(January 28, 2018 at 12:56 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote:(January 27, 2018 at 8:33 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yes, all atheists go to hell of their own free will and accord. (or maybe just annihilated.)
May I ask why? I mean, if someone seeks truth and it leads them to atheism, how can we really blame someone so much for not thinking God exists? To the point where they'd automatically go to Hell for It?
According the the NT, you go to hell because of the condition you are in (the separation that sin has caused from God's perfect holiness). The only way to bridge that separation is to do something about the cause of the separation. The only thing that can erase the effect of sin is the redemption offered by Jesus' sacrifice. This takes an act of the will to accept it. There is no room at all in this concept for an "honest effort...but not convinced". Believing that there must be makes us feel better, but has literally zero support in the NT.