Dialogue with BavidDigg, prompted by the following comment I made to the video Does the Christian View of Hell Make Any Sense? w/ Fr. James Rooney on 1/25/2023
Without love, there's no heaven.
Without freedom there's no love.
Without the possibility of choosing to be separated from God for all eternity there's no freedom.
Hell is a necessary requirement for the viability of free will. Without hell there's no free will. Without free will there's no love. Without love there's no heaven.
Conclusion:
Without hell there's no heaven.
Line of dialogue with BavidDigg
Freedom and perfection
@BavidDigg Well, that is the problem, isn't it. Nobody is perfect but God. We're called to be perfect, but only God can make us perfect. He can only make perfect what is freely and fully given to Him (which is another way of saying that God can make perfect those who love Him).
So, I agree with you that it's possible to be free and not be able to choose wrongly. That's the freedom of God, because He is perfect. We are not. God cannot make perfect beings without their consent, because that would mean that He can create another God, a Creator that creates a Creator that is not a creature. He can only create creatures that can freely become one with Him, and thus become God, and thus become perfect. There is only one way to become one with He who is Love itself: to make ourselves a gift of love. It has to be our entire self, because God, being Love itself, and having shown to us that He loves us giving himself fully to us in the Cross (and in the Eucharist), cannot become one with one who is not Love. We cannot make ourselves perfect, but we can give ourselves fully for love (that's what the Magnum Sacramentum of marriage aims to show us it is possible). Now, a forced marriage is not marriage, because there's no freedom (hence, no love). Because freedom entails the full possession of oneself, to have full property rights over ourselves, because only the owner of something can make a gift of it all. So only ourselves can give ourselves fully. A forced marriage is no marriage.
Nuptial union with God and Universalism
A universalist position tells us that we, being the intended bride of Christ (so we can become one with Him, like husband and wife do become one), are presented with a proposition we can't refuse, because, no matter how many times we refuse we cannot refuse forever. We can say no to the groom, but the groom will keep us captive against our will and torture us endlessly until we say yes (yes, that's, in a nutshell, Bentley Hart's definition of hell). With that knowledge, is the bride really free to truly love, to give herself fully for love? If you ask anybody in the world, they will say "no." If you ask me a million times, I will still say no.
If a groom does that, the groom doesn't really love the bride, he only wants to own her. If God doesn't love, even for an instant, He would deny his nature cause He's Love. If God is not Love, is not God at all.
Without the real possibility of hell (an eternity separated from Him), we cannot be free to love, God cannot truly love, and Christianity is a big lie.
Infinity and perfection
@BavidDigg Imperfection is a consequence of limitation. God is perfect because He is unlimited (infinite) being. Only a being that has absolutely no limitations other than the nature of its own being can be truly perfect. That God is infinite being implies that He occupies fully the ontological plane where He exists. Where there is something infinite, there is "no room" for anything else. So, in fact, God cannot only not create another infinite being: He cannot create anything whatsoever to exist on the same ontological level, because the moment He does, He has to limit his own being.
Besides, I think it is pretty self-explanatory that God cannot create another God, for He would have to violate all the rules of logic (which derive from His own being): the creature would have to be also creator, and eternal, and infinite.
Irrationality of sin (pride)
Now, you ask if I think that the first sin was an irrational decision. The answer is yes, but it is not because God didn't endow the first humans with enough perfection. On the contrary, the problem is, precisely, that He had to endow them with enough perfection so they could know Him and love Him. Since He is infinite, we are talking about infinite capacities for knowing and loving. That's a lot of perfection! And it is BECAUSE of this perfection that both angel and men end up sinning. The angels are so perfect that they decide it's beneath them to serve God. The first man is so perfect that he thinks that he can be like God, knowing good from evil, just like a creator would.
That's why the first sin is always a sin of Pride. And, the more perfect someone is, the stronger his proclivity to fall for Pride will be.
And yes, pride can certainly blind the reason.
Freedom, Fall and rationality
@BavidDigg I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Being free and being rational are like two sides of a coin. Man has two major powers: to know and to will. Knowledge is rational, and will is free. But it is the person that uses these two faculties, which are by no means compartmentalized. In a certain way, the rational faculty has precedence, as it is like the light that guides us so we know what to “will” with the other. But when we decide to act (or not to act), we do it through this faculty. So, it is through this free will that we will decide to use the other faculty to know the truth. We are perfectly free to tell our intellect, "go find the truth," and we are perfectly free to put our intellect on hold, or use it for other purposes. Passions, like that of the sin of pride, may sway our will because we freely decide to give to it precedence over our reason. All our passions are in a sort of "competition" against our reason, to get our will to favor their inclinations instead of listening to the voice of reason. There is nothing wrong with the passions, as long as we don't allow them (with our free will) to "sit on the driver's seat," if you know what I mean. Sometimes reason will tell us that it's ok for our will to follow the passion. So, the passions are neither bad nor good. They all have a place in our lives, but they should always be under the authority of reason.
These passions were naturally ordered and subservient to the authority of reason as long as we remain "connected" with the one who created this complex machine we are, because in the mind of the author we find the right ordering of all the parts of a machine, and our reason works smoothly as long as it is connected with the source of all reason. But all the passions went haywire the moment that we disconnected, through sin, from our Creator. That's why I think that your question about the rationality of the first sin is a very good (and challenging) one, because it was committed while the passions were naturally rightly ordered by reason and towards Reason.
Mysterium iniquitatis
In a way, it is one of those questions that we will not fully comprehend in this life, and that's why theologians have called sin the "mysterium iniquitatis." But the Church has never discouraged theological research to inquire and probe all the mysteries of faith. That's why there is an evolution of the "dogma" of the Church. Not because the dogma changes, but because we somehow managed to achieve a better understanding of it. By the way, since the distance between us, finite beings, and God, the infinite being, is logically infinite, we will not be able to fully comprehend the divine realities (for comprehension implies that our limited minds succeed in encompassing what is unlimited). But, by the same token. theological research is infinite too: we can always ask why, because there is an infinite number of "becauses" before we can reach the "Ultimate Because." That's why faith is not only not opposed to reason, but is what encourages and pushes reason to go ever deeper, and further, and higher. Contrariwise, those who defend the dogma of the inexistence or impossibility of the Infinite, are forced, sooner or later, to say things like, "no, that's not a legitimate question," (which they do all the time whenever they are confronted with questions such as "what is the meaning of life?" or "why is there something rather than nothing?" or "why do we have to die?", etc.) Faith in the infinite, instead, makes all questions legitimate, because there is a promise of an infinite number of answers.
Oops, sorry! I went on a tangent....
The Fall of Man
I have thought about the question of why did the first humans sin if they had no inclination to sin and were endowed with amazing gifts of reason and will. One idea that occurred to me is that the original sin can only be explained if there is a tempter from the outside. The impulse to sin could not have come from the inside (as it is for all of us, affected and ill inclined in our nature by this original sin). In fact, Adam and Eve did not know evil (until they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil). They only knew good, and they didn't even call it "good," because, absent the opposite, you cannot even be conscious of it being good. You give it a name only when you know that there is evil that you need to differentiate from good.
So, a tempter from outside the garden was needed for the original sin to ever happen. But this raises two difficult questions: 1) Why did God issue a prohibition and why did He allow the "snake" inside the garden? ; and 2) Who tempted the tempter to become evil?
My personal speculation about the first one has to do with the need for freedom. In light of all that came afterwards (the plan of Redemption), we can deduce that the state of affairs in the garden could not be the definitive state. There was a more perfect state, and God, being the Supreme perfect being, could not fail to desire what is best. From the beginning (from eternity), God desired to establish a relationship of love with Man, something akin to a nuptial bond, because the maximum of happiness for mankind would be to become part of the divine family, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and thus share the same divine life, the same divine joy. Indeed, God could not have created Man without putting in his heart the desire to be united to Him, to become himself divine, to become perfect and infinite being. Hence, the shrewdness of the Evil One is very much on display when he tempts them with the one thing they lacked and desired: "you will be like God!"
But how does this jibe with God willing a love relationship with Mankind? Why, if He loved mankind so much, did he allow them to be tempted? Because the relationship could only be a relationship of LOVE and, for Man to correspond to God's offer of love, Man needs to be free, and give a free consent, just like a bride who must freely consent with the groom's proposal in order to become one and share the same life. This means that a decision needed to be made. A free decision to accept God’s offer of love so the bond could be established, and, here comes the root of the problem, such a decision could not be made without a recognition of the identity of God, an explicit act that showed that Man really knew who God is. (We do something similar in the wedding ceremonies, where the names of the spouses need to be repeated several times by the other. It’s not just “I take you to be my wife,” but “I take you, Deborah Kerr, to be my wife…”).
From the point of view of the creation and all its creatures, there is one fundamental divine identity: He is the Creator. The de facto relationship between God and his creation is the “default” relationship that establishes God’s identity. The recognition of a creator cannot be made outside the recognition of his authority over his creation. Authority comes with knowledge, and nobody knows better than the Author. You cannot say that you recognize Beethoven and shush him every time he tries to tell you the right way to play Moonlight Sonata.
That’s why sin is always an act of disobedience: by disobeying, we deny the identity of our Creator, which will prevent us from establishing that relationship of love. And, when we deny the authority of our Creator, we are presuming to be ourselves our own creators, because we know better, we don’t need God to tell us what is good for us and what is evil. We have made ourselves gods unto us.
And God can give up his authority as soon as he himself denies his own identity. So, he can’t. Because God cannot lie and say that he is not the author anymore. If Beethoven were to say something like, “OK, whatever, play it however you feel like it,” he would still be the author, and the authority of the author cannot be transferred. You may go on playing Moonlight Sonata as you may well please, but forget about having a “loving” (even decent one!) relationship with good old Ludwig. He might even, unsurprisingly, end the conversation with a “what do I care?” And that’s one thing that God cannot do: He cannot stop caring about his creation. Indeed, since He is the source of being of it all, if God decided to stop caring, the universe would stop being.
We could see the prohibition in the garden and then the entering of the serpent, as an opportunity for Man to make full use of his freedom, to decide how we will respond to God’s offer of love. Why do we fall? Why do we fail the test if God gave us enough intelligence to pass? And the answer is in something I wrote in the very first paragraph: because it is not the intelligence that makes the decision, but the will. And the will is being tempted, for the first time entertaining the possibility of disobeying God’s command, the possibility that, maybe, God didn’t have that kind of authority over them, that He issued a command purely out of envy and fear that we were really capable of being the gods of ourselves. After all, we had the intelligence. And, just like that, the reason that was there to tell the will how to decide, became a mirror of our pride. The greater the intelligence, the greater the danger for pride. We see it all the time. It is not a surprise that those famous atheists are very intelligent people. So intelligent that they really believe they can be gods unto themselves, that they don’t need anyone’s help, let alone commands, to figure out what is good and what is evil.
Anyhow, this is my timid attempt at answering the first double question: Why did God issue a prohibition and why did He allow the "snake" inside the garden? To provide an opportunity for Man to exercise his freedom in an act of submission and love, as detailed in the previous paragraphs. Let me emphasize this: this is just an attempt to try to understand a little better something that is a mystery—the mystery of sin and evil.
The Fall of Angels
As for the second question, it is, it seems to me, a little bit more challenging to reply. There is no outside tempter in this case. Angels are pure spiritual beings. No wings, no feathers, none of that. No eyes, no ears, no brain. So, how do they know? Unlike God, who is pure being, without the limits of an essence, angels have a being limited by an essence, but not by matter and, therefore, neither by space nor time. So, since they don’t have the organs for perceiving and knowing, and they exist outside of time, they say that they have an intuitive knowledge of everything they’ll ever know at the moment of creation. But their intuition is not like what we call intuition, that may or may not be true. Their intuitive, all at once knowledge is certain and without error. They are tremendously intelligent, and it is said that the one who started the rebellion, known as Lucifer, was the most intelligent and beautiful of all. So the challenge to explain their fall is even greater, though it helps to bear in mind the principle of “the more perfect the being, the greater the danger of Pride.”
And so, the angels are created by God in his one creative act. Maybe there are other interpretations, but I believe that, when the first lines of Genesis say, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” earth refers to the realm of matter, with its coordinates of space and time; and heavens, to the spiritual realm where the angels abide.
Be it as it may, this realm of pure spirit is inaccessible and mysterious to us so, it shouldn’t be a surprise that most everything about it is a very little bit that we find in the Scriptures, and a lot of theological speculation. I, on my part, speculate that, unlike the existence of God, which we can know with our reason alone, we only know about the existence of angels from the evidence that we can find in the revealed word of God.
What we know is that they were created free to serve God freely, that in the instant they were created they had that one choice, to serve or not to serve. Lucifer, inexplicably, given that he could be said to be the crown jewel of the angelic realm in terms of intelligence and beauty, opted for the "non serviam" (I will not serve) and a third of the angels followed him in his rebellion. Next thing we know is that “a war broke out in heaven,” the Archangel Michael exclaimed that of course he would serve God, because “who is like God?” (which is the meaning of the Hebrew word “Michael”). A host of angels followed him, and they defeated the rebellion, expelling all the devils from heaven.
Of course, this is all from Revelation, a book of highly allegorical imagery that not even experts dare come up with a definite interpretation. Nonetheless, it doesn’t stop theologians from speculating. And the theological speculation I find most persuasive is that Lucifer didn’t rebel against simply serving God. He was far too intelligent to not recognize his inferiority before the One who had obviously created him (as he obviously knew that he had not created himself). But when, with his intuitive knowledge, he realized what were God plans of creation and redemption of humanity, whereby God would become man, the devil realized that he would have not only to also serve mankind—a kind of being way below the angelic ones—, but he would have to prostrate in adoration before the Man who would be the Incarnate God, as well. The supposition is that his pride couldn’t stand such a humiliation, or what he saw as an unbearable humiliation. And I guess he could neither understand that God would go down so low as to become one of those inferior creatures.
I’m not sure if this long rambling explains any of your concerns (now that I stopped and re-read your comment…) You say that you don’t understand how a good God would have “any reason to create hell and allow his subjects to go there.” For help with this concern, please read my reply to Doogle55, where I try to explain that God does not create hell. But He must allow for the possibility of Man rejecting his offer of love. You cannot have both freedom and a unique state of affairs regardless of the allegedly free decision. If man accepts and reciprocates God’s love, ends up in union with Him, and enjoys His eternal life. If he rejects God, the result must be that he ends up separated from God and his eternal life. That state of separation is what is called Hell. And, as I explain, a state of separation from the source of all being cannot be other than a state of non-being.
You also say that you still don’t understand why God “has to bring into existence irrational creatures.” You mean non-rational animals and plants and all else? I’m guessing not, I’m guessing that you are speaking of human beings that for some reason become irrational. If you are referring to human beings that lose the use of their reason, I would not consider them as “irrational creatures,” but, as I said, as “rational creatures that lost the use of their reason.” If you are referring to human beings that sometimes behave irrationally (so they wouldn’t be “irrational creatures,” but “rational creatures that sometimes behave irrationally”), please refer to the beginning of this long reply.
In reference to what you write—”if God needs creatures to theoretically be able to rebel against him to truly love him”—let me clarify first that is not something that “God needs,” but rather something required by the nature of things (in this case, the nature of love, which is, by the way, the nature of God). And I wouldn’t put it exactly that way. I wouldn’t say “able to rebel against him,” but rather, “able to not to love Him,” or, even better, “able to reject his offer of love.” Think of a boy in love with a girl that wants to propose marriage. A girl who accepts this offer of love (implicit in a marriage proposal) must be able to say “no,” to reject that offer and not love the boy back, in order for her “yes” to be really out of love. I think this is pretty obvious, but maybe I’m not explaining it well enough; so let me know, and I can try harder.
But then you write that God “could simply select with his unlimited power and knowledge only those creatures who would freely choose him to be brought into existence.” And then you finish saying that “there is no need” for God “to actualise the rebellious creatures (in fact to do so appears to be a great evil, as in doing so God brings about eternal suffering).”
This is another good and difficult question, and I’m not sure I have given it enough thought to answer it adequately. But, let me at least make some distinctions. As I explained in a reply to Doogle55 (which you can check in this thread), I don’t believe that eternal suffering is justified and that it is the proper understanding of hell. Indeed, I maintain that a annihilationist view of hell is the one that makes most sense; maybe the only one that makes sense within a Christian theoretical framework. But even if there was such a thing as eternal suffering, I still believe that God could allow such an evil if it was the only way to achieve a far greater good.
As for “actualising” into being only the ones who will freely choose Him, this is where I’m not sure I have thought it through. One relevant consideration, though, is that, as I understand it, God creates Humanity, and not every single human being. And, it seems to me that, to create the human essence as a free nature, and allowing for it to be shared by an indeterminate number of beings (every single human person), to cherry pick which ones He would actualise would be like cheating. God cannot cheat, because it goes against His nature (God is Truth itself). So, if He did (cheat), he would only prove that he wasn’t God after all. I know, I don’t find it entirely convincing either, and I feel like I should come up with some example or parallel to make it more clear to myself. But it does sound like making rules that don’t apply when I don’t like them. I have an intuition that doing so (allowing only the human beings that will love him to be brought into existence) would somehow invalidate the free decision of all those who choose to love him. I’m not sure how. But I think I could make a more cogent explanation if I think about it some more.