"God-damned"

I had a thought the other day. People sometimes use the phrase (and please pardon the bad language here) "God-damned" to describe things and people that they don't like. But the thing is, God doesn't damn very many people, if anyone. That's just not what He does. In fact, it's basically the opposite of what He does. God is interested in saving our souls, not damning them to hell.

Of course, there is one being who is very interested in damning our souls to hell. Satan works tirelessly to tempt us to commit sin and get ourselves trapped in a cycle of sin, stopping our progress. That's what damnation is: stopping something's or someone's progress. Satan wants us to stop our eternal progress and keep us trapped in one of the lower kingdoms.

But he can't. Satan can have some influence over us, but only if we let him. He can't force us to do evil, and he can't stop us from doing good. He can only attempt to deceive and persuade us. He cannot actually damn us.

So, we people are damned, who are they damned by? Who stops them from making progress? There is only one person in the entire universe who both can and might decide to do that: Themselves. The only person in all of creation who both can and might "damn" a person is that person themselves.

God could damn us, but He'd never want to. Satan wants to damn us, but he can't. We are the ones who ultimately decide whether we get damned or not. If we choose to make progress, we improve. If we choose to stop making progress, we are damned, at least until we change our minds. It is our decision, and ours alone, that determines our eternal fate. When people choose sin over salvation, they stop their own eternal progress. God didn't damn them and neither did Satan.  When anyone is damned, they've damned themselves.