Why did God send us here?

[CommanderSouth]

So here is the question I Have never heard a protestant/Catholic answer in a way that makes sense for me.

Why would an omnipotent being who has need of nothing, create a race of feeling, reasoning, immortal beings. Send them to a world where he knew they would fall, seperate themselves from him. Then make it so they had to return to him solely on faith, and then if they didn’t get it right, based on something apart from a sure knowledge, send them to a firery tormenting afterlife LITERALLY without end.

This doesn’t compute for me. Especially given the whole foreknowledge part.

 

[CommanderSouth]

And I ask this mostly from the angle that most people say God -made- the rules, which makes all of this make even less sense. God being bound by rules at least make sense for it, but then it takes him out of the position of Lawgiver and just shifts blame up a level so to speak.

 

[SMHW]

I don’t pretend that this answer will satisfy you but here’s my simple minded take on things.

It is God’s nature to be creative and to love and appreciate love. Therefore he created beings who can be loved and give love.

But true love requires that there be a choice. Otherwise we are merely reciprocating automatons. The angels have to make this choice and humans do likewise. And perhaps there are other beings unknown to us who have to make their choices.

It is the nature of angels that they do not experience the rate of change of existence that we humans experience as time. Their choice is eternal. Some love and others turn away from God.

We humans experience our choice to love throughout our time on earth. We experience a series of choices.

What follows is my personal opinion:
I think our human lifetime of choices is kind of a mystery to angels. I think it may even be a ‘trick’ God played on Satan so that we can pay for the sins we do commit but still be saved in the end.

 

[CommanderSouth]

And I totally agree, there has to be a choice, it simply must be. That being said it doesn’t make sense to me for a being supposedly unbound by any rule, to make rules such as Christendom seems to put forth. I feel like a study of the omnipotence of God may be in order.

 

[drac16]

I can’t promise that you’ll find what you’re looking for, but I will answer your questions as best as I can. God’s primary interest is bringing glory to Himself. We were created to serve Him. His purpose in creating us as weak vessels is that He wants to train our will in order for us to respond to Him freely. He doesn’t want to force anyone to follow Him and He is always willing to listen to those who draw near to Him.

Romans 1 says that all people are without excuse. The evidence for God is right there for all to see, but the problem lies in the fact that men and women don’t want to see the evidence and therefore trouble what’s left of his/her conscience. Read Romans 1 and it will become clear to you.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The Jesuits teach that God wants our friendship. He doesn’t need it, but he wants it.

And of course he wants that friendship to be freely given by us, because it’s natural to want friends who choose to be our friends and who choose to love us rather than being forced.

So he created us and gave us free will in hopes we’d choose to be his friends.

He doesn’t “send us to a fiery tormenting afterlife”, we send ourselves to a miserable afterlife if we reject the God who created us and loves us.

 

[Sundiver]

Here is an interesting parallel from a different angle. There are religions, in the past and the present, that force their members to believe in God. What good is there in doing that,“for the sake of the kingdom?” It make more sense that if an individual chooses freely to live the laws of God there is greater merit. If we are forced to follow someone’s version of spirituality then we are only going through the motions, therefore, gaining very little merit if any. The heart is central to the involvement in religion. I think the key to this is the fact that Jesus spoke of levels of higher existence in heaven. We are sent to achieve a greater crown depending on how much we love and cooperate with the Holy Spirit.
As far as the foreknowledge of the loss of a soul, there seems to be a lack of information. There is private revelation from the saints.

 

[CommanderSouth]

Can you elaborate on that last part about a lack of information?

 

[Sundiver]

I don’t believe there is enough information about the mystery of why God would create someone if he has the foreknowledge that they will be eternally lost. You could ask many questions about that. Is the soul lost forever? Is the soul created to fall? Is there a chance of being reincarnated? Will we be eternally brokenhearted knowing someone such as a friend or relative is in hell? The bible does not answer these questions clearly. There is some evidence for answering these questions, but it is convoluted or implied.