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To: Springfield Reformer
I understand that grace leads to the acceptance of man back in the Garden, from which he was expelled. I don't dislike "accepted" as poetry; if a commentator on the Gospel wrote something like this I would see a valuable insight in it. In fact, St. Ephrem the Syrian is the one who taught me this theology of physical journey away and back in the Garden (see his Hymns on Paradise). The problem is that King James Bible is supposed to be not a commentary but a translation; I prefer the semantic lines to be kept as written, not improved upon.

It is indeed the issue also with the Catholic desire to take words of Christ literally where no allegorical speech is in evidence, as in His words regarding the Eucharist, and a few other Catholic distinctives.

It almost seems as if Protestants and Catholics have a fundamentally different view of what grace is

For sure, St. Augustine's idea that grace is no different than predestination -- and therefore those passed over for the election have no access of grace, -- is completely non-Catholic. I suspect that at least more calvinistically minded Protestant would join Augustine on that.

between grace and predestination there is only this difference, that predestination is the preparation for grace, while grace is the donation itself. […] Abraham […] believed, giving glory to God, ‘that what he has promised, he is able also to do’. He does not say, to foretell— he does not say, to foreknow; for He can foretell and foreknow the doings of strangers also; but he says, He is able also to do; and thus he is speaking not of the doings of others, but of His own. (On the Predestination of the Saints I.19, quoting Romans 4:21)

A Catholic would immediately rebut with

[God] will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4)

We believe that grace is available for all; grace is the reason grass grows underfoot. The predestination occurs across time as God foreknows the responses of men to grace, and leads those whom He elects to salvation based on the foreknown content of their heart. Compare “the Lord beholdeth the heart” (1 Kings/1 Samuel. 16:7).

78 posted on 04/22/2014 5:38:28 AM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: annalex
The problem is that King James Bible is supposed to be not a commentary but a translation; I prefer the semantic lines to be kept as written, not improved upon.

Surely you recognize that most Greek words have more than one English word meaning...How about your religion's version of Mary 'full of grace'??? You claim that means she is sinless...

79 posted on 04/22/2014 8:50:21 AM PDT by Iscool (Ya mess with me, you mess with the WHOLE trailer park...)
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