(January 29, 2018 at 2:29 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:(January 29, 2018 at 1:51 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Of course there are all kinds of doctrinal nuances. Just for the sake of sounding tolerant and non-judgmental I don't think we should suggest there is some kind of loophole for "sincere" non-believers. It's like perfect contrition, a very high standard. Outside of actual piety, it's not as easy to qualify as it seems.
Fair enough. I just personally don't see someone going to Hell for a genuine mistake. I think Hell is a more deliberate choice by the individual.
I don't think the Bible leaves much room for misunderstanding on that point: "... he who believeth in me shall have eternal life"; it is belief that is being tested, first and foremost... illogical as that is. What you suggest is IMO how it should be if it was in any way logical. So if God exists I'd expect to go to hell as an atheist, but if I was allowed any last words to God before I was sent down, then in all good conscience I couldn't go down without saying: "you tested the wrong thing; Satan saw you and knew your power but still chose to defy you; that was the right test... a test of his obedience given that he knew you were God. But to humans you did not give that knowledge, only the capacity to believe... but where belief is anything but straightforward, not just in terms of variable levels of skepticism, but also in terms of succeptibility to all sorts of influence, internal and external, conscious and subconscious, wilful and not. To test that - not to mention creating a brain with all those sorts of complications in belief possible in the first place - rather than obedience given innate knowledge of God, is utterly illogical."
