Why would God create if destined for hell?

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buffalo said:
Either I am a robot or not. If He created me so I wouldn’t He is cooking the books.

This boils down to why doesn’t God show Himself? If He would only prove to me He exists I will no longer sin.

If earth was filled with only those destined for heaven it would be Purgatory.
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You are a robot. You have never made a choice in your entire life that was free of outside influence right down to chemical imbalances in your brain that you can’t control. Free will is an illusion, in my opinion.
 
SeekingCatholic said:
And just why shouldn’t He “cook the books” for everyone?
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A) because it’s not logicaly possible for him to do so (e.g. transworld depravity; or

B) he doesn’t feel like it. why should he cook the books for everyone?
 
buffalo said:
Either I am a robot or not. If He created me so I wouldn’t He is cooking the books.

This boils down to why doesn’t God show Himself? If He would only prove to me He exists I will no longer sin.

If earth was filled with only those destined for heaven it would be Purgatory.
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What do you think about this:

Why didn’t God simply create us in heaven from the very beginning?
Certainly, this was possible. God could have given us bodies incapable of experiencing pain or death and souls filled with his divine life from the very first moment of our existence. Once filled with his most bountiful blessings, we would praise God forever. For all eternity we would realize that since we were created out of nothing, God’s power transcends human compre-hension. Therefore, we would praise him eternally for his awesome display of might…
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john_doran said:
A) because it’s not logicaly possible for him to do so (e.g. transworld depravity;
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Refuted in Catholicism. There are entities (e.g. the angels, the Blessed Virgin Mary) who never went wrong even once.
B) he doesn’t feel like it. why should he cook the books for everyone?
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Because He is supposed to love everyone, and without Him cooking the books those whom He supposedly loves are going to spend an eternity suffering in hell.

And because then there would be the existence of gratuitous evil, inconsistent with an omnibenevolent Deity.
 
onetimeposter said:
If God is all good, all loving and all powerful. If God knows how a person’s entire life will play out, why would God create a life if he knows the person will make choices that will send them to hell?

God creates a life, knowing that the person will reject him, knowing that the person will not repent and knowing that the person will condemn themselves to hell.

Why would an all good and all loving God create lives that He knows for certain will end up in hell for all of eternity?

Wouldn’t the loving and good thing to do, would be not to create the life in the first place, knowing that they will not have to face an eternity in hell?
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Here’s the snag: In a sneaky way, this reasoning denies the possibility of Free Will. You see, no human can be truly free if God predestines that they to to Heaven through the use of his omniscience. If God chose not to create the people who would freely choose to go to Hell, and chose to create only those who would choose to go to Heaven, then those who would choose to go to Heaven don’t really have a choice- they wouldn’t exist if they didn’t choose what God wanted them to, so they can only choose what God wants them to choose. Free Will would therefore be wiped out through this omniscience-predestination.

God loves people so much that he allows them to ultimately decide what they want to do with their lives rather than reserving that choice for Himself, and turning them into happy robots. The only way humans can be truly free is if they have a real choice to reject God. If God denies existence to all those he foreknows will use their choice to reject Him, then the choice to reject God that exists for those who remain is not a real choice. They have to have a real ability to reject God if they want to, not a pretend one, for Free Will to exist. So God does not use his foreknowledge to predestine human destinies.
 
ckempston said:
You are a robot. You have never made a choice in your entire life that was free of outside influence right down to chemical imbalances in your brain that you can’t control. Free will is an illusion, in my opinion.
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Who typed in this post?
 
Because God wants friends and lovers - not puppets.

If our love for God is “cooked” into us, then it isn’t our love at all, but only His own manipulation. He creates us free because He wants our love for him to be genuine.

Yes, there is the risk that we won’t love Him, and will end up in Hell. But because there is the possibility that we won’t love Him, the fact that we do love Him is all the more sweeter to Him. 🙂
 
ckempston said:
God is bound by logic?
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Catholics understand God as Almighty - meaning He does what He sets out to do.

There are things God cannot do

He cannot sin
He cannot lie or deceive
He cannot change truth into false
 
buffalo said:
Catholics understand God as Almighty - meaning He does what He sets out to do.

There are things God cannot do

He cannot sin
He cannot lie or deceive
He cannot change truth into false
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Are you familiar with the Euthyphro dilemma?
 
Reason is a powerful part of the nature of God. We, possessors of reason, are thereby made in the image of God. All one has to do is look through the glorified references to Wisdom in Proverbs or the Wisdom of Solomon to see how elevated reason is in the eyes of God.
 
ckempston said:
Whatever the reason I made that response, it was not free of external influence.
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Correct - you do not live in a vacuum. However, you could have made many other responses. Why did you choose this one?
 
ckempston said:
God is bound by logic?
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yes. though it doesn’t really make sense to think of anyone being “bound” by logic, like it’s possible to be “free” of logic, and something has put constraints on us (and god).
 
Lief_Erikson said:
Here’s the snag: In a sneaky way, this reasoning denies the possibility of Free Will. You see, no human can be truly free if God predestines that they to to Heaven through the use of his omniscience.
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This contradicts the traditional Catholic understanding of grace and predestination, which teaches that God does predestine to Heaven either via omnipotence (Thomism) or via omniscience (Molinism), and yet human wills are truly free.
If God chose not to create the people who would freely choose to go to Hell, and chose to create only those who would choose to go to Heaven, then those who would choose to go to Heaven don’t really have a choice-
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Logically incoherent. Either they choose or they don’t. If they choose, then they really have a choice.
they wouldn’t exist if they didn’t choose what God wanted them to, so they can only choose what God wants them to choose. Free Will would therefore be wiped out through this omniscience-predestination.
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Logically false. Even if they only choose what God wants them to choose, they still choose, and do so freely.

Moreover, the same dilemma presents itself with regard to God’s omniscience, if we just substitute (“what God foreknows they will choose”) for (“what God wants them to choose”). They can only choose what God foreknows they will choose, so free will doesn’t exist. It’s the same fallacy.
God loves people so much that he allows them to ultimately decide what they want to do with their lives rather than reserving that choice for Himself, and turning them into happy robots.
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This isn’t love. It is gross negligence. I’d rather be a happy robot than an unhappy “free” man.
The only way humans can be truly free is if they have a real choice to reject God. If God denies existence to all those he foreknows will use their choice to reject Him, then the choice to reject God that exists for those who remain is not a real choice.
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Yes, it is. Otherwise, how is it a “real” choice for the elect to choose Him, since they could not do otherwise.
They have to have a real ability to reject God if they want to, not a pretend one, for Free Will to exist. So God does not use his foreknowledge to predestine human destinies.
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Well He does just that, according to Thomism or Molinism. If you have a “third way” let’s by all means hear it.
 
SeekingCatholic said:
This isn’t love. It is gross negligence. I’d rather be a happy robot than an unhappy “free” man.
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Of course that is your opinion on what love is. How do you know? Have you ever been a robot?

God did not set up the earth trial as the beatific vision.
 
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