***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. ***
How can one purchase a gift freely given? You can’t. Grace is the Way; we must still walk it.
***I thought this was the nature of the conditional gift that you believe is all God gives. ***
The gift is not conditional.
***Is the method of rejection simply a failure to perform well enough?***
To reject God’s Grace is to wallow in sin. Unlike Martin Luther’s idea of going and sinning boldly, we believe that sin itself is the rejection.
***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.***
I disallow God nothing. I merely quote Scripture in which He has said what He wants us to know. God can do whatever He wants - He is, was and will be all at the same time.
***You insist that it is man’s choice, NOT God’s choice. We think the Creator deserves the ultimate choice, not the creation.***
It is not a matter of God deserving anything; you may think He deserves this or not that, but we have to go with His revealed Word and His Church.
***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.***
Predestination under Reformed theology means that one is forced - there is no free will. The Reformed Holy Spirit comes upon the elect and there is a change in the individual so that the means are established for that individual for him to go to Heaven. Therefore terms like frogmarching and brainwashing, although somewhat perjorative, seem adequate.
***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.***
A choice in which there is no choice, in other words?
***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.***
If you program a robot to turn to the left and you then change the programming to turn to the right, it is still a forced conversion.
***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.***
Of course man does not have the same level of freedom as God; he does work within Creation and God is beyond Creation. The Reformed, though, take the position that man is not responsible for anything whatsoever - the perfect teenage fantasy. :)
***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. ***
I place no duty. All I know of God is what He has revealed to us.
***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. ***
God has created us with the ability to reject Him, as is more than adequately demonstrated by much of humanity.
***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. ***
If ‘the world’ does not mean ‘the world’, and it simply means whatever one wants it to mean, then no wonder our faiths are so different.
***You also quote 1 John 2:1-11. This also mentions the concept of “the world”. It is the same.
.....
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. ***
When these verses are open to misterpretation, then no wonder that some of the more difficult verses wind up with different meanings.
*** 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.***
You have just demonstrated that the Reformed view of Creation does not allow for all Scripture; indeed, right from the beginning of the Reformation, Martin Luther axed the Deuterocanicals and was preparing to remove James, Revelation and most of the Epistles except for some of Paul.
***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.***
Jesus spent most of the Gospels instructing us on what to do. If nothing that we do matters, then why did He instruct us over and over, both plainly and in parable?
I've seen very few free graces in Catholicism. Most of the ones I'm aware of are earned by either the performance of enough good deeds, or the performance of rituals. We know that Mary is the dispenser of all graces, right? But she doesn't dispense all graces to all people does she? My understanding is that this is determined by the above, which means grace isn't free at all.
FK: ***I thought this was the nature of the conditional gift that you believe is all God gives. ***
The gift is not conditional.
That doesn't fit how the discussion has been going, so that's why I asked you the nature of the grace. If we are talking about saving grace, I would describe it as that grace which guarantees entry into Heaven. Now it could be that you believe no such grace exists, and that God only offers preparatory grace which sets a person up for him to merit his way into Heaven on his own. So for you the grace itself is free, although it guarantees nothing, a very weak grace. I don't know, so that's why I was asking.
Predestination under Reformed theology means that one is forced - there is no free will. The Reformed Holy Spirit comes upon the elect and there is a change in the individual so that the means are established for that individual for him to go to Heaven. Therefore terms like frogmarching and brainwashing, although somewhat pejorative, seem adequate.
And as I asked in another post recently, if you became aware that God was trying to change your heart as Reformers describe, you would reject that, right? You wouldn't want to be frogmarched like that, right?
The Reformed, though, take the position that man is not responsible for anything whatsoever - the perfect teenage fantasy. :)
We say over and over again that there are always consequences for sin and man is responsible for his own sin, yet we still get this. I suppose the only responsibility there is in the universe for you all is the responsibility to determine one's own destiny and salvation, to be autonomous and be able to thwart God's will. You would be right that we do not agree man is responsible for any of that.
FK: ***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. ***
I place no duty. All I know of God is what He has revealed to us.
By definition, you absolutely DO place a duty on God when you blame God (on our behalf) for authoring sin. We know your side does that all the time. No one can tell me where this duty comes from.
FK: *** 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.***
You have just demonstrated that the Reformed view of Creation does not allow for all Scripture; indeed, right from the beginning of the Reformation, Martin Luther axed the Deuterocanicals and was preparing to remove James, Revelation and most of the Epistles except for some of Paul.
Does this mean you think the Bible teaches in some places the elevation of man and the diminution of God? :) I'm trying to connect your statement as a response to mine.
Jesus spent most of the Gospels instructing us on what to do. If nothing that we do matters, then why did He instruct us over and over, both plainly and in parable?
Again, ONLY YOUR SIDE says anyone believes that nothing we do matters. I have given detailed responses more than once explaining why we do not think that. Apparently they are not getting through. The only way you can be right is if you believe the only things that "matter" are those things we do to earn our salvation by merit. Once you admit to that then I will agree with you. :)