If you are Catholic, you learn that God made the answer to big questions of life, first of all “why do we exist?”, simple: to be happy now and forever. The second and last question is: how can we be happy now and forever. Once again simple: by desiring to and following God’s will in all things which is most easily done by following closely as possible the example He came down personally to set, in the person of the second person of the blessed trinity that is God, Jesus Christ. He did not just give us a book – the Bible, and said figure it out. He taught 12 men and told them to “Go ye into the whole world, preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15) and after he ascended sent the 11 of them that were still alive the grace of the Holy Ghost to guide them in teaching their line of successors to teach the world (John 15:26). There are smaller questions like how do we know that God has our best interest in mind i.e. why should we follow Christ’s example and trust that it will lead to happiness and satisfaction? Because throughout his 3 years of public life he constantly helped people, then to prove the point that putting all your resources on earth to help others, be it your family, your parish if you are a priest or your world as a statesman etc. will be worthwhile by dying on the cross for us and rising on the 3rd day, with witnesses having seen him alive until his Ascension. Why else would so many people convert and risk death if there were not credible witnesses seeing him alive after they witnessed his passion – savagely inflicted on him by his own people through the Romans, and subsequent crucifixion?
The loving intent in God’s justice is easily seen above. He makes his loving intent obvious in the life of Jesus Christ, leaving no doubt He loves us and leaving no doubt what needs to be done. But he gives us a choice, unlike the in the stories of the Greek and Roman Gods. He gave man and woman free will to choose to be happy and satisfied, and gave us a road map on how to attain this state through the life example of Jesus Christ based on the way He created us. If we choose otherwise, we choose hell. Hell is where everybody who thinks they are smarter than God (or that someone else is smarter than God), and can somehow create their own happiness for all eternity outside of the plan of the one who created them, can go to test out their theory, forever. God’s justice is why there is a hell, an alternative to him. Life in the final analysis is a search for truth. Truth is, we were created to be happy and satisfied. The way to achieve our purpose for being created is through the one who created us, Jesus Christ, who came down personally to show us how to be happy and satisfied. Jesus Christ is the life the truth and the way (John 14:6) as well as the resurrection and the life for all eternity (John 11:25). Our life on Earth is a mere shadow of what our life in heaven will be like, giving us a taste of the infinite satisfaction and infinite happiness we will experience in heaven to inspire us to strive for heaven (1 Corinthians 2:9). Heaven is our destiny but we must reach out to find the Truth, living our life as we should which is the result of loving God as we should (John 14:15).
Traditional Thomistic Catholic 