Why would God create people he knew would go to hell?

[benjamin1973]

I’d say that free will should be free from predestiny-- you should have an actual ability to choose the outcome of your life: Heaven or Hell. But if this destination is known, then how could that be the case?

 

[abucs]

Well my view is that the way we see reality is in a linear time scale but that the future has already happened, we just don’t experience it that way.

So because we experience time this way we might tend to think things are inevitable regardless of choice. I don’t think this is true.

A bit like :

and scientifically :

 

[benjamin1973]

So we are playing through a movie as actors of an unknown script?

 

[abucs]

No I see it as having the gift of independent choice and existence in a reality where past, present and future is a construct to help us understand the outcome of our free will both individually and collectively.

 

[benjamin1973]

These are new words, and an interesting philosophical position, but I don’t see how this will help me if I’m destined to go to Hell. At some point, an inexplicable lust or rage will make me lash out, pride or envy will turn me from God. Really, all I will be able to do is play through my life until I discover what fatal flaws in my personality will lead me (inevitably) to my eternal Damnation.

 

[abucs]

But as the fictional representation of the Matrix pointed out, it is your choice rather than something external that ‘makes you’ turn from God.

Your choices and a determined outcome seems paradoxical from our viewpoint. In fact it seems illogical. But once you consider the possibility that our logic is bound by our experience of linear time then theoretically the illogic and paradoxical nature disappears.

If you like, view the second YouTube video and let me know what you think.

Regards.

Here is the full documentary for context :

 

[AlNg]

Just because He knows what we will choose doesn’t mean He forced it.

I didn’t say so. If what you choose is known in advance, then when the time comes to make your choice, it is already known what you will do, so there are no other real alternatives.

 

[johnjacob2004]

I have a counter question for you… why did Jesus Christ(God the son) die for all and offer salvation to all created mankind, knowing some would refuse this offer and go to Hell???

 

[AlNg]

Because it’s 3 months in the future and you already decided.

I see that as a problem, because, generally, you don’t decide now what you will do 3 months in the future. I say generally, because you can make plans for the future, but this is different.

 

[abucs]

May I ask what do you think is the offer from Jesus that some refuse and therefore go to hell?

 

[johnjacob2004]

The offer of Salvation to human creation…

 

[abucs]

and how does someone refuse this offer?

(be back in 20 mins).

 

[johnjacob2004]

By refusing to believe and get baptized into Jesus’ saving death, which is our redemption… Of course only the people who refuse after their conscience has been enlightened through the word of another or by the grace of God…

 

[johnjacob2004]

The spoken or written word carries powerful truth with it… hence the Bible

 

[Latin]

By refusing to believe and get baptized into Jesus’ saving death, which is our redemption… Of course only the people who refuse after their conscience has been enlightened through the word of another or by the grace of God…

God bless you Johnjacob2004 and God bless every readers of the CAF.
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CCCS = Catechism of the Catholic Church Simplified.

Explaining Justification
The grace of God’s Justification CCCS 1990-1991; Justification is God’s free gift which detaches man from enslavement to sin and reconciles him to God.

Justification is also our acceptance of God’s righteousness. In this gift, faith, hope, charity, and OBEDIENCE TO GOD’S WILL are given to us.
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The Grace of God’s Call (1996-1998)
Justification comes from grace (God’s free and undeserved help) and is given to us to respond to his call.

This call to eternal life is supernatural, coming TOTALLY from God’s decision and surpassing ALL power of human intellect and will. End quote.

.

As you see Johnjacob2004 everyone say yes to this offer because: This call to eternal life is supernatural, coming TOTALLY from God’s decision and surpassing ALL power of human intellect and will.
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AS FOLLOWS GOD KEEPS US SAVED.
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Phil.2:13; “For it is God who works in you BOTH TO WILL and TO ACT for His good pleasure.”
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Aquinas said, “God changes the will without forcing it.
But he can change the will from the fact that He himself operates in the will as He does in nature,” De Veritatis 22:9.
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CCC 2022; “The divine initiative in the work of grace PRECEDES, PREPARES, and ELICITS the free response of man. …”
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In other words, when God commands, He capacities the hearer to respond.

Our cooperation with the grace of God is produced (not just enabled) by God’s operation.

Yet the ability to respond is also His gift.
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God bless you Johnjacob2004 and God bless every readers of the CAF.

Latin

 

[abucs]

I think there are different rejections that can be associated with God.

One can reject God as an entity, reject religion, reject Christianity, reject the divinity of Jesus, reject the example and teaching of Jesus, reject goodness, reject moral law or reject objective truth.

I think when we get to rejecting goodness, moral law and objective truth then we are in danger of rejecting God not in name but in practice, which is what I associate with losing Salvation and being separated from God, whether one realises it or not.

I accept God, Christianity and the divinity of Jesus and hopefully this will help me not to stray from goodness, moral law and objective truth which I think is the reality of God.

 

[pocaracas]

Then your concept of free will is flawed.

A truly free will should depend on nothing, but the individual’s intellect at the moment of the decision.
If the decision is known beforehand (even if not by the individual making it) then how can it truly be free? It was predestined.
If it’s predestined, then how is it free?

Say I knew you would chop down a tree three months ago? How? Because it’s 3 months in the future and you already decided.

That makes no sense.
Unless you can time travel.

God is timeless, our options are real, they’ve just already happened.

So our choices are fixed. Our choice is an illusion. We choose that which we were always going to choose, regardless of our own intellectual “freedom”.

You can’t have it both ways… you either get free will, or you get an all-knowing god. Can’t have both.

 

[pocaracas]

pocaracas:

Cannot… but it often is. I doubt it would be for most of the users of this forum, but for many people out there.

A poor choice of words on my part then.

A true, healthy, and loving relationship with God cannot be contingent on consolation, happiness, fear, feelings, etc…

Have you ever heard of the No True Scotsman?
Since we’re at it, and I hope this is still a bit on topic, how would one develop a relationship with God? To me, it always seems like a one-sided approach.

pocaracas:

Oh, is that what my wife does when she drags the kids to mass?.. inform.

Due to a lack of information, history, and authority, I am not in a position to assess nor pass judgement on your wife’s efforts at parenting or evangelization.

Yeah… you’re right… better not go there.

pocaracas:

Banished? Banished from God’s garden? Banished from the presence of God?

Catholic tradition teaches that Adam and Eve repented and the Church celebrates the feasts of St. Adam and St. Eve on December 24th. You can find some clues to this in Genesis as well.

I did not know we have those feasts. Saints, are they?.. amazing!
Did their children also become saints?

 

[abucs]

So our choices are fixed. Our choice is an illusion. We choose that which we were always going to choose, regardless of our own intellectual “freedom”.

You can’t have it both ways… you either get free will, or you get an all-knowing god. Can’t have both.

Except if you understand that the way we experience time is not the true reality of time.

 

[pocaracas]

Are you saying that you know that the true reality of time is not the one we experience?
How would one come to know that?