HOW COULD A GOOD GOD PREDESTINE ANYONE TO AN ETERNAL HELL?
Excerpt from The Question Box, 2nd ed., by Fr.
Bertrand L. Conway, CSP. Published by the Paulist Press, New
York, 1929. Permissu Superiorum: John B. Harney, C.S.P. Superior
General Nihil Obstat: Arthur J. Scanlan, S.T.D. Censor Librorum
Imprimatur: Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Archbishop, New York
God does not pronounce itself explicitly before us to respect our
freedom. Many doubt this asseveration. But if God is love, and
the love is God, as it explained Saint Paul, I ask: it is possible to
love somebody without respecting the freedom of that person?
Can exist authentic love between the boss of a plantation and its
slave? The freedom necessity, of our freedom is explained by the
infinite love that God feels by us. And that infinite love implies, in
addition to freedom, goodness and justice. A kind Entity would not be God if he did not
respect our freedom. Do not be a loving Creator if he did not respect justice. Justice towards
the fellow is an inescapable premise of the love. Can a judge feel true love by a criminal to
whom she finishes judging with prevarication? Single I want that it is left well clear the
inescapable necessity of the freedom of the man like indispensable condition to corroborate
the infinite love that God feels by us. And this freedom only can be authentic if we can
apostatize of God. We have the freedom " to forget " God, since many atheists do. And we
have that freedom because God does not pronounce itself. If it were pronounced, we would
have to accept it to the force, by the evidence of the facts. And then we would not have
freedom. And the love, if he is not free, cannot in any case be true. In order to understand
this subject we do not have to forget the fundamental thing: GOD IS LOVE
The Christians have two tendencies. Those that they have felt to build to God with being able in his lives (with a treatment, a conversion, a powerful fact, some miracle, etc...) say that God is evident, or very visible. Other Christians, however, think that that occurs only in cases very counted and that even so it does not make it evident: we defend that God is a hidden God. It always gives light to believe and to marvel... but the just also to doubt. It requests an " Act of acceptance ", or as the inventor of the calculation of probabilities would say, the brilliant Pascal mathematician, " a bet ". [ Pascal bet by yes to God, but remembering whenever it is a reasonable bet, although nonevident ].
On the other hand, the silence of God could be interpreted of several forms:
1-God is not shut up, but it is necessary to listen to it, to know his languages.
2-God is not shut up, but without an act of confidence by your part you will not be able to
listen to him.
3-God is not shut up, but it does not shout to us either limiting our freedom.
4-God is not shut up: it speaks through our resemblances.
This does not mean that God bes not worried of us. The case is that we are not children
babies. We are adolescent children. Our Father has left food, tools, the house us, etc...
entrusts itself in us so that we throw ahead. In addition, our Brother Greater wine to explain
to us that Our Father has prepared a still better house for us, that yes, only will leave enter
the adults, the mature ones, and also those that they love to Him crazy. But many sluggish
adolescents crying and in fact not even want to enter, want that they are engaged in it here,
to mark their own rules of the game, protest, etc... Some even killed our Older Brother: "
with which it costs to maintain this house, to what it comes to speak from the Other Best
one? And from where east Older Brother has left "
The case is that the Older Brother organized a few adolescents to prepare his trips, that
begin to love the new house of the Father without letting work in the old one, that follows our
position. The followers of the Older Brother are the Church, and they are convinced of which
he teaches its founder because they saw him die and revive and taught therefore to photos
and planes to them of the new house (the body glorified of the Revived one is primicy of
which they will be our bodies although... in what sense? The Church, when something does
not know, is shut up.)
In aim: that the Father does not clean all the corners of the house (and we do not know how
many clean privily) does not mean abandonment of domicile absolutely: he has left to many
things and people who help us to grow and to nourish to us. For example, he leaves to the
Bread and Wine us from the Eucharisty, but it is freedom ours to accept it or no.
In any case, our home is not this. The old ones get tired of the life. All the things bore to us
when a little are repeated. Nothing contents to us. When we obtained something that we
wished, we let give value him. The time it seems to us something strange: we always spoke
of if it exceeds to me or I need. It is evident that we are not done for this world, that we did
not fit absolutely, that the matter bores to us and the time is strange to us.
Our house is another one, the true House of the Father. We will say only there: " finally I am
in house ".
Said of another form: the four given arguments are valid, but it is necessary to accept them. The abandonment accusations that some attribute to Him, are not coherent for the Christians, since it has not left us, but whom all the necessary one has left us to arrive at Him. God, like good father, must dedicate itself to undo or fix everything what we make bad, all the damage that we caused to others? And with the responsibility what we do? We would learn someday that our acts have consequences? On the other hand see in which many people who have suffered some disease or displease sensitize more towards the other peoples suffering.
In summary: GOD DOES NOT PRONOUNCE ITSELF TO RESPECT OUR FREEDOM.
So simple. If you want to have the option of the faith, is essential that God does not
pronounce itself. Of this form, always you will have left the resource to deny Him. Because He
does not dominate himself anybody. All one that it wants to apostatize of, it can do it, and,
will respect its decision. Single those that freely decide to accept it like Father, as God and
Mesias can choose to be in Their presence. Because God, gave the freedom us for
something, does not want marionettes nor robots, but free men who freely decide their
destiny.
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