Oh, we’re being asked for so much more than that (Believe in angels and miracles you’ve never seen, resist the inclinations of most of your hard-wiring, love everyone, forgive everyone, obey this book blindly and that man blindly when they tell you what God wants, don’t kiss the wrong people, don’t kiss the right people at the wrong time, give me your money, etc., etc.)
Actually - no we are not asked to do more than what Jon said. All of our our faith is built upon Agape Love. It is the foundation of the Law and the Prophets. It is the very essence of God. It is more important than faith or hope. It is the one thing that we need to strive for perfection in.
All other things, in order to be worthwhile must be rooted in this rich and eternal soil.
As for following things blindly. To do so would be foolish. So far as I am aware, the Church does not teach that we are to follow blindly. There are immense volumes of information on every subject explaining the whys of Church teaching. If a person chooses not to read them. That says more about them then the Church.
To focus back to the center of the point:
1._Yes, 70 years seems long to us, but not compared to eternity. Looking back on our time here 10,000 years hence, will it have seemed so long?
Yes - in such a comparison it is a small time…but your comparison to 5 minutes of the life of a 3rd grader is not a fair comparison either.
70 years is a very long time in the reckoning of human time. To a 3rd grader, 5 minutes is only long if they have to sit still.
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2._If it were so long, then it seems that far more people would have time to get it right. If most of the class fails a lesson, the teacher knows the class-time spent on it was too short.
This is not the only conclusion that the teacher can draw. Learning is not something that a teacher does…It is something the student does.
If the teacher, in spite of his best efforts and in spite of providing, sees the class sleeping, looking out the window, or in other ways simply ignoring him…has little choice but to allow the students to learn from the consequences of their actions.
If we do not learn or change or grow during the next n years, then how is that “life” or “consciousness”? That would just be some kind of waking vegetative state.
- Since vegetables have life, grow and change, I don’t see the validity of the comparison.
- I am not aware of any teaching that says we do not change or grow in the next life. If you are aware of any…could you point it out?
Label whatever words on it you want, I defy you to actually conceive of what that would mean. It would merely seem like one instant, if there were no change by which to perceive the passage of time.
Just as a thought…If you sit in a movie theater watching a movie…have you changed over that time? You’ve sat still and watched. Like a “waking vegetative state”. Are you aware of the passage of time?
We are told that those in heaven are aware of those on earth. This would give them the ability to perceive the passage of time while they remain the same.
Just a thought.
If we do learn or change or grow during the next 10,000 or 100, 000 or 1,000, 000 years, then we would no longer be the person we were back when we were 70, so that seems thoroughly analogous to being judged by one morning when we were in 3rd grade.
I disagree.
There are greater changes involved in our translation from this life to the next.
If a parent chose to put their child into a coma (with happy dreams or nightmares forever afterward) at the end of 4th grade, in what way could we possibly conceive of that as “good” or “compassionate”?
We cannot conceive of this being a good thing…Which is why God does not work like this.
First of all - We choose our destination, not God. We do so by our choices in this life. Like the students in the class room, God gives us the information - what we do with it is up to us.
Second - the idea of a “coma” doesn’t work because, good or bad, we are separated from the parent. This is not how God works.
At death, we reach out to that which we have embraced and fostered in life. If we have embraced the vices…pride, selfishness, hate being principle among these, then that is what we will reach out to in death. We will embrace these and fall into the abyss of our our own choosing.
If we have embraced the virtues…love, charity, humility being chief among these, then we will reach out to love in death - and since God is Love, we will be reaching for God.
If we have embraced these virtues imperfectly, then we will reach out to mercy in death…and God will show mercy.
In each case, the person receives that which they have embraced in life.
I suggest that the analogy of the 3rd grader simply does not work where the analogy of the classroom works somewhat better.
Peace
James
My question is: Can we make sense out if the situation in relation to what we normally think of as “just” or “merciful.” I’m perfectly fine with the idea that His mind can reconcile them; I’m unclear how/if OUR minds can.
