Why can't we change our decision to accept or reject God after we die?

[Robertanthony]

I read an article recently (linked on this forum) where it said that in heaven sin won’t be a possibility. Perhaps I misunderstood. So the idea is that if Lucifer had already experienced the beatific vision, pride would/could have never gotten a hold of him like it did? I stated that in heaven perhaps our free-will will be limited (meaning God will put a limit) to what is good (which is what it should be ideally anyway), and if such were the case, that wouldn’t be a problem for me.

Betterave, is there a special story behind your username , or it simply means you love that particular vegetable?

 

[Luke_K]

I agree wholeheartedly with everything in your post but the very last element. Being in hell or in heaven (with beatific vision) for a day would nullify freewill IMO. You’d literally have no choice to reject God.

You’d still have free will, it’s just that the decision would be incredibly obvious. But the standard Christian theology seems to affect our free will in a more negative way. Without the experiential knowledge of what heaven and hell are like, do we really freely choose either of them? For example, I have free will to choose to touch a hot stove top and get burned because I know from experience what happens when I do that. A child, however, who has never touched something as hot as a stove top doesn’t really freely choose to burn themselves. They just think they’re touching a stove top and nothing bad will happen.

Similarly, on this side of the grave, atheists aren’t freely choosing eternal torment when they don’t believe in God. Their experience of not believing in God is that life goes on as normal and they just don’t pray, go to church, etc. It’s only after they die and it’s too late to change their decision that they are thrown wailing into the fires of hell to be tormented forever and ever.

 

[ddarko]

I read an article recently (linked on this forum) where it said that in heaven sin won’t be a possibility. Perhaps I misunderstood. So the idea is that if Lucifer had already experienced the beatific vision, pride would/could have never gotten a hold of him like it did?

I think there also is something else required on our part to enjoy the beatific vision. I am inclined to think as such because if that were not the case, God would have just given us all the beatific vision from the beginning.

So in the case of us humans, we fulfill this requirement by our lives here on earth. We try to conform ourselves to good. In the case of angels, this happened in a single moment. Some chose good while others chose to rebel.

Again, speaking from analogies, it might be like a person and marriage. Marriage is a good thing but for a person who has not conformed to good, it can appear disordered. It does not mean that marriage is not good but simply that the person cannot perceive it’s goodness.

So the Beatific Vision might be similar. It is intrinsically good and all that we desire but unless we have conformed ourselves to good on earth, we cannot see it. It is also possible that many of us never fully manage to conform ourselves to good but God perfects and purifies us before heaven so that by the time we do enter, we can fully appreciate the beatific vision. But what is important here is that we do need to accept God’s grace and conform ourselves sufficiently to good (God’s will) in order to be allowed in to heaven and enjoy the beatific vision. This also seems to present an explanation to those who do not enter heaven. It is not because God does not love them but simply because they cannot enjoy what God has in store for them (including the beatific vision) in heaven. They are the ones that have rejected God.

Now the question as to whether the fallen angles may have chosen differently, if we go along the lines of reasoning above, then the answer I think is no. In order to fully appreciate the beauty of the beatific vision, one needs to also be sufficiently ready to appreciate it. In the case of the fallen, they choose to rebel against conforming themselves to good in a singular moment. So unless they were born already GOOD, then they would not understand the value of the beatific vision. In this sense, one might even say the question is meaningless.

Again, this is just speculation and personal reflections on my part on how to reconcile things together. So it might be in error.

God Bless

 

[Betterave]

My initial or revised position? If the latter, I’d appreciate you telling me why. I don’t want to stray from orthodoxy.

Your initial position. Your revised position seems fine to me. I can’t claim to know much about heaven, but I’ve been slowly reading through Dante’s Divine Comedy for the last few months and I’m in the middle of Paradiso right now. I’ll suggest it as something you might find worth reading.

 

[Betterave]

I read an article recently (linked on this forum) where it said that in heaven sin won’t be a possibility. Perhaps I misunderstood. So the idea is that if Lucifer had already experienced the beatific vision, pride would/could have never gotten a hold of him like it did? I stated that in heaven perhaps our free-will will be limited (meaning God will put a limit) to what is good (which is what it should be ideally anyway), and if such were the case, that wouldn’t be a problem for me.

Betterave, is there a special story behind your username , or it simply means you love that particular vegetable?

It’s all about the vegetable.

I don’t disagree with your positon, but I don’t like the language of the ‘limitation’ of our free will, although it may be correct enough in a sense. I’m not sure about the theological nuances, but my understanding is that our faith teaches that Mary was positively prevented from sinning, yet without impairment to her free will. I think this prevention from sinning is not properly described as a limitation of Mary’s freedom, but as a strengthening of it, and God’s preventing her from sinning was really His gift to her of all of the actual graces necessary for her to avoid sin, actual graces which our Holy Mother at the same time freely cooperated with. Adam and Eve were in a state of habitual grace before the fall, but were not given and did not receive or accept the actual grace required to resist the temptation to sin. My understanding is that in heaven we will all be like Mary: we will be constantly assured the actual grace required to keep us from even entertaining any temptation to sin, and if it makes sense at all to speak of “absolute freedom” for human beings, this will be it. It will be a freedom through Him, with Him, and in Him. Those in Hell are against Him, and it is their freedom that will be permanently limited, as a continuation of and punishment for having failed to seek on Earth the true freedom that is found only in Heaven.

 

[jenniferpet88]

It has often been pointed out that finite offences cannot deserve an infinite punishment. It is unjust that our **eternal **destiny should be based on what we decide now - or at any particular moment..

the offense is not finite though, you sin is measured by who you sin against which is God who is infinite, and this is why CHrist had to pay for sins because in order to pay the toll for sin the payment must also be infinite and only God can do that

 

[tonyrey]

It has often been pointed out that finite offences cannot deserve an infinite punishment. It is unjust that our **eternal **

Since we are not directly aware of the presence of God when we sin we cannot have full cognisance of the implications of our actions for our eternal destiny. It is unrealistic to think otherwise.