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To: stuartcr

Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council I, Sess. 3, Chap. 1, On God the creator of all things:
“EVERYTHING THAT GOD HAS BROUGHT INTO BEING HE PROTECTS
AND GOVERNS BY HIS PROVIDENCE, which reaches from one end of the earth to
the other and orders all things well. All things are open and laid bare before His eyes,
even those which will be brought about by the free activity of creatures.”


“Before all decision to create the world, the infinite knowledge of God presents to Him all the graces, and different series of graces, which He can prepare for each soul, along with the consent or refusal which would follow in each circumstance, and that in millions of possible combinations ... Thus, for each man in particular there are in the thought of God, limitless possible histories, some histories of virtue and salvation, others of crime and damnation; and God will be free in choosing such a world, such a series of graces, and in determining the future history and final destiny of each soul. And this is precisely what He does when among all possible worlds, by an absolutely free act, he decides to realize the actual world with all the circumstances of its historic evolutions, with all the graces which in fact have been and will be distributed until the end of the world, and consequently with all the elect and all the reprobate who God foresaw would be in it if de facto He created it.” [The Catholic Encyclopedia Appleton, 1909, on Augustine, pg 97]


5 posted on 02/09/2010 10:15:11 AM PST by PPlains
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To: PPlains

What does all that mean in simple terms? Does God know what state our souls will be in, when we die?


8 posted on 02/09/2010 11:41:32 AM PST by stuartcr (Everything happens as God wants it to...otherwise, things would be different)
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