Why doesn't God just not create the bad people to keep them from going to hell

[Tom_Baum]

No you haven’t. 1)You may “think” that you have, but there’s no way that you can assert it without begging the question.

1. People who may have actually experienced hell have never returned from the dead to talk about it. That’s the thing about hell, once you’re there, you don’t leave.

Asking more pointless rhetorical questions does not prove your case.

So can God deny Himself? Can God unmake Himself?

You really ought to reconsider saying such nonsensical things about God.

I can assert it all that I want and I have asserted it, however, I, most definitely, can not prove it.

I have also experienced spiritual death but I have not experienced physical death so there was no need to have “returned from the dead”.

As far as “That’s the thing about hell, once you’re there, you don’t leave.”

I did not say that I went to hell, I said that I experienced hell and if you are saying or implying that if one experiences hell that they can not come back than you can take that up with God when you meet God.

I am just stating “facts” of some of the things that I have experienced, I am asking no one to believe or not believe any of it, doesn’t matter to me if anyone believes a word I say, my “job” is to speak, whether or not anyone hears is NOT my “job”.

As I have said in other places, even tho I refer to it as “my job”, it is really “Our job”, God’s and mine.

There has supposedly been people who have “seen hell” and come back and some of these the “Church” gives permission for people to believe it to have happened but it does not “force” people to believe it has happened.

As far as “So can God deny Himself? Can God unmake Himself?”, what has either of these two questions got to do with me saying that it is merely your opinion that God is incapable of allowing me to have an experience?

Also concerning “You really ought to reconsider saying such nonsensical things about God.”.

By “nonsensical things”, are you speaking of me saying that God can and does things that some say God can not do?

 

[Amandil]

Sure a lot of people have been to Hell and back!

And all of them too suggestive, subjective in nature and impossible to confirm.

Along with the fact that self deception is all too prevalent among people with no spiritual direction who think that they have a “direct pipeline to God”, or who have directors that are not competent but instead feed the deception.

How about we stick to what we know via the Church and not what we think we know?

 

[fred_conty]

Sure a lot of people have been to Hell and back!

St. Faustina said that she was told by God that he wanted her to visit hell. She declined, but she said God insisted that she do so. An angel accompanied her. Breifly to sum it up, it was every bit as bad as it was said to be without going into detail, and she did give details. She said that most of the people in hell had not believed in it before they died. And she also remarked that noone should say ever again that noone has been there and not come back to tell us about it, because she said she had seen it with her own eyes and has come back to tell about it.

I believe her because she isn’t the lieing kind, and she didn’t want to go there to see it to begin with.

May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine on you. May God be kind to you and give you peace.

 

[chimo]

And all of them too suggestive, subjective in nature and impossible to confirm.

Along with the fact that self deception is all too prevalent among people with no spiritual direction who think that they have a “direct pipeline to God”, or who have directors that are not competent but instead feed the deception.

How about we stick to what we know via the Church and not what we think we know?

There are a lot of people now in a state of hell who have converted back to life. St. Therese prayed for a man who was surely in a state of hell and this man was in prison for many terrible crimes. Her time in prayer enabled God to grant to this man a life changing experience which took him out of this state of hell. The Holy Mother of God was asked by the children of Fatima why do people end up in hell. She said that no one prays for them to make any reparation for them. Mary is telling us we can help those souls in hell now before they die. You know no one is sent to hell after death. You are already in it before you die. God only continues at death what is already there. Therefore people must be in a state of hell before they die so as to continue it into the next life. The good news is you can do something about this before you die. The bad news is you can’t do anything about it after you die.

 

[chimo]

St. Faustina said that she was told by God that he wanted her to visit hell. She declined, but she said God insisted that she do so. An angel accompanied her. Breifly to sum it up, it was every bit as bad as it was said to be without going into detail, and she did give details. She said that most of the people in hell had not believed in it before they died. And she also remarked that noone should say ever again that noone has been there and not come back to tell us about it, because she said she had seen it with her own eyes and has come back to tell about it.

I believe her because she isn’t the lieing kind, and she didn’t want to go there to see it to begin with.

May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine on you. May God be kind to you and give you peace.

Thank you Fred for sharing this. St. Maria’s testimony needs to be more circulated so that the truth for the reality of hell be not dismissed.

 

[Tom_Baum]

And all of them too suggestive, subjective in nature and impossible to confirm.

Along with the fact that self deception is all too prevalent among people with no spiritual direction who think that they have a “direct pipeline to God”, or who have directors that are not competent but instead feed the deception.

How about we stick to what we know via the Church and not what we think we know?

I guess there were those that said something similiar to this concerning Jesus.

There were those in Church history that said something along these lines concerning people that nowadays are some of the people that the Church points to concerning “things of the faith”.

“My Ways are not your ways and My Thoughts are not your thoughts”, God sometimes works in ways that sometimes catch some off guard that think that they know exactly how God is going to do whatever.

And as far as “a “direct pipeline to God””, it is God Who has a direct pipeline to whomever God wishes to have a “pipeline” to.

 

[Amandil]

I can assert it all that I want and I have asserted it, however, I, most definitely, can not prove it.

So then it’s pointless to assert it.
Tom Baum:

I have also experienced spiritual death but I have not experienced physical death so there was no need to have “returned from the dead”.

You do understand that there really is no point to state tautologies. We already know that X=X.
Tom Baum:

As far as “That’s the thing about hell, once you’re there, you don’t leave.”

I did not say that I went to hell, I said that I experienced hell and if you are saying or implying that if one experiences hell that they can not come back than you can take that up with God when you meet God.

If you were paying attention I said nothing about whatever “experiences” you may or may not have had.

I was stating a matter of fact about the reality of hell after death. Period.

I don’t know who you’re arguing with, but it has nothing to do with anything I said.
Tom Baum:

As far as “So can God deny Himself? Can God unmake Himself?”, what has either of these two questions got to do with me saying that it is merely your opinion that God is incapable of allowing me to have an experience?

That’s not what you said. You said:
Tom Baum:

…God can and does things many people think that God is incapable of doing.

So, according to your logic, it follows that if someone “thinks” that God can deny Himself then God can in fact deny Himself.

Or if someone thinks that God can lie, then God can in fact lie.

Or that if someone thinks that God can make a circle square, then God can make a circle square. Etc, ad-nauseum.
Tom Baum:

Also concerning “You really ought to reconsider saying such nonsensical things about God.”.

By “nonsensical things”, are you speaking of me saying that God can and does things that some say God can not do?

As demonstrated above I’m saying that God does cannot nor does not do absurd, nonsensical, self-contradictory things.

Thus it follows that God cannot save those who do not want to be saved.

 

[Amandil]

1. 
   

   St. Faustina said that she was told by God that he wanted her to visit hell. She declined, but she said God insisted that she do so. An angel accompanied her. Breifly to sum it up, it was every bit as bad as it was said to be without going into detail, and she did give details. She said that most of the people in hell had not believed in it before they died. And she also remarked that noone should say ever again that noone has been there and not come back to tell us about it, because she said she had seen it with her own eyes and has come back to tell about it.
   
   I believe her because she isn’t the lieing kind, and she didn’t want to go there to see it to begin with.
   
   May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine on you. May God be kind to you and give you peace.

   Two things: Obviously the nature of her visit was spiritual as a vision, and she had divine protection and guidance.
   
   And this instance is singular and not ordinary, intended to instruct about the reality of hell, not to deny it or the irrevocable nature of the choice.

 

[Amandil]

There are a lot of people now in a state of hell who have converted back to life. St. Therese prayed for a man who was surely in a state of hell and this man was in prison for many terrible crimes. Her time in prayer enabled God to grant to this man a life changing experience which took him out of this state of hell. The Holy Mother of God was asked by the children of Fatima why do people end up in hell. She said that no one prays for them to make any reparation for them. Mary is telling us we can help those souls in hell now before they die. You know no one is sent to hell after death. You are already in it before you die. God only continues at death what is already there. Therefore people must be in a state of hell before they die so as to continue it into the next life. The good news is you can do something about this before you die. The bad news is you can’t do anything about it after you die.

Quite simply I never denied any of this. My statement was in regards to the subject matter of hell itself objectively, not “states of hell” that people possess subjectively.

 

[Amandil]

I guess there were those that said something similiar to this concerning Jesus.

There were those in Church history that said something along these lines concerning people that nowadays are some of the people that the Church points to concerning “things of the faith”.

“My Ways are not your ways and My Thoughts are not your thoughts”, God sometimes works in ways that sometimes catch some off guard that think that they know exactly how God is going to do whatever.

And as far as “a “direct pipeline to God””, it is God Who has a direct pipeline to whomever God wishes to have a “pipeline” to.

(…sigh…As I said earlier.)

IOW:
Tom Baum:

Who are you to have the effrontory and the insolence to contradict ME!?

Adios.

 

[chimo]

This is but the greatest mystery of all. Why would a God who is so merciful allow hell? We could go on and on with so many studies and yet this question would always be in the fore front. You know I am not saying everyone would be saved at the end but let us say for talk that yes everyone will be saved. Now the question is why didn’t God tell us this? Well one good reason is if He did I just might go and take that million dollars I always wanted. Nobody will be doing any good! At least by telling us about hell you are going to get some people doing some good! And if hell is real it is very good to know it exists. I know it is very tragic what goes on in this world. It is like everything is turned upside down. There are so much incredible sufferings, terrible killings and murder, terrible addictions and afflictions, so much greed and poverty and this list can go on. There has to be something better. It is so sad that many do not want the better because they were not introduced to it when the timing was right. Sometimes I wish God would have taught us individually at these times even when we were children. Imagine having Jesus as your mentor at your bedside when you are a child. Well He did come to us. A lot of people wanted to get rid of Him but He came back. He decided to give us this opportunity for everyone to know Him by giving us the Holy Spirit. It is a struggle to come to know the better. It is not easy. It is never easy. Even Jesus suffered to show us it is never easy. Yet His love in those moments when everything was against Him shows us that yes it is possible. He has given us this possibility. We need to know it more than ever so that we can make it possible.

 

[Amandil]

This is but the greatest mystery of all. Why would a God who is so merciful allow hell? We could go on and on with so many studies and yet this question would always be in the fore front. You know I am not saying everyone would be saved at the end but let us say for talk that yes everyone will be saved. Now the question is why didn’t God tell us this? Well one good reason is if He did I just might go and take that million dollars I always wanted. Nobody will be doing any good! At least by telling us about hell you are going to get some people doing some good! And if hell is real it is very good to know it exists. I know it is very tragic what goes on in this world. It is like everything is turned upside down. There are so much incredible sufferings, terrible killings and murder, terrible addictions and afflictions, so much greed and poverty and this list can go on. There has to be something better. It is so sad that many do not want the better because they were not introduced to it when the timing was right. Sometimes I wish God would have taught us individually at these times even when we were children. Imagine having Jesus as your mentor at your bedside when you are a child. Well He did come to us. A lot of people wanted to get rid of Him but He came back. He decided to give us this opportunity for everyone to know Him by giving us the Holy Spirit. It is a struggle to come to know the better. It is not easy. It is never easy. Even Jesus suffered to show us it is never easy. Yet His love in those moments when everything was against Him shows us that yes it is possible. He has given us this possibility. We need to know it more than ever so that we can make it possible.

I agree.

When we speak of things like the question being asked here, what necessarily follows is this question from Lewis:

“What exactly are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has already done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not to be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is exactly what He does.”

 

[JapaneseKappa]

I agree.

When we speak of things like the question being asked here, what necessarily follows is this question from Lewis:

“What exactly are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has already done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not to be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is exactly what He does.”

What exactly are we asking God to do is in the very title of the thread. Not create people who will go to hell. That is even less work than leaving them alone, since God supposedly has to continuously cause their existence once they exist. If he did not create them, there would be no sin to forgive nor help to provide.

 

[Amandil]

What exactly are we asking God to do is in the very title of the thread. Not create people who will go to hell.

Then you’re asking God to act contrary to His nature. God would no more destroy the free wills of those bound in hell by annihilation than He would destroy free will in those before it happens in their being created.

You’re asking God to commit a self-contradiction, which is nonsense.

JapaneseKappa:

That is even less work than leaving them alone, since God supposedly has to continuously cause their existence once they exist.

It’s quaint that you think that an infinite Being like God somehow suffers weariness.

God is Being itself. He does not suffer any loss in providing being to His creation.

JapaneseKappa:

If he did not create them, there would be no sin to forgive nor help to provide.

What your statement boils down to is resentment at God for creating free will at all. You apparently wish that God hadn’t loved you as much as He did.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Amandil

You wrote, “Thus it follows that God cannot save those who do not want to be saved.”

You seem to know what God can not do, do you think that God knows this too?

I would say that God knows everyone better than you or me or anyone else does, including us knowing ourself, so it follows that God has the ultimate say on everything whether you or anyone else thinks differently.

Another thing that you wrote concerning those that think or believe or know that they have had an experience from God, “And all of them too suggestive, subjective in nature and impossible to confirm.”

I also believe that they are “impossible to confirm” just as I believe that it is impossible for us to prove that God Is, but as far as some of them being very “subjective in nature”, wouldn’t this be what a personal, caring God would do for one that God created as opposed to what some might think that a “deist God” would do, that being something not personal or subjective in nature at all, just something very generic and impersonal, so to speak?

 

[Amandil]

Amandil

You wrote, “Thus it follows that God cannot save those who do not want to be saved.”

You seem to know what God can not do, do you think that God knows this too?

Absolutely.
Tom Baum:

I would say that God knows everyone better than you or me or anyone else does, including us knowing ourself, so it follows that God has the ultimate say on everything whether you or anyone else thinks differently.

This must necessarily includes your thoughts on the reprobate in hell. Christ preached that hell exists, that it is eternal, and that “many” will wind up there.

That is what Christ has revealed. So despite however you may think differently, or how matter it may offend your sensibilities, you are required to believe it, because, as you just said: God has the ultimate say on everything whether you or anyone else thinks differently."
Tom Baum:

Another thing that you wrote concerning those that think or believe or know that they have had an experience from God, “And all of them too suggestive, subjective in nature and impossible to confirm.”

I also believe that they are “impossible to confirm” just as I believe that it is impossible for us to prove that God Is,

You’re incorrect. In Peter Kreeft’s “Handbook” he lists 20 arguments as proofs for the existence of God.

In the Catechism the Catholic Church teaches that, “By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of His works…”(CD #50, cf Romans 1:20).

So “impossible”? Hardly. There is a huge difference between “impossible” and Romans 1:20, Tom. There is a big difference between knowing that God is and who God is.

That God is all ought to know. Who God is is a matter of divine grace.
Tom Baum:

…but as far as some of them being very “subjective in nature”, wouldn’t this be what a personal, caring God would do for one that God created as opposed to what some might think that a “deist God” would do, that being something not personal or subjective in nature at all, just something very generic and impersonal, so to speak?

You’ve missed the point. I’m neither confirming nor denying whatever “experinces” you may have had, I simply can’t because I am not a mind reader.

It would be just as useless in this discussion to put forth as “proof” my personal subjective experiences and opinions.

This is not at all to say that they don’t have “value”(what the value of any spiritual experience is depends upon the Church having tested it and not merely our belief in it’s value), I’m saying that it’s value in regards to subject matter already revealed publicly, either by Christ or the Church, is entirely subordinate to public revelation and cannot supercede the public revelation of Sacred Tradition.

 

[thinkandmull]

I think the answer to this thread is that the beauty of giving someone a chance to get to heaven out ways the evil of him falling and the punishment that follows. This is VERY hard to understand however

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Then you’re asking God to act contrary to His nature. God would no more destroy the free wills of those bound in hell by annihilation than He would destroy free will in those before it happens in their being created.

You’re asking God to commit a self-contradiction, which is nonsense.

This seems to me to be a wild and desperate claim:
“He [God] will not destroy free will in those before it happens in their being created”
The immediate implication of this claim is that God will create every possible entity that would be capable of free will. If God ever chose to leave a possible free-will-having being uncreated, he would be, according to you, “destroying the free will of that being” and that is something he could never do.

What your statement boils down to is resentment at God for creating free will at all. You apparently wish that God hadn’t loved you as much as He did.

That is only true if you believe that free will always and inevitably puts some people in hell.

Imagine you lived in a world where God didn’t create people who would end up in hell. There would still be sin, but every sinner would have a conversion at some point in his life. Ultimately, everyone that existed would eventually embrace Catholicism and/or have perfect contrition before they died. Would you, as someone living in that world, look around you and say: “Clearly this world suggests God does **not **love us! If God loved us, he would also create people who would reject him until the end and suffer for eternity.”

 

[Amandil]

This seems to me to be a wild and desperate claim:
“He [God] will not destroy free will in those before it happens in their being created”

“Wild” or “desperate” are not philosophical criticisms.

JapaneseKappa:

The immediate implication of this claim is that God will create every possible entity that would be capable of free will. If God ever chose to leave a possible free-will-having being uncreated, he would be, according to you, “destroying the free will of that being” and that is something he could never do.

“Immediate implication”.

Another non-sequitur.

Again you don’t understand what it means for human beings to not have free will. Free will is essential to human nature, not merely a product of it.

By creating something without free will, even if it possessed a humanoid form, it would not, by definition be human but something else.

JapaneseKappa:

That is only true if you believe that free will always and inevitably puts some people in hell.

Imagine you lived in a world where God didn’t create people who would end up in hell. There would still be sin, but every sinner would have a conversion at some point in his life. Ultimately, everyone that existed would eventually embrace Catholicism and/or have perfect contrition before they died. Would you, as someone living in that world, look around you and say: “Clearly this world suggests God does **not **love us! If God loved us, he would also create people who would reject him until the end and suffer for eternity.”

You can appeal to wishful thinking all you like. The fact is obvious that it is not merely a “belief” that fee will “always and inevitably” puts some people in hell, Jesus confirmed it as a fact.

This necessarily rules out the possibility that everyone will accept the Salvation when offered.

So obviously, since God is infinitely more wise than either if us, then it is rather self-evident that such a world as you wish could be(simply because you imagine it) in reality can not.

If it is possible then He surely would have done it. Since He did not, then it cannot be possible.

So again we’re back to my original comment regarding your resentment of being a human with free will. To you sin is apparently unconquerable so you’d rather not be made at all.

God says that we can all master sin through His grace, that it is not unconquerable, but that He in fact conquered it.

So who do you trust in? God? Or your own power and ability?

 

[tonyrey]

I think the answer to this thread is that the beauty of giving someone a chance to get to heaven out ways the evil of him falling and the punishment that follows. This is VERY hard to understand however

It’s not hard to understand when we realise that those who go to hell punish themselves by putting themselves before everyone else. Moral laws are not luxuries but essential conditions of our spiritual well-being. Egoism inevitably leads to isolation.