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To: Judith Anne; Petronski; annalex; Dr. Eckleburg; Gamecock; Alex Murphy; xzins; P-Marlowe; HarleyD; ..
FK: That means that God will hand a wrench to anyone, but it doesn't matter to Him which are able to fix the car and which cannot. He just stands there and watches.

Why do you say that it doesn't matter to Him?

Just logic. I suppose that if in Catholicism God gives the same saving grace to all men, such that all men have an equal chance to be saved from God's POV, AND, that God will not interfere with any man's decision whether to accept Him, THEN it must be true that it does not matter to God which particular individuals come to Him, if even any do. If God is unwilling to interfere, even though He "nudges", then presumably if no one at all accepted Him, the reaction of God would be "Oh well". :) To me that is a very impersonal idea of God.

Do you not know that Christ died even for the sake of salvation for those who killed Him? "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."

Sure, but this love that Christ showed here is comparatively shallow in Catholicism because not a single person ever made it to Heaven just because He did that. IOW, in Catholicism Christ saved no one, even though the Bible says: "Matt 1:21 : She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." As I understand it, you all believe that Christ only paid for the sins of a person before baptism (including original sin). After that, we are on our own to pay for our sins.

Theologically, to me this position greatly lessens the gravity of sin itself because it supposes that a man CAN pay for his own sins, when in fact he cannot. Further, it makes Christ's sacrifice worth ...... less because the worth of the sacrifice is certainly enough to in fact pay for all sins of all time.

1,045 posted on 08/10/2008 12:38:53 PM PDT by Forest Keeper (It is a joy to me to know that God had my number, before He created numbers.)
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To: Forest Keeper; Judith Anne; Petronski; annalex; Dr. Eckleburg; Gamecock; Alex Murphy; xzins; ...
Fk-””I suppose that if in Catholicism God gives the same saving grace to all men, such that all men have an equal chance to be saved from God's POV.””

God gives everyone sufficient Grace to be saved or God is NOT love,man can freely reject this love.

The design of man has to be for the purpose of love or God's essence is not love.

The design of man also must include free will or man could not love God,thus, it would be God loving Himself through man

Creation of love must therefore APPLY to EVERYONE from the moment we became a thought to God.

I would say that the biggest mistake the reformed make is neglecting the fact that God is the first cause of all things.

If God does not give each and every one of us the opportunity to be saved than the first cause would be imperfect since the creation of any man without possibility of being saved would be a first cause.

We can only go to hell by sinning,thus it would mean that sin is included in the first cause of God in some human creation ,thus making God the author of sin and making evil part of God's essence. This just CANNOT be possible ,Dear Brother.

The following from Aquinas should make sense to you?

That in God there can be no Evil

ESSENTIAL being, and essential goodness, and all other things that bear the name of ‘essential,’ contain no admixture of any foreign element; although a thing that is good may contain something else besides being and goodness, for there is nothing to prevent the subject of one perfection being the subject also of another. Everything is contained within the bounds of its essential idea in such sort as to render it incapable of containing within itself any foreign element. But God is goodness, not merely good. There cannot therefore be in Him anything that is not goodness, and so evil cannot be in Him at all.

3. As God is His own being, nothing can be said of God that signifies participation. If therefore evil could be predicated of Him, the predication would not signify participation, but essence. Now evil cannot be predicated of any being so as to be the essence of any: for to an essentially evil thing there would be wanting being, since being is good.* There cannot be any extraneous admixture in evil, as such, any more than in goodness. Evil therefore cannot be predicated of God.

5. A thing is perfect in so far as it is in actuality: therefore it will be imperfect inasmuch as it is failing in actuality. Evil therefore is either a privation, or includes a privation, or is nothing. But the subject of privation is potentiality; and that cannot be in God: therefore neither can evil.

This truth also Holy Scripture confirms, saying: God is light, and there is no darkness in Him, (I John i, 5) Far from God impiety, and iniquity from the Almighty (Job xxxiv, 10).

1,069 posted on 08/10/2008 3:10:07 PM PDT by stfassisi ( ("Above all gifts that Christ gives his beloved is that of overcoming self"-St Francis Assisi))
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