God predestines no one to hell

ONE burning question many people ask is, if God is truly

God and knows everything from all eternity, why does he still create a

person when he would already know that that person would end up in

hell? Does he not predestine that person to hell?

            The answer, of course, is a big No. God predestines no one

to hell. If one gets to hell, it is because of him rather than because

of God who will do everything to save that person. His mercy is

forever, but we, with our freedom, can manage to reject that mercy, to

reject God definitively.

            It may be difficult to imagine that a person can

definitively reject God, given our weaknesses, but it is still

possible. That’s why there is hell, as revealed in the gospel. Hell is

not just a literary device to scare us and to pressure us to behave

well.

            It’s purely God’s love, his goodness, his desire to share

what he has with us that makes him create all of us irrespective of

whether we reciprocate his love or not. To be sure, God loses nothing

if we choose to lose ourselves from him. We are just being given a

chance to be with Him for eternity, with his help.

            But God will continue to love everyone. As St. Paul would

put it, God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge

of the truth.” (1Tim 2,4) He loves everyone, including those in hell.

In a manner of speaking, he cannot help but love everyone because he

is love himself. (cfr. 1 Jn 4,8)

            And since we are supposed to be the image and likeness of

God, we are supposed to reflect and assume that same attitude toward

everybody else. We need to love everyone, including our enemies as

Christ himself told us, because God loves everyone.

            This can mean many things in practical terms. It can mean,

for example, that we have to be understanding of everyone, always

charitable, quick to forgive, willing to suffer and even to die for

the others. It can mean that we should not be judgmental and that we

try to find excuses for the defects and mistakes of the others. And

more than condemning others for their mistakes, our attitude should be

to help them.

            When we are humbled by others and even offended, we should

avoid fighting back, imitating the example of Christ who, according to

St. Peter, “did not retaliate when they heaped abuse on him. He made

no threats when he was made to suffer, but entrusted himself to the

One who judges justly.” (1 Pt 2,23)

            Given our human condition, wounded by sin, we really would

need to train ourselves thoroughly to acquire this attitude and spirit

of God especially toward those who not only do not reciprocate our

love but also who contradict and offend us.

            Of course, we would depend first of all on the grace of

God which is actually given to us abundantly. Just the same, we have

to ask for that grace and correspond to it as faithfully and

generously as possible, so we can have the same spirit as Christ, as

God wants us to have.

            Toward this end, we have to learn to suffer, even to the

extent of suffering the way Christ suffered and died to achieve our

salvation. We should not be afraid to go through some extreme

sufferings, because a lot of blessings can definitely come to us. God

cannot be outdone in generosity. If we are generous with him, he will

be much more generous with us.

            God’s love is such that he is willing to suffer and die

for us as shown by Christ. That is how we should be, how our love for

others should be. If God predestines no one to hell, neither should we

condemn anyone definitively.