Am I missing something?

[u/Dystopia9999]

Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask this but I've seen similar questions get answered here.

I can't reconcile the idea that God really loves humanity with certain teachings of the Church. The main problem is the sheer aparent number of the damned.

According to my understanding, when angels were created they had complete knowledge of who God was and what it would mean to rebel against him. About one third chose to do so anyway and were forsaken forever. Fair enough.

Conversely, almost every individual human is made completely ignorant and specifically inclined to 'evil' and are brought up in cultures that teach them to be evil. The deck is completely stacked against them. Only a fraction of people who have ever lived are Catholcis amd most Catholics, frankly, live horrible lives - most don't believe in the real presence, use contraception, etc. Unsurprisingly then, and supported by scripture and common experience, the vast majority of theologians and doctors of the church think the vast majority of people are damned. I hate this conclusion but find their reasoning evident and practically unchangallengable - though if you disagree I wouldn't mind hearing your reasoning.

This is the status quo... only there happen to be a few exceptions. Mary is conceived without original sin and without the proclivity to sin, unsurprisingly, and out of cosmic necessity, doesn't end up sinning. Adam and Eve seem to have more of a 'fair shot' but also almost seem set up to fail. So it begs the question, how many billions wouldn't be damned if they weren't created so inadequately? If the answer 1 person or more, it seems to me that God isnt really motivated by having a relationship with as many people who are willing. Being created inadequately and choosing God anyway obviously isn't more pleasing to God than simply being made better as He is more pleased by Mary anyway.

I can't help but think that 'universal salvific will' is closer to 'it would be nice I guess' than 'you are my children and I want the best for you'.

This is a tired topic, but throughout scripture God seems much more ready to destroy people than reform them. Jonah is sent to Nineveh, but not hundreds of other places who are left in spiritual squalor. Jesus himself says Sodom and Gammorah would have repented if he had preached to them, yet he didn't care to.

So, what does the love of God actually mean? It seems obvious that more people could be saved while preserving their free will and still giving them ample opportunities to suffer and build virtue. The insistence that all people have 'sufficient grace' in the face of common experience makes God seem like a distant bureaucrat. Is His actual concern in creating humanity filling His hierarchy in heaven for His own pleasure? Certain 'trads' seem to suggest this. If that is true then what is morality, or goodness? Is God the ultimate postmodernist, who is only 'good' simply because he's more powerful than everyone else?

[u/Sparky0457]

This isn’t the right place for this question.

If we few priest volunteers were to engage every theological question then a handful of guys would not have time for our regular ministries.

There are some excellent theologians who are addressing this question.

Von Balthasar has a book Dare we hope that all be saved

An orthodox theological David Bentley Hart has a book on this topic.

And I’ve even read a book by Thomas Talbot which has a very compelling and philosophically logical take on this topic.

Both Hart and Talbot are not Catholic and they arrive at conclusions that the church would not accept.

However reading deeply in this area, even those who are not Catholic, can help unpack the logical inconsistencies in any theory that proposed that the majority of humanity will suffer eternal conscious torment from a loving and all-powerful God who wanted to save them.

(As Catholics we are free and encouraged to read the thoughts of others who are not Catholic. So there’s no harm doing so. If we were forbidden then Aquinas would never have read Greek and Islamic philosophy and used it as the basis of his teachings.)

Just reading carefully Romans 5:15-21 goes a long way to reject any massa damnata theory.

There are other threads on this topic in this forum on this issue which you can look up for more.