Why doesn't God destroy souls?

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The Bible has made it clear that we all need a savior. Some people have the opportunity to realize this and become christians. Others are just too selfish or extremely evil and would go to hell. However, wouldn’t it be way more merciful if God (who is extremely Merciful) just destroyed their souls? God gave them free will and they chose not to be with him, but they didn’t directly choose to suffer eternaly.

I know that we’re all filthy and deserving of nothing good. I also fear I’d be trying to be “more merciful” than God by suggesting this, but it won’t get into my head that God would let these souls suffer for all eternity instead of just making them disappear.
 
There are christians who believe in annihilation; they’re called seventh day adventists. They believe in Hell, but only as a temporary punishment. When one suffers enough [in Hell] to where their sins have been atoned for, they are simply annihilated by God (He removes them from existence). I don’t find that concept of Hell to be Biblical, though.

If we don’t understand that we deserve to die and go to Hell forever, then the cross doesn’t make sense. The image of Christ on the cross is a statement of how ugly sin is. If you commit a crime against your spouse, that’s one thing. If you commit a crime against a judge, that’s another thing. If you commit a crime against an infinitely holy God, it’s much worse than the other two crimes. God is so much more holy, righteous and pure than any of us, so who are we to find fault with Him? It’s better to be in line with God’s revelation than to adhere to the philosophies of men.

God has the right to punish are severely as He sees fit. His understanding of ethics is far more advanced than ours.

If I raped someone, it would only take about 20 minutes, so does that mean that I only deserve a 20 minute sentence in prison? obviously no, because that crime is deserving of a much more serious sentence in light of how severe that crime was. So it is with Hell. It’s a punishment of eternal consequences for sins that only happened through a finite lifetime, but the sin was so severe that it warranted an eternal punishment in Hell.
 
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And deprive these poor souls of the ability to bask in God’s Justice?!
 
Kei said:
And deprive these poor souls of the ability to bask in God’s Justice?!
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Despite the wording, this is moving towards the right point… “As you have used us to show them Your holiness, so now use them to show us Your power…”
 
Because even if God would annihilate anything, He would have to act in order to annihilate them. Hell is the “state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed” (CCC 1033). The ones there reject God and any actions He could take on their behalf. Ironically, the damned would have to be more connected to God to ask for annihilation.

Or to put it another way, annihilation would be a mercy compared to Hell, but those in Hell have rejected all of God’s mercies.
 
Kiko2911 said:
I know that we’re all filthy and deserving of nothing good. I also fear I’d be trying to be “more merciful” than God by suggesting this, but it won’t get into my head that God would let these souls suffer for all eternity instead of just making them disappear.
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Whoah there. You speak for yourself there. The idea of total depravity and being filthy and undeserving is Protestant in nature not Catholic. We are all stained by original sin, But the theme of genesis and the creation story is that God created, and it was GOOD. The idea that God looked upon Mary as depraved and filthy or a baptized baby as filthy, or a person in a state of grace as filthy is not a view of a God supported by His Church. As for the infinity of suffering in hell, much like angels, God created our being our souls as immortal, and it’s our free will that is our responsibility. Not God’s or it wouldn’t be free.
 
That’s interesting, I thought this idea of us being completely filthy was catholic, because I’ve been reading some answers here and whenever someone argues that the Catholic teaching on salvation is too rough (a lot of common things in today’s world could get you into hell) people aggresively reply JUST ACCEPT YOU’RE UTTERLY BAD AND UNDESERVING!! SUBMIT TO THE CHURCH etc etc etc. It’s good to know that’s not entirely true then, I was thinking exactly that, how can someone look at a baby and call him filthy 🙂
 
Yeah, I don’t think people phrased it like that. There’s a balance. We have a sinful nature because of the fall, mortal sin and not being baptized presents a justice from God that is necessary. But God came down here, he became one of us, fully human, and He touched with love the most sinful of us. And we nailed Him to a cross for it.
 
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You can simply read about human nature, heaven, hell and mortal sin in the CCC. Strangers on the internet are poor theology. That includes me.
 
Kiko2911 said:
That’s interesting, I thought this idea of us being completely filthy was catholic, because I’ve been reading some answers here and whenever someone argues that the Catholic teaching on salvation is too rough (a lot of common things in today’s world could get you into hell) people aggresively reply JUST ACCEPT YOU’RE UTTERLY BAD AND UNDESERVING!! SUBMIT TO THE CHURCH etc etc etc. It’s good to know that’s not entirely true then, I was thinking exactly that, how can someone look at a baby and call him filthy 🙂
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Are you familiar with the Appeal to Ridicule?

Seriously, can you quote a single CAF user who actually defended Jesus’ teaching about the way being narrow and not all being saved (etc) by aggressively internet shouting in all caps that we just need to accept we’re “UTTERLY BAD AND UNDESERVING!! SUBMIT TO THE CHURCH” etc etc?

Seriously, who are you claiming “looked at a baby and called him filthy”?

We’re all guilty of it to some degree or another (mischaracterizing one another’s positions in an exaggerated, ridiculous way). But we do all need to stop, and acknowledge the actual things other people are actually saying. And I literally haven’t seen one CAFer ever call a baby “utterly bad and filthy”. Literally, even on this site so often swarming with trolls, not even one of the trolls has said it (although maybe now they will, just to be ‘funny’). Catholicism teaches that in the beginning, God looked His creation and called it good. While creation has since fallen, there is still goodness, even in everything that exists (through the sheer reality of the existence itself being a participation in goodness).

There can be legitimate conversation as we wrestle with the difficulty about what Jesus said about the narrow way, about it being better for Judas if he’d never been born (probably a relevant topic for this thread), etc. But mischaracterizing those who defend Jesus’ teaching as not “too rough”, those who say that God knows better than we do and that if Jesus says it, we have to trust that he’s more right and good than we are… mischaracterizing those people as if they’re shrieking demons filled with hate, demanding ignorant blind obedience to a Church that wants to crush their hearts and sense of the goodness God has planted in them, is just off-putting. It’s not accurate.
 
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Kiko2911 said:
but it won’t get into my head that God would let these souls suffer for all eternity instead of just making them disappear.
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Curious as to why is annihilation the only option for you? Why not universal salvation?
 
Inquiry said:
Because even if God would annihilate anything, He would have to act in order to annihilate them. Hell is the “state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed” (CCC 1033). The ones there reject God and any actions He could take on their behalf. Ironically, the damned would have to be more connected to God to ask for annihilation.

Or to put it another way, annihilation would be a mercy compared to Hell, but those in Hell have rejected all of God’s mercies.
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This is a super interesting angle I haven’t considered before! 🙂 Thanks for sharing. It actually helps me reconcile with something I’ve struggled with in this area (confusion over why Jesus would say it’d be better if Judas had never been born, if we’re really supposed to think that eternity in hell is somehow more good than annihilation). The idea that perhaps nothingness would be better than hell, but the very nature of what a soul has chosen when it sends itself to hell, prevents a soul from wanting ‘better’ than hell, even prevents them from wanting nothingness… it adds on top of my existing speculation about God not ‘acting against’ the goodness of existence, to start to add even more depth to the reasons annihilationism isn’t the way things work.
 
So you didn’t believe in total depravity? You were being disingenuous?
 
God is a Creator and a Sustainer, but not a destroyer. To destroy the souls of the damned would be to go against His very nature, to betray who He is. There are other reasons too, I’m sure, but this is the big one.
 
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Someone else’s comment on a different thread put me in mind of this one.

Perhaps as others have commented, it’s some kind of categorical truth, that souls in hell would not choose annihilation. Would not choose ‘death’.

Because in life, which is where we choose the character of our souls, such souls didn’t choose to die with Christ. They chose to prefer ways of existing – without him.

So just as we live out both sides of the coin in heaven (death to self, but resurrected to live in Christ, so that it is no longer we who live but Christ lives in us), we live out both sides of the coin in hell (living with our ‘self’, separated from Christ with whom we were not willing to die).

I mean, it’s very literal. Those who cling to self and refuse to let their ‘self’ be annihilated so as to be renewed to life in Christ instead… they will get what they insisted on: continued existence as their unchanged self, without Christ, self not annihilated. Inherent in their character-forming choice, in life, was a refusal to subject the self to annihilation. So it makes sense that God honours that choice and does not force annihilation on a soul that chose to cling to itself and to reject annihilation.

Whereas when we truly love God, we can agree to be annihilated for him. With him. Trusting him. And trusting that he has promised that when we die to ourselves for his sake, he will actually resurrect us to life.

So in an ironic way, although in the end no one is annihilated (and each soul continues to exist eternally), it is exactly those souls we might expect to most desire annihilation, that are the furthest from actually choosing it. Because the very nature of their choice for-self against-God, is resistant to annihilation, is resistant to death-of-self.

Random musing.
 
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I like CS Lewis’ view, expressed in different works.
People during life gradually choose to Love God, or move farther away from loving God. (This doesn’t rule out a deathbed conversion). Obviously people can “follow” God in some fashion even if missionaries never came to their town.

At death they have molded themselves one way or another. Heaven essentially is closeness to God. For some souls, that’s what they want most of all.

For other souls, that is the opposite of what they want. For them, being dragged into heaven would be a punishment.

They want to be left alone. God gives they what they want. Lewis guesses that their souls, by the time they die, are almost nothing.

I know that doesn’t exactly match up with the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. But I don’t think that parable’s purpose was about the nature of hell. (The man still loves some relatives, wants them evangelized even if it won’t help himself).
 
Ahh the issue is that a GOD that destroys creation cannot be OUR GOD who is perfect and good.
Lets put it on our own terms. You become father and your son or daughter turn out to be a disappointment yet you still love them you would never wish anything bad to happen to them.
It is the Parable of the prodigal son.
He went to his father and asked for the portion of his inheritance.
BEFORE the father had passed away. His father gave it to him only for him to squander it, but the father still forgave him when he came back and to his senses.
Well how much more GOD loves us. HE sent HIS only SON so that we might be restored to HIM.
No GOD is a GOD of creation NOT destruction. Those are in the Pantheons of other “religions”.

Peace!
 
Eternal suffering is a cost triggered by rejection of God. In our world this is, within limits, universally known - even if not accepted. Each and every decision has consequences.Positive or negative. Pregnancy outside of marriage, STDs and the destruction of relationships are associated with sexual promiscuity. The sexually promiscuous do not desire destruction or disease,but, if pinned down, realize that they are likely consequences.

The counterpoint to eternal damnation (yin and yang if you must) is eternal joy. The choice could not be simpler, but one indulges the self for temporal/temporary pleasure while the other denies the self for the sake of eternal pleasure.

God has revealed that He created mankind in His “image and likeness”. God is eternal. Thus, souls He creates must also be eternal.

We are called to choose wisely.
 
Kiko2911 said:
I know that we’re all filthy and deserving of nothing good.
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The church does not teach that. The faith teaches that we were created in God’s image, and that by our human nature we are entitled to all that is good. Evil is not a necessity, but a perverse choice of a rational being to harm another. We are capable of good; thus choosing evil is a grave sin.
Kiko2911 said:
However, wouldn’t it be way more merciful if God (who is extremely Merciful) just destroyed their souls?
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God is just, thus we must trust that eternal damnation is justice. God created a being in his image, and gave it free will in his image. Our creation is a voluntary limit on God’s actions; God created an eternal being, and God loves and respects that eternal being. Should that eternal being not choose to be in God’s presence, God will not force it.

But God will not destroy that which he loves.
Kiko2911 said:
God gave them free will and they chose not to be with him, but they didn’t directly choose to suffer eternaly.
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The source of suffering in eternal damnation is God’s love. Damnation is a perversion of what is good. But we are created in God image, and God freely gives us all graces to avoid damnation. To achieve salvation is simply to live in harmony with one’s good nature.

Thus to choose separation from God is to directly choose to suffer eternally.
 
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