Why does anyone knowingly and willingly reject God?

[DanAl]

“Goodness is that which all things desire.” - St. Thomas Aquinas

If it is our nature to seek goodness and God is the supreme good, then why does anyone knowingly and willing reject God (the supreme good)? Why does anyone knowingly and willingly reject that which is ultimately in his or her own best interest?

We seek goodness, but that doesn’t mean I must seek God. There might be a football game I wanted to see for a while and by seeking this lesser good I might not pray.

The same question can be applied to other facets of life. if its our nature to seek goodness and freedom from pain, why do some people commit crimes and spend life behind bars? They will tell you that they sought the profit, pleasure, they were angry and wanted revenge, they thought thet could escape prison, they were after the thrill of breaking the law, etc.

We seek goodness; it does not follow that we must seek this or that particular good.

 

[davidv]

Well, we can investigate, as I am investigating with Chefmomster.

If it is the case that you describe, why does the individual think that their way is preferrable to God’s way?

Whatever the reason, its root is pride.

I think that what you are describing is rare, most people that sin are blinded to God’s way, ignorant of God’s way, or are a bit confused or are doubting God’s way. However, we can address this rarity and see where it goes.

On what basis do you claim this rarity?

 

[simpleas]

Thanks for your reply!

I wish I could sugarcoat this since it is an extremely difficult teaching. It is, however, the teaching of the Church. Many people, myself included, do sincerely believe it! It is the reason why understanding mortal sin is a life and death matter.

1861 Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.

An essential thing to remember is that we can commit mortal sin numerous times and we can receive forgiveness and enter heaven. But we must seek God’s forgiveness within the sacrament of reconciliation. We can go to hell for one mortal sin, but we need not. God wants us in heaven. He is ready at all times to resume a relationship with us, but we must repent and go to confession for this to happen. I agree, but isn’t the person who you describe below saying that what he thinks is more important than what God wants? After all that’s what he does.simpleas: But I think some…choose to go against a certain teaching, not to offend God, but to seek what they feel is important. The Church says we must have full knowledge and consent** to commit sin.** We do not have to have full knowledge and consent to reject God. When we sin we have AUTOMATICALLY rejected God. That is what sin is! If we really desire to love God, then we follow the teachings as best we can, praying we won’t sin because THAT would be rejecting God. I agree. No one will follow all of the rules all of the time. In fact, none of us can! That is why Jesus criticized the Pharisees for thinking that following the Law could earn us heaven. Nothing will “earn” us as great a thing as heaven!

Church is not enough. We must live out our faith between Sundays. Even though we will fail at keeping all the rules we must still do our best. That is how we tell God that we love Him. We follow His laws. Those laws are taught by the Church, so we must follow Church doctrine. We will fail. That’s what confession is for!We aren’t talking about the feeling of being offended. We have committed an offense- broken a law of God. Does that make sense?Being told to submit and obey…can be a hurdle for many people.
The people who are told to submit or obey are the people who are practicing Catholics. They are supposed to know that God gave us the Church to guide us to heaven. We are wise if we listen!

Thank you also for your reply

In Red : I like how that line is slipped on at the end, and I prefer to think of it that way rather than have someone tell me some minimal sin could separate me completely from Gods love and he would rather I went to hell than ever look at me again…Sorry its just how I’ve come to know and learn of God through our church and my own life. I also know many good people, unmarried, with children, no faith in our church, who do much for others, maybe more than some christians, and I still can not vision a God who would thrown them away for choosing to live in this way. Or is it only us Catholic people that will be thrown away, because we knowingly and willingly reject God?

This is the full line I wrote on the other post :

But I think some, not all depending on their situation, state of mind etc can and do choose to go against a certain teaching, not to offend God, but to seek what they feel is important.

We are very complex, with many problems, people seek what they feel is important to how they should live their life, God gave us this ability, we grow up in spirituality at some point in our life (fingers crossed) But as we are growing we make mistakes, so if we are only half way there and die on the way, would God hold this against us?

Nothing will “earn” us as great a thing as heaven! I’m not quite with you here? To be in a state of grace (free from sin) is what we need to achieve, to enter Heaven, so by doing this we earn the right to heaven?

Breaking Gods law offends God, not in an emotional way, but thats the only way I could understand it. If I don’t take offense by the way people treat me, how does God become offended?

We were talking about people who have left the faith behind, not practising Catholics, who when they agreed to submit and obey the church may have been to young to fully understand, so got lost along the way.

Take care

 

[simpleas]

Well, this is the definition though, Simpleas. The definition itself implies that there are conditions by which God would no longer love us and cast us away.

This is a false implication. The doctrine of mortal sin does assert that man has the freedom to walk away from God, and this aspect is valuable in that it reflects God’s respect for our autonomy. However, it is my observation that such walking away, if it is possible (I have not seen it) is only done in ignorance. It is an unwitting “walk away” if anything.

When I look on my own past, every time I turned away from God, God was there where I turned. “Turning” falls short as a description. I can try to shut out God, but God is still within. Fact is, I am nothing without God. I guess I would have to non-exist, but then there would be no “I”. Do you see how all of those illustrations fall short for me?
Ooo. To be talking Spirituality in the Philosophy forum. Sounds like trouble.

This is also how I would describe how I think of God and still do, to me God never leaves us, so why would he disown us after bodily death?
If I am wrong, then I am wrong, God made me, gave me this life to live, struggles, happiness, etc.

Seems spirituality always comes into the Philosophy forum

 

[chefmomster2]

OneSheep: “It is not man who comes to God with a compensatory gift, it is God who comes to man in order to give to him. He restores disturbed right on the initiative of his own power to love, by making the unjust man just again, through his own creative mercy…”

This is absolutely true! It is a beautiful statement that God, all-powerful and needing nothing, gives limitlessly to us, who have nothing worthy to offer. But it does not contradict any of the things I said. When we are guilty of mortal sin, we cut ourselves off from God’s mercy, except for the mercy of the sacrament of reconciliation. Note that WE have left GOD. If we repent, God’s grace is again given to us. In this God still remains available to us because of His love.

 

[chefmomster2]

Thank you also for your reply
In Red : I like how that line is slipped on at the end, and I prefer to think of it that way rather than have someone tell me some minimal sin could separate me completely from Gods love

Well, it is still true that it CAN send you to Hell, but NOT over a minimal sin. Only a sin defined by the Church as grievous. However, as that line says, None of us can determine ourselves if a particular person WILL IN FACT go to hell, because only God knows what is in their heart. But I am doing my sincere best to relate what the Church tells us because believing that hell is possible for each of us reinforces the need to truly devote our lives to His will and to learn and follow the doctrine of the Church whose purpose is to teach us the Way to achieve Heaven.

and he would rather I went to hell than ever look at me again…

Oh, now I have NEVER said this and I NEVER would. God loves you so very much that he respects your free choices. If you choose to sin grievously, He has not stopped loving you in the least. The opposite is true, that you have left Him. As proof of His still present love, though, He still offers us His Sacrament of Reconciliation. Through the sacrament we can admit that we did wrong, apologize, and have our relationship renewed. Sometimes our best friends on earth can’t do that for us when we hurt them badly enough!

But as we are growing we make mistakes, so if we are only half way there and die on the way, would God hold this against us?

I can’t say how God will judge. I do know that each of us will be held responsible for what we should know. We know that adultery is a serious sin, for instance. It’s pretty basic- in God’s Top 10! If we break this commandment even knowing it’s mortal sin, we CAN be sent to Hell. A solution is available, though. We can go to confession. We must continue to learn what our faith requires. We must follow the teaching of our Church because she will help us.

I’ll answer your questions in another post…

 

[Counterpoint]

We seek goodness; it does not follow that we must seek this or that particular good.

If everyone is seeking goodness and God is the supreme good, then it does follow that everyone must ultimately be seeking God. To argue otherwise is to argue against God as the final cause.

 

[chefmomster2]

Nothing will “earn” us as great a thing as heaven! I’m not quite with you here? To be in a state of grace (free from sin) is what we need to achieve, to enter Heaven, so by doing this we earn the right to heaven?

Grace is a gift from God. We don’t earn it or merit it. What we can do is keep it and make it increase as our faith increases. People “earn” things by their own work and effort. But, we don’t follow the Law without God’s help. He is a part of every good thing we do. So we can’t independently “earn” it.

In fact, if heaven was supposed to be earned by keeping the commandments none of us would make it in! There is no way to keep them all perfectly! That is why Jesus talked about how useless it is to try to get to heaven that way.

That is probably confusing, since we have been talking about following the commandments throughout this thread! Here is how it works according to the Church. We are baptized and that initiates us into the faith. We receive sanctifying grace to help us to grow in faith and love for God. This is just the beginning step towards our final goal of heaven.

Jesus came to earth and redeemed us, but we are not yet saved. We can only be saved by having faith in God. At the last judgment we will have to show proof of our faith. Jesus will judge us. He wants evidence of our love for God.

God will not force anyone to love Him. That kind of love would be meaningless. That’s why we have free will. We can choose God, or choose to move away from God. If we love God and want to please Him, we follow His commandments not because they are Laws, but because we love Him. That’s why Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Our good works, our faithful acts, and our obedience prove our love.

This is exactly why mortal sin is a rejection of God. If we understand that we show our love by obeying Him, we begin to understand that not obeying is, for God, the equivalent of not loving Him. Venial sins are damaging to our relationship because they show lesser love. But mortal sins, being so very serious, are the equivalent of saying we fully reject God.

Once we know what mortal sin really means, we must be more careful to keep ourselves from committing them. For instance, with your example of missing Mass. Maybe I don’t know it’s a mortal sin at first. I don’t realize the power of that sin. But, the Church’s doctrine tells me, “Missing Mass without a good reason, is a mortal sin.” If I do it again now, I am doing it already knowing that it is a mortal sin that rejects God and CAN cause me to lose heaven. So, if I am tempted to do it again, I must ask myself, "Do I want to love God or reject Him? Then, if I want to go to heaven one day, I need to make the obedient choice that will be an example of my love.

Breaking God’s law offends God, not in an emotional way, but thats the only way I could understand it. If I don’t take offense by the way people treat me, how does God become offended?

Think about the traffic laws. If you get a ticket and have to go to court, the Judge might ask, “What was your offense?” (What law did you break?) The judge doesn’t “feel” offended, but you have offended the law. Likewise, someone who commits a crime is often called and offender. They are a person who broke the law. When you sin you “offend” God by breaking His Law.

 

[chefmomster2]

This is also how I would describe how I think of God and still do, to me God never leaves us, so why would he disown us after bodily death?
If I am wrong, then I am wrong, God made me, gave me this life to live, struggles, happiness, etc.

God does not disown us! WE DISOWN HIM when we commit mortal sin. Once we die, God will not interfere with our free choice. If we died with grace, we will be saved because that is the natural consequence of our choices… If we have rejected God by grievously sinning and we have not gone to confession, we will be allowed the natural consequences of that final choice.

 

[OneSheep]

Whatever the reason, its root is pride.

On what basis do you claim this rarity?

Well, let’s take a look at the case you brought up. Let’s take a look at “pride”.

“Pride” is, as best I can figure out, these three things:

1. Desire for control, dominance
2. Desire for popularity, status
3. Desire for autonomy

These desires are all innate, part of our nature. Which of these is the root of the case of sin you are thinking of? (Let’s assume you are thinking of a case, perhaps you could specify?)

Do you have a different definition of “pride”? We can work on the definitions first, it is much more practical.

 

[OneSheep]

This is absolutely true! It is a beautiful statement that God, all-powerful and needing nothing, gives limitlessly to us, who have nothing worthy to offer. But it does not contradict any of the things I said. When we are guilty of mortal sin, we cut ourselves off from God’s mercy, except for the mercy of the sacrament of reconciliation. Note that WE have left GOD. If we repent, God’s grace is again given to us. In this God still remains available to us because of His love.

God does much more than “remain available”. Look at the direction of the incarnation.

You left out the other part:

“God does not wait until the guilty come to be reconciled; he goes in to meet them and reconciles them. Here we can see the true direction of the Incarnation, of the Cross.”

What you are talking about is expiation. By some action on our part, we are to make things right, we have to pay a debt, jump through the hoop. You can see the context here:

robertaconnor.blogspot.com/2011/03/reappraisal-of-meaning-of-redemption.html

exerpt:

“Accordingly, in the New Testament the Cross appears primarily as a movement from above to below. It does not stand there as the work of expiation which mankind offers to the wrathful God, but as the expression of that foolish love of God’s which gives itself away to the point of humiliation in order thus to save man; it is his approach to us, not the other way about. With this twist in the idea of expiation, and thus in the whole axis of religion, worship too, man’s whole existence, acquires in Christianity a new direction.

God does not wait, chefmom. He comes after us. God is not a heavenly bureaucrat who finds that we have violated number 52, have not come to Him in time, and tosses us in the hell heap. “What? You did not think that was a serious sin? Tough luck.” That is the “Gotcha god”, or the “god in a sinister light” described by Ratzinger. That “sinister image” is far from the image of the God who has us carved into the palm of His hand, the image of the God who has counted the hairs on our heads.

Are you thinking, perhaps, “OMG, if there is no such thing as people committing a ‘mortal’ sin, then everyone is going to think they can do anything?” (note: I am not saying the Cardinal agrees with my observations, he did not address mortal sin in the book, not up to the point I have read, anyway.)

Anyway, this is just food for thought. No need to address it. I am much more interested in the “respons” “ible” man, and how “able” he is to “respond” for what he did.

 

[OneSheep]

Absolutely!
Take the example of shoplifting. This can be done with either selfish (evil) or unselfish (good) intent. Stealing is an objectively grave sin. The teenage girl who steals for stealing’s sake is acting with a bad intent. That is seen most simply by comparing that intention with the intent of the mom who, due to poverty, is stealing formula with the good intent of feeding her hungry baby. The teenager’s intent: getting a thrill is in stark contrast to the poor mom’s intent to feed her child. (The mom’s mortal sin would still be sinful but it is likely that she would be held to a much lesser consequence than the self-absorbed thrill-seeker.)

When you get a chance, read Augustine’s Confessions, the section I mentioned.

No one steals for “stealings sake”. They may do it for the thrill, as you mentioned. From where comes this desire for entertainment? It comes from our nature, our God-given nature. She is (probably) not intending to hurt someone, she has not the empathy to know such. She is ignorant, and may be blind too. However, she seeks to satisfy a God-given appetite, she intends to satisfy this appetite, her intent is understandable. You and I, the viewer, look upon the act as involving someone else’ expense. Our consciences automatically react to the act (anger, resentment, etc.) and we condemn the act (and the person, at least that is the natural way) and label the act and the person as “selfish”. We are right, the thief is wrong, but she has not a clue as to the seriousness of the sin. Her intent, to her, is “good”.

If she is indeed trying to hurt someone, we can look at the “good” intent of that also.

I’ll be a bit slow for a few days. We have a guest visiting.

Take your time, please, I am very busy for the next few days. Take some time to think about the man’s response.

 

[davidv]

Well, let’s take a look at the case you brought up. Let’s take a look at “pride”.

“Pride” is, as best I can figure out, these three things:

1. Desire for control, dominance
2. Desire for popularity, status
3. Desire for autonomy

These desires are all innate, part of our nature. Which of these is the root of the case of sin you are thinking of? (Let’s assume you are thinking of a case, perhaps you could specify?)

Do you have a different definition of “pride”? We can work on the definitions first, it is much more practical.

My definition of pride is not relevant. However, the Church’s definition is:
Catholic Encyclopedia:

Pride is the excessive love of one’s own excellence. It is ordinarily accounted one of the seven capital sins. St. Thomas, however, endorsing the appreciation of St. Gregory, considers it the queen of all vices, and puts vainglory in its place as one of the deadly sins. In giving it this pre-eminence he takes it in a most formal and complete signification. He understands it to be that frame of mind in which a man, through the love of his own worth, aims to withdraw himself from subjection to Almighty God, and sets at naught the commands of superiors. It is a species of contempt of God and of those who bear his commission.

This expresses pride a much more than a desire. It is a deliberate act of the will.

 

[DanAl]

If everyone is seeking goodness and God is the supreme good, then it does follow that everyone must ultimately be seeking God. To argue otherwise is to argue against God as the final cause.

God is the final cause but it does not follow that we cannot choose other lesser goods.

 

[simpleas]

God does not disown us! WE DISOWN HIM when we commit mortal sin. Once we die, God will not interfere with our free choice. If we died with grace, we will be saved because that is the natural consequence of our choices… If we have rejected God by grievously sinning and we have not gone to confession, we will be allowed the natural consequences of that final choice.

Thanks for your replies, I know you are pointing out all that the church teaches, and you very much believe in every word.

I’ll assume, if I may, that you believe it because you have found it all to be true to your way of life, and not just because someone else has told you.

We can not disown the spirit which was given to us.

 

[Counterpoint]

God is the final cause but it does not follow that we cannot choose other lesser goods.

The point is that in choosing any good I am implicitly choosing God.

“In knowing anything, I implicitly affirm God…In loving anything, I implicilty love God.” - St. Thomas Aquinas

 

[davidv]

The point is that in choosing any good I am implicitly choosing God.

“In knowing anything, I implicitly affirm God…In loving anything, I implicilty love God.” - St. Thomas Aquinas

Likewise, choosing any evil is implicitly rejecting God.

 

[Counterpoint]

Likewise, choosing any evil is implicitly rejecting God.

Evil serves a greater good. So, evil is ultimately good.

“God allows evil to happen in order to bring a greater good therefrom.” - St. Thomas Aquinas

 

[davidv]

Evil serves a greater good. So, evil is ultimately good.

“God allows evil to happen in order to bring a greater good therefrom.” - St. Thomas Aquinas

Allowing evil doesn’t make it good. Evil does not serve a greater good.

 

[Counterpoint]

Allowing evil doesn’t make it good. Evil does not serve a greater good.

Then it would appear that you disagree with Aquinas.

“God allows evil to happen in order to bring a greater good therefrom.” - St. Thomas Aquinas