Posted on 12/19/2005 7:19:55 AM PST by laney
>> Isn't faith by nature subjective? <<
Not according to the doctrine of catholicism. Personal and subjective experiences are needed to overcome the obstacle of doubt caused by original sin, but truth is universal, and the catholic Christian assertion is that the Christian God and the scriptures are the truth.
(The use of the word, "catholicism" is a little odd here. I do mean the name of a doctrine, and not the name of a denomination. However, the doctrine of catholicism rejects the possibility of schism, so from a Catholic-Church mindset, Protestantism is a rejection of catholicism, and not just Catholicism.)
>> Isn't prayer a belief in the super natural? <<
Yes, but the supernatural is objectively real.
Then there's the Gospel According to Clinton:
Clinton 1:1 Screw over everyone in sight. Never disappear. Hallelujah!
So when one applies the trick, how do you know if you've discerned properly?
As with the other guy earlier, this is no explanation either.
Isn't a doctrine, subjective? Doesn't it require a belief?
In other words, truth by assertion.
...the supernatural is objectively real.
Just for the record, I believe both these.
Just by knowing. If you don't know you haven't found it.
I know that sounds like double-talk but much spiritual truth does when trying to translate it into the natural or physical world.
I have a question..
God creates someone, knowing before they are even created, that they will do something on a certain date. Can this person, do anything other, on that date?
Since it sounds like double-talk, how do you know it isn't?
How so?
I meant there is as much evidence of free will in the Old Testament as the New.
Don't, for the purposes of this conversation. Do, for the purposes of my life.
"That's a pretty poor way to get out of an axplanation. I read it, but it's not an an answer. It explains nothing."
I think it helps to start with the "Flatland" concept. The two-dimensional characters in it are unable to grasp the three-dimensional world around them. Their two-dimensional minds just can't take in three dimensions.
God has dimensions that we don't. It seems to us contradictory that our choices could be meaningful if God already knows what we will choose, but that apparent contradiction is an artifact of our inability to comprehend those extra dimensions.
I don't understand it, either, but God has told us that He wants us to choose the good, and I don't think He would do that if the choices were meaningless.
As Aquinas said, "Some there are who presume so far on their wits that they think themselves capable of measuring the whole nature of things by their intellect, in that they esteem all things true which they see, and false which they see not. Accordingly, in order that man’s mind might be freed from this presumption, and seek the truth humbly, it was necessary that certain things far surpassing his intellect should be proposed to man by God."
Exposes an interesting issue. Since believing in Jesus is the prerequisite for eternal life, what about the already dead when he came and gave us the way? I have my own opinion but it conflicts with many others and may with yours.
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