And the Bible specifically reminds us that He doesn't. Unfortunately, there is enough of 'diversionary' material that suggests otherwise, and when taken out of its historical perspective and the degree of revelation involved, it can lead to mistaken Reformed-like, or Mohammedan-like conclusions.
From the Blessed Archbishop Fulton Sheen.. “The choice before God in creating the world lay between creating a purely mechanical universe, peopled by mere automatons, or creating a spiritual universe in which there would be a choice of good and evil. What was the condition then of such a universe? He had to endow us with the power to say yes and no and to be captains of our own fate and destiny"
Amen.
"Praise and blame can be bestowed only on those who are masters of their own will. It is only because you have the possibility of saying no, that there’s so much charm in your character when you say 'yes.'"
Beautiful and powerful!
Take the quality of freedom away from anyone and it is no more possible for him to be virtuous than it is for the blade of grass which he treads beneath his feet to be virtuous.
Exactly!
"Is it therefore any impeachment of God that He chose not to reign over an empire of chemicals? If God has deliberately chosen a kind of empire to be ruled by freedom rather than by force, and if we find that His subjects are able to act against His will, as stars and atoms cannot, does this not prove that He has given to those human beings the chance of breaking allegiance so that there might be meaning and purpose in that allegiance when they freely choose it?"
The Bishop his the nail on the head when he said that without free will, there is no meaning to our allegiance. The Reformed retort, then God is weak and it's not about His glory. This is the same mindset that taunted Christ on the cross, saying that if he were the Son of God he would come down from the Cross and they would believe Him.
He was too "weak" in their eyes; he didn't fit the tyrannical God of Judaism who smites His enemies. His strenght was in His "weakness." It accomplished more because it didn't subjugate but it won over by love. Imagine, we believe and adore a God who allowed to be humiliated and tortured. How could we possibly believe in Him?!? To man's heart, epitomized in the Reformed theology, Zeus-like selfish, egocentric
Excellent post, dear bother.
Exactly as Jesus puts it.
You MUST believe in Him and in the Father. You MUST accept the Grace of God.
But you also MUST choose good over evil, using every gift that God gives as strength and guide.
***The Bishop his the nail on the head when he said that without free will, there is no meaning to our allegiance. The Reformed retort, then God is weak and it’s not about His glory. This is the same mindset that taunted Christ on the cross, saying that if he were the Son of God he would come down from the Cross and they would believe Him.***
Without responsibility, there can be no judgement. What are the Reformed going to be Judged on? Some Reformed claim that they will only be Judged on whether they were frogmarched by the Holy Spirit and the reprobate will be Judged upon not being frogmarched.
At any rate, neither is Judgement and the automatons are neither guilty of sin nor worthy of anything at all.
I agree with you for sure,Dear Kosta.
This is also why Our Lord called Saint Peter satan- because Peter did not wanting a suffering Christ.
The lesson learned is that denial of the suffering and humility of Christ is the essence of the demonic
It always bothered me when I attended protestant churches that Christ body was stripped from their crosses