For The Sake Of Argument

[Jacen Marx]

Ok so it is not like God created Heaven and Hell with the idea of saving some and damning others. They exist because they are the only two possibilities. Full communion with God (Heaven) or absence of God (Hell). What else is there? There are two choices we can make. We either choose to love God and desire to be with Him or we decide that we will not love Him and choose to be apart from him.

You see God created us out of love. He fully planned for everyone to be with Him in Heaven. However He does not force us to love Him. He gave us free will to choose to love Him because if it was forced upon us it would not be love to begin with. Love is, after all, a complete and total gift of self to another person. This is something that can not be forced upon someone. Something similar may be forced upon someone but it can never be a complete and total gift unless it is done willingly.

When ever one sins we show God a failing in our love for Him. It shows that we do not truly love Him for we have not given ourselves entirely to Him. However God understands that we are just created beings. He understands that we are not perfect as He is. Therefore He forgives the failings in our love and allows us to enter Heaven with an imperfect love for Him.

So God has given us free will. He has given us the choice to love Him or not (he could have just made us mindless robots who worship Him, but he made us beings with free will). If we choose to reject God by our actions He will not force Himself upon us. Because we have told Him (regardless of what we might say) with our actions that we do not wish to be with Him, he will not force us to do so. He will separate Himself from us because He does not force us into anything. So by our own actions we have decided that we do not wish to be with God. We have separated ourselves from him and sent ourselves into eternal suffering (absence of God).

However He is always willing to take us back into Himself with confession. He will take us back into His love even though we betrayed Him. This is because he is very merciful. He allows us to be forgiven no matter how often we sin.

But it does not end there. We must show God that we truly love him by trying to change our life. We cannot just treat confession as a get out of jail free card. It forgives us and brings us back into communion with God, but if we do not continue to show God that we love Him, it does us no good. We are back to square one of eternal separation of God.

And all of this hinges on one thing. It hinges on the fact that God loves us. He loves so much that He has given us free will. And he respects the free will that he has given us. He will not force Heaven on us nor will he force Hell on us. It is all chosen by our actions which show whether or not we truly love God. It is up to us to decide whether or not we will go to Heaven. All we must do is love God. However this is a difficult thing to do because of our fallen nature. So it is something that we must work at. It takes time but eventually we can resist temptations to sin and show God that we do truly love Him.

[jmjtina]

+JMJ

 

you know by your own logic, we can't choose heaven either.

 

By saying "No" you are rejecting God. Hell is a rejection of God, by free will. People who choose Hell, don't want Heaven. People are damned by their own free will, not by lack of knowledge. 

 

You miss the entire point of free will. It's love. Sin hurts our beloved. Hell is ultimately a rejection of the the love God has for us. For those who do not believe, through no fault of their own, I believe in a merciful God. But in my personal experience, the ones who do not know God are freely embracing God. Those who know God are rejecting Him and denying His existence. 

 

+Pax