Why it isn't possible to repent after death?

[Peter_Plato]

I was once a believer. But when I started doubting the existence of eternal punishment, I had no reason to be a part of the church anymore. I had nothing against church but I just didn’t feel a need to be there. I knew nothing bad was going to happen to me if I wasn’t there, so I just stopped going.

What you seem to be saying is that fear of punishment was your only reason for going to church, so when you came to believe fear of punishment wasn’t an adequate reason for going, you had no other reason to do so.

But, how many people who attend church do so out of fear of what will happen to them if they don’t? How many other fear for their friends and family members who have left the church, and desperately try to convince them to return? Hell is a powerful motivator for keeping people coming back.

I have heard people say that they attend church out of love for God, and perhaps that’s true. But if your motivation to love someone is due to a fear of punishment, that’s not love.

I certainly don’t want to read into what you are writing here, but aren’t you presuming that fear of punishment is the only possible strong motive that would compel people to love God?

Even if fear of punishment is an aspect of why people carry out religious practices, it does not follow that it need be the only motive for why they do so. Isn’t it possible for individuals to act out of fear and also out of love?

Take the analogy of the warning signs along the cliff side. It may be that people do obey the signs for fear of falling off and being killed, but the reason that consideration is important is because they value the life they have and want to preserve it.

Likewise, even if religious individuals obey religious prescriptions because they fear punishment, it may be that the fear itself is an aspect of preserving the kind of life that comes from God that they view as important and that they do not wish to lose.

It would seem to make more sense for someone to say, “I value my life, do not want to lose it and, therefore, I will act fearfully, if necessary, to preserve life,” than for someone to say, “I value my life but I don’t want to act out of fear, so, therefore, I will NOT act to preserve my life and don’t care what the consequences will be.”

The second statement, when applied to “formerly” religious people - such as yourself, perhaps - seems to be an admission that love is not a reason for loving God or acting as he expects, so fear won’t be a reason either.

What such individuals are left with, to use the cliff analogy, is walking over the edge of the cliff because they won’t listen to fear, on principle, but won’t obey the signs for any other reason either - say, for instance, out of respect or love for the city council or even out of love for themselves to preserve their own existence, if it comes to that.

It is like saying, “I won’t fear God, but neither will I act, vis a vis God, for any other reason or motive.” This is as if love of God must either be a kind of self-perpetuating inclination or it is nothing and, if nothing, then the right course is to abandon the inclination altogether.

Hopefully that helps explain my views a bit more clearly (and in a less snarky manner )

I have no desire to make you more snarky, but your explanation seems to raise more questions than it clears up.

 

[KindredSoul]

If they want desperately to repent but just can’t they cannot be responsible for their predicament. Would God’s infinite love and mercy allow them to suffer forever if they are truly contrite. Does any sin deserve eternal punishment?

Oh, don’t misunderstand, friend: I was saying specifically that they DON’T want desperately to repent but just can’t. I was saying that, in this little pet theory of mine, they don’t even WANT to repent because they loathe God so much and blame him so much for their state. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

 

[tonyrey]

It can be hard for us to understand how someone would not be contrite upon realizing they were destined for hell, but it’s not a decision they made on the spur of the moment after living lives of holiness. It’s how they patterned their whole lives until they so hardened their hearts they cannot repent any longer. This is why God tells us again and again to keep our hearts open to him.

This is the wrong question. The question is: “Is there any way of satisfying the eternal justice of God without repentance?” The answer is, to be baptized and believe (baptism being understood within the full context of the Church’s teaching). God has given us the means to be saved. It is our own doing if we deliberately ignore it and choose to reject it.
Divine justice has to be reconciled with divine love and mercy.

The question remains:

Does any finite sin deserve infinite punishment ?

[/QUOTE]

 

[Charlemagne_II]

**Peter

The second statement, when applied to “formerly” religious people - such as yourself, perhaps - seems to be an admission that love is not a reason for loving God or acting as he expects, so fear won’t be a reason either. **

If a man loves a woman, he fears her. He fears most of all causing her displeasure and her wrath. This state of mind is the most natural thing in the world.

If we love God, it’s not because we fear him. We fear him because we do not want to disappoint him or bring on his wrath.

So fear of God is hardly an argument against loving God any more than fear of displeasing a woman is a reason never to worship a woman.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

**tony

Does any finite sin deserve infinite punishment ? **

Does finite virtue deserve infinite reward?

 

[SentinelofTruth]

sw85:

The gist is that the human soul is not a thing which exists independent of the body but the two are an integrated whole. This is because the soul, in traditional Catholic philosophical reckonings, is the “form of the body.” When the material body dies, the immaterial operations of the soul ought to die, too, because they are united to and integrated with the body. What goes to meet God is not the “soul” but the remains of the soul, i.e., immaterial operations of the body (like reason, free will, etc., the part of us that is even capable of repentance), which are preserved in the mind of God in a manner akin to a severed hand being preserved in a jar of fluid and occasionally induced to twitch by the application of electrical signals.

This is not true. Forms, in aristotelian terminology, are ideas, concepts, abstracts; stuff like redness, liquidity, firmness, and triangularity. They are, in Aristotle’s view, the properties of physical objects. Substantial form are the forms that make an object the kind of object that it is (circularity is the substantial form of a ball). “Accidental” forms, are inessential details (like the color of the ball). To reduce the soul to the substantial form of the body is absurd for two reasons:
First, forms (such as the examples given earlier) are static (they don’t change). But if I become a morally worse or better person, this would undeniably constitute a change in my soul. Souls, therefore aren’t static, and so they can’t be forms.
Second, it’s recursive. The body only has properties indicative of life (presumably the ones that are its substantial forms), ie. intelligent behavior, because it is controlled by a soul. Thus, to identify the soul with these properties is to say “the soul is the properties that the body gets from the soul.”

 

[tonyrey]

**tony

Does any finite sin deserve infinite punishment ? **

Does finite virtue deserve infinite reward?

No! It is a free gift from God but He doesn’t mete out “free”, i.e excessive, punishment!

 

[livingwordunity]

Maybe it’s because when we die we are no longer within time but outside of it in eternity. So the way we are when we slip into eternity is how we are for eternity. Also, there are some called “strong atheists” who don’t just not believe but who would reject God even finding out that he does exist. Some will even say that if given a choice between Heaven and Hell they would choose Hell most likely because Hell doesn’t say no to vice. People who are in love with their sins can indulge themselves in their favorite sins in Hell or so they probably assume. This is why the prospect of going to Hell probably looks more attractive than Heaven to someone who is a slave to their sins. But I imagine Hell as being analogous to going to an all you can eat restaurant but finding out that all of the food is rotten and stinks.

 

[tonyrey]

Maybe it’s because when we die we are no longer within time but outside of it in eternity. So the way we are when we slip into eternity is how we are for eternity. Also, there are some called “strong atheists” who don’t just not believe but who would reject God even finding out that he does exist. Some will even say that if given a choice between Heaven and Hell they would choose Hell most likely because Hell doesn’t say no to vice. People who are in love with their sins can indulge themselves in their favorite sins in Hell or so they probably assume. This is why the prospect of going to Hell probably looks more attractive than Heaven to someone who is a slave to their sins.

Hell must have its compensations; otherwise no one would opt for it. The pleasure of being totally free is for some “a consummation diabolically to be wished”…

 

[SentinelofTruth]

Umm… my computer is having a weird problem loading this page. It can’t load anything past Bob’s post. I would have liked to discuss this, but it looks like I can’t. Sorry.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Umm… my computer is having a weird problem loading this page. It can’t load anything past Bob’s post. I would have liked to discuss this, but it looks like I can’t. Sorry.

He must of used the “bibledrb” tag. It doesn’t work and causes the page to load very slowly. Once it goes to the next page it will load normally.

 

[SentinelofTruth]

What on earth just happened? An entire page or so of this thread just disappeared! (at least according to my computer).

 

[Gloria7]

Sparky, thanks for the kind clarification. It’s possible to have a love for God that is not motivated by fear of punishment. I love God because of Who He is, and I trust Him that everything He does is for the good of everybody and everything. And only people who truly and willfully reject God after having been given every fair chance to love and trust Him end up in Hell, and that’s by their own choice.

 

[tonyrey]

No! It is a free gift from God but He doesn’t mete out “free”, i.e excessive, punishment!

In fact God doesn’t mete out punishment at all. We punish ourselves when we choose to be selfish and unloving. We can’t break moral laws with impunity because they are intended for our own benefit…

 

[Blind_Didymus]

Peace be with you all,

If it would please be alright to offer an Orthodox perspective on this matter, we believe that sin is like a cancer of the soul. As cancer begins as part of the body becoming evil (that is, corrupt and destructive), so too sin begins when part of our soul chooses evil, and so corrupts the good nature God created us with and destroys our relationship with him.

While he is alive, a sick man may accept treatment for his sickness. But when he is dead, how shall he be made whole again except the Lord God allow that he should be raised from the dead?

So too, the sick soul, while one is alive, may repent and receive treatment from the Tree of Life (the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations). But once one is dead, the state of one’s soul can not improve any more than the health of a dead body can improve. As the body can not change its physical state, neither can the soul change its spiritual state.

Has not the Lord made this clear in telling us through St John, He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still? As the following verse is about Christ giving everyone rewards at the Judgment, is it not far to assume this verse is speaking of the soul after death? Beside that, Christ said he came to call sinners to repentance. So why would he then tell the unjust to stay unjust were he still alive and able to repent?

So if you will forgive me please, this question seems a little strange. It is like asking why it is not possible to walk after death

Between death and Judgment Day, our souls can do nothing more than exist in the state wherein they departed from our bodies. These states may be as follows:

• Were our souls at peace with God, then when our spirits return to him our souls shall be in a state of bliss by his warming love, as in Eden.
• Were our souls at enmity with God, then when our spirits return to him our souls shall be in a state of dread by his burning fire of justice.
• Were we seeking God yet still not fully healed from sin, then when our spirits return to him our souls shall be in the state of the purifying fire (which some have thought of as a state within the state of hell, calling it purgatory) until the Judgment Day when all are resurrected and the final state of each body with its soul shall be declared by the Almighty Lord.

Please forgive me should I have answered anything in error or amiss or if I have misunderstood your question or offended anybody.

Remember me please in your prayers,

 

[Brendan]

If they want desperately to repent but just can’t they cannot be responsible for their predicament.

That is starting to get into circular logic. By definition, a desire for repentance IS a want. To have a formed will is to cease to want what is against that will.

 

[Blind_Didymus]

In fact God doesn’t mete out punishment at all. We punish ourselves when we choose to be selfish and unloving.

It is interesting that you say this for this was one of the chief qualms which the EO St Mark of Ephesus maintained against our brethren in the Western Church - that God is not a punisher.

If the West also holds this view, why then should there be a material fire of punishment?

 

[SentinelofTruth]

Brendan:

tonyrey:

If they want desperately to repent but just can’t they cannot be responsible for their predicament.

That is starting to get into circular logic. By definition, a desire for repentance IS a want. To have a formed will is to cease to want what is against that will.

While I fully agree that tonyrey’s post here is ridiculous because repentance is a free choice and therefore we can’t be “unable” to do it, I must point out that will is not the same as desire. If, during ash wednesday (since on that day I am supposed to fast), I start to have a desire to eat outside of what fasting permits, I have a desire for food, but if I don’t choose to act on that desire, I don’t will to eat.

 

[mytruepower2]

We have 3 analogies here:

1- Someone following Pascal’s wager, he did not believe but lived his life pretending to, in fear, because of a possible existence of Hell, died and went to Heaven.

2- Another person who does believe but lived all her life in sins, she repented few moments before her death as fear of Hell and to gain Heaven, she was forgiven and went to Heaven.

3- A third person who does not believe, lived his life in sins, died and then figured out that there is a God and that what he did in his life were sins without any repentence, this person goes to Hell. Except when he knew that, he asked for God’s forgiveness after death with a sincere heart.

Why repentence few moments before death is forgiven but not few moments after death? Specially when God is timeless.

Why those who reject God in heaven can go to hell as free will of their choices exp: The devil… But free will in Hell isn’t possible, so is God’s forgiveness?

1. In the first case, the person lives his life morally, in spite of his difficulties in believing. I can only imagine that once he sees God in the face, and those difficulties are removed, his reward will be abundant for all the hardships that this caused him.
2. In the second case, the person is only forgiven if they sincerely repent. If she sincerely repented, she would be forgiven, but would probably still need to spend some time in Purgatory first.
3. The third case, as you state it, is simply impossible, because when a person dies in a state of impenitent, mortal sin, they descend directly into Hell, and can no longer repent, because they are too far removed from God to receive the grace of repentance.

However, there’s another reason why this is incoherent.

You see, in both Heaven and Hell, one is moved out of this world and this time continuum, such as it is, and into eternity, in which we see the true nature of time. Because of this, Heaven and Hell are not places where the human soul can experience temporal change, in terms of being altered from one state and into another. If it was a reprobate sinner, it will remain a reprobate sinner, and if it was a virtuous soul, it will remain a virtuous soul. If it was a mercenary spirit, of sorts, but still faithfully and sincerely sought heaven, it will remain that.

We see this in the behavior of the angels. At what seems like the starting point of their existence, each is timeless in spirit, and so, each makes only a single choice with respect to whether or not they will follow God. The choices they made, they made for eternity, and this is the way of the human spirit as well, once it moves into either Heaven or Hell, to be among the angels.

Also, I believe that the notion of a sinful atheist who is that way only due to a lack of evidence is actually a myth. Saint Paul said, in his letter to the Romans, that no man has any excuse for atheism because of the vast evidence of God that assaults them on a constant basis.

 

[SentinelofTruth]

1. In the first case, the person lives his life morally, in spite of his difficulties in believing. I can only imagine that once he sees God in the face, and those difficulties are removed, his reward will be abundant for all the hardships that this caused him.

I strongly object to your positive characterization of this soul. If you live your life purely out of fear that you might be wrong, against what you honestly believe, then you aren’t really living morally. First and foremost in the moral law is to do what you believe in. If, out of fear, you live a life against what reason tells you, you are being a coward and a fool. Such a person would not go to heaven.