17.    THE QUESTION WAS:

Which of the following statements is correct regarding the Church’s teaching on predestination?

 

a.                  God creates some people for the purpose of sending them to hell

b.                  God wants all people to go to heaven, but prepares a place for us in heaven or hell from the beginning of time based on the choices he knows we’ll make.

 

 

 

THE ANSWER IS…….B

 God wants all people to go to heaven, but gives us the free will to turn away from him and send ourselves to hell. He knows we could only live in perfect harmony in heaven if its other members have freely chosen Him over sin.

God predestines nobody to hell. For hell, the person would have to make a free choice to commit a mortal sin, and must remain with mortal sin on his soul until death.

 

According to the Bible, “God wills all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth”(1 Tim 2:4). 

 

Also, according to the Bible, God does not want “any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” (2 Pet 3:9)

 

Therefore, the Catholic Church teaches that God predestines some of his children to hell and some to heaven from the beginning, based on what he foreknows about their future spiritual condition when they die, but He loves all his children, and desires that every single one goes to heaven

 

He offers every single person the grace needed to enter heaven. He made a space for us in heaven or hell billions of years ago based on whether we would die in a state of grace or not.

 

Since the beginning of time, the Book of Life (names of all going to heaven) has been written. Our names are either on it or are not. But since humans have no access to this list, we can only be assured we are included on it if we know we are currently living lives of love guided by the Church which Jesus established, and that we have turned away from our previous sins.

 

There are a few Protestant denominations that regrettably teach that God wills only some men to be saved, that Jesus died only for some men, and wishes others to go to hell even before the beginning of time. They teach that God chooses heaven or hell for his children without regards to whether the person rejected God’s graces, or lived a life of love by cooperating with His graces.

 

PREDESTINATION

http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ120.HTM

http://www.netacc.net/~mafg/predes01.htm

http://css.catholicexchange.com/truthtract.asp?qid=275

http://library.saint-mike.org/Apologetics/Justification.html

http://www.catholic-pages.com/dir/theology.asp

 

 

 

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