In our last post, we pursued whether the question, “Why does a loving God expose us to suffering?”, is unanswerable. Using reasoning, we concluded that it is answerable and developed two answers.[1]
Why is it so very important that we do our best to develop our answer? It is because, in the absence of our answer, suffering may cause us to question God’s love or even conclude God must not love us. This may lead us to abandon His invitation to prepare ourselves for eternal intimacy with Him.
Once we recognize that suffering is for our own good, we can prepare ourselves by reaching out with selfless and unconditional love to sufferers, and by allowing our suffering to teach others to reach out. Once we recognize that God’s gift of our free will means He can’t force our eternal intimacy with Him, we realize that we must choose to love Him. How can we apply such reasoning to our second “unanswerable” question, “What happens at the moment of death to the many who are called but not chosen?”.
As before, for atheists, the answer is simple, “We die!” For all others, must there not be a better answer than the good go to heaven and the bad go to hell?
Shall we start with the reasoning that develops the conviction that God loves us and invites us to eternal intimacy with Him?[2] That reasoning establishes that the answer cannot be that God sends us to hell. Further thinking establishes that hell is state of being we unwittingly choose when we separate ourselves from God’s will.[3] If God forced our choice, would that not negate our free will? But why is doing our very best to master God’s will a prerequisite to being chosen for heaven?
Does the Lord’s Prayer not give us the answer? Do you recall the phrase “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.”? Is it more likely that Jesus meant, “… by some of those in heaven some of the time.” or “… by all of those in heaven all of the time?”. If the latter, must it not be that only those who have mastered doing God’s will can be chosen? Jesus clarified God’s will in The Greatest Commandment.[4] Once we internalize how demanding doing God’s will is, is it not clear why only few are chosen, and why those few could not have mastered God’s will without asking for His help, and acting on it?
This thinking prepares us to pursue the question, “What happens at the moment of death to the many who are called but not chosen?” If God won’t send the many to hell and can’t choose the many who have not yet, with His help, done their best to master doing His will, must not His love assure us a second chance? Religions describe this second chance differently. Christianity calls it Purgatory. Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism call it reincarnation. This second chance is Door B. It is a state of being where we can continue to adequately prepare to master doing our creator’s will. Door C (hell) is the only door available to us as long as we (even unwittingly) choose to remain separated from God’s will. Might it be that whether we find Door A (for the Few) open to us, is completely up to us?
Del H. Smith conducts research into life’s meaning and is the award-winning author
of the Amazon Best Seller, Discovering Life’s Purpose.
[1] The reasoning in Are Our Most Important Questions Unanswerable developed both answers.
[2] Are Our Most Important Questions Unanswerable develops this reasoning.
[3] What The Hell! enables our internalization that both heaven and hell are states of being rather than
places.
[4] All the All’s in The Greatest Commandment and The Neighbour in The Greatest Commandment establish how demanding doing God’s will is, and thus why many are not yet ready to be chosen.