- Feb 5, 2002
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Sin deforms us, closes us in on ourselves and makes us unfit for communion with God.
Q. The Catholic Church teaches that hell is eternal. How is that consistent with an all-loving God who wants the best for us? If you’re an unrepentant sinner for 50, 60, 70 years or more, does that warrant spending eternity in hell without any hope of “parole?” Even after a couple hundred thousand years, wouldn't even the most hardened sort feel repentant?
A. The idea of an everlasting hell is troubling, to say the least. How can an all-loving God, who “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4), allow some to be lost forever? Isn’t eternal punishment incompatible with God’s infinite mercy?
The two may at first seem incompatible, but when we look at the problem in the light of human freedom, we see they are not. God truly desires that all come to know and love him, but he has made us free to choose — and that includes the freedom to reject him. A creature unable to choose freely could not love. Although God invites us and enables us to love him, he never compels us, for coerced love is not love.
Continued below.
www.ncregister.com
Q. The Catholic Church teaches that hell is eternal. How is that consistent with an all-loving God who wants the best for us? If you’re an unrepentant sinner for 50, 60, 70 years or more, does that warrant spending eternity in hell without any hope of “parole?” Even after a couple hundred thousand years, wouldn't even the most hardened sort feel repentant?
A. The idea of an everlasting hell is troubling, to say the least. How can an all-loving God, who “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4), allow some to be lost forever? Isn’t eternal punishment incompatible with God’s infinite mercy?
The two may at first seem incompatible, but when we look at the problem in the light of human freedom, we see they are not. God truly desires that all come to know and love him, but he has made us free to choose — and that includes the freedom to reject him. A creature unable to choose freely could not love. Although God invites us and enables us to love him, he never compels us, for coerced love is not love.
Freedom and Self-Determination
Continued below.
How Is Eternal Damnation Consistent With an All-Loving God?
DIFFICULT MORAL QUESTIONS: Sin deforms us, closes us in on ourselves and makes us unfit for communion with God.
