Well, I am currently reading, very slowly, "Introduction to the Devout Life" by Saint Francis De Sales. In the very first meditation, for purgation, it focuses on existence. God brought me out of nothing. He created me out of the nothingness and gave me life. He did not need me. Yet he created me out of His goodness. That's the upshot of it anyway.
I realize that I do not suffer the worst among the suffering in humanity. Far from it. Yet I do suffer. Father Stan Fortuna sheds light on suffering in his rap song "Everybody Got 2 Suffer"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHRVmfwRG3c
We all have something we have to suffer. As a Catholic I don't believe as the Protestant does, "once saved, always saved." So, as a Catholic I
hope I go to Heaven. I am 8 days away from my monthly meeting with my Spiritual Director. But the questions are coming up now.
If I were nothing, had I never been brought out of the nothingness, I wouldn't know the difference. I would not have the hope of the reward of eternal happiness in Heaven, but I would never know the punishment and suffering of hell either. In the Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis speculated that Satan desires to consume all souls into him, so that there will be no individuals, and can only say "I" through him. Whereas God wants us to be united with him, and still remain as individuals. OK But still, nothing is nothing. There has to be matter or soul to consume for Satan. So that awful fate would not apply to nothingness.
So my quandary is why didn't He just leave me there in the nothingness? I wouldn't exist to know the difference between Heaven and Hell. It reminds me of the saying "ignorance is bliss." I would neither be happy or sad, because there would be no "I". And since He didn't need me, what's the point? Anybody feel me on this?
Saint Francis De Sales Introduction to the Devout Life
Re: Saint Francis De Sales Introduction to the Devout Life
. Or so it seems to me.
Hybrid Mode
