When Is Armageddon?

John Ramsden, writing for biblemagazine.com had an answer to the question: "So when will Armageddon Occur?" [1]  His answer was: "To be frank, we do not know!" [2]

Nor does this blogger know what day and year Christ will return but guesses that it is the day when every being, those who are capable of making choices, has chosen definitively whether to accept or reject God.  Is that day near?

This entry concludes that it is not because many have not quite made up their minds, including those who say that they are "spiritual" but do not care for any organized religion, Abrahamic [3] or not, Messianism [4]-based or not, and those who are generally good people who do not seem to have any time or need for God, at least not yet, as well as many more, like the scientifically-minded, who remain undecided, who are still looking for empirical evidence that God does not exist.

How difficult can it be to choose between (a) God and everything that is pure and holy, and (b) Satan and everything else that is tainted by sin--there is no (c).  Why vacillate?  It is so simple.  Pick either "a" or "b" and be done with it.

The people who are "on the fence" between good and evil, trying to pick between the two or, quite possibly wanting both, have just as much Free Will as anyone else.  Free Will allows one as much time as needed to reach a decision.

Whether the choice between God and Satan has to be made during one's lifetime up to as late as the moment of death, this blogger is not certain, not at this writing, even though the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: "Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification or immediately, -- or immediate and everlasting damnation." [Emphasis  added.] [5]

Can a spirit that has left the body be undecided?  If so, where would these beings go before Judgment Day, "[w]hen [Christ] comes...to judge the living and the dead?" [6]  They cannot be in Heaven because they have not accepted God, nor will Hell admit them because they are not sure if they want to be with God.  They cannot be in Purgatory since Purgatory is a place of purification and if they choose ultimately to reject God, then they would have committed a sin that cannot be purified.  Maybe the Catholic Church was right, maybe the deadline to choose is  at the moment of death, not after. [7]

Perhaps God will decide for those who cannot decide (and those who have not thought to decide as in sudden and early death cases) since Free Will expires at the moment of death, and that very last moment is too short for anyone, in particular, procrastinators, to reasonably make a fully-informed consent, especially when one's mental capacities are compromised by a combination of old-age, sickness and medication.  In arriving at a decision, perhaps God will take into consideration the totality of the person's goodness in life, looking to see if that person always had the inclination to love God but did not quite know how to go about expressing that love besides being generally kind and loving. That maybe enough to land one in Purgatory, for actions that are close to God-like are just as clear indications of acceptance of God as vocal professions of faith in God which could at times be hypocritical.  In contrast, those who had done evil deeds and refused to repent could mean that they had by will turned away from God and gravitated toward Satan, in which case, Heaven would likely be closed to them, even though they had not consciously rejected God in life or at death, and had always considered themselves to be "Christians."

God's decisions are swift, because God precedes time and knows beforehand what time and Free Will do not know. Therefore, there would not be a need to put undecided souls in transitional limbo while God reviews their records before rendering a judgment.  Maybe the Catholic Church should revise paragraph 1022 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church [8] to read: "Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment after (instead of "of") his death" since logistics does not even become an issue with God.

This minor change could just be semantics with no consequential effect.  Nonetheless, the change would seem to allow Free Will to be exercised up until, and including, the very moment of death.  That would be consistent with God's intention to have the gift of Free Will be maximized to its fullest extent.  Moreover, that would be consistent with God's patience and compassion which ought to encompass the very moment of death, thereby allowing Free Will one last chance to make its call before God steps in and makes the final call between eternal life and death immediately after, rather than at  the moment of death.

Satan, however, is not so nice.  It wants to have people reject God sooner than later.  It realizes that an overwhelming majority of people in the world are capable of making a final choice between good and evil.  For Satan, that is good enough.  It does not care about a relatively small number who are incapable of making such a choice, including infants and very small children, and those who are mentally handicapped, drugged-out, delirious and so on.

If what have been imagined above are true, then Armageddon will take place after those who have the ability to choose knowingly and irrevocably between God and Satan have all chosen.  Perhaps there would be a time when they would be forced to make such a choice by a supreme ruler, the Antichrist perhaps, with the ability to block access to anything electronically based, such as bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards, ATMs, fuel stations, health insurance and health care, cell phones and the internet, everywhere, until all those who can choose have made the choice, (a) or (b) (above). After that, the line can be clearly drawn between those who radiate truth and light and those who hide behind deceit [9] and in darkness.  The battle will be a spectacle as brightness and darkness collide, without ever resulting in any shade of grey.

The question that remains is when, exactly, will this final battle occur.  Only God knows [10].  This blogger nonetheless concludes that the day of Armageddon was ever so slightly further in the future when he was born than today.  If people continue to drift incrementally further away from God, then Armageddon will be incrementally closer to the present, unless people change, and that potential is always there, for people to return to God, their Creator.



[1] http://www.biblemagazine.com/magazine/vol-9/issue-1/armag.html
[2] Ibid.
[3] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religion
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianism
[5] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm at paragraph 1022.
[6] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c2a7.htm
[7] Maybe that was how the word "deadline" originated, or how it ought to have originated, being a line that separates eternal life from eternal death, the living from the dead, Free Will from no-Free Will, a line that is alive for the living but dead to the dead--a line that "dies" with death and cannot be revived--ergo "deadline."
[8] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm
[9] Deceit here includes deceit of others and self-deceit.
[10] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24%3A36&version=NIV