Why are we not already created in the Beatific Vision?

[zemi]

Hi there, folks

I’ve got something for us to think about. I’m interested what’s your take on this. Actually, I’ve never heard this one before. I think there must have been people that dealt with this, but I came across this the first time myself.

Here it goes:

1. God had no other chance but to create us with free will if he was to create beings capable of love
2. There are some people, however, that freely choose to go against God’s will and end up in hell.
3. In heaven, being in the state of beatific vision, we would still have our free will and yet incapable of commiting a sin.

Why then couldn’t God create us ALREADY in the state of beatific vision where we would be completely free, completely loving and loved by God and others and incapable of sin and therefore having no one ending up in hell?

I’m aware I have a very very limited reasoning, but isn’t everyone being with God something “better” than only one created person ending up in hell?

Where’s the rub in this reasoning?

PS: I know there might be some people here disproving the premises (e.g. with Calvinist beliefs)

 

[Eric_Closs]

zemi,

In God’s defense (haha), I think he did create us in a state of loving union with him. Adam and Eve love God when they are keeping the commandments inside the Garden of Eden. Only after Adam and Eve sin (poisoned by the angel who broke communion with God) that any of the rest of us get into the trouble we’re in. The sins of the parents of all mankind have an effect on their progeny, but this is not God’s design, He did not create us in this state.

As for beatific vision, I presume you literally mean ‘seeing God’. God walked in the garden at that time so Adam and Eve might have seen Him. However, thats not exactly what Genesis says so it might be wrong to assume. As for the angels, they are presumably in the state that you describe, created with the beatific vision, but never leaving that vision (the ones that didn’t fall that is). So God has created at least one kind of creature which is in just such a state.

So when you ask “Why couldn’t God create us in beatific vision… etc.”, perhaps the appropriate response is: He did, we messed up.

Any “rub” in the reasoning?

Pax Christi Nobiscum,

• Eric Closs