Who says we 'choose' Hell?

[Tantum_ergo]

But surely, imagine a person has lead a life of sin, not really believing in Heaven and Hell. Then, he wakes up dead, and sees it is all real. Surely, everyone would repent then, at least for fear of the eternal torments, and because they would know for sure that Divine Law was actually from God, and not simply a man-made convention.

In life, many people do not see these things clearly.

Actually, people see things quite clearly but become masters at self-deception.

Remember by definition a mortal sin involves knowledge and full consent.

You simply cannot argue that a person who knew something was gravely wrong, really knew it, and freely chose to do it and did not repent is going to magically change his or her mind based on ‘reality of hell’.

As if God is cheating us by somehow depriving us of a knowledge of reality that we don’t ‘get in life’. He isn’t.

What we get at death is not some kind of knowledge that we didn’t have in life–

what we get is all our ‘rationalizations’ and our self-deception attempts stripped away.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I genuinely cannot imagine such a person.

Really? You can’t picture say a rich rock star who has had it all, drank, drugged, engaged in adultery and fornication, lied, cheated, stolen, all the way writing and blogging about how great he was and how he had no regrets etc suddenly finding himself not just in front of God, but in front of himself and all his ‘fans’, knowing that repenting his sins will require him to acknowledge that he --the marvelous magical wonderful HE whose inflated ego he has been stoking for decades, without doing any sort of work or contemplation on anything other than ‘gratifying me at any cost’, who has been systematically AVOIDING anything that doesn’t gratify him–is going to be required in front of GOD and ‘everybody’ to admit that he wasn’t just wrong on an occasion or two–he spent and indeed WASTED HIS ENTIRE LIFE being deliberately, OFFENSIVELY, DIABOLICALLY wrong to himself and God and the entire universe.

**Imagine the shock to such an ego. **

Now imagine that you even now have a choice. . .You can keep on ‘gratifying your ego’. You don’t HAVE to be sorry for your life and sins–you can keep them forever.

**All the things you spent your life trying to have–all the memories of being adored and praised, all the memories of the women you had, all the people you ‘got the better of’, all the glorious experiences of being drunk and high --you can KEEP THEM ALL for eternity. You can keep your illusion of having it YOUR WAY. . .by rejecting God. **

Remember too, that even though Heaven is spoken of as ‘all joy’ and Hell as ‘all pain’, that to such an ego, the admission of being wrong would be hell to Him, and the keeping of his evil life would be heaven.

Some have postulated, and I think it a distinct possibility, that since God is everywhere, Heaven and Hell are the same thing/place, except that in Heaven, everyone has his or her eyes fixed on God in love. .and in Hell, everybody has turned his or her eyes away from God in hate.

**IOW, GOD is still right there. His love is still right there. But He doesn’t force it on those who don’t want it. **

The IMAGERY of hell (remember, nobody has actually BEEN there and taken videos) is based on imperfect human imagination. (same with heaven). . .

So the idea that people are somehow so incredibly ‘rational’ that they will just turn around from pitchforks and stuff is based on an image that might not exist.

How many people might turn around from looking at themselves as they really are and prefer to look at themselves as they want to be?

 

[ApologiaSophia]

Fair enough…but please consider a couple of more things…

What is the name of the Lord that Joel refers to here? And correct me if I’m wrong here but did not the peoples of Joel’s time refuse to utter the name of the Lord, calling out simply “Lord” instead of His name “I AM who AM”?
So - if none of the people will call on the name of the Lord, how can they be saved?
I don’t say this to be a smart alack but to make the point.
Surely one can respond that it is less about the specific syllables and more about the intent and I would agree with you.
The essence of the God that saves is Agape…and if one is touched by Agape, then why should we not say that God has touched that person.

And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?

And without Love, faith is worthless (1 Cor 13:1-13)…for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God (1 John 4:7). So how can one say that he who loves (Agape) cannot be saved simply because he does not know the right syllables to speak? either Because they have not heard the Gospel or because the Gospel they did hear was poorly explained or delivered by one who lacks charity…For remember too that
Not all who cry Lord Lord will enter the kingdom, but only those who do the will of the Father who is in heaven.(Mt 7:21-29)

Amen - being led to Christ should be the goal for the road is certainly easier through having the guidance of the Church. But let us not forget how the story of the Rich young man ended…With Peter asking, “Then how can anyone be saved?” and Jesus replying, “For man it is not possible, but with God all things are possible”.

Peace
James

1. I agree calling on the name of the Lord is about intent, but I do not think calling on the name of Krishna is the same intent as calling on the name of the Lord. The same YHWH of Joel is the same YHWH of today. Jesus said That if we know him we know the father, because they are one. If they do not know Christ, they cannot know the Father.
2. I am not trying to say that faith without love can save. I am saying love without faith cannot save either, and that one cannot love God and not know God. Let me be clear, I am not talking about semantics. If Christ revealed Himself to some secluded indigenous, any the gave the Godhead a different “name” that is fine. What I am saying is that they cannot know Agape until they know Christ, and one can only know Christ by faith. This is different than saying that the Hindu who calls on Krishna is really calling on Christ with a different name and understanding, but with the same intent. Maybe I am misunderstanding your position, but if that is what is being argued it s untrue according to Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. For “Having a form of godliness they are lacking in the power thereof.” and as Paul said “I am unashamed of the Gospel because it is thee power of God unto salvation.”
3. Anyone who is outside of the Church cannot be saved, as only the those in the Ark could be saved in the days of Noah. Of course, I do not believe the Church are those in communion with Rome. Rather the Church is in communion with Christ. But one who does not know Christ cannot fellowship with him. The Holy Spirit can reveal the truth of God to anyone anywhere, but it will be the Truth. God will not reveal Himself to Hindu through Vishnu as Vishnu, because Vishnu is not Christ. If Hinduism leads a Hindu to Christ, they were led to Christ by the Holy Spirit.

I think I may have misunderstood your position. Perhaps you are saying God can reveal Himself to anyone at any place at any time. That’s fine and I agree. If you are saying that a pagan can know Christ by pursuing the “light” within their paganism… this is a strange doctrine that I cannot agree with.

 

[PJM]

=tantum ergo;10019895]hey, do you know what unrepented mortal sin is?

And tell me, if you exist forever once you’re dead, and you never repent your sin, aren’t you still sinning? So it’s not like the sin is over and done with. It’s going on forever. That is why the consequences (a better term than punishment) go on forever too.

Let me reacquaint you with the idea of unrepented mortal sin at death.

Mortal sin, in order to be mortal, must involve three things; grave matter. Full knowledge. Full consent of the will.

So at the time of death you are facing god with a mortal sin on your soul. Let’s say you’re a man and your mortal sin is committing adultery with, oh let’s say, an incredibly beautiful woman. And you’re like, “it was so worth it”.

You knew it was gravely wrong. After all, you had a wife and children and you had promised to be faithful. You knew it and you said, "too bad, i want the sex. It is more important to me to have sex with this woman than it is to carry out the solemn vows i took. It is more important to me to have the sex and not only to put myself in mortal sin, but this woman as well. You absolutely knew it was wrong. And in fact, you would have condemned the behavior if somebody else had done it.

You absolutely were not in any way compelled to have the sex. Your wife was a wonderful, beautiful woman herself. You had a great marriage. You ‘loved’ your wife before and during and after the adultery.

You were not in a position at any point where you would be pressured to have sex. You weren’t drunk or high. There were no mitigating circumstances whatever. You never had adultery before and you didn’t after. And yet you still didn’t repent the sin.

Now: Looking god right in the eye, you tell him, “look buddy, i did it, i don’t care, i’ll never regret it no matter how wrong it was.”. . .

And you never do. So tell me what the justice is for this eternal choice to spit in god’s eye and choose mortal sin. . .and then tell me what god can do to ‘save’ somebody who doesn’t want, ever, to be saved. . .

unless that is; it’s an “intrinsic evil”, which abortion-murder is

 

[Tantum_ergo]

unless that is; it’s an “intrinsic evil”, which abortion-murder is

I’m not sure where that follows from my post --and how on earth did you manage to quote me and and every time the word “God” comes up it is lower case but in my original post it is upper case?

Abortion, murder, adultery --all are intrinsic evils.

I was wondering how those who say that “Their” God would never condemn people, or that “Their” humans would never knowingly choose hell–would do in the situation whereby the human totally knew what he was doing was wrong, and refused–ever–to repent–and how they could manage to come up with a God who would ‘deal’ with that person in any other way than permit him to go to hell.

I mean, God is not going to FORCE people to change. That would destroy free will.

And His showing Hell isn’t some kind of ‘torture’ that makes people regret not the sin, but the ‘consequence’ and produce a false, "well gee, if you’re gonna do THAT, I’m sorry already’ pseudo repentence.

And really, human beings are neither so perfectly ‘rational’ that they will walk away from ‘torture’ (ever see women get a bikini wax? repeatedly?) out of an instinct of self-preservation. . .

nor are they blindly incapable of either wrong or right such that they have to be given ‘cake’ (reward) to choose right, or ‘hell’ punishment to keep from choosing wrong, . .

God’s giving us hell is perfectly just and perfectly merciful because we don’t have ‘finite’ sin. If we are in sin, we continue to sin (because we have the power God gives us to repent and be forgiven), and if we die we will be sinning through eternity. So the consequence of unrepented mortal sin in both justice (consequence of sin) and mercy (God’s permitting us to have ‘our will’ instead of His) is hell.

 

[Burdensome1]

Ah, semantics. When the bad guy gets locked up or gunned down in a movie, how often does the hero say something like “he made his choice” and everyone understands THAT with no problem.

 

[JRKH]

1. I agree calling on the name of the Lord is about intent, but I do not think calling on the name of Krishna is the same intent as calling on the name of the Lord. The same YHWH of Joel is the same YHWH of today. Jesus said That if we know him we know the father, because they are one. If they do not know Christ, they cannot know the Father.
2. I am not trying to say that faith without love can save. I am saying love without faith cannot save either, and that one cannot love God and not know God. Let me be clear, I am not talking about semantics. If Christ revealed Himself to some secluded indigenous, any the gave the Godhead a different “name” that is fine. What I am saying is that they cannot know Agape until they know Christ, and one can only know Christ by faith. This is different than saying that the Hindu who calls on Krishna is really calling on Christ with a different name and understanding, but with the same intent. Maybe I am misunderstanding your position, but if that is what is being argued it s untrue according to Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. For “Having a form of godliness they are lacking in the power thereof.” and as Paul said “I am unashamed of the Gospel because it is thee power of God unto salvation.”
3. Anyone who is outside of the Church cannot be saved, as only the those in the Ark could be saved in the days of Noah. Of course, I do not believe the Church are those in communion with Rome. Rather the Church is in communion with Christ. But one who does not know Christ cannot fellowship with him. The Holy Spirit can reveal the truth of God to anyone anywhere, but it will be the Truth. God will not reveal Himself to Hindu through Vishnu as Vishnu, because Vishnu is not Christ. If Hinduism leads a Hindu to Christ, they were led to Christ by the Holy Spirit.

I think I may have misunderstood your position. Perhaps you are saying God can reveal Himself to anyone at any place at any time. That’s fine and I agree. If you are saying that a pagan can know Christ by pursuing the “light” within their paganism… this is a strange doctrine that I cannot agree with.

Yes 0 think you have misunderstood my position - though it is very likely that I did not make it terribly clear, or that I CAN make it terribly clear. I apologize for that.

I think that the best and only way that I can express my understanding of what the Catechism is talking about when it speaks of those being saved who have never heard the Gospel is this…
The Holy Spirit, through St John in Scripture, says,
“Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.” (1John 4:7-8)
If this is true…and we must believe it is, then any who have Godly Love (Agape) in their hearts are born of God.
This has nothing to do with calling on krishna or any other deity…In some ways it has nothing to do with calling on Christ for calling on Christ while failing to love will avail nothing.
Love is the key…

I suspect that you and I will continue to disagree somewhat on this while at the same time recognizing and agreeing with much the other says. I know that it is not your wish to deny heaven to anyone that God would find worthy and your position - which is quite “missionary” in tenor is a laudable one. The Catechism itself goes on to say:
848 “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him,** the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.**” (Bolding mine)
So I hope I have not given the impression that the faith should not be shared.

Peace
James

 

[zro_x]

Then are we to suppose that no person who had lead a good Catholic life is left to die in mortal sin, so there are no cases when good people end up in hell because of a single sin that they didn’t have the chance to repent for before dying?

pretty much, although there may be some exceptions. By good catholic life, I assume you mean that there was at least one point in the person’s life where the person was in a state of grace. I think that, if at all possible, god will ensure that we die during any time that we are in a state of grace.

however, If god can save two more souls by ensuring your death after you’ve fallen to a state of mortal sin, he would probably do so.

 

[vames]

I’m not sure I understand. How can a good person’s sudden death in mortal sin prompt the salvation of two more souls?

 

[JRKH]

Ah, semantics. When the bad guy gets locked up or gunned down in a movie, how often does the hero say something like “he made his choice” and everyone understands THAT with no problem.

 

[zro_x]

I’m not sure I understand. How can a good person’s sudden death in mortal sin prompt the salvation of two more souls?

it wouldn’t intrinsically. But perhaps seeing you descend to a state of mortal sin would “put the fear of god” into two other people, or something along those lines.

 

[vames]

Right, but I was interested in that person’s specific fate and the sense of justice that can be derived from it. I mean, why would God inflict eternal damnation on a good person’s soul, disregarding all his/her whole life until the moment of that not-yet-repented mortal sin? Could this ever be the only/best/justest way to raise awareness of sin in those two other people?

 

[zro_x]

Right, but I was interested in that person’s specific fate and the sense of justice that can be derived from it. I mean, why would God inflict eternal damnation on a good person’s soul, disregarding all his/her whole life until the moment of that not-yet-repented mortal sin? Could this ever be the only/best/justest way to raise awareness of sin in those two other people?

maybe, on some occasions. or maybe not. But why else would god create a person that he knows is going to end up in hell?

 

[vames]

If such a motivation is true, then it would follow that there is a category of “subordinate souls”, doomed to be only instruments for the salvation of others, regardless of all their good deeds on earth and their love for God, and a category of “privileged souls” that receive the grace of salvation at the expense of others’ eternal suffering.

 

[zro_x]

If such a motivation is true, then it would follow that there is a category of “subordinate souls”, doomed to be only instruments for the salvation of others, regardless of all their good deeds on earth and their love for God, and a category of “privileged souls” that receive the grace of salvation at the expense of others’ eternal suffering.

I don’t like it, but yes, that is what it would mean. However, don’t forget that even though god knows what people will do and can choose his actions based on that knowledge, people still choose to go to hell themselves. God wants to maximise human happiness, and I think that if he were faced with a situation like the one I described, he would save 2 souls rather than one.

 

[vames]

Well, I think those two people could be more attracted to God and persuaded to hate sin if, by contemplating the good person’s death, they hope precisely that God **was **merciful and didn’t condemn the person to eternal punishment based on only one not-yet-repented sin. Because, for God, showing people how dangerous can be a single sin of an otherwise good person doesn’t necessarily suppose that He actually punishes that person with eternal torments for that single sin. God doesn’t have to choose between eternal damnation of one soul or two souls, he can save all the three souls, through different means.

 

[zro_x]

Well, I think those two people could be more attracted to God and persuaded to hate sin if, by contemplating the good person’s death, they hope precisely that God **was **merciful and didn’t condemn the person to eternal punishment based on only one not-yet-repented sin. Because, for God, showing people how dangerous can be a single sin of an otherwise good person doesn’t necessarily suppose that He actually punishes that person with eternal torments for that single sin. God doesn’t have to choose between eternal damnation of one soul or two souls, he can save all the three souls, through different means.

in this particular case, you’re probably right. But that was just one hypothetical situation. it is entirely possible that there are some cases that I can’t think of in which god would be forced to make a choice.

 

[Trurl]

And tell me, if you exist forever once you’re dead, and you never repent your sin, aren’t you still sinning? So it’s not like the sin is over and done with. It’s going on forever. That is why the CONSEQUENCES (a better term than punishment) go on forever too.

How would you know that there is no possibility of repentance? Winston Smith was finally able to “love Big Brother”, when his pain became intolerable.

Mortal sin, in order to be mortal, must involve three things; GRAVE MATTER. FULL KNOWLEDGE. FULL CONSENT OF THE WILL.

I know.

So at the time of death you are facing God with a mortal sin on your soul. Let’s say you’re a man and your mortal sin is committing adultery with, oh let’s say, an incredibly beautiful woman. And you’re like, “It was so worth it”.

That is not a good example. Adultery (as you described it) is simply a breach of contract. An incorrect and despicable behavior for sure, but it is not “infinitely” bad.

A proper example would be: you had a mutally agreed upon sexual relationship, which was aimed at having fun only. No other person was involved than the partners, The proper pecautions were used to avoid the possibility of pregnancy. Now, according to catholicism it was a “grave matter”, the people were supposed to have “full knowledge” that it was a grave matter, and yet, they executed the act with “full consent”. Now, the “full consent” was there. However, the people in question reject that it was a “grave matter” - so they do not have “full knowledge” that it was a grave matter. So: “was the act a mortal sin”?

They might have been fully aware that according to SOME catholics it was a grave matter, but they reject that particular teaching. Many catholics reject it, too… and these hypothetical people are not even catholics.

NOW: Looking God RIGHT IN THE EYE, you tell Him, “Look buddy, I did it, I don’t care, I’ll never regret it no matter how wrong it was.”. . .

Actually, I would say something different: “There was nothing wrong with what we did. There is nothing to regret. We loved each other, and we expressed that love with our action. What is your problem?”.

 

[Trurl]

The issue with so many people is that they seem to want to be saved…on their terms…not on God’s terms.

Since God’s “terms” are unknown, the only rational way to make an educated guess.

 

[JRKH]

Since God’s “terms” are unknown, the only rational way to make an educated guess.

Well - I guess that I will have to agree with this in general principle - though I believe the more 'educated" one becomes, the less “guessing” is required.

My “educated guess” is that God’s terms are known and have been described, more or less well, in a number of different faith traditions. The description of God’s terms are beautifully summarized in the words of Jesus summarizing all of the Law and Prophets into 2 commandments that revolve around the central principle of Love - selfless love - or Agape. (See Mt 22:36-40).

Peace
James