Replies

***Is our God a God of absolutes or of hypotheticals?***

God is. What we know of Him is what He has chosen to tell us.

***Eternal glory by merit? OK.***

The Beatitudes. The parable of the talents. We do not reverse the order of importance - without God’s Grace we absolutely cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven - that is first and foremost. But we can reject His Grace as Jesus kept telling us, and the Epistles keep telling us.

***It appears that God is leaving out somebody pretty important here. Maybe the name slipped His mind. :) I hope that I am just misunderstanding this whole thing.***

So do I. :)

***The fatal flaw in this is that it only potentially works if God created, and then turned His back completely on His creation and just watched what happened. If one believes, as I do and I “think” all Catholics do, that God is active in our world, then God is foreseeing His own actions. Therefore He is already a part of the action and CANNOT rely solely on what He foresees as the actions of others to make His predestination determinations. He’s already involved.***

Certainly He is involved and active. God so loved the world - the whole world - that He sent His Son to be crucified, killed and resurrected. Rejection of the philosophy of free will reduces Creation to a mechanical program in which God is enslaved to His own predestination.

***A perfect example of what I’m saying. This theory requires that good works are done TOTALLY APART from God. But if good works are God working through us, then the whole thing reverts back to the Reformed position on predestination. It makes no logical sense for God to predestine based on foreseen good works, IF God was involved in those good works.***

There is a huge difference between enabling and frogmarching. The Gospels keep referring to behaviour of humans in a free will sense.

***Then you don’t accept the definition of double predestination by those who believe in it. You redefine it and disagree with THAT. This has nothing to do with us. Double predestination means that God in His sovereignty infallibly predestined some to glory by giving them saving grace. By logical extension, it also means that God did not predestine others to eternal glory because He did not give them saving grace. That’s pretty much it. Where is God authoring evil in any of this? ***

That is quibbling, sir. Double predestination means that God chose some for Heaven and that He chose the rest for hell. So therefore nobody has any responsibility, authority, or the means to do anything other than mechanically go through a mechanical life in mechanical fashion just because.

***Where is God authoring evil in any of this? Do you hypothetically call God evil for choosing not to give someone saving grace? If so, on what basis? God DOES give SOME grace (or blessings) to all men, but not saving grace.***

If God predestines someone to hell, He authors evil. Why? Evildoers go to hell. But if men who do evil only do so because they HAVE to do evil, then the responsibility for that evil falls upon their Reformed Creator.

If I program my desktop computer to pop up a banner glorifying myself, is the computer worshipping me? No. It has no volition because it is made to do it. If I then program my laptop to pop up a banner that indicates that it hates me, does the computer hate me? No. It has no volition.

The Reformed viewpoint would then indicate that the laptop is evil and needs to be thrown into the trash while the desktop is good and needs to be kept near to my heart.

If God gives His Grace to the whole world, it is then up to each individual in the world to decide what to do with it.

John 3:
And just as Moses lifted up 5 the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
16
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
17
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

1 John 2:
1
My children, I am writing this to you so that you may not commit sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one.
2
He is expiation for our sins, and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world.
3
The way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his command ments.
4
Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
5
But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him:
6
whoever claims to abide in him ought to live (just) as he lived.
7
Beloved, I am writing no new commandment to you but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard.
8
And yet I do write a new commandment to you, which holds true in him and among you, for the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.
9
Whoever says he is in the light, yet hates his brother, is still in the darkness.
10
Whoever loves his brother remains in the light, and there is nothing in him to cause a fall.
11
Whoever hates his brother is in darkness; he walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

1 Tim 2:
1
First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone,
2
for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity.
3
This is good and pleasing to God our savior,
4
who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.
5
For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human,
6
who gave himself as ransom for all. This was the testimony at the proper time.

It would seem that Christ’s message, the Grace of God, and the preference of His will to save all does not resonate with the Reformed doctrine of predestination to hell.

FK: ***Is our God a God of absolutes or of hypotheticals?***

God is. What we know of Him is what He has chosen to tell us.

Without seeing God as a Being of absolutes, thesis and antithesis quickly turn into synthesis (relativism). Theological disaster follows, as we see in our modern world.

But we can reject His Grace as Jesus kept telling us, and the Epistles keep telling us.

How does one reject His grace under Catholicism? Or, what is the nature of that grace? I thought that God "gives" the grace to all, and the method of purchase of that grace (acceptance) is the doing of enough good deeds to merit salvation. I thought this was the nature of the conditional gift that you believe is all God gives. Is the method of rejection simply a failure to perform well enough?

Rejection of the philosophy of free will reduces Creation to a mechanical program in which God is enslaved to His own predestination.

If you call our view of God's predestination enslavement (presumably pejorative) then you disallow God HIS FREE WILL to choose whom He wants to be with Him in Heaven. You insist that it is man's choice, NOT God's choice. We think the Creator deserves the ultimate choice, not the creation.

There is a huge difference between enabling and frogmarching. The Gospels keep referring to behaviour of humans in a free will sense.

Correct, and that is why it is error to characterize the Reformed view as frogmarching. The word "frogmarching" connotes "against one's will". The fact is that no one is dragged kicking and screaming to true Christian faith. I've never seen it and I've never heard of it. Frogmarching would be like Fox News correspondent Steve Centanni's "conversion" to Islam. That is not Reformed theology.

Instead, I see before us a choice - eternal bliss and love in the presence of God versus eternal torment and damnation. As believers, to you and me this choice is a no-brainer. We UNDERSTAND the choice. However, to all men in their Fallen state when born, they will ALL choose damnation over God. It is as if they do not understand what seems easy to us now. The part you call frogmarching is when God chooses to change the hearts of some SO THAT they can understand what is so simple to us. With that new heart they are enabled to freely choose Christ, and they DO, every time. So instead of "frogmarching", it would be more accurate to say that God does a really, really, really good job of changing hearts. In fact, God is good enough to do such a good job that He doesn't need to force anyone. Everyone coming to Christ does so freely and willingly.

Double predestination means that God chose some for Heaven and that He chose the rest for hell. So therefore nobody has any responsibility, authority, or the means to do anything other than mechanically go through a mechanical life in mechanical fashion just because.

We disagree on the extent of God's own free will. We see it as absolute, and you all see it as limited by man's (presumably superior) free will. I maintain that the freedom that your side so vigorously defends is freedom FROM and AGAINST God. For some unfathomable reason, this is prized and treasured by your side. However, in a sense it is fathomable since men are born with the natural desire to be autonomous and in full control. Certainly, many faiths have been designed AROUND that.

No. You place a duty upon God to create all such that they have a "chance" to go to Heaven. Please tell me the origin of that duty that you assign. The Reformed Creator created Adam and he sinned. We blame Adam and you blame the Reformed God. After Adam, all were born with original sin. Whose fault was that? I mean, could God have just looked the other way if He wanted? We blame Adam and you blame the Reformed God. Your side puts God in a box and says that if He acts outside of the rules you have set for Him that He is the author of sin. In contrast, we believe that God makes all the rules.

If I program my desktop computer to pop up a banner glorifying myself, is the computer worshiping me? No. It has no volition because it is made to do it. If I then program my laptop to pop up a banner that indicates that it hates me, does the computer hate me? No. It has no volition. The Reformed viewpoint would then indicate that the laptop is evil and needs to be thrown into the trash while the desktop is good and needs to be kept near to my heart.

Not even close. Your position appears to be that either man has freedom on the same level as God, or he has no freedom at all. It doesn't work like that. Man was not created as machine, and man does have volition. However, it is limited and operates within the parameters that God sets. Only God has absolute freedom, as hard as that is for some to accept.

It would seem that Christ’s message, the Grace of God, and the preference of His will to save all does not resonate with the Reformed doctrine of predestination to hell.

What you're saying does not appear in scripture, so we do not accept it as Christ's message. You quoted John 3:14-17. Your interpretation of verse 17, that Jesus came to save the world, meaning to you all people, has Jesus being one of the greatest failures of any leader in history. We do not see Jesus as the failure that your side does, so we do not interpret those verses as you do. We believe Jesus accomplished exactly everything He came here to accomplish. When Jesus said "It is finished" that actually meant something.

You also quote 1 John 2:1-11. This also mentions the concept of "the world". It is the same. Either Jesus was a colossal failure or He wasn't. You are forced to admit God's failure for the sake of man's ultimate sovereignty. The rest of the passage talks about obedience, which we agree God called all of His children to perform.

Finally, you quote 1 Tim. 2:1-6, which says that God "wills everyone to be saved" in your version. Again, for the sake of man's autonomy you are forced to admit that God's will is pathetically weak and ineffectual. We don't agree with that interpretation. It appears that in Catholicism there are way too many cooks in the kitchen. This town we call the universe is simply not big enough for one omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God and the Apostolic idea of man's sovereignty. Every single theoretical elevation of man, and there are many in Apostolic theology, corresponds necessarily to a diminution of the God revealed to us in the scriptures. God knew this mindset was coming so He reminded us of how to think:

John 3:30 : He must increase, but I must decrease. KJV

In my opinion, Apostolics have this reversed.