It Is Up To Us Where We Spend Eternity

When I first moved to Dayton, Ohio back in 2002, I was fresh out of college and eager to get into the workforce.  I ended up working for some defense attorneys doing a job that was humbling, to say the least.  I thought I was going to train to be a type of paralegal; I ended up being a gofer.  Anyway…

A lot of people getting divorced came through their offices.  One day, I walked into the conference room and there was this beautiful Middle Eastern women sitting at the table all alone.  She was a little older than me and strikingly gorgeous, but she had a very sad look in her eyes.  I sat in the room with her for awhile, just the two of us, as I was helping her fill out some paperwork.  The room was very quiet and then all of a sudden she said to me, “Do you know what it’s like to be married to a man who makes your skin crawl?”

I was pretty newly married at that time and my husband has never made my skin crawl…not ever.  So, I said quietly, “No, I don’t.  Is that why you are getting divorced?”

She said, “When I was thirteen years old, I was forced to marry my much older cousin.  Can you imagine having to marry your old, nasty cousin?  Can you imagine being forced to try and love him?  I have never once loved him and, yet, I have children with him.  Can you imagine that?  Having to sleep with a man who is related to you?  In my country, I could not divorce him or I would suffer greatly.  But, we moved to America and I just can’t stay married to him anymore.  I want to marry someone who I love because I want to love them.”

I honestly had no idea what to say.  At 22 years of age, I had never met a person with this kind of life and, thankfully, I couldn’t relate.  I think I mumbled out “I’m so sorry.”  She finished signing the paperwork and got up to leave.

“My husband will be here later today to sign his paperwork.  Watch out for him.  He loves to harass women.”

“Okay, how will I know it’s your husband?”

She said, “Trust me, you’ll know.  You’ll smell him before you see him.”

I sorta laughed and thought she was just making a snarky comment.  However, later that day, I was leaving the office to head out to the elevators.  I opened the door to the office and before I even walked out into the hall, I was practically knocked out by the overwhelming, heinous smell of cheap cologne.  At that moment, I knew her husband was standing in the hallway.  I definitely smelled him before I saw him.  It took us over a week to get rid of the smell of his cologne in the offices.

So, why did I tell you this story?  It’s because I want to talk about God, free-will, love, and hell.  Quite the combination, huh?  I shared this story with you to illustrate a point about being forced to love someone.  Whenever we are forced to love someone, it’s never true love and usually it leaves us bitter and unhappy.  True, authentic love is given freely and out of a great desire to want to love that someone.  Thank God, He gave us the free-will to choose to love Him or not.  Honestly, we can’t be forced to love anything, because that goes against the definition of love.  If it isn’t done out of free-will, it’s not really love.

When God created us, He loved us so much that He gave us that choice to love Him or not.  He could have created us like robots, programmed to love him, but what’s the point?  There isn’t one.  Nobody wants to be loved just because something is programmed, required, or forced to love you.  It would mean nothing.    However, a popular thing to say this day and age is “I can’t believe in God because I can’t believe in a so- called “loving god” that would send people to hell.”

First, you have to understand what hell is.  Hell is complete separation from God.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines hell as:  The state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed.  (CCC 1033)

Did you catch that?  Self-exclusion.  The Catechism goes on to say one goes to hell in the “willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) and persistence in it until the end” (CCC 1037).  It is not God that “sends” us to hell rather it is us who chooses to go there, because of a desire to be separated from God.  God is all good and therefore a complete separation from Him would be removal from all that is good.  That’s hell.  There is no goodness to be found there.  As Catholic apologist, Trent Horn, points out in his booklet Death and Judgment, “hell is not something God created for the purpose of arbitrarily punishing people.  Instead, humans created hell through sinful choices that separated them from God.”

In this earthly life, we all have a chance (until we die) to reconcile ourselves to Him.  In this life, one may choose to turn from God, but because they haven’t died yet they still have that opportunity to desire to unite with God.  Those who deny God here on earth have not yet completely separated themselves from all that is good, because they live in His created world.  They can still experience God (though they may not realize it) through beauty, truth, and goodness.  However, when we die, that’s when the judgment happens.

C.S. Lewis summed it up this way:  “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’  All that are in hell, choose it.  Without that self-choice there could be no hell.”

God gives you the choice, which for some maybe be a choice of complete separation from Him.  He loves you enough to not force you to love Him.  Does He want you separate from Him?  Not for one second.  But, in one’s desire to be completely removed from Him, that person is ultimately separated from the source of all goodness and, therefore, hell is the choice.  It is not God that desires this, it is the human being’s desire.  Think The Princess Bride:  God says, “As you wish.”

We could not say that God really loved us, if He forced us to love Him.  Likewise, we could not say we really loved God if we were forced to love Him or programmed that way.  Just like the woman in my story in the beginning, none of us wants to be forced to love anyone.  We know forced love isn’t true love.  It’s also why if someone stops loving us, we are told to let them go–set them free.  Why?  Because we can’t force them to stay with us and try to love us.  It just doesn’t work that way.  And if we can ever claim to love that person, we must set them free if that is what they desire.  We have to say, “This is not what I want.  I want to be united with you.  But, as you wish.”  It hurts to let go and watch them walk away, but we must allow them that choice.  Same with God.  He does not desire the separation, but He allows the exercise of free-will.

One simply cannot get upset with God if He acquiesces to your decision.  We don’t get to make up the rules.  The Creator of everything does.  Rejection of Him, is a rejection of closeness and union with everything that is good.  The opposite of everything that is eternally good is everything that is eternally bad–those are the choices after this life.  You can’t argue and say, “Well, if He was really loving He’d let us all into Heaven.”  It just doesn’t work that way.  You can’t show complete disdain for God and then argue for the rewards and benefits that are reserved for those that choose Heaven.  You can’t refuse to love Him–to even show hatred towards Him–in this life and then demand communion with that God you hate or refuse to believe in.  Does that make sense to anyone?

God does love all.  He desires you to have the joys of Heaven.  Just remember that it is because He loves us that He gives us free-will.  The Catechism also says, “We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him” (CCC 1033).  Some might say, “Well, I don’t believe there is a God, so how can I love something I don’t believe in?” Or “I can’t just make myself love Him just in order to get into Heaven.  Wouldn’t that be forcing myself?”  I see these people’s point, to an extent, because sometimes we believers do a poor job of being witnesses’ for Christ.  “Believers can have more than a little to do with the rise of atheism.  To the extent that they are careless about their instruction in the faith, or present its teaching falsely, or even fail in their religious, moral, or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and of religion” (CCC 2125).  Souls are at stake and if Christians are doing a poor job of being witnesses, I hope and trust in God’s mercy to understand an unbelieving heart.  If I have failed to show good witness and caused someone to turn away, Lord have mercy on me.  However, if you are an unbeliever, and a true Christian strikes your path and gives you reason to pause in your disbelief, I ask that you open your heart.  It’s all I can ask.

No matter what side of the belief coin you are on, I think both sides would agree that free-will is better than forced “love.”  Believers know the true joy of believing in God because we have come to know Him and I don’t think an unbeliever would want their free-will stripped away.  The woman at the beginning of this blog wanted the freedom to truly love.  We all want that freedom even when it comes to God.  Real love could never be forced and, therefore, it is up to us–to us–where we spend eternity–united with Him or separated.