I was wrong. At most six, not seven, Envoy crew members will return to the Solar System. Brent and Ruszek kill each other in space. At least that is the end of the physical conflict.
Nansen reads:
"'Unto Almighty God we commend the souls of our brothers departed....'
"Nansen read the service through to the end. His crew responded according to their faiths, or kept silence." (p. 389)
The bodies are launched into the black hole. Everything is done appropriately. Death unites nearly everyone. Brent and Ruszek are "'...our brothers...'" We pray or keep silence. Discussions of differences in faith are neither appropriate nor relevant here.
I write "nearly everyone" because I have heard of Masses for the repose of the soul of Adolf Hitler in which Hitler is referred to as "Thy servant, Adolf..." That man has to be either left out of it or referred to in some other way.
17 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I believe it is wrong, for many reasons, for Masses to be offered for Hitler. First, after about 1907, he hated Christianity, esp. the Catholic Church, and longed to persecute it. Second, the horrors and crimes Hitler ordered makes masses for him inappropriate, absent any signs of repentance. Third, his suicide, if done deliberately and knowingly, also makes Masses for Hitler inappropriate.
Ad astra! Sean
Well, God's forgiveness is supposed to be beyond human understanding...
I recall contemplating the idea of Hell, and thinking that *ETERNAL* torment is excessive punishment for any crime. Surely several million years would suffice for even a Hitler or Stalin.
Should a believer pray for such people to recognize that they have committed great evil?
See 'Inferno' by Niven & Pournelle.
I do not believe in a hereafter. There are very different conceptions and understandings of "Hell." I believe that an all-loving, all-powerful creator would want and bring about the salvation of all - but I cannot understand why His creation would include events like the Holocaust.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling, Jim, and Paul!
Mr. Stirling. I agree, the mercy of God is beyond our human understanding.
Jim: It is the teaching of the Church, based on the words of Christ in Mark 9 and Matthew 25, that Hell is eternal and will last forever for the fallen angels and those humans and other beings who chose damnation. Given that, prayers for the damned are futile.
I have read with great interest Niven and Pournelle's INFERNO and ESCAPE FROM HELL. IIRC, one idea the authors examined was that Hell was God's attempt to "get thru" to the damned, to break thru their hard shell of obstinacy and rejection. Occasionally the "shock treatment" works and one of the "patients" repents and leaves Hell, ascending to Purgatory. But see below.
Paul: But it is the teaching of the Church that no one is damned who does not obstinately reject the mercy and love of God. God does everything possible to offer salvation to mankind, such as His Son becoming Incarnate as man to bring that offer to us. But, because God respects our free will, He will ratify the eternal choice of the damned to reject His love and mercy.
Horrors like the Soviet gulags and Nazi extermination camps sprang from how prone to evil a Fallen race is.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I have stated my view of the impossibility of "free will" in relation to omnipotence before. I am reluctant to go through it all again. Trying to be brief:
Consider two men: a Gandhian pacifist who lives what he believes and an aggressive drunkard. Both have "free will." We confidently predict that the former will not kick a dog that bites him whereas the latter will. But this does not mean that neither is free. Occasionally, we might predict wrongly because we do not know all the internal and external factors affecting another man's actions. God not only knows all those factors but creates them and has complete control over them. It is because of Him that one man is drawn to pacifism and has personal qualities that make it possible and even easy for him to live his belief. It is because of Him that the other man has a strong inclination to drink, to get drunk and to lash out automatically, unreflectingly when attacked.
God could have created a world of pacifists with no drunkards and all the inhabitants of that world would have acted freely.
But we have been through all that before.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly, no agreement is possible, given our premises.
And I consider Gandhi a fraud, hypocrite, and bungler.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I only used Gandhi as an example! In fact, not him but someone (someone else) really living Gandhian pacifism. What you think of Gandhi himself is irrelevant. I keep writing things that I see take us off at tangents.
I am accepting for the sake of argument that God is the omnipotent creator of everything and everyone other than himself. You believe that. So, if my motivations include a strong inclination to drink and to get drunk and to do this repeatedly, then God created me with that inclination in me. He could have created me without that inclination. Then, whenever offered a drink, I would freely refuse it. I can have "free will" in relation to my fellow creatures but not in relation to my omnipotent creator, if I have one. That is the argument which you have not engaged with.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I apologize for that tangent, but "Gandhian" reminded me of how I believe he was a disaster for India.
I cannot agree with your second paragraph, because I don't believe God forces us to to do either good or bad things. We are going to have to agree to disagree.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But, on my hypothesis, God does not force us. He can create good people with good qualities and with no wrong motivations who always freely do good.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But I believe true freedom has to include for all of us the chance that we can fall into sin, error, folly, etc. If we can trust 2 Chronicles 33 King Manasseh of Judah was an apostate of the worst kind, but repented.* St. Peter denied the Lord, St. Paul persecuted the earliest Christians, St. Augustine of Hippo had a licentious youth, and so on. What matters is that sinners of all kinds can repent and do better.
Ad astra! Sean
*IIRC, some commentators have wondered if Manasseh (co-regent 699-687, sole king 687-642 BC) was involved in the revolt of Shamash-shum-ukin (vassal king of Babylon) against his brother Asshurbanipal of Assyria. The terrifying Asshurbanipal might have ordered Manasseh arrested as possibly another rebellious vassal.
Ia have thought more and you have replied so I will respond further shortly.
Sean,
First, what I have thought in the meantime. Let me try to explain this as clearly as possible. If I am more powerful than a fellow finite being, then my power over him, even if very great, remains finite. However, it might be sufficient to enable me to:
allow him to do what he wants;
prevent him from doing what he wants;
force him to do what he does not want.
He exists independently of me and formed his wants before we came into contact. Therefore, the most that I can do is to allow, prevent or force. But an omnipotent creator of everything other than himself is not a finite being confronting other finite beings existing independently of him with already formed wants. On the contrary, he created every other being and every part of them, including their wants. The creator was active from the earliest moment of creating the wants, therefore he does not have to be active again at the later stage of allowing, preventing or forcing. He has already allowed everyone to act as they want and does not have to force them to do anything.
He is like an author who decides in advance whether the characters in a novel will be only well-intentioned people or a mixture of good and bad.
Of course a good man and woman are free to murder their newly born children but it does not even occur to them to do so and they would be horrified at the suggestion but this does not mean that they are not free. On the contrary, they are free to do whatever they want but some things they do not want.
Paul.
Sean,
That last comment was long enough so I brought it to an end but there is more. True freedom means the possibility of sinning. It is possible for a good man to sin but he has no motivation to sin, indeed opposes the idea if it is suggested to him, so he does not do it, freely chooses not to do it. It is physically possible for me to punch a good friend in the face for no reason but it is unthinkable that I would do so but this does not mean that I have been prevented from doing it or have been forced not to do it. "Forced not to do it" assumes a desire to do it. Why should there be such a desire?
You are thinking of God as if he were a powerful but finite being confronting independently existing beings with already-formed wants. That is the wrong model. I heard a street preacher say, "God created us to be his companions but, because it is in our nature to do so, we turn against him." So he created us but not our natures? It is in our nature to turn against the being who created us to be his companions?
I think that, on certain basic issues, you are unable to acknowledge any validity in propositions that contradict what you have believed until now. Therefore, you fail to understand the propositions. You misquote me as saying that God would "force" people to do something. I have made it as clear as possible that that is not what I am talking about but I am quoted as if I had said it.
Paul.
If God wants to rig a scenario where there is a 50-50 chance of salvation or damnation, then, first why should he do that? Secondly, he has to create temptations counteracted by will-power and grace. If he creates temptations stronger than the will-power and grace, then souls are lost. If he creates will-power and grace stronger, then souls are saved. Either way, he decides. If he leaves the outcome to chance, then he is not the creator of all things other than himself, because then some events instead result from chance. Also, we cannot be morally responsible for events within ourselves that result from chance.
When someone is charged with a crime, then a court has to decide whether he is morally responsible. But that is for human legal purposes. We want to influence people's future actions and we need to know whether a prison sentence might affect the person's actions: whether he needs time in prison or in a secure mental hospital. But God already knows, having created all the factors influencing and affecting the person's choices.
Sean: and of course Hitler might have sincerely repented in the last instant of his life...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, and that was pointed out to me by a priest in a Catholic chat room I sometimes go to. If the apostate King Manasseh could repent then so could Hitler.
Ad astra! Sean
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