: from blame for my combative attitude, Faz.
Seriously?
: If truth be told, you have attacked me many
: times on this forum.
No so. I try hard not to engage in personal attacks. If you're provoked by that to be 'combative', that really is your responsibility.
: In addition, I can
: rarely fail to be stirred to action by
: "progressive" attitudes because of
: the damage I feel they have done to the
: Church and to individuals.
Again, your choice.
: However, given that you have indicated a
: desire to sincerely investigate a
: contradiction you perceive in the Church's
: doctrines, based on Scripture, I agree that,
: in purely human terms, there does seem to be
: a contradiction. A parish priest of my
: acquaintance has been quoted several times
: as putting it this way, that he can’t
: believe in “a God who creates people in
: order to send them to hell.” The pejorative
: “in order to” gives him away, in my opinion.
: Were he to express doubt about “a God who
: creates people, knowing that they will
: ultimately end in hell”, I would regard his
: questioning as sincere, as I am currently
: regarding your doubts. Please don’t look on
: that as condescension; the “currently”
: refers to now, in this post, as opposed to
: my former posts in which I was assuming the
: attitude of cynicism with which I have come
: to regard you.
I have noticed.
: The problem is, as I see it, that Christ
: Himself has stated that Hell exists. I don’t
: believe He was exaggerating, and even less
: that He was just waffling-on, when He spoke
: as recorded in Luke 16:19-31 (Douay-Rheims
: version) [19] There was a certain rich
: man ... one rise again from the dead.
: So, I guess it comes down to whether you
: believe the Gospel, and accept the Church’s
: reconciliation explanation involving our
: free will. We are free to choose to accept,
: or reject, God’s love. That makes sense to
: me, but, as I say, I know of many to whom it
: doesn’t.
And I can only understand it in human terms and the existence of a 'hell', as I understand it, is inconsistent with the God of love (also depicted in the Bible).
Hell limits God's mercy to a human understanding and, even by those standards, it is far below the best of human love and mercy.
The example of the prodigal son who dies before he has a chance to reconcile with father illustrates my point. Both have committed grave sins but by chance, not because one was better than the other or more deserving, one seeks and finds forgiveness and the other one dies and goes to everlasting torment.
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