Posted on 12/28/2005 9:56:34 AM PST by topcat54
The death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI have drawn great attention to the papacy in recent months. Such intense interest is remarkable. Much of it relates to the personality and accomplishments of John Paul II. He was a man of great courage and contributed significantly to the collapse of communism in eastern Europe.
Part of the interest also results from the powerful images that Rome can offer television cameras. Some of the greatest art and architecture of western civilization serve as a backdrop for elaborate rituals performed by gloriously clad clerics.
Part of the appeal for many—including non-Roman Catholics—is the sense of continuity and certainty provided by the institution of the papacy. The office of the pope connects us with the past, with a time of greater Christian presence and influence at all levels of society and culture in the west. It also speaks of certain moral standards defended against the relativism of our times.
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If "responding to grace" is what saves a man, how is this not a work of man's own ability? From where does this ability to respond positively come?
IOW, why do some respond and others ignore? What is better in one man than another?
Is one man more righteous than another?
Is God's grace, ordained from before the foundation of the world, a mere "possibility?"
Two things must be protected in this discussion. Free will, and the sovereignty of God. If there is no free will, then God indeed did not create us in His own image and he damns as a whimsical tyrant.
Why do some respond and some ignore? Because they want to. Do they on that score secure their own salvation? No, because no amount of free will would suffice if grace were not prompting it. I cannot will my own salvation, but I can respond to the salvation freely offered by Christ--or refuse it entirely.
Grace is efficacious, not an abstract concept. Not one drop of blood as wasted.
Do you define wasted as the damnation of a soul? Because IMHO, the mercy of Our Lord's Precious Blood is evidenced in the damned and the saved alike.
Two things must be protected in this discussion. Free will, and the sovereignty of God.
LOL. Spoken like the fallen men and women we all are. First preserve our licentious will, then the sovereignty of God Almighty.
If there is no free will, then God indeed did not create us in His own image and he damns as a whimsical tyrant.
God does not have free will according to the dictionary definition since God cannot go against His own perfect and holy nature. God cannot commit sin; God cannot lie; God cannot fail.
See? Your premise is wrong.
Likewise, men cannot go against their natures -- dead in sin and trespass due to Adam's fall.
"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one" -- Romans 3:10
Only the supernatural act of God's regeneration can turn a man's face from sin to God.
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." -- Titus 3:4-7"But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
We are made new creatures in Christ by His will alone, determined from before the foundation of the world, according to nothing in ourselves, according to His good pleasure alone. We are justified by Christ alone and sanctified by the inerrant guidance of the Holy Spirit alone. Salvation is of the Lord.
You and I are fortunate, indeed.
If God's mercy was bestowed on the damned, they would not be damned; they would be saved.
Salvation is not as convoluted as you make it out to be.
Was God's mercy on Judas when Christ said it would have been better for Judas never to have been born than to suffer the fate that was ahead for him?
And you cite Calvin on your homepage? I won't even go there.
The only good Calvin was partnered with Hobbes.
Read "The Institutes of the Christian Religion."
It can only do you good. 8~)
mark
Wow. Talk about yer man-made religions. "The Institutes of the Christian Religion" indeed.
Calvinism sounds like what would happen to a religion if the lawyers got control of it.
It's come a long way in its short life; hopefully it will mature, um, gracefully.
My dispensational leaning prompted me to respond here. Scripture is certainly the mainstay to doctrine in this dispensation, however it was not the first means that God chose, nor do I believe that it will be the last.
God began dispensing grace in the garden when he killed animals instead of Adam and Eve. I think that Adam and Eve had some measure of understanding of grace, perhaps greater than we have today. Though they did not know Jesus, the man, they were looking ahead for him.
Scripture was added much later.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." -- John 1:1
The Catholic succeded in getting the Christian's arguing over free will, just as you said he was trying to do!
The post that you responded to regarding grace, did not say grace but graces, meaning the sacraments.
I think we can all agree in rejecting those.
Faith alone in Christ alone!
But I do know this. I know with a certainty that is far deeper than theological argumentation that I have free will. Not because I am higher than God, but precisely because God has given me that choice to make.
There was no primacy attached my ordering of free will and then God's sovereignty. I started with the will because that is what you denied. Of course, God's sovereignty is first and foremost before anything else, and our free will only proceeds from it. And against your idea that our nature was totally destroyed by the Fall, surely you know that is not the Catholic faith, and this was one of the strong bones of contention between we and the Reformers. Our nature was created good, just as the angels were created good. That nature was then wounded by the Fall but not totally corrupted or destroyed. I agree with you that man needs grace to turn from sin to God, but when you deny that man has any natural virtue to him, you contradict Scripture and you go against the Christian faith. St. Paul himself said that the Gentiles "had the law written in their own hearts".
And on damnation, it itself is a mercy. The soul that hates God to that extent cannot abide to be in His Holy Presence. To stand before God black with sin is a greater torture than to be separated from Him forever. Hence God allows us, madness as it is, to even deny his sovereignty.
The will came under the inclination of sin. It was never totally bound to the extent that we lost free will.
Even the pagan has the will to choose between one good or another. One evil or another. One good over an evil.
Perhaps you may want to join a discussion on dictators, megalomaniacs or People Who Form Their Own Sect to Gain Power.
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