Today's Gospel

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Today we read Matthew 25: 31-46 at mass. I understand this gospel as Jesus condemning those who fail to help the suffering, ill, or otherwise needy to eternal torment. Here is my issue, and I do think it is properly a question of moral philosophy or ethics:

If failing to mitigate the suffering of others is damnable, isn’t God himself the most guilty of us all?

If Jesus is claiming that we are morally obligated to help the needy and suffering, then why does God refrain from doing the same? Isn’t God guilty of failing to do good to those who are suffering? Indeed, isn’t his guilt infinitely deeper than ours ever could be, since he is both omnipotent and omniscient? If Jesus is saying we deserve eternal punishment for failing to do the little amount of good we could (due to our limits of resources, time, knowledge, etc) then isn’t God all the more guilty for failing to alleviate and eradicate all suffering?

If God himself appeared at the final judgement, would he himself not deserve punishment for the infinite amount of good he has chosen to withhold from so many suffering people?

Where is my error, and what is its nature?

Thank you.
 
The error is that you have not yet read either your bible or your catechism.

This is far and away the most bizarre post I have ever read from a self described Catholic.
 
Here is the text I am talking about:

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’
Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’
He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’”

Consider a child starving to death. You have the power to feed that child. There are myriad charities to which you could donate money or other resources to prevent that child from starving. If you choose to refrain from helping, are you not guilty? Do you not deserve “eternal fire?” Is this not what Jesus is saying?

Consider a child starving to death. God has the power to miraculously feed that child. Yet he chooses not to do so. Is he not guilty? Why not? Is he not even more guilty than you would be, since he has endless resources and knowledge? Why not?

You seem to know a lot more than I do, and seem to never have met someone so confused as me, so I hope you can help. Thanks.
 
You know there is a song i hear on the radio about a man who sees all the suffering and injustice in the world and he screams at God “Why dont you do something about it” and the answer God returns to him is “I did, I sent you.”
I dont know the name of the song or who sings it but i love singing along to it.

If God took care of all the needs, how would we know we needed him?
 
ON A SIDE NOTE: there are a lot of posts today on today’s gospel reading. Isnt it wonderful to have his message touch so many and elicit so many questions and responses on it.

Who says the Holy Spirit isnt working on us at Mass.🙂

👍 His truth is alive; then, now, and always.
 
PumpkinCookie said:
Today we read Matthew 25: 31-46 at mass. I understand this gospel as Jesus condemning those who fail to help the suffering, ill, or otherwise needy to eternal torment. Here is my issue, and I do think it is properly a question of moral philosophy or ethics:

If failing to mitigate the suffering of others is damnable, isn’t God himself the most guilty of us all?

If Jesus is claiming that we are morally obligated to help the needy and suffering, then why does God refrain from doing the same? Isn’t God guilty of failing to do good to those who are suffering? Indeed, isn’t his guilt infinitely deeper than ours ever could be, since he is both omnipotent and omniscient? If Jesus is saying we deserve eternal punishment for failing to do the little amount of good we could (due to our limits of resources, time, knowledge, etc) then isn’t God all the more guilty for failing to alleviate and eradicate all suffering?

If God himself appeared at the final judgement, would he himself not deserve punishment for the infinite amount of good he has chosen to withhold from so many suffering people?

Where is my error, and what is its nature?

Thank you.
Click to expand...
God allows a radical freedom in this world- for His purposes; He allows man to play God, so we can see how we do; we’re His hands here on earth, or the devil’s hands, or somewhere in between. We can’t say, “God made me do it”; man is a morally responsible being no matter how you cut it.
 
PumpkinCookie said:
Today we read Matthew 25: 31-46 at mass. I understand this gospel as Jesus condemning those who fail to help the suffering, ill, or otherwise needy to eternal torment. Here is my issue, and I do think it is properly a question of moral philosophy or ethics:

If failing to mitigate the suffering of others is damnable, isn’t God himself the most guilty of us all?

If Jesus is claiming that we are morally obligated to help the needy and suffering, then why does God refrain from doing the same? Isn’t God guilty of failing to do good to those who are suffering? Indeed, isn’t his guilt infinitely deeper than ours ever could be, since he is both omnipotent and omniscient? If Jesus is saying we deserve eternal punishment for failing to do the little amount of good we could (due to our limits of resources, time, knowledge, etc) then isn’t God all the more guilty for failing to alleviate and eradicate all suffering?

If God himself appeared at the final judgement, would he himself not deserve punishment for the infinite amount of good he has chosen to withhold from so many suffering people?

Where is my error, and what is its nature?

Thank you.
Click to expand...
Okay. God desires no one to suffer. But He allows suffering to occur. Why? First of all, Adam and Eve were punished by suffering for their disobedience. Secondly, the suffering of others allows us to do good for others, and be truly helpmates in doing His Will. Jesus’s words describing the Last Judgment are important for us to hear - sins of omission are just as damning as sins of commission. This isn’t the only parable that has that theme - think the parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke. And yet, when we recount our sins in confession, we tend to ignore sins of omission, often because we have blinded ourselves to them, and to those who actually need help.
 
PumpkinCookie said:
Today we read Matthew 25: 31-46 at mass. I understand this gospel as Jesus condemning those who fail to help the suffering, ill, or otherwise needy to eternal torment. Here is my issue, and I do think it is properly a question of moral philosophy or ethics:

If failing to mitigate the suffering of others is damnable, isn’t God himself the most guilty of us all?

If Jesus is claiming that we are morally obligated to help the needy and suffering, then why does God refrain from doing the same? Isn’t God guilty of failing to do good to those who are suffering? Indeed, isn’t his guilt infinitely deeper than ours ever could be, since he is both omnipotent and omniscient? If Jesus is saying we deserve eternal punishment for failing to do the little amount of good we could (due to our limits of resources, time, knowledge, etc) then isn’t God all the more guilty for failing to alleviate and eradicate all suffering?

If God himself appeared at the final judgement, would he himself not deserve punishment for the infinite amount of good he has chosen to withhold from so many suffering people?

Where is my error, and what is its nature?

Thank you.
Click to expand...
You’ve missed an important point. WE are the hands and feet for God in the world. We’re supposed to do Gods will by serving others and repeatedly we fail, from Adam on… That’s why we needed Christ to redeem us from our sin. Now if God continually protects us and doesn’t let us live by the consequences of our actions will we ever learn what is right and is that really ‘living?’ There is no one good but God alone, that’s what Jesus teaches us, so we have allowed suffering to happen in this world. But looking at it from a bigger perspective, or the eyes of God, there cannot be good without the bad bring us forth to the good so by Gods providence everything happens for a reason…

Jesus came so there would be peace on earth good will toward men and we should continue Jesus mission to fulfill that prophecy…
 
Thank you all for your attempts to help me. A couple of you said something like this:
  1. We’re supposed to do God’s will by mitigating the suffering of others. God helps us by using those who do his will to alleviate the suffering of others.
My question for you: Is God limited to working through those people who do his will? Can he not act on his own without anyone else? None of us can cure certain diseases, or prevent natural disasters, no matter how much we desire to do God’s will. But, God could easily do both, and yet refrains. Is he not guilty?
  1. God allows many human beings to suffer horrific evil because it is “good for us” in one way or another, like to “learn what is right” or “so we can know that we need him” or because it builds character as some people like to say.
My question for you: Catholic theology says that it is not permissible to do evil so that good may result. Even if suffering is “good for (at least some of) us” in some way, has not God worked evil so that good may result? Consider a child being tortured and murdered, or aborted. God has allowed this great evil. Can there be any justification? Do the ends justify the means? Is he not guilty? What if you saw a child being tortured and you refused to help because you thought the pain, humiliation, and death of the child would be “good for us” in some way? Would you not be guilty? And, if you in your limited power and knowledge could be guilty, how can God, with infinite power and knowledge, be innocent?

In sum, is God guilty of vast sins of omission or not? Why not?
 
PumpkinCookie said:
Thank you all for your attempts to help me. A couple of you said something like this:
  1. We’re supposed to do God’s will by mitigating the suffering of others. God helps us by using those who do his will to alleviate the suffering of others.
My question for you: Is God limited to working through those people who do his will? Can he not act on his own without anyone else? None of us can cure certain diseases, or prevent natural disasters, no matter how much we desire to do God’s will. But, God could easily do both, and yet refrains. Is he not guilty?
  1. God allows many human beings to suffer horrific evil because it is “good for us” in one way or another, like to “learn what is right” or “so we can know that we need him” or because it builds character as some people like to say.
My question for you: Catholic theology says that it is not permissible to do evil so that good may result. Even if suffering is “good for (at least some of) us” in some way, has not God worked evil so that good may result? Consider a child being tortured and murdered, or aborted. God has allowed this great evil. Can there be any justification? Do the ends justify the means? Is he not guilty? What if you saw a child being tortured and you refused to help because you thought the pain, humiliation, and death of the child would be “good for us” in some way? Would you not be guilty? And, if you in your limited power and knowledge could be guilty, how can God, with infinite power and knowledge, be innocent?

In sum, is God guilty of vast sins of omission or not? Why not?
Click to expand...
Remember what Jesus said: No one is good but God?

Mark 10:18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. "No one is good–except God alone.

A persons perception of God may not be right on because people need to look at the bigger picture. God is the Creator, He Creates and is spirit which can touch every bit of our lives. God isn’t a man who is outside of ourselves, but rather works within us and around us spiritually. God can help with our spiritual battles but what about the worldly ones? God is spirit and doesn’t control our lives without our cooperation or else he would have taken back ‘free will’. We are the Created. Nature is the created as well. Once Nature is created it take a life of it’s own or else it wouldn’t be what it does ‘naturally’ and it is in this ‘natural state’, that it gives life to the world. In other words, the nature of nature, because of rain, causes the crops to grow and the seas to fill with water. So we learn in the scriptures that God rains on the righteous as well as the unrighteous. So now who would bear the storm better? The Righteous or the unrighteous? The Holy or the Unholy? Life is precious and we’re supposed to do all we can to preserve and protect it. We will never as long as we are in our human condition be able to escape storms, but God puts us in the position in which we can bear the storms much better. Look at Jesus Himself, He suffered and died at the hands of men, but in that very act, salvation was brought to us. If Jesus were an earthly King He could have called a thousand servants to help Him, but Jesus Kingdom is different. It is not of this world and that should send a message to us about our human responsibilities in this world to Love and serve the Lord by serving Gods people which I believe is what that sermon was about. If we’re not helping others, we’re not really doing what God wants us to do. We serve God by serving others.

John 18:36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

Regarding curing diseases, people have forgotten just how many babies didn’t make it out of infancy in the ancient days. It’s true that more babies than not didn’t make it out of infancy. But the goodness of people have brought about hospitals and medical science so that now more children live than die past infancy. God doesn’t do these things alone, but God creates miracles of healing so that we can learn how to better help children, say with the discovery of new medicines, or the building of hospitals. God gives us everything that we need to survive, but doesn’t do everything for us, that he leaves for us to figure out as our purpose in life or Gods will which is to love and SERVE one another. The problem here is that people don’t recognize the gifts that God does give us in order that we live and live more abundantly. Miracles are signs of Gods presence in the world and I believe they happen every day. So God helps us in ways that we don’t acknowledge, so in all circumstances we should acknowledge God and then we begin to see just how much God really helps us in our day to day life and we should bear witness to that and be thankful to God for all we have and who we are for none of this would be possible without God. This is one of my favorite scriptures.

Micah 6:8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
 
God’s promise is at the Last Judgement He will bring about final justice. In the meantime, He permits suffering and evil to happen.

However, bear in mind that God sees all this suffering and evil.

He sees the brutal father beating his child to death. He sees the abortionists slaughtering unborn children. He sees terrorist murdering other people. He sees the Gulags, He sees the starving children and a careless world ignoring them. He sees the arms race. He sees the rapine. He sees the sex trade - every single instance. He sees the waste of resources. He sees the corruption.

He sees it all.

One might wonder if HIs patience is starting to wear thin. I mean how would you feel if you had to watch a thousand murders a day? A bunch like ISIS wiping out a village? Smug politicians sitting in their ivory palaces passing legislation to butcher unborn children?

He sees the lot. And He forgets nothing. I would think the accumulated human sin down the centuries probably gets to Him after a while, particularly when He considers the same human race also murdered His Son. Not content with mistreating each other, we decided to go after the big one as well.

That’s why Revelation talks about “bowls of wrath”, and I think they’re getting close to running over.

In the meantime He tolerates our behaviour “with great patience” as St. Paul put it, since He knows our hearts by what we think, say and do.
 
I identify with those suffering and bear absolutely no grudge against God.
Quite the contrary, He has opened my half-blind eyes to “see” His truth.
This makes me want to fall to my knees and weep.
I know Him to be Love and live in hope of life eternal, face-to-face with Him.

I am not sure what you are talking about. How else other than by helping one another can we actualize our love?

You stand in judgement of God, focussing on His power which He relinquishes that we might freely choose ultimately for love.
It is so easy to not see the mystery that we are.
I prefer to be astounded, amazed, in awe of the miracle that is life particularly that aspect that is love.

And, who better to judge, than Love itself, knowing what each and one of us is capable of and what we have done with His gifts.
 
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