that would be unfair on them.

Let’s take Martin Bryant as an example. He massacred 35 people in Tasmania a few years ago. Go knew he was going to do this and He knew that Bryant would not have any descendants. If God had decided that Bryant should not exist, then there would be countless descendants of all those killed who would have the opportunity for life. And no descendants of Bryant who would miss out.

Tony is wrong.

Only God knows how many descendants people would have and how many of them would commit atrocities. It is impossible for us to judge who should be allowed to live or prevented from living. It also raises the question of quality rather than quantity. How many Bryants is Gandhi worth?

Any conclusions about a person’s right to life are not based on fact but speculation.

 

[tonyrey]

It would be very odd if only good people had children. In fact it would cast doubt on whether we have free will at all.

It is also simplistic to classify everyone as good or evil. How does one determine whether a person is sufficiently evil not to be allowed to exist? It is of course quite possible there is already a limit to the amount of needless suffering one individual can cause.

Indeed.

I’m looking forward to Brad’s response. He makes us think!

 

[ThinkingSapien]

The quote wasn’t finished because it sufficed to prove that genuine unbelief is not a sin.

What is “unbelief” as used in this context?

 

[PumpkinCookie]

thinkingsapien,

I believe that Aquinas is using the term “unbelief” to mean “negation” or the kind of unbelief common to those who have never heard the gospel. This kind of unbelief would be caused by not having enough information or having the wrong information, and is a punishment of original sin (according to Aquinas). The modern Roman Catholic term would be unbelief due to “invincible ignorance” or ignorance that is not the moral responsibility of the ignorant party because they were unable to access the correct information about the gospel. I’m not sure how anyone with internet access in a free country could possibly qualify as “invincibly ignorant,” but nonetheless I think that’s what we’re talking about here.

tonyrey,

You said:

Thereby depriving countless individuals of the opportunity to exist simply because their ancestors would be evil? It would be monstrous injustice to penalise the unborn for events beyond their control. In fact you are advocating the very atrocity of which you accuse God! At least He gives everyone an equal opportunity whereas if you had the power you would implement a moral Holocaust that disregards human rights and the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.

One cannot be deprived of anything if one does not exist in the first place. This seems to be generally true. One cannot penalize a person who does not exist in the first place. Right? I run into this objection frequently, and have seen it in arguments of several well-known apologists. However, this accusation makes no sense to me.

If God chooses not to create, it is not a “deprivation” or else God is guilty of an infinite deprivation! Aren’t there finite creatures in the universe? Where are the rest of them? Couldn’t there be trillions and trillions of human beings instead of 7 billion? Why has God deprived them of the chance to live?

I’m not advocating an atrocity, since simply not existing in the first place seems to have no moral significance at all. Unicorns don’t exist. Is that an atrocity? Of course not! I’m not saying God should “snuff out” those whom he knows will go to hell, but rather that he shouldn’t have created them in the first place. God would have done no evil by not creating a person, but by creating them in the perfect knowledge that they will spend eternity in hell, he seems to share in the moral responsibility of that horrific fate.

Consider, if you knew with absolute certainty that if you were to have a certain child, that child would grow up to be Stalin, would you not choose to forego marriage in order to spare the lives and freedom of hundreds of millions? How much more would you forego marriage if you knew that your child would be tormented for eternity in hell? It would seem to be the right thing to do, in my opinion.

The number of potentially “saved” descendants of a person in hell has no bearing on whether it was morally justifiable for God to have created the doomed person in the first place. It is impossible to harm a specific hypothetical or potential person since existence must be prior for the harm to occur, though I will grant that it is possible to harm “the future of humanity” in general or something like that. But, what could possibly have harmed “the future of humanity” more than eternal hell? Forget “global warming,” the hell seemingly awaiting most of humanity is infinitely more terrifying and evil!

 

[Tom_Baum]

You are right. Believing and knowing are not the same thing.

But to be open to believing often opens the door to knowing.

To be closed to believing means we will never know.

I agree that there are times that God “rewards” our beliefs with knowledge, sometimes even with knowledge that other people think that it is impossible for God to do.

As far as, “To be closed to believing means we will never know”, I disagree since God can and does do what God chooses to do, not always what we think God should do.

Seems to me that Saul was “closed” to believing that Jesus was Who He Is and yet Jesus had “ideas” of His Own, so to speak, didn’t He?

 

[Tom_Baum]

There is no “God knows what someone will do or not do”. To God, all is in the Eternal Now.

So God is no more responsible for the sins that you are going to do tomorrow, than He is for the sin you may be choosing at this very moment.

You wrote, “There is no “God knows what someone will do or not do”.”

Are you saying that God is NOT Omniscient?

Saying that God knows what a person will or will not do is not the same as saying that God is responsible for the person doing or not doing something.

But to say that, "There is no “God knows what someone will do or not do”, is to say that there is no God that is Omniscient (All-knowing).

Is that what you are saying here, that God is NOT Omniscient (All-knowing)?

 

[Tom_Baum]

Only God knows how many descendants people would have and how many of them would commit atrocities. It is impossible for us to judge who should be allowed to live or prevented from living. It also raises the question of quality rather than quantity. How many Bryants is Gandhi worth?

Any conclusions about a person’s right to life are not based on fact but speculation.

You asked, “How many Bryants is Gandhi worth?”

I was taught in second grade that we are all equal in God’s Eyes so maybe God came up with a better “Plan” than some think possible and some, sad to say, think even acceptable.