Posted on 12/04/2005 2:14:06 AM PST by HarleyD
This was always an odd view in my mind. Looking at the order of salvation, if you are foreknown, predestined, and then justified; how can you lapse back? It says that God really didn't foreknown or predestined you to begin with.
"This was always an odd view in my mind. Looking at the order of salvation, if you are foreknown, predestined, and then justified; how can you lapse back? It says that God really didn't foreknown or predestined you to begin with."
So it would seem in the "order of salvation" as you have laid it out. Now I am assuming that there is such an order for some reason as opposed to someone simply being predestined, period. What is that reason? And why was there an Incarnation. It seems unnecessary in such a system. By the way, doesn't this system demand that God have foreknowledge of all things and therefore God's foreknowledge can have nothing to do with whether or not one lapses?
This order is called out in scripture throughout many passages.
And why was there an Incarnation. It seems unnecessary in such a system.
A sacrifice has to be provided. Why doesn't God save everyone? Why did God create some knowing they would go to hell? God's ways are not our ways. All we can say is this is the perfect way.
By the way, doesn't this system demand that God have foreknowledge of all things and therefore God's foreknowledge can have nothing to do with whether or not one lapses?
If someone is predestined why would they lapse? If someone is foreknown why would they lapse? With either view the term "lapsing" indicates a person is neither predestined or foreknown until they die because God doesn't know who will laps. This mocks the terms often used within scripture.
Why would God give people salvation if He knows they will lose it? To believe one can lose their salvation is simply to deny God's omniscience and to believe that we are the keeper of our salvation is to rely upon our works for our salvation.
He's clueless. Why should I take anything he says seriously? If graduate student turned in a paper with this sort of fundamental historical errors in it, I'd flunk him and tell him to become a journalist or something else where facts don't matter.
You'll get the answer no by some, but the answer is yes...we can always choose to reject Christ and lose our salvation...
I'm WELS (Wisconsin Lutheran) and not sure why some protestants think once saved always saved...there is far too much scripture that warns us about this fact to be ignorant that we can slip...God knows our final destination and ultimately we can only condemn ourselves and we can only know God and his promise thru the Spirit...
Bottom line, Christ's death justified us before God...his death allows us to be found not guilty and we need to believe the promise that God will no longer see our iniquities if the Holy Spirit brings us to have faith in His Son's perfect sacrifice...if we choose to reject the Holy Spirit and in effect reject the justification of Christ's redeeming act we bring the guilty verdict back on ourselves...
"As sons of Adam, we have died with Christ on the Cross and have been reborn into the family of God by His mercy alone."
Amen!
Now it is necessary that God's goodness, which in itself is one and undivided, should be manifested in many ways in His creation; because creatures in themselves cannot attain to the simplicity of God. Thus it is that for the completion of the universe there are required different grades of being; some of which hold a high and some a low place in the universe. That this multiformity of grades may be preserved in things, God allows some evils, lest many good things should never happen, as was said above (22, 2). Let us then consider the whole of the human race, as we consider the whole universe. God wills to manifest His goodness in men; in respect to those whom He predestines, by means of His mercy, as sparing them; and in respect of others, whom he reprobates, by means of His justice, in punishing them. This is the reason why God elects some and rejects others.(emphasis mine.)
Summa Theologica Ia. Q.23 A.5 ad.3Opps.
Now, Dr. E, the other day, you claimed that Trent condemned you and your entire family to hell. I flatly rejected the charge, and gave my reasons for doing so.
Now, today, I will claim that this preacher attempts to do to me and my family what Trent did not do to you and yours: he damns me, my family, and every other orthodox Catholic in the world. You see, if we are not Christians, and the usual Protestant claim is that only professing Christians are saved, then we are damned. His transparent attempt to limit his remarks to "medieval Catholics" notwithstanding, because modern Catholics aren't Calvinists anymore than medieval ones were.
Do you deny that that is PRECISELY the import of his comments?
The torment Luther felt when he struggled to name every sin lest he forget a single one and not be rectified with God is heartrending. As a Protestant, I read this essay and understand Luther's guilt and pain and fear.
As a Catholic, I think that Luther was a nut for not understanding that repentance is a gift from God and he should trust God to bring the sins he needed to confess to mind. And he remembered something serious after he had confessed, he should have known that he was not somehow damned for being forgetful as long as he had an good-faith intention to confess when he had the opportunity to do so.
Honestly, sometimes you folks act like you think that the Catholic God is a machine considerably more stupid and less compassionate than the computer on my desk. But I guess it's easier to caricature your enemies than it is to actually listen to them.
He's clueless. Why should I take anything he says seriously? If graduate student turned in a paper with this sort of fundamental historical errors in it, I'd flunk him and tell him to become a journalist or something else where facts don't matter.
Exactly what I have noticed about every post. He makes basic, obvious errors of fact again and again and again. He really has no "feel" for Catholicism or for medieval European culture.
It's not history. It's polemic.
Thomas wasn't a predestinarian either, by the way, although he believed in predestination.
Then he understood, man is not damned because he is a sinner, he is damed because he does not have a Savior to redeem him
The difference between heaven and hell will be in heaven will be full of sinners saved by Grace and mercy, hell will be full of men that thought they were 'good enough' and could pass the self righteousness test.
All monks were required to pray the canonical hours. ... Everyone else prayed their prayers together and the prayers always included twenty-five "Our Fathers" ... By my count that means at least 175 "Our Fathers" ... a day. ... Monks were also encouraged to pray the Psalter. Sometimes they were made to pray the Psalter as punishment for infractions within the order.
Any knowledgeable Catholic and practically any Orthodox Christian will look at this, furrow his or her brow, then burst out laughing.
The canonical hours ARE the Psalter. All of the hours include Psalms and prose Scripture readings, they were not and never have been the recitation of 175 Our Fathers in a day. This was as true in Luther's time as it is today, an d it's as true in the East as in the West.
He managed to get a few things right. Compline traditionally ends with the singing of the Salve Regina.
This is what I mean about this gentleman having no feel or understanding of his subject matter.
That's not how I would express it, but that's fine.
My point is that there is a constant refrain in these sorts of Luther hagiographies ... "Luther was an awesome Catholic and a super-monk -- it got him nowhere in his life of faith".
The truth is that he was a very confused Catholic and a very neurotic monk. It wasn't all his fault, of course.
hell will be full of men that thought they were 'good enough' and could pass the self righteousness test.
I have bad news for you. There are plenty of men and women around today who are bad, who know it, and who glory in it, to fill hell all by themselves, not leaving much room for the merely self-righteous. But that's a topic for another day.
Friend,
I don't accept Romanists polemics as the final definition of terms. The Papists claims as to what constitutes a Predestinarian is tinged with the weight of Trent hanging on its back so that it is a caricature of the Biblical doctrine.
Besides that, I was responding to your denial of Aquinas' mongerism in which you conflated it with Calvinism.
"As for the claim that he is "a true monergist," I assume by this term you mean "Calvinist." Nothing could be further from the truth, although you try to evade this by laughably suggesting that Calvinism is compatible with belief in free-will."
If a Calvinist compatibility with free will is laughable I'm afraid a Thomists compatibility is equally as laughable despite any assertions to the contrary.
Sorry.
Newadvent states that the canonical hours have changed over the centuries. NOW they include just the Psalms and prose Scripture reading. At other times throughout history they contained much more.
It is unclear what Luther was force to recite. It appears from newadvent that although there are guidelines on the canonical hours, interpretations can be made. I would suspect this order that Luther was involved in required much more than others.
This is all speculation on yours and my part. They were consider obligatory and failure to do them could result in excommunication. We can only take Luther at his word that he had a lot of reciting and memorizing to do.
If a Calvinist compatibility with free will is laughable I'm afraid a Thomists compatibility is equally as laughable despite any assertions to the contrary.
Providence tends to multiply good things in the subjects of its government. But if free will were taken away, many good things would be withdrawn. The praise of human virtue would be taken away, which is nullified where good is not done freely: the justice of rewards and punishments would be taken away, if man did not do good and evil freely: wariness and circumspection in counsel would be taken away, as there would be no need of taking counsel about things done under necessity. It would be therefore contrary to the plan of providence to withdraw the liberty of the will. (St. Thomas, SCG 3.73)God can cause the movement of the will in us without prejudice to the freedom of the will (St. Thomas, SCG 3.89)
Divine providence imposes necessity upon some things; not upon all, as some formerly believed. ... it has prepared for some things necessary causes, so that they happen of necessity; for others contingent causes, that they may happen by contingency, according to the nature of their proximate causes. (St. Thomas, I q. 22 a. 4)
Free-will is the cause of its own movement, because by his free-will man moves himself to act. But it does not of necessity belong to liberty that what is free should be the first cause of itself, as neither for one thing to be cause of another need it be the first cause. God, therefore, is the first cause, Who moves causes both natural and voluntary. And just as by moving natural causes He does not prevent their acts being natural, so by moving voluntary causes He does not deprive their actions of being voluntary: but rather is He the cause of this very thing in them; for He operates in each thing according to its own nature. (St. Thomas, I q. 83 a. 1 ad 3)
Just as evil is more comprehensive than sin, so is sin more comprehensive than blame. For an action is said to deserve praise or blame, from its being imputed to the agent: since to praise or to blame means nothing else than to impute to someone the malice or goodness of his action. Now an action is imputed to an agent, when it is in his power, so that he has dominion over it: because it is through his will that man has dominion over his actions, as was made clear above. Hence it follows that good or evil, in voluntary actions alone, renders them worthy of praise or blame: and in such like actions, evil, sin and guilt are one and the same thing. (St. Thomas, I-II q. 21 a. 2 co.)
Man is so moved, as an instrument, by God, that, at the same time, he moves himself by his free-will, as was explained above. Consequently, by his action, he acquires merit or demerit in God's sight. (St. Thomas, I-II q. 21 a. 4 ad 2)
Hence man's merit with God only exists on the presupposition of the Divine ordination, so that man obtains from God, as a reward of his operation, what God gave him the power of operation for, even as natural things by their proper movements and operations obtain that to which they were ordained by God; differently, indeed, since the rational creature moves itself to act by its free-will, hence its action has the character of merit, which is not so in other creatures. (St. Thomas, I-II q. 114 a. 1 co.)
Compare to Calvin:
If sin, say they, is necessary, it ceases to be sin; if it is voluntary, it may be avoided. Such, too, were the weapons with which Pelagius assailed Augustine. But we are unwilling to crush them by the weight of his name, until we have satisfactorily disposed of the objections themselves. I deny, therefore, that sin ought to be the less imputed because it is necessary; and, on the other hand, I deny the inference, that sin may be avoided because it is voluntary. If any one will dispute with God, and endeavour to evade his judgement, by pretending that he could not have done otherwise, the answer already given is sufficient, that it is owing not to creation, but the corruption of nature, that man has become the slave of sin, and can will nothing but evil. For whence that impotence of which the wicked so readily avail themselves as an excuse, but just because Adam voluntarily subjected himself to the tyranny of the devil? Hence the corruption by which we are held bound as with chains, originated in the first man's revolt from his Maker. If all men are justly held guilty of this revolt, let them not think themselves excused by a necessity in which they see the clearest cause of their condemnation. But this I have fully explained above; and in the case of the devil himself, have given an example of one who sins not less voluntarily that he sins necessarily. I have also shown, in the case of the elect angels, that though their will cannot decline from good, it does not therefore cease to be will. This Bernard shrewdly explains when he says, (Serm. 81, in Cantica,) that we are the more miserable in this, that the necessity is voluntary; and yet this necessity so binds us who are subject to it, that we are the slaves of sin, as we have already observed. The second step in the reasoning is vicious, because it leaps from voluntary to free; whereas we have proved above, that a thing may be done voluntarily, though not subject to free choice. (Institutes II. 5.1)And seeing that good works give little ground for exultation, and are not even properly called merits, if they are regarded as the fruits of divine grace, they derive them from the power of free-will; in other words extract oil out of stone. They deny not that the principal cause is in grace; but they contend that there is no exclusion of free-will through which all merit comes. This is the doctrine, not only of the later Sophists, but of Lombard their Pythagoras (Sent. Lib. 2, Dist. 28), who, in comparison of them, may be called sound and sober. It was surely strange blindness, while he had Augustine so often in his mouth, not to see how cautiously he guarded against ascribing a single particle of praise to man because of good works. Above, when treating of free-will, we quoted some passages from him to this effect, and similar passages frequently occur in his writings (see in Psal. 104; Ep. 105), as when he forbids us ever to boast of our merits, because they themselves also are the gifts of God, and when he says that all our merits are only of grace, are not provided by our sufficiency, but are entirely the production of grace, &c. It is less strange that Lombard was blind to the light of Scripture, in which it is obvious that he had not been a very successful student. (Institutes III. 15.7)
[You can't seriously be suggesting that Thomas, Anselm, or Augustine would have any truck with the idea of the imputed righteousness of Christ.]
The Catholic mind is difficult to understand; but I believe that they misunderstand the simplicity of Christ and salvation by grace through faith alone in the crucifixion of Christ for our sins and the resurrection of Christ for our justification. If a man believes in his heart and confesses how that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose again the third day,he shall be saved. Period.
Man is not able to save himself by works as he is a sinner from birth and nothing can make a man holy but the imputed rightiousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.Our sin is imputed to Jesus the Christ when we belive the salvation gospel, his rightiousness is imputed to us the moment we belive Him and God justifies us therein. It started with Abraham, who was saved by grace through faith because HE BELIVED GOD, AND GOD COUNTED IT TO HIM FOR RIGHTIOUSNESS.
Study the scriptures, please study the scriptures before you use a million words to deny the truth of God much as liberals do in defending their socialist policies that are doomed.
You are not good enough to be saved because you and we were born in sin, we sin because we are sinners and no amout of good works makes up that sin. It agravates Catholics to belive that God saves men by grace through faith alone and has resulted in the death of many Christians through out the centuries.
[And this happens, I take it, all at once?]
In the twinkling of an eye.
1And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
2Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
4But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
6And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
7That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
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