Why would God create someone knowing they would go to hell?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 พ.ค. 2011
- www.catholic.com/
Catholic Answers Director of Apologetics, Tim Staples, explains why God would create someone knowing they would go to hell.
Tim Staples is Director of Apologetics and Evangelization here at Catholic Answers, but he was not always Catholic. Tim was raised a Southern Baptist. Although he fell away from the faith of his childhood, Tim came back to faith in Christ during his late teen years through the witness of Christian televangelists. Soon after, Tim joined the Marine Corps. During his four-year tour, he became involved in ministry with various Assemblies of God communities. Immediately after his tour of duty, Tim enrolled in Jimmy Swaggart Bible College and became a youth minister in an Assembly of God community.
During his final year in the Marines, however, Tim met a Marine who really knew his faith and challenged Tim to study Catholicism from Catholic and historical sources. That encounter sparked a two-year search for the truth. Tim was determined to prove Catholicism wrong, but he ended up studying his way to the last place he thought he would ever end up: the Catholic Church!
He converted to Catholicism in 1988 and spent the following six years in formation for the priesthood, earning a degree in philosophy from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, Pennsylvania. He then studied theology on a graduate level at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, for two years.
Realizing that his calling was not to the priesthood, Tim left the seminary in 1994 and has been working in Catholic apologetics and evangelization ever since.
Unfortunately, the number of trolls on TH-cam seems to greatly outnumber the people who have legitimate questions about the faith. Furthermore, Christianity does not claim to have all the answers when it comes to why God would or would not do something, so the answer that some things are simply mysterious is an honest one.
Don't ever stop making these videos! We may be the voice of reason in a confused and dark war crying out in the woulds to seemingly hopeless avail, but never give up!
Some people see the error of their ways and are grossed out by evil and ask GOD for rescue. GOD promptly complies at great expense to HIMSELF and this causes that some to be forgiven and forever inoculated against evil and in love with GOD which is total bliss forever. Others refuse to admit their evil and be grossed out by it and remain seeking someone to blame and substances to numb the misery
Maybe the question needs to be re-worded. Why would an all-knowing God create someone knowing they would go to hell? If God is all knowing, then he already knows what we will choose. My point is, why would he create that person?
+Anita Rushlow That God "knows" something doesn't mean that he is stifling free will. It doesn't influence what a person chooses otherwise one would not have free will. I guess you could look at it like this, today I know the end result of the second world war but those people living at the start of the war did not know how it was going to pan out. By me knowing today how it did pan out has no influence on the choices people made back then.
- your all powerful and all knowing god knew that his newly created innocent humans are innocent enough, still he put them in the garden where there was a smart talking snake. and he also knew that if he put the magic tree in the garden, the talking snake would surely convince the humans to eat fruit from the tree... and yet he still put it there. so who is responsible with the sins and sufferings?
-don't make excuse about free will. if god didn't put the magic tree, there is no chance that adam and eve would eat from the magic tree, and yet they are free to do whatever they want in the garden. their free will still exist.
HRV789 So you are saying that God should not have created them with freewill? If he did that, then humans would have been just like every other animal. Take for example the Lion. It wakes up, it hunts, it eats then it sleeps. It will continue to do this every single day, every year, every century, every millennia. But humans were not created like that. We have freewill and that comes with responsibility. Adam and Eve abused that freewill by obeying a creature over the creator.
It wasn't so much the tree that is the central point of the story, the moral of the story has to do with obedience. Today you see rampant disobedience where humans want to play God. For example, today there is the push for homosexuality and elevate it even higher than heterosexuality. Homosexuality is not how God designed humans so, just like Adam and Eve, many humans are choosing to disobey God and obey the creature over the creator. This is again an abuse of the freewill that God has given to humans.
- no. as i've said, adam and eve had free will even before eating from the tree of life, and tree of knowledge of good and evil - they are free even without eating from the magic tree. and they where created humans, and not animals, even without eating from the tree. don't you follow your scripture?
- show me please the verse that says it isn't about the tree but the about obedience.
- homosexuality is part of our nature. it is not a choice we have to make. you can find homesexual animals too. when did you choose to be straight?
- well, can you please present your evidence that your god really exist?
Let me re-phrase the question. OK, I know I can freely choose what I will or will not do. I guess that is a sort of "free will". What I am saying is, despite this. God being ever-present, all-knowing and all-powerful KNOWS what my "free will" choice is going to be. If he KNOWS that my choice is to doubt, why would he create me?
We can never know how much grace a person has or has not received. I've had "minor" miracles no one knows about, like words placed in my mind during prayer. As I get to know my fellow parishioners better, I'm bowled over by the incredible graces and miracles in their lives. God works more than we'll ever know in everyone's lives. As mentioned in the video, everyone receives "the grace they need to get to heaven," and much more! God doesn't just want us to be saved, He wants to unite Himself to us. That's why He died on the Cross! Don't stop listening at "it's a mystery." Listen to the very understandable parts of the "mystery" we know--all based on Scripture.
God doesn't send us to hell its our own actions or sins that do. God respects our free choice this is why we have free will and this is why we are not robots. We can view life as a test of love. He created us because He loves us and He is testing us if we would return the love back freely. God doesn't force us to love Him because we wouldn't be showing true love for Him. God wants all people to be saved so repent, do the sacraments and God Bless!
God is Omniscient.Lets agree. He knows the past, the present and the future.Before he even created us he knows what we would turn out to be.He knows those who will follow him and those who will not.so why even create the sinners so that they can burn in hell at the end.WHY.
Good respone, God bless!
I'd like to know though why God creates a soul that he knows will ultimately choose to reject Him. Yes, I get He gives us sufficient grace for any situation, but that still does not change the fact that God knows the fallen soul will ultimately choose to reject him. On the surface, it seems cruel to create a soul that is eventually going to go to Hell, even though that soul has technically been given sufficient grace and free will.
god creates everyone with the chance to know him if they reject him they will go to hell god doesn't create anyone so that they go to hell god probably wants others to learn from what a rejecters life is like in comparison to the glorified life of a true Christian which would be better
Religious people always say that "we don't understand gods mind because he is so much more wise and we don't understand his ways" however, you don't need to be a god to understand that if you know something ahead of time (example: before all creation that MOST people that ever lived will go to hell) and still let that happen you are not a loving god but an evil one. Would you have a child knowing before you conceived it that it will go to hell? Probably not and if you do then you are an evil person to have a child that you know will go to hell to suffer for ever. It's really not complicated and it's not a "mystery" as they say. It doesn't get more simple than that.
nebrad16 Thanks for your reply.
(2 of 2) A simple thought experiment can show this. Suppose only four people in the world exist. Three who used their freewill to conclude god exist and one who used freewill to conclude that god doesn't exist. Now remove the one who doesn't believe as if he never existed. How does that invalidate the freewill of the other three? It doesn't.
If you are seeking God because of a deep personal conviction of sin, then you are not seeking because you are smarter or wiser than your neighbor, but it is God, through the drawing of the Holy Spirit, beginning a work and He who began a work will see it through to completion. The person then will find because he seeks. He seeks because God is drawing! Christ said "No man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him".
Good answer :)
great vid
The only thing I don't understand is why God wants to do all this. Why does He want, or need, to be worshiped. I really cannot fathom something like that. Why does He test faith with mysteries and suffering? That is where I lose it.
Because the nature of God is to be worshiped. Is not His necessity but His essence. The nature of life is to live at the expense of the disorder and entropy. Why does we have to live? There is no logic reason, in fact we don't need to live, but we live because our nature demands to live. God doesn't need of our worshipping but His essence is to be worshipped. There are angels who are in His service all the time, worshipping Him. He created angels and human beings free, for love, but He doesn't force anyone to love back and to worship Him. If we love Him we are who need to worship Him; if we want not worship Him we are free. That's our choice.
NESTOR POTKINE
Estimado Nestor Potkine. I've always liked those Jesus' words : _A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away. Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear_ (Matthew 13,3-9)
Como podrá suponer mi lengua madre no es el inglés, quizás esa sea la razón de que no le sea agradable al gusto, cosa que ciertamente comprendo. No tuve la suerte de aprender inglés en mi infancia y lo poco que sé es gracias a internet y a leer y escuchar muchas horas. Sí, es cierto, mi inglés no es bueno. No pretendo aparentar que poseo un doctorado en Filología inglesa. A estas alturas de mi vida los cursos son costosos y sobre todo, el tiempo es oro. Se lo confieso sinceramente, el idioma inglés nunca ha sido una prioridad en mi vida, mucho menos a estas alturas, pues la familia, el trabajo, y sobre todo Dios ya llenan completamente mi vida, están muy por encima que el interés de dominar un idioma que de por si me es extraño. En cualquier caso no me resisto a compartir de vez en cuando mis conocimientos y mis sentimientos con otras personas, en mi idioma original y en inglés si concurre. Las razones de esto, aunque usted no lo crea, se debe a que las personas a las que me dirijo en ocasiones están interesadas en escuchar mi opinión (aunque sea en un inglés deslavazado y miserable) y también a que a mi me apetece a menudo compartir mis sentimientos con personas que tienen el deseo de buscar a Dios pero encuentran graves dificultades en ese empeño. Me identifico mucho con esas personas porque yo he sido estos últimos años una de esas personas. El resto de mi vida simplemente he sido un ateo consumado, pero Dios se ha compadecido de mí y me ha librado de toda esa amargura y esterilidad que arrastraba en mi vida, cuando no conocía a Dios y creía, en cambio, en tantas otras cosas, hoy tan superfluas y miserables que hasta me río de su total insignificancia. Entre esas cosas insignificantes también se encuentran tantos afanes ridículos en nuestras pobres vidas, como el querer imponer a los demás lo que cada uno piensa.
Por lo tanto no es mi afán querer convencerle de nada. En realidad le veo tan convencido que ni siquiera me planteo demostrarle nada a usted, sería inútil. Mi mensaje, en lógica, iba dirigido a Harley James, que hizo una pregunta muy oportuna, y al que le deseo que llegue a ser como la tierra buena de la párabola y termine dando fruto. Por lo tanto mis palabras no iban dirigidas a personas como usted, a aquellos que se obcecan en negar a Dios. Sé de primera mano por propia experiencia que a ese tipo de personas (yo fui una de ellas) no hay nada que pueda convencerles de que Dios está vivo porque son como el pedregal de la párabola de Mateo. Quien no necesita de Dios porque se imagina sabio y conocedor de todas las cosas de este mundo, ese no puede encontrar a Dios, como quien no tiene hambre no tiene necesidad de buscar alimento. Pero el hecho significativo es que más pronto o más tarde el hambre llega en forma de golpes de la vida, o de preguntas irresolubles y si no comes del verdadero alimento (que es Dios) te mueres. Afortunadamente en mi caso el hambre me la despertó Dios justo antes de que pereciera inflado por la soberbia y la necedad.
Le mando un sincero abrazo y le dejo en compañía de ese divertido zoológico del que habla, que lo disfrute.
NESTOR POTKINE
He leido tu mensaje y tenemos puntos de vista diferentes. En realidad a mi no me importa reconocer que necesito a Dios, Jesús dijo que los sanos no tienen necesidad de médico sino los enfermos. Y yo estaba muy enfermo. Si alguno lo quiere interpretar como si eso fuera un opiáceo tampoco me importa. El caso es que mi vida cuando no conocía a Dios era una completa basura, sin sentido, completamente absurda y ahora con ese opiáceo, según usted, mi vida es todo lo contrario. Es curioso que algo que usted llama absurdo (creer en Dios) convierta una vida completamente absurda y desordenada en coherente y ordenada como ha ocurrido en mi caso. La ciencia con todo su conocimiento ha sido incapaz de lograr que mi vida tuviera un sentido por el que vivir, todo lo contrario que Dios, que ha puesto disciplina, sentido y orden en mi vida. Y lo más importante, felicidad, a pesar de las dificultades (que lógicamente no han desaparecido).. Y sí, he capitulado, he capitulado en manos de Dios, porque después de probar tantas experiencias y de explorar los saberes humanos no hay otra cosa que de sentido a mi existencia con la plenitud que lo hace Dios. Esta es una verdad que no puede cambiar ningún postulado científico
Le doy las gracias por sus deseos de que los dolores me desaparezcan. Yo igualmente le deseo lo mejor.
God doesn't test us, but if we feel that way, then maybe our hearts aren't in the right place. If you give it all up to God and submit to do His will, that is, to accept what is beyond your control, with grace, you won't feel "tested". I grew up in an abusive family with some very horrid, awful, very evil experiences both directly and indirectly as a result of living in such a dark environment. For many years I felt lost, and I was in a lot of pain. Sometimes I still feel angry about it, but in spite of all my suffering, from childhood, through my teen years, and lots of confusion in my twenties, I chose to walk away from it all, and not be a victim. I could have ended up a statistic, and I could easily have said "Why me Lord? Were you testing me? Why did I have to go through all that?" but I trust Him, I trust His will for me. I will be dead much longer than I will be alive on this planet. Do I want to waste the rest of my life feeling sorry for me, being mad at God? No! I am so grateful for what I DO have, and that's the freedom to choose what I want my life to be like from now on. I didn't have that choice when I was dependent on my abusers, but I'm not that child any longer, and I don't see my pain and suffering as a punishment, or a test from God, although I COULD choose to have that perspective if I wanted. I don't want to though, I don't want to ask "Why does God allow suffering?" because it was through my suffering that I grew closer to God, that I was able to know strength, compassion, and personal power. At every moment in our lives we can choose to be victims, to be sad and angry, to question God, or we can choose to be victorious, to be grateful, and to trust God. I honestly could not move forward in my life, were it not for my faith. Some people who are unbelievers, and I'm not saying YOU are one, since I don't know you personally, but a lot of them say well people believe in God because they need to. Yeah, no duh! Of course I need God, does that make me a weak person or dumb, for knowing that I'm not strong enough to depend on me or other humans for hope? Gosh, if I were to lay up all my hopes on humanity, just taking a cruise through the daily news headlines would end that for me pretty quickly. LOL. Anyway, I didn't want to beat down a lecture on you or anything, I just wanted to advocate the power of choice, the power of forgiveness, and the power of trust in God. If it weren't for those things, my suffering would be in vain and I would die a bitter person, but thanks be to God, I'm so happy to have this life and the hope for eternal paradise with my Lord after death. God bless!
Bibleindepth, no, I do not make up my own god. LOL. The Lord gives us a cross to bare daily, perhaps some might call that a test, but it is US with our sinful nature who tests God, it is Satan. Whether the weight of your cross is light or heavy and whether you take it up or not, whether you define that as a test rather than the price we pay to follow Him, boils down to mere perspective. I only feel tested by temptation and sin, and that stuff is of the devil, not God. Sorry you think otherwise.
But god ALLOWS people to go to hell, not only that but that's like a robber threatening to kill you if you don't give him money, like god making you to worship him to not go to hell
I think there is similar question to this. Why would parents decide to have a child if they would not have a guarantee if he/she is going to go to heaven. God however knows everything in advance. This is difficult issue because of dependencies between humans and their choices.. We can only hope as we believe that if God is good than this world will have the most people saved as opposed to any other one.
At 1:09 the whole "it's a mystery" argument is brought up, which renders any following arguments unnecessary. I'm sure you would understand how some people would see an argument such as this as unsatisfactory as it explains nothing.
The "Comment may be held for uploader approval" ploy is unfortunate. Why censor comments?
I agree. If God KNOWS he's creating a soul in vain, why waste HIS (and our) time? Even worse create something He knows will suffer?
@soulsurcher
The sign of the cross is no different than me asking "Why do you kneel or close your eyes when you pray?" It's just an expression of when we reflect on the Most Holy Trinity. It also makes a cross so I constantly remember what He did for me on Calvary. Secondly, we ask saints to pray for us. It's no different than asking a friend to pray for you. We also know that "a prayer of a righteous man availeth much"(James 5:16) and who are more righteous than the Saints? God Bless You.
the claim that god has his plan kinda negates the freewill claim, and god knowing beforehand is the same as god allowing/making it happen, because god is omnipresent and all powerful so nothing happens that god doesn't want to happen else he is either not omnipresent or not all powerful
I think it will always be a mystery, but I do find this idea consoling, if nothing else.
He creates us because He loves us. We end up in Hell because we have not returned this love. I don't know if this is 100% true, but it sounds right.
How do you know you have free will? How do you know if god doesnt already know what you are going to do?
"Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life." [Gal 6:7-8] (RSV) There are consequences for committing mortal sin, refusing to repent, and dying in mortal sin. The punishment is Hell. The soul who goes to Hell goes there because of its own free will, and ultimately "say no to God."
There's always hope as long as we show an ounce of humility, regularly go to Confession, and at the hour of death, say that we are truly sorry for our sins. If there's hope for St. Dismas the Good Thief, who had just one breathe left within him then...there's hope for us.
- your all powerful and all knowing god knew that his newly created innocent humans are innocent enough, still he put them in the garden where there was a smart talking snake. and he also knew that if he put the magic tree in the garden, the talking snake would surely convince the humans to eat fruit from the tree... and yet he still put it there. so who is responsible with the sins and sufferings?
-don't make excuse about free will. if god didn't put the magic tree, there is no chance that adam and eve would eat from the magic tree, and yet they are free to do whatever they want in the garden. their free will still exist.
Very good answer to the Calvinist argument, which goes WAY too far. It isolates Romans 9 and doesn't take the rest of scripture into account of how much God loves us and truly desires for all people to come to him.
It makes me think like, if God knew that the 'person' wouldnt obey but his son would and do great kindness others, wouldnt it be up to God to let that person make his choice so his son could make his.
It's just occurred to me. If a homeless person asks you for money in the street, but instead you offer him some work to earn it, and you know that he'll spend that money in drugs will you knowing that, still give him the money as agreed?
One of the things that always left me dissatisfied with the "knowledge =/= causation" argument was that in understanding that God does not cause people to go to Hell, it still does not address the heart of the matter in that "the Lord still knows that one whom he has created shall have Hell as their end, and has still created him". There must be some greater reason therefore concerning the person himself, and I will let Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI answer this for me in a beautifully succinct line from his first homily as Pope: "Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
It is the word "necessary" which is important here. Why are we necessary? To have existence is to have purpose, as it states in the opening words of the Catechism, God "in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life", and "calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength." CCC 1
In contemplating this question we must also be mindful of the purpose of our having been created, which is as stated above. In this purpose, and subsequently in the commands given us by Christ himself to make known the Word of Life to a broken world, we are each of us unique expressions of God's goodness. Unique, in that we are unrepeatable for our beings are themselves immortal and we cannot be both ourselves and another; and unique in the manifestation of that most blessed purpose to know, love, and serve God. Some men are called to be husbands and fathers, others, priests and religious, still others, lay consecrated. Some women, wives and mothers, others, religious or lay consecrated. To say that a person, whose purpose is to know, love, and serve God, a person who has been given the gift of life and the even greater gift of sharing in the Divine Nature not only by virtue of what we are as human beings but also and above all through the Sacraments, is better off not existing, is to say that all the Lord extends to us in love is similarly better off not having been offered. Love is only love if it is freely given, and as a consequence we may also freely withhold it and reject our creator and choose our place in eternity. But it is an injustice for God to force non-existence upon one whom he would have created, because it is contrary to the nature of love which is to be given, received, and create. It is that creation which we forget is an aspect of love as well, for God not to create us is for God not to love us, and for God not to love us is for God not to be God, but an impostor. We know however that "God is love" 1 John 4:8 , as the Great Evangelist teaches us, and such is his nature. I do hope that this is helpful to some, as understanding this has been helpful to me. God bless and keep you all.
@naruto uzumaki God knowing the outcome does not mean that people lack free will. If a mom sits out a plate of cookies and tells her he can't have one until after dinner, but she knows that if she leaves the room he will grab one. The child still exercises free will.
The way I see it, is that it all comes down to the principle of God. That he is love. People are arguing that because God knows that a person will betray him and end up in hell, why he would create them at all? And the reason is that he loves them. Even when they turn away from him, he loves them enough to bring them into the world, and offer them the chance to follow him and love him. If they reject, then that's their choice.
God created us to love him, because he loves us. Even if he knew a person was going to go to hell, why would he deny that person the opportunity to ever live? And I think this is the topic everyone should be aware of. Sure, you could argue why he wouldn't change the person. But say if God suddenly changed you to someone else who could no longer sin or be tempted, it wouldn't be you. God loves us enough to let us live our life and choose whether we turn to him or not. Even if he knows we will eventually go to hell, he loves us enough regardless to let us still have a life.
so he will let me live 70 years and then suffer in the most horrible ways for eternity in hell ? Oh how happy I am... (sarcasm) and what about babies who die ? do they go to hell because they werent baptized ? because then god is a monster ? or does god have grace and let them go to heaven because they didn't have the chance to live ? then those babies get a free pass, lucky them, while someone might be an atheist, go through life, get caught by ISIL and tortured and killed.. hmmm.. no matter how you flip it around, i dont fail god's test.. god fails our test
God is omnipresent and omniscient. He sees us from a different perspective just as if we could see the Rose Parade in one complete view if were on top of a building as opposed to us being on the side walk on the street seeing the floats in procession. God sees you committing a sin and sending you to hell is not like He is seeing something in the future like a fortune teller. He sees you actually doing it. He knows what you are going to do because He is present at that moment of you doing it. You choosing to commit the sin in a certain way adds to God's knowledge as to what you decided to do. Your free will has value. This is how you resolve the dilemma. There is still a mystery involve and we will never get the full picture in this life. Mystery is food for the mind.
(Part 1) Tim says we should not regard God as a monster. Yes, true; because God is all-loving, all-merciful and all-just, & not all-wrath. And the Words of God that say "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy..." should NOT be interpreted as saying God is an unmerciful, unloving and all-hate Being, but on a positive manner that God is really an all-merciful and all-loving God because the Bible says the latter. And because God is all-loving, all-merciful and all-just, we...(see next part)
Testing
If god loved us, he wouldnt expect us to believe in him on bad evidence, or spite of scientific evidence, and would at least give us a second chance at the end of our life to know him, and then be able to properly choose him.
Max Anguiano " Thus, it must follow that others also have truth, aside from the Catholic Church."
I fail to see how it must follow from your premise.
standev1
It is a given that not everyone is placed in a particular environment in which there is an equivalent opportunity to become a Catholic or what have you. Clearly, it does not follow that only by being a Catholic, and not anything else, you will have truth. Otherwise, God is not just.
I agree with the author David Bentley Hart in his great book, “The experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss:” I know, of course, that there are many persons who object in principle to any fraternization between different religious vocabularies, for various reasons-anxiety for creedal purity, fear that any acknowledgment of commonalities with other faiths might lead souls astray from the “one true path,” intellectual scruples regarding the contradictory claims made by different traditions, fear of a colonialist domestication of “the other,” a firm conviction that no religion can be true unless all others are clearly false, and so on---but those sorts of concerns leave me icily unmoved. For one thing, all the major theistic traditions claim that humanity as a whole has knowledge of God, in some form or another, and that a perfect ignorance of God is impossible for any people (as Paul, for example, affirms in the letter to the Romans). For another, on can insist on absolutely inviolable demarcations between religions at every level only at the price of painfully unrefined accounts of what each tradition teaches. Religions ought never to be treated as though each was a single discrete propositions intended to provide a single exclusive answer to a single exhaustive question. It goes without saying that one generally should not try to dissolve disparate creeds into one another, much less into some vague, syncretistic, doctrinally vacuous “spirituality.” It should also go without saying, however, that large religious traditions are complex things: sometimes they express themselves in the dream-languages of myth and sacred art, at other times in the solemn circumlocutions of liturgy and praise, at others in serenity of contemplative prayer-or in ethical or sapiential precepts, or in inflexible dogmas, or in exactingly precise and rigorous philosophical systems. In all of these modes they may be making more or less proximate approaches to some dimension of truth; inevitably, however, they must employ many symbols that cannot fully explain the truth in itself, but can only point toward it. It may be that one faith is truer than any other, or contains that ultimate truth to which all faiths aspire in their various ways; but that still would hardly reduce all the other religions to mere falsehood. More to the point, no one really acquainted with the metaphysical and spiritual claims of the major theistic faiths can fail to notice that on a host of fundamental philosophical issues, and especially on the issue of how divine transcendence should be understood, the areas of accord are quite vast (p. 3, 4).
Sorry for the long reply, but this is important material.
actually the Church does teach us not to accept things blindly, and we do Believe sinners that are in "sincere ignorance" wich mean, they really think that what they're doing is not wrong, they can go to Heaven (with purification time on purgatory, wich is not painfull)
Luis R Vera Suárez
Intelligent reply!
barb phillips God bless you.
I don't think it's an issue of robots as it is the fact that while man is dead in sin, he is morally incapable of choosing, seeking, or pleasing God. Unless God removes their heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh, they are unresponsive to divine stimuli. When you are regenerated by the Holy Spirit) you can then respond to divine stimuli. All of this is initiated by God in his mercy to those whom he will have mercy. The person then isn't being robotic, but responding willingly.
A perfect creator would only create successful creations. The sheep, as you put it. What's the point in creating the "goats"?
Wow! I love Catholic Answers, but they sometimes do a rather poor job at answering questions. NOT THIS TIME. I think that this answer was an excellent! Glory be to Jesus Christ.
(1 of 2)So by saying it's a mystery is that a tacit admission that it's an irreconcilable contradiction? I say it certainly sounds like it. Secondly the free will argument does not apply here. If god being omniscient knows before he brings someone into existence that they will not go to heaven, it doesn't follow from there that if he simply doesn't bring them into existence that others who do or will exist don't have freewill.
:) nice day people. This is my opinion for this topic. let us, just try to put it in this way, yes, there is time and space so on and so forth... but just for now-just for now, let's try to think this in way's like this, yes the Creator has no boundaries. but, maybe he set all, things, time and space etc.. In one line only, no back and forth between past and present or future, only one straight line. And he gives us a free will to choose, and then he chose not to see... what will be the total-outcome, for one person to another, and all those things... But he. chose to give, us guidance for us to know the true meaning of true-love, cause come to think of it, why there is only one line in all of time in history? from beginning... to Adan and Eve... to Moses... and our Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of, through, our mother Mary... And from there... To, one last sacrifice for all. A One and Only and Ultimate, Sacred Sacrifice Of God The Father Through his Only Begotten Son, for us all... yes i truly believe that the Creator did give us all, a sufficient and reasonable chances... There is the Holy Spirit.. the history.. the apostles,-creed.. the Bible.. the church... and there is you and me and all of us... and so on and so forth... And if that's not enough there is the purgatory for purification...
For all of this i know there is A Perfect Reason. that i do not know?
From this thoughts and ideas you can, adjust, add more... just always think in the positive ways only. For i do not want to know all, in this lifetime of mine, yes i can think more and more reason... But i rather be wiseman with increasing faith, hoping to reach full-faith in our Creator through our Lord Jesus Christ...
Ecclesiastes 7:15-18
15 In my a vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. 16 Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? 17 Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? 18 It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.
facts about our Creator ; through science, historians, so on and on...
our dna codes have provided a scientific evidence, that we all have one root only, through the process of tree of life=adan... the billions of dollars of research, the genome project resulted, that our genetic code, are more simple than that on many in this earth, like for example green beans have more genetic engineering code than that of a human being, and the president of that project came to reasons to believed that there is a ultimate Creator... And through the process of carbon dates, we identified and proved many artifacts authenticity in history, like the old and new testament in the Bible, and many other more... And in the theory of space and time, most astrophysics used the theory of the expanding universe, because it proves many theory to facts, many many more that science and human resources used to make us more and more intelligent, and on the top of it all, as we progress it all leads to a more accurate and detailed, solid reasoning that there is a, Ultimate Creator.
Yes, truly i say to you, like in the Bible, judgment will come to all of us, also in Bible, truly truly. but i say to you. stay fast. Jesus said, Behold, I am coming like a thief...
If all of this must happened...
Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth Only Begotten Son Of God The Father Almighty. Masunod ang kagustuhan mo po para sa amin. Your will be done. Amen.
- your all powerful and all knowing god knew that his newly created innocent humans are innocent enough, still he put them in the garden where there was a smart talking snake. and he also knew that if he put the magic tree in the garden, the talking snake would surely convince the humans to eat fruit from the tree... and yet he still put it there. so who is responsible with the sins and sufferings?
-don't make excuse about free will. if god didn't put the magic tree, there is no chance that adam and eve would eat from the magic tree, and yet they are free to do whatever they want in the garden. their free will still exist.
God gives all in there heart ability wanting to know more about him seek knock read The Catholic scripture ask priests you will find your answers. Just a simple pray to God show me ask who are you he is not a lie.
+ella hope word salad
why does god create a baby when he knows that child is going to be aborted.what is his purpose . dosent he love that innocent baby
.Why would God create someone knowing they would go to hell? Because God isn't going to create robots to fellowship with, and He gives us ALL the choice to love and worship or reject Him. If you end up in hell, YOU chose it by rejecting your own creator...a foolish decision with eternal consequences.
Elijah . god knew before creating us what our choice would be so why create us in the first place if we are going to hell. he is either evil or he isn't omniscient.
Kristi Oliphant He gave you free will. It's YOUR choice. Repent and believe the gospel and inherit everlasting life, or reject Christ, die in your sins, and inherit everlasting damnation. Free will is a gift of God, use it wisely.
*****
God doesn't create people predestined to go to hell, and just because he knows the future, doesn't mean he makes your decisions for you. You choose Him or you reject Him. It's that simple.
Kristi Oliphant
Do you want God to create robots? Would you want your spouse to love you robotically or "freely" by choice because they wanted to? God wants us to freely love Him. Free will is a great gift. Use it wisely.
Elijah you don't understand Wat im saying. you say god gives us free will and a choice. i get that, but why does he create the people he knows will deny him and go to hell? why does he let it happen? why does he create his children he loves so much just to go to hell. also, the concept of hell is completely immoral. its and infinite punishment for a finite crime.
"Why would God create someone knowing they would go to hell?"
## In the way that question is posed, it misrepresents the Calvinist doctrine.
What's more, if there is a problem for Calvinism, the same problem arises for *any* Christian doctrine that affirms both (1) Divine Providence & (2) the possibility of eternal damnation. The difficulty is not caused by Protestantism or Evangelicalism, but by the affirmations in the Bible about Divine Providence, Hell, & damnation, combined with the traditional Christian decision to see all of these affirmations as parts of a single revelation about God & His dealinngs with men. If the Church did not accept all those affirmations, the question as quoted would not arise. But in fact the Church does accept all these affirmations, and regards them as dogmas.
So the question could equally well be asked: "Why would [the] God [in Whose all-ruling Providence Catholics believe] create someone knowing they would go to hell?" Calvinists are not at all alone in having to answer the question. And it is short-sighted & unself-critical of Catholics to think that the question arises only for Calvinists or for other non-Catholics. (I'm a Catholic, not a Protestant of any kind, BTW.)
The host took about six minutes to say, in an intelligent-sounding way, "I don't know the answer to your question". They called it a mystery. More like a paradox. A sinner is, by definition, faulty. Why else would they choose what they do? Those faults are present at birth. Even if they don't manifest until some trigger brings them out, a better design would allow them to resist sin. Ask yourself, why would someone choose to behave in a way that wil result in hell, if they can help it?
(Part 2) should not think that God will vengefully, brutally and unjustly punish a soul in hell forever and ever (without end, in uncountable years) for sins committed only for, say, 100 years of the life of a sinner. Because God is all-loving, all-just and all-merciful a soul in hell will merely receive a "fixed" eon of time in hell only God can lift, unlike in purgatory where prayers of the faithful can shorten a soul's stay in that purging place.
God does not sit passively by and watch things comind down the pike, he is Sovereign! "Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come? " Lamentations 3:37-38. "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him WHO WORKS OUT EVERYTHING In conformity with the purpose of his will, (Ephesians 1:11).
In my opinion, they do not answer the question. They call it is a deep Mystery. The moderator states "the human mind cannot reconcile God's omniscience (all knowing) and our free will." He mentions God does not "cause" someone to choose something. But, they fail to address God "knowing" what a person will choose. I wish they would use clear and direct language when answering these deep questions. Their answer seems to cause more questions than it answers.
well if you can have a better answer we d love to know it
No, I don' t have a better answer. I am asking the questions in search of an answer. A clear logical answer that makes sense to me. And if you are being sarcastic, please don't reply to my posts. Thank you.
+Art Mandanas stop being sarcastic, you know he too doesn't have that answer
for me, the answer was pretty good.you say they "rambled and rambled" but did not have the "clear answer", that's the point. it is because the human mind cannot fully understand, how can I give a clear cut answer about something I don't fully understand? God did say that his ways are far above ours. remember how he dealt with Job?
“Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.”
what Job sees is not what God sees. there are things that we simply have to trust God with :)
I am getting replies via gmail but when I click to Reply to them, I don't' see them on this page.
It is hard for me to see even the most sinful people who have done horrifying things as having "Absolute Evil" souls. To say that certain people are absolutely evil seems a bit rash...
The souls in Hell suffer--if they were absolutely evil, they would enjoy their time in Hell--but what would be the point in Hell if the souls there are unaware of God and His Heavenly kingdom?
Perhaps Absolute Evil does not exist, as all that God created is good. Read/re-read Saint Augustine's Confessions.
How to go to heaven? I believe that God raised Jesus to heaven and Jesus is a lord and savior.. i believe if I confession and I feel like something is not enough.
God shows us his love by creation. and because of our sins He sent His only Son to die for us all so that we could be with Him
What if you choose Heaven out of fear of going to hell....so then this is not necessarily love...do you still get to Heaven?
It depends on how you live your life. Look up the "Natural Law" of humanity. If one lives the Natural Law GENUINELY and they never have been shown the Truth (Jesus Christ and His Church) then they can be saved. If you treat people well and strive not to commit sin, you are in a good place. but if you do everything only out of fear..well then you aren't exactly living life as God called you to live! But we can never say for sure who is going to Hell.
*****
ask God for the grace to help you be more genuinely compassionate, in that case
Nothing wrong with being God fearing it causes us to think twice about committing mortal sins, but surely one who fears god truly loves him due to taking his statues and decrees seriously.
barb phillips thank u
barb phillips
James 2:14-26New King James Version (NKJV)
"Faith Without Works Is Dead
14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your[a] works, and I will show you my faith by my[b] works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe-and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?[c] 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”[d] And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?
26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."
Catholics don't think salvation is earned. But rather, that through the Grace of Christ's resurrection and passion, we are called to live in imitation of Christ. Therefore, if you merely just "believe" in Christ but don't share or participate in His love or sacrifice on the cross, then you are spiritually dead.
We are all running from the gates of heaven, God turns us around, noone deserves heaven, everyone deserves hell. It is by grace a sinful creature enjoys His creation. It is more justful for God to completely wipeout human existence based on their imperfection. It isnt about our glory or our comfort, it is about glorifying God with our life. Romans clearly lays out how we are free to act within our nature, and without the Holy Spirit we are in slave nature and under law.
whether or not we are guilty of adams sin is not the point. my point is that all creation was affected by sin, humans now have a sin ful nature that corrupted them and causes them to be in rebellion. we only have free will to act within our nature. that nature being sinful, we only make sinful decisions until the holy spirit changes our spirit into the new creation.
who are we to judge what is psychopathic or evil?
Gods word says we were created to enjoy what he created, glorify him, and have a relationship with him. Adam messed it up, we all would have. Now we are imperfect in the sight of the perfect one.
Whatever your beliefs are Im sure you have no authority to draw from on what is right or wrong behavior for any being.
Do you call a judicial system psychopathic when a man is sentenced to death for killing a child? Most certainly not.
Though it may seem crazy to you that a God has rules for his creation (out of love and guidance) and the punishment is a spiritual deprivation and ultimately an eternal damnation because of that rebellious heart toward Him, you cant base that crazed feeling on much at all.
By the way, this "genocidal God" gave up something of tremendous value (due to his psychopathic tendencies i guess :P) HIS Perfect Son. To guide us, BE TORTURED and DIE for us, and give us eternal salvation. All you have to do is submit to God your rebellious heart and Accept this perfect sacrifice. That is the Gospel by the way.
Are you worthy of such a payment of debt? What reason did God have to do that for you? Hell for me! None! His love and mercy abounds, but He is the eternal and perfect just God. Fully sovereign over His creation. Praise to Him.
And why tell someone to kill themselves. What right does anyone have to live over another. Dont use your opinions as sufficient reasoning to tell someone that , one has to be very very miserable to do that.
Thank you for being so offended to waste your time to tell me that though. And for filling my time here while I am bored at work.
now you are not a worm and you were created to walk a path that leads to the glory of God. You are worth so much to him and have so much value to this world and those around you. i hope you see the grace and love God has for you.
Yeah you are right. Your belief is relative.
why do some go to hell? sin. why did God create people who will go to hell? bible answers saying even the wicked work to the glory of God,Psalms. What is our purpose? Relationship with the Lord and Gods glory. Why don't most people agree? Same reason Satan didn't, pride and wanting to be the author of our life and in control. Pride.
Why wars, pride. Why suffering, pride. Why are Christians sometimes if not often more evil, pride. Sin invades everything, we can't escape even with good works. Only by perfect sacrifice of Christ does someone come to salvation, 1 John.
What is heaven? What is hell? What is limbo? I would like you guys to help me see this. it seems irrelevant to me. Especially as money.....hard cash seems to play a part sometimes!! Surely god exists above the financial level.
There is no limbo or purgatory Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?? Are you serious?
Google "Hell New Advent".
The logical confusion in these comments between God creating someone knowing his choices and God creating someone to make those choices is quite laughable. What part of the concept of free will - that is causally independent of everything but itself - do you not understand?
+ropisfun Your problem is that your are putting God at the same level as us or that by him knowing something is causing you to act differently to how you would act if he did not know. Jesus began his preaching ministry by calling people to repent of their sins. Therefore, a person can turn from theirs sins and choose to seek God in order to live a holy life.
This is what always got me. I read the Gospels and the hippy Jesus is not there. Pretty clearly, most of us are not going to make it. The way I answer this is that God just kills us. If we don't want to love and prefer to hurt and dominate, than God, who gave life to us and has every right to take it away, will do just that. I know that's not Catholic-approved, but it is fair. God doesn't have the right to call a being into existence, knowing that they will spend eternity in Hell. However, he does have every right to kill us. I'm sorry if this offends anybody, but it is my opinion.
Tim, what do you make of the similarities between Mithraism and the 'Roman' Catholic Church, founded later at the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325?
@Cherubaby - Hell is for all unrepentant sinners. It doesn't matter
how severe or how minor the sins are. Sin is sin. All sin comes short
of God's glory. For sin cannot enter Heaven.
I didn't watch the video, but I know the Protestant answer and it isn't a very satisfying one. Free will, blah blah. The Catholic answer is at least more honest. "That's one of the mysteries of our faith". Which means, we don't know.
@atheistram The Catholic Church brought us out of the Dark Ages.
I might be wrong but what I think is that we already existed in God's thoughts and Spirit.He wanted us.So it was inescapable that we had to be born. But at the base of everything there's the free will that is sacred through which all men can choose their path, just like lucifer chose his.But God couldn't avoid to create us because He loved us already...I hope I have been clear (forgive my English) and don't ever forget to create a good relationship with Jesus...He longs for it. God bless you all
I think that god has power of infinite prediction , god has infinite capacity and also men can sometimes predict accuratly what will happen.
God is eternal, there is no beginning and end of Him. God also doesn't change. Why can't God change? Because he is omnipotent and because He is omnipotent He can never learn anything new because He is complete in His knowledge and wisdom.
Because God is complete in His knowledge and wisdom, he can never wake up one day and say "I plan to do this or that" because that will be the beginning and He would have change in His mind, for yesterday He wouldn't have any plans and today He will. God always planned to create man, He always planned to send Christ to die on the cross, He always planned to create hell and the lake of fire, and He always planned who He will save and who He will not save untold
quad tillions upon quad tillions of years before creation.
In having mercy on "some", it in no way makes him unjust or monsterous. All are dead in sin and unable to please God, humanity blew it through the fall of Adam, but God rich in love and mercy has decided to show mercy on a certain elect few, throughout all generations. "For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined. (foreknew here is not implying those whom he knew would "choose" him, but those whom he "knew" in the context of biblical knowing. Knowing on a more intimate scale.
Hey, you guys have faces.
.....?
God foreknowing(loving intimately) predestinating,calling,justifying,and glorifying people is something He has done,not man.God knowingly made people for Heaven and Hell,this number is fixed .Yes,God knowing does determine the out comes of our lives.God knows infallibly His sheep and goats,so 2 Peter 3:9 can't be speaking of every single person,but of the elect alone since God is not patiently waiting on the goats to believe because He knows they never will & He'd never send Jesus back.
smh. God doesn't make anybody go to hell we freely choose it based on our free will. God gives us enough Grace to make it home, it is our free will that we are not exercising what he has given us therefore we end up someplace else other than with him..makes perfect sense.
@TheRougeHawksClan Religion will only lead us back to the Dark Ages. So religion is hardly the voice of reason.
I don't believe in an eternal punishment. I believe in punishment for the means of correction or possibly annihilation, but punishment that never ends, that makes God a monster.
Q4U Kenneth Gaudet , It is this, Do you believe in eternal life ?
Not really sure. I believe God is eternal but we are only given life as long as God allows us to have it. There is a translation for 'Aions', which is normally translated everlasting or forever, which could mean "age-abiding' or 'an indefinite period of time' So I am not 100% sure if I believe in a life that is eternal, but one that will live on into the ages (what ever that is, God only knows).
Thanks Kenneth Gaudet for your answer.
Maybe this wed site could answer some of you " unsure " questions. It has helped me alot.
carm.org/god-eternal-punishment-for-temporary-sins
carm.org/hell-eternal
Take care, Bigzack1011
I checked out the website and its a good analogy but lacking. Jesus was struck by men and crucified and yet he spoke 'Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.' IF Jesus can ask them to be forgiven for committing the most heinous crime in the whole world, could God forgive everyone for offending him? I am told to love my enemies and pray for those who persecute me, Or if God Punishes for the sake of torturing them should I punish and torture my enemies too? I don't mean to argue but eternal punishment doesn't make sense in the light of Jesus. I just believe that what Jesus did on the cross was a true victory over evil. God Bless.
Kenneth Gaudet JESUS said,
Matthew 25:46
These will go away into *eternal punishment*, but the righteous into *eternal life*.”
Same Greek word ( aiōnion ) for both eternal punishment and eternal life . If there is no eternal punishment, or if it is only for a limited time of duration, Then so is eternal live !!! which would make eternal life not eternal !!! if you get what I mean Kenneth.
biblehub.com/text/matthew/25-46.htm
as was said in the Movie Constantine, "God's a kid with an ant farm.." nothing more true.
Do you actually believe that God is waiting with hopes that we can make the right decision? Does it make sense that our ALL knowing creator would make a single human with the possibility of that soul going to a place of eternal torment? Did Jesus die so HIS creation might have a slight chance? How can someone choose HELL? We aren't capable of making such decisions. Isn't it something like - None good, No, not one? WE are all sinners, saved by Gods mercy and love. It Is Gods will . ;)
The reason why there is no clear and concise answer to these questions is because there can never be a logical answer to a question which is based on the presumption that one being can be all knowing. These "answers" are just attempts at making sense of a nonsensical basis, and should not be taken anymore seriously than the basis from which these questions come from.
this is easy Catholic position is Jesus Christ Died for everybody, but the thing here is we have free will, so if we go to hell it was not because of God, but because of our selfishness,and wickedness.
Why would God create someone knowing they would go to hell? Because God isn't going to create robots to fellowship with, and He gives us ALL the choice to love and worship or reject Him. If you end up in hell, YOU
chose it by rejecting your own creator...a foolish decision with eternal consequences.
God made 2 kinds of pots from the same clay.SINCE everyone is a sinner,if God sent everyone to Hell He would be just in doing so.So GOD owes no one Heaven,only Hell and if God saves anyone it's simply by GRace.Everyone would merrily go to Hell if God didn't step in and save the person,even His elect would choose Hell in their unconverted state.Romans 9:22-23 What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction,and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory,So God made goats to serve as examples to His elect.God will pour out His justice and wrath on the goats for their sin to show His sheep exactly what they were saved from had He not saved them.
If God is omnipresent - surely he knows if a person is bound for hell before they are born. So the amount of grace given could not suffice to save that person from hell. If there is a being that is present at all points of space and time and, therefore, knows all outcomes, then freedom is merely an illusion. God makes you to go to hell. It's as simple as that.
The amount of grace given is more than sufficient to save anyone -- but it does not interfere with our free will and God´s omniscience does not interfere with freedom. You're just too simple to understand it. I give a friend who is hooked on drugs shelter, food and money, knowing with my imperfect mind that he will betray me. Then he does. But he DID have the choice to give up drugs and be grateful even with the will weakened by the drug. An imperfect analogy but I think you didn't pay attention to anything in the video. 1 Tim 2:3-5 contradicts you.
Your tone is offensive and your explanation lacking. Allow me to give you an analogy. If I 'know' for certain that you are going to lose your leg in an accident and I preemptively give you a sticking plaster you might say my actions were a mite underwhelming. You see there are logical problems with all the 'omni' properties of God. Omnipresence requires that God knows exactly where you are going to end up no matter what. No amount of grace can alter a pre-known outcome. Referring me to a bizarre Bible passage that does not account for the logical problems I have outlined contradicts nothing and solves even less.
nebrad16 From what I understand, God is not constrained by space and time and He allows people to reject him. And yes, God knows everything. Including where we will end up (our time on Earth is infinitesimal compared to eternity.). God creates people knowing they will go to Hell- but we do not know why. It is a mystery, just like why God would create the Devil, or even humankind. I suggest reading about the Problem of Evil.
But it is no injustice, and what has been revealed to mankind so far via Christ and the Catholic Church makes complete logical sense, and this has been proven in depth over the last 20 centuries, and I personally accept this because I've lived, tried, or tested it all 26 years of my life.
Also, His Grace is not comparable to a sticking plaster. It's more comparable to God giving you a time machine and saying "this [Hell] is what you're choosing for your future by rejecting me." Or something like that. Please keep in mind that the Catholic Church teaches Hell is not a physical place, but a sort of state of being in which God's love cannot be received by a soul because the soul freely chose not to receive God's grace and love while living...and thus, fittingly, this becomes permanent in death. To a degree, it is the knowledge of our choosing permanent separation from Absolute Truth which burns. The same fire that warms souls in Heaven tortures those in Hell (again, not necessarily literally). If the Bible passage does not speak to you, I suggest prayerfully meditating on it until it does (a day, a month, a year?). Staying away from all sin (key- try your BEST, and if you fail, try try again because we cannot hope to see through the distorted lens of sin), and inviting Him to enlighten you. I plan on doing the same. Hope this helps!
Yes. It helps to demonstrate that you're off your rocker!
Haha. To that I say, "Your tone is offensive and your explanation lacking."
hypocritical, much?
The concept that everyone gets 'sufficient grace' seems absurd in the face of eternal damnation, especially since many sincerely look and do not find anything.
Dude: Why didn't you give me any sort of sign? I sincerely looked.
God: Remember when you saw that sweet frozen waterfall on that hike one time? It was supposed to symbolize the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Cool huh?
Dude: That was cool, but that was hardly convincing.
God: Too bad, that was totally sufficient in my book. Lol. Here's some ETERNAL DAMNATION! No Backsies!
1-billian years later:
Dude: I've been suffering for a million lifetimes, with no end in sight. Any openings in heaven?
God: Sorry dude. No backsies, you ignored my awesome waterfall. Remember?
Dude: I remember nothing of my earthly life, only suffering. This guy is puling my organs out again. right now even, there they go.
God: Lol, well it was pretty great. That was the most sufficient grace I've ever made, I think.
Simple answer == free will
Bad theology
God does not give more grace to some than others. God is no respecter of persons. You are not saved by what you do, you are saved by upon WHOM you believe or trust. You are saved by faith alone on Christ ALONE. And God saves everyone who chooses to trust on Christ, Jesus. Imagine existence is a tree with billions of branches. Now, imagine each branch have further smaller branches. You are a branch and the smaller branches arising from you are your life circumstances and choices. Each choice moves you onto a different smaller branch and puts you into a different direction depending on the branch you choose. God made the choices, as well as were those choices eventually lead. You get to choose from among the choices given. God already knows what you will choose and where it will lead because He can step back from the tree and watch the choices you make. He will not interfere with your choices, because He will not violate mans free-will. He already knows though because He is in your past, your present and your future at the same moment. He is seeing your future self as that self makes the choice because he is in the future and see's what you have chosen as well as where your choice will lead. If you had made a different choice, chosen a different branch, he would have known that as well because He's already in the future and observing it.