[HarleyD]

"How else am I supposed to take your emphasis and underlining of the following Scripture without explanation: But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting {Him} to grief;?

My interpretation is that the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting (Him) to grief. This might sound sadistic if all there was was this life. It isn't. God raised His Son to be Lord over all, forever and ever. Amen.

And your interpretation would be???

And naturally, God told you that you are infallibly one of them..

As a matter of fact, yes. Thus sayeth the Lord: "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God..." (1 John 5:1). I can't speak for others and what they might believe. But I can rest in His promise. Has He not spoken and will He not fulfill it?

Man does not have the ability to do good consistently without God. We are born without sanctifying grace. Our intellect is clouded. Our will is damaged. This does not mean we REJECT God.

The Roman Catholic Church abandoned Augustine's and the Council of Carthage (418) view of original sin in 1109 (a teaching that had been in the Church for almost 700 years) to introduce Anselm's idea of limbo. A doctrine, btw, that was established against the false view of Pelagius who preached the same thing.

Limbo was used by the Church to answer the question of what happens to all the babies who die. Augustine states that he thought they all went to hell if they weren't baptized. The argument used by the RCC to change this view was that Augustine's view was invented and Anselm view was based more on "tradition". (Funny they didn't see this for almost 700 years.) I'm sure Augustine's view seemed none to kind to the ever "enlightened" Church as it was moving into the Renaissance era.

I wouldn't make the rash judgment of Augustine but it is closer to the truth than a "limbo" as proposed by Anselm which is a muddled mess of a doctrine, IMHO. If anyone can figure out the official view of the Catholic Church on limbo here is the website. Have at it. They don’t want to say Augustine was right but that would be to admit Pelagius was right.

Augustine was right to state that man's nature is corrupt. Paul states:

Rom 3:9-18 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE. THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE, WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING, THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS; WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS; THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD, DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS, AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN. THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES."

That to me sounds like more than man's intellect is clouded. There is no fixing the problem. You must be born again.

[Gamecock]

Pelagius?

Seems to me that his teachings are alive and well.......

[jo kus]

My interpretation is that the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting (Him) to grief. This might sound sadistic if all there was was this life. It isn't. God raised His Son to be Lord over all, forever and ever. Amen.

You didn't explain that in your post. One could take it that God was pleased to crush Him because He takes delight in sending people to hell. Given the Calvinsist idea of double predestination, is it surprising that I thought that you considered God sadistic?

I already gave you my interpretation by posting Isaiah and Ezekiel, plus what we find in Hebrews about WHY God allows evil - to discipline those whom He loves and to bring them back to good. God does not desire that people reject Him.

As a matter of fact, yes {that God told you that you were of the elect}. Thus sayeth the Lord: "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God..

And John also says "everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil" (1 John 3:8). I don't think John meant that these two verses were to be taken literally, because he ALSO says "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1:8). I believe what John means is that our relationship with Christ changes, depending on whether we are "in sin" or "in Christ". Are we currently abiding in Christ or are we abiding in the devil? A person who has sinned and not asked for forgiveness is not "born of Christ" - but this is not an ontological statement - since Christians who have sinned have been born again. When Paul and John talk about Christians and sin, they tell us what they OUGHT to be doing, not what they ARE doing. It is evident that Christians sin, even after being born again.

The Roman Catholic Church abandoned Augustine's and the Council of Carthage (418) view of original sin in 1109 (a teaching that had been in the Church for almost 700 years) to introduce Anselm's idea of limbo. A doctrine, btw, that was established against the false view of Pelagius who preached the same thing.

The Council of Carthage of 418 was a result of Pelagianism. It denied the necessity of grace and the reality of original sin. The Council censured the following heresies:

Adam was mortal; his sin harmed himself only, not his offspring; newborn children are in the same condition as Adam before the fall; Christ's death and resurrection are not the cause for human persons rising from the dead since even before Christ's coming there were people without sin.

Trent merely reaffirmed all of these in the Fifth Session on the Decree on Original Sin (1546). I don't know exactly what you are talking about regarding what teachings of St. Augustine that were adopted at Carthage and then ignored or changed in 1109.

I will note that the Council of Carthage fully defends the efficacious use of infant baptism, which was defended again by a letter from Pope Innocent in 1201. In the letter, the Pope explains the different nature of personal sin and original sin. He continues the teachings found at Carthage and again reaffirmed in the five canons at Trent on Original sin.

The first time I see a Pope talk specifically about "Limbo" is by Pope Pius VI (1775-1799), which he writes in an effort to quash a re-birth of Pelagianism. I have no idea where you got St. Anselm as the introducer of the teaching of Limbo, which was merely an opinion, never a dogma of the Church. St. Augustine's idea of mass damnatia was NEVER accepted by the Second Council of Orange or the Council of Carthage. Can you please point to me where the Universal Church teaches that all unbaptized babies go to hell? Regarding limbo, I believe that those who taught it understood that these infants would be "punished" differently than those who were in hell because of personal sin. Theologians distinguish between "poena damni" - the exclusion from the Beatific Vision of God, and "poena sensu", caused by external means and which will be felt by the senses.

According to "The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Dr. Ott writes: "while St. Augustine and many Latin Fathers are of the opinion that children dying in original sin must suffer "poena sensus" also, even if only a very mild one, the Greek Fathers and the majority of the Schoolmen and more recent theologians, teach that they suffer "poena damni" only. The declaration of Pope Innocent III is in favor of this teaching." Ott, (Ott, pg 114).

A condition of natural bliss is compatible with "poena damni". Theologians had assumed that there would be a special place or state for such children, which they called "children's Limbo". As I said before, Pope Pius VI adopted this view against the Synod of Pistoia (Denzinger 1526).

Today, theologians have largely abandoned the concept of Limbo, merely calling it speculation.

Regarding Romans 3, I suggest you read Psalms 14, which was what Paul is quoting from. Paul is writing about the wicked. THEY are the ones Paul is talking about. If you note in Psalm 14, the sacred writer later refers to the righteous, who DO seek out God. The teaching Paul is giving is that the wicked do not seek out God, not a one. He is not giving us a lesson about the wickedness of every man ever born. This would be excluding great chunks of Scripture that tell us about righteous men who DO seek out God!

Regards