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To: Claud
How is it possible for a soul that was "made for God" be happy without Him?

That's the very definition of hell.

As to Augustine's vision of theology, surely you don't agree with his view of sexuality and the body. Augustine had the strange notion that, unless one formed a positive intention to procreate, any sexual act that did not have this particular desire in mind was a mortal sin.

Augustine was an "either-or" kind of guy, whose response to his own sexual randiness in his youth was to look askance at sex only as a necessity for conception.

152 posted on 11/29/2005 5:17:10 PM PST by sinkspur (Trust, but vilify.)
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To: sinkspur
How is it possible for a soul that was "made for God" be happy without Him?

*Naturally* happy. Enjoying pleasure in all one's senses, having the company of friends and fellows. In other words, what the pagans conceived as Elysium.

Which is a far cry, however, from the beatific vision and the *supernatural* happiness of sharing in the Divine Nature. Which no human being properly deserves, and which is a free unmerited gift of God's.

I think the problem nowadays is that most people think we are *entitled* to heaven unless we do something to merit otherwise. Not so.

171 posted on 11/29/2005 5:33:49 PM PST by Claud
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To: sinkspur

Nonsense. Part of the anti-Augustine slander industry. Read Margaret Miles, _Augustine on the Body_--and she's a feminist--but she was honest as a young scholar, and the evidence of Augustine's positive view of the body was so overwhelming that she couldn't deny it. The more she read of Augustine the more she realized that he fully realized that anyone who believed in the Incarnation could not hate the body. So enough already with the Augustine bashing.


204 posted on 11/29/2005 5:55:32 PM PST by Dionysiusdecordealcis
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