Ok....but I don't think God can fault the protestants for not finding the Catholic Church these days.
The refutation of this statement is the same as it has been in any other age concerning the "ignorant" or "nice guys" going to hell.
If you say that in any age whatsoever, there are people who either do not have the sufficient grace to save their souls, or the truth that we need to save our souls is nowhere to be found, you accuse God of the injustice of condemning people according to criteria He did not give them the chance of meeting. This is an error.
There is virtually no corner of the earth today wherein one could never hear of, or learn the truth about, the Catholic Faith. (That is, tradition.) This means that today, there is very little room left for "invincible ignorance." While we cannot accuse God of injustice in condemning the truly innocent, the fact is that we tend to grossly exaggerate the number of truly innocent souls (in terms of ignorance) in this world, in any age.
This is what you might call "the terrible weight of being human." The fact is that our actions, our choices... what we ourselves decide to do, or do not do, to believe, or do not believe... will ultimately send us to heaven or hell. You can pretty much say, I think, that God does not "send" people anywhere. We send ourselves.
If we get to heaven, we get there because we answered God's call, God's graces, with our own actions to move toward Him, and abide in His law and in His grace. If we go to hell, it will not be by any accident, but "through our fault, through our fault, through our most grievous fault."
It may seem like today it is harder than heck to find the truth. Actually, one has only to want it seriously. If one wants it sincerely and seriously, one WILL arrive at it, by the grace of God. That is to say, if one does not merely take a detour away form the truth, on the first offer of a 'faith' that will permit them to live a soft life of sin while lying to their conscience that they are doing just fine. But if they want to do what is right, and not merely what they WANT, or what they LIKE... I believe it is virtually impossible for them NOT to come to the traditional Catholic Faith. This becomes even more believable, when one listens to conversion stories of people from all walks of life from atheists to other sects, of how one step after another, they came, often by a dogged pursuit of the naked truth, be what it may... to the Faith. It is there, IF WE CHOOSE IT. And if we choose to find Him, and we are honest and serious in our search, and we do not choose something else just to spare ourselves, I believe we will come to it, because I believe God IS good.
It's easy to look at the mess with the Church and say, "who on the outside could POSSIBLY find the truth?!" But we forget: with men it may not be possible. But with GOD, ALL things are possible. We cannot accuse God of letting even a single soul go to hell without the grace to find Him, if they were seriously wanting to come to the truth, be what it may. If they try only halfheartedly, and then turn aside to spare their flesh or passions... that is a CHOICE. And one that is their responsibility, and theirs only.
This is the awesome responsibility of having a free will. As someone once put it, "the moment-to-moment choices between heaven and hell." There is virtually no human action (thought, word or deed) that is truly morally "neutral". Eating, for instance, is good when done for our health and nourishment, and evil when done to excess for sheer pleasure. Playing a game is good if the game is good, and it is for our health and recreation (a necessity), and evil if the game is evil, or leads us to sin, or if it's done to excess, to the destruction of our health or the neglect of our duties. Almost every human action can be boiled down to being either good for some reason, or potentially evil in other cases. You cannot take a glass of water, and you have done either good or evil by doing it.
The responsibility of the human free will means that if we do not make those moment-to-moment choices wisely, we will suffer the consequences for those choices, according to God's perfect justice. The responsibility, however, is only our own. We may be weak, but God will give us the grace to get to heaven, if we want it and sincerely pursue it, not sparing ourselves. If we get lost in this life, put ourselves and our flesh first, and choose something else, it is our fault only.
This is a fact we too often forget. We, being weak humans, like best those superiors who are soft. We like the people that "let us get away with murder" and don't punish. We like it so much, that as a rule, and unless we guard ourselves carefully against it, we imbibe the spirit of the world, which is to think or say that punishment in itself is somehow an evil. This is only the fruit of our own selfishness, and self-love. It ignores completely any real concept of perfect JUSTICE... how that it is right and good and fitting, that all things, whether good or bad, should have their just rewards, their perfect return.
We look at those who are potentially on their way to hell, from what we can tell, and we are often scandalized through our own weakness, at the idea that these people may go to hell. Our minds and hearts make up excuses for them... they couldn't possibly know.... they would never REALLY choose the wrong thing if they had realized what the right thing was... they're nice people, so surely they'll be forgiven... But all such excuses only attempt to deny the reality of our free will, and it's responsibility.
God will not leave men in the dark, who do not wish to be left there. And if those people do not accept Him or His Religion, then we may suspect (because God IS perfectly just) that they have rejected them of their own free will. We may not like to think that, especially if we think the person in question is "nice" and "well meaning" ... but if we can say that about someone who is rejecting God and His Faith, then I dare say it has been a long time since we thought seriously about the meaning of the words "nice" and "well meaning".
It is ever a source of scandal, almost universally (that is, among the ranks of Catholics and non Catholics alike), that the good God should "send nice/good people to hell." Those who are scandalized have forgotten some very important points.
1) As I said, God does not really "send" anyone ANYWHERE. He has given us a free will. He expects us to use it. In fact, we cannot help doing so. We WILL make choices, in one direction or another, every moment of our lives. And because precisely we HAD a choice, God will, in perfect justice, hold us accountable for those choices. The only choice we do NOT have, or can NOT make, is to choose not to choose. The agnostic may claim that he has simply chosen not to chose, but we hear him answered from the pages of scripture, "he who is not with me, is against me." To choose not to choose God, is exactly and automatically to NOT choose Him. There is no way out but for each of us to make these choices, one way or another, every moment of every day, until we die. We are going to be responsible for what we choose, because we have that choice, because it is our will that we follow.
No man at the wheel of a car, if conscious, can claim anyone else is to blame if he breaks the speed limit, whether through negligence (not paying it any attention) or on purpose. Either way, it is, to whatever degree, HIS fault, and no one elses. God has put us at the wheel of the car called life, by giving us a free will. He has given us a time limit and a destination, and laws to follow on the way. What we do from there is entirely up to us, and entirely our fault. We just have the advantage that if we are ever in an accident until the end of that time limit, God is more than willing to come and help us put the car back together again.
2) the person who says that they're scandalized that "nice" or "good" people may go to hell, can only be thinking about things from the very skewed point of their own personal perspective. They are suffering from the worldview of a spoiled child. "Daddy is mean if he spanks me." Or "so-and-so is nice, because they buy me candy." If we still think this way, it's about time we slap ourselves and grow up. Perhaps this will help people to adjust their vision to better clarity of the situation...
A man may be a monster, and positively unbearable to other men through some defect of character or weakness of his own. But if he is good to God... that is, if he loves, respects and tries with his whole heart and strength to follow God and be sorry for and make up for his sins... than he is ACTUALLY "good" (inasmuch as any of us sinners can be, anyway). He is ACTUALLY "good," because he is good to GOD, or at least tries his best to be. Other men may think he's atrocious, and may not be able to stand him at all. But God is pleased with him ig he's doing the best he can to follow God, love God and serve God, and that is all that matters. Actual goodness depends upon the degree or willingness with which we know, love and serve God. It does not, and CAN not, depend upon anything else.
If, on the other hand, you have a man who is seen as so sweet, so kind, so generous to a fault, so forgiving and so well mannered, that it is impossible NOT to like him... but that man has rejected God and His truth, doesn't want it, doesn't care to know it, and doesn't intend to obey Him... that man is NOT good. To call him good is to lie, plain and simple.
A man who is like this cannot be good since he offends God out of his own, free will, and without caring that he does or trying not to. He cannot be good, if he doesn't care about God, or doesn't really care what God really wants or expects from Him. We cannot imagine such a man to be good, who can reject out of hand the sacrifice of love of our crucified Savior, and just say it doesn't matter to him. And we cannot imagine that such men are innocent. That they simply "didn't know" or "were never told" or that other circuмstances out of their control prevented them from coming to the truth. If they had really wanted to know, nothing on earth probably could have prevented them from finding out. But the key is... "if they had REALLY WANTED to know."
It is the cancer of cowardice at work in our fallen human nature, that makes every one of us prone to make excuses, either for ourselves, or for others, doing evil. We like to think we ourselves are never REALLY at fault. That from our daily stress to other people, to things that happened, it is never REALLY our fault. Not entirely. We will almost never once put the blame squarely where it really is, and where it really belongs... with US.
The same is true of people we like. Of people who are "nice" to US. We forget very easily how they treat GOD... as long as they are nice to US. We forget that their sins, too, nailed our beloved Lord to the cross... as long as they are "nice" to US. We are ready to ignore that they are defying him every moment of their lives by refusing His law and/or His true Faith... just as long as they are sweet and kind to US. We don't seem to care much that they show the magnificent Lord and Master of the entire created universe, with all of His infinite might, splendor, and perfection in every good... endless and infinite disrespect by "brushing him off" as though He were the most insignificant gnat... just so long as they never brush US off.
This is sick. It's distorted. It's altogether a very wrong and seriously perverse way of looking at things.
Whenever we are tempted to be scandalized at the thought of all those "nice people" going to hell, we need to stop and shake ourselves back to reality. That eternal reality we're all going to face some day, whether we like it or not. And in that reality, these people are NOT "nice" or "good." They are NOT "innocent" (at least 99.9999999% are not, because there is not a country on earth, and very few nooks inside of those countries, that have not been exposed, at some time or other, to the idea of God and the Catholic Church). They are not "nice" or "good" so long as they are obnoxious, proud, ungrateful b@stards toward God... no matter HOW "nice" or "sweet" they may be to US, or everyone else in the world. THAT is reality.
When we stop looking at things purely from the question of how we feel, or how they are for US... and start looking at them from the point of view of how they are in relation to God, or in His point of view... you begin to form a very different picture of things, wherein everything starts to make a whole lot more sense.
Suddenly we do not see a world full of "poor nice people" who may "SHOCKINGLY be SENT to hell," but a world full of the same kind of people as those who watched, or even joined in the crucifixion of Our Lord. A world of people who were each given a free will, and the grace to save their souls, and who have CHOSEN not to. WHY they have chosen not to is not particularly important. The point is, God is good, perfect and ready to help them in every step along the way to get to heaven... and these people have simply chosen not to. No mysterious black cloud has entrapped them, whereby the choice never passed before their eyes. If God expects us to save ourselves, He will make sure that each one of us gets that choice. If they are not choosing Him, that is a CHOICE... and one they are responsible for, to whatever degree.
The only truly "good" or "nice" people, are the saints of God. But all of us have to choose whether or not we care, and that is a choice that every soul on earth will have to make. If they choose badly, THEY have chosen it, and so they are responsible for that choice, and deserving of it's consequences. This is called JUSTICE... and it is something we have lost virtually all concept of, because we are too lost in how "nice" everybody here is to everybody else BUT God.
Of course we should not declare any individual WILL go to hell. We do not know that they will not make the right choice before the end. Only God knows that. And of course, we should love and pray for these poor people. But we should never allow ourselves to forget for a moment about justice... and how that the most important justice is that which is due to GOD... not just to other human beings. That it is NOT all right for people who are "nice" to US, to treat God as abominably or disrespectfully or ungratefully as they like. If a man does not choose God, he cannot be good, and he will deserve hell because of that offense, just as a man would deserve heaven if he DID chose God.
Topic: Another thought (Read 4857 times)