Who Deserves to be in Hell?

[Iron_Donkey]

Wouldn’t annihilation be “separating them from existence as much as possible?” Indeed, wouldn’t it be the fullest and most complete separation possible? Can’t God do anything that is possible?

Can is a strong word, and with God, “can not” is nearly the same as “will not”. He certainly has the power to do so, but He will not. To annihilate a person is to actively destroy that which is good - to do evil. The existence of the damned is still a good thing - they don’t think so, but they’re wrong. Given that God will not do evil, annihilation is ruled out.

Well, why not? Are there some things that happen that are not God’s will? How is that possible if he is omnipotent? Are you not OK with God’s will? (That’s ok, we’re all like this I think). But, in heaven, don’t you think you would be OK with God’s will fully and completely? In that case, wouldn’t you not only be OK with the damnation of your friends and family, but actually celebrate it as God’s good plan for them?

Omnipotence is not necessarily equivalent to being the puppet master with every aspect of reality responding to and only responding to tugs on the strings. To be sure, omnipotence implies the raw ability to make the universe like that, but it does not require it [ninja edit: this last “it”=the universe being a mere collection of puppets, not the ability to make it so]. The omnipotent God can allow control over some aspects of reality to be given to others, even if such control is contingent on His continued allowance. We can violate God’s will because God allows us to. God allows us to because our will in itself is good, even if our misuses of it are bad.

But as to why I am not ok with it - what I am not ok with is the fact that my friends (for the sake of discussion) made choices contrary to all that is good. I am not angry with God for being the Goodness that my friends reject, but would rather be less than totally pleased that my friends didn’t choose Goodness.

Oh, I see. Everyone has the grace of final perseverance but some just reject it and go to hell anyway. Wait a minute…what does it mean for the grace to be “of final perseverance” if it doesn’t necessarily bring about…final perseverance?

Graces are offered. They are accepted or not. You use the word “given” as to imply that the offering and the acceptance are the same, that somehow God infuses a person with “final perseverance,” and that after this infusion the person throws it out, violating it by definition. This would indeed be nonsensical, formulated that way, but it’s not what happens (thinking of final perseverance as a thing itself, as opposed to a description of a certain way of responding to God’s graces, which I am not positive is legitimate, but will roll with). Imagine God tossing us a safety rope, and then we either close our hand around the rope that God put there - or not. (Of course, the ability to close our hand is also a gift from God, as is the hand itself, but the choice of whether or not to do so is ours.)

Right, and since God infallibly knows our choices in the “Eternal Now” then he ratifies them by either his action or inaction. If he didn’t want them to make the wrong choice, and he is omnipotent, then he could have prevented it. By choosing to do nothing, he chooses to allow sin. I’m OK with that, but not if it leads to endless punishment when our own existence in the first place is not within the scope of our choices.

Again, “can” is a strong word. God certainly has the raw power to change people’s choices, but such actions have logical ramifications. This could be a whole nother side discussion, but it boils down to the question of whether we’re puppets or men.

God already has puppets, things that do exactly has desired with not choice. Those are inanimate objects, so called because they do nothing in and of themselves, but only react to what is done to them - by God in the direct writing of the laws of the universe, or direct intervention if He so chooses, or by other creatures with will insofar as God allows them to be so affected.

We are not meant to be inanimate objects.

No, I’d rather that those who totally reject and hate God be granted final and total freedom from him: permanent and total annihilation. He can punish them first if that helps. I’d rather that they feel “no force” of the person they have rejected. This seems more logical. God is the ground of being. If we break our relationship totally and completely with being itself…then we cannot exist!

People who are annihilated, if such were to happen, are not “free” from God. They are not anything. They don’t exist. And it is better to exist than not to exist. God does what is good. Their own opinions aside, Hell is objectively better than annihilation. Existence is better than non-existence, because existence is good, and non-existence does not have this good, or, not existing to have anything, any other good.

 

[littlestsouls2]

Question for the proponents of hell:

Are you OK with the idea that someday *your family and your friends will all be in hell?

Because, statistically, they’re more likely than not to end up there, according to the opinion of all the greatest Catholic saints in history.*

Jesus wept over the loss of souls. Many of the Saints did the same.

Jesus said to St. Faustina: “The loss of each soul plunges Me into mortal sadness.”

Grace perfects nature; it does not destroy it. We have fallen natures, so we retain the freedom to reject God.

Chapter XII is relevant to what you said: archive.org/details/happinessofheave00bouduoft

Let’s say God neglects to give your family and your friends the “grace of final perseverance.” The reason why is a “mystery.” But, nonetheless there they are, all of them: in hell forever. Some of them because they weren’t baptized, some of them for failing to believe the Marian dogmas, and some of them for various kinds of common and banal sins.

God doesn’t “neglect” us; we trample grace underfoot. Only those who die in unrepentant mortal sin are damned. The difference between formal sin and material sin is a crucial one. Heresy, for example, can be material sin e.g. in the case of someone of good-will who has been misinformed.

If God’s will is good by definition, then their damnation is good! Hooray!

God’s judgements are just and right; but that doesn’t mean that God ceases to be loving. He does not delight in “the death of the sinner.” We shouldn’t either.

To love God’s will is to adore its goodness and truth. It doesn’t mean that we have to delight in the consequences of human sinfulness.

 

[Glomung]

But…if hell is good and just, why wouldn’t you want to know? Wouldn’t you want front row seats to watch the endless torture of your family and friends? Wouldn’t the blessed in heaven rejoice and revel and the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the damned if it is all part of God’s good plan? If not, why not?

Hell is just, because God is just, and has warned you and all that wayward behavior will lead them to Hell. You can’t get around the FACT that all in Hell are there by their own actions. They REFUSED the good.

Why would anyone want to watch suffering? That is perverse. People in Hell are not my “friends”, they were not even their own friends. You seem to want to gloss over the really obnoxious and hateful nature of evil people.

If someone I know is damned, I trust that God gave him EVERY OPPORTUNITY to redeem himself and he refused all of them.
It’s sad, but it’s the sinners choice.

Just like suicide, it is sad, but if a person is determined to destroy themselves, and will not listen to reason, there is little you can do to stop them.
Hell is the result of spiritual suicide, a person murdered their own soul with sin.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Can is a strong word, and with God, “can not” is nearly the same as “will not”. He certainly has the power to do so, but He will not. To annihilate a person is to actively destroy that which is good - to do evil. The existence of the damned is still a good thing - they don’t think so, but they’re wrong. Given that God will not do evil, annihilation is ruled out.

God could annihilate those who completely hate him, but instead he chooses to allow them to torture themselves physically and spiritually, forever. Right, and this is “good.” I mean, it isn’t “good” from the point of view of the damned but it is “good” from somebody’s point of view right? Like…God and the people in heaven? So again, if it is “good” then shouldn’t we celebrate?

Omnipotence is not necessarily equivalent to being the puppet master with every aspect of reality responding to and only responding to tugs on the strings. To be sure, omnipotence implies the raw ability to make the universe like that, but it does not require it [ninja edit: this last “it”=the universe being a mere collection of puppets, not the ability to make it so]. The omnipotent God can allow control over some aspects of reality to be given to others, even if such control is contingent on His continued allowance. We can violate God’s will because God allows us to. God allows us to because our will in itself is good, even if our misuses of it are bad.

If God delegates his will to us… then isn’t this delegation itself his will? If he knows everything in the “eternal now” and chooses to delegate to us…then aren’t our choices ratified by his delegation? If he ratifies our choices, how can they be said to be “against his will” when he is able but unwilling to do otherwise?

But as to why I am not ok with it - what I am not ok with is the fact that my friends (for the sake of discussion) made choices contrary to all that is good. I am not angry with God for being the Goodness that my friends reject, but would rather be less than totally pleased that my friends didn’t choose Goodness.

God knows in the “eternal now” what your friends choose and allows them to choose it. Then, he allows them to torture themselves for all of eternity. This is good, according to you. So, why not celebrate? God wills their end, so should you, right?

Graces are offered. They are accepted or not. You use the word “given” as to imply that the offering and the acceptance are the same, that somehow God infuses a person with “final perseverance,” and that after this infusion the person throws it out, violating it by definition. This would indeed be nonsensical, formulated that way, but it’s not what happens (thinking of final perseverance as a thing itself, as opposed to a description of a certain way of responding to God’s graces, which I am not positive is legitimate, but will roll with). Imagine God tossing us a safety rope, and then we either close our hand around the rope that God put there - or not. (Of course, the ability to close our hand is also a gift from God, as is the hand itself, but the choice of whether or not to do so is ours.)

OK so we have no way of knowing whether anyone has the grace of final perseverance or not since one can still go to hell with that grace. In that case, precisely what good is it? Is it that it enables one to go to heaven? Wait a minute…I thought you said God isn’t a “puppet master?” If we can’t choose final perseverance unless he pulls one of our strings…is he not a puppet master? Are you saying that God throws everyone the “rope” of final perseverance but some people fail to grab it? In that case, why the distinction “of final perseverance” if is has no such effect for most people (according to the vast majority of all Catholic saints)?

Again, “can” is a strong word. God certainly has the raw power to change people’s choices, but such actions have logical ramifications. This could be a whole nother side discussion, but it boils down to the question of whether we’re puppets or men.

God already has puppets, things that do exactly has desired with not choice. Those are inanimate objects, so called because they do nothing in and of themselves, but only react to what is done to them - by God in the direct writing of the laws of the universe, or direct intervention if He so chooses, or by other creatures with will insofar as God allows them to be so affected.

We are not meant to be inanimate objects.

I think maybe you might be ignoring the central issue here. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, everything that happens must be God’s will. It is contradictory to talk about something that has happened not being God’s will. Could he do nothing about it? No. Did he not know about it? No. Did he just let it happen without interfering? Yes. Then, that is the same thing! He “wills” it by default. Everything is within the locus of his power, so whatever happens within that locus (aka everything that happens) is his will, whether directly or indirectly.

People who are annihilated, if such were to happen, are not “free” from God. They are not anything. They don’t exist. And it is better to exist than not to exist. God does what is good. Their own opinions aside, Hell is objectively better than annihilation. Existence is better than non-existence, because existence is good, and non-existence does not have this good, or, not existing to have anything, any other good.

To be totally free from God is to die and cease to exist. This is a horrific fate. May none of us ever desire this freedom! Existence in hell is better than non-existence? Really?

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Jesus wept over the loss of souls. Many of the Saints did the same.

Jesus said to St. Faustina: “The loss of each soul plunges Me into mortal sadness.”

Grace perfects nature; it does not destroy it. We have fallen natures, so we retain the freedom to reject God.

Chapter XII is relevant to what you said: archive.org/details/happinessofheave00bouduoft

Again, if God’s will is good, and his will is eternal hell for some (most?) people…why weep?

Thanks for the link, I read chapter 12. Even Faustina seems to agree. We weep only because we’re unjust, sentimental chuckleheads. Sounds like Jesus could use her advice. When we get to heaven, we’ll have all that sentimental love squeezed right out of us, and we’ll be perfectly happy ignoring our former friends and family for all eternity. Afterall, since we ignore those we hate in this life, why wouldn’t we do the same in the next? Heaven is seeming like an increasingly chilly place…

So, grace allows us to do the right thing because without it we can only do wrong things. But, we’re not “robots.” We just require special divine intervention to have the freedom to do the right thing in the first place. But, even if we have been given that freedom, we can still choose not to use it I guess. Does that sound right to you? But, where does the ability to choose to reject grace come from? Is it some kind of “slavery?” If it is slavery and we are coerced, how can we be morally blameworthy?

God doesn’t “neglect” us; we trample grace underfoot. Only those who die in unrepentant mortal sin are damned. The difference between formal sin and material sin is a crucial one. Heresy, for example, can be material sin e.g. in the case of someone of good-will who has been misinformed.

Actually, not true. The Church has infallibly defined on more than one occasion that some are damned for original sin alone. Not going to go there, you can read the other threads in the philosophy forum for an extensive discussion.

Ok but anyway, God doesn’t fail to give us grace, we mysteriously reject it. Why do we reject it? How do we know?

God’s judgements are just and right; but that doesn’t mean that God ceases to be loving. He does not delight in “the death of the sinner.” We shouldn’t either.

To love God’s will is to adore its goodness and truth. It doesn’t mean that we have to delight in the consequences of human sinfulness.

Well, to be clear, we’re not talking about the “death” of the sinner, we’re talking about endless torment (an idea totally foreign to Ezekiel).

But wait, honestly, think about this: aren’t the consequences of human sin are also part of God’s will? If not, can he be both omnipotent and omniscient? If he is both simultaneously, then it is logically necessary that the consequences of human sin be part of his will whether active or passive.

Eternal hell is God’s love in action for most of humanity, apparently. This final destination is both fully good and fully true. We should rejoice and be glad about this, right?

 

[NovusFidem]

God knows in the “eternal now” what your friends choose and allows them to choose it. Then, he allows them to torture themselves for all of eternity. This is good, according to you. So, why not celebrate? God wills their end, so should you, right?

God wills that we have choices, that we can choose. The “end” is a result of our choices.

What is good according to Iron Donkey (and Catholics in general) is that God allows us to choose. This is good, this is “free will”.

Does that means He rejoices with the “end” we sometimes choose (as in, eternal damnation)? Not quite. But He allows it.

Why not celebrate? That is a really silly question: we don’t celebrate because they choose badly.

I think maybe you might be ignoring the central issue here. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, everything that happens must be God’s will. It is contradictory to talk about something that has happened not being God’s will. Could he do nothing about it? No. Did he not know about it? No. Did he just let it happen without interfering? Yes. Then, that is the same thing! He “wills” it by default. Everything is within the locus of his power, so whatever happens within that locus (aka everything that happens) is his will, whether directly or indirectly.

All I can say: yes. God wills our ability to choose. God allows terrible things to happen. But if you stop your rationalization at that (and jump to saying He wills it, as in, wants it to happen), you will end up with the image of a terrifying god who cares nothing for his creation (and that is terribly in contrast to the God Christians believe in).

Which is why Iron Donkey said:

Again, “can” is a strong word. God certainly has the raw power to change people’s choices,** but such actions have logical ramifications**. This could be a whole nother side discussion, but it boils down to the question of whether we’re puppets or men.

There are logical ramifications with your idea of what a loving God is that, if you stopped to think about it, makes no sense. Would it be good if God stopped us from doing evil?

Our knee jerk reaction will lead us to say: “Yes - if God is love, He should stop us from doing evil”. But this is a shallow rationalization that doesn’t take into account WHY we were given free will - that is, the CHOICE to do evil.

But, as was said, this is a whole 'nother side discussion…

 

[frangiuliano115]

Again, if God’s will is good, and his will is eternal hell for some (most?) people…why weep?

Thanks for the link, I read chapter 12. Even Faustina seems to agree. We weep only because we’re unjust, sentimental chuckleheads. Sounds like Jesus could use her advice. When we get to heaven, we’ll have all that sentimental love squeezed right out of us, and we’ll be perfectly happy ignoring our former friends and family for all eternity. Afterall, since we ignore those we hate in this life, why wouldn’t we do the same in the next? Heaven is seeming like an increasingly chilly place…

So, grace allows us to do the right thing because without it we can only do wrong things. But, we’re not “robots.” We just require special divine intervention to have the freedom to do the right thing in the first place. But, even if we have been given that freedom, we can still choose not to use it I guess. Does that sound right to you? But, where does the ability to choose to reject grace come from? Is it some kind of “slavery?” If it is slavery and we are coerced, how can we be morally blameworthy?

Actually, not true. The Church has infallibly defined on more than one occasion that some are damned for original sin alone. Not going to go there, you can read the other threads in the philosophy forum for an extensive discussion.

Ok but anyway, God doesn’t fail to give us grace, we mysteriously reject it. Why do we reject it? How do we know?

Well, to be clear, we’re not talking about the “death” of the sinner, we’re talking about endless torment (an idea totally foreign to Ezekiel).

But wait, honestly, think about this: aren’t the consequences of human sin are also part of God’s will? If not, can he be both omnipotent and omniscient? If he is both simultaneously, then it is logically necessary that the consequences of human sin be part of his will whether active or passive.

Eternal hell is God’s love in action for most of humanity, apparently. This final destination is both fully good and fully true. We should rejoice and be glad about this, right?

Your doing a good job of grieving the Holy Spirit and committing the unpardonable sin. However, you don’t care so we’ll let it go.

I’d like to help you out a bit as you continue your debate:

The problem with God allowing evil is not because we want to claim that He’s omnipotent and omniscient.

The problem is that He’s omnipotent and all-good. He is either not a good God or He is not all powerful. His knowing all has nothing to do with this problem.

Annihilation, which is what atheists believe, is a really chilly place.

Fran

 

[Iron_Donkey]

God could annihilate those who completely hate him, but instead he chooses to allow them to torture themselves physically and spiritually, forever. … So again, if it is “good” then shouldn’t we celebrate?

Good is not a matter of point of view. We all have our point of view, but then there is objective goodness, and if our point of view disagrees with it then we are wrong.

But your argument could be extended: A doctor could murder his Alzheimer’s patients who don’t want to be in the care facility, and who are not happy, and who are in mental and physical pain. But he chooses to allow them to continue to live, despite being in continual discomfort. Their lives have value.

I would say that the care facilities, as minimal as the help they provide may be, are good, but the situation of a particular person needing them is bad.

If God delegates his will to us… then isn’t this delegation itself his will? If he knows everything in the “eternal now” and chooses to delegate to us…then aren’t our choices ratified by his delegation? …

The delegation and the choices of the delegate are two different things, no ratification implied. The delegation, as you call it, is willed in and of itself, independent of what the delegate does because the delegation ITSELF is good.

OK so we have no way of knowing whether anyone has the grace of final perseverance or not … In that case, precisely what good is it? Is it that it enables one to go to heaven? … If we can’t choose final perseverance unless he pulls one of our strings…is he not a puppet master? Are you saying that God throws everyone the “rope” of final perseverance but some people fail to grab it? In that case, why the distinction “of final perseverance” …?

You persist in acting as though when God offers someone a grace, He forces them to act in a certain way until they choose not to. Instead, a grace is a gift we accept or not. God enables and encourages every step, He opens the doors, but we choose to walk through them.

But we are not yanked through. Now, you could say that the choice of which doors to open could be used to pull strings, and I’m not saying that God does not influence events in this way, but He does not do so in a way that overrides our will, and He always leaves the door to salvation open.

And yes, everyone is thrown the rope, some fail to grab it, some grab for a while, then let go. The phrase “final perseverance” does not imply that God duct tapes our hands to the rope, but, from the Newadvent Encyclopedia, rather refers to “an ever watchful superintendence … removing temptations which He sees will be fatal to us, succouring us at those times when we are in particular peril,…, and ordering the course of our life so that we may die at a time when He sees that we are in the state of grace.”

Or basically God is on our side, working to save us. And yes, He is on all of our sides, though we can rebuff His help. That God does what is best for everyone, taking their will into account, is something that we can trust because God is, you know, good. Whether it will certainly result in our salvation is unknowable to us.

…If God is omnipotent and omniscient, everything that happens must be God’s will. It is contradictory to talk about something that has happened not being God’s will. … He “wills” it by default. Everything is within the locus of his power, so whatever happens within that locus … is his will, whether directly or indirectly.

And do you think that directly and indirectly are the same? There are in fact two central issues. The first is what you say, that God has control over everything which He wishes to control. You emphasize that well enough.

The second is that God wishes us to control some things because that is in and of itself a good thing. And so we do. Our will is ours. What we choose, we choose. This is important.

Does God possess the raw power to stop or change it? Of course. Does this mean that our actions, even the most evil ones, are “acceptable” to God, in the sense that He won’t do whatever it takes to stop them? Well, yes, but that’s a pretty bad definition of “acceptable.” Any genocide in the world could be stopped with a couple well placed nukes, and your favorite nuclear power likely has enough of them. Does that mean that the U.S. (for instance) approves of genocide (grave evil) because it won’t cause a larger genocide (bigger evil) to put a stop to it? No.

Rather, the (relatively) civilized powers of the world, even though they possess the raw power to put a stop to nearly anything they don’t like, choose subtler methods than killing everyone. In the same way, God works to stop us from choosing things that are evil, but not by using the metaphysical nukes of mind control and annihilation.

Of course, He knows what will and will not dissuade us from evil, because He’s God. How do we know that He will do what is best for each of us? Again, He’s God. That’s kind of His thing.

To be totally free from God is to die and cease to exist. This is a horrific fate. May none of us ever desire this freedom! Existence in hell is better than non-existence? Really?

You aren’t free if you don’t exist. You aren’t anything. Because you don’t exist. A person who does not exist does not have any attributes whatsoever, freedom or otherwise, because to have attributes requires existence.

There is no positive, to annihilation. To annihilate the damned is to take someone who has thrown away nearly everything good that they possess, and to strip them even of that last bit they have remaining when they are at their most vulnerable. This is evil.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Your doing a good job of grieving the Holy Spirit and committing the unpardonable sin. However, you don’t care so we’ll let it go.

I’d like to help you out a bit as you continue your debate:

The problem with God allowing evil is not because we want to claim that He’s omnipotent and omniscient.

The problem is that He’s omnipotent and all-good. He is either not a good God or He is not all powerful. His knowing all has nothing to do with this problem.

Annihilation, which is what atheists believe, is a really chilly place.

Fran

Well, I am taking it as a given that God is all-good and trying to come up with an explanation for why most of his sons and daughters are burning in hell in the “eternal now” (taken as another given). From my point of view, it must be either because he is not omnipotent or not omniscient, or maybe both.

Personally, I believe that God is all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing but I also don’t believe in endless hell.

If the Holy Spirit is God or part of God or a person of God, then how can he be grieved? Is he not immutable? Is grief not dependent upon change? Just out of curiosity, what specifically is my offense? What do you believe is my “unpardonable sin?” Go ahead, I welcome your judgment and appreciate your wisdom.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Good is not a matter of point of view…[SNIP]…needing them is bad.

OK cool. So, if anyone is sad about the souls in hell, they’re wrong, because hell is objectively good. So, again, celebrate! I mean, even if you aren’t so happy about it right now, as you grow in holiness, and your will becomes more aligned with God’s, you’ll feel better and better about the state of the damned, and in heaven, you’ll rejoice at their sufferings because they reveal God’s glorious wrath and justice! Right?

The doctor shouldn’t murder the patients because murder is wrong, and he doesn’t have perfect knowledge of the situation. We don’t know what goods the Alzheimer’s patients have, we are not omniscient. However, it certainly seems like endless torment with no hope of redemption, repentance, or release can’t possibly be good! But, it must be. So, why not celebrate it? Why not praise God for the goodness of hell?

The delegation and the choices of the delegate are two different things, no ratification implied. The delegation, as you call it, is willed in and of itself, independent of what the delegate does because the delegation ITSELF is good.

So, the means justify the ends? I think that is a good ethical theory for limited humans, actually. Unfortunately, God has infallible knowledge of the ends in the “eternal now” so there isn’t a meaningful distinction here. In your view, does God “let the chips fall where they may” because he values free will above all else, even more than love? Question: how can one who is all-knowing not be responsible for “letting the chips fall where they may” when he knows precisely where they are falling in the “eternal now?”

You persist in acting as though when God offers someone a grace, He forces them to act in a certain way until they choose not to…[SNIP]… unknowable to us.

If God is on our side, working to save us, why does he fail so much and so spectacularly (if we believe the opinion of most Catholic saints)? If the grace of final perseverance has a lower success rate than simple chance, what good is it? I agree that God does what is best for everyone, but is endless torment really best for us? If so, then we should celebrate! And yet…no one does…

And do you think that directly and indirectly are the same? There are in fact two central issues. The first is what you say, that God has control over everything which He wishes to control. You emphasize that well enough.

The second is that God wishes us to control some things because that is in and of itself a good thing. And so we do. Our will is ours. What we choose, we choose. This is important.

Does God possess the raw power to stop or change it? Of course. Does this mean that our actions, even the most evil ones, are “acceptable” to God, in the sense that He won’t do whatever it takes to stop them? Well, yes, but that’s a pretty bad definition of “acceptable.” Any genocide in the world could be stopped with a couple well placed nukes, and your favorite nuclear power likely has enough of them. Does that mean that the U.S. (for instance) approves of genocide (grave evil) because it won’t cause a larger genocide (bigger evil) to put a stop to it? No.

Rather, the (relatively) civilized powers of the world, even though they possess the raw power to put a stop to nearly anything they don’t like, choose subtler methods than killing everyone. In the same way, God works to stop us from choosing things that are evil, but not by using the metaphysical nukes of mind control and annihilation.

Of course, He knows what will and will not dissuade us from evil, because He’s God. How do we know that He will do what is best for each of us? Again, He’s God. That’s kind of His thing.

They are the same. By abdicating control, or giving control to us, he is ratifying our choices. He could stop us without killing us or removing our free will. He could merely put us in a different situation. He chooses not to. By choosing not to, he approves. This doesn’t mean that there is no such thing as sin or evil, but rather that God allows both and approves of both because we have collectively chosen to “learn the hard way” in this life via sin and repentance rather than innocence. That is fine, but if we “fail the test” because we obstinately refuse to learn, it isn’t fair for him to punish us endlessly because we did not choose to take the test in the first place. It is much more reasonable to suppose that we forfeit our existence if we refuse to learn.

You aren’t free if you don’t exist. You aren’t anything. Because you don’t exist. A person who does not exist does not have any attributes whatsoever, freedom or otherwise, because to have attributes requires existence.

There is no positive, to annihilation. To annihilate the damned is to take someone who has thrown away nearly everything good that they possess, and to strip them even of that last bit they have remaining when they are at their most vulnerable. This is evil.

Annihilation is the final and most radical act of freedom of the soul who obstinately hates God. It is the final end of he who values his own freedom over and against absolutely everyone and everything else, even God. Such a person cannot live! By cutting themselves off from God, they have undone themselves. You’re right, it is radically evil. But, God does not have to “strip” them of anything. They do it themselves. May we never do this!

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Hell is just, because God is just, and has warned you and all that wayward behavior will lead them to Hell. You can’t get around the FACT that all in Hell are there by their own actions. They REFUSED the good.

Why would anyone want to watch suffering? That is perverse. People in Hell are not my “friends”, they were not even their own friends. You seem to want to gloss over the really obnoxious and hateful nature of evil people.

If someone I know is damned, I trust that God gave him EVERY OPPORTUNITY to redeem himself and he refused all of them.
It’s sad, but it’s the sinners choice.

I have never met a “really obnoxious and hateful” person in my life. How fortunate I am! From my point of view, hell must be quite empty, if only “really obnoxious and hateful” people go there. And yet, the virtual consensus of Catholic saints is that most of us will end up in hell. Are we all so hateful and obnoxious?

I agree, who would want to watch the suffering? And yet, Tertullian and Aquinas think it will be quite pleasant. Odd…

Just like suicide, it is sad, but if a person is determined to destroy themselves, and will not listen to reason, there is little you can do to stop them.
Hell is the result of spiritual suicide, a person murdered their own soul with sin.

Oh, I so agree! It is sad. But, in your analogy, suicide leads to death right? So, why would spiritual suicide lead to eternal life filled with endless suffering? There seems to be an asymmetry here…

 

[HeartnSoulMan]

I read once of a saint who was allowed to travel in visions into hell and converse with people who were damned. The youngest person they found damned was eight years old at their death.

The person had committed only one sin God knew that the person would never be sorry for that sin and took her out of the world as a lesson for all of us as to God’s sense of Justice.

The eight year old girls one sin that lead to her eternal damnation was that she took the name of God in Vain. ONCE.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

I read once of a saint who was allowed to travel in visions into hell and converse with people who were damned. The youngest person they found damned was eight years old at their death.

The person had committed only one sin God knew that the person would never be sorry for that sin and took her out of the world as a lesson for all of us as to God’s sense of Justice.

The eight year old girls one sin that lead to her eternal damnation was that she took the name of God in Vain. ONCE.

Your god torments 8 year old children for eternity just to make an example out of them?

 

[truetofaith]

Please folks…get over it! There is a hell…and whoever rejects God & His 10 Commandments will go there. Even you or your momma or papa.

You must work out your salvation in “fear & trembling.”

Jesus spoke of eternal damnation many times. Matt. 25 :46. for one.

Lazarus & the rich man for another.

Just make sure you live your life so you won’t land there!

 

[Alex_H]

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Therefore, we all deserve to be in hell. God, in his mercy, allowed Jesus to be sacrificed for the sins of whoever believes in him.

 

[Alex_H]

Your god torments 8 year old children for eternity just to make an example out of them?

Your God allows mass murderers to be in heaven with everyone else?

 

[littlestsouls2]

Again, if God’s will is good, and his will is eternal hell for some (most?) people…why weep?

Love. If I had a friend in jail for murder, I would be sad, but it would be just.

Thanks for the link, I read chapter 12. Even Faustina seems to agree. We weep only because we’re unjust, sentimental chuckleheads. Sounds like Jesus could use her advice. When we get to heaven, we’ll have all that sentimental love squeezed right out of us, and we’ll be perfectly happy ignoring our former friends and family for all eternity. Afterall, since we ignore those we hate in this life, why wouldn’t we do the same in the next? Heaven is seeming like an increasingly chilly place…

Thanks for taking the time to read it.

The fact that Jesus suffered so much for souls, and continues to use us to bring souls back to Him - including those who hate Him - is a testament to His love. Our love is but a dim reflection of God’s love, a participation in it. It follows, then, that we cannot even in principle compare the extent of our love with God’s. The same can be said of our intelligence. It is for these reasons, among others, that I believe Heaven will be perfect, even if I can’t quite grasp how.

So, grace allows us to do the right thing because without it we can only do wrong things. But, we’re not “robots.” We just require special divine intervention to have the freedom to do the right thing in the first place. But, even if we have been given that freedom, we can still choose not to use it I guess. Does that sound right to you? But, where does the ability to choose to reject grace come from? Is it some kind of “slavery?” If it is slavery and we are coerced, how can we be morally blameworthy?

Fr. William Most touches on this subject in his book,‘Grace, Predestination and the Salvific Will.’ He’s more learned than me. I cannot give you a good philosophical answer to your question, any more than I can prove that the will of God is free or otherwise. Some things are simply beyond our understanding.

Actually, not true. The Church has infallibly defined on more than one occasion that some are damned for original sin alone. Not going to go there, you can read the other threads in the philosophy forum for an extensive discussion.

I am familiar with that teaching. Such souls suffer a privation; they are not inflicted with positive sufferings, so called. They still experience perfect natural happiness, according to the Saints etc.

Well, to be clear, we’re not talking about the “death” of the sinner, we’re talking about endless torment (an idea totally foreign to Ezekiel).

Spiritual death. ‘The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance.’ (2 Peter 3:9)

But wait, honestly, think about this: aren’t the consequences of human sin are also part of God’s will? If not, can he be both omnipotent and omniscient? If he is both simultaneously, then it is logically necessary that the consequences of human sin be part of his will whether active or passive.

His permissive or consequent will, yes. The fact is that both good and evil exist. God cannot be the cause of both, even in principle.

Eternal hell is God’s love in action for most of humanity, apparently. This final destination is both fully good and fully true. We should rejoice and be glad about this, right?

The Saints saved many souls. We can do the same if we wish. The salvific will of God is not to be measured by our poor correspondence with His grace.

After reading the lives of many “victim souls”, I have come to form a far greater appreciation for God’s intense desire to save us. I also believe, like a certain Servant of God, that God might save more than we think.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Your God allows mass murderers to be in heaven with everyone else?

Sometimes I suppose, if they repent. Doesn’t the Christian god do that too? Read Ezekiel chapter 18.

 

[NovusFidem]

Your God allows mass murderers to be in heaven with everyone else?

**Unrepentant **mass murderers, you mean!

Our God actually allows anyone up there, as long as the person accepts His Truth and His love (both of which leads one to repent their sins).

We are no better than murderers if we insist on doing wrong. For us, our sins might seem little compared to other people’s, but to God our “small” sins are still keeping us from meeting Him.

 

[frangiuliano115]

I read once of a saint who was allowed to travel in visions into hell and converse with people who were damned. The youngest person they found damned was eight years old at their death.

The person had committed only one sin God knew that the person would never be sorry for that sin and took her out of the world as a lesson for all of us as to God’s sense of Justice.

The eight year old girls one sin that lead to her eternal damnation was that she took the name of God in Vain. ONCE.

May I respectfully suggest that you get your information from the bible, the Word of God, and not saints.

What you say above goes against every christian principle, be it catholic or protestant.

We are not to believe everything saints write. Only what is in line with catholic teaching.

I agree with PumpkinCookie.

I wouldn’t want to serve a God like that either!

Thankfully, I’m not.

Fran