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Posted on 01/16/2013 8:57:49 AM PST by marshmallow
General audience, Benedict XVI defines the Incarnation as "something unimaginable, the face of God can be seen, the process that began with Abraham is fulfilled." The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, he asks "for the great gift" to "proclaim together that Jesus is the Savior of the world."
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "The desire to know the face of God is in every man, even the atheists," but this desire is only realized by following Christ, in whom, in the Incarnation, "something unimaginable took place, the journey that began with Abraham is fulfilled. He is the Son, the fullness of all Revelation; the mediator who shows us the face of God. "
And "to proclaim together that Jesus is the Saviour of the world" Benedict XVI asked for incessant prayers for "the great gift" of Christian unity in the forthcoming week, which begins on the 18th of this month.
Previously, in his catechesis, he again reflected on the meaning of Christmas, in a commentary on John's Gospel in which the apostle Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father. The answer of Jesus, "introduces us to the heart of the Church's Christological faith; For the Lord says: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9).This expression summarizes the novelty of the New Testament, the novelty that appeared in the cave of Bethlehem: God can be seen, he showed his face is visible in Jesus Christ".
The theme of "seeking the face of God" is present throughout the Old Testament, so much so that the Hebrew term "face", occurs no less than 400 times, 100 of which refer to God." The of Jewish religion which the religion forbids all images, "for God can not be depicted," and "can not be reduced to an object," tells us that "God...
(Excerpt) Read more at asianews.it ...
Do you really mean that everything I wrote is "true" in your opinion? If not, what portion is fine and what exactly is "hyper Calvinism"?
Choice
1. The act of choosing; selection.
2. The power, right, or liberty to choose; option.
3. One that is chosen.
4. A number or variety from which to choose: a wide choice of styles and colors.
5. The best or most preferable part.
Ordain
To order by virtue of superior authority; decree or enact.
To prearrange unalterably; predestine
So you can fit “choice” into the definition of Ordain?
>>Now my question to you is do you believe in that third choice?<<
NO. If something is ordained there is no choice left. It cannot be altered. There is no choice if it has already been decided without the ability to be altered.
"Free" implies Adam and Eve took an unconstrained look at the situation and made a "choice". In Eve's situation this was not the case. The scriptures tells us twice that Eve was "deceived". So then how could we say that Eve made a choice by her "free will" if, by definition, she was tricked into it? Also, if "free will" cannot be influenced by outside forces, then one has to say that it cannot be influenced by Satan.
Satan's trickery of Eve didn't excuse her from the fall or sin against God. But it certainly wasn't "free". Like Adam, she had an independent attitude in her action. Satan enticed her but when she saw that the fruit etc...she gave in to her will to take that bite. The logical choice would have been to have run to God.
Just how did Satan get into the garden. By taxi?
God ordaining and Adam's failed choice are Christian doctrines that have been handed down from the very beginning of the early church-probably even farther back than that. These aren't Reformed views. xzins is a Methodist minister. His post is smack on target with the Westminster confessional (even though he snuck in "free will"). And I think you'll find Catholics to embraces these same views.
Quite frankly, I've never run across anything like this on this board. And, trust me, I've seen a lot. I can't help it if you cannot understand this concept. I would suggest more reading and a willing heart to understand tenets of the faith handed down by the fathers.
I didn’t really read it all that closely because once I realized that you believe in double predestination and that those who sin were “ordained” to sin I felt it unnecessary to continue. Once a person accepts the belief of double predestinatin there really is nothing left to discuss. In that persons mind it has all already been decided. Those who are going to be saved and those who will be rejected have no choice but to accept their destiny. In that persons mind we are simply “along for the ride”.
Don’t suppose I rightly know and didn’t think it important but given he spends his time going to and fro he may have caught wind of God’s new creation and thought he’d see if they could be convinced to come over to his side?
Job 1:7 And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
>>God ordaining and Adam's failed choice are Christian doctrines<<
Really! So Adam had no choice really because it had all been prearranged and Adam was “just along for the ride” is pretty much a universal church understanding as you see it?
>>Quite frankly, I've never run across anything like this on this board.<<
Are you sure it wasn’t that they just saw it as absurd and didn’t think it worthy of comment?
I seem to recall getting rebuked for intimating I knew what you thought. Your turn...
Do you not believe in double predestination?
The Church fathers rejected double predestination with the exception of Saint Augustine , to which the Church rejected Augustine's idea's of double predestination.
I am glad to hear you promote the faith handed down from the fathers though because this promotes the Catholic/ Orthodox faith
As I understand it most including most Calvinist churches have.
Do you not believe in double predestination?"
Insofar as you have linked these two posts, but are not answering my questions directly (nor apologizing for saying what I think), I can only assume you are asking if I believe in hyper Calvinism, defined as belief in double predestination.
Well, the answer is...the Scriptures teach that God has fashioned, "...some for honor and some for destruction." Esau, Judas, et al. I believe what the Scriptures tell us. But, in Esau's case, it clearly was before he was born, before he did something good or evil, God simply decided because He wanted the choice to be His, not based upon a human perspective. If this is "double predestination" in your mind (although I find no such term in the Scriptures), then I suppose I hold it.
I don't, however, associate such a position with Calvin or any other reformed thinker, whether they believed it or not. That doesn't concern me. Thus, please do not call me a "hyper calvinist".
But, backhandedly, you have been presenting a "double predestination" as severe as mine. If your Category #3 is reserved for those humans not given the opportunity to be drawn (as you said), then you and I are in the same boat. You may call it Category #3, I simply call it those the Scriptures identifies as marked for destruction. But, we are both identifying folks who have no opportunity to be rescued.
That God hates nothing
AS love is to good, so is hatred to evil; we wish good to them whom we love, and evil to them whom we hate. If then the will of God cannot be inclined to evil, as has been shown (Chap. XCV listed below), it is impossible for Him to hate anything.
2. The will of God tends to things other than Himself inasmuch as, by willing and loving His own being and goodness, He wishes it to be diffused as far as is possible by communication of His likeness. This then is what God wills in beings other than Himself, that there be in them the likeness of His goodness. Therefore God wills the good of everything, and hates nothing.
4. What is found naturally in all active causes, must be found especially in the Prime Agent. But all agents in their own way love the effects which they themselves produce, as parents their children, poets their own poems, craftsmen their works. Much more therefore is God removed from hating anything, seeing that He is cause of all.*
Hence it is said: Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest nothing of the things that Thou hast made (Wisd. xi, 25).
Some things however God is said, to hate figuratively (similitudinarie), and that in two ways. The first way is this, that God, in loving things and willing their good to be, wills their evil not to be: hence He is said to have hatred of evils, for the things we wish not to be we are said to hate. So it is said: Think no evil in your hearts every one of you against his friend, and love no lying oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord (Zach. viii, 17). But none of these things are effects of creation: they are not as subsistent things, to which hatred or love properly attaches. The other way is by God's wishing some greater good, which cannot be without the privation of a lesser good; and thus He is said to hate, whereas it is more properly love. Thus inasmuch as He wills the good of justice, or of the order of the universe, which cannot be without the punishment or perishing of some, He is said to hate those beings whose punishment or perishing He wills, according to the text, Esau I have hated (Malach. i, 3); and, Thou hatest all who work Iniquity, thou wilt destroy all who utter falsehood: the man of blood and deceit the Lord shall abominate (Ps. v, 7).*
2. The will cannot will evil except by some error coming to be in the reason, at least in the matter of the particular choice there and then made. For as the object of the will is good, apprehended as such, the will cannot tend to evil unless evil be somehow proposed to it as good; and that cannot be without error.* But in the divine cognition there can be no error (Chap. LXI). 3. God is the sovereign good, admitting no intermixture of evil (Chap. LXI). 4. Evil cannot befall the will except by its being turned away from its end. But the divine will cannot be turned away from its end, being unable to will except by willing itself (Chap. LXXV). It cannot therefore will evil; and thus free will in it is naturally established in good. This is the meaning of the texts: God is faithful and without iniquity (Deut. xxxii, 4); Thine eyes are clean, O Lord, and thou canst not look upon iniquity (Hab. i, 13).
That God hates nothing"
Except sin, Esau, new moon festivals, loving perjury, devising evil, divorce, to name a few.
Roman Catholicism is so far off the reservation with regard to the Scriptures, there is no point in addressing these issues you have brought up. I have in other posts produced dozens of passages which refute the claims you (or Aquinas) makes. Read those (send them to Aquinas in purgatory) and get back to me.
1. There cannot be strict predestination on a universal basis for those who will be lost. There are many passages of scripture that show that individuals have been “called” but refused. One cannot definitively say that the rich young ruler was not called. He did after all ask “what must I do to be saved”.
2. The concept of strict predestination for those who are saved begins to get clouded when we consider the parable of the sower. There were those who were obviously “called” or given the opportunity who believed but when trials came along died away.
It’s for those reasons that taking a definitive position on predestination is shaky. I don’t believe we with our finite mind can comprehend exactly what predestination means. Even most organized religions have denounced double predestination because for one thing it ascribes causation of sin to God.
>>Well, the answer is...the Scriptures teach that God has fashioned, "...some for honor and some for destruction." Esau, Judas, et al. I believe what the Scriptures tell us.<<
But what we do not know is how is that affected by God not being restricted by the progression of time. We simply cannot understand if, when God was talking about Esau, because He already knew the outcome of what Esau and his progeny would be, He was saying He hated Esau because of that or because He simply chose to hate Esau. There is no clear definitive answer to that question in scripture and therefore I think is left well enough alone by us mortals. In fact, the case can be made that because God also stated that He wishes all men were saved it would be more likely that He, because of the time thing, simply knew what Esau was to produce thus hated him because of how Esau was going to turn out.
>>Thus, please do not call me a "hyper calvinist".<<
For lack of a better term because there are no others who hold to the belief of double predestination you would be categorized with them like it or not.
>>But, backhandedly, you have been presenting a "double predestination" as severe as mine. If your Category #3 is reserved for those humans not given the opportunity to be drawn (as you said), then you and I are in the same boat.<<
Not to the same degree for sure. Once again the causation of God not offering, or offering that we know of, simply may mean that because of the time thing again He knows that there would be no benefit. We don’t know that nor can we really speculate. We can only say that He has indicated that He hates some and loves others. We are not given exactly why that is or how it came to be. But to assign that decision to God on the basis of human understanding would be error imo.
Like you said, I do believe we are very close but the predestination thing gets us hung up. We do understand that it’s God who changes our hearts in order that we can accept His salvation but we do not understand the reasoning’s for why some and not others. I do know that I have observed many instances in my life and the lives of others where God stopped us from doing something we didn’t understand why only to realize later that if we had done that thing, or not done something we wanted to, something bad would have happened had we been in that place at that time. The same may be happening in the “not saving some”. God having seen the end may have known that something would have turned out badly had a certain person or group of people been included. Speculation I know but something to think about.
Ok, that was simply rude. There was truth in what Aquinas wrote. It does take some prayerful concentration to understand what he is trying to say but in this I will (don’t faint stfassisi or don’t say I didn’t warn ya) agree with stfassisi. If I am reading it correctly, regarding Esau, Aquinas answers this situation correctly.
Roman Catholicism is so far off the reservation with regard to the Scriptures, there is no point in addressing these issues you have brought up
I was hoping you could be civil and decent, but I guests I was wrong
Adios
I wish you a peaceful evening!
I’m going to (Ok, I’m warnin ya here. Don’t go getting big headed ner nothing) stand with you on this one stfassisi.
We might all agree on things at times. Perhaps that should be where we start from that point more often :-)
Time to sign off for the night on that note.
I wish you a Blessed evening!
One of the great arguments for the validity of Christianity is the radical transformation of legalistic believers in Judaism bowing heart/body/mind before Jesus, a known former resident of the town of Nazareth.
The Apostle Paul is the most radical transformation. CB, you know Paul was on his way to Damascus to imprison (and see killed) followers of Jesus. Paul was not metaphorically knocked down, blinded, and laid up. He was literally shaken by God like a ragamuffin in order to get his attention. Jesus Himself spoke to Paul. Paul had a vision of the resurrected Lord. THAT is his qualification to apostleship. It is a qualification that you, I, and other Christians do not have. It is what makes his writings scripture and my writings rants.
And, as always, I'm happy to promote the church fathers since they rightfully believed in the inerrant scriptures as the only source of infallible writings.
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