Why do some choose God while some chose hell?

[catholic1seeks]

I presume “Choosing God” means loving God with all one’s heart and one’s neighbor as oneself. It would involve participation in the sacraments and the mass, basically doing His will and living one’s life centred around Him.

In spite of the fact that we know the law, what we should do, we are sinners saved only through the mercy of our Lord.

When you speak of “choosing hell” or “choosing God”, it sounds like you think we are angels - one choice determines our eternal fate. We exist in time, constantly choosing.
During our lives, our sins are written in the sand; we can repent.
It all seems very fair to me.

You may wish to pray for guidance from the Holy Spirit.

Thanks, I will pray to the Holy Spirit to guide me. He tends to help in these matters, so I’ve heard Then again, many religions, groups, and individuals claim guidance from God.

Yes, I know that traditional Catholic theology speak of the angels making one irreversible choice for or against God. Humans don’t have this really. The Church has tended to reject the so-called Fundamental Option Theory. (Although, I have read from faithful Catholic authors a view that uses similar language of people tending towards a certain choice, either gradually committing mortal sin more frequently or tending towards a life of holiness).

Even if we talk about specific mortal sin, my question still applies, since each mortal sin, according to Church teaching, is an a fundamental act against God’s love.

 

[aleoje]

I think C.S. Lewis tackles this issue quite well in “The Problem of Pain” and “Mere Christianity”. In a vacuum, or let’s say, if all conditioning factors are taken away. And there is only God and a soul, the sould has essentially two options. Love God above all things, or love itself above all things. In the world as we know it, this manifests itself in loving others more than self, or loving self more than others. Those that love God above all else (First Commandment) and others more than self, choose Heaven. They are love-givers and are rewarded. Those that love self more than others, choose hell. They are love-takers and cannot enjoy God or Heaven, and cannot be rewarded. It is assumed that love-givers are obedient to God by not committing mortal sin. These are just my thoughts about the nuts and bolts of Salvation. The Cathechism should be the ultimate guide.

 

[catholic1seeks]

I believe Genesis 3:6 answers your question.

So…
the difference between those that choose God and those that do not is…
temptation?

Please explain your view on a biblical passage that was written in a mythic literary genre and not a theological manual.

 

[catholic1seeks]

I think C.S. Lewis tackles this issue quite well in “The Problem of Pain” and “Mere Christianity”. In a vacuum, or let’s say, if all conditioning factors are taken away. And there is only God and a soul, the sould has essentially two options. Love God above all things, or love itself above all things. In the world as we know it, this manifests itself in loving others more than self, or loving self more than others. Those that love God above all else (First Commandment) and others more than self, choose Heaven. They are love-givers and are rewarded. Those that love self more than others, choose hell. They are love-takers and cannot enjoy God or Heaven, and cannot be rewarded. It is assumed that love-givers are obedient to God by not committing mortal sin. These are just my thoughts about the nuts and bolts of Salvation. The Cathechism should be the ultimate guide.

Thanks for the contribution. I like C. S. Lewis, and I need to read more of him!

Still, though: What accounts for the difference between the two groups? The soul that is with God and chooses to love God vs. the soul that does not. With all factors taken away, what makes the difference?

 

[Aloysium]

Thanks, I will pray to the Holy Spirit to guide me. He tends to help in these matters, so I’ve heard Then again, many religions, groups, and individuals claim guidance from God.

Yes, I know that traditional Catholic theology speak of the angels making one irreversible choice for or against God. Humans don’t have this really. The Church has tended to reject the so-called Fundamental Option Theory. (Although, I have read from faithful Catholic authors a view that uses similar language of people tending towards a certain choice, either gradually committing mortal sin more frequently or tending towards a life of holiness).

Even if we talk about specific mortal sin, my question still applies, since each mortal sin, according to Church teaching, is an a fundamental act against God’s love.

Although groups are important because we are a community, and in the Beatific Vision, His holy people join in loving union with our Creator, remember that the relationship you have with God is special, unique. He calls and will guide you to Him.

It’s good to hear you are trying to live sin-free. Do that!
Unfortunately, even at an old age, perhaps because I have had many of the opportunities that you mention, an absence of temptation is not a spiritual gift that has been granted me. (Although, I have been blessed with so, so much more!)
I do my best and live in hope of meeting God face to face. “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

 

[migueltojose]

Faith, Hope and Love OR
Doubt, hopelessness and loneliness and fear

The probabilities of the latter increase with the breakdown of the family and social institutions combined and with a lack of respect for life (weapons of mass destruction, abortion, not embracing nor even acknowledging the aging process, acts of random violence) encouraging non-conformity, self mutilation and all manner of de-basement.

I know a lot of people who abuse themselves and think it’s okay because they’re just hurting themselves.

“Whatsoever you do to the least of My brothers, that you do unto Me.”

This applies to the self as well. All of our ‘selfs’ are His brothers.

So, ultimately, it’s a lack of catechesis… exacerbated by the above.

 

[davidv]

So…
the difference between those that choose God and those that do not is…
temptation?

Please explain your view on a biblical passage that was written in a mythic literary genre and not a theological manual.

Apparently your interpretation of Genesis doesn’t answer the question.

Eve, then Adam, decided that because the fruit of the tree was desirable and the supposed promise made by Satan was more believable the the instructions given by God, they decided was good versus what was evil instead letting God do so.

 

[ynotzap]

I am well-read on what the Church teaches about invcinible ignorance and the moral law. My question still applies, here, though.

No matter what the person’s state in life - whether he is a well-learned bishop or someone who’s never heard of Jesus, the question is still why does the person choose God (or His will, something in line with the moral law) or choose hell (against God’s will and the moral law). Name any moral act that the Church would define as grave matter. Can you think of any act that is done without any factors associated with it? Perhaps a person would not commit murder, or steal, or lie, or commit adultery, or contracept, or be in a homosexual relationship if factors of personality, heredity, the environment, passions, situations, life circumstances, etc. were not present.

There are several points to your statements that need clarification. Any direct violation of the Ten commandments is a serious moral matter. Again there must be full knowledge of the violation and a willingness to violate it, and it is a serious matter, a command from God. If all these conditions are fulfilled it is a mortal sin, worthy of Hell punishment. Full knowledge, full consent, and a serious matter. secondly, you don’t choose God, He chooses you. Faith is a supernatural gift, merited by Jesus, and God in His wisdom, love, and justice acts when He distributes His gift. No one can go to Jesus Christ unless the Father calls him, and no one can go to the Father,except through Jesus. I don’t presume to know the mind of the Father, unless He leads me to speak for Him. It does appear that since it was the pride of Satan, and the pride of Adam that lost favor with God, then it would appear that the pride of man would be a great obstacle to the Father’s call. Pray that the proud receive the humility and gratitude to God for the gifts they already have. and then I think that the call will be certain, and heard. Until then the proud will remain on their merry-go-round, moving but going nowhere except in circles. That’s why History repeats itself, generation after generation, human experience is the witness.

 

[tolstoy]

Or, why do some choose hell while others choose God?

What really accounts for this fundamental difference?

Each person has his or her own heredity, environmental factors, and social upbringing. Church teaching and theology grants that God takes all of this into account when he judges our actions and our sins. So when all of that is taken away, what is there that allows someone to choose hell over God (or God over hell)? What makes the difference? We say it is ultimately us - we have free will. But we make our decisions never in a vacuum. We sort through experiences - indeed, everything I mentioned above (heredity, environment, social factors). Our experiences affect our judgments and decisions. So, would it be correct to say that if one person who chooses hypothetical option B (we will call it) would really choose option A if he had another experience? And say that this experience that would cause him to choose A is an experienced endured by another person, which caused him to choose A. What I am getting at is this: it seems as though our experiences affect how we make choices, but not everyone has the same experiences.

What is it that makes the difference between a person who chooses he’ll rather than God? No one is born more evil than another, unless we mean that a person has certain genetic factors that make that person lean towards destructive tendencies. But these would surely already be taken into account in God’s just judgment. But no one is naturally spiritually more evil. Can we really say that God makes every soul unique that because every soul is different, there is something about each soul that makes some choose God more readily than others? Or do we have to say that natural factors, dependent on circumstance, greatly affect one’s eternal destination? Both of these options seem unfair.

I would like to have a good discussion on this.

I suppose someone could choose hell over god but I’ve never heard of it. Expand?

 

[StrawberryJam]

You have posed a false dillemma. You have given only two possible choices to make. God or Hell. These are not the only choices available, they are simply the ones you believe in.

 

[Yarb]

C. S. Lewis wrote a novella called The Great Divorce that is a story that begins in Hell. In a preface he says that the conditions existing in Heaven and Hell in his story are “solely an imaginative supposal: they are not even a guess or a speculation at what may actually await us.” Included within that “imaginative supposal” is the idea that the only thing preventing those in Hell from relocating to Heaven is that they’re not interested. And with a bunch of characters we learn biographical details that amount to reasons why they’re not interested. Some of them cling to grudges they bear about things that happened on Earth; one is a person whose whole life was an act, and he won’t give that up; one of them is convinced Heaven is a scam.

 

[Ronald_E]

Is there such a thing as “free will” without “knowing” or experiencing “God’s Love”? When Jesus requests from the Cross “Father forgive them for they know not what they do…” what is implied about free will and choice? Can a person choose what she/he does not know?

 

[ynotzap]

I don’t really understand the point of this

So are we not allowed to ponder what we cannot understand - and even what we do not think makes sense???

Or have we regressed to medieval times?

We can ponder what we( do)not understand, not what we ( can not)understand, if we can’t understand then we take God’s word for it, given to us by the teaching body of the Church. We do not understand a lot of things, that’s why we become educated, to become informed. There exists many degrees of understanding. We need “Enlightenment” especially in matters of Faith, The mind has certain obstacles to knowing the truth. 1) a lack of knowledge, 2) a limited capacity, 3) a tendency to let our feelings dictate to our minds what is good and right 4) we are subjected to our own bias and prejudices, and of course some mental illness that affects our thinking, and even some spiritual obstacle as self-righteousness, which is a real big one, due to real ignorance of the truth. It needs The Holy Spirit to cause the “enlightenment” This is why Jesus created the teaching body of the Church called the Magisterium, and guaranteed it infallibility a divine endowment, with divine assistance. Trust the Church because you trust Jesus. The human mind is fallible, a fact of human experience, it is not infallible, only God is infallible, and those He guides by His Spirit of truth.

 

[janiruchan]

Personally I dont believe in luck. I believe in choices…definitely an owning of responsibility for our actions. God opens freely the gate to heaven…and I believe that He more than us wants to be there…but unfortunately we could make a choice (and that’s what I dont like about freewill), the choice to shut our doors to God and His mercy. I sometimes wish God didnt gave us freewill…I mean, since many would fall…but then there wouldn’t be love and respect anymore–since we are only mere puppets of God. Freewill makes sense to me though I couldn’t fully comprehend it, as much as I dont really understand God very much.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Or, why do some choose hell while others choose God?

Ego.

The desire to set one’s own ego above the Great I AM.

It all started when the serpent found Eve’s ego wanting the same.

 

[Ronald_E]

Ego.

The desire to set one’s own ego above the Great I AM.

It all started when the serpent found Eve’s ego wanting the same.

I guess that’s your opinion

 

[tonyrey]

Is there such a thing as “free will” without “knowing” or experiencing “God’s Love”? When Jesus requests from the Cross “Father forgive them for they know not what they do…” what is implied about free will and choice? Can a person choose what she/he does not know?

A good question, Ronald. We can choose what we believe to be wrong but we cannot know all the consequences of our choice. Jesus forgave those who caused His death because ignorance is a mitigating circumstance. All of us are responsible for His Passion in direct proportion to the amount of suffering we have caused:

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Matthew 25:40

Even our failure to help others is a reason why Our Lord chose to suffer but we too are forgiven because we do not always know to what extent we have added to the misery of mankind - with the proviso that we are forgiven to the extent that we forgive others.

No human being could have reconciled divine mercy and justice so sublimely…

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I guess that’s your opinion

I guess you haven’t read the story in Genesis.

Was it someone else the serpent approached first?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Is there such a thing as “free will” without “knowing” or experiencing “God’s Love”? When Jesus requests from the Cross “Father forgive them for they know not what they do…” what is implied about free will and choice? Can a person choose what she/he does not know?

What Jesus was crying out for was the forgiveness of Deicide on the Cross.

The people who killed Jesus did not know they were committing Deicide.

Pilate, not knowing Jesus was the Son of God, could not be held accountable for that.

Yet they freely killed an innocent human being (even Pilate said so).

 

[ynotzap]

An interesting truth that points to personal guilt. Jesus said " A man who looks at a woman with lust in his heart has already committed adultery" So it’s not necessarily the execution of the act, but the intent (the will), and knowledge of the act being morally wrong (the intellect)