Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
January 25, 2008
ESV Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
In recent days I have spent time in Lima and Sullana Peru and Mexico City and I have discovered that people by nature are the same. Man has a heart that is inclined to selfishness and idolatry. Sin abounds in the remotest parts of the land because the heart is desperately wicked. Thousands bow before statues of Mary and pray to her hoping for answers. I have seen these people stare hopelessly at Mary icons, Jesus icons, and a host of dead saints who will do nothing for them. I have talked with people who pray to the pope and say that they love him. I talked with one lady who said that she knew that Jesus was the Savior, but she loved the pope. Thousands bow before Santa Muerte (holy death angel) in hopes that she will do whatever they ask her. I have seen people bring money, burning cigarettes, beer, whiskey, chocolate, plants, and flowers to Santa Muerte in hopes of her answers. I have seen these people bowing on their knees on the concrete in the middle of public places to worship their idol. Millions of people come into the Basilica in Mexico City and pay their money, confess their sins, and stare hopelessly at relics in hope that their sins will be pardoned. In America countless thousands are chained to baseball games, football games, material possessions, and whatever else their heart of idols can produce to worship.
My heart has broken in these last weeks because the God of heaven is not honored as he ought to be honored. People worship the things that are created rather than worshiping the Creator. God has been gracious to all mankind and yet mankind has hardened their hearts against a loving God. God brings the rain on the just and unjust. God brings the beautiful sunrises and sunsets upon the just and unjust. God gives good gifts unto all and above all things he has given his Son that those who would believe in him would be saved. However, man has taken the good things of God and perverted them unto idols and turned their attention away from God. I get a feel for Jesus as he overlooked Jerusalem or Paul as he beseeched for God to save Israel. When you accept the reality of the truth of the glory of God is breaks your heart that people would turn away from the great and awesome God of heaven to serve lesser things. Moses was outraged by the golden calf, the prophets passionately preached against idolatry, Jesus was angered that the temple was changed in an idolatrous business, and Paul preached to the idolaters of Mars Hill by telling them of the unknown God.
I arrived back at home wondering how I should respond to all the idolatry that I have beheld in these last three weeks. I wondered how our church here in the states should respond to all of the idolatry in the world. What are the options? First, I suppose we could sit around and hope that people chose to get their life together and stop being idolaters. However, I do not know how that could ever happen apart from them hearing the truth. Second, I suppose we could spend a lifetime studying cultural issues and customs in hope that we could somehow learn to relate to the people of other countries. However, the bible is quite clear that all men are the same. Men are dead in sin, shaped in iniquity, and by nature are the enemies of God. Thirdly, we could pay other people or other agencies to go and do a work for us while we remain comfortably in the states. However, there is no way to insure that there will be doctrinal accuracy or integrity. If we only pay other people to take the gospel we will miss out on all of the benefits of being obedient to the mission of God. Lastly, we could seek where God would have us to do a lasting work and then invest our lives there for the glory of God. The gospel has the power to raise the dead in any culture and we must be willing to take the gospel wherever God would have us take it. It is for sure that our church cannot go to every country and reach every people group, so we must determine where God would have us work and seek to be obedient wherever that is.
It seems that some doors are opening in the Spanish speaking countries below us and perhaps God is beginning to reveal where we are to work. There are some options for work to be partnered with in Peru and there could be a couple of options in Mexico. The need is greater than I can express upon this paper for a biblical gospel to be proclaimed in Peru and Mexico. Oh, that God would glorify his great name in Peru and Mexico by using a small little church in a town that does not exist to proclaim his great gospel amongst a people who desperately need the truth.
I give thanks to the LORD for allowing me the privilege of going to these countries and broadening my horizons. The things that I have seen will be forever engraved upon my heart. I will long remember the pastors that I spent time with in Peru and I will never forget Adolfo who translated for me in Mexico. I will relish the time that I spent with Paul Washer and the others. When I think of church I will forever remember being on top of that mountain in Sullana at that church which had no electricity and no roof. I am convinced that heaven was looking down on that little church on top of that mountain and very few people on earth even know that it exist. Oh, God I pray that the things of this world will continue to grow dim and that God’s people will be caught up in his glorious presence.
Because of the truth: Pastor: J. Randall Easter II Timothy 2:19 "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases."(Ps. 115:3) "He predestined us according to the good pleasure of His will."(Eph. 1:5) Those who have been saved have been saved for His glory and they are being made holy for this is the will of God. Are you being made holy? Spurgeon says, "If your religion does not make you holy it will damn you to hell."
Okay. God does not have a “plan”. He is everywhere and everywhen and experiences/experienced/will experience all of Creation in a single instant. There are things that He has ordained, sure. But I would consider that to be the framework of Creation. Man sure isn’t going to upset that.
No, no. :) You can't moot an entire issue by saying that everything to God is one giant "now". That's been tried against me before. :) Take it from the human POV if you want. If you agree that God ordains anything, then you agree that He has some sort of plan within time, as far as we are concerned as observers through time. In this light I hope you would still agree that man isn't going to upset that.
God created the Flood and nobody got out alive that wasn’t supposed to.
OK, good. Now we're talking. :) You acknowledge that the Flood actually happened and that it was by God's hand not only THAT it happened, but how it happened. Others have told me very differently.
But one can take it to ridiculous lengths and claim that because God is not stopping me shooting my neighbour, then He authorizes me to do it. I’ve heard that argument (not taken that far, admittedly) from some of my Protestant brethren right here.
That would depend on very technical issues surrounding the exact premise and the exact response. What does "authorize" mean, etc.? But in general, I agree that the example goes way too far. In the way I'm reading it, to me that is like certain people declaring as knowledge that AIDS is God's punishment against gays, or that 9/11 was God's punishment against the United States. Some Protestants have done this, in error, IMO. We can't presume to know God's motives on such things.
Peter was a sheep who wandered away and got lost. What did God do? He went out and found him and brought him back. Just like He promised He would. Works every time, unto this day. :)
So far, so good.
Free Will is also God's intention because love cannot force.
We have different definitions and concepts of free will, but under mine I can agree with your statement.
The mistake you're making is not understanding that love must be freely given by God in order to be love, and man must be free to accept that love.
I understand that God gives His love freely, and that man, with his new heart (a heart now capable of receiving God's love), freely accepts God's love. I do not define freedom by how often God's workmanship (new heart) is proved defective! :)
Once love becomes SELF seeking it ceases to be love and becomes pride and sin,as in the case of the devil.
Sure.
If God took Free Will away from His creatures than all of God's creatures would have to be sinless or God would be flawed.
Given what I think you mean by free will, I don't get this one. Why? We don't think man has free will according to your side, and we are not sinless, and God is not flawed. God created Adam without sin, but with the capability of sin. That was called good.
The reformed take away free will and say God ordains evil,but if you follow that concept to it's original source it points to God being the creator of evil.
No, I've seen many take that leap, but I haven't seen analysis as to how it is accomplished without using unBiblical assumptions. If you believe that God ordained the crucifixion, THEN you believe that God ordained evil. Period. But that does not make God the author of evil. God sometimes USES evil to accomplish what He wants.
More Aquinas - "That there is not any Sovereign Evil, acting as the Principle of All Evils"
Was Aquinas a Southerner? :) In any event I fully agree that there is no such thing as sovereign evil, since only God is totally sovereign. God is in control of everything. Further, I agree with Aquinas that first there was good, and then there was evil. Evil came forth from the good that God created. Adam was good when created and then later came evil, for example.
Excellent. :) I had that line of thinking in the bullpen (i.e. birth) in case there was some other verse that used "again". Thanks much for the translation comparison.
Luke gives Mary's genealogy. There was no word in Greek for "son-in-law," and Joseph would have been considered a son of Heli through marrying Heli's daughter Mary. Both genealogies lead back through David but by different sons. Mary's line goes back to David's son Nathan, but Joseph's line in Matthew goes back to David's son Solomon.
God wanted us to know Christ's blood lineage which is why He revealed it to us in scripture. That proves the prophecy true.
Kosta: ordain "1: to invest officially (as by the laying on of hands) with ministerial or priestly authority 2 to establish or order by appointment, decree, or law [Marriam-Webster's Dictionary]
Seems to me you are not only changing the common meanings, but inventing them. :) Convenient. Ordination contains is synonymous with command or expresison of authority in every instance.
LOL! As Irish alertly pointed out, my use of "ordain" MATCHES the second definition that you quote: "to establish ...... by ...... decree". Does God decree the rains?
Ps 147:7-8 : 7 Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; make music to our God on the harp. 8 He covers the sky with clouds; he supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills.
Who does He command for THAT?! :)
[Re: FK's post on pecca fortier] Well, in all fairness, perhaps I should have and I apologize. If you still have a copy, please resubmit and I will make sure I respond.
That is very fair of you and I appreciate the offer. To save bandwidth, here is a link to the original post:
IV. Sin Boldly: A Detailed Analysis
My previous experience with Luther leads me to believe that he was not irrefutable.
You're right, he wasn't irrefutable, especially since I'm a Baptist. :)
And I reject your rejection! How's that for an FK argument? :)
Objection overruled. :)
FK: No, not like a computer at all. Man has a will.
But, it's God's will one way or another. That's what the Reformed believe.
God's will dominates, but that doesn't take away from the fact that man's will is real.
So, what good is it that you have a will if you are predestined to do as God wants you to do?
It's good because we have THIS existence INSTEAD OF the existence of a computer or robot. I DO desire that God have control over me as much as I have control over this computer, but it would not occur to me to switch places with my computer. Huge difference. :) We alone can commune with God.
FK: While God certainly made the serpent, the Bible says no where that God "commanded" him to go into the garden and do what he did.
Well, is it the serpent's will or God's will working through the serpent? Or was God caught off guard? /sar/
It was God's will to knowingly let the serpent do the serpent's will. God could have snapped His fingers and stopped it cold at any point, but He didn't. When I say that God works through someone, it is only for good. It is a different mechanism when sin is ordained.
FK: God leaves him CLOSER to his born nature.
which is God's creation!
No, his born nature is sinful and, we say, "totally depraved".
Then where does the "original sin" come in? Man's nature changed after the Fall in that man became mortal and all his offspring are mortal; that's what is meant by "nature."
Original sin IS nature according to the Bible:
Rom 7:18 : I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
Rom 7:25 : Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Rom 8:5 : Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
So, I think the change in nature is much larger than you suggest. Paul talks a lot about the sinful nature.
FK: Man does not create man, God does.
Then our sin-nature is made by God intentionally!
No, God makes a person and allows that person to be "infected", for lack of a better term, with the original sin that He ordained be passed down from Adam. I have no idea how the mechanics of that works. I could be wrong in that, but I base it on knowing that God creates us in the womb, and knowing that original sin is passed down, and knowing that God does not author sin. If those conditions are met and there is a better explanation I would be more than all ears. :)
FK: I have been told a thousand times that God never interferes with the free will of men. When does He do so?
He doesn't interfere but He intercedes.
What is the difference? How can God intercede without interfering? And any interference counts, even if it would be welcome by the person.
It's not that simple,fk
Here are two articles which I will post in thier full texts rather than just links.
Here is the first one...
Did Christ Have to Suffer?
Or Could Man Have Been Saved Another Way?
By Paul Thigpen
Long before its scheduled release of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ stirred sharp controversy. One debate focused on the bloodiness of the movie. Critics complained that the scenes of Christ’s torture and death were too grisly. Defenders replied that the historical event being portrayed was in fact grisly, so the portrayal could not be sanitized if it was to remain faithful to the subject matter.
For both opponents and supporters, the film has served as a reminder that Jesus’ Passion was a horrifying affair. And for at least some Christians, the ghastly violence of the movie has raised a significant issue: Did Christ have to suffer as he did to accomplish our salvation? Or could that purpose have been achieved another way?
It’s an age-old question. Sixteen centuries ago, when Augustine addressed the matter, he noted that he was not the first person even back then to discuss it. “There are those,” the bishop wrote, “who say, ‘What? Did God have no other way to free men from the misery of this mortality? No other way than to will that the only-begotten Son . . . should become man by putting on a human soul and flesh, becoming mortal so he could endure death?’”
Then, as now, Christians seemed to face a dilemma. If God could have made salvation possible for us some other way, why would he choose the way of so much blood, so much pain, so much agony? Wouldn’t something less frightful have been better?
To some observers, there are only two possibilities here: If the Crucifixion was the only means God could find to redeem us, then he must be limited in his power and wisdom. Surely an almighty, all-wise deity could have found a better way!
On the other hand, if God preferred choosing a horrible death for his own Son over other options, then he must be wicked. How could he possibly will such a thing if he could have fulfilled his purposes otherwise?
In some ways, it’s a variation on the question long familiar to Christians: If God is all-powerful, all-wise, and all-good, then why is there suffering in the world?
Typically, Augustine and other Doctors of the Church who followed his thought, such as Thomas Aquinas, saw right through the dilemma. They challenged the notion that, in light of Christ’s Passion, Christians serve a God who must be either a bumbling wimp or a repulsive sadist. No, they insisted: Our God is indeed all-powerful, all-wise, and all-good. But we must examine more closely, ponder more deeply, the true nature of divine power, wisdom, and goodness, as these attributes are revealed in the terrifying Passion of our Lord.
No other way?
To address the issue, Augustine and Aquinas first tackled the question about alternative divine strategies. Was there no other possible way to accomplish our salvation than the Passion of Christ?
Both saints were both firm on this matter: They insisted that God is God, and his wisdom and might know no bounds. Of course he could have found another way to save us.
Augustine summed it up this way: “Other possible means were not lacking on God’s part, because all things are equally subject to his power” (On the Trinity 8:10). When examining the question many centuries later, Aquinas quoted Augustine and added scriptural support: “It was possible for God to deliver mankind otherwise than by the Passion of Christ,” he concluded, “because nothing shall be impossible for God (cf. Luke 1:37).”
Aquinas admits that some scriptural texts seem to say God had no choice in the matter (cf. Summa Theologiae 3:46:2). On several occasions in the Gospel accounts, Jesus himself spoke this way. For example, after declaring Peter to be the “rock,” our Lord said to the disciples: “The Son of Man must suffer many things . . . and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Luke 9:22, emphasis added).
Again, as Jesus walked with two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus, on the evening of the day he had risen from the dead, he rebuked the men for their lack of faith: “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:25–26, emphasis added).
Necessary under certain conditions
Nevertheless, as Aquinas pointed out, there’s a difference between being absolutely necessary and being necessary given certain conditions. In the case of Jesus’ Passion, by the time Christ had come into the world, certain crucial conditions were already in place: God the Father had already ordained that this was the way our salvation would be accomplished. And his foreknowledge of these events had already been manifested in divine revelation to the prophets and recorded in Scripture.
Given these conditions, Aquinas concluded, it was correct for Christ to say that he must suffer, that it was necessary, because at that point the matter was already settled: What the Father ordained could not be avoided, and what he foreknew could not be mistaken. As our Lord put it at the Last Supper, “The hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table. For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined” (Luke 22:21–22, emphasis added).
This conclusion is strengthened when we observe that Christ’s statement on the Emmaus road was made with reference to Old Testament prophecies. (See also his words on the day of his ascension, Luke 24:44–46.) God had chosen the way—he had revealed it to the prophets—so this was how it had to be. We can see then that rather than implying some limit to God’s power (as if he couldn’t have chosen otherwise), these scriptural passages actually affirm God’s power and sovereignty.
This is not to say, of course, that Christ was somehow forced into such a terrible fate. Some have tried to deduce that meaning from passages such as Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane to have the “cup” of suffering removed (cf. Luke 22:42). But the truth is that, from before all time, God the Son had lived in perfect union with God the Father: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Together they had willed our redemption and determined that, in order to accomplish it, he would come to earth and suffer for us.
It’s true that in Gethsemane we hear Christ crying out as his human nature recoils in horror at the prospect of such awful suffering. But even then, our Lord wanted above all what the Father wanted: “Not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). As the writer of Hebrews reminds us, Jesus “endured the cross” not because he was forced to do so, but rather “for the joy that was set before him” (Heb. 12:2)—winning the victory he had come to achieve.
A choice both good and fitting
Because of his sovereign power, Augustine and Aquinas thus concluded, God could have found another way to save us. But Christ’s making satisfaction for the penalty of our sins through suffering was in fact the way God chose to make possible our salvation. Given this reality, we should examine it more closely to discern some reasons that it would be in accordance with the Father’s perfect wisdom and love.
Recall the dilemma we described earlier. If we hold that God could have chosen an alternative means to our salvation, then we seem to be left with a disturbing conclusion: God must be wicked to have willed such suffering for his Son. How could he have done such a thing when he had other options?
Against such objections, Augustine wrote, “We assert that the way in which God deigned to deliver us by the man Jesus Christ, who is mediator between God and man, is both good and befitting the divine dignity. . . . There neither was nor need have been any other means more suitable for healing our misery” (On the Trinity 8:10).
How could this be? What was good and fitting about Christ’s Passion? The bishop continued: “For what else could have been so necessary to build up our hope, and to free the minds of mortals despairing because of their mortality, than that God should show us how highly he valued us, and how greatly he loved us? And what could be more clear and evident proof of God’s great love than that the Son of God . . . so undeserving of evil, should bear our evils?” (ibid.).
Many of the Christians who have viewed Mel Gibson’s film report that it brought them to tears to realize what our Lord did for us. More than ever before, they have been made aware of just how high a price was paid by God the Son—and God the Father—to save us. They have been inspired to a stronger faith in God’s love and a firmer hope in his desire to bring them to heaven.
Augustine would not have been surprised at their response. He was certain that anyone who meditated for long on Christ’s Passion would experience the same overwhelming sense of faith and hope. The Father had no greater gift to give us than his Son, the bishop insisted—and that’s precisely the gift he gave.
As Paul had put it long before: “If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” (Rom. 8:31–32).
Inspired to love
Aquinas developed this line of thought more thoroughly. He noted that our reconciliation with God and becoming like him requires more than simple forgiveness. He wrote that, in the Passion, “many other things besides deliverance from sin came together for man’s salvation.”
First, he observed, Christ’s Passion moves us not only to have faith and hope in God, as Augustine had pointed out; it also motivates us to a grateful love for God. “By this, man knows how much God loves him, and is thus stirred to love him in return. In this loving response lies the perfection of human salvation. That is why the apostle says, ‘God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’ (Rom. 5:8).”
Our salvation isn’t complete without our learning to love as God loves. So in Christ’s Passion, said Aquinas, we aren’t simply pardoned. We are given a convincing reason to devote our whole hearts to God.
More reasons that the Passion was fitting
Yet there is more. Christ’s suffering doesn’t just move us to respond in love. It shows us how to love in a world that is broken.
The means God used to redeem us, Aquinas continued, tells us what we ourselves must do to love as God loves in the face of natural and moral evil. Christ “set us an example of obedience, humility, constancy, justice, and the other virtues displayed in his Passion, which are also necessary for man’s salvation. Thus it is written: ‘Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps’ (1 Pet. 2:21).”
If we are to grow up into “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13), then we must imitate him. The Passion shows us most clearly what attitudes and actions we are to imitate. “Have this mind among yourselves,” wrote Paul, “which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God . . . humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:5–6, 8). The Passion demonstrates that love is costly to God, and it will be costly to us as well.
A great reward
A third reason God ordained that the Passion would take place is that, through it, Christ merited a great reward. Since Christ humbled himself so extravagantly, Paul added, “therefore God has highly exalted him” (Phil. 2:9).
Aquinas quoted Augustine’s comment on these words of the apostle, adding his own remarks: “Augustine says, ‘The humility of the Passion merited glory, and glory was the reward of humility’ (Tractate on John civ). But he was glorified, not merely in himself, but also in his faithful ones, as he himself says: ‘I am glorified in them’ (John 17:10)” (ST 3:48:1). Because Christ is the head of the Church, his merit overflows to the members of his body. So Christ shares his reward with us as justifying grace and the glory of blessedness in heaven.
Aquinas insisted that a fourth reason God sent his Son to suffer is that it created what can be seen as a debt to Christ’s holiness. When we recognize the debt, we see ourselves obligated to pay it by avoiding evil—and that avoidance contributes to our salvation. Because of the Passion, then, “man is all the more bound to refrain from sin, according to 1 Corinthians 6:20: ‘You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body’” [reference needed].
A boost to human dignity
Finally, both Augustine and Aquinas concluded that God ordained the Passion of Christ “because it redounded to humanity’s greater dignity” (ST 3:46:4). Of course, to simply have God become man in the Incarnation was an honor beyond all telling. But in Christ’s suffering, our race was granted more honor still.
How could that be? Aquinas wrote: “Just as man was overcome and deceived by the devil, so also it should be a man who should overthrow the devil. And since man deserved death, so it should be a man who, by dying, vanquishes death. That is why it is written: ‘Thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor. 15:57)”
The human race had been left in bondage to sin, death, and the devil by the Fall. So it was a fitting irony—a kind of poetic justice on God’s part—to use a member of that race to conquer sin, death, and the devil. The tables were turned; the roles were reversed; the victor was vanquished. Satan, who had fallen away from God through pride, was humiliated.
We might still be tempted to ask: If God wanted Christ, as a representative of mankind, to defeat Satan, and Christ had available to him all the power of God, why couldn’t Christ simply crush the devil in combat? Why submit himself to such torment?
In addition to the reasons we’ve already noted, Augustine offered this one: “The devil was to be conquered not by the power of God but by his righteousness. . . . For the devil, through the fault of his own perversity, had become a lover of power and a forsaker and assailant of righteousness. . . . So it pleased God that, in rescuing man from the grasp of the devil, the devil should be vanquished not by power but by righteousness. In the same way men, imitating Christ, should seek to conquer the devil by righteousness, not by power” (On the Trinity 13:13).
In a sense, then, righteousness is itself a kind of might, but a higher kind than brute force. So it was more fitting that God should use the higher kind of might against an enemy whose perverse strategy was to use the lower kind. Righteousness thus defeated raw power.
Everlasting glory and grace
In all these ways Augustine and Aquinas concluded that God’s decision to have Christ suffer to save us was good and wise. Aquinas wrote: “It was more fitting that we should be delivered by Christ’s Passion than simply by God’s good will.” Augustine summed it up this way: “Why, then, shouldn’t the death of Christ come to pass? Why shouldn’t an all-powerful God have decided against innumerable other ways to free us in order to choose this death? For in this death, nothing was lost of Christ’s divine nature, and from the human nature he took for himself, how great a benefit was bestowed on us men!”
The everlasting glory of the way of salvation the Father chose far outweighs the horrors his Son had to endure—and the resulting grace overflows in abundance to us all.
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0402fea1.asp
Here is the second one...
Problems of the First Cause
1. Aristotle said that if I am at one point on the earth and want to travel to another, there must first be the capacity. If the trip comes off, that capacity is filled or fulfilled. He liked the words potency and act. We notice soon that this same pattern of capacity or potency and act or fulfillment comes up not only in traveling, but in any change.
Before the change, there is a capacity, which involves some emptiness or privation which would like to be filled. If the change goes through, that capacity is filled or fulfilled. So there is a rise. New being appears.
If I am causing a change, where did I get the extra being? Perhaps I had it in stock somewhere in me. But if so: How did that part of me in the first place get up from capacity or potency to act? It at least had to get from capacity for existence up to existence. So, where did it get the added being? It cannot give itself what it does not have. So we look for an outside source. If every source we look at has the same problem of getting up, of getting the added being, we have not solved the problem. We must then come to a cause that has no problem of getting up to actuality, it simply is actuality, pure actuality.
Such a being will be infinite. For potency is not only capacity but limit, e.g., if I have 3 glasses, 4, 8 and 12 oz. each an holds so much liquid, but it also sets a limit. So a being with no potency, has no limit. So without limit, it is infinite. There is not room for two infinites - they would coincide, so there is only one infinite. It is also outside of time, for time involves constant change - a being without potency cannot change.
But A had a trouble. He knew there has to be a First Cause, which cannot change, having no potency. But the chain of causes we pictured is efficient. Yet A could not think of any efficient cause that would not change in the process of causing change. Even if it could cause change by willing change - one moment it would be at rest, not causing change, the next moment causing it. So A said the First Cause must be a final cause. But that derails the whole train of thought and causes.
We solve it: God can cause change by willing it, but His acts of will, since He is unchanging, are always there, they are eternal. He is identified with His acts of will. So the First Cause is an Efficient Cause.
2. In this way we see that there can be no infinite regress. For if I am causing the change, as was said above, there is the problem: Where did I get the extra being that fills up the potency that was a least partly empty before the change? Perhaps I had that extra on hand within me somewhere. But even if I did, I must ask: Where did that part of me get the added being to rise from potency to act?— So I look outside me for a source, but if every source I consider also has the problem of getting extra being to rise from potency to act, there is no solution to the problem until I reach a being that does not have to get up to act, it simply is pure act, the first cause. If I imagine a chain of causes before that, the same problem exists in regard to each of them no matter how long the chain is. So we must reach that Cause that does not have to get up, it simply is up, that is, it is Pure Actuality.
3. Similarly, we see why everything but the Pure Act needs a cause: everything else has to get up from potential existence to actual existence, it needs added being for that, which must come from the First Cause. The reason why the First Cause does not have to have a cause is simply that it is Pure Actuality, as we proved above, and so needs nothing to actualize a potency for existence; It simply IS PURE ACT.
4. All other things do not have to exist - their potency for existence might not be filled. It is filled only if the First Cause fills it or actualizes it. So there is only one Being that has to exist, i.e., whose existence is necessary, for without it nothing else would exist, would rise from potential to actual existence.
http://www.catholicculture.org/library/most/getwork.cfm?worknum=34
***There are some things that appear to contradict each other, at least on the surface. That is why we understand that the Bible is not completely self-evident and needs to be interpreted by the same authority that put it together in the first place.
Wow! I agree 100% with your whole statement, word for word. :)***
Wonderful. See you at Mass on Sunday? :)
***Should have pinged you, too. Sorry.***
Appreciate it. I am terrible about pinging multiple people - I usually just answer a post and forget to include the usual suspects. :)
***Rom 11:23 : And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
This describes a lot of people who are given true faith, but then fall away for a limited time.***
But they also refer to those who were given true faith and yet fall away forever.
***In the end, Jesus always gathers them back. Perhaps Paul never fell away like this after he was touched by Christ, but he acknowledges that it does happen.***
The Grace of God is given freely to all.
Luke 8:
11
“This is the meaning of the parable. The seed is the word of God.
12
Those on the path are the ones who have heard, but the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts that they may not believe and be saved.
13
Those on rocky ground are the ones who, when they hear, receive the word with joy, but they have no root; they believe only for a time and fall away in time of trial.
14
As for the seed that fell among thorns, they are the ones who have heard, but as they go along, they are choked by the anxieties and riches and pleasures of life, and they fail to produce mature fruit.
15
But as for the seed that fell on rich soil, they are the ones who, when they have heard the word, embrace it with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance.
You keep talking about true believers. Verse 13 is about true believers who fall away forever.
Acts 14:
22
They strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying, “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.”
If the disciples were truly Reformed elect and therefore going to Heaven, it would not be necessary to exhort them to persevere since the Reformed Holy Spirit would provide all the guidance necessary.
***OK, maybe I should have known that. I suppose by extension then, you would say there are many people in hell who received God’s gift of saving grace. Of course we would say that’s impossible. It wouldn’t be saving grace if people in hell had it.***
Had it and rejected it. St. Athenasius said that the floor of hell is paved with bishops’ skulls. These bishops had it and then rejected it either at one time and never repented, or over longer periods of time in which they sunk into heresy or sin and never repented.
***I wasn’t talking about anything in Heaven. As I was using the term, salvation happens at the point of belief on earth, and I was talking about the discipline God metes out to us on earth. Any hardship we suffer may or may not be a discipline. There can’t be punishment in Heaven because there can’t be sin in Heaven.***
Are you saying that the elect will suffer here on Earth to one degree or another, but you cannot tell if it is God’s doing or not? I also thought that the Reformed believe that there are different levels or places in Heaven to which the elect are directed but I’m not that clear on this either.
***Wait a minute. :) A person has to ask? I thought that saving (enabling) grace was given to everyone and the trick was to accept it. Maybe that’s what you meant. I just wasn’t sure if there was an extra step in there I wasn’t aware of, i.e first you have to ask for it and then you have to accept it. :)***
As I said, an illustration. God gives His saving Grace to all; the acceptance is the ‘trick’. Perhaps the thief who asked was ‘baptized’ in another form rather than by water. Perhaps the Holy Spirit descended upon him. All we know is that: Luke 23:
39
Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.”
40
The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation?
41
And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.”
42
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43
He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
The thief asked Jesus to remember him and Jesus told him that he would be with Him in Paradise.
***Where does it say regardless of belief? I just don’t see how this first passage says anything about having true salvation and then losing it.***
It doesn’t explicitly say regardless of belief, but it doesn’t mention it either. If you have done evil, then you are lost.
***I don’t understand what you’re saying. We have always maintained that perseverance is part of salvation.***
A mechanical part only. It doesn’t mean anything, it seems more like an autonomic function like growing hair.
***Some adults convert to Catholicism. How do they repent for all prior sins, and given whatever that answer is what is the purpose of Baptism for them in that case? Wouldn’t that be “double counting”?***
Huh? Baptism is the acceptance of the Holy Spirit into the individual and is to include repentance for all sins to that point in time. The future is the future and the individual must then walk the Way. That is perseverence. Perseverence is not a free ride; it requires effort and constant vigilance, like the
Matt 10:
22
You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved.
This means that it is possible to fall away. Notice the sentence structure - the condition is enduring to the end, and the result is salvation. The Reformed reverse cause and effect and say that the salvation comes first and the result is endurance to the end.
So, we fail and therefore sin daily; it is incumbant upon us to repent of those sins, get up to our feet and continue on our clumsy journey along the Way.
***No, no. :) You can’t moot an entire issue by saying that everything to God is one giant “now”. That’s been tried against me before. :) Take it from the human POV if you want. If you agree that God ordains anything, then you agree that He has some sort of plan within time, as far as we are concerned as observers through time. In this light I hope you would still agree that man isn’t going to upset that.***
The trouble with taking God from a human POV is that we will fail miserably on some points of understanding. God’s ‘plan’ (such as it is) combines the laws of His Creation and the free will of man into one. God is able to incorporate them together. The Reformed God is unable to do so; therefore any good that occurs is by His micromanaging of certain individuals.
***In the way I’m reading it, to me that is like certain people declaring as knowledge that AIDS is God’s punishment against gays, or that 9/11 was God’s punishment against the United States. Some Protestants have done this, in error, IMO. We can’t presume to know God’s motives on such things.***
Houston, we have agreement.
***Peter was a sheep who wandered away and got lost. What did God do? He went out and found him and brought him back. Just like He promised He would. ***
Can you expand on this further? I rather think that Jesus worked and worked on Peter, treating him as the leader, speaking to him first, letting Peter reply for the others, and finally giving him the Keys to the Kingdom and telling him feed His sheep.
Peter was put into a position of leadership and when he grew into the role, finally, a position of authority, as seen in Acts.
No, FK, the Reformed version of this reads:
And if they do not God doesn't want them to persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
(1) First, Paul here is saying (in the original) that they persist in unbelieef. The Reformed read it as "God wants them to be in unbelief." Clearly, Paul is not preaching Reformed theology (God forbid!).
(2) Second, you claim that the reason they persist in unbelief is because they were never "in" (actually, "God didn't want them to be 'in'"), yet Paul says again, indicating that they were "in," and they lost it.
Obviously, Paul is saying that it is possible to be "in" and fall away.
More Protestant myths debunked. Let's move on.
You don't have to "dance" around FK, because you know you are hinting at me, and what I said is that the Flood never happened (not for the reasons given in the Bible). It's a myth, which exists in many other religions (some older then Judaism), in an almost identical form.
It never happened because God doesn't regret anything. And Gen 6:6 clearly states that God regretted having made man (because of man's wickedness).
Add to this the Reformed myth that God is the source of their wickedness by design, and you have a self-cntradicting fairytale, where God, who creates man in sinful nature "discovers" just how wicked and out of control man is (but well within God's "plan"), and he is "sorry" he ever made man, and decides to drown the whole wretched lot along with innocent animals, save for a few good ones.
The myth, like all myths, has a message behind it: the wicked will be punished and the few good ones will be spared. Fear is not uncommonly used in all religions to bring people into compliance with religious rules.
The is also true of Exodus. Historical evidence fails to show Exodus ever happened; in fact, all evidence seems to show it didn't! There is no evidence whatsoever that that the Jews ever lived in Egypt for 450 years prior to that, or that one million of them lived in Sinai afterwards for 40 years. In fact, all evidence shows that they never left Canaan.
But, Exodus is an important part of the Israeli folklore and is an essential part of Judaism and, by extension, Christianity, as religions. But I submit that ti is fundamentally in opposition to Christian mindset because Christian God doesn't kill. God is the source of life and not of death. There is simply no Christ in Exodus, or in the Flood ofr that matter.
The Church, of course, treats Exodus and the Flood as part of the Biblical tradition and therefore "true" in some undefined way for many reasons, least bit of which is a wrathful God of the OT.
***It’s a myth, which exists in many other religions (some older then Judaism), in an almost identical form.***
The fact that the flood story exists in other religions doesn’t make the story a myth. I see that as strong evidence that the flood really happened and is seared into the collective memory of the human race.
***The Church, of course, treats Exodus and the Flood as part of the Biblical tradition and therefore “true” in some undefined way for many reasons***
Not a bad way of putting it.
The Church kept it in Scripture; the Church has determined that it should be there and that we make use of it. The question, whether all men perished in the Deluge, must be decided by the teaching of the Bible, and of its authoritative interpreter. As to the teachings of the Bible, the passage which deals ex professo with the Flood (Genesis 6-9), if taken by itself, may be interpreted of a partial destruction of man; it insists on the fact that all inhabitants of the “land”, not of the “earth”, died in the waters of the Deluge, and it does not explicitly tell us whether all men lived in the “land”. It may also be granted, that of the passages which refer incidentally to the flood (Wisdom 10:4; 14:6; Sirach 44:17 sqq., and Matthew 24:37 sqq., may be explained, more or less satisfactorily, of a partial destruction of the human race by the inundation of the Deluge; but no one can deny that the prima facie meaning of 1 Peter 3:20 sq., 2 Peter 2:4-9, and 2 Peter 3:5 sqq., refers to the death of all men not contained in the ark. The explanations of these passages, offered by the opponents of the anthropological universality of the Deluge, are hardly sufficient to remove all reasonable doubt. We turn, therefore, to authority in order to arrive at a final settlement of the question. Here we are confronted, in brief, with the following facts: Up to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the belief in the anthropological universality of the Deluge was general. Moreover, the Fathers regarded the ark and the Flood as types of baptism and of the Church; this view they entertained not as a private opinion, but as a development of the doctrine contained in 1 Peter 3:20 sq. Hence, the typical character of both ark and Flood belongs to the “matters of faith and morals” in which the Tridentine and the Vatican Councils oblige all Catholics to follow the interpretation of the Church.
First, I think this is a rationalization that hardly justifies poetic license to add words that don't exist in the original language. Some translators took it upon themselves to add something to the "pristine" word of God.
Second, no one was raised (resurrected) the first time. Saying "again" implies that you were dead before you were alive. Anastasis means "raising from the dead."
In other words, one would have to be dead first in order to be alive; then die again, in order to be raised again!
All I am saying is that various Bibles are full of such little unauthorized additions. And people cling to every word they see in their version as that coming from God.
So, then, the Bible is not really "perspicuous" and requires appointed clergy to lead the congregation...but of course, the Protestants would never admit that their pastors are simply acting as priests, or that one just can't read the Bible and understand.
Sure, and for all we know there may have been a horrendous flood in the human history that flooded the "land" and killed all but a handful of people who found themselves in some boat. The problem is with the scale: Did it involve the entire earth or just a dozen villages scattered over a small area?
I can see how people would have attributed such a carnage to God's wrath, as many to this day attribute tsunamis and other natural disasters to God's anger, some taking it to an extreme.
But, the reason it is in the Bible is for its educational message: that (the OT) God will destroy the wicked and that people better straighten up their ways or perish.
It's no different than believing there is a god hiding inside of a volcano that erupts every now and then because he is angry.
That's correct. The message is: straighten out your ways or perish. It happened before and it will happen again. Morality is something that can be defined only in terms of the official truth, using it as the yardstick of correctness. It is primarily used to control a society.
I spent six years in Japan and was amazed that, interestingly, the Japanese (who are pagans) atually appear have "moral" conscience. That is, until I asked. What they said was that some things are simply "wrong" because it "hurts the society."
Well, needless to say, that burst my "bubble," because it was all about an "orderly society" and not about absolute morality. Yet, we find that our moral standards actually agree on many if not most issues. I found that curious. But then further inquiry reveals that even our absolute morals are based on societal and cultural standards of the time.
For instance, if you ask a Muslim why is it okay to have more than one wife, and not the other way around, he will tell you that if a woman had more than one husband no one would know who the father is and that would destroy the concept of a family. Having more than one wife doesn't, as one still knows who the father and the mother are.
Thus, something that was perfectly legitimate for the Jews and is legitimate and morally acceptable by the Muslims is considered gross immorality and cardinal sin by the Christians, yet it is based on cultural and societal standards, and needs, not on God's absolute morality.
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