Posted on 09/26/2006 3:48:44 PM PDT by annalex
Once again I find myself in agreement with the Catholic teachings.
The message is clear. People cannot understand unless God opens up our minds to the scripture. The only way we understand the call of God is by God opening up our minds. Those who do not believe is evidence that God does not open up everyone's mind for no one would choose hell.
To think that we are capable of making an educated decision is nothing more than humanism.
Thank you. It has been my experience that anyone who studies the scripture free from the interpretations imposed by the Protestant pastors, and studies the Catholic/Orthodox teaching from Catholic/Orthodox sources, becomes either Catholic or Orthodox.
The issue is, how does God call everyone and not call everyone at the same time in the Calvinist framework that denies free will?
For the Church, there is no conundrum:
God made man a free [agent] from the beginning, possessing his own power, even as he does his own soul, to obey the behests (ad utendum sententia) of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with God, but a good will [towards us] is present with Him continually. And therefore does He give good counsel to all. And in man, as well as in angels, He has placed the power of choice (for angels are rational beings), so that those who had yielded obedience might justly possess what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by themselves.[...]
it is in man's power to disobey God, and to forfeit what is good
Under your free will framework, you would stand out on the corner shouting John 3:16. Everyone who hear the message would make some type of choice. It is up to them. There is no real working of God's Spirit. There is no specific grace to a particular person.
No one will be in hell because they made the wrong choice.
If the individual's free will is not there then you have God Who calls and doesn't call at the same time.
| Reading | A treatise against the heresies, by St Irenaeus |
|---|---|
| Eve and Mary | |
| The Lord, coming into his own creation in visible form, was sustained by his own creation which he himself sustains in being. His obedience on the tree of the cross reversed the disobedience at the tree in Eden; the good news of the truth announced by an angel to Mary, a virgin subject to a husband, undid the evil lie that seduced Eve, a virgin espoused to a husband. As Eve was seduced by the word of an angel and so fled from God after disobeying his word, Mary in her turn was given the good news by the word of an angel, and bore God in obedience to his word. As Eve was seduced into disobedience to God, so Mary was persuaded into obedience to God; thus the Virgin Mary became the advocate of the virgin Eve. Christ gathered all things into one, by gathering them into himself. He declared war against our enemy, crushed him who at the beginning had taken us captive in Adam, and trampled on his head, in accordance with God’s words to the serpent in Genesis: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall lie in wait for your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel. The one lying in wait for the serpent’s head is the one who was born in the likeness of Adam from the woman, the Virgin. This is the seed spoken of by Paul in the letter to the Galatians: The law of works was in force until the seed should come to whom the- promise was made. He shows this even more clearly in the same letter when he says: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman. The enemy would not have been defeated fairly if his vanquisher had not been born of a woman, because it was through a woman that he had gained mastery over man in the beginning, and set himself up as man’s adversary. That is why the Lord proclaims himself the Son of Man, the one who renews in himself that first man from whom the race born of woman was formed; as by a man’s defeat our race fell into the bondage of death, so by a man’s victory we were to rise again to life. |
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The epithet Virgin in itself shows that Our Lady was called that way through her life, which would be incompatible with anything but the perpetual virginity.
It is also notable that he calls Eve "virgin espoused" while Mary is "virgin subject to a husband".
| Reading | From the treatise Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus, bishop |
|---|---|
| Knowledge of the Father consists in the self-revelation of the Son | |
| No one can know the Father apart from God’s Word, that is, unless the Son reveals him, and no one can know the Son unless the Father so wills. Now the Son fulfils the Father’s good pleasure: the Father sends, the Son is sent, and he comes. The Father is beyond our sight and comprehension; but he is known by his Word, who tells us of him who surpasses all telling. In turn, the Father alone has knowledge of his Word. And the Lord has revealed both truths. Therefore, the Son reveals the knowledge of the Father by his revelation of himself. Knowledge of the Father consists in the self-revelation of the Son, for all is revealed through the Word. The Father’s purpose in revealing the Son was to make himself known to us all and so to welcome into eternal rest those who believe in him, establishing them in justice, preserving them from death. To believe in him means to do his will. Through creation itself the Word reveals God the Creator. Through the world he reveals the Lord who made the world. Through all that is fashioned he reveals the craftsman who fashioned it all. Through the Son the Word reveals the Father who begot him as Son. All speak of these things in the same language, but they do not believe them in the same way. Through the law and the prophets the Word revealed himself and his Father in the same way, and though all the people equally heard the message not all equally believed it. Through the Word, made visible and palpable, the Father was revealed, though not all equally believed in him. But all saw the Father in the Son, for the Father of the Son cannot be seen, but the Son of the Father can be seen. The Son performs everything as a ministry to the Father, from beginning to end, and without the Son no one can know God. The way to know the Father is the Son. Knowledge of the Son is in the Father, and is revealed through the Son. For this reason the Lord said: No one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son has revealed him. The word “revealed” refers not only to the future – as though the Word began to reveal the Father only when he was born of Mary; it refers equally to all time. From the beginning the Son is present to creation, reveals the Father to all, to those the Father chooses, when the Father chooses, and as the Father chooses. So, there is in all and through all one God the Father, one Word and Son, and one Spirit, and one salvation for all who believe in him. |
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To believe in him means to do his will.How Catholic! Faith is what we do.
St. Irenaeus of Lyons: The First Great Theologian of the Church
Thank you.
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