God's love but reality of hell not contradictions

Understanding God: his love and hell not contradictions

There is a false logic among many today. Part of it is understandable because it involves understanding the infinite capacity and mystery of God. But part of the false logic is not excusable, because generations before these modern ones have been able to figure it out just fine.

There is no contradiction between God’s love for each and every one of his children, and God’s capability to have the existence of hell and to cast some, or even many if must be, into it. Those who promote this supposed “contradiction” do so to try to weaken faith in God’s dogma and exhortations, so that they can decide what acts are sins and what are not. People today are honestly so delusional that they think they can “argue against the existence of hell” because “the Bible says God loves everyone.” They totally ignore both scripture about the penalty for continuing sin AND they ignore even common sense about human love, and so forget that common sense applies to God too, who is the originator of both love and common sense, among all else.

The Bible explains that in the beginning, God created humankind in his image. That does not mean that literally God looks like some super huge human floating in space. What it means (and remember, the information in Genesis was given to Moses directly by God, who was present with God “in person” on many occasions) is that humans were created in an image that is pleasing to God. God created an image (the structure and biology) of humans the way that he did because they reflect his goodness. By goodness I do not mean perfection, but goodness means it maximizes the potential for life, love and worthiness. That is why God said his creation is “good,” because it is the maximized structure for promoting life, growth, thriving, joy and love. So the human body was “designed,” if you will use that word, by God because it is, along with the rest of creation, it is “good,” but also because it is in God’s image, in that it reflects the gifts that he bestows on humans in harmony with his intentions for them.

Using that same understanding of scripture regarding the body, you must recognize that each person’s soul is also God’s creation. Each person’s soul is created by God and sent to that body before its birth. I’ve cited that Biblical passage in previous posts, and it appears on a lot of pro-life bumper stickers. Therefore, whatever God creates in heaven is “good” too. So every single soul that God creates is good and equal in his eyes. There are no “genetic defect souls” created by God in heaven. Every soul leaves heaven to enter the body (the temple of the soul during its one life on earth, or anywhere else, since there is no reincarnation). Every soul is created by God in heaven, which is the place where only goodness and God’s will is manifest and in existence. Therefore God loves every one of his children and they are all truly “his children,” as he personally creates each soul the moment that a human embryo is created and is “quickened” (alive and growing in the womb).

From that point on human weakness and sin are able to have some degree of control over the soul, because the soul is housed in the temple of the body. Don’t forget that each soul has a guardian angel as the sign of God’s love for that soul upon its birth. However, the soul is now housed in a temporal body, one that has physical, mental, emotional and spiritual weaknesses throughout its life. So, for example, the beloved soul could be in the body of an infant with a genetic defect. The soul does not have a “genetic defect” or “a past,” but the soul is housed in a body that by definition has a lifespan and physical and environmental limitations. So the soul is vulnerable to the body within which it is born and also its surrounding family, society and environment. This is one reason that Jesus demonstrated God’s love in the most dramatic way possible, by healing those who were ill, including those with genetic or other defects. He was demonstrating by action that such defects are not “the fault” (as was commonly believed by the people of that time) of the sufferer and also Jesus was demonstrating God’s continuing love for those crippled, with mental defects, and other illnesses that today’s humans understand are often genetic defects (crippled from birth rather than from a workplace accident, for example). Jesus demonstrated repeatedly that the soul of each person is known to God, loved by God, and even if the body is defective in some way, it is not the “fault” of the soul of that person. That is one reason that the public ministry of Jesus involved healing hundreds of people in a village at a time. It’s not that he had to make the point that he had “the power from God” to perform miracles. That became obvious with “just a few miracles,” else why did so many come when they received word of just one healing? No, the fullness of reason for Jesus healing thousands during his public ministry was that he was refuting in the faces of those who viewed defect in illness or body and hardship (such as poverty) as being “punishment for sin” (and hence God “withholding favor, i.e. love).

God further provided commandments and laws, reinforced by the Prophets, to give guidance to each of those souls that he loves. God certainly knows the weaknesses of humans, some understandable (fear of death and the tendency to covet and seek to dominate others) and other weaknesses that are, while no mystery to God, less “understandable.” This includes the tendency toward lack of gratitude toward God when one had been abundantly blessed in life, the desire to “replace God” by elevating one’s self, the desire to destroy other people’s happiness and lead them astray, fascination with the morbid and the culture of death, and the exploitation of children. So it’s not like God creates humans, each with a soul that is good and that he loves, and then throws them into the earthly pit to sort things out themselves, knowing full well that in their weakness they can’t. Therefore God gave clear instructions about how to worship and obey him and how to treat each other. Obviously that is further evidence of God’s love. A drug addict may not think that commandments and laws about how to have a good life is a good idea, but consider the source. People who want to enable unhealthy behavior are those who refuse to believe that structure and boundaries are the ongoing signs of God’s love.

And so, this is where it is possible to fully understand that God can love each person, but also be able to cast them upon their death into hell. People who go to hell do so because they reject God’s love as it truly is, and not as they imagine it to be (so they can do as they please to themselves and to others). I know that it is easier to understand using human type of examples, so I will use two analogies here.

Suppose that a set of parents have a child that goes on to be a terrible mass murderer or other notorious criminal (beating a baby to death, for example). And suppose in our analogy that the parents have no guilt in their child’s outcome (they weren’t abusers themselves and gave the child a normal and loving life). How do they “continue to love” their child? Many do while many don’t. We read about it in the papers. Some parents refute their criminal child, while others say they still love him or her. God is actually like both of them. The ones who refute their child do so because they cannot reconcile in their own morality the actions of the child that he or she chose to take (remember, I’m not using examples where the child is insane, or was abused, etc). This is a simple analogy where it is an invitation for the reader to “try on” the scenario that I offer in order to better understand. So if you raised a child who had everything normal and good, and then for no reason other than criminality the child does something incredibly horrible, it is possible and understandable that the parents could stop loving that child. Think of them as having to emotionally disconnect and while not doing anything to harm the child, they “let justice take its course.” Hell, therefore, is the justice system. People who reject God find themselves in the place where “justice has to take its course” and that is how God “feels.”

Now, you must also understand the parents who continue to love their child, the one in this analogy who does something incredibly horrible so that society suffers and must put him in prison and perhaps even the death penalty in those countries. How do parents continue to love their child when the child has willfully (again, not for reasons of mental illness or previous abuse) has done something inexplicably horrible? The answer in interviews is almost always, "He (or she) is still my child.” While the parent could not explain it if you asked them, what they are doing is preserving the image of the child “before the crime” and referencing that, both consciously and subconsciously. In other words, they “bring the love to the present based on the past.” They look at the child and do not see the criminal, but see the child he or she was “before the crime.” A mom, for example, will look at the adult child in prison and see, unconsciously, in her mind, the child that sat on her lap when he or she was young. The mom would swear that she loves the current depraved criminal child, but she really loves the child that he was “before” and is able to maintain the strength of that feeling in the face of reality. And that is how God is too. This is why God is able to forgive even the worse sins right up until the person dies. That is the real meaning of God “hates the sin but loves the sinner.” God is not having a loving relationship with the person who is on the path to hell of his or her own choosing. But God can immediately reference the “original love” of that person if they only mend their ways and take themselves off the path to hell. God gives repeated chances but remember, just to finish our analogy that he feels equal love for the persons who were harmed by the criminal. So people who try to twist God’s love into an argument against hell forget that God loves everyone, and it’s not “all about the sinner.” God can forgive if it is totally sincere right up to the last moment even the worst of crimes and sins, but if his forgiveness is not sought, then God will not forget the love of those that the criminal and sinner have harmed. And that is when hell in the form of “justice” takes its course. God feels sadness right up to the death of the unrepentant sinner, and the “original love” that God felt for that person before he or she willfully took the wrong path is there at hand to be restored if they repent. But the love “expires” when the unrepentant person expires. So God does not mourn or miss the person who is cast into hell.

I need to make one thing very clear. God does not “love” the criminal and sinner as they are performing the thoughts and deeds that are putting them on the path to hell. So the idea that God’s “loving the sinner” as he or she is sinning (and I mean the egregious and/or continuing “hell earning” types of sin) is totally false. People who think that obviously never read or understood the furious God who thunders his rage either directly or through the Prophets throughout the Old Testament. Folks, when people are idol worshipping, sacrificing infants to false gods, and living terrible lives of defiance to God, God’s “really not that into you.” God does not love the egregious and continuing sinners as they are doing their misdeeds. But God has access to the “original love” that he had for that person, which is why God is able to forgive even the worst at the moment the sinner genuinely repents (and is not cynically manipulating sin with the timing of his confession). God “loves the sinner but hates the sin” is a shorthand that previous pious generations really understood, since they were well versed in the events in the Old Testament that “loves the sinner” means “keeps giving them another chance to repent,” rather than feelings of paternal affection, which God most assuredly does not feel. It is just these unbelieving and sinful recent generations that willfully misunderstand that maxim.

This is why the Prophets warned frequently that God will “harden his heart.” What that means is that God will “let the chips fall as they may” and will no longer send the Holy Spirit to soften the heart of the sinner to try to get him or her to see the error of their ways. In an extreme example God will withhold intervening on the side of the sinner when he or she is in peril or illness. In other words, while God might have answered prayers to prolong the life of even a terrible sinner (and thus give him or her unmerited extra years to come to their senses and repent), God will stand aside and let the calamity or illness take the person before they repent (if they ever would). The Prophets understood this very well and tried to get to understand and dread that point of no return those that they preached to. You see reference to the hardening of the heart over and over in the Bible and it is there not as a warning against saturated fats but to correctly strike dread that God’s love of people who continually sin is not unending and without limits. God will AND DOES “write continual sinners off.” God does this in a number of ways 1) he may raise up an actual enemy or mishap to strike down the person rather than continue to “wait” for the person to repent before death (and it is too late to repent after death), 2) God may withhold a miraculous or blessed intervention that the unrepentant sinner might have otherwise received, 3) God might smite some of the enablers of the sinner, hoping that the message comes across (but that means he hardened his heart toward those enablers, obviously) or 4) God will stop sending the Holy Spirit to soften the heart of the sinner and just “wait the sinner out” until he or she dies, and then ends up in hell.

That is why the pious religious scholars have always understood that “fearing the Lord” does not mean living in fear of him doing a “bad thing,” but living in fear that you will lose his love. People who continually sin do indeed as they live and sin lose God’s love. The difference between humans and God in this regard, though, is that God can instantly restore the love if the sinner genuinely repents. But God certainly does not love the sinner WHILE he or she is sinning (and again, I mean the hell earning really egregious stuff, though that also includes a continuous pattern of what people might think are “minor” sins). Here is the second human example in order to better understand.

Judas was born with a good and loved soul just as everyone else has. Judas also lived his life loved by God. We know that because when Jesus called him as one of the Twelve Apostles Judas was not mentioned as a reformed sinner, so we know he had a good and pious life, and therefore was loved by God. I hope what I’ve explained above now gives readers an “Ah ha” moment. Many today wonder “why would Jesus select as an Apostle the one who would betray him?” Well, trust me, if God withheld his love from everyone who, if put in the position to betray, would do so, there’s a whole lot of people who God would not love, and the world’s existence would be dubious. Rather than think of Judas as the only guy in Israel who was “meant” to betray Jesus, think of him as fulfilling the odds. Remember, many disciples abandoned Jesus when he first explained the forthcoming sacrament of the Holy Eucharist as the “eating of his flesh.” Scriptures record that many disciples left him right then and there. So as a human, you, my readers, and I all know that anytime you put together an organization of any kind, someone in it is going to stab you in the back. There were plenty of “potential Judas’s” who obviously did not get called by Jesus. Human nature being as it is, the odds (and I don’t mean this mystically, but just in the sense of “high likelihood”) are that one of the Apostles would have sold out Jesus.

I mean, please. How holy and faithful do you think the population was as a whole? You think that Judas was literally the only guy in the whole Mediterranean region who was “meant” to betray Jesus? See, this is the difference between God knowing all, and God “setting things up like it’s a game of robots.” God knows humans better than anyone, obviously. I mean, think about it. The Israelites could not wait for Moses to go up the mountain to meet with God so they could create a gold calf and worship idols. I mean, God was RIGHT THERE WITH THEM, and they sinned as offensively as they could. Obviously that when the Messiah was sent, someone was going to betray him. In the fullness of God’s knowledge obviously God know “who that was going to be.” But that’s vastly different than thinking that everyone else was just lovely and wonderful, and so God had to put bad old Judas in there to fulfill the prophecies! Whew, don’t worry about prophecies about back stabbers being fulfilled, there are LOTS of humans who are eager to fill that role, and that’s always been true. And in fairness, look at how many disciples abandoned Jesus just because they could not understand hard concepts and words from him. How much more easy is it to understand that someone would bail out and have “Satan enter them” when the path took them to Jerusalem, to Jesus throwing money changers out of the temple, with Jesus defying the corrupt authorities, and with the path going to the foot of the cross? If not Judas than somebody who filled that “slot” in the Apostles would have betrayed Jesus. That is what the prophecies foresaw. The same humans who create a golden calf right while Moses is meeting with God “on the next floor” (up the mountain) are obviously going to always produce a betrayer. God does not have to “set that up.”

So Judas had the same good soul as everyone else has, and Judas was loved by God, and Jesus, the same as everyone else. We get the impression that he might have been a bit of a cranky person and that this would have been a cross to bear to be his friend, don’t we? We all have friends and relatives like that. Being cranky and ornery about money and charity is hardly a reason for Jesus, or God, to not love someone. Like I said, if so, that would narrow the potential love of humanity quite a bit. Most of my previous friends have not been pleasant or nice to be around, but I accommodated them. And so it was with Judas, who might have been prickly and difficult, but who was still loved by Jesus and by God right up until the moment he stepped onto that path of betrayal.

So, to continue using Judas as the example of how love and hell are not incompatible concepts regarding God, Judas lost the love of God the moment he decided to betray Jesus. When one stops loving and obeying God, “Satan enters.” In other words, other things become more important than God. When that happens God is not in a state of loving that person, who has now taken actions as a result of him defying God and denying love and obedience to God. However, like every other human being, knowledge of their “original love” remains preserved in God. If Judas had repented at any point before his death he would have had God’s love restored and had been saved. Priests often sermonize on this point because it is a crucial one to understand. Judas’ ultimate sin of damnation was not the betrayal, but the despair. If Judas in his remorse had not despaired, but had trusted in God to restore his love and his mercy, Judas would have lived and been saved. I’ve written about this point before and as I said, Catholic priests frequently try to explain it. This is why one of the unforgivable sins against the Holy Spirit is despair. When one despairs, one labels God as being too weak or unable to fix one of your problems. That’s just as bad, if not worse, than not believing in God at all.

If you study the entire Bible with faith and reasoning as I demonstrate in this example, you are empowered to see right through a lot of the New Age garbage about “destiny” and revisionist attempts to dilute God and Jesus, such as making it like Judas was some sort of special guy with a “wink, wink” partnership with Jesus to betray him. Nothing could be further from the truth. Someone was going to betray Jesus because that is human nature. Judas was the one who actually did it. I’m not saying that if Judas had not done it then one of the other Twelve would have, no, far from it. I’m saying that if Judas was not selected, whoever else was selected for that position of the Twelve would have done it. That was all foreshadowed through the continuing crisis of faith throughout the Israelites faith history AND in the followers of Jesus when many disciples left him rather than understand one difficult aspect of his teaching (what would develop into the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist). It’s worth it to think about that a bit more. The Gospels report that many left Jesus, thinking he was referring to cannibalism. It is not at all implausible that faith history could have gone as follows. They run off and tell everyone they meet that this Jesus prophet is advocating cannibalism. Self righteous zealots seek him out and stone him to death (remember, even the people of his own town tried to kill him). Jesus is buried, after being stoned to death, and on the third day he arises from the dead. The people who called him a cannibal go down in Gospel history as the betrayer, the “Judas,” while actual Judas remains an Apostle in good standing and, along with the rest of them, witness to the resurrection of Jesus. We actually would have gotten to nearly the same place if that had occurred, because it is not the method of death (or the betrayer) who defined Jesus as Messiah, but him resurrecting and ascending into heaven.

Now, the reason I put that scenario forward is to try to help people to understand the difference between prophecy and game board walking talking robots. David and Isaiah both prophesied about Jesus, correctly seeing that he would escape all death threats and danger until the actual confrontation with the high powers of the day and his crucifixion. That is the real meaning of Judas, the betrayal, Jesus, the crucifixion and the resurrection. “It all would have worked out to God’s will” “even if” people had stoned Jesus to death for supposedly preaching cannibalism, so long as Jesus died, resurrected and ascended into heaven. God does not have to “micromanage” who does what to whom. Like I said, trust me, a whole lot of people are potential cowards and betrayers; it did not have to be Judas. But the prophets foresaw that Jesus would be able to “take it to the very end” or “take it to the top,” and thus the confrontation with the high priests, the judgment by Herod and by Pontius Pilate and the crucifixion. The prophets foresaw how far Jesus would be able to take it, and of course God and Jesus knew that Judas would be the person who betrayed him. But it would have unfolded anyway in similar fashion because as I point out, that is the continuing weakness of humans, that there is always someone who through weakness, inflation or evil will step into that role. I hope this also helps you understand freedom of will and choice, as God sees it. God does not have to move people like chess pieces and that is actually anathema to him. God “spends a lot of his time” trying to get people on their own to do the right thing. How else can I illustrate to you such an opposite as the New Age garbage of “destiny” and “doom?” God, through the Holy Spirit, tries to get everyone, whose souls he equally created and loved, to do the right thing. God will do that until the very end. He doesn’t have to manipulate bad behavior from humans, goodness, far from it, he is constantly trying to win human’s love and obedience. So “if not Judas then it would have been someone else” and “if only Judas had repented instead of despaired he could have been saved.”

If Judas had believed in the power of God to fix and forgive anything, he would have been saved and have been a mighty witness to God’s mercy. God kept that image of his “original love” for Judas right up to the end. But in the end Judas is the one who, despairing of his sin, still rejected God’s power to fix. It is especially ironic because committing suicide of despair was such a pagan thing to do, and Judas was by all accounts if anything an overly zealous Jewish believer. But it would not be fair to leave it with making him look like the complete fool. Because of those times, where people really did not understand the fullness of God’s love, it is more understandable that even a pious Jew would take a pagan stance of despair. Why? Because remember, as I said, during those times, even the weak, the crippled and the poor were viewed as being unloved by God and being “punished for their sins or their families’ sins.” When Jesus defied that and taught how God loves all equally, and cured these “sinners,” he shocked the haughty and misguided establishment. So it is not surprising that Judas would not have fully absorbed what Jesus had been teaching right in front of him and applied it to himself. That is the “wiggle room for mercy” in the story of Judas and his fate when God judged him. Pious scholarship of those times actually taught that the downtrodden were there on the bottom and suffering due to God punishing them for individual or family sin and faults. Judas would have had that kind of programming in his morality and religious internal compass. Jesus explained to the Apostles that what he brought with the New Covenant was so radical that they would hear first and then believe and understand later. The concept that suffering was not punishment for sin was radical and new not just for the Israelites but for most of the world view at that time (hence the pagans’ insistence on sacrificing to gods, out of fear of losing their positions and being punished). So it would not be entirely fair to say that Judas should have known better than to despair of God’s mercy to forgive because Judas was a product of times that had a very warped view.

In a way it was Saul who became St. Paul who demonstrated what Judas could have demonstrated: the power of God’s love and forgiveness, and the ability of God to fix anything, if humans only cooperate, obey and repent. That’s what I mean by understanding the difference between true prophecy and pagan garbage about “destiny” and “doom.” Some persons some place some where is certain to be really, really, really wicked and then see the light and turn really, really, really good and really, really, really saved. Judas in theory “could have been that first example” had he repented and not despaired and taken his own life without giving God the chance to forgive and heal him. Imagine if he had done so, if he had repented and sought God’s forgiveness and protection. Even if he had been forever shunned he would have evangelized somewhere and had been powerful witness to the greater glory and merciful forgiveness of God. And then Saul who became St. Paul would likewise have had his road to Damascus, being the second example of the ability of God to forgive and transform even the greatest evils, if the humans repent, obey and cooperate in their salvation.

But it unfolded without manipulation, without God having to move the chess pieces, because that was the whole point. God sent Jesus to an imperfect people and as the Prophets before Jesus all knew from personal experience, and from divine gift, reformation of the corrupted religious structure was going to be rejected. See, Jesus did not only redeem people but he reformed them too. Jesus did this by putting a human face and understandable words to God’s love. Jesus reformed, for example, the view that the poor, the crippled, the ill and the downtrodden were there because of their own sinfulness. In one generation Jesus sent out into the world people who understood first hand that God loves everyone, views all as God's own children, and that their individual misfortunes were not due to some rejection by God due to some mythological sin. (I cannot get over how that crap, this time in the form of “destiny,” “past lives” and “karma” has erupted again in these times and ruined so many lives as a result). Two thousand years ago Jesus, speaking explicitly on behalf of God, refuted such cruel beliefs and reformed entire pieces of societal values at the same time. But then again, like I said, remember that the people of the Exodus could not wait for Moses to go up the mountain and talk to God so they could make themselves some golden calf to dance around and worship. There is that tragic flaw in human nature that makes them want to believe in supernatural powers to diminish God and to inflate their own powers (and provide convenient excuses for bad behavior). Neglect of the poor and downtrodden is much easier if you think they are there due to their own fault or, to put in “modern” terms, “karma.”

There is this strange perversity in humans that ebbs and flows over various eras, but is persistent and very strong in today’s sad and warped world. In the world of perversity one claims that God loves you while doing the worst sins, and then boo hoo’s that God does not love people when something doesn’t go their way. Today in a nearby city the news broke that an itinerant and “much loved” pastor was preaching for years while having his wife stored in a freezer and sexually molesting his oldest daughter (and no, this is not a Catholic, but a non denominational itinerant preacher). This guy is actually preaching God’s love while sexually abusing his oldest daughter and possibly having murdered his wife. Incredibly, this guy was giving a sermon on “forgiveness” as the police arrived to arrest him. I’m not sure there is a more cynical example of someone the least suited to ascribe or describe God’s love than this guy, and yet, is anyone really shocked anymore? It is like a perverse insanity has taken over much of modern society when it comes to their understanding of God’s love. They actually trot out “God’s love and forgiveness” when doing the most heinous depraved acts, and then cry for God’s love when they don’t get something profane and material that they want. And THEN atheists use the contrarian perversity of these sinners as “evidence that ‘your’ God does not exist, or is a cruel and mean one.” Huh? The worse that humans behave and the more they twist what God says, THAT’S evidence God “does not exist?” Nope, sorry, what it should make you realize is that people have certainly misunderstood, often willfully, the adage that God “loves you no matter what.” No, he doesn’t, and that’s why there is a hell for those who put themselves on the path. God, however, is able to forgive and save those genuinely repentant but that does not mean they will not be punished. I really am speechless when I read about things like this pastor, who is already “preaching forgiveness” even as his wife’s body is being found in the freezer and his daughter is at the police station describing her abuse. Who is he kidding? Not God.