Why didn't God just give Hitler a heart attack?

[itullian]

the worst stain on him was his suicide???

HALELUYA!!!

i’m just aghast.

anyone out there with some moral common sense?

the answer is yes a GOOD GOD would give him a heart attack.

God didn’t torture those people, Hitler did.

He didn’t “take them home”, Hitler tortured and murdered them.

i throw up my hands in disbelief.
My fellow Catholics yet…

 

[dailey]

the worst stain on him was his suicide???

HALELUYA!!!

i’m just aghast.

anyone out there with some moral common sense?

the answer is yes a GOOD GOD would give him a heart attack.

God didn’t torture those people, Hitler did.

He didn’t “take them home”, Hitler tortured and murdered them.

i throw up my hands in disbelief.
My fellow Catholics yet…

What in the world do you want your “fellow Catholics” to say?? Do you want us to go against the churches teachings? Do you want us to say that HItler is in hell when you know, as Catholics, we cannot say where his final resting place is? I am confused on your frustration…

 

[Poseidon]

There was a good speech from St. Leonard of Port Maurice on the nature of God’s mercy. The gist of it was: He could’ve cast each and every one of us into Hell after our first mortal sin and we would have no basis to complain about it. He’s done it before, after all (think of anyone in the Old Testament killed directly by God for a sin). Justice demands as much, so thankfully for us our God is not solely a God of justice. We certainly would have no basis to complain.

God created each and every one of us with the tendency to sin. Actually, he knew before we were born exactly what sins we would commit. So what I’m getting from what you said is a god who looks down, thinks “yup, he did exactly what I knew he would do! He’s following the nature I gave him! Good thing I’m so nice and won’t smite him instantly.” I think that I have a basis to complain if he created me with a sinful nature and then threw me into hell because I didn’t instantly totally overcome it.

But He didn’t damn us all. When we sin, He has ways of making us realize it. He sends us a sickness that we might realize our frailty and turn to Him, and it seems we will surely die; but to demonstrate His goodness, He heals us, and still we rebel. He gives us a year to repent of our errors, and when that year is up and our heart is even harder, He gives us yet another.

What do victims of ebola learn? That God has diseases with a 90% death rate that kill within days of infection? And he only heals some people. Lots of people get sick and die without turning to God. Likewise, lots of people die with a “hardened heart.” God doesn’t give people more and more time to repent, otherwise no one but Christians would ever die.

God allows evil to result from evil precisely because He is good: because He wants us to understand this fact, that to be chosen and loved by God brings eternal happiness and eternal life and that to reject Him is suffering and misery and eternal death. I suspect this is why the idea is gaining in popularity that Hell is less a sentence than it is a consequence, that Hell is not where you go when you reject God but what you become.

He certainly doesn’t do a very good job of this. I was Catholic for 20 years and I don’t believe this. I think that if it was true God would’ve been able to slip the message in at some point.

 

[mab23]

you make me shiver with this unbelievable response. equating the man on the street who sins with Hitler!!!
that’s where bad theology leads.

man,oh man

and you others saying it doesn’t matter cause we all die.

what about the terror,suffering, families, children that will never be born

you guys seem to be able to rationalize ANYTHING.

all sin is horrific my a–.

you got a point!

 

[tonyrey]

the worst stain on him was his suicide???

HALELUYA!!!

i’m just aghast.

anyone out there with some moral common sense?

the answer is yes a GOOD GOD would give him a heart attack.

God didn’t torture those people, Hitler did.

He didn’t “take them home”, Hitler tortured and murdered them.

i throw up my hands in disbelief.
My fellow Catholics yet…

What exactly do you believe?

 

[Qoeleth]

No one would have known and what horror it could have prevented.

i mean a few strategically placed attacks could have helped since single individuals did so much harm.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao,etc.

Who are we to judge others? “There will be judgment without mercy for those who judge.” There but for the grace of God go us all…

 

[abucs]

I think that while God is present in the world, this is largely our stage to do what we will choose.

Men are actually choosing to do terrible things all over the planet continuously (and others good of course).

I think Hitler was part of a movement, and that movement was chosen freely by enough people to have the impact it did.

Hopefully we will make better choices in the future.

leics.gov.uk/the_nazi_master_plan.pdf

 

[Bob_Crowley]

No one would have known and what horror it could have prevented.

i mean a few strategically placed attacks could have helped since single individuals did so much harm.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao,etc.

God has his people, and the devil has his people.

God “protects” His people to some extent, even if they sometimes suffer grievously for their faith in him.

Likewise the devil protects his key individuals also, but that protection stops with their death. Then they find out they were just tools in his hands, and that he has no intention of rewarding them. He hates his tools.

There were supposed to be over 40 attempts or plots to kill Hitler, but he survived the lot, and ended up committing suicide, adding one more sin to his astronomical list. As far as I’m concerned he was actually protected, but not by God.

axishistory.com/index.php?id=2972

 

[Hokomai]

There was a good speech from St. Leonard of Port Maurice on the nature of God’s mercy. The gist of it was: He could’ve cast each and every one of us into Hell after our first mortal sin and we would have no basis to complain about it. He’s done it before, after all (think of anyone in the Old Testament killed directly by God for a sin). Justice demands as much, so thankfully for us our God is not solely a God of justice. We certainly would have no basis to complain.

Actually, it is not ‘justice’ which demands anything. In your view of things, it is God who decides what is just, so it is he who decides what is demanded, and he who decided not to do it. Very odd, from my view of things.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

By comparison with my post above, there is supposed to have been about 20 assassination attempts on American presidents in total, of which four were successful, with rumours about another two possibilities.

That’s an average of one successful assassination for five plots.

Hitler outlived over 40 plots. He had protection. And to be honest, I think there’s some sort of arrangement between God and the devil about who can be touched and when eg. Job - all fine till God let the Devil kill his children, servants and livestock, and then inflict him with boils from head to toe, but wasn’t allowed to kill him.

And I think a similar agreement applies to the devil’s people.

Sometimes I wonder about this game they’re playing. I’m not sure I like it much.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots

 

[Uriah_Betrayed]

God has his people, and the devil has his people.

God “protects” His people to some extent, even if they sometimes suffer grievously for their faith in him.

Using a duality defense is heterodoxy to Catholic Teachings, God and Satan are not two equally powerful beings that Satan could protect an evil man from God if God decided to take an evil man.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Using a duality defense is heterodoxy to Catholic Teachings, God and Satan are not two equally powerful beings that Satan could protect an evil man from God if God decided to take an evil man.

I’m well aware of that, and that leads me to believe they have an “arrangement”, since God could overpower Satan anytime He wanted to.

 

[sw85]

God created each and every one of us with the tendency to sin.

No; absolute depravity is a Protestant doctrine, not a Catholic one.

What do victims of ebola learn? That God has diseases with a 90% death rate that kill within days of infection? And he only heals some people. Lots of people get sick and die without turning to God. Likewise, lots of people die with a “hardened heart.” God doesn’t give people more and more time to repent, otherwise no one but Christians would ever die.

Duh. Obviously there’s a limit to His patience.

He certainly doesn’t do a very good job of this. I was Catholic for 20 years and I don’t believe this. I think that if it was true God would’ve been able to slip the message in at some point.

Well, with due respect, you apparently have a difficult time separating Catholic doctrine from Protestant doctrine, so perhaps your catechesis was not great.

Actually, it is not ‘justice’ which demands anything. In your view of things, it is God who decides what is just, so it is he who decides what is demanded, and he who decided not to do it. Very odd, from my view of things.

No one believes God “decides” what is just, as if it were an arbitrary invention that could easily be rearranged for some other purpose. God simply is just – rather, is justice itself.

Justice is simply the principle of giving to everything that which is its due. Sin deserves punishment. QED.

By comparison with my post above, there is supposed to have been about 20 assassination attempts on American presidents in total, of which four were successful, with rumours about another two possibilities.

That’s an average of one successful assassination for five plots.

Hitler outlived over 40 plots. He had protection. And to be honest, I think there’s some sort of arrangement between God and the devil about who can be touched and when eg. Job - all fine till God let the Devil kill his children, servants and livestock, and then inflict him with boils from head to toe, but wasn’t allowed to kill him.

There’s a potentially apocryphal story out there involving Pope Leo XIII and the circumstances surrounding his composition of St. Michael’s Prayer. It might be relevant here.

 

[JDaniel]

the worst stain on him was his suicide???

HALELUYA!!!

i’m just aghast.

anyone out there with some moral common sense?

the answer is yes a GOOD GOD would give him a heart attack.

God didn’t torture those people, Hitler did.

He didn’t “take them home”, Hitler tortured and murdered them.

i throw up my hands in disbelief.
My fellow Catholics yet…

We do not know the state of his soul just prior to his death. You have no way of knowing that - unless you were there and could read his mind.

You cannot sit in judgment and remain Catholic, or Christian, for that matter. There’s is no sin in going to God, Purgatory, or Hell. God alone sits in judgment. God ALONE sits in judgment. And you are not God.

I wonder, are you sure you’re Catholic? That’s quite hard to believe.

By the way, if you actually believe what you are writing, please don’t include me in fellowship. I’m not trying to be mean. I’m trying to tell you that that’s not Catholic belief.

God bless,
jd

 

[PeterGStanley]

Why didn’t God give Pharaoh a heart attack?

Whether you want to believe it or not Hitler and his evil wanted Israel (Jews) to be completely wiped out of existence but instead Israel was brought back into existence and guess where - in the promised land!

Now isn’t that amazing!
God truly has his hand in everything.

 

[Bezant]

No one would have known and what horror it could have prevented.

i mean a few strategically placed attacks could have helped since single individuals did so much harm.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao,etc.

Are we so helpless that we couldn’t stop them ourselves?

 

[Bezant]

No one would have known and what horror it could have prevented.

i mean a few strategically placed attacks could have helped since single individuals did so much harm.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao,etc.

Are we so helpless that we couldn’t stop them ourselves? Your question assumes that stopping them was impossible. I couldn’t disagree more.

It was difficult to stop them, and to be sure no one–including the millions who died in Hitler, Stalin, and Mao’s massacres–saw precisely what was coming, but history does repeat itself. It was only a generation before the Holocaust that the Ottomans killed a million Armenians and kidnapped hundreds of Armenian children, and like today there were voices calling for action lest history repeat itself in the future.

But why wait until people are dying to do something about it? Remember that Nazi Germany had discriminatory laws long before anyone saw a death camp. Remember that in the 1920s Hitler promoted the ideas that certain people are sub-human: Jews, Gypsies, blacks, gays, the disabled. And remember that eugenics was a popular scientific theory for decades, well before Hitler.

Therefore, the question isn’t, “Why didn’t God just kill Hitler?” but rather "Why did we wait so long to act?’

 

[JDaniel]

God created each and every one of us with the tendency to sin. Actually, he knew before we were born exactly what sins we would commit.

Poseidon:

From where did you get that information? That is not Catholic teaching.

So what I’m getting from what you said is a god who looks down, thinks “yup, he did exactly what I knew he would do! He’s following the nature I gave him! Good thing I’m so nice and won’t smite him instantly.” I think that I have a basis to complain if he created me with a sinful nature and then threw me into hell because I didn’t instantly totally overcome it.

In another recent thread I posted the following paragraph from Vol I of The Teaching of the Catholic Church, Ch VII, Divine Providence, p 225, 1962, The MacMillan Company:
To this difficulty St. Thomas Aquinas replies tersely that it is not only effects that are foreseen by God, but also causes, and that God foresees free causes acting freely, and necessary causes acting necessarily;[SUP]2[/SUP] and to the objection that self-determination on the part of the creature is incompatible with infallible knowledge on the part of God, he answers that God’s knowledge of the future is not really foreknowledge at all, since to the eternal Mind all things are present. So long as a free act is considered as future, i.e., as contained in its free cause, it is indeterminate and incapable of being known with certainty. But God knows free acts not as future but as present, that is, as though they were actually happening before his eyes. “They are displayed before the divine gaze,” he says, “according as they are when they are being actually performed.” [SUP]3[/SUP]
[SUP]2[/SUP]Contra Gentiles, III, 94.
[SUP]3[/SUP]S. Theo., I, Q. xiv, art. 13.

As God is Infinite, it cannot be any other way.

What do victims of ebola learn? That God has diseases with a 90% death rate that kill within days of infection? And he only heals some people. Lots of people get sick and die without turning to God. Likewise, lots of people die with a “hardened heart.” God doesn’t give people more and more time to repent, otherwise no one but Christians would ever die.

We are God’s creations. He makes us when He wishes to; and He takes us when He wishes to. You view death as “evil;” the Christian views it a blessing. That will continue to be the impassable sticking point between us.

God bless,
jd

 

[Andre1000]

there is no authority except from God and so whatever authorities exist have been appointed by God.

Roman 13,1

 

[Bob_Crowley]

there is no authority except from God and so whatever authorities exist have been appointed by God.

Roman 13,1

Yes, but that authority includes having given Satan the authority to appoint his own people as well, otherwise you’ve got a devil with no power, and that just doesn’t add up.

I don’t think God put Pol Pot in charge of Cambodia, nor do I think He put Hitler in charge of Germany. Satan put them there, as you can tell by their fruit.