给无神论和不可知论者的一些回答（四）

Why Would God Create a Person Who Would be Destined for Hell? 天主会造一个注定要下地狱的人吗？
by Rich Deem

Introduction 简介

Christianity claims that God knows everything. The theological term is "omniscience." There are some implications of this doctrine that non-believers find troubling or even unacceptable to the concept of a loving God. If God knows everything, then He knows that some people whom He creates will end up in hell. Why would God create people who are destined for hell? It turns out that there are many unstated assumptions in this question, which are not valid for Christianity. A related question, "Why wouldn't God just create everyone to enjoy the glory of heaven?" will also be answered.

基督宗教宣称天主知道一切。神学上的术语就是“全知”。自然而然的，这引起了很多非信徒对于慈爱天主这种说法的质疑和排斥。如果天主知道一切，那么他就应该知道他创造的某些人会最终下地狱。为什么天主还要创造那些注定要下地狱的人呢？这个问题事实上隐含了许多未注明的，不符合基督宗教教理的前提和假设。“为什么天主不只创造那些有资格进入天国的人呢？”下面我就就这些类似的问题进行回答。

Destined for hell 1 Predestined for hell 注定要下地狱1预先指定下地狱

The first, and most prevalent, incorrect assumption is that a person who is destined for hell has been predestined for hell by God. This is false. People choose to go to hell rather than submit their lives to God. You have absolute free will within the confines of your personal ability. You can prove this to yourself. 你可以自己证明一下。Determine two possible courses of action. They don't have to be big decisions, just any two possible actions. Assign each action to either "heads" or "tails." Flip the coin and do what whatever course chance decided. You can do this as many times as needed to determine that you do, indeed, have free will. Occasionally, do the opposite of what the coins tell you. Has God prevented you from doing anything? No!

首先，最普遍的错误的结论就是那些注定下地狱的人被天主预先指定下地狱。这是错误的。人是自己选择下地狱而不是天主来掌握他们的生命。选择做两个动作。不需要太大的决策，两个小动作即可。就来正面背面的游戏吧。随心所欲地完全随机式地翻硬币。你可以重复做，想做多少次就做多少次，完全是自己决定的，的确，我们有自由的意志。偶尔地，硬币会和你想的不一样。可是天主阻止过你做任何事么？没有。

God alone created you 只有天主创造了你

The second incorrect assumption is that God alone has created you. You are the product of choices made by your parents. Therefore, God has not predestined you to be born at all. How can you blame Him for creating you to send you to hell?

第二个错误的观点是只有天主创造了你。你是你父母之间自由选择的结晶。所以，天主根本没有预先决定你的出生。你怎么能怪他创造你然后把你送入地狱呢？

People destined for hell have no earthly purpose

那些被送入地狱的人在世界上没有任何价值

The third incorrect assumption is that a person destined for hell has no purpose in this life. This is also false. All people living have a purpose. Some people destined for hell will save other's lives, either intentionally or unintentionally. Others destined for hell will be helped, encouraged, and witnessed to by others who are destined for heaven. Those who follow God's plan are provided opportunities to help others in their spiritual path. If all people were on the same spiritual path, there would be nobody for God's people to help. God says that all are without excuse, so He provides witnesses of his plan to give them a chance to change their minds.

第三个错误的假定就是一个被送入地狱的人他的生命没有任何意义。这点也是错误的。所有人都有活着的意义。在经意和不经意之间注定下地狱的那些人成全了别人的得救。有些注定下地狱的人能够帮助，鼓励，甚至见证了那些注定上天堂的人。那些愿意跟随天主旨意的人被提供了机会以便在灵性生活上有所成就。如果所有的人都过着同样的灵性生活，那么就没有人愿意帮助天主的子民成圣了。天主说任何人都没有任何借口，所以他让他的见证人给那些注定下地狱的人悔改的机会。

Rewards and punishment 奖赏和惩罚

Another possible assumption is that the only purpose of this life is to choose to follow God or reject Him. This is also false. This life is used as a measure of reward and punishment. All who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior will go to heaven, but the amount of reward in heaven will be directly related to how closely each one followed God's will in his life. Likewise, all those who reject Jesus Christ will go to hell and will be punished to the degree of how much evil they committed in their life. This is why God allows people to make their own choices.

另一种论断就是，生命的唯一目的就是或是跟从主或是反对主。这点仍然是错的。在世的生命其实是作为衡量奖赏和惩罚的标准。所有接受耶稣基督为天主和救主的将会升天国，但是奖励的多少要直接与他们在世生活时服从天主旨意的程度有联系。同样的，那些拒绝耶稣基督的将被罚下地狱，而且惩罚的轻重与他们在地上罪孽的多少有直接联系。

Why wouldn't God just create everyone to enjoy the glory of heaven?

为什么天主不单单创造那些有福气享受天国的人呢？

Skeptics might claim that God, in knowing all the choices a person would make, would not need to create all the people who would end up in hell. This question also has some underlying assumptions. The assumption is that since God knows all the answers, He would have no need of "running the experiment."

怀疑论者会说，天主已经知道一个人会选择什么，那就完全没有必要创造那些选择去地狱的人了。这个问题隐含着一些错误的假设和前提。假设就是，因为天主已经知道答案了，他就没有必要“去试验”。

Just put the good people directly into heaven?

把那些好人直接放在天国里不就成了？

The assumption that God could just put the good people directly into heaven seems to be valid for God, but has some problems when applied to humans. For some reason, skeptics leave themselves out of the equation. They want God to run the thought experiment and put those souls who would make the right choice (believe in Jesus Christ) directly into heaven and not even create those who would reject Him. The problem is that God would then be liable to the accusation of rewarding some people more than others, since reward is proportional to good deeds done in life. Since there was no real life, how could God hand out rewards? Should He tell people what they would have done and let them be content with that? How would those souls know anything about life, goodness, and doing the right thing if they had never lived before? God could be considered to be unjust, since His actions would not be based upon choices made by real characters. Would God just put those fake memories into their heads? If He did so, God would be creating deceptions, which contradicts His perfect character.

论断就是，天主可以只把那些好人放入天国，这样看起来对于天主要更符合逻辑。因为种种原因，怀疑论者总是喜欢逃避问题。他们认为天主应该只作思维实验，然后把那些能够有正确选择的人（信基督者）直接带入天国而不造那些会拒绝他的人。问题是这样做天主就会因为在天堂上的奖励不均而受到埋怨，因为奖励多少是根据人们在世的善行多少而发放的。没有真正的生活，天主怎么发放奖励呢？难道天主会告诉那些人他们“将来会做的”，而让他们满足于此？没有生活过，那些灵魂怎么会认识生命，美善，怎么会知道如何去正确行事呢？天主这样做就会更加不公义，因为他的行动没有被真正的人的行为所证实。天主就仅仅把一个没有发生过的记忆植入他们脑袋里？如果这样的话，天主就在创造欺骗，这是和他的完美向违背的。

When people think deeply about their "perfect" plan about what God "should have done," they realize that there are logical problems. What most people would create, as god, would be robots, since they would have no choice at all. Ever try loving your computer? It is not a very satisfying relationship. So it would be with the robots that skeptics would send directly into heaven.

当人们好好斟酌一下他们认为天主应该行的那些“完美”的计划 的时候，就会发现，这里存在着一些逻辑上的根本问题。如果作为神，人们会出创造什么呢，机器人，因为那些机器人根本没有选择的权利。尝试过爱你的电脑吗？这种爱的关系不可能是我们所向往的。承认上述问题是逻辑的也就相当于说，那些怀疑主义者会把机器人直接带到天堂里去。

Conclusion  结论

The "problems" about the loving God of Christianity posed by the skeptics rests on invalid assumptions. Based on an invalid understanding of God's foreknowledge, they seek to avoid the consequences of their free will choice by offering a "solution" that violates the character of God. Therefore, the "solution" would not be a valid solution for the God of Christianity.

怀疑主义者强加于基督宗教的这位慈爱的天主是基于荒谬假设和推断的。在那些错误理解的基础上，他们寻求着能够逃避责任，逃避错误的“方法”，并且把这种违背天主性的做法强加于天主。总归，这种“方法”对于基督宗教的天主是行不通的。